Sitting of 28 January 1986

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

  BRITISH RAILWAYS (STANSTED) BILL
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

  IPSWICH PORT AUTHORITY BILL
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  PONTYPRIDD MARKETS FAIRS AND TOWN HALL BILL
  Read a Second time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  TEIGNMOUTH QUAY COMPANY BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SERVICES

    Community Care
    Mr. Blairasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the second report of the Social Services Committee on community care.
    Mr. Patchettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress has been made in implementing the recommendation on day care for the mentally ill of the second report of the Social Services Committee on community care.
    The Minister for Health (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): The Committee's report and the Government response to it have made a valuable contribution to clarifying aims and encouraging progress in developing comprehensive local mental health services. Day hospital and day centre places have both increased in recent years, consistent with Government policy and priorities.
    Mr. Blair: Does the Minister accept that there are still tremendous competing pressures on areas such as my own, where Winterton hospital is situated? The pressure is on the hospitals to release people into the community and on
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    the ground from people who want people put into hospitals, particularly elderly people. Does he agree that there is still a real danger that, in the name of community care, we are simply loading a burden off the state on to families that cannot cope?
    Mr. Hayhoe: That is not the intention of successive Governments or of those who have studied the matter with great care. The whole concept of community care is not a cheap option; it is a desirable social policy. Of course, I appreciate that there are the difficulties to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
    Mr. Patchett: The report comments on the need for special care units for the severely handicapped. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will not handicap local authorities which are already developing the units by any further cuts in the National Health Service, thereby perhaps discouraging other local authorities from taking the initiative that the report recommends?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I accept that there is pressure on resources, but I must repudiate any suggestion that there have been cuts in the financial provision for the NHS. There have not been cuts; there have been increases in real terms over the period of this Government.
    Mr. Galley: The policy of community care is obviously right for the patients, and my right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on the progress that has been made so far in implementing that policy. However, does he accept the Select Committee's concern that there should be individual care plans for everyone discharged from hospital, and is he taking steps to implement that recommendation?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I believe that patients must be treated as individuals. To treat them in any way as groups is entirely wrong.
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Does my right hon. Friend know that the report also recognised that the fashion for community care has, in some respects, gone too far? Does he accept that many mental patients need continuing institutional care and should not be placed in the community, however alluring that phrase may sound?
    Mr. Hayhoe: Of course a proper balance must be struck, but I believe that, generally speaking, the move from institutional care to community care is desirable. I think that anyone who knows about, for example, young children who have been kept in Victorian institutions and who have now been released into the community to a fuller and better life must see the advantages of the policy. Of course, that does not extend to everyone, as my hon. Friend has rightly said.
    Mrs. Renée Short: I am sure the Minister understands that his policy is generally accepted. However, does he understand that the major obstacle preventing the policy from being implemented is the lack of resources for local authorities and voluntary organisations, which are expected to take over the responsibilities for patients who are removed from large mental institutions? If he understands that, will he ensure that resources are made available to those organisations and local authorities to start the process?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who speaks with authority as the Chairman of the Social

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    Services Select Committee, for her broad endorsement of the policy. Having met representatives of the local authority associations and voluntary organisations that are principally concerned, I understand their desire to obtain more resources, especially bridging finance. These matters must be considered in the context of the overall constraints on public expenditure, which, in the Government's judgment, are absolutely essential.
    Mr. Watts: Is my hon. Friend aware of the imaginative proposals put forward by East Berkshire health authority in conjunction with Berkshire county council for the development of community care for the mentally handicapped? Will he consider carefully the need for some bridging finance to facilitate that transfer?
    Mr. Hayhoe: Regrettably, I have not the knowledge that my hon. Friend clearly has of those particular plans, but he will undoubtedly draw them more firmly to my attention in future.
    Mr. Kennedy: What evidence and figures does the Minister have, regarding the welcome policy on community care, about mentally ill and mentally handicapped people being readmitted as a result of insufficient back-up services and support mechanisms in the community?
    Mr. Hayhoe: I have no figures before me on that matter. I shall certainly write to the hon. Gentleman if those statistics are available.
    Mr. Meacher: As there are 5 million carers in the community providing sustained care for elderly and disabled relatives, without whom the cost to the state of providing alternative institutional care would be enormous, why are carers uniquely denied any special support, such as a premium, under the Social Security Bill? How can the Government seriously claim to believe in community care when tens of thousands of severely disabled people will lose between £40 and £50 a week under the Bill, as a result of which they will be forced against their will from their homes into institutions, at a far higher cost to the state?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman's comments are most revealing. He should believe in what most of us would regard as normal civilised behaviour, namely, being concerned about members of our own families who need care. Yet he believes that that responsibility should devolve to the state and that the state should have a primary responsibility in that area. The hon. Gentleman's view—it certainly is not mine—is of a great big nanny state.

    Child Care Law Review
    Mr. Michieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, when the responses to the child care law review have been considered, a final report will be published; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): The Government will be considering how best to take matters forward in the light of the responses to the report of the child care law review, and we will make our intentions known in due course.
    Mr. Michie: In view of the consistent research findings that the provision of day care facilities for children reduces
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    the need for committal to local authority care also and in view of the high cost of state care for children, will the Secretary of State give an assurance that in the child care law review local authorities will have a statutory duty to provide adequate nursery places? At the same time, will he assure us that he will provide the financial wherewithal to carry out that statutory duty?
    Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman takes us further than the child care law review goes. So far, the response of officials to the report, which was published last October, has been favourable; but, having said that, I have the strongest sympathy with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Day care facilities of the kind that he sets out are an important contribution in this area.
    Mr. Baldry: Having regard to recent cases and the report of the National Children's Home into children in danger, is it not vital to have full public confidence in the law in relation to every aspect of child care and dealing with children? Is there not a danger of this matter being tackled in a somewhat piecemeal fashion?
    Mr. Fowler: There is a danger if this is dealt with in a piecemeal fashion, and that is one reason for the report. The Government accept the need for reform of the law. It should be dealt with as one, and I hope that we shall be able to put proposals to the House in the not too distant future that will enable that to be done.

    Canterbury and Thanet (Blood Shortages)
    Mr. Galeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many operations were lost in the Canterbury and Thanet health authority area between 1 and 31 December 1985 as a result of the failure of the blood transfusion service to supply the Margate and Kent and Canterbury hospitals; why this failure to supply was allowed to occur; what steps will be taken to prevent a further seasonal blood shortage next Christmas; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hayhoe: Due to a seasonal shortage of blood donors, the Canterbury and Thanet district health authority postponed 18 non-emergency operations over the Christmas period. The blood transfusion service will continue to make special efforts to encourage donors to come forward over the Christmas and new year periods in future.
    Mr. Gale: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his reply, although he does not give the figure that I requested. I trust that that will be forthcoming later. My understanding is that 50 elderly people had their operations postponed as a result of the failure of the transfusion service. Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that next Christmas, not only locally but nationally, there will be an advertising campaign to ensure that this kind of shortage, which is eminently predictable, does not occur again?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The figure that my hon. Friend requested was given. Eighteen non-emergency operations were postponed over the Christmas period by that health authority, and there was sufficient blood for all emergencies that might have arisen. I understand that historically there has been some pulling back by donors during the Christmas season, perhaps for the understandable reason that they are involved in other matters. Special

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    appeal letters were issued, reminders were sent to regular donors, and there was special advertising. Those special attempts to get people to come forward and donate blood will continue in future.
    Mr. Frank Cook: If, as the Minister says, the shortage of blood was seasonal, surely that was foreseeable. If so, why were operations scheduled when the blood for them could not be expected?
    Mr. Hayhoe: The shortage was not of blood but of donors, and that shortage occurred only in this one region, which shows that the national blood transfusion service is a highly efficient and excellent organisation. I hope that the comments that have been made in the House this afternoon will in no way detract from the considerable public service that is provided by the transfusion service, nor from the public service of those who donate their blood. I hope that all hon. Members will encourage donors to come forward.

    Private Residential Care (Elderly People)
    Mrs. Clwydasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he last visited a private residential care home for the elderly.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Major): Such visits are made from time to time by Ministers. Most recently I visited such a home in Southampton on 15 January 1986.
    Mrs. Clwyd: I am sure that the Minister will agree about not only the physical but the emotional needs of elderly patients. Therefore, what plans does he have to improve social work training for careers in those homes, given the present abysmal level, where less than 10 per cent. have any social training qualification at all?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Lady makes an interesting and useful point. She will know that the registration of homes is the responsibility of social service departments. They must satisfy themselves about the level, adequacy and nature of staffing provided in those homes. They are fully aware of the hon. Lady's point.
    Mrs. Currie: May I invite my hon. Friend to visit a private residential care establishment for the elderly in my constituency, where he will find that the standards are first-class? They could be copied throughout the rest of the country. Does he agree that, sooner or later, we will need some form of assessment system for people entering private residential care, to ensure that the large sums of public money being spent are being allocated appropriately?
    Mr. Major: My hon. Friend has extended an enticing invitation, which I shall bear in mind. I entirely agree with her observation.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Is the Minister aware that the inflexible restrictions on supplementary benefit payments for residential care are causing great distress and tend to hit the nursing element of care? If the Social Security Commissioner upholds the decision of the local tribunal in Leicester of 3 December, which delared that the restrictions were unlawful, will the Minister undertake immediately to withdraw those restrictions?
    Mr. Major: I cannot anticipate that result. We have considered the levels in the Ernst and Whinney report,
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    which we expect shortly. We are committed to a review of residential and nursing home limits within 12 months of their implementation. That is not far away now.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Minister aware that tens of thousands of elderly and disabled people risk acute anxiety as a result of the decision not to cover the rising costs of residential care due to inflation, as a result of which they run a real risk of eviction? Is he further aware that elderly and disabled people whose capital has been depleted below the supplementary benefit level since April last year still have no guarantee of security of tenure? Will he give an absolute and unquivocal guarantee that no elderly person will be evicted from residential care because of the DHSS's failure to cover the full cost of residential charges?
    Mr. Major: Even under the Government of which the hon. General was a distinguished luminary, that happy circumstance did not not apply. Handicapped people and those who have been in homes for some time might be entitled to special hardship provision, for which my right hon. Frind the Secretary of State has discretion.
    Mr. Meacher: That is not a guarantee.

    Supplementary Benefit
    Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the operation of the new rules on supplementary benefit for persons living in bed and breakfast accommodation.
    The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): We are reviewing supplementary benefit limits for all types of board and lodging allowances in the light of the Department's general monitoring of the arrangements since April 1985, information from local offices and representations from individuals and organisations affected. We shall also take account of the results of the management consultant's study that we have Commissioned on residential care and nursing homes when they are available. Our aim will be to reach conclusions in time for any changes that are shown to be needed to be made at the time of the general uprating in July.
    Mr. Taylor: As bed and breakfast accommodation in Southend is about £7 a week above the amount allowed in the regulations, the result is a great deal of hardship. WiL my hon. Friend act on the representations made by Southend tenants and landlords, observing that it is quite ridiculous that Southend, a seaside town, should charge a rate £5 below that allowed in Peterborough?
    Mr. Newton: We shall consider the representations that my hon. Friend made in correspondence with the Department with other representations in the context of the review.
    Mr. Dubs: Is the Minister aware of the difficulties experienced by refugees and others seeking asylum in Britain? Will he take their needs and circumstances into account in the review?
    Mr. Newton: We have had correspondence with the British Refugee Council. I assure the hon. Gentleman that during the review we shall take account of any problems that we are convinced must be tackled further.
    Mr. Dickens: During the review, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that although many people would welcome

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    some form of adjustment, they do want him to lose sight of the fact that thousands of people are ripping off the taxpayer, and that that must be the central fact to be borne in mind?
    Mr. Newton: We have been anxious throughout to strike a sensible balance between meeting real needs and preventing exploitation. That will remain our aim.
    Mrs. Beckett: Does the Minister recognise that his hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) has admirably highlighted the fact that the limits are inadequate for those in bed and breakfast accommodation, just as they are inadequate for the elderly in residential and nursing homes, and especially for the physically and mentally handicapped? Does he also recognise that in saying that the limits will be reviewed in time for the July uprating he is saying that the review will take place after the date of the year's grace given to the physically and mentally handicapped, when their benefit can no longer remain at its original level? That is the time when people may have to move out of their homes. For the Minister to say that the uprating will be considered in July, when those people face the need for removal in April, cannot be right. Will he reconsider the timetable for the review?
    Mr. Newton: The hon. Lady will recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) referred to the existence, under the new regulations that came into effect in November, of the capacity to deal with individual cases of hardship. Against the background of the July uprating, it is obviously sensible that we should seek to consider all the issues, together with general benefit levels, that will have to be set for that time.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Will the Minister tell the House what guidance he has given to officials on the interpretation of the exceptional hardship exemption; and will he place a copy of that guidance document in the Library?
    Mr. Newton: I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's request.

    Hip Replacement Operations (Leicester)
    Sir John Farrasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average waiting time for hip replacement operations at the Leicester city general hospital; and how this compares with the waiting time for such operations nationally.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Ray Whitney): Such local information is not routinely held by the Department. I understand that the typical waiting time for hip replacement operations at the Leicester city general hospital is currently 24 weeks. The corresponding figure for England in 1983, the latest year for which figures are available, is also 24 weeks.
    Sir John Farr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. However, will he redouble his efforts to improve that waiting time and to speed up the admission of patients, especially elderly people who so often need that type of operation? As there is much harassment and stress involved in waiting, will he do his utmost to shorten the waiting time even more?
    Mr. Whitney: One of our objectives is to reduce the waiting time for hip replacement operations. That is one of the four priorities in the development of the acute sector services.
    I understand that during the next three months the Leicester health authority is to appoint a resource manager. One of his principal functions will be to improve waiting times for hip operations.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the Minister accept that he is totally misleading the House by quoting the figure of 24 weeks — [Interruption.] It is clear that members of the Government mislead the House practically every day—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That touches upon the honour of hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman must withdraw that remark.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order—
    Mr. Speaker: No.
    Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend has not been specific. That is not in "Erskine May." Do not withdraw.
    Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman please withdraw his allegation?
    Mr. Dobson: If my remark was out of order, I withdraw it. Will the Minister confirm that 24 weeks is the median time? His written answers to my questions show that the mean average, which is what most people consider to be the average, is 35 weeks. Will he confirm that the figure is 35 weeks nationally and 35 weeks in Leicester?
    Mr. Whitney: Through several written answers I sought to explain to the hon. Gentleman why the median time is used.
    Mr. Skinner: Twister.
    Mr. Whitney: It has been used as the routine method of giving the best indication of waiting time. That was the method used by the Labour Government and by this Government. Median time gives the clearest indication, free of the distortions that a few atypical incidents can create. Fifty per cent. of patients wait less than the median time.

    Maternity Benefit
    Mr. Nellistasked the Secrertary of State for Social Services how many women he estimates will be affected annually by the changes in the payment of maternity benefit proposed in his White Paper.
    Mr. Major: Provisional estimates are that an additional 5,000 to 10,000 women will qualify for maternity allowance for the first time. About 75,000 to 85,000 women will no longer qualify because they were not working when their pregnancies began. However, many of those women will be eligible for some sickness benefit as a result of their previous national insurance contributions. As to maternity grant, the abolition of the £25 lump sum will affect an estimated 750,000 women, but this will be replaced by a payment of about £75 to low income families.
    Mr. Nellist: Given that the Tories are the party of family, why is it that The Times estimated last year that 500,000 women would lose entitlement to maternity grant, and that the new payment, which will go to 220,000

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    women, is about £62·88 less than they would have received had the Government increased the grant to the equivalent of its 1969 level? How much does the Minister estimate is the cost of essentials for a new baby? Does he agree with the estimate made by The Mirror last year that the cost is about £450, not the miserable £75 which the Government propose?
    Mr. Major: I rarely agree with The MIrror. In this instance, to restore the maternity grant to the 1969 level —I am bound to say that it was not restored adequately by the Labour Government—would mean providing a grant of £125, at a cost of about £70 million to the Exchequer.
    Mr. Favell: Far from the Tories not being the party of the family, would it not be far better, as the Minister for Health suggested earlier, for families to look after their own fathers and mothers, to look after their own children and to provide for their own maternity?
    Mr. Major: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It might be worth drawing to the attention of the House the fact that our changes in maternity benefits have several important features that will benefit mothers. For the first time, pregnant widows will receive the statutory maternity allowance as well as the widow's allowance.
    Ms. Richardson: Does the Minister realise from the figures that he read out that many women will lose altogether? Does he know that more than 1 million families live on or below the poverty line and that an increasing number of children are born into low-income families? With the changes that the Government propose in the Social Security Bill, more pregnant women will suffer stress and will have to go, with a begging bowl in their hands, to the social fund, but will get nothing. That, together with the cut in child benefit, will lead to a worsening of family support.
    Mr. Major: I cannot agree with the hon. Lady. The reality is that most of the families of whom she speaks, and for whom she cares a great deal, will be entitled to the £75 maternity grant from the social fund, which is triple the sum presently paid.

    Tobacco Products (Promotion)
    Mr. Simsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress he has made in negotiations with the tobacco industry over a voluntary agreement on the advertising and promotion of tobacco products; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Whitney: Discussions are continuing. My hon. Friend will, of course, understand that I cannot give details at present, but I shall inform the House of their outcome as soon as I can.
    Mr. Sims: I appreciate my hon. Friend's position. In negotiating the agreement, will he take into account recent figures suggesting that, by the age of 16, nearly 40 per cent. of children smoke? Therefore, will he pay special attention to curbing the advertising and promotion of cigarettes that are likely to appeal to children?
    Mr. Whitney: We are considering all aspects of the agreement during the current negotiations. As my hon. Friend rightly says, there is special concern about the incidence of smoking among young people, and that is a subject on which we shall concentrate.
    Mr. Pavitt: Will the Minister examine the file which shows instances of the breaking of the voluntary agreement by tobacco companies during the past three years? Will he try to include sanctions in the agreement so that the Government can impose a penalty on those who break the voluntary agreement, instead of allowing them to get away scot-free as they do at present?
    Mr. Whitney: I cannot discuss the details of the negotiations on the agreement, but I assure hon. Members that all aspects of the agreement are being considered.

    Mental Health Act Commission
    Mr. Proctorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he next intends to meet the chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission.
    Mr. Hayhoe: I have no present plans to meet the chairman.
    Mr. Proctor: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied with the speed of the investigation of complaints which the commission decides to investigate? When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman of the commission, will he consider with the chairman instituting a clear investigation into the complaints procedure?
    Mr. Hayhoe: As I have said, I have no plans to meet the chairman, but if I do plan to meet him I shall certainly bear in mind what my hon. Friend said.
    Ms. Harman: Will the Minister confirm to the House that he is aware of the tragic murder of Isabel Schwartz, a dedicated psychiatric social worker at Bexley hospital, who was murdered by a former client of hers, Sharon Campbell? Did the Minister know that Sharon Campbell was discharged against her wishes and did not get the appropriate treatment, care and support in the community that her desperate illness required? Will the Minister set up an inquiry into the events leading up to Isabel's murder? Will he recognise that there are a number, albeit a small number, of seriously mentally ill people who, if they are discharged under the community care policies and do not receive the support and treatment that their illness requires, will be a danger to themselves and to the community?
    Mr. Hayhoe: That has nothing to do with whether I have plans to meet the chairman of the commission, but I certainly appreciate the seriousness and sincerity with which the hon. Lady has raised this matter, and I will give it careful consideration.

    McColl Report
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Secretary of State for Social Services why publication of the McColl report on services received by patients at artificial limb and appliance centres was delayed.
    Mr. Newton: It became necessary for the Department and the working party to consider the implications of legal advice about the terms of the report. As a result of that, the working party consequently decided to make some amendments to its report, none of which, however, affected any point of substance or any of the report's conclusions or recommendations.
    Mr. Flannery: I believe that the report came out yesterday and I have not yet had an opportunity to read it.

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    Can the Minister assure me that the points I have raised regularly with him about battery-powered wheelchairs are dealt with in the report? Many thousands of people, often elderly and chronically disabled, are not able to get out of their homes because they lack that facility. Can he assure me that a recommendation is contained in the report and that money will be forthcoming to buy battery-powered wheelchairs for the chronically disabled?
    Mr. Newton: Because of the interest of the hon. Gentleman in this matter, I have already arranged for him to have a copy of the report. It contains recommendations about the provision of occupant-controlled outdoor wheelchairs. We shall certainly approach those recommendations in a positive spirit, though I must make it clear that the committee recognises the problem of resources, and, among other things, suggests that those resources should be found by curbing increases in the mobility allowance. I suspect that that is a proposition about which many Members, including myself, will have reservations.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Does my hon. Friend agree that Professor McColl's report underlines the inability of bureaucracy to meet people's needs efficiently and effectively? Could my hon. Friend expedite the recommendation for a new management board, and in particular could he see that it has a chairman with proper commercial experience?
    Mr. Newton: I readily accept that the vigorous criticisms in the report demand an equally vigorous response from me and from the Department. I am confident there will be such a vigorous response.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: The report is a profoundly important one for disabled people. One of its most crucial sentences is that action to put right the defects is already overdue. Since the cost of delay will be preventable pain and discomfort for amputees, how quickly will definitive action be taken? Will the NHS management board's findings be published, and if so, when can they be expected? What action will the Government take on what the report says about the late delivery of limbs to 53 per cent. of amputees, about seeing to it that surgeons who carry out amputations have experience of the problems, about excess profit-making and about ensuring that disabled people themselves are consulted at all stages?
    Mr. Newton: We have already told the contractors that we shall wish to discuss future contracting arrangements in the light of the report. I have asked the NHS management board to report to me on management proposals and other matters by the middle of the year. Whether it would be appropriate to publish that advice, I shall wish to consider. The most important thing is to reach a stage of ministerial decision and necessary action, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would agree.

    NHS (Management)
    Mr. Galleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on progress in the implementation of general management in the National Health Service; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Fowler: Implementation is progressing well. All regional and district general managers have been appointed and about two-thirds of the unit general managers are now in post. Overall, these new posts reflect
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    a reasonable balance between those from within and outside the service and between disciplines within the service.
    Mr. Galley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that comprehensive reply. What measures of savings, service expansion and policy improvement will he be taking into account in assessing the success of general management? Will he also take into account the requirement that, whilst general management is applied firmly and flexibly, there needs to be adequate consultation with all Health Service professionals concerned?
    Mr. Fowler: I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend said in the second part of his question. It is no part of the management process that it should in some way be stacked on the service without proper consultation. Savings have already been reported by health authorities. One region has made savings of £1·25 million a year from the restructuring.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Is the Minister aware that in many regions nursing teams and medical professionals are being replaced by the throw-outs from any industry that wants to get rid of its surplus executives at 50? Far from improving the management of the Health Service, the result is materially damaging the chances of good management for patients.
    Mr. Fowler: I entirely reject what the hon. Lady has said. The Royal College of Nursing itself has accepted the principles of general management. It is right that it should have done so. We share its concern, however, that the principles should be implemented in a way that enhances patient care. To talk as the hon. Lady has done is nonsense.
    Mr. Latham: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that there is no reason why nurses should not hold the post of district general manager?
    Mr. Fowler: Absolutely, and the situation is that at the moment about 10 per cent. of unit general managers are nurses. I should like to see that percentage increased throughout the Health Service.

    Northern Regional Health Authority
    Mr. Clayasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he is satisfied with the level and quality of National Health Service provision within the Northern regional health authority.
    Mr. Hayhoe: Governments can never be entirely satisfied with the level and quality of health service provision. In common with the rest of the service, however, the Northern regional health authority is treating more patients than ever before and, backed up by real increases in resources, is making significant improvements in the range and quality of its services.
    Mr. Clay: Given that since 1979, in that region, 18 hospitals have been closed, with the loss of 845 beds, and given, as the Minister must know, that the regional health authority estimates that next year the development of service provision will be less than 1 per cent., while at the same time the increase in workload will be over 2 per cent., how on earth can he make such a complacent and inaccurate reply to my question?
    Mr. Hayhoe: For the simple reason that there have been very significant increases in activity levels in that region. Since 1979 the number of inpatient cases has grown by 15 per cent., day cases by 61 per cent., outpatient cases by 9 per cent., and accident and emergency cases by 3 per cent. That is a record of improvement based upon an increase in real resources in that area.

    Social Workers (Training)
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, in his consideration of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work training proposals, he will take into account the training proposals of the report of the inquiry in the death of Jasmine Beckford.
    Mr. Whitney: We shall be taking into account the recommendations on social work training in the report on the death of Jasmine Beckford when considering, with the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work and the other Government Departments and organisations affected, the proposals for qualifying training made by the council.
    Mrs. Bottomley: Does my hon Friend agree that the House has shown little hesitation in increasing the responsibilities of social workers over the years, and that it is now important to move on the question of training, not only for the benefit of the profession, but for the confidence of the public?
    Mr. Whitney: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. As I said, the Department is in very important negotiations now with all concerned to improve the level of training of social workers.

    NHS Expenditure
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the proportion of National Health Service total expenditure allocated to salaries and wages; and how this figure compares with six years before.
    Mr. Hayhoe: In 1984–85, 60 per cent. of National Health Service expenditure was devoted to salaries and wages, compared with 63 per cent. in 1979–80. The proportion varies between services. For example, staff costs accounted for 74 per cent. of health authority revenue spending in 1984–85.
    Mr. Chapman: Total expenditure on the Health Service has increased by more than 20 per cent. in real terms over that period. Do not my right hon. Friend's figures underline the fact that expenditure on medical equipment and services and new hospital building has risen at an even greater rate? Should he not spell out those facts to the public more clearly in the months ahead?
    Mr. Hayhoe: There certainly are misunderstandings about the increase in real resources for the Health Service during the lifetime of this Government. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me another opportunity to draw attention to the facts of this matter.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Ql. Mr. Freemanasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Freeman: As my right hon. Friend probably did not receive a copy of The Times this morning, like many other hon. Members, did she therefore have time to reflect that it must be in the public interest that our great national newspapers are produced as efficiently as possible? Does she agree that newspaper employers are right to use the Employment Act 1980 to the full to prevent industrial secondary action and picketing? Does she also agree that one person, the Leader of the Opposition, must be relieved at not getting his copy of The Times this morning, to save him from the embarrassment of the extremist activities of his friends?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that Fleet street employers are fully entitled to use all the legal remedies available to them. Restrictive practices have dominated Fleet street for far too long and there has been far too great a resistance to technological change. When that happens, the change, when it does come, is much sharper than it would otherwise have been. I hope that the matter will soon be resolved and that we shall have The Times with our breakfast again.
    Mr. Bidwell: May I draw the attention of the right hon. Lady to the brutal murder of Mr. Tarsem Singh Toor, the general secretary of the Southall Indian Workers Association, and the inevitable feeling that this was a political killing by an assassin? In view of the effect than it is having on my constituency, will the right hon. Lady assure the House that every possible step is being taken to bring the killers to justice?
    The Prime Minister: I agree most earnestly with the hon. Gentleman. This was a brutal shooting and the Metropolitan police are taking urgent steps to investigate it. Action has also been taken by the police with regard to the security of Mr. Toor's relatives and others who may be at risk. Everything possible will be done to assist them and to track down the perpetrators of this brutal crime.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: In view of the fact, as indicated in Hansard yesterday, that the Government have decided to take the European Assembly to the European Court because of the illegal budget, but nevertheless to pay the money in the meantime, will my right hon. Friend take every possible step to make sure that the Commission will not spend the money that it may eventually have to pay back?
    The Prime Minister: I take my hon. Friend's point It is quite true that the Council and we, this country, are taking the matter to court, but it is customary to offer to pay the full budget in the meantime. I share my hon. Friend's view, and I hope that the money will not be spent.
    Mr. Livseyasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Livsey: In view of the furore over the leaking of a Government letter, does the Prime Minister not agree that now is the time to institute a Freedom of Information Act?
    The Prime Minister: No.
    Mr. Hirst: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Howden group of Glasgow has recently announced a $50 million sale of wind turbine equipment, thus making this group the world leader in medium-sized wind turbine equipment? Is she further aware that the research and development and manufacturing of this order were carried out in the west of Scotland? Does not this welcome news contrast very sharply with the picture of industrial gloom that the Opposition seek to portray of Scotland?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. I congratulate the Howden group of companies and all those who work for it on being so competitive as to get this excellent order, and I wish them well for the future.
    Mr. James Lamond: When the Prime Minister received the report last week from her Cabinet Secretary about the leak, did the report refer to a difference of understanding among civil servants?
    The Prime Minister: In my speech yesterday I set out the full circumstances — [Interruption.] — of the establishment and the outcome of the inquiry. Its accuracy was checked with all those concerned. I have given the right hon. Gentleman — [Interruption.] — reports, of course, are confidential.
    Mr. Andrew Bowdenasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Bowden: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the growing anger among parents at the refusal of the NUT to negotiate, and will she condemn the planned strikes, which can only do more damage to the education of the children of the country?
    The Prime Minister: We deeply deplore the strikes. We are very glad that there is a prospect of an end to the damaging disruptions. I share my hon. Friend's view that it is deeply disturbing that the NUT was not part of those negotiations, but I hope that it will consider adopting the ACAS solution.
    Mr. Alex Carlileasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Carlile: On 20 January this year, late in the evening, the Prime Minister, or someone acting on her behalf, telephoned Miss Colette Bowe while Miss Bowe was sitting in her London club. [Interruption.] There was also a call from the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks, (Mr. Brittan). [Interruption.] Bearing in mind that the Prime Minister told us yesterday that she knew nothing about the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks—[Interruption.]—having authorised the leak of the Solicitor-General's letter until 22 January, will she tell the House what was said—[Interruption.]—during those telephone conversations with Miss Bowe?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that my right hon. and learned Friend said yesterday that he could and did confirm that the statement I made was correct with regard to all the facts in his knowledge. I have nothing else to add.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present time might be a favourable opportunity for Britain to join the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system, and does she further agree that if we were part of that mechanism real interest rates might not need to be at such a high level for the purpose of protecting the pound?
    The Prime Minister: Not just now. Indeed, I think that had we joined a few months ago there might have been readjustments with regard to the deutschmark, so I do not think that now is the right time to join. It will, of course, continue to be considered. I understand that there may be a debate on this in the near future.
    Mr. Kinnock: If a Department of State seeks agreement from the Prime Minister's Office and gets acceptance, is that not acceptance acquiescence? There really can be no misunderstanding about that.
    The Prime Minister: I made a full statement yesterday, and I made a full one previously. I have nothing further to add.
    Mr. Kinnock: If there is no dispute, if there is no disagreement, if there is no refusal and if there is no objection, is not the acceptance of a request for agreement acquiescence? Will the Prime Minister give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question? Is it acquiescence—yes or no?
    The Prime Minister: I do not share the right hon. Gentleman's view of a straightforward question. My authority was neither sought nor obtained for the disclosure. I have nothing further to add.
    Mr. Colvin: Does my right hon. Friend agree that her time would be better spent getting back to proper matters of state rather than listening to the waffle about Westland from the windbag opposite? Yesterday, she was found guilty of two things—tolerance and loyalty to officials and Cabinet colleagues. With faults like that, who needs qualities?
    The Prime Minister: I assure my hon. Friend that my time is spent dealing with the great strategic matters and political issues of the time that must be solved.
    Mr. Ron Daviesasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Davies: In view of recent events, does the Prime Minister think that the best possible deployment of the new polygraph, the lie detector, would not be at GCHQ, Cheltenham, but at Downing street?
    The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the reply that I have already given.
    Mr. Michael Forsythasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Forsyth: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a head teacher of a primary school in Edinburgh has seen fit to issue gloves to the teaching staff because he believes that they are at risk of contracting AIDS from the children in their care? Is that not a gross overreaction to the area's drug problem? In view of such ignorance, will my right hon. Friend ask the Health Education Council to mount a campaign to explain the causes of AIDS and to target those groups that are most at risk?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to dispel ignorance about this disease. I understand that the Chief Medical Officer in Scotland is considering the matter urgently. I shall see that my hon. Friend's views are passed to the Health Education Council.
    Mr. Dalyell: Referring to what my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, Central and Royton (Mr. Lamond) said, may I ask whether, in the Cabinet Secretary's report of the leak, there was or was not any reference to "differences of understanding" between civil servants? Does the Prime Minister understand that she has put distinguished civil servants in an invidious position? It is a matter of honour for all politicians, whether in office or not, to see that those civil servants are at least given justice.
    The Prime Minister: As I said, one of the reasons for having an inquiry was to enable officials to put their view. I said in my speech yesterday that the accuracy of all the facts was checked with all those involved.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: As the Government have shown their willingness to intervene in the markets to keep down interest rates, and as the Exchequer has lost some £1·5 billion in revenue as a result of the fall in oil prices, will the Government now respond to calls by OPEC and other oil producers to discuss with them ways of managing the fall in oil prices in order to achieve more stability in the oil markets and thereby reduce the pressure on the pound and help other economies?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think so. The United Kingdom maintains the freest oil province in the world. Subject only to technical limits, decisions on production levels are entirely in the hands of the producing companies. There has been no change in that policy.
    Sir Fergus Montgomeryasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Sir Fergus Montgomery: After the successful evacuation from Aden by the royal yacht Britannia and others, can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Government will do everything possible to protect the safety of British nationals in Uganda?
    The Prime Minister: We stand ready to provide assistance for an evacuation of the foreign community in Uganda, should it be necessary. There appears to be no immediate need for such an evacuation. The high commissioner has reported that the British citizens in Kampala are safe, and that the airport is expected soon to be opened to normal traffic.
    Mr. Ray Powellasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 28 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Powell: Will the right hon. Lady give a truthful reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham Central and Royton (Mr. Lamond)? Is she aware that the House will not allow this Westland affair to be swept under the carpet? A number of other questions need to be answered. Will she assure me that she came to the House yesterday and gave the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
    The Prime Minister: As I said, the accuracy of what I said was fully checked with those concerned. I repeat that I have nothing further to add.
    Mr. Dickens: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We know of your great traditions in trying to improve conduct and behaviour in this House during Question Time and during debates. Was it in order for the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), to intervene twice from a sedentary position this afternoon? In the first instance he criticised your judgment in asking the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) to withdraw. In the second instance he called the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health a twister. This is not the behaviour that we seek in this House. Would you please ask him to withdraw both remarks?
    Mr. Speaker: I did not hear those remarks. If I were to ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw everything that he says from a sedentary position, I would be on my feet for most of the day.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: My point of order is brief, Mr. Speaker. Over the next few weeks, and indeed months, there will be many of my hon. Friends who will wish to ask questions about the Westland affair. May I have an assurance that whenever Government Members intervene from a sedentary position to prevent my hon. Friends from asking questions, you will immediately intervene to protect them? Today during Question Time, and yesterday during the Leader of the Opposition's speech, and in the debate, whenever the Prime Minister was criticised, Conservative Members insisted on drowning out Labour Members. The House seeks your protection. May I have your assurance that you will give it?
    Mr. Speaker: I thought that the debate yesterday, in the light of the very highly charged atmosphere, proceeded very well. I shall be, as I have always been, entirely evenhanded in my protection of both Back Benchers and Front-Bench spokesmen.
    Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, arising out of questions, Mr. Speaker. There clearly remains a great deal of dissatisfaction about the Prime Minister's statement and her answers. Is there any way in which the civil servants at No. 10 and at the Department of Trade and Industry who were involved can be brought before the House so that we can try to find out precisely what happened with respect to the leakage of the letter from the Solicitor-General?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member knows the answer to that. He knows also that a Select Committee is dealing with that matter.
    Mr. Ryman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Prime Minister's Question Time, when the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) asked a

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    number of searching questions about the leaking of the letter, there was a deliberate campaign by the Conservative party to drown his questions—so much so that he had to repeat them several times before he could be heard. Surely you can protect hon. Members who wish to ask relevant questions about the Prime Minister's conduct in this affair, so that hon. Members can put their questions sensibly, shortly and quietly.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member makes a valid point. He has been a Member for as long as I have, and he knows that frequently there is a good deal of background noise at Question Time and during debates. I wish that that were not so.
    Mr. Sheerman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Many Opposition Members believe that there is a new censorship and control of freedom of speech in the House. This is a serious situation. I have been a Member since 1979 and I am familiar with the normal level of hubbub in a normal debate, but there is a new conspiracy on the Government Benches to stop Labour Members from asking questions and receiving a fair hearing when Government Members do not want to hear the responses to the Westland issues and other questions.
    Mr. Speaker: We have a heavy day in front of us. I cannot be a party to any conspiracies. I do not know whether there are any — I hope that there are none. I shall continue to do as I have always done to ensure a fair hearing for every hon. Member.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I asked the Prime Minister questions about telephone calls to Miss Colette Bowe—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot hear the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile)—[HON. MEMBERS: "The noise is coming from Conservative Members."] Order.
    Mr. Carlile: I asked the right hon. Lady specific questions about telephone calls to Colette Bowe on the night of 20 January—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Is this a point of order for me? It sounds very much like a continuation of Question Time. I know that the hon. and learned Member will not do that. Will he put a point of order to me, please?
    Mr. Carlile: I asked the Prime Minister a question through you, Mr. Speaker, on specific matters. I do not believe that the right hon. Lady could hear my questions relating to telephone calls to Miss Colette Bowe on 20 January—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I am afraid that this is a clear case of trying to get a second bite.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today during Question Time, on a genuine point of order —[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]— Oh, yes. At that time my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), the Opposition spokesman on health, referred to the Government misleading the House. He was subsequently pulled up by a Tory Member. You confirmed, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. Friend should withdraw any references to the Government misleading the House.
    I have to remind you—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—Oh yes. Only a few days ago—it is recorded in Hansard—when one of my colleagues referred to the Government deliberately misleading the House, you asked him to withdraw the word deliberately. The rest was OK. We cannot make up the rules as we go along. The Tory Government do, but it would be better if you did not follow their example.
    Mr. Speaker: Let me clear the matter for the whole House. Over the centuries we have proceeded in civilised debate and it has always been our practice and the rule of the Chair to rule out of order matters which touch upon the honour of any right hon. or hon. Gentleman on either side of the House. That is precisely what I did this afternoon.

Local Government (Financing)
3.41 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Kenneth Baker): With permission, I should like to make a statement. Together with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland, I have today presented to Parliament a Green Paper entitled "Paying for Local Government". It makes major proposals for the future financing of local government in Great Britain.
The central theme is the need to bolster local democratic accountability. To do so, we need a way of paying for local government which narrows the gap which exists between those who use, those who vote for and those who pay for local government services.
The three fundamental weaknesses in our present arrangements are: the complex and uncertain effect of Government grants to local authorities; the way in which businesses can be heavily taxed to pay for excessive local spending; the unfair burden on householders of domestic rates.
May I deal with non-domestic rates? Business and commercial ratepayers foot 60 per cent. of the local tax bill but have no vote to influence local elections. For businesses, rates are uncontrollable overhead costs which can and do vary from year to year very significantly. Increased business rates lead to higher costs; to lower pay or job prospects; or to reduced investment. Those who are ultimately affected are quite unaware of how these extra burdens arise.
For all those reasons, non-domestic rates should not be a local tax. We propose therefore that a uniform non-domestic rate poundage should be set centrally. Businesses will be protected by indexing the poundages to inflation so that they can predict their liability with confidence. All of the yield of non-domestic rates would continue to support local government expenditure but it would be pooled and redistributed as an equal amount per adult in all authorities. Transitional arrangements would be required in each of the three countries to allow for an orderly move to the new system. We are setting in hand a revaluation of all non-domestic properties so that new rateable values will be available from April 1990.
I turn to the question of Government grants. The present grant arrangements are unstable and complex. They obscure the link between what people pay for local services and what they get for their money. But the clarity of that link is essential to local accountability.
We therefore propose a new two-part grant structure. First, a needs grant to compensate authorities for their different needs. Secondly, a standard grant—to reduce local tax bills by a standard amount per adult. Both grants would be fixed in cash, in advance, for the year in question. Local authorities would then know where they stood. We would remove the whole paraphernalia of schedules, tapers, multipliers and close ending.
Taken together with our proposals on the non-domestic rate, these grant arrangements would produce the clearest possible relationship between changes in spending and changes in tax bills. Every extra pound spent will be met in full by local domestic taxpayers. Every pound saved would benefit them in full. And that would be true in every authority in the country.
On the subject of domestic taxes, at present in England around 35 million adults are eligible to vote in local
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elections. Only 18 million are directly liable as ratepayers. Of these, 3 million have their bill met in full by housing benefit. In many authorities well over 50 per cent. of the voters pay no local rates and therefore have little interest in restraining spending by the local authority; indeed, they have a clear interest that it should spend more.
Under the new social security proposals, every ratepayer will have to pay part of their rate bill. That still leaves 17 million adults with no liability to pay for the local services they use. It still means that the single pensioner or the single parent will face the same bill for local services as the house next door with four earners.
Rates are a tax on property. They are unpopular because the rates burden is carried on too few shoulders and needs to be spread more widely and fairly. There are broadly three alternatives—a sales tax, local income tax, or a flat-rate community charge. The Green Paper sets out the many difficulties we see both in sales tax and in local income tax, and the reasons why we prefer a community charge. It would be more closely linked to the use of local services and would give all adults a stake in local spending decisions. As with rates, there would have to be assistance for those on low incomes. Each local authority would set its own charge and there would have to be registers of all adults. The registers would be entirely separate from the electoral register.
This proposal would lead to the same local tax bill for the same standard of service in all areas. That would lead to significant changes in the distribution of local tax burdens between authorities. There would have to be transitional and safety net arrangements.
In England and Wales the community charge would start at a low level, with a corresponding cut in rates. The whole burden of any increased spending would fall on the community charge from the start, so that a clear link would exist between higher spending and higher community charges. In subsequent years there would be further transfers from rates to the community charge. In some areas rates would disappear within three years, and they would be eliminated in all areas within 10 years.
Under the proposals, some people would be paying local taxes who presently pay nothing. But those living on their own who presently pay more than their fair share, including many of the poorest households, would be better off.
The Green Paper illustrates the effects of the proposals, had they been in force in 1984–85. The illustrations show that the changes would be modest for most people, and that the shift to the new tax would be both gradual and manageable in terms of household incomes.
There are also proposals in the Green Paper to reform the capital control system on which I am inviting comments.
Those proposals amount to the most thorough reform of local government finance this century. It is right that there should be a substantial period of consultation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and have asked for comments by 31 July. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will make a statement tomorrow. The pace of further developments in England and Wales will depend on the outcome of the consultation process.
The message from our studies is clear; the way we now pay for local government undermines local accountability. That is no basis on which to run democratic local government. It has drawn central Government deeper into

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conflict with local government. The alternatives are clear. We can continue down the present path—that is the road to closer central involvement in local affairs and increased central control—or we can face up to the weaknesses in our present arrangements and provide local government with a financial system to bolster local democracy. The Government prefer that course, and I commend it to the House.
Dr. John Cunningham: The Secretary of State has made a major statement on what is by any test a very important Green Paper. Will he accept that the Opposition are prepared to support any genuine attempt to increase local accountability and to return to local government the freedoms and local democratic control that have been consistently eroded during the seven years of the Prime Minister's Administration?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition welcome the Government's recognition that after seven years of Conservative Government local authority finance is in a bigger mess than ever before? Does he realise that we agree with his message last week in a letter to Tory councillors nationwide that the system that his Government have created is unfair and stifles local accountability?
Does the Secretary of State recognise that, after seven years of successive failure in local government finance, the Green Paper announces yet again the abandonment of the Prime Minister's oft-repeated promise to abolish domestic rates altogether in this Parliament? Is it not clear that the Prime Minister has comprehensively ratted on that promise to the ratepayers? Is not the general proposition at the heart of the Green Paper a proposal to introduce a poll tax to be imposed on every adult regardless of income or ability to pay? Will that not also be a tax on the right to vote, as the Green Paper makes abundantly clear? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no other Western industrial democracy employs such a grotesquely unfair system as the basis of the major source of local government income?
What has changed since the Government rejected these very proposals in their 1983 White Paper on rate reform? The Government rejected the proposals then on the basis that they were expensive and bureaucratic to administer, bearing harshly on low-income families and a tax on the right to vote. That was revealed in the Government's White Paper two years ago.
Is it not the case that every ratepayer, regardless of means, will have to pay a minimum flat-rate charge under the Government's proposals? Why has the Secretary of State, in his statement and in the Green Paper, been so obscure about the proposals to help low-income families get over the major impact of the new impositions?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that his proposals for a uniform business rate are a further huge centralisation of power which will undermine local democracy and accountability and not enhance it? It will leave in the hands of Ministers massive additional controls over local authorities regardless of their political persuasion. Will not this mean higher business rates in many Tory local authority areas? I ask Conservative Members to study the proposals carefully, because that is the implication. That is what is at stake, especially if the yield is to remain the same as at present.
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Why do not the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends address themselves to the far higher costs to industry and commerce of interest rate charges which result from the Government's policies? What are the distributional effects of changes on people in different circumstances in different local authority areas? The figures that he has given relate to regions and national situations, not to specific local authority areas. In that sense, the figures quoted are nothing short of misleading.
Is not the right hon. Gentleman asking his right hon. and hon. Friends to accept a time bomb ticking away under them in their constituencies and local authorities? These proposals will bring shock waves of horror to many Conservative Members who believe in some craven way that they and their constituents will benefit from them. Will the right hon. Gentleman publish the data and studies that he and his right hon. Friends have used and made to give the examples in the Green Paper?
Is not this exercise a vain attempt to redeem the pledges of the Prime Minister and to cast a cloak of obscurity over the failure of the Prime Minister in seven years in government to deliver that simple, if not cynical, promise to abolish domestic rates? Is not the reality right through the Green Paper simply that rates will be here long after the Government have gone?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman asks my hon. Friends to study the Green Paper carefully. I hope that he takes such advice himself, because rarely has the House heard such a thin and empty comment. I have tried in the Green Paper to set forward the central issue of what I hope will be a great debate upon the future of local accountability in local government. During the course of that great debate the Labour party will have to say what system of local government finance it will support. From the hon. Gentleman's concluding comments, and from those of his hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) recently, I assume that he will favour the retention of the rating system.
Dr. Cunningham: Answer my questions.
Mr. Baker: I shall answer the hon. Gentleman's questions. The hon. Gentleman argued that the community charge is unfair and regressive and will hit the poor, but I remind him that rates are also regressive and unfair and bear little relationship either to ability to pay or to the use of local government services. If rates are to be kept, there will have to be a major revaluation and that will create a turbulance in family incomes much greater than what I am proposing to the House.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about those who will benefit. Let me consider those who will face lower bills under my proposals. Eighty-six per cent. of all single pensioners will receive lower bills. Eighty per cent. of single adult householders will face lower bills. Businesses in the north, the midlands and the north-west will face lower bills. Areas of high unemployment will face lower bills.
The hon. Gentleman asked me whether the proposal was a tax on the right to vote. It most certainly is not. The registers will be separate. There will be people on the community charge register who will be liable to the community charge who do not have the right to vote—for example, foreigners resident in our country. What I

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have made clear and what I do not disguise is that we are widening the tax base. We are spreading the burden more widely and more fairly to increase local accountability.
Most of us here subscribe to the notion of no taxation without representation. The hon. Gentleman believes in representation with no liability to taxation. He wants a right for those who contribute nothing to impose the full cost of their demands on those who contribute everything. I should be careful about going out to dinner a la carte with the hon. Gentleman because, under his system, I would be left with the bill.
Sir Hugh Rossi: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the return, after many decades and not just the last seven years, of the nexus between taxation and representation will be widely accepted and welcomed in the country both by those who have to pay and those who are conscious of their democratic rights? A far greater control over local authority spending will be achieved by the payer through the ballot box if taxation and representation are equated than by a cumbersome central Government apparatus.
Mr. Baker: I endorse what my hon. Friend has said; it goes to the nub of the question. The choice before the country in financing local government is whether one depends upon the constraints operated through the ballot box with a wider base of taxpayers or whether one goes for more central control. I reject the move towards more central control.
Mr. Barry Jones: Why are there no plans for the Secretary of State for Wales to make a statement on a matter of great importance for the Principality? Why is the Secretary of State for Wales hiding behind the Secretary of State for the Environment? I happen to know that the Secretary of State for Wales is at least part author of this iniquitous proposal of a poll tax.
Mr. Baker: There are important differences between the proposals as regards England and Wales and those for Scotland. However, the proposals for England and Wales are substantially the same and we thought it appropriate for one statement to be made. The hon. Gentleman's comments have been noted, and he may wish to pursue the matter through the usual channels.
Mr. John Heddle: My right hon. Friend's announcement of the introduction of a national business tax will be welcomed widely by industry and commerce which has no voice, no sanction, no vote and no say in the way that profligate councils spend their money. Will my right hon. Friend accept that the introduction of a community charge may create some losers as well as some winners? To avoid any possibility of retrogression, will he extend the consultation period beyond 31 July so that the consultation may be as wide as possible?
Mr. Baker: I entirely agree that the proposal for a national business tax will be widely welcomed. The proposals are well founded.
As regards the consultation period, the local authority associations have already represented to me their wish for a longer time than 31 July. I am prepared to consider the matter, but I would not want to extend the period beyond October.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: If the right hon. Gentleman is serious in what he said about no
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taxation without representation, why have the Government not brought in a concept of local income tax? This has been argued for a long time and is extremely successful in Sweden. Is it not clear that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government are proposing to put further burdens on the shoulders of ordinary working people and not on those who can afford to pay? Is it not clear that the Government's proposals for registration are leading to a situation where criminal sanctions — I should like to know what the criminal sanctions are—will be against people who, for various reasons, may decide not to register.
Mr. Baker: We have looked at the various proposals for a local income tax. There are several variations and varieties, but all are administratively complex and would require a register, as the local community charge requires a register. If one moved to a form of local income tax, it would on average put an extra 4½p on the basic rate. The rate depends on the spending of various authorities and would range from an extra 2p to an extra 11 p on the standard rate. I do not believe that many people would welcome the prospect of an uncontrolled capacity to raise local income tax which would he left in the hands of Mr. Bernie Grant or Mr. Hatton. In their hands it would be confiscatory.
Mr. Charles Morrison: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to say whether there are any interim, short-term proposals in the Green Paper which will help to ensure that shire counties are not faced with the same difficulties next year and ensuing years as they face this year? May we assume that the business tax will ensure that there are virtually no businesses which will be worse off under that tax than they are at present?
Mr. Baker: I announced today that there would be a revaluation of business properties starting at once and coming into effect in April 1990. That will lead to an adjustment between the older properties, probably in the north, and the newer properties, probably in the south. That will have to be phased in over five years.
As for striking the average at national poundage, we put forward the idea in the Green Paper that, taking the mathematical average, the poundage could be reduced by 5 per cent. or indeed by a lower figure. The discretionary 5 per cent. will be left to the local authorities if they wish to charge it.
My hon. Friend asked whether there would be any special transitional arrangements, for the three years from 1987 to 1990 before the new operation comes in. Clearly there will have to be transitional arrangements even before this operation starts to avoid the type of debate that we had last week which I do not want to have again.
Mr. John Cartwright: The great debate is not starting today—it began in 1974 with the setting up of the Layfield committee, whose recommendations were rather better based than those before the House today. Does the Secretary of State recall his own Government's White Paper of August 1983 which, after extensive consultation, totally rejected the idea of a flat rate community charge because it would be unfair, complicated and expensive to administer? Why is the right hon. Gentleman now recommending something which his Government rubbished two and a half years ago?
Mr. Baker: The reasons set out in the 1983 White Paper for rejecting a community charge were largely

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operational. The hon. Gentleman will see that if he studies the White Paper. The new grant system introduced in 1981 did not check the high spenders because there was insufficient local accountability under the rating system. That led to the introduction of rate capping and greater central control. A path has to be chosen by all parties in the country: do they want further central control, more control from Whitehall, or do they want to increase local accountability for the domestic taxpayer? That is the central issue.
Mr. Ian Gow: Is my right hon. Friend aware that few, if any, local authorities which are profligate in the use of taxpayers' money would have been elected, let alone re-elected, if there had been a closer relationship between those who vote and those who pay? The broadening of the tax base will be widely welcomed not only by Conservative Members but in the country as a whole. My right hon. Friend's proposals constitute a great advance in equity of taxation.
Mr. Baker: I thank my hon. Friend, and agree with him. When the local elector goes to the ballot box and tries to make up his mind whether he should support the council, it is very difficult for him to determine whether the rates have gone up as a result of the high spending of the local authority or as a result of what has happened to the grant. There is no clear link. The new grant system which I have announced today will allow that link to be established. The local elector will be able to make his own judgment. In future, as a result of the new grant system and the standard national business rate, all the spending decisions will depend upon the council and upon it saying to its electorate, "This is what you want, so vote for us".
Mr. Frank Field: As a sizeable number of poor people will be made worse off under these proposals, what measures does the Secretary of State propose to introduce to compensate them?
Mr. Baker: The Green Paper says that there will have to be a system of support for people on low incomes. One of the features of a community charge is that it will reduce average bills for the lowest income households with net incomes below £75 a week. There will be a rebate system that applies to the community charge as it applies to rates. For people on the lowest incomes, the community charge would be 2·4 per cent. of net income whereas rates would be 3 per cent. of net income.
Mr. David Howell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that our objective is genuine independence and genuine accountability in local government? Does he agree that his plans take considerable strides in that direction? Will he reassure us that his plans for new grants and for the community charge, which I warmly welcome, will not be put at risk or overthrown by short-sighted Treasury intervention in the name of vague and hazy macroeconomic goals?
Mr. Baker: I think so. I welcome my right hon. Friend's support for increasing local accountability. I hope that the system will produce the checks and balances which I believe are necessary. We say that some form of selective rate capping may be needed for the transitional period, but I hope that it will be possible to phase that out.
Mr. Terry Davis: How will the cost of preparing a community charge register and collecting this new tax compare with the present system?
Mr. Baker: We estimate that it will cost about £30 million a year to prepare the register. The cost to the valuation office of domestic properties alone is about £30 million a year. If we were to keep the rating system and have a domestic revaluation, it would cost about £65 million.
Mr. Robert Rhodes James: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the proposal to include higher education students in the new community charge would be acceptable if it were not for the fact that they are already suffering from loss of grant and benefits, as proposed by the Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Social Services? Are they covered by the low-income provisions?
Has my right hon. Friend discussed this with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science?
Mr. Baker: The answer to my hon. Friend's latter question is yes, of course.
It is proposed in the Green Paper that students should also be liable to the community charge. I should like to say something about this as the circumstances regarding students and rates are complicated. There is an allowance in students' grants for housing costs. In addition, universities pay local authorities something for rates for students who live in halls of residence. In addition, students in digs who pay rent contribute towards the rates in their rent. Students who live at home may or may not pay their parents. We shall have to explore such factors much more fully during the consultation period.
Mr. Allen McKay: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that registration will be done on the basis of the electoral register? If so, how will he calculate for people who do not register? His answers have implied that industry will be better off, that pensioners will be better off and that the poor will be better off. In areas such as mine, where there is 20 per cent. unemployment, who will pay?
Mr. Baker: I have made it clear that we are broadening the tax base and that more people are to be brought into tax. The Green Paper sets that out fully. There will be a separate community charge register, which will not be the same as the electoral register.
Mr. James Couchman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are many small business men, including me, who will be profoundly grateful for his announcement about the business rates? That is especially true for those of us who were forced to stop trading in areas where rates had risen so much as to make our businesses unviable. What are the implications for the precepting authorities such as the Inner London education authority and the police?
Mr. Baker: The arrangements for precepting will remain the same. District councils will levy and collect the community charge. I strongly agree with what my hon. Friend said about the national business rate. Businesses pay £1·50 for every £1 paid by domestic ratepayers. In some areas, local authorities have milked businesses. For example, in Camden businesses pay £4 for every £1 paid

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by domestic ratepayers. Moreover, we shall link any increases in the national business rate to the rate of inflation.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Is the Secretary of State aware that the alliance parties accept his two premises — that the rating system and rate support grant system are indefensible, and that there must be more accountability? Is he further aware that the policy conclusions that he reaches show that the Government are unsound in policy, just as yesterday's announcements showed that they are unsound in their practices, as the poll tax is the most reactionary proposal since 1601?
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the majority of ratepayers will be worse off? Does he agree that Government control will be increased? Will he confirm that local income tax would provide better accountability, reduce local government's dependence on the Government, and reduce Government-imposed income tax?
Mr. Baker: I do not know which brand of local income tax the Liberal party will eventually settle on, but it does little for extra accountability. Before the hon. Gentleman gets too enmeshed in supporting local income tax, perhaps I might tell him what it would do to tax rates in his constituency. I have taken the rate for Southwark and calculated what it would represent in extra income tax. The standard rate for taxpayers in Southwark would increase from 30p to 41p.
Sir David Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, for those of us who have called for rate reform for at least 20 years, my right hon. Friend's statement is most welcome? In view of the long history of Green Papers and the failure of Lord Wilson, when Prime Minister, to allow the Redcliffe-Maud commission even to consider local finance or local taxation, why do we have to waste a year on a Green Paper rather than proceed immediately to a White Paper and to a Bill?
Mr. Baker: I entirely appreciate my hon. Friend's impatience, and I thank him for what he has said about the proposals. This is the most fundamental change in local government finance this century. It changes the grant system, the business rates system and—
Dr. Cunningham: Has the right hon. Gentleman already decided, then?
Mr. Baker: No. These are the proposals which the Government are putting before the country. All interests should have adequate time to comment on our proposals.
Mr. Hugh Brown: Many of us are aware that the financing of local government is too complex and far from perfect, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if some people, groups, or categories pay less, others will have to pay more? Why is it right for the 3 million poorest families in the country to pay more?
Mr. Baker: I made it clear that there will be assistance for those on low incomes. There is a high level of poverty in single-person households and those people will benefit from a community charge. For those on low incomes the community charge is less regressive.
Mr. Gwilym Jones: I join the welcome for my right hon. Friend's statement, as I welcome any movement towards the abolition of that dreadful anachronism, rates, especially with the excessive
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increase of 25 per cent. that is facing my constituency. Does my right hon. Friend accept that we in Wales view with concern the suggestions in the press that the Principality is to be used as a proving ground for rate reform? Does he accept that we would need to scrutinise closely any such idea?
Mr. Baker: I assure my hon. Friend that, from the point of view of timing, the changes in England and Wales will run in harmony. There is no proposal in the Green Paper that changes should be made in Wales prior to being made in England. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be making a statement tomorrow about rates in Scotland.
Mr. Chris Smith: Is it not the central philosophy of the Green Paper that only the votes of those who pay will have any real validity? Is that not an outdated concept? Is it not better to embrace the concept of one-person, one-vote, which is a much more democratic principle?
Mr. Baker: One reason for the breakdown between voting and paying for local services is evident in the borough of Islington. In that borough, as a result of excessive spending, the average rate bill is now almost £700. I do not believe that it would have reached that figure if more people—
Mr. Heffer: Is that all?
Mr. Baker: I am sure that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has even higher ambitions to increase the rate bills in Liverpool.
I do not believe that that high figure would have been reached if there had been a better connection between those who vote and those who pay for local services.
Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his proposal to spread the cost of local government services more widely will be welcomed by the hard-pressed ratepayers in my constituency and more widely still? However, as the teachers' dispute has shown that local authorities alone cannot pay for the cost of teachers' salaries, has he given any consideration to taking that biggest single item of expenditure out of local finance and putting the responsibility on the central Exchequer?
Mr. Baker: We have considered that possibility, as have previous Governments. It would appear to be a simple and seductive answer to take a large part of expenditure off local government rates and meet it through the central Exchequer, which would involve higher income tax or higher VAT. However, there is a great disadvantage. If the annual financing of education is removed from the local authorities, ultimately the power will end up with a central education service. I know that some hon. Members have favoured that solution, but if the financing of education is moved to the Department of Education and Science or to a central agency, it is taken away from local government. It is not only a matter of allocating money. A central agency would have to decide how many teachers there should be in a primary or secondary school and it would have to decide on all sorts of expenditure. I ask my hon. Friend and those who feel that that is an easy answer, to consider and reflect what that would mean to local government. The powers and responsibilities of local government would be considerably diminished.
Mr. John Evans: Does the Secretary of State expect that the standard business rate will lead to the introduction of rate equalisation under which money would be transferred from the prosperous local authorities in the south of England which have much industry to those local authorities in the north, which have lost most of their industry?
Mr. Baker: Two matters will affect the distribution of the business rate. The first is the revaluation of industrial property. Much property in the midlands, Manchester and the north of England was valued in 1973, when those areas were relatively more prosperous. For that reason, adjustments must be made. They will run alongside the second factor, which is the movement towards a national business rate, to be phased in over five years.
Sir William Clark: Rate reform will be widely welcomed in the country and I urge my right hon. Friend to reject the party political points made by the Opposition. Does he agree that the present rating system is a poll tax in that a single occupant of premises pays a similar amount in rates as the person next door in similar accommodation, who shares with four of five adults? Does he agree that it is essential to have a different register from the electoral roll? Many foreigners should be paying rates but they are not on the electoral roll. It is essential that we do not use only the electoral roll.
Mr. Baker: I agree completely with my hon. Friend's point about the position of foreigners. There is also a proposal in the Green Paper for a collective community charge, for example, for boarding houses, which have a rapid turnover of occupation. The landlord or the owner would be responsible for registering the occupants. That is an important point.
On the matter of basic unfairness, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. In two houses, side by side, one occupant could be paying the full rates while four are paying them in the next house. They are all using local government services, but the four occupants, who could be earners, are getting an excessively good deal compared with a single person living alone.
Mr. James Lamond: If the Secretary of State believes that rates are a harsh tax on the one-parent family and old-age pensioners, why have the Government spent their last seven years transferring as much of the burden as possible from central Government to local government, thus worsening the position? If the Secretary of State believes that those who vote at local government elections consist of a mixture of those who have no need to pay rates, but expect to get a bonanza from the local council, and those who are worried because the rates are so excessive that they cannot pay them, why is the turnout only 35 per cent. to 40 per cent.?
Mr. Baker: We have tried to improve local accountability by reducing the support that flows from central Government. The system can only operate with an effective, wider tax base, which is what we are proposing.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, while all of us will study carefully the radical proposals, the likely result of his announcement is that rural counties, such as Cheshire, will suffer from the standard business rate levy? The majority of middle-income earners in the rural county of Cheshire will pay considerably more. Is that a correct assessment?
Mr. Baker: I urge hon. Members to reflect upon the consequences of the proposals on the business rate and the figure at which the national average is struck. On that depends whether there will be more gainers or losers in the business world. The Green Paper proposes to strike the rate at the national average — 180p, in 1984–85. It further proposes that that should be reduced by 5 per cent. which would bring in many of those who are close to the national average who would have to pay more if it were struck at a higher level—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer.] The answer depends upon the level at which the national average business rate is set. That is a matter upon which we shall take advice and consult.
Regarding the incidence of the tax burden upon people in different areas, the broad result of the proposals will be a transfer of the tax burden from householders to non-householders.
On the question of resource equalisation, the answer to my hon. Friend's question lies in chapter 4 and annex J.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to protect the business for today, because there is the introduction of Members, a Ten-minute Bill and an important debate. I shall allow questions to continue for a further 10 minutes, but then we shall have to move on.
Mr. William O'Brien: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Government's proposals mean that people who are now granted concessions because of their low incomes will have to pay rates in the future? Will that not be seen by the elderly, especially elderly widows, as a further tax upon their incomes, and almost as a standing charge? Would not the aged and widows be better served by allowing them the existing concession of complete or partial rate rebates according to their incomes?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman's comment is more appropriate to the Social Security Bill, which we shall discuss later today, since that proposal is enshrined in the Bill.
Mr. Fred Silvester: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us share his objective of reducing the conflict between central Government and local government? Two areas of chief conflict have been the Government's desire to control aggregate local authority expenditure and the method of distribution of the rate support grant. Does the Green Paper mean that the Government have abandoned their objective of controlling the aggregate of local government expenditure? How will the needs element be distributed?
Mr. Baker: The answer to my hon. Friend's penultimate question is: not entirely. The distribution of grant will be much simpler and clearer under the new system. It will consist of two elements: a standard grant which all authorities will receive on a per capita basis as of right, and a needs grant. The present grant amounts to about £8 billion. About £4 billion will be available for the standard grant, and about £4 billion will be available for the needs grant. On the needs grant, we shall have to devise a system that is simpler and clearer than the present GREAs.
Ms. Clare Short: Will the Secretary of State answer the important question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)? When the right hon. Gentleman

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talked about no taxation without representation, he meant no representation without taxation. That principle goes to the heart of democracy. The logic of the right hon. Gentleman's position is that the unemployed and non-taxpayers will have removed from them the right to vote in elections.
Mr. Baker: No right to vote will be removed, but it cannot be right that, in some authorities, 50 or 60 per cent. of those who vote make no contribution to the payment for local services.
Mr. Richard Holt: Does my right hon. Friend accept that throughout Langbaurgh, Middlesbrough and the whole of Cleveland and the north of England his proposals will be welcomed, especially if they mean the elimination of the current practice in Cleveland of appointing political assistants to the leader and other members of the council?
Mr. Baker: Such incidents happen because there is no effective ballot box control on excessive expenditure. We must move to a better system. I thank my hon. Friend for his support.
Mr. Dave Nellist: How will those who are involved in properties or land that is currently derated be affected by the proposals? Will the proposal for a local income tax be extended to those who currently pay no rates? Does the Secretary of State accept that the echo that he senses among many working people for reform of rates is not caused by the present method of paying rates but by the fact that, in seven years, the Government have taken £10,000 million from local councils and could halve all rates if they returned grant to the 1979 level?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman accused me of introducing a local income tax—
Mr. Nellist: A community fine, then.
Mr. Baker: No, it is a community charge, and it is not based upon the ownership and possession of property. It is based upon a people's tax.
Mr. Michael Cockeram: Does my right hon. Friend realise that he has opened a Pandora's box that will affect every household in the land and that we are now
launched upon a long-running period of protest beside which the Westland affair will be but a brief interlude?
Mr. Baker: I simply do not believe that the present system of local government finance can continue. That is why we introduced the proposals. The present system contains basic unfairnesses and inequalities. I have published a Green Paper because I want the proposals to be examined and debated throughout the country so that each party can put forward its proposals and be able to justify them.
Mr. Nicholas Brown: Why is the Secretary of State inviting us to discuss the matters in the Green Paper after the passage of the Rates Act 1985 and the abolition of the metropolitan authorities rather than before then?
Mr. Baker: As I said in reply to an earlier question, in 1981 we introduced a system which we hoped would act as a brake upon excessive local spending. That did not work, so the further controls were introduced. I have said clearly that that should not be the path forward for local
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government and that there must be a more equitable base for true local accountability. I favour local accountability, because local democracy will not survive without it. When I am asked about gainers and losers, I always reply that the biggest gainer will be local democracy.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that to many of us it is pleasing that a promise made many years ago by a former Secretary of State for Education and Science, who has now become Prime Minister, that we should consider what changes are to be made has been fulfilled? But does he agree that, as there is no such thing as a free dinner, there is no such thing as a free rating system? Will we have a system whereby the Government not only decide what is spent but are willing to pay for what they impose on local authorities? If not, does he agree that, whatever system we devise, local ratepayers or taxpayers will be unable to afford it?
Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is right to mention that important point in local government, which is always complaining that central Government impose duties upon it and do not provide it with the cash to carry out those duties. The proposals for standard grant recognise that some national services are required. That should meet my hon. Friend's point. As he comes from the west midlands, I should say that the area does badly under the present system, because its average incomes are about 5 per cent. below the national average, but its average rateable values are about 5 per cent. above the national average.
Ms. Harriet Harman: Does the Minister realise that the thrust of his arguments will be deeply offensive to hundreds of thousands of people, many living in Conservative-controlled areas, who cannot pay their full rates? Is he not betraying an insidious attitude to democracy and individual rights when he relates the democratic right to vote to the ability to pay?
Mr. Baker: I have answered those points several times. The hon. Lady, who represents a constituency in a high-spending inner-city authority, should be fully aware of the inequity of the present rating system and what it means to many of her constituents.
Mrs. Edwina Currie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in April, the Comptroller and Auditor-General commented that the existing RSG system failed to prevent overspending, failed to protect the priorities of local government spending, and showed a poor distribution of the financial burden among ratepayers in different areas. Does he agree that the system that he is now proposing is clear, will work and is comprehensive? It will be extremely welcome in local authorities and should be introduced as soon as possible.
Mr. Baker: I could not have said it better myself.
Mr. David Winnick: Is it not true that the proposed poll tax — there is no need for fancy names, because that is what it is—is the most regressive system of revenue-raising that the Minister could have found? Did not all his predecessors as Secretary of State in the Conservative Government reject the proposal for the obvious reason that it is unfair, unjust and will especially penalise those on low incomes?
Mr. Baker: The basic fairness of what I am suggesting is that those who benefit from local government services should be involved in paying for them. The country will not perceive that as an unfair principle.
Mr. Roger Gale: My right hon. Friend will understand that the many elderly, single, owner-occupiers in my constituency will welcome what they regard as the death knell of an unfair rating system. They will also appreciate the re-establishment of the link between taxation and representation. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that this will not mean that those who are taxed without representation—small businesses in the south east—will ever again be asked to subsidise profligate inner city councils?
Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend touches upon the national business rate. There will be consultations about that with the representatives of local government. The CBI conference voted against the national business rate. Since then, the CBI tax committee has come out in favour of it, and I believe that the chambers of commerce are on record as favouring a national business rate.
Mr. Frank Dobson: The Secretary of State talked about winners and losers. Can he confirm that one of the winners under this proposition will be the occupants of the Thatcher retirement home in Dulwich?
Mr. Baker: In widening the tax base, which should be widened in this way, one has to ask whether the local government system should be financially redistributive. More than half of local government money comes from the national taxpayer. That is, of course, principally a redistributive source.
Mr. John Powley: While welcoming the Secretary of State's proposals, may I draw his attention to the tremendous number of abortive man hours, particularly in local government, that were expended on discussion of previous White Papers and Green Papers and the Layfield report? Will he give an assurance that the Government will have the determination to implement the proposals before the House so that the discussions will bear fruit? Does he agree that the proposed reorganisation is not a message for any local authority to increase its spending?
Mr. Baker: I agree with my hon. Friend's last point. I have already said that during the transitional period some control will be necessary to ensure that certain local authorities do not take the opportunity substantially to increase their spending. I also note the point that was made by him and by several of my hon. Friends, that they want the Government to get on with this.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his admission that industrial rates in the north will go up? I am sure that that will bring a lot of joy to many industrialists in Cumbria. Will the right hon. Gentleman come clean? He has told us who gains. What about telling us who loses? It is all here in the Green Paper. Will he tell us the key statistics about those who lose? Are the losers not several million people?
Mr. Baker: I have admitted quite openly that if the tax base is broadened more people will pay tax. Slightly more households gain than lose. The figures are clearly set out in the Green Paper.
Dr. Keith Hampson: Will my right hon. Friend accept that businesses in the north will look upon what he says as long overdue, because there is a great need to have a uniform business rate and evaluations? Surely it is also long overdue that we get rid of the holdback, the clawback and targets and all the other panoply of the existing system. However, none of those things needs a poll tax. A poll tax is only tolerable if it is small. Will he therefore look again at education expenditure, and particularly teachers' salaries?
Mr. Baker: I was asked about this earlier. I appreciate that many hon. Members feel it would be an easy solution to take a large part of education expenditure off the rates. That would have profound constitutional implications, because one cannot remove the responsibility for financing a large part of expenditure without moving power to the centre. It is almost impossible to devise a scheme. That is a centrist approach and the way the French system works, but it has enormous implications for local government and I would not want it.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: The Secretary of State will not pull the wool over the eyes of the people, however much he might succeed in doing that to some Tory MPs. Successive Secretaries of State have come to the Dispatch Box year after year for the last seven years, and they have all declared that they have a new system of rate support grant that will be wonderful for everybody. The net result is that £16,000 million has been removed by central Government and ratepayers have had to foot the bill. From our point of view this proposal is a little more helpful, because during the course of the Green Paper consultation and up to the next general election we shall be able to tell every constituent in every target seat how much the rates will go up as a result of this latest blunder by the Tory Government.
Mr. Baker: I do not know what has impinged upon the consciousness of the hon. Gentleman. I am not proposing an increase in rates, I am proposing a replacement of rates.
Mr. Eric Forth: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that any system in which 100 voters may vote for increased local expenditure but only 30 of those voters are called to pay for it is utterly iniquitous? What he seeks to introduce is direct accountability between the wish to vote and have a voice in local government, and the willingness to pick up the bill for that vote.
Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend goes to the heart of the matter and I am sure that the country generally agrees with that proposition.
Mr. Jack Straw: If the Secretary of State is aiming to increase local accountability, why is he proposing in the Green Paper to take complete authoritarian control over the capital expenditure of councils? Why is the consultation period so short? The poorest households pay no rates at present, but is it not true that all poor households will be worse of as a result of these proposals? If the Secretary of State can give illustrations by local authority of the impact of a local income tax, why can he not do the same for the impact of a universal business rate and this poll tax by local authority? Is the reason why he is ducking such illustrations the one spotted by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Cockeram), that business rates and overall burdens in many Conservative

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heartlands will rise'? When Conservative Members read the small print of the proposals they will understand that this is yet another own goal by an incompetent Government.
Mr. Baker: When the hon. Gentleman has had time to read the proposals on capital expenditure, he will realise we are putting forward two proposals and consulting on them. He asked about further information. I cannot think of many Green Papers that have contained as much information as this one. If after studying it the hon. Gentleman or local authorities want more information, I will consider their requests and that information can cover the levels of community charges and the effect of the national business rate.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I will give priority to those hon. Members whom I have not been able to call today when this matter is subsequently discussed.

Standing Order No. 10
Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday we had an important and vital debate. It was so important that it was broadcast in its entirety. I noticed yesterday that before it commenced a Member of the Liberal party made an application under Standing Order No. 10. On previous occasions when we have had important and vital debates that were broadcast it is my recollection that precisely the same thing was done. It is not for me to say that the Liberal party is more interested in publicity than in politics. Others may say that. May I suggest, however, that in future, when debates are broadcast, Standing Order No. 10 applications, important though they may be, should come after the debate, particularly as in this case it was a Standing Order No. 10 debate?
Mr. Speaker: I have to take a decision about whether an application under Standing Order No. 10 is in order. It was in order to make that application. It would be the same for any hon. Member who happened to choose that day.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: May I help, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker: I do not think I need the hon. Gentleman's help.
Mr. Skinner: It is helpful.
Mr. Speaker: If it is helpful I will hear it.
Mr. Skinner: The secret lay in the moving of Standing Order No. 10. When we had the debate on teachers last week, the Liberal party spokesman was so full of the emergency debated yesterday that he said "I support both sides and wish them well". He was trying to put right the mess that he had made only a few days before.
Mr. Speaker: Not all that helpful, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

NEW MEMBERS
The following Members took and subscribed the Oath:

Right hon. John Enoch Powell, for South Down.

Right hon. James Henry Molyneaux, for Lagan Valley.

Rev. Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, for Antrim, North.

James Alexander Kilfedder Esq., for North Down.

Roy Beggs Esq., for Antrim, East.

Peter David Robinson Esq., for Belfast, East

Clifford Forsythe Esq., for Antrim, South.

James Harold McCusker Esq., for Upper Bann.

Rev. Robert Thomas William McCrea, for Mid-Ulster.

Ken Maginnis Esq., for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

William Ross Esq., for Londonderry, East

Rev. William Martin Smyth, for Belfast, South.

Right hon. John David Taylor, for Strangford.

Alfred Cecil Walker Esq., for Belfast, North.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Ordered,
That the draft Importation of Live Fish of the Salmon Family Order 1986 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Donald Thompson.]

Wages Council Orders Enforcement
5.5 pm
Mr. Peter Pike: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the automatic prosecution of and the publication of the identity of employers who pay their employees wages below wages councils' statutory minimum rates.
I should like to express my thanks to my union, the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union, for its help in preparing this Bill and the case for it, and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) who has a considerable interest in the Bill. I recognise that the Bill proposes to strengthen the role of wages councils when, regrettably, the Government have chosen at this time to move in the opposite direction.
Most workers in the United Kingdom have a direct influence on their pay levels by means of negotiation and voluntary agreement between their employers and their trade unions. Even in such cases, unfortunately, some unscrupulous employers, such as Silentnight, break agreements and treat their employees in an appalling way. This Bill deals with those who work in industries where it is difficult to establish collective bargaining agreements, and where workers depend on minimum wages and conditions as laid down by wages councils. At present some 2·75 million workers in over 325,000 establishments are protected by wages council provisions.
My union has always fought hard for lower-paid workers, and will continue to do so. Wages councils have existed in one form or another since 1910. There are now some 25, the largest being in the hairdressing, hotel and catering and retail trades. but there are others which are also very important. It is important to acknowledge that those workers are in low-paid industries, which makes it all the more appalling that some employers fail to pay the minimum wage rates. I must stress that those workers are very often in very low-paid jobs.
To put it in perspective, at 7 October 1985 wages in the hairdressing industry were £50·25 a week, in the makeup and textile industry £60·64, and in the hat, cap and millinery industry £60·84. All the other figures show a similar, appallingly low wage level. They are extremely low wages, to put it mildly—and one could be tempted to put it much more strongly than that.
Many workers in industries covered by wages councils are women whose income is essential to the family. It is crucial that the system works on their behalf and that they get at least the minimum wage fixed by the wages council. It is true to say that many are afraid to complain to the wages council inspectorate as they fear unfair dismissal. Working in small units, they feel isolated and are fearful of pressing for their legal entitlement and just right.
At present, it is easy for the unscrupulous employer to get away with cheating his employees of the wages to which they are entitled. The number of wages council inspectors at December 1984, when the inspectorate had been reduced by one-third since 1979, was 222. It stands to reason that the inspectorate cannot control and check 325,000 establishments with only 222 staff. In 1982, only 6 per cent. of those establishments were inspected, but that figure is misleading as only 40 per cent. of that 6 per cent. actually received a visit. Other employers were asked to confirm by questionnaire that they were not guilty of illegal underpayment. What nonsense to ask the employer to make the return himself.

817
In 1984 the percentage of those visited improved—it was 6·9 per cent. of the total. That still means that an employer can expect to be visited on average only once every 15 years. Therefore, the risk of being caught is minimal and the attraction to break the law is substantial.
Those key figures of establishments visited in 1984 having been given, it has to be said that 35·6 per cent. of those establishments were found to be guilty of underpayment. It is interesting to note that, as a result of inspection by visit, 12·2 per cent. of all the workers involved were being underpaid and exploited. The number of those checked by all methods, including visits and the return of the questionnaire, totalled 4·4 per cent. From the figures I have given, it can be seen that the responses to the questionnaire confirm an unbelievably low rate of people being underpaid, and this is understandable because, when the guilty are asked to submit their own forms, obviously they will not tell the truth.
Under the Bill it would be essential to have more checks, an enlarged inspectorate and more visits. It is reasonable to assume that a proper inspection, if it were carried out, would prove that the number of workers being underpaid was in the region of 12·2 per cent.
In 1984 the arrears assessed were £2·5 million. That is the amount of money out of which employees have been cheated by their employers. I would go further and say that it was stolen by the employers. The true figure is likely to be three times that amount—money stolen from some of the lowest paid workers in the country. It is time that action was taken to protect them.
What happens to employers who are guilty when they are found out? The answer is, very little. In 1983, of employers at some 9,842 establishments found to be breaking the law, only two were prosecuted and civil proceedings were taken against another five. However, of the debt for underpaid wages exposed by the inspectorate, 25 per cent. was left unpaid by the employers.
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The threat of prosecution is minimal even when employers are caught. The Bill aims to remedy that position. It provides for automatic prosecution in any case where the employer has been shown to be paying below the minimum wage rate fixed by the appropriate wages council. It also provides for the automatic naming of the individuals prosecuted. If they have committed an offence, they should be prosecuted. If found guilty, they should be named. That would be a genuine deterrent to prevent employers stealing money from their employees. If such bad employers were named, prospective employees would come to know of them. Their names should be on display in jobcentres so that they might be seen by those seeking jobs. Indeed, the names could also be on show in libraries, town halls and other public buildings.
Combined with an increase in the number of inspectors, the Bill will pose a serious threat to those employers who attempt to rob their workers in this way. I believe that the very threat of the Bill will herald a speedy end to this appalling scandal, and ensure that the workers in low-paid industries receive fair wages and conditions.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Peter Pike, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Ron Davies, Mr. Tony Lloyd, Mr. Michael Cocks, Mr. Derek Fatchett, Mr. Roland Boyes, Dr. Norman A. Godman and Mr. Tom Pendry.

Wages Council Orders Enforcement
  WAGES COUNCIL ORDERS ENFORCEMENT
  Mr. Peter Pike accordingly presented a Bill to provide for the automatic prosecution of and the publication of the identity of employers who pay their employees wages below wages councils' statutory minimum rates: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 21 February and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
Orders of the Day

  Social Security Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen).
  5.15 pm
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill gives effect to the proposals set out in the White Paper on social security published last month. The White Paper itself followed what has been the most extensive examination of the social security system since the war. It started in the autumn of 1983 with the inquiry into retirement. That was followed by an examination of family support, housing benefit and supplementary benefit. The Bill sets out three major objectives which flow from the reviews.
  The first objective is to ensure that many more people in this country should have a pension of their own. What we want to achieve is a major extension of occupational and personal pensions. Over the last 20 years, that occupational pension coverage has remained static. That has been the case not just in the so-called years of pension blight at the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, as pension provision was debated and re-debated; it has continued to be the case since. The result is that we have two nations in pensions— 11 million who have the advantage of their own occupational scheme, but another nation of 10 million who have no scheme of their own. All the evidence is that people without additional pensions of their own would welcome the opportunity to have one. The Bill makes it easier for both employers and employees to set up new pension arrangement while at the same time preserving the basic pension unchanged and a modified second-tier state earnings-related scheme.
  The second objective is to seek to concentrate help in areas where that help is needed. The evidence of the social security review is that the present system fails to do that in a number of ways. The position has changed over the last 20 years. Any diagnosis of need shows that some of the most difficult problems are faced by low income families with children. Families with children now make up more than half of the people living on the lowest incomes — unemployed families, but also low-income families in work. At the same time, there is the totally indefensible position where families can be worse off in work than out of work and where families can lose income as their gross wages rise. Through the family credit proposals and the family provisions of income support the Bill will enable us to direct more help in those areas. It will help us to tackle both the unemployment and poverty traps, and it will enable us to provide more help for disabled people on low incomes who are a group who stand in special need.
  The third objective of the Bill is to ensure a simpler system of social security. One of the most common complaints from the public is that the system is at times one of bewildering complexity. This is in the interests neither of claimants nor of the staff who have to administer
  820
  it. The Bill will simplify the individual benefits and put income support, housing benefit and family credit on a similar basis.
  The Bill will go further than that. It will introduce common rules for the different benefits; and it will also simplify the present complexities of the contracting-out rules for the state pension scheme. The point of the changes is this. Over the next 10 to 15 years we will be introducing a new computer strategy for social security. This will be the biggest computer operation of its kind ever undertaken in this country and its cost will be up to £2 billion. The effect will be radically to improve the service we give to the public. Side by side with those changes, we want to achieve a simpler structure for social security. That, too, will help in providing a better service, and that is what this Bill aims to do.
  The first part of the Bill deals with pensions and the first six clauses give for the first time in this country the right to a personal pension. What this means in practice is that anyone, whether they be a member of the additional state scheme — SERPS — or a member of an occupational scheme, can choose instead to have a personal pension. In other words, the pension is personal to the individual and is fully portable from job to job. Personal pensions will be accumulated on a money purchase basis, with contributions qualifying for tax relief. Each person will be able to choose the kind of pensions saving scheme that he wants and the kind of body that he wants to run his savings scheme.
  The significance of that last measure is that it will not just be life insurance companies which will be able to provide pension savings schemes, but building societies, banks and unit trusts. That will not only give the public a wider choice and a greater say in how their savings are invested; it will also increase competition between providers of pensions, to the benefit of the consumer.
  Proof that that kind of system can work effectively in the public interest comes from the United States. There, a wide range of financial institutions can provide individual retirement accounts and over the past five years the number of retirement accounts has increased from about 4 million to over 20 million. But what has been even more significant is that competition has driven down the administrative charges which the public have to bear and improved the choice for the public.
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: If the schemes are so successful in other countries and increase competition, why is the Secretary of State giving 2 per cent. as an extra bribe, compared with people who are in occupational schemes, to persuade people to move into personal pension plans?
  Mr. Fowler: I shall come to that point. It is entirely reasonable to give an incentive over a five-year period to those people who do not have schemes of their own.
  Mr. Frank Field: Why?
  Mr. Fowler: The 2 per cent. is an incentive given over a five-year period. It seems to be in line with what the public want. If hon. Members study the social security review, they will find that we went to great trouble to find what the public's view was. [Interruption.] It is not the view of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). It is what the people of this country want. We

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  found that the vast majority of people in this country want a pension of their own. The Bill tries to give them that right and encouragement.
  If personal pensions are to provide an additional pension on top of the basic state pension, it is clearly right that people should be able to contract out of the state earnings-related pension scheme. Clause 2 will allow them to do so. The minimum contribution required to qualify a personal pension for contracting out will be the amount of the contracted-out rebate — the reduction in national insurance contributions at present available only to those in salary-related schemes. As an additional incentive to people to set up their own personal pension arrangements, we shall be adding 2 per cent. to the amount of the contracted-out rebate for the five years from April 1988.
  Mr. Tony Marlow rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I shall give way when I have finished this point.
  The Bill provides for the administrative arrangements for paying over the minimum contributions and the extra incentive to the personal pension of an employee's choice. Those will be paid through my Department. An employer who does not wish to supplement the minimum contribution will simply pay full rate national insurance contributions. We will then pay over the difference between the full rate and the contracted-out rate to the personal pension provider. That will mean that an employer need not, unless he wishes to do so, play any part in the administration of his employees' personal pensions.
  The amount of the contracted-out rebate from 1988 will be the subject of a consultation document prepared by the Government Actuary which I shall be issuing shortly. The amount of the rebate is calculated actuarially to reflect the cost to a salary-related pension scheme of providing guaranteed minimum pensions. Clearly, in a contributions-based pension scheme, the concept of a guaranteed minimum pension has not the same application, but an essential feature of contracting out of the SERPS is that the guaranteed minimum pension is deducted from the state additional pension at retirement. We shall reflect that in contracted-out personal pensions by deducting an amount equivalent to the guaranteed minimum pension from the state additional pension which someone with a personal pension will receive.
  Hand in hand with choice must go effective investor protection. The Bill, taken with the Financial Services Bill currently before the House, will enable us to achieve a proper measure of investor protection. As clause 2, with schedule 1, provides, a personal pension scheme will be able to be contracted out only if it satisfies proper requirements, and the Occupational Pensions Board will have to be satisfied that it does so before approving it for contracting out.
  Personal pension schemes will have to comply with the regulations concerning their investments, the amount of their administrative charges and the calculation and securing of their members' protected rights, which come from the payment of minimum contributions. The bodies providing personal pensions will also be subject to the regulatory framework set out in the Financial Services Bill. In addition, clause 12 provides the powers to control advertising.
  Mr. Marlow: I can tell from the complexity of what my right hon. Friend was saying why he wanted to finish the point that he was making.
  In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), is it not the case that, even with the additional incentive of 2 per cent. over five years given to the personal pension plan, the individual will have a splendid deal—he will have the choice to provide a pension scheme which suits his own purpose—and at the end of the day, is the taxpayer not better off than if the person were to continue with SERPS rather than have his own personal pension scheme?
  Mr. Fowler: Yes. It is in the nation's interest generally that as many people as possible should be building up their own pensions for retirement. My hon. Friend talked about complexity, but the complexity of pensions arises because of the retention of SERPS. As I understood it, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) had been arguing rather vigorously over the last month for just that.
  Mr. Frank Field: No.
  Mr. Fowler: It is not only personal pensions that we are concerned to encourage but the spread of occupational pension schemes where there is substantial scope for expansion. Up to now there is no doubt that employers, particularly small employers, have been discouraged from starting new schemes by the fact that only schemes promising a benefit related to salary could contract out of the state earnings-related scheme. That is an open-ended commitment which not all employers can reasonably be expected to take on. The Bill provides an alternative route to an occupational pension.
  Clauses 6 to 12 enable pension schemes based on a defined level of contribution—money purchase schemes —to contract out of the state earnings-related scheme. In other words, the test that the employer must satisfy is a contribution test rather than an open-ended benefit test. I believe that that will be a real inducement to employers to set up schemes. It will also give the wide range of bodies offering personal pensions new opportunities to set up pension savings schemes. That can be done for individual companies or for groups of companies and one result is that industrywide schemes are encouraged under these proposals.
  In essence, the contracting-out requirements for a money purchase employers' scheme will be the same as those which I have outlined for personal pensions. The minimum qualifying contribution will be the amount of the contracting-out rebate, and the 2 per cent. addition to the contracted-out rebate will also apply.
  What this will mean in practice is that someone—this emphasises and underlines the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) —who now relies entirely on SERPS can, if that is his wish, instead get a sizeable contribution to his own pension at no extra cost to himself or his employer. As an illustration, with a contracted-out rebate of 5·5 per cent., a man on average manual earnings of £170 a week wculd, including the 2 per cent. incentive and tax relief on his share of the rebate, have almost £600 a year to put into his own pension. That is the point that my hon. Friend was making.
  Mr. Tony Favell: Is there not one further enormous advantage to be gained from going into a private

  823
  pension scheme? Private schemes are funded, whereas the state earnings-related pensions scheme is not. That means that the more people there are in private pension schemes, the better it will be for taxpayers in future generations.
  Mr. Fowler: That is substantially correct. There is a point on the whole question of funding schemes, rather than the state pay-as-you-go scheme, to which I should like to refer when I discuss my proposed modifications to the state earnings-related pension scheme. So far as new occupational schemes are concerned, the technical annex published with the White Paper shows that many people could expect to do better by opting for a personal pension rather than by staying in SERPS. On the assumption of a 3·5 per cent. real rate of return on investment, the annex shows how good an investment this can be for everyone of 40 or under.
  Clause 11 will ensure that all members of occupational pension schemes and everybody with a personal pension will be able to pay an additional voluntary contribution —that is not a matter of controversy —to boost their pension rights up to the limits allowed by the Inland Revenue. In other words, this becomes a right for the individual, rather than dependent on the decision of the pension scheme.
  The remaining clauses in part I provide for modifications to the state earnings-related pension scheme to reduce its costs in the next century. The effects of leaving the scheme unchanged are clearly set out by the Government Actuary in the report published with the Bill. His report shows quite clearly that the earnings-related pension alone will increase in cost from barely £200 million a year now to £25·5 billion in 2033. This means that the total cost of the state pensions scheme—basic pension and earnings-related pension together—would rise from under £16 billion a year now to £49 billion a year in 2033, provided that the basic pension was uprated in line with prices. If, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West advocates, it was uprated in line with earnings, the cost would be almost £73 billion a year — requiring a national insurance contribution of over 27 per cent. That is stated in the Government Actuary's report. I do not believe that, faced with that evidence, any responsible Government can ignore these estimates and predictions.
  We know that the cost of the state earnings-related scheme is set to increase sharply. We know that that cost is borne not by a fund which has been invested but on an entirely pay-as-you-go basis by the contributors of the time —our children, young people now starting out on their careers. We know that the ratio of those contributors to pensioners worsens. In other words, there will be an increase of 3·5 million pensioners between 2003 and 2033, while the contributing work force remains the same. We know that if the plans continue unchanged, the decisions of future Governments will inevitably be pre-empted. If those Governments wanted to devote more resources to caring for the elderly, through, for example, the Health Service or social services, the public resources would be already committed.
  I do not believe that we should hand that kind of debt down to future generations. It is for that reason that we have modified SERPS so that the emerging cost of the scheme is reduced by about £12·5 billion by 2033.
  Mr. Michael Meacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Government Actuary's report in no way justifies the conclusions he is trying to draw about the unaffordability of SERPS? Is he aware that the combined employer and employee contributions have, in the six years of this Government, increased by 5·5 per cent.? An increase to 27 per cent. is proposed, which is only slightly more over a 40-year period than has already occurred in the past six years. The right hon. Gentleman has chosen the year 2033, but the report shows that, 20 years on, the 27 per cent. figure falls to 24 per cent. Paragraph 38 of the Government Actuary's report states:
  "Growth in real earnings tends to hold down the projected contribution rate."
  The only reason it is as high as 27 per cent. is simply because the Secretary of State in this Government is assuming an economic growth rate of only 1½ per cent.
  Mr. Fowler: That intervention was very revealing, especially the first point. The hon. Gentleman was clearly saying that we should be concerned about the 27 per cent. national insurance rate because that was something that the nation would be able to afford. I do not believe that that is a fair representation of the position. However, it sets out starkly what the hon. Gentleman is prepared to see in the extra burden of national insurance and of tax.
  It is true that after 2033 there is an evening-off, but we have to get through the period from 2030 to 2033. If the hon. Gentleman's position is that 27 per cent. national insurance rates are OK, doubtless this will not cause him any problem, but most people in this country will find it a problem. Paragraph 42 of the Government Actuary's report shows that the modified state earnings-related pensions scheme will mean that national insurance contribution rates will remain constant, but, if SERPS is left as it is, contributions will go up by some 20 to 30 per cent. above current levels.
  Mr. Meacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that his latter point only applies because the Government are assuming economic growth forecast rates of half the level with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer likes to regale the House? If it were a 3 per cent. rate, the 27 per cent. joint contribution rate would be nowhere near that level. The rate would probably be in the low twenties.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman take on board another point in the Government Actuary's report? Paragraph 36 states:
  "The notional rate of contributions to the national insurance fund in 1986–87 on the same assumptions as in the long-term projections regarding unemployment proportions contributing etc. would be 15·7 per cent."
  The table below shows that, in 2053, the rate is 15 per cent.—lower than it is now. How can that be such a problem? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the other corollary of his argument is that he is proposing to cut the level of the additional component by half in the next century?
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is getting excited, but he always does. He is misrepresenting what the report says. It cannot be denied that there will be a substantial increase in the cost of the state earnings-related pension scheme. No one, apart from the hon. Gentleman, is seeking to deny that. It means also that national insurance contributions will go up. No one, apart from the hon. Gentleman, is seeking to deny that. During that period, the ratio of contributors to pensioners will decrease. I do not

  825
  think that even the hon. Member for Oldham, West is trying to dispute that. There will be 3·5 million more pensioners, and the number of contributors will remain the same.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West cited one assumption from the Government Actuary's report. There is a range of others, including an unemployment assumption of 6 per cent. All the assumptions in the Government Actuary's report are not uniquely unfavourable.
  I am sure that we shall debate these issues in Committee. I shall certainly serve on that Committee. I should like to correct one report in The Guardian today which suggested that the Government were unwilling to have the hon. Member for Oldham, West lead the Opposition in Committee. It is the united wish of the Government that the hon. Gentleman should lead the Opposition in this matter.
  I should emphasise that the changes will not affect those nearest to retirement. The changes to SERPS do not affect anyone retiring this century. The rights of anyone retiring up to 1999 are entirely unchanged, while there is a period of transition up to 2010. At the same time, the basic pension remains unchanged by any of these proposals.
  The Bill will reduce the cost of the state earnings-related scheme in three ways. First, additional pension rights under the state scheme will be based on a lifetime's average revalued earnings, rather than on the best 20 years, as now. This puts the state scheme on a par with the guaranteed minimum pension from occupational schemes. We recognise that special protection is needed for those who are bringing up children or are looking after someone who is disabled, or who are themselves disabled. In these cases, these years will not be counted in the working life over which earnings are averaged.
  The second change is that the earnings-related pension, and the guaranteed minimum pension from contracted-out schemes, will in future be based on 20 per cent., rather than 25 per cent., of average revalued earnings. All rights built up between 1978, when the state earnings-related scheme started, and 1988, when the changes in the Bill will take effect, will be honoured at 25 per cent.
  The third change concerns a requirement on contracted-out pension schemes to inflation-proof guaranteed minimum pensions once they are in payment. The state additional pension is fully protected against price rises and, because people get the difference between that and their guaranteed minimum pensions, the state effectively inflation-proofs the guaranteed minimum pension. Discussions with employers and pension interests in the wake of the Green Paper convinced us that it was reasonable to require contracted-out schemes to undertake a limited amount of inflation-proofing.
  The Bill therefore provides for contracted-out schemes to inflation-proof guaranteed minimum pensions in payment up to a ceiling of 3 per cent. a year. The state additional pension will remain fully protected. Similarly, annuities from contracted-out money-purchase employers' or personal pension schemes will be increased in line with inflation up to the 3 per cent. ceiling.
  Mr. Roger Freeman: My right hon. Friend knows that Conservative Members strongly support all his personal pension proposals. My right hon. Friend proposes to offer this excellent incentive to occupational pension schemes which become contracted out after 1 January
  826
  1986. I am sure that we shall want to return to that point to examine its implications. Will my right hon. Friend briefly confirm that occupational pension schemes and final salary schemes have played and will continue to play an important part in the provision of private sector pension schemes?
  Mr. Fowler: That is an entirely fair point. The Government are seeking to provide further options With respect to pensions. We are not saying for one moment that money purchase is the only route. Clearly, there are many excellent final salary schemes. We are saying, however, that for small employers there are sometimes disadvantages in setting up an occupational pension scheme. We are providing extra options for occupational pensions and personal pensions. Of course, the good final salary scheme will remain. We shall support it.
  The second part of the Bill covers the three income-related benefits — income support, which will replace supplementary benefit: family credit, replacing family income supplement; and housing benefit. Clauses 19 to 21 basically bring together all three income-related benefits and put them on a common basis. That is a move of major importance. Much of the inequity and complication of present arrangements lies in the different rules for different benefits. At present, for instance, allowances for children are provided at different levels and on different structures in each benefit. The Bill will seek to put that right. All three benefits will be assessed on the same basis. Because we envisage family credit rates keeping ahead of those for income support, we tackle the unemployment trap.
  The common basis of assessment will be net income. People will be assessed on income after tax and national insurance contributions have been paid. That will end the position where a reduction in benefit as earnings rise can actually leave people worse off. The use of net income will therefore virtually eliminate the worst of the poverty trap, where marginal tax rates can be in excess of 100 per cent.
  Income support will replace supplementary benefit and will be a significant improvement on it. In particular, it will tackle the complexity which bedevils the present system and which is one of the reasons why supplementary benefit requires 40,000 staff to administer it. Income support will be based on standard rates rather than the array of weekly additions and the system of single payments. But those rates must clearly reflect the general needs of particular groups.
  Income support will seek to achieve that. It will consist of a personal allowance. In addition, there will be a family premium plus addition, as now, for each dependent child. Premiums will be added to the allowance for pensioners — with a higher premium for the over-80s — and disabled and lone parents. An extra family premium will be paid for each disabled child in a family.
  We have recognised throughout that, however well designed a general scheme may be, there is no way of anticipating special or emergency needs. People will still face losses because of sudden or unexpected crises. A domestic crisis may mean large, unforeseen spending. There will still be people who find difficulty in budgeting.
  My hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security, who chaired the inquiry on supplementary benefit, will say more on this matter and on income support when he replies; but it is to meet these needs that we are proposing the social fund, with which part III deals. The aim of the fund is that we should be able to respond to individual

  827
  needs and circumstances. It seems to us that it is not possible to achieve that aim within the context of a detailed regulatory structure — like that for income support —which is linked to a formal adjudication system. Instead, local social fund officers will have the flexibility that a regulatory structure will deny.
  These officers will be operating within the framework set out in clauses 32 and 33. As part of that framework, I shall issue directions and guidance to them, which will be published. I shall set up careful monitoring arrangements to ensure that the fund is operating properly. There will be a review procedure where a decision is challenged. This will be designed to ensure that the case has been handled properly and in accordance with my guidance.
  Mr. Andrew Bowden: I submit that the social fund officers will have a difficult task. I appreciate that it is right that they should be able to judge individual cases and have considerable flexibility. What worries me—I hope my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will comment on this — is that inevitably one could get two similar cases in different parts of the country judged by two different social fund officers coming up with different conclusions. In the light of that. will he consider whether there should be a fall back position which would enable applicants, under certain conditions, to apply for an independent tribunal?
  Mr. Fowler: I understand the concern and feeling on the issue. We will listen to the arguments during the debate. I am seeking to have a review process which is essentially local and which deals with the cases locally, personally and urgently, rather than going to the elaboration of the adjudication process that we have at the moment. I am open to argument on that. It may be that other hon. Members will wish to put forward alternative suggestions on how it could be done, and the Government will listen to the arguments.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I am conscious that I am liable to go on for a long time if I give way to everyone but I shall give way to the two hon. Members.
  Mr. Frank Field: As the Secretary of State says that the aim of the social fund is to meet individual needs, how can he guarantee that that objective will be met with the cash limit to the fund?
  Mr. Fowler: I am concerned that, whatever the budgeting arrangements, there should be no question of turning down applications because, for example, a local office has run out of money in mid-year. We will maintain contingency arrangements to meet unexpected demands which put great pressure on the allocation of individual offices. I can give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: On the right to independent appeal on the social fund, I am sure that the House notes that the Secretary of State is willing to take suggestions from hon. Members. He must already know about the document published this month entitled the
  "Special Report by the Council on Tribunals."
  The council is chaired by Lord Gibson-Watt and includes, as an ex officio member, the Parliamentary Commissioner
  828
  for Administration. Does the Secretary of State not consider it a damning statement when the report says, on the lack of an independent appeal:
  "The Council on Tribunals believe this proposal to be misconceived",
  and stresses:
  "It would abolish a right of independent appeal which has existed for over 50 years."?
  Why does the Secretary of State have to listen to further comments when he has something as authoritative as that?
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman must understand that I have not only read that but I have talked with the council and with Lord Gibson-Watt. We are concerned to find a means whereby such a decision can be reviewed without the elaborate adjudication system that currently exists. The reason for that is that the sort of decisions we are talking about are local, personal and urgent decisions. As I have made clear, I would much prefer that to be reviewed in a different way. In other words, I am not seeking to say that there is not a case for a review; clearly there is. I am saying that the debate should be about the kind of review that there should be.
  The payments for maternity and funeral expenses for people on low incomes, for which clause 32 provides, will be grants. There will be no question of recovery from the applicant, although funeral expenses may be a charge on the estate of the dead person. as they are now. It is also our intention that payments given under the general heading of community care—for example, to make it possible to keep in the community or bring into the community someone who might otherwise be in long-term care — should also be in the form of grants. Other payments would normally be recoverable loans, but they would be recoverable by deduction from weekly benefit subject to sensible rules. I once again stress the aim of making the administration of the social fund as flexible and responsive as we can.
  The family credit scheme, which is to replace family income supplement, is set out in clauses 19 to 21. The House will accept that family income supplement was always intended to be short term and small in scale. I do not believe that it has been satisfactory or that there is a case for leaving family income supplement as it is. I believe that family credit is a much more effective way of helping low-income working families. We would expect twice as many such families to benefit from it as do now from family income supplement, and we expect to spend some £200 million more a year on it.
  Entitlement to family credit will be based on net income. The maximum credit will consist of an adult credit plus a child credit for each child. Clause 27 will provide for payments of family credit by the employer through the wage packet. There is an important point: in 60 per cent. of cases we expect payment to be simply an offset to tax and national insurance contributions. In other words, the visible tax burden will be reduced or eliminated. Payment through the wage packet marks a genuine step towards greater co-operation between the tax and social security systems, which many hon. Members on both sides of the House would want to see. Where both parents are working more than the 24 hours a week needed to qualify for the credit they will be able to choose in whose wage packet it should be paid. Let me stress that the payment of child benefit will be unaffected and will continue to go directly to the mother.

  829
  The illustrative figures which we published with the White Paper show what family credit will mean to working families on low income. We expect nearly 400,000 working families to be better off as a direct result of the change.
  On housing benefit, our major aims are greater coherence with the other income-related benefits, and a simpler system. The number of tapers — the rate at which benefit is withdrawn as incomes rise—will be reduced from six to two, one each for help with rent and rates. By treating employed and unemployed people alike, we shall get rid of the two separate systems which at present exist in housing benefit and also eliminate housing benefit supplement.
  The clauses set out the framework for regulations which will determine the shape of the housing benefit scheme. Clause 28 provides for regulations which will enable local authorities to modify the housing benefit schemes for war pensioners in particular. Clause 30, which is based on current legislation, sets out the framework for funding housing benefit through subsidies. It includes, in subsection (4), a power which will enable me to help authorities with the one-off costs which they may incur in implementing the new arrangements.
  Clause 20(5) repeats the existing power to prescribe a maximum payment for housing benefit. That power—as is the position now —could allow the Government to require every householder to contribute towards their domestic rates. The Government made clear in the White Paper our commitment to the principle that every householder should bear some of the cost of providing local services; but the House has now heard the proposals announced today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to undertake a much wider reform of local government finance. This includes the proposition that all adult residents — not just householders — should contribute to the cost of local services.
  The proposed social security structure will have to be developed in the light of the discussions on the Green Paper. One option would be to extend the present rebate arrangements to the proposed new community charge. That could be done only after introducing new primary legislation. As stated in the Green Paper, the Government will need to consider that and other options as the debate on the local government proposals develops. It is clearly right that the current provisions should remain flexible while the House considers those linked issues.
  Mr. Donald Stewart: I am grateful to the Secretary of State because he has given way a good deal. Age Concern Scotland brought to our attention the figure for the sum that the old would have to contribute towards their rates. Is he aware how unfair that could be to people in Scotland, where the average rating is double that in Wales?
  Mr. Fowler: It was exactly for such general reasons that I said that it was right to consider the different options for rates and the rebate system, whatever it may be.
  That is also one of the reasons why the detailed figures that we have provided to illustrate the effect of the reforms of income-related benefits can do no more than that. They are illustrations of the possible effects on one set of assumptions. It would be foolish to set benefit levels so far in advance of the start of the scheme. They will be settled
  830
  in the autumn of 1987, along with the uprating of benefits generally, which will take place at the same time as the new arrangements are introduced.
  We have, however, made it clear that we intend to spend substantially more on family credit than is now spent on family income supplement. The income support rates are overall ahead of the present rates of supplementary benefit and weekly additions. We have also made it clear throughout that we intend a reduction in the scale of the housing benefit scheme.
  Part IV covers benefits under the Social Security Act 1975. The main provision, in clause 34, is to replace the existing widow's allowance with the tax-free lump sum widow's payment of £1,000. The payments for maternity and funeral expenses under the social fund will mean realistic help when it is needed for the groups who need it most. This is a more effective form of provision than the present inadequate and virtually universal maternity and death grants, which are abolished by clauses 35 and 37. The maternity grant has been the same for 17 years, and the death grant at its present level of £30 for 19 years—only £10 more than when it was introduced in 1949.
  At present, my Department administers some 30 different benefits with their own often complex and different rules. There may be good reasons for some differences, but in too many cases the differences arise simply because the benefit system has grown piecemeal. In themselves, the differences can be a serious source of confusion for claimants and staff alike. Throughout the social security review, it has been our conviction that more can be done to provide common rules for common, general purposes. Part V tackles that problem directly.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I am sorry but I shall not give way again.
  Part V brings into line many of the different rules that at present exist. In particular, it applies common rules to the time for claiming and paying benefits, and to the recovery of over-payments. The Bill also brings together the rules of adjudication so that they are broadly the same for all benefits.
  One aspect of the simplification is streamlining the legislation. Clearly, the new schemes will be easier to understand if people can find the relevant legislation and powers in one place.
  Mr. Bennett: Will the Minister give way on that administrative point? How many sets of statutory instruments did the Secretary of State's Department issue last year? Will he confirm that, under this measure, more statutory instruments will be issued each year, and that scrutinising them will place a considerable burden on the House?
  Mr. Fowler: I understand the hon. Gentleman's interest, but his intervention confirms me in my view that I should not have given way. His statement is inaccurate, and deals with precisely the point that I am coming to.
  Mr. Bennett: How many?
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman should not get so excited. If he will wait a moment, I shall reply to him.
  Our object has been to describe the main structure of the income-related schemes in the Bill. That is both clearer and more detailed than, for example, the present housing

  831
  benefit legislation, which contains the broadest of regulation-making powers. Historically, income-related schemes, because of their nature, have relied more heavily on regulations than the contributory benefits. That is not a matter of historical dispute. They are quite properly more subject to change to meet changing needs. Our aim has been to strike a balance between a clear indication in main legislation of the basic purpose and structure of these schemes taken together, and retaining the necessary flexibility in their administration.
  The regulations, like those for housing benefit now, will be subject to the negative procedure, as will those for income support and family credit, but we recognise that both Houses will want to scrutinise and debate the detailed proposals for the introduction of the three income-related benefits. The Bill provides for the regulations to be subject to the affirmative procedure when they are introduced.
  Another aspect of the simplification is a reduction in the number of regulations. In the clauses covering income support, we are reducing some 20 regulation-making powers for the present supplementary benefit scheme to about 15. Part V carries that simplification further forward. Clause 41 alone, for example, will replace 61 regulation-making powers exercised in 15 sets of regulations with 20 powers to be exercised in one set. Clause 52 will bring the uprating of benefits, which at present is covered by an order and 12 sets of regulations, under one order and one set of regulations.
  Those changes will make social security legislation more compact, clear and manageable. They will also make the system as a whole easier to computerise. The scale of social security makes it essential that we have a modern system providing the modern service which the public are entitled to expect. The reforms in the Bill will create a structure which lends itself to that. Hand in hand with those reforms goes one of the most ambitious computer strategies ever undertaken in this country. That strategy is the key to modernising the management of social security.
  The reforms set out in the Bill are fundamental. They follow the most comprehensive review of social security since the last war and the most detailed ever consultations with the public. They propose a new framework for social security which will serve the public better in the future.
  For years hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken eloquently of the need for reform, but a Government must do more than simply recognise the problems in social security. They must put forward solutions, and set out a programme for action based on clear principles and with clear objectives.
  In the Bill we have a programme which will confer new rights in pensions. We will set the pensions of the future on a sound basis, and we will give to millions of people new opportunities in planning for their future. We have a programme which cuts through the unnecessary complexities of much of social security, and concentrates on what should be its central aim—directing help to those who need it most. We have a programme which will tackle the most notorious aspects of the unemployment and poverty traps, and which will give more support to disabled people as well as to those low-income families who too often face difficulties today. That is a programme for reform which deserves the support of the public.
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  The House cannot turn its back on the problems that undeniably exist. Our responsibility is to act. In order to take the action that is needed, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  6.9 pm
  Mr. Michael Meacher: The Secretary of State for Social Services concluded his speech by saying again today that the Bill is the culmination of the biggest review of the welfare state since Beveridge. Such a grandiloquent claim deserves to be tested. There are six fundamental criteria by which any genuine reform of social security—and the Opposition agree that reform is necessary—should be judged.
  First, any real major reform of social security should bring about a greater measure of social justice and fairness in society.
  Secondly, it should be rooted in an independent assessment of need with benefit levels pitched at an adequate level to meet those needs and thereby enable people freely to participate in the life of their communities.
  Thirdly, the review should be based on the aim of preventing poverty arising in the first place, through the collective pooling of risks and resources, not merely based on the relief of poverty.
  Fourthly, the review should be designed to give independence to individuals and families. It should not trap them into dependence. People should, by their own efforts, be able to re-establish themselves—as I am sure they would wish—as contributors to society.
  Fifthly, any genuine reform of social security would reduce means-testing which is bureaucratic and expensive for the state, inhibits full take-up of entitlements and is highly stigmatising and demeaning for the individual.
  Sixthly, since the tax benefits interface represents different facets of a single integrated system, social security reform should be inseparable from reform of the tax system and the whole operation of the fiscal welfare state.
  I submit that the Bill fails on every one of those counts as it is not concerned with greater social justice. Cutting benefits by over £750 million and redistributing a smaller cake among the same poor groups is the opposite of increasing fairness. There has been no assessment of need whatsoever. Instead there is simply a black hole in the middle of the Government's scheme. There is no minimum or bottom line, no principles or statements of what income for British citizens is minimally adequate to meet needs.
  There is nothing new in the Bill that will help to prevent poverty. The Bill is based on the narrowest possible role of social security in relieving poverty and it will not help people to get back on to their own two feet. Indeed, the social fund's repayable loans and the requirement on even the poorest in our society to pay 20 per cent. of their rates bill will undoubtedly drive people deeper into poverty and debt.
  So far from reducing means-testing, the Bill will certainly increase dependence on means-testing by abolishing the death grant and the maternity grant and by reducing widows' benefits and additional pensions. There is no linkage in the Bill with tax reform. Contrary to what the Secretary of State said towards the end of his speech, the number of workers in the poverty trap will actually increase under the Bill by about 125,000.

  833
  It is not simply the whole strategy of the Bill that is at fault. There are two other fundamental criticisms to be made of the Government's handling of the exercise. The Government systematically ignore and directly repudiate known public opinion on virtually every proposal in the Bill. The contrast with Beveridge could scarcely be more stark. In 1943 Beveridge observed:
  "The main result of studying the volume of evidence is to show how much agreement there was, even before my report was made, upon all its main principles."
  By comparison, the Fowler Green Paper attracted near unanimous hostility. Yet despite that, hardly any of the original proposals were significantly changed, either in the White Paper or in the Bill. The Secretary of State talked about consultation, but I suggest that the idea of a public consultation exercise has been exposed as a fraud. In the one area where the Government have significantly been forced to change their tune over the abolition of SERPS they have substituted alternative proposals for which, as far as I know, there is not a shred of public sanction or support.
  Mr. Freeman: Rubbish.
  Mr. Meacher: I suggest that the matter should be put out to public consultation and we will then know. That has not happened.
  Mr. Fowler: Before the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) goes off about public consultation, would he like to remind the House what happened under the Labour Government? The hon. Gentleman may even have been a Minister at the DHSS at the time. When the Labour Government examined supplementary benefit, did they not send a group of officals around the country? Is that how the hon. Gentleman proposes that public consultation should be carried out? What does the hon. Gentleman mean?
  Mr. Meacher: At least the public officials took account of public opinion and at least they produced changes — a framework of entitlements which the Government inherited in 1979–80 which were an enormous improvement on what existed before and from which the Government are now departing. That is different from holding a framework of public consultation and then systematically ignoring everything that the public said.
  The other fundamental criticism of the construction of the Bill that has already been mentioned and upon which I shall elaborate as it is important is the extraordinary arrogation of power into the hands of the Secretary of State as proposed in the Bill.
  The Bill has no substance. Rather it is a licence for government by regulation. Under the Bill the Secretary of State is granting to himself unprecedented power to change benefit levels in future without using legislation. He will be able to cut and sabotage the benefit system without consultation, with minimum parliamentary scrutiny and, indeed, without notice. Clause 33(10) of the Bill shows the flavour of the open-endedness and the all-embracing nature of the Secretary of State's self-ascribed power. It states that—
  "An officer shall determine any question under this section in accordance with any general directions issued by the Secretary of State, and in determining any such question shall take account of any general guidance issued by him."
  If the detailed plans by which he intends to use his regulatory and direction-giving powers are not published now or in the course of the Bill, the Bill degenerates to the
  834
  status of little more than a constitutional facade. The Opposition expect the full regulations to be made available before the Bill reaches the end of its Committee stage.
  Moreover, the existing checks on the arbitrary use of power by the Secretary of State are being weakened. The Bill strengthens the Secretary of State's powers to avoid referring proposals for prior scrutiny by his own advisory committee, the Social Security Advisory Committee, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Committee and the Occupational Pensions Board. Appeals to the commissioners on grounds of fact regarding unemployment, maternity and sickness benefit are to be abolished. Appeals on single payments are to be replaced by internal reviews by civil servants administered under the social fund arrangements and the Secretary of State, not the adjudicating officer, will in future have the power to decide claimants' rights to benefit. That last provision goes a long way towards eliminating the right of appeal.
  In effect, the measure is another Bill in that centralising and authoritarian mould that has so much been the distinctive hallmark of the Government over the last few years. I want to make it absolutely clear that the Opposition unequivocally reject the revised proposals on SERPS which reduce its value by nearly half—by no less than £12 billion — by the next century. The Secretary of State sought to justify that huge cut by claiming that it is unreasonable to impose such an unsupportable burden—in his view—on our children. It is the Secretary of State's proposals which will be so unfair to our children. Under his proposals our generation will still get the full SERPS pension, unaffected by the Bill, and our children retiring next century will not. They will suffer from all the penalty clauses in the Bill.
  I put the question back to the Secretary of State. Does he think it fair that our children should be forced to support us at the full pension rate of SERPS while we at the same time legislate under the Bill to prevent them having the same advantage? My reading of human nature is that most people are perfectly willing to contribute generously to others as long as they know that they in their turn wi11 get the same advantage. But I also believe that people deeply resent being forced to contribute to others if at the same time they are then denied the same advantages themselves, particularly if those who will be denying them those advantages are those of whom they have been the benefactors. How can the Secretary of State possibly justify that?
  Mr. Fowler: Very easily, if I might say so. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the Bill does not change SERPS for those who are nearest retirement. It is important that that is underlined and that the public understands that no one who retires this century will be affected by these proposals because clearly those who are nearest to retirement will find it most difficult to build up a pension. It gives those who are retiring in the early part of the next century the opportunity to build up a pension of their own. The hon. Gentleman has only to go to the technical annex to see the estimates of those pensions. He will see that the own pension that we are providing for the public is an extremely good deal for the public.
  Mr. Meacher: I shall come to that point because I have evidence to show the exact reverse.
  The Secretary of State talks about people wanting their own pension. What they want is a good pension. It makes

  835
  no difference to them whether it is provided in the state or the private sector. What matters to them is its value. That is the crucial point.
  The Secretary of State has not answered the point that I was making, that we are imposing on our children, about whom he is allegedly so concerned, the burden of supporting those of us who remain within the SERPS scheme at the full level of benefits now, but they will not get that same benefit from their children thereafter. They will be substantially disadvantaged. It is our children who will be the main losers under the Bill.
  Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
  Mr. Meacher: I want to move on. I have a great deal to say.
  We reject the Government's revised SERPS proposals because they will drastically curtail pensioners' living standards next century and because such detrimental action is anyway unnecessary. I say advisedly that it is unnecessary because — I think that this puts it in a nutshell as best I can—in the past 30 years the number of pensioners in Britain has risen by 150 per cent. and their share of total disposable income has doubled from 7 per cent. in 1951 to 15 per cent. in 1985. SERPS sought to increase pensioners' share of disposable income by just 5 per cent. over 40 years—by any standards, a modest goal compared with what has already been achieved since the war. Therefore, I can say with great certitude—we can support this statement—that there is no question but that SERPS is perfectly fundable without any unreasonable strain on the economy. The Government Actuary has produced no projection which suggests otherwise.
  The Secretary of State has sought to make great play today with his claim that by 2035 the burden of pensions on the working population will be too great. But independent experts have suggested that the critical factor is the overall dependency ratio, that is, taking account of the number of children as well as the number of elderly people relative to the working population. That is a fact that the Secretary of State did not take into account. Calculations by Professor Bernard Benjamin of the City university's actuarial science unit show that
  "even on extreme assumptions … the overall dependency ratio will not be much larger than it was in 1951 when, unlike now, manpower was in short supply."
  Mr. Michael Stern: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the Government, however respected the professor is, should base their plans on predictions of the number of children that will be born in 30 years' time?
  Mr. Meacher: That is certainly one answer, but this is an exercise that the Government Actuary, as well as the Secretary of State and anyone who seriously thinks about this, has to take into account. We are talking not just about in 30 years' time but over the next 30 years. Certainly the overall dependency ratio is critical. It is not just the number of workers relative to the number of people in retirement that is important; it is also the other part of the dependent population—children. Estimates have to be made and can be predicted demographically within a margin of error. This is what I am saying and that, I think,
  836
  is right. Therefore, I repeat that the case for any cuts in SERPS, let alone the cut of 50 per cent. in the Bill, has not been made and is unwarranted.
  The changes in the Bill, if carried through, could have a devastating effect. The technical annex of the Green Paper which the Government have issued shows that by the time a man retires, having contributed to modified SERPS throughout his working career from age 16, he will get a pension which will be little more than the present value of the basic pension alone as a percentage of earnings. I repeat that because it is an important assessment. He will get little more than the present value of the basic pension alone as a percentage of earnings. Indeed, the measure of the pension cut in the Bill is that for those remaining in the state scheme the gap between pension and earnings will be made even wider than it is now—
  Precisely what SERPS was intended to remove or reduce.
  The truth is that the Fowler proposals are deliberately designed to make the SERPS scheme so unattractive that it can no longer compete with private pension schemes. That is precisely the message of the tables in the technical annex. In almost every case personal pensions and occupational money purchase schemes yield a better pension than SERPS as modified under the Bill.
  What is so deceitful about the technical annex is that it omits comparisons with the unmodified SERPS— the scheme as it is now. I put down a question to obtain those figures and they were finally given in Hansard on 17 January at column 746. They showed that for most people the present SERPS scheme offers pensions distinctly better than those obtainable in the private sector. That is true even though the technical annex gives illustrative figures for private pensions based on optimistic rates of return over prices of 3 per cent., 3·5 per cent., and 4 per cent. If a more realistic 2 per cent. rate of return is assumed, the figures look worse still for private pensions.
  It is for that reason, because the comparisons with the present SERPS scheme are so bad for the private sector, that the Government are now trying to tilt the balance back by offering a substantial bribe— I repeat "bribe" — to those transferring to private schemes between 1988 and 1993. They are offering a contribution rebate of 2 per cent. of earnings, to be paid for, unjustifiably, by the rest of the working population.
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is simply mistaking the position. Is not the significant point about the table not only the comparison—if the hon. Gentleman takes the rebate plus the 2 per cent. incentive—but that the return on, say, 3·5 per cent., or even less than that, on 3 per cent., for someone aged 60 now who is a low earner, about whom the hon. Gentleman talked, from an occupational or personal pension is not only better compared with modified SERPS but also better compared with full SERPS—the kind of SERPS scheme that he advocates?
  Mr. Meacher: In most instances that is not the case —the only possible exception is the male high earner. That is a distinct category but for most people that is not the case. The right hon. Gentleman has fiddled the figures by assuming a rate of return that is historically unjustified. If we take a more realistic figure and exclude this substantial rise for which the rest of us will have to pay — as we have paid for the discount on council house sales—there is a different picture.
  There is no pension scheme that provides a better pension level for the vast majority of those in it than

  837
  SERPS, especially for women, for long-term unemployed, the sick and disabled and those who are unable to complete a full-time working life. Members of private schemes will no be immune from Fowler's cuts. There is a crucial policy change which is not openly stated in the White Paper or the Bill —the abandonment of the 1979 commitment given by this Government to increase the basic pension in real terms as standards of living rise. The White Paper and the technical annex both assume that the basic pension will be frozen in real terms. Thus if real earnings rise by 1½per cent. annually the basic pension will be no less than halved as a percentage of earnings by the time a 16-year-old reaches retirement. That loss will hit all pensioners whether their second-tier pension comes from SERPS or from a private scheme. The losers will be counted not in millions but in tens of millions.
  The present proposals for the social fund are utterly unacceptable.
  Mr. Freeman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: On the social fund? I do want to move on. I know the hon. Gentleman has considerable interests and when he makes his speech I shall listen attentively. The Secretary of State spoke for 55 minutes and I do not want to do a disservice to the House by taking as long as he did.
  As for the social fund, compared with the present funding of single payments, the budget is being cut back sharply. The Government have not told us by how much and it would be helpful if the Secretary of State would say what the total budget for the social fund will be. I will gladly give way if he will do so. Last year, it was £260 million on single payments. What will the budget be for the social fund? It is a important omission from the Bill and if the Secretary of State will tell us I will gladly give way.
  Mr. Fowler: I have already made it clear to the Select Committee on Social Services. I find it extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should refuse to give way to my hon. Friend but invites me to answer. I have made it clear to the Select Committee, whose Chairman is here, that the decision will be taken later and will be taken in the light of circumstances. There is no mystery about it.
  Mr. Meacher: That is the usual waffle that we have come to expect from the right hon. Gentleman when he is caught in a difficult corner. Leaked documents—they may or may not be correct—have suggested that the figure would be £100 million which represents a 60 per cent. cut. It would be helpful if the Secretary of State would say whether that is true.
  If there are substantial cuts many people in real need will get nothing—even if they do get something it will be in the form of a loan. To repay that loan a claimant will be driven, for the first time by any Government, below the supplementary benefit poverty line. That must drive families deeper into debt. There will be recourse to charities but their incomes are declining. The present social services will be pushed into the role of a secondary poor relief agency, which is not what it should be doing. The social fund, which is discretionary and cash-limited, will move support back into the era of the Poor Law. It is akin to sealing the valve on a pressure cooker while keeping the heat on. I make a prediction that sooner or later, under these proposals, there will be an inevitable explosion.
  838
  There will be no access—unless it is written into the Bill later—to independent appeal by claimants against the decisions of the local Department of Health and Social Security officers. For that reason the normally staid quango the Council on Tribunals is absolutely outraged. In a special report issued a few days ago the council describes the proposals as
  "the most substantial abolition of appeal rights since the council was set up in 1958."
  What the council objects to is not just the loss of the right of appeal but more basically that the officials who administer the fund will not be accountable to anyone.
  The Secretary of State says that, after all, he is in favour of some kind of review. If he has discussed this with the Council on Tribunals, why is it not in the Bill? Why do we have to wait for these matters when it has already been fully discussed?
  Mr. Andrew Bowden: The hon. Gentleman knows my views about tribunals. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that the local officers, the social fund officers—who we all accept will have a difficult task—should have significant flexibility and should be able to use their judgment and experience in studying individual cases? One of the difficulties which I find and which I suspect is shared by many hon. Members is that when cases go to the DHSS and we make special appeals on behalf of constituents, the manager often does not have the necessary flexibility to deal with cases. I hope and believe the social fund officers will have that flexibility.
  Mr. Meacher: I respect the hon. Gentleman's views. The situation has arisen precisely because this concept was tried up until 1980. There was discretion but there was great difficulty in standardising it for the reasons the hon. Gentleman has given in earlier interventions. There then followed S manuals with thousands of loose-leaf pages which changed continually. Untrained clerks found it extremely difficult to operate the system fairly and uniformly throughout Britain. We therefore switched to the system which was brought in by the Government in 1980—a framework of rights. Now we are to switch back. All the disadvantages which persuaded the Government to make the change in 1980 will reappear. This time the difference is that there will not be the amount of money available to show the discretion and flexibility which we all agree is necessary.
  Mr. Favell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No; I must get on.
  Our main objection to the income support proposals is that they divide the poor into the deserving and the undeserving with the unemployed marked out as the undeserving. They are the only major group for whom there is to be no premium. A Policy Studies Institute survey published this month shows that poverty is much more heavily concentrated on unemployed families with children than on any other group within the population. The survey shows that about half of the couples on supplementary benefit run out of money most weeks before their next giro arrives. More than half have experienced acute anxiety about money problems. More than half, both parents and children, were missing items from a basic wardrobe and more than half were in debt. Yet it is on this group that some of the heaviest losses are being concentrated.

  839
  Indeed, I read in the papers that the Secretary of State is even pursuing this group to the point that he is close to an agreement with the building societies to stop their mortgage interest payments being met when they are forced to claim supplementary benefit. That is gratuitously callous and can only lead to eviction and homelessness. Other key groups in poverty will lose badly under the new income support proposals.
  The technical annex had the gall to suggest that lone parents will gain from the change to the tune of £1·70 a week. That is illustrative of just how tricky a document it is. One must assume that the Government have deceptively taken lone parents with no heating or other additions, no subsidiary housing costs, no single payments and in receipt of short term benefits to arrive at this conclusion. If all of those points were taken into account, there would not be a gain, but a whopping loss of about £13 a week.
  The worst hit will be the disabled who even this Government might have been expected to regard as deserving. A severely disabled person might at present receive a domestic assistance allowance and a diet and heating allowance adding up to something over £56 a week. The Bill would replace that with a premium at a level for a single person of £12·25 or, for a married couple, of £17·45 a week. The loss of £40 to £50 a week for a severely disabled person can be described as little other than catastrophic. It will force a considerable number of disabled people out of their own homes against their will and into institutions. Moreover, the state will incur substantial extra cost in providing residential care costing some £200 to £300 a week. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), the country's first Minister with responsibility for the disabled, will express his great anxiety about these measures.
  The Bill is not about the reform of welfare: it is primarily about cuts in welfare—nearly £1 billion of them, affecting nearly 4 million people, most of them pensioners. Before the Secretary of State disagrees, let me say that there is one tell-tale piece of evidence which reveals the Bill's true nature. Every major welfare Act of the past half century has had at its heart the commitment to promote the welfare of those in need. That was the central message which was stated explicitly in terms in the Unemployment Act 1934, the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act 1940, and was evident in the establishment of the National Assistance Board in 1948 and of the Supplementary Benefits Commission of 1966, and the passing of the Supplementary Benefits Act 1976 and the Government's Social Security Act 1980. It is of the greatest significance, now that discretion is being brought back via the social fund, that for the first time in 50 years any such commitment is completely absent from the Bill. I suggest that the omission is more than symbolic. It is an indisputable sign that the Bill's real meaning is the repudiation of a welfare society in favour of a return to the Victorian traditions of the Poor Law.
  The Bill represents a hallmark of the type of society that the Government really believe in. The Government may claim to believe in owner-occupation for all, but swingeing cuts in housing benefit for poorer owner-occupiers belies that. The Government claim to believe in community care, but the pointed lack of any premium for
  840
  carers and the huge cuts in domiciliary financial support belie that. The Government claim to believe in law and order, yet they produce a social fund which will be a cauldron containing a lethal mix of destitution, despair and, possibly, violence. The Government claim to believe in helping the poorest, yet unemployed families with children and the severely disabled—some of the very poorest people —will be badly penalised by the Bill. The Government claim to believe in incentives, yet the number of families in the poverty trap with a more penal marginal tax rate than company directors will increase by 250,000 under this Bill. The Government claim to believe in the family, yet by insisting on paying family credit to the man through the pay packet they reveal that they are far more concerned to reduce wages than to tackle family poverty.
  This is an unpleasant and damaging Bill, inspired by some of the ugliest Thatcherite instincts. In view of the crumbling erosion and eclipse of Thatcherism which we are now witnessing, there is no future for the Bill. It never had any political mandate and it commands no popular support. If passed, it will be an electoral millstone. Like the Government, it must and will go.
  6.44 pm
  Mr. Francis Pym: It seems clear from the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) that the Bill will generate a great deal of controversy. It certainly includes a great deal of detail on social security and therefore the Committee stage will be extremely important. I had the impression, listening to the two opening speeches, that this Bill is an ideal example of one on which a timetable at the outset would be advantageous.
  I wish to speak not about the details of the Bill, important though they are, but about the broad context of the Bill. In the debate on the Loyal Address, speaking about domestic policies, I referred to the social objective of policy—improving standards of care and service—and the economic objectives of policy—providing that care and service as cost effectively as possible. I referred to the balance that must be struck between those two objectives.
  In the particular field of social security, looking into the future and using the technology that is now available to us, I see those two objectives being brought remarkably close together because it will be possible to organise a much better system and to administer it much more efficiently. Unfortunately, the Bill takes no significant steps in that direction. To be fair to my right hon. Friend, he did not produce the Bill with the intention of making major steps in that direction. I should like to press him to go much further.
  The Bill is essentially a continuation of the constant piecemeal amendment of the methodology that we have had for 40 years. The complexity of the present arrangements has been demonstrated clearly by the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Oldham, West. When the present system was introduced 40 years ago, it was based on clear principles and established facts, beginning with well researched estimates of family means and family budgets. Those estimates had been much discussed for many years. No such estimates exist in contemporary society, however, and no such estimates exist as a background to the Bill.

  841
  The rates of benefit today are the result of decades of ad hoc adjustment and quite a long way removed from any well-researched foundation in fact.
  The Bill is yet another range of adjustments, some beneficial and others not. We know that there are gainers and losers. My right hon. Friend claimed that it represents some fundamental change. I find it very difficult to see how that point of view can be maintained. That is why there will be so much controversy about it. A genuinely fundamental reappraisal is essential in view of the huge social and economic changes and of the huge new opportunities that are now available. My criticisms of my right hon. Friend's Green Paper, his White Paper, and of the Bill are that they provide evidence of the need for a new framework, a new philosophy and new principles to govern our provision of social security in the circumstances of today.
  We know that we are not dealing adequately with poverty. We shall not be able to deal with it adequately until we agree to define it in an up-to-date way. The first requirement of an effective social security system is that it should alleviate poverty and hardship and try to prevent them. That can be done only if benefits are based on objective, up-to-date calculations of the needs and the costs of families of widely varying compositions. No such calculations exist today. I urge my right hon. Friend to set that work in hand. That is an essential preliminary to the creation of a modern, effective social security system.
  There are other requirements, but I will mention only a few. One requirement is a strong and positive incentive to work. An end to the poverty trap is a clear need, because that trap acts as a major disincentive. People must be encouraged to earn, which means that they must be able to enjoy the benefits of their labours. We must discourage state dependence, encourage self-reliance, and make it worth while to work.
  We must promote family life and sound social values. The extent to which we subsidise single mothers and marriage break-ups is a cause of the increasing number of lone parents, which any sound policy and strategy must seek to discourage. I do not speak against their needs, but we require a Bill that encourages families.
  Yet another requirement is that the system must be simple to understand and simple to administer. The present system is neither of those things, because circumstances are much changed. The Bill does not bring about any significant improvement. That is especially shown in part V, and clause 41 in particular, which envisages a collection of rules, which I expect will be indeterminate, uncertain to some extent and capable of different interpretations in different places and in different circumstances. Selectivity is nice in theory, but it has difficulties in practice.
  I wish to make three recommendations to the House as to how we should proceed in future. First, the Government should not rest upon the Bill. They should move forward and institute a review that we can all accept as a major long-term, fundamental review that encompasses all forms of state benefit and all aspects of direct personal taxation. The continued separation of those elements is a main cause of the present complexity and incoherence. There must be a planned relationship between benefits and personal taxation. I should like those elements to be integrated, but if it is proved that that is going too far, there must at least be a planned relationship. I believe that intégration is possible and will prove to be the correct policy.
  842
  All benefits and personal taxes should be the responsibility of one Department. I am aware that there is considerable resistance to that proposal, which is perhaps human, because Departments have their own interests. However, that resistance must be dispelled.
  The process of taking money from those thought capable of affording it by means of taxes and of giving benefits to those who are judged to be in need are two sides of the same coin. Today, those processes are still considered separately. It is high time that they were brought together. I do not know whether the Green Paper on personal taxation that is to be introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Budget day will go in that direction, but I hope that it will.
  The review would be appropriate for a Royal Commission, which is out of fashion these days for no good reason except that it might produce a report that did not say what the Government wanted. I do not mind how it is done or what the body is, but we must choose the vehicle that will provide us with the best answer.
  My second recommendation is that the whole approach to the modernisation and recasting of the social security system should be broadly based across the political spectrum. Obviously there will be political argument and controversy, as there should be. However, the objective is to secure maximum public consent. Political differences cannot be eliminated altogether, and I do not suggest that anyone should try to do so, but to allow a major issue to become a party political football would be a negation of statesmanship. Many of our education problems derive from the abandonment of the broad agreement on education that used to exist between the parties. It is sad for our children that that is not true today.
  In social security we deal with the lives and needs of individuals and families. It is our duty to make not only the best provision, but to provide a simple, understandable and stable system which is not subject to constant change as a result of any war between political parties. The British people deserve better than that.
  My final recommendation is that the so-called basic income approach should be taken seriously. That is the most hopeful way forward. A basic income approach or any other approach is not a panacea. There is no panacea. I shall not detain the House by describing the basic income system, with which many hon. Members are familiar. However, the system is simple to understand and to administer. It deals with the poverty and unemployment traps. It alleviates and even prevents poverty. It encourages positive social values and provides an incentive to earn. The system's problem is its cost. If, under careful examination, it is discovered to be too expensive, even a partial basic income scheme would be a huge improvement in modern circumstances.
  I ask for a more far-seeing and far-reaching approach to our social security system. It is time that we stopped tinkering with it. Today's statement on rates shows a fundamental approach to that problem. I wish to see a similar approach in this area. I suspect that some speeches in tonight's debate will contain ample evidence of the need for a totally new approach to this vast and vital topic.
  I should like the review or Royal Commission to conduct its work in public. It will take time for people to grasp the issues involved. It is important that they grasp and understand the issues, because millions of people are directly affected. We wish to take those people with us. It was largely all the discussion and the time and trouble

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  taken in the 1930s and 1940s that led to the extraordinary measure of agreement throughout the country when the welfare state was finally introduced. That is a good principle and a good pattern to follow.
  The process of complete review is long. It lasts for more than one Parliament. I urge my right hon. Friend, in addition to the Bill and all the work he is doing, to make a start on that gigantic process now.
  6.59 pm
  Mrs. Renée Short: The House will have been interested to hear the thoughtful speech of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym), and I am sure that his plea for more time to consider the proposals and to return with better ones will be echoed in the hearts of many people inside and outside the House. Many of the representations that I have received from individuals and an enormous range of voluntary organisations have been highly critical of many of the proposals in the Bill. They also criticised the Green Paper and the previous White Paper.
  As the Secretary of State and the Minister will know, the Select Committee on Social Services has been heavily engaged in examining the proposals for the reform of social security. First, it considered the proposals in the Green Paper, then those in the White Paper and, more recently, the Bill. We were given very little time to carry out that enormous and complicated programme, and only today have we published the minutes of evidence of our session last Wednesday with the Secretary of State and the Minister.
  In our report on the Green Paper, we urged the Secretary of State to prepare his new proposals for reform with great care, giving plenty of time for consultation. The original proposal was that the changes would be implemented in April 1987. Except for maternity and funeral expenses, the period has been extended to April 1988. We are glad that we shall have a little more time for consultation on the operational details, but I wonder why the Government are rushing ahead with the Bill. It seems to be undue haste since more time has been given for consultation.
  The Bill affects many areas of policy and will be affected by other changes. The proposals to reform the rating system may have a major impact on housing benefit; payment of family credit through the wage packet will be affected by the long-awaited proposals for the reform of personal taxation; the proposed worrying changes in students' entitlement to benefit must be related to the student grant, which is the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science; and other proposals seem to conflict with Government policy on home ownership and housing improvement. The Government do not seem to have taken those interactions fully into account, but since they have more time to consider the matter, they can do so.
  The first part of the Bill deals with pensions. Despite the Select Committee's firm recommendation that legislation on pensions should be delayed pending further consultations, the Government are pressing ahead. We have had only 44 days to examine the completely new proposals put forward in the White Paper for a modified
  844
  SERPS. Those changes will have effects well into the next century, so they must be properly thought out and proper time must be given for this.
  It is disappointing that the Bill contains no proposal for a flexible age for retirement. I remind the House that, four years ago, the Select Committee produced a report on the age of retirement which proposed that we should work towards flexible retirement based on a notional pension age of 63 for both sexes. At the time, the Government accepted our recommendation. Why does not the Bill contain some provision for it? I hope that this matter will be raised in Committee. If the Government shilly-shally for too long, the European Commission might have something to say about it. I hope that they will take the point on board, because I know that the Secretary of State has received much critical comment on the matter.
  The Bill also deals with income-related benefits. In our report on the Green Paper, we welcomed the broad structure proposed by the Government, provided that it gave people adequate weekly incomes as of right. But we pointed to some areas that needed further thought. The Government have modified some of their proposals in the light of recommendations from the Select Committee and from outside organisations. We are pleased that all couples will now receive the over-25 rate of income support and that families with more than one disabled child will receive an extra family premium for each disabled child.
  The Government have expressed their determination to do more to help families with children. We welcome the proposal for a family premium for families on income support. Unemployed families with children are the poorest in our so-called prosperous society, and the Prime Minister should give some attention to that section of our community. However, assuming, as the Bill does, a family premium of £5·75, the Government's figures suggest that families on income support will, on average, gain only £1·40 a week. That takes no account of what they will lose after the abolition of single payments. If the Government want the family premium to go a long way to helping poor families with children, they must put it at a much higher level than £5·75. I hope that they will be more generous.
  The Government hope to help low-income families by replacing family income supplement with family credit. The fact that it is based on net income and so will avoid the worst of the poverty trap has been welcomed. But more controversial is the fact that it will be paid through the wage packet—so usually to the father rather than to the mother — not to the parent who has primary responsibility for the children. I hope that we can persuade the Secretary of State to reconsider that proposal.
  The Government have expressed the admirable intention of doing more for the disabled. The Select Committee welcomed the idea of a disability premium for disabled people on income support. However, we voiced our concern about severely disabled people, who at present may receive £20 or £30 a week in additional requirement payments. It cannot be right that they should have to go to the social fund for their everyday needs. I hope that the Secretary of State will reconsider our proposal for a two-tier disability premium.
  The Select Committee was also worried that disabled people who do not receive severe disability or long-term incapacity benefits will be ineligible for the disability premium. It may not be a large group, but it is important

  845
  that those people do not lose out. I hope that the Secretary of State will change the rule, because it will adversely affect the disabled.
  It is disappointing that the income support proposals do not take more account of the needs of pregnant women. In several reports, the Select Committee has shown its anxiety about the widening gap between the perinatal mortality rates for classes I and V. Mothers on income support will get less to cover their maternity needs than at present: they will receive about £75 from the social fund instead of the £25 universal maternity grant and, on average, about £60 in single payments. I hope that the Secretary of State will reconsider the amount of help that can be given with maternity expenses.
  In its report on the Green Paper, the Select Committee gave a cautious welcome to the idea of a social fund, while stressing that it needed much more consideration. That criticism still applies. Claimants can now apply for grants to meet special needs, but under the social fund they will be replaced largely by loans. That has serious implications for poor families. For many years, in my constituency, poor families have been helped to get the basic necessities of life by the understanding and speedy action of the DHSS officers in Wolverhampton. I pay a warm tribute to them for their unfailing help and for doing their best for many distressed, anxious and bewildered people, coping with what to them appeared to be insuperable problems. Those officers must be allowed discretion to give grants, not loans, where they believe it appropriate. I hope the Secretary of State will take that point on board as well. To enforce repayment of these loans is a retrograde step, and I hope the Secretary of State will think again about that, because to try to get more money out of poor people to repay loans for things they urgently needed to retain their quality of life seems inhumane.
  It is said that the Government's proposals for the reform of housing benefit will produce a better and simpler system and will save something like £450 million. The proposals have been drawn up without a proper comprehensive review of housing costs, and the rent and rates rebate system has been considered in isolation and without looking at taxation, rent levels or housing policies generally. That also seems to be a retrograde step.
  This is the second time in five years that major changes in housing benefit have been introduced without proper analysis of the needs involved. Many of the Government's proposals will involve employers in the administration of social security allowances for their employees. Employers will pay out family credit and statutory maternity allowance and will be concerned with employers' contributions for personal pensions. That involvement is highly objectionable to many people including, it seems, the members of the CBI who sent a sharp note to the Secretary of State. How will the Secretary of State take all these objections on board?
  Some of the proposals contained in the Bill are good and some of them are extremely bad. A great deal remains unclear. Most of the important changes are not spelt out in the Bill, but will have to be brought in at a later stage, presumably by regulations and by subordinate legislation. So much is unknown and uncertain in the Bill, which relies on what has gone before in Green and White Papers, that in many respects the House is being asked to sign a blank cheque. That cannot be accepted and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to express their anxiety.
  7.11 pm
  Mr. Roy Galley: We on the Government Benches must welcome the two contributions from the Opposition Benches. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) has given a balanced speech based on the work of the Select Committee. The hon. Lady put forward a carefully constructed catalogue of criticisms. Nevertheless, she said that some parts of the Bill are good, and that is a welcome admission from the hon. Lady. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) would have been better advised to take the more balanced approach of the hon. Lady. As usual, he rather over-egged the pudding and on the basis of his performance one feels that as long a the Welsh windbag and the Lancashire loony loom large upon the Opposition Front Bench, England need not tremble because not enough people will be foolish enough to cast their votes for such a concoction of Opposition spokesmen.
  In a balanced debate, there has to be an admission to the good things in this Bill. There has to be a major improvement in the net income assessment as a common criterion for many of the benefits. I welcome the alleviation of the poverty and unemployment trap with the abolition of marginal rates of taxation of 100 per cent. and more. One must also welcome the considerable additional help for those who are seriousluy sick, and a fair income support system that will be more readily understood and a direct help to those most obviously in need.
  The Bill proposes a more equitable and more easily understood housing benefits system. Family credit will have a better chance of helping many low-income families and will allow greater scope for trying to increase and improve the take-up of that benefit. Many considerable advantages will flow from this Bill and one must welcome also the genuine consultation exercise. My right hon. Friend has taken on board many of the points made to him. It is a tribute to him that he has made such a major change on SERPS between the Green Paper and the Bill. He has taken on board a number of the points made in the Select Committee report, in particular the point about a higher rate of benefit for under-25-year-olds with children on income support, and the separate rate and rent tapers in the housing benefits scheme.
  Having given that general welcome to the Bill, I should like to mention two aspects about which I have an axe to grind. Obviously, under any form of supplementary benefit it is difficult for people to make ends meet. Although, in terms of total national income, our social security system is exceedingly generous, single pensioners often have difficulty in making ends meet. There has to be a considerable differential between single and married pensioners, but very often single pensioners have much the same overheads for housing and heating and general maintenance as a two-person household. Of course their housing costs are taken fully into account when they are entitled to supplementary benefit, but there are other inelastic overheads which cause single pensioners to have a rather harder time.
  My right hon. Friend will say that the single person's pension is 60 per cent. of the married couple's pension, and that that general principle operates throughout the system. He will also point to the premium arrangements in the Bill which suggest that a little more will be given to the single pensioner household with premium rating. It

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  may now be opportune to look more carefully at the income coming into a single household and into a two-person household to make sure that we have got it right for single people.
  The Green Paper proposed a presence test for those in receipt of income support. It said there should be a nationality and/or residence qualification for the receipt of benefit. That proposal has been omitted from the White Paper and the Bill and I hope that my right hon. Friend will reconsider that omission. In some respects this is a complex area and one needs to deal with the differing circumstances of settlement and of visits. For people settled here, either permanently or for extended periods, we have reciprocal arrangements with a series of countries and there are special arrangements within the EEC. The special EEC arrangements apply to the employed, the self-employed and national insurance pensioners.
  Specific benefits, primarily contributory benefits and some disablement benefits, are covered by the agreements. There are no legal requirements to give the main non-contributory benefits, primarily supplementary benefits, to EEC nationals in Great Britain. There is also a series of reciprocal agreements with non-EEC countries, which vary in detail from one agreement to another. In the main, they apply to contributory benefits and seek to protect contribution records and entitlements as people move from work in one country to work in another. Noncontributory and income-related benefits are not usually within the scope of these reciprocal agreements, so that in principle a presence test would not conflict with the reciprocal agreement.
  With the exception of people covered by reciprocal agreements, it would not normally be possible for people coming here to settle to obtain contributory benefits, unless such people were the dependants of people who had an adequate national insurance contributions record. The main benefits where a presence test could be applied will be non-contributory benefits, primarily income suport. One may be able to extend that to housing benefit, family credit and one or two other benefits.
  In principle, supplementary benefit is available, as income suppport will be in future, to anyone in Great Britain who satisfies normal conditions for eligibility. It is wrong that someone should be allowed to settle here and that the long-suffering British taxpayer should have to pick up the tab for benefit immediately on his arrival. There are arrangements for the sponsorship of entrants to the country where a person or persons can give undertakings to maintain the sponsee. Such arrangements are by no means universal. One way to apply a presence test might be to make such arrangements compulsory and universal if the entrant is not able to maintain himself.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many dependants come to this country to stay legally with relatives who give an undertaking to maintain them while they are living here but who later find, because of low pay or because they have to live on benefit themselves, that they are unable to maintain their dependants? Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that we should condone penury and poverty because of the application of immigration laws to social security legislation?
  Mr. Galley: What I am saying is that it seems unreasonable that many people should, on arrival on our shores, be able to claim immediately supplementary benefit and that the British taxpayer should have to pick up the tab. Alternative arrangements are possible. Sponsorship would be one way of coping with the difficulty. Many countries will take no one for settlement without a work permit. So we have a much more generous system than other countries.
  Mr. Corbyn rose—
  Mr. Galley: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed with my argument, I may be able to answer some of the points which he wishes to raise.
  In general, visitors to this country or overseas students cannot obtain benefit, but that rule has not been applied to all EEC nationals. A limited number of supplementary benefit payments have been made to EEC nationals, although the number has been reduced in recent years. Stricter rules are in operation to stop abuse and only to allow the payment of benefit to those seeking work.
  Visitors should not be able to obtain benefit paid for by the taxpayer when there is no appropriate reciprocal arrangement. If people are genuine visitors, they should be self-supporting. If they are seeking work, they should be sent back home because we do not have enough jobs for all our people who want work. There is no apparent legal reason to give a non-contributory benefit to a casual visitor from the EEC or elsewhere. There may be cases where exceptions should be made—for example, with political refugees—but usually it will be possible to deal with exceptions under the regulations covering urgent cases.
  People have been rightly resentful when scandals have arisen—as, for example, with holidaymakers from the EEC who have claimed benefit during a holiday in this country, and the recent case of the wealthy Nigerian family who were maintained for a time at the ratepayers' expense. The Bill provides an opportunity to clarify the law and to make a blanket legal requirement that someone should be resident here for at least 12 months before being able to claim benefit, unless he is covered by appropriate reciprocal agreements.
  It may be argued that that would put us in bad odour with our European partners, but, as I have demonstrated, we have no legal duty on non-contributory benefits. It may be argued that it would be administratively expensive, but surely it could not be more expensive than the labyrinthine regulations which exist already. It may be argued that such a rule would leave this country open to accusations of racism. That could not be sustained, because the rules would apply whatever the nationality of the person concerned. They would apply to all visitors; they would apply to that half of settlers who come from the old Commonwealth and foreign countries as well as to that half who come from the new Commonwealth.
  I urge my right hon. Friend to insert in the Bill a provision for a presence test, at least for income support and preferably for a wider range of benefits. That would simplify the system and would be fairer to the British taxpayer.
  7.24 pm
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:

  849
  "this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which seeks to reform pension policy without first securing an all party consensus on the proposals; which, whilst reducing the long-term cost implications of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme, fails to reflect adequately the pension requirements of the low paid and to increase the state retirement pension; which cuts housing benefit whilst at the same time requiring claimants to meet 20 per cent. of their rates bills; which introduces the concept of a cash limited social fund involving local discretion and no right of appeal; and which fails to make sufficient progress towards the integration of the tax and benefit systems."
  I wish to explain why the Liberals and the Social Democrats are asking the House to decline to give a Second Reading to the Bill. The reasons are stated ad longam on the Order Paper. That enables me to make a shorter speech.
  Two principal items in our reasoned amendment were referred to effectively by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) when he talked about the need for consensus and for a fundamental review, following the logic of his argument, of the integration between the tax and benefit systems. Obviously the right hon. Gentleman has been called away urgently to the Dining Room, but I shall use my best offices to make sure that the Committee of Selection nominates him to the Standing Committee which will deal with the Bill. There is obviously a great deal of competition to become a member of the Standing Committee. I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman being able to expand on both those points more eloquently and with more experience than I could in Committee.
  The reasoned amendment is not exhaustive, otherwise a much longer Order Paper would have been needed to accommodate it. The revision and modification of the state earnings-related pensions scheme are being done to the prejudice of the lower paid and some other disadvantaged groups. The state retirement pension is not at an adequate subsistence level, as it should be; steps should be taken to put that right. If we had been in a position to influence matters, we would have given that high priority.
  In the amendment we have referred to cuts in housing benefit, to the requirement to meet 20 per cent. of the rates bill of people on supplementary benefit, and to the social fund being cash limited, discretionary and not subject to appeal. All those important items have been referred to in the debate.
  In the context of the background of the Government —the House is entitled to draw conclusions from this—I am intrigued that in 1982, before the election, quite spirited public debates took place about Conservative views on the development of what was then called family policy. Views were expressed in the Cabinet policy review committee and the family policy unit at No. 10 about how the Conservatives were dealing with the public expenditure problems. Only a few short months later we had an election, but the Conservative manifesto did not face up to some of the important questions that were being asked. Some of the issues were ducked.
  As soon as the election was over reviews were instituted by the Secretary of State. We supported the reviews as far as they went, although we were anxious because they were to be nil cost reviews. As a result of the reviews this Bill has been brought forward which will insinuate all the reforms neatly within one parliamentary Session, if the Secretary of State is lucky. He has come here beating his chest like Tarzan—it is a pity about the spectacles—and talking about the consultation process. A lot of paper was moved around, but many people felt that it was one-way
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  traffic with very little being given by the Government. Although the Government may well have been listening, there has been no exchange of views. The conclusion that the House may draw from the way the reform is being done is that the Secretary of State is afraid of an election.
  The main changes are to be implemented in April 1988. Why does not the Secretary of State get the Bill on the statute book and leave it? Why does he not fight the election on the basis of the Bill and implement it afterwards? Nobody could then say to him that there had been some evasion of these very difficult issues — I agree that they are difficult issues—at the hustings. If he did that, he would get my support and I would consider what he has to say with greater care.
  I listened very carefully to what the Secretary of State said about the rationalisation of the regulations. It was news to me, and I listened with interest. If it happens, I will welcome it, but the Minister must understand that the Standing Committee will labour under tremendous difficulties because of the lack of detailed regulations. The only way in which the Committee can work sensibly is for the Department to do everything in its power to supply detailed notes on clauses which, as we all know, are of great assistance to the members of the Standing Committee. If he does not do that, the whole thing could become a charade.
  The Secretary of State's aim, stated in his foreword to the White Paper, is to make the system simpler. I do not believe that it is possible to do so, and to achieve better targeting, at no cost. It is a contradiction in terms. An attempt to improve the targeting implies an effort to take individual circumstances into greater account. The Government cannot make the system simpler unless they put more resources into it. We all know—and there may well have been valid reasons for it — that the Government have, if anything, taken resources out of the system in the past six years. So the possibility of simplicity is a chimera. It is impossible to achieve it against a background of no cost. The Secretary of State would receive warmer support from me for much of what he is doing if he were able to lubricate—to put it no higher than that—the wheels of his reform with a little extra money.
  I would add that if the Secretary of State is looking for simplicity he should not be going about de-indexing and reducing child benefit, because if he wants a simple, effective and cheap way of delivering benefit there is no better way than that.
  I turn to a very important point which will be considered again in Committee. The Policy Studies Institute has been looking at the effect of the reforms, with single payments being withdrawn in favour of the income premium, and is very worried about it. At present, on average, families with children gain about £3 a week from single payments. One-parent families get a little less, and pensioners and families without children much less. As I understand the system, table 17B of the technical annex suggests that in future families with children will, on average, gain only £1·40 a week. If we add to this the negative figure of £3 which they receive at present and which will be withdrawn, we end up with a net loss of £1·60 a week.
  The Government are trying to target families with children—they say that they have the greatest need—but

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  because of the way in which the single payments interface with some of the proposals for income support they will achieve precisely the opposite in some circumstances.
  There is evidence that there will be massive regional variations in how this will affect people. A report of the Northern Ireland Assembly shows that, of every 1,000 live cases in Northern Ireland, 720 involved single payments. The average payment was £113 per case. That differs from London, where the figure is only 240 to 250 single payments per live 1,000 cases, and where the average payment is £80. In Scotland, in which I have an interest, 702 live cases out of every 1,000 rely on single payments, and the average payment is £110.
  It is very difficult to deal in averages. The statistical annex is a minefield of trouble when we talk about averages, if we do not take care. I hope that if this sort of regional imbalance shows up, the Government will take steps to deal with people in regions like Northern Ireland —and this Bill is getting precious little attention from hon. Members there; they are apparently interested only in their civil war, as far as I can see. I want the Government's assurance this evening that they will seek to deal with them.
  The system is supposed to be more financially secure in future. I agree with that aim. At the time, in 1975, as the Secretary of State knows, we took the view that we were storing up financial troubles for ourselves in the future. But the Government have adopted a position where they now appear to break the consensus. They seem to be saying that the welfare state is now predicated only on economic growth and development. To some extent, that is true, but the obverse of that argument is that, for social cohesion to persist and for the economy to have the advantage and benefit of that social cohesion, some resources will have to be put in. Yet the general tone and tenor of the Government and the way in which they have acted in the past does not augur well for that.
  We will look at the pensions proposals very carefully. The modification of SERPS is not my preferred solution, but I give the Secretary of State my assurance that in the course of debates in other places we will deal with it as constructively as possible. On the social fund, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), the Committee on Tribunals has the most authoritative argument that I have seen against the present refusal of the Government to have some sort of inbuilt, independent appeal system. As I read the document, it appears to me that the present proposal goes as far as saying that ministerial accountability will be denied. That is to say, if I have a constituent whose case is reviewed locally and is given a duff decision, I cannot complain to the Minister. If that really is the case, we are in trouble. I should like the Minister to clear this up when he replies to the debate.
  Turning to the 20 per cent. rates contribution, I deliberately sat through the statement on the Green Paper this afternoon and I listened very carefully to what was said, because the Secretary of State, dealing with questions when the Green Paper was produced, implied very strongly that everything would sort itself out in the wash and that we should not worry about it too much because the changes in train for local government
  852
  financing would deal with that point. I heard nothing this afternoon to make me any more sanguine that people on supplementary benefit will not be lambasted by this.
  The clause on this subject should not be in the Bill. Arguments about local accountability are fine. Local accountability is important, and we should deal with it, but not in this Bill, not through social security. There are other ways which can be pursued in other places. It is iniquitous to include it in the Bill
  The most important thing is consensus. It is certainly crucial in the pensions industry. There has been much argument about whether there should be two separate Bills and about the way in which some of the changes have been brought forward without proper discussion in the industry, particularly the new 2 per cent. bribe that was foisted on us. However, I give the Treasury Bench an assurance that in the course of discussions I will seek to be as constructive as possible, because if we cannot achieve agreement on the system we shall not get agreement on benefits. One party may well think that more resources should be devoted to this; another party may feel that fewer should be given. I will bend over backwards to help achieve consensus because it is in everyone's interest to do so.
  7.38 pm
  Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I regret that I cannot give a welcome to the Bill. Of course, there are many good things in it. The Secretary of State and the Minister of State are good Conservatives, good Christian Democrats, on whom, as the House knows, we can all rely for their humanity and competence in everything that they do. But it seems to me that the ship of Cabinet solidarity has beached them, in this Bill, back at Speenhamland, and I am very reluctant to follow them there. They seem to me to have got stuck. I predict that it will not be long before Parliament has to come back to the whole subject, even if this Bill goes through significantly amended and improved.
  I realise that my right hon. and hon. Friends will not like what I have to say, but at least I hope they will agree that I have the merit of consistency. I intend to abstain on Second Reading of the Bill and, unless it is drastically amended in the course of its further progress, I shall have no choice but to vote against it on Third Reading.
  I object to the underlying principle on which the Bill is constructed. It seems to be quite inconsistent with the Government's own major aims, which we on the Government Benches all support. It also has practical effects which I believe will be particularly adverse to the types of people of whom we have large numbers living in Kensington. These are people who probably would never consider voting for me, so what they may think about the Government perhaps is not of direct relevance, but I am their Member of Parliament, and I must speak up for them.
  I hope that I may be chosen to serve on the Standing Committee, although I have substantial criticisms to make of the Bill.
  Mr. Frank Field: So have we.
  Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: The value of the work of the House is diminished if hon. Members who do not always act as they are directed by the Departments and do not speak on behalf of particular outside interests are regularly excluded, as I have been in recent years, from the work of its major Committees.

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  The Bill has been advertised as a major reform, and so we have to go back to the basic principles of the redistribution of income. What is the basis of entitlement? We have been over this ground often. Entitlement can be based on need, on a record of contributions or on citizenship. The Conservative party in 1974 and again in its manifesto for the election of 1979 chose citizenship. It chose the scheme which used to be known as the tax credit scheme and what I now call the BIG idea—the basic income guarantee. It supported the idea of one nation in benefit, one nation in taxation. There are many critics of the tax credit or basic income guarantee scheme. They say that it cannot be brought in until the computerisation programme of the Inland Revenue and the DHSS has been completed. Of course, that programme of computerisation could be enormously simplified and accelerated if we got clear our thinking on the subject of the redistribution of income before we put in the computers, instead of afterwards. Therefore, I do not accept that excuse.
  There is also no doubt whatever that a basic income guarantee scheme could be introduced on a strictly revenue-neutral basis. It is not true that it has to be postponed to the Greek kalends because it is too expensive and the country cannot afford it. There is no reason why a basic income guarantee could not be introduced in the first instance on a purely revenue-neutral basis. What happened to it in due course could be a matter for the balance of opinion in Britain between taxpayers and beneficiaries as to what would be the right measure of redistribution of income as time goes by.
  In the Bill my right hon. Friends pay lip service to the idea of contributions as the basis of entitlement, but in fact the Bill is relying on evidence of need as the principal basis of claim. I find that quite unacceptable. It seems to me to constitute a U-turn by the Conservative party which might be described as the revolt of the strong against the weak.
  Selectivity, I know, seems the best way to reduce the marginal rate of taxation while still coping adequately with the relief of hardship; but it has well-known disadvantages. To what extent have my right hon. and hon. Friends been able to overcome them in the Bill?
  First, it is divisive because it tends to separate those in need from those in work. It is disincentive, because as a person works to better himself, he runs into very high effective rates of deduction from earnings. It makes thrift unprofitable because saving renders a person ineligible for benefit. As it depends largely on personal casework, it relies on an element of discretion, that is to say, the means test. which may lead to inequality of treatment and real injustice, possibly hardship in certain cases. Also, of course, particularly in the face of Government propaganda for people to stand on their own two feet, it is humiliating for those who have to admit that they have fallen short of self-reliance.
  Have my right hon. Friends, has the Department, coped adequately with these well-known difficulties? They have produced palliatives, some of which are ingenious, but I do not think that the Bill meets the underlying problems inherent in the principle which they have allowed to creep in.
  As to the immediate problems of the welfare state, I have drawn attention very often — hon. Members on both sides of the House have done so—to the fact that for the moment we have some 8 million people who are reliant on supplementary benefit. Is the figure higher than that now? That is two nations with a vengeance.
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  We have to do something about this situation. We cannot wait until 1988 or afterwards. We have a huge and increasing black economy. We have a steady loss of sense of community. We have a breakdown of social discipline. We know all these things in the type of inner city constituency which I represent. We have a rising generation lacking in motivation except towards crime.
  I do not think that the Bill will alter this underlying situation at all. We also have the administrative problems which are leading to virtual breakdown, in spite of the dedication of people working in the DHSS offices, of the existing system. It is a matter of urgency to tackle this.
  Some time ago in a parliamentary answer I learnt that the DHSS has to make more than 90 million manual entries every week in the administration of supplementary benefit and national insurance. It has hived off housing benefits to local authorities, but that reform has still not proved itself to be an administrative success. Now they are bringing employers into the system in the Bill. From the answers that my right hon. and hon. Friends gave in the Social Services Committee on 22 January, which I think should be brought to the attention of all Members who are interested in the subject, it is clear that the administrative problems of this reform are still unsolved. In the Bill there is much too much reliance on subsequent orders which is another way of increasing the powers of the Executive and diminishing the power of the House. I do not welcome that. We ought to have been given the solutions to the problems, not merely an indication that they will be solved somehow outside our field of view.
  Today we had a very important statement on the reform of the rates, which I welcome most warmly. However, it seems to me that it will have the effect of bringing millions of small contributors into the rating system. I am sure that will prove impossible unless we have a simultaneous move to the integration of taxation and benefit in some kind of basic income guarantee system.
  I wish to say a few words about family stability. The House must be concerned about that. It is not a party issue. I think that returning the payments for children to the wage earners rather than to the mother is a blunder in the Bill. I have seen the defence of this idea which my right hon. and hon. Friends have produced. I cannot accept it. For one thing, there are 7 million reasons why it is a bad idea politically. Apart from that, it is a bad idea intrinsically, and we should stick to the principle that the child benefit belongs to the child but is drawn by whichever parent is directly responsible for the maintenance and care of the child, or by the responsible authority, as the case may be. I do not think it is progressive to put the money back into the pay packet.
  We still have the problem that single people will gain at the expense of married couples: two single people living together will do better than if they decide to go through a form of union. I also think that the Government are wrong to retreat from their commitment to maintain child benefit and to continue to make it payable to the mother. As this is something on which much has been said before, I will not elaborate on it.
  The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): The White Paper is explicit, as was the Green Paper, that child benefit, as defined, will continue to be paid to the mother.
  Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: The Government's policy, plainly, is to phase out child benefit and to rely on

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  benefits related to need, not to universal benefits. My hon. Friend tries to assure me that that is not so, but I am not confident that I can rely on his assurance. [Interruption.] I am not saying that my hon. Friend is not saying what he believes in good faith. He is not the type of Minister with whom anyone would quarrel on the grounds that he did not speak in good faith.
  Last year, when the Government decided not to continue with the uprating of child benefit in line with rises in the real value of the tax allowance from which child benefit took over, that was the first break. Nothing that my right hon. Friends and hon. Friends have said since leads me to assume that from now on child benefit will continue to move upward in accordance with changes in GDP, as I should prefer, or of families' real cost of living.
  On the subject of incentives, from a hasty analysis of the Bill it seems that the low-paid in many cases will be worse off than they are now. I realise that if we rely on selectivity we must try to produce clear water between what people receive if they are not working and what they receive when they go out to work, even with low wages. The Government are seeking to raise the tax thresholds, which is understandable, but, simultaneously, they must rely on the reduction in the real levels of benefit to produce that clear water. With that policy, there is a danger of social instability and even explosions, of which we have had too many in recent months. We do not want to create further circumstances in which people will feel alienated from the rest of society.
  What the Bill proposes with regard to housing benefit means cutting much too fast a benefit which I admit has also grown much too fast. One could say much more about the way the increase in housing benefit has led to rent increases; but cutting housing benefit too fast will not bring down rents simultaneously. It will merely cause severe hardship to thousands of people in inner London. I represent many of those people. I believe that the reform will still not be acceptable even if it is postponed until 1988. That is relevant to inner city areas such as north Kensington, but I dare say that it is also relevant to many other areas elsewhere with high rents.
  Mrs. Hermione Parker has done some analytical work on the Bill's effects which hon. Members should study. Cuts in housing benefit will be felt, in particular, in the areas of highest rents. The Bill represents a redistribution of income from householders to non-householders and away from inner cities in favour of areas where rents and rates are lower. How can the hon. Member for Kensington support such a measure?
  I should like to say a few words about the state earnings-related pension scheme and the reform of occupational pensions. The Bill contains some helpful moves in directions which I have advocated for a long time, and I welcome them. However, I made my maiden speech in 1968 on the importance of the transferability of existing pension rights in occupational pension schemes. I might have been depressed had I known that 20 years later we should have made virtually no progress on the transferability of existing accrued rights.
  I have pointed out to my right hon. Friends that that movement could have been stimulated by tax changes without any breaches in the basic undertakings under which occupational pension schemes have been set up; but they have preferred not to follow that advice. I am sorry
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  to say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer appears to have truckled to the life offices. I regret that.
  With regard to future benefits in the private sector, the move towards the liberalisation of the provision of occupational pension schemes is excellent and one of the Bill's best features, but it should be based on a core of money purchase entitlement. I am always suspicious when I see the introduction of money transfer systems under which some people gain more than they should on the basis of their contribution record, because somewhere we shall find a corresponding element which is not getting what it has paid for.
  The basic core scheme should be related directly to contributions—contributions which are enough. What do we find? Employers' contributions in the private sector will be a statutory 2 per cent. only. Many employers will pay much more and indeed already do. Many employees also make their own contributions to the schemes. In the public sector, however, the value of the Government's contribution is about 17·5 per cent. in addition to incomes. That produces a satisfactory rate of pension, but where will we get if the employers' rate of contribution in the private sector is only 2 per cent.? The employers' contribution should be at least 10 per cent. It already is, because at present the employers' national insurance contribution is 10·45 per cent. That money should not just flow into the Exchequer as part of general revenue: it should be seen as the employers' contribution, in addition to wages, to their employees' retirement benefits. Without adequate contributions, the benefits cannot be sufficient to meet social needs.
  In all the circumstances, I think that it would be better if my right hon. and hon. Friends were to withdraw the Bill and give the subject a great deal more study. However, if the Secretary of State is not disposed to do that, I hope that he will be willing to make major changes to diminish the worst of its damaging effects.
  7.56 pm
  Mr. Tom Pendry: The House has listened to a brave and cogently argued speech from the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams). I shall begin by agreeing with a few basic and obvious truths. I might as well get my accord with the Secretary of State out of the way as quickly as possible. Yes, the case for reform of social security benefits is overwhelming; yes, few people in Britain can be happy with the present system; and, yes, the present system is too complex to be understood by the majority of people. Overlapping benefits also baffle most hon. Members.
  However, no one should be in any doubt that the Government's proposals have anything to do with trying to rectify or remedy those complexities. They are about saving money, in line with the Government's general policy, and doing so at the expense of the poor.
  The Bill is an expression of the views of the most Rightwing elements within the Tory party. The main thrust of the Government's proposals is the antithesis of Beveridge's proposals and the major tenets of post-war social security legislation. It is right that Beveridge's assumptions were challenged, revised and adapted in legislation by successive Governments in line with the shift of the social patterns of the 1960s and 1970s. We should be doing the same in the 1980s. Life at the time of Beveridge was different from life today. Divorce was rare,

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  married women in employment were rare, and illegitimate births were not commonplace. It is not surprising, therefore, that in 1986 the Government should be looking at changes in social behaviour and patterns and adapting legislation accordingly.
  The role of women in society has changed, there are more one-parent families and increased unemployment, but the Bill is almost antediluvian. It is not in line with those changes. The Bill's assumptions must be challenged. The prime function of social security legislation should not be the relief of poverty. At best, one could say that the Government may be trying to do that, but Opposition Members would argue that the proposals increase poverty. More should be done to prevent poverty and to provide an adequate level of income sufficient for a recipient to live a confident, self-respecting way of life.
  Many aspects of the Bill spell bad news for millions of people. I shall focus on some of the concerns of my constituents. Recently, my local authority, Tameside council, carried out an extensive survey on how the many provisions of the Bill would affect the plight of many of my constituents. We have heard about the plight of old-age pensioners, single parents, and others. Hon. Members might not yet have referred to the plight of students, but I hope they will before the end of the debate.
  The Tameside survey revealed the little short of catastrophic effect on many of the people living in my area. In view of the Government's overt support for home owners, is it not ironic that they are targeted for a special cut? They will lose £1·85 per week, which is paid as an addition to cover insurance and repairs. In Tameside about 5,800 owner-occupiers will be affected. Between 1984 and December 1985, 150 evictions among the same group took place because of mortgage foreclosure —300 per cent. up on the figures for the past three years. For a party that purports to be the party of the family, the Conservative party has an odd way of showing it.
  Recently, the value of child benefit was cut by 5 per cent., which was a reduction of 35p a week per child, or £18·20 a year. My constituency has about 50,000 children, and the loss to the children and to Tameside's local economy will be about £900,000 a year.
  The family credit scheme is hardly an adequate substitute. The Secretary of State has mentioned that two out of every five families who need extra support will not get it.
  The problem in providing free school meals for low-income families is that, unless the family receive these meals because of their low income, only those who claim credit will receive any financial compensation. Only 22 per cent. of the parents in my constituency who claim free school meals—those not on supplementary benefit—receive family income supplement. Families with parents who are sick, disabled, widowed or divorced will lose out, as their income will be above the income support level. We know that Tameside and other councils are providing meals for these children. From 1988, my council and others will be forbidden to help.
  The Secretary of State has said that proper help will be available from the social fund to help low-income families, but this help will have to be from a fixed budget, and at the discretion of the Department of Health and Social Security, with no right of appeal.
  The Secretary of State did go a little way towards meeting our case today, and I hope to persuade him to set up a proper appeals machinery. The Tameside welfare
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  rights unit is extremely successful in appealing on behalf of my constituents against decisions of the DHSS. According to its last annual report, it had a 76 per cent. success rate on behalf of people living in Tameside.
  What will happen to these people in the future? Without an appeal system, who will give the unit the £230 for removal costs that it got for one of its claimants, the £104·30 for clothing that it got for another, or the £538 owed by the DHSS to a claimant to have electricity reconnected? What about the sums in excess of £100 for furniture? Without the appeals system, the unit argues that these people will be left empty-handed.
  If extra support is needed for families who are not in work, will the levels of the new income support scheme be sufficient to cover all the needs of women who have recently given birth, and their babies? This category is one of the groups to whom Tameside welfare rights unit frequently give advice. Sums secured from the DHSS average £150 per claimant. Will those people be given this help in future? Maternity grant of £75 is less than half what is needed. In a take-up campaign in my area to assist people to purchase bedding, 2,378 people received an average of £50 each—812 people in Hyde, one part of my constituency, alone.
  The Secretary of State has argued that he intends to increase help for families with more than one disabled. child, and that special attention is being given to disabled people. I would ask him how one of my constituents will feel who has ill health. She has been treated for malnutrition, is not actually disabled, but needs extra heating and a special diet. The costs add up to £17·55 per week.
  The family of a child with severe digestive problems receive £17·69 per week. They are not unusual in that the disability from which their daughter suffers means that they need extra heating, special diet and help with laundry because of incontinence and replacement clothes.
  I could go on, but I should like to draw to the attention of the Minister some of the proposals in relation to housing benefit, because the situation there is no better. A constituent of mine, who lives in Welbeck road in Hyde, is 52 years of age and receiving supplementary benefit. She was signing on as unemployed and received £29·50 a week supplementary benefit. She has two working daughters, 19 and 18, who earn £32 and £30 a week respectively. The effects of the existing housing benefit cuts since November 1985 mean that these two daughters are now assumed to contribute £10·40 per week each towards housing costs. They are respectively £5 a week and £4 a week worse off than they would have been if they had given up their jobs and claimed benefit. That is what the Secretary of State says he is trying to prevent.
  The Bill will make no difference to the poverty trap of my constituent and her two daughters. Indeed, it will make the situation worse. Her benefit will increase from £29·50 to £30·60, out of which she will have to pay water rates, and 20 per cent. of her domestic rates. I wrote to the Secretary of State on 27 November last year to outline the absurdities of the housing benefit scheme which this case reflects. An answer was received on 16 January this year to say that inquiries are taking longer than expected.
  I believe this is not an isolated case. We must have an explanation, and fast, and I hope that the Minister, when he winds up this debate, will give us an assurance that these absurdities will be ironed out in the near future. I know that some of these constituency cases can be tedious,

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  but I make no apologies for bringing specific cases to the attention of the House, because we on this side of the House live in the real world, not in the fantasy world of the Secretary of State. Therefore, this is not something which I regret.
  Clearly, the Bill targets when the next general election will take place—the autumn of 1987. No Government with any sense will go to the country after the effects of the Bill have been felt by the millions of people who are going to be made worse off as a result.
  The Opposition must step up our campaign and ensure that every person affected by the Bill knows what will happen as soon as the Conservatives return to power—if they do. That is the size of our challenge. I am sure that my colleagues agree that we shall take up that challenge. We have to put across the message that we are going back to the days of the Poor Law and the soup kitchen, when malnutrition was rife and pawnshops were commonplace. It is a disgrace to a country which gave birth to the welfare state that we have to say those things. The best that can be said of the Bill is that it will see the death of this rotten and uncaring Government.
  8.10 pm
  Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: I am grateful for the opportunity to express in broad outline my support for the Government's objectives in the Bill. The comments from both sides of the House show that we are all measuring and judging the Bill by three criteria—our sense of caring, our assessment of needs, and the inevitable yardstick of affordability.
  We are spending £41 billion on this aspect of Government expenditure. Although that figure is always in the newspapers, we should continue to repeat it. It struck me as odd that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) referred, effectively, to a sum of that magnitude as being likened to the cost of a Victorian poor law. The figure of £41 billion may trip off the tongue in this place, but it is in no way Victorian poor law provision.
  If we are honest with ourselves, we know what we mean by "needs". All hon. Members are confronted in their constituencies not necessarily by needs but by expectations. All too often, one gets the uncomfortable feeling that people's expectations are in danger of destroying the very base from which those expectations can be delivered. The fairy story of the goose that laid the golden eggs has a moral which the House should not set aside too easily.
  I do not think that a single hon. Member does not care. We are often confronted in our constituencies not so much by needs but by the philosophy, "I am entitled;" "I want;" "I must have." We want a system that allows all people —especially those who, for whatever reason, are not able to sustain themselves—to live with some dignity. We must take needs and affordability on board in making our judgment.
  I welcome particularly the dual role that the Bill sets out — the role of the state, and the encouragement of personal pension provision. The Opposition have said that the Government have not changed a thing. I should have thought that the change in approach to SERPS was a major change made in the light of consultation. I am sorry that no member of the Social Democratic and Liberal mésalliance is present, because I do not know whether the
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  article that appeared in May last year in a national newspaper is correct. That article seems to say that the views of at least the leader of the Social Democrats are now very much in line with the revised proposals of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
  The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) argued that sex discrimination in our pension system should be abolished and that people should retire at 65. I am not sure whether the ladies would be happy with that. He also said that he would like to give people the option of retiring between 60 and 65. That seems to be in line with Government policy.
  I am grateful for the portable personal pension scheme. I am on my third pension scheme—two of the pension schemes in which I was involved are frozen because I changed jobs. As this profession is precarious, I suppose that I have to take account of the possibility that I shall have to start a fourth pension scheme. Millions of people rely on company or personal pensions. Under the Bill, millions more people will have that dependence on such pensions. We should say loudly and clearly and as often as possible, "Heaven help those company pension funds and those personal pensions if the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and the hon. Member for Oldham, West get their hands on people's pension funds for use in their lunatic Socialist schemes."
  I do not think that even Ministers would think it amiss if I said that we still have a long way to go in simplifying housing benefit, but we are moving towards simplification. At least we have now taken on board that net income will be the basis of the income test and not gross income. That is a step in the right direction. I should like to express my thanks to Ministers for listening to representations—
  Mr. Pendry: Is the hon. Gentleman special?
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Of course I am special. I am more persuasive than the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry).
  Under clause 28, district councils will be able to exempt war pensions from the exclusion that appears to be proposed in the Green Paper.
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: In some case, there was genuine concern in my city that we would be taking £8 from war pensions. I am delighted that that has been put right.
  Mrs. Beckett: I was seeking to save the hon. Gentleman from potential embarrassment. I do not know how closely he has looked at the Government's concessions. I understand that local councils can do what the hon. Gentleman suggests only within the overall housing benefit budget. Presumably this means that local councils will have to make changes or savings somewhere else. I have not had a chance to go into this matter as thoroughly as I should have liked, but I suggest, knowing the Government and their record, that the hon. Gentleman should look carefully at this concession before saying too much about how the Government have given it.
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: If the hon. Lady is correct and the concession is not as great as I have said, she may be assured that Conservative Members will press our senior colleagues strongly on that matter. War widows are the last group from whom we would want to take one penny.

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  Under the housing benefit heading, the Association of District Councils has made a number of comments. Out of the hoary old mechanism for funding more of this and more of that comes the mortgage interest tax relief, estimated at £3·5 million in 1984–85. While it might be of academic interest to compare mortgage interest tax relief with what we spend on housing benefit, I do not think we are comparing like with like. They seek to achieve different things. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) may laugh, but they set out to achieve totally different objectives. I see no logic in saying that, because one has housing benefit, one should have mortgage interest relief, or vice versa.
  If mortgage interest tax relief produces a property owning democracy, nobody in the House, except perhaps those on the lunatic fringe, would seek to dispute that home ownership has brought about, and is bringing about, much social stability that would otherwise not exist.
  I will not go into great detail on the social fund. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde listed a number of single payment situations in his constituency. We have all been confronted with them. Some of the decisions of the Department of Health and Social Security offices are puzzling under the existing regulations and no doubt will be just as puzzling under the new.
  Without being too precise on the figures, because I would not wish to embarrass the constituent whose experiences I am drawing on, I could not help but feel that there was something wrong with the existing system when I was confronted by somebody complaining that the DHSS proposed to award him only £X for the need that he expressed when he believed that he needed £2X. I, as would most of my colleagues, said that I would write to the DHSS and ask it to re-examine the case and produce a report. I have total admiration for the work of our local DHSS offices. The office wrote back and confirmed that my constitutent had not only been offered £X but that in the previous two years he had received £5X. That £5X was fast approaching £2,000.
  That is the sort of anomaly which occurs under the present system. Therefore, 1 can understand that the Government, in seeking to have at least some control over what we spend, are taking on board the anomalies in the present system.
  I am grateful for one phrase from the Minister which relates to the statement made this afternoon on the revisions of rates. I can understand why the Secretary of State for the Environment could not give the sort of answers that were sought because his was not the responsible Department. If the result of the examination of the cost of living and the indices on which uprating is considered is that elderly people, in particular, will have their 20 per cent. rebate of rates, or whatever it is, built into their old-age pensions, they have nothing to fear from the Bill.
  I know that I speak for many of my hon. Friends when I say that, much as we want a review of social security and support the Bill, we are equally certain that in no way do we want the financial security of our senior citizens to diminish by one penny.
  8.24 pm
  Mr. Frank Field: For the first time since 1979 it has been a pleasure to sit on the Opposition Benches over the past couple of weeks. We have witnessed an outbreak of warfare which is not usually seen on the
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  Government Benches. Sadly, however, there has now been an outbreak of that most deadly virus beloved by the Whips called loyalty. That loyalty leads to what is called a closing of ranks.
  I thought it would be helpful to the Minister when he sums up if I put some of the objections to the Bill Which ordinary loyal Conservatives would have put if that outbreak of loyalty had not occurred.
  As a Conservative Member I would have to begin by declaring self-interest. The self-interest would be that as each day passes the dreadful day of judgment, as the Prayer Book calls it, is approaching. In other words, the election gets ever nearer. [Interruption.] I wish the Opposition Front Bench would allow some of their hon. Friends to get on with their speeches. As that dreadful day of judgment approaches the electorate's mind is concentrated wonderfully on whether it will win under the scheme. I thought it would help the Government to concentrate their mind when they vote tonight if we look at the losses that will be experienced in marginal Conservative seats if the Bill goes through.
  Looking at the Government's own figures, a little over 500 very elderly pensioner households will lose. Likewise, some 3,000 other pensioner households will lose if the Bill goes through unamended. In addition to the loss suffered by pensioners, about 1,500 other non-pensioner households in those constituencies will lose. In addition to that, if that list was not long enough, almost 500 working families who earn their poverty will be made worse off by the measure. If I could not rise to greater heights than that of self-interest I would be concerned that about 5,500 households in my marginal seat would be made worse by the move.
  There are other objections to the Bill if one is of the Conservative persuasion. The second objection that Tory Members should be putting tonight is that the Bill makes a mockery of practically everything that the Government say about incentives. Every major statement from the Government Benches is a plea to build a society which encourages and rewards those who try to stand on their own two feet. What does the Bill do? Looking at the appendix we find a significant increase in the number of families who will face marginal tax rates in excess of 70 per cent. Although the Secretary of State is right in saying that technically the Bill solves the poverty trap problem and that most families would not be faced with a 100 per cent. tax rate, that solution is brought about by significantly increasing, in fact doubling, the number of those who face a marginal tax rate of more than 70 per cent. Given that we have had Tory Budgets which have said that that is a marginal tax rate that those at the top of the tree should not have to face, is it one that is tolerable for those at the bottom?
  Thirdly, the Bill makes a mockery of Government statements that their policy is about targeting help on those in most need. It is significant that, despite the length of the Secretary of State's opening remarks, which almost ran to an hour, he did not say whether there will be more or fewer poor people as a result of the Bill. The existing resource, besides making a substantial saving for the Exchequer, will be shuffled around among the poor. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) drew on the Policy Studies Institute study, which highlighted how desperately placed unemployed

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  families were. If one had to opt for one group which was suffering the worst poverty, one would single out the unemployed. Yet they will lose most under the proposals.
  The proposals also seek to deal with incentives to work for young workers. The premiums are being structured so that those under the age of 25 are penalised. Yet the households in greatest need are those with young families, and most young families have young parents. Indeed, among working class households family formation begins at a very early age. Those households in greatest need will lose under the measure, while other households composed of older non-pensioners will gain, although their needs will be less. That is hardly sensible targeting. If the Government were interested in targeting, they would put a greater premium on children. However, they dare not do that for the reasons that the hon. Member. for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) outlined. Given the Government's stand on slowly phasing out child benefit, they would land themselves in severe problems regarding incentives to work with income support payments to children way above child benefit levels. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has returned to the Chamber. I salute the noble way in which he presents the views and needs of his constituents.
  The fourth reason why a loyal Tory Member should be worried is that the cornerstone of family policy until 1979, when the Conservatives won the election, was to build on child benefits. Yet they are now slowly phasing out that benefit. The Government's claim that they are shifting the tax burden from families with children to those without children, that is, reversing a trend that has gone on under both parties for 30 years, now has a hollow ring.
  The fifth reason for voting against the Government relates to the provisions of family credit. Any sensible Tory Member knows that the Government's influence is limited and that they cannot pretend that they can arbitrate in marriages where there are severe difficulties. However, as it is possible to weight the outcome of the argument in those struggles in some families, we all know that too many of our female constituents get a rough deal from their husbands. In the past, therefore, Tory Governments have ensured that resources go to the woman rather than the man. As the hon. Member for Kensington said, we all understand why the Government are switching the additional support from FIS to family credit and from women to men. However, we do not accept that argument, and it will certainly not be accepted in our constituencies.
  The sixth reason is that the measure concentrates even more power in the Minister's hands instead of decentralising it. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) highlighted the extent to which this is an enabling Bill, giving the Minister extraordinarily wide powers to introduce regulations. That might be a sensible approach if the Government's track record on statutory instruments was good. However, on the board and lodging regulations, for example, a constituent of mine, Simon Cotton, has been taking the Government to practically every court in the country and beating them. That suggests that no sensible group of people would assign the power in this Bill to the Government.
  A further reason why Conservative Members should be unhappy with the measure is the loss of appeal on single needs payments. Some hon. Members have already referred to the
  "Special Report by the Council on Tribunals,"
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  in which the council states that it does not accept the Government's argument. It comes to the following conclusion:
  "The people most affected by this proposal are among the most vulnerable in our society. Very good reasons are needed before the abolition of the right to an independent appeal in such circumstances, an appeal which has existed for over 50 years. It would probably be the most substantial abolition of a right of appeal to an independent tribunal since the Council on Tribunals were set up by Parliament in 1958."
  So much for a party that not only used to pay lip service to people's rights but ensured that those rights were enshrined in our courts and tribunal system.
  If those were not powerful enough reasons why the measure should not command Conservative support, a further reason is that the measure further erodes the tax base. People will be bribed through the tax system to opt out and buy private pension provisions. A party which believes it is important to cut the rate of tax must know that every tax benefit concession makes it more difficult to deliver tax cuts because those tax cuts are being handed out in the form of tax privileges.
  Those are the reasons why Conservative Members should vote against the measure. About 5,500 households in every marginal Conservative seat will be worse off, which means about 8,000 voters will lose money. The Bill makes nonsense of the Government's talk about incentives. The targeting of help on those in greatest need is irrational. It shows the poverty of the Government's commitment to build up the child benefit system, and so to shift the tax burden from those with children. It substantially alters power within the family, especially in families where there are difficulties between husband and wife, from the wife to the husband. It unnecessarily concentrates power in Whitehall and the Minister, instead of devolving it. It wipes away an appeal which has existed for about 50 years. Finally, it will make it even more difficult for the Government to deliver their promised tax cuts. Any one of those reasons is a good reason why Conservative Members should join us in the Lobby. All eight reasons should ensure that the Government are in severe difficulties.
  8.38 pm
  Mr. Andrew Bowden: Few would deny the need for reforms in the social security system, and many would say that those changes should be radical. During the past 50 years there have been many changes. For example, pensioners have nearly doubled in number.
  My first anxiety about the Bill is that, unless it is changed drastically and receives wide support, the changes will inevitably prevail for only a limited period. If we have learnt any lesson from social security legislation in the past 40 years, it must be that, when there has been no consensus or broad base of all-party agreement, a change of Government brings a change in legislation. That cannot be good for anybody. It cannot be good for the Secretary of State and his colleagues who wish to put the legislation on the statute book, for the industry or for the pensioners of tomorrow.
  Much though I would like to, I will not spend any time on part I of the Bill because of the limitations of time. However, there are still so many gaps in part I that the Government must provide a great deal more information in Committee that they have in the Bill and in the Secretary

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  of State's speech. It is unlikely that I will be appointed to the Committee, but I will read the proceedings with great interest.
  I should like to remind the House of the group that is most affected by changes in the social security system. Let us examine the basic facts of social security benefits as a percentage of income. For couples without children, that is 5 per cent.; for couples with children, it is 8 per cent.; for single people, it is 9 per cent.; and for one-parent families, it is 45 per cent. However, at the top of the table are pensioners, with 60 per cent. of their income comprising social security benefits.
  I am deeply concerned about the effect that these proposals will have upon pensioners, particularly in relation to housing benefits and rates. In many areas, that is not as clear as the Green Paper and the White Paper implied.
  There is broad agreement in the House that the rating system is unfair. It would therfore be utterly wrong to change a situation in which many pensioners get the equivalent of a 100 per cent. rate rebate until the rating system has been reformed. To take action before that would make it even worse for those pensioners who face rate bills and others who at the moment receive 100 per cent. rate rebates. I will not discuss water rates, but it is scandalous that there is not a rate rebate system for water rates as well.
  Although I have not heard every speech tonight, I do not believe that any hon. Member has touched on the problems faced by owner-occupiers on relatively low incomes, with the state pension and a non-inflation-proof firm's pension. There is a significant number of such people. Since 1970, that non-inflation-proof firm's pension has been reduced in value in real terms by 80 per cent. For many in that section of the community, particularly when their non-inflation-proof firm's pension is small, housing benefit was some small compensation for the destruction of the value of their firm's pension and/or their savings.
  The destruction of the value of that pension was in no way the responsibility of those people. They had retired. All hon. Members know who was mainly responsible for that; all political parties have some responsibility, but I submit that the Opposition have the greatest responsibility. Whoever brought that about and whatever the reasons for it, it is quite wrong that such people should now have their benefits withdrawn because when they first retired they could live on their income. They did not live like kings, but they had a reasonable income, for which they had worked and saved for so many years.
  I warn the Government that they should not penalise that group unreasonably. These people worked hard and long for their retirement and were determined not to have to rely on state supplementary benefit or upon their families but wanted to stand on their own feet when they retired. They saw their real income undermined and destroyed. The Conservative party has time and time again said that that group should receive special help, consideration and assistance. It would be an unforgivable kick in the teeth for those people if a large part of all of their housing benefit was removed.
  The carers for pensioners are another group which I should like to consider in the broadest sense. Those who care for the elderly and the disabled save the country and the Exchequer countless hundreds of millions of pounds a year. They need more understanding and help. They
  866
  should not have to wait until the end of the decade or rely on the careful in-depth inquiry in relation to the disabled and the operation of carers for pensioners. They need help now.
  I am sure that all hon. Members are aware of cases like one I know. A lady in my constituency has given up her life to look after her mother. That lady has a full-time job and is a very capable person. She gets up extra early in the morning to ensure that she leaves her mother comfortable. She goes to work happily, she does not have too far to travel, and in her lunch hour returns to see if her mother needs anything urgently, to get her something to eat and do the essentials. She then returns to her place of work in the afternoon.
  That lady's lunch is a sandwich on the bus coming from work to home in her lunch hour or on her return to work after seeing her mother. That person is absolutely dedicated, feels socially isolated and has made immense sacrifices year after year in carrying out those. responsibilities to her mother.
  Ms. Jo Richardson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bowden: I should like to give way, but time does not permit.
  I ask the Government to look at that group to see what additional help can be given to them. The basic needs of carers are greater than the needs of fit people of a similar age, and they should be given due consideration.
  Like the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), I am concerned about sections of the Bill. However, although it might be against my better judgement, I will support the Government tonight. I must tell the Government Front Bench that they have a long way to go fully to convince me that the Bill will produce, as the Secretary of State said at Blackpool in 1985:
  "A system that is modern, clear and fair, one which answers real need wherever the need is to be found."
  8.49 pm
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The misgivings of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) are shared by Members from both sides of the House and I hope that the Government take note of them. Before addressing myself to the content of the Bill, I want to refer to its enabling nature. We have heard the Secretary of State refer to the number of regulations in other legislation that will be replaced by this Bill. He was quick to his feet on that point. He was obviously aware that he was vulnerable and had his defence already worked out.
  There are far too many regulations here. I counted 24 references to facilitating regulations to be made in the Bill, giving rise to some 85 separate provisions. In addition, a number of orders and directions give enormous power to the Secretary of State. There is a real danger that regulations coming before the House will not receive adequate attention. The House must also bear in mind that it can accept or reject statutory instruments but not amend them. I hope that thought will be given to that when such legislation is forthcoming in the future.
  I also hope that detailed notes on clauses will be given to the Committee so that we can understand them properly and that the Secretary of State will say how he will use the regulations in each context.
  I think that we all agree that there is a need for legislation to revise, simplify and streamline social

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  security, but it should seek to make social security easier for the people and they should get it as an entitlement. The Bill does not do that. It aims at reducing the overall resources and it does not apply itself to the question from the viewpoint of welfare rights.
  We in Wales are particularly worried because some of the groups who are shown to be losing in the context of the Bill are pensioners, those who are in work on low incomes without children and unemployed people, and we have a large proportion of those in Wales, perhaps larger than in the population as a whole. As a result, the Bill's impact will be that much worse in Wales.
  Tonight I shall oppose the Bill because I have grave misgivings about most of it, but there are one or two points that I welcome and that I want to put on the record. For example, I welcome the first step towards providing portable personal pensions. That is long overdue; although one can argue about the way in which it is done and the details of it, at least we are moving in the right direction.
  However, there is a real loss for many people as a result of other provisions, particularly the loss that pensioners will experience. In the 60-to-79 age group 57 per cent. of pensioners will face a net loss of benefit as a result of the Bill. In the 80-year-old and older group 43 per cent. will be worse off and only 33 per cent. better off. That should not be the objective or the effect of such a Bill and we should not pass a Bill that has such an effect.
  The area that gives me greatest misgiving is the abolition of single payments and the social fund that is coming in its place. The changes in that area cause concern to many people. A survey of the effects in my county estimates that two thirds of those in receipt of supplementary benefit, unemployment benefit and supplementary pension will, on average, be some £7 a week worse off. Different hon. Members quote different figures, but this matter should be looked at in depth, office by office, in the DHSS to assess exactly what effect the change will have.
  There is a real danger of payments being discretionary, and therefore varying from area to area. They will vary at the whim of the manager. That will put the managers of DHSS officials in a difficult position. They may be influenced by personal attitudes and it is not clear to the potential beneficiaries what is available and what they should be going for, where there is no question of entitlement. All those are matters about which we should be unhappy, particularly since there is no appeal procedure. Before 1980 the chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission described that situation as inequitable and arbitrary. Now, without an arbitrary procedure, the system is even more so.
  If we are to rely on loans, there is a danger that we shall be causing even greater problems for many people. In Scotland, where payments under section 12 of the Act are more wide-ranging than under section 1 in England and Wales—I am thinking of children now—they have been moving away from loans to outright payments. This is for four reasons—first, there are administrative problems relating to loans; secondly, the therapeutic effect of loans applies only to a very few cases; thirdly, it is unrealistic to expect people on low incomes to repay loans; fourthly, it is not always helpful to replace one debt with another. We should take that Scottish experience very much to heart before we consider going down that road.
  868
  We must also be certain that local offices are not cash-limited in a way that will prevent people having their real needs properly met. I am particularly concerned about funeral and maternity expenses and the danger that people will feel that they have to plead poverty in order to obtain assistance. We should always bear in mind the dignity of those people who have to resort to those sources for assistance.
  The sick, disabled and elderly in my constituency need considerable help towards their heating costs. The way in which the Bill changes those provisions will have a serious effect. The social fund payments will not reach many of these people. The changes will lead to real suffering and, I suspect, a greter level of debt and probably more disconnections among those client groups.
  The position is bad enough in Wales. Many of the old industrial areas have a damp climate and the housing is totally inadequate. In other areas, the situation is worse. For example, in Scotland there is great concern about the cold climate allowance. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) in that context. The present state of affairs is bad enough for those parts of the United Kingdom which have a cold climate, but it is particularly so in Scotland. Scotland is effectively discriminated against, but under the new system it will be even worse off.
  The only possible source of extra heating allowance would be a cash-limited social fund, but it appears that even that may not even be intended for use in regard to the heating allowance. I hope that the Minister will be able to deal with that issue and clarify the position tonight. Thousands of people, mostly old, are dying from cold-related illnesses in Scotland every winter and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere. The position is unacceptable and the review does nothing to improve matters.
  The hon. Member for Kemptown referred to those who care for elderly people and the disabled. The Government are aware of the general concern about the position of carers in our society from a number of reports and representations that have been made. The Bill does not consider their need in any special way. There is a danger of putting off consideration until the Government have looked at the overall survey of disablement needs. But the carers need consideration, not in the context of disabled people but in the context of their own needs and entitlements. That consideration should relate to income forgone. Whereas many can work with difficulty, many more give up jobs and make enormous sacrifices in order to look after somebody who is dear to them, and in doing so they save enormous funds for the state.
  An enormous work load could be placed on social workers as a result of these changes. There could be additional work in explaining to people what their rights are, how to get their entitlements and how to sort out the system. I fear that this work load will be severe not only on the social workers but on the employees of the social security offices. It will be a tremendous burden and the work will be time-consuming. Social workers' time that could be spent on case work will be spent sorting out problems arising from these changes.
  There is also the question of the availability of finance for the local social services departments to enable them to make up the losses that will come from this legislation —for example, the changes in section 1 payments for children.

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  The Bill will affect disabled people and those who are moderately disabled will lose out. The position of carers — many of whom are women — is unsatisfactory. Women are also affected by the change in maternity allowances and the payment of family credits to the husband's pay packet. There is also the unsatisfactory position of widows.
  The effect of the Bill on children and young people is unacceptable. A moment ago we heard about school meals, and I touched upon family credit payments. Students are also feeling the squeeze more and more. I ask the Government to analyse section 1 payments to see what the exact effects of the change may be for children.
  Most of all, the Bill affects people who depend on the state. We should be seeking a Bill of clarity, entitlement, simplicity, efficiency, speed and—most of all—fairness. This Bill is discretionary, unclear and unimaginative. At best, the Bill is a lost opportunity, at worst it is a severe blow to many people who cannot help themselves.
  9 pm
  Mr. Michael Stern: I welcome the Bill in general but, inevitably, given its size and complexity, I will concentrate my remarks on pensions. I welcome the part of the Bill dealing with pensions because it will achieve two necessary actions — it will bring some reality and some additional benefits into occupational pensions. The first thing it will achieve is what might be called the right to exit.
  The House is aware that with the growth of occupational pension schemes, both in industry and in public service, there has also been a growth in the number of people who wanted to get out of those schemes but until now were unable to do so. I am sure I am not alone in speaking to teachers who, over the years, have grown more and more unhappy with the rigidities and apparent unfairness of their pension scheme. Until now they have had no alternative. Members of the disciplined services have—until the advent of the Bill—been under a lifelong threat that if a disciplinary hearing went the wrong way so too did their life's savings. Indeed, I have heard, within the corridors of this House, one or two Members who look forward to the right to opt out into an approved personal pension scheme because they have not accepted the generally promulgated myth that our pension scheme is the best of all worlds.
  It is not only in the public services that the right to opt for an appropriate personal pension scheme is important. There have also been inappropriate old-fashioned pension schemes in the private sector. It was frequently a condition of employment in a company that an employee should, after a time, belong to the pension scheme. This happened in my own constituency in a substantial company where there are large numbers of employees who have witnessed the company discriminating unfairly in the funding of its own pension scheme as between one group of employees and another. Such people have been powerless to do anything until now. The new freedom that is promoted by the appropriate personal pension scheme is welcome.
  I welcome the general provisions of the Bill concerning pensions because it has taken on board what no previous Government have taken on board—that SERPS was too big, was getting bigger and had to be cut down.
  The word consensus has been mentioned several times today and it appears in the Liberal amendment. It implies agreement among all parties that taxpayers' money should
  870
  be spent in a certain way. I might be naturally suspicious, but when I hear that word in this context, I immediately ask myself, "Who is being ripped off'?" The people being ripped off in this case are future taxpayers and pensioners, part of whose livelihoods is being blithely promised away by people who will not be around when the bill arrives. I suggest that the word consensus should be replaced with the word conspiracy.
  I mildly regret my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's decision not to abolish SERPS. The arguments in the Green Paper were valid. He would have made a cleaner break with the past and put the funding of future state pensions much more beyond doubt if he had gone the whole hog. I am, nevertheless, delighted to accept the decision in the Bill. I warn him, however, that, if I am lucky enough to be selected as a member of the Standing Committee, there will be at least one hon. Member who will want to ensure that he has gone far enough to limit the cost of SERPS so that it can be afforded by future taxpayers and pensioners.
  The Government Actuary's report shows that the costs of SERPS should be bearable. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the honesty of his proposals regarding SERPS. He should not hesitate to consider the figures closely and he should be prepared to revise them if it is shown that the costs could still be too great.
  Right hon. and hon. Members have said that the Bill consists largely of indications of draft regulations. As the Bill will be completed by the regulations, I suggest that it is difficult to read the Bill without having some idea of what will be in those regulations. I commend to my right hon. Friend the example set by the Occupational Pensions Board concerning emergency memorandum No. 48 of October 1977. The regulation was published within days of Royal Assent but only six months before the relevant legislation was due to come into force. We are considering legislation that will not be complete until the regulations have been published. Will my right hon. Friend consider at least publishing draft regulations even before Royal Assent so that we know what we are talking about?
  There are lacunae in the Bill, especially regarding personal pensions. If they are not filled by the draft regulations, they could give a wholly false idea of what my right hon. Friend is trying to achieve. The Bill does not say, for example, that a member of an appropriate personal pension scheme will have a right to a death-in-service benefit. There is no indication in the Bill, although there is in the White Paper, that a member of an appropriate personal pension scheme will have a right to commutation. Nor is there any indication that he will have a right, as does the holder of a retirement annuity, to opt for a scheme that gives a five-year guarantee of payment of pension. There is no indication in the Bill of what investment powers trustees will have, or of who will be entitled to be trustees.
  I encourage my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to extend his thinking a little further on one or two aspects of the Bill. There has been some criticism this evening of the 2 per cent. rebate that has been offered for new contracting-out schemes. I applaud the principle. It benefits the public to give as much encouragement as possible to contracting-out schemes.
  However, when it comes to pensions, thinking is often slow. Given that the full story will not be known until all the regulations are passed, insurance companies and other pension providers will have to look through all the new regulations and documentation. By the time many pension

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  providers are in a position to offer the appropriate scheme, much of the five-year period that has been suggested for the additional incentive will have been lost. As that period passes, the incentive will grow less, week by week. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be encouraged at least to take power to extend the five-year period to ensure that the incentive has the maximum effect.
  Other points in the Bill will no doubt be commented on in detail, but there is one point on which my right hon. Friend could act now. It has been generally recognised that the annuity market, which the Bill requires to be opened up, must be much larger than the current market. By 1990, when the first annuities will need to be purchased or provided, the annuity market will have changed significantly. I hope that my right hon. Friend will introduce proposals to aid the expansion of the market into the new opportunities that the Bill promotes. At the very least I hope that my right hon. Friend will confirm as early as possible that his Department will co-operate with the studies that are taking place to ensure that the annuity market can be extended to the width that is required for the Bill to work.
  I have spoken over my time limit on one part of the Bill, so I shall not comment on the attitude of the Opposition. Despite the criticism, the Bill could be, and I believe will be, a starting point for major reforms of pensions and other areas to increase personal freedom and create opportunities for ordinary people to improve their position. It will meet current needs better and it will enable more effective and faster response to the changes that are taking place in society to be made.
  9.13 pm
  Ms. Jo Richardson: I have listened to practically every word of the debate, and it appears to me that almost all the speeches contained a critical note about the Bill. I underline the suggestion that the Government should take it back and reconsider it. Perhaps they should make a fundamental examination of our social security system in a proper way.
  Despite the Government's continual claims, the review completely fails to address the dramatic and fundamental change in the position of women. Several hon. Members have mentioned the problems that women will face arising from the passage of the Bill.
  Since Beveridge, there has been a dramatic and fundamental change in the position of women in society in general and in the family. The Bill is extremely difficult to read, and we shall have to grapple with a complicated and detailed package. It ignores the consistent pressure from women, women's organisations and the Equal Opportunities Commission for the radical and simultaneous reform of social security, pensions and taxation. We cannot consider one part without considering the others at the same time if we are intent upon eradicating discrimination.
  The Bill will introduce practices and measures that will actively extend and reinforce inequality and disadvantage for women. The review has contemptuously ignored the developing EC law on equal treatment in social security, which is bound to lead to yet another spate of lengthy and costly legal battles and ignominious defeats for the Government in the European Court. The Government have deliberately obstructed all EOC and EC-supported
  872
  improvements for women. For example, they placed obstructions in the way of equal pay for work of equal value, which has made it difficult for women to claim; they refused to extend the invalid care allowance to married and cohabiting women; and they refused to adopt even the most minimal provision for parental leave and leave for family reasons.
  The Bill hits women at two levels. First, it makes it more difficult for many women to get the support that they need to provide themselves and their children with a decent standard of living. Secondly, in some areas, it reinforces the dependency of women upon their partners —a concept which more and more women reject and which the Labour party will work to ensure is reversed.
  I wish to point out some of the ways in which I and many women's organisations believe that women will be disadvantaged under the Bill. Much has been said tonight about pensions, which form a complicated part of the Bill. SERPS pays women a full pension five years earlier than men. Women who transfer to a personal pension or to a purchased occupational pension scheme will lose that advantage under the Bill. The pension payable at 60 could be one third lower than that payable at 65.
  The Green Paper, which was produced so many months ago, said in paragraph 1.54:
  "The provision of annuities by insurance companies is normally on the basis of differential rates for men and women. But the Government do not believe that it would be acceptable to have women placed at a substantial disadvantage in terms of the pension they would receive for contributions paid at the same rate and up to the same age. The resulting funds must produce the same pensions. To achieve this will require insurance companies to provide annuities for this purpose on a common basis for both sexes … the Government recognise that it will be a major departure for the insurance companies and will wish to discuss the implications with them."
  So far, so good.
  However, the White Paper stated:
  "This was welcomed by the consumer bodies and the Equal Opportunities Commission, but received with reservations by insurance companies — The Government will therefore consult with insurers on the basis that annuities from the proceeds of contracted-out personal and occupational pensions should give all men and women at the same age the same annuity for the same amount of money."
  It remains quite uncertain whether the insurance companies can be persuaded to offer annuities to women on the same terms as men.
  The second point about SERPS is the abolition of the best 20 years formula. That will arouse indignation and dismay among women who welcomed that part of SERPS because it gave them the opportunity to work, to take breaks at home, and to take the best 20 years and have a pension.
  My third brief point on SERPS is about survivors. A survivor, usually a widow, will no longer be able to inherit the whole of her spouse's pension but only half of it. The Government argue that the present rules are too generous, but they were introduced as a deliberate measure to improve the situation of widows. The need for such a measure will be all the greater if the opportunities for women, especially married women, to earn a decent personal pension are dramatically reduced by the Government's other proposals.
  I hope that the questions I have raised about pensions will be answered honestly by the Minister, because many hundreds of thousands of women are looking anxiously at what the Government propose to provide for them in this Bill, and they will see the Bill and the provisions about

  873
  SERPS as being detrimental to their future. I have a number of other points, but I do not propose to go into all of them because I do not have time. They are about matters that specifically disadvantage women.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) talked about the maternity grant. Some 72,000 women expect to receive maternity grants in 1985–86. In 1983 some 170,000 payments were made. Approximately 500,000 mothers who would have qualified for maternity grant will lose the £25 under the new proposals. Those who do not qualify for supplementary benefit, income support, family income support or family credit will lose the £25. Another 170,000 families on supplementary benefit will also lose an average of £13. There are massive gains and massive losses, but there are also tremendous differentials.
  The Select Committee on Social Services, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East, has always recommended that the maternity grant should be based on entitlement. As I understand it, under this Bill the maternity grant will be paid from the social fund and will be discretionary. The Government have made much of the fact that the grant is £25 at the moment and will be increased to £75. That was mentioned at Question Time this afternoon. A grant of £75 is far too low, and will put us in fifth place in the seven EEC countries that pay such a grant. Luxembourg pays £630 and France pays £557. Parents magazine estimates that it costs £702 simply for baby clothes and equipment. The magazine also says that, according to its calculations, the average loss of the woman's salary is between £5,000 and £6,000.
  The maternity grant should be paid as of right, should not be a discretionary payment from the social fund, and should be increased to at least £125. Even that is not sufficient to buy the baby items set out in the DHSS list. The DHSS calculated their cost at £160. That list is used by Department officials when deciding claims for single parents.
  The payment of £75 will be less than some mothers receive at present. Those on supplementary benefit can get £85 in single payments, so the poorest and most vulnerable mother who currently can get £85, not through the maternity grant but through single payment benefits, will lose that and will get instead £75 if she goes to the social fund.
  Many points could be raised, but no doubt we can deal with them in Committee. I am concerned that no provision is being made for mothers under 16 years. They do not qualify for supplementary benefit or for family income supplement and they will have no right to maternity grant. They also lose the right to free milk and vitamins. It is strange that the Conservative party, which professes to care about young people and families, should ignore so totally the needs and problems of mothers under 16.
  The loss of free milk and vitamins, which will be abolished for those on income support, is a sore point. That benefit will be lost by 250,000 women and children. Babies born to poor families run twice as much risk of stillbirth or early death as those born to the professional classes. More than anyone else, the children in poor families need free milk and vitamins.
  I could talk about many other things such as widows' allowances and pensions. I shall not do so but simply point out that the Bill is an absolute disaster for the overwhelming majority of vulnerable women. We shall
  874
  fight the Bill very hard on their behalf because they have no opportunity to come to the House and tell us of their experiences. We shall have to put those experiences before the Government and hope that they will listen carefully and will reconsider the Bill.
  9.27 pm
  Mr. Bill Michie: I wish to express appreciation at being given time to speak, limited though it may be. I shall honour my promise to be brief because I did not expect to get in. I shall make briefly as many points as I can but obviously we can discuss the Bill more fully in Committee.
  Despite the Government's claims, the Bill will not gibe more help to families. According to the White Paper, the key objective of the reform is to direct
  "more resources to areas of greatest need, notably low income families with children."
  When we consider the illustrative figures in the White Paper, at first it seems that families will get an extra £5·90 per week on transfer from supplementary benefit to income support. But families will no longer get help though the other payments that are made at the moment. For instance, the average family in Sheffield gets a water rates payment of £1·20, a general rates payment of £1·50, a heating allowance of £2·20 and other payments of £3·20.That means that the average family in Sheffield will be £1·85 a week worse off.
  I wanted to give the House many examples but I shall deal with just one which highlights what the Bill will do to people in need who trust politicians of all persuasions to pass legislation which helps rather than hinders them.
  My Sheffield claimant is a female in her late fifties. She has been unemployed and dependent on state benefits for over 10 years. She lives on a large inner city estate which needs improvement and repair. Her income is at present £47 a week. This includes a number of "additional requirements" payments. She is a diabetic so gets an allowance of £3·70 a week. She has a higher heating addition of £5·40 a week. She suffers from bronchitis and has had half a lung removed because of cancer. She also needs extra heating because the house is hard to heat. Being in such poor health, she has contracted a skin complaint for which she needs at least one bath a day, two to be absolutely right. Unfortunately, the basic benefit allows for one bath per week.
  It is pretty obvious from the Bill that this lady is likely to have her income reduced from £47 a week to £33 a week. That does not take into account the electricity bills which people like her will have to pay. These are genuine people: they are not fictitious; we are not producing them out of thin air. They are people to whom I have spoken and who have allowed me to use them as examples without giving their name. This lady's benefit will be reduced to £33 a week, without taking into account the cost of electricity at £150 per quarter.
  The importance of benefits to the people of this country, and certainly to those in Sheffield, is unbelievable. The areas that I represent are inner city areas, where we have massive unemployment, problems of permanent unemployment for black school leavers and problems of bad housing. All these people will suffer more because of this Bill.
  Although I have seven or eight pages of notes with me, I will, on instructions from my colleagues, come to a conclusion. I make this point—that if I cannot keep the

  875
  House I will keep the Committee. I shall lay stress time and again on all the clauses of the Bill and the anomalies and the injustice caused to ordinary people.
  9.31 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett: The Secretary of State said, initially at least, with pride—although he may be less proud about it these days—that the reviews and the Bill which comes from them were the most significant social security proposals since Beveridge. That at least Opposition Members echo. I will go further than the Secretary of State and say that the Bill represents the most significant statement of belief to emerge from the Conservative party in a generation, a statement which perhaps shows that the Conservative party or—in view of the remarks of some of the Secretary of State's hon. Friends tonight, I should be kind and say the Conservative Government—no longer believes in the welfare state.
  The welfare state is founded on two basic tenets. It is meant to be for everyone. All contribute what they can when they can, so that when they are in need they can claim as of right. The Secretary of State is threatening the first fundamental tenet by his targeting, by defining the poor ever more harshly, tightly and rigidly, seeking to move further and further away from the idea that we all have a stake in the welfare state. In the social fund, as I shall show in a few moments, we see a major breach of the right to benefit that is the second basic tenet of the system.
  On Second Reading we look not just at the broad sweep of the Bill's proposals but a little at its background. The background is quite simple and straightforward: the Government's desperate need to cut public expenditure, which has driven them now to measures that they would not perhaps have contemplated when they were first in power but which they now dare to propose. At a time when even the Confederation of British Industry says that the Government's priority should be to cut unemployment, and not taxation, the Secretary of State proposes to make further substantial reductions and structural changes in the social security budget. But if the Government were to take steps to cut unemployment that would in itself have a major effect in reducing the costs to which the Secretary of State so often refers.
  The proposals in the Bill follow after, I suppose, rather than from the proposals in the reviews, because even the reviews themselves did not go far enough for the Secretary of State. There are the proposals to make everyone pay 20 per cent. of their rates, to attack people's entitlement to interest payments on their mortgages. These are the Secretary of State's own bright ideas. On pensions, in particular, the review body did not go as far as the Secretary of State wished, although he has sought consistently and skilfully to obscure the fact. He has heavily implied—never actually said—that the pensions proposals before the House stem from new facts which emerged in the course of the review, not known when the scheme was drawn up in 1975. It is perhaps a little unfortunate for the Secretary of State that those who serve on his reviews, and the Government Actuary, who all have their personal and professional reputations to consider, so speedily dissociated themselves from the proposals he put forward, if not in their name, certainly under the cover of their participation.
  876
  The Secretary of State tells us what a wonderful deal his personal pensions are although, when he issued the consultative document, everybody said what a rotten idea they were and how much worse they were than the state earnings-related pension scheme. If his personal pensions proposals are beneficial and provide such wonderful pensions, why is it that one of the few explicit parts of the Bill is that in which the Goverment make it plain that they will deem that somebody has a certain pension entitlement for a certain level of contributions, irrespective of whether the person is actually getting the money, and that they will base the topping up payments on deeming that that money is received? The Secretary of State must expect that some people at least will get less money than they expected for him to have bothered to write that into the Bill.
  The Secretary of State keeps talking about people having a pension of their own as if a pension by any name is valued by some means other than the amount that it will buy. I have this vision—I think it must be the Secretary of State's vision—of some outraged pensioners of the future coming to his successor, claiming that they cannot afford to eat and being told, "At least your pension is your own". I do not think that it will go down very well. Anybody who takes out a personal pension will get substantially less value for money because the administrative cost of such schemes is about three times that of the state scheme and substantially more than that of good occupational pensions.
  There are many unanswered questions about personal pensions, not least among them the question of how such a policy will be treated in assessing capital. If somebody is unfortunate enough to become unemployed, how will it be assessed and set against the benefit and what will happen to somebody who is taking out a personal pension but loses his job and may not be able to keep up the premiums? It seems to me that there is a serious risk that such a person, if forced to surrender the policy, may lose not only the advantage of earnings of those years in work, which will be lost in the SERPS scheme that the Secretary of State promises to modify, but also the possibility of having an extra pension entitlement because of the way in which that pension entitlement is to be secured.
  As to the income support scheme, many hon. Members have drawn attention to its disadvantages. I must say a little more about the way in which the Government are treating the unemployed in the income support scheme. At a time when everybody agrees, even the Government, that the unemployed in justice should get the long-term rate of supplementary benefit as it is now, it is outrageous and indefensible to put forward in the Bill proposals that bring them not even to that rate, proposals which, when one includes the effect of the abolition of single payments, the intention to make people pay 20 per cent. of their rates and the proposals on mortgages, almost certainly mean that the Government, who claim that they cannot do anything to help the unemployed find work, are to reduce their standard of living even below what it is today.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) drew attention to the potentially enormous losses of the most severely disabled, in some cases up to as much a £50 a week in terms of standard of living, and for those newly disabled it will be in cash terms. In other parts of the Bill, as the Spastics Society has pointed out, it is the disabled who are likely to lose most from the abolition of reduced rate contributions. It is precisely they who are

  877
  likely to be trying to find work to enable them to have some independence and income of their own, although they are not able to sustain that work over long periods.
  The proposals on family credit have been so effectively demolished by so many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams), that it hardly needs me to dwell on them further.
  The losses on houses benefit will be enormous. For many pensioner couples it will be something like £3 to £5 a week and for the young perhaps up to £12 a week when the combination of their benefits is calculated. The young, whether students or others, will be among the major sufferers from the Bill. One is almost driven to conclude that the Government are deliberately penalising the young when one considers the range of measures that strike at them. They and their parents must wonder in what type of dream world the Government live when they realise that 24 and 25-year-olds are expected to live at home and to be heavily dependent upon their parents. The Government seems to imagine that by forcing them into that position they are contributing to family solidarity.
  The most iniquitous proposal, apart from that relating to the level of benefits for the unemployed, is the social fund. It is the worst proposal any Secretary of State has come up with for 50 years. When I listen to or read Ministers' words on that proposal, I can barely believe what they are saying, let alone imagine that they believe it.
  On 22 January, the Secretary of State told the Select Committee that he was worried about the disabled, the network of additional requirements and the detailed and intrusive questioning through which people might have to go to prove that they were entitled to additional benefits. He believes that it will be better to do that through the mechanism of the social fund. How does he imagine that the social fund will work if it is not through detailed and intrusive questioning? That is what it is all about. It is hardly credible that the Secretary of State should defend his proposals upon the grounds on which they should be attacked.
  The social fund will be a nightmare for the civil servants who have to try to administer it and a nightmare of desperation for claimants—all of proven need—who realise that staff in local offices will have to choose to whom they can make payments because they will not have the money to recompense them all. We are back to the days of charity and the denial of payment as of right.
  It is all the more appalling that it is on the social fund that the rights of independent appeal are, in effect, completely to vanish. Many hon. Members have referred to the work of the Council on Tribunals. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he will reconsider the proposal. I do not know why he had to wait until tonight to say that because the council made it clear in its report that it has been pressing him to look at the proposal for weeks. We shall be pressing him on the point.
  Parliament and the indpendent bodies that it has set up to scrutinise social security legislation will lose their powers under the Bill. There are at least 12 clauses—it has been claimed that there are 24 different areas—in which the Bill falls back on regulations which, as all hon. Members will be aware, come before the House for a decision but cannot be amended. They must be passed or rejected as a whole. The Government's track record on regulations is abysmal. Time and time again they have
  878
  closed their ears to warnings, even about the legality of regulations, and time and time again they have been proven to be wrong.
  I fear that the Government are putting everything into regulation because they do not know how they will carry out the proposals contained in the Bill. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) said that he had counted the number of times in the Select Committee that the Secretary of State said that the Government had not decided what to do about that or had not made up their mind what to do about the other. A major proposal, such as statutory maternity pay, which the Government told us would be included in the legislation, is not in the Bill. The Bill was only recently published and the Government are already adding new clauses because they did not have them drafted in time.
  What is more, the Government have not finished tabling the regulations from last year's social security measure which was, in its way, comparatively minor. I am told that one of the most fundamental sets of regulations on disclosure of information will not be available until Easter. With such a track record, how can this House or another place put the powers that the Secretary of State seeks into the hands of so incompetent an Administration?
  The hon. Member for Kensington, in a brave speech, said that the proposals would be put to the country in the general election. Wisely, he advised the Secretary of State to withdraw the Bill.
  I warn the Secretary of State that the Opposition intend to take the campaign against the Bill into every constituency. Our aim is to force the Government, as he has been advised, to withdraw a Bill which clearly is not ready to be presented to the House. If he will not do that, we give him fair warning that his party and his Government will deserve to end up where it will end up —in the wilderness, for generations.
  9.44 pm
  The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): This has been a constructive debate on social security. For most of the time, it has been conducted in a good natured way. I shall try to respond to the debate in a comparable way, picking up as many points as possible. I should like to touch briefly on some of the broader points raised by hon. Members.
  I think that I speak for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in saying that nothing would please us more than to believe that it was possible to tackle on the basis of consensus the problems of the social security system. However, when confronted by an Opposition who appear to regard with equanimity the possibility of 27 per cent. combined national insurance contributions, and who wish apparently to have a national investment board of some kind to control and direct the activities of pension funds and to control forcibly some of those investments by repatriating some of them from abroad, significantly damaging the pension entitlements built up in those funds, I beg leave to doubt the room for consensus. If consensus is to be a description of a position in which those who will not face up to reality have a veto on tackling problems for ever, I do not think that any responsible party or Government could adopt that position.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) will understand me when, against that background, I say that the suggested approach of a Royal Commission seems to suffer from some of the same

  879
  disadvantages. Unless it were able to produce results or was based on consensus, one would have the same problem of deferring action on difficult problems. Although there were not many matters on which I agreed with Sir Harold Wilson, I am inclined to think that there was some force in his comment about Royal Commissions taking minutes and wasting years.
  Against the background of our social security problems, I think that there is a risk of our ending up after five years with a report that was out of date before it was even produced, and that no serious action could be taken until the middle of the next decade at the earliest. I do not believe that the problems are of a nature that permits that sort of delay.
  Mr. Pym: That is only one possibility. There must be alternatives. To say that there is no way forward is possibly an error. We must find a way that will help create that broad sense of agreement which is a fundamental necessity from the point of view of our nation and for the recipients of the benefits we are trying to provide.
  Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend seems to be more optimistic than I am about the prospect of producing such a process confronted by the present Opposition Front Bench or, indeed, any Opposition that we are likely to have. However, may I say something which I hope he will feel responds in a different way to one of the themes of his speech for which I and my right hon. Friend have great sympathy — the reference to the desirability of tax benefit integration, or greater co-ordination, which has come up time and again in the debate.
  Looking at the British tax system, which was the subject in which I took most interest during my first five years in the House, and the British social security system, with which I have sometimes been almost too closely involved as a Minister in this Department for nearly four years, I have concluded that, because of their present complexities, both systems will require significant simplification before it will be possible to move forward. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Conservative predecessors have already taken significant steps in simplifying some aspects of the tax system. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will put forward proposals carrying that process forward when he produces his Green Paper.
  The proposals in the White Paper mark a massive step forward in simplifying the social security system in a form in which it would be far more realistic than at any time in the past generation to begin to think more constructively and positively about the type of integration people want. I can make no promises about the way in which that process will be carried forward. However, I believe that the Bill provides a better basis from which to move towards those objectives.
  In one respect, the Bill marks a significant step towards closer co-ordination—the family credit proposals. The proposal is to pay through the pay packet in a way that will appear to the majority of beneficiaries as a direct offset to their tax and national insurance contributions. Those hon. Members who pay lip service —I do not include my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East in this—to the idea of tax benefit integration and go on to denounce the family credit proposals because they involve payments through the pay packet appear to be
  880
  trying to have their cake and eat it in the biggest possible way. Perhaps those hon. Members mean more than lip service.
  Mr. Favell: Has there been any progress towards persuading the Inland Revenue, rather than the hard-pressed Department of Health and Social Security, to administer the family credit system?
  Mr. Newton: Further development in either department is not something on which I would wish to speculate in advance of any further publication by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. We have had agreement on the proposal that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State put forward in the White Paper. That is a helpful move in the right direction.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Although women do not want just to have their cake and eat it, they feel strongly that family allowances should be paid to the woman. Often that is the only source of income for women in many levels of the social strata. Women will be hard hit if the family allowance is frozen and payments are made to the husband. I assure my hon. Friend that women feel strongly about this.
  Mr. Newton: I understand my hon. Friend's point. I do not think that she was present during my brief exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) when I made it absolutely clear, as do the White Paper and the Green Paper before it, that child benefit will continue to be paid to the mother.
  Another point that is relevant, although not conclusive, concerns family income supplement. About 40 per cent. of those benefiting from family income supplement—a significant proportion of those who will benefit from family credit—are single parents. The argument about whether the money is given in the pay packet or in any other way is irrelevant to the question of who gets the money. In practice, instead of having to collect payments from two different sources in an inconvenient way, many single parents—the majority are likely to be women—will receive payment through the pay packet in an undoubtedly more convenient and sensible way.
  It is odd that there is such an astonishing fuss about the proposal to pay family credit through the pay packet on the ground that mothers are disadvantaged or their interests are not properly taken into account. I made this point the other day to the Select Committee on Social Services. So far as I am aware, at no stage in the history of social security has anyone come forward with a proposal to pay supplementary benefit scale rates for children to the mother instead of to the father, who is normally the claimant. In other words, we appear to be confronted with a proposition where what has been acceptable throughout the years in relation to child scale rates payable for children is unacceptable when applied to low-paid families in work. That is logical nonsense. [Interruption.] If I understood the sedentary intervention of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), he said that the supplementary benefit payment goes to both parents. The fact is that one of them is the claimant and all the payments go to him or her. In most cases it will be the man. He receives the child scale rate for children as part of his total payment of benefit. I do not understand why what is appropriate for those who by definition are unemployed, and probably the poorest of all, becomes totally unacceptable concerning low-paid families in work.

  881
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West made many comments on pensions. I want to make one simple point. The Government's case is not that it is inconceivable that the present arrangements for SERPS could not be afforded on certain optimistic assumptions. Our proposition is that it is not responsible to make promises for a generation ahead when we cannot be certain that that generation will be able to fulfil them. That is not because of the burden we might be imposing on people who might not be able to sustain it, but because it is not right to make promises to pensioners about what they will be paid and risk not being able to pay it when the time comes. That is the point which the hon. Member for Oldham, West persistently refuses to face.
  In the statistical contortions with which the hon. Gentleman sought to defend the responsibility of the present SERPS system he seemed to miss a point of which I hope he will take cognisance. His argument was that, on rather more optimistic assumptions in respect of, for example, real earnings growth than those contained in the Government Actuary's report, there would be no problem or that there would not be enough of a problem to worry about.
  On the record of the previous Labour Government for real earnings growth, all the figures in the Government Actuary's report would be worse than those in it already. In other words, given the present Labour party policy and the previous Labour Government's record, we would have a bigger problem than the one we foresee. That is hardly surprising because the previous Labour Government were not even able to stick to the promises they made to existing pensioners, let alone those for future generations.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West was a member of the Government who fiddled the uprating changes in 1976–77 in a way that deprived pensioners of about £1 billion at current prices because they changed the basis of the uprating.
  Mr. Meacher: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that what counts is the increased value of the pension over a six-year period? Over the six years of the Labour Government there was a 20 per cent. increase and over the past six years of Tory Government the increase has been about 3 or 4 per cent.
  Mr. Newton: What also counts is whether the Government fulfil their commitments. The Labour Government manifestly did not fulfil the commitments they made to pensioners in 1976–77 and there is no basis on which the hon. Gentleman could pretend that they did.
  I am afraid that I do not have time to answer all the points that have been made during the debate. The Opposition, throughout this review and in other discussions on social policy over the past four or five years, have persistently talked as if the welfare state had been established whole, entire and pure some 40 years ago and is to be preserved as some sort of ancient monument regardless of changes in society, changing needs and the purposes it seeks to meet. We are seeking to adapt it to meet modern needs, and that is what the Bill will help to achieve.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 24, Noes 276.

  Division No. 52]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Ashdown, Paddy

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Beith, A. J.

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  882

  Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Clay, Robert

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Freud, Clement

  Penhaligon, David

  Hancock, Michael

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Howells, Geraint

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Wilson, Gordon

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Kennedy, Charles

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Teller for the Ayes:

  Livsey, Richard

  Mr. John Cartwright and

  Loyden, Edward

  Mr. David Alton.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Couchman, James

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Alexander, Richard

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Amess, David

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Ancram, Michael

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Arnold, Tom

  Dover, Den

  Ashby, David

  du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Dunn, Robert

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

  Evennett, David

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Baldry, Tony

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Fallon, Michael

  Batiste, Spencer

  Farr, Sir John

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Favell, Anthony

  Bellingham, Henry

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Bendall, Vivian

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Benyon, William

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Best, Keith

  Forman, Nigel

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Forth, Eric

  Blackburn, John

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Body, Sir Richard

  Fox, Marcus

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Freeman, Roger

  Bottomley, Peter

  Fry, Peter

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Gale, Roger

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

  Galley, Roy

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Bright, Graham

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Brinton, Tim

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Gow, Ian

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Browne, John

  Greenway, Harry

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Gregory, Conal

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Grist, Ian

  Budgen, Nick

  Ground, Patrick

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Grylls, Michael

  Burt, Alistair

  Gummer, Rt Hon John S

  Butcher, John

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Butterfill, John

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Carlisle, John (Luton N)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hannam, John

  Carlisle, Michael

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Carttiss, Michael

  Harris, David

  Cash, William

  Harvey, Robert

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hawksley, Warren

  Chope, Christopher

  Hayes, J.

  Churchill, W. S.

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

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

  Hayward, Robert

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Heddle, John

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Henderson, Barry

  Cockeram, Eric

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Colvin, Michael

  Hickmet, Richard

  Coombs, Simon

  Hicks, Robert

  Cope, John

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hind, Kenneth

  883

  Hirst, Michael

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Mudd, David

  Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Holt, Richard

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Neubert, Michael

  Howard, Michael

  Newton, Tony

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

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Norris, Steven

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hubbard-Miles, Peter

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Page, Richard (Herts SW)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Parris, Matthew

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Irving, Charles

  Patten, J.(Oxf W & Abgdn)

  Jackson, Robert

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Pawsey, James

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Pollock, Alexander

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Porter, Barry

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Portillo, Michael

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Key, Robert

  Powley, John

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Price, Sir David

  Knowles, Michael

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Knox, David

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Lamont, Norman

  Raffan, Keith

  Lang, Ian

  Rathbone, Tim

  Latham, Michael

  Renton, Tim

  Lawler, Geoffrey

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Lightbown, David

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Lilley, Peter

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

  Sackville, Hon Thomas

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Lord, Michael

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  McCurley, Mrs Anna

  Silvester, Fred

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Spence, John

  Maclean, David John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

  Stern, Michael

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

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Major, John

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Maples, John

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Marlow, Antony

  Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  Mates, Michael

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mather, Carol

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Tripper, David

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Mellor, David

  Walker, Bill (T'side N)

  Merchant, Piers

  Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Wardle, C.(Bexhill)

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Watson, John

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Watts, John

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Wheeler, John

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Whitfield, John

  Moate, Roger

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Wood, Timothy

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Tellers for the Noes;

  Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

  Mr. Tony Durant and

  Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

  Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put forthwith, Pursuant to Standing Order No. 41(Amendment on Second or Third Reading):—
  The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 201.

  Division No. 53]

  [10.15 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Alexander, Richard

  Evennett, David

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Amess, David

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Ancram, Michael

  Fallon, Michael

  Arnold, Tom

  Farr, Sir John

  Ashby, David

  Favell, Anthony

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Forman, Nigel

  Baldry, Tony

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Forth, Eric

  Batiste, Spencer

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Fox, Marcus

  Bellingham, Henry

  Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Freeman, Roger

  Benyon, William

  Fry, Peter

  Best, Keith

  Gale, Roger

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Galley, Roy

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Blackburn, John

  Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Bottomley, Peter

  Gow, Ian

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Gower, Sir Raymond

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

  Greenway, Harry

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Gregory, Conal

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

  Bright, Graham

  Grist, Ian

  Brinton, Tim

  Ground, Patrick

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Grylls, Michael

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John S

  Browne, John

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Hannam, John

  Budgen, Nick

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Harris, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Harvey, Robert

  Butcher, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Butterfill, John

  Hawksley, Warren

  Carlisle, John (Luton N)

  Hayes, J.

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

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

  Hayward, Robert

  Carttiss, Michael

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Cash, William

  Heddle, John

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Henderson, Barry

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hickmet, Richard

  Chope, Christopher

  Hicks, Robert

  Churchill, W. S.

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

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

  Hind, Kenneth

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hirst, Michael

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

  Cockeram, Eric

  Holt, Richard

  Colvin, Michael

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Coombs, Simon

  Howard, Michael

  Cope, John

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

  Cormack, Patrick

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Couchman, James

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Hubbard-Miles, Peter

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Hunter, Andrew

  Dover, Den

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

  Irving, Charles

  Dunn, Robert

  Jackson, Robert

  Durant, Tony

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  885

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Page, Richard (Herts SW)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

  Patten, J.(Oxf W & Abgdn)

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Key, Robert

  Pawsey, James

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Knowles, Michael

  Pollock, Alexander

  Knox, David

  Porter, Barry

  Lamont, Norman

  Portillo, Michael

  Lang, Ian

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Latham, Michael

  Powley, John

  Lawler, Geoffrey

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Price, Sir David

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Lightbown, David

  Raffan, Keith

  Lilley, Peter

  Rathbone, Tim

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

  Renton, Tim

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Lord, Michael

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  McCurley, Mrs Anna

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Sackville, Hon Thomas

  Maclean, David John

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

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

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Silvester, Fred

  Major, John

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Malins, Humfrey

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Maples, John

  Spence, John

  Marlow, Antony

  Spicer, Michael (S Worce)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Stern, Michael

  Mates, Michael

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  Mather, Carol

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Thompson, Donald (Calder v)

  Mellor, David

  Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

  Merchant, Piers

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Thurnham, Peter

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Townsend, Cyril D.(B'heath)

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Trippier, David

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Moate, Roger

  Viggers, Peter

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Walker, Bill (T'side)

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Wardle, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

  Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

  Watson, John

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Watts, John

  Mudd, David

  Wheeler, John

  Neale, Gerrard

  Whitfield, John

  Nelson, Anthony

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Neubert, Michael

  Wood, Timothy

  Newton, Tony

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Teller for the Ayes:

  Norris, Steven

  Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd and

  Onslow, Cranley

  Mr. Francis Maude.

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  NOES

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Bell, Stuart

  Alton, David

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

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Ashdown, Paddy

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Blair, Anthony

  Ashton, Joe

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

  Boyes, Roland

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

  Barnett, Guy

  Brown, Hugh D.(Provan)

  Barron, Kevin

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

  Beckett, Mrs Margaret

  Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

  Beith, A. J.

  Bruce, Malcolm

  886

  Buchan, Norman

  Kennedy, Charles

  Caborn, Richard

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Campbell, Ian

  Lambie, David

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Lamond, James

  Canavan, Dennis

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

  Leighton, Ronald

  Cartwright, John

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

  Clarke, Thomas

  Litherland, Robert

  Clay, Robert

  Livsey, Richard

  Clelland, David Gordon

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

  Loyden, Edward

  Cohen, Harry

  McCartney, Hugh

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Conlan, Bernard

  McKelvey, Williams

  Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Corbett, Robin

  McTaggart, Robert

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Madden, Max

  Craigen, J. M.

  Mallon, Seamus

  Crowther, Stan

  Marek, Dr John

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Martin, Michael

  Dalyell, Tam

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

  Maxton, John

  Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

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

  Meacher, Michael

  Deakins, Eric

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Dewar, Donald

  Michie, William

  Dixon, Donald

  Mikardo, Ian

  Dobson, Frank

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Dormand, Jack

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Douglas, Dick

  Nellist, David

  Dubs, Alfred

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

  O'Brien, William

  Eadie, Alex

  O'Neill, Martin

  Eastham, Ken

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

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

  Owen, Rt Hon David

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  Park, George

  Ewing, Harry

  Patchett, Terry

  Fatchett, Derek

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Pendry, Tom

  Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

  Penhaligon, David

  Fisher, Mark

  Pike, Peter

  Flannery, Martin

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Forrester, John

  Prescott, John

  Foster, Derek

  Radice, Giles

  Foulkes, George

  Randall, Stuart

  Fraser, J. (Norwood)

  Redmond, Martin

  Freud, Clement

  Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

  George, Bruce

  Richardson, Ms Jo

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

  Godman, Dr Norman

  Robertson, George

  Golding, John

  Robinson, G.(Coventry NW)

  Gould, Bryan

  Rogers, Allan

  Gourlay, Harry

  Rooker, J. W.

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

  Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Hancock, Michael

  Ryman, John

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Sheerman, Barry

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Sheldon, Rt Hon R

  Haynes, Frank

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Short. Ms Clare (Ladywood)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

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

  Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

  Silkin, Rt Hon J.

  Home Robertson, John

  Skinner, Dennis

  Howells, Geraint

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

  Hughes, Dr Mark (Durham)

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

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Snape, Peter

  Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Hume, John

  Stewart, Rt Hon D.(W Isles)

  John, Brynmor

  Stott, Roger

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Strang, Gavin

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Straw, Jack

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

  887

  Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

  Williams, Rt Hon A.

  Thorne, Stan (Preston)

  Wilson, Gordon

  Tinn, James

  Winnick, David

  Torney, Tom

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Wareing, Robert

  Weetch, Ken

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Welsh, Michael

  Mr. Sean Hughes and

  White, James

  Mr. Allen McKay.

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 42 (Committal of Bills).

  Social Security Bill [Money]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill, it is expedient to authorise the following—
  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
  (a) any sums payable by way of the following—

  (1) income support;

  (ii) family credit;

  (iii) rate rebate subsidy;

  (iv) rent rebate subsidy:

  (v) rent allowance subsidy;

  (b) payments by the Secretary of State into the social fund;
  (c) any sum payable under the Act to a person whose entitlement to the sum depends on his being entitled or treated as entitled to a qualifying benefit payable out of money provided by Parliament;
  (d) payments by way of adjustment;
  (e) any sums falling to be paid by the Secretary of State under or by virtue of the Act by way of travelling expenses;
  (f)any other expenses of the Secretary of State attributable to the Act; and
  (g) any expenses of the Lord Chancellor attributable to the Act: and
  (h) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under any other Act;
  (2) the charging on and payment out of the Consolidate Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums to be charged on and paid out of that Fund under any other Act;
  (3) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund; and in this Resolution—

  (a) 'Act', when not used in relation to any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill. includes an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland; and

  (b)other expressions shall be construed in accordance with any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill. —[Mr. Newton.]

  10.27 pm
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I hope that the House will not pass the money resolution. During the Second Reading debate, several hon. Members expressed great anxiety about the provisions of the Social Security Bill. The alliance, other Opposition Members and, it would seem, some Conservative Members, have expressed great anxiety about the Bill. We would not be happy to pass the money resolution.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) pointed out earlier, we were sceptical from the outset, as were many hon. Members, about the introduction of a Bill with the stipulation of nil revenue implications. Now that we see how the Government propose to implement that stipulation and straitjacketing, our concern is justified. The lack of figures, the lack of clarification and the unwillingness of the Government to provide suitable clarification and explanatory figures of what is envisaged makes it impossible for the Bill to be properly scrutinised. What is available and open to analysis gives rise to great anxiety. We have already said that the reform of pensions policy cannot command broad support because of the simple fact —dwelt on by the Minister at some length in his speech —that the Government are again in danger of making pensions provision a party political football.
  I am sorry that the Minister and the Secretary of State did not pay more heed to the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) when he spoke with great authority about the need for consensus in these matters. Consensus is not, as the Minister and his hon.

  889
  Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) tried to make out, a dirty term. Consensus does not imply that the major problems will be avoided or removed. We do not suggest that for one moment. On the contrary, in a crucial area such as pensions, which will stretch into the next century, we need a little less party political posturing from all quarters and more agreement in the name of the common good.
  The alliance have been the only parties to stress that during the debate this year. It is sad that the Government have not seen fit to enter into such a constructive discussion, which could have led to a much securer basis for legislation than the one they have now. As my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire made clear, we regret the fact that the savings which the Government will make through their proposed restructuring of the state earnings-related pension scheme will not be used, at least in part, to increase the basic pension. There can be no doubt, despite the protestations of the Minister, from our constituency surgeries that, under the Government's economic policies, pensioners have a great deal to complain about and suffer a great deal of hardship. It is sad that the Government will not give more attention to their position.
  The cuts in housing benefit which the Government are marking out in their review of social security, and especially the extraordinary provision that there should be a contribution of 20 per cent. towards rates bills, are discriminatory and unjust. It is astonishing to remember that, earlier today, the Secretary of State for the Environment made a statement on rating reform and quoted as one of the three fundamental weaknesses in the present arrangements,
  "the unfair burden on householders of domestic rates."
  He went on at some length in the rest of the statement and in answer to questions to speak about the anomalies and the injustices. If the Government believe the rating system to be so unsatisfactory and unfair, why do they now, in what is supposed to be a far-reaching and long-term review of social security, draw into the rating net many of those least able to contribute towards those rates? That makes nonsense of the argument in favour of simplification and fairness which the Government have laboured.
  The alliance cannot support the cash-limited social fund, for which approval is sought in this money resolution. The Secretary of State was extremely vague in his opening speech this afternoon when questioned on this matter. He seems anxious to ignore the evidence contained in the special report of the Council on Tribunals. It is worth reading into the record what that council said about the proposal:
  "The Council on Tribunals believe this proposal to be misconceived. It would abolish a right of independent appeal which has existed for over 50 years."
  If the Government are intent on having some local accountability in the decision-making process for the grants and loans made under the social fund, it is incumbent on the Secretary of State to come clean with the House as to what he has in mind. It was evident from his statement that he is willing to have a system that pays lip service to the idea of an appeal against an unfair or unjust decision, but that he will not have something which affords the claimant—who until now has operated on the basis of a right to appeal, as much as a right to claim benefit —the right to an appeal which has been enshrined in
  890
  law for many years, as the report made clear, and that he is unwilling to consider an effective alternative appeal mechanism.
  There must be a greater move towards integration of the tax and benefits system. The Secretary of State said that the present take-up of FIS was about 50 per cent. and hoped that the equivalent system under the new scheme would have a take-up of 60 per cent. how can he be confident that that rate of take-up will be achieved? Further integration of tax and benefits would be the most effective way to increase the level of take-up in the whale benefits system. For that reason, and to achieve simplicity and fairness, the alliance supports that integration.
  For those reasons, we cannot support the money resolution. We believe that its defeat would add support to our demand for a reform of the social security system, which at present is unjust and ill-conceived and will not carry the all-party support that is essential, as hon. Members in all parts of the House pointed out in the earlier debate.
  10.37 pm
  Mr. Jim Lester: Considering the Government majority in the last Division, it is wishful thinking on the part of alliance Members to imagine that the money resolution will not be approved. Although I did not support the measure on Second Reading, I urge hon. members to support the money resolution.
  When opening the debate, the Secretary of State said that, when replying, the Minister of State would deal with the issue of income support. I appreciate that, because the House was anxious that as many hon. Members as possible should take part, the Minister did not have time to deal with that issue.
  While defending the family credit scheme and the supplementary benefit arrangements, the Minister said, in a sensitive and understanding way, that child credit went to the poorest of the unemployed. I was interested to hear his remarks on that subject because I am deeply concerned about the impact that the Bill will have on the unemployed and, in particular, on the long-term unemployed.
  This issue has been raised by my hon. Friends and I consistently—through well-supported early-day motions and in the evidence that we gave to my right hon. Friend's review —and I remain disappointed about the way in which the long-term unemployed will be treated. There is no doubt that those who have been without work for a long time require additional benefit. Indeed, the Government recognised that when they allocated long-term supplementary benefit to the over-60s in return for the declaration that they were no longer seeking employment. The Government and Opposition have for long agreed the principle of paying supplementary benefit to the long-term unemployed; it has simply been a question of when the cash should be provided.
  For the families of the unemployed, the premium system is likely to be of greater benefit than the present system. But as about 15 per cent. of families come within the ambit of the long-term unemployed, about 85 per cent. of families will be substantially worse off unless a premium is introduced that recognises that when someone has been out of work for 12 months or longer, additional support should be provided.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend will examine the position as it affects those people, otherwise during the next election campaign, when I expect unemployment to

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  be higher rather than lower, the public will raise that as a major issue with hon. Members, particularly Conservative Members.b
  If no special premium is intended or no one is seeking a special premium, one needs to look at the alternative. The alternative put forward by my right hon. Friend is the social fund. I am worried about the way the social fund is likely to operate for the long-term unemployed. One can imagine not only a variation in attitude from place to place where problems may be different, say from south Wales to the south-east of England, but a variation from one individual to another. It is difficult for any social security officer to make a judgment on the social requirement of a long-term unemployed person, particularly when the intention of the social fund is to replace grants by loans repayable out of a claimant's weekly benefit.
  If that is the way in which the social fund is to operate, not only will we disadvantage the long-term unemployed by offering no premium, but we will also squeeze their weekly rate by the repayment of grants for the necessary things that a person needs for himself and his family when he has been unemployed for more than a year. In addition, the proposal to charge 20 per cent. rates adds still further to the squeeze on an already limited income. None of us who have taken any interest in this subject have any doubt that the unemployed are the poorest of all. I have a file of considerable dimensions full of letters from people who have written to me from all over the country telling me how difficult is their situation.
  One of the things that one might have welcomed is the earnings rule, because it would make the money resolution less onerous if people were able to earn a certain amount while unemployed. The Bill proposes a certain relaxation of the earnings rule in that anyone who has been unemployed for two years is able to disregard £15 of what he earns. As the normal definition of long-term unemployment is to be out of work for a year, it seems odd that one has to be out of work for two years before one is allowed to earn £15 to help pay for the vital needs of oneself and one's family. I hope that my hon. Friend will look at that and bring it into line.
  The combination of these things also includes the impact of SERPS on someone who suffers from unemployment, because the abolition of the 20 best years rule will hit anyone who is unemployed for a long time and for whom there is no alternative form of protection against a broken work record. No alternative protection is proposed.
  I am teasing out from the Bill its overall impact on the long-term unemployed. One must highlight the plight of those people and that is why I speak on this money resolution. I hope my hon. Friend will consider in stage, and certainly on Report, the points I have made. Without that consideration, for a lot of other reasons that other hon. Members have talked about, this Bill will not be seen as a major reform, but as a way in which we have damaged and been less than fair to those less fortunate people in our society.
  10.44pm
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I make no apology for detaining the House, because if the Government had not chosen to make a statement before the Second Reading debate, I suspect that all hon. Members
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  who wanted to speak on the money resolution could have spoken on the second Reading. It seems odd that a Government who are so proud of their reform proposals for social security, only a few months ago felt it necessary to upstage this debate by making their announcement on the rates. I suspect that the Government are already beginning to realise that the less that is said publicly about the Bill the better.
  I have three main points to make. The first is a general one, in that it seems that the only reason for the Government bringing this measure forward is that they have a totally pessimistic view of our future economy.
  If the Government were investing in the needs of the country, we should not have to question whether we could afford to pay for SERPS. Clearly we should be able to pay for it. If the Government were doing anything to create jobs and get people back to work, the amount that had to be paid out in benefits would be considerably reduced and there would be sufficient money to pay decent benefits to those in need of them. It is a measure of the Government's lack of confidence in themselves that they have felt it necessary to bring the measure forward.
  My main objection to the money resolution centres on the way in which the Bill further extends the Government's powers to do things by regulation and denies the House the opportunity to scrutinise most of the measures. There is hardly a page in the Bill on which there are not powers to make regulations. For example, in clause 41(1), paragraphs (a) to (u) set out over two pages the regulations which may be made.
  When I intervened earlier, the Minister claimed that there would be fewer regulations because of the Bill. That may be so, but they will tend to have wider powers, so there will be longer individual sets of regulations, which means that the House will have even less time to scrutinise them in the normal one and a half hours.
  The worst problem with regulations is that we do not get an opportunity to move amendments. The Department has great difficulty in presenting regulations accurately. I do not blame the officials, because they have to produce a tremendous number of them, but they get about one a week wrong. Sometimes the mistakes are found by the courts, sometimes by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and just occasionally by the officials themselves.
  Some people assume that the Department gets regulations wrong just in wildly publicised cases, but I shall give just one example from today's proceedings of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments about which the Department wrote:
  "It is conceded that there is no authority to delegate the power of determination to the scheme managers and trustees, and the Department proposes therefore to make an amending regulation".
  That is the pattern that we get fairly consistently from the Department.
  The House should consider the way in which it scrutinises tax and social security measures. I can see no logic in the fact that we have developed two differing sets of procedures. For taxation measures we have the Budget and the Finance Bill once a year, so hon. Members have a very good opportunity on the Floor of the House and in Committee to scrutinise the legislation, to put down amendments and to force the Government to justify each clause and, if necessary, each subsection.

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  For social security measures, instead of having one Bill each year, with an opportunity to table amendments, we are presented with many regulations which we cannot amend. Ministers are given amazing powers. Any Minister who has been in the DHSS, not just under this Government but under the Labour Government, may have thought when he wanted to do something that he would have to get into the legislative queue. I suspect that Ministers have been amazed when told by civil servants that, if certain powers are used in a different way, they can do what they want. So Ministers have got into the habit of using powers under regulations to do things that people never expected them to do.
  If the Government want to integrate the social security system and the tax system, the first thing they should do is to examine the procedures of the House and bring social security legislation into line with tax proposals, so making sure that the House has an opportunity to amend each proposal, rather than putting them into a continuing series of regulations.
  The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Anthony Newton): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I say this with some diffidence, since my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has come in. I wonder what comment the hon. Gentleman has to make about the extent to which the Revenue operates under things that never come before Parliament at all -namely, an extensive range of extra-statutory concessions.
  Mr. Bennett: I accept the argument about extra-statutory concessions, but I suggest that they go nothing like as far as the regulating powers that the Government make. It is perhaps a little worrying that the Minister has apparently now learnt from the lessons of extra-statutory regulations, because he talks in the measure of directives. Again, I am sure that the Committee will want to spend a lot of time scrutinising how the directives mentioned in the Bill are to he subjected to parliamentary approval. It may well be that Ministers would like to get away from parliamentary scrutiny, but I believe very strongly that the House ought to be pressing hard for full scrutiny of all these proposals, that Ministers should not be allowed to put more and more into regulations and prevent debate.
  This money resolution affects students, particularly in the way in which the Government have, I believe, cheated students. This time last year, there were to be two reviews —the social security review and the review of student financial support. Eventually the government announced that they wanted to remove students from the social security system. Instead of announcing the results of their student grants inquiry and suggesting that they would make good the money that students would lose by cuts in social security, the Government simply abandoned the review of student financial support.
  So the students have found that their income from social security is being taken away, without there being a proper review of student grants. We know that, in the short term, they will lose the right to claim housing benefit during the short vacations and for halls of residence during term time. That will be a considerable loss to many students, faced already with the possibility that their grants will rise by only 2 per cent. and with a real-term loss of grant of about 20 per cent. since 1979. In the short term therefore, students will suffer real and considerable hardship.
  In addition, proposed in the Bill and left out of the money resolution is the long-term question of money for
  894
  students. The Government have made it clear that they want to take students out of the social security system, a laudable proposal, in my view, provided that the Government come up with adequate finance to replace the money that students will lose. But the Government have produced no explanation of where the money will come from and, in particular, have not addressed themselves to the problem that housing costs vary widely across the country.
  I suggest that Government ought immediately to reinstitute their inquiry into student financial support. Only when they bring those proposals forward will they be justified in starting to take student finance out of social security. Until they do so, there will be great bitterness among students. It is quite clear that very many students already suffer considerable worry and anxiety during term time about their financial position. We have the absurd situation of students taking jobs in the local community, to the detriment of their studies, and forcing others to claim benefits. Many students are in conflict with their parents over finance, yet if their proposals go through, the Government expect students to be supported by their parents. I hope that the Minister will give a clear directive to social services departments for those students who have been in care, to make certain that the local authority puts up extra money.
  Until the Government can bring forward adequate alternatives for students, they should take these proposals away and keep students within the social security system. Until the Government can face up to giving the House adequate powers of scrutiny over social security regulations, again they should take the Bill away. Lastly, the Bill should be taken away because I am sure that a decent Government could run this country effectively enough to give us all decent pensions and decent benefits.
  10.54 pm
  Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I oppose this money resolution because it constitutes yet another nail in the coffin of the national insurance fund. The national insurance fund is not actually mentioned any where in it; but it ought to be at the core of it.
  I said on Second Reading that the Government are still paying lip service to the contributory principle, but their adherence to it is not based on logic or on any recognisable financial maxim, and it does not carry them even as far as the money resolution on this major Bill. That is a significant error, and it is the reason why the House should reject the resolution.
  Of course, the national insurance fund at the outset was not financially sound. While it was based on flat-rate individual contributions, it had also to rely on a subsidy from the Consolidated Fund; and even then it could not meet its outgoings. But we found the solution to that problem some 10 years or more ago when we put contributions to national insurance on an earnings-related basis. That provided the solution, but it has not been followed up.
  The national insurance fund could and should be the source of finance for all the benefits listed in the resolution, including the social fund, drawing its resources from a tax at a flat rate not on every worker but on every pound of income. Such a tax would be in fact a personal contribution, resting directly on personal capacity to pay.
  If social benefits were financed in that way, it would constitute a growing-up of the whole conception of

  895
  national insurance based on the contributory principle as a separate self-balancing system independent of the Consolidated Fund. We would not be treating the Consolidated Fund as we do now, and are doing in this resolution, as a glorious bran tub out of which benefits can be pulled simply by the application of political pressure. We would instead be able to bring the interests of contributors and the requirements of beneficiaries to a state of equilibrium based on the principle of,
  "From each according to his capacity, to each according to his need."
  There is nothing wrong in that slogan as the basis of a closed self-balancing contributory system soundly financed.
  The Government in this Bill and in this resolution are missing an opportunity because they have not given sufficient study to the principles underlying the redistribution of income in a democratic society.
  I hope that the House will reject the resolution.
  10.57 pm
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I, too, strongly oppose the money resolution which, indeed, of necessity is vague and, in the case of the Bill, well might it be so. The one feature throughout the debate on the Government plan for social security has been their inability accurately to predict how much it will cost or, more properly, how much it will cost claimants throughout the country for the social security legislation to be introduced. The most accurate prediction I have heard is that £700 million will be taken out of the pockets of the poorest people. For the Secretary of State to claim, as he has on numerous occasions, although not so much today, that the country cannot afford a decent social security system any more than it can afford a decent pensions system is arrant nonsense.
  What we need is a determination to eliminate poverty. That is what the debate ought to be about, not a systematic attack on the welfare state, which is what the Bill and the money resolution represent.
  The Policy Studies Institute produced an analysis of the Government's plan entitled "Selective Social Security" in which it quoted from a DHSS-sponsored survey in 1982 on the indicators of hardship by type of family. Taking first couples with children, the money of 56 per cent. of claimants ran out most weeks. Seventy per cent. of them had periods of real anxiety, 63 per cent. lacked a complete standard set of clothing and, when interviewed, 56 per cent. were in debt. Perhaps the Minister will say whether any of his proposals do anything to alleviate such problems and anxieties. I suspect that probably they do not.
  The real intention behind the resolution and the Bill is to save public money at the expense of the poorest people, not to eliminate poverty as it should be. Politically, one may say that the Government are incredibly stupid or shortsighted, or that they simply do not care about the poorest people living in inner city areas.
  In my constituency there are a number of social security offices. The two largest are based at Archway tower covering the Finsbury Park and Highgate areas. Jointly there are 38,000 claimants in those two offices. Most of them will suffer from the Government's proposals. Many more people will be forced to pay 20 per cent. of the rates which are high in London due to Government cuts in rate
  896
  support grant and rate capping. The number of people affected in many of our inner city areas is about one third to one half of the population of those areas. That is the magnitude of the Government's attack on social security.
  There are a number of matters to which I wish to refer which I believe come within the ambit of the money resolution. The first relates to income support. The childless long-term unemployed are excluded from income support. The loss of additional requirements means additional hardships for them with regard to heating and special diets.
  There is a serious discrimination against the functionally disabled. I do not think that the Secretary of State addressed himself to that issue during his introduction of the Bill or in any of his numerous publications in support of the proposal. I am worried about the further deterioration which arises from the family credit scheme. A notional sum is included to replace free school meals. As a result, those currently eligible, whilst in receipt of family income supplement, will no longer benefit from free school meals. A survey of charges shows that they vary from £1·75 to £4·75 per week. At current rates, a £3 per week notional allowance would result in the loss of notional income of £1·75 per week per child in areas covered by those authorities with the highest meal charges. It would mean a loss for families in 61 of the 102 authorities surveyed. Moreover, it has been estimated that children in more than 100,000 families would lose the benefit of free or subsidised meals.
  The effect of the legislation goes in many directions. It is not just that the children will go without school meals; the school meals workers whose jobs depend on the number of children requiring school meals will lose their jobs. That is one reason why the National Union of Public Employees, the union that sponsors me in the House, is joining many other organisations in opposing this legislation.
  The 20 per cent. of rates that will be charged to those in receipt of housing benefit is another problem. We are aware that the rates system is unfair. It is made much more unfair by the Government's rate-capping policy. Today's document does not hold out any hope for the people who live in areas that need the most public expenditure. They will have an added burden. I hope that we can consider these matters in the detail that they deserve in Committee.
  I wish finally to mention the social fund and the way in which it will operate. The Secretary of State was unclear as to how the social fund will operate. He said that it will not be means-tested and that local offices will have discretion. If there is to be discretion over a means-tested and cash-limited fund, how on earth will it operate if it is to mean anything? The Secretary of State should be clear about the fund. It is designed to create an intimidatory atmosphere in which claimants will not claim because they will be hauled before the local manager who will decide whether they are fit to claim benefit.
  I do not know about other Members, but my blood ran cold when the Secretary of State said that he would pursue those people who could not pay for funerals as a charge against the estate. We are means testing the dead when they are in the ground. It is a most disgraceful proposal.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to the Government's figures, in London there is about £100 million of benefit unclaimed every year? Would it not be better for the Government to

  897
  spend time and effort trying to raise the level of awareness of those who are entitled to claim rather than to attack those who are claiming?
  Mr. Corbyn: Indeed, the GLC and other councils have done a great deal of work in getting people to claim in full the benefits to which they are entitled. Instead of receiving praise from the Government for telling people of their rights, they are told that they cannot do that and are threatened with legal action for trying to do it.
  The Bill is, in many ways, a step backwards from all the legislation passed since 1945. It is being strongly opposed by pensioners' organisations, claimants' groups, trade unions and tenants' associations. Thousands of people who are directly affected are well aware of what is going on and will join in opposing the Bill. That opposition will continue and will grow.
  In opposing the Bill, I do not defend the existing system, because I do not defend a system that makes it complicated for people to claim their benefits, where there are enormous queues, and there are problems of lost files, under-staffing and under-payment of staff in offices. I look forward to a social security system that is designed to eliminate poverty, not to return us to the era of the poor law and the means test, which is what the Bill is about.
  The alliance parties call for an all-party consensus on this matter. There can be no all-party consensus because the Conservative party and now the alliance are determined to push the legislation through to make life worse for the poorest people, ignoring the problems of poverty, instead of promoting a campaign to eliminate it. Self-satisfied Members could walk for 20 minutes and see people sleeping rough in Waterloo station, and other stations. That is the degree of poverty and deprivation in London.
  The Bill does nothing to eliminate poverty. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are stirring rather nervously now. They should go to Waterloo station and see the poor people who are sleeping there. They should see the degradation that has been forced on them by the Government's policies.
  We shall fight this Bill all the way in Committee, and the next Labour Government will remove it in its entirety.
  11.6 pm
  The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): Allowing for an interesting difference in style, the first and last contributions to this debate were in a sense almost identical. The hon. Members for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) and for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) both agreed that they did not like the present social security system or the Bill, and both agreed that they did not have the foggiest notion what to do instead.
  The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye started by saying that he was going to vote against the Money Resolution because he wanted more clarification of figures and details. He then perpetrated some of the worse waffle about pensions policies that I have heard for a considerable time. That takes some nerve. I should like to ask either of the alliance representatives—the hon. Members for Ross, Cromarty and Skye and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) what they mean by the reference in the reasoned amendment to increasing the state retirement pension in the context of SERPS.
  I have yet to be persuaded that any alliance Member, including the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport
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  (Dr. Owen), realises that the SERPS proposals do not immediately release a vast total of resources, because we are not tampering with people's immediate pension expectations. Hon. Members persistently talked about how modification of SERPS somehow unlocked a huge pot of gold that permitted an immediate increase in the basic retirement pension. Sooner or later, they will have to face up to precisely how they will pay for some of their commitments.
  I refer hon. Members to paragraph 3.57 of the White Paper, and to the serious and important comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) about the earnings rule. Paragraph 3.40 makes it clear that the change in the earnings rule will be monitored and reconsidered in the light of experience of its operation. That reconsideration will embrace the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made about reducing the qualifying period for one year.
  I shall not attempt to follow the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) down the track of talking about students, in that whatever else I say is in order on this money resolution. I find it difficult to believe that students are, because there is no provision in the Bill relevant to any of the points on which the hon. Gentleman touched. However, we think that he failed to give sufficient weight to the housing benefit disregard which is contained in the package and to the grant increase following from some social security proposals that we have made.
  The most important point to come up in the debate was that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, echoed in different language by a number of hon. Members, about the long-term unemployed. The evidence that simply being on benefit in the long term by itself creates additional needs is inconclusive. The need for long-term unemployed families with children is clear. That need is shown in all our surveys and is reflected in the family premium proposed in the income support scheme. That premium will produce average increases of £1·70 a week for lone parents arid £1·40 a week for couples with children.
  I ask all those hon. Members who have referred to single payments in this context to reflect on the extent to which large numbers of families do not gain any benefit from the single payments system. That must be borne in mind. On the latest information we have, about two thirds of families with children, including lone parents, receiving benefit at the time of the survey had not received a single payment in the previous 12 months. A system of single payments which is as random and uncertain in its effect as that, and from which large numbers of families evidently receive no benefit, is not a sensible substitute for a clear, proper set of weekly benefit rates and our proposals for an improvement in those regular weekly benefit rates for families with children. That is a much more sensible way of ensuring that people can get the help we want them to have. We shall continue to proceed down that track.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill, it is expedient to authorise the following—
  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
  (a) any sums payable by way of the following—

  (i) income support;

  (ii) family credit;

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  (iii) rate rebate subsidy;

  (iv) rent rebate subsidy;

  (v) rent allowance subsidy;

  (b) payments by the Secretary of State into the social fund;
  (c) any sum payable under the Act to a person whose entitlement to the sum depends on his being entitled or treated as entitled to a qualifying benefit payable out of money provided by Parliament;
  (d) payments by way of adjustment;
  (e) any sums falling to be paid by the Secretary of State under or by virtue of the Act by way of travelling expenses;
  (f) any other expenses of the Secretary of State attributable to the Act; and
  900
  (g) any expenses of the Lord Chancellor attributable to the Act; and
  (h) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under any other Act;
  (2) the charging on and payment out of the Consolidate Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums to be charged on and paid out of that Fund under any other Act;
  (3) the making of payments into the Consolidated Fund: and in this Resolution—

  (a) 'Act', when not used in relation to any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill, includes an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland; and

  (b) other expressions shall be construed in accordance with any Act resulting from the Social Security Bill.

  London Regional Transport
  11.11 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): I beg to move,
  That the draft London Regional Transport (Levy) Order 1986, which was laid before this House on 16th December, be approved.
  At various times, those of us who follow these matters have heard much extravagant language used about the prospects for public transport in London. Enormous progress is being made by the professional management of London Regional Transport. This is a truth which the GLC has a record of seeking to obscure by inflammatory scare stories. I quote but a few:
  "Fares will increase by at least 25 per cent."
  "The end of the line for at least 33 stations and 34 bus routes."
  "Pensioners will lose their free passes."
  To add insult to injury, this grossly misleading and expensive propaganda has been paid for at the expense of the ratepayer. The GLC has to date provided grants exceeding £1 million to its mouthpiece "Capital". I hope that our debate can be conducted in a more level-headed atmosphere.
  Mr. Tony Banks: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his new-found responsibilities. Has he had a chance yet to ascertain by how much fares have increased since London Regional Transport took over London Transport?
  Mr. Mitchell: I shall be delighted to deal with that point if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop the point I am seeking to make. I intend to come to his point.
  The objectives for London Regional Transport of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State were to secure a period of stability for LRT's management following the troubled years under the GLC. That stability is essential to permit LRT and the professionals who man it to root out inefficiencies in the organisation and provide a better service to the travelling public.
  We asked LRT to reduce the unit costs of its business by at least 2·5 per cent. in real terms each year and to reduce its need for revenue support from the £190 million planned by the GLC to £95 million for 1987–88. To improve accountability, LRT was required to establish its underground and bus undertakings as separate limited companies and that was achieved in April 1985. We also gave the chairman the objective of establishing LRT's ancillary businesses as separately accountable units of management and of reducing costs by competitive tendering for services where that was a sensible course. We also made it clear that, while we wanted to ease the financial burden on London ratepayers and on the taxpayer by reducing the grant paid to LRT, that reduced total would support the programme of investment which was vitally needed to improve the quality of service to the customer and save costs in the longer term.
  Services were to be matched to demand and fares to be kept broadly in line with prices generally and those charged on British Rail's commuter services in London. LRT was asked to pursue opportunities for better co-ordination of services with British Rail and to improve conditions for disabled travellers.
  I greatly welcome, and I believe that the House welcomes, the excellent response which Dr. Bright and his
  902
  board have made to this challenge. They pointed the way forward in their statement of strategy published in June 1985. Their aim is to secure better services and an improved passenger environment at no real additional cost to passengers by reducing costs in all areas. I commend their strategy statement to the flouse. Hon. Members have also seen LRT's annual business plan for 1986–87 which places on record its performance over this financial year. I hope that the House found that and the plans for next year as encouraging as I do.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Minister tell us how what he has just said accords with the view of the London regional passenger committee which, when commenting on bus services in the capital, said that demand has gone up while the frequency of service has gone down? The Minister will know that the costs have not gone down; they have gone up.
  Mr. Mitchell: I will come to that point in a moment. However, matching the supply and demand in some areas means changing services, in some areas increasing them and in others reducing them but an efficient business is one which matches supply and demand as closely as possible. It would not run services for which there is not an adequate demand.
  The business plan shows that next year LRT will need only £79 million in grant to support its revenues. That means that not only will it have bettered our target for subsidy by £16 million but also that it will do so a year early and after taking on responsibility from next April for funding dial-a-ride services for the disabled. That is an astonishingly good performance by LRT. Since it has been achieved—as I am about to describe—without massive increases in fares or cuts in services it represents an absolute vindication of our policies.
  Cost-cutting is the key to LRT's success. Progress in securing greater efficiency in provision of services for the public has been excellent.
  Mr. Nigel Forman: My hon. Friend mentioned dial-a-ride. Will he give a much needed reassurance to my constituents in the London borough of Sutton that the arrangements which have been made will not disadvantage them in terms of local government finance?
  Mr. Mitchell: I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he is seeking.
  The reduction in real unit costs of 2·5 per cent. per annum which we set on the basis of the then current business plans was, at the time, a tough target. In fact, unit costs will fall by 6·4 per cent. on the buses and by 3·7 per cent. on the underground this year in comparison with 1984–85; and are planned to fall by another 4·4 per cent. overall next year. That demonstrates the strength and imagination of LRT's managerial approach. It has secured more efficient operating and engineering practices and it is pursuing economy and efficiency in the provision of its ancillary services through contracting out and other means.
  What about the level of services? I am happy to say that LRT plans to maintain at least the overall level of bus services, and to respond to the rising patronage that it is attracting on the underground by increasing services by 3 per cent. next year. I am sure that the hon. Member for

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  Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will join me in congratulating LRT particularly on increasing tube provision by 3 per cent. next year.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Surely the Minister knows that since LRT has been responsible for London transport there has been a 3 million mile cut in bus routage. That is not an expansion.
  Mr. Mitchell: As I said, it is important to match supply and demand. If there are services for which there is insufficient demand, it is right to reduce them, and if there are other services for which there is increased demand, it is right to increase the provision of services. That is exactly what LRT has been doing, which is why I can refer to increased provision for London tubes.
  Last year Opposition Members made the most outrageous claims about loss of services for pensioners and cuts that would take place. I bitterly resent the way in which elderly people were needlessly frightened and used, in the worst sense of the word, by Opposition Members for their political purposes.
  Investment will be increased. This year LRT expects to spend about £230 million on capital expenditure, towards which a grant of £193 million will be paid. Next year it plans to increase investment by £31 million, and our grant will also increase, by £23 million.
  On the underground, the customer will see further modernisation of stations. Recently, I saw the proposals for Bank station, which are encouraging, and involve expenditure of £5 million. That will provide substantial improvements to a heavily used station. Passengers will also see work start on the new automatic ticketing system which will be in place by 1988. That will bring major benefits to passengers in terms of convenience and savings in cost.
  The bus passenger will see the introduction of new vehicles better adapted for use by the disabled and designed to speed up services to passengers generally. I hope that that will be welcomed by hon. Members, as it will be by anybody who is unbiased and certainly by passengers. Further work is in progress to provide modern garages and efficient operational and engineering services, and to replace the present power generation for the underground by cheaper power from the national grid. So much for the sinister tales of London's public transport in decay.
  With my full encouragement, LRT has been pursuing its statutory duty of seeking tenders for bus services which it considers appropriate for contracting out. London Buses Ltd., LRT's operating subsidiary, tenders for routes specified by LRT in competition with other operators. The first 12 routes were announced last April. The mileage operated increased overall by 2·5 per cent. and an annual saving of £750,000 million is expected on a subsidy bill of £4 million for these routes. The second tranche of 12 routes announced in December will see frequencies increased on three routes and maintained on the rest. Yet annual savings of £1 million are expected over those 12 routes. I am sure that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will be on his feet in a moment to welcome that.
  Of the twenty-four routes so far put to tender, nine were retained by London Buses Ltd., nine were gained by subsidiaries of the National Bus Company and the
  904
  remaining six went to private operators. In this way the private sector is being given a fair chance, under competitive conditions, to enter the London bus market.
  Like any other business, LRT has to adjust its prices in the light of inflation. But it has not been allowed the easy route to reduction in subsidy by real increases in fares. The 9 per cent. increase in January 1985 covered nearly two years and restored the fares to much the same value as after the previous change in May 1983. The January 1986 increase maintains them broadly at that level and leaves them lower than they were in real terms in 1981. Current fares represent excellent value for an improving quality of service. LRT has kept the increase in the cost of travelcards at less than the average, so building on their evident success.
  As fares now stand, travellers are paying a realistic price for a good service. Passengers agree. Patronage is booming. Underground travel has grown by 8 per cent. since last year. The long-run decline in bus patronage is being arrested. Hon. Members may care to glance at the figures in paragraphs 1 and 2 in LRT's annual business plan where they will see the underlying stability in LRT's policy on fares.
  That is the background to the levy order for 1986–87 which we are considering. The House will know that section 12 of the London Regional Transport Act 1984 empowers my right hon. Friend to make grants to support LRT's capital and revenue spending. Section 13 of that Act permits him to recover by a levy on London ratepayers up to two thirds of his spending on grants. This financial year we are paying £323 million in grant, and are recovering £212 million in the levy. That works out at 65·63 per cent. of the total grant, and it means a rate poundage of 10·8p in the pound. The remainder of the grant is funded by the taxpayer.
  LRT's excellent performance means that for 1986–87 the grant need be no more than £295 million. That is the estimated grant mentioned in the draft order. We have decided to keep the proportions funded respectively by ratepayers and taxpayers the same as last year. It seems right that both should share the benefits of better management—professional management, I may add—in the proportion in which they have contributed. That consideration requires us to raise only £193·6 million from London ratepayers and we are able to reduce the rate poundage by just over a penny, to 9·79p in the pound. That is excellent news for the domestic and business ratepayer.
  In sum, I have shown that the Government are delivering in full measure the promise of the policies which we put forward for LRT and I have no hesitation in commending the draft order to the House tonight.
  11.27 pm
  Mr. Roger Stott: I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Mr. Mitchell) on his promotion to Minister of State, Department of Transport. I do that with all the sincerity that I can genuinely muster. I hope that he will enjoy it while he can because after the next election I hope to be taking the position from him; or perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) will do that. We shall have to see.
  The order gives power to the Secretary of State to precept the London boroughs in order to sustain the capital and revenue support for LRT. I hope that I shall not be using "extravagant language". I do not believe that the

  905
  GLC, in its campaign for the retention of London Transport, used extravagant language either. What we shall be doing this evening is using the correct and factual statistics that are to hand.
  Mr. Matthew Parris: We were told in Standing Committee that 20 or 30 underground stations would be closed within a short time. If that was not extravagant language, I wonder what is.
  Mr. Stott: I shall deal with some of these issues later. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East was a member of that Standing Committee and made several statements in it which, sadly, have proven correct.
  The 1984 Act gives the Secretary of State responsibility for judging what level of collective revenue and capital support should be given to LRT. This is one of the first occasions that the House has had to assess the role and financing of LRT since that Act came into operation. When the Bill was debated in the House, many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East, told the Secretary of State that removing control from the GLC and putting it with a Government quango would result in a worse service. I am sorry to have to say that many of their predictions have come true, even in the short time since the legislation was enacted.
  One of the main reasons for the deterioration in services is directly related to revenue support. In addition to the requirements laid down in the 1984 Act, the Secretary of State has to set LRT a series of objectives. One is that revenue support is to be reduced by £95 million by 1987–88. That compares with £190 million of revenue grants provided by the GLC during 1984–85. LRT has made it clear that it is determined to attain most of that £95 million reduction in the first year. That aim is a major determining factor of the strategy that it has adopted, and the strategy is one of cuts in services and cuts in jobs.
  Broadly speaking, the savings are made by reductions in bus services on the assumption that bus use will decline by 2·5 per cent. during the next year. LRT staff are already admitting that there is little evidence of such decline. The latest figures show continuing growth. For example, bus passenger miles in the first quarter of 1985 were 9 per cent. higher than in the corresponding period of 1984. LRT is embarrassed by the number of passengers who want to travel by bus. Savings from reductions in services cannot be made without serious reductions in fares and revenue receipts.
  Mr. Forman: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that, if there has been an expansion of the number of passengers while, at the same time, the number of people employed has been reduced, that indicates a more efficient service which benefits the taxpayer and the ratepayer?
  Mr. Stott: I shall deal with that intervention later.
  Mr. Jeremy Hanley: When the hon. Gentleman deals with that matter, would he care to explain the fact that, between 1970 and 1982, under the GLC, passenger demand fell by 25 per cent.? Surely that is no great success story.
  Mr. Tony Banks: That is because it was under Tory control most of that time, you see, ha, ha!
  Mr. Stott: If the very efficient Hansard reporters caught that sedentary interruption from my hon. Friend. I need not answer the question.
  906
  It is important to consider these matters in the context of what they mean for those who pay to support the services. In the financial year 1984–85, when the GLC still had control of London Transport, London ratepayers contributed £280 million towards the running of London Transport. In the financial year 1985–86, they must pay an extra 35 per cent. as the bill increases to £281 million. They also have to pay increased fares and watch some of the capital's services decline.
  The Government have deliberately chosen to bring about those increases. The Secretary of State for Transport has given himself the power to levy a rate on Londoners for LRT up to the maximum of two thirds of the total subsidy. In 1985, in the first year of operation, the Secretary of State had to decide what that levy should be. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the order shows the maximum.
  Mr. David Mitchell: Will the hon. Gentleman at least have the courtesy to admit that, although there have been reductions in some services in some areas, there have been increases in others? That is a sign of an efficient matching of the market to the supply and provision of transport.
  Mr. Stott: I do not accept the scenario that the hon. Gentleman has painted, and I shall deal with that matter later.
  Another factor that has increased the burden on ratepayers is the outstanding debt for capital grants to London Transport that the Government left to the GLC. When the London Regional Transport Act was passed, in real terms London Transport was nationalised, but. the Government refused to take over the council's outstanding debts in respect of London Transport, and London ratepayers have had to meet the costs in the GLC's 1985–86 rate precept.
  In the past year, London's bus services have suffered from a major programme of curtailment of routes. Reduction in frequency and the conversion to one-person operation has meant a serious loss of jobs. The Minister mentioned the separate London Bus Company, which has been created to run London's buses. It is clear that it has little real autonomy from LRT. During the past year we have seen a series of cuts in bus mileages. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) drew the Minister's attention to the serious reductions in bus mileage during the period of LRT's existence.
  Under the London Regional Transport Act 1984, subsidy to London Regional Transport is decided on by the Secretary of State, following consultation with the Treasury and, as he is doing now, he must seek Parliament's approval. Up to two thirds of the total is raised from the ratepayers of Greater London. The exact amount is specified in the order.
  For 1986–87 the Secretary of State has set a total subsidy to LRT of £295 million of which 65·63 per cent. is to be levied from the ratepayers, amounting to a sum of £193·6 million which represents a rate of about 9p in the pound. The total grant for 1986–87 is slightly lower than it was for 1985–86—£323 million—as is the ratepayers' contribution. Since 1984–85, the last year under CiLC' control, the total cost has not reduced, despite the Secretary of State's comments inside and outside the House. The total cost of London Transport during 1984–85 was £249 million—16 per cent. less than the subsidy in 1986–87.

  907
  Let us consider the breakdown of the figures and the GLC budget for 1984–85. Revenue support stood at £190 million and debt charges were £59 million, making a total of £249 million. The LRT budget for 1985–86 is £323 million; in 1986–87, it decreases slightly to £295 million. Despite the fact that the costs at LRT have not declined since the GLC lost control, the quality of public transport has declined.
  I have to declare an interest, because I use London Transport every day—
  Mr. Forman: So do I.
  Mr. Stott: I know that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) is the only Conservative Member who does not drive a car, and I accept with alacrity that the hon. Gentleman has as much right as I have to relay to the House our opinions about London Transport.
  The quality of the service, in my view and that of my hon. Friends, has declined; there has been a 16 per cent. increase in fares, compared with 10 per cent. inflation during the same period, and a 2 per cent. cut in bus services, or an equivalent of 3 million bus miles. If one lives on one of those routes, the cuts will have a great effect, whether one lives on the outer rim of the city or in one of the inner areas. It is all very well to take buses off the road, but that does not help nurses to get to work early in the morning or late in the evening. We should provide a service for the people of the capital city.
  Although fares have increased faster than inflation, LRT has declared that it does not intend to take the entire subsidy for 1986–87. It will hand back £16 million to the Government, leaving the revenue support at £79 million instead of £95 million. That reduction in revenue support represents bad value for money, because, according to London Transport's own estimates, every pound of subsidy forgone leads to £l·34 of missing benefits. That represents a total loss of about £21·4 million of benefits. According to the London Regional Transport Act, the £16 million does not go back to the ratepayers of London; it goes straight back to the Treasury. Therefore, the real share of the subsidy increase to the ratepayers of London is 69·4 per cent.
  If LRT had not decided to forgo the £16 million, fares could have been held down, services could have been increased, or there could have been a combination of both.
  A survey conducted for the GLC by the Harris Research Centre among a representative cross-section of Londoners asks the respondents to select their preferred way of using that £16 million surplus. They were given four possible options, and their transport, employment and financial needs were taken into consideration. Those options were: first, to hold down bus and underground fares; secondly, to increase bus and underground fares; thirdly, to reduce rates in London; and, fourthly, to reduce taxation throughout the country. The result of the survey was that 42 per cent. were in favour of the first option to hold down fares; 26 per cent. favoured increasing fares; 17 per cent. favoured reducing rates; and 15 per cent. favoured reducing taxes. More than two thirds of Londoners wanted the money that LRT was returning to the Treasury to be used to hold down fares, a popular process that they have enjoyed while the GLC has had control of London's transport.
  Mr. Parris: I gather than one option on the opinion poll to which the hon. Gentleman referred was that the savings should be made available to taxpayers nationally. Did the people questioned in the poll include a sample of those taxpayers nationally, or were they all Londoners?
  Mr. Stott: The poll was conducted among a representative cross-section of Londoners. While the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) was asking that question, my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) reminded me that unintentionally I may have misled the House when dealing with the second option in the poll. It was to increase services and the figure was 26 per cent. I may have been somewhat confused in the wording of the option.
  The Minister referred to the expansion of the London underground. It is to the advantage of everybody in one of the greatest capital cities in the world that the underground system is improved, for many millions of people are readily accepting the usefulness of the underground service.
  The Minister said that automatic ticketing would not come in until 1988. Earlier in the evening I could have taken him to Wesminster tube station, where he would not have found anybody selling tickets. People could ride on the trains, but they could not buy tickets. There is a shortage of staff, not only at Westminster but at tube stations throughout the capital city. Nor do the machines work.
  Mr. Peter Snape: Millions of pounds in revenue is being thrown away, and the Minister knows it.
  Mr. Stott: The Government propose to spend £2·5 million on trunk roads in London. I do not oppose the building of roads where there is a practical reason for building them. But the return on that type of expenditure, unless the Government are making some extremely optimistic assumptions, will be negative.
  Mr. Hanley: May I correct the hon. Gentleman on that point?
  Mr. Stott: No. The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech.
  The option of the Labour party and of the controlling Labour group on the GLC would be to use the financial resources to provide an integral, decent public transport system in our capital city. The GLC was attempting to provide just that, and the Fares Fair scheme was a bold, Socialist initiative by the GLC which proved popular throughout London.
  The people of London have been denied the bus service that that positive, bold initiative would have provided, because the Government, out of sheer spite, are getting rid of the GLC and are taking the running of London's transport away from elected London councillors and giving it to a Government quango.
  Public opinion on transport will be put to the test when we take our campaign on to the streets of Fulham. The people there will have an opportunity to pass judgment on what the Government have done, not only to the GLC but in destroying a public transport service of which every Londoner could be proud.
  11.49 pm
  Mr. John Wheeler: I join in congratulating the Minister of State on his appointment. I am sure that he will be in his office for some time to come and will enjoy every minute of it.
  I assure the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) that my constituents remember the activities of the GLC. They recall vividly the increase in subsidies in real terms, from £6·5 million to £369·8 million. The people of London paid for those subsidies through their rates, and I remember the anger and anxiety of my pensioners and others who had to foot the bill to pay for that expenditure. I remember too, that from 1970 to 1982 fares rose in real terms by 85 per cent. There was gross overmanning, gross inefficiency and gross political manipulation of the transport undertaking in the capital.
  We must congratulate the chairman and the board of London Regional Transport on a great success story. By any standards, the success of the new management in improving the efficiency of the service is something about which we can all be proud. I know that the people of London are proud of it. It is particularly gratifying to know that capital investment has been increased to £200 million from the GLCs £155 million investment programme. It is good to know that in its second year the business plan envisages that service levels will be maintained on buses and improved on the underground. Investment will increase by a further £30 million and revenue subsidies reduced again from £130 million to £79 million.
  Mr. Parris: The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) said that there were no staff to sell tickets at Westminster underground station. I have just been over to check, and staff are selling tickets there.
  Mr. Wheeler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Like most hon. Members on the Government side, he is a regular user of the transport system, and we know how good it is and how it has improved.
  Mr. Snape: Will the hon. Gentleman accept from me, as someone who regularly uses Westminster tube station late at night, that on many nights of the week there is no one to sell tickets at the ticket office? Regularly after 8 o'clock in the evening, most of the machines there are switched off. Because of staff shortages, it is quite possible to travel for nothing. That is the wonderful management that the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. and right hon. Friends, like the Minister, who rarely travels by public transport, are talking about.
  Mr. Wheeler: At the end of the journey, the fare is collected.
  Mr. Snape: No, it is not. There is no one there either.
  Mr. Wheeler: Yes, it is.
  Of the plans produced by the LRT, I particularly welcome the investment of £135 million in a new automatic ticketing system which will reduce costs and fraud. Any hon. Member who has seen the modern underground system in the Crown colony of Hong Kong will know how successful automatic ticketing can be, especially in transporting people more speedily.
  I welcome the substantial investment and the investment of £16 million in new buses. That will produce employment for people elsewhere in the United Kingdom as well as producing new equipment and new standards of comfort that will be of immense benefit to people in
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  London as a whole. LRT has also managed to hold down fares. Although by last summer fares had been eroded by at least 20 per cent. in real terms since May 1981, the overall increases that took place with effect from 6 January this year were around 9 per cent. that is a commendable achievement.
  I welcome the order and I particularly commend the professional management of LRT. I hope that my hon. Friend will convey to that management the congratulations of the House and its best wishes for continued success.
  11.54 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I too welcome the Minister to his new role. A belief was expressed by the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) that his tenure of office in this Government was bound to be long. I do not think that has been recent experience, but we hope the Minister is able to enjoy getting his teeth stuck into the more senior position which he has just inherited.
  Mr. Hanley: He did not inherit it; he earned it.
  Mr. Hughes: Well, into which he stepped through his service previously as Under-Secretary.
  We judge the performance of London Regional Transport principally by three tests. The first is what the Secretary of State told those of us who were in the House for the Second and Third Readings of the London Regional Transport Act 1984 and what he told us in Committee. I should like to remind the House of some of the phrases that he used during the passage of the Bill. On Second Reading, he said:
  "The Bill provides the opportunities. The securing of better value for money will be one of the first and most important tasks of the new chairman of LRT and his board. I shall look to the board to achieve this."
  Later in the same speech he said:
  "In the longer term the level of fares will reflect the degree of success LRT has in cutting costs and improving efficiency. I see no reason why fares and charges should continue to outstrip the increase in prices generally, given the scope that there is in LRT for substantial cost savings." —[Official Report, 13 December 1983; Vol. 50, c. 860, 864.]
  On Third Reading he said:
  "It is crucial that we get a better deal for travellers,"—
  not for ratepayers—
  "and that is the prime objective of the exercise … I am also confident not only that travellers will see a steadily improving system in London but that that will be accompanied by a reduction in their rate bill."—[Official Report, 9 April 1984; Vol. 58, c. 109.]
  That, as it were, was the prologue of the coming into force of LRT.
  There are two other criteria by which I suggest to the Minister that we should properly judge LRT's achievement. I shall not paint a picture that is all one-sided. We have to use fair and objective criteria. One is the opinion of people who take an objective view and a professional interest in what goes on. My earlier intervention was from the same source, which I hope the Minister accepts is valid and honourable, the committee that was set up to look after the interests of passengers in London, the London regional passenger committee. I might point out that after much pressure from the Opposition in Committee the London regional passenger committee was improved so that it would have at least some accountability to consumes.
  There will be agreement about some matters. The passenger committee has said that on the underground the

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  demand has gone up, services have improved and modernisation has also taken place. I commend that. Some stations are considerably more pleasant than they were a few years ago. But the same has not applied on the bus services. The committee says—and this is an objective test—that there has been a reduction in bus services so far despite increased demand. We know why demand has increased. I hope the Minister will accept that it is principally because of the increased number of passes and special concessions that people have been using the services more frequently. There is nothing wrong with passes; they are a good thing and they have encouraged demand. That is the result a couple of years on.
  Perhaps the board did not foresee that demand would increase, but services have deteriorated both in bus mileage and in frequency and therefore in efficiency, reliability and acceptability. The figures have been confirmed by other interventions. Passenger miles, on the other hand, in the second quarter of 1984 were 579 million; in the second quarter of 1985 they were 584 million, with an annual total of 2,620 million in the first year and 2,670 million in the second year. But the services have gone down. The number of million bus miles travelled in London has been reduced.
  I can then put the third criterion to the Minister for judging success, the criterion of a London Member of Parliament who has had many occasions to go to meetings, to deal with letters and to look at requests from constituents who cannot have the same level of service and the same convenience of travel now, in parts of my constituency and around, as they had one or two years ago. I want to give the Minister an example of the sort of thing that London Regional Transport certainly cannot be proud of.
  There was a bus service round the Surrey docks, the P5. Surrey docks is a very isolated peninsula, away from the main travel routes. That service was, at the end of last year, reduced in the second of the LRT route revisions. there was no consultation process of the right length. The matter is now going to court because the consultation process promised did not take place. The result has been that, although immediately after the service was changed there was an effort to sustain the same level and reliability, it has dropped off considerably. People who have no other public transport at all, who have no easy access to the tube because the tube stations are quite a long way away, say regularly and in large numbers, at meetings to hundreds, rather than tens, of people, that they believe the service to be worse.
  I do not say that that applies to all services. The Minister, of course, says that a good management should ensure that the service responds to demand. But there have been substantial—and this is the best interpretation—errors of judgment in assessing that demand, and substantial attempts to cut services before the need for them to exist has been assessed.
  When the Minister next talks to LRT about its plans for the coming year—and obviously I have consultations both with my area manager in Selkent and the chairman and officers of the board of LRT—I ask him to undertake to talk to it about the things which are clear evidence of the valid discontent in areas of the capital about the way in which the cost-cutting exercise has
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  resulted in a service-cutting exercise, when the demand has been in the other direction. That is a serious complaint which reveals a lack of responsiveness to the consumer.
  We know why it is possible for LRT not to be responsive: it is a Government body. It has no direct accountability. The people who run it do not have to stand for election. As was quite rightly pointed out in the sedentary intervention made in response to the question from the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), the reality of 1980–81 was that the GLC elections for 1981 were fought largely on the issue of the transport policy of the Labour group, fighting for control at county hall. Its promises to use subsidies from the ratepayers generally were popular. It gained substantial support. The result, as the Minister knows, was that fares were held down below the level of inflation and, in many respects, people at least had the service near where they lived, even if there was not on occasions a massive demand for it; it was still needed by them, however big or small the demand.
  It is no good saying to a community like that in Surrey docks two years ago, a few thousand people, "I am sorry, but there are not enough of you to justify a bus service", when there is no other public transport service available to that community.
  It is unfair to believe that the policy of keeping fares down is incompatible with having support from the public and from the customer and with the increasing demand which is possible if one is then imaginative about the schemes, the passes and the general forms of service that are offered to the consumer.
  My last point to the Minister, which I made to his predecessor, I make in part in a parochial way but also more substantially. Some of the complaints seem to be to do with the regular day-to-day management decisions of London Transport. They go something like this: if we had shorter routes, less delay would be caused by congestion. All the predictions are that our streets will be more congested, and we need to counter that in the planning of the routes of London Transport, and not allow delays to build up, which, unfortunately still occurs on some routes.
  However, we need to concentrate on some of the more important capital investment to which the Minister pays so much attention, particularly in some of the areas that continue to be badly served by public transport. In Committee, the two priorities in capital investment terms were said to be improved services to Heathrow and improved services in the docklands. There has certainly been a movement in the case of the docklands light railway, but south of the river there has been little improvement, if any, in docklands. It is still the gap in the London Transport map.
  I ask the Minister to take away from the debate a much less complacent attitude than that with which he came to it. People in London are not saying that it is a wonderful new service in all respects as the result of London Transport. More often than not they are saying—and I ask him to accept that I represent the views which I hear and the experiences which are relayed to me—that there is not as much control, the prices are going up and the bus services in general and in many specific cases are not being improved. That is not sufficient to make LRT anything like the success that the Minister's predecessor and the Secretary of State said it would be.
  12.6 am
  Mr. Jeremy Hanley: Contrary to the belief of many Opposition Members, the Conservative party believes that public transport is absolutely vital to the capital. It is vital as a service to those who need to use it, it is vital as a service to the economy of the whole region and it is vital as a service to those who ought to use it more. It is only by a professional service, by an attractive service and by a well-run commercial service—indeed, by a proper public service—that we can bring more people on to public transport which will help to reduce the already overburdened roads throughout the capital. The only way to reduce the terrible traffic conditions in London is by making public transport more attractive.
  I well remember the Standing Committee in February 1984 when we discussed this subject. I well remember the scare stories put out by the Opposition. However, there is one important thing to remember about that debate in Standing Committee: what were the objectives of the London Regional Transport Act 1984?
  London Transport was taken from the Greater London council, first, to restore a stable framework for public transport planning; secondly, to reduce unnecessary costs and provide better value for money for travellers, ratepayers and tax-payers; thirdly, to bring bus and underground services into the same policy framework as BR commuter services and to improve co-operation between the two; fourthly, to redirect resources to cost-saving investment; fifthly, to ensure fully professional management; and, sixthly, to encourage competition and contracting out.
  Have those six objectives been achieved? The first—to restore a stable framework—has certainly been achieved by taking LRT out of the directly political arena. There are no political appointees there now.
  Mr. Tony Banks: They are all political.
  Mr. Hanley: They are there for quality. It is not jobs for the boys or jobs for the girls.
  With regard to the second objective—reducing unnecessary costs—bus costs have gone down by 6·4 per cent. and the costs of running the tube by 3·7 per cent. No longer is LT a job-protection scheme; it is a service for the consumer. I cannot blame Opposition Members for wanting to keep LRT as a job-protection scheme.
  Any party founded and funded by the unions has a duty to those unions. Now the duty is to the consumer, and not to those who work in the industry. LRT is now a partnership between the employees and the consumer. It is an organisation that runs with pride in itself and not embarrassment about the political kickbacks that occurred.
  Bus and underground services have been brought into the same framework as British Rail. There is through-routeing and there are imaginative ticket schemes. The present system encourages people to use London's services. It is one of the London Regional Transport Act's great successes. People can now use public transport without unnecessary restrictive practices to make their journeys harder.
  The fourth objective related to redirecting resources to cost-saving investment. We have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) of the increases in capital expenditure. Those increases are vast. There are new buses, stations and ticket
  914
  machines. Anyone who uses the underground system, as Conservative Members regularly do, will feel the pride that exists in the attractiveness of the underground stations, the new designs and the cleanliness which was never present in GLC days.
  We have also ensured that there is a fully professional management. That has worked. London Regional Transport is no longer run by a bus driver who was promoted above his ability. It is run by a professional manager who has learnt how to drive a bus, and does so regularly, to find out about the problems of buses in London. That is the right way to run the system.
  We have also encouraged competition and contracting out. Recent announcements are excellent for the consumer and for future competition.
  The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said that fares have gone up. It is always a sad reflection on those who are meant to lead the community that they tend to pick statistics to try to prove their own sectional point. [Interruption.] As an accountant, I hope that people will believe the statistics that I choose to quote. Since 1983 and the GLC fare rise of that year, fares have increased in line with inflation. The plea of Opposition Members was that fares should not rise by more than inflation. Fares are now 87·2 per cent. of what they were in May 1981. That means a reduction of 12 per cent. since then.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman cannot believe that he is proving his case with those figures. He is well aware that between 1981, when the GLC went into Labour control, and 1984, when it went out of its control, fares hardly increased. In the past two years they have increased by 15·1 per cent. That is considerably more than inflation since LRT took over. Please let the hon. Gentleman be honest with the House if he is trying to prove that he is an accountant.
  Mr. Hanley: By last summer, LRT fares had been eroded by about 20 per cent., in real terms, compared with their May 1981 values. The recent increase was 9 per cent. Therefore, overall there has been a 12 per cent. reduction in real terms since 1981.
  Mr. Stott: It is essential to have this matter correct. The figure to which the hon. Gentleman referred—the increase that took place in January when we all returned to the House of Commons and found that bus and underground fares had been increased—was an increase of 6·5 per cent. Inflation at that time was 4·5 per cent. Fares have increased above the level of inflation.
  Mr. Hanley: Let us look at the facts put out by the Opposition. Many Conservative Members remember the scare stories that were put out, not just in Standing Committee in February 1984 but in printed leaflets funded by the GLC. The scare stories were funded by the rates. A GLC-funded body, Capital, a so-called voluntary body, raised rates being spent involuntarily on a body which could not survive voluntarily if it tried. It produced leaflets and distributed them on buses, and I received them myself on the day of a lobby here at the House of Commons. It said that 20 to 30 tube stations would close within one year of the LRT Bill coming into force, and that a sixth of the bus routes would be withdrawn and not replaced.
  The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) remembers very well a poster which I brought to

  915
  his attention, saying "Come on in No. 9, your time is up." The No. 9 bus runs through the centre of my constituency. Many people use it every day. For posters to say that that service would be withdrawn was a wicked lie. When I said to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West, "The No. 9 bus service I hear will not be withdrawn. Why did you choose that poster?", he replied, "We didn't mean it literally. We had to choose some number."
  Mr. Tony Banks: The hon. Gentleman should have referred to the No. 172, because that was the route that went.
  Mr. Hanley: The only reason why the Advertising Standards Authority did not discuss that poster campaign was that political advertising was not covered by the legislation.
  I also remind the House of the scare campaign directed at the disabled and elderly to the effect that the concessionary fares would be taken away. For the first time under this Government, concessionary fares have been protected in statute—the complete reverse of what the GLC was trying to put out at ratepayers' expense. I pay fulsome tribute to the board and chairman of London Regional Transport, and to the chairman and managing director of London Bus Company whom I have always found to be responsive to the needs of bus passengers in my constituency.
  Mr. Telford Beasley has driven a bus through some of the problem spots of London, and has learnt by looking at the areas that I have brought to his attention. He has always been sensitive to any requests for services which are not being supplied currently. That is imaginative and flexible management, and it can exist in a free society but not under political control.
  If the people of London believe posters and stories put out in February 1984 which were created by politically motivated lies, all I say is that those posters, that scare campaign, and those leaflets have been proved to be untrue. I believe that all of the scare stories we have heard tonight will be proved to be untrue in the future.
  12.19 am
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: If the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hauley) thinks that control by the Under-Secretary of State or the Secretary of State is not political, there is something basically wrong with his constitution. Hon. Members representing the ratepayers of London are permitted to discuss London's transport affairs for one and a half hours a year. What wonderful democracy that is compared to what used to exist. The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes should remember that when he talks to his constituents.
  I have a Travelcard. With my muscles, it provides the only way I can get around London, as it does for the majority of my constituents. I hope to speak for the ratepayers of Newham, South and the rest of Newham—
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: And Islington.
  Mr. Spearing: And the whole of London. All hon. Members can do that.
  On 13 January, the Minister of State said, to the surprise of the House, that the docklands light railway
  916
  —LRT is an agent of that railway—would be privatised and would never make a profit. Previously, the Secretary of State had said that public money would not provide an eastern extension to that much-needed form of public transport. The Government's attitude to London's public transport turns on private profits and investment-not by the community but by a private organisation which will make money out of the recently purchased royal dockyards, if it can, to the detriment of the rest of the Newham people. That is to Government's plan for the rest of London.
  Mr. David Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman's constituents will agree with me, even if he does not, that developments with private capital in the docks area will bring a remarkable increase in prosperity that those constituents have not experienced for many years.
  Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman is not right. The mere fact that he is requiring private capital to carry the capital and revenue costs of such a development means that that development is much more likely to bring prosperity to bankers and property developers than to the people of Newham. The borough council does not agree with what is going on. The Government want to develop that area, and elsewhere in the docklands, not for the benefit of the people who live there or who use public transport to get there, but for the benefit of big City and international businesses. The Under-Secretary of State knows that very well.
  In London Transport terms, there has been a remarkable turn-around. Until 1982, the number of passengers on buses and trains was decreasing. There has been a remarkable upsurge. From the base 100 in 1979, between 1982 and 1985 the number of rail passengers increased from 82 to 120 and bus passengers increased marginally from 87 to 96. The Conservative Government should not crow about that. What is the reason for the sudden and welcome increase in the number of passengers using public transport in London? The Travelcard has been responsible. It was introduced by the GLC when the Conservative party took office. That is the reason for the buoyancy in public transport.
  Although bus passenger mileage has increased by a small amount, there have been major cuts. Efficiency has been increased, but only by causing inconvenience to the passenger. Costs have decreased—that might be welcome—but income has increased. That is the magic formula for fattening calves and chickens for killing. Those routes might be ripe for privatisation. That is the key to the Government's policy. The Government are already introducing their policy on the buses in outer London. They are trying to have super efficiency in the centre of London by getting rid of bus conductors. People in London want bus conductors to be retained, in central London at least.
  Although there has been a welcome increase in passengers because of zoning and Travelcards, there have been anomalies, which should be cleared up. If people in my constituency wanted to travel from Green Gate to Plaistow station, it would cost them 30p for less than a mile. That is rather more than the equivalent Civil Service House of Commons car allowance for one person. Therefore, although I welcome the principle of Travelcards and zoning, there are anomalies inside that zone. There should be a much lower fare for people travelling over a shorter distance.

  917
  There is a bizarre problem illustrated by travel on the underground. If I and my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) wanted to go to the Home Office and it was raining and we did not have Travelcards we would go to Westminster underground station for St. James's park and we would have to pay 50p for half a mile. That is £1 each there and back and £2 for the two of us.
  Mr. Parris: Use your Travelcard.
  Mr. Spearing: Perhaps I should not use the example of my hon. Friend and I, because I am talking about ordinary people who do not have the benefit of their employers paying some of their travel expenses. They would have to pay £1 each there and back. It would be £2 for two of them which is a huge multiple of the cost of company cars or, in our case, the House of Commons travel allowance. Therefore, I support the Travelcard and zoning scheme for what it has done to produce a buoyant system, but for people travelling short distances in east London, Newham in particular, there are anomalies that need to be sorted out. There is a bizarre cost of 30p which applies for short distances between two adjacent stations in the outer London area. The cost per mile is bizarre relative to the cost of the transport provided.
  The turn-around has been achieved only by GLC policies and the Government have reaped the benefit for the future. The Government are getting a public system of transport the profits of which they ultimately want to pay to private contractors. One might ask how that can be the case, because everybody knows that public transport, even in London, does not pay. The Government are doing that in the outer area on selected bus routes. What happens is that the service is subsidised by rates and transport supplementary grant and then the contractor is allowed to make the profit, just as the Government are allowing many contractors, instead of London Transport Building Services, to make profits. No doubt that is the case in all the reconstruction schemes we see around, where safety has been a problem. That is the plan for the future.
  The Government do not worry too much about the quality of service. For example, the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes knows that the Richmond service on a Saturday is every 20 minutes and that those trains are fairly full. That is not good enough. Central line tubes in east London in the evenings on the Newbury park branch in Redbridge—a Tory area—run every 20 minutes and they have escalators. That is not good enough. It shows a lack of sensitivity. Even reducing the interval to 15 minutes, let alone 10, would be a marginal cost to transport management, but they are snipping money wherever they can, irrespective of the convenience to the public.
  Therefore, the improvements that have been brought about by a Labour-controlled GLC are now being used to prepare LRT services for privatisation. Why else would the Government split the buses and the railways into separate companies? It is all being produced over a period of time so that the next phase, no doubt with the enthusiastic co-operation of the non-political gentleman named by the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes, will be to privatise what was a public asset, not for the benefit of the people of London, but for continuing the Leeds school of non-political economy—the social market philosphy of the Prime Minister. She should have paid
  918
  more attention to the views of her constituents because if she had, she would not be preparing LRT services for so-called profitable privatisation at the expense of the ratepayer.
  12.29 am
  Mr. Nigel Forman: The order and the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister show the solid progress now being made by the London Regional Transport, and I pay tribute to it. The order also gives the lie to the scurrilous GLC stories which were spread at the expense of ratepayers, including those in my constituency, because of contributions which they were obliged to make to the GLC.
  I am glad that, through greater efficiency, LRT now provides better services at no discernible extra cost to the travelling public. That shows the wisdom and rightness of the Government's policy, flowing from the London Regional Transport Act 1984. It is especially good that the unit costs have been reduced by 6·4 per cent. on the buses, and 3·7 per cent. on the underground.
  It is good for my constituents in Sutton that their position in relation to dial-a-ride is to be safeguarded All in all, a good story lies behind the order, which I support.
  However, I have four suggestions for my hon. Friend the Minister which I hope will be drawn to the attention of the excellent new LRT management. First, I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) about the need for shorter bus routes. My constituents often find themselves at the end of such routes in the outer part of the greater London area, and the difficulties facing some of the hard-working drivers and staff are unavoidably increased by congestion The map of LRT's routes shows clearly that, unlike other metropolitan cities in advanced countries, we have inordinately long routes. Bearing in mind the congestion problems, which have not been fully solved even by bulldog clamps, which I support, LRT should consider linking shorter routes.
  Secondly, I welcome the progress made on the underground in creating cleaner, brighter tube stations. That is important psychologically, because it makes the travelling public feel better. More salient, in these days when people worry for their safety, it makes nervous people more confident if stations are well lit, clean and not covered in graffiti. LRT should spend small sums on improving the look and feel of tube stations.
  Thirdly, as a frequent traveller on LRT and not owning a car, I am acutely aware of the deficiencies of the Circle Line. If a train is cancelled it invariably seems to be on the Circle Line rather than on the District or Metropolitan Lines. During the rush hours it is sensible, if there is a staff shortage or an operating problem, to give priority to the radial lines. At other times when Members of Parliament, tourists and others use the trains, it is important that the integrity and reliability of the Circle Line service is preserved. It pains me when I and others must wait about 20 minutes between Circle Line trains because one has been cancelled. Half the point of the tube service is its convenience.
  Finally, I want to congratulate LRT on it brave decison to ban smoking from the underground. I declare an interest in that I am an aggressive non-smoker, but even allowing for that foible, on health and cleanliness grounds and the general acceptability of the environment underground, quite apart from on safety grounds and the danger of fire,

  919
  LRT has led the way splendidly. I hope that it will extend the policy to the buses so that we do not have to have a lower deck where life is tolerable and a cancer deck upstairs. We should have smoke-free buses for the sake of common sense and health.
  This is an excellent sign of progress for LRT and I commend my hon. Friend the Minister on his efforts to push LRT in the right direction.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Mr. David Mitchell.
  Mr. Harry Cohen: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister has already addressed the House once and must ask the leave of the House in order to do so again. In the circumstances, I would object to that.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Minister does not need the leave of the House. I thought that the House wanted a reply from the Minister. The debate must finish at 12.41 am. I assumed that the House wanted to hear the Minister's reply to the debate. Mr. David Mitchell.
  Mr. David Mitchell: If the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) feels that he has been cut out, and if you will allow me to split the time with him, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am prepared to try to sum up in rather less time in order to meet the wishes of the House.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Tony Banks.
  12.36 am
  Mr. Banks: I shall split the time available with the Minister and I am grateful to him for that.
  It is unfortunate that we have had a debate of one and a half hours yet some hon. Members still want to speak. This is what London Members now have as a substitute for the democratic accountability of the control of the GLC over the affairs of London Regional Transport.
  A lot has been said about the GLC in an accusatory fashion by Conservative Members. Let me remind them that, under the control of the GLC from 1981, until London Transport was snatched back from the ratepayers of London in order for the Government to make a better case for the abolition of the GLC, the GLC kept fares down. Since LRT took control of London transport in 1984, the fares have gone up 16 per cent.
  The GLC produced, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) said, a radical blueprint for the future for the integrated transport system of London, dramatically increased public transort usage and, in doing so, reduced the level of traffic congestion on London roads and cut down on the number of road accidents.
  In the final year when the GLC had London transport taken away from its democratic control, a £35 million operating profit was made by London Transport. That does not seem to me to be a record of which the GLC should feel ashamed. On the contrary, it seems to be a record of which the GLC and London ratepayers should feel proud. Since then, the record has been quite the reverse.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said that the sudden change in the fortunes of LRT, as Conservative Members see it, has not come about simply because of a new management structure. It has been the result of building on what the GLC established
  920
  by the new management of LRT. Incidentally, those managers were appointed by the GLC. I was a member of the committee that appointed Dr. Bright as the chairman of the executive. Frankly, that point should also be made by Conservative Members when they congratulate the management. We not only built the fare structure at county hall; we also appointed the managers to carry it out and they are the same ones who are here now.
  We now find that LRT presents an annual plan. We have an hour and a half for people to rush in a few points. There is no consultation on the annual plan. No alternatives are put to the people of London and there is no real scrutiny. LRT's financial benefit derives from the 1983 Travelcard package, which the GLC introduced against the advice of and in opposition to the present senior management of LRT. LRT's success is entirely predictted on the successful policies of the GLC.
  12.39 am
  Mr. David Mitchell: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) took rather more of the time than I suggested he could barely have.
  Mr. Tony Banks: I am sorry.
  Mr. Mitchell: That is perhaps a further illustration of the unreliability of some of the assertions made by Opposition Members.
  The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) said that many of his hon. Friends' predictions had come true. He failed to show where the 33 tube stations that it was predicted would close have closed. He failed to show where the 34 bus routes that it was predicted would close have closed. He failed to show where pensioners have lost their free passes, as was predicted. It is clear that the passengers of London are voting with their feet by using services more. LRT is now providing what passengers want at a fair price that passengers are prepared to pay. That is why more people are using its services. It is therefore clear that LRT is achieving what it was asked to achieve and what the people of London want from it.
  It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business):—
  The House divided: Ayes 161, Noes 109.

  Division No. 54]

  [12.41 am

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Bright, Graham

  Alexander, Richard

  Brinton, Tim

  Amess, David

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Ancram, Michael

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

  Arnold, Tom

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Ashby, David

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

  Burt, Alistair

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Butcher, John

  Baldry, Tony

  Butterfill, John

  Batiste, Spencer

  Carlisle, John (Luton N)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Bellingham, Henry

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

  Bendall, Vivian

  Carttiss, Michael

  Best, Keith

  Cash, William

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Chope, Christopher

  Blackburn, John

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

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Coombs, Simon

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Cope, John

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

  Couchman, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Dorrell, Stephen

  921

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  McCurley, Mrs Anna

  Dover, Den

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Durant, Tony

  MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

  Dykes, Hugh

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Evennett, David

  Maclean, David John

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Fallon, Michael

  Major, John

  Farr, Sir John

  Malins, Humfrey

  Favell, Anthony

  Maples, John

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Mather, Carol

  Forman, Nigel

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Forth, Eric

  Merchant, Piers

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Freeman, Roger

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Gale, Roger

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Galley, Roy

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Moate, Roger

  Gregory, Conal

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

  Mudd, David

  Ground, Patrick

  Neubert, Michael

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Newton, Tony

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Norris, Steven

  Harris, David

  Ottaway, Richard

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Page, Richard (Herts SW)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Parris, Matthew

  Hayes, J.

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

  Pawsey, James

  Hayward, Robert

  Pollock, Alexander

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Portillo, Michael

  Heddle, John

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Hickmet, Richard

  Powley, John

  Hind, Kenneth

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

  Raffan, Keith

  Holt, Richard

  Rathbone, Tim

  Howard, Michael

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

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

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Hubbard-Miles, Peter

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Sackville, Hon Thomas

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Jackson, Robert

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Jones, Robert (Herts W)

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Key, Robert

  Thurnham, Peter

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Trippier, David

  Knight, Greg (Derby N)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Knowles, Michael

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

  Lang, Ian

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Lawler, Geoffrey

  Watson, John

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Watts, John

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Wheeler, John

  Lester, Jim

  Wood, Timothy

  Lightbown, David

  Lilley, Peter

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Mr. Francis Maude and

  Lord, Michael

  Mr. Tim Sainsbury.

  Lyell, Nicholas

  NOES

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

  Clarke, Thomas

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Clay, Robert

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Clelland, David Gordon

  Barnett, Guy

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Barron, Kevin

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

  Beckett, Mrs Margaret

  Cohen, Harry

  Beith, A. J.

  Conlan, Bernard

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

  Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Boyes, Roland

  Crowther, Stan

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

  Dalyell, Tam

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

  Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Deakins, Eric

  Caborn, Richard

  Dewar, Donald

  922

  Dobson, Frank

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Dormand, Jack

  Martin, Michael

  Dubs, Alfred

  Maxton, John

  Eadie, Alex

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Eastham, Ken

  Michie, William

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

  Nellist, David

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  O'Brien, William

  Ewing, Harry

  O'Neill, Martin

  Fatchett, Derek

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

  Park, George

  Fisher, Mark

  Patchett, Terry

  Flannery, Martin

  Penhaligon, David

  Forrester, John

  Pike, Peter

  Foster, Derek

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Foulkes, George

  Prescott, John

  Godman, Dr Norman

  Randall, Stuart

  Golding, John

  Redmond, Martin

  Gould, Bryan

  Richardson, Ms Jo

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Rogers, Allan

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Rowlands, Ted

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Silkin, Rt Hon J.

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

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

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Stott, Roger

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Strang, Gavin

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

  Lamond, James

  Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

  Leighton, Ronald

  Thorne, Stan (Preston)

  Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

  Tinn, James

  Litherland, Robert

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Wareing, Robert

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Welsh, Michael

  Loyden, Edward

  Winnick, David

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Madden, Max

  Mr Don Dixon and

  Marek, Dr John

  Mr. Frank Haynes.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft London Regional Transport (Levy) Order 1986, which was laid before this House on 16th December, be approved.
  12.51 am
  Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will recall that the Chair was put in some difficulty during the previous debate, and that the courtesy of the Minister of State, Transport allowed three, not two, Back-Bench Members of the Opposition from London to contribute to the debate. But for his courtesy, only two London Members of the Opposition would have been able to speak. In view of the importance of London Transport services, the money involved and the parliamentary democracy which Britain is fortunate to have. I must put it on the record that the time allowed for the debate was insufficient. I hope that those responsible will take note that that view was expressed not only by the Opposition, but by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Corbyn rose—
  Mr. Cohen rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Are these points of order on the same matter?
  Mr. Banks: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) in thanking the Minister for his courtesy in allowing me to grab slightly more than half of the remaining time when I rose. I would ask you,

  923
  Mr. Deputy Speaker, as the custodian of the rights of Back-Bench Members to represent their constituents' interests, to say that the time and opportunities for the scrutiny of London Regional Transport are grossly insufficient.
  I am not altogether sure how you can assist us in this respect, but every London Back-Bench Member was either severely constricted in terms of the time available to speak or, in the case of some of my hon. Friends, was not allowed the opportunity to address the House. That is wholly unsatisfactory, and I would ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to consider the points of order and see how you can help us to look after the affairs of London in terms of travelling on London Transport. It used to be done by the democratically elected councillors of the GLC.
  Mr. Corbyn rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is this exactly the same point of order?
  Mr. Corbyn: My point of order is simply that, in one and a half hours, we have dealt with the transport affairs—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Corbyn: I am just trying to make the point—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is the same point that I have already heard from two hon. Members.
  Mr. Cohen: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. First, I wish to apologise for causing you difficulties with my point of order during the debate. But that difficulty arose because I had sat through the debate and tried to speak—I was one of three Labour Members who tried to do so—and was given no opportunity because of the shortage of time. What I wanted to put to you—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making the same point. I appreciate what hon. Members are saying and I sympathise with them, but the point that they are making is not one for me but for the procedures of the House. We have been following the procedures as laid down in the Standing Orders. If hon. Members are dissatisfied with those procedures, that is not a matter for me but, rather, for the Committee of Procedure and the House. Until the Standing Orders are changed, the Chair and the House must observe them.

  Poverty (West Midlands)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]
  12.56 am
  Mr. Bob Edwards: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the staff of the House for raising an issue at this late hour, but I have a duty to perform on behalf of the West Midlands county council and the citizens of the borough of Wolverhampton.
  Representatives of county and borough councils from many parts of Britain came to the House last week to express distress about the rising plague of unemployment and poverty in their areas. I feel under an obligation to bring before hon. Members the issue that they raised when I presided over a meeting in this building.
  In August 1985, supplementary benefit was paid in the county area of the west midlands to 353,949 people, an increase of 69 per cent. over December 1980. Since 1984, that number has increased by a further 7,744. Between July 1981 and July 1985, the proportion of long-term unemployed—those out of work for more than a year—in the west midlands has more than doubled. Two out of every five people in the area are living below the poverty line. Local services are experiencing increased pressure on their resources to the point of crisis.
  Those were the major points that the representatives from the area raised with me. In other words, more than 1 million citizens in the west midlands now live on or below the poverty line.
  I have been an hon. Member for 30 years. I remember when the economy of the west midlands was growing and when wages there were among the highest not just in Britain but in Europe. Today, the greatest concentration of low-paid workers in the United Kingdom is in the west midlands.
  Unemployment and low wages create extensive health problems. particularly among mothers and wives, who bear a greater proportion of the burden than do their menfolk.
  In Wolverhampton, 15 per cent. of the work force is currently employed in wages council industries where low wages are commonplace. Some 35,600 pensioners live in Wolverhampton, and 13 per cent. of them receive supplementary benefit. This month 7,375 pensioners living in council houses received housing benefit and 6,700 owner-occupiers received rate rebates. Some 11,983 children in Wolverhampton qualify for free school meals. Only 9,950 pay for school meals and the parents of many of those children are too proud to claim, although the children are qualified.
  In Wolverhampton, 26,158 employable workers are unemployed. That is a rate of 19 per cent. compared with 16·7 per cent. in the west midlands county area, and 13·4 per cent. in the United Kingdom. There are 2,000 people on youth training schemes and 1,600 on community training programmes. Those people would accept employment if it was available, so they can also be regarded as unemployed. Some 52 per cent. of Wolverhampton's unemployed have been out of work for over a year, and have poor opportunities for employment.
  The inner urban areas suffer from the highest unemployment. Eight Wolverhampton wards are among the worst of the 25 wards in the west midlands with unemployment of more than 20 per cent. of the

  925
  employable population. In my constituency four wards have a high percentage of unemployed people. In Ettingshall the figure is 27·8 per cent., Blakenhall 27 per cent., Bilston, East, 26 per cent., Bilston, North 22 per cent. and East Park 25 per cent.; and in St. Peter's ward, which is not in my constituency but in Wolverhampton and has the greatest concentration of ethnic minorities, the figure is 34 per cent. In another ward it is 50 per cent. That is again a ward with a high concentration of what are called black people. Those figures speak for themselves and to some extent highlight the special problems of black and young people in the inner city areas.
  I know that quite a lot is being done and I welcome the Government's proposal to extend the youth training scheme by two years. I also welcome the fact that the west midlands is now eligible for regional development aid and can receive funds from the European Economic Community. We wonder why it was that last year, the first year in which the west midlands received regional development grants from the EEC, £7 million went to British Telecom. That was illegal because it would not qualify as an agent for such a grant when it was due for privatisation.
  Furthermore, one of the conditions for a grant, based on the rules of the Community, is that the project should creat new jobs. The purpose of that grant, agreed by the Government, was not to create jobs but to rationalise communications. Rationalisation of communications is a good thing, but it puts people out of work. I do not know what justification the Government make for that grant to British Telecom.
  I suppose that I should be more constructive because so far I have been critical. Pay is low in the west midlands and particularly in my constituency. Invariably, where there is low pay, there are high profits. Last year the 10 top profit-making companies in Britain made more than £0·75 billion. The profits of the five main companies with headquarters in the west midlands were Guest Keen & Nettlefold, £163 million; Cadbury-Schweppes, £172 million; Jaguar, £91 million; Birmid Qualcast, £12·8 million; and Lucas Industries, £70 million.
  I repeat that where there are low wages there are high profits. Those great profits were sweated out of the toil and industrial intelligence of the workers in the west midlands but were not ploughed back in investment there. Most of the surplus was exported to Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and South Korea to establish industrial projects manufacturing goods to compete with the products which we used to export.
  Massive development of the infrastructure is required. In 1979–80 expenditure on housing was 5·88 per cent. of public expenditure, but in 1984–85 it had declined to 1·98 per cent., a dreadful drop. If more were spent on housing, it would create jobs, improve the environment and give the opportunity of a decent, dignified life to people living in high flats and rotten slums that should be razed to the ground.
  The Labour party, the Trades Union Congress and even the Confederation of British Industry all agree that improvement of the infrastructure is one way to develop the economy. Housing, the road network, hospitals, communication centres and research centres are all crying aloud for development. It is high time the Government did something to alleviate the dreadful poverty in many parts of the country and particularly in the west midlands.
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  In closing, I will be a little sentimental and will read a letter presented to me by an unemployed person. It is headed, "The torments and hardships of the victims of unemployment":
  "Unhappy when employer makes you redundant.
  Nothing to look forward to for the future.
  Evil—envious people talking and taking advantage of your circumstances.
  Money not available for food when required.
  Poverty taking hold of its victims.
  Life—love life almost in ruins.
  One chance in life to prove your ability or capabilities.
  Young children crying with hunger because of delay in receiving benefit.
  Man—pride and dignity taken from him.
  Energy running out as costs rise higher.
  No friends to ease the strain of your problems because rejected by society.
  Tension rising higher as days and months go by.
  These are experiences and facts as suffered by its victims, on behalf of victims of recession.
  by patrick anthony friel."
  1.10 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Alan Clark): I accept the seriousness of the situation in the west midlands, and I understand the relationship of the speech of the hon. Member fcr Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Edwards) to the lobby which came here from his constituency and neighbouring regions. I have listened with interest to the points that he has made. He has ranged widely over the plight of his constituents, and certainly no one can have listened to the text of the letter which he read without a disturbing feeling of anxiety for the plight of the author and those like him.
  Before I deal with the particular points that the hon. Member has raised, I should like to answer one point of which he very kindly gave me notice yesterday, regarding the European regional development fund payments. This is primarily a subject for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. If the hon. Member wishes, I will try to give him a fuller answer to the complaint that he made. It is, however, my understanding that British Telecom projects were at the time eligible for ERDF as a publicly funded infrastructure contributing to the development of the region. I agree with his point that it did not lead directly to jobs but, as I have said, telecommunications are part of the infrastructure. and this leads to the safeguarding of existing jobs and to the generation of a climate in which new jobs can be created.
  Before I go on to the other points that he made, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. I am very conscious of the fact that he has represented Wolverhampton and Bilston in the House for over 30 years. He will have seen many Ministers come and go at the Dispatch Box. It is in the spirit of respect for his long service in this place that I respond to what he has said. His knowledge of the area and his sympathy with the frustration and hardship suffered by large numbers of his constituents cannot be doubted.
  Although I cannot disagree that many people in the west midlands are suffering considerable hardship as a result of the recession and high unemployment, poverty is a relative matter, and we —like previous Governments —do not accept that a simple poverty line can be drawn. To use the supplementary benefit level as a definition of poverty must

  927
  be mistaken. Apart from anything else it would mean that whenever the benefit is increased in real terms, more people would be defined as being in poverty.
  I am not denying the amount of genuine hardship that exists, particularly among the unemployed, and the hon. Member is perfectly right to draw attention to it. The problem of unemployment is one of the most serious facing not only this Government but Governments throughout the industrialised world. We, however, have suffered more than most because unemployment in this country has been rising for the past 20 years.
  The west midlands—the black country in particular—has been particularly hard hit by market shifts. The root causes are familiar: the area has depended on traditional industries that have suffered setbacks in recent years—"metal bashing", heavy engineering and motor vehicles —industries that were overmanned, slow to change, and slow to adapt to new technology. There has had to be a fundamental shift from the old industrial pattern to new technologies such as electronics, and advanced manufacturing. It is particularly in those new technologies that hope for the future is to be found. Fundamental changes take time for their full effects on the local economy to be felt, but there are already a number of encouraging signs, and the region should not despise the expanding service sector as a source of jobs and wealth.
  I do not wish to imply that manufacturing is of lesser importance, and it is encouraging that the downward trend in manufacturing employment has eased considerably since 1983. We need a prosperous and competitive manufacturing sector, but it is unrealistic to expect the share of manufacturing in total employment to return to the levels of the past. The whole direction of our policy since 1979 has been designed to reverse the long-standing deterioration in the competitiveness of our economy and to create the conditions in which enterprise, initiative and wealth creation can flourish. Manufacturing and service industries have responded well since the trough of the recession, but there are now five jobs in services for every two in manufacturing, and a substantial number of the new jobs created over the past two years have been in the service sector.
  Despite difficult times, contracts are being won and new jobs are being created. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will think it only fair if I put some of these on the record. I must admit that I was rather taken aback when he told us of the profits that are being earned in his constituency and in the area, and to hear his accusation that these profits —he cited the companies, many of which are household names—are being sent abroad to Thailand where they will be used to start competing businesses. I do not know of any such instances. If he has further details, I hope that he will send me a note to enlighten me. As I say, I was quite unaware that any of the companies he mentioned were funnelling their profits directly out of the country in the manner he described.
  GEC, Rugby, has won a £250 million contract to build a power station in China, and GEC Turbine Generators, Coventry, will carry out part of the work. Metro-Cammell at Birmingham won two major contracts in late 1985, one worth £65 million to build rolling stock for British Rail, and the second worth £22·5 million, from Hong Kong's mass transit railway corporation. British Leyland's Land
  928
  Rover UK has won a £70 million a year contract to sell four-wheel drive Range Rovers in the United States. The hon. Member will be interested to know that at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning I am catching a train to Birmingham, and I shall be visiting Land Rover and Range Rover in the morning. This contract will primarily benefit the Land Rover plant in Solihull and, if successful, could lead to new jobs. That is one of the matters I shall be discussing in the course of my visit.
  Mr. Jim Callaghan: How many jobs will the contracts that the Minister has enumerated bring to the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Edwards)?
  Mr. Clark: I cannot answer that, but I am interested to hear of these contracts, and it is one of the subjects about which I shall be seeking further information when I visit the factory tomorrow.
  The new Guy Motors industrial park has opened in Wolverhampton on the site of the former British Leyland-owned Guy Motors. The park accommodates 28 small factory units, about half of which have already been let, and will create 140 jobs. Lucas Aerospace at Wolverhampton is reporting excellent growth in 1985, and increased orders for military and civil aircraft. Hundreds of jobs could be created in Walsall if a proposed £17 million shopping development and canalside marina goes ahead.
  Unemployment in the region fell between December 1984 and December 1985, and unfilled vacancies increased by over 20 per cent. in the same period. Over 96,000 people were placed in work by the public employment service alone between April and December last year, and many more will have found jobs by other means.
  Mr. Bob Edwards: There are 20 people chasing every job in the west midlands.
  Mr. Clark: Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes his point again. The position remains serious, but I know that he would not wish to exclude the good news that I am reporting to the House. Unemployment is falling and unfilled vacancies have increased.
  The growth of self-employment in the region is encouraging, especially since the west midland has traditionally depended on large employers. The latest statistics show 206,000 self-employed people in the region — 20 per cent. higher than three years earlier. The region's recovery is gradual, but we are seeing the beginnings of a welcome turnround in its fortunes.
  I said earlier that we should not disregard the potential of the service sector. The west midlands contains well established tourist attractions, and existing transport links and available accommodation make Birmingham an ideal centre for conference tourism.
  Mr. Edwards: Is that a substitute for manufacturing?
  Mr. Clark: If it will generate the same level of prosperity and as many jobs, it is a substitute in the terms in which the hon. Gentleman addressed the House.
  In 1984, 12 million visitors spent £440 million in the region, sustaining 65,000 jobs. About 85 per cent. of the employment is all year round, and three quarters full time. Day visits to and within the region accounted for further expenditure of about £300 million and employment for

  929
  20,000. Some estimates indicate that the opportunity exists to increase the annual value of tourism to the region by up to £150 million in 1990, creating as many as 15,000 new jobs. The hon. Gentleman was generous enough to acknowledge the level of regional aid which the Government have put into the region. I answered his point about the regional development fund grant for British Telecom.
  The Government have a role in encouraging those positive changes. The severe economic problems of the region were recognised in November 1984 when the whole of the west midlands metropolitan county plus Kidderminster, Telford and Bridgnorth received assisted area status. Since then, the region has received offers of over £24 trillion by way of regional development grants. That money has helped create nearly 7,000 jobs and
  930
  safeguard some 8,000 existing ones. Wolverhampton alone has received offers of nearly £2·5 million, helping to create nearly 1,000 jobs and safeguard a further 100.
  That represents an impressive amount of Government assistance. It is also Government assistance focused directly on job creation. The review of regional policy in 1984 led to a new system of regional aid focused on job creation rather than encouraging capital-intensive investment by companies which were not expanding their work force significantly. We also made some service sector activities eligible for regional aid for the first time. We ourselves cannot create the jobs that are needed in Wolverhampton and the west midlands, but through regional aid we can, and do, help the people of the west midlands attract investment which creates jobs.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past One o'clock.

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

NHS: Lottery Proposal
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider the introduction of a national lottery specifically to help finance worthy areas of the National Health Service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, the Government have no plans to legislate for a national lottery to raise additional funds for the health service or indeed for any other good cause.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply. Is she aware that the public, while they hate paying their taxes, contribute freely millions of pounds to good causes through such things as Band Aid and Telethon? They appear to enjoy doing that instead of contributing money to the pools or to bingo. While there are medical causes which are desperate for, and greatly in need of, funds in order to alleviate suffering, could not these funds very well be contributed by a national lottery?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, there was a Royal Commission in 1978 which concluded that it would be inappropriate to use a national lottery to help fund services such as the National Health Service which have a statutory source of funding. Most speakers during the debate on the report were firmly against the idea of a national lottery because of the difficulties of control, bureaucracy, and especially because it would take money away from local voluntary effort.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in fact the British people love a gamble? They really love a gamble. I wonder whether any lessons have ever been learned from the Southern Irish, who run a sweepstake and, so far as I know, utterly and completely finance their entire hospital service out of the resulting funds? Could we not learn something from that? Does the noble Baroness understand that some of us are not impressed by what a Royal Commission says or does? It is usually a waste of time anyway.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I should be the last person not to realise that people like gambling. Perhaps I may tell the noble Lord that local authorities and charitable bodies are allowed to raise funds through lotteries, and health authorities can benefit
538
from these. They have not, however, been largely successful. The take-up is low because of high administrative costs and the poor yield.
Lord O'Brien of Lothbury: My Lords, is the noble Baroness the Minister aware that my old friends in Her Majesty's Treasury so passionately dislike the raising of funds by government for special purposes that they can be relied upon to crush the admirable suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I note the noble Lord's remark with interest.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in a Written Question a year ago it was made clear by my noble friend Lord Elton that some 35 countries, including many of the Commonwealth countries and almost every country in Western Europe, benefit from national lotteries, and that they particularly benefit the health services? What makes successive Governments shut their minds to channelling funds? Instead of being compulsorily taxed, we should give voluntarily to those things which we want to give to. Surely the health service is a deserving charity, and a national lottery for that purpose would be a great success in this country.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, different social and cultural factors come into play in other countries which have national lotteries. Other countries treat these matters differently. For instance, they do not have any pools. The Government are not persuaded that there are sufficient net benefits to be gained from introducing legislation in this country. I should also like to point out to my noble friend that it has not been established that in other countries the benefits from national lotteries are turned over to the health services.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, while welcoming the answers which have been given by the noble Baroness—and I hope especially denying that the National Health Service is a charity when it is in fact a national service paid for by the people—would not the noble Baroness accept that, contrary to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord O'Brien, a national lottery would encourage a cost-cutting Chancellor to rely increasingly upon private funds rather than financing the National Health Service in the way in which both she and we believe?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I think I prefer to ignore the latter part of the noble Lord's question. Even if the whole estimated yield from a national lottery, which is estimated at under £50 million a year, were devoted to the National Health Service it would still be less than one-half of 1 per cent. of the cost of running the service. Furthermore, there would be considerable problems in allocating what is, in this field, a comparatively small sum to provide any worthwhile addition to normal funding, and with no guarantee of a steady income.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that legislation for a national lottery could not really be confined to one for this particular limited purpose? Is she aware that, in the other

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countries we have heard about where there are national lotteries, it is almost invariably the practice to go in for a great deal of razzmatazz to promote the lotteries? Could we not bear to be without such a prospect when we already have more opportunities for gambling than pretty well any other country in the world?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Lord raised a great many questions. I would add to what I have already said that there would be a considerable problem in allocating any money to provide a worthwhile addition to normal funding and that the major difficulty would be fluctuations year by year in the amounts raised, which would cause great problems for facilities run from lottery money.
Furthermore, it was pointed out that the wastage from a national lottery was considerable in respect of the amount gained compared with the amount spent—sometimes, I have been told, not altogether honourably.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that her objections apply equally well to the system of premium bonds which has been in operation since the Macmillan Government?
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware—
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Answer!
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, premium bonds are premium bonds and a national lottery is a national lottery.
Lord Ennals: Absolutely right, my Lords; a fine answer!
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that considerable sums of money are already being raised by voluntary effort to provide essential equipment in hospitals through the friends' organisations? The unfortunate fact is that we are losing a considerable amount of income because we are not allowed to sell tobacco. In my area we shall lose £3,000 a year and have to find other means of gambling and so on to raise the money. Is she further aware that the biggest gamble in the health service at the moment is trying to get an operation?
Baroness Trumpington: That is a joke in very poor taste, my Lords.
I agree with the facts raised by the noble Lord that voluntary agencies are raising superb sums of money and have great involvement in the National Health Service. The fear that a lottery would discourage them from doing this is one of the reasons which make the Government think the way they do. One final word on Government policy on gambling: our general line is to ensure that there is a satisfactory framework for gambling where it occurs but not otherwise to encourage it.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, my noble friend has said that premium bonds are premium bonds and a national lottery is a national lottery. What, please, is the difference?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I shall talk to my noble friend afterwards!
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness not agree that she was quite correct when she said that there are local functions and authorities who endeavour to help their local aspect of the National Health Service? Does she agree that Britain's National Health Service is probably the most civilised piece of legislation placed on the statute book of this country, or of any other, and that we should not dream of debasing it in any way, any more than we should try to maintain the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy or the British Army by forms of voluntary subscription such as that indicated in the original Question?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I appreciate the remarks of the noble Lord. They are a little wide of the original Question.

Drugs: NHS Approved List
2.45 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington: 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 the committee appointed to review the approved drug list in the National Health Service has recommended any amendments or additions to the list.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, following advice from the Advisory Committee on National Health Service Drugs, 11 drugs have been added to those available on National Health Service prescription. These and other, minor amendments were introduced in amending regulations which came into effect on 1st December 1985—and are available in the Library.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I should like to ask her two supplementary questions. Is it the Government's intention to set up long-term arrangements for the review of the drug list? Secondly, does an appeal mechanism exist?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the present committee is set up with members having two-year contracts and the chairman has an unending appointment as matters stand. It is the intention of the committee to be in existence for as long as is needed. Will the noble Lord please repeat his second question?
Lord Hunter of Newington: Does an appeal procedure exist, my Lords?
Baroness Trumpington: That was it, my Lords. The Government offered an appeal mechanism, which the BMA turned down. If the BMA changes its mind the Government will consider the situation again.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, the noble Baroness has mentioned 11 additions which have been approved. Can she say how many applications were made? Can she also tell us how the balance between generic substances and branded drugs is working out under the new system?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I cannot give an answer to the latter question, but the committee has looked into and rejected the inclusion of 26 products.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, can the Minister tell us what have been the savings so far to the National Health Service as a result of the limited list? Can the Minister say whether the Government have patched up their rather damaging dogfight with the pharmaceutical industry?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is still very early yet to establish precise figures on savings. On the information available to us at present we are on target to achieve the expected £75 million. With regard to pharmacies, many drugs on the non-prescribable list may still be sold over the counter or against private prescriptions. However, we accept that there might be a problem in dead stock and are discussing the question with the profession's negotiators.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say how many complaints have been received by the DHSS against the limited drugs list from patients? Would it not have been better to consult general practitioners actually in the field before the list was drawn up?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, over 2,000 complaints were received. With regard to the discussion between doctors, in hindsight it could have been better handled and it will be better handled in the future.

Transport Act 1982: Fixed Penalty Provisions
2.51 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in implementing Section 51 of the Transport Act 1982 regarding Part III (fixed penalties) of that Act.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced in November, it is our intention to implement Part III of the Act on 1st October 1986. Guidance to chief officers of police about its operation has been issued in Home Office circulars, with the aim, so far as possible, of working towards uniformity.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, does the Minister appreciate how much I recognise what he has just said, that progress apparently has been made? Does he recall that I have raised this matter on previous
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occasions contending that it is the Secretary of State who has to give advice to chief officers? In correspondence with the Ministers at the Home Office, I have been told that they were awaiting comments from the traffic committee of the association of chief officers. Has the noble Lord also seen the 1984 booklet on motoring offences, which shows no improvement at all? Can I have the Minister's assurance that the guidance notes which are to be issued will ensure that the shocking disparities between one area and another will be removed in future?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am aware of the noble Lord's interest in this point. I can say that, while the guidance given should assist uniformity of application, the fixed penalty is one of several procedures available to the police to deal with relevant breaches of the law, and the decision as to which course of action to take in particular circumstances is a matter for the chief officer of police. Of course, discussions continue in various fora about this, but I note the noble Lord's concern.

Water Charges
2.53 p.m.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to link water charges to consumption rather than to the rateable value of a property.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Government have welcomed the report of the Joint Study Group under the chairmanship of Mr. Watts, chairman of the Thames Water Authority, which recommends extensive trials of domestic water metering. We shall legislate at the earliest suitable opportunity and take other steps needed to make progress possible.
Lord Sandys: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that helpful reply, will he agree that the question of efficiency in charging for water services depends on the meter? Also, can he say whether the development and design of water meters lead the Government to believe that a new efficiency may be promoted in this field?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, for all practical purposes the answer to my noble friend's second supplementary question is, yes. It is true, however, that there is an under-registration at very low flow rates but this is of no practical significance because of the small amounts of water involved. In the first part of my noble friend's supplementary question, I think he presupposes that we shall end up with compulsory metering, but this is by no means certain.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that most water authorities now give the option to domestic consumers to change from the rateable basis to a meter, but scarcely anyone has taken it up because it does not appear to be advantageous? Will my noble friend explain how he is going to make it attractive?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my noble friend is, as is usual on this subject, absolutely right. I can confirm that since 1981, in the English water authorities' areas, only one in 1,000 customers has thought the option worthwhile. Nevertheless, it would appear at this moment, before we have any compulsory trials, to be a fair way of charging everybody for the amount of water used. The point that my noble friend makes will of course have to be included in such consultations as we conduct.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, is the Minister aware that if metering becomes the norm, families with children will be the hardest hit and, if this is coupled with a poll tax, then it will be found that families with a number of children will be very hard hit indeed? Will the Government make sure that, if they do introduce compulsory metering for whatever reason, there will be some protection for families with children?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I have already made the point that compulsory metering, even if this statutory experiment is a success, is by no means certain. It is inevitable that it will depend on the cost-effectiveness in particular areas for particular households or groups of households and water authorities will have to decide on what arrangements are appropriate for their own consumers in their own particular areas or regions. Of course, the consumer consultative committees of water authorities will be very much involved in the discussions.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, has the noble Lord any information as to whether the take-up is influenced by the capital charges for putting in the meter, which some people think quite considerable, and whether any experimentation in lower capital charges would lead to much wider introduction of the metering service?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I rather think it is one of the situations like that of micro-computers: at the moment there is so little take-up. The figures I gave my noble friend Lord Nugent illustrate this. The charges are on average about £100 a meter. However, the more meters are introduced, obviously the lower the individual charge will become.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I am one of those who have gone over to water metering. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he does not agree that when the water authorities increase the charges to those who have gone over to metering they should give a full explanation for that. So far as I am concerned, I have received no explanation at all and I feel I may not have gained anything.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am very interested in the noble Lord's point. I find it difficult to imagine that the charges per se have been increased. Perhaps the old charge under the system based on the rateable value and the new charge based on the metered cost show some discrepency. However, if the noble Lord will give me details, I shall be perfectly happy to take up the matter.

Business
2.57 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Elton will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement, which is to be made in another place, on paying for local government.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Salmon Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for approximately one hour and that during this adjournment the Committee stage of the Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Bill will be taken.

Australia Bill [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Education (Amendment) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Prevention of Oil Pollution Bill [H.L.]
3 p.m.
Lord Walston: 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 Walston.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Discharge of oil from vessels into certain United Kingdom waters]:
Lord Walston Lord Walston moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 11, leave out from ("for") to ("is") in line 12 and insert ("the time being").
The noble Lord said: This is a very short and simple amendment, basically a drafting one, but I think it might be advisable to point out that it gives the additional advantage, as well as drafting clarity, of a certain amount of flexibility in the future. The new wording makes that possible and, without in any way altering the essence of the Bill, what it is intending to do and the methods that it is adopting will make it more likely that the future will present no difficulties at all. I beg to move.
Viscount Davidson: The Government welcome this amendment, which as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, has said, provides a useful clarification of the definition of "baseline" for the purposes of the Bill. If the 1964 order is altered subsequent to the Bill becoming law, it will not be clear which baseline is being referred to in the Bill: the baseline of the 1964 order, as amended in 1979, or the new baseline. The

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better view is that it would be the old baseline. The amendment makes it clear that it will be the baselines in force at the time that are meant.
This amendment does not affect any future decision as to the possible extension of territorial waters, as the baseline is quite different from the outer boundary. The Government support the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Walston Lord Walston moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 11, after ("is") insert ("of a kind or is made in circumstances").
The noble Lord said: I do not think that I need detain your Lordships with any explanation of this amendment, which is a purely drafting one. I beg to move.
Viscount Davidson: I rise again briefly on behalf of the Government to welcome this amendment and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Walston, on the clarity of his exposition.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

Salmon Bill [H.L.]
3.3 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gray of Contin 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.—(Viscount Davidson.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Salmon fishery districts]:
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 24, leave out from ("After") to ("as") and insert ("consulting such persons").
The noble Lord said: I did not propose to speak for very long on this, but I think that I had better expand quite a bit, as far as I possibly can, while the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate is here, as are a few other people who no doubt could say a word or two about salmon.
I hope that we are sending out some people to look for the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, who is in charge of the Bill. It may well be that he has gone up to Scotland, because I gather that we are going to have a Statement later on about (what is it?) paying for local government—a Green Paper. And that Green Paper includes Scotland as well as England and Wales, strangely enough. Indeed, it is so important that they put off a committee of the House of Commons that was due to meet this afternoon to allow the junior Minister to go away up to Scotland to deal with a press
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conference. I am fascinated as to who is going to deal with that in this Chamber. Of course it may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, has gone away up to bring him back and to take over that important thing himself. This is the Burns season, or it is just over, and he may well still be recovering from toasting the immortal memory of Robbie Burns.
If I come eventually to the first amendment, it is a helpful amendment (as all my amendments usually are) and such are the complexities of Clause 1 that I was tempted to put down about six amendments, leaving out each single piece, one after the other, to allow the Government to explain to us simple people exactly what the whole thing means. He comes! I see that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, is now here. Now we can get down to the amendment.
The amendment is as follows:
Page 2, line 24, leave out from ("After") to ("as") and insert ("consulting such persons").
At the moment it reads:
"After such consultation as he thinks fit, the Secretary of State may …"
I suggest that it would be far better put: "After consulting such persons as he considers appropriate, the Secretary of State may". It is purely drafting, but it is in the interests of uniformity, as noble Lords will see if they will cast their eyes on to the next page and to lines 35 and 36, which read:
"The Secretary of State shall have power, after consulting such persons as he considers appropriate, to make regulations".
Why the change in the formula? There is no real point in it. So, being helpful to the Government, I thought that we should make it the same. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, has been having long consultations with his officials, whoever they may be, about the merits of this particular amendment, and I am sure that he has come to the conclusion that the Government should accept it. I beg to move.
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Lord Gray of Contin): I am not convinced that the proposed amendment will have any practical effect. The clause as it stands will enable my right honourable friend to consult as widely or as narrowly as he sees fit in any particular case. However, I have listened carefully to what the noble Lord has said, and since he is so anxious to be of help to the Government and since I am always willing to reciprocate in such actions of goodwill, I am prepared to accept his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I must give fulsome thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, for that. There must be something wrong with it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Burton: I have to rise to lodge an objection to this. This has caused some confusion, I gather, to my noble friends; but it does tie up with Amendment No. 1B. What I have put down is the suggestion that Clause 1 and Clause 2 should be deleted and replaced.
Amendment No. 1B, on Clause 2, reads:
Page 3, line 1, leave out subsections (2) to (7) and insert—
("( ) The Secretary of State shall have power not later than three years after this Act has come into force and after consulting

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such persons as he considers appropriate to review and make regulations with regard to the formation and constitution of salmon fishery districts to cover the whole of Scotland.").
I know there is a good deal of concern in Scotland that Clauses 1 and 2 are not really capable of being re-drafted or amended, and in many ways they are rather deficient. The Bill as drafted, particularly in these clauses, leaves large areas of Scotland not covered by salmon boards or districts, and the Hunter Committee, quite rightly, laid down as one of its keystones that the whole of Scotland should be covered. Even if some of us feel that the boards proposed by Lord Hunter were rather inadequate in number—we think there should be a few more—the current establishment means that the bigger and more productive areas such as the Tweed, the Tay, the Dee, the Don, the Spey and so on, can support comparatively efficient fishery protection. The smaller rivers, however, cannot do so and even large catchment areas such as the Ness district board are not efficient owing to the lack of finance in comparison to the area covered. Even the river Beauly which flows into the same firth as the river Ness has no board at all and they are benefiting from the Ness board and from other boards further down. It is really quite wrong that they should not have protection or be properly covered.
If one looks at the West Coast and the islands, there are few boards there to be found at all. It is fundamental to good fishery protection that all salmon rivers must be covered, and covered efficiently. No doubt my noble friend will reply that the Bill gives powers for amalgamation and for improvement of the present unsatisfactory position; but he will be merely perpetuating the situation where those who are fortunate enough to have efficient boards will want to retain them, and, with the proposed membership of the new districts, very few of the neighbouring rivers will want to join forces as this would deplete the membership of the river currently covered or else it would mean that the new neighbour joining would have no representation.
My amendment is intended to leave the current position in existence for up to three years, during which time an attempt can be made, it is hoped with general agreement, to reorganise fishery control in Scotland, possibly leaving some areas as they are but establishing others where currently they are either ineffective or do not exist at all.
I hope that the Government will agree to this but, if not, I must pose the following questions to my noble friend. Does he approve of and wish to perpetuate the situation where substantial salmon fisheries have no governing or controlling body of their own? Secondly, does he not consider it necessary for those fisheries which have no fishery board or fishery district to have one? Does he not consider it necessary? If he does not, why is it necessary to have them in the other areas? It is clearly necessary that the whole of Scotland should be covered.
Thirdly, as the establishment of good fishery control depends upon finance, does he approve of the current system whereby a very large proportion of the revenue from salmon fishing is siphoned off for public expenditure in the form of rates, thereby removing the money from conservation? I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am in some difficulty over this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Burton, had indicated that he wished to oppose the Question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill. In moving his Amendment No. 1B, is he still wishing to oppose Clause 1 standing part of the Bill? If he is, I really feel I must reply to him setting out just why I think he is not following the best course by pursuing this matter and why I think that Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. Would my noble friend clarify the position for me?
Lord Burton: The position is that if my proposal were adopted that the Secretary of State should be given three years in which to set up boards for the whole area, then both Clauses 1 and 2 would not really be relevant.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to my noble friend. In that case, I must confess to being disappointed, to say the least of it, at the attitude which he has taken. As I said in both my speeches on Second Reading, I am aware that the Bill does not do everything about salmon. I make no real apology for this. As I have explained, parliamentary time is a very scarce commodity and I have been under pressure for a number of years to substitute action for words as regards salmon legislation affecting Scotland. From this we concluded that the most practicable course was to produce a Bill which concentrated on the main issues, and I think that the general reception in the Chamber and outside has confirmed that this approach has been welcomed. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Burton was the only Member of the House to speak who wholly condemned the Bill then; and I think that the response from others is indicative that it really has been welcomed substantially by most people.
All of this progress which we are making and hope to make would be put at real risk, and more, if Clause 1 and Schedule 1 were not approved. The clause defines fisheries districts, provides for amalgamations, and so on, and is at the very heart of the salmon management structure in Scotland. Without the clause we would lose the advantages of the new, more flexible approach in relation to districts and their amalgamation and would have to fall back on the existing 19th century arrangements which, effective though they have been, are undoubtedly inflexible and some way from being adequate for changing circumstances.
I do not think that I am exaggerating the significance of Clause 1 in relation to the rest of the Bill. From this clause we move to the district boards themselves, and the drafting of the relevant provisions flows deliberately from the approach adopted in Clause 1. One could not therefore simply delete Clause 1 and expect the rest of Part I of the Bill to stand up.
My remarks about a need for Clause 1 apply to the schedule inasmuch as the schedule provides the administrative mechanism for the clause, and both stand or fall together. The idea of the Bill being taken away and worked on, further consultations being carried out and the end result being brought back to your Lordships' House next year is, to my mind,

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simply not a starter in practical terms. As your Lordships will know, consultation and documentation on Scottish salmon fisheries has not been lacking over the years, and I am quite sure that if we were to start on another round there would be yet a further passage of years with of course no guarantee that overall consensus would be reached on what was required, far less an assurance that there would indeed be parliamentary time for the end product. We would, in short, have lost the momentum developed over the past few months.
I hope that my regret at such a loss of momentum would be shared generally, and, for this reason, I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Burton, will see fit to withdraw his objection to Clause 1 and Schedule 1 standing part of the Bill. Failing that, I must ask the Committee to support the Question.
I would finish my remarks at that point, and perhaps when we come to the next amendments, when I understand we are likely to discuss Amendments Nos. 1A and 1B together, I will then try to answer the points raised by the noble Lord.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I do not entirely agree with everything that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Burton; but I must say that this clause is a very, very difficult one to understand. One of the difficulties is that people expected and thought that the changes in relation to the salmon industry and all the aspects of fishing merited a complete new organisation for the management of fishing (and we are still building up on the 1860 Acts and so on). This is not quite good enough. It leads us into all sorts of difficulties in trying to read and understand this matter.
What I was hoping to get for the benefit of the Committee was a simple explanation of Clause 1 telling us exactly how to work out this business. For instance, it reads:
"A salmon fishery district shall be the area",
and so on. It continues:
"but excluding any area designated as a salmon fishery district by an order".
Then you read this designation of an area as an order; you come to subsection (3), with not just salmon fishery districts but districts. There is this jumping from the word "districts" to "salmon fishery districts". So there is a lack of clarity in the whole of what the Government are proceeding to do. You will have a salmon fishery district, but within that salmon fishery district you will have the designated salmon fishery district. I do not know what it all means.
Then you come to the district within the meaning of the 1862 to 1868 Acts which shall cease to exist and so on, which could have been better done. All I ask for is an explanation of what the Government are doing and saying in Clause 1. It might have been better if I suggested leaving out subsection (1), subsection (2) and the rest of it. The noble Lord suggests that everyone is going overboard about this Bill, but outside there will be very considerable disappointment that his Government of 1970, having waited so long, produced a White Paper as to what they were going to do in 1971, yet there is nothing like it in this Bill.
The question is still begged whether this management structure which they hope to build up
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will cover the whole of Scotland as the noble Lord wants. It will depend entirely on the Secretary of State, and to a certain extent on certain individuals with an interest as to whether they can invite the Secretary of State to produce an order. It is not a very satisfactory way of dealing with an industry that is of such importance to Scotland and has been of growing importance, certainly with little relation in its present state, to 1862 and what was thought fit then, and the tinkering that is going on with the district boards which we shall talk about when we come to them. But I should like an explanation of the whole matter.
The Earl of Perth: I very well understand the request of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. I too should like to try and understand a little more of the meaning. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Burton, said you get the rivers Beauly and the Ness which are not in any board or district at the present time, as I understand it. Is it open to them to apply to the Secretary of State and say, "We want to be included"? Is it open to some smaller area of salmon fishing, a small river, a small loch, which wants to have the protection and to be a part of all this, to ask? If so, who asks?
Viscount Thurso: I think that I should be a little kinder to the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, over his Bill than he was to me over my Bill. I must say at this point that I think I understand what he is doing. I think I can see why he is doing it. I do not entirely applaud what he is doing, because I would rather he was doing what I tried to do before. The noble Lord, Lord Burton, suggests that the modernisation of salmon districts should be compulsory. I suggested a form of halfway measure in my Bill; that there should be a moment of compulsion but that the actual weddings between rivers should take place by mutual attraction. In this Bill the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, is suggesting that there should be no compulsion, but that a situation should be created where rivers can get together to their mutual advantage, should seek to form themselves into viable boards and from there should create structures which are able to administer salmon fisheries in Scotland.
I certainly would be prepared to try and make the method of the noble Lord, Lord Gray, work. I do not think that a compulsory method will work unless somebody is prepared to put up some money, and this is the missing magic ingredient. At Second Reading, I drew this to the attention of the noble Lord. Lord Gray. I suggested to him that he might go and seek some money from the EC. He did not seem to think that his was a likely source of funds for him, but without money being made available in some shape or form the idea of compulsory district boards, particularly for some of the smaller rivers, would just not be feasible, would be very unfair or would produce unworkable boards which had little or no meaning. I think there is a danger that this solution may fall between two stools but it certainly will leave us with a situation which would be easier to adjust at a later date if amalgamations, and so forth, had been made possible with legislation.
It may be a little easier to take another bite at this cherry, but unless money is to be available I cannot go along with the noble Lord, Lord Burton, and hope for

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a compulsory formation of district boards in areas where there is none at present.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: I am one of those people who have had no experience at all of fishing salmon. The last occasion which I recall answering a question about salmon fisheries was 22 years ago, when in response, I think, to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, I said that the Government of the day were giving the most urgent consideration to the Hunter Report. It has taken a certain amount of time for that consideration to mature. All I would say, as one who has admitted that he knows absolutely nothing about it, is that I suspect that one would be told that Lord Burton's amendment is defective in its drafting. I expect that that may well be so, but I profoundly wish that Clause 1 as it stands was as lucid as Lord Burton's, and I beg my noble friend Lord Gray of Contin, with his usual lucidity, to tell us exactly what it means.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to clarify Clause 1 for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. I equally hope—because my reading of these clauses is that they will not solve the problem of management—that they will enable the river and the district boards to improve on the present situation a good deal. In a year or two's time after experience we may be able to improve on that and I hope my noble friend will not press his Motion on this clause. I hope equally the Minister will help the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, to understand it.
The Earl of Onslow: While we are discussing this clause, perhaps we may bear in mind one extremely important fact. The catch of Atlantic salmon has fallen from 10,000 tonnes about 12 years ago to 5,000 odd tonnes now. That is a pretty catastrophic fall, considering that the catch at the turn of the century was much larger. Surely therefore we should regard the necessity of creating river boards in Scotland for the small rivers almost solely under those criteria. Salmon is such a vitally important part not only of the glories of nature, but also of the economy of Scotland and, to a lesser extent, of the tourism in some of the more underprivileged parts of England and Wales. We should look at the whole of this Bill under those lights.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, for what he has said, and also to my noble friend Lord Home for his comments at this stage. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that certainly I had no intention to do other than praise him and his Bill at Second Reading. It was perhaps when he went a little beyond Second Reading that we were not thinking quite along the same lines. But I am grateful to him for his support of this clause at this stage. However, I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, that despite his criticism of this clause there was only one amendment tabled to it and we accepted that amendment. So I should have thought that the clause was now, with the aid of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, in a perfectly acceptable state.
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I should also like to give some further explanation for the benefit of the noble Earl, Lord Perth, who has asked me about the question of amalgamation with which I shall deal in explaining this clause in rather more detail. Clause 1 defines salmon fishery districts which are based on the existing districts within the meaning of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Acts 1862 to 1868. Scotland is already divided into 108 salmon fishery districts, about half of which have boards in place. The districts are described by reference to points on the coast and by reference to the main river or rivers flowing into the sea between those points. However, minor rivers which also flow into the sea between those points are not statutorily within the district, with the result that, for example, regulations applying to the main river or rivers may not apply to the minor rivers which flow into the sea between the coastal limits of the district.
The difficulties which we have tried to overcome in this legislation were highlighted by my noble friend Lord Stodart of Leaston, when he recalled for the benefit of your Lordships that some 20 years ago he answered a question by saying that the Government were carefully studying the situation and hoping to take some action soon. This action which we are taking is long overdue and I hope that it will be acceptable to your Lordships.
Subsection (2) will enable the Secretary of State to designate any area of Scotland as a salmon fishery district in accordance with Clause 2 and with the procedures set out in Schedule 1. Any new district so designated may include all or part of a district established by subsection (1), or by an earlier designation order made after the commencement date. Subsection (3) provides that on commencement existing districts which do not include minor rivers shall cease to exist and that references to a district in earlier legislation shall be construed as a reference to the salmon fishery district established by subsection (1).
Subsection (4) enables the Secretary of State, by means of an order made by statutory instrument not subject to parliamentary procedure, to effect minor changes to the boundaries of salmon fishery districts where it is not clear, or becomes unclear, whether a particular location is within a certain salmon fishery district, or where a reference describing a salmon fishery district has lessened in suitability or has ceased to be relevant.
Subsection (5) provides that the River Tweed shall not be a salmon fishery district, except as otherwise provided for particular purposes. This means, for example, that the River Tweed cannot be amalgamated with any other salmon fishery district, nor can the boundaries of its district be changed. Subsection (6) maintains the present position that in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Protection) (Scotland) Act 1951, and in any enactment amended by that Act, references to district shall include the River Tweed. This is necessary in view of the provision in subsection (5), which would otherwise cast doubt on the status of the River Tweed in existing legislation.
Perhaps I may remind the noble Earl, Lord Perth, that the whole of the measures that we are taking here are based on the voluntary principle. To deviate from that and to create an element of compulsion, without

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at the same time, as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has rightly pointed out, providing the wherewithal in terms of financial support, would in our view be a mistake. I hope that I have been able to help by explaining some of those provisions which are contained in Clause 1, and that your Lordships might now consider including Clause 1 as part of the Bill.
Lord Burton: I should like to thank all your Lordships who have spoken and have made comments on this amendment. I should particularly like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who confirmed my concern for this clause and for the next one. Indeed, I think that most of your Lordships who have spoken expressed some degree of apprehension about this clause. I only wish that I had the same confidence in these clauses as has my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel. I fear that little or no improvement will follow from these two clauses and from reorganisation and that we will remain with the current unsatisfactory state of affairs. I am quite certain that large areas will remain uncovered even after this legislation.
The noble Earl said that there is no board on the Ness. There is a board on the Ness and it covers most of the estuary, whereas the Beauly has no board and flows into the same estuary but pays nothing towards its conservation. Under this legislation, they certainly will not set up a board on that river either. However, the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, are the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is money, and unless we have money we shall never have satisfactory conservation of our salmon stocks in Scotland. I agree that my drafting is probably wrong, but if the Secretary of State and his advisers are unable to get this right—and a number of us are not happy that it is right—how are we to get it right? But I am happy to withdraw my objections to the clause.
Lord Ross of Marnock: We are grateful to the noble Lord for his helpful elucidation. As I understand the position now, the existing districts will remain, but they are redefined and power is given to the Secretary of State to designate—the same term, "salmon fishery districts", is used again—and within these fishery districts something will happen. The Secretary of State can only designate them, according to the schedule, if particular people ask for them to be designated. If they do not ask for designation, then they just remain as they are today, with the unsatisfactory position about which the noble Lord, Lord Burton, and to a certain extent the noble Earl, Lord Perth, are concerned.
It was certainly the aim of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, to bring these in by amalgamation and in other ways, so that certain potential assets in Scotland are properly managed. But that is really it. There will be the salmon fishery districts and in addition—this may or may not include some of them—there will be designated salmon fishery districts. Am I right? It would be helpful to know whether that is correct. That is my understanding of what the position will be after we get this legislation.
Lord Gray of Contin: As we proceed through the Bill, the points which the noble Lord has been raising about the Secretary of State and so on can be discussed.
Lord Ross of Marnock: With all due respect, they are in Clause 1.
Lord Gray of Contin: There are more.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Yes, I know that there are more. There is a whole schedule in respect of Clause 2, with the designated districts. But I want to know what the whole position will be. We are getting rid of some of these ancient Acts and are retaining sections of others. I just want to know what the position will be before we start on these designated salmon fishery districts.
Lord Gray of Contin: I have already explained to the noble Lord that on the voluntary principle there will be scope for amalgamation of existing boards or the creation of new boards.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am not talking about boards.
Viscount Thurso: Am I right in understanding that as a result of Clause 1 all district boards will change into the new kind of district board? Thereafter they may or may not go the next stage, but the status of a district board that does not at the outset change its nature and amalgamate is not impaired by not changing. It can at a later stage change if it so wishes. That is how I understand it.
Lord Gray of Contin: This clause deals with the areas of districts. They will be abolished when they are replaced by a district designated by the Secretary of State.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Designation orders]:
(Amendments Nos. 1A and 1B not moved.)
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 21, at end insert ("and in relation to a district designated in accordance with section 1 of this Act, may by order vary the provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act.").
The noble Viscount said: This amendment relates to a problem which I saw after the time of Second Reading and therefore I did not have an opportunity to speak to it at Second Reading. It occurs to me that, in an area where a new board or whatever is being formed, there could well be certain large rivers with large valuations and certain small rivers with small valuations. With the structure of boards as laid down in the Bill, it seems to me that there would be a built-in near certainty that only the large rivers would get to be represented on the board. It seemed to me that it might be desirable to give to the Secretary of State sufficient flexibility to vary the structure of the new district boards in the case of amalgamations so that if he thought fit, and if he thought it was desirable or necessary, he could build into the constitution of a new board some protection for the smaller rivers.
Let me give a hypothetical example. Let us imagine that the rivers of Caithness and North Sutherland decided to amalgamate into one big district. Let us suppose that the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, and I were able to get on sufficiently well to join into a large

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district board covering the Naver round to the Helmsdale. It would then transpire that you would have three fairly large rivers—the Naver, the Thurso and the Helmsdale—which would have enough voting power between them to carve up the board. They would be able always to be represented on the board and the smaller rivers like the Halladale, the Forse, the Langwell, the Berriedale, the Wick, the Wester and so on, would be unable to get an oar in because their valuations even when added together would not be big enough to outvote the three large rivers. It might seem appropriate to the Secretary of State in such circumstances either to designate that one of the seats must represent the smaller rivers or that four would be a fairer representation of upper proprietors and lower proprietors.
All this amendment does is to enable the Secretary of State, should he so wish when he is considering the approach by a new district for a constitution under this Bill (should it become an Act), to give a slightly different shape to the board from that described in the schedule. I offer this to the noble Lord. He knows, because I put it to his department, that this worry was in my mind, and I offer this amendment to him as a possible solution. He may tell me that this is not the right way to do it but that he will have a look at it. If so, I shall be very happy to withdraw the amendment. I do think that the problem of safeguarding minorities within the new boards should be examined so that large rivers do not frighten off smaller rivers from joining in with them. I beg to move.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: I should like very much to support the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, because I think that without it, as he so clearly pointed out, there will be quite a considerable degree of unfairness. It does not apply in my own district of the Tay area, but I can see great difficulties elsewhere. I hope very much that even if the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill is not able to accept this amendment now he will give it very careful consideration.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I do not want to prolong this discussion but I hope indeed that the noble Lord the Minister will look at this amendment and take some time over it. I think there is some feeling, as was certainly evinced during Second Reading, that we could improve matters in this way.
The Earl of Perth: I should also like very much to support the amendment on the basis that it is, after all, giving power; is not obligatory. It should be allowed that if there is a clear unfairness the Secretary of State, as I understand the amendment, has the power to change Schedule 2 as listed here. The small river, the small man, should be given a chance if the Secretary of State thinks that is right.
Lord Burton: I too should like to support the amendment of the noble Viscount. It appears that this would remove part of the objections relating to my first amendment in Schedule 1. Clearly this is something which would, if it is not altered, be an
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obstruction to the amalgamation of rivers. The Tweed commissioners, who are probably the most efficient organisation for the protection of rivers, have a great many more people on their board even though they cover only one river. It is vital that if a smaller river is taken in it should be allowed some representation. I can give another example. If the Nairn were taken either into the Findhorn, on one side, or into the Ness, on the other side, the Nairn would probably be left without a representative. It is vital that any river joining with another one should be represented. I would give one word of caution. One would still want to retain the balance of power between the rods and the nets.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My noble friend has caused me to rise to my feet at the mention of the River Nairn. I should like to support the principle which the noble Viscount is putting forward, whether or not this amendment is the right way of dealing with it. As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill I should declare an interest as I own some modest salmon fishing, as a riparian owner, at my home in northern Scotland, though I have not myself done any fishing for either salmon or trout for more than 40 years. Noble Lords will realise that my disabilities make it too difficult for it to be worthwhile. I think that my noble friend Lord Burton has given the very example of the river in my area which might be quite unrepresented unless some part of the Bill made provision for the smaller rivers.
Lord Gray of Contin: Perhaps I could remind the Committee that the Bill already allows for an increase in the number of board members, albeit by co-option of anglers and netsmen. I understand the concern of the noble Viscount but the situation which he describes of some rivers with no direct representation on boards already occurs in some large districts without obvious difficulties. There are many ways of seeking the views of persons interested in the activities of boards, and there is nothing in this Bill to prevent a board from inviting additional representatives to sit in on board meetings—as indeed some boards do at present.
However, I sense the anxiety that exists among those who have contributed on both sides of the Committee. I suggest that I take this matter away and have another careful look at it with my advisers without making any commitment (as I am sure will be appreciated), to see whether there is some way in which we might be able to devise a solution that would be acceptable to your Lordships. I should not like to give a hasty reply and I am therefore prepared to take this question away and have another look at it.
Viscount Thurso: I am very grateful to the noble Lord the Minister for his generous response and for the way in which he has sensed the feelings of your Lordships' Committee. I would have preferred it had the Minister come forward with this amendment, and I think that he knows that. It was only because he was a little unwilling to come forward with such an amendment that I was prompted to be so bold as to put one down. Now that he has agreed to take this

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matter away and look at it again, I am very happy to beg leave of the Committee to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Skelmersdale: I understand that this would be the appropriate moment to take the Statement. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

"Paying for Local Government": Green Paper
3.51 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, by leave of your Lordships, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement. Together with my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland I have today presented to Parliament a Green Paper entitled, Paying for Local Government. It makes major proposals for the future financing of local government in Great Britain.
"The central theme is the need to bolster local democratic accountability. To do so, we need a way of paying for local government which narrows the gap which exists between those who use, those who vote for and those who pay for local government services.
"The three fundamental weaknesses in our present arrangements are: the complex and uncertain effect of government grants to local authorities; the way in which businesses can be heavily taxed to pay for excessive local spending; and the unfair burden on householders of the domestic rates.
"Non-domestic rates: Business and commercial ratepayers foot 60 per cent. of the local tax bill but have no vote to influence local decisions. For businesses, rates are uncontrollable overhead costs which can and do vary from year to year very significantly. Increased business rates lead to higher costs, to lower pay or job prospects or to reduced investment. Those who are ultimately affected are quite unaware of how these extra burdens arise. For all these reasons, non-domestic rates should not be a local tax. We propose therefore that a uniform non-domestic rate poundage should be set centrally. Businesses will be protected by indexing the poundages to inflation, so that they can predict their liability with confidence.
"All of the yield of non-domestic rates will continue to support local government expenditure but it will be pooled and redistributed as an equal amount per adult in all authorities. Transitional arrangements will be required in each of the three countries to allow for an orderly move to the new
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system. We are setting in hand a revaluation of all non-domestic properties, so that new rateable values will be available from April 1990.
"Government grants: The present grant arrangements are unstable and complex. They obscure the link between what people pay for local services and what they get for their money. But the clarity of that link is essential to local accountability. We therefore propose a new two-part grant structure; first, a needs grant to compensate authorities for their different needs; Secondly, a standard grant, to reduce local tax bills by a standard amount per adult. Both grants would be fixed in cash, in advance, for the year in question. Local authorities will know where they stand. We would remove the whole paraphernalia of schedules, tapers, multipliers and close ending.
"Taken together with our proposals on the non-domestic rate, these grant arrangements will produce the clearest possible relationship between changes in spending and changes in tax bills. Every extra pound spent will be met in full by local domestic taxpayers. Every pound saved would benefit them in full. And that would be true in every authority in the country.
"Domestic taxes: At present in England, around 35 million adults are eligible to vote in local elections. Only 18 million are directly liable as ratepayers. Of these, 3 million have their bill met in full by housing benefit. In many authorities well over 50 per cent. of the voters pay no local rates and therefore have little interest in restraining spending by the local authority; indeed, they have a clear interest that it should spend more.
"Under the new social security proposals, every ratepayer will have to pay part of their rate bill. That still leaves 17 million adults with no liability to pay for the local services they use. It still means that the single pensioner or the single parent will face the same bill for local services as the house next door with four earners.
"Rates are a tax on property. They are unpopular because the rates burden is carried on too few shoulders and needs to be spread more widely. There are broadly three alternatives: a sales tax, local income tax or a flat-rate community charge. The Green Paper sets out the many difficulties we see both in a sales tax and in local income tax, and the reasons why we prefer a community charge. It would be more closely linked to use of local services and would give all adults a stake in local spending decisions. As with rates, there would have to be assistance for those on low incomes.
"Each local authority would set its own charge and there would have to be registers of all adults. The registers would be entirely separate from the electoral register. This proposal would lead to the same local tax bill for the same standard of service in all areas. That would lead to significant changes in the distribution of local tax burdens between authorities. There would have to be transitional and safety net arrangements.
"In England and Wales the community charge would start at a low level, with a corresponding cut in rates. The whole burden of any increased spending would fall on the community charge from the start, so that a clear link would exist between

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higher spending and higher community charges. In subsequent years there would be further transfers from rates to the community charge. In some areas rates would disappear within three years and they would be eliminated in all areas within 10 years.
"Under these proposals some people would be paying local taxes who presently pay nothing. But those living on their own who presently pay more than their fair share, including many of the poorest households, would be better off.
4 p.m.
"The Green Paper illustrates the effects of the proposals had they been in force in 1984–85. The illustrations show that the changes would be modest for most people, and that the shift to the new tax would be both gradual and manageable in terms of household incomes.
"There are also proposals in the Green Paper to reform the capital control system, on which I am inviting comments.
"Consultation: these proposals amount to the most thorough reform of local government finance this century. It is right that there should be a substantial period of consultation.
"We have asked for comments by 31st July. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will make a Statement tomorrow. The pace of further developments in England and Wales will depend on the outcome of the consultation process.
"Summary: the message from our studies is clear; the way we now pay for local government undermines local accountability. This is no basis on which to run democratic local government. It has drawn central government deeper into conflict with local government. The alternatives are clear. We can continue down the present path. That is, the road to closer central involvement in local affairs and increased central control. Or we can face up to the weaknesses in our present arrangements and provide local government with a financial system to bolster local democracy. The Government prefer that course and I commend it to the House".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this very important Statement. It is interesting that after seven years of Conservative Government there is no promise of legislation during this Parliament; although there was a commitment 10 years ago, and again in Tory manifestoes, to abolish domestic rates. In a letter from the Secretary of State to Conservative councillors in January, Mr. Kenneth Baker said:
"I think we are all agreed that the present Local Government Finance System is unfair, and stifles accountability, and is at the heart of many of the conflicts between Local and Central Government over the years".
I shall start with the poll tax. I believe there was a revolt in 1381 when it was tried before. No other Western democracy uses this system. Do the Government really think that it will work? Will it be means tested? If not, it will be a very regressive tax. I
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am interested to know why the Government have changed their mind as a proposal for a poll tax was rejected in the 1983 White Paper. I quote:
"A new register would … probably be needed. But this would make the tax expensive to run and complicated; particularly if it incorporated a rebate scheme. Without a rebate scheme a poll tax would bear harshly on people with low incomes".
Therefore, I hope there will be clarification of whether or not there will be a means test with rebates.
The Government say the poll tax would be fairer because more people would be contributing. I think that we on this side of the House would have people contributing as they can afford and provided with the services they need.
As regards the uniform business rate, I should like to know whether it is expected that this will result in higher rates for businesses in low-rated Tory areas. I think that it will mean a huge centralisation and will undermine local accountability and democracy. It is taking still more powers from local authorities.
So far as distribution goes, paragraph 16 states:
"That would lead to significant changes in the distribution of local tax burdens between authorities".
I should like to know what will be the effects by area and by types of payer. Can the Minister say what data have been used and whether they can be published? A very elaborate mechanism will be set up by the new plans. Will improvements and changes have to be made because of the immediate effects and to minimise the effects for the time being?
On capital expenditure controls, Ministers will have more powers than they do now to prevent local authorities spending their own money. Again it is a case of more central control. I understand, although the Statement does not say so, that the consultation period is to be less; that it will not run until July but end in April. That is not a very long time and perhaps the Minister can answer that point.
As regards paragraph 13, which refers to social security proposals and states that every ratepayer will have to pay part of his rate bill, is it still the plan that every ratepayer should pay 20 per cent. of rates, even those receiving housing benefit? When is this to come about?
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, we too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I also congratulate him on at least the look of the document, which I collected only a few moments ago. It certainly looks readable and well illustrated, and I hope that it is something we can easily understand.
However, we are going only one more step along the road to rating reforms this afternoon. As the noble Baroness, Lady David, said, this has been in the air for some time now. The Conservative Party promised to abolish the rates in their manifestoes of 1974 and 1979. In 1981 we had the Green Paper which showed that there is no way to do away with rates. The abolition promise was not kept. Indeed, it was dropped from the 1983 manifesto.
However, everyone accepts that there are problems in local government finance. The controller of the Audit Commission himself has complained about the fundamental underlying problems, the cost of local government services and the complexity of the grant

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system. We all know that they have become worse with every change and I sincerely hope that these proposals will turn out to be an improvement.
For the non-domestic ratepayers, how will a uniform business rate, set nationally and redistributed to the local authorities, be achieved? Will it come as, say, a part of what is now the block grant? As an alternative to the Government proposals, would it not perhaps be better to consider a national property tax to be levied on non-domestic properties which would be collected by the Government? If that were done it would leave the local authorities freedom to charge for the actual services which they give to the non-domestic ratepayer; and that might be much fairer in the long run.
The community charge, poll tax or residents' tax—by whatever name it goes—is a regressive tax in that it hits and hurts the poor and the larger familes on lower incomes much more than it does the rich. Basing it on the electoral roll, where it might be seen as a tax on voting, obviously has not found favour with the Government. However, if it is to be based on a new register of everyone in the area, how is that register to be compiled to ensure that everyone is on it? How can it be enforced? What will be the cost of running the two methods of rate and community charge during the transitional period?
Everyone accepts that there are a great many difficulties to be overcome and we all hope that there will be the widest possible consultation over as long a period as is necessary—longer than until 31st July if that is possible—since, even with a real consensus of agreement, any legislation obviously has to wait until after the next general election.
Meantime, the crisis in local government finance is growing. Does the Minister not accept that there is now a lot more concern about how the money is spent after it is raised rather than whether we should have a poll tax, community tax or property tax, and whether non-domestic rates should be assessed and collected locally or nationally? Rates as such do have something to commend them. They are visible. They are fairly cheap and easy to collect and they are difficult to evade; but it is the anomalies and the distortions which have been built into the system by successive governments—I do not blame only this Government—that have made the system unjust.
The rating system needs modernising and I welcome the announcement of the revaluation of non-domestic properties. It is long overdue. Can the Minister tell the House when ordinary domestic properties will be revalued? On these Benches we are at present inclined to favour an element of rating with an extra revenue source such as local income tax which would be progressive in its incidence, would produce a broader base and could be collected through the Pay-As-You-Earn system. But I look forward to reading the comments in the Green Paper, where the Minister says they are set out, on the lines of the various alternatives to what is now proposed.
We need to study in much more detail the proposals for changes in government funding of local councils. I welcome the removal of the schedules, the tapers and the multipliers and so on, which at least might make an explanation of government grants much more
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intelligible to the ratepayer and indeed to the Members of this House. How will the needs element be decided between authorities? Will there be clear guidelines on how those needs are to be assessed? What will be the level of assistance for those on low incomes, and who will qualify? If the press today are right and those who are unemployed or in receipt of state benefits will only pay 20 per cent., will that include ordinary old-age pensioners if they are not on supplementary benefit, and if so, what help is likely to be given to those who have a private pension but do not have a state pension? Moreover, since the number of people of pensionable age is increasing as the years go by, what effect will that sort of arrangement have on other households?
A document of 133 pages cannot be read in a few minutes, but as I said it does look readable and well illustrated. I collected my copy of it at 3.30 p.m. and I have only glanced through it, but I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to arrange through the usual channels for a debate in this House in the coming months. I also hope that all of us who are concerned with this subject will approach the consultative document cautiously and that whatever the outcome we shall seriously try to improve democratic local government and accountability.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Baronesses for the way in which they have welcomed this Statement, and I am particularly impressed by the amount of information that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, seems to have absorbed in the last 42 minutes.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, I am accustomed to skipping pages while taking in something.
Lord Elton: My Lords, if the noble Baroness would allow me to draw her aside later for a quick lesson, I should be most grateful.
Both the noble Baronesses referred to the length of time that it has taken to bring forward this important document and to an earlier document which was withdrawn. I make no apology for the lengthy gestation period of what is a fundamental reappraisal of local authority financing. Indeed, when the noble Baroness, Lady David, points out that the last time that anything like this was done it led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, she makes me feel confident that we are right to be prudent. However, unlike the noble Baroness, we believe that an arrangement along the lines that we propose will work. Before I apologise for not answering every question that I have been asked, I must point out that this is a Green Paper for discussion and it is impossible to say what will be the impact of the eventual arrangements since no doubt some of them will be adjusted as a result of the discussion.
The length of the discussion period was of interest to both the noble Baronesses. I would say that, though the discussion on the main document is scheduled to finish on 31st July, my right honourable friend is very well disposed toward an extension of time, if it appears that there are matters of substance still outstanding on which important information or views are to be gathered. As to the shorter period, which is up to 14th April, for discussion of the proposals for the capital

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grant, the reason for the short period proposed is simply the hope—not the expectation, but the hope—that a consensus may be revealed. If there were a consensus revealed by 14th April, it would be possible to go forward to legislation rather more quickly than if we had the extended period which may be necessary if there is no consensus.
4.15 p.m.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked me a number of questions, including what would be the impact of the proposals on the non-domestic rate. The largest immediate benefit would be to older industrial and warehouse properties, particularly in the North-West, the North and the Midlands, which would benefit from revaluation and reduction in rate poundage, and these are often areas of high unemployment. The noble Baroness asked about the largest increases which would take place—and let us not be misled by the word "large"—and these are likely to be in the South-East, by a combination with rateable value increases, particularly in the retail sector. I give that information with some relish, because it is exactly the opposite of what I think the noble Baroness was suggesting might be the case.
The noble Baroness asked when the 20 per cent. rule would be brought in. The answer is that it is not brought in under the Green Paper but on the passage of the Social Security Bill. It is dependent on the parliamentary timetable, and no doubt to some extent on the conduct of the noble Baroness and her friends—though I hope not too much.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, was good enough to recognise something of which I think we all, over recent weeks, have become acutely aware, which is that the present system is no good; it is leading us into confrontation between central and local government, and it is exceedingly difficult to understand. The noble Baroness wants something which is more easily understood by ratepayers and members of your Lordships' House. I should be glad of something which is easier for Ministers to understand. We have a very elaborate system, and what we propose is a very considerable improvement.
The national non-domestic rate would be set first of all by a national revaluation, and that is of non-domestic property only because, if the proposals are accepted, the need for the domestic rate will disappear and therefore there will be no purpose in a national domestic revaluation. On the domestic rate, after the revaluation central government would set a total which would bear a relationship with the existing total of the non-domestic rate and divide that by the new national non-domestic rateable value total, and that will produce a national poundage. I have now exhibited how difficult it is, even in attempting to simplify things, to make things simple, but if your Lordships would wait and look at that in Hansard, or better still in the Green Paper itself, it will be easier to understand.
I detect from both the noble Baronesses a feeling that because this is a fixed charge for all ratepayers it is either unfair or regressive. The changes in the impact per household will be marginal. I have the figures here, but I recall that for over 80 per cent. of households—or
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over 83 per cent. I think—the change in the first year will be less than £1 a week.
As to the function of protecting the poor, or alternatively of redistributing wealth—and these are the two concepts in the minds of the noble Baronesses when they talk of regression, I think—here we are firmly of the view that this is the function of central government and of the central taxation system, and, where it is a question of protecting the poor, of the social security system. It is not a function of local government and local bureaucracy.
I come back to the essential, central point of what we propose. At present there is no perceived direct link between the consumption of services and those who vote for those services when for a very large proportion of the electorate to vote for more costs no more, and they cannot see the hidden impact of rates through the non-domestic rate system. If local government is to be responsible it is essential that the local electorate shall see what it is voting for and be closely involved in it. That will enable central government to draw back from the centralist position to which divergent local authority policies otherwise will force it, whichever government is in power in Westminster.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I welcome the Green Paper Paying for Local Government and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, have just collected my copy and managed to read quickly through it. There are a number of points in this Green Paper which I think give rise to concern.
I agree with the Minister's remark that it is important to have some relationship between those who are voting and those who are using and paying for the services, because there is no doubt that if you have no obligation to meet any form of rates, then it is very easy to vote for the candidate who is suggesting the most profligate policies. So I think that there is merit in having some relationship there.
But it falls down here. The Green Paper suggests on page 27 that the community charge would improve the relationship between the use of and payment for services, but my experience as chairman of social services on Westminster council is that the use of services is not spread evenly throughout the area. Eighty per cent. of social services, for example, were used by only 10 per cent. of the residents. The balance never made any call whatsoever on them. It is difficult to relate the costs to the use of the services.
Also, there seems to be no provision for a home in foreign ownership. The nearest thing appears to be the suggestion about people owning second homes. It is suggested that overseas people will register, but it is extremely difficult to see how people will register if they do not live in the country. In the centre of London are many expensive and highly rated homes occupied for only a short time each year. Those people may not use the waste collection service when they are not resident, but the street-cleaning services and the parking regulations remain in force and cost money. To be fair to people who are permanently resident, there must be provision to deal with that type of property. The document is 130 pages long and there could be a hidden remark about that which I have not noticed.

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It is clear that it is to be a completely new community register and the electoral register will not be used and it will not be a poll tax. But it will be difficult to ensure that every adult is on the register. The cost of compiling, checking and enforcing registration will be for the local authority, which in itself gives cause for concern. I know that the Green Paper says that the Government will take that into consideration in the grant calculations, but again my experience shows me that no local authority is ever satisfied with what the Government give them. There is regularly a lot of fuss about that.
It is important that there should be thorough consultation. I am delighted that non-domestic ratepayers will get assistance. The most important phrase in the document is that the Government will enter into detailed discussions with local government and other interested parties about the practical issues. That appears on page 108. Whether the principle is sound or not, there will be many practical issues to be discussed. The Green Paper opens up the issues for debate, and it is welcome to see something in print after the constant speculation in the newspapers. I look forward to further debate.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her welcome of the principle of a link between the expenditure of a local authority and the votes of its electorate. She is right to say that different residents within a community consume different services at a different rate. We are not proposing that every charge should be different for each member of the community. She is right about that.
As to the foreigners who consume services, it is proposed that if they are absentee owners their houses will be treated as though they are a second home, so that there will be a charge there. If the foreigners are actually resident in an area, they will be liable for the charge in just the same way as anybody else.
As to the implementation of the register, procedures are already available for forming registers, and there will be savings with the disappearance of the old system. But it is far too early to say what the balance of cost advantage or disadvantage will be. Whatever the cost, I think that it will be welcome and worth while if it has the results that we seek. Checking the register will be easy, because qualification for services is to be on the register and the local authority has a constant stream of information across its desks about who uses its services.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is there any substantial difference in principle between the system proposed for Scotland and for England? I know that there are big differences. However the Statement says that it is on behalf of the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales, but at the end it says that the Secretary of State for Scotland will make a Statement tomorrow. Will there be separate Bills, or is the principle the same?
We of course welcome any system which will stop the Government interfering and put real responsibility on to local government at all stages. But, for example, will the needs grant mentioned in paragraph 10 be the only subject for negotiation with the Government about which the local authority could possibily complain, with all the other grants being standard?
Lord Elton: My Lords, if I may take the last point first, anybody who says that any system will provide only one thing for local authorities to complain about is either a fool or a genius; and I am neither, I hope. However, the proposal will vastly reduce the area of negotiation and therefore of difference. I hope that noble Lords will recognise that this is the Conservative Government genuinely trying to disengage themselves from directing local authorities on how to conduct their affairs and transferring that responsibility to the electors of those authorities.
As to tomorrow's Statement, I think that the noble Lord will discover a different pace of proceedings. My right honourable friend may wish to deal with the subject, which, after all, is smaller in Scotland, at a slightly different pace. I do not want to prejudice anything that he says, but the principles of what we are all driving at are identical.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, may I ask just two questions, although I have had no opportunity at all to read the Green Paper? Dealing with compensation for authorities with different needs, does that mean that the present GREA machinery, with which there is general dissatisfaction throughout local government, will still be used to determine the different needs of the various authorities? Secondly, the question of the register has been raised. What is the reasoning for a separate register of all adults, bearing in mind that the present electoral register is for all people of 18 years and above? The Home Office will agree that the present register is unsatisfactory and there are complaints all over the country that many people are left off it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as to the noble Lord's first and fundamental question, we are well aware of the difficulty of assessing needs simply. The present calculations are elaborate. We shall still need calculations to assess the genuine difference in need among different areas. But it is our hope, and work will be put in hand on this, that we arrive at a much simpler formula than we now have. I cannot be more precise because the proposals were published only this afternoon.
As for the current register of electors, I am not at all certain that it includes every adult within an area. I do not believe that it includes foreigners, but I could well be mistaken. I come back to a point which my noble friend raised and which echoed what the noble Baroness said, talking about a poll tax. I think that it is important to see that the proposal is entirely different from the electoral machinery. It is not paying to vote, and that in itself requires exemplification; it is paying for the use of the services provided by a local authority. I have heard it suggested that it should be called a local service charge and not a local community charge at all.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, I presume that the Green Paper deals with the question of county precepts, which are a substantial part of the burden. Can my noble friend confirm that about 70 per cent., on average, of county precepts represents the cost of education? Has consideration been given to the suggestion that teachers' salaries at least should be

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taken out of the county precept and centralised, to be paid for directly by local government, since in the last resort very often teachers' salaries are negotiated and settled centrally?
Lord Elton: My Lords, my noble friend is correct in his estimate of 70 per cent., but the Green Paper does not extend to the question of centralising the whole of education direction or expenditure, although I would not put it past my noble friend to suggest such a matter during the consultation period.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Minister pointed out in the Statement that the three fundamental weaknesses in our present arrangements are distasteful in a number of ways. In view of the fact that the present arrangements are the creatures of this Government, what faith can the country have that the new arrangements will be any better, bearing in mind that the present mess results from this Government's means of tackling local rates?
Can I draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 6 which points out that business ratepayers are unrepresented but that they are ultimately affected and are quite unaware of how the extra burdens arise? Can I draw the Minister's attention to the useful initiatives taken by the Government in arranging that business people should be fully consulted in advance of the present rates being created? Is the Minister really saying that the present arrangements are so unsatisfactory as to merit change? I can tell the Minister that in my area of Enfield the local business community is very well satisfied, not necessarily with the rates that are set but with the fact that they are fully consulted.
Does the Minister really believe that local industrialists are only concerned with the rate being as low as possible? Is he not aware that many local industrialists take a great interest in the quality of housing, education, leisure and libraries? If they are good industrialists, they want to provide an environment not based on the lowest rate possible but on the best rate possible. Can the Minister also state what categories of people fall within the ambit of paragraph 18 which states:
"Under these proposals some people would be paying local taxes who presently pay nothing".
Lord Elton: My Lords, the people who fall into that category are adults resident within the area of a local authority who do not at present pay rates—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords—
Lord Elton: My Lords, I have been asked a question and I have given a statement of fact in reply. If the noble Lord feels that we should have a debate on the subject—many of your Lordships may wish to do that—there could be an occasion. He can write to me, or he can put down a Question. I believe, however, that the little red book to be found somewhere on the Table before me suggests that we should not enter into a debate at this stage. If I give way it is inviting a debate.
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There will be new people paying. They will be adults who do not pay at present but who are consuming services for which they do not pay. As to the business interest in the way in which local authorities conduct themselves and finance their activities, the noble Lord is right. They look at many other things. The rates are only a component. In the Statement, my right honourable friend made clear that the impact of the non-domestic rate is almost always concealed from the people who eventually bear it. The noble Lord is right in saying that we have introduced consultation with business. We do not think that this is anything like a close enough link between expenditure and vote. I would remind the noble Lord that we must look at this historically. It is no good attributing to this Government the whole of the mess in local authority finance. It has evolved over a long time. It was, in fact, the Socialist Government of Mr. Callaghan which abolished the business vote in 1969.
Baroness David: My Lords, may I ask one question? It is a question that I asked previously to which I do not think the Minister responded. It concerns paragraph 16 which states:
"This proposal would lead to the same local tax bill for the same standard of service in all areas. That would lead to significant changes in the distribution of local tax burdens between authorities".
I asked what would be the effect by area and types of payer, and what data had been used, and whether this could be published.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I attempted in a pastiche of a reply simply to tell the noble Baroness what were the principal results of what her question led me to suppose she was interested in. As to the data, I should have to get advice on that. I shall write to the noble Baroness if I can.

Salmon Bill [H.L.]
4.35 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 2.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Provisions as respects the making of designation orders]:
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 27, line 12, after ("number") insert ("of")
The noble Lord said: This amendment, to make sense, should obviously be discussed with Amendment No. 5.
Amendment No. 5: Page 27, line 12, leave out ("persons") and insert ("anglers").
The wording that the Secretary of State,
"may make a designation order only on the application to him"
is the voluntary principle. The Secretary of State does not act on his own; he must be prodded by a district salmon fishery board, or, where there is no such board, two proprietors of salmon fisheries in a salmon fishery district, or any number of combination of such boards or persons in the area. I want anglers to be able to

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invite the Secretary of State to introduce a designation order. That is the purpose of the two amendments. The schedule, if amended, will refer to,
"any number of or combination of such boards or anglers in the area which would be affected by the proposed order".
This is self-explanatory. The word "persons" is removed and "anglers" inserted. I am sure that the Minister will tell me that "persons" could include anglers. I want the matter to be specific. With all the changes that are taking place in relation to the balance of fishing, the people who are unrepresented and who probably pay most in respect of angling and the management of rivers are the anglers. I beg to move.
Viscount Thurso: I should like to be able to support the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, but I feel that Amendment No. 5 is deficient. I go along with him in specifying anglers. The noble Lord knows very well that I wish anglers to get their fair share in the administration of fishing and of salmon rivers, but it is a pity that he should specify anglers and leave out tenant netsmen. The whole principle of the Bill, as I see it, is to keep the balance even, so that the two sides involved in exploiting the resource should consider the resource as paramount and not that one side or another side should have all the resource. I feel that "persons" in this instance is an adequate description because it should include tenant netsmen just as much as anglers.
The Earl of Perth: I wonder whether the noble Lord can help me. I am a little worried about the use of the word "persons" unless it covers various bodies as well as individuals. I am all the more worried because the Committee accepted the first amendment of the day moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, to insert the words "consulting such persons". I assumed that "persons" covered institutions as well as individuals. I should like to know that I am right about that. I want to be sure that when, under Amendment No. 1, we talk about "consulting such persons", that phrase covers a body as such which may have individuals in it but which is a representative group, and not a person as an individual. I am seeking the definition of the word "person".
Lord Gray of Contin: Without hesitation—and I hope that what I have to say will not be too much for the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock—I am happy to accept the first amendment and I am grateful to noble Lords for their suggestion. With regard to the second amendment, while I agree fully with the proposition that it is not only salmon fishery proprietors and through them district salmon fishery boards who have an interest in salmon fishing, it is the proprietors who will have to meet directly the consequences of amalgamations of districts. I have not found any convincing reasons for giving anglers a right to apply for a designation order. Such a right should in my view be the prerogative of boards, or failing a board, proprietors—given the financial input of the latter.
Anglers and tenant netsmen will of course have a say in such matters through co-option to boards. Consideration of this amendment has, however, drawn my attention to the reference to "persons" in paragraph 1(c) of the schedule. There is no intention
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that persons other than proprietors should be concerned in this procedure and I propose that this be corrected on Report.
I think that the point which was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has been answered by what I have said. However, perhaps I may reiterate to the noble Earl that the answer to his question is: yes, "persons" includes bodies corporate or unincorporate. Therefore, I cannot accept the noble Lord's second amendment. However, as I indicated, I am happy to accept his first amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: The noble Lord accepts my English but not my good sense. I pondered for quite a long time over the first amendment. I am disappointed. I do not think that the noble Lord is doing justice to anglers and anglers' associations. From what the noble Lord has said, they are to be considered on the basis of co-option with all its limitations, unless certain amendments are accepted. It is disappointing that it is to be left entirely to the fishery boards or proprietors.
Having heard the noble Lord's sense, I feel that I can now proceed to put forward an amendment which would make better sense of what he intends than what we have here. He ought to have included the word "proprietors" if proprietors is what he means.
He should not leave it to the more general term "persons". However, I accept gratefully the fact that he accepts my first amendment. I shall not move the second amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 27, line 26, leave out head (d).
The noble Lord said: I should like to know the effect of leaving out this sub-paragraph. The provision refers to the people applying for a designation order. It is mandatory. It says:
"An application under paragraph 1 above shall be accompanied by the applicant's written proposals which shall state",
and there is then set out paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d).
Paragraph (d) refers to the very important matter of annual close time and says:
"The proposed dates of the annual close time and the periods within which it shall be permitted to fish for and take salmon by rod and line in the proposed district".
If that provision is omitted, what will be the effect? We must remember of course that under Clause 2(2) it says:
"A designation order shall provide for the application to the district so designated of such regulations".
Moreover, under subsection (3) it says:
"a designation order shall specify for the district so designated the annual close time and the periods within that time when it is permitted to fish for and take salmon by rod and line; and the order may make different provision for different parts of the district".
4.45 p.m.
In other words, if he does not get this information, if this provision were not included, it would be for the Secretary of State to do it on his own. He would do it on his own on the basis of

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consultations—consultations which I am perfectly sure would not be limited purely to proprietors and boards but which would take in all the other appropriate people as well. That is the simple reason why it is there.
The Secretary of State should know that there is considerable perturbation in certain angling and other fishery circles about the manipulation of the annual close time and the periods within which it will be permitted to fish for and take salmon by rod and line. This is a very important point and one upon which people are very touchy. People tend to rely more than ever upon the good sense of the Secretary of State. I do not want to see them pushed by certain interests.
We must remember that it may be that the only people who will be pushing this forward will be two proprietors of salmon fisheries in the area and they may be non-representative of the upper and lower tiers. I know of one river where, in the case of proprietors, there is only one on the lower side. It may well be that you will get two very unrepresentative proprietors putting forward an idea in relation to what should be the annual close time which would offend and appal other people. I want to know the merits and whether the Secretary of State, before he takes action, will further consult with other interests beyond those who have made the application. Why should it be mandatory? It gives an importance to this which creates a certain amount of suspicion in people's minds. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I was by no means clear why, of all the information to be supplied to my right honourable friend in relation to the making of a designation order, the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, should feel that proposals about the annual close times are undesirable or unnecessary. The annual close time and the period within which it will be permitted to fish by rod and line will still have to be prescribed under Clause 2(3). It seems to me unreasonable to seek to so deprive him of such information, objections and representations about such important matters regarding the management of salmon fisheries. I do not think that there is anything between us here. The noble Lord has himself recognised the importance of this matter and he indicated that he was probing for information. I have tried to explain why we think it is necessary and advantageous to have the annual close times made known. It seems to me rather strange that, in view of the other information which has to be made available, this information should be excluded, which is what would happen if the amendment were carried.
Lord Ross of Marnock: They have to be made known anyway. The Secretary of State has an overall responsibility as regards all the salmon fishery districts in respect of the annual close times. He should know that. What we are asking for under this amendment is for particular people to put forward their proposals. That does not mean to say that those proposals will be the proposals eventually within the order. So far as I can see, leaving this out does not make any difference at all. The Secretary of State still has to decide what
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will be the annual close time and the extension or otherwise in respect of rod and line fishing in the district.
I still so not know why the proposals are there. They are not the Secretary of State's proposals. They are the proposals of those who are asking for the designation order to be made. They would be consulted anyway, I presume, by the Secretary fo State before he puts this in. He has to put it in. One of the things laid down in Clause 2 is that he has to put his idea, his proposal, into the designation order for what should be the annual close time, but not necessarily those proposals which are first put forward by the two proprietors or by the district salmon fishery board.
Lord Gray of Contin: The noble Lord himself explained that the effect of this amendment would be to relieve those applying for a designation order of the need to state for the proposed district the proposed dates of the annual close time, and the period within which it would be
"permitted to fish for and take salmon by rod and line."
This would leave the Secretary of State to decide those matters under Clause 2(3) without such information as he would require being supplied by the applicants. It would leave those who might wish to object to, or make representations about, the proposed dates completely in the dark. If I may give the noble Lord one additional reason why the Secretary of State requires suggestions, it is that on amalgamations there might be two different close times in the area to be covered by the proposed new district. Therefore for that reason it would be helpful to have this information as well.
Lord Ross of Marnock: It is not information. It is a proposal.
Lord Campbell of Croy: May I raise a connected point on this? I note that the part of the schedule being discussed speaks about
"proposed dates of the annual close time"
in the singular. If there is more than one river within the district, surely the rivers could have separate dates. The rivers with which I am connected in northern Scotland have separate dates. Under the present legislation, proposals are put forward which go to the Secretary of State, and he considers them. Two years ago quite a number of anglers on a river proposed that the close season should be altered. This was put forward to the Secretary of State and he considered it. If there is more than one river, I hope that there will be provision in this Bill for different close periods of the year for individual rivers, as there is now.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to my noble friend. He is absolutely right. There could be different close times for two different rivers. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, perhaps I may once more try to explain why the proposals for annual close times have to be included. They are included as part of a comprehensive procedure for designating a new district, and Schedule 1 allows the opportunity for representations, and/or objections, by local interests. In view of that explanation, which I think has been fairly full, perhaps the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I hate to see the Minister so disappointed and tearful about this.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Schedule 1, as amended, shall be agreed to?
Lord Burton: In view of the discussion we have had previously I do not want to oppose the schedule, but I should like to ask my noble friend two questions. First, who is a proprietor? This was something raised on Second Reading on which there does not appear to have been any answer provided. Secondly, are there not single proprietor districts? In line 9, sub-paragraph 1(b), there is reference to "two proprietors". My impression was that you could have a single proprietor district. I am not sure why "two" should be in.
Lord Ross of Marnock: There is just one point. The last item, paragraph 9, says:
"The power to make a designation order shall be exercisable by statutory instrument."
However, if the Secretary of State wants to vary the schedule, which could include the whole matter of the designation order, he has to do it by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. Can the noble Lord justify the separate treatment of the variation of the schedule, which deals with the designation order, and the fact that the designation order itself is made by simple statutory instrument without reference to either House?
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Burton for raising this matter, because it gives me an opportunity to clearly define "proprietor". This came up at Second Reading when we were talking about the question of time-share part-owners. "Proprietor" is defined in the Bill as meaning:
"any person, partnership, company or corporation which is the proprietor of a salmon fishery or which receives or is entitled to receive the rents of such fishery on its own account or as trustee, guardian or factor for any person, company or corporation".
I am advised that this definition is drafted in such a way as to exclude time-share owners and part-owners from its compass.
However, in the light of the interesting comments and suggestions made in your Lordships' Committee today, I shall undertake to look again at the provision. It is not our intention that the time-sharers and part-owners should participate in an individual sense in the procedures for formation of, and election to, district boards. I shall, if necessary, ensure that this intention is reflected in the drafting. With reference to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, raised about the designation order power, that power is local. Therefore it is not appropriate for this to be subject to parliamentary procedure variation order.
Lord Burton: On Second Reading I asked a question about the sub-division of fishings, such as in a large loch. Although the noble Lord answered the question of time-sharing, I do not think that that answers the question of what is to stop someone going on dividing up fishings more or less ad infinitum at somewhere like Loch Ness where there is a 25-mile length to be fished.
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Perhaps the noble Lord does not have the answer, but it is something which, before we let the Bill go, should be looked at.
Lord Gray of Contin: I do not have at hand the necessary information for the noble Lord. I give him the undertaking that I shall have a further look at that. If there is any further amendment needed, then I can consider it for Report stage.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Regulations]:
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 6A:
Page 3, line 35, at end insert ("the district salmon fishery board and").
The noble Lord said: If I may, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 6B. It is consequential.
Amendment No. 6B: Page 3, line 36, after ("such") insert ("other").
The first thing I noticed when I got to this was that it was wrongly drafted. I am sorry. The principle is the same. When it refers to "the district salmon fishery board" it probably ought to refer to "the salmon fishery district committee". Anyway, the principle is that the Secretary of State should consult the bodies looking after the fishings, which I think will be the salmon fishery district committee, as well as such other "persons as he considers appropriate". I beg to move.
Viscount Thurso: I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, will tell us that the district salmon fishery boards are obviously the appropriate persons whom the Secretary of State will consult. But as the Bill is intended to emphasise the importance of boards and their role in the management of salmon fisheries, I think it is important that this be emphasised at this point. Their status should be emphasised at this point, and therefore I support the noble Lord, Lord Burton.
Lord Gray of Contin: I fully understand why the noble Lord, Lord Burton has tabled these amendments but I think they are unnecessary and restrictive. Clause 3(2) gives my right honourable and learned friend discretion as to whom he should consult before making regulations. He could, I am sure, consult district salmon fishery boards on a purely local matter, but where the matter is one of general application it might be more appropriate for him to consult the Association of District Salmon Fishery Boards rather than each individual board. The noble Lord's amendments would request him to consult each board individually. I cannot accept that proposition. Therefore, in view of what I have said, I wonder whether my noble friend will withdraw his amendments.
Lord Burton: I am a little surprised at that answer, because subsection (a) reads:
"the due observance of the weekly close time".
This surely is not a matter for the association but for the individual district. However, in view of what my noble friend has said, I am happy to withdraw the amendment at this juncture.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 6B not moved.]
5 p.m.
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 6C:
Page 3, line 42, at end insert ("and the screening of off-takes to prohibit access to smolts").
The noble Lord said: This is quite simple. If they are to be given these various powers it is obviously necessary that we should also restrict the access of smolts into offtakes of any sort. I suggest that this wording might be added to Clause 3(2)(c). I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I concede the principle of this amendment. It is indeed appropriate that smolts be protected from being drawn into water-works, fish farms etc. In the 1860s this was provided for at mills, indirectly, by requiring that the mill lades be drained periodically to let the smolts back to the river. That is obviously not sensible these days, nor is it workable in relation to other sorts of abstraction.
The amendment may, however, not fully cover what the noble Lord has in mind and I hope that, having conceded the principle and undertaken, as I do, to consider how it could be covered in the Bill, he might be prepared to withdraw and await an equivalent Government amendment at a later stage.
Lord Burton: I am very grateful to the noble Lord and with that undertaking I am very happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 6D:
Page 4, line 1, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: This is consequential on Amendment No. 6E if I may speak to the two together.
Amendment No. 6E: Page 4, line 1, after ("dimensions") insert ("and methods of operation)".
Here there is a problem of how one operates nets as opposed to the type of tackle used. Clearly if a boat is sitting about in the middle of a river instead of keeping moving this would not be properly covered as the Bill is drafted. The amendment is probably quite clear, and therefore I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Burton, for his suggestion in this amendment. I have myself been concerned in relation to the lack of definition of lawful methods of operation of nets, and, indeed, this point was made by several noble Lords at Second Reading. To remedy this, I have tabled a new clause which allows my right honourable and learned friend to define permitted fishing methods by order. If acceptable to your Lordships this new power would be included, appropriately, I am advised, in the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1951. The amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Burton would therefore be unnecessary and could be seen as giving less comprehensive powers. Having seen the proposed Government amendment, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Burton, will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Thurso: I have to support the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin. I am delighted to see the new
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clause which he is proposing, as I think it is a much more positive way of dealing with this problem than by using this amendment.
Lord Burton: On that undertaking, I am very happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 6E not moved.]
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 4, line 4, at end insert—
("(f) the use of adequate lures or bait in rod fishing.").
The noble Viscount said: The amendment seeks to deal with a point raised on Second Reading, that is to give power to adjust from time to time the methods of fishing by rod and line as well as those by net. This merely seeks to give to the Secretary of State, and through him to the district boards, the power to adjust the times at which different kinds of lures may be used on rivers or may not be used. I beg to move.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: I wonder whether I may ask the noble Viscount to explain the word "adequate"?
Viscount Thurso: Yes, as a matter of fact I was quite surprised at the word "adequate". The word was suggested to me by the Public Bill Office. It may be that it is an inadequate word. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, will tell me if he considers it inadequate. If he considers it inadequate but accepts the principle I shall be happy to withdraw the amendment. What is obviously intended is "suitable for the occasion".
We are talking about the possibility that one might have fly-only at certain periods, as is done on some rivers, or that one might make it a by-law for a river that it be a fly-only river. Somebody has to have some powers to be able to do this, other than its being merely the whim of individual proprietors. I await with interest the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, on my phraseology. No doubt he will tell me that "adequate" is inadequate and that he can do better.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: Would not an appropriate word be "sporting"?
The Earl of Onslow: Does this not also come under the new clause put in later by the noble Lord, Lord Gray, on permitted fishing? Secondly, should it not be extended to English waters as well as Scottish waters? As your Lordships may or may not have noticed, I have a similar and probably much clearer, but I am sure legally less correct, amendment on the same point later in the Bill. There should be a method of catching fish which is allowed and no other method, rather than a method which is disallowed. That would be a fairer way of doing it. I should have hoped that the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, could be brought in to the later amendment to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Gray.
Lord Gray of Contin: Perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, will agree that in answering this I deal also with Amendment No. 12 which is in his name and is directly related.
Amendment No. 12: Page 4, line 20, at end insert ("and (f)").

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I have listened very carefully to the arguments put in favour of these amendments. I must say that I have myself given some thought to this matter in the light of the comments made by your Lordships at Second Reading. I can say that, in principle, I am in favour of a power being taken to regulate the types of lure that might be used.
I have, however, some difficulty with the terms of the first part of the amendment, in that the word "adequate", which my noble friend has asked about, may not be exactly what is wanted here. I also have some hesitation about providing for different methods for different districts in the context of the procedures in Clause 3. Apart from the confusion this might cause where anglers fish in several districts, it could lead to a large number of orders having to be laid.
I should, therefore, like to give further consideration to this matter and I hope that the noble Viscount, with the permission of the House, would be prepared to withdraw on the understanding that I am sympathetic to what he has in mind and I am considering whether a Government amendment could be moved at a later stage.
Viscount Thurso: I am happy to accede to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Gray. I was aware that perhaps this was not the best drafted amendment that we were going to consider today. I am glad to see that he accepts in principle that there might need to be some regulation of rod fishing methods. However, I urge on him, when he is looking at this problem, to consider that this is the kind of matter which will, in its very nature, require to be varied from river to river, because there are some rivers which are appropriately dealt with in one way and some which are appropriately dealt with in another. I beg him to look at that point. With the leave of the Committee, I beg to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso moved Amendment No. 7A:
Page 4, line 4, at end insert—
("( ) the placing of cages to hold fish in any river, loch or estuary;").
The noble Viscount said: It was brought to my notice that there may be a gap in the powers which the Secretary of State has to control the placing of cages, net or fixed, containing salmon, trout, or indeed any fish, within areas of a river. It may be that there is sufficient cover to allow proper consideration of whether it is a good thing to place a cage in a loch in the upper waters of a river, by the fact that planning permission has to be sought by fish farms. However, planning permission does not extend beyond the mean high water mark or ordinary spring tides and the placing of a net cage in an estuary is clearly subject to no restriction whatever.
The noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, will be well aware that there are considerable dangers to a water that could accrue from the ill-advised siting of a cage. There are such matters as the possibility of build-up of disease and the possibility of the build-up of other pollutants and so on. If a cage is not properly sited and there is insufficient scouring below it, there can be a great build-up of a kind of midden underneath the cage. It is only comparatively recently that it has
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become common practice to place cages in lochs for the holding of farmed fish or for other purposes.
I feel that this is a matter over which the Secretary of State at least should have powers. I do not think that river purification boards have powers; I do not think that district hoards have powers and, in certain instances, I do not think that even planning authorities have powers to control this matter.
I readily admit that this matter came to my notice only quite recently. In fact, it was brought to my attention by a river purification authority. It may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, will wish to consider this matter further, before we take it further. If so, I shall be glad to regard this as a probing amendment and withdraw it, if necessary, so that he can consider the matter and maybe we can return to it at Report. However, I think it is an important matter. It is one which may very well have escaped the noble Lord's notice, just as it escaped my notice until quite recently.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I have to declare a slight interest here, as I have an interest in a salmon fish farm. What I want to know is whether the word "loch" means sea loch. Of course, I am all against the planting of any cages in any form of water to trap wild salmon. However, I should like to know the position.
I understood the noble Viscount to say that one can obtain planning permission if one wants to put one's cages in an estuary. I understand that the position in this fish farm in which I have an interest, which is quite a large fish farm on my estate, is that when the salmon become smolts they must then go into salt water. We put a few in the river but of course the vast majority go into cages. The problem is that one must have one's cages in extremely calm water. It depends on the legal definition of an estuary, but they have to be in very enclosed waters and perhaps quite near the mouth of a river, coming into the estuary. Thus I should like to know how one defines an estuary where one can put hand-reared salmon into cages without breaking the law.
5.15 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: Perhaps I can help the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard. First of all, I am referring not only to salmon but also to trout. People are putting trout into cages in hill lochs, or in lochs in the upper waters of rivers, where obviously there is a considerable build-up of detritus and so forth below the cages and where there could be interference with water quality. This is one of the problems which I envisage. On the question of estuaries, estuaries are all defined in the salmon Acts. If the noble Viscount wants to know where an estuary is, the estuary limits are all defined and he can look them all up.
I am concerned about sea lochs, particularly if they constitute part of an estuary, because here again without proper siting, where there would be scouring tides to keep the place clean, there could be an undesirable build-up. This, in the long run, would not be good for the fish farmer because it would spoil the water for him, but in the meantime it may have spoilt the water for other people as well. Thus I feel that this power should be available to deal with this situation.
Lord Biddulph: I think that is an important point because quite a lot of these cages are situated in estuaries in places where they are subject to storm damage. The cages may be smashed and there may be the release of salmon and rainbow trout into the estuary, which immediately head for the nearest river. These escaped fish are not indigenous to the river, particularly the rainbow trout, and I think this may cause complications. Thus I bring up this point of storm damage and the escaping of salmon from these cages.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: The noble Lord says that storm damage could occur to these cages and the fish might escape. That is quite true. However, one of the reasons why they have to be in a very enclosed place is that there must not be any wave more than two feet high. However, the point is that if the cages are in the estuary into which the river flows, where the salmon are reared, and the cages are damaged, the smolts, the salmon, or grilse—I think they are nearly always grilse when they are killed—will go back to the river from which the water came that was in the tanks in which they were reared. They will go back to the river from which they came, from where the water came.
Viscount Thurso: I have to tell the noble Viscount that this is not so. We have caught fish in the Thurso River, which were farm bred, which were identified by scale reading as having come from a fish farm and the nearest fish farm was somewhere round the West coast of Scotland. Thus, storm damage does take place, fish do escape and get into other rivers.
Lord Gisborough: As this is a moderately new innovation, will the noble Lord, not now but at some stage, look into the matter to see whether under English water boards legislation they have the powers to contain and to organise these cages?
The Earl of Onslow: I believe the law on fish farming is, to put it mildly, fairly obscure. It seems to me extremely important that there should be some regulations as suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. However, must it be the Secretary of State who makes the regulations, or should it not be the water authorities, or district fishery boards, or the river boards themselves? Surely they know, at their level, where something should go. The fact that regulations as to whether a net should be put here, there or anywhere, should have to go to the Scottish Secretary of State or the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London seems to me to take the regulation-making power much too far back. It is really an essentially local decision which should be made by the local boards who know their local river, local tides or local lochs. That is where there should be some decision-making power.
Lord Burton: I too should like to support the noble Viscount's amendment. My noble friend who has just spoken has made a very valid point. I know that our fishery boards are particularly worried about the proliferation of fish farms. It happens to be rather a success story of the Highland Development Board, which has been developing fish farms, perhaps excessively but certainly extensively, over recent years.
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I also know that the Highland River Purification Board is very worried about this; so I hope my noble friend will look at it very carefully.
Lord Gray of Contin: Before I answer the points that have been raised in the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, perhaps I may apologise to my noble friend Lord Onslow for omitting to give him an answer to the question he asked me when we were discussing the last amendment. He asked whether Amendment No. 7 would not be covered by the new clause that I have tabled. Very briefly, the answer is, no. This is because the new clause will relate to the methods of fishing, but not rod and line.
Perhaps I may now deal with the amendment that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has tabled. Similar suggestions have been made in the past, usually to give district boards a measure of control over fish farmers' activities. This has not proved acceptable, largely because those activities are already subject to planning procedures. I do not think that it would be desirable to subject fish farmers to further control by my right honourable and learned friend.
However, a number of points have been raised, and I shall try to deal with them. With respect to my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard, I do not propose to become involved in his arguments and exchanges with the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, because I think that they have finished about all square. What I should like to do is give one or two answers to the points that were raised. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, is quite correct with regard to estuaries; but, so far as estuaries are concerned, the Crown Estate Commissioners have to give permission. I think that point is covered. The second point was raised when I was asked what "loch" means in this amendment. "Loch" is not defined or explained. If this amendment were accepted, it could be interpreted both as an inland loch and as a sea loch.
There is an element of difficulty arising from what the noble Viscount seeks to do here. I can understand what his intention was, but I do not think he has hit upon the solution. I think that we should be creating very great difficulties for the fish-farming industry if we were to go along this line. My noble friend Lord Gisborough asked me whether I could find out if the English water boards had managed to find a definition here. Of course I shall do my utmost to try to find out what method they use to overcome the problem. Having said that, I do not think that I can accept the noble Viscount's amendment for the reasons I have explained. I think that the difficulties which we would be creating here are too great. In view of what I have said, I wonder whether the noble Viscount would consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Before the noble Lord sits down, will he draw attention to the other fact that any of these regulations about these intimate things that we heard about have to come before Parliament, because the regulations are subject to the negative procedure. Much as I like waiting up at night, especially in your Lordships' Chamber (apart from my regard for it in another place) to deal with a matter of the negative procedure, I hardly think that it is the right thing. If it is necessary to give the power to someone, it should not be done under this particular clause and in this way.
Lord Burton: May I raise one point in reference to what my noble friend said? He referred to the Crown Estate Commissioners having to give permission for use; but large parts of the sea bed are not owned by the Crown Estate Commissioners, so I do not see why they have any authority in the matter.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am afraid that I can only answer my noble friend by saying that my advisers assure me that in fact the Crown Estate Commissioners have to give permission where estuaries are concerned.
The Earl of Perth: As a sometime first Crown Estate Commissioner, perhaps I can help the Committee. The fact is that in some estuaries the Crown estate has total ownership but in others, under charters given many centuries ago, there are individuals who have the right for the sea bed in an area; so it is only partially correct to refer to the Crown estate.
The Earl of Onslow: Perhaps I can give a little more help to my noble friend Lord Gray of Contin on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. It seems that these regulations are going to be indescribably detailed about one pool here and one pool there or one coracle doing this or one rod doing that. It seems to me that this is so detailed it should not come to Parliament. It should be delegated to somebody else. In other words, it should go down the way either to the water authorities in England or to the fisheries board or whatever it may be. Otherwise, if there is somebody whose attention to detail is as fine as that of the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, we shall be here for much longer than we are likely to be already.
Lord Gray of Contin: I have noted the point the noble Earl has made, and I shall think about this matter.
Viscount Thurso: Perhaps I too may ask the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, if he will think about this whole matter. I am perfectly prepared to admit that this amendment may be in the wrong place and that it may be in the wrong form. I admit that I had to put it before your Lordships rather hurriedly because the full extent of the problem came to my notice only a comparatively short time ago. After all, we have not had very long in any case since Second Reading.
The various letters of plea and entreaty to take up various amendments and so forth in this Bill are fluttering in through our mailboxes the whole time; so it has been difficult to prepare amendments and consider them as thoroughly as one would wish. But I think there is an important point here. For instance, I was aware that the Crown Estate Commissioners do not have the ownership of the estuary of the Thurso River, and I am sure that there are other such rivers. It is important that this matter be considered, and therefore I ask the noble Lord once again whether he will think about it. I am not going to press it at this point but I ask him whether he will think about it.
Lord Gray of Contin: If I may directly return to the amendment about the delegation to the fisheries boards, boards do not cover all of Scotland, so it would
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not be appropriate to give them such power over fish-farming developments. As I indicated at the outset, this is my main concern. We have here a fish-farming industry which is very important to Scotland and in which a great deal of money has been invested, both privately and publicly. In this Bill, I should not like to see us include a provision which would make life very difficult for the fish-farming industry.
Viscount Thurso: With respect to the noble Lord, I think he has got it wrong. First of all, what I am talking about is net cages within the normal fishing areas of a river. The use of those and the placing of net cages in such places as lochs in the upper waters, deep parts of rivers and in estuaries, is a comparatively new thing. I am not talking about fish farms in the normally accepted sense or about anchorages off the coast; I am talking about people setting up trout farms in lochs where it is doubtful whether anybody will really look at it from the point of view of planning. It is not something which would move the planning authority enormously and nobody is enjoined to look at this practice, which is growing. It is not a fish farm being created in the normal sense; it is not somebody making stewponds and setting up a fish farm as we understand the term: it is a kind of semi-ranching in lochs.
5.30 p.m.
I feel that the control of this sort of thing should be in the hands of the Secretary of State. I am not asking him to give it to district boards; I am proposing that he should have it. If he thinks fit he will have the power, or somebody will, to control it. I have pointed out to the noble Lord, Lord Gray, that there are areas where at the moment nobody will have the power really to control it, if somebody owns it. For instance, I could place a cage in the estuary of the Thurso, so far as I know, without let or hindrance and without asking the Crown Estate Commissioners, the planning authority, the Secretary of State for Scotland or the river purification board. I believe that could be done.
I may be wrong, but I do feel that the power should lie somewhere to prevent my doing that or to prevent me from doing it if I am doing a stupid thing. I think the power should be there to prevent anybody else doing a stupid thing, for instance, if it is going to pollute the water or endanger the fish that use the water. All I am really asking at this stage is that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, should look at this between now and Report stage. If he can say that he will do that, I will happily beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Gray of Contin: The noble Viscount is asking me to do something I am not at all happy about doing, because I think sufficient laws are already available. The planning procedures are there and fish farmers are subject to the planning procedures. If I really thought I could come back with an amendment which would satisfy the noble Viscount I would willingly take this away, but I doubt very much whether that is possible. Therefore, if I were to take it away it would be purely a case of doing that and looking at it, but I could almost give a guarantee now that I would be coming back with the same answer. I do not think that is a particularly good thing to do.

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I think it would be better if I were to say to the noble Viscount that perhaps he might care to take it away and give it further consideration. If he were to bring back another amendment at Report stage we could consider that in the light of his further researches, but at the moment I do not think I could justify taking this away and bringing it back at Report stage.
Lord Burton: I cannot understand why my noble friend is so much under the influence of the fish farming community. The same thing happened on tagging. They seem to have a very influential lobby. If, as the noble Viscount suggests, powers are given to the Secretary of State, perhaps he could use the purification boards to look at these matters. At the moment they cannot look at the disease. They have their waters polluted by a fish farm and apparently have no come-back whatsoever under the present setup. It seems totally unsatisfactory. There are large cages erected just at the top of the fish-pass at the end of the Inverness-shire Loch Garry and, so far as I know, although planning permission may have been given, the planners are not the people who know about disease or pollution. It must be either the fishery board, if there is one, or else the purification board.
The Earl of Onslow: Can my noble friend clear up one point about which I am certainly not clear? Can the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, put a large cage in the Thurso estuary without let or hindrance? If he can, with the greatest of respect to him—unless he can be paid not to do it, as was the case with all those lovely trees in Scotland—something ought to be done to stop him doing it. I say that with affection rather than with malice.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: There are extremely strict regulations to be satisfied before one is allowed to have salmon fish farms and there is really no danger of disease. For instance, the water that goes through the fish tanks where the parr and the smolts are is not allowed to be put back into the river.
The Marquess of Landsdowne: I do not want to prolong this discussion but I think the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, is an important one. It would be a great pity for it to be just brushed aside. One point I should like to be a little clearer about is this. Who would complain, or who would acquaint the Secretary of State with what was going on? Somebody would have to have that responsibility. For example, if the noble Viscount planted a cage, who is going to sneak, as it were, to the Secretary of State about it?
Viscount Thurso: I should have thought the district board would be the people who would complain, or it might be the river purification board; but in either case they would have their interests interfered with if a cage were put there without their having been consulted and without having been able to make the proper representations.
I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, is not willing to look at this himself. I would far rather he had looked at it. I am convinced there is a gap in the powers here to deal with the situation. I am also
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perfectly prepared to admit—does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
Lord Gray of Contin: What I was going to say to the noble Viscount was that I do not want him to carry on too long because, if it is the feeling of the Committee that I am being unreasonable, of course I will take it back and look at it again. I must make is absolutely clear that I do not envisage a possibility of my being able to come forward with a suitable amendment, but I give the Committee an assurance that I will take it away, study it carefully and discuss it with my advisers to see whether I can possibly meet what the noble Viscount seeks.
Viscount Thurso: I find that immensely satisfactory and, if other noble Lords feel the same, I would be happy to beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Earl of Perth: Clearly a new problem has arisen in connection with these cages. There is no clear authority as to who is to handle them. It may be that this Bill is not the right place for dealing with that at all, but if the noble Lord will examine the problem and advise us that this is a problem which is recognised and which has to be solved in some other way, then I would be entirely content.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: I have listened to all the discussion and I would wish only to reinforce the warning given by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, that whatever solution is decided upon by the Secretary of State these matters should not come to Parliament.
Viscount Thurso: As I say, with all these caveats I am perfectly content. I recognise that I may have chosen the wrong point at which to put forward the amendment, but with the assurance that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, will look at this, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 4, line 9, at end insert ("; provided always that such regulations shall not shorten the periods specified in the said section 13.").
The noble Viscount said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8 standing in my name and I do so, if I may borrow the wording of Amendment No. 9.
"in the interests of conserving the stock of salmon".
Section 13 of the 1951 Scotland Act says, among other things, that no person may fish on a Sunday, which I hope is a matter sacred even to this Government still. It says, secondly, that no person shall fish during the weekly close time, except by rod and line, on a Saturday or a Monday. The weekly close time is further defined in that Act quite definitely as from 12 noon on Saturday to 6 a.m. on the Monday—a period of 42 hours.
This power the Secretary of State is being granted—and he is being given a great many powers under this clause—is a very important one indeed. I think it is very valuable and entirely correct that he should have the power to alter or amend the weekly close time, because many people believe that the amount of weekly close time, which allows fish to

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enter rivers, is a very important conservation measure which should be watched most carefully. There are those who think that 42 hours is not long enough, and there are those who think that is too short a time, but I would say that on a river like the Tay, with an estuary of 40 miles, 42 hours is very definitely not always enough. It means the fish travelling at rather more than 1 mph for 42 hours, and they do not do that. I would also tell your Lordships, without wishing to anticipate the debate that we shall have on drift netting on the English coast,that the weekly close time for drift netting is already 60 hours.
So, although it is very important that the Secretary of State should have this power to amend the close time, if his advisers and those he has consulted think it is important, because the stocks need conservation, it is equally a very damaging, dangerous and a retrograde step to give the Secretary of State—if I have read this Bill aright—the power to reduce this close time below 42 hours. The Bill would give him that power, whether or not he has agreed with those in the consultations or they have agreed with him, and that would be a dangerous mistake. For that reason, I should like to spell out quite clearly that he does not have the power to reduce the 42 hours, which I think has proved a universally accepted and satisfactory minimum close time every week since 1951. I beg to move.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: As a netsman myself, I should like wholeheartedly to support the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley.
Lord Gray of Contin: I can understand the reasoning behind the amendment and I have noted that its effect on the weekly close time could be similar to that of the restriction in Clause 6(1) on the alteration of the annual close time. I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment and I am advised that it is technically acceptable. I am grateful to the noble Viscount for bringing this matter to the attention of your Lordships and I am happy to accept his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I think I should also congratulate the noble Viscount and the Minister. I was about to rise and say that I defer to the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. It is a far better amendment than mine and much more explicit.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 4, line 9, at end insert—
("( ) The Secretary of State may, after consulting such persons as he considers appropriate, prohibit all netting operations in a river if the flow falls below an agreed level, certified by the River Purification Board.")
The noble Viscount said: In moving Amendment No. 10, I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee and certainly will save time if we deal with Amendments Nos. 11, 25, 26 and 27:
Amendment No. 11: Line 4, at end insert, ("In England and Wales the Minister for Agriculture and the Secretary of State respectively may exercise the same power, if requested to do so by the appropriate water authority.")
Amendment No. 25: Clause 15, page 15, line 2, at end insert—
("( ) A district salmon fishery board may, with the approval of the Secretary of State, prohibit all netting operations in a river if the flow falls below an agreed level, certified by the River Purification Board.")
Amendment No. 26: Line 4, at end insert ("In England and Wales the Minister for Agriculture and the Secretary of State respectively may exercise the same power, if requested to do so by the appropriate water authority.")
Amendment No. 27: Page 15, line 2, at end insert—
("( ) A district salmon fishery board may restrict or prohibit all netting operations if the flow falls below a level at which salmon, grilse or sea trout will not normally run the river.")
These amendments all deal with roughly the same point, which is the question of low river flows, and I should like to ask my noble friend whether it is acceptable to him to group these five amendments in one debate.
Lord Gray of Contin: Yes, I am very happy to take these amendments as the noble Viscount suggests.
5.45 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: These amendments deal with the principle of stopping net catches in times of drought or low water, and I move Amendment No. 10 with the spirit of Amendment No. 9 behind me in the interests of conservation of salmon stocks. The problem of this matter of reducing catches in times of drought or low water was mentioned by several of your Lordships in the Second Reading debate and I believe it was said that it was something which was desirable.
I would remind your Lordships that there is very much of a precedent for this sort of legislation, in that the Secretary of State for the Environment in England and Wales and the Secretary of State for Scotland have power to stop the shooting of certain species of wild fowl in times of very cold weather. To do this, they have to consult the Nature Conservancy Council and the advice can be given quickly and effectively. I believe that it is a widely accepted power which has done a great deal to conserve those species which can suffer in very cold weather and is accepted by those who enjoy the sport of wildfowling and shooting. It is a valuable power which we now seek to extend to the field of salmon fishing.
When my noble friend Lord Gray replied to the debate on Second Reading, I am afraid that I thought his answers to this problem were, to say the least, slightly unsatisfactory. The first argument he deployed was that there was no means of defining a drought and therefore the clause could not be valid. There is more difficulty in defining a frost, but we have overcome that problem in the case of wildfowling. So I do not accept that that need necessarily be a total bar to action. There was a definition of drought up until 1976, which was that 15 consecutive days without rain constituted a drought. As your Lordships will remember, in 1976 we had about three months without rain and the definition had to be abandoned as being too narrow. It was concurrent with the appointment of a Minister for Drought, who, alas!, is not here to defend my amendment.
I do not think it is beyond the wit of man and of our legislators to define the sort of drought that we are talking about. It is obviously not possible to say that you stop all fishing after 15 consecutive days without

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rain; it is much too narrow a definition. But I think it is possible to define it by reference to the amount of river flow. I believe, although I have no personal experience, that Scotland is covered by a series of river purification boards. These have, as a matter of statute, to define the height of a river, to measure it constantly and to monitor the flow of the river, and I think they have means of doing so. If they were approached, I am quite sure that they would be able to set some standard of river flow which was a dangerous level at which salmon were very much at risk. These purification boards do not extend to England and Wales, but amendments in the names of other noble Lords will, I think, cover that problem.
My noble friend then went on to say that there were difficulties because some areas of Scotland were not covered by fishery boards and, therefore, it was not possible to do this, because one fishery board might want this but another area could not have it because it had no board. That seems to me not only a very weak reason, but it is making the best the enemy of the good, which should never be done by us in legislation. I liken that to the argument that, because certain places do not have banks, they cannot be allowed to have bank holidays. The place from which my noble friend Lord Gray takes his title, Contin, does not, I think, have a bank. Therefore, Contin should not be allowed to have a bank holiday under that argument.
I should prefer to see that each fishery district board had this power itself. As your Lordships are well aware, it is obvious that it can be raining very hard in the west of Scotland, with the fish running, but in the east of Scotland the rivers can be at a very low level. So it seems to me quite wrong that this legislation should be in force for the whole country at any one time. Each board should have the power to trigger off an application to the Secretary of State, who acts very much as a safeguard, to ask that the restrictions on fishing should be brought into effect. In the same way, Amendment No. 19 suggests that the Secretary of State can himself do this, if he thinks fit. So there are many safeguards built into this and it is the principle which we are raising tonight.
I am aware that in some estuaries fish do not enter and are not at risk. They remain well out to sea until they smell the fresh water and then they enter the run-up. But there are other estuaries—and many people will tell your Lordships that this happens on the Tweed and the Tay—where they go up and down on the tide, hoping to find that the river has risen, and they are particularly vulnerable if they are unable to enter the river. Therefore, it is in the interests not only of the conservation of stocks but also of the people who should be profiting by making good catches of these fish, and in the interests of the whole purpose of this Bill that these powers should be taken under this opportunity, to be used in a drought or similar emergency for the benefit of all.
I would, finally, say that it is obviously not fair that this restriction should be totally forced upon the net fishing part of the industry. I have no doubt that if it is possible—we have already debated what is adequate tackle and perhaps we could tie in that previous debate—there should be some method whereby rod fishing could be curtailed in such periods. The
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difficulty is that it is much harder to enforce this. But it is quite clear that the whole object of any such operations is to see that in times of drought the fish are protected until the river is rising again and they can enter it and fulfill their natural cycle. I beg to move.
Lord Moran Lord Moran moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 10, Amendment No. 11:
[Printed above.]
The noble Lord said: The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, has put the case for Amendment No. 10 very cogently. But I believe that exactly the same need arises in England and Wales; droughts, sadly, are not confined to Scotland. The Welsh Water Authority, for example, have said:
"It should be possible to bring in short-term immediate restrictions on fishing during droughts when low water flow concentrates the fish in estuaries and pools without enough fresh water coming down rivers to encourage them to move upstream. This can lead to serious over-cropping with damage to future stocks".
I think it is very desirable that these provisions, if we introduce them, should be applied throughout Great Britain. As this is the first amendment I have put down designed to extend some provisions in this Bill to England and Wales—others are Amendments Nos. 26, 34 and 35—I should like to stress two points. First, that, in my view, we should never forget that we ought to try to move towards a national salmon management policy; and secondly, that salmon stocks in England and Wales are, by and large, less plentiful and more vulnerable than they are in Scotland. They are under greater pressure from water extraction, pollution and other things. Therefore, there is a need for more—not less—protection for them in this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I should like to support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Ridley, and I certainly would not oppose the extension of the principle to England and Wales, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. My noble friend has pointed out that there are periods when salmon can be taken exceedingly easily by nets at river mouths and in the firths and that there ought to be some control of that. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to say that there are no problems about judging a certain height of the river at a crucial point, and that it will be possible in each river to reach an agreement and to measure a point at which this provision should come into force.
He referred to the similar situation covering wildfowl. The Secretary of State for Scotland has exercised that power within the past two or three years during extremely hard winters and he has done it successfully and without opposition. I understand that the Secretary of State for the Environment also has exercised it in recent memory as regards England. I am not sure what the position is in regard to Wales.
I also agree with my noble friend that to consider a period of drought as the correct measure for a river does not take into account Scottish conditions, because the height of a river can very much depend upon melting snow. Certainly snow coming from heights of over 2,000 or 3,000 feet can still be affecting a river in Scotland well into the summer. So it is a much fairer measure to be able, if it is possible—and

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I hope it is—to make a judgment in accordance with an agreed level of each river, which, of course, has to be certified by the river purification board.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, did not move his amendment to this clause on the same point. but it has been referred to and I think we all agree that, in principle, we are all aiming for what he has drafted, which is in the interests of conserving the stock of salmon. But I would go further than that. To those who are following our debates, or reading accounts of them, and look at the text of this Bill when it is enacted, I would say that in some of the rivers today it is not a question of conserving stocks of salmon; it is a question of increasing stocks of salmon, because the stocks are already much too low for various reasons, some of which I shall give.
First, disease in the past 15 or 20 years has affected the numbers of fish. Secondly, uncontrolled drift-netting at sea, to which we shall be coming later, has, I am absolutely certain, decimated stocks in various areas. Finally, and not least, there is the highly organised slaughter of fish by gangs of poachers. Here, again, the Bill is trying to put that right. I do not believe that in supporting this amendment, my noble friend and I are trying to attack the netsmen in the firth and river mouth. It is in their interest, as much as in anyone else's concerned with salmon, that the stocks should be increased and conserved. But there must be some system which will enable salmon to run up the rivers at times when they are most vulnerable and this provision would add, I think most usefully, to this conservation measure.
Lord Biddulph: Perhaps I may get on to the question of drought conditions. They vary from river to river. But might I suggest that the question of temperature and oxygen content might come into this as well. It is quite clear to me that in certain rivers salmon do not run if the water temperature rises above 70 degrees or the oxygen content has dropped. It does not matter whether there has been a month-long drought in these rivers because the salmon will still run. But if the oxygen content should drop or the water temperature should rise above a certain level, they will not. So it might help to define this question of drought if these other factors are taken into consideration.
6 p.m.
Baroness White: I rise to support Amendment No 11—admirably proposed by Lord Moran. It refers to one of three particular aspects of this Bill to which attention was drawn in the press release last week of the Welsh Water Authority. They are much concerned that the only provisions in this Bill which refer to England and Wales are included in one substantive clause, Clause 26, which, in the view of the Welsh Water Authority, as it now stands is not adequately enforceable; and the penalties clause, clause 27, which the Water Authorities Association of England and Wales has asked the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and one or two other noble Lords entirely to revamp. I am sure that noble Lords will appreciate that it is a very frustrating situation when one has two clauses inserted into what is a Scottish Bill. We have just as serious problems over salmon management and salmon fisheries in the Principality as there are in Scotland. I
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am not sure whether noble Lords in all parts of the House fully realise that we have up to 50 rivers in Wales which can be fished for salmon or sea trout—we call them sewin—and that our recorded salmon catch is equal to that of England. Our unrecorded salmon catch might possibly be even greater. We feel strongly that proper provision should be made in the Principality for dealing with the serious situation of low water in drought conditions.
At Second Reading the noble Lord the Minister said that, so far as he was aware, there was no generally accepted standard for defining drought. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, have drawn attention to a comparable provision for dealing with the shooting of wildfowl. I took the trouble to look at the Drought Act 1976. Admittedly this Act does not apply to Scotland—only to England and Wales—so one can understand if the noble Lord, Lord Gray, is not entirely familiar with it. But it also indicates that our droughts are worse than yours. Section 1(1) of the Act states:
"If the Secretary of State is satisfied that, by reason of an exceptional shortage of rain, a serious deficiency of supplies of water in any area exists or is threatened then … he may by order make such provision authorised by this section as appears to him to be expedient".
Section 1(2) states that:
the power to make an order under this section … shall only be exercisable where an application is made to the Secretary of State by a water authority or statutory water company".
That of course applies to England and Wales. It admittedly leaves the matter open to a very wide discretion but at least it gets over the problem of when a drought is really threatening the fish stocks.
I would not presume to suggest that this is necessarily a better way of dealing with the matter than by having agreed levels for every river, but I am not at all sure that an agreement between the Secretary of State and the appropriate water authority, at any rate so far as Wales is concerned, would not be by far the most sensible way of dealing with the matter. Incidentally, under the Drought Act, the Secretary of State could vary or revoke any such order without having to wait for the initiative of the water authority. He has very considerable discretion under this particular enactment.
This should be considered again very seriously. It is already quite plain that many of us in the Committee are concerned that this matter should be dealt with.
Lord Chelwood: A very strong case has been made for the principle contained in these amendments. It is well known to the Committee that the balance between netsmen and rodsmen has been very heavily weighted in favour of the former for a long time—perhaps for all time. Netting in drought conditions and very low water is surely from a conservation point of view a self-defeating exercise, bearing in mind the awful hazards the salmon has to run both on the high seas and in trying to get up the rivers. It of course results in quite a substantial reduction in the breeding stock of the salmon.
I make no attack on the netsman, who do only what they are allowed to do by law but it is a fact—this may have been mentioned at Second Reading—that, over

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the past 20 years or so, roughly six to eight times the weight or numbers of fish, whichever way one likes to put it, have been taken by netsmen compared with rodsmen in our rivers. Yet at the same time there has been a steady decline in net catches. Admittedly there have been small increases in rod catches, which some people find curious, though that of course is affected by many variable factors. But the significant thing to me and I think to your Lordships will be that netsmen have seen their catch roughly halved since 1973. If that is not proof of the fact that the number of fish trying to get up our rivers has greatly decreased, I do not know what is. I think that is a very significant fact.
I believe that the principles contained in these amendments—the amendments may not be perfectly drafted, and indeed I do not think they are—are quite excellent. If they make good sense in Scotland, surely they make equally good sense in England and Wales.
The Duke of Atholl: I should like to support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Ridley, but before doing so perhaps I should declare an interest, in that I own some rather indifferent salmon fishing in Scotland.
I am personally convinced that it is a useful amendment because last summer, as the Committee may remember, we in Scotland suffered from almost incessant rain. There were undoubtedly many more fish in my particular part of the river and, I believe, in the whole of the rest of the Tay system than there had been in the previous year, which was the most glorious summer for the holidaymaker but not so good for the fisherman.
The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said that he would think of bringing in something that would stop rodsmen from fishing in really dry weather. I do not think this is necessary. You seldom have much success as a rodsman fishing in dry weather unless you use means which are already made illegal by other enactments. I cannot believe that the noble Viscount really meant to ban methods which are already banned. I think that we will spare him that chore and say that he need not try bringing in anything to stop rods from fishing away quite happily in dry weather. On the other hand, I do think that nets take an enormous number of fish when there is a real drought and that it would be very advantageous if a provision such as this could be included in the Bill.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I wholeheartedly support the object of both these amendments, though I have certain reservations about them because I think this is something that should be done by the district salmon fishery boards. If the Secretary of State is to do it, or if he has to be consulted, it will take far too long—at least I think it will—because when the river falls below an agreed level you must be able to act at once. The district salmon fishery board can do this because it is local. It knows the conditions and can be flexible. I do not know how long it would take the Secretary of State to act or how long it would take to consult him but I suspect that it would be a matter of a week or a fortnight or something rather like that. Perhaps I am wrong but if not I do not think that will do a great deal of good. In that time, as I think the
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noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said, conditions may have changed, rain or melting snow in the hills may well have raised the river level considerably and so you may be in a position to allow netting again. Again in that case you would not want to waste a week or a fortnight chasing after the Secretary of State. This is very much a matter of day to day management.
Perhaps I may also say a word about the level of water at which fish run a river. It would not be difficult for district fishery boards to establish the level at which salmon will normally run a particular river, as has been shown by a study on the Aberdeenshire Dee. If catch statistics are analysed against river flows and also by checking the levels at which salmon bearing tide-lice or sea-lice are caught it is quite apparent, and this should not be a costly exercise. Sea-lice fall off a fish a maximum of 72 hours after the fish has entered fresh water, so a fish with sea-lice on it cannot have been in the river for more than 72 hours and a fish without sea-lice must have been in the river for more than 72 hours. If you examine fish you can see whether they have newly come in or have been there for some time.
Lord Kimball: I find myself in somewhat of a minority here. I hope that my noble friend Lord Ridley will not have the same success with this amendment as he had with his previous amendment. Although I sympathise with the spirit behind the amendment, I must tell your Lordships that in practical terms it simply will not work. The theory that because you have a drought in your watershed your fish will remain in your estuary, washing in and out on the tide hoping that in a couple of weeks' time they will eventually be able to run the river, just is not true. In actual fact what happens is that they try the river of their origin the first time round and if there is a drought there they push off round the coast, basically going off round to the east coast and down the east coast, turning round at Northumberland and coming round again up the coast of Scotland, hoping to get up a river.
Noble Lords may be interested to know that we undertook a practical experiment in which I stopped my own sweep net on the north coast of Scotland. I am of course only talking about a small river and not about a large one such as the Tay or the Tweed. Before we stopped the sweep net I had the salmon research people up from Faskally and we tagged the last 40 fish that we took in our sweep net. We then put our sweep net away.
Within 10 days, we had 36 of those 40 tags returned—six from the west coast and the balance from the east coast. I believe that some of them came from the river of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. Those fish went on. I cannot imagine being in a worse position—not being allowed to net my river but having the noble Viscount net all my fish! I think that would be very unfair. The principle has much to commend it but I must tell your Lordships that in fact it would not achieve the object that my noble friend Lord Ridley intends.
Lord Chelwood: May I say to my noble friend in the most friendly way possible that he refers to the salmon in the Naver, which I know so well, as being his fish. Are they not our fish?
Viscount Trenchard: I must disagree with my noble friend and support the two amendments to which we have been speaking, Amendments Nos. 10 and 11. I know that my noble friend Lord Kimball is familiar with every inch of the Naver and the north coast of Scotland but I am interested to learn that he has swum all round the coast, following underwater the normal route of fish that have not been tagged. There is evidence that the tagging and handling of fish alters their running habits. There is also enormous evidence that the vast majority of fish almost insist on returning to their own river and to the tributary of it.
I ask my noble friend Lord Kimball to consider the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Ridley, which is that the Secretary of State in Scotland would act only
"after consulting such persons as he considers appropriate".
I cannot imagine that in the instance of the river Naver my noble friend Lord Kimball would not be consulted. I do not believe therefore that inappropriate action would be taken in his particular river.
As far as concerns a river that I know very well—and I have fished my noble friend's river but I am speaking now of the other end of the kingdom, in South-West England—the Tamar has a long estuary, and there is no doubt whatsoever that fish go up and down it. They go up it just ahead of the tide and down it again if there is an inadequate flow. They die in large numbers from pollution when the water level falls very low. They have been assessed as dead fish and have been removed by the South West Water Authority, which I believe estimated in the last drought year well over 2,000 dead fish.
In those conditions, legal netting stations up and down the estuary take the remainder of fish that have not died. I therefore say to my noble friend Lord Kimball that he will be consulted. I have absolutely no doubt that his netting will not be stopped unless he stops it himself, because he knows so much about that river. I ask him not to destroy what appears to be a totally unanimous view for Great Britain, that there should be some such power in the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Gray is probably going to ask, "How is the level, in the terms of Amendment No. 11, going to be agreed?" My noble friend Lord Ridley uses the word "agreed". In England and Wales, perhaps it should be that the onus should be placed on the water authorities to recommend a level below which they will consider prohibition.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Gibson-Watt: If I may comment very briefly, without entering into the argument between the east and the west coast of Scotland, I support very much what has been said by various noble Lords and by the noble Baroness, Lady White, about Amendment No. 11. The noble Baroness speaks with a great deal of experience because of her position in the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology. That is very important.
I wish to make two points. The first is that the amendment here applies in other parts of the Bill, and I support that as well. Secondly, as I see it, the issue is that if one establishes water authorities, which were set up in 1972, then one ought to give those authorities as much reasonable responsibility as possible. I say to
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your Lordships that the reaction of the Welsh Water Authority to this Bill is one of great disappointment.
I am very much encouraged by the fact that my noble friend Lord Belstead is sitting on the Front Bench at the moment. Indeed, that is greatly to his credit. I hope that he will convey to his right honourable friend that those of us who do not live north of the Border had hoped to have a little more in the Bill to help both English and Welsh fisheries. What has been said about conservation applies countrywide and not just to Scotland. I shall not say more because there are others wishing to speak.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I must take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, on two counts. The first is that rivers are different and what obtains for the Naver does not, necessarily obtain for other rivers and certainly does not obtain for the Dee, where this practice has been tried and where the results have been helpful. Secondly, if the fish do go away—which, as the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, observed, they do not necessarily do, because tagged fish behave in a strange way—in, say, July of one year, when there is drought in the Naver area, but possibly not in another area, then so what? The following year the position may be completely reversed.
The Earl of Onslow: I should like to produce some personalised evidence of the hammering that low-water fishing can have on a river. I am very privileged to be asked to fish the Helmsdale, which I suppose is one of the greatest of all the Scottish sea rivers. In 1984, as your Lordships are well aware, there was an enormous amount of drought and no rain at all. The Helmsdale has a dam that they normally try to manage. This year there was much too much water and it could not be let out; but that is a different story.
In 1984, all the dam water was used and everybody wanted to go on the bottom beat of the private rod stretch. In August, almost from first light until eight o'clock, one could have caught one's limit on that bottom beat because all the fish were concentrated there. Consequently, that bottom beat received a hammering, which perhaps it should not have suffered. Not all those fish were necessarily taken in the mouth, because the place was so crammed with fish that one could not get up-river. Some of them had hooked not a million miles away from other parts of their body, if I may put it like that.
There is evidence to support my noble friend Lord Ridley when he says that there should be efforts made, even in rod fishing, to control the situation. We must never lose sight of the fact that the tonnage of salmon has fallen from the 10,000 tonnes caught 10 years ago to 5,000 tonnes caught last year. That is too big a fall to be anything like comfortable. Having said that once already, and again now, I come to the logic of continuing onto the English rivers and not giving my noble friend Lord Kimball the benefit of the doubt. He may be right, but the evidence is that he is wrong; and with that catastrophic fall in salmon catches we cannot afford to take the risk of not making the maximum amount of conservation effort that we can.
Viscount Thurso: I fear that the thought lying behind these amendments is totally illusory. I support

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the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, in that, and I will produce figures. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, is wrong in believing that it was a disaster that there was a hammering on the lower beat of which he spoke. In fact, it probably saved some of the fish from death by other causes.
On the Thurso—I forget exactly what year it was, but in the 1960s—we had extremely low conditions for a long period. However, there were regular little spates that raised the water level from time to time. This kept the salmon coming into the estuary, and, as a result, by mid-July the netsmen at the mouth of the river had caught very nearly a record catch. At that point I said to them, "Look, chaps, you have done very well. You are on full bonus. You have made as much as you possibly can. From now on it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who gets all the benefit. Shall we give a chance to the rod fishermen and to the river in general? Shall we take off the net from 1st August?" They agreed. They were satisfied to sit back and let the fish run the river.
There came a little rise of four inches at the marker at Halkirk and the fish ran solidly into the river. Unfortunately, that was all the rise there was. Throughout the rest of the month of August and the month of September we had to employ a man to bury the dead fish which were on the bottom three beats of the river. The fish were so crowded in those bottom three beats that they were dying of suffocation. They were so crowded together that the cocks were actually letting go their milk because they thought they were spawning. After that rise in the water the rods caught no fish until the end of the season. Therefore, in my view, it is a totally illusory amendment.
The fact is that all salmon behave more or less the same way. It does not matter whether they are east coast fish, west coast fish or Icelandic fish, as long as they are Atlantic salmon they behave in roughly the same way. When they come back to their coast they search it. They go up and down trying the rivers for taste. If they find their own river there is a tendency for them to stay off the mouth of it. They will go into it and go up with the tide to the high tide mark and back down again. At very low levels they will run the river.
I remember on one occasion there was a digger working in the mouth of the Thurso. I was standing on a rock in the middle of the Thurso talking to someone who was on a rock not far away. I heard a flapping noise at my feet. There was a fish coming up through about six inches of water. It was at my feet and running into the river—a fresh run grilse.
Viscount Trenchard: May I—
Viscount Thurso: I will give way in a moment, but please let me finish. What happens is that the fish come in and explore the estuary and go out again. If there is prolonged, definable drought the fish will go off the estuary and the netsmen at the mouth of the river will be longing for a rise of water to bring the fish back. In our case they also long for a south wind to take the taste of the fresh water out to bring the fish in. However, what they long for more than anything else is a small rise of water to define that a drought is not
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taking place. At that moment the fish will return once more to run the river.
Therefore, the conditions in which you catch most fish with an estuary net are those conditions where, generally speaking, the levels are low so that there is not a big pool of fresh water running out into the sea to bring the fish in and where there is not continual high water to tempt them every day to run up the river. There should be a little flow the whole time, but not a drought.
Viscount Trenchard: While I—
Viscount Thurso: I do not have to give way. I am trying to give an explanation of how all fish run a river. They will come in as long as there is a pool of water. They will try to run up the river and if they do not like it they will fall back and stay around. Full drought conditions are self-limiting and the idea that letting a lot of fish into the river in semi-drought conditions will do the river good is a totally illusory one.
Viscount Trenchard: May I just say to the noble Viscount that I respect entirely his great knowledge of his particular area and of fish generally. However, some of us are talking of estuaries which are 14 miles long with brackish water and tides that move up and down where there is no question whatever but that fish stay in that 14 miles and move up and down.
I say to the noble Viscount as I said to my noble friend Lord Kimball that under the amendment of my noble friend Lord Ridley he will be consulted. Nobody could possibly introduce something in Thurso over the head of the proprietor and the netting organisation. If his river runs straight into the sea and the fish behave exactly as the noble Viscount describes, then he will be unaffected. However, there are a great many other rivers in Scotland and in England where the experience of the noble Viscount and my noble friend does not, with respect, hold water.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Moran—or perhaps the Minister can help on this—whether, if his amendment is passed, it would mean altering the Long Title of the Bill? I think when we come to a later stage on the licensing of dealers in England it would be necessary that we should do so at the appropriate time. Indeed, he has an amendment to do this. I want to make it clear now that if it is necessary to do this we would do so in this House as I think it cannot be done in another place.
As regards the amendment, my noble friend Lord Gray will see that it is slightly more complicated than it perhaps looks from the wording. I am inclined to agree with the amendments. I think that on the whole they are desirable. However, if the Secretary of State is to have this power it must be on the recommendation of the river board. Conditions vary too much throughout the United Kingdom to give the Secretary of State this power without any local recommendations.
May I say to my noble friend Lord Ridley that, of course, this deals with nets only. He rather hinted that some comparable action might be taken in relation to rods. It would be extremely complex to design such a scheme. Riparian owners these days have to let their fishings months ahead. Not only do they let them to

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people in this country but often to foreigners. To be suddenly faced with an order from the Secretary of State that all rod fishing should cease at a certain height of water would be difficult and extremely complicated.
Viscount Ridley: I did not say "cease".
Lord Home of the Hirsel: If we were to consider any sort of control of rod fishing at low water to compensate, so to speak, for any control put on the net fishing I would much rather see it done by regulating the lure or the bait. After all, the fellow is skilful who catches a fish at all with a fly.
Viscount Ridley: I did not say that it should cease. I said exactly what my noble friend Lord Home suggests. The Tweed is an example where the nets are all fixed fly only; and a very good rule that is.
Lord Burton: I should dearly love to support this amendment but I regret that I cannot support Amendment No. 10. I think the application is probably inoperable, certainly in most rivers. As my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel said, the whole set-up is extremely complex.
As a member of a purification board may I say that, first of all, we would require an enormous increase in staff, and there is no money provision in the Bill. The Highland River Purification Board covers the whole of the North of Scotland. We have three inspectors so it would be inoperable for them to be watching the mouths of the various rivers.
How are the various netting stations to be notified quickly? If it is done by advertisements in the paper it would almost certainly have rained by the time they see it. However, even before the official finds the gauge is below the level agreed—provided there is agreement—rain may already have fallen in the hills feeding the tributaries of the rivers concerned. A few minutes after the reading of the gauge the situation could have changed completely. It is not really like a hard weather situation where the birds are suffering. The change is much quicker than that. Indeed, there only needs to be a hot day to melt the snow and it would bring extra water into a number of rivers.
Again, a good many of our highland rivers are affected by hydro schemes which put the water level up and down not once but several times a day. The operation of the Caledonian Canal affects the nets very materially; the River Oich affects them even more so. So I find that there are various factors which regrettably make this amendment inoperable.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: I wonder whether my noble friend Viscount Ridley realised just how much interest he would arouse in the amendment No. 10 that he tabled. In fact, the interest is such that at this time we are dealing with Amendments Nos. 10, 11, 25, 26, 27, 34 and 35, and at some time during the last 47 minutes all those amendments have been touched upon by one or other of your Lordships.
I find myself in the difficult and perhaps somewhat unusual position of sitting on the Front Bench feeling
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almost like an arbiter might feel in such a situation. We had a complete across-the-Floor exchange of views, with opinions not in any way being expressed along party lines but exchanged purely among Members of your Lordships' House who have a tremendous knowledge of this very important sport and, indeed, industry.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel, who raised a very important point, as he does so often, regarding the Long Title of the Bill. I have been advised that it would be necessary to change the Long Title of the Bill were this amendment to be accepted. I must state straightaway that it is not possible for me to accept this amendment and in due course I shall give your Lordships some reasons why I cannot. Indeed, it is not possible for me to accept any of the amendments, but I take the unusual step of giving my conclusion before I deal with the various points which have been raised.
There has been such interest taken in this amendment and so many points have been raised on it that I should prefer my advisers to have the opportunity of reading Hansard tomorrow and studying the deliberations which have taken place, so that we can come to a conclusion a little later. I do this without any commitment because, as the noble Lord, Lord Burton, the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, and the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, very properly pointed out, the difficulties which are involved in formulating any amendment that would cover the points which many noble Lords have raised this afternoon would be great indeed. I shall take the amendment away and, without giving any commitment, I shall study it carefully and make sure that all the points which have been raised are carefully considered.
I think we all appreciate the concern of the noble Viscount to restrict netting effort in drought conditions in order to conserve stocks. However, I need hardly remind your Lordships that drought is not a common phenomenon in Scotland. Moreover, if we take the nets off in low water conditions it might easily be argued that, in fairness, we ought to dispense with the weekly close time arrangements in high water conditions. I believe that this measure is unnecessary and that there are better and less potentially acrimonious ways of conserving stocks and maintaining a reasonable balance between rods and nets under the provisions of this Bill.
I may say that I am advised that the proposed amendment is defective in a number of respects. For example, it is not at all clear how prohibitions would be effected and enforced. It is not clear whether it is envisaged that the proposed consultation will take place initially in order to determine the agreed level or whether it will be undertaken on every occasion on which the Secretary of State intends to prohibit netting. It would be necessary to provide a method of imposition of the prohibitions and for offences and penalties, if a prohibition of this nature is to be effectively enforced. However, my objections are on the principle of what is proposed and not just on the defective drafting.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, my noble friend Lord Chelwood and the noble Baroness, Lady White, all spoke to Amendments Nos. 11 and 26. I should point

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out that, following the drought of 1984, the Government are reviewing the operation of drought procedures in England and Wales and we should not anticipate the outcome of that drought review. So far as Amendments Nos. 11 and 26 are concerned, I could not accept them in any event because I feel that it would be wrong for us to pre-empt what might be revealed in the review.
Regarding Amendment No. 25—
The Earl of Onslow: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend Lord Gray on this point but I should like some clarification. Is he saying that during this drought review which the Government are undertaking, if they consider it necessary, and it can be shown to be necessary, to introduce regulations of this sort on English salmon waters, they will do so; or is he just saying, "We are looking at the drought review and I do not have to address myself to the problem raised by my noble friend Lord Trenchard of the fish in the Tamar"?
Lord Gray of Contin: No, that is not quite what I am saying. I shall try to explain to my noble friend. What I said was that I thought it would be wrong for us at this stage and in this legislation to pre-empt the conclusions of the drought review, but of course if at some future time legislation is required then it will be up to the respective departments concerned to decide whether or not such legislation should be introduced. I am not suggesting for one moment that the conclusions of the review will necessarily have to be implemented in this way. I am merely saying that it would be wrong for us to pre-empt those conclusions.
Lord Moran: I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord the Minister, but may I ask whether the officials who are conducting the drought review are under instructions to consider the fisheries aspect, and particularly the aspect of the threat to salmon and sea trout when they are entering rivers in drought conditions?
Lord Gray of Contin: Yes, I am advised that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have an input into the review and have every right to make their views known to those who are considering the matter.
I am afraid that Amendment No. 25 has similar defects to the earlier amendment. In addition to those which I have already mentioned, there is no procedure for a board to impose a ban. In any case, for the reasons I gave in regard to the earlier proposal, I consider that this would be undesirable in principle.
Regarding Amendment No. 27 which was spoken to by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, I suggest that the amendment is inappropriate, since its reference to "all netting operations" is too widely drawn and consequently open to various interpretations. Furthermore, there is no indication given as to how the restriction or prohibition which is contained in the amendment would be imposed and enforced. I am afraid that in those circumstances I am not able to accept her amendment—certainly not in the form in which it has been tabled. However, it is useful to note that all the amendments aim at the same conclusion.
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Because of the wide interest expressed, I shall look carefully at what has been said.
Let me now touch on Amendments Nos. 34 and 35. In England and Wales it is already an offence under Section 30 of the Salmon and Fresh Water Fisheries Act 1975 to introduce fish or spawn into inland waters without the consent of the relevant water authority. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, would merely duplicate those powers.
A number of other points were raised. The difficulties that we face have been highlighted by the variety of ideas put forward for handling low water conditions. For example, my noble friend Lord Biddulph mentioned the question of oxygen. That is a matter which is vitally important and would have to be considered. But that suggestion and the speech of my noble friend Lord Kimball highlight the difficulties of tackling the problem.
Bird shooting restriction was mentioned, but that is not an entirely apt comparison. Bird shooting prohibitions concern recreational shooting. The salmon fishing proposal is directed at commercial netting operations. I suggest to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy that the frost provisions relating to bird shooting (in Section 2(6) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act) are in marked contrast. Winters are measured by a widespread phenomenon—days of frost. River levels will differ according to the river, the time and the place, and the levels would have to be set individually for each separate river. Weighting in favour of netsmen was also suggested. I cannot agree with that. They are more severely restricted than the angler, and rightly so, because they use a much more efficient method of catching fish.
I realise that this is another area of great concern to the Committee. I do not expect that I shall be able to resolve the matter easily or at all; but I give the Committee the assurance that in view of the strong opinions expressed on both sides of the argument I shall consider the matter carefully before we reach the next stage of the Bill.
Viscount Ridley: I thank my noble friend for his considered reply. I should just like to take my noble friend Lord Kimball to task—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Nugent of Guildford): Before we come to Amendment No. 10, we have to dispose of Amendment No. 11. Does the noble Lord wish to say anything further or to withdraw his amendment?
Lord Moran: In the light of what the Minister has said, which I understand to be an assurance that the officials considering the drought review will take account of fisheries, and specifically of salmon, problems both in England and Wales, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment to the amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount Ridley: I shall not press Amendment No. 10 in view of what has been said, but I should like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in what has been a most valuable debate. From the many speeches

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that we have had there can be no doubt that there is a strong feeling in the Committee that something has to be done about this sooner or later. Some such powers are needed, although I am the first to admit that my drafting is far from perfect; in fact it is probably totally imperfect. But whatever we do should cover the whole of Great Britain and if possible all of the United Kingdom, and we must consider seriously how to do it.
I just wanted to take my noble friend Lord Kimball to task, as others have done. I fear that he is making the great mistake of talking about the Naver, which is one river that has almost no estuary. Will your Lordships consider this position? If, for instance, you were going upstairs to bed and half-way up the stairs you were caught by my noble friend, taken out of the water and a tag put in your ear, I think that you would try another staircase the next time that you wanted to go to bed!
As to the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, I have never seen the Thurso river so I make no comment, but in view of the rather nasty sexual habits of his fish I am not sure that I want to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 12 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 3, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Burton: Subsections (6)(a) and (b) refer to districts. Perhaps I may suggest that the Minister looks to see whether the phrase should not be added, "or parts of districts". I do not want to answer now.
Earl Haig: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to raise one or two points on which I should have put down an amendment but unfortunately the amendments that I posted by express post from Scotland failed to materialise here. As I shall not be able to be here at the Report stage, I should like, if your Lordships will allow me, to raise these two points which concern the powers of the Secretary of State to control the extraction of sand and gravel and the powers of the Secretary of State to control the extraction of water.
Like pollution, sand and gravel can upset the habitat of the salmon and affect their race. Digging can also affect fishing. Fishermen may suddenly find a day's fishing completely ruined by the sudden arrival of sand and other materials in the river which put off a day's sport to which they have been looking forward. There should be an opportunity for all interested parties to consult with the Secretary of State before bulldozers begin disturbing the river bed or the land near the river. As a result of consultations, plans can be made to arrange the timing and dating of operations to minimise damage to fishing and to fish. In order to preserve fish and promote fishing there should be some control. That is a view which I think is accepted by river and fishery boards in many parts of Scotland.
With regard to the other problem of water extraction, which of course is very much linked with the subject that we have been debating for the past hour—when low water conditions prevail
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—unnecessary and ill-timed extraction can adversely affect the river, particularly when the water is low, and warm water can promote algae and weed growth, with the maximum stress to the fish. Less water means less dilution of pollution, and water extractors may even add to the pollution by putting back water which is polluted.
The Secretary of State should, in consultation with river boards which have measuring equipment that is most efficient these days, be able to control extraction in the same way as he controls pollution. At present there are no controls in Scotland as there are in England and Wales, because the 1963 Act affected England and Wales only. It was assumed that the Scottish weather made us different. But recent summers, I believe, have destroyed that theory. In any case, the weather in Wales is very similar to that in Scotland.
Low water conditions on the Tweed in summer are presenting increasing problems. Abstraction takes place for the central belt water supply, for fish farms and for arable farming. The Tweed Purification Board minimises the problem by the introduction of fresh supplies from reservoirs. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State should have power to restrict water abstraction at certain times so that available water is wisely used for the benefit of all consumers. I ask my noble friend the Minister to think about the point that I have made. It is a matter that will possibly be raised at Report stage by someone in my name.
Lord Gray of Contin: My noble friend tabled a manuscript amendment which I have not had a great deal of time to consider. I would, however, say to him that the powers to make regulations under Clause 3 of the Bill are already extended to the whole of the river Tweed district, including that part in England, by Clause 9 as it stands. Indeed, the amendment proposed by my noble friend would restrict that application because, in describing the Tweed in the amendment, he omits to include that part which was added by by-law under the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1868. Given this explanation and the fact that his amendment would not achieve what he seeks, he may perhaps consider withdrawing it.
Earl Haig: I was not actually moving any amendment. I was simply airing my views in the hope that these might be considered in St. Andrew's House before Report stage.
Lord Gray of Contin: I apologise to my noble friend. The mistake is mine. My noble friend was of course speaking on the Question that the clause stand part. I take note of what he says. We shall look forward to hearing from him at at a later stage.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Annual close time]:
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 13:
Page 6, line 29, leave out subsections (4), (5) and (6).
The noble Lord said: The principle that I sought to debate in Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 has already

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been covered in the debate on Amendment No. 6. That being so, I do not propose to move either this amendment or Amendment No. 14.
[Amendment No. 13 not moved.]
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Estuary limits]:
[Amendment No. 14 not moved.]
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 8, line 9, after ("Act") insert ("or in section 36 of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1868").
The noble Lord said: The effect of this amendment is to exclude the provisions of Section 36 of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1868 from Section 7(7). Section 36 provides that nothing in that Act or any by-law shall make any method of fishing legal if it would have been illegal at the passing of that Act. If the limits of the estuary of a river change by, for example, the mouth of the river moving along the coast, and this amendment was not made, the usual coastal methods of fishing could not be lawful in the area vacated by the estuary. This is not our intention in providing extra flexibility. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Application of regulations and annual close time orders to the River Tweed]:
Earl Haig Earl Haig moved manuscript Amendment No. 15A:
Page 8, line 29, leave out from ("Tweed") to end of line 32 and insert ("including so much of the River Tweed as is situated outwith Scotland and the mouth or entrance of the River Tweed as defined in section 4 of the Tweed Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1859.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment refers to the desirability of enabling netting stations at the mouth of the Tweed to operate under the terms of the Bill. My amendment, which I shall read out, is at line 29 to leave out from "Tweed" to the end of line 32 and to insert:
"including so much of the River Tweed as is situated outwith Scotland and the mouth or entrance of the River Tweed as defined in section 4 of the Tweed Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1859".
As I said in my speech at Second Reading, the Bill would not cover the netting stations at the mouth of the river which are in England. This amendment would bring those netting stations within the law. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I dealt with part of this amendment when I spoke after the noble Earl had spoken on the Question that Clause 3 stand part. I can perhaps reiterate the relevant parts, which are that the powers to make regulations under Clause 3 of the Bill are already extended to the whole of the river Tweed district, including that part in England, by Clause 9 as it stands. In view of what I have said and in view of the fact that the amendment proposed by my noble friend restricts that application, since it does not include that part which was added by by-law under the Salmon
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Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1863, my noble friend will perhaps consider withdrawing the amendment.
Earl Haig: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Qualified proprietors and upper and lower proprietors]:
The Marquess of Lansdowne The Marquess of Lansdowne moved manuscript Amendment No. 15B:
Page 9, line 28, leave out from ("Act") to end of line 29 and insert ("the proprietors from time to time of—

(a) a salmon fishery separately entered in the valuation roll as at 31st March 1985; and

(b) a salmon fishery treated as having been separately entered in the said valuation roll under subsection (2) below.").

The noble Marquess said: I must apologise for this somewhat convoluted amendment which I have put in manuscript form. I tried to give my noble friend Lord Gray of Contin some notice of it. The object of the amendment—the noble Lord the Deputy Chairman of Committees has not read out the whole of it, for there is a great deal more—is to try to have a better definition of a qualified proprietor.
The definition in subsection (1) seems to be unsatisfactory in two respects. First, as noble Lords will be aware, it is becoming increasingly common for fisheries to be owned by a multiplicity of proprietors in pro indiviso shares, particularly in connection with time-share schemes. Each of those proprietors is entitled to be described as a person who owns a salmon fishery entered in the valuation roll, but in my opinion it is unreasonable that one fishery should support more than one voter. Secondly, there is a danger that proprietors may deliberately subdivide their fisheries into small units simply in order to create new fisheries and thus additional voters in fishery board elections. The amendments which I have tabled are designed to overcome those two possible abuses.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Gray, touched on the question of time-share schemes earlier in the debate. When I arrived from Scotland yesterday I went through all the amendments with great care and I thought that pretty well everything had been thought of. However, it seemed to me that perhaps here there is a gap and that is why I have taken the liberty of tabling the manuscript amendment. I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Gray, to give me a substantive reply, but I hope that he will consider the amendment I have put down and see whether it is helpful in overcoming the difficulties to which I have referred. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: As the noble Marquess explained, he tabled this amendment not very long before we started our deliberations. I have not had time to consider it and nor have my advisers had time to give me the appropriate advice. Therefore, I shall willingly take it away. I shall carefully read what my noble friend has said and I shall consider it before we reach the next stage of the Bill.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I must re-emphasise that only part of my amendment has been read out, but I take it that the

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noble Lord will consider the whole of it. With those comments, I am very pleased to beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 9, line 28, leave out ("person who owns") and insert ("proprietor of").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 16, and it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 17 and 18.
Amendment No. 17: Page 10, line 32, leave out from ("the") to end of line 33 and insert ("normal tidal limit").
Amendment No. 18: Page 10, line 39, leave out ("rolls") and insert ("a roll").
As regards Amendment No. 16, the term "proprietor" has been defined in Clause 28(1) and it is considered desirable to use this term in Clause 10(1) rather than to include a reference to "a person who owns". It is thought that the contrast with the definition might suggest that "person" could be interpreted to mean something different from "proprietor", as so defined. The amendment will ensure that only a proprietor, as defined in Clause 28(1) can be qualified for election to a district board. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Marquess of Lansdowne The Marquess of Lansdowne had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 16A:
Page 9, line 30, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
("(2) Without prejudice to subsections (9) and (10) below where

(a) any salmon fishery separately owned at 31st March 1985 has been inadvertently omitted from the said valuation roll, the proprietor of that salmon fishery; or

(b) the ownership of a material part of a salmon fishery separately owned at 31st March 1985 has been transferred, the transferee,

may apply to the district salmon fishery board, or where there is no district salmon fishery board to the sheriff, to be treated as if his fishery had been separately entered in the valuation roll as at 31st March 1985.
(2A) Where more than one person owns a salmon fishery the proprietors of that fishery shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as a single qualified proprietor only.").
The noble Marquess said: As I understand that the noble Lord will be considering this matter, I do not wish to move the amendment.
[Amendment No. 16A not moved.]
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 17:
[Printed above.]
The noble Lord said: I have already spoken to this amendment, I beg to move.
Lord Burton: I should like to ask a question. As the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said earlier, papers have been dropping through our letterboxes by almost every post. It is unfortunate that the time has been so short. However, this morning I received a letter from the Law Society of Scotland and I know that there are difficulties about the question of the mean high tide water mark or any tide mark. They have suggested—and it is only a suggestion; I do not know
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whether there is anything in it—that the wording concerning mean high tide mark should read:
"the base line referred to in Section 1(1) of the Fishery Limits Act 1976".
Lord Gray of Contin: Perhaps it may be easier if I actually explain the amendment so that everyone can appreciate the wording. It has been drawn to our attention by the District Boards Association that the words:
"mean high water mark of ordinary spring tides",
are not the most appropriate in this context because the high water mark in a tidal river is not a point, nor a line across the river, but two separate lines, roughly parallel to the course of the river, one on each bank. The words used by the ordnance survey to describe the up-river end of the tidal flow are "normal tidal limit", and those should be used here. I beg to move.
Lord Burton: I am sure that my noble friend will look at the Law Society's definition about drawing a line. There are difficulties, as my noble friend has explained.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 18:
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 18ZA and 18ZB not moved.]
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [District salmon fishery boards]:
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 18A:
Page 12, line 42, at end insert ("in proportion to the value of their fisheries in the valuation roll").
The noble Lord said: I think that this amendment is self-explanatory. The amendment concerns the question of what happens to the assets when a district is wound up. There may be cars or even houses. It seems reasonable, therefore, that when they are divided between the proprietors concerned they should be divided in proportion to the value of the fisheries in the valuation roll. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: As my noble friend Lord Burton has pointed out, this amendment seeks to ensure that members of the association of proprietors who inherit the liabilities and assets of a defunct district board, share in such liabilities and assets in the same proportion in which they contribute to the fishery assessment. This seems in principle an attractive suggestion and I am grateful to my noble friend for moving it. I am willing to undertake to give the proposal detailed consideration and I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment on that assurance.
Lord Burton: I have great pleasure in begging leave to withdraw the amendment on the basis of that assurance.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 13, line 13, leave out subsection (9).
The noble Lord said: I hesitate to describe this as a simple amendment after the discussion which we had on what I naïvely thought was a simple amendment; namely, Amendment No. 10. On Second Reading I said that I was looking forward to the Committee stage, during which I was sure I should learn a great deal. I assure your Lordships that I have learnt a great deal, particularly about the difference between rivers which seem to me to be in the far north of Scotland and the rivers in the rest of Scotland.
The purpose of the amendment is to ask the Minister why subsection (9) is necessary at all. It seems to me to be cluttering up the legislation to have a subsection which says:
"There may be a district salmon fishery board for a district whether or not there are salmon in the waters of that district".
It seems rather superfluous to me. However, we had a little over an hour's debate on Amendment No. 10, and I should not be surprised if this one took us up to the time when we break for dinner. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: It may seem strange to some to make provision for a salmon fishery board for a district which has no salmon in its waters. This provision is simply a re-enactment of part of Section 3 of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1868 which is being repealed by this Bill. More importantly, however, I think it would be imprudent not to allow a board to be formed in anticipation of salmon being introduced into inland waters or returning there.
It would also be imprudent for a board to have to be wound up if, following some disaster, salmon stocks in a particular district were killed off, which of course is one of the implications of the amendment. It may be in such circumstances, for example, that the proprietors would wish to retain the board to help towards regeneration of stocks. I hope in view of what I have said that the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I think that the second point made by the Minister is quite reasonable. There had been a board; there had been fish, and the hope is that there might be fish again. But if there had never been fish how do we get the board? Remember it is only to be created on the basis of two qualified proprietors. That takes you back to the presence of fish.
There may be some who perhaps go down to wherever the noble Lord, Lord Burton, is and buy a couple of fish and put them in and say, "Here you are. I am a qualified proprietor of a salmon fishery area". But it beats me as to how you get the board. I can understand the situation where you have a board and the fish have disappeared, but where you have no fish how do you get the board? If you do not get a board, how on earth does this apply?
Lord Campbell of Croy: While my noble friend the Minister is considering an answer to that point, whatever his answer to that may be may I ask him whether the Bill will provide for a situation where there are at present no salmon in a river but where it
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is proposed to introduce some? If the Bill is not drafted to provide this at the moment, I suggest that it should be drafted so that it would be possible to bring a board into existence on the serious proposal to introduce salmon into a river.
I know that this extends to England. About seven years ago the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, introduced small salmon into the River Thames, and I understand that some have been caught since then. No doubt he will be able to tell us later. This particular clause deals with Scotland, but if there are no salmon and they can be introduced and the conditions are favourable for their introduction, then it would be a pity if there were no provision for a board to be set up in order to be able to cater for the situation once the salmon have been introduced.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to my noble friend because he has really answered the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, for me. This is a re-enactment. It would seem to us to be imprudent not to allow a board to be formed in anticipation of salmon being introduced into inland waters, or returning there. As my noble friend suggested, it could be that restocking would be going to take place, and it might be desirable that a board be created. It seems to us that it is not unreasonable to have this re-enactment for the purposes I have suggested.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Can we settle it fairly quickly? We have had it since 1868. How many times has the provision been used? If it has not been used, let us forget it. If it has been used, tell us—or write a letter to the Solicitor-General, or someone or other.
Lord Burton: If the river is stocked with little fish which it is illegal to take, they will then migrate to the sea and there will be a period before they come back again. Therefore, there may be no fish in the river at the time but there would be a strong expectancy that they will arrive within a period.
I believe that there was a good deal of difficulty over the Clyde. Perhaps noble Lords opposite will know more about it than I do. I believe that they have recently had salmon where they had not previously had them, and I believe that there were no proper controls because they did not exist. No doubt noble Lords opposite will know more about that than I do.
7.15 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: It is important not to delete this. I am thinking in terms of where one is trying to create a proper structure over a length of coast. It may well be that between two district board areas as presently defined there lies an area where there has not been defined a district board simply because the burn, or river, which flows in at that point is too small to support a breeding stock of salmon.
Nevertheless, the coast there will be patrolled by fish, as we have heard described by the noble Lord, Lord Kimball. I am sure that it would be valuable to be able to include this in an area provided that the people in that area—the proprietors of the banks of the burn, or indeed the foreshore, or whatever—were not against it. We should not leave it out if we are hoping to cover the whole of Scotland with a uniform structure.
Lord Gray of Contin: I think I have said all I need say. I agree with what the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has just said. I see no reason for deleting this. It is a provision that we should retain.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I asked the Minister whether he could produce any figures, or any information, about how often this provision had been used since 1868. The main reason he gave at first was that it had been there since 1868, and they want to carry it on.
Lord Gray of Contin: Obviously I cannot give the noble Lord the figures he requires. But, in any event, whether it has been used or not is no reason to suspect that it might not be used at some future time. It is not doing anybody any harm, and I see little point in removing it.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: It did not quite reach as long as the hour, but it is amazing that such an amendment should have managed to take the time it has. It is still a Catch 22 situation. As my noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock said, if it was salmon leaving the river obviously there would already have been boards there and they would be entitled to stay in the hope that the salmon would come back. But the problem is how you set up a board under the terms of the Bill as it stands when assessment is necessary. Who becomes the chairman, what is the proportion of voting, and all the rest of it when there is no assessment possible, because assessment is based on the fish in the river and there are none? Therefore it seems impossible to me.
However, we have had a fair discussion. It might be interesting if the Minister or the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate could look back through the archives and see whether anything has ever happened and whether this section has ever been used. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Kimball Lord Kimball moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 13, line 14, at end insert—
("(9A) Where there is no district salmon fishery board or transitional district board for a district and application has not been made to the sheriff by qualified proprietors in the district in pursuance of paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to this Act the Secretary of State may on application being made to him by the district salmon fishery board of an adjoining district by order authorise that district salmon fishery board to exercise the powers of a district salmon fishery board in such adjoining district in all respects as if such adjoining district formed part of their own district.
(9B) The provisions of subsections (2) and (3) of this section and of Schedule 2 to this Act shall, with any necessary modifications, apply to an order made under subsection (9A) above.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 20 on the Marshalled List. The effect of this amendment is to deal with the problem that at the present time district salmon fishery boards exist for fewer than half the rivers in Scotland. If the boards are to be restructured and revitalised in accordance with the provisions made in this Bill, it is logical for the provisions to be applied to as many boards as possible.
Ideally there should be a board in each district. Although it may not be practical to achieve this ideal, this amendment seeks to provide a means whereby a
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number of districts for which there are no boards can be controlled by the board of an adjoining district. Accordingly, where there are no district salmon fisheries boards or transitional district boards for a district and where the qualified proprietors have not applied to the sheriff for a board to be formed this amendment provides for a board to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to exercise control over that adjacent district. The Secretary of State may grant such permission by order.
I am certain that the drafting is in no way adequate and I have put the amendment down because I felt it was important to have a discussion on this point. The problem is that we are looking for a carrot to persuade people to form boards: we are looking for a carrot to persuade the 60 per cent. of the boards that exist, that are on the map of Scotland but are not active, to become active either by amalgamation or by some further provision. I have written to my noble friend Lord Gray about the possibility of some kind of guidance payment being paid to district boards where they are inactive and not operating at the moment to cover them for their first three years of operation, to pay the clerk, to go through the necessary legal formalities of making the triennial return to the sheriff. This is a probing amendment and I move it in that spirit to hear the reply of my noble friend Lord Gray.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I should like to support this amendment. I understand that it is a probing amendment. The trouble is that large areas of Scotland especially on the west coast have no salmon district boards, as my noble friend says. If there are no boards one cannot have any bailiffs. As I said on Second Reading, I should like the whole of Scotland to have district salmon boards which would be a great help for preventing poaching. That would also help the tourist industry and the hotels. If this amendment were accepted how much better we could prevent poaching for the rod and line fishermen.
It might interest the Committee to know—as I am sure your Lordships who fish on the Tweed, the Tay, the Dee and the Spey already know—that I understand that in the financial year 1982–83 from those four great salmon rivers the income in rates was £293,000 to the various local authorities. That shows the great amount of money that local authorities receive from salmon. Therefore I do not see why they cannot be a little more generous with the district salmon boards especially as finance is the great barrier that holds back the formation of so many district boards.
As I said on Second Reading, the Highlands and Islands Development Board supports tourism, but it does not support it regarding salmon fishing. I think that the board ought to subscribe some financial help to the district boards, especially if that will mean more salmon district boards, as I sincerely hope one day it will.
Lord Gray of Contin: The purpose of this amendment is to enable the Secretary of State to authorise a district salmon fishery board to exercise the powers of a board in an adjoining district if no board has been formed for that district or no application has been made to the sheriff to form a board for that adjoining district.

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I fully understand the motives of my noble friends in tabling this amendment. I too should like more coverage of Scotland with boards but I consider that the amendment goes too far in seeking to achieve this. It would allow a take-over and seems in effect to provide for taxation without representation. It could force proprietors to form a board if they wish to avoid that happening. This would be totally against the voluntary concept on which the procedures for forming a board are based and I am afraid that for those reasons I am not able to accept it. I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Kimball would consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Kimball: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Financial powers and duties of district salmon fishery boards]:
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 20A:
Page 14, line 1, after ("assessment") insert ("including interest thereon").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is self-explanatory. If someone is in arrears and there are powers to collect it seems not unreasonable that we should also collect any interest due on the money as well. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: District boards will have power to impose a fishery assessment under Clause 14(3). It is therefore wholly appropriate that they should have the powers to recover arrears such as are provided in Clause 14(6). Whether the power to recover arrears of fishery assessment may be extended to include arrears of interest without boards first being given a specific power to charge interest is a question I should like to consider further. In the circumstances, I should be grateful if my noble friend would consider withdrawing his amendment so that I can give it further consideration.
Lord Burton: I am happy to do so. I very much hope, however, that they will be given these powers. But I appreciate that this amendment comes before the powers are given. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 14, line 23, at beginning insert ("with the approval of the Secretary of State").
The noble Lord said: This is a very important amendment indeed. It concerns the power of the board to borrow money. I know the facility has been there since 1832 but here it is re-stated. I do not object to the fact that a board can borrow:
"an amount not exceeding twice the amount of the fishery assessment collected within the twelve month period immediately prior to the date".
But power is also given to borrow:
"such higher sum"—
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there is no limitation on that higher sum, anything above that:
"as is approved by the proprietors of fisheries which together amount to four fifths of the total value of fisheries in the district as entered in the valuation roll".
In other words, there could be one-fifth in valuation and in numbers of the people who do not want this amount to be borrowed. So the small man could be dictated to as to the burden of debt that he eventually takes upon himself. We dealt with the question earlier of what happens when a board disappears, has left debts and who has to pay.
Since we shall not be putting a limit on this higher sum, we could say that it was worthwhile to do this with the approval of the Secretary of State. This is simple. It is a check on some people going overboard and using the power of the majority holding in the board to do it. They might be easy on the matter, but those who constitute the one-fifth, who may have disagreed with this action, should be protected to some extent by putting in the words: "with the approval of the Secretary of State." That would do it. I beg to move.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: We are dealing with district salmon fishery boards, which are essentially voluntary bodies with elected members. It is right that those boards should be able to borrow for the purpose of carrying out their functions, and that the proprietors of the fishings in the district who will have to pay off those borrowings should have a decisive say when the amount of the borrowings will exceed a certain amount—namely, twice the amount of the fishing assessment collected in the previous 12 months. The Bill provides for this and I see no reason at all for superimposing my right honourable friend's consent in this day and age. I hope that noble Lords will agree to withdraw their amendment in view of what I have said.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am very grateful to the Minister of State for making a speech lasting fully half a minute and not even mentioning the purpose of the amendment. He mentioned the right to borrow, with which I fully agreed—that is to say, the right to borrow an amount not exceeding twice the amount of the fishery assessment collected. That is something agreed. It is a power given by the Secretary of State in the Bill.
It is when they want to borrow more than that. It might be 10 times more than that. It might be a very considerable project upon which they were going to embark. Then the question of unanimity does not arise: it is a question of
"such higher sum as is approved by the proprietors of fisheries which together amount to four fifths of the total value".
In other words they do not need to worry about the proprietors whose valuations make up the one-fifth. So long as it is no more than that, or less, then the borrowing can go ahead on the basis of the financial power. It is to that that I refer: the use of financial muscle. I do not say that they should not do it but I say that for a certain measure of protection they could ask for the Secretary of State's approval for the higher sum. My goodness!—you do it with local authorities. Everybody in the local authority agrees with it.

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However, here this power, which obviously may not be approved by certain people on the board, is being used.
Can the Minister of State please give me an answer to the arguments I have used and not get up and say that paragraph (a) is something with which no one would disagree? I had not disagreed with that. It is paragraph (b) that we are dealing with. Can the noble Lord either do that or tell the people who are advising him to get the matters right?
Lord Gray of Contin: No, I shall not do that. I shall give the noble Lord the answer. It is not the answer he wants. It would be most unlikely that I should be able to do that. The answer that I give him is that in our view the four-fifths arrangement should be an adequate safeguard. In any event, there is no guarantee at all that the Secretary of State would be able to safeguard the small man, which was the example that the noble Lord gave. Therefore, we consider that his amendment is unnecessary. We consider that there is adequate protection with the four-fifths arrangement. I am sorry that on this occasion I cannot be as generous to the noble Lord as I was earlier this afternoon to the noble Lord, but perhaps he will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Well, at least the noble Lord mentioned the amendment this time; perhaps I read the right page. I still think it is not. The purpose of bringing in the Secretary of State is that he will see whether or not it is reasonable in the circumstances to do this. Some people may go well ahead of what is wanted to be done and entirely neglect the financial burden that they may eventually be putting on the smaller man. It may be a group of smaller men. I know at least one board where there is only one lower proprietor and about 40 upper ones. However, when it comes to financial muscle the man who has the financial muscle is the one lower proprietor and, if he wants something done, there you are, of course. It could be done in this particular way and not be desired by anyone else. I wish it worked the other way, that one could have the minority man with the good idea getting something done that he wanted done, despite the financial muscle in that way. This is one of the difficulties with the reconstitution of boards with exactly the same kind of financial powers and muscle, based upon that and nothing else. I think it is hoped that we shall get better management out of this. I doubt very much whether we shall, because I think we are still tied far too much to the past.
I think it is probably about time we went to have some salmon and chips, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 14, line 36, at end insert ("but travelling expenses and a subsistence allowance may be paid at the discretion of the board.").
The noble Viscount said: I think this can be dealt with very briefly. I think it is important that boards should be able to reimburse out of pocket expenses to members. It may be unnecessary but I thought it was as well to put down an amendment to make quite sure that this is possible. The distances in Scotland are enormous and I hope that this is an acceptable amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: The unrestricted power in Clause 15(1) would not prevent a board from paying travelling expenses or a subsistence allowance where they were satisfied that they were necessarily for the purposes expressed in that clause. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.
In contrast, I should draw the Committee's attention to Clause 14(10), which specifically excludes a board from paying a member a salary or a fee. Persons elected to serve on a board do so at present on an entirely voluntary basis and the Bill will retain this arrangement in future. I hope that in view of that explanation, the noble Viscount will withdraw this amendment.
Viscount Ridley: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Viscount Davidson: I think this is probably a convenient moment to break for dinner and I suggest that we do not resume the Committee before 8.30. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Bill [H.L.]
7.39 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: 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 Wilson of Langside.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD HAYTER in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Incest and related offences]:
Lord Morton of Shuna Lord Morton of Shuna moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 25, at end insert—

("3. Relationships by affinity. Stepdaughter or former stepdaughter Stepmother or former stepmother

Stepson or former stepson Stepfather or former stepfather.").

The noble Lord said: This amendment is intended to retain within the category of relationship where sexual intercourse would be incest, the relationship between step-parent and stepchild. The Bill as proposed removes from the category of incest all relationships by affinity. Affinity of course covers both the relationship of an in-law, such as the mother-in-law and the son-in-law, or the father-in-law and the daughter-in-law, and the relationship of the stepchild/step-parent. I should make it clear that my amendment relates only to step-parents and stepchildren and has nothing to do with in-laws, and thus would be so restricted.
The relationship between a parent-in-law and a child-in-law is of course created only when the child marries and therefore must be of full age to consent to marriage and in many, if not in most, cases will go to live in a different household. The relationship of a stepchild to the step-parent is wholly different. The child may be of any age from a few months upwards and is most likely to live in the same household and to be treated as a child of the family, of the parent and the step-parent.
The Law Commission, in recommending that incest should apply to the relations between the adopted child and the adopting parents, argue that the bond may be indistinguishable from that of the natural child and its parents. I find it very difficult to see that this argument does not apply with even more force when one of the two parents, the step-parent and the parent, is in fact the natural parent. Therefore, I cannot see why this Bill makes incest apply to the adopted child and removes incest from applying to the step-child.
The family has been defined by Lord President Normand as a relationship in which the members associate together on a footing of mutual trust and may often share a common family life and home. He added that it was important for the moral welfare of the family that it should be regarded as excluding the possibility of marriage between the members of the family having the relationship. I would agree with that statement and would suggest that it is equally important that it should be regarded as excluding the possibility of intercourse other than between the parties who are married to each other.
When a marriage takes place which results in the step child relationship being created, it means that at the time of the marriage one or both of the parties have children. The effect of voluntarily entering into the relationship of marriage should, I would argue, involve excluding the possibility of a sexual relationship with one's partner's child. Otherwise there is always going to be a potential of temptation and of danger to the stability of the marriage relationship.
In an age when divorce is becoming more and more frequent, the state should do what it can to encourage marriage being a permanent relationship. It is part of the function of the criminal law to promote and maintain generally accepted standards of behaviour reflecting the public interest in preserving an ordered and stable society. In my view, to suggest that this Bill does so; that if a man married a woman with a teenage daughter no offence will be created at all if he has intercourse with the daughter, as long as she is over 16, would be to offend against generally accepted standards of behaviour. I hope that this amendment will be acceptable to noble Lords. I beg to move.
Lord Wilson of Langside: I must ask your Lordships to reject this amendment. Certainly, so far as the approach of the Scottish Law Commission is concerned, their experience is not in accord with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Morton, that this is offensive to generally accepted standards of behaviour; because the commission in their report came firmly to the conclusion that the retention of relationships by affinity within the scope of incest could no longer be justified and, in particular, that the scope of incest was
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not the appropriate remedy to protect stepchildren whether under or over 16. Their memorandum, which was widely circulated among various interested bodies and parties, produced the finding that a considerable majority of those who responded agreed with this view, contrary to the view which the noble Lord, Lord Morton, has expressed. Some of those who did not agree with that view were concerned essentially to protect the younger children who were stepchildren, which, of course, is understandable.
I do not find any of these issues, the moral issues and the other issues which arise, altogether simple. But I think the Committee has to make up its mind whether or not relationship by affinity should still fall within the scope of the criminal law of incest. I suggest to your Lordships that it should not and I would accordingly ask your Lordships to reject this amendment.
7.45 p.m.
Baroness Seear: I should very much like to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, in opposing this amendment and I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Morton, will withdraw it. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Morton, is aware that Lord Meston has a Bill going through the House at the present time. It is affecting the law of affinity in England and Wales. If this law goes through, the Scottish law—and it is not for me as an English person to interfere with Scottish law—will be strangely at variance with the position in England.
It will be such that a man can be legally married to a woman in England who, if she goes to Scotland, will be committing the offence of incest; and that seems to me to be an extremely awkward position that would arise in that case. The noble Lord shakes his head: but, if Lord Meston's Bill goes through, it will in fact legalise the marriage of step-parent and stepchild, with one exception which is very important and which might make the noble Lord, Lord Meston, feel that he could think again about this amendment.
The exception is—I, personally, do not agree with this exception, but this is the exception in Lord Meston's Bill—is that if a stepchild has been a child of the family at any time, then the marriage is not to be permitted. That would mean that the situation which the noble Lord, Lord Morton, is envisaging would be accepted; because anybody who had been a child of the family would not be permitted to marry under the proposed Bill. But if there had never been a child of the family then that marriage would be permitted. We have already in your Lordships' House on several occasions—and there are other personal and Private Bills pending—permitted the marriage of persons who have not in fact been a child of the family, stepchild and step-parent. This can happen perfectly easily where someone has been married to a woman who has a child but that child has never lived in the house with the newly-wedded couple, the parent and the man to whom she is now married: they have never lived in the same house and have only known each other as adults.
If the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Morton, persists, the position will be very anomalous if the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, goes through. That Bill as it stands now has the approval of the Bishops. I can well understand that that does not recommend

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itself to the Scots, but it does perhaps make it easier to get it through your Lordships' house.
I would also like to make another point which I think is quite important which refers to something the noble Lord, Lord Morton, said. He said that because it was not permitted to marry an adopted child, he saw no difference between that and the position of the stepchild. But there is a very important difference indeed. The whole point about adoption is that a child, once adopted, is expected and encouraged in every way to be part of the family in every conceivable sense—although perhaps "conceivable" is not the right word; but in every imaginable sense—in which it has been adopted. This would rule out any kind of subsequent sexual relationship because that child is precisely as a child that has been born in the family.
I think that I am right in saying that modern thinking about the position of stepchildren is that it is highly desirable that a stepchild should maintain contact and relationships with its own natural parents. To the extent that it maintains a relationship with its own natural parents, it is not, and never can be in the full sense, a child in the family in which it is a stepchild. It cannot have the same relationships with its own natural parents as it has with the step-father (assuming it to be a daughter) in the family into which the mother of this child has married. The position of the adopted child and the position of the stepchild are in most important particulars quite different. I very much hope that, for these reasons, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Cameron of Lochbroom): As I explained on Second Reading, this (among other matters) is not one on which the Government would wish to express a view. As I stated then, the Government's position is one of neutrality, but there are perhaps one or two matters that have already been mentioned in the speeches of noble Lords and of the noble Baroness that I should like to emphasise and draw to your Lordship's attention.
First, the purpose of this amendment is very much at variance with the recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission. They of course considered the matter at length and, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, indicated, consulted widely. He has pointed out the results of that consultation. It would be fair to emphasise that their proposals were to take away from the crime of incest all the relationships by affinity.
It is worth bearing in mind that the relationships covered by affinity under the existing law are those not merely of parent and child but also of grandparent and grandchild. Therefore even with the step-relationship, as the law stands at present it is incest for a step-grandparent or a step-grandchild to have a sexual relationship. That seems to me to have been based on a different principle from that which the noble Lord opposite seeks to invoke to contain within the existing crime of incest the parent-child step-relationship. I simply make that point at this juncture.
I also agree that the analogy with adoption is one which perhaps noble Lords would wish to look at carefully. It has to be borne in mind that adoption is a choice made by those who adopt—the parents—whereas the step-relationship comes into
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being by virtue of marriage between the natural parent and another. There again it may be that that is a point which your Lordships should bear in mind.
There is also the problem which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has pointed out—that if the marriage Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, should become law in its present form, whether or not it extends to Scotland, there will continue to be a problem under the existing law and indeed under the present Bill, if it is amended in the sense that is proposed: that persons who will be free to marry—and I underline "free to marry"—under the law of England and Wales would, if they had intercourse in Scotland, be committing incest—not of course married persons because provision is made for that; but if they were free to marry they would be committing incest.
We are of course still considering the possible application to Scotland of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. Consultations are not yet complete, but under that Bill persons over the age of 18 who stood in a step-relationship would nevertheless be tree to marry, subject only to the constraint mentioned by the noble Baroness. But such persons would, in Scotland, be within the forbidden degrees for incest in terms of this amendment, and of course the problem would be compounded should Lord Meston's Bill be extended to Scotland. While, as I say, the Government remain neutral in relation to the principle of the Bill it is only right that I should indicate to your Lordships that we foresee serious problems of a practical nature arising if this amendment is pressed.
Lord Morton of Shuna: I am very grateful for the interest that has been taken in this amendment. "Those English step-parents and stepchildren who, if the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, is passed marry in England, are protected by whatever it becomes—2A(1)(c) of this Bill if it were to be passed. I realise that if they do not bother to get married and they come to Scotland, my amendment would catch them if they committed intercourse. They might find, of course, that a reasonable Lord Advocate would not consider it appropriate to take proceedings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, dealing with the stepchild step-parent relationship, referred to the divorced and re-married situation where there is the natural parent who is the other spouse or the previous spouse of the parent of the child whom the step-parent marries. However, there are many step-relationships which appear after the first marriage is dissolved by death. In that situation, especially with young children, I find it very difficult to see that an adopted child is in a different situation from that of the stepchild in relation to the step-parent. I think it would perhaps be inappropriate for your Lordships' Committee to express a view on the appropriateness of this when the other place might be more appropriate; and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 31, leave out from ("person") to end of line 32 and insert ("whose parents are not or have not been married to one another.").
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2. The new Section 2A(2)(b) of the Bill will provide that for the purposes of the section a degree of relationship exists,
"even where traced through any person of illegitimate birth".
The simple point of this amendment is that of course there are many people whose parents have not been married who regard it as offensive that they should be labelled in this particular way—and very understandably, since the attachment of such a label is something for which they themselves can carry no conceivable responsibility. The Scottish Law Commission's Report on illegitimacy, published in 1984, recognises this and recommends that statutes should in future no longer use the word. The Law Reform (Parent and Child) (Scotland) Bill is presently before another place. This amendment simply anticipates some of the provisions of that Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 33, leave out from ("doubt") to end of line 34 and insert ("sexual intercourse between persons who are not related to each other in a degree referred to in subsection (1) above is not incest.").
The noble and learned Lord said: This is purely a drafting amendment. It was thought—I am not sure that I share the thought entirely—that the present wording might leave some question about the continued application of the common law. This particular formulation of the provision, it is thought, will remove any ambiguity. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Hayter): Before calling Amendment No. 4, I have to point out that if this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
8 p.m.
Lord Morton of Shuna Lord Morton of Shuna moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 37, leave out ("16") and insert ("21").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 4 was a consequential amendment if the Committee had accepted my previous amendment. Amendments Nos. 5 and 7 are intended to change the age limit in Section 2B from 16 to 21, and Amendment No. 6 inserts as one of the conditions that the person has to prove that he or she has never lived in the same household as the stepchild or former stepchild or treated the stepchild or former stepchild as a child of his or her family.
Amendment No. 6: Page 2, line 38, at end insert ("had never lived in the same household as the step-child or former step-child and treated the step-child or former step-child as a child of his or her family and also proves that he or she—").
Amendment No. 7: Page 3, line 2, leave out ("16") and insert ("21").
It also proves I am going on to paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) as they are in the section. This amendment is to add to the protection which the young person, the step-child, would have in the family. Amendment No. 6 is adapted from the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord
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Meston. I understand that some of Members of the Committee may criticise the wording of it, but I hope the intention is clear. I hope the wording can be improved and I am open to any advice on that.
As regards the young person who even over 16 has a completely different relationship with the spouse of a parent than a young person would have with a stranger, as the section stands, the only protection open to the step-child over 16 in the household is the absence of consent. The Law Commission in their report dealt with this in paragraph 3.12 and pointed out the difficulties in words much clearer than I could achieve.
"In such circumstances if incest ceased to be a crime, the question of consent would become crucial in deciding whether or not an offence such as rape or indecent assault had been committed This would pose difficulties for, as stated in our memorandum, it is an open question whether in a family one can usefully talk in terms of a daughter's or son's consent, particularly if one takes into account the fact that the young girl in an incest situation is subject to a completely different set of conditions regarding defence, tolerance and participation from the child or maturing girl who meets a completely unrelated adult aggressor or a transient, perhaps even a known sexual partner."
The memorandum refers to the fact that
"a girl in an incest situation may become more and more acquiescent".
It also discusses how consent to intercourse can be obtained by various methods and devices.
I would urge that it is unreal in this situation to suggest that a girl or a boy of 16 who has been brought up in this situation should suddenly have a completely free and totally adult approach to somebody whom she has probably regarded, or may have regarded, as her father all the way through. In my submission, this amendment would meet the situation perhaps more happily than my previous amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Wilson of Langside: I would also ask the Committee to reject Amendment No. 5. I have a little difficulty—I am sure it is my own obtuseness—in understanding why the noble Lord has presented this amendment to the Committee along with Amendment No. 6. Amendment No. 5 raises different and somewhat disconnected questions. Amendment No. 5, as I understand it, seeks to raise the age at which an offence will be committed, where sexual intercourse takes place with a step-child, from 16 to 21.
When I first considered this matter I had a great deal of sympathy with that. Indeed, I drafted a number of amendments myself to that very end. Then I found that the more I thought of the situation and the more I explored it, it did not seem to me to be quite as simple as I had first regarded it as being. I consulted with the members of the Scottish Law Commission and discussed the whole issue with them in considerable depth. The considered judgment I came to was that they had examined the whole matter with the utmost care. I was quite astonishingly impressed. I have often felt critical of the Scottish Law Commission. I was immensely impressed with the careful thought that they had given to this particular matter, and I am sure to other matters. It was in consequence of my discussions with them that I reached the conclusion that they were right and that 16 was the right age to fix in this matter.
I am sorry but I shall have to go into this matter at a little length, which is a pity at this time. We are

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dealing with consential intercourse with people who are both, in the eyes of the law, old enough to consent or to withhold consent and, indeed, old enough to marry in Scotland without anyone's consent. We should be very careful. I am often suspicious of some of these liberal approaches to these matters. This is an important point.
We should be very careful about making this conduct between two adult citizens, who are free to marry, a serious criminal offence. I think that would be wrong. If the age were raised to, say, 18, there would be a danger of making conduct criminal in cases where this would seem quite inappropriate.
We should consider the kind of circumstances in which this situation could arise. It is easy to get excited about the need to protect innocent young girls, and so on, against the malpractices of the male of the species. But consider the other side of the coin. Consider a woman in her 'thirties who marries but soon separates from a man in his early 'twenties.
The man and the woman's 17 year-old daughter fall in love. They have sexual intercourse, not thinking there is anything wrong in it. There is no blood relationship at all. They are both of marriageable age. The young woman might actually be married according to the law of Scotland without anyone's consent. It is hard to see why the man in that circumstance should be guilty of a criminal offence. I am not saying there are not matters to be guarded against. The same situation could arise the other way around. A man in his thirties could marry a young woman, of say, 18. She and the man's 17 year-old son might become attracted to each other. Why should consential intercourse between them be a criminal offence?
The danger of catching inappropriate cases would of course be greatly increased if the age were raised to, say, 21. I thought at one stage of making it 18 and, for the reasons which I have tried to explain, I have reached the conclusion, contrary to my original view, that the Law Commission were quite right. This would also pose problems if the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, went through.
There is a natural tendency to think of protecting young women of 17 or 18 from predatory older males in a position of some dominance. There are however many situations of this nature such as the ones I have described which I do not think we should make criminal. Because of the hour and the fact that the House wants to get back to the more important business of salmon, and not just the relationship between young men and older women, perhaps I may pass over some considerations that I should have touched upon. In the light of these considerations—and I have no doubt there are others—I would ask the Committee to reject this amendment.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: I think it is only proper, since the Government have adopted a position of neutrality, to advise the Committee that the Government have no strong views on these amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, has made clear what is the Scottish Law Commission's present view, in addition to that which was expressed at the time when the Law
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Commission's report was published. He has made clear that the Commission then adhered, and still adhere, to their view that 16 years is the proper age, related as it is to the permitted age for marriage in Scotland.
The only other point that I would make is that, if the Committee were minded to move away from that age and the argument which was put forward by the noble and learned Lord in support of it, there is the question of what other age would be appropriate. The consultees, as the Scottish Law Commission made clear, were divided on that matter and, for instance, we have to recognise that legislation in recent years has assumed that the age of 18 years is the point at which adult estate is achieved. I would simply say that this must be a matter for your Lordships to make up your minds upon, but no doubt you should bear in mind both the views expressed by the Scottish Law Commission in their report, and those which they have obviously expressed most recently, which we have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside.
Lord Wilson of Langside: Perhaps for the sake of my noble friend Lord Morton of Shuna I should say, since he referred to Amendment No. 6, that, unless I misapprehend the situation, I should have been disposed to accept it. While it might be argued that Amendment No. 6 is unnecessary, I should have been disposed to accept it just to show that I did not oppose every one of his amendments.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: I did not address myself to Amendment No. 6, but I had some discussion earlier with the noble Lord about it. It seems to me that, while there can be no objection in principle to what it seeks to do, it might be that he will wish to reconsider it because it seems to involve a slight difficulty. It suggests that you have to prove that the step-parent had never lived in the same household as the stepchild and treated the stepchild as a child of the family. If, on the other hand, he or she were to establish the first branch but not the second, then it would appear that the whole defence which is available in the section would not be open to him, and I do not think that that is what the noble Lord intended. He may wish to reconsider the form of the amendment, though not necessarily the substance.
Lord Morton of Shuna: With that invitation, as I do not think it would be appropriate to divide the Committee as at present constituted and disturb various people's digestions, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Perhaps I may come back with Amendment No. 6 after consultation with the noble and learned Lords the Lord Advocate and Lord Wilson of Langside, as to the wording that would be appropriate.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.]
8.15 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 10, leave out from beginning to end of line 28.
The noble and learned Lord said: I ask your Lordships to consider this amendment. It falls together with Amendments Nos. 11, 18 and 19:

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Amendment No. 11: Page 4, line 6, leave out (", 2B or 2C") and insert ("or 2B").
Amendment No. 18: Schedule 1, page 5, line 23, leave out ("to") and insert ("and").
Amendment No. 19: Page 5, line 23, at end insert—
(".In section 4(1) after the word "exceeding" where it first occurs there shall be inserted ", where the conviction occurs in the High Court of Justiciary seven years, where the conviction occurs in the Sheriff Court" ").
I find the question which it raises not without some difficulty and, again, this is a matter which I discussed in some detail with the Scottish Law Commission. We all reached the conclusion provisionally that this was a proper answer to the problem which the new Section 2C presents as it is at present drafted in the Bill. In effect, what these amendments do is to take the new Section 2C out of the Bill. The reason for doing that is that, apparently, the Scottish Law Commission have always had some difficulty with this provision and the present commission and the present chairman—who was not, of course, the chairman when this report was prepared—were very unhappy with the drafting of Section 2C(c), the provision that any person of or over the age of 16 years who,
"is in a position of trust or authority in relation to that child",
shall be guilty of an offence unless various things are proved.
Having discussed it, we were all agreed that this drafting was not perhaps the happiest solution. Everyone seemed to think it might raise questions of uncertainty if and when cases were brought before the court. After full discussion, we thought the best solution to a quite difficult problem—and it is for your Lordships to consider whether it was a sensible conclusion—was that Section 2C might be scrapped.
If an offence against a girl under 16 is committed and aggravated by the circumstance that the offender is in a position of trust—a foster parent or someone of that kind—then that situation should be dealt with by providing that an offence under Section 4 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976 in such an aggravated case should be liable to be charged in the High Court of Justiciary, and to a more severe penalty than the two years' imprisonment to which a non-aggravated offence of sexual intercourse with a girl of under 16 is at present liable, and that, where there was an aggravation because the person was in some position of trust, he should be liable.
It would then be in the hands of the Lord Advocate and his deputes to decide whether, if there was a case of that kind, it should be dealt with more seriously and be taken to the High Court, and Amendment No. 19 provides for an increase in the sentence to which an offender would become liable under the Sexual Offences Act.
I am not particularly proud of the drafting, but it was the best that I could do. In any event, that was the conclusion that we reached. I could readily understand if there was some hesitation about accepting this amendment. I can think of many arguments that I could present against it. But I have tried to explain to the Committee the unease which the Law Commission at present have about the provision as presently drafted. This new provision would cover only the case of the offence against a girl. The conclusion that we reached was that an offence against a male child could be dealt with as one of our quaint old Scottish offences
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which we call lewd, libidinous and indecent offences. So far as I recall—the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will correct me if I am wrong—one is liable if convicted in the High Court to a sentence of life imprisonment. I beg to move.
Lord Morton of Shuna: I consider that Section 2C has some value and I do not see all the difficulties that appear to be in the mind of the present chairman of the Law Commission. I should have thought that it would be fairly easy either to define what is meant by "a position of trust or authority" in the Bill or to leave it as a matter for a jury to work out whether a certain person was in a position of trust or authority.
Lord Wilson of Langside: I do not want to misrepresent the position of the chairman of the Law Commission. That is the last thing I would want to do. He did not like it as it stood. He recognised that we could have a stab at redrafting it to get rid of the uncertainties. He saw that was one option. It was really my responsibility to adopt this option. If the Committee does not like it, I shall certainly take it away and look at it again.
Lord Morton of Shuna: I had virtually finished. All I was going to suggest was that I personally—and all I can do is to speak for myself—prefer Section 2C as it exists to the rather convoluted way of dealing with the problem that is otherwise suggested as the alternative.
Lord Cameron of Lochbroom: The Government must have a responsibility to ensure so far as possible that legislation which is enacted is effective, workable and consistent. I appreciate the fact that the noble and learned Lord has obviously discussed this with the Scottish Law Commission. I can only say that in the report they made clear the fact that the consultation memorandum in which they put forward this proposal was one which provoked considerable comment, all—I underline the word "all"—of which favoured making special provision to protect children in these categories. I refer to paragraph 4.30.
I would be concerned that with the removal of Section 2C the amendments would leave a substantial gap in the Bill's provisions. It would reduce the protection available to young girls since the Bill as presently drafted provides a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for relevant offences. It would remove the protection of young males altogether, leaving this to be dealt with via the general charge of lewd and libidinous practices which I suggest the Committee may think was scarcely adequate. It is only right that I should point out that in regard to the amendment of the penalty provision, we would not normally contemplate a change in the general penalty provision of any statute simply to accommodate a particular type of offence as is really sought here without very careful consideration and wide consultation.
Perhaps I may suggest this to the noble and learned Lord. I appreciate the point he makes about trust or authority, although I have in mind what the Law Commission said in paragraph 4.34 of the report that they thought the court could decide as a matter of fact whether the relationship between the accused and the child could properly be described as being one of authority or trust. It may be proper not to proceed with this at present and see whether some drafting might bring about a better result.
Lord Wilson of Langside: I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate and to the noble Lord, Lord Morton of Shuna. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 9 to 12 not moved.]
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 4, line 24, leave out ("condition."") and insert—("condition.
( ) In subsection (6) above, "local authority" has the meaning assigned to it by section 1(2) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968."".)
The noble and learned Lord said: This amendment is simply designed to bring in the definition of "local authority" which was not there before. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Short title, commencement and extent]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: If Amendment No. 14 is carried, I cannot call Amendment No. 15.
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 4, line 33, leave out from ("operation") to end of line 34 and insert ("on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument.
( ) An order made under subsection (2) above may contain such transitional provisions and savings as appear to the Secretary of State necessary or expedient in connection with the coming into operation of this Act.")
The noble and learned Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is simply to substitute an appointed day provision for the present provision bringing the Bill into force one month after the Royal Assent to make provision for transitional arrangements. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 15 not moved.]
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Consequential amendments]:
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 5, leave out lines 3 to 7.
The noble and learned Lord said: This is a drafting amendment to delete provisions which are no longer necessary by reason of amendments and repeal: to recent legislation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 5, leave out lines 17 to 19.
The noble and learned Lord said: This amendment is in the same position. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Amendment No. 18, Lord Wilson of Langside.
Lord Wilson of Langside: Not moved—I am sorry. I dealt with Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 when dealing with Amendments Nos. 8 and 9. Since I withdrew them, I do not move these, so they are not moved.
[Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 not moved.]
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Enactments repealed]:
Lord Wilson of Langside Lord Wilson of Langside moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 6, line 4, column 3, leave out ("Section 13.") and insert ("The whole Act.").
The noble and learned Lord said: This is a drafting amendment also. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.

Salmon Bill [H.L.]
8.30 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 15 [General powers and duties of district salmon fishery boards]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Renton): In calling Amendment No. 23, I should point out that there is a mistake on the Marshalled List. This amendment should be shown to be in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 14, line 40, after ("of") insert ("all").
The noble Viscount said: I am sorry that during the passage of the incest Bill I seem to have changed my name! I hope that this very short amendment will be taken in the spirit that is intended. The amendment is very simple. Clause 15(1) states that:
"A district salmon fishery board may do such acts… for—
(a) the protection or improvement or
and the amendment would add the word "all"—
"the fisheries within their district".
It is simply a statement of intent: that a fishery board should not be seen to do anything for one conflicting interest or another. It is a small drafting amendment. I hope that it is self-explanatory and acceptable. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I deal also with Amendments Nos. 25, 29 and 32 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ridley.
Amendment No. 25:
[Printed earlier: col. 586]
Amendment No. 29: Page 15, line 12, leave out ("by agreement").
Amendment No. 32: Page 15, line 19, leave out from first ("or) to end of line 21 and insert ("the Secretary of State").
I am unable to accept any of these amendments but I shall deal with each in turn. It has been suggested that acceptance of Amendment No. 23 could prevent a board from using its powers for the protection or improvement of individual fisheries rather than for the benefit of the whole district. Inclusion of the word "all" could, on the other hand, restrict substantially the operations of district boards, in that it could require them to demonstrate in the event of challenge that any action they took to protect or improve fisheries applied to all the fisheries in their district. That is simply not a reasonable requirement for a district board.
With regard to Amendment No. 25—
Viscount Ridley: If my noble friend will forgive me, I thought that we had dealt with Amendment No. 25 on the matter of drought.
Lord Gray of Contin: We have in fact spoken to Amendment No. 25 already. Perhaps I may deal briefly with Amendment No. 29. As I explained on Second Reading, this wording is in the same form as a similar provision in the 1868 Act. The words "by
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agreement" are included now to underline the fact that boards do not have compulsory purchase powers. The removal of those words could have little effect on the interpretation of the clause since boards would not be enabled to carry out compulsory purchase without specific powers to do so.
Amendment No. 32 comes into the same category as Amendment No. 25, and I believe that we dealt with that amendment at an earlier stage.
Viscount Ridley: I am sorry to intervene again but I do not think that Amendments Nos. 29 and 32 have anything to do with Amendment No. 23. I accept that Amendment No. 25 has been dealt with, and I was not going to move it. However, Amendment No. 29 deals with a quite different point, on which I have a long speech to make, and Amendment No. 32 is also different and has to do with Amendment No. 31, in the name of my noble friend the Duke of Atholl, and indeed with my noble friend's Amendment No. 24. I am very sorry if I am wrong but I believe that Amendment No. 23 stands on its own according to the list of groupings that I was given. Having moved Amendment No. 23, I shall be very happy to withdraw it to save time, but I do not believe that Amendment No. 23 is related to the other amendments.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am of course prepared to accept my noble friend's wishes on this matter. Obviously he and I have been given a different form of groupings. I understand that my noble friend wishes to withdraw Amendment No. 23. Amendment No. 25 has been dealt with, and when we reach Amendments Nos. 29 and 32 we can of course deal with them separately.
Viscount Ridley: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 15, line 2, at end insert ("but heritable property shall not be acquired for the purpose of the board except with the consent of proprietors of fisheries which together amount to four fifths of the total value of fisheries in the district as entered in the valuation roll.").
The noble Lord said: This is a small, essentially technical amendment to make clear that the qualification regarding the acquisition by a board of heritable property relates to the general powers of the board as set out in subsection (1) and is not linked to the specific provisions in subsection (4), which give powers to boards to purchase individual structures for the purpose of removal only or to remove obstructions. I understand that some salmon interests felt that the Bill as drafted was not clear on that aspect, and I am happy to put this amendment forward to clarify the position. I beg to move.
The Duke of Atholl: I should like to say a few words about Amendment No. 31.
Amendment No. 31: Page 15, line 19, leave out from ("board") to first ("or) in line 20 and insert ("if objections to the acquisition are lodged with the clerk to the district salmon fishery board by proprietors of fisheries which together amount to one-fifth").

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If Amendment No. 24 is carried then presumably my noble friend's Amendment No. 30 will also be carried, because it is consequential. That would mean that I should not be able to move Amendment No. 31. I believe it would be extremely difficult for any fishery board to secure an 80 per cent. majority. I am sure that most of your Lordships well know the difficulty of getting people to answer letters. To ensure that four-fifths of the electorate, or whatever one likes to call them, would reply could be extremely difficult. I therefore suggest that the whole clause should be cast the other way around and that the board should be able to purchase heritable property if it wants, unless one-fifth of the proprietors object.
Viscount Ridley: Perhaps I may speak against Amendment No. 24, because my Amendment No. 32 would go a good deal further than the amendment of my noble friend the Duke of Atholl but would have much the same effect. The drafting that we have makes it almost impossible for the board to take the action that it might think necessary. This clause gives the hoard lots of powers, but then we restrict it by the criterion of four-fifths of the total value of fisheries. The possibility of four-fifths of the people ever getting together and agreeing on something like this—including, for instance, the purchase of a cottage for a bailiff or of a small piece of land for a hatchery, or anything of that kind—would be so drastically to restrict the board's activities as to make a nonsense of it. I therefore believe that my noble friend the Duke of Atholl is absolutely right and that the board should be allowed to go ahead and acquire property unless one-fifth of the proprietors object. The board cannot do its job without acquiring a certain amount of property.
I know that this raises the question of whether or not a board should be enabled to buy out the netting operation, which it might want to do, and that that could be a very valuable conservation measure in certain circumstances. However, to impose the restriction that the proprietors of four-fifths of the value of fisheries must agree seems to totally nullify the whole object of the Bill to give powers to boards to take action in the interests of salmon conservation. I shall not speak to Amendment No. 32 but I strongly support Amendment No. 31 in the name of my noble friend the Duke of Atholl. I believe that my noble friend Lord Gray managed to dodge the issue by moving Amendment No. 24 in a different place from where it was to be moved, and that may have caught some of us on the hop. However, if I am right in thinking what I do think, it is the same amendment. It is the same clause of the Bill shifted around and we still wish to amend it. I should therefore like to support Amendment No. 31, which is in effect an amendment to Amendment No. 24.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: May I raise with the Minister a point that is not connected with the substance of the amendments but merely relates to their order? I do not blame anyone because it is a complicated Bill with a very large number of amendments, some of which were tabled very late, but the selection list was late in coming through today. I was told, even when I received it a few minutes before
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half past two, that it had not been finally agreed with the department. The reason I raise this matter is that the Minister suggested that his list is different from the list that the rest of us have. Is that so? It is obviously leading to some confusion. I heard the Minister read out a list of amendments to which he wished to speak and it is certainly not on my selection list. Perhaps for Thursday the Minister will make a point of getting the list out in good time.
Lord Gray of Contin: I shall certainly try to be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael. The plain fact is that a great many of the amendments were tabled so late that my department had the greatest difficulty in being able to prepare for the debate this afternoon. The noble Lord was not guilty in that respect, but a great many amendments were tabled late and we also had manuscript amendments which were tabled at a late stage. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for my advisers always to be able to get matters co-ordinated as they would wish.
As regards the points made by my noble friend the Duke of Atholl, I am perfectly happy to answer Amendment No. 31 now. Although we have not yet dealt with Amendment No. 24, I can see the difficulty which exists. If it is in order I will answer Amendment No. 31, to which my noble friend the Duke of Atholl has already spoken.
The amendment, although apparently of little consequence, could have a very significant effect if carried. It would give a board the power to purchase heritable property if proprietors owning 20 per cent. of the total valuation of the fisheries in a district do not actively object. The noble Duke's amendment makes no provision for the publication of proposals to purchase heritable property and some of those who do not object may be unaware of the proposal to buy. They may still have to make a financial contribution to a purchase of which they had no prior knowledge.
Given the possible legal and financial implications of the purchase of property, I think that the positive approach prescribed in the Bill is to be preferred and that the four-fifths formula should not be removed. In view of what I have said, I hope that the noble Duke will now feel able not to move his amendment.
The Earl of Onslow: If that is the only objection to the amendment of my noble friend the Duke of Atholl it seems to me that it can be sorted out by putting in, at Report stage, provisions for information and advice, and so on. I think there is a great deal to be said for not just having the dead hand of getting consent, as opposed to making sure people actively do not want something to be done provided, as the noble Lord rightly says, there is provision for making certain that people are properly informed and advised of what is likely to happen.
Lord Burton: May I add to that? It is important that one should be able to acquire a house for, say, a superintendent or some of one's bailiffs. It would possibly be extremely difficult to get the four-fifths. I do not know whether any of your Lordships have any experience of trying to circulate people but an awful

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lot of these letters probably would not be answered. It would be extremely difficult in an important matter like buying a house to get the four-fifths majority. I wholeheartedly support my noble friend the Duke of Atholl. I think that it is very important that even if we do not go to the extreme of one-fifth then there is at least a change.
8.45 p.m.
The Duke of Atholl: Although I have not moved the amendment, I felt, because I shall have the opportunity so to do, that it was worth raising the issue at this particular moment. I feel that my noble friend can have no idea of the difficulty of getting people to answer letters. My noble friend the Marquess of Lansdowne, as chairman of our local fisheries board, sent out a circular not long ago and he was delighted because he received about a 60 per cent. Response; but it was a fairly easy form to be completed and a stamped and addressed envelope was provided for its return. Therefore I think the chances of anyone actually getting four-fifths are remote.
It will mean, of course, that the fishery boards will not be able to provide cottages for any of their bailiffs. They will not be able to buy a small piece of land for a hatchery, or anything like that. I ask my noble friend to look at this again. I am sure we can reach a satisfactory way of publicising the fact that the board proposes to do something and that one-fifth of the people, if they object, must reply fairly quickly. That seems to me to be much the best way to do it. It would be much better to get the people who object, who usually are the people who feel strongly and, therefore, might be prepared to put pen to paper, than to get those who approve, but who probably do not feel particularly strongly, to send a letter of approval.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I entirely support the noble Duke on this. He is perfectly right. I have had this experience myself and I hope that the Minister will take note of what has been said.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: As the noble Duke mentioned my name, I can assure your Lordships that this is an experience which I have often suffered. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend Lord Gray will give it his very careful attention.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am sure that the pressure being placed on the Minister must put him into some difficulty, bearing in mind the support which the same members of the Committee gave him on another matter.
In this case they refer to the purchase of a piece of property. It is suggested that a formula of one-fifth objecting should be applied, simply because it would be very difficult to get four-fifths to agree. Let us suppose that a board does decide to buy the property on the basis of one-fifth. I hope that the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, realises that the chances are, depending on the property, that they will require to borrow money. The power to borrow money comes under the previous clause. When we argued about that and I suggested that it was unfair to the one-fifth for
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that to be done, we were told, no. Not one noble Lord proclaimed the virtues of the one-fifth and how easy it would be to get four-fifths.
I withdrew my amendment because no one supported me. My amendment suggested that the Secretary of State should be brought in to give his consent. Therefore, whether we like it or not the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, if he wants to borrow money for property—and it will depend on the amount—will have to rely on getting the approval of the four-fifths. No one can deny it. It is on page 14, line 23:
"such higher sum as is approved by the proprietors of fisheries which together amount to four-fifths".
They have to get the four-fifths together to borrow the money.
Lord Burton: May I interrupt the noble Lord?
Lord Ross of Marnock: Gladly.
Lord Burton: Surely he must read subsection (8)(a) with this:
"an amount not exceeding twice the amount of the fishery assessment".
There cannot be very many boards which do not have half the value of a house.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Well, I must get into the Burton area of Scotland and find out that houses are very much cheaper there than in any other part of Scotland. Perhaps the situation may vary from one place to another in relation to the cost of buying a house or a small property. There is no limit to this. I could more readily understand this being done if there were a limit put to the amount of money which was to be spent on this heritable property, but there is no limit. The chances are that those concerned may have to borrow money whether they like it or not. Suppose the Government accepted the amendment of the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, willy-nilly because of what has already been done—unless he puts down another amendment at the next stage to correct his omission in this case. They still have to rely on obtaining their four-fifths to agree to the borrowing of a sum of money if it is over twice the amount of the fishery assessment collected in the year. I shall now gladly give way to the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl.
The Duke of Atholl: First, perhaps I could point out that there are many fishery boards where undoubtedly one can buy several houses for twice the amount of the assessment collected by that particular board each year. Secondly, if one is buying heritable property, on the whole one has security for it, whereas borrowing under the previous section, Clause 14(8)(a), one might be borrowing for other purposes and there would be no security for one's borrowing.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am beginning to get rather confused about the financial position of these fishery districts now. The whole basis of the arguments of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, is the poverty of these areas. The noble Lord, Lord Burton, is saying that there is no finance in this, and they cannot do this or they cannot do that because they do not have the

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money. Now the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, belatedly comes along and says that they can buy several houses if they want to; they have the money.
Let them appreciate that there are clauses coming along in which money is mentioned. I am not the kind of fellow who forgets arguments which are used which conflict with arguments that were going to be brought out at a later stage. No wonder the noble Lord, Lord Burton, is smiling, because he knows quite well that he has already used this financial argument today. I am on the side of the angels on this occasion. It might lend some weight to the chances of victory for the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, that I will support the Minister of State on this occasion simply because of what was already done in respect of the previous clause that mentioned the one-fifth.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: If I may perhaps intervene, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ross, may be a little confused here. The question of finance was about finance lacking in those areas where there are no district boards.
Viscount Thurso: I think the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, has his finger on a sore point. I think it might be wise for the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, to give another thought to this particular amendment. Heritable property could be a garage in which to keep one's waders. Will you tell me that you cannot buy a garage in which to keep your waders unless four-fifths of the heritable proprietors in the Tay district agree? It really is a bit silly.
I think that the point which the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, has put his finger on is that it really all depends on how much heritable property you are buying. There is a tremendous difference between a potting shed or a garage and, say, a row of council houses. If one is intending to house all one's bailiffs it could amount to thousands of pounds, but if all that is wanted is somewhere to garage a jeep and keep waders and night glasses and so forth, then it should be possible to do it without asking four-fifths of the heritable proprietors. I think a little thinking again all round would be rather a good idea at this point.
Lord Gray of Contin: I think that it is a very good idea and I do not see any reason at all why we should not have another think all round. My noble friend the Duke of Atholl has not moved his amendment so there is ample scope for a little bit of thought. I have listened very carefully to what has been said during the debate and of course I shall bear in mind all the points that have been made, but since my noble friend has not moved his amendment there is no need to deliberate further upon it.
Lord Ross of Marnock: But surely it would not be fair if the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, is precluded from moving his amendment because it might cause some difficulty?
Are we not pre judging the matter by accepting the Government's amendment, which is the very opposite? I think we should ask the Minister to say that, in view of the fact that there is this divergence of opinion and feeling, we should benefit from a think all
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round and, meantime, he will not move his amendment.
Lord Gray of Contin: I already have, in effect, moved Amendment No. 30.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I have been moving amendments all afternoon. He can withdraw it.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The Question is, Whether the said amendment (No. 24) shall be agreed to?
As many as are of that opinion, will say, "Content"? … To the contrary, "Not-Content … Clear the Bar.
Tellers for the Not-Contents have not been appointed pursuant to Standing Order No. 51. A Division therefore cannot take place, and I declare that the Contents have it.
[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Accordingly, Amendment No. 26 does not arise.
[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
9 p.m.
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 15, line 5, leave out ("co-opt") and insert ("appoint")
The noble Viscount said: It may be as well if with this I speak also to Amendments Nos. 37, 40 to 45. 49 to 54 and 56 to 59.
Amendment No. 37: Clause 16, page 16, line 2, leave out from first ("vote") to end of line 6.
Amendment No. 40: Schedule 2, page 30, line 17, leave out subparagraph (1).
Amendment No. 41: Page 31, line 5, leave out sub-paragraph (3).
Amendment No. 42: Page 31, line 13, leave out ("co-opting") and insert ("appointing").
Amendment No. 43: Page 31, line 15, after ("exceed") insert ("one fewer than").
Amendment No. 44: Page 31, line 17, after ("exceed") insert ("one fewer than").
Amendment No. 45: Page 31, line 18, at end insert ("and the number of representatives of salmon anglers so appointed shall not exceed the number of tenant netsmen so appointed.").
Amendment No. 49: Page 31, line 44, leave out from ("of ') to ("not") in line I on page 32.
Amendment No. 50: Page 32, line 7, leave out ("the chairman and").
Amendment No. 51: Page 32, line 9, leave out ("co-opt") and insert ("appoint").
Amendment No. 52: Page 32, line 10, at end insert—
("( ) The chairman and elected representatives of qualified proprietors shall give notice at least once in each of two successive weeks by advertisements in a newspaper circulating in the district

(a) indicating their intention to hold elections for the appointment of representatives of salmon anglers and tenant netsmen;

(b) indicating arrangements for the nomination of candidates;

(c) appointing a time and place for the holding of elections; and

(d) including provision for voting by post.")

Amendment No. 53: Page 32, line 13, leave out ("three co-opted") and insert ("two appointed").
Amendment No. 54: Page 32, line 15, leave out ("three co-opted") and insert ("two appointed").

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Amendment No. 56: Page 32, line 19, leave out ("co-opted") and insert ("appointed").
Amendment No. 57: Page 32, line 20, leave out ("co-opt such persons") and insert ("hold elections").
Amendment No. 58: Page 32, line 21, leave out ("co-opted") and insert ("appointed")
Amendment No. 59: Page 32, line 22, at end insert—
("( ) The members of a district salmon fishery board shall elect from amongst their number a person to be chairman of the said board.").
Amendment No. 28 opens up a subject which is covered by the amendments grouped with it and they all deal with the same concept. What I am trying to suggest to the Committee is that the elective principle should be used for the appointment of the angling and tenant netsmen members of district boards. In the Bill as drafted by the Government the suggestion is that they should just be co-opted—in other words, that the nomination, election and appointment of people to represent anglers and tenant netsmen should be carried out by the elected upper and lower proprietors. But I feel strongly—and in this I know that I am supported by many organisations, including the Association of District Salmon Fishery Boards—that the elective principle which decides who shall represent the upper and lower proprietors should also decide who shall represent the anglers and tenant netsmen.
I have never felt that there was a real difficulty about setting up a method of electing such people, deciding how elections shall be carried out or anything of that sort. In fact, I am certain that on most rivers it can easily be done. In this series of amendments I have tried to suggest at least one way in which that can be done. At the end of the day the amendments would place upon the members elected to the new district boards, committees or whatever else they are called as representatives of the upper and lower proprietors, an obligation to set out the method of election which they will offer the anglers and tenant netsmen. They would be asked to set out to the Secretary of State how they propose to conduct elections of anglers and netsmen.
Those representatives of anglers and tenant netsmen, having been elected by their peers, would then be appointed to the board. They would be appointed by the board that has been elected in the normal course of events rather than merely co-opted to that board. In so far as they are thereby being given full membership of the board, it is suggested that the number might be two of each category instead of three. In many cases that would be easier to handle, because in some districts it may indeed be hard to find the three tenant netsmen to appoint, co-opt, elect or whatever to the board.
One principle which I think that all of us would agree is vitally important is to keep that even balance between the upper and lower interests. It is important not to let anybody feel that one interest in the exploitation of the salmon is having the whiphand over all others.
In moving the amendment, I invite the Committee to look at the whole series of amendments which are all designed to do the same thing. Amendment No. 28 says:
"leave out ('co-opt') and insert ('appoint')".
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It is put that way because at the end of the day the people to be appointed are the people who will be elected. It would pave the way for the elections. I hope that we shall insert that principle into the Bill to make the anglers and tenant netsmen fully elected and fully enfranchised. I beg to move.
Lord Burton: I am afraid that I am not, as previously today, in wholehearted agreement with the noble Viscount. There is a difficulty with this proposal. There may well be three netsman tenants, but at least one may not be a suitable person to serve on a fishery board. He may be of doubtful character. Regrettably, the Crown Commissioners are inclined to let to the highest bidder when letting their nets. They are not terribly particular as to whom they appoint as their tenants. In many areas, the people who have to be watched—the fisheries board are watching them—are some of the netsmen who fish illegally. It would be extremely difficult if they were members of the board. Much of this problem could be solved—I not not know whether the noble Viscount agrees—if we changed the words "shall co-opt" to "may co-opt" members. I am all for having the tenants, rodsmen and netsmen, but where there is difficulty, with a small board, in finding the right people, it is not advisable that we should be made to co-opt them automatically.
Viscount Thurso: With respect, may I make this point? We are not discussing the word "shall" at all. We are discussing the word "co-opt". I am not changing the word "shall". I am changing the word "co-opt" to "appoint".
Lord Burton: The noble Viscount did suggest that the numbers were reduced to two. I am suggesting that they remain at three but with an option open to the remaining members of the board.
The Marquess of Lansdowne: I should like to support the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. One of the difficulties, as I saw it, of co-opting was that the co-opted people would be the creatures of the elected members of the board. This is a perpetuation of rotten boroughs. Those worked very well once upon a time but it would not be a good plan to have them again. I hope very much that the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, will be accepted. It is a little confusing. The tenant netsmen and the anglers elect themselves. They are then accepted by the board. They become fully enfranchised. This is a very important point which I mentioned at Second Reading.
I dislike very much the idea of having second class membership. That would be a great mistake. I endorse the idea of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that the number should be two rather than three. There is something to be said for the riparian owners, who have a lasting interest in the river, having a slight advantage over those who are only tenants. Having said that, I want the tenant netsmen and the tenant anglers to have full voting rights and to elect themselves. I hope that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will feel able to accept the amendment.
Viscount Ridley: I should like to ask the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, whether Amendment No. 55 is swept up in this. The list of groupings that we received on arrival today has omitted Amendment No. 55. That is either a compliment or an insult to me. I am not sure which.
Amendment No. 55: Schedule 2, page 32, line 16, at end insert ("(provided that the co-opted representatives of salmon anglers and tenant netsmen shall be equal in number)").
Viscount Thurso: I did not feel that I ought to sweep up the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, in my series but, if he so wishes, it would obviously be possible to discuss Amendment No. 55 along with all the others. I should be delighted were we to do so.
Viscount Ridley: If so, I should like, speaking to Amendment No. 55, to endorse a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that co-opted representatives or appointed representatives, as the case may be, of netsmen should be equal in number. It is crucial to the working of the Bill that there should not be a majority of one interest or another. If you appoint two or three, there should be two or three different interests. That is the only point that I want to make. I hope that I shall save time by making it now.
Viscount Thurso: I should like to point out one matter to the noble Viscount. I have already provided for this in Amendment No. 45, which states:
"and the number of representatives of salmon anglers so appointed shall not exceed the number of tenant netsmen so appointed"
But his wording may be preferable to mine.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: We have been at a disadvantage throughout the progress of this Bill. We took the Second Reading the day after we came back from a Recess. Most of us were not inclined to spend all Christmas and New Year looking over it. And today we are faced with the Committee stage. We were unable to get in touch with all the people concerned. Like others, I have received a daily welter of paper that could not be sorted out and put in the right order. Now, very belatedly, today, we are faced with a grouping of amendments. I do not know whether it is good or bad. I want to know whether my Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 are included, because they contain the very same words. Of course they fall under Schedule 2 to the Bill and should really come under our discussions of the schedule, which lays out all that one has to do. Therefore, we are discussing it in a very disjointed way. I suppose that the Government are a lot to blame for that as regards the way in which they have drafted the Bill.
I wish to speak on the first amendment, which concerns the co-option nominations. The noble Lord, Lord Burton, was quite wrong. There is no change. The Government have included the word "shall", but if the noble Lord cares to change that to "may" we shall look forward to seeing it at the next stage of the Bill. In the meantime, the important principle—and it was dealt with during Second Reading—is the question of whether or not we should have co-opted members of the board from among the anglers and the tenant netsmen. I think it came down to the phrase used by the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne: we do
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not want second-class members in the sense that, once they are there, there are only certain things which they can talk about.
I do not know to what extent we are going over the whole matter, but I wish purely to concentrate on the business of co-option. What was said was quite right. If they are co-opted by elected members then they will be the creatures of the people who elect them. If their face fits they will be co-opted and then, of course, there will be further restrictions placed on them. It may be said, "We cannot have officials of angling associations" or something like that. It is quite wrong. I do not think that the Government have properly thought it through from the point of view of the feelings of the people in the areas and the people in the business whether they be netsmen or whether they be rod and line men, upper or lower proprietors. I certainly hope that the first amendment will be accepted and that we can go on from there to see about the other matters.
I do not want to discuss Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 and the other amendments in relation to other aspects of the matter. I do not think that they are even grouped. I do not know why they should not be so grouped, because one of them is virtually the same as that of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, which shows how badly the grouping has been done and how confusing it is from the point of view of anyone who tried to make sense of it. However, I certainly support the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, as regards this particular amendment.
Lord Gray of Contin: In answering this short debate, I should like to make sure that I am answering all the amendments which we are including. Perhaps I may just read them out: Amendment No. 28 is the amendment which has been moved, together with which we are considering Amendment No. 55 (Viscount Ridley's amendment), Amendments Nos. 40, 41, 49, 50 and 59 (in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso) and also Lord Thurso's Amendments Nos. 42, 43, 44, 45, 51. 52, 53, 54, 56, 57 and 58.
Viscount Thurso: Also Amendment No. 37.
Lord Gray of Contin: Yes, Amendment No. 37. Amendment No. 28 appears on the surface to be of little apparent consequence as there is unlikely to be much, if any, difference in practice between co-option by the board and appointment to a board. The amendment, however, is one of several tabled by the noble Viscount with the intention of altering the whole way in which representatives of anglers and tenant netsmen will obtain membership of a board. As I have explained already, the arrangement proposed in the Bill—co-option by the Board—is the best approach and I regret that I am unable to accept Amendment No. 28.
As regards Amendment No. 55, it is our intention that boards should co-opt an equal number of representatives of salmon anglers and tenant netsmen, as the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, is suggesting in the amendment. I am advised the sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 does not achieve this and that further consideration is needed. For example, if

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the tenant netsmen were entitled to have three representatives but were only offered two, the anglers would not be prevented from having three co-optees, thus giving rise to a difference in numbers between the two categories of co-optees.
If I give the noble Viscount an assurance that I accept in principle what his amendment seeks to achieve and will myself consider how an appropriate amendment may be introduced at a later stage in the proceedings, I hope that he may feel able in due course to withdraw his amendment.
As regards the larger grouping of amendments to Schedule 2—Amendments 40, 41, 49, 50 and 59 in the name of the noble Viscount—I point out that the Bill as drafted provides for the chairman to be elected by the votes of all the proprietors who attend the meeting, with multiple voting according to rateable value as specified in paragraph 3(1) and 3(3) of Schedule 2. If we accepted the noble Viscount's amendment we should be creating a situation in which it would be almost inevitable that the chairman would be chosen virtually on the toss of a coin or a draw of cards given that boards normally will consist of equal numbers of upper and lower proprietors. The existing position, which is continued in terms of the Bill, is that including the chairman there will normally be seven representatives of proprietors. I cannot accept the arrangement proposed by the noble Viscount, and I note that there was support for the system as proposed in the Bill at Second Reading. It is a democratic arrangement which I commend to your Lordships. I therefore hope that the noble Viscount might consider withdrawing this particular amendment.
On the large grouping of amendments, 42, 43, 44, 45, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57 and 58, the noble Viscount is to be congratulated on the thought he has clearly devoted to the question of co-option, and for the alternative procedure of nomination, election and appointment that he has presented for recruiting representatives of salmon anglers and tenant netsmen to district salmon fishery boards. My congratulations, however, are tempered by my clear conclusion that this is an over-complicated solution.
It will not surprise your Lordships when I say that I much prefer the arrangements for which the Bill provides. These are less complicated and provide for, so far as possible, equality between elected members and co-opted members. The noble Viscount's proposals provide for a built-in majority for proprietorial interests. I am not clear as to how this will work when a board consists of only one upper and one lower proprietor. Presumably there would in these circumstances be no possibility of appointing a representative of anglers.
I agree with the principle of the noble Viscount's amendment, which is apparently aimed at achieving balance on boards between salmon anglers and netsmen, but I do not think that he has quite achieved that. It appears that it would be possible for the number of representatives of salmon anglers to be fewer than it might be if the full quota of tenant netsmen was not in fact co-opted or appointed.
I shall be looking closely at Schedule 2 to ensure that the quality we are seeking will be achieved, and, as necessary, bring forward an amendment at a later
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stage. I hope that in the light of my comments the noble Viscount will be prepared to withdraw his amendments.
Viscount Thurso: My heart is softened by the kind reply of the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin. If he really has taken aboard the idea that we should in some way try to achieve some sort of an election, some sort of way in which it is not a rotten borough, then I should be happy to go along with him. We are now talking about an amendment which simply leads us into a whole series of amendments, and I accept that it is a complicated area. I accept that it has not been easy to draft it out and that it is not easy to accept it in a lump, as it were, and that we want to think about this. However, if we can discuss the principle of it at this stage, what I feel is important is that we should not give built-in majorities to any section in the district boards.
In some rivers, as things are, there may well be built-in majorities to the nets; in other rivers there may well be built-in majorities to the anglers if we decide everything at the stage when people are present with their valuation-weighted voting power. If we simply ask, as happens now, the upper proprietors to elect their representatives and the lower proprietors to elect their representatives, and then the six representatives so elected meet as a board to decide among them who of their number shall be the chairman, I am not fearful of that. I do not think that when six reasonable, chosen people meet who have to decide among themselves who is to be chairman there will be all that much difficulty in finding a chairman. There may be some difficulty in certain instances, but eventually I am sure a chairman will be found.
With these six people one has an equally balanced board with the chosen one able to exercise the casting vote. One then could run elections to find the chosen ones of the angling nominees and the chosen ones of the tenant netsmen nominees and one stands a chance of having a board truly representing all the interests, where everybody has a fair, democratic say in how people have got on to the board and where reasonable people working together have a chance of producing a reasonable job of work. I am confident that this can be done.
I recognise that this is difficult to do in drafting at this stage. Having set out the aim with which I started to draft these amendments, if the noble Lord, Lord Gray, will give me an assurance that we can have a discussion about this, I should be happy to withdraw the whole lot.
Lord Gray of Contin: I must make the point clear to the noble Viscount. I have not conceded the point about election rather than co-option. I made that clear when I said that I could not accept Amendment No. 28. I am absolutely prepared to consider the balance between co-optees, anglers and netsmen. I am also prepared to have discussions, or to arrange for my advisers to have discussions, with the noble Viscount on any of the other points which he wishes to discuss. I explained earlier on Amendment No. 55 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ridley that I was prepared to consider it again if my noble friend would withdraw his amendment. I make that quite clear. I am not

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prepared to concede on the principle of election rather than co-option which we discussed earlier. But on the other points I am happy to negotiate with the noble Viscount.
Viscount Thurso: The noble Lord, Lord Gray, will realise that I am not conceding anything either. I am merely agreeing to talk to him. I am agreeing, at this stage, to withdraw my amendments, then to talk, and we shall see what will come out of it. If that is the basis on which we are agreed, I am happy to ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Ridley Viscount Ridley moved Amendment No. 29:
[Printed earlier: col. 627.]
The noble Viscount said: This is a totally different point. My noble friend has already let the cat out of the bag in saying that he could not accept it when he was speaking to something else. I shall have to redouble my efforts to persuade him otherwise.
This amendment quite simply provides that a fishery board—I remind your Lordships that we are trying to give powers to fishery boards for the conservation of salmon—may remove obstacles to the passage of salmon up to spawn. There are two points to be made. First, it is obvious that we wish to increase the stock of salmon and that every obstacle in their progress should be removed. Secondly, riparian owners who possess water just below an obstacle have a different interest because the fish are held up by the obstacle and thus more are available to be caught on rod and line. There is a conflict of interests, but the balance is that no one riparian owner who refuses the agreement—the word I wish to delete—should be able to stop the removal of natural or artificial obstacles to the passage of fish.
This must be in the interests of all in the long run. I do not know it myself, but I am informed that there is a river in County Rossshire—or what used to be called that—where some 14 miles of absolutely splendid spawning water is totally forbidden to salmon because of a natural waterfall and someone would not allow this to be removed, which would not be difficult to do. Of course, there are other precedents for doing this.
The Committee is no doubt intimately aware of the Tweed Fisheries Act 1857, which gave the Tweed commissioners total power to remove all obstacles to salmon passage throughout the length of the Tweed River and its tributaries. I think that is an example of what should be followed throughout the rest of the British Isles. If the Tweed commissioners have such power to remove obstacles, I can see no reason why other fishery boards in Scotland, in the interests of conservation and the increase of salmon stocks, should not also have such powers.
9.30 p.m.
I readily admit that in 1857 the hydro-electric board did not exist and perhaps its presence in other rivers in Scotland may alter the situation. However, I believe it is protected from the undoubted obstacles it has placed in the path of ascending salmon by special Acts. Even so, it should be possible by agreement, or, if necessary,
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without agreement, to put in proper fish passes to any hydro-electic waterfall or obstacle; there are many waterfalls, many clams constructed by the hydroelectric boards, which do not allow the fish to pass above them.
In this instance, all I am trying to do is to see that the fishery boards, where necessary, can proceed without agreement. We have already discussed the fact that they should have powers to acquire, for this purpose, land and so forth. They should have powers to remove obstacles to the passage of fish and, if necessary, they should be able to do this without the agreement of everybody concerned. I beg to move Amendment No. 29.
The Duke of Atholl: I am afraid that I must disagree with my noble friend Lord Ridley on this subject. The Committee may not be aware but there is a very nice river called the Inver, which flows into the Tay opposite Dunkeld Cathedral, and about a quarter of a mile up the Inver is a lovely beauty spot which belongs to the National Trust for Scotland called the Hermitage or Ossian's Hall. From the Hermitage, one views the most magnificent waterfall and, if one is really lucky, one can see a whole lot of salmon trying to jump up it and always failing.
The Tay board came to the National Trust for Scotland about two or three years ago and asked if it would not be a good idea if they constructed a way round so that the salmon could get up this waterfall. Incidentally, there is another waterfall higher up the river which it is thought may also stop salmon ascending, but after that there is some quite good spawning ground. The National Trust for Scotland said no; that they thought it was a rotten idea; that the Hermitage, Ossian's Hall, had been given to them to protect and to keep as a beautiful waterfall, a beautiful monument, and they felt they really could not agree as it was inalienable land.
I think it would be disastrous if the words "by agreement" were taken out of this Bill, although I agree that in that case it would still require an Act of Parliament to get agreement from the National Trust for Scotland. I think that in most cases reasonable landlords would agree if the fishery board came to them and said they thought it would be a good idea if an obstacle was removed. However, I think there certainly must be other cases in Scotland where it would not be a good idea and where the words "by agreement" are very important. I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister will resist this amendment.
Lord Gisborough: Can my noble friend the Minister say whether he would give the fishery board permission to blow up a hydro-electric dam?
Lord Gray of Contin: As I explained at Second Reading, this wording is in the same form as a similar provision in the 1868 Act. The words "by agreement" are included now to underline the fact that boards do not have compulsory purchase powers. The removal of these words would have little effect on the interpretation of this clause, since boards would not be enabled to carry out compulsory purchases without specific powers to do so.

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I have listened carefully to what my noble friend Lord Ridley has said. I have also listened to what my noble friend the Duke of Atholl has said and I find myself in agreement with the noble Duke. I am afraid that I simply cannot accept this amendment. I hope that in view of what I have said my noble friend will be prepared to withdraw it.
Viscount Ridley: Now I know why the noble Duke's ancestor built a fishing lodge on the Inver at that very point. Of course I will withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Earl Cathcart): In calling Amendment No. 30, I should tell the Committee that if this amendment is agreed I cannot call Amendments Nos. 31 and 32.
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 15, leave out lines 18 to 21.
The noble Lord said: This is a small, essentially technical amendment. I spoke to this amendment when moving Amendment No. 24 earlier in the proceedings. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I cannot call Amendments Nos. 31 and 32.
[Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 not moved.]
Lord Burton Lord Burton moved Amendment No. 32A:
Page 15, line 21, at end insert—
("( ) Where a bailiff of a district salmon fishery board finds salmon dead or abandoned in or adjoining any water within his district and which are not likely to be the subject of a prosecution under the Salmon Fishery Act such salmon shall be deemed to be the property of that district salmon fishery board which may then sell or otherwise dispose of them").
The noble Lord said: The situation here is that much of the poaching is done at night. Very often, if the poachers are alarmed, they will take off and next morning when you come down you may well find hidden nearby a bag or quantity of fish. And this is not necessarily so only at night. If fish are found—and they are found—the problem then arises: to whom do these fish belong? At the moment there appears to be no ownership. The suggestion here is that if they are found by a bailiff they should belong to the fishery district. I see in the amendment the words:
"the property of that district salmon fishery board".
I think it ought to be "salmon fishery committee", but the principle is the same.
Lord Gray of Contin: I can fully understand the thoughts and the intention behind this amendment. There is, however, already an efficient mechanism for dealing with salmon found in the circumstances that the noble Lord describes. It is provided under Part IV of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and allows for the finding of such property to be reported to one of a number of persons, including the police, and permits the chief constable to make such arrangements as he sees fit for disposal of the fish.
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There is nothing in the Act to prevent a chief constable arranging that abandoned salmon go to a district fishery board if it is found by a water bailiff. Indeed, I think the usual procedure is that the property if not claimed is passed to the finder. I know that in some districts the police have come to arrangements with the district fishery boards about disposal of found salmon. The amendment is, anyway, defective. There is no salmon fishery Act. I hope that with these explanations the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Burton: As far as the drafting is concerned, I am very happy to ask leave to withdraw it. But I think this is not altogether satisfactory. The finder could well be an employee of the fishery district, and when it is handed to the chief constable to decide who should have it, if he hands it back to the finder then it goes back to that individual. Clearly it does not belong to the individual because he is merely an employee of the board or committee concerned. I would ask my noble friend to have a further look at this because I know that problems have arisen and it is something which needs to be cleared up. With that, I would ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I think that is fairly good advice to give to the Minister, bearing in mind all the complications that are going to come in relation to fish that are found, because the question then arises: were they legally fished? Also, is the person who receives them from the police (because he is the finder) then in legal possession or is he in legal possession of illegally-fished salmon? I hope the Minister appreciates that he will need to look at this again from the point of view of what we are going to do about the licensing of salmon in relation to the police taking control of these things that are lost.
If I remember rightly, there is no mention in the civic government Act of salmon, fish or anything else: it is just things that are lost. I think this is something which is very, very specialised now. In fact, remembering the arguments that we had over that civic government Act and the time the police would keep lost goods before they handed them over to the finder or to somebody else, they gave rise to rather fantastic thoughts in my mind about policemen insisting that they have cold stores attached to their police stations for the keeping of salmon that had been found—it does not say where.
Poor salmon! They have an awful time of it. They can be wild and they can swim as much as they like. They do not belong to anybody until they are caught, and then when this person catches them and puts them down on a bank somwhere, they still do not belong to anyone, because there is no guarantee, although I suppose the riparian owner has a bigger claim on them than anyone else and he would have an absolute claim if it were in England.
I was fascinated by the reference that was made to the civic government Act and to the police keeping salmon and then deciding what they would do with them and to whom they would give them back. I think we have to look at this question again. We shall have to look at it anyway in respect of what we are going to do later on about salmon owned in suspicious

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circumstances and illegally caught. It is going to be very difficult in this situation, where the police are themselves dealing with illegally-caught salmon and handing them over to somebody. They could hand the salmon to a person and then arrest him for having them, judging from some of the interpretations I have already seen of this particular Bill.
I do not know what we are going to do about this one. I think it would be far better if the Government would say they were going to look at the implications of the matter that has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Burton, in terms, first, of the actual problem and, secondly, of the greater problems there will be when we come on to the actual licensing of salmon.
Lord Burton: With the leave of the Committee I beg leave at this juncture to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.45 p.m.
Viscount Thurso Viscount Thurso moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 15, line 27, at end insert—
("( ) Any person intending to release into waters (not being a fish farm) within the area of a district salmon fishery board any fish or live eggs of salmon or non-indigenous salmonids or other fresh water fishes shall first obtain the consent of the said board. Failure to obtain such consent shall constitute an offence under this Act and any person guilty of such an offence shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
( ) Reference in the above subsection to a district salmon fishery board shall include reference to the Secretary of State in any district where no district salmon fishery board is in existence.")
The noble Viscount said: Your Lordships will no doubt remember that some years ago, when Unilever imported Cohoe salmon into Scotland, it was found that there were no powers under which the Secretary of State could in any way prevent those fish being released into Scottish waters on grounds of race or species. It was found necessary then to introduce a Bill which eventually got through your Lordships' House, through another place and finally became an Act. There is now an Act which prevents imported fish from being implanted in the waters of Scotland. This was then followed by a similar Bill for England. It is really following along these lines that this amendment is drafted.
I think we can now recognise that there are dangers in releasing even indigenous fish into waters which previously did not carry them. One could, for instance, take pike from Perthshire and introduce them into the waters of north-west Sutherland and have disastrous effects upon the native stocks of salmon and trout and so forth.
Indeed, nowadays there is even a fair amount of consensus that the race of salmon within rivers has been adjusted by nature to suit the rivers concerned, and that the careless introduction of salmon, although of the same species but from rivers of a totally different sort, could have a harmful effect on the race which inhabits the rivers in question.
Then there is the possibility that enthusiastic people, thinking to increase the amount of fish they can catch, and the value of the fish they can catch, would introduce non-native salmon; in other words, fish like
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the rainbow trout, which would come out of Scottish waters, out of Scottish fish farms perhaps. They might introduce them into waters where they would damage the native fish by competition, predation and disease. I feel that it is necessary, while we are examining the protection of the species and the conservation of salmon, to give the Secretary of State powers to deal with this sort of thing. This amendment is designed to make it an offence to put into waters species of fish which are not native to those waters, without permission from the district board or, in the absence of a district board, the Secretary of State for Scotland. I beg to move.
Lord Moran Lord Moran had given notice of his intention to move Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 as amendments to Amendment No. 33:
Line 2, after ("board") insert (", or in the case of England and Wales a water authority,")
Line 4, after ("board") insert ("or authority")
The noble Lord said: The Minister was good enough to explain earlier on that the water authorities in England and Wales already have powers to prevent introductions. I apologise for not having been aware of this when I put down these amendments. I warmly support the amendment put down by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. The Atlantic Salmon Trust recently distributed a booklet written by a distinguished scientist, Professor Wilkins, who said that,
"salmon stocks of different rivers are genetically distinct and therefore, each stock should be treated as a separate unit for management purposes. The introduction of salmon from other rivers may alter genetic compositions of stock and reduce homing precision".
It was because, in the first place, I thought it was important that this provision should apply throughout Great Britain that I put down this amendment. But also I knew that the owners' association on the Wye were introducing ova from the Shin in Scotland, which seemed to be ill-advised in the light of Professor Wilkins' view. But I am very glad to know that the water authorities have power to control this; I only hope they will exercise it. Because the matter is already covered, I shall not move Amendments Nos. 34 and 35.
[Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 not moved.]
The Earl of Onslow: It seems to me there is a perfect example of the damage that can be done by importing a species. That is the importation of the American crayfish into English waters, which has absolutely slaughtered the English and European crayfish. So I hope that there is the maximum amount of support for the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso.
Lord Burton: I also should like to support the noble Viscount. At Second Reading, I referred to pike being introduced into the headwater of the Inverness-shire Garry, which was a ridiculous state of affairs. There are also a certain amount of rainbow trout put into Loch Ness every year by one of the Sunday papers—I think the Sunday Post. They are tagged and there is a reward if you catch one of them. Things of this sort ought to come under the control of the local committees and I very much hope that my noble friend will support this amendment.
Lord Tryon: While I too support this amendment, I should not like the impression to go out that the introduction of salmon into rivers which are very short of them is necessarily a bad thing. There are not great numbers of salmon in the Thames but there are some, and if this were carried to too great an extreme, and if it was generally appreciated that salmon should not be moved from one river to another, there would be no salmon in the Thames. There are a lot of rivers that will have to be stocked from other rivers because they are very short of fish at the moment.
Lord Gray of Contin: I have great sympathy with what the noble Viscount is seeking to achieve and I can see that unregulated stocking could do considerable harm. However, I believe that this amendment goes too far. For example, it seems to me to be unreasonable to require angling clubs which regularly stock with brown trout or rainbow trout to seek the consent of a salmon board, and I am not attracted to the idea of the Secretary of State's role where no board exists. If the noble Viscount will be prepared to withdraw his amendment, I am prepared to look further into this and to bring forward an amendment at a later stage which I think will go a long way towards meeting the objectives mentioned by noble Lords this evening.
The Earl of Onslow: Before the noble Viscount replies to my noble friend, I wonder whether my noble friend can answer my point about no boards. To take the case of the American crayfish, appalling damage has been done to crayfish in other waters because of a disease whose Latin name I cannot remember. How will it be controlled in the non-boarded rivers?
Lord Gray of Contin: I simply cannot answer my noble friend on that point. Of course, we will take everything into account when we are considering the matter and I am offering to take it back and look at it. Surely that is reasonable.
Lord Burton: I was rather concerned about the reference to the stocking of waters by angling clubs. This could well be very damaging to the salmon industry. If you put a lot of trout where salmon fry are hatching out, the trout can be gobbling them up as quickly as they are hatching. It is a case where salmon boards must take priority over trout fishing.
Viscount Thurso: I feel very inclined to accept the kind offer of the noble Lord, Lord Gray, to discuss this matter. I understand all the points which have been raised. It was not easy to draft this amendment. I do not share the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Gray, about difficulties arising from genuine efforts to stock waters with fish in a traditional manner, and I shall put that point to him when we discuss. But I think at this stage it would be best if I were to withdraw this amendment, on the promise of discussions and an amendment to deal with the matter later on.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 16 [Proceedings of district salmon fishery boards]:
Lord Gray of Contin Lord Gray of Contin moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 15, line 36, leave out ("deliberate") and insert ("deliberative").
The noble Lord said: This is a very minor amendment to correct an error in the Bill. No issue of substance is involved. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 37 not moved.]
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 38 and 39 not moved.]
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Election and co-option of members of district salmon fishery boards]:
[Amendments Nos. 40 to 45 not moved.]
Lord Ross of Marnock Lord Ross of Marnock had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 46:
Page 31, line 20, leave out from ("person") to ("persons") in line 21 and insert ("nominated by").
The noble Lord said: These amendments, again, were overtaken by that long list of co-option and nomination, and so Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 will not be moved.
[Amendment No. 46 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 47 not moved.]
The Duke of Atholl The Duke of Atholl moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 31, line 29, leave out first ("an") and insert ("a paid").
The noble Duke said: This is very much a probing amendment. My object in putting it down is to find out exactly what is meant by "an official of an angling association" which is itself an upper proprietor in that district. I imagine that an official is probably the chairman, the deputy chairman, the treasurer or the secretary. I entirely agree with the Bill as drafted that if these people are paid they should not be eligible for co-option as representatives of salmon anglers. But in very many cases these officials—if I have the meaning of the word "official" right I shall be more than pleased—will be the keenest and most enthusiastic members of the angling association. It would seem a pity that such people could not be co-opted as representatives of salmon anglers in that particular district.
Therefore I should like to ask my noble friend whether I am right in thinking that an official is usually one of those four people, and if so whether I am right in thinking that they ought only to be disqualified if they are paid. I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: The amendment would provide that only a paid official of such an association would be barred. I concede the principle of this amendment but in fact I have decided to go further. I intend to table at a later stage an amendment which will wholly remove the bar on officials of angling associations, whether paid or not. This picks up a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, at

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Second Reading. In view of this assurance, I hope that the noble Duke will be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
The Duke of Atholl: On the strength of that assurance, I am very pleased to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 49 to 59 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Schedule 2 shall be agreed to?
Lord Ross of Marnock: I think it would be a good thing to look at this important schedule. I want to ask the Minister of State which matters within this schedule he has promised to look at, so that when I am looking at it from the point of view of the next stage of the Bill I shall know where I can expect government amendments and be able to anticipate them. There is now a question mark over promises that have been given by the Government that they are going to look at it again.
10.p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: I can answer the noble Lord immediately so far as that point is concerned. I have given a number of undertakings and perhaps it would be for the convenience of the noble Lord if I were to write to him tomorrow and set out the points that I have undertaken to look at again.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am grateful for that but I believe that the noble Lord's letter should go beyond myself, because there are others interested in this important schedule. The noble Lord's reply rather inhibits me because I intended to ask a number of questions about the schedule, as to what could be and should be done. So I am left rather without a speech.
For instance, there is the matter of Schedule 2 where it states in paragraph 3(4):
"A proprietor of a salmon fishery in the district which has been neither entered nor entered separately in the valuation roll shall, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, have one vote at the meeting and shall be eligible for election".
But the whole qualification is that one has to be a qualified proprietor based on entry in the valuation roll. That is just one point that the Minister has not so far promised to look at. I should like to be clear about it before we go much farther.
Lord Gray of Contin: I shall cover that point when I write to the noble Lord. I have given an assurance that I will outline the points that I intend to consider again, and I shall include that one.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Surely that is a simple point. I do not want to rush through the Bill in any way. This is the point at which one asks for information, and one expects the Government to be briefed to give such information. This is an important paragraph relating to the election of members. We have heard all sorts of talk about co-option and nomination in relation to anglers and to tenant netsmen. Here is a provision about the proprietors that seems to run counter to
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everything that has been said before about how a proprietor becomes qualified. I just want to know how that can be achieved.
Schedule 2 states in paragraph 3(4):
"A proprietor of a salmon fishery in the district which has been neither entered nor entered separately in the valuation roll shall, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, have one vote at the meeting and shall be eligible for election".
He could even become the chairman. That seems to run counter to the obligations and qualifications of a proprietor.
That is only one point. Am Ito be told that if I raise any other points in relation to this important schedule then they will all be dealt with in writing in a letter to me? That is not fair. It will become a Cabinet secret and I shall not be able to divulge it to the noble Lord, Lord Home. Think of the penalties that might be involved for myself, not to mention what might happen to the Minister. That is not the way to conduct legislation. The Government must surely be in a position to give answers to all those points.
That is why I wanted the Government to clear up now that, where there are matters the Minister has already dealt with, we do not need to discuss them in respect of the schedule. It is a very important schedule. It runs to nearly four pages. There must be many Members who have questions in respect of Schedule 2. They may not be extremely important questions but the Government should be prepared to answer them and not race the Bill through. I do not know who is handling this Bill for the Government, from the point of timing and all the rest of it, but I can assure him that he is not being helpful to the Bill by adopting such a procedure.
Lord Gray of Contin: I think I have already indicated to the noble Lord and to the Committee, but I shall confirm it by letter to the noble Lord, that I shall be looking carefully at the question of equal co-option of numbers of anglers and tenant netsmen. I shall be looking at the question of officials of angling associations not being barred from co-option.
The noble Lord referred to paragraph 3(4) of Schedule 2. This is covered by the definition of "proprietor". A person can still be a proprietor for the purposes of entry in the valuation roll, even though he is not permanently in that area.
There are various other points on which I have given assurances and, as I said to the noble Lord, of course it is not essential that all these be spelt out in a letter. However, the noble Lord is anxious to know and he always meticulously looks at points raised so that he can table amendments at the next stage of the Bill. I merely thought that it would be helpful to the noble Lord if I did him the courtesy of writing and setting out these matters for him. I know just how finicky he is. After all, he has never lost his schoolmaster tendencies. I am sure that he goes over my letters with a red pencil and marks them with ticks and crosses here and there where he agrees or does not agree. I am sure there are more crosses than ticks. Nevertheless, I can assure the noble Lord that I shall write to him and spell out the various points on which I have given assurances.
Viscount Thurso: If the Minister is writing to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, will he kindly send a copy to those of us who have taken part, at least on the debate on this schedule, so that we are all informed?
Lord Gray of Contin: I shall do better than that. I shall put a copy of the letter in the Library.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I ask the Minister not to rest there. After writing to me he can put a copy in the Library. I am getting to be an old man now. I cannot trot up and down to the Library and then get someone to make a copy. He must be careful in this spot of seeming generosity that he is not doing us any good at all. I look forward to receiving that letter. Incidentally, I do not use a red pencil—usually it is a blue pencil that I use for his letters. The simple fact is that we all want to know. There are many important parts where there is no point in going over it because the Government have said that they will make a change and we do not know to what extent.
The Minister is doing his best. He is trying to catch up on the time he lost at the start and is doing not too badly. Certainly with the number of matters he said he will consider on this Bill so far—and we have not progressed all that far—he is going to have a very busy time with that particular department in the Scottish Office before we reach the next stage of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Additional powers in respect of licensing and regulation of salmon dealing]:
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy Lady Saltoun of Abernethy moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 17, line 28, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lady said: Some Ministers appear to hold that "shall" is stronger than "may" and others that "may" is stronger than "shall". This is our old friend "may" and "shall" again. In my understanding of the English language "shall" is mandatory but "may" is merely permissive. As this very welcome clause is extremely important it seems to me that "shall" would possibly be more appropriate than "may". I should be very interested to hear the noble Lord's views on this. Can he tell us whether he would be prepared to change the wording to "shall"; and if not, what his reasons are? I beg to move.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to my noble friend for her explanation of this amendment, but I hope that I can convince her that it is not necessary. I consider that the use of the word "may" in this clause is preferable and necessary, since it allows a necessary flexibility in the order and it may not in practice be felt necessary or desirable to provide for all elements set out in the clause. Despite what the noble Lady has said, I see no advantage in her pressing this amendment and I hope that she will be prepared to withdraw it.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 18, line 20, after ("and") insert ("other").
The noble Lord said: I thought when I put this amendment down that it would carry on the argument which I was trying to make on Second Reading about the power of bailiffs, when I asked that the Secretary of State be given control over the appointment of bailiffs. Saying "water bailiffs and other persons" may not be the most felicitous way to do it, but I was trying to include the powers of the Secretary of State in those of the water bailiffs and other persons who are appointed by the Secretary of State.
I raised this point at the Second Reading debate, and the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, very correctly explained to me that a great deal of time and money was spent on the training and selection of water bailiffs. I have no doubt at all that, owing to his interests and knowledge of salmon and fishing generally, the noble Marquess is correct in this, but I still believe that giving power of such a nature to people who, after all, are civilians is really asking too much. They are given, for example, power of entry.
I made a reference during the Second Reading of this Bill to a story I had heard about someone who had appointed a totally unsuitable person as a bailiff. I have since had correspondence giving the facts of the case. I am sure that those people who are interested in fishing, and much more involved in it than I am, will know of the case in the island of Lewis in which two estates quarrelled, and whether it was from pique or to show how wrong was the existing legislation, one of the estates nominated an unsuitable person and sent his name to the clerk to the river board. The name was accepted solely on the strength of having been sent by the estate. It was discovered later that it was a spoof and that the man was quite unsuitable; in actual fact he was an inmate of a prison in Inverness.
I was worried about the whole question of a civilian being given such great power. If such a thing can happen in even one case it is doubly worrying that such power should be given. Although this particular amendment may be the wrong place to raise the matter, I hope that the Minister will accept the fact that I feel very deeply about it, and I am sure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate must be worried that power such as this should be given so lightly to someone merely on the word of an estate.
Perhaps I may make one slight correction here. In trying to find an amendment suitable for putting this point across, when reading what I said on the 14th January at the Second Reading, I discovered in the fourth paragraph of col. 998 of the Official Report that the transcript reads "the state" instead of "the estate". That is quite different. The estate, and not "the state", sent someone's name to the board, and that name was accepted.
The amendment covers an important point. If this is not the right place in the Bill to raise it, perhaps the

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Minister will say how he feels about this. I shall be happy to put it at a more suitable point at the Report stage. I beg to move.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Gray of Contin: This amendment appears to start from a false premise; namely, that the Secretary of State appoints all water bailiffs. In fact water bailiffs are appointed by district boards, although under Section 10(5) of the 1951 Act the Secretary of State has powers to appoint persons for enforcement purposes to cover areas where there are no boards in existence.
I am satisfied that it is for boards, where they exist, to appoint their own bailiffs, as that is a function best carried out at local level where local knowledge exists. The Bill is therefore correctly drafted as it stands, and the amendment is not, I am advised, sufficient to give the Secretary of State powers to appoint bailiffs even if it was thought appropriate that he should do so.
I hope that in view of what I have said the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw his amendment, but I am afraid that I simply cannot accept it, even if he is not.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: I thank the Minister for his reply but I think that he is reading the amendment wrongly. I do not blame him. When I looked at it I was conscious of the fact that it should have come earlier in the Bill and in another form. I was endeavouring to include water bailiffs among the people whom the Secretary of State appointed. It is probably a clumsy way to do that.
I realised that the Minister would not expect the argument that I put, and his reply was to a quite different matter altogether. I hope that he will at least consider my simple point. I disagree that the boards are the best organisations to appoint water bailiffs. I gave at least one instance of the appointment of someone totally unsuitable. I do not know how many more there are. In this case it was a non-existent appointment, because the person was unable to get out of prison to take it up.
The Minister says that the boards are the best people to make the appointments, but in this case there was no check at all. The noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, who is a responsible and thorough individual, would take such appointments seriously, as would many others, but it is too great a power to give to other people when they can go so far wrong.
I hope the Minister will consider this again before he turns it down.
Lord Gray of Contin: Persuasive as the noble Lord is, the Secretary of State simply does not have the necessary local knowledge to appoint bailiffs. It is much better to leave it to the boards which possess the necessary local knowledge and know the people who might be suitable. I am afraid that what the noble Lord says does not convince me, and I cannot accept the amendment.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Surely, the Minister of State can accept the point made by my noble friend Lord Carmichael. We are not suggesting that it is the
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responsibility of the Secretary of State. I do not know that he would even go so far as to say now that it should be the responsibility of the Secretary of State. But it should be someone's responsibility to ensure that the right people are selected and appointed and paid as water bailiffs. It may well be that the local police could be contacted. If that had been done in this case, I do not doubt at all that they would have been able to check that the person being put forward was in prison for a very serious offence and that there was no question of the police not knowing that this was the case. If it happens in one case, it could happen in many others. The more rural the situation, and the further removed it is from the urban gangs of poachers that we have heard about, the more can considerable animosity be built up around the figure of the water bailiff. If the wrong one, for one reason or another, is selected, it cannot be to the benefit of the fishery board itself.
Something should be said and some attention paid to the quality of water bailiffs from the point of view of the job they are doing and the powers they are given. One should remember that it is easy to send someone to prison in respect of poaching in Scotland nowadays. I am talking of the person caught in Scotland rather than the person caught down in Kent, as a few people were the other week. The evidence that is expected in other cases in Scotland of collaboration—
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: Corroboration.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am sorry. Corroboration is not now required. It has not been required since 1951. It is a very serious matter. It was a Labour Government, by the way, that introduced that. I remember the difficulty that arose—it has been referred to by lawyers since—of this breach with Scottish tradition of the absence of corroboration. I believe that in civil cases it was breached again in relation to compensation by judges. The judge was given the discretion to dispense with the need for corroboration. What a row that caused, particularly with a certain Scottish nationalist lawyer whose name I forget at the moment!
This is important. If the Government cannot handle it in this way, cannot they give some advice to those who appoint them and to those whom they think should be appointed? It might be a letter to them to bear in mind the importance of the character of the water bailiffs appointed, in view of the important duties they have to carry out and the effect they can have on local people.
Lord Gray of Contin: I do not think that anyone who has sat through our discussions today could say that I have been anything other than sympathetic towards the amendments that have been moved. I have taken a good many back to look at again. I have accepted a good many. I am bound to say to the noble Lords, Lord Ross of Marnock and Lord Carmichael, that this is one which I cannot take back because I do not see myself being able to come forward with what they seek. There is, of course, no reason why they cannot withdraw the amendment, think about it a little longer, and perhaps come forward with something themselves that might be worthy of consideration at a later stage.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: In view of the point that the Minister has made I think that perhaps we could dig back in the Acts a wee bit more and perhaps get a few more examples that will help the Minister to support anything we are able to bring forward at Report stage. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 19 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Burton: Before we agree this clause I should like to put a question to the Minister. If there is to be licensing and if records are to be kept, who will be empowered to inspect the books and the records? Under the Deer (Scotland) Act the police can do so and also the Red Deer Commission can do so. However, the Red Deer Commission is only allowed to take statistics out and it cannot give you any facts and details.
If this licensing power is to be of any use we should allow fishery boards or fishery committees through their officials to look at the books to see where the fish are going. There may be complications, but there is no point in asking the fishmongers to keep a lot of records if they are never going to be looked at.
Lord Gray of Contin: In answer to my noble friend let me say that officials of local authorities, the police and the water bailiffs all have the power to examine the books.
Lord Ross of Marnock: This is one of the most important clauses in the Bill and it is quite disgraceful that we have reached it at this time of night. If anyone should have been quicker earlier on, it is the Minister of State. The Committee will remember that we started our discussions on the Bill without him because he could not get here on time. I do not know about the languid Lord who has arrived to complain about speeches being made at the early hour of 26 minutes past 10! I do not know how his interest arises in respect of this matter.
However, we are dealing with the new power in respect of poaching and in respect of conservation. It is the Government's idea of a new, helpful provision. The only way in which we can get information about it is through a debate on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, apart from the drafting of amendments—one from the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, and another one.
This duty is to be placed upon the local authority. First, which local authority will have the licensing power? Will it be the district authority or will it be the regional authority? Can we have any indication of how many there will be in any particular local authority area? Will they be virtually existing dealers in fish? Nowadays there is a very considerable variety. We must bear in mind the multi-purpose shops which we have nowadays and not the specialised fish shops. In fact, there are very few fishmonger shops left in many areas. Who will hold the licence? That matter will be very important from the point of view of the person who gets the licence. That person will probably be the only person in a small town who will be licensed to deal in this particular way.
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The question arises as to whether the hotels will get their fish from the retailer, or will people who themselves own facilities as upper proprietors, lower proprietors or netsmen hold licences and deal directly with the public? This is the only time that we shall be able to get this information.
There is the question which I mentioned earlier about what the police will do with the lost fish. They have to give it to somebody who is licensed. Or are the police themselves going to have a licence to be able to deal with fish in this connection? I do not think that this is quite as simple as we have been told so far. I expected that at this stage quite a number of noble Lords would draw out all the difficulties that will arise in relation to licensing.
10.30 p.m.
Then there is the question of whether the act is committed by taking, killing or landing that salmon either in Scotland or in England and Wales. Yet the actual dealing in salmon by licence is only going to apply in Scotland and not in England and Wales. That is a point we shall come to later. First we should know what the power is, and who is going to enforce it? If it involves the local authority and the dealers, then obviously enforcement is going to rest with the local police. But that will depend entirely on where the dealers are. Are the dealers going to be in urban areas or are they going to be people who catch the fish? It is a difficult business.
Then there is all the trouble about having fish caught and getting them transported to the dealer. Until they get to the dealer they are not legally-handled fish. He is the person who is legally empowered to handle fish. There is a great deal in this and we should not just let it go through to suit the Government's convenience because it is late at night and they think they have been clever in respect of what they have done hitherto. I am not prepared to let a Government get away with an important power like this unexamined. The people in Scotland would object strongly if we did. They want to know what the new power is; how it is going to be dealt with; how it is going to be enforced; what the penalties are.
Then there is the provision:
"as to the exercise of powers of entry and search by water bailiffs and persons appointed by the Secretary of State".
How does this come into this new licensing power? Can we have a clear explanation by the Minister of State? Please do not suggest that he should write me a letter. I came here hoping to get information today about this. I deliberately did not put down amendments to leave out subsection (1) and (2)(a), (b) and (c)—to have the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate deigning to give the Minister a little help in explaining all these things. It should not be necessary. If we are going to have a proper examination of the position on clause stand part, he can tell us now exactly how it is going to be introduced, who is going to get the licences, which local authorities are concerned, and how they can justify the summary,
"imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both".
Then,
"conviction on indictment by imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years".

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We cannot let this go by without a word. There are many people concerned that this only applies to Scotland, and they had better know what is being applied in Scotland before they accept the desirability of its being applied in other parts of the country. I should be grateful if we could get some information about this from the Minister of State in respect of this new offence.
Lord Burton: May I say how pleased I am that the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, has raised this matter. It is one that has exercised my mind considerably. On Second Reading it was said that the licensing offence was singularly ineffective. In this case a lot of the poached salmon goes through hotels. A hotel has only to buy one or two fish legally through a fishmonger and no one could ever check up how many illegal fish were going through and then being sold and cooked. There is no check at all. It would be difficult to follow this up. I think I said on Second Reading that, although this licensing was better than nothing, it would be very ineffective.
Lord Gray of Contin: I think that I can deal fairly briefly and fairly fully with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who made rather a meal of it as usual. I shall try to answer his questions. We are talking about enabling powers. The whole clause extends existing powers under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act to licensing of salmon dealing and gives additional powers. There will be full consultation on the exercise of the power including discussions with COSLA, chief constables and others. A further safeguard is the fact that the order will be subject to parliamentary procedure.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Negative procedure, which means that we shall never see it again.
Lord Gray of Contin: Whether we see it here or not is a matter for the usual channels to decide. The negative procedure is the normal way of proceeding and that is what is selected for the Bill.
Clause 19 makes supplementary provision where dealing in salmon is designated as an additional activity subject to licensing and regulation by an order made under Section 44 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. It provides for heavier penalties for doing anything for which a licence is required without having one that is generally available under Section 7(1) of the 1982 Act and permits the Secretary of State to regulate the fees imposed by local authorities which would otherwise be at the discretion of the local authorities themselves in terms of paragraph 15(1) of Schedule 1 to the 1982 Act.
Subsection (1) provides that an order designating dealing in salmon may define that activity to include specified acts preparatory to or connected with the activity (for example, before money changes hands) or to exclude a specific class or classes of salmon. This will enable a dealer licensing scheme to be introduced excluding sea trout.
It provides that the offence in dealing with salmon without a licence shall be punishable either on summary conviction or indictment; the maximum
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penalties on summary conviction being imprisonment for a maximum of three months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (£2,000) or both and on conviction on indictment, imprisonment for a maximum of two years or an unlimited fine or both. Otherwise, the maximum penalty under Section 7(1) of the 1982 Act would be a fine of £1,000 on summary conviction only. It will create an offence where a person who is not a licensed salmon dealer buys salmon from or sells salmon to anyone other than a licensed salmon dealer.
The subsection will except certain acts or omissions from being offences under Section 7(1) of the 1982 Act or under the last paragraph where the possessor of salmon caught the fish lawfully or where farmed salmon were grown by him at his farm.
It will provide that certain classes of dealing in salmon should not need to be licensed. The power could be used to except, for instance, very small businesses. It would also be possible to provide that a licence should not be required for certain classes of salmon, as defined in the Bill; for example, sea trout.
Subsection (1) will provide powers of entry or search for water bailiffs appointed by district salmon fishery boards or by the Secretary of State. Any such powers will be exercisable in addition to the powers in Section 5 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.
Subsection (2) excludes from any dealer licensing scheme, live salmon or prepared or processed salmon. Tinned and smoked salmon will be covered, but no salmon which has had anything done to it other than freezing may be included in a dealer licensing scheme.
Subsection (3) gives the Secretary of State power to fix the fees or maximum fees which local authorities may charge for operating the salmon dealer licensing scheme. Subsection (4) requires that any order under subsection (3) fixing fees for a dealer licensing scheme shall be made by statutory instrument subject to negative resolution by either House of Parliament.
I think that covers fairly broadly the points the noble Lord raised. The licensing power, about which the noble Lord specifically asked me, is in district or islands councils. I should reiterate to him that these enabling powers about which we are talking will all be subject to considerable discussion and consultation before an actual dealer licensing scheme is presented.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I am grateful to the Minister for that. He has told me it will be done by districts. He has not given me any indication as to how many there will be in a district. Will it be existing shops, or will it not be shops at all? Will it be some middleman somewhere who will be the actual dealer and if one gets it from that particular person then all is well? I hope he appreciates it will create very considerable problems. The suggestion is that if you go into a hotel and order salmon you want to know whether or not it is legally caught; otherwise you are in trouble—the person who actually eats it. It is not usually the manager who acquires the stock; it is usually the chef and he has his own way of doing it.
Thus we want to know exactly who the dealers are. Cannot he get it direct from someone who actually

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took the fish out of the water, someone in charge of a fishery? Are the fisheries themselves going to be dealers, be they netsmen or be they rod and line men? Having caught the fish, he has to take it to a dealer. To what kind of dealer will he take it? Or is it some new person who is to be created as a dealer and everyone must go to him? It may well be a fine position. It is going to create new jobs and new positions. Some person we have never heard of before is now going to be a salmon licensed dealer.
I do not think we have any indication yet as to what is to happen, because the Government honestly do not know.
Lord Gray of Contin: Will the noble Lord give way?
Lord Ross of Marnock: Of course.
Lord Gray of Contin: The noble Lord knows perfectly well that we are talking about enabling powers. We are not talking about the actual dealer licensing scheme. The dealer licensing scheme is still being worked out and of course nobody can tell him at this precise moment the answers to all these nitty points that he is raising. The noble Lord himself knows that he is the prize nit-picker of all time. He is asking lots of little questions to which he knows perfectly well he cannot be given the answer just now, because what we are talking about is the enabling power within this Bill to introduce a dealer licensing scheme at a future date. A dealer licensing scheme is not yet completed so I cannot possibly give him the answers for which he is asking. He knows that as well as I do.
Lord Ross of Marnock: I did an injustice to the Government. I thought that perhaps they would have a fairly general idea of what this scheme was going to be, but now we are told they have no idea of what this scheme will be—none whatever. I do not blame them. When will we see it? It will come in by way of an order. That is not an affirmative order that both Houses have to deal with: it is a negative order. How many times have we dealt with a negative order in this Chamber? This is our only chance to say anything at all about it. No wonder the Government are smiling. If they get this through, it does not matter: they can do whatever they like so far as this Chamber is concerned. In fact, a very good amendment would be to make this by affirmative procedure. Then quite honestly we could rest content with everything the Government say, because it would need to come back to us. Then, we would see it at the end. So we have learned that the Government do not have a clue as to what they are doing. All they know is that they are going to have a scheme. They do not know what the scheme is. They have not yet discussed it with anybody but they are going to discuss it. And, eventually, we will know. But please do not ask us any questions about it!
They know one thing. It is going to be operated by the district. That is all. Beyond that, they know nothing at all and I presume that, so far as we are concerned, if we want to say anything about this scheme we had better say it tonight or say it by means of amendment on Report stage or at some other stage; because otherwise we are going to have no influence at all in the nature of that particular scheme. So, I am
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sorry if I have got to nitpick; but it becomes rather frustrating with this particular Government.
Lord Gray of Contin: Perhaps the—
10.45 p.m.
Lord Ross of Marnock: No. I have given way enough. I do not care to receive anything flattering from the Minister of State. I remember him. I have seen him grow up. I remember when he first came in. I remember when he was a Whip, when he was limited in the Scottish Grand Committees to saying, "I beg to move that the Question be now put". He was very good at that. I do not know whether he remembers it, but I have a very good caricature—well, a reasonable caricature of him—and four lines of poetry on the subject of Hamish Gray. But I am not going to give him that just now.
Please credit us with some concern and interest. We should like some general information about how this scheme is going to work and who is going to work it. Now we know that it is the district. But, thereafter, what? We know not. I think it is very disappointing indeed for the Government to have this great new power on which they have been telling everyone in Scotland, "Here is the way we are going to solve all the problems of poaching in Scotland". And they cannot give us a single clue as to what they are going to do. I am sorry for those Members who feel that this is so good that it should apply to England, as well.
Quite honestly, all that I can say to them is that I do not know how it is going to apply in Scotland. How can we judge something as to whether it is going to be effective, when we do not know anything very much about it? That is exactly what the Minister has said: we do not know, but we are going to introduce a scheme. They are getting better and better!
Lord Home of the Hirsel: I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, is being fairly unreasonable. There are strong indications in Clause 19 as to what kind of measures will be taken. My noble friend cannot say exactly what they will be at this moment, but the indications are pretty well there. I would ask the noble Lord not to debunk this clause; because if he is going to move a clause tomorrow, as he has just indicated, that this should apply to England and Wales, he had better be a little bit careful before he devalues it too far.
Lord Ross of Marnock: Do not worry. I have already worked that one out. I have not moved it yet, have I? The noble Lord is the last one who should anticipate what anyone is going to do on his own side, far less on the Opposition side, judging by the kind of things that have been happening in the past few days. I shall be glad to give way.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: I am trying to help the noble Lord tomorrow. He is making it more difficult for me.
Lord Ross of Marnock: The noble Lord wants to help me tomorrow. Well, we shall see. If his initial response is to help me, then he should not be put off by anything that is really by the way. He should stick to

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his principles. I want to help more than myself tomorrow in respect of what I want to move. I am sorry if the Government representative is getting a bit restive. He is too late in getting restive. What I am concerned about is to find out as much as possible about this so that I shall be able to answer all those questions of people who say, "It's not worth having", because that is what people will say. They will say it is impossible to implement. I have not had the help I expected from the noble Lord. Perhaps he has deliberately gone out of his way to make it appear this way so that it will be much more difficult when I move another clause later in respect of England and Wales. I am sorry for the Government in respect of this. I thought they really had some better idea as to how they were going to see this thing through. I am sorry they have not.
The Earl of Perth: I wonder if it might help if, in connection with the first time this order is made—so that we all have the opportunity to know what it is about—it was made the subject of an affirmative resolution. In that way we would have a chance from the very start to comment on it, whereas otherwise it may, as it were, slip through without our knowing. While in no way wishing to try to press the exact detail of it, I am sure it would help the Committee very much if we knew we would have another chance to comment on this at the time when the Government have made up their minds and are preparing to make the order.
Lord Gray of Contin: I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Perth, for his intervention. Indeed, to some extent he has stolen my thunder because I was about to tell the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, that I had been misinformed. I have since been corrected; and indeed it is subject to affirmative resolution. It is nice at least to conclude a hard day's work by giving a happy piece of news to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. I am sure this will help him to sleep very much better after his long day.
Lord Ross of Marnock: It means, of course, that we really ought not to take "Clause stand part" because we do not want subsection (4) to be there. It definitely says:
"an order made under subsection (3) above shall be made by statutory instrument"—
that only relates to subsection (3), which is concerned with penalties. But we are now told that the whole thing will be subject to affirmative resolution when it comes back here. It makes a very big difference indeed.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Viscount Davidson: This appears to be a convenient point for adjourning the Committee for this evening. I beg to move that the House be resumed.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at seven minutes before eleven o'clock.

  BRITISH PERSONNEL WORKING OVERSEAS: PAYE
  BRITISH PERSONNEL WORKING OVERSEAS: PAYE
  GIBRALTAR: SPANISH PENSIONERS
  GIBRALTAR: SPANISH PENSIONERS
  LONDON THEATRES: GLC DISPOSAL PROPOSALS
  LONDON THEATRES: GLC DISPOSAL PROPOSALS
  DUICH MOSS: PEAT EXTRACTION
  DUICH MOSS: PEAT EXTRACTION
  MACKEREL: PERMITTED CATCHES
  MACKEREL: PERMITTED CATCHES