Sitting of 10 March 1986

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  ENERGY

    Consumers (Complaints)
    Mr. Nicholas Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Energy what representations he has received about the way in which consumers' complaints will be dealt with following implementation of the provisions of the Gas Bill.
    The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Peter Walker): I have received a number of representations on the subject of gas consumer interests after the privatisation of British Gas, including those from the national and regional gas consumers councils.
    Mr. Baker: Following the implementation of the Gas Bill, will the Gas Users Council be sufficiently independent? Will there be enough voluntary helpers to enable consumers to be seen in their own homes, and will the Gas Users Council have the power to pursue complaints as far as they should be pursued in the interests of consumers?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. In preparing the legislation for privatisation, I was determined to ensure that the good work done previously by the National Gas Consumers Council should be enhanced in future and should in no way deteriorate. We shall have set up an organisation with the power to create regional and local activities and local efforts, which will be far more efficient and effective in future than anything we have seen in the past.
    Mr. O'Brien: I note the Secretary of State's point about the setting up of the consultative gas councils, but what provisions are being made in the event that neither side can resolve a matter, perhaps concerning prices or supply, which has nothing to do with an ombudsman? Who will settle such a problem when there is deadlock on important issues between the British Gas Corporation and the consultative councils?
    Mr. Walker: In the regulated, domestic sector, the director will have the power to fix the price. On other issues, the director will also act as an arbitrator, as specified before. There is a range of complicated issues, all of which are effectively dealt with.

    Energy Efficiency
    Mr. Tony Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Energy what specific action he is taking in the winter to promote energy efficiency measures in the homes of poor households and to secure the necessary investment.
    Mr. Peter Walker: My energy efficiency campaign provides advice for all households on how to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In addition, the Government-funded voluntary sector insulation projects continue to expand very rapidly, and the 90 per cent. grants under the homes insulation scheme are specifically targeted on low-income households.
    Mr. Lloyd: Is the Secretary of State aware of how many of my constituents have approached me this winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes or have had to do without other things in order to heat them? As home insulation is not specifically targeted in Energy Efficiency Year, will the right hon. Gentleman approach the Department of the Environment and urge it to put back the money that has been cut from the home insulation grant scheme and, in fact, to go further and make sure that we have an adequate scheme to prevent people from dying in other severe winters?
    Mr. Walker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will inform his constituents how much better the position is now than it was a few years ago when the Labour Government were in power. This Government introduced the 90 per cent. grant and massively expanded the voluntary movement. The Government's record in this sphere is so much better than that of any previous Government that we are rather proud of it.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate all the officials who last week came to the Upper Waiting Hall to promote Energy Efficiency Year? Does he agree that if all the local authorities took up the relevant packages that have been prepared, all council houses, not just the poor ones, could benefit from energy efficiency? Surely that is the way to be fair to those who, as the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) said, are suffering a little.
    Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. There are currently 200 projects in the voluntary system on which a whole range of Government Departments are collaborating as never before to achieve real action, and 130,000 homes have benefited from that already. We are likely to be doubling that number in the near future.
    Mr. Freeson: The Secretary of State may well give us some grand and eloquent rhetoric on this matter, but is he aware that the Government have cut sharply the budget for the home insulation scheme? Whatever the 90 per cent. grants may be, if the total budget is cut grants are not available to people anyway. Is he further aware that there has been a massive cut not only in the number but in the standards of properties rehabilitated by housing associations? Plug-in fires are now having to be put in instead of decent central heating and insulation.
    Mr. Walker: The rhetoric comes from the right hon. Gentleman, while the action comes from the Government. As a Minister in a previous Administration, he should be ashamed of that Government's record. The £26 million worth of improvement grant this year dwarfs anything that come from the Labour Government.
    Mr. Baldry: Is there not still scope to expand the community programme to carry out loft insulation and draught proofing schemes, particularly for the elderly?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, that is a good sphere of activity. It is labour-intensive and provides jobs for young people and help for old people.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Is not turning off the heat in cold weather the least efficient method of preserving energy? Will the Secretary of State have a word with the Secretary of State for Social Services to make sure that the heat is not turned off?
    Mr. Walker: I am glad to say that, as a result of consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, we are spending £140 million more in real terms than when we took office.
    Mr. Rowlands: After the bluster, will the Secretary of State take note of the fact that the DHSS is considering the abolition of single payments for draught improvements for the elderly and for the poorest households? Would it not make a mockery of Energy Efficiency Year if that were to happen this year? Will he make sure that the Secretary of State for Social Services does not do that?
    Mr. Walker: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would take careful note of what has happened. As he knows, it has been announced that the present single payments will continue for a further two years. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has also made it perfectly clear that whatever changes eventually take place, it is his intention to see that the remarkable momentum that we have achieved continues.

    North Sea Oil
    Mr. Greg Knightasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the extent to which offshore oil recovery technology is being achieved in the United Kingdom as a result of the ninth offshore licensing round.
    The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): Following the ninth round of licensing, there has been a significant advance in the contribution of United Kingdom companies and institutions in areas of high technology offshore.
    Mr. Knight: How much research and development is taking place in the offshore industry? Is that not very much on the increase, and is that not good news for Britain?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am glad to say that the results of the initiative that we took in the ninth round on new technology identified £140 million of ongoing work on research and development in the offshore industry. Further inquiries since that time show that that figure could be as high as £170 million. I am delighted at the way in which the oil companies and the supply industry have responded to the initiative.
    Mr. Kennedy: Since the ninth offshore licensing round, there has been a fall in oil prices. Can the Minister assess the impact of those falling prices on offshore technology and research and the big contracts that come with it? He will appreciate that that is a matter of considerable concern to the highlands and islands of Scotland.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: There is every sign that work is continuing following the ninth round, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the main work is exploration. It is significant that in the first six weeks of this year more exploration wells were drilled offshore than in either of the two previous years, including 1984, which was a record year. The oil industry is maintaining its activity.
    Mrs. McCurley: Will the new offshore licensing round improve the state of the order books for some of our construction companies involved in such work?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am delighted to say that already this year I have approved five new gas and oil fields and two major developments, and there will be a considerable amount of work coming from both those development approvals. Who gets the work will depend on how competitive they are, their price, delivery and reliability; and our British yards have a good record.
    Mr. Rogers: Apart from technological investment, will the Government invest in a gas-gathering scheme to prevent the enormous waste of scarce resources in the North sea? When will the Government put some money into this?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the amount of gas flared offshore since 1979 has been reduced by half. At the same time, oil production has increased by 50 per cent. There has been a considerable improvement in that area. It is significant that many independent schemes have already been initiated by the oil industry, using the industry's own money.
    Mr. Orme: The Minister has not answered the question asked by the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) about oil recovery technology and the fall in oil prices. What effect has that had to date on oil recovery technology?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: There has been no effect at all. The longer-term effect is that more work will be encouraged in those areas. The more that can be done to lower costs and improve efficiency, the more will profitability increase in the face of a lower world oil price. I therefore believe that oil recovery technology will be encouraged.

    Energy Efficiency
    Mr. Sackvilleasked the Secretary of State for Energy what steps his Department has taken since 17 February to promote energy saving by industrial firms.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Hunt): The Energy Efficiency Year campaign has continued to gather momentum. In the last three weeks my Department has contributed to a wide range of seminars and exhibitions, including major events in Manchester, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Wakefield, Cambridge, Sheffield and Cardiff. In addition, demand for the services offered by the Energy Efficiency Office has continued to increase. Overall, the action stimulated by the office so far is leading to savings of at least half a billion pounds a year in industry and commerce.
    Mr. Sackville: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Department's efforts towards achieving energy efficiency, but is he aware that manufacturing companies which invest

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    in anti-pollutant thermal oxydisers, which recover energy from solvents and other fumes emitted from their processes, are forced to pay a tax on all the energy recovered? As that represents a disincentive to the installation of energy-saving equipment, does that not contradict the Department's campaign, and will he make the necessary representations to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
    Mr. Hunt: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern, but I stress that the duty on recycled solvents is very low—0·77p a litre. That figure has been unchanged now for five years. The duty has only a slight effect on the economics of installing thermal oxydisers, and to exempt users of recycled solvents would be unfair to the users of competing fuels. I shall, of course, mention his points to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.
    Mr. Speller: Will my hon. Friend give the House something more concrete than round billions of pounds? Can he give us any idea of what the savings will be for the first full year in terms of percentage of use or actual direct money rather than a nebulous round figure?
    Mr. Hunt: My Department has been delighted at the tremendous upsurge in applications for energy surveys. From survey reports received to date, measures have been identified that will save £160 million a year. That is equivalent to the total energy bill for industry and commerce in Devon and Cornwall.

    Industrial Fatalities
    Mr. Kenneth Carlisleasked the Secretary of State for Energy how many deaths from accidents have occurred in coal mining, in the oil industry in the United Kingdom sector of the North sea, and in the nuclear electricity industry since 1970; and whether he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alastair Goodlad): Between 1970 and 1984 the National Coal Board recorded 746 deaths in its coal mining operations, while there were 116 deaths in the United Kingdom offshore oil and gas industry and 10 in the civil nuclear industry. I shall publish fuller details in the Official Report.
    Mr. Carlisle: In the argument over the nuclear industry, does my hon. Friend agree that one should look at fact rather than at theory? Does he accept that his answer shows that the nuclear industry has the best safety record of the industries to which he referred? Will he confirm that none of the deaths was due to radiation? Does my hon. Friend also agree that the nuclear industry has two further advantages: first, that it does not create acid rain, like the coal and oil industries; and, secondly, that it produces cheaper electricity, which is good for industry and for jobs and is greatly welcomed by those who have to heat their homes by electricity?
    Mr. Goodlad: I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend said about acid rain and cheap electricity. I confirm that none of the deaths in the nuclear industry was related to radiological hazards.
    Mr. Ryman: With respect to deaths in the coal mining industry, is the Minister able to give the number of deaths at Bates colliery during the last three years? Is he aware that there have been frequent breaches of the mining and
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    quarries legislation at that colliery and that that was drawn to the attention of the regional director, who said that he would look into it but that it did not matter very much because the pit was due to be closed soon, in any event, by the National Coal Board?
    Mr. Goodlad: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the figure for which he asks, but I shall look into the matter and write to him.
    Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: I congratulate the nuclear industry on its safety record. However, is my hon. Friend aware of the fact that there is public concern about future developments? In view of that concern, is he able to deny that his Department is bringing undue pressure to bear on Sir Frank Layfield to hurry forward his report on the pressurised water reactor inquiry at Sizewell, and is he able to say when the report might be published?
    Mr. Goodlad: I can certainly give that denial to my hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy has repeatedly made it clear to the inspector that he is anxious to have his report on the Sizewell inquiry as quickly as possible so that timely decisions can be taken about the future of our nuclear programme. He has made available the considerable resources that the inspector thought were necessary, and he remains ready to ensure that any further resources that are required are made available so that an early conclusion can be reached on this inquiry, which is of great importance to the nation. The inspector had earlier said that he hoped to let my right hon. Friend have his main conclusions in the spring. I now expect his report to be somewhat delayed, but my right hon. Friend is currently seeking more precise guidance from him.
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Does my hon. Friend agree that nuclear energy is safe, clean and cheap, whereas to burn coal is dirty, dangerous and expensive? Does he also agree that the inspector's announcement that the Sizewell report is to be delayed is a great disappointment to this House? Is he able to say when Britain might get a nuclear reactor, which is required on economic and social grounds?
    Mr. Goodlad: As I have just said, I cannot give that date to my hon. Friend. I agree that nuclear power is safe, clean and cheap. The National Coal Board also constantly aims to improve safety standards both above and below ground.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Are not the efforts that we are all making to destroy the myths surrounding the nuclear industry being grossly undermined by the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. management, which took the deliberate decision to release 402 kg of uranium into the Irish sea? That was a deliberate decision; it was not even an accident. Does the Minister accept that if the BNFL management insists upon going down the route of ignoring public concern, it is the management, and only the management, that threatens the future of this industry and the 22,500 jobs in west Cumbria that are at stake? Will he tell the BNFL management to raise its standards and to take into account the high level of public concern? We want to protect this industry.
    Mr. Goodlad: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the necessity for the nuclear industry to present the facts—which it does—in a simplified way. I cannot agree with him about the release of uranium into the Irish sea.

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    It was well within the limits authorised by the Department of the Environment. It was assessed by the Department's radiochemicals inspectorate as radiologically minute. The incident is being investigated by the radiochemicals inspectorate in the usual way to ascertain that the discharges were kept as low as could reasonably be achieved and that they presented no hazard to the work force or to the public on either side of the Irish sea. The discharge was no larger than two days' regular discharges of uranium from a phosphoric acid plant, of which there are a number in the United Kingdom.
    Sir Trevor Skeet: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is a total disgrace that the Sizewell inquiry report has again been deferred? Does he recollect that the inquiry has lasted for over two years and that the report has been constantly deferred? My hon. Friend has told us today that only 10 people have died at nuclear power stations. They probably died through construction accidents. Will he now tell the House when he expects Sizewell to be authorised?
    Mr. Goodlad: The timing of the report is a matter for the inspector. I note what my hon. Friend said. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is currently seeking more precise guidance from Sir Frank Layfield.
    Mr. Allen McKay: There is public concern about deaths in any industry, but, in addition, there is great apprehension about what could happen if an incident occurred within the nuclear industry. Does the Minister accept that the industry has not been forthright on that issue and that the same can be said of its position on the disposal of nuclear waste? These are matters of public concern, and questions and answers on them in this place should not constitute red herrings. Is the Minister aware of the need for all concerned to be more forthright?
    Mr. Goodlad: I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. The nuclear industry publishes a large amount of information, as do the agencies that are responsible for its regulation. I wish that some of those who criticise the industry would read the information that it produces.
    Dr. Michael Clark: I am pleased that my hon. Friend agrees that the nuclear industry and the nuclear generation of electricity is safe, clean and cheap. Does he also agree that nuclear generation is a means of providing electricity from assured fuel supplies, especially if we opt for the fast breeder reactor? Will he assure us that positive steps are being taken to secure a commercial fast breeder reactor?
    Mr. Goodlad: My hon. Friend will know that the Atomic Energy Authority has a research programme under way into the fast breeder reactor. That programme continues at a high level.
    Mr. Eadie: I am sure the Minister will agree that the question is directed to the safety records of the energy industries. Does he agree that on the basis of the statistics which he has presented to the House it would be monstrous to suggest that there should be deregulation of the mining industry by erosion of the mines and quarries legislation? Does he also agree that, with the Gas Bill passing through the House, the House must be assured that privatisation will mean safety in the gas industry?
    Mr. Goodlad: The hon. Gentleman will know that the measures contained in the Gas Bill will enhance safety in
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    the gas industry. As for the first part of his supplementary question, the safety records of all three industries are creditable.
    Between 1970 and 1984 the National Coal Board has recorded 746 deaths in its coal mining operations while there were 116 deaths in the United Kingdom offshore oil and gas industry and 10 in the civil nuclear industry. Detailed figures are in the table.
    The figure for coalmining is for the period 1 April 1970 to 31 March 1985 and includes surface as well as underground workers.
    The figure for the United Kingdom offshore oil and gas industry is for the period 1 January 1970 to 31 December 1984 and includes deaths during construction of installations and on helicopters and ships in the vicinity of installations. There were a further eight deaths in 1985.
    The figure for the civil nuclear industry is for the period 1 January 1970 to 31 December 1984. They relate to operators' employees at all nuclear sites operated by the CEGB, SSEB, BNFL and establishments of the UKAEA concerned with nuclear research and development. None of the deaths related to radiological hazards.

    Fatalities in the coal, offshore oil and gas and nuclear electricity industries 1970 to 1984

    Coal

    Civil Nuclear Industry

    Offshore Oil and Gas

    1970–71

    92

    1970

    0

    1970

    1

    1971–72

    58

    1971

    0

    1971

    4

    1972–73

    81

    1972

    0

    1972

    3

    1973–74

    60

    1973

    1

    1973

    3

    1974–75

    56

    1974

    0

    1974

    12

    1975–76

    59

    1975

    1

    1975

    10

    1976–77

    38

    1976

    1

    1976

    17

    1977–78

    48

    1977

    1

    1977

    11

    1978–79

    72

    1978

    1

    1978

    4

    1979–80

    31

    1979

    0

    1979

    10

    1980–81

    39

    1980

    1

    1980

    4

    1981–82

    34

    1981

    1

    1981

    6

    1982–83

    44

    1982

    1

    1982

    12

    1983–84

    22

    1983

    2

    1983

    9

    1984–85

    12

    1984

    0

    1984

    10

    Totals

    746

    10

    116

    Notes
    Figures for the coal industry are on a financial year basis, the figures for the other industries are on a calendar year basis.

    Gas Prices
    Mr. Dubsasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the level of gas prices in the light of the fall in oil prices.
    Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: Gas prices are a matter for the British Gas Corporation, which takes account of relevant factors, including costs and the price of competing fuels.
    Mr. Dubs: Is the Minister aware that many people are puzzled that, with significant cuts in oil prices, there has been no corresponding reduction in the price of gas? The charge that is being made against the Government is that they are seeking deliberately to keep gas prices high to pave the way for privatisation, which shows scant regard for consumer interests.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman should pay attention to two factors. First, British Gas, not the Government, fixes the price of gas. Secondly, it has made no announcement yet about prices in 1986. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that in the interruptible gas sector, which is in direct competition with oil, prices have been reduced in recent weeks.
    Mr. Portillo: May I express the hope to my right hon. Friend that concern for neither gas prices nor oil prices will lead him to instruct a cut in oil production? Will he confirm that such a cut would be damaging to Britain, and will he therefore reject calls which have come from the Opposition Benches for a cut to be made?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: My hon. Friend is right. It would make commercial and technical nonsense of North sea oil production, given conditions in the North sea, if the companies concerned were not left to take their own decisions in the light of their experience. I find it extraordinary that there are calls for a depletion policy, which we hear many times, especially from Liberal Members—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?".] These calls for a depletion policy show extraordinary ignorance of the British offshore industry.
    Mr. Mason: In the light of the fall in oil prices, will the Minister give us his initial assessment of the effects on the coal industry?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: It takes some time for such factors to work their way through. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, oil has to be produced, transported and refined. It is far too early in the new state of prices to come to any conclusion on what the position may be.
    Mr. Watts: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that there are sufficient supplies of gas not already contractually committed to British Gas for producers to have an opportunity to supply the contract market directly, using the enhanced powers under the Gas Bill?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: On our assessment, we are still blessed with gas reserves. Looking forward into the 1990s—in relation to the Sleipner gas deal—I believe that it is for the benefit of Britain that we should be able to meet our needs almost wholly from our own resources and that if there is any gap between supply and demand it will be far smaller than that on offer from overseas.
    Mr. Orme: What information has the Minister had from the gas industry about prices to domestic consumers, following the reduction of prices to industrial consumers as a result of the oil price reduction? When will the domestic consumer benefit?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is a completely different marketing and pricing system for interruptible gas supplies. The price to domestic consumers is up to British Gas, which has not yet announced what it is doing. Under the Gas Bill currently before the House, there will for the first time be a regulator and a maximum price will be fixed which British Gas cannot exceed. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party will welcome that.

    Non-Nuclear Research and Development
    Mr. Spellerasked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the allocation of funds within the 17 per cent. of total expenditure spent on all non-nuclear research and development; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. David Hunt: My Department's expenditure on non-nuclear research and development in 1984–85 was as follows:

    £ million

    Offshore hydrocarbons

    19·5

    Renewable sources of energy

    14·0

    Energy efficiency

    *6·6

    Coal technology

    0·7

    Total:

    40·8

    *Including £5 million on the energy efficiency demonstration scheme.

    Mr. Speller: I thank my hon. Friend for those detailed figures, but I find the accounting somewhat "constructive" when energy efficiency is included in research and development. In future years, will he seek rather more than £700,000 for use in the coal industry where there are so many opportunities for the clean use of coal, to avoid, for example, the acid rain to which he referred earlier?
    Mr. Hunt: On the first point, the figure that I gave related to research and development in energy efficiency. Total expenditure on promoting energy efficiency was £17·5 million in 1984–85. On the second point, the research and development spend by the nationalised energy industries and the Department on topics relating to the clean use of coal is running at about £40 million per year. My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance of that work.
    Mr. Barron: If the nuclear industry, which is currently going through a traumatic period in relation to nuclear waste, fails to provide for needs into the next century, should not the liquefaction and fluidised bed combustion services, which have had money taken from them in the past five years, have more than £700,000 per year pumped into them?
    Mr. Hunt: I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the nature of the figures that I gave. I stressed that the research and development spend on the clean use of coal is now running at £40 million per year, and that work is very important.
    Mr. Hayes: Does my hon. Friend regard with dismay the decision taken this weekend, when the Scottish Labour party conference decided by an overwhelming majority to close nuclear installations and take to coal instead? Does he agree that Mr. Scargill's writ seems to be running north of the border if not to the south?
    Mr. Hunt: My hon. Friend is right to stress that the Labour party should not play politics with an industry responsible for 100,000 jobs.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Will the Minister look again at the budget for renewable energy sources? Will he confirm that we spend on these resources only one third of the amount spent by West Germany and one quarter of the amount spent by Japan, and will he see whether that part of the budget can be expanded?
    Mr. Hunt: I stress that international comparisons do not take account of our favourable position in conventional energy. However, total expenditure to date on renewables is £90 million—nearly 80 per cent. of which has been spent during the term of the present Government.

    Energy Efficiency
    Mr. Pikeasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will meet the chairman of the British Gas Corporation to discuss the efficient use of energy.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I regularly meet the chairman of the British Gas Corporation.
    Mr. Pike: What positive steps do the Government propose to take to force British Gas to promote energy efficiency? Will the Government consider the possibility of making British Gas use some of its profits to promote energy efficiency?
    Mr. Walker: I can only say that I am delighted with the enormous collaboration that I have had from the British gas industry in this sphere. It is organising a whole range of events up and down the country, quite a few of which I have had the privilege of attending.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Does the efficient use of energy include the export of gas, and presumably, in the medium term, the import of gas? Can my right hon. Friend comment on that?
    Mr. Walker: A statement was made last week on the policy for the export and import of gas. I shall send my hon. Friend a copy.

    Energy Efficiency
    Mr. Fatchettasked the Secretary of State for Energy when he intends to place in the Library a copy of the report into the energy efficiency needs of poor households, as requested by the Energy Committee.
    Mr. Peter Walker: It is not Government practice to publish working papers used only as a basis for advice to Ministers.
    Mr. Fatchett: Will the Secretary of State admit that it would be useful to publish those documents, given that any study of energy efficiency among poor households would show that defective building and design are often the cause of much energy loss and large energy bills? Would not the publication of those documents be useful as a prerequisite to interdepartmental action, which is absolutely necessary, and which would go a long way to alleviate the fuel policy that so bedevils our society?
    Mr. Walker: There is no publication of documents. The hon. Gentleman is referring to working papers prepared by certain officials of my Department. No Government—Labour or Conservative—have decided, for a whole range of reasons, to publish those papers. My Department has published a whole range of papers on these issues arising from those working documents.

    Renewable Sources of Energy
    Mr. Hayesasked the Secretary of State for Energy what progress has been made so far in co-ordinating research and development into renewable sources of energy between the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
    Mr. David Hunt: The Government attach great importance to developing collaborative programmes in this area. Following the signing of the United Kingdom-United States bilateral exchange agreement on energy R and D on 24 October, expert workshops have taken place, and the scope for collaborative programmes in biofuels and passive solar design of buildings is being explored in detail.
    Mr. Hayes: Does my hon. Friend agree that passive solar design can make a considerable contribution towards
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    the heating and cooling of various designs of home and industrial plant? Will he ensure that his Department does everything it possibly can to encourage passive solar design?
    Mr. Hunt: I totally agree with my hon. Friend, and I am happy to give him the assurance that he seeks.

    NCB (Enterprise) Ltd. (Sunderland)
    Mr. Boyesasked the Secretary of State for Energy how much money has been invested in the borough of Sunderland by NCB (Enterprise) Ltd.; if he will name the projects; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peter Walker: At the end of February 1986, NCB (Enterprise) Ltd. had invested £227,000 in nine projects in the borough of Sunderland to assist in the creation of 93 new job opportunities. Details of the projects concerned are a commercial matter for the company.
    Mr. Boyes: That is really unsatisfactory: just over £200,000 for a borough with unemployment—even on the Government's figures—of 27 per cent. There are some areas, such as the area of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay), where unemployment is approaching 60 per cent. Is the Minister aware that between 1981 and 1985 the number of those unemployed for more than a year has increased from 36 to 60 per cent. in this area, and that the number of unemployed women has increased from 22 to 37 per cent.? When will he do something serious for the borough of Sunderland, and when will he give a few billion pounds to cope with that level of unemployment?
    Mr. Walker: Well, well, well. The hon. Gentleman seemingly regrets that, in the few months in which NCB (Enterprise) Ltd. has been in being, nine new projects have already begun in the borough. Secondly, I trust that he will do a little bit more to promote activity in the borough to make applications.
    Mr. Fallon: Is not the best investment by the board in the Sunderland area the provision of guaranteed places at pits for all the workers made redundant at Bates and Hordern collieries? Will my right hon. Friend refute the allegation by NACODS at the weekend that those places are not guaranteed?
    Mr. Walker: The allegations made at the weekend are totally wrong. The statement by NACODS that NACODS members at Bates were not being offered an equivalent job at another nearby pit is totally untrue. Almost half the NACODS members at the pit expressed a preference for redundancy and the National Coal Board will have no difficulty in placing the 48 who prefer to be transferred to equivalent jobs.

    Refinery Capacity
    Mr. Rowlandsasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he will make a statement about his Department's estimate of refinery capacity in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Refinery capacity in the United Kingdom at the end of 1985 was 92·8 million tonnes per annum.
    Mr. Rowlands: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 6,600 jobs have been lost in the refining industry and that

    659
    there is a strong instinctive feeling that the British refining capacity is taking the brunt of any European restructuring? Is the restructuring period now over? Will he take a strong line on the possibility of another flood of projects from the middle east, which may further jeopardise jobs in our refining industry?
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern in relation to jobs and indeed in any other area of the United Kingdom where reorganisation of refineries has taken place. It is not true that the United Kingdom has taken the brunt of reorganisation. Over the past five years our capacity has gone down by some 28 per cent., but by contrast it has gone down by 44 per cent. in Germany, and in France by 36 per cent. What we are witnessing in Britain is not isolated. I take his point regarding middle east products. I have discussed this issue and shall continue to discuss it with colleagues in the International Energy Agency.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Anglo-Irish Parliamentary Tier
    Mr. Dubsasked the Lord Privy Seal what recent representations he has received about the establishment of an Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier.
    The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): A number of right hon. and hon. Members have made known to me their interest in the establishment of such a body.
    Mr. Dubs: Is the Leader of the House aware that many people are puzzled at the lack of progress on setting up this Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier, given that it was part of the recent agreement between London and Dublin. I put it bluntly to the Leader of the House—when will the House have an opportunity of debating this?
    Mr. Biffen: There is no immediate prospect of any such debate, as I told the hon. Gentleman when he last raised this matter. It is being proceeded with through the usual channels and that is how it stands.
    Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who support this agreement and regret the absence

    Staff in post at 1 October each year (including part-time empolyees)

    Year

    Speaker's Office

    Clerk's Department

    Serjeant at Arms Department

    Library Department

    Administration Department

    Department of Official Report

    Refreshment Department∗

    1975

    10

    113

    205

    109

    47

    57

    —

    1976

    10

    109

    208

    112

    47

    61

    —

    1977

    10

    111

    197

    110

    50

    58

    —

    1978

    10

    114

    214

    121

    50

    58

    —

    1979

    10

    119

    211

    125

    61

    60

    —

    1980

    10

    136

    212

    133

    71

    71

    235

    1981

    10

    144

    210

    138

    71

    71

    237

    1982

    12

    142

    214

    138

    74

    69

    244

    1983

    14

    139

    216

    152

    80

    71

    246

    1984

    15

    139

    213

    148

    86

    71

    245

    1985

    16

    137

    215

    163

    90

    72

    241

    1986†

    12

    142

    213

    158

    86

    75

    245

    ∗ Prior to 1980 the Refreshment Department was not a Department of the House and records of the numbers of staff employed in this period are incomplete.

    † At 1 March 1986.

    of most of the Unionist Members from this Chamber, nevertheless hope that he will show his customary wisdom and proceed with this matter extremely deliberately?
    Mr. Biffen: I thank my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Freeson: Why has this matter taken so long, whether or not through the usual channels? It is not months, but several years, that Members of this House, including myself, have been asking the right hon. Gentleman and others for action in this direction. If it is now an agreed policy, why is something not being done about it shortly?
    Mr. Biffen: As the right hon. Gentleman will have heard, the matter is being considered through the usual channels.

    Departmental Staff
    Mr. Greenwayasked the Lord Privy Seal what increases there have been in staff employed by each Department of the House since 1975, including the Refreshment Department; what change there has been in the number of meals served each year and in the financial turnover of that Department; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Biffen: With permission, I will arrange for the detailed information requested to be set out in the Official Report.
    Mr. Greenway: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that I have correctly understood the Official Report, which said that hundreds more meals are being served per year but that the Refreshment Department has only one extra member of staff? Is this not a matter of great congratulation to Mr. Smillie and his staff? Who is eating all these extra meals? Can my right hon. Friend also thank the staff for the much higher standard of rice puddings since I last raised the matter?
    Mr. Biffen: I think that this is a classic case of where an hon. Member knows the answer before he puts down the question. I must confirm that my hon. Friend is quite right in saying that there has been a substantial increase in the number of meals that are served by the same number of staff.
    Following is the information:

    Refreshment Department: Financial Turnover

    Financial Year

    Financial Turnover £

    Annual increase £

    ∗1974–75

    452,053

    1975–76

    610,248

    +158,195

    1976–77

    735,572

    +125,324

    1977–78

    745,330

    +9,758

    1978–79

    915,564

    +170,234

    ∗1979–80

    1,041,061

    +125,497

    1980–81

    1,356,906

    +315,845

    1981–82

    1,387,195

    +30,289

    1982–83

    1,628,345

    +241,150

    ∗1983–84

    1,651,930

    +23,585

    1984–85

    2,091,313

    +439,383

    Total increase over period

    +1,639,260

    ∗ General Election Years.

    The estimated number of main meals served in the banqueting rooms, dining rooms and cafeterias for the last three complete financial years are as follows:

    Number

    1982–83

    223,436

    1983–84

    216,859

    1984–85

    251,049

    Information relating to earlier years is no longer available.

    Members Salaries (Deductions)
    Mr. Soleyasked the Lord Privy Seal how many hon. Members have deductions made from their salary by the Fees Office and transferred to their secretarial allowance.
    Mr. Biffen: Twenty, as at 28 February.
    Mr. Soley: Is the Leader of the House very surprised by that high figure? Does he not think that there is a strong case, given the fact that many people have been encouraged here, quite rightly, to use the high technology that is now available, that the research allowances do not allow them to cover for that? When will the right hon. Gentleman do something to put that right?
    Mr. Biffen: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on an ingenious way of putting to me more or less the same question as he tabled to me on this matter some months ago. I have to tell him that the answer, although the question was charmingly different, is depressingly the same. Provision will be made for a review of the secretarial and officers research allowance this summer. The outcome of that review will be a matter for the consideration of the House.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Does not my right hon. Friend's answer not show that just under 4 per cent. of hon. Members cannot cope?
    Mr. Biffen: On the whole, it is my job to be generous rather than ungenerous in my interpretation of such information.

    Running Costs
    Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Lord Privy Seal what was the cost of running the House of Commons in 1985; how it compares with the previous five years; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Biffen: The estimated cost of running the House of Commons in the financial year 1985–86 is £63·2 million.
    With permission, I will arrange for comparable figures for the previous five years to be set out in the Official Report.
    Mr. Bruinvels: I thank my right hon. Friend for that informative answer. Does he agree that it is a matter of great concern that the House is costing more and more to run?
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: How does my hon Friend know?
    Mr. Bruinvels: In 1984–85 the House sat for 1,566 hours—an average of nine hours and six minutes a day. Does my right hon. Friend think that we should finish earlier in the evening—perhaps going back to 10 o'clock? [Hon. Members: "No."] Does he agree that the cost of providing all these taxis—[Interruption.]—for all except those who ask the questions and take part in debates—us, the parliamentarians—is too high and that the only way to reduce it is to finish earlier?
    Mr. Biffen: The average daily hours of sitting have changed very little during the past five years. If my hon. Friend studies class XIII, vote 2, he will discover that easily the largest single component is Members' expenses.
    Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, much as we enjoy hearing frequently from my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels), it would save money if he asked rather fewer questions?
    Mr. Biffen: As both of my hon. Friends are members of the Synod, I can say, "How these Christians love each other."
    Following are the figures:

    Estimated cost of running the House of Commons

    £ million

    1980–81

    34·2

    1981–82

    41·8

    1982–83

    45·0

    1983–84

    50·8

    1984–85

    56·8

    [These figures include expenditure on Members' pay and allowances, stationery and printing supplies, computer services and costs borne on the House of Commons Administration Vote. They do not include the parliamentary works programme of the Property Services Agency, details of which are only available for the Palace of Westminster as a whole.]

    Accommodation
    Mr. Willie W. Hamiltonasked the Lord Privy Seal if he will initiate an inquiry into the use of all accommodation within the Palace of Westminster, and related matters.
    Mr. Biffen: I have no proposals to initiate such an inquiry.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a disproportionate allocation of space between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, bearing in mind the respective workloads? Would he care to visit the Terrace level after 7 pm each night and see how the Dining Rooms are swarming with outsiders? Each of those rooms is booked until the end of 1987, I believe, and a letter has gone out to all hon. Members from the Chairman

    663
    of the appropriate Committee saying that, because of the possible abuse, all bookings have been cancelled and that, in future, deposits will be much increased. Will the right hon. Gentleman examine this great and continuing abuse of facilities in the House?
    Mr. Biffen: As the hon. Gentleman developed his supplementary question, he strayed somewhat wide of the original point. The House might like to know that approximately two thirds of the space available in the Palace of Westminster is available to the House of Commons and that any alteration in the balance between the Commons and the Lords can come about only as a result of joint discussions.
    Mr. Ryman: Is the Leader of the House aware that there are some very strange people—[Laughter.]
    Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: He is right.
    Mr. Ryman:—using the House of Commons Car Park and that it is extremely difficult to park a car because, apart from Conservative Members of Parliament, there is an abundance of research assistants, secretaries and other peculiar people there who are usurping places that are normally reserved for us? Can the right hon. Gentleman ensure that there is sufficient parking space for hon. Members, and not for the various sycophants who hang on?
    Mr. Biffen: Before I answer that point, I wish to tell the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) that I shall look into the second point which he raised and be in touch with him. I shall see that the matter of the proper use of car parking facilities is referred to the relevant section of the Services Committee.
    Mr. Williams: We are grateful to the Leader of the House for the information that he gave about the proportion of resource usage between the Lords and the Commons. Is that allocation kept under constant and active review? If not, might it not be time to initiate a review of the balance of the resources between the two Houses?
    Mr. Biffen: I shall bear that point in mind, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman realises that one cannot undertake that unilaterally. Although he might wish to have the House of Lords sent to Milton Keynes or somewhere suitably distant—occasionally, those sentiments are not confined to him—there is a long historic balance in these matters, and we must consider them carefully. However, I take full account of what the right hon. Gentleman said.

  CIVIL SERVICE

    Dispersal Policy
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement about the Government's current policy with regard to the geographic dispersal of the places of work of the home Civil Service.
    The Minister of State, Privy Council Office and Minister for the Arts (Mr. Richard Luce): The Government's current policy is to complete the dispersal programme announced on 26 July 1979. It is also the Government's policy that, whenever location of new Government work or relocation of existing work is being considered, full account is taken of regional needs.
    Mr. Chapman: With the new technologies in communication and better communication networks, as instanced by the pending completion of the M25, does my hon. Friend agree that today there is a better case and increased prospects for agreement on moving more civil servants out of the congestion and expense of central London? Will he bear that in mind in framing future policies, recognising that today only about 13 per cent. of home civil servants have their place of work in inner London?
    Mr. Luce: I shall bear in mind my hon. Friend's comments. As he implied, four out of five civil servants already work outside London. There is already a disperal programme, which the Government have still to complete. However, the cost of dispersal is substantial, and it sometimes takes up to 10 years to reap the benefits of it. That must also be considered.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Is the Minister aware that his undertaking to keep in mind the needs of the regions when new allocations of Civil Service Departments are being made will be welcomed in Cleveland? Is he aware that the Government's decision not to move the Property Services Agency to Middlesbrough devastated the prospects for the centre of that town, where a site had been prepared for it? Is he further aware that, as Cleveland has the highest level of unemployment of any county in Great Britain, it should come high on the list of areas being given consideration for new Government Departments?
    Mr. Luce: As I have already said, when the Government are considering the relocation of existing work or location of new Government work regional factors are taken into account. Recent evidence of that is that we have decided to move the Data Protection Registrar's office to Wilmslow near Manchester. Indeed, plans are in hand to move the Land Registry office to a region. Therefore, regional factors are definitely taken into account.
    Mr. Hickmet: In looking at regional factors, has my hon. Friend directed the attention of his officials to south Humberside? Is he aware that if unemployment in regions such as south Humberside in my constituency, where we have lost many jobs in the slim-down of the steel industry, is not taken into account, it will be many years before the unemployment problems can be resolved?
    Mr. Luce: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern to see more jobs on south Humberside. Each Government Department is instructed to take regional factors into account when deciding on the relocation of existing work or the allocation of new work, so regional factors are considered.
    Mr. Fallon: Will my hon. Friend confirm that some Departments in London and the south-east have difficulty in recruiting administrative, clerical and secretarial staff? Would it not be cheaper to employ and easier to recruit such staff if more secretarial work was transferred to the regions?
    Mr. Luce: I appreciate that each region has its own factors to take into account in regard to recruitment. It is true that costs are very high in London and that there is a special weighting allowance, but, as I have said, four out of five—80 per cent.—of the Civil Service work outside London.

    Trade Unions
    Mr. Soleyasked the Minister for the Civil Service when he next plans to meet the Civil Service unions to discuss pay, conditions of employment and trade union rights.
    Mr. Luce: Pay and industrial relations are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, I maintain informal contacts with the trade unions on Civil Service matters within my area of responsibility.
    Mr. Soley: When the Minister next meets the unions, will he discuss with them the extensive nature of the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the way it affects them? For example, I understand that, unless clause 47(1) of the Building Societies Bill, which is going through the House, is changed, they could face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Will the Minister consider that clause and the draconian effect that the Official Secrets Act has on the Civil Service?
    Mr. Luce: The specific point which the hon. Gentleman has raised seems to apply to one of the Ministers who are dealing with the Bill. Of course, I shall draw his attention to it. On the broader question, the Government are anxious to impart as much information as is helpful to the pursuit of Government policies.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: Would it not be contrary to the traditions and interests of the public service if a Civil Service union were to set up a political fund in support of one political party?
    Mr. Luce: I agree with my hon. Friend that, in the view of the Government, political funds are needed only if a union proposes to participate in party political activities or to campaign for or against political parties. Therefore, that point has to be considered carefully when unions are considering the future of political funds.
    Mr. Winnick: Will the Minister take the opportunity to congratulate the Inland Revenue Staff Federation on its overwhelming majority in favour of a political fund? When it was decided to have such ballots, can the Minister tell us whether the Cabinet and those like him who are responsible for the Civil Service believed that such a decision would be reached in due course?
    Mr. Luce: I believe that the vast majority of civil servants wish to maintain a neutral Civil Service. It is very important to make that point. Let me make absolutely plain the Government's view that we continue to believe that trade unions need political funds only if they propose to participate in party political activities or to campaign for or against political parties or candidates. At the end of the day, the decision must be for the unions.
    Mr. Latham: Will my hon. Friend discuss with the Institution of Professional Civil Servants the concern of
    666
    scientists who work for the British Geological Survey, and who are my constituents, about the operation of the British Nationality Act 1981 on their service overseas? That is a serious matter which has not been satisfactorily resolved.
    Mr. Luce: I should be happy to pursue the matter if my hon. Friend would give me more details.
    Mr. Haynes: The Minister is fully aware that the Government favour ballots. Why do they not keep their noses out when the Civil Service wants to have a ballot on a political levy? It is time the Minister told the Cabinet to to keep its nose out.
    Mr. Luce: As I have already said in answer to an earlier question, at the end of the day the decision must be for the unions. That was the decision that was taken by the IRSF.
    Mr. Bruinvels: When my hon. Friend meets representatives of the Civil and Public Services Association, will he express to them the feeling of people in Leicester attending Department of Health and Social Security offices, which are CPSA-run, that the staff are more concerned about improving their own conditions and getting more pay rises than about delivering the goods—in other words, paying out to my constituents unemployment and other social security benefits?
    Mr. Luce: I note what my hon. Friend has said. My experience as I travel round the country visiting various Civil Service offices is that the Civil Service is trying to do its utmost to provide a good service to the public. I think the evidence is in that direction. Where there are particular strains—for example, in the social services—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has just announced that he will be prepared to increase staffs marginally to cope with the problems.
    Dr. McDonald: Is the Minister aware that the Inland Revenue Staff Federation achieved a 90 per cent. response to its ballot, despite all the difficulties that the Government tried to place in the way of its conduct? Is he also aware that the 82 per cent. vote in favour of setting up a political fund accords with the legislation and should be welcomed by him? Will he give such a welcome to a clear demonstration of the democratic feelings of the members of that trade union? Is he further aware that there must be a message in the result for the Government? Will he tell us from the Dispatch Box what he thinks that message is?
    Mr. Luce: I have already made it plain that the decision on political funds is for the unions. That is what we said before the ballot was conducted. Of course I noted the decision and the fact that 82 per cent. voted in favour. The point that I and my hon. Friends have stressed is that political funds are needed only in unions that plan to indulge in party political activities. They are not needed for the ordinary activities of trade unions. That point must be stressed again.

Rail Accident (Derbyshire)
3.31 pm
Mr. Peter Snape(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the head-on rail crash of the 18.33 Sheffield to Manchester train at Chinley in Derbyshire on Sunday 9 March?
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): The accident happened at 19.20 yesterday. The 18.33 passenger train from Sheffield to Manchester, consisting of a diesel locomotive and four coaches, was brought to a stand at a red signal at Chinley East junction. Its driver was authorised to pass the signal at danger and did so. The train then crossed over on to the other line, where it collided head-on with two stationary diesel locomotives. I regret to have to tell the House that the driver of the passenger train was killed in the collision. In addition, the driver of the diesel locomotives was injured, together with about 25 passengers. Of the injured, four are still in hospital and I understand that one passenger is in a critical condition. I am sure that the House will join me in sending condolences to the family of the driver and to the injured, with our wishes for their full and speedy recovery.
I have ordered a formal inquiry into the accident. It will be conducted by an inspecting officer of railways. Evidence will be heard in public and the inquiry will open in about two or three weeks' time. There will be a published report. Until the inquiry opens, it would be wrong to speculate further on the cause of the accident.
Mr. Snape: The Opposition join the right hon. Gentleman in expressing their condolences to the family of the driver who was killed in this tragic accident. Without wishing to prejudge the result of the inquiry, may I press the Secretary of State on the fact that the train passed a signal at danger? Did that happen because of signal failure? Are he and the board satisfied with the adequacy of signal maintenance in that area and with the availability of those charged with carrying out signal maintenance, especially at weekends?
Mr. Ridley: It would be better to await the results of the formal inquiry before we discuss whether maintenance was carried out properly and the other matters which the hon. Gentleman raised. However, I can properly tell him that the line was recently equipped with modern colour signalling. What happened will be revealed by the inquiry.
Mr. Robert Adley: Although I sympathise with the driver's family and the four people who are still seriously injured, and although I do not wish to criticise the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) or you, Mr. Speaker, for this private notice question, is it not a strangely inverted tribute to British
668
Rail that we should have a private notice question when one person has been killed? Will my right hon. Friend never fail to remind the British people and the House that 14 people are killed and 196 people seriously injured on the roads every day? That seems to be a matter of no comment or interest to anyone.
Mr. Ridley: It is not for me to comment, Mr. Speaker, on your selection of this private notice question. However, I can confirm that British Rail 's safety record has steadily improved over the years. At the end of last year I was able to write to the chairman and congratulate him on the best safety record of, I believe, all time.
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: Will the Secretary of State note that I and my colleagues on this Bench wish to be associated with the sympathy that has been extended to the relatives of the deceased driver, and to the severely injured? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the inquiry to consider the present reduction in the duplication of tracks? Some of us are concerned about the continuing reduction in the number of tracks that are duplicated, which causes problems up and down the country. I do not know whether that was the problem in this instance, but the general position should be considered.
Mr. Ridley: The causes of the accident should be investigated by the inquiry, and we should not try to prejudge its conclusions. However, I can say that this was a double track line.

Coal Industry
3.35 pm
Mr. Peter Hardy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Does it arise from Question Time?
Mr. Hardy: Yes, Sir.
During Question Time there was, quite coincidentally, no proper opportunity to refer to the recent publicity surrounding the NACODS agreement, from which the colliery review procedure stems. As it was reported at the weekend, that quite deliberate deception seems to have been employed in securing that agreement, will you permit, or encourage, the Minister to give the Department's point of view, and to comment on what steps can be taken to secure the restoration of trust in the miming industry?
Mr. Speaker: We did not reach the hon. Gentleman's question on the Order Paper, but I think that if he had been ingenious enough he might have found an opportunity to get it in during Question Time.

Family Practitioner Services
3.36 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on charges in the NHS family practitioner services from 1 April 1986.
The 1985 public expenditure White Paper included plans to increase spending on the NHS overall by £1 billion in England during 1986–87. Family practitioner services' expenditure continues to increase to meet service pressures, demographic and social changes, and advances in treatment of all kinds, including drugs. The Government have provided for an increase of £250 million in England in 1986–87. All but a small part of this will be met from taxation and national insurance. The remainder will come from increased revenue from charges to patients. The proportion of the cost of the NHS met through charges is expected to fall slightly in 1986–87 to 3–02 per cent.
There will be no change in dental and optical charges. The prescription charge will rise from £2·00 to £2·20. The four-monthly and annual season ticket fees will increase in the same proportion, to £12 and £33·50 respectively.
The existing range of exemptions from charges will continue, including the present exemptions from the prescription charge for those suffering from certain specified conditions.
I am today laying the necessary regulations before the House so that these changes will come into effect at the beginning of April. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be taking the equivalent steps. A note providing full details of the changes is available in the Vote Office.
Mr. Frank Dobson: That appears to be the shortest statement ever made on prescription charges. I can assume only that the principle of least said soonest mended has been applied.
Will the Minister confirm that the increase in prescription charges is more than twice the rate of inflation, and that it is an increase of 1,000 per cent—in other words, an elevenfold increase—since 1979, when the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) told the country, via the front page of the Daily Mail, under the heading, "Twelve Labour Lies":
"We have no intention of increasing or introducing prescription charges."
Can the Minister tell us of any other commodity or service that has witnessed such an increase during that period? If not, why have the Government singled out health for the lowest possible priority? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the BMA's view that the present level of prescription charges deters poorer people who are not exempt from them? When does he intend to announce the outcome of the review of exemptions from prescription charges for those suffering from certain specified conditions, which he has been promising for some time?
We welcome the decision not to increase dental charges again, but does the Minister accept that the dental charges introduced last year are doing severe damage to the dental care of poorer people? Does he accept the British Dental Association's survey, which showed that, not unexpectedly, poorer people are put off most by last year's increase? Does he accept the evidence quoted by the
670
British Dental Association that the new charges introduced last year have increased the cost of routine treatment payable by the patient by no less than 39 per cent.—eight times the rate of inflation?
Does the Minister accept that the Government have abolished the supply of NHS glasses, introduced prohibitive charges for dental treatment and are now deterring many people from getting prescriptions? Will he remind himself that there have been distinguished people in his office of Minister for Health who have made their reputations by caring more about the health of the nation than about being popular with the Treasury?
Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman's description of what has happened is a travesty of the reality. The 10 per cent. increase is exactly in line with the rise in costs of medicines. It is more than the rise in the retail price index because better and often more expensive medicines are being prescribed and patients are benefiting accordingly. I should remind the hon. Gentleman that 75 per cent. of prescriptions are exempt from charges anyway and that 5 per cent. are met by season tickets.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it perfectly clear that no responsible Government could ever promise not to increase prescription charges. The important matter—although I recognise that importance and reality are not matters which concern the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends—is that the exemptions remain.
On the question of certain specified conditions, the hon. Gentleman clearly did not listen to the statement or read the advance copy which was sent to him. The hon. Gentleman seems to be unable to criticise dental charges this year and has had to refer to what happened last year, which perhaps shows the depth and strength of his criticisms.
Mr. Robert McCrindle: Is it not a fact that year after year the same people are subject to exemption? While for the most part that is correct, has the time not arrived when some review of those exemptions might well be undertaken to see whether, for example, the better-off retired who are capable of paying prescription charges should not be exempted, which might lead to a lower increase for the rest of us?
Mr. Hayhoe: As I made clear in my statement, I have no plans to change the existing range of exemptions, which will continue, nor to change the present exemptions from the prescription charge for those suffering from certain specified conditions, but I have noted what my hon. Friend said.
Mr. Gregor MacKenzie: Is the Minister aware that while we heard him specifically relate his monetary charges to England, he made no reference to charges and increases in Scotland? Are we to expect a specific statement about that from the Secretary of State for Scotland on another occasion? I assure the right hon. Gentleman that Scottish Members of Parliament take exception, first, to his acting in this way, and, secondly, to the increases.
Mr. Hayhoe: We are following the precedents which have been established on many occasions for the announcement of such increases. As I said in my statement, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will make arrangements for the necessary regulations to be laid before the House.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: Will my right hon. Friend give thought to the manner in which exemptions and season tickets are publicised? Will he spend a little money on a good graphic designer, because many people are not aware that they are entitled to a season ticket or exemption?
Mr. Hayhoe: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's constructive comments. I reiterate that pensioners, children under 16, expectant and nursing mothers, those in receipt of supplementary benefit or family income supplement, and those on low incomes are entitled to exemptions, and, as I have said, these account for three out of four of prescriptions.
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: Is the Minister aware that his reason for putting up prescription charges by more than double the rate of inflation runs wholly counter to his expressed policy in introducing the restricted list and shows the failure of that policy? Could we not expect to have increases that are lower than the rate of inflation when the Government are supposed to be saving through the restricted list? Does not the Government's method of trying to limit access to much-needed medicines through the size of one's purse, which method they have presumably rejected for dental charges because they have not put them up, show that they accept that increased costs have a deterrent effect on people seeking treatment? Why will the Government not accept the same conclusion on prescriptions?
Mr. Hayhoe: There is no evidence to suggest that there is a deterrent effect. The hon. Gentleman has it wrong about the limited list. It was introduced by my predecessor, who said that he hoped it would bring a saving of £75 million in a full year. I am advised that it is on target to achieve that saving. The increase that I have announced today will bring in about £7 million, about one tenth of the amount that is being saved as a result of the restricted list. When I say saved, I mean saved on the drugs bill, thus making the funds available for patient care in other sectors. Of that there is no doubt.
Mr. David Sumberg: Will my right hon. Friend remind the House that nearly three quarters of all prescriptions are issued free, will he confirm that that will continue, and will he also remind the House that, as a result of the exemptions, the poorest in our community continue to pay no charge for the products that they use?
Mr. Hayhoe: My hon. Friend is right. It is worth underlining that in view of the rather specious opposition that we are getting from Labour and Alliance Members. Three quarters of the population pay no prescription charges, and that means that the poorest within our community are wholly and fully protected by these arrangements.
Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: Will the Minister re-emphasise that it is £2·20 per item, not per prescription, which means that the great majority of people who are not exempt will pay £6·60 for three items on a prescription, and that that will be a considerable hardship for people on low incomes who are above supplementary benefit level? Does he not recognise the danger of that situation, in that people will tend to go to the chemist and prescribe their own medicines, or get them prescribed for them by the chemist?
Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that the majority of people who go to a chemist with more than one item on a prescription will pay in the way that he specified. The majority of people, as I have said on three or four occasions, are exempt—75 per cent. are exempt. I confirm that what he said about the number of items on a prescription is correct.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: My right hon. Friend has referred to people on what he has termed low incomes who are entitled to reimbursement—not to free prescriptions. How do people in this category who are not in receipt of a specific pension recognise themselves as being entitled to reimbursement?
Mr. Hayhoe: There is an NHS leaflet available which gives that information. I shall gladly send a copy to the hon. Gentleman. It is freely available, and I am surprised that he has not seen it.
Mr. Kevin Barron: In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) the Minister said that parts of my hon. Friend's speech were a travesty of the truth. Does the Minister agree that it was a travesty for the then Leader of the official Opposition to make promises to the nation that there would be no increase in prescription charges and then, within seven years, to increase those charges by 1,000 per cent.?
Mr. Hayhoe: The tragedy at the moment is that the Opposition have pledged to remove all the charges, which would amount to about £500 million a year, but they do not say, in this area or in any other, where the extra money is to come from. The Opposition are very quick to say that they will spend money, but they will not say where the resources will come from.
Dr. Michael Clark: Will my right hon. Friend say whether the expected revenue from these higher charges in 1986–87 will be a greater or smaller percentage of the total NHS drug charges than the present charges in the current financial year?
Mr. Hayhoe: There will be a slight reduction, and overall, taking NHS spending as a whole, there is a small reduction in the percentage of the total NHS costs now being met by charges.
Mr. Harry Ewing: Is it not a disgraceful use of figures for the Minister to justify a 10 per cent. increase in prescription charges by saying that the cost of drugs and medicines has risen by 10 per cent , bearing in mind that when the Opposition argue for increased spending on the NHS, the Government use the Treasury inflationary figure of 5 per cent.? The figures put forward by the Minister are not only disgraceful but are an additional tax burden on sickness, for which the people will not readily forgive the Tory Prime Minister and her Government.
Mr. Hayhoe: I reject the hon. Gentleman's emotive comments. I made the comment about the relationship with the rising costs of medicines because that is factually correct. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I regularly supply figures to the House, and particularly to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), based both on the retail price index and on NHS prices and pay.
Mr. Tony Baldry: Did my right hon. Friend see a report last week from the British Medical

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Association, which said that doctors felt that many of the shortfalls in the NHS could be met by cutting out waste in the NHS? Will my right hon. Friend have discussions with the BMA on how essential savings can be made in the durgs bill, not least by cutting out over-prescribing?
Mr. Hayhoe: I am glad to say that one of the first, if not the first, official engagement that I had as Minister for Health was to attend a conference with leading representatives of the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry about prescribing. My information is that, following the introduction of the limited list last year and the great publicity that was given to these matters, more responsible prescribing is now taking place more widely in the NHS.
Dr. Roger Thomas: Is the Minister not using a twin-headed coin? He blames today's rise on the fact that doctors are prescribing more expensive medications, yet the Minister's predecessor made sure that many cheap but effective remedies are not available. For example, simple antacids are now replaced by acid blocking drugs costing ten times as much as the antacids.
Mr. Hayhoe: If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to rerun the arguments about the selective list, he must recognise that the changes were made as a result of decisions taken by a distinguished and authoritative group of medical and pharmaceutical experts. These changes, as I said a moment ago, are achieving a £75 million a year saving in the drugs bill, and these extra resources are being used for patient care in other areas.
Mr. Charles Kennedy: Does the Minister accept that, although the exclusion of dental and optical charges is much needed and very welcome, his defence of increasing prescription charges by twice the rate of the retail price index needs to be further explained? On previous occasions the Minister has refuted my argument by saying at the Dispatch Box that the accurate measure of inflation in the National Health Service is the retail price index, rather than the internal National Health Service rate. However, he has defended this statement by using the internal National Health Service rate of increased drugs charges to justify this increase. Does that indicate a change in Department of Health and Social Security or Treasury policy, and if not, why not?
Mr. Hayhoe: It indicates that either the hon. Gentleman is seeking to misrepresent what I have said, or that he has misunderstood it.
Mr. Richard Hickmet: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition's reaction of outrage is synthetic and bogus, that it is motivated, as usual, by political objectives, that the Government are committed to providing free drugs for pensioners, children, and pregnant women and nursing mothers and that in those circumstances the Government's policy is entirely to be applauded?
Mr. Hayhoe: I think that my hon. Friend has put it in a nutshell.
Mr. David Winnick: Is the Minister for Health aware that there is nothing phoney in the Opposition's condemnation of the 1,000 per cent. increase
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in prescription charges since this Government took office? The Minister always refers to the number of exemptions from prescription charges, but will he confirm that a large number of families, by no means high income earners, are not exempt? Therefore, this further increase in prescription charges is a tax on the sick. The Minister should therefore be thoroughly ashamed of himself for having come to the House to justify yet another increase.
Mr. Hayhoe: I do not accept that argument for one moment. The reality is that the percentage of the total cost of the National Health Service that is being met by charges is within tenths of a percentage point of what it was during the last full year of the previous Labour Government.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Although I regret these increases, which will affect 25 per cent. of sick people, will my right hon. Friend confirm that only 5 per cent. of sick people claim a season ticket? Should not my right hon. Friend encourage all surgeries to make leaflets available to patients informing them of their entitlement? Perhaps Saatchi and Saatchi ought to be used to publicise this fact. If one fell ill, one would be able to apply there and then for a season ticket. That is the way to keep down prices.
Mr. Hayhoe: Of course I am glad to recommend the wider use of season tickets by those who need a steady supply of medicine. However, that does not apply, happily, to a substantial number of our fellow citizens. The increase from £2 to £2·20 that I have announced, together with the widespread exemptions, will not place a heavy additional burden upon those in the community who will have to pay the increased charge.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call the three hon. Members who have been rising, but may I ask them to put brief questions. I call the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours).
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Why should 15 million people have to pay an increase that is twice the rate of inflation? Is there not an irony in the fact that the Minister stood at the Dispatch Box as a Treasury Minister only a year or two years ago and asked for the indexation of capital gains tax and capital transfer tax at a rate that was equal to the rate of inflation? Is it not obvious that, although the Minister wants to secure justice, in his view, for those who are paying taxation on very large incomes and very large tranches of wealth, he does not want equally to protect those who are not in such a privileged position?
Mr. Hayhoe: If I were to take the hon. Gentleman's figure of 15 million people who are to pay, in total, over the year an additional £7 million, it would mean that in fact those people were paying 1p a week more.
Mr. John Ryman: The Minister said, quite wrongly, that there is no evidence that increased prescription charges deter patients from asking for prescriptions. There is an abundance of evidence in northeast England about that. Will the Minister have a word with the chairman of the northern regional health authority? He would show the Minister his annual report, which cites specific examples. Will the Minister also have a look at the enormous profits that are made by pharmaceutical firms from supplying drugs to the National Health Service?
Mr. Hayhoe: I am prepared to consider any evidence on the first issue which the hon. Gentleman gives to me. Secondly, I am glad to have his implicit support for the measures taken by my predecesser, which much reduced the moneys flowing to the pharmaceutical companies. As I think is well known, discussions and negotiations between the Government and the pharmaceutical companies are continuing. I hope that a satisfactory agreement to all concerned will result.
Mr. John Home Robertson: The Minister is claiming much credit for the exempted patients, but will he say a little more about the consequences of the exempted drugs being taken out of the NHS? What does he say to those of my constituents who are still complaining to me that they cannot obtain on the NHS the drugs that they need? I have made representations on this issue to the Minister at the Scottish Office with responsibility for the Health Service, and the results have not been satisfactory.
Mr. Hayhoe: These matters are considered by a highly authoritative specialist and expert committee. It is right and proper that my right hon. Friend and I take the advice of that important and distinguished committee and not seek to double guess it on matters on which its competence is widely understood and recognised.
Mr. Dobson: The Minister sought to justify the 20p increase in prescription charges on the ground that it was in line with the increase in the cost of drugs. Will he confirm that in 1979 patients used to meet 10 per cent. of the drugs bill and that the implementation of the proposition that is before us will mean that they will meet about half of it?
To return to something which I raised earlier and which the Minister appears to have misunderstood, when does he expect to be able to announce the result of the review of the categories of person who suffer from certain specific conditions which are currently exempted? When does he expect that review to be completed?
Finally, when the Daily Mail reported the Prime Minister as having said in 1979,
"We have no intention of increasing prescription charges,"
was the Daily Mail lying, or was the right hon. Lady lying?
Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman referred to certain specified conditions. As I made clear in my statement, this follows a review of all these matters. I would not be making such a statement without having reviewed
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carefully every item in it. I have no plans to change the present exemptions from the prescription charge for those suffering from certain specified conditions. As I have said, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it abundantly clear that no responsible Government could ever promise not to increase prescription charges. The important feature is that the exemptions remain. However the hon. Gentleman seeks to obscure the realities of the present condition, the mere existence of that wide range of exemptions will make his efforts null and void.
Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was not accusing the Prime Minister of lying.
Mr. Dobson: I would not wish to do so, Mr. Speaker, but the right hon. Lady was reported in the Daily Mail as having said—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that allegation.
Mr. Dobson: I shall have to say, Mr. Speaker, that the Daily Mail was lying.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Ordered,
That the draft Child Resistant Packaging (Safety) Regulations 1986 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Local Government Reorganisation (Property etc.) Order 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 148) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Ports (Finance) Act 1985 (Increase of Grants Limit) Order 1986 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]

WELSH AFFAIRS
Ordered,
That the matter of the Roads Programme and the Transport Infra-structure in Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Motion in the name of Mr. John Biffen relating to Privileges may be proceeded with, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or for one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later, and if proceedings thereon have not been disposed of by that hour Mr. Speaker shall put the Question on any Amendment which may have been moved, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any other Amendments selected by him which may then be moved, and on the Main Question or the Main Question, as amended.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd]

Common Agricultural Policy
4.6 pm
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Michael Jopling): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 4963/86 including Addenda 1 to 5, 10174/85, 4075/86, 8480/85, 5098/86, 10492/85, 4130/86 and 4150/86; and supports the Government's intention to seek an agreement on 1986–87 farm support prices and related measures, including a Community Milk Outgoers Scheme, which maintains the process of reform, and, in particular, which tackles the problems of surpluses and costs in the Common Agricultural Policy, which makes the policy more market-orientated and which does not unfairly disadvantage the United Kingdom, taking account of the interests of British agriculture and its associated industries, of consumers and of taxpayers.
I am pleased that this year we are able to have a full day's debate on the farm price proposals. They are important proposals and it is useful to have this debate early in the negotiations so that we can take full account of the views of the House.
I know that there is the disadvantage that the proposals have been available for only a short time, but I hope that this will not cause excessive problems of difficulties.
The background to the Commission's price proposals for 1986–87 is important and I shall remind the House of it. Last year the Commission set in hand a wide-ranging review of the common agricultural policy by issuing a green paper called "Perspectives for the CAP". This looked at the policy in the context of production and markets for commodities and examined wider issues, including some environmental and related matters.
Fundamental to the green paper was the need to get markets into better balance and the wider implications that such a policy would have. During the autumn the Commission issued two memoranda on beef and cereals and finally in December a document setting out its conclusions on this debate. It identified a number of priorities, in particular: first, the need to reduce production of surplus commodities and so alleviate the budgetary burden; secondly, the need to diversify, and to improve quality; thirdly, the need to sustain rural structure and to safeguard the environment; fourthly, the need to contribute to the development of agriculturally based industries and to enable agriculture to advance technically. These are broadly the priorities which we support, but they also included as a priority the need to deal with the income problems of small and family farms, an issue to which I shall be returning later.
At present, the Commission has not made proposals on the structural or environmental issues. These will be important and the Agriculture Commissioner has said that a socio-structural package is being urgently prepared. It is likely to include proposals for early retirement, for taking land out of production, for forestry and for compensating farmers who use environmentally sensitive methods. The Commission sees this as forming an important counterpart to the tough measures proposed on farm prices. The House will wish to note their relevance and I am sure will want to consider them as soon as they are available.
The Commission's farm price proposals issued last month provide the specific measures to implement some of the major ideas emerging from the perspectives exercise. The main features of the proposals are a price freeze for the major commodities and substantial measures affecting intervention and other aspects of support.
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Although the overall effect of the proposals is tough, against the background of massive surpluses and growing budgetary costs they are not a fully appropriate response to the problems we face. In its green paper the Commission stressed the importance of a long-term price policy rigorous enough to have a real effect on production. The proposal for a price freeze falls well short of the needs of the situation. While we strongly support the Commission's determination to have a process of reform, there are important aspects where they have fallen short.
The sector which demands major action urgently is cereals. For this, as in other sectors, price policy needs to be central to the Community's strategy. The simplest way is through the level of the support price itself. This is the way that appeals to me: it gives the clearest signals to farmers and traders—especially if maintained over a number of years; it reduces the cost of support and costs to consumers and it avoids discrimination. But last year Germany refused to agree price cuts and the Commission has chosen to follow another approach this year.
The Commission's proposal is a complex package of measures, some of which fall within its own competence through management committee procedure. The effect is that, while intervention prices for the main grains would be frozen at this season's levels, the overall value of support would be substantially reduced for many producers.
There are three key elements. First, in order to qualify for intervention at the full price, grain would have to meet a tighter quality specification, and tougher discounts would be applied to grain not meeting specification. Secondly, intervention would be available only between December and April rather than throughout the year. Thirdly, a co-responsibility levy would be charged on all grain sold off farms, subject to a rebate on up to 25 tonnes.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the co-responsibility levy, apart from its impracticability, puts in jeopardy any serious introduction or consideration of a set-aside scheme, which is surely a far better, fairer and more practical way to ensure correct production levels?
Mr. Jopling: I agree with a good deal of what my hon. Friend says, although I do not think that it would be impossible for a co-responsibility levy to run side by side with a set-aside scheme, but perhaps I could come to that later in my speech.
The combined effect of the package could be to cut by 10 or 11 per cent. the price paid on delivery into intervention for the lowest quality wheat or barley which is still acceptable.
Mr. Brynmor John: The Commission certainly does not agree with the Minister, as it says in paragraph 18 of document 8480/85:
"set-aside or land diversion is judged to be expensive and difficult to administer."
That shows that the Commission does not favour such a scheme.
Mr. Jopling: We are told that the Commission is currently working on the possibility of a set-aside element in the cereals package for the future.
I am under no illusions about the effect that a series of measures of this kind would have on the arable sector in this country, following all the problems of the 1985

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harvest, but the Council has ignored the problems of the cereals sector for too long and strong measures are called for.
Some of the particular measures proposed by the Commission are, in my view, misconceived. First, any co-responsibility levy is objectionable because of the administrative problems that it raises, because it reduces returns to producers without doing anything to reduce prices to consumers or exporters, and because it weakens the incentive for policy to respond to financial pressure.
In addition, the current proposal is illogical and discriminates fiercely against the United Kingdom. All grain contributes to the surplus, so it is illogical to charge a levy only on sales. Discrimination arises because the proportion of grain sold off our farms is much higher than the Community average, and because our farms are on average much larger. Taken together, those factors mean that about three-quarters of our cereal production would bear the levy, compared with about half for the Community as a whole. We could not accept a co-responsibility levy with those features. Instead of a 3 per cent. co-responsibility levy I shall be arguing that a price cut of 3 per cent. would make better sense. It would avoid the administrative and discriminatory objections to the Commission's proposal, and it would reduce prices to consumers, including the livestock sector.
There is much to commend in other parts of the cereals proposals. The approach on quality standards—that lower quality grain should be supported at a lower price—is right, and I support the proposal to make intervention play a less crucial role in the market by limiting its operation to any part of the marketing year. I also welcome the proposed elimination of a number of costly elements in the regime, such as the high support level for durum wheat.
Mr. John Carlisle: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that, with a fiercer and better quality intervention scheme, other member states would play the same rules as we do? Is he not worried that intervention grain that would not be passed here would be passed in other countries because of their lower standards of quality examination?
Mr. Jopling: I have a good deal of sympathy with that comment. Perhaps I could return to it at a later stage in my speech.
We shall be seeking changes in those elements of quality standards which would artificially distort support levels because they use criteria which have no place in the real market for grain within or outside the Community. That is important, in view of what my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) has said.
The Commission has reiterated its opposition to cereal quotas and I support it in that. It cannot make sense for the United Kingdom to advocate quotas, which would tend to ossify production patterns, when our industry has achieved so much through dynamic change. Quotas are not the soft option that many seem to believe them to be. To be effective, they would need to involve immediate very marked cuts in production or acreage. These would need to be intensified progressively as yields continued to increase. They would be no less painful for many British farmers than action on the level of prices and would reduce their scope to exploit their competitive advantages.
I am open to examining new measures in the cereals sector, but these must be designed to assist the
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implementation of the restrictive price policy that we are seeking. I have taken the initiative in calling for an examination of a Community set-aside system for cereals. Together with price cuts and sensible quality and intervention measures that could provide a worthwhile package enabling the Community to make real progress in tackling the cereals sector.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am glad to hear of the package that my right hon. Friend intends to bring forward, but will he clarify whether the set-aside aspect will be effectively a voluntary buy-out scheme or whether it will be compulsory?
Mr. Jopling: I said at the annual meeting of the National Farmers Union a few weeks ago—perhaps I should have said it again today—that I am thinking in terms of a voluntary scheme which might operate on a Community basis for people to divert to land uses other than cereal production.
Mr. Ralph Howell: Will my right hon. Friend keep an open mind on the set-aside question and consider the advantages of a compulsory scheme which would do away with all the problems, tribunals, and so on that we have experienced in relation to milk?
Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is a contradiction between calling for a reduction in price as well as for a set-aside system? Surely a reduction in price will lead producers to try to increase production so as to maintain their income?
Mr. Jopling: My hon. Friend invites me to keep an open mind. In the face of his continual constructive and helpful thoughts about quotas, set-asides, price arrangements, and so on, one has no option but to have an open mind. In dealing with all my hon. Friend's good ideas, I certainly have an open mind, although I do not see the contradiction to which my hon. Friend refers. But perhaps we could discuss that on a future occasion.
Mr. Edward Leigh: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a compulsory set-aside system would be nonsense and would discriminate against the fertile east midlands because it is much easier to set aside 30 acres in the west country than it is in the east midlands?
Mr. Jopling: I have been around far too long to put my head in that noose. I think that my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) and for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) should get together and sort their act out.
There is a need for a major reappraisal of support policy for beef. That is clearly a part of the Commission's proposals. We must take account of the fact that beef is a cyclical commodity. The regime must support producers through the worst of the cycle, especially when much of the difficulty in the sector has resulted from measures taken to control the milk surplus.
The Commission proposes to freeze the support price. More important, intervention would be increasingly limited between now and December 1987. After that it would be held in reserve, for use only at times of serious market disturbance.
Intevention is not an ideal form of support for beef. Beef loses much of its value once frozen, and costs of storage are high. We support the case for a shift away from intervention, but we need to be clearer what the

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Commission is planning, including the circumstances in which intervention could be reintroduced after December 1987.
On premiums, the Commission proposes immediate replacement of the existing premium schemes, including the beef variable premium scheme, by a single premium. This would comprise two elements: first a basic cattle premium payable on animals over six months of age excluding those on dairy farms; and second, a suckler cow premium, broadly continuing the present arrangements at a slightly enhanced rate of aid.
I am glad to see the continued provision for assistance to the suckler herd. The proposal for the basic premium has, however, a number of unattractive features; in particular, payment would be limited to 50 head in any one herd. Such a restriction would bear heavily on this country, where average head size is greater than elsewhere in the Community. I have already made clear our objections to this in the strongest terms. The basic premium is also open to the criticism that it is payable at a flat rate, irrespective of market circumstances.
Mr. Tony Baldry: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the Commission that, whether one is dealing with the headage of beef herds or taking cereal tonnage off farms, no proposals will work unless they are seen to be fair? They must be fair between Community countries. If they are not seen to be fair they will not work.
Mr. Jopling: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point. It is a point I shall come back to because it is one of our most important approaches at this difficult time.
With regard to beef, no provision has been made for continuing the variable premium. I believe that the variable premium has served producers and consumers well by providing support to the beef market while helping to encourage consumption of the product by keeping prices down. We have always faced fierce opposition to the scheme in Brussels. Doubtless we shall again this year. But I want the House to know that I shall be pressing, during negotiations, for its continuation.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that he gets what he pays for? My right hon. Friend agreed to the increase in milk quota granted to Eire specifically on the condition that the meat variable premium continued. If the beef variable premium does not continue, then the extra production of milk quota must be removed from Eire.
Mr. Jopling: If my hon. Friend looks up the record—
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: He did.
Mr. Jopling:—he will know that I made it clear at the time that, regardless of anything in the 1984 price settlement concerning the beef variable premium, if the opportunity had arisen—it did not—I would have voted against the special arrangements given to the Republic of Ireland, with regard to its extra milk allowance. I made that clear at the time and I can remember explaining to the House and to many audiences around the country, that it was only because the Netherlands Government were alone in supporting our opposition that we did not have the opportunity to block what I have always regarded as a very unfair allowance in the milk sector.
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In the sheepmeat sector, the Commission has proposed a price freeze for 1987 with no changes to the present seasonal scale of guide prices. However, payment of annual premium would be limited to a maximum of 500 ewes per flock, 1,000 in less favoured areas; and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland regions would be merged into a single region for the purposes of the regime. We agree to a price freeze for 1987 and the unchanged seasonal scale. However, the limit on annual premium would discriminate unfairly against British producers, because we generally have larger flocks than producers in other member states. We are also opposed to the merger of the Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland regions since it would work to the disadvantage of Northern Irish producers. Their higher productivity could not be fully reflected in the key economic data which determine annual ewe premiums.
On the basis of discrimination, I come back to the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) a few moments ago. A common theme in the cereals, beef and sheepmeat proposals is the inclusion of elements that discriminate against the United Kingdom. This is the result of the Commission's declared policy of tackling the income problems of small or family farms, often by measures that penalise the larger farmer. This would particularly disadvantage our own industry which has a generally larger-scale structure; our farms, we should remember, are about five times the size of the Community average. The Commission's approach would penalise our industry simply because it has developed a more efficient structure and a larger scale of operation.
Mr. Tony Marlow rose—
Mr. Jopling: The Government cannot accept that it is right to develop the CAP in a direction designed to stifle efficiency and which involves the introduction of a concept which is quite contrary to the philosophy of a common market. We shall be pressing in the negotiations for measures that are fair in agricultural terms between farmers and between member states.
Mr. John Carlisle: Can my right hon. Friend comment on the remarks made this morning by the new president of the National Farmers Union? The president said that the NFU would favour a devaluation of the green pound. Does my right hon. Friend think that that would help the situation?
Mr. Jopling: I will come to that point in a while, if I am allowed to continue.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody rose—
Mr. Marlow rose—
Mr. Jopling: Milk quotas have been with us for two years now. They have cut production, but there is still a gap between supply and demand of about 14 million tonnes, or about 14 per cent. of production. The Community cannot afford such a large imbalance, which last year cost the budget almost £3,500 million. Reduction of the quota level is necessary and the proposed Community milk outgoers scheme offers the chance of a reduction of 3 million tonnes. This will make only a modest dent in the surplus. Price restraint is also needed, and I believe that it will be needed for some considerable time to come.

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The Commission has proposed to freeze the target price for milk; I do not consider that this goes far enough. We need a substantial price cut and I shall argue for a 3 per cent. cut. I regret that the Commission has not proposed any reduction in the co-responsibility levy on milk. I would like the Council to commit itself to abolition of the levy, although for budgetary reasons I recognise that this would have to be over several years.
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend go into any greater detail concerning the milk outgoers scheme and the division between the landlord and tenant? I know that this is left unclear in the Commission's documents. We are all aware that there are some good landlords who do everything and some good tenants who do everything. But there is a large lump in the middle. Could there not be a system of arbitration to decide what is fair?
Mr. Jopling: I regret to tell my hon. Friend, as I have told some of my other hon. Friends who have interrupted, that I shall come to this point in a few minutes.
The Commission has proposed that supplementary levy payments should be made at six-monthly intervals rather than annually, as at present. This could help to ensure that producers throughout the Community remain within quota, but there are practical difficulties. We shall need to seek satisfactory arrangements to cover producers whose seasonal production patterns have changed since 1983. I was pleased to see that the Commission had proposed maintaining the Community quota reserve at its existing level for Northern Ireland.
On the Community outgoers scheme, although there is general agreement that output must be reduced, some member states argue that they should be either wholly or partially exempted from the scheme. I would prefer a scheme which as far as possible depends upon the voluntary surrender of quota by producers, but it is important that there should be a compulsory element in it so that all member states reach the target cut, and none suffers disproportionately. I hope that, in the context of the scheme, we may be able to get flexibility to deal with the differing regional structures in the United Kingdom.
The Commission proposal provides that tenants may take part in the scheme without their landlord's consent. This does not take sufficient account of the landlord's interest in quota. The proposal needs to be amended to allow greater flexibility, so that member states may adopt provisions which reflect their own individual land tenure systems.
Mr. David Maclean: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for giving way to another hon. Member who represents an upland area. With regard to the apportionment of quota between landlord and tenant, does my right hon. Friend agree that, even if it was decided that it was fair that the landlord should get 70 per cent. and the tenant only 30 per cent. in a good lowland area, that would be very unfair on a tenant in an upland area who was probably not getting any super-quota whatsoever?
Mr. Jopling: I had better not be tempted down that path because I am negotiating with the Country Landowners Association and the National Farmers Union. It is a delicate matter and I have noted what my hon. Friend said.
Mrs. Dunwoody: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because this matter is important in my area. Some tenants may have put all their savings into existing holdings and may lose a great deal of money on their capital costs. Can the Minister guarantee that there will be some arbritation to protect their interests?
Mr. Jopling: I assure the hon. Lady that the possible entitlements of the landlord and the tenant have been fully taken into account in our discussions.
For sugar, the Commission has proposed a freeze on prices. Production of sugar within quotas exceeds consumption by 1·4 million tonnes. The cost of providing export refunds is high, and there is an upward trend in yields. I agree with the need for continued price restraint in this sector.
The Commission rightly regards oilseeds as alternatives to cereals. It is important that the relativities in price of cereals and oilseeds should not inhibit the production of oilseeds as an alternative crop. I am concerned about the operational problems of the Commission's proposal for modifying the guarantee threshold system and will give that special attention in the negotiations.
For other commodities, the Commission is proposing a generally stringent policy. There is scope in some instances for tougher measures and I shall press for them where appropriate, and seek a fair balance between commodities.
The Commission has not yet made any proposal to adjust the United Kingdom green pound and monetary compensatory amounts. Given the movement of sterling, it is too early to take a view on whether any changes might later be appropriate.
In presenting its proposals, the Commission estimated that expenditure in 1986 will be 961 million ecu higher than forecast in the budget. Within this, the fall in the United States dollar against the ecu is estimated to increase Community expenditure by about 750 million ecu. The price-fixing proposals themselves are estimated to reduce expenditure by about 400 million ecu in 1986.
The Commission also says that a start should he made on special disposals of intervention stocks on a substantial scale. To help offset this cost, the Commission proposes to make economies and to reduce payments to member states for the financing of intervention operations.
When all the changes are taken into account, the Commission estimates that an extra 790 million ecu would still be required in 1986, and it intends to propose a supplementary budget for this amount. The expenditure provision would then be above the level indicated by the financial guideline.
The Council will have to examine critically the Commission's suggestion that expenditure above the guideline can be justified because of the exceptional circumstances. This is not an issue only for the Agriculture Council—the Finance Council, as the House may know, is considering it today. Furthermore, any proposal for a supplementary budget for agricultural expenditure would have to be considered by the Budget Council.
We shall insist that the scope for economies is fully and rigorously examined. It is certainly too early to conclude that the guidelines will inevitably be breached or that there will have to be a supplementary budget this year.
Mr. John: Does the costing that the right hon. Gentleman is giving take account of the destocking measures to sell off meat, cereals and the rest?
Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman knows that that is a separate matter which the Commission has talked about in its approaches to dealing with the huge stocks.
The serious problems facing European agriculture cannot be escaped, but they are not simply European problems. There has been a worldwide expansion of agricultural production, and traditional importers such as China and India have been reaching self-sufficiency. Traditional exporters, notably the United States, are also having to adjust to the changes. There are major readjustments to be made, and they will place heavy and unwelcome burdens on the farming industry. The Government are determined that the burdens are shared fairly. The European Community must play its full part, always insisting that third countries, not least the United States of America, play theirs. Within the Community there must be a fair balance between member states and between farmers. We shall insist on that in our approach to the price negotiations.
Mr. Nicholas Baker: Every time that we discuss price fixing, my right hon. Friend makes the same sort of remarks about reform and changes in the common agricultural policy, but I begin to get the impression that there is not the same commitment to change among our European friends. Would it be possible for my right hon. Friend to instigate discussions with his European allies about reform of the CAP in the long term, quite separate from discussions of yearly price fixing and premiums?
Mr. Jopling: I referred to that earlier when I mentioned the perspectives exercise and the fact that, in the latter part of 1985, we considered where the Community and the CAP are going. I hope that, as we get more plans for set-aside, for example, we shall progress.
We must not allow agriculture to become entangled in a web of bureaucratic controls. A successful farming industry—and a worthwhile rural economy—depend on the scope for initiative and enterprise being rewarded. Whatever measures are adopted, we shall press for them to leave scope for efficient, hard-working and progressive farmers to develop their businesses and so contribute to a healthy agriculture which is better related to the needs of the market. We shall try to ensure that proper account is taken of the interests of food manufacturers and processors, other associated industries, consumers and taxpayers.
I commend the motion to the House.
4.39 pm
Mr. Brynmor John: As the bundle of documents that we are considering is about 4 or 5 in high, many hon. Members will have smiled wrily when the Minister ended by saying that the Government were determined not to get bogged down in bureaucratic controls.
The right hon. Gentleman was right when he began by saying that the debate has great merit in that we are considering proposals rather than settled terms, so we can state the views of the House. Like the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) I am beginning to suspect that although there are differences between the parties—and I shall outline some of them—the ends sought by the United Kingdom are broadly agreed. I am, however, worried by the fact that although we all solemnly state the
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United Kingdom's position on these occasions, that has absolutely no impact on the other members of the European Economic Community.
Sir Peter Mills: That is not true.
Mr. John: The strength of the debate is also our weakness. Our weakness is that we are debating many months in advance of agreements. From previous experience we have learnt that today's debate may either never proceed further, or, if it proceeds further, will bear no relationship to the final decision, either in figures or philosophy. I suspect that that will be the case for both the price proposals and the common agricultural policy. Many months of debate must still be undertaken and, as we know from last year's experience, decisions will be taken after the most irrational horse-trading. We can only try to set the framework in which the discussions should be approached.
We should not make the mistake, which I detect in the Commission document, of believing that frequent use of strong words will itself remove the weaknesses of which the Commission complains. One cannot huff and puff the CAP away. Every month the desperate necessity for a thorough overhaul of the system, before it collapses under its insatiable demand for more and more money, is becoming clearer.
At present, surplus products cost the CAP 10·5 million ecu, which is an increase of 25 per cent. during the past year. In 1985 we have twice as many cereals in surplus as we had in 1984. The accumulative carry-over to 1992 is stated by the Commission to be 18 million tonnes, but that was controverted by the Home Grown Cereals Authority in its evidence to a House of Lords' Select Committee, which said that it would be about 130 million tonnes.
During the past year the butter surplus has increased by more that 1 million tonnes, and the beef surplus is 742,000 tonnes, plus a further 450,000 tonnes in private stores. That does not include the 400,000 tonnes of beef which were sold under what is called a preference scheme, but which is, in reality, a knock-down sale. The skimmed milk surplus is the only item which has decreased a little. Therefore, surpluses are increasing. The rest of the Community needs to appreciate that the increasing surpluses, which are apparently out of control, are intolerable to the British people, and should be intolerable to the electorates of all EEC countries, even newly joined members.
With regard to the milk outgoers scheme, as the Minister said, despite the imposition of a quota we are undoubtedly still running at about 14 per cent. above consumption. Without any other measures to check that, the figure will rise in 1992 to about 16 per cent., or just over. It is not always appreciated, not least in the House, because we tend to talk about the gigantic cereals sector, that the dairy sector is the most costly of all. For the 1986 budget that item will cost the Community £4·3 billion, which is about 31 per cent. of all guarantee expenditure, compared with 14·5 per cent. for cereals. Export refunds will cost £1·8 billion, and intervention will cost £2·5 billion. The guarantee expenditure on skimmed milk equals that on beef and veal, which shows the size of the problem and the urgent necessity to deal with it.
The Commission hopes to reduce the milk output by 3 million tonnes, or a further 3 per cent., in the next two

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years. Even if it succeeds, it will cut total expenditure in this sector by only one eighth, which is a fairly modest reduction over two years. We must consider the scheme carefully, not least because, as the Minister discovered in his session in the chair at the Agriculture Ministers meeting recently, there is little agreement about what to do, apart from the milk outgoers scheme, which was tepidly received. If we are to follow that road, it is important to secure equality of treatment. Five or six countries claimed special treatment at that meeting.
Mr. Jopling: Six.
Mr. John: The figure is six, if Luxembourg is included. That would be unfair to the United Kingdom and impractical, and would lead to further import penetration of our markets by other EEC countries. It is simply unacceptable for anybody to be unfairly treated or to have special concessions.
There must be a fairer deal for tenants than was secured under the original scheme. I heard what the Minister said, and many of us will have sympathy with him in not wanting deliberately to jump on a mine in the minefield in which he finds himself. The National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association have been negotiating for a considerable time, and appear to be set to negotiate for a further considerable time. It is rumoured that they are sending representatives to Panmunjon to see how the peace talks are going, because the likelihood of agreement is greater there than in the United Kingdom.
I must press the Government to tell the House what their attitude is. It is not good enough to sit back and say, "Others are discussing the matter, which is all too delicate, difficult and painful," because their attitude is the key to the attitude to the milk outgoers scheme as a whole.
Before we can wholeheartedly commend the outgoers scheme, we need to know the consequences of the successful implementation of the policy. The Dairy Trade Federation has calculated that a 3 per cent. cut in price would involve the disappearance of 1,500 dairy farms and dairy farmers, who will be specially compensated under the outgoers scheme, together with 1,500 farm workers and 500 dairy employees who will not be specially compensated for the effect on them. We already know from the experience in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas), where 400 people recently lost their jobs because of the decision to close the Johnstown creamery, that it will not be acceptable for a future agreement to ignore the legitimate demands of those equally deserving refugees from the dairy disaster.
The price proposals, too, must be judged on two criteria. The first is the effect upon the rampant overproduction in various sectors. In cereals, the broad neutrality of the proposals is accompanied by the co-responsibility levy. Since 1978 cereal production has increased in this country at an annual rate of 2 to 3 per cent. At Question Time last Thursday the Minister of State got into one of his choleric states about the effect that the weather could have on the crop. The retort is that the period since 1978 has covered good and bad years. The wretched 1985 summer yielded the second highest cereal harvest of all time; the quality of that harvest was not good, but scientific advances have insured the volume against bad weather now and in the future. Therefore we
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cannot rely, as the Minister of State tried to do at Question Time on Thursday, upon the weather to help cure the problem from time to time.
Mr. Nicholas Baker: On the question of the allocation of milk quota between landlord and tenant, I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman saying that the Government should decide, but he failed to give us his view. Does he agree that in the allocation of quota between landlord and tenant weight should be given to the amount of investment by each?
Mr. John: The prima facie case from which we start is the proposal of the Commission that no landlord consent should be necessary and that there should be no compensation for the landlord unless it is proved that he has contributed to the build-up of the dairy enterprise. The person who was hardest done by in the last milk outgoers scheme was the tenant. I am determined that the balance should be redressed. I apologise for having omitted that. It was not through unwillingness to state my position, but merely because I overlooked it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising it.
To go back to cereals, I was saying that we cannot rely upon the weather to level the fluctations. Because of scientific advances, cereal harvests will increase in volume year in year out. Is price to be the answer? Clearly the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister of State think so. The size of price cut which various people estimate will lead to a cut in production differs. The Commission believes that a 20 per cent. price reduction will reduce output. A special paper commissioned for Agra Europe by a Commission researcher suggested that a 33 per cent cut in cereal prices is correct. Some people suggest a cut of up to 50 per cent. I think the right hon. Gentleman would not dissent from the view that even if prices were to stand still that would not dissuade people from producing cereals.
Going back to the central point, I fear that we are getting into shorthand when people shout, "Set aside the land," at every opportunity. Certainly land must be taken out of cereal production. That is the only way to control it. Over-production will not be controlled by price alone. Equally, if the farming industry is to have a reasonable future, it is not enough to say, "Set aside the land." The Government must indicate another purpose for which the land can be used. That is why I referred to farm woodlands and protein crops in a recent debate on rural areas.
The Government and the Opposition should indicate to farmers what they should move into. It would be easy for farmers to go out of cereal production and into another regime where over-production was repeated, with the build-up of more surpluses. We must tell farmers what they should turn their efforts to for the best agricultural advantage of themselves and the country.
The second test of the price proposals is that they should be non-discriminatory. The co-responsibility levy is not so much wrong as a pointless food tax. That is its real purpose. If it were to fulfil its original purpose it would have to be 6 per cent. to make the regime self-financing. We now have a halfway house with it being a tax on food without contributing towards any strategic decision by the Commission. With the first 25-tonne exemption, it seems to be targeted directly against the United Kingdom with its differing farm sizes. Because of farm size, we, who are growing 16 per cent. of EEC cereals, will pay 26 per cent.

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of the levy, according to the NFU estimate. On the other hand, West Germany, which is growing 18 per cent. of the cereals, will pay only 11 per cent. of the levy. That is directly discriminatory. It is to be abhorred and must be opposed.
Nor is discrimination against the United Kingdom a feature only of the cereal sector. The single premium system for beef is highly discriminatory against the United kingdom, as will be the new premium proposals. I shall return to the point, but it seems to me and to some other hon. Members, not least I think the hon. Member for Dorset, North, that United Kingdom farm structures are becoming increasingly difficult to combine with the small, often part-time, homesteads of the rest of Europe.
I am disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to the stock disposal scheme, because I understand that it is covered in the documents. It cannot be taken as a serious contribution to the surplus problem. Mr. Peter Pooley, addressing the Oxford conference, said that it was a temporary and modest contribution only. Even if the new scheme is more sophisticated than the brainless Gadaffi butter scheme that we heard about recently, there is no guarantee that surpluses will not continue to pile up. After all, 400,000 tonnes of beef were disposed of by special measures last year, yet public stocks still rose by 70,000 tonnes. With private stocks that took the surplus to well over 1 million tonnes of beef. Despite all the measures that we have taken to get rid of butter on the most favourable and ludicrous terms, the surplus has still increased by 150,000 tonnes.
Some people feel that the only thing wrong with the common agricultural policy is the lack of proper marketing, but the encouragement of unlimited production is creating surpluses which neither consumption nor marketing can remove. It is worth reminding ourselves just how great is our over-production. We produce 361 per cent. of our needs of whole milk powder, 169 per cent. of concentrated milk and 142 per cent. of skimmed milk powder. I have a long list of products where we produce about 100 per cent. of our needs. The number of items in which we are still deficient in production is small. To summarise, the system is out of control, and this fact is crucial in this year's negotiations.
The Minister quoted some figures. In the Financial Times last week he will have seen that the extra cost of this year's budget over the draft budget will be £1 billion, or 1·5 billion ecu. Even if all the price proposals are realised this year, they will yield savings of just more than one quarter of that extra sum. In 1987, the savings, which are put at 786 million ecu, will be cut to just more than 250 million ecu because of the beef and veal measures.
Those savings will not induce any volume cuts. They are merely tinkering with the problem, while an attack on its root cause is deferred for another couple of years, which will mean the proliferation of other problems.
Mr. John Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman talks about cereal over-production and surpluses, and he also mentioned a surplus in skimmed milk powder. Will he reflect on the fact that we buy some commodities, such as cereal substitutes, from Third world countries? If we were to cut those imports, we could produce more in Britain. What would be the Labour party's attitude to a substantial
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cut in the imports of cereal substitutes from the Third world? Would the Labour party support a reduction in those supplies?
Mr. John: We have a duty to deal properly with the agricultural production of the Third world, and I do not believe that we could effect substantial savings on some of the commodities that we import from the Third world—[Interruption.] I said that we could not save on some of them. I wish that hon. Members would listen. Listening and talking at the same time is difficult, but they must make the effort. We have a moral and economic duty to help to support economies in the Third world, and I make no apology for saying that. We could equally cut the importation of protein crop substitutes from the United States. As the Minister will know from his recent trip to Washington, there are not the friendliest of relations between the agricultural regime of the United States Government and that of the European Community. The United States concedes that it does not owe us any favours, so we do not owe it any favours. I would prefer such an import-saving measure in a set-aside policy.
Sir John Farr: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. John: I must complete this point first. I cannot answer another intervention before I have answered the first.
I was talking about the imperative necessity to remove the surpluses that are being created by the common agricultural policy.
Sir John Farr: What is the Labour party's attitude to the importation of New Zealand dairy and sheepmeat products? Does it favour continuing the arrangements?
Mr. John: The arrangements with New Zealand have been negotiated properly, and their amendment is not desirable, necessary or justified. I hope that even the hon. Gentleman will understand that clearly. If some Conservative Members believe that imports from New Zealand should be reduced, it is time that they said so. For a long time they have got away with their snide anti-New Zealand lobby, which never reaches the point of saying, "We do not want your products in Britain." It is time that the Government and the Conservative party said whether they favour the exclusion of products imported from New Zealand.
The present price proposals will do nothing to cut production to an acceptable level and will do little to save the runaway EEC budget. But even that remark may be too generous, because it assumes that the Commission's proposals will be adopted in full. However, we know from our experience last year that there will be a substantial difference between the present proposals and what is finally agreed by the Agriculture Ministers. Last year, Herr Kiechle was the villain. This year, Mr. Austin Deasy has been set up by Agra Europe as the villain of the piece. But we know that even those modest proposals will be savaged by the Council of Ministers in the following months of negotiations. Anyone who reads Agra Europe for 28 February will see that not one proposal from Ministers does not attract objections from one or more countries. Therefore, we must ask, especially when alluding to the document on the reform of the CAP, what policy we are discussing and what common agriculture there is in the Community.

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Within the Ten, the percentage of the labour force employed in agriculture varies from 2·6 per cent. in the United Kingdom, which is the smallest, to 30 per cent. in Greece, which is the highest. Average farm sizes reverse the position. In Greece the average farm size is 4·3 hectares; in the United Kingdom it is 68·7 hectares. German farms are a quarter the size of those in Britain, and no other country in the Twelve has an average farm size that is even half that in Britain. That is the essential difference between the rest of the EEC and the United Kingdom.
From time to time we should set aside percentages and mechanics and examine how much we have in common in this common agricultural policy. In the Ten, part-time farming accounts for about 60 per cent. of the input, whereas Britain looks much more towards full-time employment. Paragraph 9 of the explanatory memorandum to document 8480/85 says that there is,
"enormous regional variety in the agricultural sector",
with Spain and Portugal bringing in larger sectors and lower efficiency. Despite that, the CAP insists upon a maximalist system of intervention and a maximalist policy in which target prices are adopted for every commodity ranging from soya to silk worms.
The House must consider whether so integrated a system can work or will work in the Community of Twelve. I believe that it cannot work. Even though agreement to take account of the self-evident surpluses in pricing is nearly impossible now, with the enlargement to 12 it will become completely impossible. Yet the EEC clings to this detailed regime.
It is interesting to ask why the EEC does so. First, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it is honestly confused, in that it believes that laudable social objectives, such as the maintenance of rural areas and the environment, are properly a charge on the agriculture budget. Paragraph 8 of the explanatory memorandum shows that our subsidies amount to about 20 per cent. of the value of total production. It states that the expenditure is justified on social grounds and
"because of the positive role agriculture can play in protecting the environment."
But social interests are not being protected by commodity subsidies. Nor do they protect rural areas. Since we pay separately for things such as environmentally sensitive areas to maintain the environment, by paying extra through the farming budget and surpluses, we are accounting twice for the same commodity. We believe that there should be separate payment for the environmentally sensitive areas and for all other environmental needs. But that means that there is no justification for the present detailed CAP.
The second reason given is the real reason why quotas are rejected. Stripped of all the EEC verbiage, it is clear that so detailed a regime exists, that quotas are ruled out and that we are having to undertake the labour of Sisyphus, in trying to limit production through prices, even though we know that the chances of success are so small as to be negligible, because of the spectre, as perceived in paragraph 13, of the renationalisation of agriculture.
We should at least be considering whether we should reorganise the CAP, so that it concerns itself with the major elements, while leaving their detailed implementation more in the hands of member states. I believe that the West German Government are challenging the EEC over national aids. We, too, should be considering the change
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in attitude that is now apparent. The time has come for the EEC to consider setting overall production targets, which I believe should be set at the level of consumption or with just a small margin. It should consider dividing them into national quotas. That would be difficult, but it should then be left to the countries themselves to carry out detailed implementation in the light of circumstances.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: What the hon. Gentleman says has much attraction, but in setting national quotas is the EEC to have regard to historical production or to the country in which the most efficient production of any quantity can be arrived at?
Mr. John: That is an interesting point. I concede that quotas have the disadvantage of appearing to ossify the problem. However, when mention was made of the fertile east midlands there was an immediate reaction about the west country. Consequently, we will never be able to say that we will strip everything in favour of the most efficient areas. National considerations will have to play a part.
Although some sort of compromise is always inherent in national quotas, we would at least then be free to implement the detailed policy that would best suit our farming sector. We could each choose how much to spend on the social factors necessary for the support of rural areas and how the money is spent. At present we seem to fall between all stools. That is a minimalist position compared to the present.
We live in an era in which there will be international retaliation, but the threat of art international trade war only heightens the need for the EEC to put its CAP in order once and for all. If we put off doing that from year to year, saying that we should leave it to the next price review, or that such interesting ideas cannot be followed up this year, it will serve only to further speculation and to fuel our debates.
We live in a part of the world in which the taxpayer can no longer bear the burden of this oppressive agricultural regime. We live in an era of surpluses. Most of us were reared in an era of shortages. I pay tribute to the farming community for transforming the situation, but both we and the farming community must live with the reality. That is why I believe that a much more radical look at how the CAP is geared is necessary—and necessary now.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. I am sure that brief speeches will be appreciated. Sir Peter Mills.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
5.15 pm
Sir Peter Mills: I thank hon. Members. I feel very much like making my maiden speech again, but I certainly shall not do so.
In pondering these proposals we should all realise that these are crucial times for British agriculture and for all those who service that great industry. Dramatic changes are taking place. Food consumption patterns are changing and certainly do not help our current difficulties. There has been a 50 per cent. drop in butter consumption over 10 years, a 24·6 per cent. drop ir beef production and a 22 per cent. drop in the consumption of eggs.
Food production is still increasing. Every year there is a natural increase of 2 to 3 per cent. New varieties, new

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strains and new techniques are to be found, together with farmers who are prepared to use them to obtain better results. We also have the growing problem of food surpluses. Surpluses are increasing all the time, and, as has been said, every country, other than in the drought areas, is producing surpluses. Consequently, dramatic changes have taken place in the past few years. That all adds up to enormous difficulties for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and for his colleagues in Europe.
Without being rude to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John), hon. Members, members of the NFU and those, such as the press, who are listening to the debate will not have gleaned much from his speech. His speech was pretty barren. We need to know exactly what the Opposition intend to do so that we can judge their plans, but his was a pretty barren effort.
Mrs. Dunwoody: Nonsense. It was marvellous.
Mr. John: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the worst fate would be a draw between what Conservative Members know of the Opposition's views and what they know of the Government's views? After all, for the past year they have been screaming about that very point, as the hon. Gentleman—if he has ears as well as a tongue—would have heard.
Sir Peter Mills: That does not alter the position. Many hon. Members came to the House to find out exactly what contribution the Opposition would make to solving this difficult problem. The answer is, not very much. Incidentally I notice that the anti-marketeers are not here in force today. They seem to have run away. They always seek to cut and curb the cost of agriculture and its support. I agree with that, but they never put forward any policies designed to alleviate the situation. I hope that the hon. Member for Pontypridd is listening, just as he wanted me to listen to him.
Mr. John: I am.
Sir Peter Mills: If British agriculture continues to decline, the knock-on effect could be serious in our rural areas, not only for farmers, but for merchants, engineers, accountants and so on. In its excellent brief to us, the NFU rightly says:
"The Commission's farm price proposals for 1986–87 present a very serious threat to British agriculture and rural areas."
The same goes for those who are anti the Community, in that they never give us a clue as to how we can stop that knock-on effect.
Mrs. Dunwoody: I shall be brief. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that for many years the Labour party has made it clear that if it is to support farm incomes, there must be clear evidence that things are done far more directly than can possibly be achieved under the CAP? Even the Conservative party must accept that we now see only a decline in farm incomes, without any benefit to the consumer. We have the worst of all worlds, after years of Conservative Ministers.
Sir Peter Mills: I regret that the hon. Lady has got it wrong. One of the best things that has happened to the consumer has been the small rise in the price of food over many years. That is a fact.
One of the problems with British agriculture is simply that it has been too successful. If other industries had even
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attempted to get anywhere near the success of British agriculture we would not be in the mess that we are in in some areas today. The Community's proposals discriminate against British agriculture. I applaud and support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's stand in Brussels. The Commission must be told that the proposals are just not good enough and we are not prepared to accept them.
I have real doubts about the outgoers scheme, unless it is fairly administered throughout the Community. I have a feeling that we are the ones who will carry it out while others will not. I am not prepared to put up with that. The result would be extremely serious for the manufacturing side. A 3 per cent. cut would be a 6 per cent. loss of manufacturing milk, more unemployed workers in our dairy factories, and more imports sucked in from the Community. Unless the outgoers scheme is watertight it cannot go forward.
An important point arises on the Irish situation. We cannot weaken one little bit on that. The Irish are already getting away with it. They have enjoyed the variable beef premium since the days of a previous Socialist Prime Minister. For every tonne of beef that comes into Britain, the Irish receive the variable premium. They have got away with it on milk and we should take a tough stand on this matter.
New Zealand should be assisted, but it should stick by the agreement. All sorts of disturbing things are going on. Irish butter is being added to New Zealand butter, packed in Britain and then supplied. That gets around the system and it should stop.
I am glad that there is a freeze on the sugar beet proposals, but I must tell my right hon. Friend—at least I know that he listens to me—that British Sugar must not be kicked around like a football. I am not a bit interested in the Italians buying the company. British Sugar should remain a British company, with all that it does for the factory workers and British agriculture.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Does my hon. Friend see any more reason why New Zealand dairy imports should count against Britain's assumed production than that France should bear the whole burden of wine imports from Algeria and Tunisia?
Sir Peter Mills: My hon. Friend, and my Member of Parliament, is right. Indeed, I would go a stage further. If there is to be a 3 per cent. or 6 per cent. cut in manufacturing milk in Britain, the New Zealanders should bear the same cut.
We should congratulate the Milk Marketing Board on the way in which it has administered the quota system despite all the difficulties. I hope that we shall have no more nonsense from Europe about disbanding the Milk Marketing Board.
Much could be done on beef and beef surpluses. Our meat plants are in extreme difficulty. The margins are small. Exports are extremely difficult to carry out. The clawback and the various other measures which prevent Britain exporting surplus meat are unfair. Something should be done. Devaluation of the green pound would help.
The Commission's proposals for lamb breach the principle of the EEC meat regime.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Is my hon. Friend aware that the new beef premium restricts the premium to the first

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50 beasts? It is discriminatory not only against the United Kingdom's beef producers but against dairy producers. Why should they not be allowed the premium?
Sir Peter Mills: Absolutely. I do not wish to criticise my right hon. Friend, but the hon. Member for Pontyridd did not pick that up. That is one of the most damaging things that could happen. Small farmers who produce milk and, as they have been encouraged to do, produce some beef to augment their incomes would be stopped from doing so by the proposals, so my hon. Friend is right.
We do not want lamb quotas and we want the clawback abolished. That is wrong. I support the NFU 100 per cent. in its desire to get that put right through the courts.
British agriculture needs time to adjust and to adapt to the new situation. Time and encouragement must be given rather than the constant criticism that we hear. My right hon. Friend has a tough assignment in Europe this time—probably the most difficult of all the assignments that Ministers have had. I wish him every support in what he is trying to do.
5.26 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan: Today's debate takes place against an extremely sombre background for British farming. In a debate on 26 January, initiated by my hon. Friends in the Liberal and Social Democratic parties, we spelt out in some detail the appalling decline in agricultural incomes; the heavy indebtedness to the banks; and the collapse of almost 24 per cent. in fixed capital investment over the past year according to the Government's White Paper. Therefore, it will not be necessary in this debate for me to go into those matters at quite such length. The background has been well set out already.
It is exceedingly disappointing that the Minister of Agriculture did not address himself to the predicament of British farming in what is, I think by consent, the most important agricultural debate of the year. He devoted a great deal of attention to the black cloud hanging over the deliberations of the Finance Ministers today; the additional burden on the European budget flowing in part from the decline in the value of the dollar; the additional 1·5 million ecu to be found; and the prospect of the Community's budget ceiling being breached and even possibly knocking against the Community's VAT limit.
All those matters are vital, and it will be possible to judge the effectiveness of the Commission's proposal's and the Government's response to them by determining the extent to which their response deals with those macroeconomic problems. The debate will have failed if it does not bring home to the Minister, as apparently has not happened so far, the deep concern of British farmers about the absence of a strategy for British farming these many years after we have entered the EC.
The Minister's response to the Commission's proposals suggests that he has failed to recognise just how serious is that drop in incomes, not only for farmers directly but for those who supply them—the contractors the distributors and the rural economy in general. It will have been noted throughout the industry that he said that he considered that the European Commission's proposals were not fully appropriate to the problem that we face, because the price freeze falls well short of what is required. It would be interesting to know by how much he would have liked institutional prices to be cut to meet what
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he considers is required. Others chided the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) for not being precise in these matters, but the higher duty rests on the Government, as they are responsible not only for the budgetary concerns of the Chancellor of the Exchequer but for the farming industry as a whole.
Mr. Baldry rose—
Mr. Maclennan: I shall not give way because Mr. Deputy Speaker has invited hon. Members to be brief. I should like to give way, but time is pressing. If I do not deal with all the issues that have to be covered by the alliance parties, I shall be accused of having left out something of great importance. However, I shall give way on this one occasion.
Mr. Baldry: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that, to protect British farming, there must be a credible common agricultural policy, which means that we have to tackle circumstances? That is why it is important to deal with issues, such as overspending in the budget, which are at the core of the future of the British farmer?
Mr. Maclennan: It was not necessary to give way to agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman has said. However, I do not believe that what the Minister has outlined as the Commission's proposals, or the Government's response to them, would deal adequately with those problems.
In the earlier debate, I spelt out the view of the two alliance parties—that the proper approach to the particular problem of cereal surpluses is to limit the eligibility for support in quantitative terms to those in the industry. This system, if linked to the efficient family farm, could ensure equity and proper incomes for those in agriculture. That, not a straightforward set-aside scheme, to which the Minister appears to be increasingly attracted, is the proper proposal in principle.
Another issue of importance—on which again the Minister did not touch adequately—is the green pound and the growing spread of monetary compensatory amounts within the Community. The time has come for this country to enter the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system to ensure a fair relationship between the prices obtained by our farmers and those in other countries. That is a subordinate argument to the wider argument in favour of Britain's full entry into the EMS, but the Minister must recognise, even in his narrow, departmental job, that the time has come to advocate entry into the EMS.
I now turn to the particular price proposals and the Government's reply to them. It is proposed that there should be a price freeze on cereals, which represents a cut of 5 per cent. in real terms. The Minister has called for a further cut of 3 per cent. That is grossly unfair to our cereal producers, when one bears in mind the other proposed measures, including tighter quality standards, which might have the effect of reducing price support by between 2 and 10 per cent., the proposal to reduce monthly increments and the undoubted effect on prices of reduced access to intervention.
The Minister supported the curtailment of the period of intervention from 1 December to 30 April. I understand that there are good reasons for limiting intervention costs and for seeking to induce fanners to bear a heavier part of the storage costs, but all these factors add up to a rather

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savage attack on support price levels. It amounts to a cut of about 15 per cent. in producer prices for cereals. I do not know whether that will stick, but it is an objective that is too great to be desirable in one marketing year. I agree with the objective of reducing cereal prices, but this should be spread over several years. This change is unrealistically large, and will not be obtained in the price fixing. I would approach it not in this global fashion, but by means of introducing limits to the right to support which would be geared to the efficient family producer but not to the large producer.
Mr. Jim Spicer rose—
Mr. Maclennan: I shall not give way.
The second point about the unfairness of the Commission's proposals and the Government's response is that the 1986 cereal crop has largely been planted already, and it is wrong to seek a change in quality standards at such a late stage of the growing year.
My third point is that if we accept a substantial reduction in the price of cereals—I have acknowledged that we must do so over a period of time—it is reasonable to look for help in diversifying into other crops. There is nothing of that in the Commission's proposals. However, there is a case for some action on controlling cereal imports and substitutes, and in particular manioc. There is a case for extending this to Third-world countries. There is no question about that. It requires to be done, because it does not assist the Third world to have the budget of the Community knocked sideways, as it has been, by the institutional arrangements operating to help the cereals regime.
The mooted proposals for the co-responsibility levy are extremely retrograde and ill-advised. The Minister was right to emphasise the discriminatory nature of those proposals, and I am glad that he has at least latched on to that. However, we should have learnt from history. The introduction of the co-responsibility levy for milk has done nothing to deal with the problem of surplus milk disposal, which went on for about seven years before the Government were dragged, kicking and screaming, into the quota scheme. The Minister should be ahead of the game, not running along on the coat tails of other countries in this matter. He should resist the introduction of the co-responsibility levy, not only because it discriminates against this country but because it is an ineffective method to deal with the problem of cereal surpluses.
There is a severe income problem for beef producers. The proposed modification of the support regime over the next two years, which will substitute for market price support a system of compensatory headage payments, is not acceptable as it stands. The amount proposed for the single premium payment of 20 ecu per head is far too low, and it will not offset the loss in income from the removal of market support.
The Minister rightly emphasised the discriminatory nature of the proposals—that the premium should be restricted to the first 50 cattle on non-dairy holdings. It will be a failure, which could be serious for the industry, if he does not manage to eliminate that proposal at least from the final settlement. Beef producers are certain to be under considerable additional pressure if the Community's milk
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outgoers scheme is introduced. Now is the wrong time to be exerting downward pressure on beef producers' income in that way.
I draw to the Minister's attention the fact that at the Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the European Community presidium recently, only Denmark was opposed to an extended use of the variable premium for which the Minister has battled for this country in the past. It would be right to look to that mode of support for the beef industry. I hope that the Minister will give greater thought to that aspect.
It appears that the co-responsibility levy for milk is to be retained and that there is to be a freeze on the target price for in-quota milk. Worse than that, it appears that the supplementary levy for those who go over quotas will be paid on account, on a six-monthly basis. These measures are too tough for the milk sector this year. They ought to be moderated, bearing in mind what has happened to the dairyman's income and to those involved in milk manufacturing. I do not hesitate to say that these changes in the downward production levels cannot be achieved in a short period of time. Such changes should be spread over a number of years. The Commission's proposals are too tough for this year.
It is essential that the cuts that are proposed in the outgoers scheme should be applied equally to all member states. If there is to be a 3 per cent. cut nationally, it must be a 3 per cent. cut in all Community countries, or there must be a compensating cut in the quotas of those countries. That is the single most important aspect of the outgoers scheme, and the farmers will attach great significance to that.
There is another important question on how article 4.1 of the proposed regulation dividing quota between landlord and tenant is to appear in its final form. I agree with those who have already suggested that the proper approach is not an arbitrary one, splitting the quota between the landlord and the tenant on the basis of some notional percentage of input into the milk enterprise. It must be done on an ad hoc basis, relating the particulars of each enterprise to an arbitration tribunal, and there should be no veto on that proposal from either the landlord or the tenant.
Mr. Maclean: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Maclennan: I shall not give way. Although this is a longer debate than usual, many hon. Members still wish to speak.
Another point in connection with the outgoers scheme, which is very much in line with the proposals that the alliance has been arguing in favour of for some time, is that the Government should purchase quota for reallocation to those who are either entering or are in particular difficulties in the industry. I hope that the Government will look favourably on and seek to promote that proposal within the Community.
In connection with sheep, there is a recommendation for a price support freeze from the end of the year—31 December. That is a strange proposal in the context of the conditions of farms in the hills, uplands and less favoured areas. However, an even more serious proposal for the future is the proposed limitation on the annual ewe premium eligibility to 500 ewes on the low ground and 1,000 ewes in the less-favoured areas. The Ministers must resist that as it is quite inappropriate for the structure of farms in this country.

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Finally, I should like to discuss the missing structural proposals. The debate tonight is, in a sense, broken-backed because we do not have before us the positive parts of the Commission's proposals for modernisation, processing, marketing and early retirement backed by set-aside. Similarly, we do not have improved and strengthened proposals for the less-favoured areas, how the Commission proposes to enable farmers working in new commodities or woodlands to enjoy an annual income when income is normally derived only at harvest time after many years. Nor do we have the proposals for improving landscape in environmentally sensitive areas and how the Government would back them.
These important matters not having been deployed in the debate, it is more difficult to assess whether the sort of sacrifices that the Government are advocating are tolerable. Had we had these proposals before us, it might have been reasonable to take a different view about institutional prices. However, as they are missing and as only 4 per cent. of the common agricultural policy budget is at present devoted to these structural measures, it is right to adopt a somewhat sceptical attitude to the structural proposals as a means of improving farm income until we see the colour not only of the Commission's, but of the Government's, money. It is inevitable that if the Government are not prepared to back the structural schemes, the money will not be forthcoming from the European Community.
I conclude by emphasising that the industry is in travail. The rural economy is under greater threat now than it has been in the lifetime of the present Government or throughout the post-war period. If the decimation of the rural areas is not to flow from the Minister during his period in office, he must illustrate his intentions with a greater commitment and readiness to take more time to correct the structural imperfections of the CAP and a willingness to spend taxpayers' money to promote and protect the industry upon which our rural economy depends.
5.46 pm
Mr. Andy Stewart: I welcome today's debate on the European Community's agricultural price proposals. The debate gives the House the opportunity to express to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the needs of our agriculture, but above all to calm the fears of our farmers caused by uncertainty and a lack of understanding at home and a totally discriminatory policy being peddled against this country from Brussels.
Over the years, British farmers have had a special love-hate relationship with the rest of the population. They were loved when food was scarce. In those days there was insufficient time in a week for farmers to fulfil all the invitations that came their way, on the unwritten understanding that their presence would be accompanied by some scarce farm produce.
Today, love has turned to hatred—not hatred towards the farmers individually, but against their industry. That has been brought about by the policies imposed on us by the mandarins in Brussels, particularly the policy of surplus food disposals. Those bureaucrats remind me of the New Zealand pilot who recently took his ship on to the rocks because he took the wrong route. The current proposals will similarly run the CAP on to the rocks within 18 months if they are implemented.
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We had such an experience two years ago; before the lifeboats were allowed out, milk quotas were hastily imposed without the long-term implications being fully researched. That resulted in the loss of jobs on farms, and large numbers in the creameries and the dairy supply industry. However, the major lesson we learned then was the imbalance it brought between one sector of the industry and another.
For example, beef producers were hit when a large number of dairy cows were marketed as a result of quotas. Today's beef surplus of 750,000 tonnes is equivalent to the total carcase weight of dairy cows killed. The proposal for taking a further 3 per cent. of dairy cows out of production will only further exacerbate the beef problem. It will also have added implications for white meat producers while, in the process, it will drive a wedge between landlords and dairy tenant farmers over who should receive the outgoers' compensation money. However, if the two sides fail to agree, I hope that my right lion. Friend will adjudicate on the basis of a starting point of 50 per cent. each. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) advocates an arbitration policy for every single farm.
Further, there is also a call for an end to intervention buying and to our much traded beef and sheep variable premium schemes. If such a proposal were to be implemented, would British farmers receive in return the millions of litres of milk quotas that were given to other countries for the support of their industries in 1984? On what basis have the Irish Government the right to send prime cattle to the British mainland and collect the subsidy? This discriminates against British farmers.
The problems that I have already mentioned are small in comparison with the Community's greatest problem of surplus cereals, yet it is obvious from the proposals before the House that the Commission has put very little thought into drafting them. I refer to the price reduction, the co-responsibility levies and, what is blatantly discriminatory, the change in the intervention standards for cereals after British farmers have drilled their crops.
The proposals for wheat will not work, because agriculture has an inbuilt efficiency factor of 4 per cent. per annum. The 10 per cent. reduction in price will be made up by a further 9 per cent. increase in yield, equivalent to a 5 per cent. increase per acre. That can easily be achieved by attention to detail. I remind my right hon. Friend that British cereal farms are eight times larger than those of our continental cousins. A tonnage exemption levy will be acceptable only if it is multiplied by a factor of eight for the United Kingdom.
A price reduction in the cereal sector will also have a marked effect upon the income of sugar beet farmers. For example, last year's 1·5 per cent. reduction in cereal prices reduced this year's sugar beet contract by 4 per cent. because of the lower price obtained for sugar beet pulp. Since growers accept the constraints of the sugar quota system and the joint responsibility with processors of financing the cost of exporting surplus production, it is neither fair nor reasonable that we should be subjected to a continuing freeze of beet prices after three years.
The Commission's argument in favour of continuing the price freeze is based on the allegation that we are about to enter a two-year regime as against the normal five-year regime. This is patently untrue, since it is only existing quotas that will be reviewed after two years. The regime itself is for five years. Should quotas be altered after two years, production levies could be similarly adjusted to

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maintain the self-financing nature of the regime. To give an increase to beet would not create distortions within the arable sector because beet is subject to quota restrictions. Until the present cereal surpluses are disposed of and a self-financing regime is adopted, a short-term licensing system is the only way in which supply and demand can be matched. My right hon. Friend should look carefully at the constructive set-aside programme that has been put forward by the National Farmers Union.
The overall proposals are a further threat to the prosperity of the rural areas and the environment. If, as predicted, alternative uses need to be found for 11 per cent. of the land currently cropped, I suggest that we should seriously consider allowing all villages and towns with a population of under 7,000 to expand by 10 per cent. of their housing stock. This would allow the architectural slums of our cities to be replaced. I recognise that this would result in some population movement, but it would be better to give people pleasant surroundings in which to live than to pay vast sums for intervention storage. In addition, it would revive the rural economy—
Mr. Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend has made an ingenious and unexpected suggestion. However, would it not have the disadvantage that, if we were to move once again, as we might, to a period of shortage—there is no reason to suppose that we shall always be in a period of surplus—we should have prevented ourselves from meeting our needs during that period of scarcity by increasing production thereafter?
Mr. Stewart: I respect what my honourable neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), says, but I have been in agriculture all my life and I have every confidence that the industry will continue to increase production and to meet the needs of the British population.
Mr. John: On the mechanics of the hon. Gentleman's interesting idea, I understand that he is suggesting an acreage reduction of 10 per cent. and a population increase of 10 per cent. in villages and towns with a population of 7,000 or lower. The number of houses that would have to be built to accommodate such a population increase would not swallow up anything like the amount of acreage that would be taken out of agricultural production. What would the hon. Gentleman do with the remainder of it?
Mr. Stewart: That would be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister. I have not yet reached that position.
This would, as I have said, revive the rural economy and give a fillip to our excellent village schools, with an injection of additional pupils. The infrastructure is already there. Now, for the first time, land is available, so let us use it wisely.
The present method of disposing of surplus food in the Community is the principal reason why the common agricultural policy has become discredited in the eyes of the taxpayers. Literally, giving away food to the Soviet bloc countries is nothing short of criminal. The beef and butter mountains could be disposed of in a year without affecting normal shopping activities, by giving each of our 60 million Community pensioners a pound of beef and butter per month. That would be simple enough, but perhaps it has always been considered a non-starter because the "get-rich-quick" brigade would lose their pickings from the export gravy train.
Mr. Colin Shepherd: Does my hon. Friend recall that in 1972–73, when pensioners were given the entree to beef at low cost, the consequence was merely to crucify the poultry industry? The track record shows that substitution habits play an important part in such measures.
Mr. Stewart: I recognise that, but surely it must be sensible to give the produce of our farms to those sections of the community who do not regularly eat beef at weekends. To give one pound of beef and butter to each pensioner every month would not distort the normal shopping patterns for other produce.
Mr. Maclean: That would be better than giving it to the Russians.
Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right.
The treaty of Rome was designed to pay farmers an income comparable to that of industrial workers. As for supporting each country's indigenous crops, is it equality when our Mediterrenean partners, in addition to the temporate foods, receive millions of pounds to create olive oil and wine lakes, not to mention £500 million for tobacco that cannot be used? This country's indigenous crop is grass. The Commission's present proposals, as they stand, would impose further restrictions upon milk and livestock production. Can we afford to stand aside and accept a policy which would result in the demise of our grassland farmers?
Finally, when my right hon. Friend the Minister next goes to Brussels, he must accept only a coherent package of measures giving farmers time to adapt and enabling a better long-term market balance between member countries. That is my bottom line.
6 pm
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I had intended to make a narrow contribution to the debate because I am concerned primarily about what is happening in the milk sector, especially on the Cheshire plain. However, I have sat through many sittings of the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament and I am aware that price fixing has become an esoteric process. There are long arguments and there are often about 140 amendments to discuss. Absurd arguments, based entirely on narrow national interests, are advanced on each individual change. At the end of the negotiations, the Council of Ministers will stay up all night and produce a collection of policies which give no clear pattern or plan for the agriculture community and, in many instances, do not produce any positive benefits for the Community consumer.
I became concerned when listening to the Minister, because it seems that there is no clear idea of what the Government want out of the price fixing process. Most of those who are engaged in agriculture in Britain are concerned that they are part of a managed market in which they have little real say. In my view, it should be possible to ensure a genuine income for those working in agriculture, and that includes farm workers and farmers. It should be possible also to offer consumers the positive advantages of reasonable prices from which they can benefit.
It has been said that we hear nothing of the costs of support to the consumer. However, we know only too clearly from the Commission what the CAP costs the

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consumer. A House of Lords report on the reform of the CAP stated that food prices were approximately 10 per cent. higher than they need be in Britain. A more recent estimate by Ken Thomson of the university of Newcastle suggested that the cost to the consumer across the EEC is 182 ecu, or £107, per person per year. Therefore, we know the cost to the consumer. We know also that the Community is not doing the one thing that we were always told justified its existence. It is not protecting the income of the farming community. In Britain there was a 43 per cent. drop in farm income last year, and that has been reflected in real difficulty on the Cheshire plain.
Structural change could be dealt with positively within the Community if price mechanisms were used. Guidance expenditure represents less than 5 per cent. of the overall CAP budget, yet last year 95 per cent. of expenditure on agriculture went into the maintenance of simple price regimes.
There are vast and unmanageable surpluses that are costing the Community an enormous amount to store. It would seem to be much better to be in control of the means of storing surpluses than to be creating them or trying to sell them. An enormous amount of expenditure is directed to storage.
I waited for the Minister to tell the House what would happen if we went through the normal pantomime, or mild farce, which involves individuals saying, "If you give me a little of this, I shall give you a little of that." That is what the dance of death has now become. I wanted the Minister to say, "Nevertheless, we know that because of the falling dollar it may be that all our calculations in the price fixing process will he unworkable. It may be that the cost of getting rid of the surpluses because of the expense of the export restitution payments will be greater than that of meeting any other payments within the agricultural budget."
What an absurdity! What magnificent idiocy! The money will not be available to maintain farmers' incomes in disadvantaged areas or sectors, such as the Cheshire plain, where tenant farmers are suffering badly. There will not be a lowering of prices so that consumers will benefit. I agree that to give llb of beef to pensioners is better than nothing, but it is not the answer. That is merely another palliative.
At the end of the day, the only individuals who will benefit will be the rather sharp agents who collect vast amounts of export restitution payments by selling a great amount of produce to the Russians. If the produce is not sent to the Russians, the Community will put vast amounts of food on to the world market, where it will be in direct competition with the produce of other countries, many of which are only one-crop producers.
It is not acceptable for Westernised countries, which are highly mechanised and highly efficient and capable of producing large surpluses of food, to seek to endanger the interests of ACP and Third world countries. I am astounded that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), in purporting to speak for the Social Democratic party, should have the brutality to say that he would be prepared to support anything of that sort. The Community restricts access to its markets of produce from the African, Carribean and Pacific countries and does its best to manage the export of all their minerals to Europe. It is not prepared to do anything in agriculture, save to accept what are comparatively small amounts of produce. It is a disgrace that any Member of this place
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should seriously say, "I'm all right, Jack. I don't care what happens to you because you happen to come from a poorer, less efficient and less powerful country."
In the current price-fixing process we shall see the price mechanism used in a number of ways, all of them inequitable. Since the introduction of MCAs there has been constant financial tinkering. There has been a refusal to accept that if the price structure is to be used accurately it is necessary to direct available moneys to areas where income support is needed the most. That has not happened, and under this Government as much as any other the British have had the rough end of every agriculture deal. At the end of the farm price fixing review the British Minister is out-voted if he sticks out for his interests, with the result that they are not taken into account. That has happened before, and it will happen again.
One of the results of last year's price fixing review has been growing unemployment in the milk and related sectors. I am horrified by the pressures that are being put on workers in creameries, those who work in cheese factories and those in ray constituency who have traditionally relied upon the production of milk on the Cheshire plain.
Tenant farmers in Cheshire have been badly served by the current arrangements and they need the protection of a correct balance between landowner and tenant farmer. The Government seem not to care too much about what happens to tenants. For example, they are suggesting that many county authorities should get rid of smallholdings that are rented to tenants. Apart from that, they must offer existing tenants some protection of their incomes, by ensuring that they have the real benefit of some of the quota. The landowner should not be allowed to benefit from something to which he has not contributed. I hope that the Minister will fight strongly to ensure that there is adequate, clear and open arbitration. The way in which the base line was set meant that many Cheshire farmers, especially those who came in after the lines were laid, found themselves in considerable difficulty with large overdrafts and heavy bank commitments. They were placed in difficulty because they were required rapidly to alter existing lines of produce.
I know that many hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate, so I shall not detain the House for very much longer. I believe that we must return to a system of direct income support for the farming community. Conservative Administrations which were in office in the 1930s were quite happy to have agriculture suffer to an extent that led to many personal bankruptcies and a great rundown of agriculture. Nevertheless—this is ironic—Conservatives have purported always to speak for the farming community. In my area, that is manifestly no longer the case. There is no point in designating rural development areas if the people in those areas are deprived of their services, their schools, their income and their means of transport, but that is what is happening day by day. There is no point in announcing agricultural reform if many sectors of agriculture are required to undergo great convulsions of change without any positive attempt to cushion them against the economic winds or without their having any clear view of how they can plan for the future.
Many people have already suffered badly, and see no clear sign that the Government know what they wish to demand of the Community. There is no clear political line in agriculture in the Community. The consumer suffers, workers in the industry suffer, and the only person to

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whom we can turn—the Minister—simply tells the House that it is all very difficult and that he will have to think about it and see how to proceed in the future. If that is the best that he can offer, the sooner he is replaced by someone who understands the political implications, the better it will be for everyone.
6.11 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: In the early part of the debate my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) asked where all the antiMarketeers were. I would not describe myself in that way, but I have always been critical of the way in which the Common Market and the common agricultural policy are structured and financed. I represent an agricultural area and I am a farmer, so it is a difficult tightrope to walk. Nevertheless, I hang my hat firmly on the peg of price restraint and, if necessary, price cuts in the present circumstances.
A properly working price mechanism—a subject to which I shall return could meet some of the objections of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) when she complains about the consumer not getting a fair share. Painful price decisions for the farmer may benefit the consumer, stimulate additional consumption and help to find alternative uses for products in surplus. For instance, ethanol production is far from economic at current grain prices, but it could become economic if prices fell sufficiently.
Let us examine the background to the present price proposals. We heard fairly recently that the European Commission was seeking a supplementary budget. My right hon. Friend the Minister said that that was not necessarily certain, but in a letter dated 14 February the Commission plainly stated:
"Accordingly, the Commission will submit a supplementary budget for 1986 in due course."
We therefore know that a supplementary budget is on the way, but the story starts a little earlier.
In November 1985 the Council of Ministers agreed to a 1986 budget which included substantial increases over 1985. The British Government voted against that budget because it threatened budget discipline and the Fontainebleau agreement on budgetary and financial discipline, and because it was in danger of breaking the pledge given to the House when we agreed to increase the VAT contribution from 1 to 1·4 per cent. That budget was therefore passed only by a majority. The European Assembly, however—or should I call it the European Parliament?—
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: No, the European Assembly.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The European Assembly, however, rejected that budget and added substantial additional amounts of expenditure under both the obligatory and non-obligatory headings. We regard that budget as illegal and the matter is before the European Court, but it remains the currently adopted budget of the European Assembly. We are now told that even that is not enough, and a supplementary budget has been announced, although not yet requested, of 790 million ecu, or about £500 million. According to the Financial Times, however, that is an underestimate and the sum may reach £1 billion.
In summary, therefore, we face a supplementary budget to an illegal budget, which itself substantially exceeded the
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Council of Ministers' budget, which the United Kingdom voted against because it threatened budgetary discipline. Of that supplementary budget, 750 million ecu was due to what are described as "exceptional circumstances". What are they? The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich mentioned currency movements. Because the dollar has fallen, it will be more expensive to dump surpluses on the world market. Currency movements may be exceptional to people in Brussels, but for the rest of us they are normal day-to-day occurrences of freely moving exchange rates and due allowance should be made for them in any responsible budget. After all, if the dollar had risen against European currencies, would we have got the money back? Because the dollar has gone down, should the House therefore grant additional expenditure to cover a budget which clearly did not foresee that development in the first place?
I hope that it is clear from what I have said that budget discipline has not been delivered. We are not even within shouting distance of it. The pledges made when we agreed to the increase in VAT contribution have already been broken. I am not blaming all that on my right hon. Friend the Minister. No doubt his colleagues from the Treasury and the Foreign Office will be seeking to explain themselves to the House in due course. Nevertheless, this shows how urgent it is to achieve a proper and fundamental reform of the CAP this time round. Agriculture is still absorbing more than 70 per cent. of the European budget, and the measures presented so far simply do not match the task before us.
I believe that farmers know that. They tell me, certainly in private, that they know that something radical must be done, because food mountains and wine lakes do enormous damage to the image of British farming. Both agriculture and horticulture both depend ultimately on public acceptance of what they do, and people do not like farmers producing food that no one wants at prices that people cannot afford.
Dumping the stuff on world markets is not the answer. It annoys the United States, which has a similar problem, and it does not solve the problem of world hunger. There is a place for famine relief, but let the House not imagine that it, is doing Third world countries a service by periodically and capriciously dumping surpluses on the world market.
Let us take the example of a Bangladeshi dairy farmer. What would he feel like if every other year several thousand tonnes of surplus EEC milk powder were dumped on his market and undercut it? We would not like it if that happened to our dairy farmers, and he would not like it if it happened to him.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: My hon. Friend could even add that it was dumped just when he had to pay the money-lender.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend reinforces the point. The situation is getting worse, not better. Last year the United Kingdom had a poor harvest, but 2 million tonnes of extra grain found their way into intervention stocks. Yields are increasing. Science does not stand still. The increase in production, better strains of plant, better animal husbandry and more efficient fertilisers are spreading southwards, and exactly the same transformation will be made to the agriculture of Spain and Portugal as has happened in northern Europe.

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Getting rid of the surpluses is not, by itself, the answer. Surpluses are only the symptom of the problem—not the cause. The underlying cause is the striking imbalance between production and consumption, and supply and demand. I believe that farmers are ready for a much more radical reduction in prices—I say reduction rather than restraint—than is contemplated by Brussels. Of course they will not welcome it, and their organisations—the CLA, the NFU and so on—will resist it. That is their job. But the great resentment in 1984, when milk quotas were introduced, was caused by the suddenness of what was done by the change in direction and by the discrimination against this country, particularly in relation to Southern Ireland. That is why I am against the co-responsibility levy. I shall not dwell on that, because the point has already been made.
The co-responsibility levy is not a way of reducing surpluses. It is a way of financing surpluses. It does nothing for the consumer. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich was right in saying that it does not get cheaper bread into the hands of the housewife. The system is difficult to enforce and police, and it is highly discriminatory against the United Kingdom. For all those reasons, I am against it.
I do not like quotas either. They were necessary in 1984, but squeezing the tube in one place makes it bulge somewhere else. Instead of reducing production, quotas shift it into other sectors, and in turn those sectors need quotas. I hope that we do not go down that road. I hope that we do not reach the situation where we need a licence to produce food—where it is a privilege to be a farmer. A permanent and detailed involvement by politicians in agriculture would be bad for politicians and farmers.
Mr. Charles Morrison: Would not a combination of lower prices without a quota system—at least in relation to cereals—create the greatest difficulty for the smaller farmers, above all in the more marginal areas?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I am acutely aware of that, as I represent many small farmers. I shall touch on that problem at the end of my remarks. I re-emphasise that we must return to the bedrock of market prices, although not completely, because there are few countries in the world where farmers are completely left to the vagaries of market forces. But I insist that the price mechanism should be fundamental. Price allows for change, and it allows our agriculture to evolve and adapt. Prices are non-discriminatory, and they reward Britain because Britain has more efficient farmers.
Mr. John: Much of the hon. Gentleman's argument against quotas depends on whether he thinks that his proposals in relation to the reduction in price are remotely likely to be adopted by EEC Ministers. Does he have any evidence to that effect?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The drift of my remarks is that my right hon. Friend must return to Brussels and insist. He has on his side the arithmetic of the European budget. I know, and I suspect that he knows, that very shortly this House will be asked for additional money. In the past, reforms of the type that I am advocating have always failed because at the back of our minds other countries, and many people in this country, believe that somehow, somewhere, the taxpayer will stump up the
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additional funds. I am saying that the game is up. The CAP must live within the money that has already been allocated.
Last year that concentrated the minds of those responsible, and I hope that it will do so in future. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend and his Treasury colleagues will not return to this House to request additional money or even a supplementary budget. That would be, not a substitute for change, but a betrayal of pledges made to this House.
My commitment to the price mechanism is not one that I make alone. I know that my sentiments are shared by the Front Bench and by the green paper published last year by the EEC. Mr. Andriessen has a good grasp of the reality. As so often with the Common Market, the problem is that the political will does not exist to carry this through into action. That is why I am trying to bolster the resolve of my right hon. Friend.
There is an urgency, and at present the proposals are inadequate. It can be compared with moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. We must grasp this opportunity and not leave it to the future, or we shall have this debate next year and the year after.
I am an advocate, not just of price restraint, but, if necessary, of price cuts in those areas of production where we are chronically in surplus. But those cuts need to be planned and predicted. We must not stagger from year to year—from one price review to another—blindly hoping, like Mr. Micawber, that something will turn up. If necessary, this means separating the social from the economic aims of the CAP. Up to now, by attempting both those aims, we have failed to do either. If the social consequences of what I am suggesting are too serious, I contemplate direct grants or income support, rather than using the clumsy system of higher prices to help the smaller farmer. I also contemplate national as well as European aid.
Naturally, the institutions in Europe are against anything that smacks of renationalisation. But there is nothing wrong with adding to European money where necessary, with national aids specifically tailored to our own circumstances. It is necessary to look more widely and to consider rural policy in the round, as well as alternative uses of land.
My right hon. Friend must persevere. He must take a lead and insist on the radical reforms which for too long we have been promised. On no account let him or his right hon. Friends come back to this House for a supplementary budget or an increase in own resources as a substitute for that reform.
6.28 pm
Dr. Roger Thomas: Such has been the cut in creamery jobs in south-west Wales over the past three years that a local wag told me the other day that Ladbrokes has now opened a book on which creamery is to be closed next. Felinfach is 5–4 on; Whitland is 4–1; Haverfordwest is 7–4 and there is an even longer price on Llangadog. That is the present situation in south-west Wales.
Welsh Opposition Members—I do not see many Welsh Members on the Government Benches—are glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Robinson) is present. I had hoped—perhaps a false hope—that the Under-Secretary would be able to reply to the debate—I think

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that he has that responsibility as agricultural responsibility has been devolved to the Welsh Office. I notice that the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is making voluminous notes, so clearly we will not have the pleasure of a reply from the hon. Member for Newport, West.
I wish to quote at moderate length from the speech made by the Secretary of State for Wales when we had the pleasure of a Welsh day on the Floor of the House. That debate is held as near as possible to St. David's day. In 1985, it took place on 28 February. The Secretary of State dealt at considerable length with Welsh agriculture. He said:
"The past year has been intensely difficult for farming and particularly for the livestock sector."
I will confine my remarks this evening to the livestock sector. The Secretary of State also said that the dairy industry
"is undergoing a traumatic process of readjustment following the introduction of quotas for milk."
He mentioned the spin-off effect on other sectors, notably beef, agricultural machinery and feeding stuffs. The Secretary of State said that, added to these difficulties,
"farmers in Wales were badly affected by the drought during 1984"—[Official Report, 28 February 1985; Vol. 74, c. 500.]
On our Welsh day a week ago, the Secretary of State did not dwell at such length on agriculture. Very little—certainly very little in the package we are discussing today—gives any cause for elation to the Welsh farmer, especially the dairy and livestock farmer in west Wales. I would like to discuss the milk sector in west Wales and the great effect on the livelihood of people in creameries. These creameries have been functioning for 40 years but the Milk Marketing Board through its marketing organisation, Dairy Crest, has suddenly brought down the chopper. People who have given 30 or 40 years service are, at a stroke—I remember that remark being made by someone in an elevated position on the Conservative Benches at one time—without a job.
A co-ordinated policy is essential for the livestock sector—the beef and dairy sector—of south-west Wales. I speak for many farmers in south-west Wales who are upset that the support for beef sector has been reduced when the margins for the beef producers are the lowest in history. The proposed package would cut total support by between a quarter and a third. The proposal to cut the variable beef premium scheme should be rejected. The scheme is highly discriminatory because it is confined to the first 50 cows and to those farms which are specialist beef producers.
The retention of the present scheme formed the keystone of what the Secretary of State for Wales said about agriculture a year ago. He said that this scheme and the sheep support scheme were absolutely essential for the health of agriculture in south-west Wales. In that part of the world since 1979, income has declined steadily, costs have risen twice as fast as the prices that farmers have been paid, and in the past year investment by farmers has been reduced by 12 per cent. The ripple effect on ancillary industries and the food supply industries has been all-round depression. On the other side of the coin, bank charges have continually increased and loans have become more and more of a millstone aroung the necks of farmers, especially small family farmers in south-west Wales.
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The closure of the creameries began even before the imposition of milk quotas; we cannot blame the milk quotas for that. However, we can blame the inefficiency of the Milk Marketing Board, because in late 1983 when farmers were encoraged to expand—expansion comes late to areas such as Wales—creameries closed when milk production was on the increase. When the Teifi valley creamery closed, we felt that that would protect jobs elsewhere, but we were wrong. In March 1985, the Milk Marketing Board told us that creameries would be kept open, depending on the supply of milk. The creamery at Johnstown is due to close at the end of this month with the loss of 450 jobs. We are told that it is not because of the supply of milk but because of reorganisation implemented to meet import penetration. It is not the fault of the loyal work force; it is the fault of the organisation and effective marketing of those people who are supposed to be defending the livelihood of not only creamery workers but milk producers.
We have lost cheese production in south-west Wales. It is therefore easy to understand why we are so protective of our present milk production in south-west Wales. We cannot afford further cuts, whether through outgoer schemes or a reduction in percentage effort, because they will affect the jobs of people in Whitland, Felinfach, Haverfordwest and the other places I have mentioned. We want to make absolutely sure that, if there is a cut in milk production, that cut affects not only Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom but—the Ministers in Brussels must make this absolutely sure—other countries which produce far more milk than they use. They are more to blame for the production of excesses and they must obey the rules. It is no good the United Kingdom obeying such rules when some on the continent continually flout them. That is a loser's policy and for the past few years the Government have adopted a loser's policy to farming.
South-west Wales farmers are up in arms. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here for this part of the debate because I am sure he well remembers the magnificent, if rather rough, reception he received from the farmers of Llangadog three weeks after the introduction of the milk quotas. Perhaps the farmers over-reacted a little to the milk quotas, but 10 per cent. of the farmers in my constituency are still experiencing immense hardship as a result of the imposition of this quota. They are still unable to get out of the wood. If there is a further imposition of milk quotas the situation is bound to deteriorate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned the Cheshire plains. In south-west Wales milk is produced not only on the grasslands; much is produced on the undulating uplands. We are worried about the small family farmers on those uplands. They are aware that agricultural policies are to be imposed from Whitehall and Brussels. These policies have not been thought through. They are introduced in an unco-ordinated, piecemeal manner. They do not reflect a defence of the unique climatic and topographic conditions found in such proponderance in my area but not to such an extent in other EEC countries. There is a crying need for a comprehensive grassland livestock sector policy, and if such a policy does not materialise during the next six to eight years, that sector of the industry is in great danger of collapse and fragmentation. Refraining from a more nationally orientated interventionist policy will be dangerous and provocative to the farmers of south-west

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Wales. The farmers are right to fear that the Minister will bulldoze through or, as some of them say, rubber-stamp policies which have been thrust upon him and which he is not strong enough to resist.
I am sure that Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Newport, West knows very well that, ever since the imposition of milk quotas, in April 1984, Labour Members have pressed the Secretary of State to negotiate in Brussels on behalf of Wales. He has continually refused. I hope that the Minister will take back a message to the Secretary of State tonight. The situation is deteriorating in south-west Wales. There is no excuse for the Secretary of State not knowing that part of the world, because his constituency is there. Carmarthen farmers are right to be apprehensive. The Minister's non-intervention will paralyse our rural areas and bring deprivation on a scale similar to that which has unfortunately afflicted the overburdened urban areas of Wales.
Welsh farmers ask about the interpretation of the word "common" in Common Market. Should it not reflect common beneficial attainments? It certainly should not be attainments that are patently disadvantageous and discriminatory. There must be a fair climate of competition, whether from products that originate in the antipodes or just across the Irish or English channels.
There is a great overlap and interdependence in agriculture, and errors of policy in one sector spread into others. Agriculture cannot be compartmentalised. The continuing lack of a comprehensive policy, particularly for the grassland livestock sector, bites deep into the stability of employment and unsettles the whole economy of that part of Wales. It threatens to turn that part of the Welsh countryside into a low-grade rural locality fit only for retirement and tourism and to bring back the scourge of depopulation.
6.42 pm
Mr. Michael Lord: The welfare of my constituency is inextricably interwoven with the welfare of agriculture, and for that reason I am pleased to speak in this debate. Farmers are constantly criticised. In some people's eyes they are guilty, first, of damaging our countryside, secondly, of producing food no one wants and, thirdly, of making too much money. Farmers are not guilty on all three counts.
It is true that, in some parts of thhe country, particularly where grain is grown extensively, to be more efficient, farmers have enlarged fields at the expense of hedges and trees. I live in the heart of East Anglia. It is still beautiful. Farmers have for a long time been aware of the impact that their operations make on the countryside and, with the odd inevitable exception, they have planted trees in enormous numbers and adopted sound conservation practices. With the assistance of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, extremely forward looking local authorities and voluntary bodies, farmers are working to preserve and enhance all that is good in our countryside. The quite devastating effect of Dutch elm disease during the past 20 years is sometimes overlooked. The elimination of that fine tree, especially in the flat East Anglian landscape, has had a much more dramatic effect on the environment than anything that farmers have done. I suspect, however, that, without realising it, many people unconsciously blame the rapid alteration of our skylines caused by the loss of elms on our farmers, who are, of course, entirely blameless.
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In the remaining non-grain growing farming areas of Britain, our countryside is, by and large, as attractive as ever. That is due in no small part to the beneficial effect of efficient farming, which creates what people enjoy. It would soon be missed if a decline in farmers' fortunes led to land being unused and neglected. As for producing surpluses, farmers have simply responded to past Government policies. They were asked to grow more to feed the nation and to reduce imports. Their only crime is that they have been too efficient. Farmers did not take the country into the EEC. Farmers did not construct the common agricultural policy. All that farmers have done is farm—probably better than their counterparts anywhere else in the world.
The third charge levelled against farmers is that they make too much money. Statements such as, "You never see a farmer on a bike," may well apply to certain types of farmer in certain years, but they do not apply to all farmers always. It all depends on the size of holding and what the farmer is producing. It is quite absurd to equate the income of a large corn grower in East Anglia with a small livestock farmer in Wales. Whatever may have happened in the past, all farmers now face serious difficulties of one sort or another, and they are unlikely to enjoy in the future those incomes that they enjoyed in the past.
Farmers stand guilty of being successful in doing what the nation asked of them. Who can blame them now for being alarmed and perhaps despondent if all that success has brought them is uncertainty and criticism? I hope that the House appreciates that farming's problems cannot be discussed in isolation. Farming is the hub of activity in our rural economy, and much depends on it. Although much labour has been shed from farming over the years, more farm workers may lose their jobs if things become so difficult that farmers have no alternative but to let them go.
I am sure that we all realise that it is no easier to be unemployed in the countryside than in the town. Many other industries depend on a flourishing agriculture such as the manufacturers and distributors of farm machinery, and of fertilisers or sprays, corn merchants and suppliers of animal feedstuffs. The very vitality of our villages hinges on farming. It is momentous for any nation to decide that it has too much food. Against a background of starvation in some parts of the Third world and the possibility of alternative industrial uses for cereals and sugar beet, I would like to think that we can explore every possible avenue, financial and industrial, to find out how to keep our agriculture moving forward, albeit at a reduced pace.
Nobody knows what the future holds. It is obvious that surpluses create grave problems, but insufficient food would cause even greater problems. We must constrain, but we must think carefully before we put such a successful and forward-looking industry into reverse and possibly into decline. To try to maintain some momentum in agriculture, while restraining production, we must pursue as energetically and urgently as possible the opportunities for improving our environment presented by the possibility of taking land out of farming and of using crops, such as grain and sugar beet, for new industrial processes.
As for conservation, it is essential that using land not needed for agriculture should not be portrayed as some form of set-aside just for the sake of farmers, but as an initiative on behalf of the whole nation to enhance our

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countryside. I am conscious that, without the necessary reductions in production, neither of the possibilities that I have outlined can solve our problems, but they may allow us to maintain an initiative and a different momentum in agriculture. That is important for the future.
I am pleased that our ministerial team is taking a robust stance on the present CAP proposals. As a farmer himself, I am sure that nobody appreciates more than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how great is the need for action, and how that action will affect our farmers.
Time is of the essence. Decisions must be taken as early as possible, and, hopefully, they will be determined by agricultural and financial criteria rather than purely political criteria as was the case with one of our European partners last year. We must remember that political decisions may be taken hurriedly, but farmers cannot react hurriedly without suffering serious damage. I am sure that the answer is to go for a package of restraints which, taken together, will have the desired effect, rather than to opt for any single draconian measure. Steady pressure on prices and the raising of quality standards for grain so that we do not grow that for which there is little demand, make sense.
The question is whether pressure can be brought to bear quickly enough which will not damage farmers too much yet will have the desired effect of reducing surpluses. Time is running out, and the possibility of quotas being used for cereals in the last resort must be a possibility. One of the many problems with quotas is that, whereas price reductions may force less efficient cereal growers out of production, the introduction of quotas may build inefficiency into the structure.
There is also a grave danger of the whole of our agricultural system ultimately being placed in a framework of quotas, entirely dependent on political decisions, and becoming increasingly divorced from the market place and the ebb and flow of competition and commercial changes. That presents genuine problems and means that in the long-term we could face problems which we have inadvertently created.
The beef variable premium has been extremely valuable because, above all, it gets beef eaten. I should like that sort of assistance to be given to producers of other products to help them similarly. However, because the beef variable premium has not been built permanently into the CAP structure, every year we have to give away another agricultural advantage in order to keep the premium. There must come a point when we have to decide whether it is in our long-term advantage to keep giving something away every year to retain the beef premium, or to negotiate some settlement once and for all.
I should like to remind the House of one important point behind our negotiations and difficulties. We have them because we are members of the EEC, and we are members, above all, to provide peace and stability for all European countries for the sake of this and future generations. No matter how hard we try, it will never be possible precisely to balance the financial books in Europe. With such a patchwork quilt of nations, climates, temperaments and political systems, there will always be some imbalance—some winners and some losers. That is the price that we pay for the peace and stability that we all enjoy. Sometimes we are in danger of overlooking that fact.
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With that in mind, I hope that we can acknowledge the achievements of our farmers, appreciate their difficulties, and accept the responsibility for steering our agriculture into calmer waters, rather than, as some would advocate, abandoning it to its fate.
6.53 pm
Mr. Ken Weetch: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Central (Mr. Lord), and I listened carefully to what he had to say. However, I shall draw different conclusions from the same information.
Earlier in the debate an hon. Member asked where the anti-marketeers were today. I am one. I do not think that withdrawal is a viable option now, but at one time I was president of East Anglia's Get Britain Out Campaign, and I still hold the most fundamental criticisms of the common agricultural policy. In that light I shall consider the analysis presented in the big bundle of documents to which my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) referred. Having read those documents, I would describe them as an attempt to be realistic in an overall framework which is wholly futile. They attempt to fix a current price framework and to look forward to changes in policies. Parts of the documents are ingenious, worthy, wordy, thoughtful and well-meant. They are a genuine attempt, by their lights, to come to terms with what the Commission refers to in the preamble as
"the gravity of the present situation."
While the proposals are all those things, they are destined to be of no avail, and the reasons for that are simple. No CAP is possible in Europe without the tortuous, agricultural acrobatics which we have year after year and which never change. There will be acrobatics next year and the year after, because the fundamental principles are wrong. The attempt to bind such diversity together in a common policy is wrong, and it will not work. Therefore, I challenge the documents on principle.
A Common Market with a satisfactory equilibrium for all is not possible. The CAP was an artificial creation, and it remains so. The labyrinthine proposals, which amount in principle to the lowest common denominator after everyone has used his calculator, are wholly unsatisfactory for almost all the parties involved.
The aims of the proposals are laudable. They aim to achieve a gradual return to equilibrium between supply and demand, which is unexceptionable; to make a realistic adjustment to market conditions; to begin a process of long-term adjustment so that we can eliminate structural surpluses which are too expensive and which are politically unacceptable; and to find a short-term middle-way adjustment between what is described as the full rigour of the market—I do not know what that means when it is translated literally—and decent incomes for farmers.
Both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd gave a fair description of the details of the proposals—and indeed they are a composite package with a great deal of complicated details. The proposals cover intervention buying for beef, intervention prices for butter, a co-responsibility levy for cereals, changes in oilseed regimes and a welter of other details. The House must appreciate the phraseology that the bureaucrats in Brussels turn out, because some of it makes entertaining reading. All of that is part of what is described as
"a continuous path to profound reform."

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I, and no doubt other hon. Members, will believe that profound reform when we see it.
As I am an East Anglian Member of Parliament and a neighbour of the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central, and as the port in my constituency is the most important grain exporting port in the country, I have a particular interest in cereals. The proposals rightly advocate the long-term aim of reducing the structural surpluses. Something has to be done. We cannot continue with the imbalance. The proposals must come to grips with that basic problem.
The statistic given in the Commission proposals for the European cereal crop for 1985 was nearly 140 million tonnes. That was the second best after the 1984 record. We are also told that production in 1991–92 is predicted to be 159 million tonnes and that that dramatic figure is the result of a well-marked trend in increased yields and increased productivity. I suspect that that is one of the roots of the trouble. British agriculture has long had the siege psychology of the war. For a long time we have urged farmers to produce, come what may. Then, over a short period, we tell them to try to put the whole process into reverse. It cannot happen. The slowing down of the psychological momentum is a difficult policy to put into practice.
The House should note that the record increases in supply have taken place in market conditions of almost static internal demand. Nor is it likely that milk and livestock activity will encourage greatly the feed element of grain disposal. Therefore, the future is not optimistic. The net result—vastly increasing supply, with static demand—is that stocks will continue to accumulate and will be a constant burden on the Community budget and on the British taxpayer.
The common price proposals are in paragraph 62 on page 47 of the report. One of the most controversial measures, which has occasioned much protest and on which I have had quite a number of letters from people involved in agriculture in my constituency, is in paragraph 65, which proposes to consolidate
"the financial co-responsibility of producers, policy on quality and changes in the intervention mechanisms."
The co-responsibility levy has excited much comment. The report continues:
"producers should bear some of the costs of disposing of production."
We come back to the marvellous proposal that the levy will not be fixed at 6 per cent., so that industry would bear the full force of the rigours of the market—again I am not certain what that is—but will be fixed at 3 per cent. so that there is a more gradual adjustment. I am all for a more gradual adjustment, but I strongly suspect that in the adjustments that will take place in Community agriculture, British farmers will get the worst end of the stick because they consider proposals fairly and squarely and try to do their best by them. I am not confident that that happens in the rest of the Community. On my political journeys, I find that more and more people say that Britain is the one nation which always plays the game in agriculture and industry while others do not.
The right hon. Gentleman gave a fair description of the proposals. He had strong reservations about the levy and was right to criticise it. He also condemned quotas as a system which he said would fence in the existing inefficiencies. That is right as well. In trying to reduce the scale of supply in face of static demand there has to be a combination of administrative and price measures, but the
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accent must be on the price measures in the proposals. Quotas and management of quotas can become a bureaucratic nightmare.
To sum up my comments on the package, it is right to come to grips with over-supply and surpluses. The bureaucrats in Brussels who labour in notional grain fields are right when they say that, whatever they propose, someone will complain. Strong measures are needed. Some price adjustment is necessary. That is entirely logical, and we should emphasise it if we are to stop the accumulation of surpluses. In recent years farmers have suffered a fall in income. Nevertheless, if we consider the history of agriculture, we see that they have had good years. Any producer must take the good with the bad and must try to strike a balance.
The main point is that we need to undertake a long-term adjustment and some reduction in supplies. The key question is, on what principle should reductions be based? The reductions should be organised so that production is left with the most efficient farms. There is no future in propping up within a framework of agricultural support high-cost, non-viable units. The orthodox economic answer, and the most desirable answer, is to make reductions in such a way that production takes place in the most efficient units. The high-cost, non-viable units, especially on the continent, have caused distortions in the system. No system should be deliberately framed so that it is costed according to the structure of the least efficient unit.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: There is a great deal of force in what the hon. Gentleman says. Can he tell the House whether he thinks that national Government aid should be given to those farmers who are not among the most efficient producers?
Mr. Weetch: I shall answer that directly. Before the hon. Gentleman intervened, I had intended to conclude on this point. The hon. Gentleman made a relevant intervention in an earlier speech, and I made notes to answer the point, because it is a key point in the whole issue.
It is said in the proposals that to get the adjustment right we need yet more money from the consumer and the taxpayer. It is argued that we need short-term funds to put the problem right. The Minister should say, "There will not be any more money or, at least, it will be over our dead body." Perhaps I should not have said that, because it probably will be over our dead body. For as long as I can remember, the common agricultural policy has always been concerned with the philosophy, "Give us a little more money and we will make adjustments." We have always given more money, but I have not seen much rational adjustment, and surpluses are as bad as, or perhaps worse than, they have ever been.
I now deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg). I disagree fundamentally with the bedrock principle of the proposals as exemplified by this quotation from the explanatory memorandum:
"It is vital that the rigorous conditions imposed at Community level should not become a justification for a gradual process of 'renationalisation' of the agricultural policy."
I disagree. The policy should lead exactly to that It is better to have the sum of individual national policies than artificially to bind them together in the way suggested.
When we set out on the common agricultural policy, it was obvious to most observers that it would work only

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—most people had their doubts whether it would work at all—as the result of tortuous, labyrinthine gymnastics. That must be done repeatedly to reconcile the absurdities. Agriculture in Britain accounts for less than 3 per cent. of the gross national product and employs about 3 per cent. of the working population. Yet we must bind that together with other agricultural producers, when the figures are different.
Mr. Robert Jackson: As the hon. Gentleman is in favour of renationalisation of agricultural support, whose farmers does he believe would be the losers in a subsidy race between the agricultures of Europe?
Mr. Weetch: Our farmers have always lost. Each nation should fix a scheme of agricultural support that suits its individual circumstances. That would be the honest thing to do. Agricultural prices should be fixed, not by bureaucratic fiat, but with some reference to supply and demand. If the market price that emerges puts farmers in difficulties, there should be open assistance from the taxpayer. That is the right way to finance the package. If that if heresy, I plead guilty. I see no future in repeating such discussions year after year when, in reality, the policy stands on a quicksand.
7.12 pm
Mr. Robert Jackson: A central theme in this debate, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) and on which there was a cross-party consensus—interestingly, there have been many points of cross-party consensus in the debate—is the discriminatory aspects of the Commission's proposals. I will briefly rehearse them.
On cereals, the proposed exemption from the levy of on-farm consumption and of the first 25 tonnes will bear especially hard on the United Kingdom: in the Federal Republic of Germany only half of all producers would be eligible to pay, whereas nearly every British producer would do so. On beef, the proposed limitation on headage payments to the first 50 would affect Britain especially severely. On sheepmeat, the proposed limit of the new premium to the first 500 beasts would discriminate against Britain, which produces more than half the Community's sheepmeat.
All those measures undoubtedly reflect discrimination against British interests, as many hon. Members have said. But let us be clear what we mean by discrimination. We cannot, I think, charge the Commission with intentionally discriminating against Britain. The discrimination is one not of intention but of effect—although it must be said that one could understand the people in Brussels wishing to apply the greatest pressure on the agriculture of that country which has been most pressing in its demands for reforms of the common agricultural policy.
The discrimination we are talking about is the consequence of the particularities of the structure of British farming as compared with farming on the continent. It comes from the relatively large size of our holdings in Britain, and the relatively large-scale development of our sheep production. Thus, the discrimination of which we complain is similar to that inherent in the idea of higher quality standards for intervention cereals, which was mentioned by my hon.
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Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart). This inevitably penalises countries with a wetter climate, such as Britain, and favour those with a hotter climate.
However, the cause of our present difficulties is not just our relatively large holdings. After all, why should the size of holdings be relevant? The cause lies deeper: it lies in the desire, or the political necessity—one might almost call it the moral imperative—of Community Governments to safeguard small producers in an era of increasingly strict CAP regimes.
What does Britain think about the future of small producers? I fear that in the House, and perhaps even in Government circles, there is still a lack of clarity and insight into the problems of these small producers. Thus the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) brushed aside in passing the small, part-time producers on the continent, and there was a similar flavour to the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich. The general idea seems to be that the small producer is a continental problem, not a British problem. But surely under a common agricultural policy it is also a problem for Britain. This becomes clear when the Community's solution to the problem of the small producer leads, as it is now leading, to structural discrimination against our industry. In short, the lack of a clear view of how to tackle the problem of the small producer is a serious weakness in our position in the Community.
So what view should we take? There are two broad possibilities. First, many say that there is no need to protect the small or economically marginal producers. If they are squeezed, so be it: that is, after all, the rule of the market as we accept it in every other sector of industry. That was essentially the view of the hon. Member for Ipswich, and I thought it was the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) until I heard him say, interestingly, at the end of his speech, that we must separate the social and economic functions of the CAP. I agree with that. There are strong moral, social and environmental arguments for supporting the rural economy and a rural society based on the cultivation of the land.
Much more importantly, my right hon. Friend the Minister also believes that the market should not be left to find its own level. He also knows that the rural economy is important, and, moreover, he knows that he must operate in the Council of Ministers on a basis of political realism. That is, incidentally, the answer to the remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells about the use of the famous budget lever. No solution to the problems of the CAP is politically negotiable unless it takes into account the problems of the small producer.
Mr. Kenneth Hind: Is my hon. Friend aware that in some areas, especially rural Lancashire, the vast majority of farms are small—about 100 to 120 acres—and produce only vegetables? The remainder of the agricultural sector consists of smallholdings producing tomatoes and other foods under glass. Does he agree that we must consider the effect upon such communities of alterations in pricing structure such as those that we are discussing here?
Mr. Jackson: My hon. Friend confirms my point, and I agree with him. However, he should always remember that we are considering the concept of the small producer in the Community context. What is small for him or for us may be large by continental standards.

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The second way to help the small producer is for Britain to say, "We must look after the small producer as defined in the Community, but we must not do it in the way proposed in the strange ideas that are coming from Brussels—that is to say, by way of size-related-exemption from levy and by size-related hillage payments." I think that this is what my right hon. Friend the Minister is saying in the negotiations and that that is what has been said today. On national grounds, we have a good case for adopting that position, but the weakness of our position is that we do not seem to be putting forward alternative ways of addressing the problem of the small producer.
I understand the inhibitions felt by hon. Members on both sides of the House when it comes to devising such alternative ways of assisting small producers. Any community policy that will help small producers will be disadvantageous to the United Kingdom, as we have fewer small producers than continental countries. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that in parts of the country, such as Northern Ireland, small producers do exist even on a continental definition of that concept.
But despite the difficulty, it is in our interests to press for less damaging ways of protecting small producers. It is in devising alternative ways of dealing with the problem that we shall find the key to our credibility in resisting the Commission's present approach, based on farm size. From Britain's point of view, the key lies in shifting the burden of support for small producers from the backs of our larger producers—as the proposed system of levies with exemptions entails—towards the Community budget. In short, the Community budget should take the strain of supporting small producers.
Two policy instruments could be used to cut European farm production and to protect small producers, without damaging British farming interests. But both those instruments would be expensive to the Community budget. The first has already been mentioned several times—I refer to set-aside. In my view this should be concentrated on the best land and on the biggest producers, so that we can achieve the maximum effect on production with the minimum social disruption. However, that would be costly.
The second policy instrument—I echo the words of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)—is the introduction of a system of direct income support payments for those small producers whom we want, for whatever reason, to support. Of course, that should be linked to limitations on their output so that we can limit the economic irrationality of the social policy that we want to pursue. This again would be costly.
There are, of course, many ideological and practical difficulties to implementing such concepts. Perhaps the most fundamental political difficulty lies in their cost to the Community budget. No doubt that consideration will be uppermost in the minds of our Treasury Ministers—indeed, Ministers in all countries will give it a high priority. I beleive that it is also uppermost in the minds of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and the hon. Member for Ipswich, who both spoke about the need to restrain the budget.
But while there is no doubt that set-aside and direct income payments from the Community budget would be expensive to that budget, from the British point of view that should not by itself be a serious objection, given that Britain's net contribution to the Community budget is
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automatically limited by the Fontainebleau agreement. Surely it would be better to take the strain of supporting the small producer on Britain's cash-limited net contribution to the Community budget than to let it fall on the backs of Britain's farmers—which would only bring great economic, and possibly great fiscal, costs to Britain.
In talking about the Community budget and allowing it to increase, we raise a new set of issues, particularly the phobia which many of us have about its growth, but we must overcome that phobia not just for wider reasons but also for the sake of British agriculture.
7.23 pm
Mr. Richard Livsey: There is much cross-party agreement, and the Minister should take that back with him to Brussels. After all, the Community should know of the broad cross-party agreement that exists.
We must not forget that agriculture is still one of the United Kingdom's major industries. Any tinkering with it will have a major ripple effect throughout our economy. Remarks have been made about the effect on the rural economy, and there are serious implications there.
We have all heard of the 43 per cent. drop in farmers' incomes, as published in the White Paper; but hon. Members should recall, too, that there has been a 75 per cent. drop in farm incomes in Scotland, which represents a severe setback to farmers in that part of the world. Indeed, in my part of the world, Wales, many medium and small farmers are on net incomes of about £67 a week. I do not believe that small farmers can live or raise families easily on that sort of money. Moreover, it is not possible to service borrowings on that sort of income, so the situation is serious.
Some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) are relevant in terms of discriminating between social policy and policies that generally support the Community's agriculture. From the 7 March edition of Agra Europe it can be seen that the figure for the input-output relationship in the United Kingdom for the past 12 months is minus 3·1 per cent. compared with 1984. However, the figure is plus 1·1 per cent. for the Community as a whole. That is indicative of the discrimination against United Kingdom farmers. In the last round of price fixing, the United Kingdom was awarded an average increase of 0·2 per cent. to offset inflation of 5·4 per cent. But the average price increase for the European Community as a whole was 1·8 per cent., with inflation of 5·3 per cent. Thus our farmers were left in a less competitive position than their European colleagues.
That situation is confirmed by the White Paper and the figures for 1986. Moreover, bank borrowing and advances to agriculture in the United Kingdom continued to rise throughout 1985 and were, at £5,520 million, 5 per cent. higher than during the previous year. Interest charges accruing to the industry rose by 19·6 per cent. to £687 million. Those are enormous sums, and the industry as a whole has been dealt a severe knock.
I do not agree with those who say that the consumer has been particularly hard hit. Food price increases have been below the level of inflation, so the consumer has had a good deal out of the CAP. Rather, the issue is how to tackle the problem of surpluses. Several measures could be implemented which could lead to a possible reduction in prices or the imposition of quotas, but clearly the argument is not as simple as that. When Mr. Andriessen

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was here not long ago, he gave the classic European view against quotas. He said that quotas were always pitched too high. In other words, there was not the political will to impose them at a lower rate. That can be seen in milk production quotas, which range between 14 and 16 per cent. over and above production levels. He also says that quotas freeze production and that quotas represent a further step in state control with more political interference in agriculture and markets. He also said to the Farmers Club that there was unanimity against quotas in Europe as a whole.
Those who advocate quotas and control of production in the United Kingdom must face the fact that in Europe there is a great deal of unanimity against quotas. To advocate those unilaterally, as some people may, is a difficult hill to climb.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) suggested that the amount of farm produce qualifying for the full guaranteed price should be geared to what can be produced on an efficient family farm. Could that be done in any way except by fixing quotas on each and every item for each and every farm?
Mr. Livsey: I am assembling my argument for the case that the European Commission has set against quotas. I shall not be advocating out-and-out quotas, but I shall be following lines similar to those of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) who did not advocate an absolute cut-off point, but demonstrated that it was possible to have something like standard quantities with open-ended production, where producers could produce an additional amount and they would have to accept a lower price in the marketplace if they produced above the guaranteed standard quantity.
Mr. Gummer: Quotas.
Mr. Livsey: That is the right hon. Gentleman's definition of quotas, not mine. I should have thought that a complete cut-off would have been an out-and-out quota.
There is great agreement across party lines on many aspects. We see absolute opposition across the parties to co-responsibility in the cereal market. All the arguments against that have already been put forward. I merely underline that we are against that, too, and that co-responsibility is counter-productive to agriculture.
We on these Benches believe that price support for farm production can no longer be open-ended and that eligibility for price support should be limited so as to release an increasing share of present support costs from wasteful storage and disposal programmes. We are looking at the problems of intervention storage funds and making funds increasingly available for positive measures aimed at supportable objectives. We would certainly see those objectives as supporting the family farm in a situation where policies could discriminate in favour of such units.
We support the objectives of environmentally sensitive areas, and existing support to less favoured areas must be continued and developed. We also recognise that with the entry of Spain and Portugal the CAP must be adjusted to the increasingly diverse nature of European agriculture. The limits on eligibility must be adopted in each country
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and be appropriate to its farm structure. We must have a policy overall which takes account of the farm structures in individual countries in the European community. It is no longer possible to have a generalised CAP which, for example, must apply in Portugal which I believe has an average of only three cows per herd in its dairy herds. Problems arise in different national situations.
As a supporter of the EC I believe that the CAP has done a great deal to help British agriculture, but there must be a move to sort out the general administrative guidelines of the CAP within individual countries. If that can be done, account can be taken of farm structure problems in the United Kingdom, and that issue would not be fogged by small farms in other European countries.
There must be more realism about the competitiveness of grain on the world market. The scheme that we are outlining would make additional production more competitive on the world market.
The outgoers scheme foresees the possibility of a 3 per cent. reduction in milk output. As many hon. Members have stressed, that should be applied evenly throughout the EC. The United Kingdom must not go along that path alone. This is a serious matter, because we do not wish our producers to be at a disadvantage. We certainly would not wish to see a reduction in milk quotas in the United Kingdom. We prefer the outgoers scheme. However, that scheme must be administered fairly and equitably between tenents and land lords. That will be difficult to achieve, but the scheme must be seen to be fair.
The problems of the super-levy in the United Kingdom, in particular, come from the proposal to have a six-monthly calculation. That is clearly not to our advantage. Indeed, it does not take account of the seasonality of production in Britain and it may militate against us. Therefore, we reject the six-monthly calculation for super-levy and wish to see it kept on a 12-monthly basis.
If there is to be a reduction in milk output through the outgoers scheme, the EC must arrange compensation for job losses in industries associated with the milk industry. It is no good accepting a loss of production if we then see, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas) described, 450 jobs being lost in a creamery in one fell swoop. That problem is not unique to west Wales. It occurs in the west country and the north-west of England as well.
The problems of a price freeze for milk to the small farmer are considerable. We must find ways of allocating more quotas to small and medium milk producers. In particular, there is a need for a pool of quota to be administered by the milk marketing boards in an evenhanded way. Wherever additional quota is available, it should be given to those most in need.
I agree with much that has been said about the retention of the beef variable premium. It is essential. It benefits the consumer as well as the producer. It is likely that the scrapping of the variable premium would result in a loss of £40 per beast, whereas the 50-beast headage payment works out at just under £13 a head and is no replacement. We are seeing at least a £27 per head net loss on the sale of every beast if we accept that scheme. Clearly, as has already been said, 50 beasts is far too low a figure anyway. I am sure that that message will be taken back to Brussels because our beef farmers are already making losses on their beef enterprises. It would be a disaster to stop the beef variable premium. Britain is the subject of the weekly scheme for target prices, and the last time we abandoned

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that, in 1973–74, we saw a complete disaster for the industry, with a loss of confidence and beef prices plummeting as a result.
The sheepmeat regime must be kept, and variable premiums have a significant part to play in that. In the longer term I want to see something done about the possibility of gradually trying to reduce the amount of New Zealand imports and to assist New Zealanders to develop markets in the far east, which appears to have a booming economy.
Mr. Jim Spicer: I have a slight problem when I am talking to those people who have been taking aid to the Third world. Will the hon. Gentleman make clear his position about what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) said about wanting a ban on feeding stuffs from the Third world? Such clarification would be helpful to us all.
Mr. Livsey: I did not hear my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland say that he wanted a total ban on all such products.
New Zealand lamb is often included as a bargaining counter with our lamb in our negotiations with the European Community. This is a complex programme at which we have to look carefully. We reject the limitation of headage annual payments for sheep to 500 in the lowlands and 1,000 on the uplands. This rejection has cross-party support, and that message should go back to Brussels.
The general principles involved in any reform of the CAP must be protection of the position of small and medium-sized family farms, particularly those in the United Kingdom. I have not been able to understand—but I am sure that there will be a valid explanation—how it is possible for farmers with the equivalent of 50 acres in Brittany to be able to make a worthwhile living for both father and son, when it takes a farm three times that size in the United Kingdom to support a similarly high standard of living. That highlights the problems of different farm sizes throughout the Community and the need for national administration of the CAP.
We must protect the position of farmers in the less favoured areas. I welcome the announcement of increases in suckler cow headage payments, made at the end of last autumn. We must continue to monitor closely the less-favoured areas farm incomes. There has been a 75 per cent. drop in farm incomes in such areas in Scotland, and there is evidence that, in similar parts of Wales, there has been a 60 per cent. drop. We should maintain farmers' incomes on family units, and, if necessary, support them directly.
There is a strong case for devaluing the green pound to protect our agriculture. I make a plea, in particular, that there should be a drive to support rural areas as well as the farmers as a major change in policy. Rural policies have been pressed home hard within other countries in the European Community. We should follow them on that. If we do not, we shall see a grave rundown in our rural areas.
7.42 pm
Mr. Jim Spicer: My right hon. Friend the Minister made it clear that this debate comes early in the price-fixing round for this year and that we are in the preliminary skirmishing stage. We all wish him and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State well, and we know that they will make a substantial team.
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I am glad to see the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) back in the Chamber. When I think of the rough-house in which my right hon. Friend has been and will be engaged in Brussels, my farmers in west Dorset and I thank our lucky stars that we have our team batting for us, and not a team made up of some Opposition Members from the Liberals and SDP. There is a poor attendance on the Opposition side of the House. They have been in and out on to the Labour Benches, and now there is just one Front Bench spokesman and one other Member. We have one of the SDP and one member of the Liberal party.
We are delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) back here and in such fighting form. He has said practically all that I wish to say, whereupon others will ask why the devil I do not sit down. I shall not do so, because I shall turn to some of the long-term problems.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West, was a little unkind to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John), who made a valid point. Year after year, we in the Conservative party have said at the annual price fixing that we should have been doing this five or six years ago. Three years ago, my right hon. Friend the Minister was saying this at the first price fixing that he attended. We must get this thing straght, but at the moment I am sorry to say that we are tinkering with this matter, which is a time bomb.
The cost of the CAP goes up annually. There are various estimates of what it is today, but it must be in the region of £11 billion or £12 billion a year. That in itself might be acceptable, but what is not is the cost of storage of surplus foodstuffs, which amounts to nearly 50 per cent. of the total. We know that the need to dispose of foodstuffs will continue. We have talked about the plight of our farmers, the drop in incomes of 43 per cent. for 1984 and, we would guess, worse to come in 1985. If all the cost of the CAP were going direct to our farmers in the form of support to keep up their incomes as they need to he kept up, half the problems would disappear.
As we go into this tough negotiating period, we should not lose sight of the need for a root and branch reform of the CAP. Two factors make such reform imperative. The first is the entry into the Community of Spain and Portugal, and the second is the ever rolling programme of national elections. It is self-evident that olive oil and milk do not mix. It is equally self-evident that within the Community we now need two common agricultural policies—one for Mediterranean products and one for products from the temperate climate. Sooner or later we shall have to make a decision to separate the two regions, because we have what might be called a Mediterranean time bomb. It is ticking away, and three or four years after the entry of Spain and Portugal, while we concentrate on temperate products, the production of olive oil, wine and other Mediterranean products will increase and the cost will go out of control.
The rolling election programme is our second problem. In our heart of hearts we know that we go into the price fixing not knowing who will be the French Minister of Agriculture this time next week. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister has a fair idea of who it might be, but in the preliminary encounters the French have not been playing any positive role. They have been blocking as they go, because they have been waiting. We do not know what the position will be after next Sunday.

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We know that the German elections take place in January next year, and we know the situation in Bavaria, which has an important part to play in those German elections. The attitude of the German Minister of Agriculture on price fixing has shown that he is concerned not about prices but about the votes of German farmers.
Some of us had the privilege of spending time with the Prime Minister of Bavaria last Monday and Tuesday. We know that uppermost in his mind is the query: what will suit my farmers? That is what he will deal with and already in the German agricultural policy team thinking goes very much towards some form of support outside the CAP, using every possible means to support the smaller farmers, in Bavaria in particular.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Before my hon. Friend continues, will he agree that the only form of support that does not increase surpluses is one that involves quotas?
Mr. Spicer: I do not believe that that is the case. I shall refer to that matter shortly and comment on that suggestion.
The Prime Minister of Bavaria made the following points to us quite clearly. He said that by 1969 he had recognised that the common agricultural policy in the form in which it was evolved in 1957–58 had outlived its usefulness. He wanted to see a change in the CAP at that stage, but he was overruled by others. We have therefore gone on year after year pursuing a policy that will get us nowhere except increasingly into trouble.
I have some thoughts for the structural changes that are necessary in the longer term for the CAP. My first idea is that there should be a separate policy for Mediterranean and for northern products. That will have to come about in some form or another. The second is for a Community funded programme for everything that relates strictly to really efficient food production. That programme should, in the general interest, be economically viable and derive from viable farms. This area and its produce should be the responsibility of the CAP.
Many hon. Members have already said that we need to develop a genuine rural policy that is a social policy as well. It would be wrong for agriculture always to be locked into the social needs of Bavarian farmers and small farmers throughout the Community. We must get genuine farming away from social needs, although I do not know how that new social structure and rural policy should be funded.
It was with some forethought that in 1975–76, Sir James Scott-Hopkins, just before he became leader of the Conservative group in the European Parliament, produced a document on a rural policy that described the way, that we should proceed. Whether that policy can be funded partly by the European Community and partly from the national Exhequer I do not know, but unless we have a scheme along those lines we will increasingly see some areas, parts of west Dorset, west Devon and of Wales and Scotland, where the bottom, poorer quality farms will be squeezed and farms will be on the market not for a month, or two months before they are sold, but for a year, two years or three years. It is no answer to see the upper end of the market, the grade 1 land continuing in full production and to see those areas comprising land further
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down the scale become what they were in the 1930s. That is my great fear, and all hon. Members should share that fear.
The time for bodywork restoration on a European common agricultural policy which is some 30 years old is almost past. We must look to a time when we will buy "a new car" with a new engine and new bodywork. We do not know just what shape that car will take, but one thing is clear—that a newly enlaged Community cannot possibly cope and that other measures that might be taken will not be administratively feasible. For example, hon. Members can see the impossibility of trying to administer quotas on milk within some member states of the European Community. If we then try to adopt more involved measures to control production, we have to build up a new bureaucracy to administer that. We must have a simple solution which can be applied across the whole of agriculture in the Community.
If we do not go for radical change, sadly we will slowly go on spending more and more money to less effect. In the meantime, the Minister and the House know that we must fight our corner, and we look to the Minister and the Minister of State to do that over the next few months in Brussels.
7.54 pm
Mr. Eric Deakins: I must first apologise to both Front Benches for the fact that I was unable to hear the opening speeches. I had to attend a Select Committee which went on for rather a long time. I came to the Chamber as soon as I could.
The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) made a very thoughtful speech. To a surprising extent, I agreed with his comments. However, like many such speeches on the common agricultural policy—we shall hear more and more of them as the years go by while we are in the EEC—it sounded very good but will have virtually no impact. Such speeches will have no impact for the reason given by the hon. Member for Dorset, West—because the agricultural lobby in southern Europe has been strengthened by the admission of Spain and Portugal.
The hon. Gentleman said that we should have two agricultural policies. I do not know how that would work; in effect, we have two agricultural policies already in the CAP and we have had them for some years. For at least five years I have beeen warning hon. Members that the admission of Spain and Portugal would mean vastly increased costs for the CAP. It was obvious then, and it is obvious to all hon. Members now, that over the years countries such as France and Italy, and latterly Greece, knowing that Spain and Portugal were going to gain entry, tried to ensure that their own positions were strengthened in advance. They tried to do this, first, by a system of price incentives for olive oil and such products and also by a series of programmes called integrated Mediterranean programmes to strengthen the rural infrastructure in those areas. These have added greatly to the cost of the CAP in advance of the entry of Spain and Portugal.
Once negotiations were under way, those countries secured even more concessions, so that they could meet the competition from Spanish and Portuguese agricultural producers. Now that Spain and Portugal are in, all five Mediterranean countries will be working together in mutual support to ensure that they do not compete too much and that they each have a better standard of living. They are achieving that as a result of support from northern

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European countries in the Community. I agree with the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Dorset, West about that matter.
The unusual feature of this debate is that it is the first to take place when circumstances are changing in the Common Market. This is the first year that we have debated agricultural prices in the Community when a financial guideline has been in operation. I was overjoyed, until I read the motion tonight, to learn that the Minister had told the House in an answer on 6 March:
"The Commission and the Council are committed to the financial guidelines. It will be an important objective to ensure that it is held to in the coming negotiations on the CAP."—[Official Report, 6 March 1986; Vol. 93, c. 430.]
The Prime Minister said on 5 March:
"A key objective of Her Majesty's Government when examining new expenditure proposals is that they should be compatible with the budgetary discipline conclusions adopted by the Foreign Affairs Council on 4 December 1984."—[Official Report, 5 March 1986; Vol. 93, c. 146.]
The motion, although full of good phrases which will no doubt appeal to Government supporters, says nothing about the budget discipline agreements or the financial guidelines for agriculture. It is now 10 March and I wonder whether in the past five days there has been a change of heart, since the Minister of Agriculture, and the Prime Minister firmly told the House that they would be approaching the CAP price negotiations in the light of the budget discipline agreements.
We now know, of course, from the Commission that its original estimate of agricultural prices of 20,445 million ecu for 1986 was within the financial guideline of 20,619 million ecu. Since then, the Commission has come forward with a supplementary estimate of 790 million ecu, making a total of 21,235 million ecu, which goes beyond the financial guidelines.
When the Minister of Agriculture noted this point in a written answer on 26 February he said that he was concerned about the fact that the Commission had put forward proposals that were outside the financial guidelines. I query his use of the word "concerned". If I had been the Minister, I should have been appalled that, in the first year of the operation of the financial guidelines, the Commission had thought it necessary to make price proposals for the 10 members of the Community—I use figures that relate entirely to them, not to Spain and Portugal—that exceeded the financial guideline.
Despite assertions to the contrary from some Conservative Members, there will be a supplementary budget in 1986. If and when that comes about—I think that it will—the House should note that there will be hell to pay. It will go right against assurances given to us by Her Majesty's Government about their approach this year to the common agricultural policy price negotiations. The fanning lobby in Britain will find that the climate becomes increasingly hostile—not because of a general hostility to farmers, which I do not believe exists, but because of hostility to paying out more and more money without the exercise of any control so that more and more surpluses can be produced.
I do not want to deal with the deficiencies and evils of the common agricultural policy—they are well enough known and appreciated, even by those who support British membership of the European Community—but I want to stress that this pressure on the budget is likely to have an unfortunate effect upon British agriculture. Eventually the poor taxpayer, let alone the consumer, will revolt. I think
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that Treasury Ministers also will revolt eventually and say, "We cannot go any further; we must cut agricultural spending. We do not mind how it is done, but it has to be done." That will be the worst of all worlds, in particular for British agriculture.
If cuts are to be made, and I believe that they have to be made, they should be made in the interest of British farmers and British agriculture. They should not be the result of the kind of Treasury chops that have had to be made in recent years in so many other areas of public expenditure. They should be well thought out.
The problem with the common agricultural policy price negotiations is that the package deals that emerge at the end of the day are not well thought out. The packages do not appeal to every member of the Community, but there is sufficient in them to carry the support of at last a majority of the members of the Community. We have to accept that system. I think that it is an absurd system, and other hon. Members may believe it to be absurd, too, but we cannot escape from it. Therefore, all the fine words about living within our resources and keeping CAP prices within the guidelines are as words thrown into the wind, because at the end of the day the power of the farming lobby in Europe, which is much stronger electorally than it is in this country, will have its way.
I have a message for my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench and, indeed, for the country. The Labour party has promised—at the next general election I expect that the Conservative party and the alliance will also promise—to reform the common agricultural policy. However, the electorate should be warned that there can be no effective, radical reform of the CAP. To mix my metaphors, it is not that kind of animal. Its basic principles and objectives are unalterable. There is no way in which it can be so radically altered that surpluses will cease to be produced or costs cease to escalate. The escalation of costs in recent years is as nothing compared with what is likely to happen in the next few years, particularly with the admission of Spain and Portugal.
Consumers will also become increasingly dissatisfied when they see that some countries with inefficient agriculture—like the Soviet Union, which must have one of the most inefficient agricultural industries in the world—can make up for the deficiencies in their agricultural policies by riding on the backs of farmers in western Europe and buying tip their surpluses extremely cheaply.
Mr. Baldry: Is not the point that the common agricultural policy enables us to feed our people, whereas the agricultural policy of the Soviet Union does not enable it to feed its people?
Mr. Deakins: I do not recall that there was any starvation in Britain before we entered the Common Market. We had a completely different agricultural policy then. I worked for a long time in agriculture under the provisions of the 1947 and 1957 Acts, and I do not recall any starvation.
Mr. Colin Shepherd: I take the hon. Gentleman's point on board, but is it not the case that the previous system of agricultural support was the cause of grave concern to the Treasury and that it was clear that it would have to be radically overhauled? The move to the common

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agricultural policy was not so much one of support as of bringing costs under control, for the previous deficiency payments were way out of control.
Mr. Deakins: I do not think that what the hon. Gentleman says is right, but I stand to be corrected. However, I am not aware that the costs of the previous policy were out of control. When it looked as though they were getting out of control—once or twice on pigs, for example—we introduced the concept that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, of standard quantities. There were deficiences in that system—I know of no agricultural system which does not have its faults—but it was much better than the present system. Moreover, we were not then living as neighbours with a continent that was producing food surpluses, because in the 1960s and the early 1970s the common agricultural policy had only just got going.
I hope that the electorate, if not the House, will take note of the fact that there cannot be reform. Whenever politicians on all sides talk about reform, the electorate ought to take their words with a great pinch of salt. The only way to change the common agricultural policy is by having a different agricultural policy, not more of the same.
8.6 pm
Mr. Andrew Hunter: My speech will be very short. It is obvious that a number of hon. Members still hope to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I want to return the attention of the House to what seems to be a lesser theme in the debate and to concentrate again on the problems of milk production. I shall speak very briefly on the co-responsibility levy, the super-levy, and the outgoers scheme.
Before I do so, I shall break my self-imposed discipline and refer to an extraordinary exchange earlier in the debate which intrigued me. I regret that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) is not present. Were she here she would hear me say that for the very first time I find myself in total agreement with her. I refer to that most extraordinary revelation by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) which led to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer). My hon. Friend and I—and, no doubt other hon. Members—will tomorrow study very carefully his words in the Official Report. It is certainly my impression that, at the very least, he said that it is official SDP policy to restrict imports from the Third world, despite the moral implications of that policy, despite the impact that it would have upon the economies of Third-world countries and despite the fact that it would undermine so much of what our official aid programme is seeking to do.
I wish to refer briefly to the co-responsibility levy. I was heartened by what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said at the beginning of the debate. His attitude has become well known, and I hope that in the near future it will be possible for his words to be translated into action. The continuation of the levy is profoundly unacceptable. Milk supplies are controlled effectively by quotas. They will be controlled further when the outgoers scheme is introduced. The levy has not materially affected supply. Moreover, the money
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raised by the levy has not been directed—although this was its original justification—towards expanding the market. Many hon. Members will hope that my right hon. Friend will continue most vigorously to champion the immediate end of the co-responsibility levy, or at least to phase its ending over a number of years.
I turn with equal brevity to the super-levy. I accept the comments made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey), for on this issue there is appreciable common ground. I think that we all accept and support the principles that were expounded by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills).
I find that there is much merit in the argument that is being advanced by the Milk Marketing Board and by others. They are saying that there is every reason to be concerned about the proposed twice-per-year payment of the super-levy. Hypothetically, not improbably, we can visualise circumstances whereby there is over-production during one six-month phase and under-production the next. In those circumstances, we could witness the absurd fiasco of a levy that has been raised being refunded. Such a programme could not be justified.
I imagine that the six-monthly volume would be based on the 1983 production figures. As we so often remind ourselves, 1983 was a typical year. The Milk Marketing Board observes also that a six-monthly levy would work counter to its own campaign of trying to encourage milk producers to change their original monthly pattern of milk production so that more efficient use could be made of manufacturing capacity while ensuring that sufficient milk remained available for the key parts of the market. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will comment on that when he replies.
In a fraction more detail, I shall address myself to the outgoers scheme. I believe that there is a need for an EEC outgoers scheme, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West that it must be applied evenly to all member states. Uneven application would be unacceptable.
I welcome the little that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said on this subject in his opening remarks, but I wish that he had said a little more. He has to perform a balancing act between potentially conflicting interests—between landlord and tenant. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich championed the cause of the tenant, and I do not blame her for doing so. I did that myself when the Agricultural Holdings Act 1984 was passing through the House. I appreciate the dialogue that I have established with the Tenant Farmers Association.
In this instance I am influenced by the arguments of the Country Landowners Association, which has drawn attention to the drastic implications for the landlord-tenant system if article 4 of the proposed regulation becomes reality. I hope that this issue has been taken on board by the Government. Quota is attached to the land, and the basic proposition advanced by the CLA is that landowners have an interest in quota and that quotas should not be disposed of without the landlord's consent. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich did not take that consideration fully into account.
If the tenant were to be allowed unilaterally to dispose of quota, he would effectively have the power to ensure that economic milk production could not be carried out by a following tenant on that farm. Surely that cannot be

731
right. The existing tenant took on the farm, which had potential for dairying, and there is little justice in his being able to deny that right to future tenants.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: What my hon. Friend is saying can be true only in the absence of transferability of quota. If not, compensation would enable the landlord to buy in quota.
Mr. Hunter: I accept what my hon. Friend has said. If he bears with me, he will find that I shall be expanding on that issue.
I was referring to the proposed change to article 4 which the CLA has advanced. It is as follows:
"In the case of rural leases, the request for compensation should be presented by the lessee with the consent of the lessor, that consent not to be unreasonably withheld."
The CLA suggests that it is reasonable for a quota to be retained so that the farm can be relet with quota. The quota could be reallocated by the landlord to make another dairy farm or estate viable. In general terms, that would allow sound and good estate management to be followed.
The Commission's proposal to pay part of the compensation to the landlord, provided that
"he has effectively contributed to milk production,"
cannot be accepted. The Commission does not regard the provision of land as a contribution to milk production. I believe that is wrong. The provision of land must and should be seen as an effective contribution to milk production. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food must in negotiations on the outgoers scheme protect the landlord-tenant system and ensure that article 4 is amended to require landlord consent. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will return to this in some detail when he replies to the debate.
8.17 pm
Mr. Charles Morrison: It is a pleasant surprise to be called by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to contribute to the debate. Farming has had its ups and downs over the years. Many of us who have been in the House for a considerable number of years have attended many debates of this sort, and it must be admitted that sometimes when things have been going quite well some members of the farming community have cried wolf and have not been believed. As a consequence, the same members of the farming lobby have not been believed by many Members of this place when things have been going badly for agriculture. The current position is serious, however, and if anyone wants confirmation of that he has only to read table 23 on page 40 of this year's White Paper, the "Annual Review of Agriculture 1986". Part B of the table refers to income indicators in real terms. In 1972 the index for farming income was 200, whereas in 1979 it was 129. In 1984 it was 146, and in 1985 it was a mere 78. That is serious. What is more, there is great apprehension about the future.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) said, most of the issues that he wanted to raise were covered earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills). I find myself in precisely the same position, but I hope that by repeating some of the points which my hon. Friend made I and others will be of some assistance to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in his negotiations in the Council of Ministers.
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We know that 1985 was a bad farming year because of the weather, but in essence the problems of agriculture are those of success. For that success, there are two reasons above all others. First, farmers have made the very best use possible of advances in agricultural knowledge and science, and the result has been huge increases in production and enormous improvements in farming productivity. Secondly, the partnership of agriculture and Government has exceeded the wildest expectations. I warmly applaud the partnership and wish it had been repeated elsewhere in industry. However, agriculture is suffering from being too successful. The fault does not lie with my right hon. Friend the Minister, for he has done his best to slow down the dynamic progress of agriculture and its expansion. Unfortunately, he has received precious little or no support from his colleagues in the Council of Ministers.
It is impossible to ignore the size of the market forever. If the Council of Ministers does not face reality very soon, it will bankrupt the CAP and almost certainly bankrupt the European Community as well. That is outwith the fact that the cost of the CAP is exorbitant in comparison with other European Community expenditure needs. I therefore disagree strongly with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins). I understand why he thinks that the CAP will not be reformed, but I believe that force of circumstance will necessitate that reform very soon, if not this year. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) in calling for fundamental reform. It is certainly necessary, and the sooner it begins the better.
I welcome the forthright comments of my right hon. Friend the Minister about his opposition to a co-responsibility levy for cereals. I oppose the 25-tonnes levy-free off-farm sales exemption, but I also strongly oppose the co-responsibility levy itself—above all because I believe that it will have no effect whatever on surpluses. Indeed, far from stabilising production, I believe that it is likely to increase production still further. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) said, farmers will try to increase production to overcome any extra cost that is imposed. I was therefore very glad to hear the comments of my right hon. Friend the Minister.
It is essential that the Commission and the Council of Ministers should look at the world scene in relation to surpluses. The Community is not making itself very popular with the United States, given the problems of excess agricultural production there. Quite apart from that, however, a looming threat to the sale of Community surpluses in the future is the probability—in my view, almost a certainty—that the Russian agricultural system will become increasingly efficient. I believe that the leadership there is at long last adopting a far more modern economic approach. The effect of that will be apparent riot least in agriculture, and the consequent increase in the Russian output will be a disadvantage for other world producers, because for so long Russia has been able to soak up surpluses created elsewhere.
All those developments emphasise the need for control of surpluses. The success of the milk quota, after certain initial teething pains, leads me to support the idea of a grain quota system based, as the NFU suggests, on an annual licensing and set-aside system. For a long time, I did not support quotas and believed that production might be controlled by price alone, but I believe that we have now passed that point and that we must have a quota

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system, because control by price alone would have a very harsh effect on smaller farmers, especially those in the marginal areas. We cannot simply divide agricultural policy from social policy, because however much we seek to do so we shall not be able to cope adequately with the problems.
I agree that the co-responsibility levy on milk should be abolished, because it has achieved nothing, and I am glad that the Community has decided to propose an outgoers scheme—somewhat ironically, in view of its earlier opposition to the idea.
At home, it is important that agreement should be reached between the NFU and the CLA. I do not entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) on this. Both organisations have strong arguments to support their case, but I believe that if there is any bias in the balance ultimately struck it should be in favour of the tenant farmer. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that it is beyond the ability of the NFU and the CLA to reach a sensible solution without my right hon. Friend the Minister having to impose one, and I hope they will be able to do so.
I hope, too, that my right hon. Friend the Minister will support devaluation of the green pound. There is no doubt that the devalued pound has been of benefit to British industry generally, and a devalued green pound would be equally beneficial to agriculture.
A number of farmers and agricultural traders in my constituency have raised the subject of capital allowances. There is no doubt that the reduction in those allowances has already adversely affected capital investment to some extent, but it is feared that in the coming financial year the effect will be very serious indeed. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will press the Chancellor in this regard. While he is arguing with the Chancellor, he might also put in a word about the adverse effect on farmers of high interest rates.
I have taken enough time, so I end by wishing my right hon. Friend the Minister well in his negotiations in the Council of Ministers. I hope that he feels that he has the full support of his Back Benchers in his endeavours to fight for British agriculture.
8.27 pm
Mr. Colin Shepherd: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) in this very important debate. I strongly agree with much of what he has said, as my subsequent comments will show.
There have been some very interesting interventions, especially those of my hon. Friends the Members for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) and for Wantage (Mr. Jackson). My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West said that it was time for a major reappraisal of the whole common agricultural policy and the Common Market approach to agriculture. I disagree with my hon. Friend only to the extent that I believe that that thought process is already well in hand. The bright point of the year was the introduction of the green paper entitled "Perspectives for the CAP."
I suggest that my right hon. Friend the Minister should do the same for British agriculture. At a time of intense change, it is right to broaden the debate as far as possible and to obtain the views of those likely to be affected as
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early as possible so that known views and problems can be taken into account in developing policy. That is what the green paper set out to do.
I was pleased at the rate of progress of that document. Document 4130/86, published at the turn of the year, sets out the Commission's response to the consultations in connection with the green paper and is most constructive. It confronts a large number of problems head on and sets out some very interesting guidelines for further discussion. I must, however, express some disappointment—with the Commission rather than with the document, as the one merely reflects the other.
In his explanatory memorandum, my right hon. Friend the Minister paraphrases the document when he says that the consultations have
"brought out the importance of the family farm and the diversity of structure and conditions of production".
That is the nub of the matter before us. Where is the base line to be drawn in considering the family farm?
In opening for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) drew attention to the differences in average sizes of holdings in the various member countries—from 6·7 hectares in Greece to 67·5 hectares in the United Kingdom. I believe that the right place to start is at the point of self-standing viability rather than taking the size of the farm as such and assuming that it must produce a living for its incumbents.
In considering the point of viability, it is important that my right hon. Friend the Minister should bear with him a copy of his own White Paper to the Commission and to the Council of Ministers.
In that White Paper he said that the small family holding dairy farmer of England—average size, 30 hectares—had a net farm income of only £3,637. He also said that the small cropping farmer—average size 44 hectares—had a net farm income of £2,672. By today's standards those are not viable farms. They are not the sort of farm incomes that we want to see. However, at 44 hectares or 30 hectares, the size is large. There are many dairy farms with smaller acreages than that.
These figures show what the base level of viability should be. That being so, the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage fall into place, as do the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West. Income support for those smaller farmers should be found from separate sources and under a separate aegis, rather than from the agricultural commodity support mechanism. There has been a strong thread of harmony throughout the debate that the two should be separated, that one confuses the other, and that we run into immense difficulties if we take the lot on board as a single entity. That is because the shape and size of the structure is different and is too great.
Given that in the latter six months of the year my right hon. Friend will become President of the Council of Ministers, it is important for him to try to get this point across. British agriculture is very important in this respect, and in no way must it be penalised. In the past it has gone through a number of traumas which continental Governments have not imposed on their producers. If my right hon. Friend wants to reinforce this point, I suggest that during his term of office as President he brings across those members of the Commission who seem to have set their faces so steadfastly against the British scene. If he would like to give them three action-packed days of tours and visits in Herefordshire—which as well as having the

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best farms contains the smallest and most difficult—I would be delighted to arrange that. It would be valuable if they got away from the ivory tower of Brussels.
One of the purposes of the debate is to give muscle to the arms of my right hon. Friend and the Minister of State when they go to Brussels to continue the negotiations in which they have been heavily engaged for such a long time. We have heard that the House dislikes the co-responsibility levies. I welcomed what my right hon. Friend said about firmly and resolutely seeking the cessation of the milk co-responsibility levy. That has been totally ineffective, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) said. In fact, it has become a source of revenue to the Commission, and, as with any other sources of revenue, it is difficult to wean Governments or Commissions off them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, like my right hon. Friend, spoke of the unfairness of the cereal co-responsibility levy. We cannot agree to such a concept. In no way can I envisage that levy dealing with this problem, unless it is set at such a level as to cope completely with the funding of the disposal of the surplus. The Commission has blown its own argument by shying away from the full level of co-responsibility that would be necessary and by setting it at 3 per cent. Therefore, the Commission denies itself its own argument and lacks credibility. It must therefore be resisted with the strongest possible will that my right hon. Friends can summon up.
The delayed opening of intervention will not make intervention the primary market. British agriculture will be disadvantaged if that is the case. We do not have the agricultural structure of the continental cereal producers, who through their co-operatives can store the grain until it is possible to offer it into intervention. Our farmers will therefore be forced to accept a lower price sooner than will their counterparts in the Community. There must therefore be a transitional mechanism to enable the structure of British agriculture to match its cross-Channel counterparts so that it is possible to bat on the same wicket.
Beef is another area of discrimination against the British producer. I do not understand why it is necessary to exclude the dairy farm from assistance under the headage premium, as is proposed in the beef regime. We have made it very difficult for the small dairy farmer to continue to produce an income, and the figures that I quoted earlier demonstrate that.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: And no suckler calf subsidy for dairy herds either.
Mr. Shepherd: Exactly. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) puts his finger on it. Farms in the south-west and in the west of my own constituency find it difficult to do anything other than use the land for grass. If we accept this aspect of the beef regime, we deny them the ability to do anything else with their holdings. The figures do not show that they can sustain such damage to their enterprises.
The United Kingdom rears sheep well. Initially, one of the basic tenets of the treaty of Rome was that agriculture should develop in those parts of the Community that are best suited for it. With regard to sheep, that is an argument that we should deploy in our favour. We are good at producing sheepmeat, but yet again we find ourselves discriminated against by Commission officials who have drawn together a set of proposals based, from the beginning, on a premise that was wrong.
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My hon. Friends the Members for Basingstoke and for Devizes mentioned the outgoers scheme. I should like to know the progress of negotiations between the CLA and the NFU. Is there a prospect of agreement? I am worried about the future of the landlord and tenant relationship if this problem does not have a proper solution. It is in the interests of the NFU and the CLA to achieve such a solution. The landlord and tenant relationship can easily be damaged. I hope that the arguments put forward by the CLA to amend item 4:1 of the regulations are taken seriously. I hope that the question of reasonable consent is dealt with properly to provide a long-term solution.
The green pound differential is currently running at 12·5 per cent. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will give consideration to and press for the devaluation of the green pound. I get nervous when the green pound differential moves into double figures. I remember the damage done to the pigmeat industry in the late 1970s when, under the auspices of the then Labour Government, the green pound differential was allowed to let rip. Such action proved a positive disadvantage to the bacon industry. However, the bacon industry has been doing great things to try to recover. If we allow a green pound differential to develop, we will damage that recovery as sure as bacon is bacon and eggs are eggs.
I wish to comment on the use of land which might be called set-aside land, or land that is taken out of production, and the incentives for doing that. The paper work that surrounds this notion makes repetitive mention to the desirability of establishing forestry, farm woodland or whatever phrase one seeks to use. I urge that this is pursued with urgency, to finding the source of resources for it from within the Community budget, to make parallel representations to other Departments to get the tax position right. If that were done, the cash flow position would be dealt with and long-term incentives would be granted so that farmers could deploy their land in this respect at an earlier rather than a later date. There is a need to start right away to get land out of agricultural or cereal production into a non-agricultural use, such as forestry.
I am on borrowed time. As my peroration, I think that the Commission and the Council of Ministers should be left in no doubt, as a consequence of our debate, that this House, this British Parliament, will not go along with measures which discriminate against British farmers. I think that the aggregate of our debate expresses that message well.
8.43 pm
Mr. Douglas Hogg: I shall heed your injunction, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to be brief.
I think that one of the most worrying features of this debate and perhaps of the Secretary of State's speech is that we cannot give any clear guidance to agriculture as to where we are going in the course of the next decade or, indeed, what farmers are to do. I do not blame the Secretary of State for that. We are the prisoners of a system which precludes us from exercising any control over what has happened. Perhaps even worse than that is the fact that the system prevents us from having a vision of where we are going
In the course of the debate hon. Members have stressed the importance that they attach to curbing surpluses. I accept that we must curb surpluses, but I am conscious, whenever we speak of that as a policy objective, that we

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are also talking of curbing farm incomes. Whenever I come to that realisation, I am acutely conscious of the needs of those farmers whom I represent.
The objective of curbing surpluses must not ignore the interests of our own agriculture. That is not shallow nationalism, nor is it merely a different political point. I represent perhaps one of the most efficient farming areas in this country—
Mr. Maclean: Next to Cumbria.
Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend may wish to suggest an alternative site, but few people would deny that Lincolnshire is one of the most efficient farming areas. That makes me conscious not only of the position of farmers, but of the extent to which the rural economy is bound up with the viability and prosperity of agriculture. I should be slow to support any policy that would do permanent injury to agriculture and, thus, to the rural areas which I represent.
Any proposals that we put forward as policy objectives should be interpreted not merely against the question whether they will abate surpluses, but also against the question of the effect they will have upon the agricultural interests that we represent. I am not sure which is the most important. I am by no means certain that the conventional wisdom of constraining surpluses is necessarily more important than the desirability of maintaining a prosperous agriculture. I am prepared to pay a price in terms of surpluses and of costs to protect and preserve a prosperous agriculture industry.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a powerful speech to the National Farmers Union on 11 February. He set out the broad principles that he will adopt in negotiations with Agriculture Ministers and echoed those principles here today. He said that all measures should be sufficient, by which he meant that they should be adequate to achieve the purpose. My right hon. Friend said that the principles should be even-handed—that they should not be discriminatory between the United Kingdom and other EEC countries. He also said that the negotiations should not impose a straitjacket upon British agriculture. I question whether any of those principles are maintainable within the fabric of the common agricultural policy as we know it.
That brings me to my central and last point. My right hon. Friend has often told the House, rightly so, that the CAP was devised in a time of shortage. It was an effective instrument to increase production, and that happened to coincide with the other purpose of increasing rural incomes. That has now changed. We are living in a time of plenty and the instrument that we have designed for a previous age is now inappropriate. I am concerned that we cannot use that apparatus to meet the problem of containing surpluses and at the same time of achieving the maintenance of rural incomes. I wish to do that.
I support the package approach that my right hon. Friend has put forward. I am prepared to back the policy of gradual change. I not think we should be over-panicked by the high cost of surpluses, but I deeply doubt—I am very sceptical—whether we can ever use the CAP, as it exists, as a means, on the one hand, of constraining surpluses and, on the other, of maintaining and protecting agricultural incomes. I suspect that we will have to alter
738
the framework of the CAP. It is imperative that any agriculture policy that is characteristic of European policy should have some form of national aids designed to support farming incomes in areas which are not categorised as the most efficient. I hope that nothing will be done to work against what I hope will be an inevitable process.
8.49 pm
Mr. Charles Wardle: Ever since our entry into the Common Market, I have made no secret of my view that the advantages of being a member significantly outweigh the disadvantages and that the benefits of participating more or less freely in a market of more than 200 million people—now 270 million people—means much more to our long-term prosperity than any isolationist attempt to go it alone in an increasingly competitive world. My enthusiasm for membership has always been based on the assumption that, although we should have to prove our worth in the market, we should be able to do so under a set of rules that are in the main equitable, and by means of a mechanism which is basically workable.
During the past week we have had the opportunity to read the report of the European Court of Auditors, especially those parts of it which concern CAP finances, the document, "Perspectives for the CAP" and Mr. Andriessen's paper, "A Future for Community Agriculture". The premises on which I have previously made judgments about membership have been somewhat shaken. Taken together, those European papers present a depressing picture of vast over-production, resulting in large and increasingly expensive surpluses against which, as the Court of Auditors report shows, there are scarcely any effective controls and few properly co-ordinated policies for diversification or restructuring except at the very margins of agricultural production. For many products, the imbalance between supply and demand in the Community has beome a chronic and embarrassing difficulty which will get worse as farming efficiency improves and yields increase. Nor is there always a solution to be found by exporting from the Community because, as we have heard today, agricultural trends in eastern Europe, north American and Australia are following similar lines. Aid to Africa and the famine-stricken Third world is only a very partial answer for European surpluses, which are not wholly suited to tropical and sub-tropical diets, as there is a pressing problem in countries such as Ethiopia to help improve indigenous farming methods rather than dumping European surpluses.
The root of the CAP problem is the need to reduce capacity. That will not be achieved by generalised policies which no more than tamper with overall targets. Nor will it be achieved by abrupt pricing changes which deter more efficient and ambitious producers from seeking further productivity gains and therefore undermine the need for continued improvement and progress. That answer can lie only in fundamental restructuring such as my right hon. Friend has repeatedly advocated with his European counterparts. The recent record suggests, however, that it is extremely doubtful whether there is sufficient will in Europe or sufficient common interest among member countries to tackle restructuring with the necessary resolve and efficiency. I hope that I am proved wrong.

739
Some of the figures in the Court of Auditors report highlight the monumental size of the problem. In 1984, budgeted CAP spending was just below 18 billion ecuroughly equivalent to £11·2 billion. The original budget for that year had been struck at just over 16 billion ecu and it was later revised to about 18 billion ecu, but the final outturn was 18·3 billion ecu. In the current year, it was expected to be about £12·6 billion in sterling equivalent but, to judge from what my right hon. Friend has told us today, the outturn is likely to be above £13 billion.
It is worth bearing it in mind that some £800 million of those revenues will be spent on storage charges and interest payments for surpluses with a book value of about £5·6 billion, much of which is perishable and will be destroyed in due course. There can be no other business in which Britain has a significant stake which costs about £13 billion a year to run and has warehouse stocks with a book value of more than £5 billion. On the basis of our 21·7 per cent. contribution to Community revenues in 1984, our contribution to this year's budgeted CAP expenditure will represent about £2·7 billion. Bearing in mind the Treasury's strictures on the major spending Departments, which seem often to involve intense negotiations about relatively small sums to be pruned from the domestic programme, how in the name of common sense can we part with £2·7 billion to help pay for a massive exercise in over-production and subsidies, merely to add to unsold surplus stocks which already cost more than £5 billion? It is nothing less than a huge exercise in social engineering which is poorly targeted and inadequately controlled. Moreover, it does very little for the British taxpayer.
Milk production is a central concern to farmers in my constituency and it demonstrates the anomalies and difficulties that we face with the CAP. Milk production last year cost the Community about £4·3 billion, of which our share, I calculate, was more than £900 million. Much of the money went towards the cost of storing surplus butter and other dairy products. Much also went on the various means employed to reduce overall production from 112 million tonnes in 1983 to the target of 107 million tonnes in 1985. While Britain reduced its output of milk to dairies by 1 per cent. in 1984, Germany, which produces a much greater volume of milk, cut its production by only 0·27 per cent., France cut its by just 0·36 per cent. and Ireland made no change whatever. In addition to the contributions by member states, producers paid about £350 million through the co-responsibility levy.
Much has been said about the levy's unfairness and inappropriateness, so it might be worth bearing it in mind that the elimination of storage and interest charges on butter surpluses alone would go a long way to fund the revenue now brought in by that levy. In other words, if we got rid of most of the butter surplus, which will only be destroyed in due course anyway, we would do much to obviate the need for the levy. With tight financial controls such as most major commercial enterprises employ, the levy could be quickly removed.
The quota system was undoubtedly needed and will continue to be needed if adequate restructuring is to take place. However, the system has been difficult to understand and harder still to administer, at least in its early stages. It began full of anomalies and hit hardest the many producers who are quite small by British dairy farming standards—those with herds of 50 to 80 cows—but who are far from small in European terms. The
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inability to buy and sell quota or to lease it in a secondary market, and the lack of flexibility in the outgoers scheme, especially for tenant farmers, have been damaging to east Sussex dairy farmers, many of whom are highly geared at the bank and whose commendable drive for greater efficiency and productivity has been thwarted by the application of quota limits.
What can be done? My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food pointed the way. I should like to divide the priorities into two categories—immediate and short term. There are several immediate priorities. First, the co-responsibility levy must be abolished. It is out of place and I hope that I have already shown how the revenue that it generates could be saved elsewhere by more efficient financial management of the CAP. Its removal would be a major coup for my right hon. Friend, and an important psychological boost to British milk producers. Secondly, we need to ensure that any levy payments that are charged are collected in a fashion that pays heed to seasonal fluctuations in output and to farmers' cash flows. Thirdly, we need to ensure that the outgoers scheme is more flexible. Fourthly, we need to ensure the ability to trade quota between farmers. Fifthly, we need to ensure that our quota reductions are matched 100 per cent. by each of the other member states.
Against that background it should be possible to stabilise the market, which is still highly uncertain, and then to concentrate the inevitable need for further reductions in quota in a relatively orderly fashion. For the short term, we also need two positive commitments from our European partners, and my right hon. Friend has already campaigned for them. The first commitment is to bring about tighter and more commercial financial controls on CAP finances, and the second is to agree without reservation a determined programme of restructuring which goes well beyond the present bland recommendations about diversification, and which acknowledges, at last, that social engineering in rural communities should not be the principal goal of the CAP.
If we do not tackle those problems soon, we shall suffer increasingly from a system that offends taxpayers and farmers. My right hon. Friend has shown the way to remedy the problems, and it is in the interests of many of my constituents that he succeeds in the near future.
8.59 pm
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Many hon . Members on both sides of the House have taxed themselves with what they be Lieve to be the incompatible requirements of limiting European Economic Community expenditure under the common agricultural policy without producing surpluses. It is offensive to a large proportion of taxpayers to spend huge sums on taking food into surplus storage which deteriorates at great and continuing cost. However, that dilemma is artificial, because the quota system enables surpluses largely to be avoided, payments to be controlled, and a social structure to be achieved by those payments which is held to be desirable.
That being so—I am entitled to say this now as I said it in 1977—the ideal time to inaugurate programmes is when quotas can be allocated which will still enable individual enterprises to expand. It is only because the desirability for quota systems was ignored by successive Governments that, in the moment of disaster, they are not applied until they entail diminishing the output from individual enterprises. That is not an inherent vice

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of a quota system; it is due to the inherent cowardice of Governments and international organisations which do not implement them until it is unduly late. Even so, better unduly late than unduly later still.
Let us not go off on a red herring about the additional cost of bringing Spain and Portugal into the EEC and the effect of that on the EEC budget. That was known four or five years ago when the Trade and Industry Select Committee was discussing problems within its sphere, as it periodically does, with officials of the EEC in Brussels. The unofficial figure then was that their accession would cost an additional £1,400 million a year to the EEC budget. That was a known, estimated cost of following a certain political line. It is, must, and should be wholly divorced from considerations of financing the CAP, because it is not connected to the vagaries of that.
I have already mentioned in an intervention in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the astonishing anomaly that the reasons for giving New Zealand access to the EEC for milk products and lamb are substantially the same as the reasons for giving Algeria and Tunisia access to the EEC for wine.
In the case of New Zealand the burden is carried by the British farmer. In the case of wine from Tunisia and Algeria, it is carried not by the French wine producer but by those who pay the budget of the EEC as a whole. More wine now has to be distilled into ethanol, at a cost to the European budget, because of the wine imports from Algeria and Tunisia, which were negotiated because Algeria and Tunisia wre once part of metropolitan France.
I do not dispute the logic of that so long as it is accepted that by the same logic the economic cost of the EEC taking New Zealand lamb and milk products should be borne by the membership of the EEC as a whole, not by the British taxpayer, nor by the British farmer. If the cost is not to be borne by the EEC as a whole, it should be borne by the British taxpayer, since it depends on political considerations, rather than by the British farmer, since it is not because of agricultural considerations that those imports are allowed. I do not see how that proposition can be disputed.
I turn to the spending of the same penny more than once. It has become apparent that when something is unacceptable to the United Kingdom Government, nevertheless it is permitted to happen in the EEC. We are told that something which is unacceptable to the German Government cannot be permitted to happen merely because it is unacceptable to them, particularly with their elections coming up. The same considerations must apply to both.
It is no good my right hon. Friend asking me to look up the record. He may have forgotten that once before he challenged me to do that, and I produced the record and defeated him on it. He has told the House before that he safeguarded the beef variable premium by agreeing to a massive increase in quota for Eire, which had made such a large contribution to bringing about milk surpluses in the first place. My right hon. Friend cannot go on spending the penny of claiming that he has to do this or that to keep the beef variable premium. If those were the conditions on which Eire got that extra quota, if the beef variable premium is done away with or restricted, so must be the
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coin that was given in exchange for it—the extra quota for Eire. We must be adamant on that point, which is one of elementary integrity and justice.
As for the difficulties of the new outgoers scheme proposed by the EEC, I wholly endorse the frequently uttered proposition that the decrease in production which it brings about must be the same throughout the EEC. None of us can foresee the future with clarity, but we have observed that new crises produce new measures which have new base years. We have seen that in fisheries and in many other contexts. If the British proportion of EEC milk output is permitted to be reduced, I predict with confidence not the year in which it will happen, but that it will happen. The new lower base would be inaugurated at some time for United Kingdom production as compared with that of other member states.
It is sometimes alleged that quotas freeze agricultural output in an inefficient posture. Nothing could be further from the truth. The inherent error of that proposition is to confuse maximum output with efficiency. There was a time when we feared that we were running out of agricultural land in Britain. Each year, we heard about the rate of erosion of our agricultural land by roads, town expansion and industrial development. The Labour Government produced a document, "Food from Our Own Resources," which the House accepted; but the same Government omitted to provide the financial basis to put it into effect.
That mattered a great deal, because farmers assumed that it was a temporary aberration and borrowed the funds to put the policy into effect. The evil consequences of that are still with us. Last year, the debt service costs on British agriculture increased by nearly 17 per cent., while incomes decreased by 43 per cent. The Labour Government have a heavy burden of responsibility to bear for that. They were kept in office at the time by the Liberal party, without which they would have fallen. That Opposition Front Bench bears great responsibility for the indebtedness that besets the industry now.
Confusing high output per acre with efficiency has other evil consequences. It has led to the gross over-use of phosphates, which has materially harmed the quality of our drinking water supply where, as to a large extent it does, it comes from rivers which take the off-flow from agricultural land. The quota system has refocused attention on lower-input farming, which makes better use of agricultural land—not maximum use in terms of output per acre, but use more compatible with the needs of the community that those farms serve. In many cases, good crop rotation has suffered from the pursuit of maximum output per acre, as heavier and heavier tonnages of fertiliser are applied in lieu of proper crop rotation.
A quota system would enable a proper income to be supplied to the farming community without open-ended budgetary commitments and avoiding the scandalous waste inherent in stocking deteriorating surpluses. Of course, quotas got off to a bad start because they were associated with milk. Those quotas were introduced not at zero notice, but retrospectively, after frequent assurances that, whatever happened, there would be no quotas. That is not the way to introduce a quota system that is designed to avoid anomalies and injustices in the best way possible. That is why we should be bringing in quotas on all the agricultural produce that is likely to go into permanent surplus in the foreseeable future. Without that, the distortions caused by quotas on any one section will

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merely overflow into other sections. That is the only way in which a reasonable income to preserve the social pattern in rural areas, budgetary disciplines that are necessary to contain the burden of the Euro-budget on national taxpayers, and the avoidance of evil and wasteful surpluses can be ensured. It is the only way in which that circle can be squared.
The proposed EEC outgoers scheme must not result in a massive transfer of milk quota from owner-occupied land to landlord-controlled land. Yet if only owner-occupiers are free to accept the outgoers scheme and tenants are not, that will inevitably happen. Most of the outgoers will be confined to the section of producers that can give their consent without the interdiction of another party.
The way to overcome the problem that has been posed on behalf of landlords is to introduce transferability, so that, if a man wishes to spend part of the compensation accruing to him, he can do it on transferable quota. It is widely agreed in agriculture that when quota is transferred, a percentage should be put into a pool that is used for two proposes: to deal with identifiable hardship cases thrown up by the inflexible boundaries of the quota system as introduced, and to enable new entrants to commence milk production. Those two flexibilities can be secured only if there is a percentage fine—say, 10 per cent.—that goes into such pool on the transfers.
It has also been suggested that there should be an additional 3 per cent. quota—there is no magic about that figure—by which national Governments can buy in quota for reallocation. However, if they do not do so, the quota would go into an EEC pool for cancellation. Over and over again my right hon. Friend has pointed out, when it suited his case, that the British Government cannot interdict a development of which they alone, or they and the Netherlands, disapprove. Of course, Spain and Portugal could also disapprove, but without interdicting. But if my right hon. Friend is unable to prevent such an additional outgoers scheme from coming into existence, the British Government must buy in the whole of that quota. If they do not, Britain will have a declining percentage base when new measures are taken.
I turn to the division of compensation between landlord and tenant under the proposed outgoers scheme. It is not enough to say, "Leave this to arbitration," because arbitration can be wholly inconsistent in different parts of the United Kingdom unless the criteria are laid down in advance. If those criteria are not quantified as to maxima within the total formula, again there can be completely distorted assignments of compensation as between landlord and tenant. Therefore, it is most important—[Interruption.] Does the Parliamentary Private Secretary wish to intervene? He does not. Perhaps he finds this an embarrassing point for me to raise. Is it one with which he is unfamiliar? No. Good. He will find that it is one with which the agricultural community is familiar.
I take as my starting point 50 per cent. as the maximum for the interest in land element. Unless that is constrained specifically in the arbitration it will undervalue the other elements in the formula to such an extent that the tenant's interest will become inadequate. There must be no interdiction by the landowner on the tenant exercising the right to avail himself of the outgoers scheme, given an allocation of compensation between the two parties along the lines that have now been discussed. To say that it should be left to the NFU and the CLA to come to an agreement begs the question why anybody should suppose
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that agreement will ever be reached. There is no obvious interest that propels the CLA to reach an agreement on the issues as long as it can interdict outgoers on the ground that the value of the landlord's land will be reduced by participating in the outgoers scheme. That is a reality that will not go away. Saying, "Let them reach agreement," can only mean eroding still further the tenant's legitimate interest in the compensation under the proposed outgoers scheme.
This debate need not end until 11.30 pm. It is not subject to the 10 o'clock rule. As we proceed with the debate at a crucial moment for agriculture, let us not be hurried in our deliberations by the belief that the debate must end at 10 o'clock. These issues are far too important. They will be no easier next year because they are not properly debated or decided this year. That is most assuredly so.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will bear it in mind when he replies to the debate that he must not try to spend the same coin yet again. The Government must not agree to any restriction on the beef variable premium scheme. We must not limit headage payments under the sheepmeat regime or under the hill schemes, whether they apply to sheep or to cows. We must not adhere to a co-responsibililty levy which was imposed as a budgetary trick and which cannot be the mechanism for discouraging surpluses. Lastly, my right hon. Friend must acknowledge the Government's abandonment of the exploded myth that reducing prices reduces output. Unless that is carried to the point of bankrupting producers, the most probable effect of reducing prices is to increase output to spread the overheads over a greater volume, thereby increasing the budgetary costs of storing surpluses. Those are the considerations that will not disappear tonight if my right hon. Friend refuses to recognise them.
9.24 pm
Mr. Tony Baldry: In any debate on EEC price fixing one must never forget that Britain is an agricultural country, that British farmers produce 80 per cent. of Britain's food and export a considerable amount, and that only 20 per cent. of land is not used for agriculture. Secondly, agriculture cannot simply be considered like any other industry, because it is not like any other industry. Therefore, we cannot extrapolate what happens in agriculture simply by looking at other industries. Agriculture is different, not least because one must have a system that enables a sufficient number of people properly to steward the land. Thirdly, any system of agricultural support can be expensive, and I venture to suggest that if the old system of guarantees and efficiency payments were still in place the cost to the taxpayer would be three times that of the CAP.
The mechanism of the CAP is the cheapest form of agricultural support, provided that one does not produce too much. Beef production today is only 4 per cent. above what it was four years ago, but the amount of beef intervention is 50 per cent. more than it was four years ago, and the cost of storing beef surpluses in intervention is 200 per cent. more than it was four years ago. It is because of the gearing of this ratio that surpluses are expensive, and we should seek to tackle them, not seek to undermine Britain's agriculture or rubbish the CAP, which guarantees people in the Community access to secure supplies of food.

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If somebody does not believe that, he should go to Warsaw or Cracow and see the Poles queueing daily for the necessities of life—bread, butter, flour and sugar. The only reason why we can sell butter and beef cheaply to the Russians is that their system of agriculture fails to feed their people, while our system of agriculture succeeds in feeding ours.
We should be attacking, not British farmers or the CAP, but the surpluses. Tackling surpluses today is increasingly difficult because the European Community is not the only part of the world that is over-producing. There has been an agricultural revolution throughout the world. For example, last year the Chinese fed a quarter of the world's population and still had surpluses to export. Last year, India gave more food aid to Ethiopia than did the whole of the Soviet bloc. Tackling surpluses today is increasingly difficult because of the speed of improvement in agricultural productivity. In 1975 we were getting 2 tonnes of cereals to an acre, and in 1985 it was 4 tonnes. We have doubled agricultural productivity in just 10 years.
In tackling surpluses, we must not forget that at the end of the day it is better to have surpluses than to have a shortage. We should be grateful that we have enough to feed our people. Therefore, in tackling surpluses we have to find a way to restrain production without undermining our rural economy. Such a way must find a solution that will work, and a system that is fair, so that no country should have to say that it is bearing a heavier burden than anyone else.
Also, we must have a system that does not exclude enterprise, invention and innovation or exclude new entrants, because we cannot seek to hold agriculture in a developmental time warp. We must have a solution that will work, and that means a solution that will curb the surpluses and prevent further surpluses. It makes no sense to allow cereal surpluses to increase from 30 million tonnes today to a projected 80 million tonnes by 1991. That is roughly 5 cwt of grain for every man, woman and child in the Community. There will have to be price restraints that lead to long-term market balance.
Let us be clear that a solution which will work, which will cut prices and help dispose of present surpluses, will mean more money for the CAP in the short term. That will almost certainly mean a supplementary budget. It will therefore behove all those who constantly and properly urge reform of the CAP to support such a supplementary budget when it comes before the House.
We need a system that is fair between countries, producers, retailers and consumers. For example, the proposed 3 per cent. co-responsibility levy on cereals is not only largely irrelevant in tackling surpluses, but treats British farmers unfairly. It applies only to off-farm surplus after the first 25 tonnes. It would operate unfairly between farmers who use their own cereals and those who sell them. That would mean that virtually all British farmers, but only half the West German farmers, would be subject to the levies. That cannot be fair. We cannot and should not accept policies which ask Banbury farmers to bear an unfair proportion of the cost over Bavarian farmers, simply because so many of our family farms are larger than those on the continent.
A realistic solution to cereal surpluses must inevitably involve price restriction, but I strongly suspect that in the not-too-far-distant future we shall seriously have to
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consider ways of taking land out of cereal production, although I would not go as far as some hon. Members, who have suggested that we should remove the whole of Wiltshire from cereal production.
Similarly, any changes should be fair to beef producers. A proposal to limit headage payments to the first 50 beasts can only be seen as discriminating against British beef producers. Likewise, any reductions in milk production should apply equally to all member states, without exemption or qualification.
I hope that the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association will be able to agree a fair and workable formula for the outgoers scheme. To date, that scheme has helped considerably. After all, those milk producers whose development awards formed a large part of their total quota will now have sufficient quota restored to them to ensure that they have at least 90 per cent. of the quota that they would have had if there had been no cuts. Small producers with development awards would have their quota restored in full up to 200,000 litres.
I recognise that some farmers may not necessarily like what they hear about the need to tackle surpluses, but from the meetings that I and my European Parliament colleague Sir Henry Plumb have had with our farmers, I am sure that sensible farmers will support the Government's realistic approach.
We should not forget that, thanks to the brains and brawn of British farmers, combined with the CAP, food today is cheaper in real terms than it has been for 30 years. Grain is cheaper today in real terms than it was in 1900 and beef is cheaper, in real terms, than it was 30 years ago. Because of these improvements, people have to spend less of their disposable income on food today than ever before. That means that our pensioners are spending less in real terms on a loaf of bread than ever before and need to use a smaller proportion of their income to do that.
There are substantial problems to tackle here and in Brussels. It will not be easy and will need commitment and clarity of thought. However, in tackling surpluses let us not undermine all that the British farmer, British agriculture and the European community have achieved in the past 30 years.
9.33 pm
Mr. David Maclean: I imagine that during the past six hours practically everything that it is possible to say on the current and future problems facing agriculture has been said, and well said, by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I do not therefore propose to go over the same ground and quote the same statistics.
I agree with the stance taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister and the stance that he proposes to take in Brussels. When one adds to that the excellent suggestions and exhortations of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West, (Sir P. Mills), and the analysis of the chronic problems facing agriculture by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), I shall be well satisfied if he can go some way towards achieving what they described.
I shall concentrate on a small problem which I raised earlier when I intervened in my right hon. Friend's speech. I shall understand if he cannot elaborate tonight, because negotiations are at very delicate and tricky stage. I suspect that they will continue to be at that stage for a long time to come.

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I do not believe that the Country Landowners Association will want to give any ground. There is no need for it to budge an inch. However, the National Farmers Union has moved a considerable distance. I refer to the apportionment of quota between Landlord and tenant. As I understand the Ministry's embryo proposals, there will be a basic quota of approximately 4,500 litres not 5,000 litres. It will be based on 1·35 cows per grassland hectare.
If a formula were invented to take account of the value of tenants' improvements that is based upon the gross rental value of the whole estate, tenants would receive approximately 17 per cent. of the basic quota. Any production over and above the 4,500 litres would be called super-quota and would be added to the tenant's entitlement. The average tenant of a lowland dairy farm in England and Wales would therefore receive 17 per cent. of the basic quota and his super-quota. At the very most he would receive about 33 per cent. This is only an average formula, which means that in some areas it could be increased to 50 per cent. It may even be increased to 70 per cent. in an extraordinary case.
If this formula were applied, the result would be the reverse of what many of us had hoped would happen. The landlord ought to receive 30 per cent. of the quota, while the tenant, in extraordinary cases, should receive 70 per cent. However, we find that normally the tenant will get 30 per cent., and 70 per cent. only in extraordinary cases.
This formula cannot be worked on an ad hoc basis, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). It would be crazy to say that if both sides cannot reach agreement each case must be treated on its merits. An interpretation of that kind was not even included in the Rent Acts. We lay down basic guidelines for the arbitrator. There may be extreme cases at each end of the margin, but the House has a duty to say to my right hon. Friend that if he is unable to give the details tonight—rightly so, because the negotiations are at a delicate stage—this is what we want him to do.
My right hon. Friend ought to pay close attention to the fact that my right hon. and hon. Friends have presented to him the CLA's arguments. I have no doubt that the NFU's arguments will also be put to him. I leave my right hon. Friend merely with the thought that if the formula for the average dairy farmer for the lowlands provides the tenants with only 33 per cent of the outgoers scheme, we have to consider the effect that this will have in the upland areas, where there will probably be no super-quota at all. It means that tenants in upland areas will come out of this very poorly indeed. One may even find on upland farms that although the tenant has carried out most of the improvements he will not receive even 50 per cent. of the quota.
I do not think that that will be regarded as fair by the country or by Conservative Members. If my right hon. Friend bears that point in mind, I am confident that when he has to act as piggy in the middle, or, as may be more appropriate, as bully in the middle, he will come down on the right side, if he has to come down on any side at all.
9.38 pm
Mr. John Home Robertson: I agree with the final point made by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). If we could draw an extra export restitution for every Scottish Conservative Member whom we have exported south of the border, we should be doing quite well out of it. The experience that the hon.
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Member has gained from dealing with members of the Scottish Landowners Federation in the Black Isle will stand him in very good stead in his dealings with the Country Landowners Association in Cumbria.
It seems a long time since I came into the House this afternoon. Before I did so I looked at the Press Association tapes and saw that for the second year running a supplementary contribution will have to be made on top of the £20 billion budget of the common agricultural policy in order to stop the CAP going bust. It is appropriate, therefore, that the House should be debating such a critical matter at this time. It is inevitable that this has been a wide-ranging debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) had the strength, which I have not, to pick up the entire bundle of documents that we are supposed to be debating. I had them weighed last week in the Post Office and I was told that their combined weight was 2·1 kg, which in English is 4½ lb of paper. It is inevitable that the debate has been wide-ranging. I welcome the helpful contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas), for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) and for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins).
The Minister suggested at the beginning of the debate that he was beginning to follow the ideas and the lead of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd of setting aside land and encouraging the change of use of land to forestry. I hope that he will pay due attention to our proposals for creating incentives for small farmers, making land available for new entrants into agriculture and taking out of production land that has been used to grow crops that are in surplus. For the present, we have what is fundamentally a package of price-cutting or freezing proposals. It is a variation on what was debated in the Council of Ministers last year, when the then proposals were vetoed by Mr. Kiechle of the Federal Republic of Germany. What prospect is there that he will not use the veto this year?
We must all acknowledge the need to cut the cost of the common agricultural policy. We must recognise that farming has been led into a state of chaos. The present production package is the result of European Community incentives which have applied throughout recent years. I suggest that the European Community has the responsibility to help to restructure the pattern of agricultural production for the future.
It is not good enough merely to talk about cutting prices, although price cuts must be an element of the package. There must be scope for proper and constructive incentives so that the industry knows in which way it is supposed to be heading.
Cereals form the best known mountain in the European Economic Community. We have read recently that the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce managed to double its stocks last year from 2,831,000 tonnes to 5,701,000 tonnes. Some of the stocks have been in intervention stores for as long as three years.
The Commission has three proposals. First, it is proposing a 3 per cent. co-responsibility levy, leaving the first 25 tonnes from each farm for off-farm sales that are exempt from the levy. It has already been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd that Germany is producing 18 per cent. of cereals and will pay only 11 per cent. of the levy under the proposed arrangement. We in Britain are producing 16 per cent. of cereals, and if the proposal were implemented we would find ourselves

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paying 26 per cent. of the levy. We say that the proposal is discriminatory, and I hope that the Minister will be negotiating against it in due course. Secondly, the Commission is proposing that intervention should apply to cereals only for the five months between December and April. Thirdly, it is proposed that there should be far stricter quality criteria.
All these proposals seem likely to discriminate against the United Kingdom. In effect, we are being presented with back-door price cuts of 12 per cent. for wheat and 15 per cent. for barley. That would be fair enough if it were part of a package, but it is not. There appears to be no positive guidance towards set-aside or alternative uses for land. The Minister has said that he is prepared to start thinking about set-aside and the use of land apart from other measures and I agree with that principle. Perhaps the Minister of State will explain when he replies what we shall start moving into as an alternative use for land. If land is taken out of cereal production, what shall we do with it instead? We could do with a constructive debate on that subject. Agriculture is waiting for it from the Government and from the House.
I hope that the Minister will now admit that price restraints alone would be either intolerable or ineffective. As the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said, for it to be effective there would have to be draconian price cuts which would be intolerable for the rural economy. If it was tolerable and did not hurt anyone, the chances are that it would merely jack up cereal production. In addition to price restraint, constructive guidance is needed. Set-aside would clearly be part of that, but we need more elucidation as to what the Government wish the industry to do.
The proposals for milk come on top of the very unhappy experience of the imposition of milk quotas two years ago. There are three detailed proposals. The first is to retain the co-responsibility levy at 2 per cent. That is no more and no less than a milk tax and has nothing to do with co-responsibility. I see that the Minister agrees and I hope that he will be more successful than in the past in his negotiations on that.
Secondly, it is proposed that the super-levy should be collected every six months on account. The Milk Marketing Board, among others, is strongly against that. Apart from anything else, we could have a ludicrous situation in which the board has to collect the super-levy on excess production in the first six months only to pay it back if production falls in the following six months. That is not a very clever proposal, and I hope that it will be rejected.
Thirdly, an extended outgoers scheme is proposed in relation to milk. We support the principle of such a scheme, although we understand the concern expressed by landlords, tenants and others, because it is always complicated and it was an agonising experience for the industry last time. I have read what the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association have said about it. I hope that on this occasion the Government will also bear in mind the impact of another outgoers scheme on people working in the dairy industry.
I trust also—I keep returning to this—that there will be more positive guidance as to what should happen to the land. It is not good enough to say that the land must simply be taken out of milk production. If the Minister wants it
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to come out of production altogether and lie fallow, he should say so. If not, let us have sensible incentives to help the industry to go in a different direction. On the last occasion, much of the land simply went over to beef production. The result was a knock-on effect, with further surpluses being generated in the beef market and also in the sheep market.
I appreciate the controversy that the new outgoers scheme has generated and I agree that an outgoing tenant should not be able irrevocably to strip the assets of a farm, including the milk production quota, by selling the quota, but neither should the landlord be able to dictate who can and cannot take part in the scheme. I believe that there is a strong case for an independent body to adjudicate in such cases.
Perhaps the Minister will also tell us what has happened to the Agriculture Bill. We hear rumours that the Government may put a new clause into the Bill on Report in connection with the outgoers scheme. The Bill had its Second Reading in November and came out of Standing Committee on 30 January. We even have a bound volume of the Committee proceedings, but there is still no sign of Report stage. Perhaps the Minister will tell us the fate of that Bill. Some of us would be happy for it to disappear without trace, but it would help if the Minister could explain what is going on.
Once again, the beef variable premium is under threat from the Commission. The sheep premium is constantly being undermined by the French and by the illegal clawback mechanism—we wish the Government well in their legal action on that.
The beef variable premium must be defended. It is good for consumers and producers, and in that respect it is unique in the CAP. The industry and all hon. Members must be getting sick of the recurring threat to the beef variable premium. There are signs that this question is raised by the Commission year after year only as a red herring in the hope of getting other concessions out of the Minister. It is time that this was consolidated once and for all into the support system, and that is what the Minister should be working towards.
There is also the proposal to phase out the intervention scheme for beef and to replace it with a single premium headage payment for up to 50 cattle over six months old on each farm, and a further premium for suckler cows, wherever possible from national funds. The figure of up to 50 animals per farm will clearly be restrictive and discriminate against British farmers. Similarly, the restriction to 500 sheep on lowland farms in Britain and 1,000 in the less-favoured areas to qualify for the sheep premium will also be discriminatory against British farmers, and such discrimination must be resisted.
It is plain that these proposals are discriminatory and the Opposition and the industry expect the Minister to resist them in due course. By all means let there be penalties to discourage over-production, but let them be fair throughout the Community. That is all that we and the industry are asking for.
There is a proposal to reduce surplus stocks by means of a three-year disposal programme. That is obviously necessary, because we cannot continue to keep stocks in intervention stores for ever. We know that the CAP accounts for 60 per cent. of the entire budget of the European Community, of which 30 per cent. goes towards the storing and disposing of surpluses. We must get rid of that so we can cut our losses, but why on earth, year after

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year, are such surpluses given to the Russians and Libyans at cut price? If anyone is to have the benefit of highly subsidised beef and dairy produce, it should be British pensioners and people on low incomes.
We must ensure that we do not produce further costly surpluses in Britain and in the rest of the Community. We must learn from the past. If necessary, let there be milk quotas and effective action to control the beef surplus. The ultimate irony is that the Russians, the Libyans and so on get the benefit of our dumped surpluses. They are the only beneficiaries of this costly and complicated system of agricultural price support.
The CAP must be seen as a wholly mixed blessing for British agriculture. It has undeniably distorted our industry beyond recognition. Indeed, the Minister's last annual review of agriculture confirmed that £2·2 billion went into support for British agriculture, whereas net farm income in 1985 was only £1·1 billion. In other words, only half of the subsidy going to the industry showed up as net farm income at the end of the day. Therefore, something is seriously wrong with the system.
From time to time, Ministers and others tell us that agricultural support expenditure is intended to support the entire rural economy. An interesting paper published by the Scottish Office last year attempted to defend the Government's record in rural Scotland, and it gave figures that showed rising public expenditure on
"assistance to rural economic activity".
The total figure quoted was £311 million, of which £204 million went on agriculture, and of that £109 went on price support. Last year, more money was spent in Scotland on agricultural price support than on the whole gamut of expenditure on rural industry, forestry, tourism and fisheries. That did not help the economy of rural Scotland much; in effect, it distorted it. We need a comprehensive rural policy, rather than this approach.
Mr. Maclennan: Would the hon. Gentleman like to complete the Scottish picture by pointing out that, despite that expenditure on agriculture, agricultural incomes in the last financial year stood at 12·5 per cent. of what they did a decade ago, in real terms?
Mr. Home Robertson: It is undoubtedly true that, largely because of the weather but also because of other factors, farm incomes last year were about as low as they have ever been since the second world war.
Mr. Gavin Strang: In addition, is it not a scandal that the Government are closing research institutes and cutting the number of those productive scientific jobs?
Mr. Home Robertson: I intend to refer to that, if my hon. Friend can contain himself.
British agriculture is at a turning point; the Government have a duty to guide it in the right direction by a combination of incentives and advice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) said, we know what has been happening to the research and advisory services. I ask once again: what has happened to the Agriculture Bill? Not that I ever want to see it again, but part of that package is a 41 per cent. cut in the funding of the advisory and research services in Scottish agriculture, with parallel cuts in England and Wales.
We also know that the Government are cynically playing off colleges and research institutes in Scotland against one another in this vicious regime of cuts. We have
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seen the tragic spectacle of two excellent agricultral research institutes in Scotland—the Hill Farming Research Organisation and the Macaulay Institute of Soil Research—having to fight it out because of the cuts to see which will survive. That is tragic, because the industry will require all the scientific guidance that it can possibly get in the coming months and years.
This is relevant because, when and if Ministers do manage to agree on the way forward, it will not just happen; it will involve restructuring the whole industry. It will involve changes of use, new crops and trees on land which has hitherto been in agriculture. We shall obviously need an effective advisory and research service and other incentives.
Last year's statistics show that farm incomes are close to an all-time low, as the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) said. Having experienced the 1985 harvest in Scotland, I have a good idea what has caused that fall in returns. It had much to do with the weather, but that bad year followed a succession of extremely profitable years.
That brings me to the problems facing farm employees. Quite apart from the low incomes of far too many faun workers, we should be concerned about the number who have been laid off or made redundant in recent months, following the bad harvest. Farmers will not enhance their reputation by calling men out at all hours to save the harvest and laying them off the following month at only a few weeks' notice. It is worth remembering that in Scotland redundancy from a farm can also mean homelessness, because we still have the agricultural tied housing system.
The hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills), who is no longer in the Chamber, said that he deplored the difficulties of rural areas and warned about the effect that a further squeeze on agriculture would have on rural communities and the economy of rural Britain. Until today, the Minister of Agriculture was advocating indiscriminate price cuts. He must know that such a proposal would be a further burden on the rural economy. Marginal price cuts will simply increase production. If the cuts are to be big enough to have the effect that the Minister seeks, they will have an intolerable impact on the rural economy. Price restraint must obviously be an element of this strategy, but it cannot possibly be the whole story.
However, I welcome the Minister's belated conversion to set-aside and other mechanisms to restructure the industry. He is following the lead given by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) in advocating incentives for planting trees on land currently used for surplus crops. Perhaps he will also pay attention to what we will say about the provision of land for new entrants to the industry and about the strategy which my hon. Friend intends to outline shortly on income support for small farmers and on a tonnage-based quota system for cereals. My hon. Friend suggested a whole new national approach to the CAP, which was echoed by the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer).
Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman seems to be giving us a sneak preview of the Labour party's next election manifesto, so could he tell us whether the manifesto will still say that Labour would nationalise alternative land?
Mr. Home Robertson: The Minister will have to wait and see, but I think that that is a little unlikely. I have just

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come from the Labour party conference in Scotland at which a whole range of resolutions on this subject were passed, but that was not among them.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: How many tenants has the hon. Gentleman got?
Mr. Home Robertson: I do not know why Conservative Members get so excited. If a Conservative Member is a farmer, he is a good, honest, hard-working yeoman farmer, but any Labour farmer must ipso facto be a rapacious landlord.
Mr. Hogg: But how many tenants does the hon. Gentleman have?
Mr. Home Robertson: None.
We recognise the need to cut surpluses and the need to cut costs drastically, but it must be done responsibly and it must take account of the needs of the full British rural economy. The Labour party has a proud record of care for agriculture, which started with the Agriculture Act 1947. We intend to maintain that record.
These proposals might well turn out to be academic if Mr. Kiechle of the German Federal Republic vetoes the whole package, as he did last year and if it is not the German Government it is just as likely to be the Irish or someone else and meanwhile another year's crop has been sown. Next year's surplus is being grown. There is a long lead time in agriculture and we cannot go on putting off decisions for ever. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd has suggested that the agricultural support system should be repatriated, subject to clear guidelines laid down by the EC. That means that if the United Kingdom had production quotas for milk, beef, sheep or cereals, our Government would take whatever steps they thought appropriate for British conditions to achieve those targets, subject to penalties for overproduction. Such a scheme would include national measures to support the rural economy and to restructure agriculture.
It would be too complicated and take too long to negotiate a comprehensive package for the entire EC of 12 countries this year or next year. The surpluses for 1987–88 are already in the ground being grown. We should seriously consider repatriating national agricultural policies.
The industry is now in a crisis and this debate will not settle the matter—I wish that it would. The Opposition are working on detailed proposals for food supplies to Europe and the future of agriculture, but there was precious little sign, at least until this evening, of any constructive thought from the Government. We were interested to hear what the Minister of Agriculture said. It was in marked contrast to what his noble Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office said when he addressed the annual general meeting of the National Farmers Union of Scotland at Coylumbridge last week. When Mrs. Fiona Dalrymple, an NFU representative from the Lothian region, accused the Government of being irresponsible, saying that land would have to come out of production without showing a policy direction, Lord Gray of Contin said:
"I am all ears. You tell me what the policy should be."
If that is the state of mind of the Minister of State responsible for agriculture in Scotland, we urgently hope
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that more constructive views will be forthcoming from the Minister of State with responsibility for agriculture in the rest of the United Kingdom.
10.4 pm
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): During today's debate we have seen that a number of issues have brought both sides of the House close together. First, there has been a demand that the common agricultural policy should be accepted, and that whatever we do must be addressed to the problems of surplus and solving them. Secondly, it has been demanded that the CAP should be fair and should not discriminate between farmers or nations within the European Community. Thirdly, it has been demanded that the policies should be open in the sense that they should enable the industry to take on new recruits and to reward efficiency and success.
Those three points seem to have become the common currency of all who are concerned to reform the system. I understand that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins), who has long-standing views on the matter, does not believe that the system can be reformed. He is becoming an ever lonelier figure, but he takes a consistent view, which we must accept as his. It is more sensible than the proposals of the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) for the repatriation of the agricultural support system. That would mean that we would retain within the Community all the issues about which we argue most, and that we would have to argue first about what the pointer would be, and then what suitable national decisions would be. Without guidelines about what would be suitable, we would soon complain about the French using their internal arrangements to undermine the markets that we have created for ourselves. We would be the first nation to argue about that, if the guidelines were not tight, fair and properly implemented.
The hon. Gentleman talked as if it would be easy to ensure that no country overproduced. Many Labour Members have put that argument tonight. They have played the usual Labour trick of saying that all foreigners cheat, and we never do. That is almost true, but it is not utterly true. A certain amount of policing would certainly be needed. The hon. Gentleman's solution to the problem was merely a restatement of the present problem. It is that we must come to agreements about the way in which we share the supply of food to a market which is diminishing, and which faces increases in supply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) put his finger on a most important point. It is not merely that our ability to poduce food is increasing, but that our ability to consume it is decreasing. In many major respects the population of western Europe has decided that to eat less of certain sorts of food would be beneficial for health, and that is for it to decide. While we are producing more dairy products, the demand for them is decreasing.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) came to the House with what appears to be yet another version of SDP agricultural policy. He said no to every suggestion, saying that every suggestion was unsuitable, unworkable and would have to be delayed and given time. After listening to his speech, it was impossible to imagine any workable proposal, but one. I hope that

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hon. Members on both sides of the House will remember what he said—that we could not put up with the Third world knocking the CAP sideways.
That is an interesting view—to kick the poorest people in the world because we cannot solve our problems. As that party is constantly saying that it is supported entirely by Church of England clergymen, I hope that every parish priest in Britain heard what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope that he realises that the poorest people in Thailand who provide manioc for the EC will hear what he said tonight. Having told us that no farmer can bear any restriction put forward by my right hon. Friend or by the Commission, or any change, because it has to be given time to work, he has said that the people of Thailand can be kicked in the teeth because none of them has a vote for the SDP. That is the reason for that choice.
Mr. Maclennan rose—
Mr. Gummer: I shall not give way.
Mr. Stephen Ross: Sit down, you cheat.
Mr. Gummer: I shall not give way. I have checked the record. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland refused to give way the last time he spoke, and today he refused to give way until he was forced to do so. Therefore, I see no reason why I should give way to him.
Mr. Stephen Ross: Sit down.
Mr. Gummer: The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) was not even here. The farmers on the Isle of Wight—an agricultural area—must wonder why their representative has not been here.
For most of the evening the House has had the opportunity to listen to two different agricultural policies put forward by the Liberal party and the SDP. I have considered carefully the difference between them, and I have looked carefully at the debate that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland asked us to read. In that debate the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells) suggested that we should have no quotas. Then I discovered that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) said that we should have quotas, but they were not really quotas because they were to be open-ended; in other words, there should be quotas on everything, but if a farmer grew too much he could sell it wherever he could get a market for it. So we have a new kind of quota—the open-ended quota.
Then we had a most interesting statement from the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will remember it. It is one about which we shall hear a lot—if not from him, certainly from us. He said:
"If, instead of an open-ended system of support, limits are placed on the amount of farm produce qualifying for the full guaranteed price and that amount is geared to what can be produced by an efficient family farm, anything produced above that limit can be allowed to find a price level on the open market."—[Official Report, 29 January 1986; Vol. 90, c. 1037.]
I have read that carefully. As I understand it, it means that every farm product will have a quota based on the most interesting and obvious objective standard—that which can be produced by an efficient family farm. An interesting thing about SDP Members is that they swap the word "family" for the word "small" regularly. But that is not true of many farms. In my constituency there are many
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family farms, which are large even by British standards, but several families live off and round them. Are they the kind of farm that the SDP is talking about? If they are, there will be no quotas at all. If the whole of Britain raised its ability to produce to the standards of the best land in Suffolk, we would have a bonanza for surpluses, the like of which we have never seen before. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland did not mean that. What he meant, no doubt, is an idyllic weekend farm of the kind the SDP is always talking about. That is when SDP Members do their farming. The hon. Gentleman will produce a figure which will no doubt be satisfactory for his purposes. That is what he will do. Then he will tell everyone else that they have to work to that. Where will come all his sadness for the poor position of farmers under our proposal? Farmers would be worse off if every product had to be checked upon. Can we imagine people calling round checking on the quotas per farm? What makes it believable is that the SDP wants people to go round checking the day on which piglets were weaned. That would help the unemployment problem, because more people would be checking in agriculture than has been dreamt under any policy we have known.
The SDP claims that it is the natural party of agricultural opposition. That is where it should stay. I must not leave that point without mentioning the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor, who made an important contribution to the debate and applied himself to the problems listed in this series of documents. But in the middle of it, he said something that we must press a little harder, and I hope that in future he will have the opportunity to answer it. He said that gradually—very gradually—the imports of New Zealand lamb should be slowed down and that we should find it new markets, probably in the far east, for what it produces. As a policy, that lacks some certainty. It has a fuzziness which some have suggested might often apply to Liberal policy generally, But it has the advantage of possibly being carried out and, therefore, it shows another difference between the two parties in the alliance.
The noticeable aspect of the official Opposition was the paucity of its attendance during the dabate—
Mr. Maclennan: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Gummer: No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman may set me an example on the next occasion, and I promise to give way then.
My hon. Friends the Members for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) and Wantage (Mr. Jackson) tried to discuss the future of the common agricultural policy and looked for ways in which the system, which was so successful in times of shortage, should be changed to meet times of plenty. The House should have heard more speeches from the Opposition putting forward their views on the CAP. However we may fare in the continuing debate during the next few months, we must find an answer to the surpluses and we must find that answer within the CAP.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) is not present, for he spoke with great compassion on the subject. His constituency borders mine. He said that Ipswich is a great grain port. What does he think made it a great grain port? It was the common agricultural policy, which turned Britain from a net importer of grain to the sixth largest exporter in the world. It is a good thing for

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the people of Ipswich that the hon. Gentleman's policy on the Common Market was not followed. The hon. Gentleman not only opposes—
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: My hon. Friend supports the Common Market.
Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman was not here for the debate, so I can report to him that the hon. Member for Ipswich is president of the "Get Suffolk out of the Common Market" movement. The hon. Gentleman should return to Cumbria, about which his facts are more accurate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter), in connection with our arguments on the landlord and tenant legislation and tenants going out of milk production—the point was signally lacking from the speech of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)—remarked that however important it is to find a solution, it is not easy to find such a solution. It must be true that both landlords and tenants have an interest in quotas. The tenant must have a clear interest in the quota. It must also be true that if a tenant removed from a landlord's land a milk quota, thus leaving the landlord with land worth much less than it would otherwise be, the landlord also has some interest in the quota.
If it was easy, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich suggested in her rather typical anti-landlord speech, as if somehow landlords could be discounted entirely, because, according to Labout mythology all landlords are wicked—[Interruption.] The truth is that we did not want to go into the details of the discussions this evening because we wanted them to be fruitful. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland to laugh, but such a result could be jeopardised. It would be a good thing if landlords and tenants could reach a conclusion, and it would be a bad thing if the House made that more difficult.
The problems of the quotas for milk production were exacerbated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said, not just because the quotas came in so rapidly but because they were in many ways implemented retrospectively. Indeed, my hon. Friend is right to say that quotas cannot properly be evaluated on the basis of that experience.
However, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton underestimates the degree to which quotas can ensure that an industry becomes inflexible, unable to change to meet new demands, unable to open up to new entrants and unable to take on the effects of efficiency resulting from the new technologies. I beg him to accept that there are those who feel that quotas are not the sensible solution to our problems. Nevertheless, I accept that his points must be properly considered. He is right to suggest that it would be unfair to judge quotas merely according to our dairy experience.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton will not be carried along by the thought that quotas are somehow inevitable. That is not so. We must find an alternative that resolves the problems. Thus, it is perfectly right for us to continue to say what we have always said—that there must be price restraint at the centre of any package. After all, none of the suggestions can work if the price continues to rise in a world of surpluses. That would
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be economic nonsense and would be seen as such by all those who complain about how the CAP now works. Price restraint must be a central part of any package.
The rest of the package must be judged on three criteria. First, it must work; secondly, it must be flexible enough to allow for technical advances, success, and for new people coming into the industry; and thirdly, it must be fair between countries. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) made that point, he was echoing several others. He said that for farmers in Britain, as, I believe, for farmers in the rest of the Community, the first criterion is whether other people are being asked to shoulder a smaller burden than they are.
Our farmers are most concerned to know whether the burden is fairly shared. They accept that major changes must be made and that surpluses do farming no good. Indeed, several of my hon. Friends made that point. But having accepted that point, they ask that the burden should be shared among the countries of Europe. In that, I must echo the words of several hon. Members who demanded that we should fight not only for Britain's interests in the round, but for a fair share that must not be imperilled by the sort of special arrangements that were made recently, for example, in the case of Ireland and dairy quotas.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas) made several points about the problems that the dairy industry ran into with quotas and which would continue if there was a reduction in production; but he must also accept that we very much take the point that every country must obey the rules. It is not just that things must be seen to be fair theoretically, but that other countries obey the same rules as we do. That is always difficult because it is common practice in all European countries to claim that one's own nation obeys the rules while all the others do not. However, there is no doubt that we in Britain are more efficient than some in controlling and checking such matters. Part of our policy must be to ensure that that fairness is not only theoretical but actual.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) properly reminded the House that the inevitable result of dealing with agricultural surpluses one by one is that there is a knock-on effect and an increasing imbalance between the sectors. I fear that we cannot face all the problems at once. What we are seeking in this particular round is to deal with some of them effectively, but we should not ignore what my hon. Friend said in our search for a solution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) made a particularly helpful speech from his point of view. He is no lover of the CAP. However, he rightly supported the price cuts, and also made the point about restraints being central to any package, which I think the House in general would accept. I do not want to encourage him in his views about ethanol. However low the price of grain were to fall, I cannot see that it would be sensible to make it into ethanol, particularly as the oil price falls. We must be careful about misleading the farming community by suggesting that there are simple answers of that kind to these complex problems.
My hon. Friend the Member Devizes (Mr. Morrison) put clearly the reason why he was opposed to a co-responsibility levy. We share with him that reason, particularly the point about the 25-tonne cut-off. It cannot be acceptable that Britain, whether intentionally or merely by accident, should be discriminated against because of the different structure of our family farms.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), whose speech I missed, sadly, but which was reported to me in detail, returned to the question of national aids. We can only see a successful means of helping those who most need help in agriculture, whether it be in Portugal or in Britain, if we deal with the surpluses overall. That will give us the elbow room to deal with specific problems. I refer again to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage, which will be well worth reading.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) made the point that is often missed on the gearing of the CAP. There is no doubt that that policy is supremely successful as long as surpluses are not easily made. It becomes faster and faster and more and more expensive even with small increases over the amount needed for consumption. My hon. Friend mentioned the 4:50:200 gearing. Four per cent. over production means 50 per cent. more in intervention and 200 per cent more on the price. That is a devastating picture. However, it should be compared with the fact that if we went back to the system of deficiency payments, the increase in the cost that Britain would by paying for the CAP would be well over the £1,500 million. There is no solution that way. The real solution comes in reforming the CAP, guided by three principles. It should be done in an effective way, in a fair way and in a way which keeps farming open to new entrants and to new ideas and technology.
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The sadness about the debate is not the common attitude that so many of us share on the present discussions, not even the small number of Opposition Members who attended and spoke about the future; the sadness of this debate is that, in discussing the arguments, the Labour party put forward its views of the future with great vagueness. However, it managed to achieve something, which I am sure in retrospect alliance Members will wish that they had achieved. The Labour party did at least manage to put forward some policies rather than putting forward so many policies which showed most of us that alliance Members would be wholly unsuited to run anything, least of all an agricultural policy.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Community documents Nos. 4963/86 including Addenda 1 to 5, 10174/85, 4075/86, 8480/85, 5098/86, 10492/85, 4130/86 and 4150/86; and supports the Governments intention to seek an agreement on 1986–87 farm support prices and related measures, including a Community Milk Outgoers Scheme, which maintains the process of reform, and, in particular, which tackles the problems of surpluses and costs in the Common Agricultural Policy, which makes the policy more market-orientated and which does not unfairly disadvantage the United Kingdom, taking account of the interests of British agriculture and its associated industries, of consumers and of taxpayers.

Privileges
10.30 pm
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I beg to move,
That this House agrees with the Committee of Privileges in its Second Report of the last Session of Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 555 (1984–85)); and declares that the Recommendation contained in paragraph 14(iv) of the Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations of the Report do have effect from the beginning of this Session.
Last summer the Select Committee on Privileges undertook a comprehensive review of the procedures available to the House for dealing with leaks from Select Committees. It may help the House if I first set out the background to its inquiries and then outline the general conclusions reached.
In its first report of last Session the Privileges Committee concluded that the leak of a draft report prepared for the Select Committee on Home Affairs was a serious contempt of the House. It concluded, however, that there would be no benefit in taking further action in relation to this specific matter. Instead, the Committee decided to examine further the procedures and practices generally of Select Committees with regard to their proceedings in the context of the privileges and rules of the House.
The House will also be aware of the second special report from the Select Committee on the Environment regarding a leak of its draft report on radioactive waste. This is a further regrettable example of the kind of leak which occasioned the Privileges Committee's inquiries last year.
As the House will know, Select Committees in their reports do frequently adopt a consensus approach. The aim of seeking unanimity or, failing that, broad agreement, is a guiding principle in the way that they do their work. Leaks, therefore, particularly at the draft report stage, strike at the very heart of this method of consultation. The point is well made in the second special report of the Environment Committee.
Unfortunately, the Privileges Committee discovered in its proceedings not only the very considerable difficulty of identifying members of Committees who provide information to the media but also no sympathy in the media with the view that the confidentiality of the proceedings of Select Committees should be respected.
The Committee concluded that the problems of enforcement of the rules of privilege in these circumstances are not easily overcome. The way ahead lay in seeking to define the circumstances in which enforcement would be appropriate.
The Privileges Committee, therefore, proposed that the Select Committee concerned should first investigate the circumstances of the leak. As I recently informed the House, the Liaison Committee has already agreed with Select Committees that the steps proposed by the Privileges Committee should be adopted straightaway. They have been so followed by the Environment Committee in its recent investigation. The Committee also suggested a number of practical steps which Select Committees might take to stop leaks in the first place by way of informing Members of their responsibilities and the marking of documents.
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The only remaining matter in the report for the approval of the House is recommendation 14(iv). This says that a report that a leak had caused substantial interference to the work of a Select Committee should automatically stand referred to the Committee of Privileges. There is no technical requirement to change Standing Orders to do this. It requires only that the motion which the House is considering tonight be approved. Hon. Members will see that the terms of the motion are retrospective in that it would allow the Environment Committee second special report to be referred forthwith to the Privileges Committee.
Before passing the motion, therefore, the House will wish to be assured that an automatic reference to the Privileges Committee would constitute a right and proper use of the Privileges Committee itself. We need to be realistic on what can reasonably be sought of the Privileges Committee and what it can reasonably deliver. As Chairman of the Committee, I have considered this further since the Committee agreed its second report in July 1985.
The matter can be divided into two aspects: first, seeking the identity of the leaker; and, secondly, what penalty should be exacted. On the first point, it does not seem reasonable to ask the Privileges Committee to try to establish who a leaker might be when the Select Committee had already failed to do so through its own endeavours. In those circumstances, the Privileges Committee would be duplicating the intensive inquiries which the Select Committee might reasonably be expected to have set in hand into the sources of the leak.
On the second point, however, I see merit in the Privileges Committee retaining its historical responsibility for advising the House on the privilege aspects and looking at the wider question of what sanction might be applied. The Privileges Committee could usefully bring to bear the very wide range of authority and experience contained in its membership to decide on what an appropriate penalty might be. This would, in my opinion, also accord with a general principle that the Privileges Committee should concern itself only with the more serious aspects of the privileges of the House.
If the House accepts such a distinction between the identification of a culprit and the penalty he should bear, some kind of mediator is needed between a Select Committee and the Privileges Committee to ensure that these principles are observed when a Select Committee is considering the reference of a leak to the Privileges Committee.
The best body to perform that task might be the Liaison Committee, which I think could act as an informal filter and sounding board for a Select Committee Chairmam to consult when a reference to the Privileges Committee was being considered. There would be no need to lay down hard rules or a code of practice. Suffice to say that if a Select Committee wished to take advantage of the opportunity to refer a leak to the Privileges Committee, it would be on the understanding that members of the Liaison Committee had already been consulted and agreed that there was a useful task for the Privileges Committee to fulfil, not with regard to identifying the perpetrator of the leak—that would normally be the task of the Select Committee—but with regard to whether there had been a contempt and what sanction or penalty it would be appropriate to impose.
It would also be appropriate in some circumstances for leaks to be referred to the Privileges Committee

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irrespective of whether the leaker had been identified. That would be when issues of particular importance arose for the Privileges Committee to consider. I think the House would agree that the facts set out in the second special report of the Environment Committee is such a case.
It would also be open to the Liaison Committee to bring to the attention of the Privileges Committee any important factors which it felt the Privileges Committee should consider in dealing with the points raised with it by a Select Committee.
I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), who is Chairman of the Liaison Committee, has already consulted his colleagues and that the kind of understanding that I have outlined would be broadly acceptable to members of the Liaison Committee. It would not be my intention to go any further, but to rest on what I have just said in relation to the arrangements that I have outlined.
Perhaps I should add that nothing in the arrangements would preclude the Privileges Committee from conducting any investigation into a leak as widely as it felt fit. It is, of course, for the Privileges Committee alone to judge on whether any question of privilege arises.
I hope that the House will agree with what I have outlined as an acceptable way of proceeding. No one can doubt the damage that leaks do to the work of Select Committees. The second report of the Privileges Committee outlined a pragmatic and comprehensive framework within which these matters could be considered. What I have said tonight is by way of further reflection which I trust that the House will find helpful. On that basis. I commend the motion to the House.
10.38 pm
Mr. Peter Shore: The Lord Privy Seal has set out the background to this debate. The House is being asked tonight to agree with the Privileges Committee in its second report and to give effect retrospectively to the beginning of this Session, to recommendation 14 (iv) of the second report from the Privileges Committee which states that—
"A special Report stating that a leak had caused substantial interference, as described in paragraph 67, should automatically stand referred to the Committee of Privileges."
In his speech the Leader of the House has—I think sensibly—proposed that a Select Committee should first consult the Liaison Committee and obtain its agreement before the matter is referred to the Select Committee on Privileges. He added the caveat that he would not generally envisage that the Privileges Committee would consider a leak if the Select Committee had not itself been able to identify the leaker. These are sensible amendments. There is a danger that without such additions the Privileges Committee could find itself saddled with references that would simply be exercises in frustration and impotence.
The reality is that the ability of the Select Committee in the first place, and the Privileges Committee in the second, to identify the source of leaks and to act effectively to deter them is very limited. That is manifest in the report that is before the House tonight.
The problem is twofold. First, as paragraph 29 fairly states:
"it is clear from the evidence and from the nature of many of the leaks, that the majority of them—especially the more serious disclosures of the contents of draft Reports—are the deliberate work of members of committees acting for political or personal
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motives…These may include a political desire to undermine a Chairman's draft Report, a wish to influence the decisions the Committee will take, or a desire to maintain good and friendly relations with a particular journalist or editor."
Since it is rare indeed for a Member of Parliament to identify himself, the sanctions—dismissal from the Select Committee, suspension or even expulsion—can operate only as very remote deterrents indeed.
The second problem is that the press and broadcasting media simply do not accept any strong constraint upon themselves in the publication of confidential material, other than material that directly affects national security. That was made quite plain in the evidence that was given before the committee by representatives of the press and of the media. It was very forcefully stated by the late editor of The Times, Mr. Charles Douglas-Home.
The press argues that its function is to publish news and information about matters of public interest. That includes the work of Select Committees. The same attitude is taken by those journalists who work in the Palace of Westminster. This represents a change of attitude and conduct in recent years, since the Notes on Procedures of Lobby Journalists, dated as recently as 1982, lays down that the rules of privilege prevented the publication of unreported proceedings of Select Committees. Unlike the original source of the leak—the unidentified Member of Parliament—the publication of the leak is, of course, highly visible.
We are told that the House can impose such major penalties as imprisonment for the remainder of the session, or a reprimand by the Speaker at the Bar of the House. But imprisonment has not been used since 1880 and, as was shown in The Economist case in 1975, the House was not prepared then to back the Privileges Committee when it recommended the much less potent penalty of excluding the editor and reporter from the precincts of the House for six months. Thus, there are major limitations on the ability of the Privileges Committee and the House to prevent unauthorised disclosures of Select Committee proceedings.
Since self-restraint is by far the most effective barrier against leaks, the committee's analysis of serious leaks in recent years is particularly valuable. As it says in paragraphs 52 to 54 of its report, there are three kinds:
"First publication of significant material improperly acquired, such as stolen documents, or documents clearly marked as confidential which have been found by chance, or information obtained by payment or for other improper reward or by means of threats."
There is no recent evidence of leaks of this kind, but they could happen. The report continues:
"The second type of serious case would be those involved in leaks of clearly classified information, including commercially confidential, whether in a classified document or by oral disclosure. Again, there is no recent experience of such leaks…but the evidence referred to…makes plain the damage such leaks could cause the committee system, quite apart from the damage done by leaking the actual material.
The third category would be those cases where a Member or other person has deliberately attempted to damage the working of a committee by premature press publication—perhaps by revealing the contents of a draft Report or unreported evidence or other working documents—or where such publication can be shown to have caused, or to be likely to cause, substantial interference with the committee's work."
That is a direct quote from the report.
It is good to know that the first two and most serious categories of leak have not recently occurred. That is important. It is the third category which has caused, and is causing, most of the trouble. Why is that? I think that

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the answer lies in the fact that there are right hon. and hon. Members who do not think that draft reports should be protected by privilege; who believe that the deliberative process should be as open as the rest of a Select Committee's work. I do not hold that view, and it is my opinion that those who act upon it do not help and positively hinder the general trend towards more openness in the affairs of government.
The purpose of a Select Committee is to investigate and to give the maximum publicity to the matters that it decides to study. Differences of view and of votes taken are faithfully recorded in the reports of the Committee when it presents them to the House. Written and oral evidence is published at the same time as the Select Committee's report, and sometimes earlier. All that is withheld is the thinking aloud and the exchange of view that take place on the basis of the chairman's draft report. That this stage is confidential is helpful to calm consideration and to the process of reaching agreement on some or all of the Committee's recommendations.
If a Committee's reeommendations are unanimous, the authority of its report is undoubtedly greater. I can think of occasions when the evidence taken by a Select Committee may lead it to conclusions that are highly critical of—indeed, unacceptable to—the Government of the day. After all, Select Committees are investigating matters that come within ministerial competence and responsibility. The thrust of a Select Committee's report is to expose matters that are sensitive to Ministers of the day. If the draft report becomes public before decisions have been reached, there is a danger of pressure being placed on Committee members from Ministers and Whips. I accept, therefore, the desirability of preventing serious leaks. I accept the statement in paragraph 56 that reads:
"If a Member of the House is found to be responsible for a leak…he should be punished."
The paragraph continues:
"If an editor or a journalist (or any other person who enjoys the facilities of a Lobby or Press Gallery) has been responsible for publishing such a leak, he too should be liable to an appropriate penalty."
Whether the particular penalties that are mentioned in paragraph 56 are appropriate and sufficient—removal of the offending Member from the Select Committee and suspension from the Lobby and Press Gallery of the offending journalist—must depend on the circumstances, seriousness and nature of the leak.
The conclusions and recommendations of the Select Committee are, I believe, sensible, modest and realistic. It is right that the Liaison Committee and the Select Committees should themselves take steps to ensure that Members are aware of their responsibilities. It is certainly sensible that the Select Committees should themselves take steps to identify the source of the leaks and to distinguish between the serious and the trivial offence. If it is the former, it is sensible and right that the Committee should make a special report to the House and that, with the qualifications made by the Leader of the House, there should be an automatic reference to the Privilege Committee.
The report's recommendations are realistic because we are all aware of the practical limitations of taking effective action against those who are determined, for whatever reason, to breach the rules. I, too, therefore, commend the report to the House.
10.49 pm
Mr. Terence Higgins: I support the motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, and I agree with much of what has been said by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). We need realistic rules in this area, and we well understand the difficulties that we face, but the considerable success of the new departmentally related Select Committees may be jeopardised if we do not seek to reduce and, if possible, eliminate the damage done by the premature disclosure of proceedings of Select Committees. It is therefore important that we take practical steps to reduce the impact of such leaks.
It is important to stress, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House did, that the Select Committees have already adopted the procedures recommended in the report. The matter outstanding is the automatic reference to the Committee of Privileges, to which I shall return in a moment.
It is also helpful to distinguish the various cases that are possible in this area. I suppose that the first is simply the premature disclosure of a report which has already been agreed. Both the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House have stressed that there seems to be no great agreement among Committee members and the press on the need to stop that kind of disclosure. Personally, I find that most regrettable. I should have hoped that the press would understand that in many cases it is actually interfering in the effective working of the Select Committee system and that responsible journalists should not go along with such a practice.
If a particular journal or branch of the media can get something in advance of the others, I suppose that it secures some kind of "scoop", but very often detailed examination of what is said to be a leak shows that it is possible to construct what has been published and held out to be a report or draft report from evidence already in the public domain. Some of the leaks hold out as a report of a report something which is in fact an earlier draft. To that extent, I suppose that the authors should be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act because they seek to take credit for getting something in advance when in fact they have not done so.
Be that as it may, however, we must recognise the real risk that such premature disclosure may diminish the impact of the report even though it has already been agreed. I agree with the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney that in cases of this kind it is very much a matter of timing. He said that the press felt that it had a right to publish and to give information, but all that is really at issue here is the stage at which that happens. It is thus perhaps not the most important kind of leak.
One is reluctant to grade leaks in order of importance, because in my view they are all deplorable, certainly if any member of the Committee in question is involved. Nevertheless, the category that I have described clearly has done less damage than the kind to which the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), has drawn attention or that which occurred in relation to the Select Committee on Home Affairs a short while ago, which are regarded as constituting substantial interference and likely to cause far more damage. More damage is likely to be caused by leaks of that kind because

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Select Committee reports are vastly more influential if they are unanimous and cut across party lines. If draft reports or reports of proceedings of the Committee appear in the press before the deliberations are completed, it inevitably becomes more difficult for the Committee to achieve a unanimous view. I know from my own experience that it makes a great difference if the report is unanimous, so I believe that in such cases there is substantial interference.
The third category, happily, is one of which there have been no examples at all. If commercially confidential information or classified Government documents made available to a Select Committee were leaked, the damage would be very great indeed.
From my own experience I know that the Government of the day and commercial organisations are often prepared to make information available to Select Committees that is not generally available. Such information can be sidelined in the final report, but at least the Committee has had the advantage of seeing it. If there were a leak of that kind, I do not doubt that it would be extremely difficult to get the commercial companies or the Government to make available the amount of information that these Committees now obtain, and which is immensely helpful in enabling them to carry out their work. As I said in evidence to the Select Committee, it is important to retain the traditional sanctions that the House has had over the years.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred to identifying the leaker and distinguishing that from any penalty that might be imposed. As he suggested, given the number of occasions on which leaks have appeared, there would be a real danger if we did not have a filter mechanism to deal with matters that were of no enormous significance. It is appropriate that such a filter should be provided, and I am assured that, should the House wish it, the Liaison Committee would be prepared to carry out that function. It is also important to recognise that there may be cases that are sufficiently serious for us to take the view such matters should go to the privileges Committee, even if it has not been possible to identify who was originally responsible for the leak.
We must be realistic and practical. We are discussing automatic reference and the removal of the stringent question of timing that was originally applied under the old rules. It is right that the Privileges Committee should have recommended these changes. I hope that its recommendations, combined with my right hon. Friend's constructive suggestion, will enable us to make some progress. This is not an easy matter. We may need to review it in the light of subsequent developments. But for the moment, I welcome the motion and the support that it has received from the Opposition Front Bench.
10.58 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: I was unable to accept the report of the Committee when I was a member of it, and, having heard the consensus view expressed by three previous Ministers of both parties, I find their arguments wholly unpersuasive. Not one of them confessed that we are discussing a restriction on the right of elected Members of Parliament to say what they know to those who elected them. That is one of the central questions.
Many debates and conflicts take place in this Chamber, the most common of which is a conflict between Government and Opposition. There is another conflict
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between the Front Benches—along with the usual channels in which they wallow—and the Back Benches which are excluded from these pleasant occupations. There are also arguments between Left and Right. But tonight we are in a remarkable and rare position of discussing the relationship between the Executive as the Executive, the legislature as the legislature, and the electorate as the electorate. I say that because only in that way will we be able to get to the root of the matter. The issue which led to the Committee discussing this matter was the premature disclosure of papers from a Select Committee. There is no doubt whatever that that was a technical breach of privilege under the old resolutions of 1837 and 1971.
Therefore, when the Privileges Committee decided to confirm the old judgments with a slightly new mechanism, we were inviting the House, against my opposition, to protect itself from public scrutiny, not in the Chamber itself but in respect of Select Committees. Therefore, we have a double standard. We do not go into secret session in the Chamber, as we did in wartime—we discuss things in the open—but in Committee we are intent to preserve a higher standard of security.
I do not doubt for one moment—it was obvious from the evidence we had—that leaks cause great embarrassment to Chairman of Committees. That embarrassment came over most vividly in the evidence they submitted. I do not doubt, either, that leaks build up pressure on a Committee to look at its draft report against a background of the likely reaction that the report might elicit from the public.
Mr. Shore: From the public?
Mr. Benn: From the public.
Mr. Shore: Surely the principal people who are likely to object are Ministers, not the public. It is an investigation of what Ministers are doing that is at the heart of the work of Select Committees.
Mr. Benn: I understand what my right hon. Friend is saying. Like him, I have seen the argument from both sides—from the Executive side and from the Back Benches, and even from the Opposition Front Bench. However, what I am saying is that, if there is a leak, there is pressure. I am arguing—I will come back to it—that pressure is of the essence of parliamentary democracy. Taking measures to remove pressure will destroy one of the central functions of the Chamber. I speak as a Back-Bench legislator for the purpose of this argument.
It is also clear that the culprits could not be traced. Two of my hon. Friends—the hon. Members for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), who is sitting beside me, and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—have on occasions made papers available and have said that they did it.
I have always regarded the practice of leaking as utterly disreputable. I believe in publishing—that is one thing—but to leak is to make use of the worst aspects of secrecy; that is to say, one bows down to the principle of secrecy and then talks to the lobby. Then it appears in the papers that a "senior Government spokesman", a "senior Opposition spokesman" or "certain hon. Members" are "known" to have a certain view.
The House will ignore at its peril what really happens in this place, which is that the formal structure of the Official Secrets Act and the official protection of

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Committees, which we are discussing, is penetrated daily, and is known to Members of all parties and to the press. The press protect it; hon. Members protect it. We are not prepared to act against the press because Members are frightened that if we do we will be unpopular with the press.
I refer here to the evidence of the late editor of The Times, when I cross-examined him on that question. I asked Mr. Douglas-Home:
"I think you accept that privilege, which is the law of Parliament at the moment, prohibits disclosure?"
He replied:
"Yes."
I asked:
"You conceive it to be your duty to assess whether such prohibition is in the public interest, and if you decide to publish, that is to say, you think it right to break the law, you take the consequences and hope public opinion will support you or that Parliament will not enforce the law. Is that a correct representation of your analysis of the functions you perform?"
He replied:
"Certainly, yes."
Those are answers that might have been given by the councillors of Liverpool and Lambeth: "We broke the law, we take the consequences; we did it because we think the public interest is greater"—
Mr. David Harris: The consequences—that is the difference.
Mr. Benn: The consequences; I do not want to be diverted into that.
The House knows that the law is broken, the press knows it, and we accept it. Why? Because it is convenient to leak rather than to be identified. It is much easier to go to a lobby correspondent and let something be known without being identified. The lobby protects the leaks because it protects its sources.
Let no one be taken in by the argument which we have just heard, that commercial matters are secret and should be protected. Look at the Westland case. I do not want to be diverted into that, either, but within a matter of days we had a complete revelation from a Minister who had resigned and who had therefore won the freedom to give an insight into things which, had they emerged in evidence to a Select Committee, would have been so secret that they would have had to be protected by privilege. We must be very careful that we do not so organise our business in Parliament that we allow a disreputable practice of leaking, which gives an advantage to Ministers and those with knowledge to the disadvantage of those without knowledge, including the electorate, to be a loophole through which these things can continue.
We took evidence from Select Committee Chairmen, who were in favour of the recommendations. One of the arguments was that enforcement would protect consensus. I heard my right hon. Friend come out with a powerful argument for consensus. My view is very straightforward. If there is a genuine consensus, so be it, but do not protect a Committee from external pressure to create an artificial consensus, which is what the secrecy does. Hon. Members may go along with a consensus because they have never confronted, in public criticism, the case against. Someone said in evidence that, if there is not consensus, there is confrontation. There is a third route, and it is the one that the House itself follows. We have two views, we listen to
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both and decide which we prefer. The idea that there must be a blind confrontation or a shallow consensus is to miss the very heart of the Chamber—we discuss, debate and decide the majority view.
Mr. Shore: I appeal to my right hon. Friend to declare that the consensus in the case of Select Committee reports is nearly always anti-Government. That surely must appeal to him.
Mr. Benn: I do not want to appear to be defending the Government, but I see no merit in a consensus that is artificially constructed by protecting the Committee from the knowledge that there are others outside who do not share that view. I have never shared the view that Governments crumble when a couple of their Back Benchers join up with the Opposition and criticise the Government. That is one of those illusions taught by the Hansard Society.
The second argument, which we heard from the right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), is that he fears that if the information gets out, he will lose the confidence of Government Departments or industry, and that there will be a drying up of resources. I listened to him carefully because I heard him give evidence. If I misunderstood him, I hope that he will tell me.
Mr. Higgins: Why does the right hon. Gentleman suppose that such a consensus is artificial? It is a consensus that has resulted from a discussion in the Committee. Nobody in that Committee is then forced to agree with what happens. It is undoubted that if the report emerges as a consensus it is likely to carry more weight with the House and the electorate. Has he found one member of a Select Committee who has given evidence to that effect or who is prepared to say now that he thinks that it would be much better if all Select Committee proceedings were held in public and none in private?
Mr. Benn: If the consensus is genuine, it will not be interfered with by disclosure. My reason for saying that it was a fragile consensus followed directly from what the right hon. Gentleman said—do not disturb the consensus by letting information get out. If it is so fragile that disclosure would destroy it, it is not a real consensus. I could have followed that policy of the Privilege Committee and said, "I am outnumbered 10 to one: I had better fall in with the consensus." I would then have denied myself and the House the opportunity of hearing a contrary view. If this matter goes to the vote, I do not doubt that my view will go down as it did in the Committee. Would it have been better if I had abandoned a strongly held view to bring about a false consensus? Not at all. It is better to argue the case. I shall leave it at that.
The right hon. Member for Worthing fears that Ministers and Departments will not disclose to him. What a craven attitude for a legislator to take about the Executive. When we give Committees the power to send for persons and papers, we do not tell them that it can be exercised only if they can win the confidence of their witnesses. We are a Parliament. We are not just an advisory committee to civil servants which can be trusted only with what civil servants wish to tell us. That argument shows what I have long suspected, which is that for a variety of reasons the House is unwilling, although it is able, to impose its will on the Executive, even to the extent of disclosure. So, we have new rules and a filtering

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system. The Leader of the House has added a new liaison link, which I do not remember being discussed. We have a Liaison Committee, a Privileges Committee and enforcement, and I oppose the recommendations root and branch.
My reasons are first that electors have the right to know what Members of Parliaments say and do, and need that knowledge to exercise their vote. Secondly, the Official Secrets Act 1911 is a statute imposed by law on Ministers, who do not have to accept office, if they do not wish to be bound by it. But the House has no authority in law or in practice to restrict Members of Parliament, who are not here because we want them. No hon. Member is elected for another hon. Member, except by chance, depending on where one lives. The House is full of hon. Members elected from outside.
I do not accept that the House has the power to restrict hon. Members' speech. Indeed, privilege is to protect the free speech of hon. Members, not to restrict it. If we start to use privilege to protect hon. Members from embarrassment, public confidence, on which privilege rests, will erode because the public will see that hon. Members are using it to protect themselves, civil servants, Ministers and commercial companies. Privilege allows us to speak our mind without being involved in action to make that freedom possible.
All hon. Members have a right to discover what they can, to disclose what they have discovered, and to mobilise and influence opinion before decisions are made. If that is not the case, why are we here? Part of our time is spent externally mobilising opinion with a view to winning support at the general election. If that is excluded in pursuit of consensus, a little kernal of coalitionism will be introduced into the scrutiny of the Executive which would be damaging.
Select Committees are political in character, not judicial. Some evidence suggested that they are like a jury and can listen only to the evidence that they receive. They are not juries, 12 angry men or 12 consensus men who must reach a judgment. They are there to reach a conclusion, and consensus has no merit unless it is genuine.
The evidence showed the cosiness of Select Committees with the Departments which they examined. I was strongly in favour of Select Committees, against the view of many of my colleagues, as I thought that they would strengthen Parliament against the Executive. I was encouraged in that view by the hostility of permanent secretaries to them, but there is no hostility now. Select Committees have been tamed and brought within the orbit of permanent secretaries. The argument "Don't alienate permanent secretaries and interfere with consensus" throws a new light on Select Committees. It is dangerous to use parliamentary privilege to extend the Official Secrets Act beyond Ministers and officials to Parliament.
However much merit the report has in hon. Members' minds, I do not believe that the public will support it. The media, who may report this debate, will not change their practice. Charles Douglas-Home's evidence remains their view. Therefore, I wish to recommend first that we should end all secrecy in Committees. If the House is not prepared to enforce the disclosure of what it wishes, its secrets are not worth having. Secondly, there should be no complaints of privilege made against hon. Members who disclose what they are elected to discover for the benefit of those whom they seek to represent. Thirdly, each committee
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should look after its own affairs and if it has problems it should sort them out. Finally—this is the most important point—if any action is taken against an hon. Member for disclosing what he discovered, privilege should be used to protect that hon. Member, not to discipline him.
I cannot accept the recommendations of the report, not just in the sense that I argued my case, but personally. I have never leaked a document, but as a Member of Parliament, if I discover something which I believe to be in the public interest, I owe it to those who sent me here to disclose it. On that principle every hon. Member should stand. Whatever the decision tonight—it will obviously go the Government's way—I feel very strongly about a group of senior people who have all held high office, with the lovely consensus that my right hon. Friend loves so much, joining together to snuff out a bit of the liberty of Members of Parliament. That is wholly unacceptable to me.
11. 15 pm
Sir Hugh Rossi: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for bringing forward for debate the second report of the Committee of Privileges and for doing it in such a way that it is possible—if the House agrees—for the second special report from the Environment Committee entitled "Leak of Draft Report on Radioactive Waste" to go forward to the Committee of Privileges for further consideration, especially as, in preparing that report, we followed the recommendations made by the Committee of Privileges.
I shall in a moment recount to the House the experience that my Committee had in two instances. In doing that I shall disagree profoundly with the comments and approach of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who has got the matter entirely out of perspective.
Before that, I want to speak briefly on enforcement. I realise the dilemma that faces the Leader of the House and that will face the Committee of Privileges when it has to deal with the matter and decide what action, if any, it has to take. From my Committee's experience, it is clear that it is impossible to discover the identity of an hon. Member who may have leaked a report if he is determined not to disclose his identity. If hon. Members or their staff betray the trust that has been placed in them and pass on papers which they should not, for whatever motivation, and they cannot be identified, is it fair that a journalist who publishes those papers should be made to suffer a penalty?
There is an analogy in criminal law—it is no more than an analogy—that a receiver of stolen property is punishable even if the thief is not caught. It is generally accepted that if there were no receivers there would be fewer thieves. If there were no publication of confidential documents, there would be no leaks. Such an approach could be regarded as treating the question too seriously. Indeed, dealing with the reports of Select Committees raises a somewhat bizarre position. The reports are not secret documents that people want to protect and hide from the light of day. They are, by their very nature, intended for publication, and published they will be. My Committee would be more than anxious if it thought that its reports were to receive no public attention. That would be extremely damaging for Select Committees. Therefore, it is arguable that a tantalising pre-release of a report acts a

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film trailer and whets the public appetite for more. A leak can ensure that a report attracts interest and does not die a death in oblivion.
My Select Committee has experienced two such leaks. The first related to its report on acid rain. The Committee concluded its inquiry, agreed the report and reported it to the House just before it rose for the summer recess in 1984. Arrangements were made for publication at a press conference on 6 September at 11 am. On 2 September, The Sunday Times ran an article on the report; in the early morning of 6 September, the BBC "Today" programme commented on the report; and the New Scientist appeared on the stands containing an article on the report. All those comments were clearly in breach of the embargo.
I did not think that any real harm had been done, although at the time I and members of my Committee were rather irritated, because many of us had declined invitations to discuss the report on radio and television, as we would have wished to do. But we were honour-bound by the embargo. It was not for our benefit, but for the benefit of Fleet street, to give all the opportunity to receive the report at the same time and to comment upon it together. Pre-empting the embargo was a clever piece of journalism by one individual—
Sir Peter Emery: Not clever.
Sir Hugh Rossi: My hon. Friends may agree that it was the jungle code of dog-eat-dog. I do not complain about the breach of privilege in this case. The press is obviously not interested in this debate, because it is not here to report it. That in itself is indicative of its attitude.
If it is an acceptable journalistic practice to cheat on an embargo—that is what we are talking about—I see no reason why a Committee need feel an obligation to impose and to be bound by an embargo. The moment that we report to the House, we might consider negotiating exclusive publication rights with one organ of the press. It would cost Fleet street dear if we did that, but at least we might recover some of the expense involved in the inquiry and publication of the report. If that is the way Fleet street wants to play it—by cheating the embargo that we put on for its benefit—so be it. Perhaps the House and its Committees might be open to offers in such matters.
The great dramatic statements of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield about secrecy, consensus and declaring to the electors that which we were elected to find out have no merit at all. He takes the matter entirely out of context and distorts the position. We are not trying to hide documents; we want to publish them. But we want to publish them in a way that gives fair and equal opportunities to every newspaper and to every radio and television commentator. We want to prevent cheating, if possible; but, if the press cheats, we may have to think of other ways of publishing reports that may be to our advantage rather than to Fleet street's.
The second case relates to the report on radioactive waste, which will be published at 11 am on Wednesday. We completed our inquiry just before the summer recess of 1985. We were unable to prepare and agree our report before the House rose. The report was therefore drafted during the summer and autumn months and was fully revised and rewritten about five times. The final draft was eventually circulated to Committee members on 10
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December. On 16 December an account of the report appeared in The Times. The reporter, Mr. Richard Evans, a Lobby correspondent, said that a copy of the report had been obtained by The Times. From his account it was clear that a copy, or parts of a copy, was in his hands.
To the Committee this was a more serious and damaging matter than what happened over the acid rain report. When the Committee met on the afternoon of 16 December to consider the draft, it felt that it could not proceed. There was a feeling that the trust that had existed between members of all parties and had enabled us to tackle problems objectively without partisan attitudes had been betrayed.
Everyone looked round the Committee Room asking "Who is it?" They thought that they could trust everyone. They had been working together for nine months trying to discover the truth so that they could publish a document with which they all agreed. Someone betrayed that trust.
Some members felt that they were constrained if they wanted to amend parts of the report. They all felt that it was difficult to discuss the draft and the recommendations in a free and impartial atmosphere. That was the feeling of all members of the Committee of all parties, save perhaps the person responsible for the leak, if he were a member of the Committee and not a research assistant or someone of that kind.
So strong were the feelings of members that the Committee seriously contemplated abandoning the inquiry and throwing away nine months of work. We desisted from that only because of the argument that, if we created a precedent, a dissident minority could always destroy a report by leaking it prematurely.
In the event, we decided to defer further consideration until after the Christmas recess and meanwhile to conduct an inquiry into the leak, along the lines proposed by the Privileges Committee report. The result was to delay the publication of the report by about one month, during a period of intense public interest because of the problems at Sellafield and the announcement of four possible sites to be explored for radioactive waste disposal.
It also led to further uninformed speculation about what our report might or might not say. For example, The Guardian, on 6 March, in a banner front page article, suggested that the report would challenge the evidence of Lord Marshall, chairman of the CEGB. The contrary is true. We quote him with approval. It also suggested that we would recommend no foreign contracts to import nuclear waste for reprocessing. Again, that is not true. I am saying what is not in the report, but which somebody else said was in the report. I am not disclosing what is in the report; I am underlying what is not.
This article, in a respected newspaper, has seriously misled the public, because it is based on one of the early drafts which was rewritten five times. A false impression was created by that newspaper article on the first of our reports, simply because it was based on a draft document which had not been considered and approved by the Committee.
All will be revealed in that report on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I implore that serious consideration be given to preventing serious interference in the work of Committees in that way so that, I hope, it will not arise again in future.
We have followed the procedures recommended by the Committee of Privileges in its report now under discussion. We have tried to ascertain the identity of the

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person responsible. We have published the replies that we have received from every individual who had received a copy of the draft report that had been leaked. In our report we set out the history of the unhappy affair.
I am afraid that there are no George Washingtons in the House and we do not know who was responsible. According to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield, there is no need for any George Washington; everybody has the right to leak and to disclose—
Mr. Benn: No, not to leak.
Sir Hugh Rossi: I am glad to hear that.
Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman must give me credit. I am absolutely opposed to leaking. What I am objecting to is the fake secrecy that is penetrated by a leak. I am saying that everybody has the right to publish, but not to leak. I have never supported leaking.
Sir Hugh Rossi: The distinction becomes a fine one.
Mr. Allan Roberts: As a member of the Select Committee I was completely opposed to the leaking of the report. I felt the same as the Chairman, but that was because the system operated as it did. If we had met in public to discuss our findings and to move our amendments, that would be different. A betrayal of trust is different from advocacy of an open system.
Sir Hugh Rossi: That is another matter. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as long as the House considers that Committees should proceed in a particular manner, it becomes a matter of trust, and that once that is the case we expect hon. Members to behave honourably?
Mr. Roberts: I agree. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) is arguing not for people leaking and betraying that trust, but for a new system in which that would not happen. That is completely different.
Sir Hugh Rossi: That is another matter. In addressing the House this evening I am concerned with what has happened under the existing rules. The Committee has tried to act in a certain way, a breach of trust has taken place, and a document leaked in that breach of trust has been published.
I ask the House to support the motion so that my report can go forward to the Committee of Privileges which can then discuss what sanctions, if any, in the circumstances, it feels it right to impose upon those whom it can identify as having responsibility in the matter.
11.33 pm
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and I once published, or, in my words, deliberately leaked, a document of that Committee. It was not a report of the Committee—I would condemn any such action. It was a document which was the subject of a deliberative session. The leak arose during inquiries which we were carrying out into procurement by the National Health Service of medical gases from the British Oxygen Corporation. During the inquiries it became clear to me that the BOC was threatenting The Guardian with legal action if it persisted in accusing the BOC of overcharging on medical gas supplies to the NHS.
On 26 November 1984 the Department of Health and Social Security gave evidence to the Committee on the
776
subject of oxygen supply. On 27 November the chief executive for corporate communications of BOC, Mr. Nigel Rowe, approached the Clerk of the Public Accounts Committee and asked for a transcript of oral evidence so that
"BOC could submit further evidence if they found it necessary".
The Clerk to the Committee agreed to the request citing precedent, and on the strict understanding that it was supplied to the company in its capacity as a potential witness.
Members of the Committee were not made aware of the existence of the transcript until 18 December. It subsequently transpired that the document had been quoted from at length, with evidence in detail, in a letter dated 30 November from BOC to The Guardian. In the forum of the letter, and using the transcript as evidence, BOC threatened The Guardian with possible legal action, and a reference to the Press Council, unless it agreed to meet BOC to discuss the retraction of articles critical of BOC. The company was using a document marked "In confidence till published", and was breaching the confidentiallity and privilege of a PAC document.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I raised this matter on the Floor of the House. On 21 December BOC wrote to you and pleaded that it had taken "copious notes"—an undoubted deception. It then claimed to have checked the notes against the transcript. You ruled that substantial damage had not been done and did not find in favour of the application that I was making.
Therefore, BOC had established a right to use documents marked and provided in confidence. Whether it was right or wrong that the documents should be so marked is not what I am here to discuss. Clearly the case had far wider implications. I thought that the matter should go to the Privileges Committee, but the PAC refused to back me, so I deliberately leaked a letter from the PAC to BOC. My letter told the company in clear terms that it had quoted from a House of Commons document.
When the Committee was taking evidence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) said:
"Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours, did leak some information which he passed on to the Press about a deliberative session in which he took part. That information was published. I brought it up at the next meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, and he immediately owned up to it…This put us in some difficulty because clearly it was a breach of privilege, and it was a matter which should have been raised in the House itself."
I had asked that the PAC refer me to the Privileges Committee, because I wanted to draw out the argument over the actions of BOC.
I recount this long saga to illustrate the nonsense of marking documents "in confidence" when no action is taken when that confidentiality is broken. I do so also because it illustrates the nonsense of muzzling Members on aspects of a Committee's deliberations, when, equally, the Committee is unwilling to act against that Member, as it refused to act in my case.
I was involved in another leak, this time unintentional, which involved Aish and company. I had repeatedly raised on the Floor of the House the question of excess profits being made by that company in defence contracts, in pursuit and in support of my campaign to help Mr. Jim Smith, who revealed that that company had been making

777
excess profits on defence contracts. The Committee was carrying out an investigation into excess profits, and particularly into Aish.
A newspaper with which I had jointly been campaigning again in this case The Guardian, received from me, in a pile of documents, a letter from the Comptroller and Auditor-General in which he said:
"Mr. Smith has contributed significantly to the ability of the Ministry of Defence to identify excess profits in the case of Aish."
The point was that on that occasion, quite unintentionally, publication of those words constituted a breach of the confidentiality of the Committee, and, as far as the House was concerned, a breach of privilege. The Comptroller and Auditor-General objected, but in my ivew, and that of many others, it is in the public interest that this matter be placed on the public record. Indeed, if I can again breach privilege, the inquiries are still going on into that matter.
The House is free to report me, but I think that the way in which the rules are set at the moment is nonsense. Under the new arrangements the Committee in the first instance, that is the Committee whose privilege has been breached, will decide whether substantial damage has taken place. If it decides that that has happened, it will refer the case to the Committee of Privileges, although today I noticed that the Liaison Committee has been introduced as a filter. I take strong exception to that principle. All that that Committee is doing is what you, Mr. Speaker, have historically done. By introducing the Liaison Committee, the House is undermining the merits of that course.
The question is: what is substantial damage? I promise the House a little bit of business. I give notice that I intend to push this matter. I do not leak liberally. I believe in the confidentiality of reports, but when we place privilege and the requirements of confidentiality on letters which circulate in Committees, but which on no basis can be construed as confidential, we discredit our system. I believe that by questioning the system I shall force the Privileges Committee and the PAC—which under the new rules will have to take a preliminary view—to look closely at what amounts to a breach of privilege and what constitutes substantial interference or damage.
I have no intention of breaching privilege in the sense of revealing any documents which are officially secret to the Committee. That would be wrong. I am interested only in ensuring that hon. Members are not shackled in the way that they have been historically shackled in Committees. Today, when we were discussing the naval dockyards, we went into private session. I believe that some of the matters which were raised in private session under the cloak of confidentiality—which I was told was justified by the need for commercial confidence—were of public interest. I believe that the designation of those documents was wrong and that some of those matters should be on the public record. The new procedure will help define the measure of substantial interference and damage and, as I have said, I intend to press the matter to find out what that might be.
During the proceedings I have read some comments which I was told came from a Granada television executive. In his view, confidentiality is a legitimate interest of Members of Parliament, and disclosure the legitimate interest of the media. I must say that that Granada executive does not understand what the business
778
is about. We are not in business as Members to cloak our procedures with confidentiality. We do not want to be surrounded by confidentiality. We want that only when it is absolutely necessary. That is why I believe that tonight's debate is important and I hope that as a result of these new measures—although I express concern to the point of dividing the House over the question of the Liaison Committee—we will more accurately and reasonably be able to define what constitutes confidentiality.
11.44 pm
Mr. David Harris: The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) argued that we did not want confidentiality unless it was absolutely necessary. The trouble with that argument is that he has taken it upon himself, perhaps alone in the Committee, to judge when that is or is not necessary. That is where the hon. Gentleman's argument falls down.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) expressed what is perhaps a more logical approach when he said that we should open up the whole shooting match to the public. I concede that there is some logic or honesty in the approach of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield compared with the argument that has been advanced by the hon. Member for Workington.
I hope that I shall be forgiven if I approach this difficult area from my experience of many years in the Press Gallery, in particular as a Lobby journalist. I think that I am the only former chairman of the Lobby ever to have become a Member of Parliament. There is no great merit in that; most of my predecessors were far wiser than I and did not leave the Press Gallery. However, I agree with the Privileges Committee when it says that in recent years there has been a marked change in the practice and approach of the Lobby to this question. I shall probably sound like an old man, but when I first entered the Lobby it was almost inconceivable that Lobby journalists would breach privilege in this way. A clear rule was impressed upon members of the Lobby. Many is the time that I was `phoned late at night by the night news editor of the Daily Telegraph, who said that he had heard from perhaps another specialist reporter on the Daily Telegraph or that he had realised that in the first edition of a rival newspaper—usually The Times—there was a story about the proceedings of a Select Committee. My advice to the night editor and, through him, to the editor always, was, "If you want to publish it, go ahead, but I am here on a clear basis of rules—rules not of my choosing but rules of the Lobby and of the House—that to publish the proceedings of a Select Committee in advance of its official report is a breach of privilege." There was no argument about it. There was absolute clarity.
What worries me about the report before us tonight is that perhaps for the first time we are placing quite clear rules, be they right or wrong, within a rather grey, murky area. I am thinking of the position of members of the Lobby who are now in exactly the same position as that in which I was placed in past years. What are they to say if they are confronted with a telephone call?
Page xviii of the Select Committee's report says this, that and the other. However, on a simple interpretation of the report of the Privileges Committee, it seems that harmless breaches of privilege are quite all right but that serious breaches of privilege are a different matter and that perpetrators of them might get into trouble.

779
I am not sure that that is a very good way for the House to proceed. There may be an argument for having a clear-cut rule, as there always was during my time as a journalist, that all breaches of privilege are likely to be frowned upon by the House and that those who take that risk could be ordered to stand at the Bar of the House. Lobby correspondents could be expelled. All sorts of things could follow from such breaches.
The other way to approach the matter would be to scrap privilege and to say that the proceedings of Select Committees of this House are no different from the proceedings of the national executive committee of the Labour party. I spent many happy years finding out the so-called secret deliberations of the sub-committees of the national executive committee. I have had many stories on the front page of the Daily Telegraph about the right hon. Member for Chesterfield when he occupied the position of chairman of a certain sub-committee. I shall not go into that now.
I am seriously worried about the report. I recognise the difficulties that face the Privileges Committee and the intense irritation felt by members of Select Committees—I am a member of one—and by their Chairmen, for example by the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment, when leaks take place, particularly when they are inaccurate. I have serious doubts, however, whether this report will improve the position.
11.50 pm
Mr. Allan Roberts: I am a member of the Select Committee on the Environment and I had exactly the same feelings as the chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), when the Committee's report was leaked. A report appeared on the front page of The Times.
My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has said that he does not leak liberally, and I thought that perhaps the Liberals had had something to do with the leak. I was in the Tea Room this afternoon when my hon. Friend entered and asked "Did you leak the report?" I replied, "Of course I didn't." He replied, "Well, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) said you did." I said, "I thought that he had done it."
That is how things develop. Members were looking at one another and wondering who had leaked the report. When that started to happen, all trust had gone, but that is not an argument about getting rid of privilege and having all our meetings in public. There is an argument, however, against betraying trust when a certain system operates. I am against the leaking of the Committee's report. The member of the Committee, the Officer of the House—it could have been an Officer—or the research assistant who leaked it was entirely wrong to do so.
There were other leaks. At an earlier stage a semi-accurate article appeared in The Sunday Times about what the Cowittee's report was likely to say. I thought that there fiad been a leak. I received a letter from the Committee Clerk that told me that there had not been a leak. It appeared that the journalist who had attended most of the Committee's sittings had read the public parts of our deliberations and had put two and two together and six and six together and had made five and 13 respectively. He had prepared an analysis of what we might produce, and that was as accurate as the leaks.
As the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, the Chairman of the Committee, has said, there have been
780
leaks which have been less accurate than the articles which have been produced by those who have attended our sittings when evidence was taken in public, who surmised what the Committee would or could produce. I am in favour of having all our meetings in public, including the rows between the different party Members who are members of the Committee—Labour and Conservative Members—so that members of the public know how we are voting and can follow what we are discussing. All the feelings of antagonism and of being let down to which the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred can be avoided if that course is taken.
I am not revealing the findings of the Committee 's report when I say that when the members of the Committee visited the United States—as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would observe, one of the advantages of being a member of a Select Committee is the chance to have an odd trip abroad, but I am not in favour of that—we were shown by the Americans—I am not a pro-American—the relationship between the nuclear industry and civil nuclear power and the American's defence commitment. We learned about the monetary relationship and the reprocessing that was carried out. We were taken to plants where spent fuel rods are reprocessed for military purposes. As British Members, we are denied the same information in Britain. Why is that? The answer lies in the Official Secrets Act 1911. That measure does not apply in America. We asked why the same information could not be made available in Britain. How can we make recommendations that we should have that same access if our Committees are not open to the public and the press as they conduct their deliberations and function as a part of Parliament?
We complained, and there has been a full inquiry. The members of the Committee are answering the chairman's letters. Everyone has been in dispute. The only item that has been the subject of more leaks than Sellafield is the Committee's report. One of the reasons why I am opposed to the concept of privilege in Select Committees is that it is unenforceable. It is unenforceable now and it will continue to be even if we pass the measures that are before us.
As I have said, there has been a full inquiry. I have answered the chairman's letters, and so have the other members of the Committee, and it is clear that someone is telling lies or hedging his bets. We cannot ascertain who leaked the report. The press will not tell us who did it. It is rather like getting rid of councillors in Liverpool. If a councillor is surcharged and ceases to hold office, or if a member of the Lobby is thrown out because he will not disclose who leaked the report, both the councillor and the Lobby member will be replaced. Their political views, their attitudes and their desire to get leaks will not alter. The only way we shall know is if someone actually admits it and is brought to the Bar of the House—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: It does not happen. That is the point.
Mr. Roberts: It might happen. When I was interviewed on Granada television about leaks from Sellafield, I was asked about the Select Committee on the Environment. I told the interviewer that if I answered that he and I would finish up in the tower behind Big Ben.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: No, they would back off.
Mr. Roberts: There have been examples. Two Members were brought to the Bar of the House after the Poulson affair. Had freedom of information and access to information about the letting of contracts operated in local government at that time, as we advocate that it should operate in our Select Committee, I believe that that would not have been possible.
It is easy to distinguish confidentiality in relation to people's personal problems, children taken into care and information of that kind on file in local authorities and elsewhere from matters which affect the public interest. The people who advocate freedom of access to information also advocate a law protecting privacy. That certainly applies in the United States.
If we had freedom of information and open government, and if we opened all our Select Committee proceedings, nothing but good could come of it. We must open the Select Committees and get rid of the mistrust that the leaking of reports creates by stopping the problem at its source and we must tell the press that the House of Commons is as we want government, Whitehall and the Executive to be—open, free and with free access to information.
11.56 pm.
Sir Edward Gardner: As so little time is left, I will confine myself to one point—the Committee's findings and its ultimate conclusions, which are clearly based on the rules in the old resolutions of 1837 and 1971. Whether we should still have those rules is a separate question altogether and has nothing to do with freedom of information or open government.
Nothing could be more open—and I should like to boast that nothing was more open—than the meetings of the Select Committee on Home Affairs which I chaired when it investigated the special branch of the police. It was the premature disclosure of the report of that investigation which activated the Committee on Privileges and brought about this debate. I make no apology for that, because it seemed to me that under the rules as they stand it was a serious contempt, as the Committee of Privileges subsequently found.
In the course of that investigation I was firm, and every member of the Committee supported me, in ensuring that all the evidence was examined in public and that there were no secret sessions, however difficult it might be to keep information which should not come before the public in its proper context away from the public. We agreed that that would be achieved by the Chairman saying, "That question cannot be answered", and that is how we did it.
I have no complaint of any inhibition or restriction on the ability to put forward arguments in public. I am as keen as the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and other Members of the House to see that matters as important as that investigation into the special branch should be seen to be debated in public and that all the facts that we can properly obtain in the public interest should come before the public.
I was trying to do that then, and nothing that I or any member of my Committee have done since has gone against that rule. It is quite unrealistic to suggest that we should do away with the rules because, if we do not, we shall in some way mysteriously affect the freedom of information or the necessity of open government.
11.59 pm
Sir Peter Emery: I have only a short time left, but there are two points that I would like the House to consider.
The first is that in our report we have undoubtedly backed away from having to hold the press—particularly the editors—responsible for bearing in mind that at times the work of Select Committees requires some confidentiality until they are able to publish—
It being one and a half hours after the commencement of the proceedings on the motion, MR. SPEAKER put the Question forthwith, pursuant to the Order of the House this day.
The House divided: Ayes 29, Noes 5.

Division No. 96]

[12 Midnight

AYES

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Neubert, Michael

Best, Keith

Nicholls, Patrick

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Page, Richard (Herts SW)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Penhaligon, David

Cope, John

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Durant, Tony

Steel, Rt Hon David

Emery, Sir Peter

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Waller, Gary

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Watson, John

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Watts, John

Lilley, Peter

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Lord, Michael

Sir Hugh Rossi and

Lyell, Nicholas

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed.

Major, John

NOES

Alton, David

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Tellers for the Noes:

Pike, Peter

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours

Skinner, Dennis

and Mr. Allan Roberts.

Wallace, James

Fewer than 40 Members having taken part in the Division, MR. SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided and the business under consideration was stood over until the next sitting of the House.
Sir Hugh Rossi: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As it is not possible under the new procedures, which have not been passed, to refer the second special report of the Environment Select Committee to the Committee of Privileges, may I invoke the old procedures under which I may refer the matter to you so that you may consider referring the matter to the Committee of Privileges?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must write to me on that matter.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I add my voice to what the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) said? I oppose the proposals and the present procedure, but, as that is all that we have left and as there was some feeling in the Environment Select Committee, perhaps you will consider the matter.
Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman will write to me, I shall consider the matter.

WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
Ordered,
That, during the proceedings on the matter of the Roads Programme and the Transport Infrastructure in Wales, the Welsh Grand Committee have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet; and that, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 67 (Meetings of standing committees), the second such sitting shall not commence before Four o'clock.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at to-morrow's sitting—

(1) the provisions of paragraph (1)(b) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to European Community Shipping Policy or to the Motion relating to the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1986; and

(2) Mr. Speaker shall put any Questions necessary to dispose of the first Motion not later than three hours after it has been entered upon, and shall put the Question on the second Motion not later than one and a half hours after it has been entered upon.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

Mr. J. A. Singleton
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
12.12 am
Mr. John Watts: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the case of my constituent, Mr. Singleton, who was unable to work for two years because of ill health before he qualified in 1983 for invalidity benefit and retired prematurely due to permanent ill health.
While Mr. Singleton was still in receipt of sickness benefit, a friend offered him an opportunity to spend two weeks' holiday in Spain between 24 April and 8 May 1983. He was aware that he should notify the Department of Health and Social Security that he would be going abroad for a holiday from the instructions in form BF11P which, on page 3, states:
"You must tell your local office if any of the following changes occur while you are receiving benefit".
One is, "You leave this country."
The form continues:
"You should consult your local office as soon as possible so that they can advise you if benefit is likely to be affected during or after the absence from this country."
The words in form BF11P are important. Claimants are instructed to "tell" the local office
"so that they can advise you if benefit is likely to be affected".
It is apparently a model of clarity.
Mr. Singleton complied with the instructions on 7 April 1983, when he wrote to the Slough DHSS office to "tell" it that he was leaving the country for a short holiday and to give the dates, which were then two and a half weeks ahead. He then waited for the advice which was promised to him in form BF11P. Regrettably, no advice came. Perhaps if he had been aware of the volume of case work handled in the local office, he may have realised that two and a half weeks was not long enough to allow for a reply. If the information in the form had been that benefit was likely to be affected if one went abroad, he might have chased that elusive reply. But his information was only to notify the office so that it could advise him if benefit was likely to be affected. As he received no such advice, he made the perfectly reasonable assumption that his entitlement to benefit was not affected.
On Mr. Singleton's return from holiday he found a letter from the DHSS dated 21 April—three days before his departure on holiday—but date-stamped 28 April, four days after his arrival in sunny Spain. Much to his consternation, the letter told him that he would lose benefit for the period of his holiday. Understandably, he felt aggrieved that he had not been given information to which he was entitled before his departure, although he had complied to the best of his ability with the Department's instructions and given adequate notice of his intentions. He was further aggrieved that the letter was back-dated. If that back-dating was deliberate, it was reprehensible. If the letter was written on 21 April before he set off on holiday, but nobody bothered to post it for a further seven days, that would also merit censure.
Mr. Singleton took up his case with the local tribunal, which upheld the decision of the insurance officer of 26 October 1983. At that point he came to see me. On 9 November 1983, I wrote to the local manager, Mr. Peasley. I always find him and his staff extremely helpful in trying to resolve problems. I asked whether he could

785
exercise any discretion to pay the £50 which had been withheld, but he replied that, as he had no such discretion, he could not make the payment. Mr. Singleton was then refused leave to appeal to the commissioners.
In February 1984, I wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson), who was then Minister for Social Security, pointing out that the insurance officer's submission to the tribunal made great play of the nature of Mr. Singleton's letter of 7 April. The officer claimed that
"the letter from the claimant was purely a notification of the claimant's intention and did not make any inquiry",
although the back-dated reply of 21 April from the Department commences:
"In reply to your inquiry about the effect on benefit of your absence abroad".
Clearly, Mr. Singleton's letter was seen as an inquiry, although later that was explained away as the use of a standard letter which should have been adapted before issue. Mr. Singleton's reply of 9 May 1983 was turned against him because he stated:
"I would have expected my letter dated 7 April to have made it perfectly clear I was not making an inquiry but acting in accordance with your note in form BF11P which requires me to inform you of absence abroad."
Such nit-picking by the Department has not been at all helpful.
If at any stage Mr. Singleton had received any semblance of apology for the dilatory back-dated reply, and an acknowledgement that he had complied with the requirement to tell the office of his intention to go abroad, he might have been willing to let the matter drop.
In his reply to me of 20 March 1984, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North arranged for further inquiries to establish when the holiday was booked, whether Mr. Singleton believed that he would be entitled to benefit and whether he would have cancelled his arrangements had he known benefit would be lost. Such inquiries did not and do not seem to me to have been particularly relevant, because Mr. Singleton's complaint is not that benefit was not payable under the regulations while he was abroad, but that he was entitled to be advised of his position before the start of his holiday, about which he had informed the local office in good time.
In the event it was not possible to establish whether Mr. Singleton would have cancelled his holiday. Clearly such hypothetical questions can rarely be given definitive answers. Subsequently the complaint was referred to the ombudsman, but it appeared that he did not have adequate powers to investigate. Mr. Singleton also pursued the complaint in correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The cost of answering all the letters alone, and of the hearing before the tribunal, must easily have exceeded the £50 of benefit lost. Because no other means of redress have been found, I raise the case in the House on the Adjournment.
At the very least Mr. Singleton is entitled to an apology from the Department for not having been given advice to which he was entitled, and at the right time. Further, if there is any power under which he could be given an exgratia payment, that also should be done.
Finally, I ask my hon. Friend what steps, if any, have been taken to revise the advice contained in the now
786
notorious form BF11P so that no one in future should be the innocent and unwitting victim of its less than adequate advice about the effect on benefit of going abroad.
12.21 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Major): The case of Mr. Singleton has been a long-running saga and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the persistence with which he has pursued the matter on behalf of his constituent. It is entirely proper for him to have brought the matter to the Floor of the House. I am grateful to him for the clear and precise way in which he has set out Mr. Singleton's cause for grievance.
Let me begin by saying—without any equivocation—that I well understand Mr. Singleton's disappointment and annoyance when he returned from his holiday in Spain to find that he would not be, as he had expected, paid sickness benefit for the period that he was abroad. I respect the persistence with which he too has pursued this matter. He and my hon. Friend make a formidable pair.
I must also accept at the outset that there were shortcomings in the way in which officials in my Department dealt with Mr. Singleton's first letter. If the local office's reply telling him that he would not be entitled to sickness benefit while he was in Spain had been sent to him earlier, he would have received it before he left this country and would have been aware of his position. I understand that the local office did, in fact, apologise to Mr. Singleton for its failure to write to him promptly and I hope that Mr. Singleton is content to accept this apology. There is, of course, no question of Mr. Singleton having been at fault, nor of his being penalised by the Department at any time. I wish to make that quite clear. It is simply that the straightforward application of the law means that he is not entitled to benefit. My hon. Friend will understand that the Department is bound to apply the law as it stands.
If this situation seems curious to my hon. Friend, I will endeavour to explain how it comes about. Under the Social Security Act 1975, and the Social Security (Persons Abroad) Regulations 1975, sickness benefit is not normally payable in respect of a period abroad. There are two exceptions which applied at the time of Mr. Singleton's holiday in April and May 1983, and which continue to apply. These exceptions enable benefit to be paid to someone who has either gone abroad for the specific purpose of being treated for incapacity which commenced before he left this country, or to someone who has been continuously incapacitated for six months or more. Neither of these exceptions applied to Mr. Singleton, and it is for this reason that he was not entitled to benefit.
My hon. Friend will know that my Department issues leaflets describing all our benefits, which are freely available to claimants, and the one which deals with sickness benefit, under the heading, "If you go abroad", says:
"Generally you cannot get sickness benefit for any period outside Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. But, you may be able to get benefit in some circumstances and in some countries."
That sets out the position clearly, and should not lead anyone to think that benefit will automatically be paid during periods abroad. Form BF11P, which my hon. Friend called "notorious"—perhaps he made it that way

787
—entitled "Notes on Sickness or Industrial Injury Benefit" which is issued to claimants, says under the heading, "Leaving the Country", that he or she should,
"consult his Local Office as soon as possible so that they can advise whether benefit is likely to be affected during or after the absence from this country."
This is brief, but I think it gives adequate warning and again should not lead anyone to think that benefit will necessarily be payable during absence abroad. None the less, my hon. Friend asked me to reconsider the form, and I undertake to do as he requests.
However, in the absence of specific contrary advice Mr. Singleton believed that he was entitled to sickness benefit while abroad, and, as was his right, appealed against the decision which had been given by the insurance officer in the Department's overseas branch at Newcastle. His appeal was heard by the local tribunal on 26 October 1983, and dismissed on the grounds that Mr. Singleton did not comply with the conditions for payment of sickness benefit to someone abroad. He applied to the tribunal for leave to appeal to the commissioner, but this was refused, and his further application to the commissioner for leave was also refused. Thus, the statutory authorities confirmed that the law had been applied correctly.
My hon. Friend—and I suspect Mr. Singleton—may wish to know why we have this restriction on entitlement to sickness benefit. Why do we not simply continue to pay when people who are entitled to sickness benefit go abroad?
The main reason for the longstanding rule is that when someone is abroad we cannot carry out the normal checks on incapacity for work which we apply to anyone who claims benefit in this country. These are the checks which have been found to be necessary if the national insurance fund and the interests of the general body of contributors to the fund are to be properly safeguarded. When sickness benefit is paid in this country the usual doctor's statement will have come from a practitioner here whose existence can be checked, and who can, if need be, confirm his signature. Then we can ask a claimant to attend for a medical examination, or we can send someone to visit him at home. Because those checks can be operated, we can be reasonably certain that sickness benefit is being paid correctly. However, I should say that there is not the slightest doubt about Mr. Singleton's illness, and we would not have seen any need to check on his capacity for work—that is not in question at all.
We recognise that there may be individual cases from time to time where it may seem unreasonable not to pay sickness benefit, but a scheme the size of the national insurance scheme must operate within broad rules that
788
apply to the generality of cases. The exceptions to the general rule are those where overall risks are kept to an acceptable level. Where someone goes abroad for the specific purpose of being treated for an existing incapacity it is reasonable to accept the evidence that there will be treatment abroad as an alternative to our normal controls. Where someone has been incapable of work for six months we can accept that incapacity is likely to continue for a further period and pay benefit during a temporary absence. There are also a few reciprocal agreements on social security with other countries which provide for payment of sickness benefit while a person is there, but these are normally dependent upon the other country's giving us the benefit of its supervision system.
It has also been suggested that had Mr. Singleton received the local office's letter dated 21 April 1983 before he left, he could have cancelled his holiday. Had the letter from our local office been sent to him at the proper time, he would have had the opportunity to change his arrangements, and even if he had had to pay a cancellation charge, this could have been less than £41·67—not the £50 my hon. Friend mentioned—which was the amount of sickness benefit that would have been payable had he remained here. The question arises: should we have made an ex-gratia payment, as my hon. Friend suggested we might consider, to compensate Mr. Singleton for his lost opportunity?
Considering the situation as a whole, and in relation to the interests of other insured persons, I fear that the answer must be that we should not. The situation was clearly set out in the sickness benefit leaflet, and there was no reason to assume that sickness benefit would be payable. Had Mr. Singleton been positively misinformed by officials, this would have been a different matter, but this was not so.
Thus, while I sympathise very much with Mr. Singleton in his disappointment at finding that he was not, as he had thought, entitled to benefit for the period of his holiday in Spain, and I regret that he was not promptly informed of his position, I must say that he has received the benefit to which he is, in law, entitled. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that Mr. Singleton's problem has been considered carefully and in detail, and that it would not be appropriate for me to take any further action.
However, I accept that there is an element of misfortune about this case. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will express my apologies to Mr. Singleton for the frustration he has suffered and that Mr. Singleton will understand why I am unable to recommend an ex-gratia payment.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at half-past Twelve o'clock.

WALES
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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 Rochester.

AIDS: Information to Drug Misusers
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are taking action to reduce the risks of the disease AIDS being spread in the United Kingdom by drug addicts' syringes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, in the absence of a cure or vaccine, health education is the most important weapon we have to control the spread of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Government funding has been provided to the Terrence Higgins Trust, the Standing Committee on Drug Abuse and the Health Education Council to assist them in producing posters and leaflets emphasising the risk of infection associated with the sharing of injecting equipment by drug misusers. The Scottish Aids Monitor has also prepared a leaflet on advice and information for drug misusers and their partners. Information on this route of transmission of infection will also be provided in the forthcoming public information campaign on AIDS.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her reply. Is she aware of the disturbingly high proportion of drug addicts in Edinburgh who have been infected with AIDS because they have been sharing syringes? While the Government's attitude that they do not want to appear to be doing anything to encourage drug taking is entirely understandable, should not something more now be done in order to prevent the spread of AIDS in other cities, with lethal consequences for drug addicts who might otherwise be cured?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, there are various permutations of the answer to that question. The Government are aware of the worrying incidence of AIDS acquired through infected needles by sufferers in Scotland. According to the information that has been given, the Chief Medical Officer of the Scottish Home and Health Department has set up an advisory committee to review the extent of AIDS infection in Scotland, particularly among drug misusers, and to consider what steps should be taken to contain the spread of infection. The voluntary organisation which I mentioned has prepared a leaflet about it, as I said.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether AIDS is a notifiable disease? If it is not, do the Government think that it should be?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords. A voluntary system for the reporting of cases to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre on a confidential basis is working well. We have no plans to replace this arrangement with a statutory reporting system.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, can the Minister comment on an article on this subject in last week's Lancet which suggests, first, that men can be infected during normal sexual intercourse by women who have the AIDS virus; and, secondly, that the time has now come for safe sex guidelines to be issued in order to minimise the dangers of this very deadly virus being spread through ignorance by the public?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, as I have already announced, a public information campaign on AIDS will be forthcoming. On the 2nd December 1985 my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced that £2½ million had been earmarked for a campaign directed at the general public, to be coupled with campaigns targeted at groups known to be at special risk of infection. The necessary preliminary market research has been completed and we hope to make an announcement on the form of the campaign and the launch date soon.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if your Lordships will forgive me for rising again, may I say that I warmly welcome the news of a campaign given by the noble Baroness. Could she give some thought, or ask her right honourable friend to give some thought, to the idea of guidelines as proposed in the Lancet, which is certainly warmly endorsed by me?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord will have to wait until the campaign is launched and then he will be able to see for himself.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, may I ask the Minister if she is aware that Holland and some cantons of Switzerland are giving out clean needles to drug addicts and that this is helping to stop the spread of AIDS? Is the noble Baroness further aware that drug abusers are a very heavy burden on the state when they are dying of AIDS, as they have no family support? Could not this be a very cost-effective method of reducing the spread of infection?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, in answer to the noble Baroness, the transmission of AIDS through contaminated shared syringes is a worrying danger—and here I pick up again one of the points made by my noble friend in his first supplementary question. However, at present there is no reason to believe that if clean syringes and needles were made readily available that would necessarily deter established injecting users from sharing with other drug users. Indeed, the free availability of needles and syringes could encourage drug users to experiment with injections. Effective action is more likely to result from the general improvements in services for drug misusers which the Government are seeking to achieve through the local statutory authorities. However, we are keeping the situation under close review.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will welcome the fact that the Government are taking this grim disease seriously and are proposing to take action and spend money on this campaign. Can the Minister tell the House at this stage what are the statistics? She said there were a number of permutations. Does she feel that at the moment the disease is under control or is it out of control? What are the percentage figures over the last 12 months?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, up to the end of February 1986, 305 cases had been reported in the United Kingdom and of those 157 have died. The majority of these were homosexual men; 88 per cent. Up to 2nd January two cases had been reported where infecting drug misuse was the main risk factor. One of those has died.

Takeovers: Policy
2.44 p.m.
Lord Grimond: 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 their policy is about takeovers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth): My Lords, the policy on takeovers remains that announced by the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr. Tebbit, in July 1984, following a review of mergers policy, that references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission would continue to be made primarily on competition grounds. In evaluating the competition situation in individual cases, the Secretary of State will have regard to the international context, to the extent of competition in the home market from non-United Kingdom sources and to the competitive position of United Kingdom companies in overseas markets.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for spelling out once again the Government's policy. But may I ask him whether he thinks that the methods, and indeed the possible results, of the most recent takeover struggles have meant that reference to competition solely is not enough and that there are wider considerations to be taken into account? Will he look at the matter again? In particular, does he not think that the views of workers in the industry who make the value of the assets that are taken over should be given a chance of expression?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, a reference to the MMC comes about as a result of a preliminary review by the Director General of Fair Trading, who would take into account all the issues, and they include the public interest and regional policy. I feel that there is ample opportunity for various expressions to be made to the director general, who in turn will report to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. He then has the task of evaluating that advice with a view to a reference to the MMC.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, in giving primacy to the competition criterion in references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, are not the Government encouraging conglomerate takeovers and discouraging proper industrial concentration? Unless the Government can show that conglomerates can manage assets better than other people, what is the sense in that policy?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, what the noble Lord says is perfectly fair and is certainly one factor. I believe that it is the publicity given to a number of the more esoteric (if I may use that word) bids that prompts that question. In the main, most mergers and bids are agreed, and certainly those below £30 million. In others, where they are contested or where there are issues that involve the public interest or some of the other factors that I have mentioned, it is reasonable for a reference to be made; and that is consistent with the Government's policy.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, is there not also a growing problem about the role that the financial intermediaries are playing in this business? Are there not increasing signs that some of the recent techniques are becoming increasingly exotic? Will my noble friend assure the House that that, too, will be taken into account in the current review which is said to be going on within the department of the rules governing monopolies, with a possible view to changing the whole basis of proof?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, as my noble friend will be well aware, new techniques are being developed because we live in a fast-moving and changing society. It is as a result of some of the techniques which are now being adopted (none of which, I might add, are unlawful) that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has announced that later this year a detailed review of competition policy will be undertaken. I assure my noble friend that the point he makes will be taken account of in that review.
Lord Hacking: My Lords, while I am looking forward, on, I think, 20th March to a rather fuller discussion on government competition policy, will the Minister accept that there is considerable concern whether the Government's present takeover policies are operating fairly in the market? Will he also accept that the consequences of their present policies were that one of the two bidders in both the Distillers and Imperial Group takeovers (and I refer in one to Guinness and in the other to United Biscuits) were effectively put out of the bidding by the references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission; with the further consequence that Distillers and United Biscuits have had to offer large divestments not because it was right after investigation to do so but just to maintain their position in the proposed mergers? Will the—
Noble Lords: Speech!
Lord Hacking:—Minister therefore ask the Secretary of State to ensure that there is parity now in the operation of the Government's competition policies?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I too anticipate with some pleasure the debate that the noble Lord is initiating on 20th March, when no doubt he will deploy at greater length some of the points that he has made this afternoon. I accept neither of the two points that he made in the middle of his supplementaries, but I shall certainly ask my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to take account of the last point.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that takeover bids by foreign companies of United Kingdom companies, which are financed by an international consortium of banks, the collateral for which borrowing is the asset to be purchased—I refer in this case to Elders bid for Allied Lyons in which I must declare a modest interest, being a minuscule shareholder—are undesirable and should not be encouraged, especially when the British company is not in a position to make a takeover bid for the foreign company?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it would not be for me—I do not believe that my noble friend Lord Ferrers would expect this of me—to say whether I think that bid is good or bad. It is for the reason that my noble friend gives—that of a leverage takeover—that the reference has been made to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It is therefore for the commission to consider the public interest in a bid of that nature. Like my noble friend, I look forward, in due course, to hearing its views.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that from time to time certain inconsistencies appear in the application of government policy in matters of this kind? Is the noble Lord aware that last June the noble Lord himself, speaking from the government Dispatch Box, was advocating a merger between GEC and Plessey? Can he explain, in those circumstances, why when GEC recently took the step, the matter was promptly referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, there is no inconsistency whatever in the Government's policy with regard to mergers. As to the reference made by the noble Lord to what I said in June last year, I can do no better than refer him to the relevant columns in Hansard, where he will see that I did no such thing.

Boeing 747s: Airline Safeguards
2.52 p.m.
The Earl of Kinnoull: 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 safeguards have been instituted for British travellers flying on airlines operating Boeing 747s.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, the Civil Aviation Authority, which is statutorily responsible for the safety of British airlines, is satisfied that the cracks recently discovered in the
398
structure of some older Boeing 747 aircraft are well within the structural capability of the aircraft and do not affect safe operation. The CAA has agreed with British Airways a programme of inspection and repair where necessary. Each aircraft takes about three to four days for the work and on all affected aircraft should be completed by mid-March. The safety of foreign airlines is the responsibility of their state of registry.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reassuring Answer, and also for the information about the 15 British Airways 747s, which are subject to these tests, can he tell us whether, through the FAA (the international co-ordinating body, I understand, for all Boeings flying throughout the world) the test programme of other airlines flying into Britain is progressing as satisfactory as that of British Airways?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it was agreed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation that member states of the Chicago convention would be responsible for their own safety standards and would be required to meet them. If a problem is found by a member state, it goes back to the state of origin which, in the case of Boeings, is America, and hence the involvement, as my noble friend says, of the FAA. Similarly, if the country of origin becomes aware of any problem, it will pass this information on to the operators. I believe that this arrangement is working satisfactorily, although I do not have any figures in connection with it.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, will my noble friend also say whether other wide-bodied aircraft as well as 747s are being considered for similar tests?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we are always on the look out for ways to improve safety. We have started with 747s. However, as all aircraft are regularly checked and monitored, if there are further developments we shall, of course, take them into account.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I share the concern of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, regarding international activity? Can the noble Earl assure the House that steps will be taken in the event of other states not carrying out similar inspection of their airlines?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, this is not the responsibility of this country. Clearly, under the agreement reached through the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which I have already mentioned, this is something that has to be dealt with directly by the country of origin of the aeroplane and the operators. The country of origin has the experts for that aeroplane. The cracks in the 747 were found for exactly that reason when Japan and Boeing engineers were working on the plane.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that that is not a very satisfactory reply? Is he not also aware that aircraft of other companies from other countries fly in and out of this country with

399
British passengers? To what extent are Her Majesty's Government making inquiries of other governments with airlines flying to this country as to whether they are taking the necessary action in respect of these aircraft? Can the noble Earl be a little more explicit? If he is unable to be more explicit, will he be good enough to convey the concern of this House to his right honourable friend?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it is fair to say that I cannot be more explicit. This is a matter dealt with on an international basis between the country of origin of the plane and the operator. The members who are signatories to that undertaking have behaved, to my knowledge, responsibly in the past and, I understand, are behaving responsibly in this instance. I do not, however, have figures to help the noble Lord.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, surely the countries from which these planes emanate have some responsibility for the safety of their own nationals flying in them? Should they be warned, "Here is an airline that does not carry out the safeguards"? Is that not a necessary step?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that would be a matter, I believe, for the country of origin and the aircraft's engineers. When one is dealing with specialised aircraft of this nature, it is common for the engineers from the country of origin to be present to supervise repairs and maintenance. If they are not made welcome, it soon becomes known that the member state concerned is not fulfilling its obligations.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, are we not perhaps in some confusion here over the use of the words "country of origin"? The noble Earl the Minister is presumably referring to the manufacturing country of origin whereas we, on this side of the House, are also referring, I believe, to the operators of the airlines. Is it not possible for the country of manufacturing origin to set out safety stipulations that are not carried out by user countries of origin? It is in the latter case that we should like to ask the noble Earl the Minister whether the Government can ensure that passengers from this country are warned against using airlines of those countries where the country of manufacturing origin may have given necessary safeguards but the user country is not following them up.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, it would be an extremely difficult task to supervise every user country when one bears in mind that such cracks as have been discovered are likely to occur within the structural stability of a plane. If one was to follow this up for every single minute crack that occurs in all planes but is not to the detriment of safety, we would be taking the matter to an extreme. If a member state of the international organisation does not fufil its obligations, this soon becomes widely apparent.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, perhaps the Minister would like to tell us whether or not it would be a good idea if the Government recommended that people should fly the world's favourite airline?

International Tin Council: Negotiations
3 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the current state of negotiations on the international tin crisis.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, the Government regret that the protracted negotiations between the International Tin Council and its bank and broker creditors broke down last week. It seems unlikely that a settlement can be reached which would secure a return to orderly trading in tin, although, if a substantial number of other ITC countries were willing to make a new effort, the United Kingdom would, of course, be willing to join in the discussions.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his response. I am sure that the whole House will deplore the inability of the members of the International Tin Council to live up fully to their obligations. However, is it not the case that the Bank of England informed the noble Lord's department many months before the crisis broke that the Tin Council's position was becoming untenable, and that his department did nothing about it? What legal advice have the Government received on whether the obligations of the signatories to the tin agreement are joint and several or only several, in the sense that if it is joint and several we shall be liable for all the obligations of the international tin agreement?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, it is true that the Bank of England—and, indeed, the Department of Trade and Industry—were becoming increasingly worried about the position in tin some months before October of last year, when the arrangements broke down. With regard to the legal advice received, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, would expect me to describe in any form at all the advice which my department has had with regard to the position of the United Kingdom Government in so far as their obligations to the ITC are concerned. A number of authoritative persons have given different views as to where the legal responsibility may lie, whether in the United Kingdom courts or, since the arrangement is under a treaty through the United Nations, in the international courts.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, could my noble friend say, if the crisis is not soon resolved, what is to happen to the tin mining industry in Wales in relation to the negotiations to resolve the crisis?
Noble Lords: Cornwall!
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am quite sure that my noble friend is as worried as we are as to the position for the tin mining companies—I think in fact that he meant in Cornwall. What I can say to your Lordships this afternoon is that we look very sympathetically at the problem which is about to arise in Cornwall in the event of there being no orderly

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return to the marketing of tin, and would want to pay proper and urgent regard to any representations the tin mining interest in Cornwall would make to us.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, is the moral of this affair that it is OK for sovereign governments to renege upon their debts provided they are sufficiently rich and belong to the northern hemisphere?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not think that my noble friend would expect me to answer questions on morality.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, while conceding that the philosophy of the noble Lord in that matter occasioned some surprise, may we take it from him that the United Kingdom, for its part, is prepared to honour its obligations so far as the Tin Council is concerned? Is it not also a fact that other Governments are declining to honour their obligations? Therefore, what further steps do Her Majesty's Government propose to take before they declare certain countries to be in default—a term which in another context might have disastrous consequences for the monetary system of many of those Governments were the same philosophy adopted by the Governments of the developing countries who are seriously in debt to bankers?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am able to confirm that Her Majesty's Government have behaved with leadership and honour in this matter in that we have from the outset—that is, from October of last year—said that we are prepared to meet our obligations, which amounted to 4 per cent., and that during the course of negotiations have offered a further £50 million of taxpayers' money to help a return to orderly trading. That some other countries have not seen fit to honour, as we see it, their obligations and have allowed the tin market to collapse is, I believe, quite regrettable.
The full effects upon some of the developing countries have yet to be ascertained. We believe that there will be a number of questions to be asked and a number of problems to be resolved on the wider issues that the question of the noble Lord envisages.
Lord Morris: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that one of the major moral and legal responsibilities of any Government—this Government in particular in the context of this question—is as trustee of taxpayers' funds and that they should not throw the taxpayers' funds towards a state of affairs which resulted from overheated and ill-informed speculation?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not think that this was a question of overheating or speculation. However, I agree with my noble friend that there comes a limit when the Government, on behalf of the taxpayers, have to call a halt. We believe that the offer we made of £50 million, which would have represented the vast bulk of the net consumer countries' indebtedness to the ITC, was a very significant and important offer. It is disappointing to us that other countries could not come alongside and
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meet their obligations and add anything more towards the return to orderly trading rather than to the express position of the ITC.
Lord Bauer: My Lords, can the noble Lord the Minister please confirm that in dealing with this crisis and its aftermath the Government will bear in mind that it arose out of the operations of a state supported cartel which moreover have benefited primarily relatively well-to-do people at the expense of the poor?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I do not know that I can go totally along with the noble Lord. I think in more simple terms what I would say consistent with Government policy is that an artificial interference in the market place, where 22 different nations are concerned and where their manager is in the difficult position of having to meet his obligations to the member countries, on the one hand, and, on the other, to deal with a certain amount of secrecy in the deals that he does so that none of the 22 countries can take advantage, poses great difficulties. Had the market forces been able to prevail then I doubt very much whether the current position would have occurred.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, can I press the noble Lord a little further for an answer to my supplementary question on the matter of the legal advice that the Government are receiving? The sums of money involved are enormous—£400 million immediate debts and possibly £4 billion in terms of compensation. Is the noble Lord aware that banks are claiming that the obligation of signatories under this agreement is joint and several? It does not matter which jurisdiction we are talking about: it will be fought in whatever jurisdiction is convenient to the banks. What legal advice are the Government receiving on this matter?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, will not get very much more out of me than I have answered already. He mentioned a number of figures on which I am not prepared to comment. Those are his views. It is not the practice of the Government to divulge the advice that they receive in regard to legal matters. It would not be my intention this afternoon to do that, either. It is sufficient to say that we are receiving advice and that it is being evaluated.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon my noble friend Lady Trumpington will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on charges for family practitioner services.

Museum of London Bill
3.10 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [Composition of Board of Governors]:
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 15, leave out ("first").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 1 it may be for the convenience of the House if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 to 11 because they all deal with the same point. Noble Lords who were present during the Committee stage will be aware that on that occasion we had a discussion on an amendment which I moved in order that representatives from outer London should have the opportunity of serving on the board. With the demise of the GLC there will be six vacant places: three to be nominated by the City of London, as the Bill stands at present, and three to be nominated by the Prime Minister.
Since the Committee stage I have taken into consideration the criticism of the amendment which was put forward at that time. I accepted at that time that it was not satisfactory in that it was very complicated, and that it was not clear enough, as the subsequent debate illustrated. However, the objective of having representatives from Greater London on the board of governors still stands and it is to deal with that point that I have now brought forward a much simpler amendment which says:
"(2A) In appointing additional appointees, the Prime Minister and the Corporation of the City of London shall consider such persons as are suggested to them by London borough councils.
"(2B) No council of a London borough shall suggest more than one person for the purposes of subsection (2A) in any one year".
That means that instead of the Prime Minister or the City having to seek out and consult different organisations and groups for advice on who to select in order to achieve Londonwide representation—which I should say appears to be the common wish of everyone concerned in this matter, including the Government—the amendment provides them with a list from which to choose. The amendment will not place unreasonable restrictions upon either of the funding bodies, because as funding bodies they have a right to select whoever seems most appropriate to them. The only obligation will be to consider suggestions made by the boroughs. However, the amendment does not place any duty on either of those bodies to appoint as a result of such suggestions. If no suggestions are made, it leaves them just as free to appoint any other persons who may have been suggested to them through other channels.
There are 32 boroughs. However, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, during the previous debate on this point—and he has told me that he is very sorry that he is unable to be present today—when he spoke in support of the amendment, at col. 14:
"Unless the Minister has an unanswerable argument against the amendment, I think we"—
and he was then referring to himself and his noble friends—
"shall be obliged to support the noble Baroness".—[Official Report, 3/3/86; col. 140.]
Later when the point was raised about the number of boroughs—namely, 32—he spoke from his experience as a former Minister for the Arts (as did my noble friend Lord Jenkins) and he made the point that the fact that there were 32 certainly did not mean that every borough would probably nominate, and even if they did so it would not be very difficult to sift the
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names and to decide at that stage what type of speciality the museum wanted.
Since then I have had the opportunity to visit the museum again and I have discussed the matter with the chairman and with the director, both of whom are very anxious not only that there should be representation from outer London but also that it should be on the face of the Bill. In addition, I discussed the whole matter with a number of members of the City corporation individually, and they too have the same feeling. They are anxious that there should be representation from outer London. They also feel, from the City's point of view, that it should be seen to be there and not just be implicit in the Bill itself.
In Committee, the Minister, when replying to some of the points which were raised, said:
"I assure your Lordships' Committee that if borough councils wish to put forward nominations either to my right honourable friend or to the City authorities, those nominations will be given serious consideration and will be taken into account when the board members are chosen".—[Official Report, 3/3/86; col. 15.]
Once again that very nicely expressed wish is printed in Hansard, but as the Minister will be aware it has no validity legislatively unless it is contained in the Bill itself.
The Minister went on to say at col. 17, in answer to some other points:
"Clauses 2 and 4 make explicit that when the Bill refers to London it is talking about all of Greater London and the surrounding region".
With respect, that is not quite so because Clause 4 is sidelined with the words:
"Funding of Greater London archeological service",
and in subsection (3) it says:
"In this section 'London' includes all Greater London and the surrounding region".
So in fact that does not apply.
The other points which the Minister made as regards the substance of Clause 2 referred to the function of the board of governors but not to the composition of the board, to which I was referring at the time. In my view there does not seem to be any reason to reject this amendment now that it is much clearer and more simple, and there could not possibly be any misunderstanding that the City and/or the Prime Minister are being told who to appoint. We are seeking that the boroughs should have the opportunity to put forward names, and to do it in the way suggested is much fairer and also involves probably less work than any other way. It would also be helpful to the two funding bodies in providing them with a list of names from which to select, and it preserves the importance of the Londonwide function of the museum within the Bill without interfering with the nomination rights enjoyed by the Prime Minister and the City before the abolition of the GLC. I beg to move.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, I presume to share the objectives of the noble Baroness. We all want to see the Museum of London reflect, in its interest, the whole of London including Greater London. I personally would also like to see representatives of outer London—Greater London—among the trustees. My only misgiving is as to the mode of legislation. If I may say so, I do not take the extreme view that nothing should go into an Act of Parliament which is

405
not enforceable through the courts. However, there should at any rate be some tendency against it, and it is undesirable that one should clutter up an Act of Parliament with mere adjuration, which is what this does.
There is no duty even on the outer boroughs, or on any of the boroughs, to nominate to the Prime Minister. There is also nothing in any event which would prevent their doing so; and if they do so one would expect the Prime Minister and the Corporation of London to consider the nominations. If they do not, there is nothing in this Act of Parliament to make them do it. It does, it is true, say that the Prime Minister and the corporation shall consider such persons; but if they did not, against all probability, there is no means of making them do so.
As for (2B), it only indirectly says that a council shall nominate. It is in a negative form:
"No council … shall suggest more than one person".
I should have thought that that was in any case unduly restrictive. I cannot see, for example, why a council of Greater London which has an artistic and an archeological interest should not make two nominations to represent each of those interests.
My main objection, as I am sure the noble Baroness expected, is to this mode of legislation by mere adjuration of something desirable but which is not in the least enforceable. It is a mere expression of a good intention on the face of a statute which is much better left to common sense and normal, ordinary administrative practice.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, may I intervene on a point of fact? The noble and learned Lord will be aware that it is not unusual for legislation to contain recommendations that bodies shall consult this, that or the other body before deciding what they do. It is a practice which seems to me to have many advantages. It at least gives those bodies the assurance that what they put forward is likely to be considered.
We are not in the position—and it never has been the case, so far as I know—that every paragraph in every Bill has to be capable of being interpreted at law. I suppose it is conceivable that one might drum up some sort of legal basis even for this, but the only point I want to make is that what my noble friend proposes here is quite customary.
It is something which is often done and which, on the whole, is a valuable part of our procedure. It enables bodies, before they make their decisions, to consult people or bodies put forward by other bodies which have an interest. On the whole it is a good thing, and I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply to the matter will accept my noble friend's suggestion.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, I support this amendment. In referring to the noble and learned Lord's objection, is it not on all fours with the words "having regard to" in the statutes? I would support this amendment because I suggest that, more and more in regard to appointments by the Prime Minister to trustee bodies, there will be objection raised on the basis of these bodies not being accountable. It is an objection that one constantly hears. An amendment of this sort goes a little way to throw more light on the
406
basis on which the Prime Minister will make appointments.
Although it is only an adjuration, as it were, to good behaviour and good ideas, it seems to me that it opens up the area which is to be considered by the Prime Minister when making these appointments. I would support it on that ground.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, in moving the amendment the noble Baroness referred to the exchanges we had in Committee. I think it is fair to say that the Government, the noble Baroness, and the noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendments, are not very far apart. We all believe that the Museum of London is, and should continue to be, a musuem for all of London. We believe that those whose task it is to make these additional appointments to the board should bear this fact fully in mind.
Indeed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Corporation of the City of London would not be properly discharging their duties under this Bill if they failed to bear in mind that the Museum of London was a museum for all London. If the noble Baroness would glance at Clause 2 and not at Clause 4, she will see clearly on page 3 that in this clause London shall include,
"all Greater London and the surrounding region."
Of course it is Clause 2 which sets out the responsibilities of the governors of the board of the museum.
So far I think we are all at one. We are all at one also in that if the boroughs have helpful suggestions to make in the context of appointments, they should be able to make them. I gave a clear assurance during our debate in Committee that if the London borough councils wished to put forward nominations, either to the Prime Minister or to the city authorities, those nominations will be given very serious consideration and will be taken into account when the board members are chosen.
I understand when the noble Baroness says that that is not the same as putting something on the face of the Bill. But I think it is fair for me to say that it is at this point that the Government differ from the attempts of the noble Baroness to put this on the face of the Bill because we think that in this case it would not be very helpful. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, at the previous stage of the Bill advised the Committee against cumbersome and unnecessary additions to legislation. The noble and learned Lord has repeated that advice to the House again today in much more forceful terms.
It is not as if the boroughs somehow need a statutory power in law to make suggestions to the two appointing authorities. They can of course readily do so without the law telling them that they can. The trouble here is that the noble Baroness, as the noble and learned Lord pointed out, is trying to say that the law will say that the boroughs can make only one suggestion a year, and after that they would not be allowed to make any more. Someone as generously spirited as the noble Baroness could not really intend that that should be so. But if we were to write this amendment into the Bill that is what we should be doing.

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I would ask the noble Baroness to consider the assurance that I gave at a previous stage of the Bill, and which I am repeating today. In essence, on behalf of the Government, I gave an open invitation to the London boroughs to make recommendations if they felt that it was right to do so. Once we start putting that sort of assurance on the face of the Bill, we start getting into trouble. I certainly think we shall be getting into trouble on this amendment if we accept it. With regret, I must again resist.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I listened carefully to what everybody said about this. With great respect to the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, I thought was much more firmly against the amendment last time, as indeed he should have been because this is a much better and clearer amendment. It was in order to bring it in line with some of his criticisms that this new amendment was drafted.
He has said that "shall suggest" would not fit into the Bill. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, dealt with some of these points extremely well. We are back to the point that, despite what the Minister said, nowhere at all in the Bill is there any reference to the boroughs having the right to nominate, to suggest, or to insist.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, even on the amendment of the noble Baroness surely there is nothing in the Bill giving the boroughs the right to nominate.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord would let me finish my comments, as I was dealing with his point, he will see my meaning. Amendment No. 11 states:
"the Prime Minister and the Corporation of the City of London shall consider such persons as are suggested to them by London borough councils".
For the first time we would have a reference to a duty to consider such persons and also that the London borough councils have the right to suggest such persons.
The noble and learned Lord then went on to take up the point about no London borough suggesting more than one person. Sometimes on these matters the House is more difficult to please than a very difficult husband. Last time round all I heard were references to 32 boroughs and the fact that they would all be inundating everybody with their nominations. Therefore I dealt with that by saying that each should have a go. If that is accepted, that no council of the London boroughs shall nominate more than one person in a year, the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, could still operate, because if there are so many outstanding people in any one borough they can still be appointed by the City or by the Prime Minister direct, so this point is not affected.
The argument seems to be that it is not now in the Bill, so therefore we do not want to put it in. That is the way it comes over. I am convinced that the City is concerned about this. I hope, though I do not know, that the Prime Minister will take the same view. This
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will be in the immediate aftermath of the abolition of the GLC, about whom everybody has said that the members nominated by it have all been extremely useful. As time goes by this fact will all be forgotten and we shall be left with an Act of Parliament which makes no reference to the boroughs or outer London making nominations or suggestions. This is all in the functions which the Minister quoted at some length in Committee, but not the composition of the board.
I feel that the Government are making very heavy weather over something which will certainly not wreck the Bill but would be of great advantage to it. Therefore I should like to test the feeling of the House.
3.33 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 67; Not-Contents, 107.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Ardwick, L.

Leatherland, L.

Aylestone, L.

Listowel, E.

Birk, B.

Lockwood, B.

Brockway, L.

McCarthy, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Caradon, L.

McNair, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Mar, C.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Mayhew, L.

Collison, L.

Mishcon, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Nicol, B.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Oram, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Ennals, L.

Roberthall, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Fitt, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Gallacher, L.

Seear, B.

Galpern, L.

Serota, B.

Gormley, L.

Shackleton, L.

Grey, E.

Shepherd, L.

Grimond, L.

Stallard, L.

Hampton, L.

Stedman, B.

Hanworth, V.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hooson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Strauss, L.

Hunt, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jeger, B.

Underhill, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Kennet, L.

Winstanley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Ampthill, L.

Cawley, L.

Auckland, L.

Chelwood, L.

Bauer, L.

Coleraine, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Cox, B.

Beloff, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Belstead, L.

Davidson, V.

Birmingham, Bp.

De Freyne, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Denning, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Caithness, E.

Drumalbyn, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Dudley, B.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Dundee, E.

409

Ebbisham, L.

Marley, L.

Effingham, E.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Ellenborough, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Elton, L.

Merrivale, L.

Faithfull, B.

Mersey, V.

Ferrers, E.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Fortescue, E.

Morris, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Gainford, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Glanusk, L.

Newall, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Orkney, E.

Gray of Contin, L.

Pender, L.

Gridley, L.

Plummer of St Marylebone, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Porritt, L.

Halsbury, E.

Portland, D.

Hanson, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Hemphill, L.

St. Davids, V.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Hood, V.

Savile, L.

Hooper, B.

Shaughnessy, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Killearn, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Kimball, L.

Somers, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Strathspey, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Sudeley, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Layton, L.

Teviot, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Long, V.

Trumpington, B.

Lonsdale, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Vivian, L.

Luke, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Ward of Witley, V.

Mancroft, L.

Young, B.

Manton, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
3.41 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 2 to 11 not moved.]
Clause 4 [Funding of Greater London archaeological service]:
Baroness Birk Baroness Birk moved Amendment No. 12.
Page 4, line 9, leave out ("another body or person") and insert ("other bodies or persons including the Passmore-Edwards Museum").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is to do with the Passmore-Edwards Museum, about which we had a discussion at Committee stage. The object of the amendment that we brought forward then, which was dealing with the financial side of it (because it comes in Clause 4), was to get the Passmore-Edwards Museum, with its important archaeological role to play, on the face of the Bill. I appreciate—as I think was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, at the time—that solving the problem by doing it by means of a financial breakdown of 25 per cent. of the money to go to the Passmore-Edwards Museum and 75 per cent. to the Museum of London would not work out. I am satisfied that that would not have been a viable alternative.
The last amendment was faulty in referring to those figures and I accept also that there may have been some problems with relevance. This has been one of the difficulties in bringing in this museum. The advice has been that, because the Bill is very closely circumscribed by the Museum of London, to extend it
410
to the Passmore-Edwards Museum created a problem. But it sometimes seems as though, when the Bill was drafted, the people concerned were unaware of the special arrangements for rescue archaeology east of the River Lea. The reason for the individual status of the Passmore-Edwards Museum goes back a long way, to the end of the last century. It goes back to members of Essex Field Club, Essex County Council and the parish council of West Ham which sought to improve its status by setting up a museum. They made an agreement with the museum set up with funds provided by John Passmore-Edwards which would be the centre for the artefacts collected by the Essex Field Club as well as the other activities in that area.
I am digressing a little into the history, which may not appear relevant to the Museum of London Bill 1986, but indeed it is because all the legislation in this century, including local government reorganisation which changed boundaries, has not changed the status or the responsibilities of the Passmore-Edwards Museum. The archaeology service run by the museum is affected in this Bill because of its involvement in the Greater London Archaeology Service; and the rubric of Clause 4 reads:
"Funding of Greater London archaeological service".
It was formerly funded by the GLC. However, the archaeology service is funded from a variety of sources; and the Passmore-Edwards Museum having to go through the Museum of London for part of its funding would, I believe, raise administrative difficulties for the running of the whole archaeology service in that area.
It is nearly a century ago that the Passmore-Edwards Museum was set up and the Bill, which is supposed to deal with the Museum of London, will change what previous legislation never affected at all. Moreover, it has not been changed by deliberate and carefully-worded clauses in the legislation but by omission. If I may say so, even the Government seem to be in a slight state of confusion at this point because in Committee, on 3rd March, the Minister said (at col. 29):
"for the first time the Bill will provide for a single, co-ordinated, London-wide archaeological service with one focal point".
However, later in the same speech (at col. 330) the Minister said:
"The Passmore-Edwards Museum will not be required under the terms of this Bill to go through the Museum of London. So far as this Bill is concerned, they can go direct to the HBMC, who will then decide the funds to go to the Passmore-Edwards Museum".
If that is the case and the Bill provides for it, then it is good news; but the point needs to be clarified.
The amendment, I agree, is a quite slight one. All that it stipulates is that Clause 4, instead of saying,
"information by another body or persons"
should read:
"other bodies or persons including the Passmore-Edwards Museum"
who get the money from the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission. I accept that that is not a very strong amendment, but the alternative would be for the Government to draft something which would deal with this point, even if it means altering the Long Title of the Bill, because only the Government have the resources to be able to draft an amendment which

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would meet this situation. I think it is something that should be cleared up because there is quite a lot of feeling about it.
Once again, I must make the point that while the Museum of London itself is quite happy about this because it will in fact be in charge of the archaeology, the Passmore-Edwards Museum will not have the separate identity that it has had up to now. The conditions that can be laid down, according to the Bill, by English Heritage also do not necessarily cover the point; because although the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, the chairman of English Heritage, has been extremely helpful in putting forward the view that the Passmore-Edwards Museum certainly has a role that should be fulfilled and that it should be recognised in that way, the same applies as applied on the previous amendment; that is, that things and people do not necessarily stand still. Therefore, when one is legislating one has to look to the future when the type of organisation may change and when the people concerned also may have moved on to other jobs and pastures new.
This may seem a small point but it is a knotty problem. We are left with the Government either accepting (which they may well do) this very mild amendment, or saying, "Yes. We see that there is a point there but it is not possible to do it in view of the way the Bill is drafted at the moment. We should be quite happy to take it back and bring in something on Third Reading". I assure them that I do not think that they will find any resistance from this side of the House.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that there have been misapprehensions and some confusion on the part of the Museum of London and the Passmore-Edwards Museum about Clause 4 of this Bill. As chairman of English Heritage, which will be responsible for the funding of archaeology in London in the future, I should like to take this final opportunity to end any misunderstanding that may exist.
For the record, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, says, historically there have been two components of the Greater London Archaeology Service—the Museum of London and the longer-established Passmore-Edwards Museum, with which the GLC dealt on equal terms. In line with our commitment to secure the continuity of the GLC's functions in relation to London archaeology, we intend to continue to negotiate direct with both museums in relation to the services they provide in their respective areas and also in relation to the projects they adopt. Payment of grant to the Passmore-Edwards Museum will be through the Museum of London, but it will be on terms stipulated by the commission.
More importantly, this Bill is a welcome advance for London in that it provides a specific power for the first time for the grant-aiding of archaeological services in the Greater London area. It also gives us a power which we would not otherwise have had to pay for some of the services supported by the GLC. It cannot and does not, as has been suggested in some quarters, transfer to the Museum of London the co-ordinating role for the Greater London Archaeology Service
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which is now exercised by the GLC. As the main funder of those services, whether direct to the Museum of London or, through that museum, to the Passmore-Edwards Museum, the commission has no intention of abnegating its responsibility for assessing the overall requirement for archaeological services in London or for shedding its responsibility for deciding in detail to whom and how payments are to be made.
We very much hope that the effective liaison arrangements with both museums which have existed heretofore for discussing the distribution of resources for archaeology in London will continue. We indeed look forward with enthusiasm to bringing together to even better purpose the very substantial contributions which both the commission and the GLC have been making to archaeology in London over the past decade or so. It is certainly not our intention to throw away this opportunity for better co-ordination by shedding our responsibility for the Greater London Archaeology Service or, indeed, the specific undertakings we have given to the Passmore-Edwards Museum to have their requirements separately assessed and negotiated.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in moving this amendment, referred back to the Committee stage and quoted what I had said on behalf of the Government about the objective in this part of the Bill being for the first time to provide a single co-ordinated London-wide archaeological service with one focal point. That is something which, if I may say so, we see as being a great advance, because for the first time the service will be put on a statutory basis. I recognise the important role that has been undertaken by the Passmore-Edwards Museum for many years and the special place it has been given since it joined in with the provision of what is generally known as the Greater London Archaeology Service. I hope that what has been said in the brief exchange on this amendment has now given the noble Baroness the assurances she would wish to have in respect of this important institution.
Just to add to what has been helpfully said, let us be quite clear that the Passmore-Edwards Museum will still be able to negotiate direct with the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission and funds will be provided on the basis of a programme agreed with them. The Museum of London will not have any power of veto either over proposals from the Passmore-Edwards Museum or over the amount of money paid by to them by the HBMC. Do not let us forget that the chairmen of both boards of governors are now members of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission's ancient monuments advisory committee, thus ensuring a direct link with the commission and with the two museums.
All those things are extremely valuable. By contrast, this is an amendment which would simply make a passing reference to the Passmore-Edwards Museum and to that extent, with respect to the noble Baroness, I do not think it would really achieve anything as an amendment. However, what she has achieved by moving the amendment is to have on the record some very important assurances so far as the continuing arrangements for the Passmore-Edwards Museum are concerned. I hope that on those grounds the noble

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Baroness may feel that this amendment has had a valuable effect and that there is no need to press it.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I have no intention of pressing this amendment. What I should like to feel, though, is that either the Minister or the chairman of English Heritage could make this clear by some means or other. It is not just the Passmore-Edwards Museum or the Museum of London, but a number of archaeologists are very concerned about this, including the Association of Rescue Archaeology. Rather than having to look up the relevant reference in Hansard, I think a clear explanation might be given. It is not a very easy subject in which to see what is envisaged, and I hope that people's fears can be put at rest. Otherwise, in any case a number of rumours are put about and people get very worried and concerned. I should like to feel that somehow, somewhere, there is something that is easily accessible so that people can get hold of it and read it, and something which expresses the situation in a simple way.
It is a very great change to a body which has been in existence for over 100 years suddenly to find itself in regard to a Bill of this sort without any mention at all. One can understand that it feels rather aggrieved and worried about this. I do not know whether anything could be said by either the Minister or the chairman of English Heritage, with the leave of the House (because it is not going to take very long), in regard to a commitment to this. I do not know whether it is possible for the Minister to get together with the chairman of English Heritage to see what could be done. I think that might meet the point.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if the House will give me leave, I should like to say that I quite understand the noble Baroness's desire that the right message should get to all the various organisations which will be beneficiaries under Clause 4. I think the first thing I would say is that one of the great difficulties over this amendment would have been that the amendment mentions only the Passmore-Edwards Museum and not all the other various organisations which are also involved in Clause 4.
The second thing is that I was a little surprised when the noble Baroness said that the Passmore-Edwards Museum might find itself in some way in this Bill and yet not specifically mentioned. I have always thought, and have said many times on behalf of the Government during the various stages of this Bill, that the great advantage of Clause 4 was that for the first time in statutory form the London Archaeology Service was put on the face of a statute. Previously, as I understood it, the source of the funds for various organisations, including Passmore-Edwards, was not to be found on the face of a statute. I would have thought that we now have an advance.
Finally, I should like to repeat that I would hope the assurances that have been given have been of value. Certainly I should like to look at the record and see whether my right honourable friend, to whose attention of course I will draw this debate, would feel that there is anything we ought to do outside the statute in order to make sure that those who benefit from Clause 4 understand the benefits of it.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

NHS Charges
4 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to read a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Health in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"The 1985 Public Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9702) included plans to increase spending on the NHS overall by £ I billion in England during 1986–87. Family Practitioner Services' expenditure continues to increase to meet service pressures, demographic and social changes, advances in treatment of all kinds including drugs. The Government have provided for an increase of £250 million in England in 1986–87. All but a small part of this will be met from taxation and national insurance. The remainder will come from increased revenue from charges to patients. The proportion of the cost of the NHS met through charges is expected to fall slightly in 1986–87 to 3·02 per cent.
"There will be no change in dental and optical charges. The prescription charge will rise from £2.00 to £2.20. The four-monthly and annual season ticket fees will increase in the same proportion, to £12.00 and £33.50 respectively.
"The existing range of exemptions from charges will continue, including the present exemptions from the prescription charge for those suffering from certain specified conditions.
"I am today laying the necessary regulations before the House so that these changes will come into effect at the beginning of April. My right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland will be taking the equivalent steps. A note providing full details of the changes is available in the Vote Office."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for reading the Statement made in another place. The only thing that I welcome is the fact that there are to be no further increases in charges for dental and optical services. The damage has already been done there and any further action would virtually take dentistry and optical services out of the National Health Service altogether. To add more would make it rather like a bald man having a haircut!
I should like to ask the noble Baroness a number of questions. Is she aware that since her Government came to power prescription charges have increased eleven-fold—from 20p when we left office to the £2.20 she has now announced? Secondly, can she say what possible justification there can be for increasing charges by twice the rate of inflation, unless it is a prophecy that we are to have a higher rate of inflation? I ask that question because last year's increase of 40p was a 25 per cent. increase on the previous year. Can she tell the House how she and her right honourable friend can justify such a substantial increase?

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Thirdly, is the noble Baroness aware that the level of charges—before she made her announcement, and even more so now—will in many cases exceed the cost of the prescriptions? Fourthly, does the noble Baroness accept the view of the British Medical Association that, even before the increase announced today, the level of charges acts as a deterrent to some non-exempt patients? She must understand that although a substantial proportion of prescriptions are exempt, many of those people who are not exempt are not just sick, but poor as well.
The increasing burden of prescription charges, which now bears no relationship to the cost of prescriptions and the rate of inflation, is a further erosion of the basic principle of the National Health Service—that the cost of sickness is borne by the nation as a whole rather than falling on those who have the misfortune to be sick.
I suppose that the Government will add this extra tax on the sick to the amount that they claim they are spending on the National Health Service. As the Statement relates entirely to the family practitioner services, can the noble Baroness yet tell the House when the Green Paper on primary health services will be published? This is the ninth time of asking.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on these Benches would also like to thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. We welcome the fact that there will be no move on dental charges. The last uprating was sufficient to constitute a serious deterrent to the use of dental services. There has been some evidence that the present level of charges has been detrimental to preventive dental treatment. We think that that decision is right. For the residue of the optical service, which applies only to children and supplementary benefit beneficiaries, it seems also right that charges should be frozen. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on both those points.
It must be recognised that, given the rising demand on the National Health Service, prescription charges could not at present be removed. But one must bear in mind that those charges have risen by 1,100 per cent. since 1979. The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said elevenfold. I am giving the figures in percentage terms. We firmly believe that the charges should not be increased by more than the retail price index. We cannot, therefore, welcome the 10 per cent. hike. Among other things, it merely encourages bulk prescribing, which is wasteful.
This increase also raises the question of the success of the Government's limited list measures which were supposed to save £75 million. Recently, £45 million has been mentioned as a more realistic figure. Can the noble Baroness say whether this larger than justified increase in prescription charges is designed merely to plug that gap? It seems wrong that the average patient should be made to pay for the Government's miscalculation. Finally, on the question of exemption for certain specified conditions, can the noble Baroness remind the House what they now are and whether they include anti-cancer drugs? I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, about the famous missing Green Paper.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, will remember that it was his Government who introduced charges in 1968. We have maintained that innovation. The first question that he and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, asked concerned the increase being higher than the rate of general inflation. The 10 per cent. rise is exactly in line with the rising cost of medicines. It is higher than general inflation by about 5 per cent. because better and often more expensive medicines are becoming available or more widely prescribed.
A question was asked about some drugs being cheaper than others. A small proportion of prescribed items can be bought without a prescription at a price less than the prescription charge. We have no objection to the pharmacist concerned pointing that out to the patient. Whether he does so or not is entirely a matter for him. If he does, and the patient buys the item, the prescription is not dispensed. If the prescription is dispensed, the charge is payable unless the patient is exempt. Many drugs, as the noble Lord will be aware, are more expensive. It is a swings and roundabouts situation.
With regard to the increased charges acting as a deterrent, all the present exemptions remain, as was said in the Statement, and the proportion of prescriptions paid for by the flat rate charge is expected to fall to less than 20 per cent. next year. The increased numbers entitled to exemption have over the years caused a fairly consistent fall in the number of chargeable prescriptions. There is no evidence to show that the charge has deterred patients from seeking medical treatment.
Both noble Lords asked me about the publication of the Green Paper. I can tell them both "shortly". I was asked whether the increase in prescription charges was designed to plug the gap in savings from the limited list. We are on course for the original savings of £75 million. Either you want more resources put into national health or you do not. We do.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, may I follow up what the noble Baroness has said. Of course we want to see more money paid for the National Health Service, but not at the expense of the sick; namely, the patients. While thanking her for the information she gave to the House, may I ask her one or two other questions. First, how much money will be raised by what she has announced today? Secondly, can she refresh her own mind about the history that she told me about? In the period of the last Labour Government, from 1974 to 1979, there was no increase at all in prescription charges. We inherited prescriptions at 20p and they were 20p when the Conservative Government took over. They are now £2.20, so we ought to get the record straight.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord's further questions, I referred previously to the cost of medicines having increased and this increase is to match that cost. The revenue to be raised will be 10 million. There is no change in the categories of people who are entitled to free prescriptions. Currently, over 70 per cent. of all prescription items are issued free of charge, and nearly 6 per cent. go to holders of pre-payment certificates; in other words, season tickets.

Education Bill [H.L.]
4.13 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. May I just say what a pleasure it is to have my noble friend Lady Young supporting me on this Bill, especially in what I know is the very busy life that she now leads. When she moved the Second Reading of what became the Education Act 1980, she paid tribute to the knowledge and expertise in educational matters to be found in your Lordships' House. This remains the case, and I am sure that today's debate will provide a clear demonstration of that fact. I think it altogether fitting that an Education Bill of the sort before us should start its passage through Parliament in this House.
This Bill's principal provisions on school government and teaching quality provide major and far-reaching opportunities for each of the 28,000 maintained schools in England and Wales. The parents, teachers and communities served by those schools will want to take these opportunities. The consequence will be that our schools will become more vital institutions, with a clear sense of identity and purpose. They will be more responsive to the needs of the pupils and the wider community. Teaching quality will be enhanced and our schools will make more effective use of the substantial resources allocated to them. These major legislative proposals will, together with the rest of the Government's policies, lead to the better schools all want to see.
There is thus much in this Bill that will, I believe, command a fair degree of support from all sides. At the same time, I recognise that there are various matters which your Lordships will wish to test and explore, and I look forward to some searching exchanges today and subsequently.
When the Bill was published on 20th February, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science welcomed it as the largest and, for the nature and thrust of its proposals, certainly one of the most significant since the great Butler Act of 1944. That will become abundantly clear as we work through its contents. I should emphasise at this point, however, that the essential framework established by the 1944 Act is retained. This Bill recognises the important role of local education authorities and that they must have the powers they need in order to secure the provision of sufficient and efficient education for their whole area. There may be room for debate over the extent of the powers needed, but the principle is not in doubt. Equally, the dual system of county and voluntary schools is retained. The Government—indeed, the country—continue to value this highly for the greater diversity which voluntary schools bring to the maintained sector of education.
The Government's broad-ranging policies for schools were set out in the White Paper Better Schools, published a year ago. The principal aims are, first, to raise the standards at all levels of ability and, secondly, to secure the best possible return from the resources which are found for our schools. Many of the policies set out in Better Schools can be fully pursued within the existing legal framework. But the White Paper's proposals for school government and teaching quality
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require fresh legislation. These two subjects provide the main content of the Bill.
The Bill deals first with school government. The aim of those provisions is to re-establish school governing bodies as a force for good in the life of individual schools and the communities they serve. The 1944 Act established the governing framework, and it was clearly intended at that time that governing bodies should provide the focus for each school to achieve the identity and sense of purpose vital to its success. If I may briefly quote from the 1944 White Paper Principles of Government in Maintained Secondary Schools:
"Every school of whatever type or category must have an individual life of its own as well as a place in the local system."
The 1944 Act placed aided schools within the context of the maintained system, but enshrined many of their distinctive characteristics in the legislation. Commenting on this, the White Paper said:
"The fact that aided schools are assured under the Bill"—
a reference to the 1944 Act—
"of an independence hardly, if at all, less than that which they enjoy at present, makes it the more desirable to seek means to secure that reasonable autonomy is enjoyed also by county, controlled and special agreement schools. Independence implies, not freedom from proper control, but freedom to exercise legitimate and appropriate functions."
It is exactly those principles which this Bill pursues, for the vision intended by the 1944 Act generally did not become reality except in the case of voluntary aided and special agreement schools. As a result of their domination by local education authority appointees, their obscure powers, and their general failure to harness parents' natural interest in their children's progress, most governing bodies and their schools failed to develop their own separate identity and sense of purpose to a sufficient degree. Our schools which, too often, have come to be regarded as mere adjuncts of the local education authority, are the poorer for this.
The 1980 Act provided a valuable step forward by ending the widespread practice of grouping many schools under a single governing body and by introducing elected parent and teacher governors. This Bill completes the journey that, with hindsight, was only begun by the 1980 Act. It will remove the scope that local education authorities have and normally use to appoint the majority on the governing bodies of county, controlled and maintained special schools. Instead, the governing bodies of such schools will become a new partnership between parents; the local education authority; the head and other teachers; certain other representative governors; and a new category of co-opted governors. No interest will predominate. At the same time—and I cannot over-emphasise the importance of this conjunction—a clear uniform distribution of functions is proposed to enable the governing body, local education authority and head teacher to play their distinctive yet complementary roles in the life, work and success of individual schools.
In your Lordships' House, it would be appropriate at this point to acknowledge the work of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Blackburn, in opening up these matters for discussion some ten years ago. I am delighted that the noble Lord is taking part in this debate later this afternoon.

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I turn now to the detail of the Bill. Part I sets out new procedures for the making of instruments and articles of government. These are the working documents for each school which set out matters relating to the governing body's constitution in the instrument and, in the articles, the various functions to be exercised by the governing body, local education authority and head teacher. The major change embodied in Part I is the provision for the local education authority to make the instruments and articles of government for both county and voluntary schools. At present, it is the Secretary of State who makes the instruments of government for all voluntary schools and the articles of government for voluntary secondary schools. In view of the detailed prescription now proposed, these procedures are unnecessarily cumbersome.
I know there is some anxiety among those concerned with voluntary schools that this change will leave those schools vulnerable to an erosion of their powers in favour of the local education authority. I can give your Lordships the categoric assurance that there is no reason for this to happen. Clause 1 makes it clear that the detailed prescription of the Bill and other legislation, and of any trust deed, cannot be overridden. Clause 2 then provides additional safeguards. The local education authority is required to have regard to the way the school has been conducted and to secure the agreement of the voluntary school's governing body or, in appropriate cases, those governors representing the voluntary foundation. In the event of disagreement over a proposal by the local education authority or, indeed, a proposal put forward by the voluntary school itself, the matter may be referred by either side to the Secretary of State. As now, he will thus remain the final arbiter. Indeed, this is additional protection for voluntary primary schools whose articles are currently made by local education authorities without that safeguard.
Part II of the Bill comprises the clauses concerning the composition of governing bodies and their proceedings, to be repeated as appropriate in individual schools' instruments of government. Clause 3 sets out the new composition, to which I have already referred, for the governing bodies of county, controlled and maintained special schools, with the number of governors in different categories linked to the size of school. Clause 4 covers aided and special agreement schools, and is a re-enactment of the relevant parts of Section 2 of the 1980 Act. The governing body of such a school already serves to give it a distinctive life of its own and is the agency through which the voluntary body responsible for the school exercises those functions which underpin the dual system which the Government are committed to preserving.
Clause 5 provides, in certain difficult circumstances, for parent governors to be appointed by the LEA rather than elected, and Clause 6 provides for the appointment of an extra representative governor in place of a co-opted governor at certain schools.
This would be an appropriate point at which to mention Clause 43 which makes new provision to ensure that, in future, all these governors will be better equipped to discharge their important role. Local education authorities are to be required to secure that governors are adequately informed about and trained
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for their responsibilities. A number of excellent pilot projects in such training are about to start with the help of education support grants.
Clauses 8 and 9 concern the grouping of schools under a single governing body. While the Government's general policy is that each individual school should have its own governing body, it accepts that there will be cases where some grouping is appropriate. These clauses largely re-enact Section 3 of the 1980 Act with two particular changes. First, the grouping is to be effected by an instrument of government subject to all the procedures under Part I of the Bill rather than under an "arrangement" as at present. Secondly, the letter of the law will be brought closer to its spirit. It will still permit the grouping of two primary schools (neither of which is a special school) without the Secretary of State's approval but with the new condition that they serve substantially the same area and, in Wales, make similar use of the Welsh language. Any other case will require approval.
Clause 11 fills a gap in the present law by making important new provision for new schools to have temporary governing bodies to be active in the crucial formative period leading up to the opening of the school. The composition and powers of such bodies are set out in Schedule 2 with the aim of making them as much like full governing bodies as possible given that the school is not yet open.
Clause 14 contains a number of miscellaneous provisions: some are re-enactments, others provide clarification. I should mention in particular subsection (12) which requires school governors to be aged 18 or more. A similar provision in relation to college governors is in Clause 47. The Government have long held the view that a school or college governor holds an office of public and pecuniary trust; minors are not eligible to hold such an office. This view, however, has never been tested in the courts, and the Government have now taken the opportunity to put the matter beyond doubt.
Part III of the Bill contains provisions for the allocation of functions between the governing body, the local education authority and the head teacher. At present, the allocation of functions is largely left to obscure articles of government which, over the years, have developed a bewildering degree of variety. This variety in the way important decisions are taken (not what those decisions might be) really cannot be right in what is, by law, a national service. The distribution of functions now proposed will secure a uniformity of approach, and will ensure that the new-style governing bodies, local education authorities and head teachers will have a clearer understanding of how they are to work together for the good of individual schools.
In formulating their proposals on functions, the Government have followed three broad principles which I hope will inform all discussion on these matters in your Lordships' House: first, the local education authority must have the powers to carry out its duty to secure the provision of sufficient and efficient schools for its area; secondly, and subject to the local education authority's overall responsibility, the governing body should be able to determine, in consultation with the head teacher, the main policies and lines of development of the school; thirdly, the

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professional responsibilities of the head teacher and the staff must be respected.
The new provisions are to be set out in individual school's articles of government, to be readily available as a working document. In some cases, there will be little scope for articles to do other than simply repeat the provisions in the Bill. But, in others, the Bill provides minimum functions for governing bodies: local education authorities will be able to confer greater powers on governing bodies as seems appropriate. It should be noted that, in particular, it will no longer be possible for local education authorities to override governing bodies in the legitimate exercise of their functions. It is relatively common at present for articles of government to provide for governing bodies' exercise of their functions to be subject to any direction of the authority.
I turn now to the detail of the proposals. Clause 15 provides for the conduct of a school to be under the control of the governing body, subject to the specific statutory responsibilities of others. This is an important provision which gives real locus to the governing body. Clauses 16 to 18 cover the secular curriculum. None of this affects the provisions in the 1944 Act concerning religious education. The clauses require the local education authority to state its curricular policy for all the schools in its area. Taking account of this but not bound by it, it will then be for the governing body to state its policy for the curriculum in the school. Finally, the head teacher's professional role is made explicit by allocating to him the determination and organisation of the curriculum, in a way that is compatible with either the authority's policy or that of the governing body. In the case of aided and special agreement schools, however, the governing body is to have overall control of the content of the secular curriculum. This preserves the position provided in the 1944 Act for aided secondary schools. I should also mention here that the head teacher's role is emphasised by involving him, under Clause 23, in spending decisions affecting the curriculum.
Clauses 20 to 22 deal with the discipline and good order of schools. Again, the head teacher's professional role is endorsed by placing substantial functions on his shoulders, but with appropriate guidance from the governing body and local education authority. In particular, it is to be for the head teacher alone to be able to initiate an exclusion—a term deliberately chosen to embrace any situation in which a pupil is told to leave the school premises for disciplinary reasons. The clauses tackle the particular problem that some pupils are now left in limbo; excluded from school, but not formally expelled, with no one taking any action to ensure that the matter is properly resolved. To safeguard the pupils' interests, significant exclusions may be overruled by the governing body or the local education authority, applying their broader perspectives flowing, in the case of the authority, from its responsibilities for securing the education of children in its area. For that reason, Clause 22 provides a reserve power for the authority to intervene to prevent the collapse of good order at a county, controlled or maintained special school.
For aided and special agreement schools, the governing body alone will have the final say on the
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expulsion of a pupil. But, again as appropriate given its long-stop responsibility for children's education, the local education authority will be able to force a decision as to reinstatement or expulsion of a temporarily-excluded pupil.
Clause 23 provides a role for the governing body in the expenditure on its school. To aid cost-consciousness and to enable the governing body to judge whether the expenditure on the school represents value for money, the local education authority will be required to supply the governing body with a statement of expenditure on the school. It will also be required to allocate a sum for expenditure by the governing body on at least books, equipment and stationery. That is a minimum requirement, recognising that over-hasty changes in the complex area of financial delegation can be counter-productive. Those local education authorities who currently allow considerable financial autonomy to their schools will be able to continue to do so and the Government hope that, to advantage, they will soon be joined by others.
Clauses 24 and 25 contain significant provisions that will enable all parents, not just the minority who become parent governors, to become more involved in the work of the school. Clause 24 requires the governing body to prepare an annual report to parents on the discharge of its functions. Clause 25 provides for the governing body to hold an annual meeting for parents to discuss the annual report and other matters relating to the life and work of the school. At that meeting parents may, if they wish and subject to a special quorum, pass formal resolutions for consideration by the governing body, the local education authority or the head teacher. For obvious reasons, hospital schools and residential schools will not be required to hold an annual meeting, though the governing body would have the discretion to hold one if it was thought worth while.
Clauses 28 to 35 provide the detailed framework for the appointment and dismissal of complemented staff at county, controlled, maintained special and special agreement schools, where the local education authority is the employer. As such, the actual appointment of staff is a matter for the authority, and the same is true of dismissal. The governing body is, however, given a considerable role in the selection of staff for appointment and must be consulted in cases of dismissal or redeployment.
I make no apologies whatsoever for the degree of detail that is included to secure this proper role for the governors, especially on the appointment of a head teacher. The selection and appointment of a head teacher is among the most important acts affecting a school. The procedure set out in Clauses 30 and 31 ensures an appropriately strong voice for the governing body, with at least equal representation on the selection panel with the local education authority.
The appointment of staff to aided schools is not affected by this Bill. Staff at aided schools are employed by the governing body. The 1944 Act already makes appropriate provision that needs no change. I should also emphasise that the Bill does not affect the special rights of foundation governors at controlled and special agreement schools over the appointment and dismissal of reserved teachers for religious education.

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Part IV of the Bill contains provisions for enhancing teaching quality and a variety of miscellaneous measures. Teaching quality is clearly vital to a school's success. One of the most crucial responsibilities of LEAs is to manage the teacher force so that the teachers' professional commitment, skills and knowledge are used to best effect. The managerial responsibility has two main but complementary aspects: first, to support and encourage professional development at all stages of an individual teacher's career; and second, to see that the staff of each school matches as far as possible the curricular needs of the pupils.
The Government believe that the regular and systematic appraisal of teachers' performance is essential to enable management at all levels to have the information necessary for the systematic and effective provision of professional support and development and for the deployment of staff to best advantage. We hope that a national framework for teacher appraisal can be achieved by agreement between the local education authorities and the teachers' associations. However, it may be desirable—and could prove necessary—for that national framework to be provided or supported by statutory regulations. Clause 37 therefore enables the Secretary of State to make such regulations. I must stress again the hope that appraisal can be secured by agreement. But it is such an important tool for management's use in staff development that the Government consider it essential to have that enabling power put on the statute book now.
One of the purposes of teacher appraisal will be to identify where in-service training may be needed. To ensure that appropriate provision is made for such training, Clause 38 provides for the Secretary of State to make wider use of specific grants, under regulations, to promote more systematic and purposeful planning of in-service training. That training may also be for others in the education service, such as local education authority inspectors, educational psychologists and youth and community workers.
Turning now to the remaining miscellaneous matters, Clause 39 supersedes Section 31 of the 1980 Act in dealing with the recoupment of costs between local education authorities where provision for primary, secondary or further education is made by one authority for a pupil or student belonging to the area of another. It extends to such types of non-advanced further education as may be prescribed and to hospital schooling for the under-fives—the "free trade" already provided by the 1980 Act for pupils of compulsory school age. Access to non-advanced further education courses is eased and the home authority will no longer be able to refuse to allow recoupment. The opportunity is also being taken to clarify the Secretary of State's power to settle any disagreement between authorities as to the appropriate rates of recoupment by reference to average costs, in line with current practice.
Clauses 40 and 41 make a modest but useful adjustment to the statutory framework of the dual system. Many of the voluntary schools newly created by the 1944 Act that then opted for controlled status could now afford the financial liabilities associated
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with the greater independence of aided status; and changes in local patterns of provision could make an aided school more appropriate than a controlled one in some cases. Clause 40 removes the current block on such a change in status by providing a new public process very similar to that in Section 13 of the 1980 Act for changes of character.
Controlled schools would be required under Clause 41 to compensate local education authorities for any past capital investment. I should make it clear that we do not expect a flood of applications from controlled schools, and the Secretary of State would clearly not approve a change of status if the local education authority or others could show that such would be detrimental to overall educational provision in the area.
Clause 44 clarifies the present confused statutory position on governors' allowances. Taking as its starting point that service as a governor should be regarded as a voluntary service, the clause makes clear that the only allowance that may be paid to a governor is travel and subsistence. Any such allowance will be payable at the authority's discretion. While it may discriminate between different categories of establishment, it may not do so between different categories of governor.
Finally, Clauses 45 and 46 remove two unnecessary requirements of the 1944 Act; for there to be two central advisory councils (one for England and one for Wales), and for the Secretary of State to publish an annual report to Parliament. For some years, the sort of advice that central advisory councils might have been expected in 1944 to provide has been more appropriately obtained ad hoc from special committees or individuals. The time-consuming preparation of the annual report is no longer justified: the information it provides is readily available elsewhere and the report generates little interest.
I am of course conscious that this is a time of trouble and uncertainty for our schools, but all those with the interests of the nation's children at heart should be intent on making a reality of the Government's declared aims of raising standards at all levels of ability and securing the best possible return from the substantial resources that are made available.
This is a major task which requires the involvement and collaboration of pupils, parents, teachers, governing bodies, the wider communities served by individual schools, local authorities and central government. This Bill provides a new means of securing that vital involvement and partnership. It offers new life to governing bodies freed from local authority domination, first by harnessing the natural interests of parents and the wider community and, secondly, by clarifying the present confused powers. With the governing body as a focus, each school will thus have a significant say in its own destiny as a part of local provision.
The Government are confident that these new opportunities for parents and others in school government, coupled with those for teachers in professional development through appraisal and in-service training, will be taken up and will secure the real progress that we all want to see. In a few years' time we shall all wonder how there could ever have

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been any doubt about the good sense of the measures in the Bill which is now before us. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. (The Earl of Swinton.)
4.40 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Earl for his lucid and exhaustive explanation of the provisions of this Bill. He is right in drawing attention to the fact that there is a great continuity of legislation and thinking about the government of schools over a period of more than a century, though I suspect that the noble Earl may be a little optimistic if he thinks that the present Bill will provide the culmination of that process. The history of managers—as they were called—in our schools possibly started with the 1870 Education Act, when of course they were largely confined to primary schools. But the controversy about whether or not there should be independent bodies attached to each school, playing a role in the government of the school, has never ceased since that time.
The 1902 Education Act made it possible—perhaps inadvertently—for those who were antagonistic to the idea of governing bodies to flout the intentions of the Government in the Act. It will be recalled that Sir James Graham, the Director of Education for Leeds, successfully used the wording of the Act to abolish all types of governors and managers in the schools of Leeds, and the government were unable to enforce their intentions. That indeed was the case right up until the 1944 Education Act, which in this respect was intended to bring some order out of the chaos which had existed between the different kinds of schools—the direct grant schools, what are now called voluntary aided or voluntary controlled schools, and the county schools.
I feel that the noble Earl is unduly harsh to the 1944 Act. He claims that the provisions of the Act with respect to governors, and in particular of course the provisions of Command Paper 6523 on the principles of government in schools which followed, did not actually work in the county schools. He claims that they were effective only for the direct grant and aided schools. I should have thought that there was a good deal of evidence that that was not the case and that there were many parts of the country where school managers and governors existed successfully. The noble Earl himself has been involved in this system for a number of years in North Yorkshire. I should have thought that if he looked again, he would see that there was a continuity of understanding and appreciation that governors and managers have a valuable part to play.
I want to show very briefly how this historical process has continued virtually without ceasing, whether the government in power came from the Labour Party or the Conservative Party. First of all I should like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Taylor, whose report of 1977 is absolutely fundamental for its understanding of the issues and the depth of its inquiry into the issues with which this Bill is concerned. During the period of office of the Labour Government it was followed by Command Paper 7430 of 1978, and if the Labour Government had stayed in
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office after 1979 that would have been followed no doubt by the provisions of the Education (No. 2) Bill of 1978–79, which might have advanced many of the measures of this Bill by quite a number of years.
However, it is true to say that the Conservative Government to some extent carried on the thinking of my noble friend Lord Taylor, which was the thinking of their predecessor government, in the 1980 Act and in the White Paper of 1983 on teaching quality. I shall say less about the Green Paper of 1984 on parental influence in schools, because many of us were very pleased to see that the White Paper called Better Schools abandoned some of the more foolish proposals from 1983.
It is clear that this has been a matter of debate which has not particularly been undertaken on party lines. The noble Earl always plays a straight bat in addressing the House. He did not use any of the arguments which have been used by pundits of the Conservative Party since this Bill was published, that the widening of the responsibilities of governing bodies to include parents in some way will curb the trendy lefty teaching that a number of Conservatives seem to think is a major threat to our schools. If I cannot convince either the noble Earl himself or his colleagues of the fact that this is not a matter of party stance, perhaps I may draw the attention of the noble Earl and his colleagues to the situation in France. There, the Loi Haby which was made under a Right-wing government, was the law which in fact encouraged experimentation and further political education and to some extent, in the view of some people in France, was a moving away from the rigid standards of achievement which were characteristic of French schools. It is Jean-Pierre Chevénement, the present Minister of Education in France, and a Left-wing Socialist Minister of Education, who has firmly put back on the statute book and into the practice of schools in France the three Rs—the disciplines of the perhaps sometimes too authoritarian procedures in schools which have been characteristic of French education.
There are a number of important matters in this Bill on which we on this side of the House agree with the Government. We are in agreement with the Government that there should be an end to political control in our governing bodies by local education authorities. We are in agreement with the Government that there should be improved procedures for information and communication; for reporting of the activities of the governing body to the school, of the governing body to the local education authority, of the local education authority to the governing body and any other channel of communication which I may have left out in that selection. We are in agreement—with provisos to which I shall refer—with the Government's view that there should be better training for governors in our schools. We are in agreement in principle—again with provisos to which I shall refer—with the Government's view about the need for appraisal of teachers. We are in agreement with the Government when they say that there should be a degree of control by the governors over budgets for their own schools, where we think that it is possible (and Cambridgeshire, for example, has shown this to be the case) to give governors this degree of control without an excessive burden on the local education

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authorities. At the same time they can make wiser decisions, which are better informed, because they are more locally informed, about the way in which the school should be run.
But I have to say that there are many aspects of the Bill where the wording of legislation, even legislation as detailed as this, can depart drastically from reality. The noble Earl referred to the 1944 Act on many occasions. I have been a governor of schools for many years under the provisions of that Act. It provides that the governing body should have control of the conduct and curriculum of a school. How many governing bodies actually control the conduct and curriculum of a school? That is not the way in practice that the system works. That is not because the governing bodies are politically controlled by local education authorities, but because of the natural difference in experience, self-confidence and understanding of the different people involved in governing bodies.
Sir James Graham is an extreme case. There are other more extreme cases of the way in which the provisions of the 1944 Act do not take place in reality. I well recall visiting the committee of my noble friend Lord Taylor when it had a weekend meeting at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. I was addressing his committee on the subject of neighbourhood councils. The then chairman of Manchester Education Committee said confidently that there was nothing at all wrong with the Manchester system whereby the education committee comprised the governing body for all the Manchester schools, and there was nothing more local than that. She was confident that that was necessary for the effective control of education in Manchester. I wonder whether she still has the same view.
There are also many devices whereby those who are determined to bypass regulations can do so. Again as a governor of a comprehensive school in Haringey, I was actively involved as the first chairman of that body in the movement of the school from being an ordinary comprehensive to being a community school. We wanted to take away the political majority from the governing body; to appoint far more parents; to have elected representatives of the school community association, which was a powerful and effective body; and to have teachers. We achieved all that, except for the teachers, by agreement with the local authority.
The instruments of government at that time did not permit us to have teachers. We had a simple device; we formed a committee which was called the Drayton School Committee. It had the composition that we wanted: it had pupils, teachers and community representatives. It met at 7.30. At 9.30, 10 o'clock or whatever other time the business of the governing body, in effect, was concluded; it adjourned, and in a few minutes the formal governing body rubber-stamped its decisions. I hesitate to suggest such a system for those who wish to use it for less admirable purposes, but it is possible to bypass regulations in that way, provided that one is determined and that everybody is in agreement that that should be done.
Before I come to talk about the amendments that we shall be seeking, let me suggest that our objective all the time should be effective partnership among the
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constituent parts of the governing body. The noble Earl used the word "partnership", but can he defend some of the wording that we find in the Bill? He described the Government's principles about its functions. They are that the local education authority shall have control of the overall effectiveness and management of schools in the area; the governing body shall determine the main policies and lines of development of the school; and the head teacher shall be responsible for the determination and organisation of the secular curriculum. I suggest to your Lordships that those statements are all overlapping and potential sources of enormous conflict.
The Government have not made clear what the responsibilities will be among the three parts. I am sure that it is not through any lack of good will. I do not accuse the Government of malice, but I do not believe that the legislation has been adequately thought out by those with practical experience of working in schools. I suggest that on the whole it has been produced by civil servants who do not have the benefit of that practical experience.
I come now to the amendments that we shall be seeking at a later stage in the passage of the Bill. Despite my welcome for its general principles, I have to say that the amendments that we want will be substantial. First, we believe that the proposals for the composition of governing bodies are much too detailed and rigid. They simply do not apply to the different conditions in which our schools find themselves. We should much prefer to have minimum conditions and model instruments and articles of government which shall apply to all education authorities, but by all means let us abolish political control.
Pupil governors have proved their worth in a number of local authorities. I know that from my personal experience as well. We think that their deliberate exclusion is a grave mistake if there is to be a true sense of partnership. To have fewer teachers on the governing body than the number of local authority and parent representatives is an invitation to the teachers not to take the governing body as seriously as they might, and we shall seek to remedy that. We believe that there should be equal partnership among the three.
We believe that the provision for co-opted governors is not adequate to represent those cases where there are strong community associations and where there ought to be, and could be, representation from, for example, higher education, industry and commerce; the many groups which are important in the community in which the school exists. We shall have a number of specific amendments designed to make the governing bodies more flexible and representative.
On the powers of governing bodies, we shall want to try to resolve the confusion that we believe still exists in the wording. We shall seek to remove the minimum limitations on the number of meetings, to improve reporting back to make more secure the provision that parents and teachers should be elected by their constituencies and to reduce the power of the local education authority to make provision for appointment if it thinks it appropriate. We shall certainly want to see that parents are better represented on the governing

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bodies of boarding schools, hospital schools and special schools. There is plenty of evidence from local authorities that that works.
We see no reason why there should not be governing bodies for nursery schools. We think the whole question of eligibility of local authority employees has not been adequately thought out. Certainly employees of the education department ought to be debarred, but why bar the employees of, say, a finance or a housing department? Our present thinking is that there should be no grouping. The noble Earl described that as being a major defect of the 1944 Act, but he has not proposed to remove it in the legislation. We shall have to listen to more views from those working in the area, but my inclination is to say that there is no justification at all for grouping of schools.
As regards the responsibilities of governing bodies, we think that they should be required to look into charges; to look at any inroads that the Government may wish to make into our free education system. So far as appraisal is concerned, we believe that, in effect, the Government are proposing a blank cheque. All the questions about appraisal are left unanswered in the Bill. There is no indication of whether it should be the head teacher, advisers or the local authority or whether it should be for development or disciplinary purposes. There is no indication that the Government have understood, or appreciated, even if they propose to reject, the teachers' argument that appraisal should not be used as a ground for dismissal or for discrimination in salary. It is not good enough for the Government to put in blank legislation of this kind without discussion of the important issues. So far as appointments are concerned, we believe that the provisions are extremely clumsy. The requirement for repetition of the procedures in positions of deadlock will lead to unnecessary delay. We believe that better ways of doing that could be found.
Turning to voluntary schools, it is notable that the dominance of foundation governors in voluntary schools has been virtually untouched. Our view is that parents and teachers in our voluntary schools should have just as much right to participate as equal partners in the government of those schools as they do in county schools. We shall be seeking amendments for that purpose. Since the Long Title of the Bill says that this is an Act to amend the law on education, we shall be helping the Government by putting forward proposals for the Government to fulfil their responsibility to the European Court of Justice, which they failed to fulfil last summer, and to provide for the abolition of corporal punishment in our schools. I hope that the Government will be grateful that someone is grasping the nettle on this matter. The existing shameful silence of the Government cannot be continued any longer.
On much more minor matters, we are not so confident as the Government are that central advisory councils have outstayed their value. Certainly, we do not understand why everyone needs to make annual reports except the Secretary of State. This is a Bill that deserves and will undoubtedly get very detailed consideration in this House and in another place. It deals with matters of great legislative difficulty. It deals with them, in our view, sometimes in a clumsy and rigid way. We are not convinced—the
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Government will have to convince us—that this legislation would, for example, have solved the problems of the William Tyndale school where it is a matter of the self-confidence of the governing body to see that the situation does not arise, of the Drummond Middle School, Bradford, where it is a three-way dispute involving the head teacher, the governing body and the education authority, or of Poundswick School, Manchester, where the whole question of exclusion is, in our view, not adequately answered by this legislation.
It is not simply a question of centralisation and decentralisation. As the noble Earl says, in most cases, the Secretary of State is not directly involved in the provisions of the Bill. It is a question of whether the right balance has been found between conflict in our schools and true partnership in our schools. With the best will in the world, we do not believe that the Government have found that right balance.
5.3 p.m.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, we, too, on these Benches, would like to thank the noble Earl for his clear exposition of the Bill. But a good deal of the measure, we have to say, does not conform to the claims made by the noble Earl that it will clarify such matters as the respective responsibilities of LEAs, head teachers and governing bodies. As I shall try to point out, we find these claims by no means justifiable.
We believe that there is an over-meticulous attention to detail. We believe also that the Bill does not address itself to the real problems facing our education service. Indeed, I have to confess that, at one moment when the noble Earl was speaking, I wondered whether we were talking about the same Bill. That was the occasion when he mentioned improving teaching quality and producing better schools.
As to the composition of governing bodies, of all the people I have spoken to, I have found none who did not believe additional parental involvement to be a good thing. The object of the Government, doubtless, is to counterbalance any political element, which, in some areas, is represented by the LEAs, and to introduce a consumer element. We support the neutralisation of political interests where possible. Party politics have no place in schools, as all of us, I believe, agreed in a debate in this House some weeks ago.
Parents will bring with them enthusiastic support for the school and genuine concern for the welfare of the children. Hitherto, the overall picture is that parent governors already elected in accordance with the provisions of the 1980 Act have been a little subdued and overawed by the professional educationists sitting at the same table. Sometimes, too, I believe, they have felt themselves unrepresentative of the parent body generally, as, for example, where articulate middle-class white parents are attempting to represent a body of largely immigrant parents. On the whole, however, it is likely that parent governors will gain confidence and become more assertive. There is no doubt that governing bodies will undergo drastic changes and become much more contentious. Let us hope that the trend does not go too far in that direction with too

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much assertiveness on the part of activist parents—the kind who "natter at the gate at going-home time" as the headmistress of my village school expressed it. As an ex-headmaster, I know that most parents are wonderfully co-operative and helpful but that some, on occasion, can be rather too helpful.
We are a little concerned about elections of teacher and parent governors—concerned that in Clause 14 it is proposed that,
"It shall be for the local education authority — to make all necessary arrangements for, and to determine all other matters relating to, any such election".
One wonders whether there should not be an involvement of the parent-teacher associations and/or the existing governing body itself.
I should like to ask the noble Earl, echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, why, in all schools having over 99 pupils, the teacher governor contingent is to be smaller than the LEA or parent contingent. All the major unions have commented on this, and so has the Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations. And what about representation of non-teaching or support staff? No mention is made of this. As for childrens' representation, about which the Children's Legal Centre feels so strongly, the position is perhaps arguable. The only time that I had youngsters sitting on a committee, they were totally speechless. I know, however, of at least one school where the experiment has been successful, where, for example, a Nigerian girl of 17 has had to produce reports to the governing body on the activities of her sixth form. This is excellent. The answer, surely, is that there is nothing magical about the age of 18, that an intelligent and mature 16 or 17 year-old may well have a useful contribution to make, and that over-16s should therefore be eligible for co-option, if, but only if, the right candidates happen to be there.
The feeling in the small Church school of which I am a governor is that the reduction from three to two foundation governors shows too little recognition of the sterling work done over the years by these schools with a Christian basis. This little piece of secularisation seems unnecessary. One wonders whether the governing bodies of 19 in larger schools are not altogether too unwieldy. I suppose it is felt that a large number of children must be represented by a large number of parents and that the other elements on the committee must be increased proportionately. We welcome the idea of a governors' annual report and parents' meeting and also that governors should be given information and guidance.
I should like to consider briefly the proposals in the Bill with regard to certain functions of the governing body—namely, the curriculum, the matter of discipline, and the appointment of staff. It is in these areas that we feel that considerable simplification and clarification is desirable. In Clause 16, LEAs are to,
"determine"—
please note, my Lords, that the dictionary meaning of the word is to "settle or decide conclusively"—
"and keep under review their policy in relation to the secular curriculum for the county, voluntary and special schools maintained by them".
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However, under Clause 17, the governing body is,
"to consider what, in their opinion, should be the aims of the secular curriculum".
How can the governing body consider the aims if the LEA has already determined the policy? Meanwhile, a little later on, the subsection provides that,
"the determination and organisation of the secular curriculum [is] to be the responsibility of the head teacher".
All this is very longwinded. All that is needed, surely, is something along the lines of the LEA laying down the general policy and the governing body, in consultation with the head teacher, considering its application to their particular school, the final detailed arrangements to be the responsibility of the head teacher and his staff.
Again, Clause 20 deals with discipline. Subsection (1) is perfectly satisfactory, making the head teacher responsible, in consultation with the governing body, for the acceptable behaviour of the students, apart from one extraordinary and surely quite unnecessary provision in paragraph (d), announcing that,
"the standard of behaviour which is to be regarded as acceptable at the school [is] to be determined by the head teacher, so far as it is not determined by the governing body".
However, in subsection (2), everything goes wrong. It says that a head teacher, where he has excluded a pupil from the school for bad behaviour, must:
"comply with any direction given by the governing body or the local education authority for the immediate reinstatement of the pupil".
This is what happened at Poundswick where certain pupils were excluded, where the LEA ordered their immediate reinstatement, and where the staff then refused to have them in their classes. That is obviously an impossible situation. A head teacher and his staff—and they alone—know when a pupil or pupils can no longer be contained within a school. A great educationist once said to me that the school—children as well as staff—will as it were, vomit them from their presence. Ultimate decisions must be matters for consultation, not dictation. In the last resort, an independent appeals procedure might be necessary.
Before I leave the matter of discipline I should like to echo what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said. One feels that it is a great pity the Government have not taken the opportunity in this Bill of finally clearing up the outstanding question of corporal punishment and settling the matter by abolishing it in compliance with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.
We are somewhat concerned about the matter of staff appointment. Clause 32(1)(c) empowers the LEA to fill a vacancy for assistant staff with any employee of their own choice regardless of the possible objection of governing body or head teacher. For the purposes of redeployment of teachers, one sees that this may have to be done. But it is much easier to accept in large schools, where for example probationary teachers gaining early experience can have the support of a large staff, than in small village schools with a very small staff where, as the chairman of the governing body of my village school put it, if you only have three legs you cannot afford to have one of them limping.
I come finally to the question of teacher appraisal, previously referred to by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. This matter is dealt with in Clause 37. In it

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the Secretary of State is given the reserve power to institute an appraisal system unilaterally by means of regulations, which are not amendable by Parliament. We on these Benches and, one suspects, the great majority of teachers, favour an appraisal system as a means of strengthening teacher performance, of helping frailer vessels, of offering career guidance, and of suggesting further training. However, this is a delicate subject and there is a general feeling among the teaching profession that any scheme should be set up with the maximum consultation by negotiation and the minimum secrecy or diktat.
At this particularly sensitive moment of time when negotiations are even now under way between teachers and their employers, touching conditions of service, salary and promotion structure as well as pay levels, it would in our view be most provocative to put into the hands of the Secretary of State such a powerful weapon.
I fear that the whole teacher dispute has been characterised by an undiplomatic approach by the Government. Most teachers are very vulnerable people doing a very exacting task in which they have to give not just their brains or their industry but their very selves and in which the consumers—the children—are merciless. To have had society's under-valuation, in cash terms, of their status and importance has been bad enough; but to be told as a profession, as they have been repeatedly over the last year, that they are not good enough, has done more damage to their morale than any parsimony over pay.
I hope that it will be possible at Committee stage to amend Clause 37 in such a way that it constitutes less of a threat to the teachers in their demoralised state and hands to LEAs, governing bodies, head teachers and their staffs the responsibility for devising a system of appraisal which is freely accepted by all. I hope, too, that we shall be able to clarify and simplify the Bill in other places where confusion and contention might arise.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, it must at least be refreshing to your Lordships when most of our Bills deal with matters where we have to guard against ill faith or bad behaviour to have a Bill before us which takes so elevated a view of human nature that it can do without sanctions altogether.
The first elevated view of human nature is taken in Part II of the Bill which deals with the increase in the number of parent governors. I do not myself feel that this is likely to be an important contribution to the raising of standards in our schools, which I think is the common objective on all sides of the House.
There was a famous head teacher who said, "Boys are always reasonable, teachers sometimes, parents never". That is not a bad rule of thumb for the very simple reason that most parents, if they interest themselves in a school, are concerned with their own offspring and do not take a view about the general community, because if they had more general views they would probably seek to express them in some other way.
I believe that the authors of this Bill thought of potential parent governors as persons skilled in their
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trades, successful in the professions, well founded in their businesses. I think on the contrary, that apart from those who seek such positions to push forward factional or other causes, one will get the kind of parent who is perhaps represented by those lachrymose "mommas" who go whining to the European Court of Human Rights when anyone suggests proper chastisement for their insufferable offspring.
I do not myself think we shall get very far. I would not oppose these clauses of the Bill but I think that if the Government believe that this is a major change they are mistaken. If I may follow a suggestion, perhaps made obliquely by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, I would rather have seen representatives of other important elements in the community. He suggested that this could be done—of course it can—by co-option. However, there might be something to be said for the right of certain bodies—for instance, institutions of higher education—to have governors in secondary schools as is the case with most secondary schools in the independent sector.
However, we come from that to Parts II and III, where there are confusions, as has been pointed out, as to the location of responsibility both for curriculum and for discipline. I myself find it difficult to accept the view which the Government appear to hold that local authorities are the suitable bodies to determine the curriculum of the schools. Only recently schools have been urged by the Secretary of State to adopt a core curriculum to include those important elements in teaching, in education, to which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred as having been insisted upon by the admirable Monsieur Chevénement. If the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, could assure me that the next Labour Government would choose him or his British equivalent as Secretary of State for Education they might see me crossing the Floor of the House.
However, if the Government believe that this degree of central direction is necessary in order to compete with the products of countries like France, which have a national system of education and a national curriculum, then that should have been more clearly spelled out. I see no reason why the local authority should be an intermediary, where curriculum is concerned, between the nation and its needs and the individual school and its headmaster and staff.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Bill which has so far been referred to by both noble Lords who have spoken and of course by the noble Earl the Minister, is the question of the appraisal of teachers. As the noble Lord who has just spoken has reminded us, the teaching profession is somewhat demoralised. I am not sure whether the reasons which he gave are those to which I would subscribe, but the degree of demoralisation, which has been shown by its participation in disruption over a long period of time, cannot be denied, and it must certainly infuse any future debate which we have about the shape and conduct of our education system.
If one were to take members of another group whose claims on the public purse one must sympathise with—and I am speaking of the nurses or the medical profession—one can only say that if they had behaved

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towards their patients with the degree of indifference which many teachers have shown towards their pupils in either moral or academic fields, one can only assume that our hospitals today would be littered with the dead and dying.
What is the remedy? First—and this does not appear in the Bill and in my view it is regrettable that it does not appear in the Bill—the absurd situation by which local authorities employ and negotiate with people whose salaries are paid out of the general Exchequer, should now be brought to an end. The Government should at least take over the full responsibility for teachers' salaries and we could have meaningful face-to-face negotiations between the real employer, who is after all the person in any business who supplies the wherewithal, and the employees.
However, let us assume that the proposition is too radical for the Government, or any government, to contemplate. Let us look rather at the question of whether we can reconstruct a teaching profession which will itself accept and work out—and this point was made by the noble Lord who has just spoken—a system of appraisal and internal discipline—an accepted cursus honorum towards the higher and more responsible appointments.
A couple of years ago I would have suggested—indeed I did suggest—that the right model might be the medical profession; that what one required was to create a professional ethos in the way in which the medical profession and certain other professions had done by providing their own disciplinary body to lay down rules of conduct, to explain the ethical considerations which govern the practice of the profession and in the last resort to act as a disciplinary body. I still find that appealing as a concept, but clearly the events of the last two years have made it much more difficult to visualise. That is why I go further than merely the assumption of financial responsibility by central government and, regrettably, am coming round to the view that the tradition of British education for the last century, which has been that it is a matter for local government, is one which we now have to question.
We are talking of the nation's livelihood, because the main reason for our failings in competitiveness lies in our educational system at all levels. The main reason for at least part of the success of our competitors is the fact that service in the educational system, like service in other branches of the state's activities, is a part of central government and that enables their career structure to be more effective than it is with us and enables Parliament and the country to place the responsibility where it needs to be. That matter, I appreciate, goes beyond the scope of the Bill. Perhaps some future Monsieur Chevènement in this country may yet think out a way of dealing with it.
However, when we look back at the Bill—whether at the composition of boards of governors, or the responsibilities for curriculum; or indeed, as we have been reminded by references to Bradford and Manchester, at the responsibilities for discipline—we have to take it for granted that, although there may be 100 education authorities in this country who could be trusted without sanctions, without government intervention, to fulfil the tasks properly, there is
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another group the members of which are in many respects the principal impediments to the progress of the children of this country through their education. It is sad no doubt for those who cherish our view of self-government, but it seems to me that it must be the schools and their teachers who ultimately do the work, and it must be for the national government to set the parameters within which that work is done.
5.28 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl and my noble friend Lord McIntosh for the tributes which they paid to the work of my committee. I say "my" committee, but I was only there to look after them; the members of the committee did the work. Therefore, I am grateful for the tributes which have been paid to them. But I also find it very sad on this day that, looking across the Chamber, there is not one right reverend Prelate in the Chamber to listen to this debate. It is very sad, when one remembers that the Church has said so much about education over the years, that it does not have any representative here this afternoon. I hope that as the Bill proceeds through its various stages, the Church will have representatives in the Chamber.
It is about nine years since my committee produced the report entitled, A new Partnership for our Schools. It was a very simple report, based on the belief that the government of schools, which had fallen into such disrepute, could be made into a vital force for good if the idea of power could be replaced by that of partnership. It has taken a long time to gain acceptance for that belief; but I think that public opinion is now ready for a big step forward. In the years between, parent and teacher governors have been introduced practically everywhere. Many heads have found that their parent governors have been most interested and supportive, and where governing bodies are working well there is a deeper understanding between parents and teachers.
When Sir Keith Joseph's Green Paper proposed in May 1984 that parents should have a majority on governing boards it was universally condemned, and nearly all those who commented, including parent groups, said that they wanted an equal partnership of all interests as recommended in the Taylor Report. Many will rejoice that the present Bill brings a better balance and more representation for parents. But it does not bring us our equal partnership because it allows for no increased representation of teachers. In this respect public opinion has been ignored. This is a tragic error in my view.
The appearance of the Bill in the middle of what one might call one of the most bitter disputes highlights the issue. So does the inclusion in the same Bill of the unrelated question of compulsory teacher appraisal. The powers of governors have been dressed up to look a lot fiercer than they are. All this may make teachers feel threatened. But fair shares on governing boards would go a long way to correct the balance.
Nothing can work in education without the good will of teachers. What is more, when power is being shared the easiest principle to operate and justify is the simplest; namely, equality. When my committee discussed—at enormous length—the best formula for constructing a board of governors, we kept coming back to this simple proposition. We thought,

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moreover, that any under-represented group would be "courted" to give one or more of the other groups control. We believe that we needed teachers' full contribution if governors were to have a genuine involvement in the curriculum. Two teachers, alongside five parents, in a large comprehensive school is absurd.
For all these reasons I feel that it would be disastrous if we did not provide fair representation of staff. We can still do this. The necessary places could easily be found by reducing the co-opted parent and LEA shares only marginally.
Other major errors in the Bill seem to me to be as follows: first, the grouping of two primary schools is still to be allowed. We found grouping to be a major evil. We gave a lot of thought to what exceptions might be allowed, and decided that even where there was an infant school downstairs and a junior school upstairs, if they had separate heads and organisations they should have their own governors. I would make all grouping illegal.
Secondly, the Bill says that LEAs may select parent governors if there are not enough volunteers. This is just the way to bring back all the bad old habits of political patronage. Nothing would so quickly create suspicion and lose parents' confidence. Parents will come forward if they see governors as a reality in the life of the school and if boards work openly and without party politicking. LEAs and schools will have to work at this, and it must not be made easy for them to give up.
Thirdly, the development of student participation will be crippled by the age limit of 18. Young people mature so much more quickly these days, and with the rapid development of sixth form and tertiary colleges there is a great need to give them experience of democratic responsibility. Eleven to 16 schools need to be encouraged to make a start with pupil involvement too, if their older pupils are to assume the leadership role the sixth form once did.
Fourthly, there ought to be a lot more support to enable governors to work effectively. I should like to see an independent body to sponsor training schemes and spread good practice. I want recognition that governors have the right and the duty to visit schools and to be given the information they need to do the job. My committee also recommended that parents should have a right to form associations, and facilities to run them. We saw this as essential if governors were to communicate properly.
The recommendations we made in 1977 came from a high level committee of elected members, chief officers, the Churches, heads, teachers and parents. They have since found acceptance right through the service. The Bill is indeed an advance, but I am very distressed to think that we are so near and could still muff it. There is so much at stake. We must get it right this time.
5.38 p.m.
Lord Alexander of Potterhill: My Lords, when I started reading this Bill I thought I had picked up a textbook on the details of administration. It is totally over-simplistic to think that if you write down a mass of detail you will get the result that you are seeking. I
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share the view of others in support of an adequate voice for parents in the education of their children, though I get a bit worried by the other two effects of the provisions of that part of this Bill.
First, there is quite definitely a marked reduction in the power of the local education authority. Secondly, there is a marked increase in the power of the Secretary of State. That worries me. When the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, was speaking he worried me even more, because he wanted to go the whole hog on central control and direction. I should like to show him a copy of a letter that I had from the headmaster of a school in Germany in 1935. The letter said quite simply:
"War is inevitable. Every teacher is required, because they are all servants of Mr. Hitler, to see that every child says every morning, 'To live, we must eat. To eat, we must fight. Heil Hitler!'"
Central control and direction in education is very dangerous, in my judgment. Distribution of power in education is an essential condition of freedom in a democratic society.
I would go further. I believe that the 1944 Education Act was a great triumph in that respect. For 20 years we did not have party politics playing any part in the service. We were operating on the basis of consensus. We had a partnership in which it is true that central government paid the larger proportion of the cost of the education service, but they did so in a system of specific grant, which meant that the money they provided was spent on education. But all this has changed, and changed dramatically. We now have a system of rate support grant. It followed the adoption of general grant in 1958. What was the effect of general grant? It had several effects. First, it greatly weakened the position of the education committee, including its co-optative members. Secondly it very much increased the impact of party politics by enabling a council, of whatever political complexion, to decide whether to spend the money allocated by the Government on education or on something else.
The one clause in the Bill which I really welcome is Clause 38. It is a recognition by the Government of the utter failure of general grant. It provides specific grant for the in-service training of teachers, and that is utterly necessary. I remember when Mrs. Shirley Williams was Secretary of State for Education agreement being reached that the Government would put £8 million into the grant for in-service training.
As a result, £2 million was the total expenditure on in-service training. Where the other £6 million went, I do not know. Whether it was spent on some other part of the education system or service, I do not know. Whether it was on some other service altogether, I do not know.
If I had one suggestion to make to the Government it would be a simple one: to restore the specific grant for the whole of the education service as obtained until 1958. The education service is no less important for the welfare of the nation than the police. The police are funded by specific grant, but not the education service. In my opinion that would have a number of effects. It would greatly strengthen the position of the education committee of a local authority, including the co-optative members. It would greatly reduce the impact of party politics in education, which has been a disaster for the education service for a great many years.

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I think I was amused rather than anything else by Clause 37, on the appraisal of teachers. It is true that I have not been a chief education officer in a local authority for over 40 years, but my memory is sufficiently secure to know that when I was we had an appraisal report on every teacher in the service every year prepared by an adequate advisory staff who visited the schools every day. These reports were very valuable. They were helpful if they were favourable in looking at promotion prospects. If they were unfavourable, they were helpful in enabling us to lay on courses of additional training for those who apparently were unable to succeed in the teaching profession. Let us face it: for the unsuccessful we felt it perfectly proper to advise teachers that teaching was not the right career, that they had made a bad choice and would be unhappy and probably unsuccessful. A good many took that advice.
The thing that worries me about the provisions of the Bill is not that there should be an appraisal of teachers. The idea that anybody running any business does not make any appraisal of his staff is an absurdity. But I worry that the Secretary of State will not only require local authorities to do it, but will tell them how to do it. I worry about every bit of the Bill that adds to central control and direction, and that is one of them.
I was a little worried about Clause 40. One of the great triumphs of the Education Act 1944 was that it solved the dual system, which had been a problem for many years. It was a great triumph. By enabling voluntary schools to become controlled was an absolute precondition of making the fundamental purpose of the Act, secondary education for all children, a possibility. Now we seem to be putting the engine in reverse. We are not happy with the position that has come from the 1944 Act. We are saying to the controlled schools: "Why do you not apply to become aided? If you can afford to pay the monies being spent you will have a greater degree of independence. After all, you will have to pay only 3 per cent. of the costs of maintaining the school." That is about the cost that the governors contribute in an aided school. This worries me. I should hate to think that we might be walking down the road which lead us to the situation which obtained before the 1944 Act, stemming from the dual system. I hope it will not happen. I was comforted when the noble Earl thought that there would only be a few such applications.
Finally, I want to say what I believe is the most important thing that can be said when we discuss education. Never let us forget the words of Disraeli, which preceded the 1944 Act:
"On the future of the education service, the future of the nation depends."
5.50 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I enter this debate with considerable trepidation. Unlike my very distinguished fellow countryman who has just spoken, my involvement with schools has been almost entirely in the rather different system north of the Border. But the problems confronted by this Bill and the number of remedies proposed are so closely related to what I experienced during my time as a chairman of a local authority education committee and my time as a
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member of three different comprehensive school councils (which are our equivalent of governing bodies) that I cannot resist joining in. I hope that I may be forgiven.
First, on the Bill as a whole, it seems to me that it is potentially a very important step, albeit a medium-sized step, in the right direction. I suspect, however, with my noble friend Lord Beloff, that bigger steps must follow; and I will say a word about that, if I may, before I sit down. The great point about this Bill is that it concentrates on the state system where the vast majority of our children are educated and it makes what I regard as a thoroughly realistic attempt to tackle some of the greatest current problems of that system at their roots. It does this principally, it seems to me, by proposing what for many local authorities will be a new balance of power in relation to schools and by offering what I believe to be, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, has just said, a new opportunity to teachers.
Since its publication, the Bill has been criticised for tipping the balance too much one way or too much another way, for being too prescriptive of detail or too vague. I would suggest that taken as a whole the Bill probably gets the balance about right. It obliges schools, if they do not do so already, to provide opportunities for substantial involvement by all parents. That is crucial, above all—and we should not forget this—because the evidence is mounting that educational achievement is as much dependent upon parental interest and encouragement as it is on the skill of the teachers. At the same time, the Government have not fallen into the trap of regarding parents as the only customers to whom state schools are answerable in the sense that parents are the customers in the private sector. The Bill reflects the fact that state schools are paid for by all taxpayers and ratepayers, whether they have children at school or not, and, as other noble Lords have said, it reflects the fact that our success as a society as well as the life chances of individuals are dependent on our schools.
With my noble friend Lord Beloff, I wonder whether a strong enough input by central government in England and Wales is present. In Scotland, it is a good deal stronger and I wonder whether we, south of the Border, should not be looking at that. The Bill responds to the desire of most teachers to be skilled professionals, continuously improving and updating their professionalism and their desire to be acknowledged and respected as such by parents and by the wider public.
I do not believe that the kind of appraisal that is done behind the scenes by the authority—and of couse it is done—enables parents to see as much as they should of this. Very importantly, the Bill goes to considerable lengths to allow for the widespread desire to have less politics in the decision-making and the appointments system in schools—less politics with a small "p" as well as with a large "P". It also allows for the desire, which is now widespread, for a new and clearer commitment and sense of direction shared by parents, teachers, managers and the public at large. The Bill does nothing specific, as far as I can see, to ensure the involvement of local industry and commerce in schools; although I suppose that this can come through co-opted governors. It is light on

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providing for the crucial motivation to good behaviour which comes through the informal curriculum—clubs, societies, expeditions and the like. It concentrates upon depoliticising management but it does nothing to prevent political indoctrination in schools. Apart from these imbalances, it seems to be broadly appropriate.
On some particular aspects, I should like from experience to raise a few questions. First, will the proposals for parent governors attract the articulate and independent-minded people who are needed? Training may help; but my experience is that the parents who get elected—if they are not of the kind to go whingeing to the European-Court, the kind to whom my noble friend referred—are enthusiastic at the beginning; but when it comes to the point they tend to be altogether too humble and too diffident and to assume that the teachers, being the professionals in this field, know better than they do. In fact, that may frequently be the case but for the balance to operate teachers simply must not always make the running. The most able potential parent governors are probably the busiest people and gladly do not stand and leave the job to others. How do the Government envisage attracting the most effective parent governors, and, for that matter, the most effective co-opted governors? Would it be easier to attract them if the job carried more responsibiliy than is at present outlined in the Bill? I should be interested to hear the comments of the noble Baroness on that when she replies to the debate.
Also on membership of the governing body, I wonder whether it is the best way to give the head teacher the choice of being a governor or not. I realise that the numbers are carefully worked out to allow for such a choice but my experience is that the unique role of the head teacher, in a secondary school at any rate, is much better carried out if he or she is sitting as an assessor without a vote rather than as simply one of the governors. Doubtless head teachers are more than capable of deciding for themselves. But, if one way is better than another, why the choice? I agree with noble Lords that there should be pupil representatives on the board of governors and I am astonished that it is necessary to argue for this. It works well on school councils on which I have had experience and I can see no reason why there should not be such representation.
The procedure for the appointment of head teachers and their assistants as set out in Clauses 31 and 33 is close to my own experience and seems to me likely to work and to depoliticise the process well. Like the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, I am not so sure about Clause 32. The LEA needs flexibility, but will it be possible in certain circumstances for the governors to be landed with a redeployed head of department whom they do not want; or do I misunderstand?
On Clause 38, I join the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, in being delighted to see a breakthrough into earmarked funding for training—other than money coming by way of the MSC, which has lately been the Government's wont. I am particularly pleased, too, that there is recognition of the importance of up-to-date and skilled youth and community work in schools. I hope, finally, that an addition will be made to the Bill to outlaw political propaganda in schools. The Government keep telling us that there is little evidence. Of course, that is so. The
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people who would complain are the parents. But who would report a teacher when the area is a grey one and when such an act might come back on one's child in some way? To report that the law has apparently been broken would be very much easier. If any noble Lord were to move an amendment to that effect, I personally would support it.
I said at the beginning that I regard the Bill as an important step but that more has to happen. Might the next step perhaps be, as I thought the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, seemed to indicate, along the lines of the experiment now going on in Cambridgeshire where governing bodies would be given the job of handling virtually the whole of the school budget, with or without the paying of teachers' salaries and with funding calculated on a per capita basis, with a weighting for special circumstances? That would probably do more than anything else to attract the best governors and to make the proposed new structures work to full advantage. It could work well, complemented by some sort of credit system. In the meantime, I welcome the Bill. It is excellent that it has begun in this House, and I look forward to your Lordships' discussion during the Bill's passage here.
6.1 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I have never before taken part in a debate on education—not in either House. That is not because of indifference; it is through lack of experience. I had far too little education as a boy. I have had no family to tell me what education in later years has been like, and no grandchildren to wave their banners denouncing the Secretary of State. So that is a great handicap; and looking at the list of noble Lords and noble Baronesses who are taking part in this debate, I feel at the same disadvantage as I nearly always do in the presence of those who are masters of the administration of education. One has to grasp so much of complex detail on the distribution of authority, the exercise of power and all the conditions of making appointments, with regulations relating to discipline and all the rest of it—all this one has to get through before one reaches the point of seeing a child being taught to read and write.
This is a forbidding approach to education. I have been listening to this debate very carefully indeed and I am about to lose my courage really in taking part in it; but I have something to say about teachers, and I think that is relevant to the Bill before the House. Twelve years ago I was asked to lead a committee on the review of the pay and structure of the salary scales and other matters relating to the teaching profession in England, Wales and Scotland. What worries me—and we are nearly all worried about something, because I have listened to nothing but worries up till now—is to look at the conditions today in the teaching profession and compare them with those which existed at the time I was asked to take on this job in 1974.
The pay of teachers had then fallen well behind their place in the salary structure of society. That is the case again today, 12 years later. There is a strike on in Scotland, and there was a strike on in Scotland in 1974. Indeed, I went up to Scotland two weeks after being appointed to the chairmanship of this committee and I was met by a big crowd of Scottish

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teachers with a very large banner which said, "Hurry up, Houghton!" We were given six months to do the job, from June to December, and there was a general election in between. There was a strike on in Scotland and a threat of disruption in England. Could there be more depressing conditions in which to assess the future of the teaching profession?
In 1974 we did the job in conditions of strife. Today, this Bill is introduced into your Lordships' House in conditions of strife. The report that we produced in 1974 was the most comprehensive, the most radical and the most expensive report ever before given on the teaching profession. That shows how bad it was when we got it, and how much better it was when we had finished with it.
But those who parade under the banner of Houghton today must not think that only the salary scales are on that banner. There was a great deal of vision in that report. There was an attempt to put the teaching profession and their vocation on a much higher plane of public esteem and of self-esteem. We wrote into that report—I refreshed my mind on its terms over the week-end because they were long forgotten—that in return for this bold move forward to put the teaching profession where it wanted to be and where we thought it ought to be, then teachers themselves had to uphold the highest traditions of their professional claims and have regard to their responsibilities to the public and to the children. We wanted to put them above, if I may say so, the industrial action to which we are so used from the Transport and General Workers' Union—something above that; a professional outlook which, without being élitist can at least contain a standard of public service which is so essential in this profession.
We tried to put them on the track for the future. We reconciled the differences between the teachers' unions, which were acute, and we tried to bring to bear on the problem our overriding insight and judgment upon the fundamentals of their position. The differences between the teachers' unions then were so troublesome that I decided I would take all the teachers' unions together in one session of evidence and none of them separately, and if they did not want to come with all of them they could stay away. We got them all, in one room at the same time, to state their points of view in the presence of each other. We also took evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, who was a wizard and whose experience was of such profound value to us.
Well, here we are, my Lords, back where we were 12 years ago: four years of a Labour Government and eight years of a Conservative Government, and we are back where we were 12 years ago. What is the explanation for this? How has it come about? One of the reasons is the unsatisfactory nature of the Burnham machinery for dealing with problems relating to the teaching profession. It is antiquated. I believe that it is now an anachronism. One thing of great importance that has occurred in the past 12 years is that the balance of power on the Burnham Committee teachers' panel has changed.
For years and years, and certainly when we were dealing with this matter 12 years ago, one union—the National Union of Teachers—held the controlling
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voice and votes on the teachers' panel. That inevitably meant that its outlook had a pronounced influence on the teachers' panel proceedings. In negotiations on teachers' pay, the global sum was fixed before the negotiations began. The negotiations had to take place within the global sum. One can understand that within the teachers' panel a great deal of discussion and controversy arose on what share of the global sum each section of the profession should receive. The consequence of that over many years was that we were required to pull out the concertina very sharply to give the proper status and remuneration to those in the higher positions. That is why, as a result of the Houghton Report, the senior members of the teaching profession—the heads, deputy heads and the senior grades—received more money than those below.
The balance has changed. We would not have the somewhat twilight settlement of teachers' pay in England and Wales at the moment were it not for the fact that the power of veto on the teachers' panel has passed from the National Union of Teachers to a group of other associations representing different elements in the teaching profession. That, I suppose, in a way may create just as many difficulties as having the power in the hands of one union. It is difficult to settle negotiations affecting a wide range of interests in a very large vocation by the casting of votes based on the number of members of the staff side of the negotiating machinery. An alternative should be found.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made a Statement on behalf of the Government the other day about the independent committee set up in respect of the Scottish dispute. He said:
"It is also in marked contrast to events in England and Wales, where, as the House will be aware, an agreement for the current year has been reached; and constructive negotiations on pay, pay structure and related matters are about to begin under ACAS auspices".—[Official Report, 6/3/86; col, 331.]
Do the Government really say that agreement has been reached under the circumstances that I have described, when one union alone had 13 votes and the rest of the teachers' panel had 15 votes? That division settled what is called an agreement.
What I am saying is of great importance to the Bill because unless the morale, the efficiency and the inspiration of the teaching profession is lifted, the Bill is useless. Education is about teachers, their capacity, enthusiasm and sense of public duty. Unless one can capture and hold all that, the system is bound to fail. This is what worries me. I wish ACAS well in undertaking a task which has had to be referred to an independent committee in Scotland. It is a great pity that an independent inquiry is set up more than 12 months after the dispute began. For England and Wales the dispute has been referred to ACAS. I understand that it is a three-man committee which will look at the problems of the breadth and complexity that have been referred to an independent committee in Scotland. It is a task which I do not envy.
The special independent inquiry in Scotland has been given about six months to complete the job. That seems to be the length of time that any committee of inquiry is given to settle a dispute affecting the teaching profession. ACAS has been asked to do it in weeks. I hope that it succeeds. I do not hold out very much hope that it will find a solution because opinions

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are hard in certain quarters of the teaching profession and it will be difficult to overcome them.
Clause 37 of the Bill is ill-timed. I know that the noble Earl said that the Government take the view that they must have statutory powers to do this now. It is a great pity that they have to have statutory powers to do it now. It would have been better had the scheme been part of a comprehensive settlement with the teachers and others.
I have had long experience of individual appraisal systems. I do not shrink from them. I have helped to compile them. I am not at all opposed to trying to assess the quality, capacity and potential of individuals in important positions, but it is much better if we can have consent to do so and get people to co-operate in working the scheme. As my noble friend Lord McIntosh said, what kind of a report will the assessment be? Who will fill it in? Who will be the countersigning officer? Who will make the ultimate judgment? Where do we go for it—inside or outside the school? Certain elements of the system need to be settled before we can make progress with it.
On the question of general morale and the settlement of teachers' problems, the weakness of governments—both of them—the lack of determination of teachers' unions and the lack of resolve on the part of education authorities, all combined to take no notice of what we said about the need for some satisfactory basis for the future determination of teachers' pay to keep them in line with relative standards and contemporary conditions in professions which might be regarded as having some equivalence to them. Nothing was done about that and yet we spent a great deal of our report describing the various options that were open and the difficulties of finding the right one, and urging that the Government should set about doing that.
We wrote the report just before Christmas 1974 when the teachers were so pestering the authorities to get some money in their hands before Christmas that we authorised the Secretary of State to make a £100 advance to the teachers before Christmas in advance of our report. That was the situation at the time we wrote our report. It was disgraceful that we should be doing business under those conditions. We were all nervous wrecks by the end of it. And here we go again, putting other people, volunteers who do it for expenses only, through the mill to settle the dispute in Scotland for one, and we do not yet know who will settle the dispute in England and Wales.
I am saying that without one of the two essentials for the future we shall have no peace. One is an agreed and explicit formula of criteria for guidance on pay levels, and the other is a firm promise of a regulated review by an independent committee every few years. That is what we said. You cannot go more than seven years with the teaching profession before it needs an overhaul. And let me say that the teaching profession is an institution which cannot reform itself, any more than this Chamber can reform itself. There are some institutions which it is impossible to reform from the inside. That is why there are Royal Commissions on the Civil Service, and that is why there are other inquiries to settle disputes which are intractable through the normal course of negotiation and agreement.
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So why have we not faced this at the outset? It is 12 years since the last one and that was the first for 50 years. Why are governments so stupid? They are supposed to be the brains of the land. I refer to the fact that the police are not in this pickle. I offered to take the chair on the police review body, but the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day said "We aren't having you, Douglas. You're a 30 per cent. man." So it went to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Edmund-Davies, who gave them 32 per cent!
The Civil Service is trying hard to get the next phase of its own problem away from the fair comparability system that we had for so many years. But the Civil Service was sailing on in peace and tranquility, and with regular adjustments of its pay, during the period when we were grappling with the indefinite problems and intractable difficulties of the teachers' pay. With whom do you compare teachers? With whom do you compare policemen? With whom do you compare firemen? You have to find some basis upon which you can reach a judgment, and not a bad idea, sometimes, is to take the qualifications that you require for the job, rather than try to assess in detail what the work is and how it compares.
I must bring my remarks to a close. I hope that as a result of listening to the debate I may be able to make a contribution on one or two other matters relating to education. There is a layman's view of education. When I go into a shop to make miscellaneous purchases and find that the young man behind the counter cannot add up the bill because his modern technology on the counter has broken down, and he has to ask a man old enough to be his father to come along and add up the bill, a layman's view of education in those circumstances is that there is something wrong with it.
The great debate which my right honourable friend James Callaghan wanted to begin fizzled out. There are too many difficult and controversial questions to discuss in relation to education at the present time and a lot of them are just being swept under the carpet. But I think the job that teachers have today is immeasurably more difficult than it was in 1974. I do not know how a lot of these teachers keep sane, considering the problems that confront them in their daily lives, the pressures that are at work and the explosions which can occur. It is terrible.
So I suggest to the Government, and really to both Houses of Parliament, that this problem of the future of education and the future of the teachers within it should be lifted on the political and parliamentary agenda. Education has been regarded as of low priority in political importance by many governments of the past. There have been too many Ministers of Education for the good of education, and ministers not of the requisite stature have sometimes been appointed.
I make no reflection on Sir Keith Joseph, for whom I have a great admiration. There is no man in politics today of greater integrity than Sir Keith Joseph, nor is there any Minister I know who tortures himself so much trying to find the right answers to problems to which there is probably no answer. So it is not at all a reflection on him. I sincerely hope that, if there is any sign that ACAS cannot grapple successfully with the problem that it has been given, the Government will

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get straight away to another independent inquiry and bring the whole subject again to the review which I think is overdue and now urgently necessary.
6.26 p.m.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the proposed changes in school government and arrangements for teacher appraisal and in-service training have been public knowledge for some time. They have also been discussed very adequately by previous speakers. I find myself in total accord with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. I particularly share his concern about Clauses 40 and 41 and propose to restrict myself to them. Those clauses do not seem to have had the same publicity, and certainly they have not been dealt with in any depth today. They may be just enabling clauses and cannot be implemented without application from school governors. The Minister said that a flood of requests was not expected, but I am puzzled as to the reason why they are thought to be at all necessary in this Bill.
The 1944 Education Act defines the differences between a controlled school and an aided school. The first schedule to the 1946 Education Act defines the duty of a local education authority to provide a site and buildings which are to form part of a school premises in the case of a controlled school. In the case of an aided school, the managers or governors of the school have a duty to defray, with the assistance of any grant to be made, the expenses of providing any buildings.
I have simplified what is a fairly long schedule, but it would appear that the main difference between the two types of school is that in the case of a controlled school the local education authority owns, and is responsible for the maintenance of, school buildings and premises, while in the case of an aided school the managers or governors hold that responsibility with the assistance of LEAs. It therefore seems to me that if the governors or managers of a controlled school were to ask the Secretary of State to make an order to change the status of their school from controlled to aided, they would, under the terms of Clause 41 of the Bill, be expected to pay to the local education authority what could be a huge capital sum by way of compensation for capital expenditure on the school.
We are all aware of this Government's attitude to public expenditure and, in particular, to expenditure on education. Do not these clauses enable the Government to abnegate their responsibility to provide adequate financial resources for education? Do they not remove the necessity to increase the block grant in respect of education, while increasing the capital available to local education authorities? In recouping capital by the sale of nationalised industries, the Government have been accused of selling the family silver. Are they not now trying to emulate King Henry VIII with his dissolution of the monasteries?
May I ask the noble Baroness the Minister to define in what circumstances a governing body is likely to ask for a change of status from controlled to aided, and what benefits she sees accruing from such change: first, to the school; secondly, to the local education authority and, thirdly, to the Government? Can she assure us that there will be no pressure put on school governors to change the status?
6.29 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, like other Members of your Lordships' House, I welcome many aspects of this Bill. The increased involvement of parents as governors is to be warmly welcomed as one means of helping to make schools more accountable to those whom they serve—the pupils. As other noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, and my noble friend Lord Beloff have already said, a particularly beneficial feature of the changed provisions for governing bodies is the reduction in the proportions of local authority representatives. This of course does not imply a general indictment of all those who have served in this capacity. Many have done so with great dedication and political impartiality. But it is a sad fact of life that in some highly politicised local education authorities the complexion of LEA representation has become excessively political and partisan. The proposed changes should help to ameliorate this problem.
However, these changes will be effective only if parents are willing to come forward for election and actively to participate in discussions and decisions. It is profoundly to be hoped that politically motivated parents of any political allegiance will not organise caucuses or "slates" to achieve the kind of excessively partisan or politicised ambience that this legislation is intended to remove. It is partly in anticipation of that possibility and partly as a general principle of accountability that I should like to see provision made for the wider dissemination of information about schools, especially their budgets and curricula, to any parents or members of the public who wish to receive it.
I also join other noble Lords in welcoming the enabling provisions to ensure implementation of the principle of teacher assessment. Our education system has suffered for far too long from the difficulties in dismissing teachers who are professionally inadequate. Too much is at stake for the future of our children to allow that situation to continue. One reason used by teachers in their demands for better salaries is that the future of the next generation lies in their hands. Precisely so. And they are therefore entitled to a salary commensurate with that responsibility. But like other professions they should also accept the concomitant responsibility of professional accountability and the preconditions for this in the form of professional appraisal. So I believe that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is absolutely right to have stood firm on this point of principle and I welcome the provision for its implementation in this Bill.
However, as my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour has pointed out, the Bill, although useful as far as it goes, does not address some of the most fundamental problems now besetting our educational service. I refer in particular to disturbing developments in the use of political indoctrination. Your Lordships may recall that in the debate on 5th February speakers from most parts of your Lordships' House expressed anxiety on this matter. Speaker after speaker cited examples which are cause for concern and gave evidence of the politicisation of teaching in a variety of forms. Sometimes this is done under the auspices of a particular subject, such as peace studies—a problem discussed by my noble friend Lord Trenchard and the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont.

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Other developments take the shape of themes which some local authorities or teachers wish to promote throughout a whole curriculum—such as so-called anti-racism or anti-sexism. The noble Lord, Lord Charteris, and my noble friend Lord Bethell drew our attention to some particularly invidious material on racism produced for children and recommended by some teachers. Yet other kinds of political indoctrination involve highly biased anti-police propaganda produced for schools by local authorities such as the GLC. My noble friend Lord Renton drew our attention to some of the disturbing implications of these developments.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich and my noble friend Lord On-Ewing gave formidable accounts of the adverse effects of the influence of far Left teacher activists in London. My noble friend Lord Mersey described how even the teaching of music has become politicised. Finally, perhaps I may recall for your Lordships how my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel claimed that there is no subject more important for the future of our society than this perversion of education by using it for the purpose of political indoctrination.
Given this sober and powerful expression of concern it is perhaps not surprising that many people—both within your Lordships' House and outside—feel that the opportunity should be taken to use this Bill to enshrine in law the principle that partisan political indoctrination should be banned from schools. There may be difficulties in achieving an appropriate formulation, but I understand that these are not insuperable. I therefore hope that your Lordships will give sympathetic consideration to amendments which may be proposed to this effect. I was most heartened to hear my noble friend Lady Carnegy saying that she would support such an amendment. If the law can be changed in this way, it will not only demonstrate the centrality of the principle that education must not be perverted into political indoctrination; it will also help parents, teachers and the general public to seek redress if they are worried about what is going on in particular places. At present, there is often no incentive for complaint—only fear of victimisation. Were this principle of keeping politicisation out of education to have the backing of law, it would be likely to have two effects: teachers would be more careful, and parents would feel that there was a possibility of effective redress.
My noble friend the Minister referred in a previous debate to the draft guidelines circulated by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State in The Treatment of Politically Controversial Issues in Schools and Colleges. I welcome these guidelines in so far as they go; indeed, the suggestion for such guidelines was made by my own colleagues some two years ago. But as they stand, those guidelines are deficient. For example, there is no mention of the word "balance" as a criterion for teaching politically controversial subjects. Perhaps more important, no duty is laid on anyone to respect or to enforce the guidelines. They can thus be ignored with impunity by precisely those who are most likely to violate the criteria which the guidelines are intended to enunciate. Therefore I do not believe that the guidelines are a substitute for a change in the law which will prohibit
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political indoctrination in our schools. Such a change could transform this Bill from a moderately useful but far from radical measure to one of the most significant Education Acts of this century.
I now turn very briefly to a suggestion of a different kind which I trust will find favour with all Members of your Lordships' House. I refer to the unequivocally non-political issue of health and safety in the form of provision of qualified first aiders in schools. The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations of 1981 updated an Act of 1974 and required all employers to have a qualified first aider on site if there are more than 150 employees. Where there are special hazards—for instance, in chemical industries—a trained first aider must be present for an even smaller workforce. There is no doubt that the presence of such a person armed with techniques for dealing wih emergencies can lead to fewer lives being lost in accidents and to fewer injuries being exacerbated by incompetent handling.
Not long ago a fork-lift truck operator broke a young man's leg; his workmates broke it again while dragging him to a hut before they dialled 999! Correct first aid would have halved his period of convalescence and saved him a great deal of pain. However, your Lordships may be surprised to learn that, whereas 150 people working, for instance, to print newspapers are protected in law by the provision of a trained first aider, no such protection is required for 1,500 children in a school. In fact, the law applies to schools only in so far as they are places of work, so the teachers receive a measure of protection but not the pupils.
Of course local education authorities have a duty to make schools as safe as possible and some schools—usually large ones—have a nurse available but, sadly, nursing posts have too often been cut and now most schools no longer have them. Yet are not children, especially when they are in high spirited groups with other children, just as much at risk from injuries as adults working in factories? Every day hundreds of thousands of children play hard, body contact games, study in laboratories, workshops and kitchens, yet their teachers rarely have skills which enable them to deal with serious emergencies. It is good to know that many teachers have volunteered to attend the new course, Emergency Aid in Schools, designed by the St. John Ambulance organisation, but still only a minority of schools have a qualified first aider on site.
It is sometimes argued that our excellent local ambulance services are only a telephone call away and can usually respond within 10 minutes. However, if breathing has ceased, if a child's heart has stopped beating, or if there is rapid blood loss, then irreversible changes can take place during the first five minutes and a young life could be lost. Yet, restarting breathing, restarting the heart, and controlling serious bleeding are simple skills that anyone can learn in a few hours—and there ought to be at least one teacher in every school who possesses them.
I hope therefore that your Lordships will consider sympathetically an amendment that would put a duty on local education authorities and on the governors of independent schools to maintain a first aider in each school—or perhaps two if the school is on separate sites—trained to an appropriate standard to be set by the Health and Safety Executive. There is no need for

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that to be an excessively expensive provision. Voluntary aid societies such as St. John Ambulance and the Red Cross are expert in training for emergency techniques, and because many of their personnel give their time free of charge their overheads are not great.
I am certainly not suggesting that education authorities should themselves set up training centres. However, they should do as large numbers of employers do; use one of the voluntary bodies for statutory training in first aid. At present, employers pay on average £50 per year for training a qualified first aider. There is every reason to think that the cost for schools might be smaller. Some £1½ to £2 million would easily pay for such a provison on a national basis and could, I suggest, be found from money already available for educational support grants.
In real terms, of course, the saving to the public purse in hospital and teacher time would probably cancel out the cost of training. I firmly believe that we are morally bound to give children the same protection of first aid provision in schools as employers have to provide in places of work. It seems an extraordinary anomaly that we do not already do so.
In conclusion, I reiterate my welcome for this Bill as far as it goes, and I express my earnest hope that it will be improved during its passage through your Lordships' House; improved in such a way as to provide safeguards for children's educational and physical wellbeing, by prohibiting intellectual injury through political indoctrination and physical injury through incompetent treatment of accidents. Both kinds of injury are serious and avoidable. It is surely incumbent upon us to ensure that our children are protected from them and to use the opportunities provided by this Bill to enshrine that protection in law.
6.43 p.m.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, I was greatly fascinated by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and I am sorry that he is not present in the Chamber now.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, he is seated on the steps of the Throne.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, he has begun the process of crossing the Floor! I am bound to say that I do not believe we can make much use of the noble Lord's ideas in our discussion of this Bill. If we proceeded along the lines suggested by the noble Lord, we would find that we could not get anywhere without first tearing the Bill to bits and then starting afresh with a totally different document, because the noble Lord's philosophy is totally different from that of the Bill. While I found some of the things that the noble Lord said stimulating and worth further consideration, I felt that he, like some other noble Lords, was profoundly underestimating the part that has been played in the development of education in this country, as in other public services, by local government.
Very many cities and counties in this country have taken a great pride in the educational services that they have built up. I may say to the noble Baroness who has
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just sat down that such was true of London. We shall be able to see, when the elections come before very long, what Londoners really think about the educational service that has been provided for them. I am speaking not only of schools but also of the adult education service that has been built up in London, which is an astounding achievement, and one that probably has not its like anywhere else in the world. I mention it as only one example of the great achievements of local government in the field of education.
The fact that such provision was local meant that different cities and counties had a certain friendly rivalry, and that they were a source of experiment and new ideas. Some weeks ago, I was able to initiate in this House a debate on community education. What has been done in that field could never have been done had there been a completely centralised system of education. The fact that there were different local education authorities, and that each was free to decide whether or not to give encouragement to that idea, enabled that particular educational development to occur. I am therefore a little apprehensive about the decline in local government influence on the governing bodies of schools.
Noble Lords in their justifiable welcome to the parent representation, have been inclined to underestimate the value of experienced local government workers; people who, either as officials or as elected councillors, have given their lives to the development of a fine local government service of which their city or county could be proud.
We now have a situation where one cannot be quite sure where responsibility lies. I add my voice to those who have urged the Government to do something that is overdue; to insert an anti-corporal punishment clause into this Bill. In that connection, I want to draw attention to this point. When we debated the foolish and ill-starred Bill that the Government introduced about corporal punishment, it emerged that nobody could say for certain whether the governing body of the school or the local authority was the body that had the power either to permit or to prohibit corporal punishment in a particular school. We did not know the answer then, and I am not sure that we know it now. Reading this Bill, it probably means that the governing body can do as it likes whatever the local authority thinks. However, I am very willing to be contradicted by somebody who reads this ambiguous document and reaches a different conclusion.
If I am right, where will that put the local authority? Suppose that the people living within a particular local authority area say to their elected representatives, "We do not approve of corporal punishment in our schools. You ought to get rid of it". Is the local councillor to reply, "I quite agree with you but we must wait to see what the governors say"? In that case, one will shift the political argument and heat onto the election of governors.
It seems to me that none of those aspects has been thought out. In drawing up the clauses defining the different responsibilities of governors, local education authorities and teachers, the Government have not properly considered exactly how matters may work out.
On the question of the curriculum, I believe that one can read and re-read the sections on that aspect in the

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Bill and still not be quite sure at the end who determines what the curriculum is. The local authority will have one say. The governors will then look at what the local authority has said and decide whether or not they want to alter it. Then the head teacher may consider what both of those two bodies have said and decide to agree with one or the other of them. That does not seem to me to be a very satisfactory way of arranging the curriculum of a school. We know that in practice in this country, it is of course very largely the universities that in the end determine what are the curricula of secondary schools; but that is another and larger question.
On the question of discipline, I mentioned the uncertainties as to who can decide about corporal punishment. If one looks back at any of the disputes about school discipline that we have had in recent months, and then one looks at the text of this Bill, it is extremely difficult to know what is the answer. Who has the authority to decide the disputes which are going on at Poundswick and other schools? I do not think that this Bill gives a satisfactory answer.
I want to refer also to the question of appraisal of teachers, and in particular to one part of Clause 37 which I think has not been mentioned by any previous speaker. After the first part of Clause 37 which deals with appraisal in general, it then says that:
"the regulations apply [to teachers]—

(a) in discharging their duties; and

(b) in engaging in other activities connected with the establishments at which they are employed".

They are doing something connected with the school, but not discharging their duties. Presumably that means engaging in voluntary activity which, as anyone who knows what schools are like recognises, is a very considerable part of a teacher's work today. For example, if I cast my mind back about 40 years to when I was a teacher, I can remember after schoolwork was over one evening spent helping the boys to rehearse one of the acts of St. Joan, which was to be performed at the end of term. This school was no gentle academy in an ivory tower; it was a tough boys' school in East London. On another evening I can remember chairing a debate, on what everybody will be distressed to hear was a political subject, in which the pupils actually expressed their own opinions and not those which they had heard from someone else. Meanwhile, some of my colleagues with different gifts were engaged on Saturday afternoons, which was not an official school period at all, in helping boys to learn how to play football or in refereeing a match.
As far as I understand this subsection, it is the "other activities connected with the establishments at which they are employed" (but not their duties) which would be subject to appraisal. Who is going to appraise that work? Who will come round to the teachers when they are engaged in this kind of activity, watch to see how they do it and report on how they do it? And what will be done with the reports? I raise the point not because I think that in practice this will result in anything very much, but to suggest that the Bill has been drafted by people who really do not know very much about what school-teaching is like, and I think that is a serious defect in the Bill.
There is a great deal of reporting to be done. The governing body has to prepare a report which has to be
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presented to a parents' meeting; the governing body also has to report to the local education authority; the head teacher has to report to the governing body and to the local education authority; and everyone has to be prepared, if from time to time he asks for it, to send information to the Secretary of State. The one person who does not have to send reports in any direction at all is the Secretary of State himself. I must say that I thought it was a very feeble defence to put up that the information can be obtained elsewhere. I dare say that it can, if one has unlimited time; but none of us has such time, considering the many topics about which we are supposed to be well informed.
The object of a report on a department is to put together in a convenient volume a meaningful record of that department's work. It seems to me that they may be even more indignant about this proposal in the other place then we are here, because after all they provide the money. They have to pass the estimates and they rely on annual reports as one of the items that they study when they come to discuss the estimates. In the annual report we want one or two real things other than, quite frankly, trivialities that appear in many parts of this Bill.
In the first place, we want simply to know how the education service has been getting on quantitatively in the previous 12 months. How many over-large classes are there still? What proportion of parents who want nursery education for their children are able to obtain it? To what extent have the targets which we set ourselves for the education of handicapped children been met? There are a dozen such questions which ought to be looked at and reported on every year, so that Parliament can have informed debates on them. There are also the more recent questions. What progress are we making in the language problems which are created by the existence of so many ethnic minorities in our schools? One can add indefinitely to the list.
That is the kind of information that we need. That is the sort of thing which is much more to the point than this elaborate working out of exactly how many governors out of 19 are to be teachers and how many co-opted members and so on. While I am on this topic, why is there this very mean-spirited and unimaginative exclusion from governing bodies of the under 18s? We are not asking the Government to take the desperate step of appointing governors who are under 18 when it has never been done before. Of course, knowing what we do of this Government, we would not expect them to do anything so reckless. We are merely asking them not to destroy what, in fact, has been done by some authorities with success and benefit both to the governing bodies and to the young people concerned.
The reason that we are offered for this exclusion is a wretched little legalism: that they are in a position of trust, which a person under 18 cannot legally hold. Your Lordships' House is part of the legislature and can alter that provision in the law so that for this purpose a person under 18 can be a school governor. I think that it is a piece of slovenliness to say that it will be a little difficult legally to maintain this position, so they will just be rubbed out without any attention being paid to the useful work which these young people have done as governors.

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I am therefore bound to say that, though one ought to welcome any interest that the Government show in education, their habit of showing interest by having a sort of annual education Bill does not seem to me to be altogether felicitous. I think that the education service is becoming a little overburdened with constant alterations of the law, and this one does not really have a great deal to be said for it.
I have received a great deal of material from many bodies and organisations, as have all your Lordships. I am trying to find the comment of the Association of County Councils, and though I cannot turn up the quotation at the moment, in effect they said that this Bill was too much concerned with particular details and not with the real stuff of education as we know it today. I have now found the quotation which reads:
"In general we believe the Bill is overmuch concerned with prescribing procedural detail which will hamper the effective running of the education service, obscure the important principles which parts of it seek to promote, and distract attention from the more important objectives of meeting the real needs of pupils, parents, and the community".
Now that I have read it, your Lordships can hear how it puts the situation very much better than I have done. I think it has put it correctly.
I should like to encourage the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, on one point. When I was a teacher 40 years ago I attended a course in first aid together with a number of my colleagues. We thought it would be useful to know something about the subject, and the local doctor, who was the doctor for the school, was most helpful to us. I achieved a modest qualification in first aid. I hasten to say that that was 40 years ago, and if any noble Lord has an accident I recommend him to seek more up-to-date assistance! I mention that to suggest that some of the things that are paraded to us as great new discoveries the teaching profession has been aware of and working at for a considerable time, and has never quite received the thanks that it deserves from the nation.
7 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester: My Lords, I must first apologise to your Lordships. I was obliged to be absent for part of the debate because, as the Minister and the Government Whip know, it was my duty to appear as a witness before a joint committee of Parliament in the Moses Room. I shall endeavour to be more brief than I should have been had I been able to speak in my allotted place on the speakers' list.
I approach the Bill wanting above all else to be assured that it will contribute to good government, to support for the teachers and to stability for the children and everyone else involved in school communities after all the difficulties of recent months. The aims of the Bill are praiseworthy. One can only hope that clarification of the functions of the local education authority, the head and the governing body will contribute towards the stability that the schools so desperately need, and also to the creative relationships that have always been essential to the effective working of the unique partnership in education which I believe is a most valued part of our heritage in this country.
I speak only for myself, but I know that if he had been here the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of
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London, as chairman of our Church of England Board of Education, would have wished to welcome the Secretary of State's assurance that the Government intend to strengthen the dual system of county and voluntary schools, as the Minister echoed earlier this afternoon. I certainly welcome the clause in the Bill which will allow controlled schools to gain aided status. That may happen only rarely, but in Kent I know that such greater flexibility would be warmly welcomed because the present rigid, one-way legal situation acts as an unfortunate brake on dealing imaginatively and creatively with some of the consequences of falling school rolls in every kind of school.
I am glad that the Government have taken serious account of the reactions to the Green Paper, Parental Influence at School, and have produced a Bill which, while allowing greater representation for parents, does not allow any single interest to predominate upon a governing body. What gives me ground for anxiety are the proposed requirements, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, referred, concerning annual reports, annual meetings, financial statements and the like. Is there not a danger that those will impose too great a burden on resources at a time when in other areas they are scarce? Even more important, will not all this further undermine the role of a head teacher as a teacher by further adding to his administrative load? I believe that there is already evidence of a fall in the number of applicants for vacant headship posts because of the stress experienced by heads in recent months.
I hope that when we are in Committee on the Bill we shall look carefully at those clauses which are likely to have consequences for the morale of head teachers and members of their staff. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, I think that if one of the objectives of the Bill is clarification, that is not the immediate reaction that comes to mind when one reads the clause relating to the curriculum, whether one is talking about county or voluntary schools.
At the risk of trespassing on a minefield best traversed by those with legal equipment, I should like to turn to the making of instruments and articles—a duty to be undertaken by local education authorities in all cases. Notwithstanding the safeguards of reference to the Secretary of State in cases of dispute where voluntary schools are concerned, would it not be better to see a more explicit recognition of the principle that the only powers held by a local education authority are those given it by statute? I think that many would be reassured if specimen draft instruments and articles were included as schedules to the Bill or perhaps were promised in regulations to be made by the Secretary of State.
Local education authorities and voluntary bodies have only recently, as a result of considerable effort, gone through the exercise of obtaining new instruments of government following the 1980 Act. Now, within the next year or so they must carry out the exercise all over again for county and controlled schools. Surely we must get the Bill as near perfect as is humanly possible so as to allow local education authorities, voluntary bodies and schools a period of real stability after all the administrative upheaval to which they have been and will be subjected.
7.6 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Ritchie said at the beginning of the debate, there is a great deal that we can welcome in the Bill, although it seems to me to be full of flaws and to suffer from serious omissions, and so I venture to think that it will attract rather a lot of amendments. We certainly welcome the reconstitution of governing bodies so that no single element will predominate. The aim is clearly the depoliticisation of education, with which we agree.
The Secretary of State's original idea of making parents paramount was neither realistic nor supported by the parents, and so this is an improvement. But we should prefer the balance proposed in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, whereby, I think I am right in saying, three-quarters of the governing body would have consisted of equal representations of parents, staff, including non-teaching staff, and the LEA, and the final quarter would then have been co-opted from the community. The purely token teacher representation proposed, ranging from one teacher out of a board of nine and two out of a board of 19 (that is, excluding the head), will do nothing to improve teachers' respect for governing bodies, and does not, incidentally, accord with parents' wishes.
As regards the training of governors, it seems right to us in view of the rather formidable technical jargon of the education world that they should receive some training. That applies particularly to parent governors, who are likely to be inhibited by diffidence and lack of expertise. But how is that to be paid for? The Financial Memorandum speaks of costs building up to £10 million, but it is not clear whether additional funding is to be provided. If not, that provision can be carried out only at the expense of other services. I should like to ask the noble Baroness for clarification on that. I think that the noble Earl mentioned some schemes being currently funded under education support grants. Is that to be the mechanism of the future, and is it adequate?
I am personally indignant, but I do not think that I am alone, about the proposal in Clause 5 that parents with children at boarding schools may not elect their own parent governors but must put up with those foisted on them by the authority. I am the parent of a child at an ILEA boarding school. We have exactly the same association and the same meetings as those of any other schools. Why on earth should we not elect our parent governors in the same way as anyone else? We may indeed be in greater need of elected governors to express our concerns as our children are much more under the influence of the school than if they returned home every afternoon or evening. I can promise the noble Baroness an amendment on that score unless she can give me a very good reason indeed for my exclusion from that right.
On the appointment of parent governors for a standard four-year term, that appears to mean that the parent can continue even when he or she no longer has a child at the school. That would presumably extend to a parent who had switched the child into the private sector. Surely the proper thing is for parents of children no longer attending the school to stand down at the end of the academic year in which the child
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leaves. Will the Government bring in an amendment to that effect?
On student governors, what puzzles me about their exclusion is that the Government say that their reforms are consumer orientated, yet who are the principal consumers if not the students? And not only that: those LEAs which already have student governors will presumably have to abolish them. Our policy is eligibility for students from 16 which, after all, is when young people are considered of an age to go out to work. As the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, said, there seems no good reason for taking off the statute book something that is working perfectly satisfactorily.
Clauses 16 to 18 on the curriculum have already given rise to rather a lot of flak. I should not perhaps add to it. As they stand, the clauses are, in my view, a recipe for muddle and conflict through unclear lines of responsibility—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester. The only point that is clear about them is their motivation. They are an attempt to prevent political indoctrination, an aim which we on these Benches share. But the mechanism of checks and balances proposed could, it seems to me, put the head teacher in an impossible position between his governors and his authority.
The head's duty, according to Clause 17, is to ensure that the curriculum is,
"compatible with the policy of the authority or, where it is incompatible with that policy with the policy of the governing body".
This is a pretty invidious position and hard to reconcile with the increasing pressure put by the Government on local education authorities to agree and secure the implementation of clear curricular policy. If one turns to the Notes on Clauses, thought-fully provided by the Government, confusion is worse confounded. I do not propose to read out the note on Clause 17 but it would, I believe, perplex even the most intelligent head teacher.
Discipline is covered in Clauses 20 to 22. Here again, we are in dispute-prone territory. Once more the head is put in a quandary. Clause 20 states that the standard of behaviour to be regarded as acceptable at school is to be determined by the head teacher so far as it is not determined by the governing body. What on earth is this but a recipe for two rule books? The proposals on suspension in Clause 21 seem to offer no way out of the difficulties which have already arisen and no doubt will continue to arise. Ultimately the LEA has a statutory duty to provide education to all of educable age and, in the absence of alternative provision, may well want to reinstate in the teeth of head and/or governors. These are never easy decisions, but I cannot see that they are made any easier by the procedures laid down here.
This seems to be recognised in the Bill which, through Clause 22, gives ultimate reserve power to the local authority over both the governors and the head in the case of a threatened breakdown of discipline. That seems correct, as it is the members of the authority who are legally responsible and therefore in the firing line. However, anxiety over exclusion needs to be met. The appeal mechanism in Clause 21 is surely inadequate because it is limited to an appeal to

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governors if there is any such provision in the articles of government, and this does not necessarily have to be the case. I should be inclined to accept the proposal of the Children's Legal Centre that the LEA should be placed under a duty to provide an independent appeals mechanism to hear suspension appeals and to adjudicate other conflicts which have failed to be resolved within the school or governing body. These can be built on the existing framework of the 1980 Act appeals committee which hears schools choice conflicts. I should like to know what the noble Baroness has to say about that.
On finance, the provision in Clause 23(b), allowing the governors a discretionary sum for books, equipment and stationery, has given rise to fears that this might be interpreted merely as a float designed to be topped up by parental contributions. No one, I believe, objects to voluntary fund-raising among parents for additional amenities for a school. But if this should be extended to the provision of basic materials and tools, required for the curriculum that the LEA is obliged by statute to provide, it seems wrong that the implementation of that duty should depend on voluntary contributions. The National Confederation of Parent-Teachers Associations has expressed concern on this point. I should like the noble Baroness's assurance that this is not the intention of the measure.
Part IV deals with miscellaneous provisions. But two of these, appraisal and in-service training, are of great importance. The appraisal clause, Clause 37, is at present only an enabling power. But it is widely drafted covering not only duties but also the contentious and ill-defined "other activities". I can only say at this stage that I hope that the Secretary of State will not swing into action with an armoury of regulations entirely of his own making and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said, not only telling local authorities what to do but how to do it. It is particularly important that he should not do so in view of the memorandum of agreement accepted by the moderate unions within the framework of the ACAS talks and ratified by the Burnham Committee on 3rd March. According to the press, the NUT has also become involved, though it is not clear to me on what basis.
This memorandum commits the unions to negotiate constructively and expeditiously not only on salary but also on arrangements for appraisal and training and a clear definition of contractual duties and responsibilities of both teachers and their employers. There will be a review of the progress of negotiations after six months by the ACAS panel. It is essential that the Government should do nothing to undermine this process and that they should, if it shows any progress at all, allow it to continue beyond six months if necessary. I hope that we shall hear from the noble Baroness that this is the Government's intention.
In-service training, mentioned in Clause 38 of the Bill, and also by a number of your Lordships during the debate, is a matter of vital importance. Everyone agrees that it is essential, on a much wider scale than at present, both for the quality of teaching and for the teacher's career development. We come here to the acid test of the Government's seriousness about having
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a good publicly-funded education service at all. What is proposed in the Bill, so far as I can see, is that the Secretary of State may make grants for training or retraining but he is the arbiter of which training to approve for this purpose and which to reject. Thus it appears that he can disburse for retraining of science teachers if he wants to steer the curriculum in that direction but may totally neglect other things he considers less important. This is not fair on teachers in less favoured disciplines. We have constantly argued for in-service training to be part of the teacher's contract. I think that teachers would be well justified in raising this under the heading of career development within the ACAS forum.
The Government are presumably aware that not only are more teachers seeking early retirement but that there is also a 26 per cent. decline in applications for entry into the profession, to say nothing of the brain drain of science and maths teachers into industry. The Government may think that, with falling rolls and some teacher unemployment, they are in a buyer's market and can afford to offer the meanest possible conditions. That calculation could well lead, in the not too distant future, to a shortage of competent and motivated teachers with disastrous effects on the prospects of the next generation of children. In-service training is essential not only to the teacher's personal career structure but also to his or her performance in the classroom. I hope that we shall hear from the Government that they are prepared to see an entitlement written into the contract and to put some new money behind it.
The wider use of specific grants was welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, and also, I believe, by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy. One has to remember, however, that specific grants have usually been subtracted from other moneys—from the RSG. We want to hear from the noble Baroness this evening that there is genuinely new money on the table for this proposal. Otherwise it is meaningless.
I turn briefly to the omissions from the Bill. My noble friend Lord Ritchie has already mentioned the question of corporal punishment, which can surely not be divorced from consideration of discipline. It seems incredible that the section on discipline should have walked round this issue. The Government's last attempt to comply with the ruling of the European Court was seen to be unworkable and was rejected by your Lordships. The Government should have accepted this by now and taken the opportunity to include the only alternative—abolition—as a clause in the Bill. I have no doubt that an amendment will be proposed to this effect.
I want to raise one other matter of which there is no mention in the Bill. It is the relationship between schools and the police. It must surely be axiomatic that the foundation of a good relationship between the police and the community must be laid at an early age. Yet so-called police monitoring groups have recently been whipping up anti-police feeling in London and the ill-considered campaign of the Inner London Teachers Association—the NUT branch in inner London—has led to banning the police from speaking to children in some 20 London schools on such topical issues as drug addiction, crime prevention and even road safety. ILEA has expressed regret for this but has

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taken no action to prevent it. I should therefore tell the noble Baroness that my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich, together with noble Lords from other parts of the House, is likely to lay an amendment to oblige the authority or the governors to allow reasonable access to the police for these purposes.
Finally, I repeat that we support the thrust of the Bill in the direction of wider powers for better balanced governing bodies, but we are very sceptical about some of the measures proposed. It is hard to avoid the impression, as a number of noble Lords have said, that the mechanics of some of the clauses have not been thought through and are designed to hedge against certain dangers rather than to give schools a positive shot in the arm, which is what they so badly need. Any claim that this Bill can be ranked with the Butler Act of 1944 fails on the one major count. The 1944 Act embodies a vision and this Bill does not. We must aim to effect at least some improvements in your Lordships' House before the Bill goes to another place. We very much hope that the Government themselves will join us in that endeavour. I think that the noble Earl gave us an assurance on that count, so I am sure we can look forward to a constructive Committee stage.
7.21 p.m.
Lord Irving of Dartford: My Lords, I want first of all to pay a very warm tribute to my noble friend Lord Taylor for his chairmanship of the committee and the report that they produced of this subject. I should also like to thank him for his contribution this evening, and to regret with him that the Government have not accepted some of his most important recommendations.
I want also on behalf of this side of the House to welcome the greater involvement of parents in the running of our schools and to hope that this can be made effective. Those of use who have served as governors over many years know how frustrating the experience has been with little more than a nominal role and almost no influence. We hope that change will be in respect of all governors.
I welcome the attempt to define the relationship between parents, local education authorities and teachers. I was asked some eight years ago by a leading firm of management consultants in this country—who had done work for almost every local authority but never for a local education authority—what the scope was for employing management services in the education system. It became clear that one of the obstacles was that there was no management statement which defined the roles of the local education authority, the head, the parents and the teachers. I welcome an attempt to clarify this and to make that relationship more effective. Like my noble friend Lord McIntosh, I welcome the increased information which is to be given to governors and for more training for teachers.
The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, gave us a glowing prospectus of what he thought the Bill would do for us in the future and described it as the biggest, and perhaps the most significant, Bill since the Butler Act. I have to tell the noble Earl that that is not the view of many organisations which have been in touch with
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me. The Bill has received a very mixed reception indeed and many organisations certainly do not agree with it. The Association of County Councils have said:
"We do not find that the Bill lives up to this claim and although it contains some significant proposals which could have important consequences, it notably fails to tackle some of the major problems facing the education service".
My noble friend Lord McIntosh also said—it was not said by the noble Earl tonight—that one of the major reasons for the Bill was to provide powers for governors to overrule their councillors to prevent peace studies being taught, and I accept that there may have been some abuse. However, the Association of County Councils has said:
"The narrowly prescriptive nature of the proposals will result in governing bodies in some LEAs being less effectively representative of local community interests".
The Bill will certainly prevent LEAs from packing governing bodies, and that must be a good thing. But the general view of most of the organisations is that it will not prevent either a Poundswick or a Honeyford situation. The National Association of Governors and Managers has said:
"The attempt to spell out the precise nature of the relationship between LEAs, heads, teachers and parents will not prevent confusion and disputes".
My noble friend Lord Stewart of Fulham pointed out possible major confusion is under Clause 17(4)(i) of the Bill where the head is required to look at the local authority proposals for the curriculum, then look at the governing bodies, and is assumed to choose between the two where there is a difference. If there is more of a recipe for strain than that I should like to see it.
The Association of Municipal Authorities has also expressed anxiety. It says:
"Perhaps the most contentious and difficult part of the Bill is that dealing with the curriculum. The scope for governing bodies to 'modify' LEA curricula policies, and the duty of the head to determine a curriculum consistent either with the policy of the LEA or with that of the governing body will lead to endless confusion. To take just one concrete example: it would be open, under the proposed legislation, for a school's governors to subvert an LEA policy, arrived at after thorough consultation and the consideration of professional advice, that minority modern language teaching be concentrated into particular schools. Governors of other schools could decide otherwise, leaving the LEA to decide whether to seek to impose its policy by the indirect and clumsy means of adjusting the staffing establishment of the school or to abandon the policy".
But what is certain is that the Bill of itself will not free governing bodies from the influence of pressure groups whether these be political or non-political. Sir Keith has said:
"The allocation of responsibilities will work best if the partners in the task work together".
We on this side of the House certainly believe in partnership on governing bodies as on other fields. That is, equal representation of the LEAs, parents, community and teachers. In this way no one group would be able to give undue influence, and with a reasonable proportion of professional educators being represented, there would be an incentive for the various partners to co-operate.
This Bill not only fails to create such a partnership, it moves substantially away from it by increasing the parental representation and the number of co-opted members, while leaving teacher representation the same. Under the present Bill it is possible to have a

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governing body of 19 of which only three—the head and two teacher governors—would have professional knowledge of education, and meeting on only four afternoons or evenings a year could be detrimental to the development of our schools.
The local authority influence, as has been said by some noble Lords tonight, over education and the diversity which has resulted has been one of the most creative influences in education in this country. The Bill further weakens local authorities, a process which has been going on for some time.
This Bill is noticeably different from previous Bills in governing bodies which have offered guidance on representation. This one lays it down specifically. The National Association of Governors and Managers says:
"In general the Bill attempts to legislate too precisely over minutiae instead of providing a framework of development".
This is a mild-mannered criticism. In fact, the Bill breaks almost every rule in the book. Your Lordships may ask, which book? I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has disappeared.
In 1975 an eminent lawyer was asked to chair a committee, which he did. The committee report was entitled the Preparation of Legislation. The noble Lord concerned was the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who was seated opposite only a minute or two ago. He occupied eight pages of his report on over-elaborated legislation. There is no doubt at all that, in terms of the report, and in terms of properly devised legislation, much of what is in the Bill should at worst be either in the schedules or in regulations, and at best in guidelines.
But this is not just a matter of style or fastidiousness. The Association of County Councils says:
"Overmuch concern with procedural detail … will hamper the effective running of the education service, obscure the important principles which parts of it seek to promote, and distract attention from the more important objectives of meeting the real needs of pupils, parents and the community."
The suggestion that this Bill is to be compared with the Butler Act fails to recognise the different circumstances surrounding each of these Bills. In 1944 all of us were anxious to establish an entirely new system giving wider opportunities to our children. There was optimism and enthusiasm, and a desire for a real partnership in order to bring about this change. Today the position could not be more different. There is in the teaching profession a deep disillusionment which is affecting both entry to and departure from the profession. It is not therefore surprising that when the Government in this Bill reduce the balance between parents and the teachers, teachers take this as one more attack on them by a Secretary of State who is viewed with the greatest suspicion as having deliberately undervalued and underpaid the profession. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, had some very significant comments to make from his great experience as chairman of the committee which produced the report which teachers look back on with great longing.
It is not just testiness on the part of teachers. They have the support of the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations which claims to represent 5 million parents and has said:
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"The parent is the first educator of the child and it is essential to encourage parents to participate more fully in the life of the school. But we reject the failure of the Government to recognise that teachers should also have an equal representation on governing bodies".
The low morale was referred to by Dr. Harry Judge, Director of the Department of Educational Studies at Oxford since 1973, in an article in the TES last year when he said:
"The morale and confidence of the education service are now at a desperately low point, and unless and until the facts of the crisis are acknowledged and its nature agreed upon nothing can be improved. The present mood is without precedent, certainly within the working life of the older among us and arguably at any time over the past century".
Dr. Judge continued in the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, because he said:
"The root of our trouble lies in an attempt to accumulate all effective power in the hands of an aggressive central government".
The ACC has complained:
"It does seem extraordinary that we should be subjected as employers to such detailed rules by Government".
However, when it comes to Part IV, on appraisal, the Bill goes to the opposite extreme. Nothing is spelt out. Sir Keith has said that he is taking powers which he has no wish to use. Neither did the noble Earl spell out the position, although he said that the purpose was to discover how many teachers wanted or needed in-service training. If that was all there was to appraisal it would not provide anything of significance or of value in the totality of the need, and it would not cause the eruption which it has done in many quarters in the teaching profession. The NUT and other unions have been in favour of appraisal as long as it is for professional development. However, there is no sense in which there can be real negotiation when written into the Bill is the power for the Secretary of State to use this whenever he likes.
There is the whole question of the appraisal of other activities connected with the establishments at which teachers are employed. Appraisal of activities which are not part of a teacher's duties can only be subjective. If appraised, either they are truly voluntary, in which case someone who does not understand them will be appraised with someone who does, or they will become de facto compulsory, which obviously makes a mockery of the idea of voluntary duties.
I was very sad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, talk about lack of trust. The question of trust or lack of trust is at the heart of all our problems in the education service. It should now be clear to Sir Keith and others that appraisal cannot be done without the co-operation of the teachers, and threats will not make this co-operation more likely. It cannot be done effectively until peace is re-established in our schools and, as I warned in the debate which I initiated in January, that is not likely until Sir Keith does something to restore confidence. I urged then that he could only achieve this by setting up an independent review, of which assessment could be part. It is still clear that at least the NUT and perhaps some members of other unions will not participate, despite the ACAS arrangement.
I am glad to see that the Secretary of State for Scotland has accepted the sense of the proposition. The noble Baroness will say, as the Minister said

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yesterday, that of course the situation in England and Wales is very different from the situation in Scotland. I say to her that there are sufficient similarities to make it clear in the end that the Secretary of State will have to do exactly what has been done already by the sensible Secretary of State for Scotland.
It is time that the conflict in our schools was brought to an end, with an end to the damage that is being done to our children's education. The Bill typifies Sir Keith's weakness in handling his responsibilities. He wishes to be regarded as a great innovative education secretary, and he could have won such a reputation, instead of which he has presided over a deteriorating situation condemned by Her Majesty's Inspectors, by Neddy, by the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations and by others. Many of the things that he wishes to do are perfectly sound, but his handling of teachers has been disastrous.
Although technically not their employer, he controls the purse strings and imposes statutory and other requirements. Instead of leadership he makes to impose his will and he intends to do that in respect of appraisal. For some time the Secretary of State presided over a very distinguished company, Bovis, with which I have had some association as a member of a local authority. If he had applied the same rules to that company as he applies to teachers, they would never have built a house, a swimming-pool, a school or the excellent theatre which they built for us in Dartford. I commend to the Secretary of State the remarks made the other night on the "Any Questions" programme by Sir John Harvey Jones, the chairman of our biggest and probably most successful company, when he said that it was management's responsibility to give leadership with effective consultation and involvement of workers.
The Association of County Councils said that it had only brief opportunities over the last 18 months to discuss some of the proposals with the Secretary of State. The Guardian commented:
"Sir Keith does not seem to be in a hurry to settle the pay dispute. This is not the case with his new Bill. Two hours after copies of the Bill arrived at the DES from the printer, Sir Keith presided over a press conference. Correspondents had at best 30 minutes to skim through the largest piece of legislation since the 1944 Act, before putting their questions. Less than a month later, 21 days at most, this so-called momentous piece of legislation is given its Second Reading".
As a result, some of the briefing for this debate was only received by some Members this morning. The comment continues:
"With such bizarre conduct, can one wonder that our school system is in such a mess?"
Once again proposals are made for quite considerable change without any clear indication of funding. The ACC say:
"We have not been consulted about the one firm figure (£10 million) given for additional costs and believe it to be an underestimate. We assume that the statement that it will 'fail to be met from the resources to be made available' implies that there will be no additional funding by Government. Financially, the consequences of the Bill generally will be to add significantly to operational costs in LEAs and in schools. Under present expenditure plans and constraints, these costs can only be met by reducing spending on other parts of the Service".
Similarly, the manpower consequences of the proposals must lead either to the employment of
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additional staff or to a reduction of the time spent by LEA staff on existing work.
We see once again what has become known as consumer power—the determination of our situation by the market, rather than a piece of legislation which should provide an opportunity to strengthen our school system by partnership and co-operation. The opportunity has been missed. My noble friend Lord McIntosh has said that we shall be making a number of proposals at the Committee stage, and I am sure that that is true. However, I believe that the real improvement will have to wait for another education secretary and perhaps, indeed, for another Government.
7.39 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Swinton said in his opening speech that this Bill contains the new legislation needed to give effect to the broad range of policies set out in the White Paper, Better Schools, published a year ago. Its aim, with which few could disagree, is, in the words of the gracious Speech:
"to improve the management of schools and to promote the professional effectiveness of teachers".
Indeed, I have been glad in the course of the debate this afternoon to note the support in principle for those objectives by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and, I think to a certain extent, by the noble Lord, Lord Irving, whom we would all on this side of the House like to congratulate on speaking for the first time from the Dispatch Box on his side of the House. If I may say so, even the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, had some good things to say about the Bill, if only that he was pleased about Clause 38 on specific funding of training.
I should like at the start of my remarks to give an assurance that I and my noble friends will study with great care all that has been said this afternoon. A great many detailed points have been raised to which I am sure we shall return at the Committee stage of the Bill. Time will not allow me to answer all of them this evening, although I shall touch on the principal points that have been raised.
Good teaching and educational quality are inseparable. We need teachers who engage the minds of their pupils, who instil self-respect and respect for others, and who generate interest and enthusiasm in their subjects. Such teachers are an asset to the nation. Many teachers already perform this important and demanding task with professionalism and skill. But few teachers would deny that there is scope for improvement. Indeed, it is part and parcel of the teachers' professionalism that they should constantly strive to improve their performance and realise their full potential. Effective staff management must rest on a continuing effort to help all teachers to realise this potential.
A cornerstone of effective management is systematic teacher appraisal. As we work our way out of the tragic dispute to which a number of noble Lords have

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referred this afternoon—and on this side of the House we believe that the current teachers' dispute is a tragedy—which has disrupted our schools for more than a year, it is important that appraisal should be seen not as a threat (and this is how some critics of the Bill would have it) but as a series of opportunities for teachers: the opportunity to discover how their performance is perceived by management; the opportunity to consider their career development needs; the opportunity to identify and meet their need for training or wider experience.
To be effective—to enable management at the school and local authority level to deploy their staff effectively and to give them adequate professional support—appraisal must be set within a national framework. I was very glad that both the noble Lords, Lord McIntosh and Lord Ritchie, accepted in principle the need of appraisal. It is the Government's hope that this national framework will be achieved by agreement. We have no national blueprint to impose. Our position—and this is important—is that teacher appraisal should largely be conducted at the level of the individual school by the teachers themselves.
The intention is that it will be done in accordance with general arrangements introduced and monitored by the local education authorities in accordance with national guidelines worked out in consultation between teachers, employer and the department. The Government hope that the negotiations now under way with the assistance of ACAS will make sufficient progress to allow the early start to the practical fieldwork which the Government have long been wanting to get under way. Money for an education support grant project has long been set aside for this purpose, and it remains unused.
However, failing agreement it may prove necessary to set or, in any event, to support a national framework for appraisal through statutory regulations. The Bill provides for this. It will give the Secretary of State an enabling power. It is important that it should be available. Whether or not it will be used depends on the progress of talks at national level. I very much hope that those talks succeed in capturing the mood of teachers up and down the country who have willingly agreed to take part in appraisal schemes voluntarily introduced into their schools. That is the way forward for the schools, their pupils and the teaching profession.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, suggested that this was a blank cheque. I repeat to him that we seek an enabling power to be used if the talks fail, and of course we hope that the talks will not fail. The noble Lords, Lord Ritchie and Lord Houghton, said that the appraisal clause was provocative. In fact the appraisal clause can hardly be seen as provocative. It is not a new idea. It was included in the Secretary of State for Education's letter of 30th October 1984 to the teacher associations, and was in the White Paper, Better Schools. Appraisal has the support in principle of all parties. This, I repeat, is an enabling power.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Baroness would permit me to
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intervene? I have listened with great care to what she has been saying, looking for some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope I am wrong in thinking that she is actually making life more difficult by making the conditions on which statutory appraisal would be imposed dependent upon the present negotiations with the teachers in England and Wales. I hope she does not mean that, because the issue of appraisal has been a much wider bone of contention between the teachers, the local education authorities and the Government over a much longer period of time, and it is important that we should not be trapped into making it conditional on these particular talks now.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I hope that I have not given that impression. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will look carefully at what I have said because I have stated the position as I believe it to be: that we want this to be by agreement with the teachers, and conducted under the circumstances I have described.
The noble Lord, Lord Stewart, also raised a point on teacher appraisal and asked what was to be appraised. I should like to make it clear that what the Government want to see is teachers' performance of their duties appraised. My right honourable friend's view of these duties is on public record and goes back to last May; the 14-point list which appeared in the employers' September option. Duties are not currently defined. This will form part of the negotiations which began at ACAS last Friday, and so the clause is cast in general terms. Beyond this the intention is that other activities which teachers want to see appraised should be so appraised.
If appraisal is to facilitiate the more professional management of a more effective teaching force, it must be coupled with a more purposeful and extensive network for in-service training. The Bill provides a power for the Secretary of State to make greater use of specific grants for this purpose. Through appraisal management will become better able to identify and then meet the specific needs of their teachers.
I turn now to the question of school government, on which there has been most comment. A successful school invariably has an identity and clear sense of purpose of its own. It is not just an agency of the local education authority. The Government believe that the Bill's school government provisions will re-establish school governing bodies as this force for good in the life of individual schools and the communities they serve.
Valuable advances were made under the 1980 Act, but the present arrangements still take insufficient account of parents' natural and special interest in their children's education and progress. Governing bodies' powers have developed haphazardly, often giving them too restricted a role in relation to the local education authority or head teachers, and in respect of all except voluntary aided and special agreement schools the authority normally uses its power to appoint the majority of governors and thus dominate the governing body.

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The Bill tackles these issues in two ways. First, it removes the local education authority's scope to appoint the majority of governors. Instead, the governing body will become a new partnership among parents, the authority, the head and other teachers, and certain other representative governors as at present, and a new category of co-opted governors. And governors will be trained for the discharge of their important responsibilities.
The Government believe that schools are the poorer if they fail fully to harness and encourage the interest and support of parents. The Bill offers individual parents greater opportunities to serve as governors, but the parent body as a whole will also have the opportunity to become more involved in their children's schools through the governing bodies' annual report, and at an annual parents' meeting. Generally, parents will have new and significant opportunities to influence the way their children's schools develop as part of their local provision.
The noble Lords, Lord McIntosh, Lord Ritchie, Lord Stewart and Lord Alexander, talked about the Bill as being over-detailed. The Government believe that the detail is necessary if governing bodies and head teachers are to be guaranteed a worthwhile role free of undue intervention by the local education authority.
It will obviously be best if the partners can proceed in an atmosphere of co-operation and agreement. In the new situation, where governing bodies are manifestly separate from the local education authorities, such harmony will be real. If the partners disagree the Bill provides means of resolution by which, as seems right, no party can simply set aside the views of others without consultation and consideration. The formulae represent about the only feasible solutions to the various conflicting pressures and necessary range of representation.
On the question of minors or pupils as governors—a point which many noble Lords have raised—the Government's view is that a school or college governor holds an office of public and pecuniary trust. Such an office may not properly be held by a minor. However, I accept that this opinion has never been tested in the courts so this opportunity is being taken to put the matter beyond doubt, particularly in the light of the greater importance being attached to school governorship in the future. But that does not mean to say that there will be no opportunities to involve senior pupils in the life of the school. The governing body is free to invite them to attend meetings as observers; while some schools find that school councils can provide a useful means of involving pupils, and there are other means as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who has been interested in education for a very long time—I remember his report very well indeed—raised the point about teacher governors and the number to be included in the proposals in the Bill. That point was raised by many others. We believe that as the governing bodies will generally be smaller than present governing bodies, the teachers' governing voice will be proportionately stronger in the situation outlined in the Bill than it is at present.
Many noble Lords referred to governors from the community, business, industry and commerce. All elected and appointed governors will bring a variety of
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attributes to the governing bodies, but provision is made for an additional category of governors co-opted by the elected and appointed governors to broaden the governing bodies' membership. The intention is that the co-options should be used in that way.
My noble friends Lady Carnegy and Lady Cox were both worried about how effective parent governors can be. It seems to me that the Bill before us does a number of things for parent governors. In the first place it gives the opportunity for training of governors: it gives governors a greater say in the running of the school. Increasing the representation of parent governors means that they are less likely to be outnumbered by more dominant interests. Furthermore, parent governors should be properly informed about their responsibilities and governing bodies will have more clearly defined tasks. All these facts should be of help to parents.
I was also asked whether head teachers are allowed to be able to choose whether or not to be a governor. We believe that there is advantage in the head teacher being a governor but, as in the 1980 Act, we have decided to respect the views of those heads who feel that this formal role is inappropriate.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, raised a question of finance in in-service training. On finance, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State fully understands the need to give local authorities as much notice as possible of all details of the scheme, including the amounts of money to be made available. However, decisions on the financing of the scheme can only be taken in the context of the Government's decisions about other public expenditure.
I turn now to the functions of the school governing bodies, for the new governing bodies need guaranteed powers to enable them to do an effective job. Consequently, the Bill allocates functions between the local education authority, the governors and the head teacher, so that all can play their proper part in raising the standards of the school. I should emphasise the important principles which have informed the proposed allocation of functions which were set out by my noble friend Lord Swinton at the beginning of the debate. First, the authority must have the powers necessary to secure the provision of sufficient and efficient schools for its area. It must be able to determine policies for the overall effectiveness and management of the schools it maintains. Secondly, and subject to the authority's overall responsibility, the governing body should be able to determine, in consultation with the head teacher, the main policies and lines of development of its school. This generally means strengthening its role and ensuring that it cannot be over-ridden in the exercise of its assigned functions.
Thirdly, the professional responsibilities of the head teacher and the staff must be respected: the role of the head teacher should have a firm legal foundation, clarifying his responsibilities and preserving his authority.
A number of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lord Beloff, referred particularly to the role of the local education authority on the curriculum. As I hope I have set out, there is a role for the local education authority, for the governing body and for the head teacher. No doubt we shall debate at length

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on further stages the exact relationship among these three, that it is a relationship and that the roles have been more clearly defined is one of the purposes of the Bill. I was asked whether in the cases of Poundswick or Honeyford these issues would have been resolved. In a contentious issue such as this there are good arguments in favour either of the governors or the authority having the last word. The problems of Poundswick school and the publicity it has attracted have highlighted for many people the case of leaving everything to the governing body, but that would not remove the scope for conflict which, unless resolved, would leave the authority to pick up the pieces. The crucial consideration in our view has to be the authority's ultimate responsibility for securing the education of pupils in its area. By continuing to exclude a pupil, however justified that may be, a school imposes an obligation on the authority to arrange a transfer, to order reinstatement, to provide home tuition or to find some other solution. No such responsibility is left with the governors, and it would be wrong in our view if they were to have the final say. Such power in the hands of an authority does not mean that it can be exercised lightly. An authority would clearly need to think very carefully before overturning the head's decision endorsed by the governing body in such a case.
My noble friend Lady Cox and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, suggested that the Bill would come to little unless the morale of teachers throughout the country had risen and this required a long-term solution to the teachers' dispute. We accept, and we have for a long time accepted, the need for more pay to enable good teachers to be recruited and retained and that we need a long-term solution to this dispute. As long ago as last August my right honourable friend said that we were prepared to see an extra £1,250 million spent on teachers' pay over the next four years. There were strings to that offer—a better career structure offering more promotion opportunities, a proper appraisal system tied to better in-service training, professional development and a clear definition of teachers' duties.
We hope very much that there will be a solution to this problem. The ACAS talks began only last Friday with all the parties, including the National Union of Teachers, taking part. We must all wish them well. Constructive progress would enable my right honourable friend to release over the next four years the extra resources of more than £1 billion which have been set aside.
As a general rule the allocation of responsibilities proposed in the Bill will obviously work best if the partners in the task work together. However, in cases of conflict, each partner will have some protection against simply being set aside. I would emphasise that the Bill does not prescribe what local decisions could be; it establishes that in national service there is uniform good practice in how local decisions are reached.
I have been asked a number of other detailed questions, some of which I shall answer, but I think that time will not allow me to refer to all of them. My noble friend Lady Cox expressed the hope that there would be a wider dissemination of information to parents and others, and Clause 24, of course, has this as its objective. The noble countess, Lady Mar,
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referred to Clauses 40 and 41, as did the right reverend Prelate. May I say that the noble Countess was right to point to the financial liability for capital expenditure as one of the differences between controlled and aided schools. It is in such terms that aided-school governing bodies have a greater degree of independence from the local education authorities than other schools in the maintained sector.
Under the 1944 Act, the newly-created voluntary schools had to choose aided or controlled status and some, especially the Church of England schools, chose the latter because of the financial liability of aided status. Now that dioceses have extra resources through the closure of other church schools because of falling rolls, it seemed right to allow some controlled schools to change to aided status. The proposals in Clauses 40 and 41 are a request from the Church of England that such a statutory route should be opened and the Government have been happy to respond.
A number of noble Lords have raised the question of corporal punishment and discipline in schools. May I say on this matter that we have never disguised our view that it is wrong in principle for LEAs to use their powers to override the views of schools on the use of corporal punishment. The Bill seeks to put the matter right and, through the articles of government, to put the responsibility where it properly lies. It would be highly regrettable if, in the context of new legislation, LEAs were to resent the full use by schools of powers accorded to them under the articles of government.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, asked for an assurance that the provisions in Clause 23 are not designed to allow reduced public funding for our schools and I am glad to give him that assurance unreservedly. He also asked a question about the funding for training. The training for governors need be neither costly nor elaborate; but the funding of such training will be borne by LEAs out of the resources available to them in the years in question, although not entirely through education support grants. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester suggested that there should be model instruments and articles available to assist local education authorities. But we believe that, given the diversity of individual schools' circumstances, it would be impractical in effect to give such models statutory force; but the Government are ready to consider issuing administrative models for local guidance.
My noble friend Lady Cox raised a number of points about political indoctrination and, in particular, peace studies. May I say to her that it is worth looking at what the Bill actually has to say on this matter. We believe that unsatisfactory elements in the curriculum, which I think we would all agree would be political indoctrination, could only be imposed on head teachers if both the LEA and the governors were in agreement. The Bill provides that the latter body, the governors, will no longer consist of a majority of political appointees, will have to report regularly to parents and will have a substantial parent representation subject to regular re-election. In this, it is intended to ensure that all governing bodies are more aware of and sensitive to parents' views than at present. We believe that the likelihood of political influence on the curriculum against the wishes of parents is therefore significantly reduced by the provisions in the Bill.

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But I may say to my noble friend that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is taking very seriously the points that were made in your Lordships' House on 5th February and is proposing to issue a circular on the handling of politically sensitive issues in teaching. A draft was published for comments on 4th February, and I would say to my noble friend and to those who feel like her that it is an opportunity for her and for her friends to comment if they are still concerned about these matters.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, raised a point about the appointment of head teachers and suggested that the proposals were clumsy and were destined to lead to deadlock. It is true that a head cannot be appointed by the local authority unless the governing body is in agreement; but this is surely as it should be. If it takes time to reach the right decision, then so be it. In the meantime an acting head must be appointed. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, both expressed some concern about the right of the local educational authority to choose to re-deploy in the case of ordinary teacher appointment or the deputy head in some cases. This is the case and must be so in the interests of the authority running an efficient service throughout its territory. However, there are checks. The governing body has the right to draft a job specification and must be consulted by the authority before an appointment is made. As always, there is a balance to be struck.
I am conscious that I have not answered all the points that have been raised. As I said at the beginning, I shall read carefully what has been said in your Lordships' House in this debate on these very important matters that are covered by this Bill. We shall have the opportunity to return to them all at later stages of the Bill. In the meantime, I believe that there is general agreement about the aims set out in the Government's White Paper, Better Schools, and this has been confirmed in the debate this afternoon. Standards need to be raised. We need a better educational return for the very large sums of public money invested in school education. High standards of school education cannot be secured by prescribing them in legislation. What can be done, however, is to give those with a close interest in standards on the ground, parents, teachers, governing bodies and local education authorities, better arrangements than now exist to apply their various complementary skills to the maximum benefit of each individual pupil and of the nation. That is what the Bill provides and I commend it to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Abortion: Advice to Teenagers
8.8 p.m.
Lord Winstanley Lord Winstanley rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve counselling and other services for young people in order to combat the increase in the number of abortions performed on teenagers, particularly the increasing number performed late in pregnancy.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question standing on the Order Paper in my name. The Question itself, I think, is largely self-
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explanatory, but before elaborating upon it perhaps I may take the liberty of reminding the noble Baroness of some facts of which I am quite sure she is aware, but they are the facts which have prompted me to table this Question.
In 1984 there were 4,158 abortions performed on girls under 16 years of age. In the same year, 1984, there were 33,414 abortions performed on girls of ages between 16 and 19—more than 37,500 abortions on teenagers during 1984. The second of those figures—the 33,500 abortions on girls between 16 and 19—points to one of the effects of the activities of Mrs. Gillick, which, by focusing attention so very narrowly on the under-16s, I think has rather resulted in the needs of the over-16s being overlooked and perhaps neglected.
On the basis of figures supplied by the noble Baroness's department, I can say that 1 in 10 of all girls having their 15th birthdays this year will have an abortion before their 20th birthday. I regard that as a depressing and alarming prospect. I was the second sponsor of the Abortion Act 1967 which was piloted through another place by my right honourable friend Mr. Steel, and, as a doctor, I was responsible for the replies at Committee stage and on the Floor of the House at Report stage on the medical aspects of the Bill.
At that time I rather took exception to being described by some people as pro-abortion. I am not pro-abortion. I think no one in his right mind would be pro-abortion, but I believe there are circumstances in which abortion is perhaps the least undesirable course to be adopted. However, I am bound to say that it would be tragic if we arrived at the situation in which abortion came to be regarded as an acceptable alternative to family planning and birth control. I fear that the figures I have given to the House just now suggest we are coming towards that stage.
Let me now move to the figures of late abortions which are referred to in my Question. Forty per cent. of abortions performed after 12 weeks—and that is late, if I may say so: too late—are performed on teenage girls under 20. Of abortions performed after 20 weeks, which is far too late—indeed, dangerously and tragically late-50 per cent. are performed on teenage girls. Those figures come from a study by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists entitled Late Abortions in England and Wales, published in 1984.
In the same report, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists go on to point to a need for more education. They go on to say this:
"Except in the case of married women aged 20 or over, there is often hesitation or reluctance to seek help or advice from their general practitioners. Many more youth advisory centres, available for information, health and counselling and whose situation, role and telephone number are well advertised, should be established to help to fulfil these functions."
I turn to a more recent report, that by Isobel Allen entitled Counselling Services for Sterilisation, Vasectomy and Termination of Pregnancy, which was commissioned and funded by the Department of Health. It states, perhaps even more alarmingly:
"There was some evidence that young people did not always find themselves made welcome by general practitioners and family planning clinics when seeking contraceptive advice."
In that case it is not perhaps altogether surprising that they did not always seek that advice.
On the report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the then Minister of Health, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, said this:
"The recommendations of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists point to a need for more education, especially for younger women, to make them appreciate the urgency of early consultation and decision-making when pregnancy occurs. We shall be consulting our colleagues in the Department of Education and Science about the prospects for more health education and counselling facilities for young people in this sensitive area."
Did those consultations take place? Perhaps in due course the noble Baroness will be able to say whether they took place and, if they did, what steps resulted from them.
Certainly there is little doubt about the present inadequacy of counselling services. Here I quote again from a study entitled District Health Authority Family Planning in England and Wales, prepared by Audrey Leathard and published by the Family Planning Association in 1985. It states:
"Still only 50 per cent. of health authorities have designated youth advisory sessions and many of those are threatened with closure."
Why should they be threatened with closure? Is it the cost about which the department is worried? If so, then the department is sadly misled. There is no question that few things are more cost-effective than proper counselling and family planning advice for young people. The clear message from a study by W. A. Laing, published by the Policy Studies Institute, entitled Family Planning—The Benefits and Costs, is that benefits to health and social services from free family planning services substantially exceed costs.
It was the conclusion of a major international study carried out by the Guttmacher Institute of New York in 1985 that it is those countries with the most prevalent sex education, the most easily accessible birth control services and the most open discussion of sexual matters which have the least teenage abortion and unwanted teenage fertility. So surely cost should not be a matter that should put off the department. If we take the inadequacy of the services provided—and we have said that 50 per cent. of area health authorities are not providing those kinds of counselling services—then the burden is left more and more to voluntary bodies of one kind or another, which provide the safety net.
I should like to refer in particular to the Brook Advisory Centres. Even they in certain places such as the centre in Tottenham Court Road are threatened with closure because of doubts and anxieties about funding. Here I am reminded of the guidance published by the Department of Health, I think at the time when the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, was the Secretary of State in 1974. Paragraph G45 states:
"Agency arrangements with Brook Advisory Centres should continue for the time being as NHS agencies open to all."
It now seems they may well be open to nobody unless they are adequately and properly funded.
I have the honour to be the president of another charity, Gingerbread, which acts rather for those who have not had the kinds of services we are referring to. It does invaluable work and the kind of service it provides is absolutely essential. For example, in Bradford it has a support service which is mounted and provided entirely by teenage single-parent
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mothers at almost no cost to public funds but which is doing absolutely admirable work to support people, many of whom perhaps did not have effective support and advice at a much earlier stage.
Finally, I should like to say that I welcome the new guidelines which have been published by the department. Perhaps I may say that I welcome rather more heartily the British Medical Association Council's statement which rather underlines the principles of confidentiality while it clarifies the ambiguities which have arisen from the advice given by the General Medical Council. That is surely something which must be stressed if we are to encourage these young people to seek advice at the time they need that advice.
Certainly parental consent is an important matter but it seems to me that those who talk, as some do, about parental consent are inclined to assume the existence of parents to whom and with whom girls can relate. In my experience in general medical practice, there are many occasions when there is no parent to whom a girl may relate in the kind of way we would like to see. In the absence of that, it is essential that the confidentiality of the relationship between that child or that girl and the doctor should be preserved.
I will say no more. I look forward to hearing the speeches of other noble Lords, and in that connection perhaps I may say that I am very sorry that we are not after all to hear the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who was to speak. Your Lordships will recollect that the noble Lord himself steered the Abortion Act through your Lordships' House. He is unfortunately unwell, but he asked me to say that had he had the opportunity to speak he would have supported the case which I have put before your Lordships' House this evening.
I await particularly the replies to be given in due course by the noble Baroness. I should like to ask her once again about the discussions which were to take place between her department and the Department of Education and Science with regard to improving health education facilities and counselling for young people. Did those discussions take place, and what was the result? I should also like to ask the noble Baroness to tell me what steps have been taken to fulfil the high ambitions of the former Minister of Health, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, who stated quite clearly that he wanted to see better counselling services and better health education for young people. I should like to hear what steps are now being taken.
I should like also to hear from the noble Baroness what steps are being taken to supply the missing counselling services from the 50 per cent. of health authorities which I am told do not now possess them.
I should like to hear from the noble Baroness that her department recognises the burdens borne by the voluntary bodies, the Brook Advisory Centres and others, and that not only does it recognise those burdens but recognises their financial burdens and will do what it can to relieve them. I look forward to hearing the noble Baroness's reply and to hearing other noble Lords and noble Baronesses.
8.20 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, this Unstarred Question, thoughtfully and courageously put before your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord

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Winstanley, provides us with an opportunity to debate a subject which touches every family in this country regardless of social status, creed and race. I presume to speak in the debate as one of the vice-presidents of the British Association of Counselling, and I draw on my experience as a social worker.
In a golden, ideal world, where personal relationships were deep and clear, many of us would wish that there would be no call for abortions or for contraception. This is not an ideal world. It is, nevertheless, a world with some ideals. I abhor abortion, but honesty compels me to say that on a few occasions in my working life I have counselled an abortion for girls under and over 16 years of age. Perhaps I might say that many years ago I was concerned in the case made famous by the late Alec Bourne.
On the social plane, in my experience an abortion for a girl with feelings can be a damaging experience. For an unfeeling girl, in some cases an abortion provides her with the thought that she might lead a promiscuous life without contraception and without giving birth to a child. I would not presume to speak on the medical aspects of abortions, but I believe that where possible and practicable the need for abortions should be avoided.
But if one cannot have ideals, one should at least be realistic. That is, perhaps, an ideal in itself. Contraception, carried out thoughtfully with social and medical advice and with counselling help, can prevent abortions and unwanted children. In the realm of abortion and contraception there needs to be a partnership between the medical profession and those trained to counsel. If a girl under or over 16 years of age is unwilling for her parents to be consulted, I believe that she should be offered counselling services. Such a service cannot be given by a general practitioner with over 2,000 patients on his register.
Why do some girls feel unble to talk to their parents? First, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, there are sadly in this country thousands of girls whose personal relationships with their parents are minimal or non-existent. If the foundation of love and care through childhood has been erratic, unkind, cruel or absent altogether, the young girl or adolescent will not, indeed cannot, appeal to her mother, and, in some cases, she would not receive help if she did. Such girls seek for affection outside their home and that, more often than not, results in sexual relationships. I submit that such girls should be offered counselling.
Secondly, many of those girls have a stable and loving relationship with their parents. However, in adolescence, when young people are seeking to assert themselves and be independent but yet at the same time are emotionally insecure, they need a third person to consult. It may be a godmother, an aunt or a family friend. Some girls have no such fallback. It is no reflection on the love, adequacy and skill of a parent that an adolescent girl seeks a third person to whom she can talk. Where there is no relative or friend of the family, surely she should be offered the services of a counsellor.
May I recommend that there should be a dialogue as between the British Medical Association, the General Medical Council, the general practitioners' committees and the British Association of
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Counselling, so that we can work towards a partnership as between doctors and counsellors? Ideally, there should be available a counsellor to each practice. At present, general practitioners can appoint ancillary staff and reclaim 70 per cent. of their salary from the Department of Health and Social Security. That does not apply to counsellors. I make a plea to Her Majesty's Government that they should count skilled, experienced and trained counsellors as ancillary staff.
Meanwhile, there is growing and developing interest in counselling. May I ask the Minister whether there is any hope of a grant to the British Association of Counselling? Application has already been made to the Department of Health and Social Security for renewal and extension of the grant. May I also ask the Minister whether her right honourable friend will convene further meetings—I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that some have taken place—to finalise discussions, so that a plan can be worked out as between her department, the British Medical Association, the General Medical Council, the general practitioners' committees and the British Association of Counselling so that each general practice can have attached to it a counsellor who is skilled, practised, trained and experienced? In that way, with a structure such as I have suggested, perhaps we can go some way towards helping the girls who at the moment are having abortions and who are in sore need of help and counselling.
8.27 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, when talking about a delicate topic such as teenage sexuality and its problems, we should not forget that most young women today become sexually mature much earlier than we realise—at some point between 12 and 15 years of age. The better nourished and more healthy children in fact are—and ours in this country are very healthy and well nourished—the more towards the lower end of that age span they tend to mature. The average age of puberty in girls now is 13, whereas two or three generations ago it was nearer 15.
Tonight we are concerned that 9,400 conceptions occured in girls under 16 in 1983, of which 5,300—nearly three-fifths—were terminated. That number of abortions is beginning to creep up, having been level for a few years. According to a British survey, one girl in five has had sexual experience by the age of 16. Those girls have a one in ten chance of becoming pregnant. Comparing that internationally, it appears to be about par for the course in developed countries. According to some research findings which I have before me—the report of the Allan Guttmacher Institute, which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, mentioned—the United States does considerably worse than we do. There, one in four of their 16 year-old girls are sexually experienced and each of them has a one in six chance of becoming pregnant. Sweden, on the other hand, does considerably better. There, one in three of their 16 year-old girls is sexually experienced—noble Lords are aware that Sweden is well known as the most sexually liberated society—but of those Swedish girls, only one in 20 becomes pregnant. If our rate was as good as the Swedish, there would be half as many pregnancies among girls under 16 in Britain today.

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There is nothing a governmemt can do to stop sexual activity among young people. The trend to a freer attitude towards pre-marital and extra-marital sex is international and represents, perhaps an overdue, recognition of the biological facts of life. In traditional societies, marriage, which is often arranged, takes place fairly soon after puberty which, in any case, occurs later in communities with some degree of malnutrition and that applies to something like half the people in the world today.
Where marriage is delayed for 10 or more years after sexual maturity is reached, teenagers need help to cope with the problems caused by their sexuality. The Department of Health and Social Security's guidelines of 1974 were pragmatic and sensible, and the question we are asking tonight is: Why have these guidelines not been put into better effect? I have spoken about under 16 year-olds, because this seems to be the most urgent problem today but, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has pointed out, the same arguments apply to the much larger number of pregnancies which occur to single girls between 16 and 20 and, to some extent, to older women as well.
Girls and their boyfriends can get advice from family planning clinics run by district health authorities and from the many Government supported voluntary bodies, some of which have been mentioned today, or from their general practitioners. All of these are free at the point of service. One might well ask why, despite this provision, so many pregnancies occur and I submit that there are a number of reasons.
Some girls—and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, touched on these—get pregnant in order to break away from an unhappy or badly housed family situation, to have someone to love who in turn loves and depends on them. Mostly this is a subconscious motivation, but sometimes it is quite deliberate, to get a priority claim for rehousing by the local authority—to jump the queue, in other words. Most general practitioners—and I am one—and many social workers will be able to give examples of where girls have deliberately chosen to become pregnant in order to qualify for housing. One wonders whether, if public housing units were more available to young people, this motivation to become a single parent would be so strong.
The family doctor is usually accessible and well-known to the teenager, so why do young people not use his or her services more? The reason may be that it is just because they know the general practitioner so well. Even the receptionist in a practice may have known a girl from infancy—and also her parents. The staff of health centres or general practice units may be classified in the parental or authoritarian category. Sexual behaviour by teenagers may have been increasing but it is always, and always will be, an intensely private matter to them and it may be easier for them to talk to a new, perhaps unfamiliar, and sympathetic face.
Recently, also, there has been the worry that general practitioners might break confidentiality and inform parents of the encounter if a girl is under 16, even if she does not wish it. The recent reversal in your Lordships' House of the appeal decision in favour of Mrs. Gillick may have allayed their fears to some extent. But the
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General Medical Council's recent advice, that doctors can inform parents of requests by their daughters for contraceptive advice if a doctor thinks a girl is immature, has raised some doubts. We have recently had statements from the BMA and the DHSS which, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has pointed out, are somewhat reassuring on this point.
Family planning clinics are seen by some young people as not designed for them. They are seen as more appropriate for maturer women, and young people may imagine that disapproval of their sexual behaviour may be expressed, whether or not that is true. Many clinics have appointment systems which do not fit in with teenage timetables or habits.
At this point, it is worth repeating paragraph 42 in the Department of Health and Social Security circular of 1974, which states:
"People of all ages, married and unmarried, attend ordinary clinic sessions and all should be made welcome at them. However, it may be advantageous to hold some separate sessions for young people either in health centres, hospital out-patient departments or similar settings where a variety of health or social services are provided, or in a quite separate informal non-institutional setting, whichever is thought likely to be most well attended. Whatever place is chosen for these sessions, an informal and friendly atmosphere is desirable, as is the choice of staff with whom the young can find it easy to communicate and who are sympathetic to their problems."
There is considerable variation throughout the country in teenage pregnancy rates and in the proportion of those pregnancies which end in abortion. In general, higher teenage conception rates occur in the North and in Wales, and in east London compared with west London. In the North, less than half of these conceptions end in abortion; in the South, it is more than half. There are twice as many actual births to teenagers in the North as in the South.
These figures reflect a trend for higher pregnancy rates to occur in socially deprived regions, and for a higher proportion of the smaller number of pregnancies in more privileged areas to end in abortion. One known reason for this is that, in less favoured areas or social groups, girls delay longer before reporting their pregnancy. There are a number of factors which lead to this, some due to social attitudes, some due to ignorance and some due to poor availability of services.
The whole picture is an example of the "inverse care law" of inequalities in health care provision. As in other cases—for instance, cervical cytology where this applies, which is not available to those who most need it—it seems that a policy of reverse discrimination is the right one. In other words, resources should be mobilised most fully where the problem is greatest.
It is worth looking at the Swedish and American experiences in relation to our own. In the United States, despite greater affluence, there are more pockets of deprivation and poverty than here. It is more difficult for young people to obtain contraceptive advice, and as a result the pregnancy and abortion rate is higher with the attendant unhappiness and perpetuation of social problems which that entails. Attitudes to extra-marital sex in the United States are complex, with much commercial and media promotion and exploitation of sex, while at the same time there are frowning attitudes to sex which make young people feel guilty about it and less likely to seek help.

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In Sweden, on the other hand, there is a much more open attitude towards sex. Health education in schools is more thorough and includes an official sex education curriculum in which all aspects of sexuality are covered with a frankness and completeness which is often lacking in the United Kingdom. In addition, the availability of contraceptive advice and supplies is made easier by linking schools with contraceptive clinics. Since 1975 when this link was established, teenage abortion has fallen despite a liberalisation of the abortion law at that time. In the United Kingdom and in other countries—for instance, the United States and France—abortion in young people has risen since that time.
In conclusion, may I put certain questions to the noble Baroness the Minister? Do the Government recognise that there is more to be done? Are they concerned that the teenage abortion rate is rising again? Do they agree that unwanted teenage pregnancies and abortions are more costly than the means of avoiding them? Will she agree with the statement of her colleague Mr. Kenneth Clarke, whom the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, quoted, that the costs associated with an unplanned pregnancy are significantly greater than those of measures designed to prevent it?
The noble Baroness will almost certainly agree that contraceptive services and health education should be increased or improved as some of us have suggested, and I imagine will continue to suggest, during this Unstarred Question. The noble Baroness will say that district health authorities, education authorities and the Department of Education and Science will be encouraged to do better. But I wonder whether this is enough. Should there not be clearer, more explicit central directives backed—this is perhaps a difficult point—with earmarked funds to help health authorities and local education authorities? They are in a great deal of difficulty at the moment. They do not have any spare funds and they are having extreme difficulty in maintaining existing services.
I maintain that that would be an investment which would repay its costs in a very few years in financial terms, let alone in reduction of human unhappiness. It would be more costly to increase abortion facilities in the National Health Service. These are already grossly insufficient and too many young women are forced to turn to the private sector. I would hope that this is a growth industry which even this Government, who believe in private enterprise, would not wish to encourage.
8.41 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, this very important Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, follows on well after an Education Bill which is going to increase parent participation in the running of our schools.
How low can our society sink? In the past few days we have heard of a hateful robbery and rape case which, like so many before, has shocked the nation. We have also heard of a girl aged 8 years being involved with prostitution. I have asked many young people why there is so much promiscuity. They blame the 1960s. What happened in the 1960s?—the Abortion Act 1967, among other things. Perhaps without realising it, many young people are letting a
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very violent act happen to them. Once an abortion has been performed, however early or late, a murder, however tiny, has been committed. In years to come the guilt may grow and depression develop. There is now the escape from being pregnant for long by being able to have an abortion. With the risk gone, many young people seem to think that they should sleep around. They go along with the idea that it is the done thing to do. Pregnancy tests and clinics are advertised in many popular magazines.
I have not heard the Church or the schools speak out very loudly or clearly telling the young people about the dangers of sleeping around. But the Roman Catholic Church does speak clearly (and always has) against abortion as a whole. If there was a Roman Catholic Bishop in your Lordships' House I am sure that he would be speaking tonight. The Churches should be more positive and warmhearted and then I think more young people might attend.
So many of the parents are divorced and the torn and damaged children group together and develop their own culture. All children, I think, should have clear, correct counselling in schools, undertaken by health professionals so that teachers do not have to struggle with embarrassment which some of them might feel. Of course this should be done in conjunction with the schools, and maybe some teachers would in time want to undertake this need. If we value our young people, both boys and girls, they should all be warned that it is possible to catch gonorrhoea, herpes, AIDS, syphilis and cervical cancer. This might make them think about the risks they are taking and lessen the chance of getting pregnant, leading to abortions.
A few weeks ago I was speaking with a young doctor from Westminster Hospital. He said that many of the young girls who turned up at his department imagined they had something wrong with them. He feels that the situation is very complicated and sometimes bizarre. I asked one young girl who became pregnant because she wanted to see if she could before getting married why she had had an abortion, and she just said, "The other girls do it, so I didn't see why I shouldn't".
Some years ago I was waiting in a church with our adopted son, aged about 10, before a wedding we were attending, when he suddenly said to me, "Do you agree with abortion?" I said, "No". He said, "I am glad you said that". He may well have been thinking about what might have happened to him.
This Question asked tonight is a desperately important one. It has psychological as well as physical aspects. If we want a future nation of healthy, happy young people we should look in depth at these needs. We need to act now. Perhaps we could amend the present Education Bill or another Act by incorporating a clause to give the vital provision of much-needed health education, including first aid, basics of health and hygiene, the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse and, above all, counselling our young people in order to combat the increasing numbers of abortions; and this, I think, should be a statutory provision.
8.46 p.m.
Viscount Buckmaster: My Lords, the House is indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for having initiated this very important debate. It comes at a particularly important time, for three reasons. First, as we all know, new guidelines have

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been issued recently to doctors by the DHSS on the Law Lords' decision in the Gillick case. Secondly, this coming week two new organisations concerned with family standards will be launched. I shall speak about these in a minute. Thirdly, yesterday was Mothering Sunday when the thoughts of many of us, including even non-Christians, are directed towards the positive role of the mother and the family.
I am neither a doctor nor even a parent. I have spent the greater part of my adult life abroad. Why then am I speaking tonight? I do so because I am connected with seven organisations concerned with children and the family. These are: the Parliamentary Family and Child Protection Group; Family and Youth Concern (the Responsible Society), one of the older groups in this sphere which contains a high proportion of doctors and other professionals; CARE Campaigns (Christian Action Research Education); Moral Rearmament; and the Christian Broadcasting Council, of which I am treasurer. Tomorrow sees the launch of the National Council for Christian Standards in Society, promoted by my noble friend Lord Halsbury, who I wish could be here to take part in our debate tonight. Finally, there is the Conservative Family Campaign, due to make its bow on Friday.
All these groups—and there are others—are, or soon will be, working in slightly different ways to restore moral and religious standards to family life on the lines of the appeal which my noble and learned friend Lord Lane made in his Darwin lecture in 1983; namely,
"To help in the process of restoring some of the standards of behaviour which used to guide us all and particularly the youngsters".
Over the past few years these groups have been attracting growing support from a public which is becoming increasingly aware of the pitfalls of the permissive society, particularly in the realm of children's sexual behaviour. The views I shall express this evening, although of course coloured very largely by my own thinking, are thus essentially those of these various groups—and, I like to feel, those of a much wider public which has not yet identified itself with any particular organisation—rather than the views of a middle aged Cross-Bench crank.
The Question we are now debating is essentially about counselling young people with a view to avoiding unwanted pregnancies. I shall return to that point shortly. First, I must say a word or two about the hazards of early sexual activity, a difficult and delicate subject about which far too little is known—as has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Masham.
There are of course the physical aspects. There is the problem of cancer of the cervix, about which the two noble Lords who are doctors will know very much more than I. There is also the growth of sexually transmitted diseases among young people. I believe I am right in thinking that in 1983 there were more than 500,000 cases seen in Britain. But there are psychological as well as physical aspects to be considered. For many young girls, early sex is more than mere physical gratification. It often leads to the awakening of the homemaking instinct; the longing for a child and for a fulfilling and permanent relationship. When those desires cannot be realised, depression
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often sets in—leading in some cases even to attempted suicide. Even if the young girl does not become suicidal—and fortunately few of them do—her joyful efferverscent mood often becomes subdued in a kind of ill-concealed disillusionment and anxiety.
Another very important aspect of early sexual activity is the weaking of bonds within the family. According to Christine Farrell, who conducted research into this subject in 1978,
"Becoming sexually experienced affects communication between parent and child, and for all social groups sexual experience lessens the impact of parental influence … Those not sexually experienced showed a greater attachment to their families."
How true that is.
One can surely argue that early sexual activity, especially when it leads to promiscuity, and the irresponsible attitude of many children today towards such conduct, can hardly be the best preparation for marital fidelity. How can those hasty, furtive fumblings in cars or in bedrooms, with an ear cocked for the parents' return, help towards a stable marriage?
In the light of all those considerations, what sort of counselling do children receive? I would say—as other noble Lords who have spoken this evening have hinted—that it is woefully inadequate. But worse, it is often misleading and amoral, if not downright immoral. Although I do not wish in any way to denigrate the noble profession of two noble Lords who have spoken, it seems that there are many doctors who are too busy or too unsure of themselves to give proper advice—and who dish out contraceptives like cough lozenges. By contrast, a doctor has written:
"Premarital chastity is attractive and innocent, strong and vigorous. It strengthens character, enhances personality, builds self-control, maintains purity and protects privacy. Chastity is a preparation for a happy marriage".
Why cannot the DHSS incorporate those words, or something like them, into the guidelines to doctors?
To turn now to the schools, which aspect has been touched upon by my noble friend Lady Masham, I believe that many people would accept that the general standard of sex education is highly unsatisfactory and often morally harmful. It is harmful because, for the most part, it concentrates on the purely physical aspect of sex—often in the most explicit and provocative way, with no trace of moral guidance. Allied to that is, I am afraid to say, the attitude of the Brook advisory clinics, which no doubt do good work in some spheres, but whose declared policy is that the customer is always right and that sex is fine provided one takes proper precautions; a doctrine enunciated in their booklet Safe Sex for Teenagers. Even more harmful is the booklet (though not issued by the Brook clinics) entitled Make it Happy, which is on sale without restriction. It advocates a totally amoral, hedonistic approach to sex; justifying any kind of conduct, including homosexuality and even incest, provided it is enjoyable.
What of the Churches, my Lords? What indeed! How sad we all are tonight to see the spiritual Benches empty. After nearly five years in this country, having lived for a long spell abroad, I am still unable to understand their attitude. It seems today that many of the clergy, particularly the Anglicans, are frightened of speaking out and of saying anything that might antagonise teenagers. And so, some of them have, it seems, been trying to bend the Scriptures to suit their

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purposes—arguing, for example, that Christ's teachings on sexual matters were basically tolerant. One also hears the argument from churchmen and others that St. Paul's forthright denunciations of sexual misbehaviour should be seen in the light of his own physical infirmity, his "thorn in the flesh". This is a speech and not a sermon, but I cannot refrain from quoting from St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 4, verse 4:
"Every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour".
How many clergy would be prepared to preach on that text today?
So much for the Churches. What about that most important area of all, the parents, which I have deliberately left until last? I am of course largely groping in the dark, but random conversations I have had with parents indicate that, all too often, their attitude is based on indifference and ignorance, and sometimes on ambivalance. One frequently hears it said, "Oh well, let them enjoy the freedom that was denied to us when we were young. Provided that they take proper precautions, they can come to no harm". Then there are those who will say, as a prominent QC at the criminal bar said to me only the other day, "I tell my children that below the age of 16, sex is illegal—but over that age, there are no holds barred".
Surely it must be accepted that children develop at different rates and that, even at 16, many are far too immature, both physically and emotionally, for such activity. Another argument one hears from parents is that sexual activity among young people is normal, natural and even necessary. But surely most doctors would agree that self-restraint is not all that harmful and that it can strengthen one's personality. All I can say here is that teenagers of my generation led a happier, healthier and more wholesome life than they do today.
Having lived abroad for the greater part of my adult life, I find the new attitudes to sexual behaviour all the harder to understand. For many young people today, hopping into bed with anyone, at any time, is just as normal as turning on a tap. I have met youngsters who were amazed when I suggested that youthful sex could be wrong. One hears of the most amazing behaviour that seems to be accepted almost as commonplace. Only the other day, at a reception in your Lordships' House for educationalists, I was told of groups of schoolchildren who had set up what was virtually a brothel with 14 year-old and 15 year-old girls charging their schoolboy friends 50p a time. We are indeed paying a terrible price for our failure to give children proper guidance.
What is the solution? I do not believe that the pill is the universal panacea, although I realise of course the necessity for contraception. I would not venture to describe the harmful effects of the pill, particularly on young people, in the presence of the two distinguished doctors who have spoken, but they would surely agree with me that children make poor candidates for the regular, daily, self-administration of contraceptives and that the contraceptive failure rate among teenagers is high.
More significant still, let me quote Dr. Judith Bury of the Edinburgh Brook advisory centre:
"There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the availability of contraceptives leads to an increase in the abortion rate".
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That is indeed a significant statement—coming, as it does, from an organisation that has been persistently pumping contraceptives into children.
I do not wish to discuss the Law Lords' ruling in the Gillick case, except to say that, basically, I support Victoria Gillick—for whom I have boundless admiration. With great respect to my noble and learned friend Lord Scarman, I believe that his judgment was misguided. I say so although I realise, as noble Lords have said, that there are many parents who will not or cannot give proper guidance to their children.
Nevertheless—and it is a very important point—this ruling has apparently created in the minds of many teenagers the erroneous impression that there is now no need for them to hold back, and that, however young they may be, they can misbehave as much as they like and the doctor will help them by providing contraceptives. A very interesting and important fact in this connection is that during the period between the ruling of the Court of Appeal and the judgment of the Law Lords last October—in other words, while the law was supporting Gillick—the abortion rate for underage girls actually fell for the first time from 2,040 for the March and June quarters of 1984, to 1,910 for the same quarters of 1985, which is a fall of 6.4 per cent.
Surely the solution to it all lies very largely in the restoration of traditional family standards. Only the other day a doctor told me that a strong, united family can withstand every shock and setback. We cannot put the clock back. It appears that we can hardly introduce that old-fashioned morality which is now almost totally rejected by the young. How I wish we could! But can we not argue that conduct which is condemned as morally wrong yesterday cannot become right today? We should take a lesson here from the Moslems and the Jews, to whom right is right and wrong is wrong, and whose standards of family life for the most part put ours to shame. In the realm of sexual morality we no longer think in terms of black and white but in hazy half-tones, muddy browns, and dingy greys. It is the children themselves who are clamouring for such a distinction. How often do you hear them saying, "Mummy, do tell me whether this is wrong". But Mummy does not know.
In conclusion, I am among the first to realise that the promotion of family unity and the building-up of moral standards within the family is a task so daunting as to deter all but the most deeply committed; and yet we must attempt it if we are to arrest the moral decline which is so rapidly eroding the fabric of our society.
9.2 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for putting this Question this evening. I am particularly grateful to him for the way in which he introduced his Question, putting it in the context of the wider problem of teenagers generally and not the narrow and very controversial problem of the under-15s.
I think that the concern behind his Question can be illustrated by an article in The Times of 22nd January. If I may, I should like to quote one paragraph:
"Despite an undoubted rise in sexual activity the teenage conception rate has been declining since 1974. This trend demonstrates an increased consciousness about contraception. Nevertheless, still too many sexually active teenagers are not using

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contraception and almost a third of all abortions are performed on teenagers. One in 10 of teenagers turning 15 this year will have an abortion before the age of 20. Yet only the same proportion of teenagers attend family planning clinics now as 10 years ago".
My noble friend Lord Rea has referred to the early maturing of girls. I think that no matter how we try to fight against it, it is a fact that there is a rise in sexual activity among teenagers. Therefore, I suggest that our problem is to see what best can be done to help teenagers in this very difficult period of their lives.
There is one encouraging trend referred to in that paragraph which is borne out by the OPCS Population Trends 42, which shows that the number of teenagers conceiving outside marriage has dropped from 56 per thousand of unmarried women under 20 in 1973 to 47 per thousand in 1983. Of course, 47 per thousand is far too high a figure but I think we would all agree that abortion is not the answer to this problem. I say that as one who supports the Abortion Act and feels that it provides a very useful social and medical net in our system which is of great value as a last resort in cases of unwanted pregnancy. But so far as concerns teenagers, in the long run abortion is certainly not the answer and we have to look at other means of helping them. Hence, I welcome the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, which is a positive approach, seeking to avoid unwelcome pregnancies and any subsequent abortions.
It is regrettable that, as we are told, only 50 per cent. of health authorities provide a designated youth advisory session for young people. I should like to underline the Question to the Minister on this point. Is anything being done to encourage other health authorities to provide such a service? All the studies point to the difficulties experienced in getting teenagers to take advantage of family planning clinics in the general sense. Teenagers need special provision—clinics and sessions which are geared to their needs and which provide an atmosphere which is sympathetic to their outlook and lifestyle.
Studies also indicate that there is a need to expand the number and scope of services available. Yet from what we have heard this evening, through a lack of funding we are moving towards a contraction of the services, with the threat of closure. I am very concerned indeed to think that the Brook Centre in Tottenham Court Road might be under threat because of lack of funds. That centre has pioneered family planning services, in particular for teenagers. It would be tragic if through lack of adequate funding it were to close. Can the Minister give us an assurance that the Government will give every possible assistance to prevent that?
Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and by my noble friend Lord Rea to the research undertaken in America by the Guttmacher Institute. That was comparative research relating, first, to 36 countries other than the United States, and then in a more detailed and specific way to five other countries and the United States. The concern of the United States was that its teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing rates were higher than those in most other industrial countries, and certainly higher than the five comparison countries. It was the only country where teenage pregnancy was on the increase.
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It is important for us in this country to bear in mind the message of the research, and it is apposite to our debate. I refer to four points that came out of it of which we might take note. One was that teenagers in countries other than the United States are not too immature to use contraceptives effectively. The second was that the availability of welfare benefits and services (which were more generous in the other five countries than in the United States) does not act as an inducement to teenagers to have babies. Thirdly, low teenage birth rates in those countries were not achieved by greater recourse to abortion; on the contrary, they all have a much lower rate than the United States. Fourthly, teenage pregnancy rates are lower in countries with a greater availability of birth control and sex education. My noble friend Lord Rea referred to the latter point and in particular to the experience of Sweden, which is far in advance of ourselves in that respect.
In this country we have the basis of an adequate service. It needs building upon and expanding. I think the Minister will agree that it is better to have more sex education and counselling services for teenagers than more pregnancies and abortions. Certainly it is much more cost-effective to ensure that we do not have a greater number of pregnancies and abortions. We need to look carefully at sex education within the education and training system. YTS, for instance, where young people are brought together, could be used as a possible starting point for education. We need better consultancy services.
We need to emphasise the importance of including boys in the educational and consulting service. Boys increasingly are put at risk from sexually transferable diseases. Even without that danger, boys and young men should be aware of and understand their sexuality and be aware of, understand and respect the reproductive process. In that way we can bring about a greater understanding by boys and girls of the problems that they face as teenagers, and we may help them to approach the problems in a more sensitive and responsible fashion.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Robertson of Oakridge: My Lords, I should like first to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for raising this Question. We are not here to debate the merits or the demerits of abortion, the 1967 Act or the way it is used and misused. All of us would, however, agree, I believe, that anything that could reduce the number of abortions is to be encouraged. I should like to touch upon the guidelines for the provision of contraceptives to under-16s. There is one particular point among others that worries me and that I would wish to draw to your Lordships' attention. I have seen it suggested that if a doctor other than the girl's family doctor prescribes the pill, then he should contact the child's GP. I wonder whether this is a strong enough injunction, particularly because the pill can clash with other medical conditions and with other medication. I wonder therefore whether there are other areas of medicine where a doctor other than the child's GP would make a prescription and then not tell the child's GP. Not to do so seems to be a little irresponsible.
My aim tonight is to draw attention to the work done by those voluntary organisations that already

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provide counselling and other support to women who find themselves pregnant in difficult circumstances—circumstances where, otherwise, abortion would seem the only answer. In this respect I should declare an interest. I am connected with both Care Trust and Lifeline working in this field. I should like to give two examples of their work. The first is a girl who ran away from home to London. There, after a series of casual relationships with men, she found herself inevitably pregnant. Her boyfriend's only reaction was to tell her to have an abortion. In desperation, she prayed to God for help. Her prayers were answered when Care Trust found her a family who took her into their home. Since making her home with this family, her life has been transformed.
My other example concerns a single girl who approached Lifeline when she was nearly five months pregnant. She had had no medical attention and her boy friend wanted nothing to do with her or her child. Lifeline put her in touch with a GP who cared for her throughout her pregnancy and also, in accordance with her wishes, made initial contact with an adoption agency for her. She and her family were very relieved to have these contacts made and were supported throughout the pregnancy, the delivery of a healthy son and his subsequent adoption.
In each of these cases, the woman concerned was fortunate enough to find people who cared for her and for the child inside her. In each instance, the baby was saved and the woman herself did not have its killing on her conscience. I believe that organisations which do this work merit more support than they are getting from society in general and from Her Majesty's Government in particular. Some of these organisations feel—they are, I believe, justified in so feeling—that support is much more readily given to organisations which are little more than abortion agencies. I would therefore ask the Minister, as a step towards improved counselling and other alternatives to abortion, to give priority to supporting those organisations which do the positive kind of work of which I have given examples.
9.18 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I should like, as other noble Lords, have clone, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for introducing this timely debate and for the manner in which he did so. It is, indeed, timely, as other noble Lords have noted, following the recent ruling of the Law Lords on the Victoria Gillick challenge to the legality of the DHSS guidance to doctors on family planning and advice and treatment of girls of 16 and under. It also follows upon the new guidance issued to doctors by the general council of the GMC and the pleas by the BMA and the Family Planning Association to the GMC to revise those guidelines. I want to say how much I welcome the DHSS circular of 7th March, particularly in so far as it gives absolute clarity concerning confidentiality. I wish that it had had more to say about the main subject of our debate this evening, but I shall come to that.
I should at this stage say that this is in no way a party matter. The fact that I am standing at this Dispatch Box does not mean that I am speaking for anyone but myself. The facts have been brought forward by the noble Lord. I wish to add only one more. It comes
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from the OPCS survey. It was published in The Times on 4th December. The OPCS said that 17 per cent. of all conceptions end in abortion. The top figure is 57 per cent. for girls under 16 and 47 per cent. for women aged 40 and over. One can understand the second, but the thought that 57 per cent. of girls under 16 are heading for abortions is a very frightening figure indeed, and emphasises all that has been said by noble Lords in all parts of the House on the urgency of having advisory centres.
As I have said on the question of the doctor's right to retain confidentiality, I think that the situation has now been made absolutely clear by the DHSS circular, and I hope that the GMC will revise its own. But we are concerned in this debate about the nature of counselling and its availability. I do not think anyone doubts the importance of counselling, although different points of view have been expressed as to what we would call counselling. Some appear to be very critical of the sort of advice that might be given by the Brook advisory centres and other bodies. All right—they are doing a job which some may feel the Government ought to be doing. They are trying to do it to the best of their ability and often to step in for the failure of parents—and I want to come on to that in a moment or two.
It is a sad fact, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, that only half of the NHS health authorities provide specialised youth advisory services and sessions. There is a compelling need for such a service to be available to all young people.
In introducing the debate, the noble Lord referred to this.
"The DHSS's first Memo of Guidance published in 1974 faced the need for contraception and advice to be available to all, irrespective of age. It told local health authorities that sessions for young people would be useful. They should be separate from general health counselling, preferably in an informal setting.
Perhaps I may quote a little more, as my noble friend Lord Rea did:
"'Whatever place is chosen, an informal and friendly atmosphere is desirable, as is the choice of staff with whom the young find it easy to communicate and who are sympathetic to their problems.' But these valuable clauses in the 1974 circular were lost when, in 1980, a second memorandum was issued. Its section on the young concentrated on the under-16s and talked only about good medical practice during individual consultations."
I believe that what we are talking about is something very much more positive than simply medical advice. The thought that general practitioners have the time—let alone, in some cases, the personal ability—to provide the understanding which young people seek is, I think, absurd.
I draw some conclusions from a variety of sources, including the Brook advisory centre. Young people are receptive to the media, and local clinics should take advantage of this to advertise their opening hours, preferably to be outside school and working hours. Sessions on Saturday mornings and at lunchtime are welcomed when young people are likely to be available and when they would be perhaps more likely to go into an advisory centre when it would not be so obvious that they were doing so or when they were not taking time off work. Time in each session should be reserved for young people who turn up at the last minute for post coital contraception, a pregnancy test or because it was their first appointment and they are late, or they

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did not make an appointment or they lost their pills, or arrived on the wrong day. All these things will happen with youngsters who have probably very unwisely and often unknowingly allowed themselves to get into a situation in which they desperately need help. The advisory centres must be available not only to counsel youngsters in general, but also to deal with emergency situations which may arise.
Counselling itself should be available. A young woman who turns up for a third time, for the morning-after pill, insisting that she is not really having a sexual relationship, needs help to understand her sexuality. Encouraging a sense of self-esteem will inevitably improve the efficiency of contraceptive use and help some who wish to say, "No".
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, I wish to turn for a moment to the responsibility of parents. I speak as a parent of four youngsters. One of the most difficult things that any of us ever has to face is the adjustment of the relationship between the stern father and mother and the little child, through the child's development to a relationship between two adults. It is a very difficult period and it has to be dealt with with great care and thought by the parent. It is a challenge to parents and one which I am sorry to say most of them seem unable to fulfil. It may be that they do not try or it may be that no one has advised them how to do it.
Certainly youngsters themselves need to be given courage and confidence to be in control of their own bodies. I guess that it is often quite difficult for a young girl to say no. It may be that she wants to say yes or it may be that she wants to say no, but the done thing is to go along with what is suggested to her. If she does that, she is not in control of her own body. She needs to learn that she may gain much more respect from the boy who wants to have a relationship with her, if she says, no and waits until a later occasion.
I find it quite extraordinary when one thinks of our educational system—and I shall not go back to the Second Reading debate on the Education Bill—that the most difficult task that most young people have to face within a few years of leaving school is that of being parents, and they get precious little advice in school about how to go about being a good parent and how they should explain a child's growing sexuality to the child in language that can be clearly understood. That applies to the advice that needs to be given to boys as well as to the advice that should be given to girls. Above all, it is based on the actual relationship. So many girls and boys would not think of asking their parents about these difficult issues. I fear that so many parents would not think of talking to their children and would not know how to talk to their children about this matter.
I wish that in our schools there was a greater degree of what I would call "preparing youngsters for parenthood". In my view, much more can be done than is being done at present. However, it is because it is not being done by parents that it is essential that the advisory services be available in some form or another and preferably in the informal way to which I have referred. I very much agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, that young men should be welcome
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at these advisory centres as well as their girlfriends. They should be invited, if the partner wishes, to take part in the consultation. They should also be encouraged to come along as young boys if they wish for counselling and contraceptive supplies.
It is the informality that is important. It is the personal relationship that is important. But above all, I say to the Minister, what is important is that these services should exist. Unless the noble Baroness can give us some other figures, the facts we know of are that half the health authorities in the country do not provide this sort of advisory counselling service which they were called on to do in the circular in 1974. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept—even if she cannot say, "Yes, we are going to do this in two years"—that this needs an ongoing programme and commitment by the Government. It is not enough to leave half the country—which means half the young people—not able to take advantage of what the health service can provide.
If it is not provided, then all that can happen is that they go to the doctor, and the whole question of confidentiality is a great fear for the child. I know it is now clear as a result of the circular from the Minister, but whether it is clear to the youngsters themselves that they are not going to be reported to their Mums and Dads may take a lot of education to achieve. The Government have a great responsibility in this matter—a responsibility which they share with the schools and which they must share with the parents themselves.
9.32 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I think that we are all very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, who has brought this difficult problem before your Lordships tonight. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Molson had to withdraw from the debate because, as the noble Lord said, he is not feeling very well. I am sure we would all hope that this is a temporary malaise.
I do so agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, on the difficult role of being a parent. So often it is the case that I am a good counsellor with other people's children and hopeless with my own, and this is quite a general aspect of things. I have listened with great interest to the views of noble Lords. I share the concern that so many abortions are still considered necessary, particularly where young people are involved. Abortion is always a cause of considerable distress and difficulty, and involves a risk to health. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that family planning advice is infinitely more desirable than abortion.
I am sure we all agree that the best possible situation would be for young people, boys and girls, not to embark on sexual relationships until they are mature enough, and capable of understanding a loving sexual relationship and able fully to appreciate the consequence of their actions. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, that of course every effort must be made to increase young people's awareness about these matters, and to educate them about personal relationships and the responsibilities involved. As many noble Lords have said, this is primarily a task for parents, though programmes of sex education in

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schools certainly have a part to play; and we regard sex education, taught within a moral framework, as an essential element of the curriculum and a necessary preparation for responsible adulthood. I like to think that the Churches also have their part to play in counselling the young.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, spoke about the need to improve health education. The Government recognise the importance of health education in the matter of avoiding unwanted pregnancies. The Health Education Council recognises this too, and this year over a quarter of a million pounds is being spent from HEC monies on the family planning information service which is jointly run by the HEC and the Family Planning Association, and provides a comprehensive information system for all age groups on matters relating to contraception. But despite the best efforts of parents, schools and others who come into contact with young people we all know that young people embark on sexual relationships before they have sufficient maturity and understanding and thereby girls incur the risk of unwanted pregnancies and possibly disease, as the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, pointed out.
We must therefore consider what action is being taken in a less than ideal world. First, we must ensure that these young people who are engaged in sexual activity, or who are likely to be so, have access to proper advice and support. I firmly believe that a free family planning service is an essential preventative measure which contributes to the avoidance of unwanted pregnancies. Authorities have always been encouraged to provide separate facilities for young people where appropriate so that they are not discouraged from seeking help. Specialist clinics such as those run by the Brook advisory centres on behalf of health authorities have done a great deal to develop a model service sensitive to young people's needs.
As several of your Lordships have mentioned, voluntary organisations have a tremendous contribution to make in giving support, advice and help to young women who are in trouble. Sometimes they are better suited to do so. We give grant support to specialist organisations such as the FPA and the Brook advisory centre. It is interesting that research by Isobel Allen, who has already been mentioned, commissioned by the DHSS, reveals that many women prefer counselling outside the DHSS through voluntary organisations. As I understand it, no final decision has yet been taken about the Tottenham Court Road Brook advisory centre. I note the concern of your Lordships and I certainly recognise the valuable work that the Brook advisory centres do generally, but the final decision on this must be for the Bloomsbury Health Authority, taking account of all local factors. I shall draw the views of your Lordships to the notice of that authority.
The need for counselling was mentioned and the committee on the working of the Abortion Act, the Lane Committee, expressed the view that every woman seeking abortion should have the opportunity to obtain adequate counselling before an abortion decision is taken. The department fully recognises the need for counselling, and the guidance issued in 1977 gave detailed advice. The DHSS recognises that it is undertaken in the majority of cases where abortion is
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under consideration. The voluntary organisations, including religious organisations, have an important contribution to make provided that non-professional volunteers are carefully selected and trained.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, asked whether the DHSS consulted about improving education following the RCOG report on late abortions. My department liaises closely with the Department of Education and Science on matters concerned with health education in schools. In taking forward any ideas for improving good practice in this area we shall clearly need to consult the Department of Education and Science.
I am aware of the substantial ethical and social problems surrounding the question of contraception and the young, particularly those under 16. This House delivered important judgments on this issue last October, and your Lordships are aware that my department last week issued guidance on the circumstances in which doctors may give contraceptive advice and treatment, without parental consent or knowledge, to a young person under 16. This aimed closely to reflect the decision reached by your Lordships and stressed that it would be most unusual for a doctor to proceed with parental involvement. Although this issue is of the greatest importance, it has been very thoroughly aired and discussed in recent months. I hope your Lordships will understand if I do not enter into the details of the various arguments in this debate. My central point is that help and support should always be available to young people so that they have the fullest possible understanding of what is involved, of any risk they might face and of the possible consequences of their action.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, asked what the department are doing to maintain counselling in the National Health Service. It is for local health authorities to determine this kind of provision. However, in our guidance on contraceptive services for the young we have said that health authorities may find it helpful to provide separate, less formal facilities for young people. It is worth noting, too, that between 1981 and 1984 the number of attendances at family planning clinics by young people under 20 has increased from 12.6 per cent. to 13.8 per cent. in the relevant female age group.
When I say "young people" I say emphatically, both sexes. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, brought out that point. I much welcome in that context the Family Planning Association's current "Men Too" campaign, which aims to encourage men, particularly young men, to increase their sense of responsibility in caring involvement in sexual relationships. I agree with my noble friend Lady Faithfull that abortion should not be seen by some girls as a permanent escape from unwanted pregnancies. Again, despite the best efforts of those offering help, support and information, there are still many—far too many—unintended pregnancies among the young.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked whether I agree with my right honourable friend the Paymaster General who said when he was Minister of State for Health last year that prevention is cheaper than unintended pregnancy. Yes, I think this must surely be so but I am also concerned at the negative emotional

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and social effect of unintended pregnancies. To set all these remarks in context it is worth noting that the conception rate among older teenagers, that is, 17 and above, has been declining for some years and that the rate for younger teenagers declined too until 1980 but rose again between 1980 and 1983, which are our latest figures.
The proportion of teenagers with an unplanned pregnancy whose pregnancy is terminated has also increased. The number of abortions to women under 25 rose from 35,000 in 1981 to 37,500 in 1984. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said that I must not forget older teenagers. I quite agree with the noble Lord, we should not overlook the needs of teenagers as a whole. Recent interest has concentrated on those under 16 but the abortion rate among the 16 to 19 year-olds is rising again too and it is clearly important that they have proper support.
In its revised guidance on contraceptive services, the department has advised authorities that they might find it helpful to make separate, less formal facilities. The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, said the abortion rate fell in two quarters following the Law Lords' judgment. Perhaps I may refer the noble Viscount to the Answer in another place on 7th March 1986 arising from a parliamentary Question put by the honourable Member for Solihull. The rate is certainly lower for the first two quarters as compared with last year, and this must be welcomed. However, I should like to see a full year's figures and indeed to see the figure for the overall number of conceptions in these age groups—neither is yet available—before attempting to place any interpretation on the figures.
So far as abortion itself is concerned, your Lordships will be well aware that the Government have traditionally adopted a neutral stance. People have strong views, sincerely held and often widely differing, about abortion. Parliament has decided that abortions may lawfully be carried out in the circumstances specified in the Abortion Act. It is therefore the Government's duty to ensure that its provisions are properly applied. The operation of the Act in the private sector is monitored by the department's medical and lay investigating staff through the vetting of applications for approval and unannounced visits of inspection.
Against that background I should like to make two points. First, whatever the eventual outcome may be, it is important that facilities are readily available to give prompt confirmation of pregnancy and an early uptake of care. This was recommended in the first report of the Maternity Services Advisory Committee, which also stressed the need for each woman to be able to discuss thoroughly with those who will be responsible for her care any medical and social factors which might affect the course of her pregnancy and agree a suitable pattern of care. We have commended this report to the health authorities for their consideration as to the action which could and should be taken locally to improve services.
My second point is that if a pregnancy is to be terminated it is safer and less traumatic if it is done earlier rather than later. I should stress that so far as young people under 20 are concerned, roughly 80 per cent. of all abortions are provided in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Nevertheless, that means that one-fifth
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or so occur later in pregnancy. Our concern about the problem of late abortions generally led to a request by my department that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists should undertake a review of late abortion practice. Their report was published early in 1984, and we have been considering how best to follow up a number of its recommendations.
In particular, the report found that there is avoidable delay in a significant proportion of late abortions either before referral or between assessment and admission. Young single women are at the greatest risk. We are aware that there are wide regional variations in the number of resident women having abortions in the NHS. It is of course for local health authorities to decide the level and scope of the services they provide in the light of local need and available resources. However, we have drawn the report to the attention of the health authorities and have discussed our concern about late abortions with them.
We have also asked them to consider in their own local context the extent of the problem and any developments as regards improving administrative procedures in the handling of abortion cases in the NHS. We are following up these actions with authorities and are continuing to monitor the situation.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, quoted from research undertaken by Isobel Allen. Let me mention another aspect of her research, which was published by the Policy Studies Institute last year and funded by my department. That also revealed concern about late abortions, pointing out that as many as a third of under 16 year-olds and a fifth of 16 to 19 year-olds in their sample did not even go to a doctor until they were 10 weeks pregnant. One of the recommendations in the report was that pilot projects should be set up in the NHS, partly with the aim so far as abortion was concerned of seeing how delays could be avoided and more effective counselling offered. The department recognises the importance of promoting good practice in this area, and it is something which the department is actively considering.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull suggested that counsellors should be attached to general practices. Health visitors, practice nurses and domiciliary midwives are all already attached to practices, and all have training in family planning and counselling. Social workers are also sometimes attached to practices, as she will of course know. My noble friend asked about the grant to the British Association of Counselling. I am afraid that I have no news as yet to report on the grant application made by the British Association of Counselling but it will of course be given the sympathetic consideration shown to all grant applications.
I hope that I have been able to show that the Government share the concern expressed about the importance of counselling and other services for young people to combat the increase in the number of abortions and about the need to reduce the number of late abortions. Education, advice and support are being provided to help discourage young people, especially young girls, from entering upon sexual experience before they are mature enough to cope. For those who, for whatever reason, do not or cannot respond, sympathetic, constructive and supportive help and advice are available.

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As my noble friend Lady Faithfull said, we do not live in a golden, perfect world. We live in an imperfect one in which we must look at the realities. We should acknowledge the improvements that have been made over the years and give credit to the nurses and the doctors who care for patients in what I know are very difficult and depressing circumstances. Successive governments have worked to improve matters. One good result of our efforts is that the back-street abortionist is a thing of the past. However, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and other noble Lords that the Government readily acknowledge that there is more to be done. I have attempted to show the various options we are pursuing to that end.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness, before she sits down, when the Government will counsel those rampaging, randy stags about having unlawful sexual intercourse with girls under the age of 16? It is a criminal offence. The whole bias of the debate and her remarks has been that it is girls who are to blame and that they are the people whom we must counsel all the time. The sexual drive of young men is responsible for the whole situation. When will we hear more about that? We have heard nothing about restraining men's sexual drive.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I mentioned particularly that I welcomed the "Men Too" campaign which the Family Planning Association has recently carried out. I said in my early remarks that I emphatically meant both sexes. If the noble Lord cares to read my speech tomorrow he will see that. I agree with him that, as I said, both sexes need to be counselled. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, will agree with me that this is the only matter in which there are not equal opportunities for both sexes; it is only females who become pregnant.
Viscount Buckmaster: My Lords, may I correct a small point? I said that according to statistics I had the abortion rate for under-age girls fell between the appeal court ruling and the Law Lords' decision; that is to say, it fell during the period in which the law was supporting Mrs. Gillick.
House adjourned at six minutes before ten o'clock.

  READING CROWN AND COUNTY COURT CENTRE
  READING CROWN AND COUNTY COURT CENTRE
  OPIUM-PRODUCING POPPIES: CULTIVATION IN UK
  OPIUM-PRODUCING POPPIES: CULTIVATION IN UK
  MONTREUX CONVENTION AND NAVAL MOVEMENTS
  MONTREUX CONVENTION AND NAVAL MOVEMENTS
  STANSTED AIRPORT: CAPACITY
  STANSTED AIRPORT: CAPACITY
  ANGLO-IRISH AGREEMENT: IMPACT ON NI GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
  ANGLO-IRISH AGREEMENT: IMPACT ON NI GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
  NORTHERN IRELAND ELECTED REPRESEN TATIVES: PAYMENT OF SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES
  NORTHERN IRELAND ELECTED REPRESEN TATIVES: PAYMENT OF SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES
  NORTHERN IRELAND SALMON LEGISLATION
  NORTHERN IRELAND SALMON LEGISLATION