Sitting of 26 March 1986

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

  PRIVATE BUSINESS
  SWANSEA CITY COUNCIL (TAWE BARRAGE) BILL [Lords]
  Amendments agreed to.
  To be read the Third time.
  TEIGNMOUTH QUAY COMPANY BILL (By order)
  COUNTY OF SOUTH GLAMORGAN (TAFF CROSSING) BILL (By Order)
  SOUTH YORKSHIRE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL (By Order)
  BEXLEY LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
  SHOREHAM PORT AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  HARWICH PARKESTON QUAY BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 10 April
  MILFORD HAVEN PORT AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [18 February], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Debate to be resumed upon Thursday 10 April.
  BRITISH RAILWAYS (STANSTED) BILL (By Order)
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [24 February], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Debate to be resumed upon Thursday 10 April.

Oral Answers to Questions
  SCOTLAND

    Youth Unemployment
    Mr. Norman Hogg: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the current level of youth unemployment in each of the Scottish new towns as compared with May 1979.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): At 9 January 1986 the number of unemployed claimants under the age of 18 in wards roughly corresponding to each of the new towns was: Livingston, 399; Irvine, 474; East Kilbride, 360; Glenrothes, 264; Cumbernauld, 389. Comparable figures for 1979 are not available because the jobcentre areas used for the 1979 count included populous areas outside the new town boundaries.
    Mr. Hogg: Will the Secretary of State improve his means of collecting such important statistics? Does he agree that youth unemployment, particularly in young communities, is tragic, as is, the loss of skills that results from such unemployment? Is there not a need for a special project to attract jobs into the new towns to cope with the critical state of youth unemployment?
    Mr. Rifkind: We have improved the procedures. It is precisely for the reason that I gave that we cannot give the 1979 figures for new town unemployment, but can give the relevant figures today in the way that the hon. Gentleman has sought.
    The hon. Gentleman will agree that the new town development corporations do an excellent job in attracting investment to their towns. Indeed, apart from the disappointing news about Burroughs, Cumbernauld has had good news about new jobs from British Oxygen Company, Isola and WKM Great Britain Ltd. Therefore he will appreciate that a considerable number of new jobs have been attracted to Cumbernauld under existing schemes.
    Mr. Forth: Does not the problem of youth unemployment in new towns extend throughout the United Kingdom, and has there not always been a problem because we tend to develop and build and attract population to new towns in advance of our ability to attract jobs and industry? Therefore, are we not really looking for a United Kingdom answer to the problem? Perhaps we should be seeking a way to attract industry and business to all new towns throughout the United Kingdom in order to correct the imbalance that we have inadvertently created.
    Mr. Rifkind: I take my hon. Friend's point, but it is probably unwise to make generalisations about the new towns. Each new town has to be considered in regard to its locality, the availability of employment in that locality and the particular regional or other circumstances which may make it either easier or more difficult to attract employment to that new town.
    Mr. Lambie: From the figures given today by the Secretary of State, he will be aware that the problem of youth unemployment is greatest in Irvine new town. Will

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    he come to Irvine and meet the officials and councillors of Cunninghame district council, who deal not only with the problem of youth unemployment but with that of adult unemployment because every third man in Irvine new town is unemployed? When is the Secretary of State coming to Irvine?
    Mr. Rifkind: At the end of the youth training scheme 62 per cent. of youngsters go into either full-time employment or full-time further education. For the remainder, there are employment opportunities during the months thereafter.
    The hon. Gentleman should draw attention to the good news for Irvine—for example, the decision of Beechams to create 150 new jobs over two years; Fullarton Fabrications which has created 100 new jobs at its plant in Irvine and Stevenston, and announcements by Volvo, Telex Computer Products, SCI (UK) Ltd. and other companies, all of which are either providing new jobs for Irvine or maintaining existing jobs.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is the Secretary of State aware that as a result of the Government's new industrial and regional policy Glenrothes is the only new town in Scotland which is now without development area status? Consequently, the number of new inquiries about investment in Glenrothes has fallen. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman meet the regional council—I wrote to him about a month ago, but have not yet had a reply—in order to discuss that and other matters relating to the Fife region?
    Mr. Rifkind: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern for Glenrothes new town. I am always prepared to hear about the problems of individual new towns. But there has also been some good news for Glenrothes during the past 12 months. For example, McBean and Gibson International has safeguarded more than 100 jobs by securing a major contract. Forth Tool and Valve Limited, a precision engineering company, is engaged in a £1·25 million expansion project. Coors Ceramics and Wimpey construction have each announced projects that will either create new jobs or safeguard existing ones. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes that.

    Textile Industry
    Mr. Kirkwood: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any plans to meet the Scottish Knitwear Council to discuss the current state of the textile industry in Scotland.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has no plans to do so at present.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Does the Secretary of State realise that if he met the Scottish Knitwear Council he would be made aware of the real apprehension felt in towns such as Hawick, in my constituency, over the outcome of the multi-fibre arrangement negotiations which are due to take place in Geneva next week, and would be made aware of the damage that could be done to domestic markets if the volume of imports were allowed to increase beyond existing limits? Is the Under-Secretary aware of the significance of those negotiations for the industry north of the border? Will he give an assurance that he will stiffen
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    the resolve of the officials negotiating the bilaterals within the mandate to maintain the EEC limits set out there as being ceilings that are absolutely sacrosanct?
    Mr. Stewart: Yes, Sir. We are fully aware of the importance of the negotiations, as is my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade. I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that the Government intend that the import levels reported should represent the maximum position of the European Community, and not the starting point for negotiations. As the hon. Gentleman said, the industry is very important for Scotland. But it is encouraging that, for example, Pringle of Scotland has announced a twofold expansion of £6 million at Hawick in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and a new factory involving £6·6 million in Arbroath, in the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. That will mean 150 jobs initially, and a further 400 jobs over the next five years.
    Sir Hector Monro: May I compliment the Government on their firm stand over the MFA negotiations? Will my hon. Friend ensure that pressure is kept up throughout the GATT negotiations, and bear in mind how important the textile industry is both to Scotland and to those employed in it?
    Mr. Stewart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. Indeed, I know that he recently met the Minister for Trade. We are all aware of the textile industry's importance to the Scottish economy.
    Mr. O'Neill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he has the united support of the Labour party, if not of any other party in the House, in stiffening the resolve of Ministers in negotiating the MFA? In my constituency, the unions and the management are of one mind in agreeing that the jobs of 3,000 people in Clackmannan are literally hanging by a thread. We must get a better deal than has been suggested.
    Mr. Stewart: The prospect of having the united support of the Labour party for anything worries me considerably. However, I reiterate the assurance that the Government fully recognise the importance of the textile industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Scottish knitwear industry has a lot to be commended for and complimented on? When he meets the Scottish Knitwear Council, will he remind it that it is in the areas of added value and quality goods that Scotland excels and that we have nothing to be ashamed of and should not hide our light under a bushel?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right to point to the success of the Scottish textile industry. Certainly my right hon. and learned Friend and I are prepared to meet the Scottish Knitwear Council if it wishes to have a meeting in the near future.
    Mr. Steel: Does the Scottish Office have any direct input into the Government's renegotiation of the multifibre arrangement, and if not, why not?
    Mr. Stewart: Of course we do. My right hon. Friend who was then the Minister for Trade, who is now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and I met representatives of the industry with a joint delegation from the unions and the management some time ago. I note that

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    the view of the right hon. Gentleman's party on the multifibre arrangement was expressed in the House by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) on 13 February 1986. He said:
    "I believe that there is a need for a renewed MFA for one more term. But it would be wrong to tighten it, … I believe that any movement should be in the opposite direction."—[Official Report, 13 February 1986; Vol. 91, c. 1132.]
    Mr. Foulkes: I was about to ask the Minister if he would join me in congratulating the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and the right hon. Member the leader of the Liberal party on dissociating themselves from the remarks of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown). Those remarks would threaten nearly 60,000 jobs in Scotland in the textile industry, including 3,000 in my constituency, where the level of unemployment is already 26 per cent. Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that the Government will not accept more than a 1 per cent. increase in imports from South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, or preferably, will ensure that there is no increase in imports from those countries?
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman made a number of detailed points which I am sure will be fully taken acccount of by my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade. It is clear that the policy of the Liberal party on this issue is rather a woolly one.

    Colleges of Education
    Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent representations he has received about the future of the Scottish colleges of education.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: Since the publication of the report by the Scottish Tertiary Education Advisory Council on its review of higher education in Scotland my right hon and learned Friend has received about 100 representations on the future of the colleges of education. These will be taken into account in reaching decisions on the council's recommendations.
    Mr. Canavan: Does the Minister agree that the destructive proposals in the STEAC report contradict the general creative thrust of that same report, which seems to be in favour of a more open and accessible system of higher education in Scotland? The Government have already betrayed three colleges of education by closing them down, in spite of the fact that in 1977 in a Scottish Grand Committee debate many Conservative Members, including the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), argued strongly against college closures. Therefore, will the Minister ask his colleague the Secretary of State to prove that he at least has some personal credibility left by giving us an absolute guarantee that the seven remaining colleges will remain open?
    Mr. Stewart: I can give the hon. Gentleman an absolute guarantee that the Government have reached no conclusion on the recommendations of the STEAC report, nor shall we until the consultation period is completed. We shall, of course, consider all the representations that have been received. There is an Adjournment debate tomorrow afternoon on this important topic. No doubt there will be full attendance by all hon. Members.
    Mr. Corrie: Will my hon. Friend remember that Craigie College in Ayr covers a large rural area in the south-west of Scotland and is vital to the rural economy in that area? Youngsters go from there to be taught in a college and then return to teach in that area.
    Mr. Stewart: I can assure my hon. Friend that this Government are well aware of the importance of Craigie college.
    Mr. Dewar: Does the Minister accept that the strategic and overall case for closure has not been established in the STEAC report, which based its projection on the assumption that there would be only 5,000 college-based students in the next decade? Does he not remember that the Scottish Education Department itself has projected that by 1995–96 there will be over 7,300 such students, and that the Public Accounts Committee has made it clear that essential information on which a decision would have to be based is not yet even collected by the Scottish Office? In those circumstances, does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, on the basis of the STEAC report alone, it would be monstrous to threaten the existence of three colleges of education?
    Mr. Stewart: The STEAC report was a well-considered document. With regard to surplus capacity, I entirely accept that we need up-to-date information. My Department is therefore carrying out a computerised analysis of the available accommodation and course requirements, in conjunction with the colleges. Therefore. it will be on the basis of that up-to-date information that decisions will be reached.
    Mr. Wilson: Is the Minister not aware of the continuing uncertainty in the colleges and the real worry among staff and students about the situation? Will he give an undertaking that the Government will take no action in the interim, such as reducing the staffing of the colleges of education, or, indeed, the intake of students to those colleges, which could alter the final outcome and the decisions that have to be taken?
    Mr. Stewart: I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that we shall not pre-empt any decisions that will eventually be made, although, as he will appreciate, the process of being in touch on course rationalisation is a continuing process. I am aware that, inevitably, there is uncertainty at present. We hope to reach decisions as soon as possible, having considered all the representations that we have received.

    Greater Glasgow Health Board
    Mr. Craigen: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the financial problems facing the Greater Glasgow health board and on any discussions he has had with the board's chairman.
    Mr. Millan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the financial position of the Greater Glasgow health board.
    Mr. Rifkind: The total revenue allocation that I have made to the board for 1986–87 is £380·3 million. That is £21 million higher than in 1985–86. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for home affairs, health and social work has regular meetings with the chairmen of all health boards, including Greater Glasgow.
    Mr. Craigen: If the Secretary of State thinks that the health board is doing so well, why does it seem that there will be a £3 million overspend this year because of the costs that it has to bear? Does the Scottish Office feel that the Greater Glasgow health board receives sufficient recognition of the amount of in-patient and out-patient work that it is doing on a wider scale for the rest of the region, or is it simply that the Scottish Office has it in for the Greater Glasgow health board because of its pragmatic approach to privatisation?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman must have a persecution complex, either on his own behalf or on behalf of the health board, because the Greater Glasgow health board is the best-funded health board in Scotland. Indeed, the allocation that it is receiving for 1986–87 is 5·8 per cent. higher than what it received for the previous year. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, that represents a sum greater than the rate of inflation.
    Mr. Millan: Is the Secretary of State aware that, far from being adequately financed, the board is now facing a financial crisis? Is he further aware that in an answer that he gave on 17 March he said that, in real terms, expenditure in Scotland on the hospital services between 1978–79 and 1988–89—a 10-year period—would rise by only 6·8 per cent., which is less than 1 per cent. per year? That is inadequate for the Health Service as a whole in Scotland. Glasgow's share of that amount is diminishing because of the operation of the Scottish health authorities revenue equalisation formula, although the actual demands on the service in Glasgow are continuing to increase. When will the right hon. and learned Gentleman recognise that there is a genuine financial crisis in health services in Glasgow, that we need more money, and that unless more money is made available there will be severe cuts in services?
    Mr. Rikfind: The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to realise that not only does the Greater Glasgow health board receive more on a per capita basis than any other health authority in Scotland, but that it receives more per capita than any regional health authority in England. Therefore, if the health board is in financial difficulty, that must be primarily its own responsibility. At the moment it receives a sum that represents £405 per capita. The next highest authority in Scotland is Tayside, with £369 per capita, and other health authorities receive smaller sums. Therefore, it is simply not credible for the right hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friends to suggest that Greater Glasgow health board receives other than a very generous provision.
    Mrs. McCurley: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the redistribution or re-allocation of funds in the Health Service away from Greater Glasgow has greatly contributed to the benefit of other health authorities, such as Argyll and Clyde in my constituency? Will he ensure that that trend continues, as other health boards need the cash?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is quite correct. As Glasgow has been treated so generously, authorities such as that referred to by my hon. Friend, and other authorities in Scotland, will next year be given a provision for growth. The provision for Greater Glasgow health board will allow it to maintain its existing services. Other health authorities
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    will have the opportunity to catch up with Glasgow, because they have been given a slightly greater share of the overall resources:
    Dr. Godman: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman at any time discussed with the chairman of the Greater Glasgow health board the appalling design failures in the Royal Infirmary development?
    Mr. Rifkind: No, I have not. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and the Scottish Home and Health Department will be familiar with any problems of that kind to which their attention may be drawn.
    Mr. Fairbairn: Will my right hon. and learned Friend tell the Greater Glasgow health board that if it wishes to increase its finance it should not, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) has done, take such a pragmatic—or even dogmatic—attitude to privatisation? Does he agree that if the health authorities in England can manage to raise £40 million by privatisation—a saving of 25 per cent.—the Scottish health boards, if they did not have such politically perverse attitudes, could also increase their own funding?
    Mr. Rifkind: If any health boards have not properly examined the opportunity for savings to be made by tendering out to private contractors certain services which in the past have been carried out within the Health Service, those boards will have forgone a possible means of making savings which could be used to improve services to their patients.
    Mr. Dewar: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the per capita comparison that he used a few minutes ago is shamelessly misleading because it does not properly take into account the enormous inflow of patients from other areas to the hospitals and specialist facilities in Glasgow? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Greater Glasgow health board had been generously treated. If so, has he been able to convince its members — the people whom he has trusted with the administration of the Health Service in Glasgow and who presumably carry his confidence—about the fairness of the formula?
    I want the Secretary of State to be specific in his reply to my next question. Does he accept the point fairly put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan), that if we look at expenditure between 1978–79 and 1988–89, as revealed in the answer to me on 17 March, and apply the hospitals and community health service pay and price deflator, that proves conclusively that the increase in real terms is substantially below any figure that has been mentioned by any interested group to take account of demographic factors and the increase in medical expertise?
    Mr. Rifkind: The various factors to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention are indeed taken into account in the SHARE formula. The fact that Greater Glasgow provides services for those outside its area is not unique to Greater Glasgow and is taken into account in the way that I have shown.
    I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that health services in Scotland have experienced an increase in resources in real terms of 16·4 per cent. compared with 1979.

    Hospitals
    Mr. Steel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many hospitals have been closed in Scotland since 1979.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John MacKay): Since 1979, 27 hospitals have been closed, involving 1,205 beds. In the same period, over 4,200 new and replacement beds were brought into use as part of projects funded from the national building programme.
    Mr. Steel: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, during the Easter recess I shall receive a petition signed by 8,000 of my constituents from Galashiels and Selkirk protesting against the proposed closure of two cottage hospitals there? Does he accept that there is widespread resentment about the fact that the Government, having built the new hospital in the Borders—we welcome that—are not giving it enough revenue to enable it to be used for the purpose for which it was designed with fully operative geriatric facilities? Instead, GP beds from the cottage hospitals are being decanted into that facility.
    Mr. MacKay: The right hon. Gentleman should remind himself of the petitions and campaign in the Borders in the 1960s and 1970s aimed at replacing the old hospitals with the new £30 million hospital built at Huntlyburn. It was made perfectly clear in May 1974, in the letter conveying the approval in principle to the Borders health board, that the hospitals to be closed when the new hospital was available were Peel, Galashiels, Sanderson, Knowepark and Selkirk and the general practitioner maternity beds in the Borders. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to renege, neither I nor the health board wish to join him.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that during the period in which these 27 hospitals have been closed the Government spent substantial sums on capital projects? Will he confirm that that expenditure greatly exceeded the expenditure during the Lib-Lab pact?
    Mr. MacKay: My hon. Friend is right. The 4,200 beds represent some 42 major new hospital developments completed since 1979. Many other new hospital projects are under construction throughout Scotland.
    Mr. Ron Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman ensure, failing the modernisation of the existing Leith hospital, that any replacement building is erected before the present hospital is demolished?
    Mr. MacKay: The provision of maternity services in Edinburgh, and the provision of geriatric services, including the future of Leith hospital, are being considered by the Lothian health board. Following consultation, the health board will submit its conclusions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for a decision. Until we get the health board's proposals, it would be wrong of me to pre-judge the position.

    Macaulay Institute for Soil Research
    Mr. Bruce: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many representations he has now received about the proposed transfer of the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research from Aberdeen to Edinburgh; and how many were in favour and how many against.
    Mr. John MacKay: A total of 157 letters from organisations and members of the public have been received. There is widespread support for the concept of the new institute. One hundred and thirty-four of the letters are in favour of Aberdeen and 23 have supported the objective assessment of the options, with some in favour of the location in Edinburgh.
    Mr. Bruce: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread concern, not only among the staff of the Macaulay institute but worldwide, that the remit for the new institute will be drawn in such a way as effectively to end much of the excellent work done there? Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that that would he totally against the assurances given by Lord Gray? Will he recognise that the excellent work done by the Macaulay institute can be continued only if the centre is retained in Aberdeen?
    Mr. MacKay: The concept of the merger has been generally welcomed, not least by the staff of both institutes. I accept that there is controversy about the location. That is why an objective assessment of the options is under way.
    Mr. McQuarrie: I am sure that my hon. Friend did not want to mislead the House by saying that the concept had been agreed. It may well have been agreed. It has been agreed that the Macaulay should remain in Aberdeen. That is the important factor. This is not a Conservative or Liberal problem. The problem is fully recognised by all Members representing the Grampian region. Will my hon. Friend ensure that when the feasibility study is concluded, which will be soon, it will be publicised in such a manner as to ensure that it is seen to be fair and in favour of the Macaulay?
    Mr. MacKay: My hon. Friend has an interesting concept of fairness. I recognise that both Aberdeen and Bush estate have attractions. The feasibility study will evaluate those attractions, covering the scientific, administrative and financial aspects. We should await the study before coming to any conclusions.
    Mr. Eadie: Does the Minister agree that a little correction is needed here in relation to geography? The proposition is that the organisation should be sited either in Aberdeen or in Midlothian, and Edinburgh is not Midlothian, and Midlothian is not Edinburgh. Does he further agree that as a promise was given to my constituents on the Bush estate that there would be a feasibility study to decide on the technical merit of the sites, the case for Bush estate must be considered. I demand justice and fairness for my constituents, based on the promise that the Minister gave.
    Mr. MacKay: It is perfectly clear that whatever decision is arrived at will not be satisfactory to both sides of this argument. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that Bush estate is in Midlothian, and he makes a fair point about the advantage of Bush. However, as I said earlier, there are advantages on both sides and the feasibility study ought to lead us to the conclusion of where the balance of advantage lies for the future of the service.
    Mr. Home Robertson: This has absolutely nothing to do with rationalisation and everything to do with cuts in spending on agricultural research and sacking 100 members of staff. Is the Minister aware that he and his

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    colleagues stand condemned for creating an atmosphere of mistrust and fear and for forcing these two excellent research institutes to fight each other for their survival? Will he give an undertaking to consider the constructive proposal put forward by the Civil Service unions for a new Macaulay institute based on both the sites, at the Bush and at Craigiebuckler, in order to meet the growing need for land use research throughout Scotland?
    Mr. MacKay: I think that shows that the hon. Gentleman is trying to have it both ways. As I said earlier, there is fairly general agreement on the sense of a merger between the two bodies, although there is disagreement about where the other organisation should be. The Government are committed to a comprehensive programme of research and development and, even after the reduction of funding, about £30 million a year of taxpayers' money will be spent in this field.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Does the Minister accept that there is no general agreement on the need for a merger? It is opposed by both institutes and by people who know the excellent work that both of them have done over a long period, so there is no reason why the question of amalgamation should have arisen at this time, apart from the Government's plans to cut them down. Will he, in the interest of an informed dialogue among all concerned, make public the remit of the steering group? The Scottish Office will make the decision at the end of the day, and everybody should have the fullest information.
    Mr. MacKay: The right hon Gentleman should read again the correspondence that he has received and he will find that, as I have said, there is general agreement on the principle that it would advance and help the cause of research if these two institutions were merged. The question of the location remains to be decided, and I think that we should await the review.

    Health Boards
    Mr. Maxton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends to meet the chairmen of the Scottish health boards to discuss the budgets for the next financial year 1986–87.
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibilities for Home Affairs, Health and Social work met health board chairmen on 10 March, when the financial provision for hospital and community health services in 1986–87 was discussed in general terms. The next regular meeting with chairmen is to be held in June.
    Mr. Maxton: When that meeting takes place, will the Secretary of State, if he is there, take the chairman of the Greater Glasgow health board, Mr. Donald McQuaker, to one side and tell him whether he agrees with his junior Minister, who said that even if the Treasury gave him £10 million extra tomorrow for health in Scotland,, he would not give the Greater Glasgow health board one brass farthing of it? If that is the case, is it not a disgrace that a junior Minister should express such a view about a city which has the appalling health record of Glasgow in terms of heart disease and lung cancer, which suffers all kinds of deprivation and which provides services for all the areas around Glasgow and for the whole of Scotland in terms of expensive expertise?
    Mr. Rifkind: I was under the impression that the hon. Gentleman spoke from that Dispatch Box on behalf of
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    Scotland's interests, not the interests of any one locality. He knows perfectly well that a SHARE formula is worked out to ensure that all parts of Scotland receive a fair share of the resources available. He also knows perfectly well that Greater Glasgow health board is the health board with the best endowment of health resources in Scotland. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that my hon. Friend and the Government should be seeking to ensure that other parts of Scotland also receive a fair share of the resources available.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: Will my right hon. and learned Friend take the opportunity when he next meets the chairmen of the health boards to discuss with the chairman of the Forth Valley health board whether adequate resources are being provided to deal with the disgraceful, Dickensian conditions that exist in the Royal Scottish national hospital for the mentally handicapped at Larbert? It is a Scottish facility which is in a disgraceful condition. Will my right hon. and learned Friend satisfy himself personally that sufficient resources are being put forward to deal with the problem?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that particular difficulty. The matter is under consideration at present.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: When the Secretary of State's hon. Friend meets the chairman of the Greater Glasgow health board, will he draw his attention to the deteriorating conditions at Woodilee hospital and remind the chairman of the conditions of the staff who are living in health board houses? Will the Secretary of State accept that nobody in my constituency will regard him as generous so long as those intolerable conditions remain?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the health authority to which he refers will be entitled to growth this year to ensure proper provision. Each health board can consider how the SHARE formula operates for its particular locality. I think that the hon. Gentleman's authority is one that will benefit from that, and I can assure him that the resources that will be made available will be based on the formula, which the health boards as a whole see as a reasonable approach to the matter.
    Mr. Fallon: Will my right hon. and learned Friend remind health board chairmen that health spending in Scotland last year was 26 per cent. higher per head than in England? Is that not a generous and formidable difference?
    Mr. Rifkind: For many years the Secretary of State for Scotland has been able to determine within the overall resources made available whether he wishes to give priority to one area of expenditure at the expense of other areas. My hon. Friend will be aware that the total resources made available to the Scottish Office are based on a formula system which allows that flexibility. Scotland has traditionally allocated a significant share of resources to health in particular, because of the emphasis on dental and medical education and other factors. That has led successive Secretaries of State to give priority to that area.
    Mr. Strang: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the SHARE formula should be implemented against a background of real growth in the Health Service, to match, not just the increased, technological advances, but the increased needs arising from higher unemployment and more elderly people? Does he recognise that the problems

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    in Glasgow are similar to those that we have to face in Edinburgh? Is it not a scandal that new geriatric facilities and other facilities which have been invested in have been standing idle in Edinburgh because of the Government's failure to provide adequate resources to the Health Service generally?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman does not know what he is talking about. Next year the provision for health services in Scotland will increase by 6·8 per cent., which is 2·3 per cent. above the forecast level of inflation. Since 1979 the number of medical and dental staff nurses and midwives in Scottish hospitals and health services has increased by 11 per cent. The hon. Gentleman might like to reflect on that.
    Sir Hector Monro: In welcoming the fact that expenditure on the Health Service is the highest ever in real terms, may I ask whether my right hon. and learned Friend has been able to discuss with the chairman of health boards the provision of renal dialysis facilities away from the main centres of population, such as in Dumfries and elsewhere, where patients must travel enormous distances for appropriate treatment?
    Mr. Rifkind: I thank my hon. Friend for the first part of his question. Regarding renal dialysis, the Department is considering that at present.
    Mr. Steel: Will the Secretary of State explain to my constituents why the Government provide the capital for the long-overdue building of the new district general hospital, but not the revenue to enable the board to open the 30-bed geriatric unit as planned?
    Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman must appreciate that when the health authority to which he refers seeks the provision of a new hospital, and is aware of the resources available to it and of the SHARE formula, which ensures that it receives an increasingly fair share of the resources available, it is for the health board to decide on the utilisation of those resources to meet its commitments.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is the Secretary of State aware that it costs up to £15 for a course of treatment? Is he worried about the way in which dentists have to make decisions, not on the basis of their own clinical judgments, but on their assessment of the depth of a patient's pocket if a patient is not drawing benefit?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman knows quite well that a high proportion of patients in Scotland do not make any payment at all for the dental services that they receive. He should also take into account the fact that most dentists, and indeed most doctors, would consider it perfectly proper and responsible that they should have some consideration for the overall costs of the treatment they are giving. We have to consider the best use of health resources, and that applies as much to dentists as to anyone else.

    Forestry
    Mr. Ron Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what new forestry management initiatives are presently being considered by the Forestry Commission; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. John MacKay: The Forestry Commission regularly takes initiatives aimed at improving its efficiency and effectiveness.
    Mr. Davies: Will the Minister give an assurance that if the Government intend to introduce any further changes in forestry practice they will not follow the example that they set yesterday when they announced considerable policy changes by means of a written answer? Will he give a guarantee that there will be full consultation before any changes are introduced; that the results of such consultations will be made widely available; and that when the changes are made they will be made openly by means of a statement in the House?
    Mr. MacKay: This week the Forestry Commission instituted two consultation exercises, one about the membership and procedures of the regional advisory committees, and the other about the role of and the interrelationship between forestry and conservation. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a considerable interest in this subject. The one thing that there is plenty of in this area is consultation.
    Mr. Corrie: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement earlier this week. In widening the grades of land that can be planted, does he accept that we must have good co-operation between agriculture, forestry and the environment to get the situation right in Scotland? Will he have discussions with his right hon. Friend in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to try to get some plan for the rural economy that will take these things into account?
    Mr. MacKay: My hon. Friend is right. It is important to encourage new planting against the background, first, of considerable and increasing surpluses in food production, and, secondly, against the background of our enormous import bill for timber and timber products.
    Mr. Buchan: Will the Minister bear in mind that the worst possible way of ensuring future intelligent management decisions is to allow to develop the practice of private sales of publicly owned forestry and potential forestry land? Will he also bear in mind that the forests of Scotland are there not only for the benefit of their owners, but for the amenity and future of the people of Scotland? Will he resist the ideological craziness of the Prime Minister in her privatisation schemes?
    Mr. MacKay: The disposal policy of the Forestry Commission is still that which was set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), the former Secretary of State for Scotland. Both the Forestry Commission and the private sector have an important role to play in the increasing amount of afforestation in Scotland and in the important and interesting employment that it brings to our rural areas.
    Mr. Maclennan: If the Minister values trees as an alternative to crops in surplus, is he thinking about how to provide farmer-foresters with an annual income?
    Mr. MacKay: I am, indeed, thinking about that. It is one of the matters being discussed inside and outwith the Government. We are discussing how we can encourage farm forestry, and how to encourage farmers to plant trees in place of crops that are currently going into intervention. The hon. Member in correct is saying that one of our problems is how to find a way to provide an income for the farmer, certainly in the first 15 years of the life of the trees.
    Mr. Home Robertson: The Minister is still somewhat equivocal about the Government's ideas for privatising the

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    forestry enterprise of the Forestry Commission. When does he expect his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State to reply to my letter of 4 March in which I asked for a specific undertaking that the Government did not intend to sell off the Forestry Commission's forestry enterprise?
    Mr. MacKay: The position is the quite clear one which I mentioned earlier and which I mentioned at our last Question Time. The disposals policy for the Forestry Commission is as set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). As to the correspondence between my right hon. and learned Friend and the hon. Member, may I suggest that the hon. Member should just hold his patience.

    Financial Sector
    Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to promote the financial sector in Scotland, in view of the changes taking place in financial markets in the United Kingdom and overseas.
    Mr. Rifkind: Scotland, and particularly Edinburgh, has a strong financial sector. I am confident that the reputation of existing institutions, and factors such as a good labour supply and comparatively low costs, mean that Scotland is well placed to face the increased competition but, more important, the increased opportunities which deregulation will provide.
    Mr. Fletcher: Is it not a great tribute to the enterprise of the financial sector in Scotland that 25,000 new jobs have been created since 1979, giving a total of about 150,000 jobs? Will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that Scottish banks and brokers are given the opportunity to participate in the Government's privatisation programme as financial advisers, as there is a strong inclination in Whitehall to look only towards the City of London?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the very important employment prospects that the financial institutions represent. I assure him that advisers are selected strictly on merit. I agree with him that it is of crucial importance that institutions in Edinburgh should be given opportunities that are equal to those available in the City of London to compete for this business.

  SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND

    Freshwater Fishing
    Mr. Canavan: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland what communications the Crown Office has had with procurators fiscal or chief constables about prosecution policy for alleged offences connected with freshwater fishing.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Peter Fraser): Circulars are issued to the procurator fiscal service from time to time. There is, however, no special policy, since the criteria applied to these cases are applied in all criminal prosecutions.
    Mr. Canavan: Will the Solicitor-General send out to all procurators fiscal and chief constables a copy of the excellent letter of 8 April 1981 that was sent to me by the
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    previous Lord Advocate, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in which he stated that the common law position in Scotland with regard to both salmon and trout is that they are the property of nobody until they are caught and that, therefore, brown trout, for example, in an open and unprotected burn, river or loch become the property of the person who catches them and lands them, irrespective of whether that person has obtained permission to fish, and irrespective of whether that person is the owner of the fishing rights? Would not such advice be timely, in view of the fact that the fishing season has restarted in earnest and that ordinary, peaceful, working-class anglers are once again in danger of being bullied by water bailiffs, landlords and policemen?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: For once I am in complete agreement with the hon. Gentleman. It is indeed an excellent letter from the previous Lord Advocate, and I should be very happy if the contents of that letter became widely known. However, the hon. Gentleman should appreciate that in addition to the position at common law, which the former Lord Advocate set out, there are now specific provisions relating to protection orders, which are very important. Similarly, he should not understate the position with regard to civil interdict if some of his constituents decide to go on to other people's land and fish where they should not do so.
    Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that many of the fines for poaching, including killing fish with cyanide and explosives, are pathetic? What is the point of introducing such heavier fines in the Salmon Bill [Lords] if sheriffs and judges will not implement the present maximum fine?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I do not know to which cases my hon. Friend is referring, but he will appreciate that it is not for me to mention particular sentences. However, I am surprised that he said that, because I am aware that in Tayside the sheriffs have taken a very stern view of those who adopt these particularly appalling approaches to poaching, which cause the death not only of the fish that they catch but of absolutely everything that is living in the river.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: What consideration has the hon. and learned Gentleman given to the provision in the Salmon Bill that convictions may lie on the basis of the evidence of one witness? How does he think that will improve the position of procurators fiscal and chief constables, and what steps has he taken to change that?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am not sure that it is appropriate for me to comment upon legislation that is still to come before the House. However, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that under existing salmon and freshwater fishing legislation provision is already made for there to be action on the basis of one witness.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware of the bizarre practices in Stirling, and I dare say, in other areas, whereby illegal nets which have been confiscated from poachers are later auctioned off by the courts so that they can be bought at a discount by other people who can use them? Will he put an end to this practice and give guidelines to the sheriffs on this issue?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: It is a profitable activity, to which I am surprised my hon. Friend takes exception. He will appreciate that that is not, strictly

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    speaking, a matter for me. There are provisions relating to the seizure of nets and catches. In those circumstances, additional fines can be imposed, not just a single fine.

    Medical Accidents
    Mr. Lambie: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received regarding the application of the law regarding medical accidents.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: My noble and learned Friend, the Lord Advocate, and I recently met the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) and for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), when they expressed their concern about the law, in Scotland, on the liability to make reparation for medical accidents and suggested a reference to the Scottish Law Commission.
    Mr. Lambie: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that my hon. Friends the Members for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) and I attended a public meeting in Kilmarnock attended by 200 people who were concerned about the law as it relates to the no-fault procedures for medical accidents? The meeting was the result of interest generated by a recent Ayrshire court case. Does the Solicitor-General intend to introduce amending legislation to change this unjust law?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am aware of the circumstances of that public meeting. From what has been put to me, however, it would seem that it is not a matter that would be appropriate for my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate to refer to the Scottish Law Commission. I appreciate that at the meeting a strong case was put forward for a no-fault scheme. If such a scheme were to be considered, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it would be a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland rather than for myself.

    Representation of the People Acts
    Mr. Maxton: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many prosecutions there have been in Scotland under sections 9 and 10 of the Representation of the People Acts 1948 and 1983, since 1956.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The sections referred to do not themselves create criminal offences. However, there are offences relating to the failure to comply with, or the giving of false information in response to, a requisition from the Registration Officer under regulation 30 of Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 1983. Statistics on these are not separately recorded.
    Mr. Maxton: That does not surprise me. Does the Solicitor-General agree that when his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State introduces his poll tax and the electoral register becomes the major source of information for the new register, the number of prosecutions will increase dramatically? Will not the fines increase dramatically? Is it not possible that some poor people will finish up in prison? Is that not a threat to democracy itself?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: It astonishes me that the hon. Gentleman has still not read the Green Paper.
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    I shall try, very slowly, to explain to him yet again that there are to be two separate registers and that there is to be a community charge register. It is true that the fines for failure to be registered under the community charge will be greater, but I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman takes exception to that. If people refuse, to go on to the community charge register, that will amount to an evasion of tax. I should think that the hon. Gentleman would strongly disapprove of that.

    Mobbing and Rioting (Charges)
    Mr. Wallace: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland whether the Lord Advocate has instituted any changes in the use and manner of libelling of charges of mobbing and rioting, in the light of the comments in the letter to him from the chairman of the Scottish Law Commission dated 24 February; and if he will make a statement.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The Lord Advocate has instructed that the chairman's comments be borne in mind when preparing indictments in cases of mobbing and rioting, and the matter is to be further discussed by me with Crown counsel.
    Mr. Wallace: Does the Solicitor-General acknowledge that the import of the letter from the chairman of the Scottish Law Commission was that some practical steps could resolve the problem, rather than the introduction of new statutory offences? Using the same logic, does the Solicitor-General consider that, rather than introduce the new statutory Public Order Bill, as it applies to Scotland, he should rely more on sensitive policing, as practised by the police for many years? We should not go down the road proposed by the Bill, which could bring the police into a degree of political conflict.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am not sure what that question has to do with mobbing and rioting. However, I recall that during the miners' strike a number of Opposition Members saw the then Secretary of State and myself to say that, in certain circumstances, they thought the existing common law in Scotland was inappropriate to deal with such public order situations.

    Law on Diligence
    Mr. Hugh Brown: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland when he expects to be in a position to announce decisions on the report of the Scottish Law Commission on the law on diligence; and if he will make a statement.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The formal consultation period has just ended, although arrangements have been made for certain consultees whose views the Government are anxious to have to be able to submit their comments late. I am not in a position to say when our consideration of the comments will be completed, but I can assure the House that my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate and I wish to make early progress with reform of the law.
    Mr. Brown: As the subject has been under consideration for almost 15 years, may we have some idea whether the legislation will be introduced this year or next year, particularly as there may be an increased demand for the services as a result of criminal enforcement in relation to the community charge?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The consultation period ended just a week ago. I can only emphasise once again that we are keen to have legislation introduced on this matter at the earliest possible opportunity. I should certainly by very pleased indeed not to have to answer any more questions from the Dispatch Box about warrant sales.

    Medical Accidents
    Mr. McKelvey: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland if he will refer to the Scottish Law Commission for its consideration the law concerning medical accidents; and if he will make a statement.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: My noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate and I recently met the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). I am not aware of any evidence that the law in Scotland on medical
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    accidents is in need of review by the Scottish Law Commission. As I have already said, consideration of a no-fault scheme to cover such accidents would be for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. McKelvey: Will the Solicitor-General nevertheless make it clear to the Lord Advocate that there is great unhappiness in Scotland about the law as it stands? Will he suggest, for instance, that the Pearson commission be reconvened to consider the operation of the law in New Zealand and to see whether a similar law could be moulded to fit the Scottish scene?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley passed me a report on the New Zealand experience, and I am ensuring that it is passed on. My information about the Swedish scheme, however, is that it is being reviewed because of the great administrative expense arising from its operation.

Peace Tax
3.31 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: I beg to move,
That leave he given to bring in a Bill to allow people to withhold that portion of their tax which is at present spent on arms and related purposes, and to facilitate the payment by them of sums so withheld to peaceful non-governmental purposes.
Early this morning I went to Gloucester prison for the release of Arthur Windsor, an old age pensioner who is not a criminal but could more aptly be described as a prisoner of conscience. He was sent to prison for refusing to pay a tax demand for about £100 to the Inland Revenue on the ground that he had strongly held conscientious objections to the financing of warfare.
Mr. Windsor is not a tax dodger. He tried to make the payment to the National Health Service or the Overseas Development Administration, but the cheques were returned. As a result, he became the first conscientious objector to be gaoled in this country since conscription ended more than a quarter of a century ago.
Way back in 1916, during the first world war, Parliament gave statutory recognition to the rights of conscientious objectors who wished to opt out of military service. Today, in the nuclear age, we have a different type and scale of warfare. Because of the possibility—indeed, the probability—of indiscriminate annihilation if nuclear warfare ever comes to pass, there are strong grounds for arguing that recognition of the right of conscientious objection should be extended to those who have strongly held conscientious objections to financing warfare through taxation.
The annual budget of the Ministry of Defence is about £18 billion, much of which is spent on weapons of war and mass destruction. Many people strongly object to the fact that when millions of people in the Third world face starvation, this country alone proposes to spend £10,000 million of taxpayers' money on the Trident nuclear weapon.
Mr. Eric Forth: Over 15 years.
Mr. Canavan: My Bill proposes the establishment of a peace fund. Individuals would have the right to assign part of their tax to peace-building projects financed through the peace fund. I do not propose any new tax or any net increase or decrease in taxation. If a person chose to register his or her conscientious objection to the financing of warfare through taxation, the Treasury would make an appropriate payment for that person into a peace fund.
Under my proposals, the normal payment would be the average individual contribution to the defence budget. As I said earlier, the total defence budget is about £18 billion per year; the electorate is about 40 million. If we divide the first figure by the second, we get an amount of £450 per annum. That is how much the average person contributes to the budget of the Ministry of Defence. Under my proposals, therefore, an individual would have the right to demand that the Treasury paid up to £450 per annum into the peace fund rather than to the MOD budget.
The peace fund would be administered by trustees whose appointment would be subject to parliamentary approval and who would be accountable to Parliament. The trustees would have to present an annual report to Parliament. The peace fund would be disbursed for peace-building programmes—for example, by payments to
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voluntary agencies working in the Third world such as OXFAM, Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and War on Want.
Some Conservative Members may say, "Wait a minute; this might create a dangerous precedent. It would open the doors for all sorts of people who object to various items of Government expenditure and would encourage them to withhold their taxes." It would be ironic if a party which supposedly believes in the freedom of the individual were to deny the freedom of an individual in this case.
I argue more strongly that my Bill creates no precedent; it simply follows the precedent which was enacted in the 1916 legislation, when Parliament gave statutory recognition to those who have conscientious objections to military service. If it is morally wrong to kill people, it is also morally wrong to pay other people to do the killing or to pay for the weapons which kill. The horrific, indiscriminate nature of modern warfare, particularly nuclear warfare, reinforces the conscientious objections of those who feel that the taxation system conscripts them into paying for the most destructive and evil war machine in which this country has ever been involved.
Many people have strong moral objections to participating in such a crime against humanity. My Bill would give them the right to transfer some resources from warmongering to peace-building. My Bill is a humane and sensible extension of the rights of conscience. Therefore, I ask all hon. Members to support it. Perhaps not everyone will agree with the pacifist ideals of people such as Arthur Windsor, but nobody can doubt the strength of his conviction and the sincerity of his beliefs. British history books contain many examples of extra-parliamentary campaigns by people who had the courage of their convictions to stand up and be counted; at times they resorted even to civil disobedience and as a result were gaoled for their beliefs before this House eventually responded to their legitimate demands for a change in the law. Arthur Windsor has joined that list of brave people. I ask the House to salute his courageous example by supporting my Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Dennis Canavan, Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. Bob McTaggart, Mr. Sian Thorne, Mr. Robert Parry, Mr. Eddie Loyden, Mr. Ernie Ross, Mr. Alfred Dubs, Mr. Bob Edwards, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Allen Adams and Mr. Gavin Strang.

Peace Tax
  PEACE TAX
  Mr. Dennis Canavan accordingly presented a Bill to allow people to withhold that portion of their tax which is at present spent on arms and related purposes, and to facilitate the payment by them of sums so withheld to peaceful non-governmental purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 11 April and to be printed. [Bill 124.]

  ROYAL ASSENT
  Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

  1. Museum of London Act 1986.

  2. Law Reform (Parent and Child) (Scotland) Act 1986.

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  3. Local Government Act 1986.

  4. Peterhead Harbour (South Bay Development) Order Confirmation Act 1986.

Immigration (Members' Representations)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Malone.]
Mr. Speaker: I must tell the House that a great number of right hon. and hon. Members have already sought leave to speak in the debate. I propose to impose a 10-minute limit on speeches between 6 o'clock and 8 o'clock, and I hope that those who speak before that time or who may be called afterwards will also bear that limit in mind. I think that every hon. Member who wishes to speak may then be called.
3.41 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): When we last discussed this matter on 29 October last year, I explained to the House why we felt that there is a need to review the arrangements for dealing with representations by right hon. and hon. Members in immigration cases. On 11 February, I put proposals before the House in the form of a draft guidance, setting out how the Home Office proposed to handle such cases. That announcement looked forward to a process of consultation, and to this debate, before new arrangements were introduced. I am grateful that so many right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House have, in meetings and letters, offered their comments on our initial draft proposals. The consultation process has turned out to be a real one, as it was meant to be. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State saw a large number of hon. Members from all parts of the House to hear their views. He received a number of letters from hon. Members and a paper from the parliamentary Labour party. The results of that consultation are set out in the revised draft guidelines which I presented to the House on 19 March and which are the focus of today's debate.
I hope that today we are, as a House, showing our readiness to face responsibly the consequences of procedures and practices that have grown up over the years under different Governments, they have grown up without previous debate and without—so far as I know—any guidance to hon. Members on matters that touch the constituency responsibilities of a great many of us and go to the heart of one of the central and essential functions of the State—the control of immigration.
I have been anxious to proceed in this matter, to the greatest possible extent, by agreement. Under different Governments, the House has for many years recognised the need for immigration control. In some ways it is perhaps surprising that this is the first time that we have thought it necessary to review the arrangements under which hon. Members make representations in immigration cases. The procedures have grown up by convention, not law, and it has become accepted that, as a matter of practice, the mere fact of a representation by a right hon. or hon. Member should, in the general run of cases, be sufficient to achieve the deferment of the removal of a person from this country. That is a unique facility given to hon. Members by custom, and valued by the House. I can think of no other area of policy in which an hon. Member can unilaterally and immediately alter the course of events before any consideration by a Minister. We need

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to be sure that the arrangement can be handled in future in a way that tries to ensure that it does not collapse under the weight that it is asked to bear.
I hope that the central issue of today's debate will be not the nature of our immigration control but the way in which we can achieve the right balance between the ability of hon. Members to carry out their responsibilities to their constituents and the need for effective and efficient immigration control in accordance with the Immigration Act and the rules approved by Parliament.
The guidance that we have tabled is not an attempt to tighten immigration control. What we have been trying to do is to give back to the control the effect that Parliament intended, without removing the rights of representation which have been developed in the way that I have described.
We recognise the need for an immigration control which is both firm and fair. We recognise the commitment to the admission of wives and children of men who have settled here. We recognise that the system enables ready admission for genuine visitors to the United Kingdom. We have not changed the criteria under which visitors are dealt with when they arrive in this country.
Therefore, there is nothing in the proposals before the House today which changes the policy, criteria or practice of immigration control. The guidance is there in an attempt to bring order to traditional arrangements of representations which, in their sharp increase over the past three years, are threatening to undermine the control.
I give the updated figures. In each of the three years 1980, 1981 and 1982, representations by right hon. and hon. Members were made in about 1,000 cases involving refusal at a port of entry. The number of cases has increased in each year since then to about 2,500 in 1983, 3,500 in 1984 and about 5,700 in 1985.
In the first two months of this year the number of representations in ports cases has been about 1,200, at what is usually the lightest period of the year. That would make an annual total of over 7,000 cases. Those figures do not include second or subsequent representations on the same case.
I must underline the fact that the growth in representations has occurred without any change in the law regarding the admission of visitors, without any material change in the rules and without any change in the criteria applied by the immigration service.
Mr. Max Madden: I am sure that the Home Secetary would wish to be fair in what he has said about the increase in Members' representations. I am sure that he will agree that that reflects the increased number of refusals. Only a small number of people who are refused entry into Britain turn to a Member of Parliament for assistance; as there is no effective right of appeal, that is not surprising. Therefore, will he give the figures for the number of people refused entry last year, which was substantially above the figure for 1984?
Mr. Hurd: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's analysis. Between 1982 and 1983 there was a 14 per cent. increase in refusals but a 150 per cent. increase in representations. As I have said, there has been no change in the criteria applied by the immigration service.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Can my right hon. Friend reveal how many representations in that shocking rise come from Members who are not connected
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with the constituency involved? Of those, how many hon. Members fail to put their representations or reasons for delaying the deportation in writing within the 12 days which is requested?
Mr. Hurd: I cannot give that information. The last time we debated this subject we looked back over such points as my hon. Friend raises. I am rather keen to look forward today to the kind of guidelines which would seem reasonable to the House for the future and which, incidentally, would deal with some of his points.
The effect of the process that I have described has been to draw more and more immigration officers away from their work at the initial control; that has slowed down the clearance of the huge majority of passengers who are eligible for admission.
The process of handling the volume of contested cases has meant that ineligible passengers have been able to spend long periods here on temporary admission while their cases were being considered. That is obviously not the control that Parliament intended or that the pubic have a right to expect us to operate . I hope the House will accept that I am concerned that, unless the system of making and handling representations is improved, it will crack under its own weight as passenger traffic continues to rise year on year.
I should add, to complete the general picture of the problem that we face, that the number of representations made about immigration cases generally—that is to say, after entry as well as on entry cases—increased from about 9,000 in 1981 to just over 16,000 in 1985. Those are the concerns that have led to the guidance and the process of consultation.
The latest version of the guidance, which follows consultation, differs from the draft guidelines announced on 11 February in several respects, but not in relation to the central issue of the need for sensible time scales to be accepted for the making of representations. That is the principal element in making our arrangements work.
The new guidance does not include the facility that we originally suggested for right hon. and hon. Members to contact the immigration service at ports to arrange deferment of removal, and to obtain the reasons underlying the decision to refuse leave to enter. The intention behind this proposal, which was put forward in response to views expressed by some right hon. and hon. Members, was that Members of Parliament would be better able to judge, on the basis of the information that they obtained direct from the ports, whether representations to Ministers were justified. These are issues of practicality, not great questions of principle.
To represent those original proposals as being in some way unconstitutional or as somehow restricting the rights of Members of Parliament seemed to me to puff up out of recognition something that is essentially a question of convenience.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Hurd: Perhaps I may finish this part of the argument before giving way to the hon. Gentleman. I may have met his point by then.
There was, and is, no suggestion at all that a right hon. or hon. Member should be denied the right to make these representations either to me or to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State. The question was simply

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whether the "stop", which normally precedes any representations, should be imposed by a Member of Parliament, as happens now, through a private office, or whether it should be imposed by a Member of Parliament in direct communication with the port, which would enable him to learn more of the case before deciding whether to impose a stop. At that stage, there is no question of representations. Hon. Members do not need to make representations or to convince anyone in order to impose a stop. The question is what channel should be used. Does the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) still want to intervene?
Mr. Faulds: Yes. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that there had been consultations prior to the issuance of the first guidelines. If that consultation had been as wide as it should have been, the foolhardy and misguided first guidelines would never have been introduced. I cannot remember that I was consulted about these matters, and I have as many immigration cases as most other hon. Members.
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman's intervention neatly illustrates one of the laws of politics, which is that whenever one begins to consult people, they immediately say that one should have started consulting them earlier.
Mr. Faulds: Did the Government consult before the guidelines?
Mr. Hurd: We consulted right hon. and hon. Members on the basis of the first draft; that is how we arrived at the second draft. [Interruption.] We consulted, and the results are before the House. But in response to the feeling expressed by right hon. and hon. Members in several parts of the House, we proposed to retain the present facility of ringing my private office, or that of my hon. and learned Friend, to ask for the removal of a passenger to be deferred while representations are made and considered. I am therefore ready to see whether that traditional channel for the imposition of a stop can effectively be sustained—
Ms. Clare Short: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd: I will give way later. Perhaps I may be allowed to get on.
Ms. Short: It is on a point that the Home Secretary raised.
Mr. Hurd: Very well.
Ms. Short: The right hon. Gentleman said that there was absolutely no constitutional point in these guidelines. I must challenge that. The guidelines say that if a Member of Parliament gives honest advice to a constituent about how a likely visitor will be treated, a mark will be put against the visitor and he or she is likely to be refused. That is a serious point and represents a new development.
Mr. Hurd: I shall come to the point.
Hon. Members have expressed concern about the role of the constituency Member of Parliament. The draft guidelines have been amended to reflect the need for hon. Members to act for a colleague when he or she is not available. I would not want to go further than that in the draft guidelines, but I assure the House that these arrangements will be operated flexibly. I assure the House,
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too, that there is no intention to change the existing arrangement whereby the staff employed by hon. Members can make representations on their behalf to my private office or to that of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State.
In the revised draft guidelines, we also thought it right to clarify the proposal about temporary admission and detention. There is no intention—I must underline this to the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short)—to apply anything other than the normal criteria for the grant of temporary admission in cases where a passenger has received advice from right hon. and hon. Members before travelling to this country.
However, temporary admission will not be granted readily if there is clear evidence that a right hon. or hon. Member has advised a passenger, who he knows is most unlikely to be granted admission, to travel without entry clearance on the presumption that he will gain access to the country on temporary admission simply as a result of representations made to me or my hon. and learned Friend. We think that it would be wrong to allow passengers refused leave to enter to benefit in that way. Temporary admission is designed as an alternative to detention and not as a variant of leave to enter.
Mr. Faulds rose—
Mr. Hurd: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has said his piece.
We have also taken the opportunity to explain in the guidance the provisions of the immigration rules relating to marriage and the effect of them on those who become engaged to marry, or who marry while on temporary admission. The rules require those who wish to come here to marry to obtain prior entry clearance from abroad. We think that it would be unfair to those who abide by the rules and seek entry clearance from abroad to allow those who become engaged or who marry while on temporary admission to gain advantage by avoiding the requirements of the law in that way.
We have seriously considered a practical point which has been made on both sides of the House, about time limits for making representations. It is crucial if we are to get the balance right, to have sensible time limits. We propose an increase fom 10 to 12 working days for port refusal cases. I accept that there will have to be reasonable flexibility to deal with cases in which right hon. or hon. Members face real difficulties. However, we shall be looking to see that the limits are properly observed.
In the revised draft guidelines, we have also reflected the concern which some right hon. and hon. Members have felt about after-entry cases in which there is no right of appeal or where that right has not been exercised. We accept that obtaining information in those cases may not always be as simple as it should be when an after-entry case has been dealt with by the appellate authorities, so we propose that the same twelve working days time scale should be applied.
I hope that, in putting out the guidance, we are clarifying for right hon. and hon. Members the way in which my hon. and learned Friend and I have to approach the cases put to us. There is still some discussion and dispute about that point. As the guidance explains, in passenger cases the decision in law is properly that of the immigration officer. The law provides for the right of appeal from abroad against an adverse decision,. When we

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receive representations from right hon. and hon. Members, we are being asked to override the decision of the immigration officer outside the appeal machinery. Therefore, we must look for new information that was not before the immigration officer. That information has to be compelling if it is to push us towards overturning the earlier decision.
Mr. Stuart Holland: If 12 days can be difficult, five days—in the case of making an appeal where an appeal has been dismissed and the Member requests deferral—can be virtually impossible. That is especially so not only for mail delays in representations, but if a law centre wants to make a detailed point on new and significant information. That is relevant to the point that the Home Secretary was making. I suggest to the Home Secretary that the five-day period should be extended. If not, we will he in dispute on what is new and significant representation and what is representation in the first place within the five-day limit.
Mr. Hurd: The point of the distinction is that, in the cases which have gone to appeal, the facts are there. There may he a difference of view about the interpretation of them, but there is no need for further devilling about the facts. Therefore, five working days seems to be a reasonable limit in those cases, whereas 12 working days might be necessary in cases which have not gone to appeal.
Mr. George Park: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd: I had better get on. I have given way quite extensively.
Mr. Park: I just want to make a quick point.
Mr. Hurd: All right.
Mr. Park: Assuming that hon. Members put their initial queries to the immigration service, how many extra staff will the right hon. Gentleman allocate, and what additional facilities will there be for the officers? The staff are grossly overworked now.
Mr. Hurd: We have abandoned that suggestion because a considerable number of right hon. and hon. Members did not think that it was the right way of doing it. I have tried to explain why I have put forward the proposals, but I may have confused the hon. Gentleman. We are not pressing that point now.
Such is the guidance that we propose, after the consideration that we have given to all the views that have emerged from the process of consultation. In addition to that review, and because we expect further pressure on the ports, we have increased the staffing provision for 1986–87 by 52 posts over those originally planned, and announced further financial provision for the immigration service in later years of about £3 million per year.
The new scheme for handling representations, together with the increased provision that I have just announced for the immigration service, provide a firmer basis for facing pressures on immigration control this year than last year. However, we cannot be sure that the steps that we have taken and the measures that we propose will meet all possible contingencies in the coming months.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of people in this country want a firm immigration control to be sustained. I should like to see that achieved by continuing to take full advantage of our traditional arrangements of relying on the
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judgment of immigration officers at the ports of entry, as the law provides, but the strain placed on our on-entry system of immigration control from rising passenger traffic, increased refusals and the growth of representations will remain severe. It strains the patience of the vast majority of passengers waiting in line for a brief interview with an immigration officer; it strains the commitment and job satisfaction of staff; it strains the effectiveness of the control itself. Therefore, we shall have to keep a close watch on the way in which that position develops during the summer and be ready, if necessary, to adapt further our arrangements and systems.
Mr. Faulds: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hurd: I shall give way at last to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Faulds: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman because he will know that those of us who are sitting around here are immediately and intimately connected with these particular problems. I very strongly support—[Interruption.] If you do not like it, you do not have to listen. If you are quiet, I will get it over quicker.
I very strongly support the length of term in which hon. Members are allowed to make representations. I think that that has been abused in the past. But one of the real problems about the length of stay of those who come in on temporary admission is the lack of staff in the Minister of State's office. If there were more people dealing with the problems in his office, temporary admission would not be as extended as it frequently is in many, many cases.
Mr. Hurd: My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State has a substantial number of staff. I am sure that he will want to take up the hon. Gentleman's point when he replies.
My judgment, as far as I can make one this afternoon, is that the proposals that are now before the House, which have emerged from the helpful process of consultation, are sensible and will help to enable right hon. and hon. Members to discharge their responsibilities in a way that is more compatible than previously with an effective immigration control. I intend that the new changes should be introduced from 1 May. I commend the proposed arrangements, and I trust that they will be welcomed by the House.
4.4 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Last Friday afternoon, just before I left the House for the weekend, I received a telephone call from a woman in my constituency. She told me that she was expecting her mother to arrive at Heathrow on Sunday afternoon, on a family visit. She wanted to know all the telephone numbers at which I would be available throughout Sunday in case her mother had any difficulty in being admitted.
I regularly receive such telephone calls, together with similar letters and visits to my constituency advice bureaux. Sometimes the visitor does indeed have trouble and I am telephoned and asked whether I can sort it out. Sorting out such a problem can take many hours, even days. Sometimes, as in the case last weekend, there is no trouble and the visitor is admitted without difficulty, but in each of those cases, whether I am called upon to assist

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or not, there is, on the part of my constituent, the apprehension of trouble, the fear of trouble, the need to take advance precautions against trouble.
Those telephone calls do not come from constituents of mine expecting visitors from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or even South Africa. They do not come from constituents expecting visitors from Poland, although I am proud to say that I have substantial numbers of constituents of Polish origin. No, those calls come from constituents whose families originate from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It is the discrimination against visitors from those and a certain number of other countries, mainly in the new Commonwealth, that lies behind the debate.
That discrimination is demonstrated in the published statistics. They show that, for example, in 1984, a passenger from Ghana had one chance in 22 of being refused admission to this country while, for Canadians, one in 8,890 was refused admission. Refusals to passengers from Canada were 0·01 per cent., one hundredth of 1 per cent. of those seeking admission. The figure for Australia was 0·02 per cent., and for New Zealand and the United States it was 0·3 per cent. For India refusals were 0·9 per cent., nine tenths of 1 per cent.—90 times the Canadian average.
Mr. Tony Marlow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: Not just yet. In a little while.
The figure for Pakistan is 1·3 per cent., 130 times that of Canada. For Bangladesh is 1·7 per cent., 170 times the Canadian average. What is more, the discrimination in the refusal rate has been growing. The tiny Canadian percentage is half what it was in 1978, the last year of the Labour Government. The Australian and United States percentages are unchanged. The New Zealand percentage is up by 50 per cent. but the actual percentage increase of 0·01 per cent. is scarcely worth noticing. The actual number of refusals is up from 18 to just 27, in a year. Pakistan, too, has a 50 per cent. increase, but that means that the number of refusals is up from 946 to 1,415. The figure for Bangladesh is up by 77 per cent. and for India by 130 per cent.
There is a huge differential between the treatment of travellers from the old Commonwealth and the United States on the one hand, and the new Commonwealth and Pakistan and the other. That differential has widened. However, it is not simply statistical. It is subjective as well. British citizens whose origins lie in the new Commonwealth and Pakistan feel that they are being treated differently and worse. They believe that that difference is due to racialist attitudes—[Interruption.] That is what they believe. That is what my constituents tell me when they come to see me.
Mr. Marlow: May I help the right hon. Gentleman? Is it not the case that the economic differences between the United Kingdom and the Indian sub-continent are much greater than those between the United Kingdom and the old Commonwealth and the United States? Therefore, is it not the case that many people from the Indian subcontinent would wish, one way or the other, to gain entry to the United Kingdom, whether it is legal or not? Therefore, is not vigilance right and proper? Can the right hon. Gentleman not tell his constituents that that is why those differences occur?
Mr. Kaufman: When women constituents of mine have fallen in love with a man in India or Pakistan, and when they are born in this country and are British citizens, telling them that they are not allowed to marry the man of their choice and live with him in the country of their nationality is not something that I find easy to explain. The hon. Gentleman may be more persuasive than I am. I shall cover the other matter which the hon. Gentleman raised in the course of my speech.
Constituents seek the help of their Members of Parliament because of their subjective feelings. In the context of this debate, we are not talking principally about those people seeking admission for permanent settlement in Britain. Instead, we are talking about would-be visitors, the people who just wish to come to this country for a short time and then leave. The House should be aware that if these people are admitted, almost all go away again. These people are not dominated by some passionate yearning to enter this country as visitors and then to go into hiding in order to benefit from the right to live under Thatcherism.
People given temporary admission are, in the Government's eyes, by definition, the most suspect group as they have not been allowed to exercise their right as visitors to enter automatically. Even in that group, in 1984, only 2 per cent. failed to leave this country. People, mainly from the Indian sub-continent, approach Members of Parliament because they have found that their visitors are not being admitted.
Such requests for help have given rise to the stop system under which a Member of Parliament has the right to prevent a removal until a ministerial reply has been obtained on the request for admission. Although the number of requested stops has substantially increased, that is not because hon. Members are dealing with a much higher proportion of refusal cases. The proportion of stop cases has only slightly increased. They have increased because the refusals have increased. The necessary increase in the use of the stop system caused both by the disturbing rise in the number of refusals and the growing knowledge among those affected that a Member of Parliament can help, led to the strange events of last October and the allegations by the Minister of State, Home Office.
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: As my right hon. Friend has said, there has been an increase in visits. In cases that are referred to hon. Members, the Minister's letter is often couched in terms which imply that the Minister of State has doubts about the position. In some cases the period in this country is only a few months. However, the reasons advanced for the refusal of entry are often trivial. If they were not so bloody trivial and immigration officers granted formal admission, hon. Members would be relieved of this task.
Mr. Kaufman: If would-be tourists from the United States were subjected to the kind of questioning endured by tourists from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, this country's dollar inflow would be cripplingly damaged.
Mr. John Carlisle: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: I will not give way at this stage, but I may do so later on.
Before my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) intervened, I was referring to the allegations

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made last October by the Minister of State. We should be fair to the hon. and learned Gentleman as it seems that he might have become overwrought by the increase in traffic last year from Bangladesh. If so, he must blame the high commission in Dhaka which issued two press notices which might almost have been interpreted as invitations to enter Britain. One, headed "Changes in British immigration rules" said:
"The Immigration Rules governing persons who wish to settle in the United Kingdom are due to be changed on 26 August 1985. The effect of these proposed changes will be that a husband whose wife is settled in the United Kingdom will be entitled to apply to join her there whether or not she has taken British citizenship."
The other press notice, headed "Visitors to the United Kingdom" stated:
"Following speculation about the recent changes in British Immigration rules the British High Commission in Dhaka has confirmed that these changes do not in any way affect visitors to the United Kingdom. There is no mandatory requirement for Bangladeshi nationals to have Entry Certificates or visas for visits to the United Kingdom."
Be that as it may, during Home Office questions on 24 October 1985, the Minister of State, answering a perfectly innocent and sensible question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), suffered a rush of blood to the head and launched an attack on certain unspecified hon. Members who, he claimed, were
"abusing their right to make representations in cases."
In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds)—a question, as one might expect which was, if possible, even more innocuous than that from my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood,—the Minister of State repeated his charge. He said:
"something is going wrong with the system because some hon. Members are abusing—I am not afraid to use that word—that system."—[Official Report, 24 October 1985; Vol. 84, c. 412–420.]
Hon. Members were naturally interested to know who those dishonourable Members might be. Demands were made for a statement and the Minister of State obliged not with a statement but with one of those bogus points of order which, until Mr. Speaker put a stop to them, Ministers have been wont to resort to in lieu of statements. The Minister of State sent me a letter in which he claimed that he was
"Setting out the various abuses which have occurred."
The Minister of State continued defiantly in his letter:
"I want to make it plain that I would not be cataloguing the abuses if I were not able to name names."
The Minister of State's letter listed six alleged abuses, none of which actually was an abuse and some, if not all of which, have at one time or another been employed by hon. Members on both sides of the House who deal with these cases. Indeed, in his letter, the Minister of State missed out the practice of one Conservative Member who actively touts for custom. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name him"]. The Minister refused to name names, but I should be very glad to name the hon. Gentleman. He is of course the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler), who sends out letters inviting people to claim his assistance.
Mr. Geoff Lawler: That is a scurrilous slur on my integrity, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would care to substantiate his remark. The only thing that I can possibly think that he is referring to is the practice which he claimed at the beginning of his speech he operates. When people come to me and say that they have a relative or friend
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wishing to visit this country, I insist on a letter from the sponsor saying that the sponsor can accommodate and sustain the visitor and give guarantees that the visitor will return home. On production of that evidence, I shall provide a note saying where I can be contacted should there be any problems.
Mr. Kaufman: I have seen a copy of the letter—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] That is a standard letter. It is a very generous, important and helpful letter. I applaud the hon. Gentleman for assisting his temporary constituents. However, that kind of letter is abuse No. 7 in the eyes of the Minister of State and was not referred to by the Minister of State.
Mr. Michael Shersby: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I gave way to his hon. Friend, whom I was happy to name, and I will give way to any other hon. Member whom I name. I have no evidence that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) goes out of his way to assist his constituents, and I have no material that I could use in that context.
Of the alleged abuses listed in the Minister of State's letter, some seem to be perfectly acceptable practices. Others, however, may arise from inefficiency, which is probably simply the consequence of the work load of hon. Members. In any case, such inefficiencies on the part of hon. Members are more than matched by inefficiency from the Home Office, with all its huge resources. For example, lately I have been subjected to numerous telephone calls demanding that I supply the Home Office with documents on a case which I sent to the Home Secretary weeks ago and which he seems to have lost. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister of State need some of their own guidelines. The Opposition are perfectly ready to draw them up, as a public service.
The furore over the allegations by the Minister of State proceeded until, taking the wise advice of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), endorsed by Mr. Speaker, the Government succumbed and provided a statement. That statement was made by the Home Secretary, offering the House its first taste of his technique of temperature lowering through obfuscation. That now overworked technique reached its nadir in his gallant but unavailing and unconvincing attempts on Monday to defend the indefensible in the shapes of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General.
The Home Secretary in his statement abandoned for ever the word "abuse", which has disappeared into a lexicographical limbo never to return. That tirne, he employed his undoubted linguistic skills as an author of dramatic fiction to allege not abuse but misuse. In response to a plea by me, the right hon. Gentleman promised, encouragingly:
"The right hon. Gentleman … will get the names."—[Official Report, 29 October 1985; Vol. 84, c. 839.]
Indeed, he darkly hinted that 23 hon. Members were involved, the false implication being that they were all Labour Members.
That was just about the last we ever heard of the word "misuse" as well, and it was also the last of the McCarthyite allegation of a list of guilty people. The names have never been named because there are no names to name.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): If the right hon. Gentleman is going to purport to give a history of this matter, he had better get it right. He knows perfectly well that I wrote letters to the 23 hon. Members who I was suggesting were not operating in a correct manner. We duly reported back to the House the substance of the replies made by the 23 hon. Members which, with few exceptions, were to the effect that they had no intention of giving consent to their names being revealed.
Mr. Kaufman: The Minister did not say on the radio that he would seek permission. He simply said that he would name names, not on the radio but in the House of Commons. He has now backed down from that. It would have been an interesting list if it gave the names of the hon. Members whom the hon. and learned Gentleman included in the letters he sent. One of the hon. Members on the list was the Welsh nationalist Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). I do not think that Caernarfon is an area of substantial Asian settlement but, nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman was one of the hon. Members whom the Minister said was abusing the position.
Mr. Waddington: In fairness to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), that hon. Gentleman takes a particularly keen interest, as most hon. Members will know, in Sri Lankan immigrants. That is why he takes up a very large number of cases with the Home Office.
Mr. Kaufman: I am glad, therefore, that the hon. and learned Gentleman has now said that an hon. Member who was on his list of 23 guilty men takes an honourable and proper interest in people from Sri Lanka who wish to come to this country.[Interruption.] I say people from Sri Lanka. The Minister said immigrants. I shall come to that matter, because there is schizophrenia in the Government about the use of that term.
Mr. Faulds: The Minister of State tried, rather hamfistedly as usual, to defend himself. He seems to forget that he made generalised accusations that a number of us—orignally an unspecified number—were abusing the system. On that occasion, I made the offer that the hon. and learned Gentleman could publish any letters of mine concerning immigration cases, leaving out the names of the people concerned, that he wished to. It transpired that I was not among his 23 Members who had been accused. I am deeply disappointed that I was not among the 23. This shows how totally tendentious and misleading that original unjustified accusation was.
Mr. Kaufman: I was not among the 23 either, and I was bitterly hurt. I was grateful that, by that time, I had been successfully reselected, so that that omission could not damage me.
Ms. Clare Short: The Minister could have selected various hon. Members from both sides of the House, but it was he who compiled the list of 23. I do not think that even he would claim that it was an exhaustive list and that every hon. Member on it had done one of the six things mentioned in the letter.
Mr. Kaufman: I agree. As we now know from the intervention by the Minister of State this afternoon, the hon. and learned Gentleman has nothing but admiration for the hon. Member for Caernarfon who, presumably, was one of the Members on the list.
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The Minister of State came to speak in the House on this matter again in response to a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill on 18 December initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). By then, the hon. and learned Gentleman was in a mood that was much more amenable, I might almost say chastened. He was soothing, almost Hurd-like. He said:
"I do not believe that it would be sensible to dwell too long on what has been happening up to now and to debate whether particular practices have been very bad, not so bad or all right … Surely the point is to discuss the arrangements for the future."—[Official Report, 18 December 1985; Vol. 89, c. 506.]
The Home Secretary then proceeded to publish last month what was described as guidance on the handling of representations by Members of Parliament in immigration cases. In accordance with the wishes of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I then entered into discussion on this document in the company of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs), first with the Home Secretary and then with the Home Secretary and the Minister of State. We stated our strong disagreement with a substantial part of the original document, both on constitutional grounds and in terms of practicability. Our arguments seemed to carry some weight because, when a new document was published last week—this time described as guidelines—major improvements had been made.
In the first document it had been proposed that Members of Parliament wanting a stop imposed on removal of a visitor or other person in hazard should contact not, as has been customary and acceptable until now, the Minister's office or, outside office hours, the duty officer, but the chief immigration officer at the appropriate port of entry. Quite apart from the serious practical difficulties involved, the Opposition regarded this as contitutionally unacceptable. We viewed as of paramount importance our right of direct access to the Minister, either personally or through his acknowledged personal representative. I am glad to say that that proposal has now been withdrawn.
An attempt was made in the first draft to deny temporary admission to an intending traveller if he or she had been advised directly that a Member of Parliament would seek to obtain temporary admission for him or her. That would have penalised someone for having taken advice from a Member of Parliament and was again constitutionally unacceptable. Following our opposition, that proposal, too, has been withdrawn.
An attempt was made to confine stop rights solely to the relevant constituency Member. That proposal, too, has been partly abandoned, although the new proposals are still exceptionally unsatisfactory to us. Time scales for written representations at various stages of the process were laid down. All were very brief. Some have been expanded, but they still remain unsatisfactory.
Mr. Peter
Bruinvels:Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: No, not at this stage.
The new document which we are considering today remains a document that could seriously prejudice the rights of hon. Members to protect constituents and their relatives and friends. It operates from a curious assumption implied in paragraph 2, that decisions about whether persons should be admitted to this country statutorily repose in the immigration officer. That is not so. These new guidelines say that the statutory power to

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admit is vested in the immigration officer, but the Immigration Act states that the statutory power shall be "exercised" by the immigration officer, and that is very different.
Indeed, that same paragraph of the guidelines immediately makes it clear that the Minister has the power to overturn the decision of the immigration officer. It is the Minister who in the end has the power, and it is important to establish that absolutely firmly.
We remain strongly opposed to the time limits laid down for representations. The 12 working days cited in paragraphs 3 and 15, although a slight increase on the original proposal, is still far too brief a period for contracts to be made between the Member and the affected persons, and for representations then to be made to the Minister. A Parliamentary recess, an illness on either side, a holiday or pressure of work on either side could prevent this time limit being observed and consequently jeopardise the rights of those who might have spent on air tickets what are for working people very large sums of money.
The four-day periods laid down in paragraphs 9 and 16 and the five-day period in paragraph 14 are still more absurd, scarcely allowing time for letters to be exchanged, let alone for any kind of sensible discussion and organisation of a case which could hope to pass the stringent new criteria for a ministerial change of mind.
We still object very strongly to the prohibition in paragraph 17 of a Member taking up a case in another Member's constituency without the agreement of the latter. Let me make it clear that no hon. Member in his or her right mind will gratuitously take on extra work in this field. Those who deal with large numbers of these cases in their constituencies, as I do, know that the work burden is as crushing as the necessity is great. It involves voluminous paperwork and, even more time-consuming and onerous, telephone calls at any time of the day or night on any of the seven days of the week.
What is to be the position of people who are unable to get assistance from hon. Members—I am afraid all of them Conservative Members—who have indicated that they will not take up such cases or whose public attitudes on these issues are such that constituents literally dare not approach them? Are those constituents to go unassisted? Such a position would be totally unacceptable, and we ask the Government to withdraw this condition, especially since it places Members of the House of Commons at a disadvantage compared with Members of the House of Lords, all of whom, according to paragraph 20 are permitted to regard the whole of this country as their constituency.
Ms. Clare Short: Yes. Outrageous.
Mr. Kaufman: After all, there are cases, including some which I have taken up, in which a Member of Parliament other than the constituency Member has won admission for a visitor or other person following the imposition of a stop. The Home Office has acknowledged that person's rights and implicitly acknowledged that those rights would have been forfeited if another Member had not stepped in. Are such people to lose their rights under the law because of an arbitrary ruling by the Home Office on a matter which is none of the business of the Home Office but is a matter for this House of Commons and for Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: As the former Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), told the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service on 12 April 1980, when he held the position at present held by the hon. and learned Gentleman.
"As you know, the tradition is that Members of Parliament stick to their own constituency cases. This, of course, is essentially an understanding between MPs. Certainly Ministers have no power to enforce, let alone police, the convention—heaven forbid that they should!"
I very much hope that the Government will take to heart what was said by the previous Minister of State on this matter and that this prohibition will be abandoned.
It is also unacceptable that in the narrow range of permitted cases where a Member of Parliament is allowed, under these guidelines, to take up a non-constituency case, the Home Office will in future send a copy of the reply to the constituency Member of Parliament. Such material is often personal and intimate, shared with the assisting Member of Parliament only as part of the process of that assistance. It would be unacceptable for such confidential and private material to be passed on to another person without the agreement of the affected individual. Already, those affected by the immigration rules have to put up with too much personal humiliation. This stipulation must be dropped.
We remain highly unhappy about paragraph 19, which lays down that temporary admission will not readily be granted to passengers "most unlikely" to be admitted. We are dealing here, I suppose, with people who may have applied for permanent settlement and been turned down, whose cases are under appeal from overseas, or who are awaiting an interview after an application for settlement.
We all know that the Home Office has a paranoid fear that such people may enter the country as visitors and then, in the felicitous phrase of the Minister of State, go to ground. But are such persons to be denied the right to visit this country, to spend a little time with their spouses or intended spouses, their children or grandchildren, to attend a family wedding or funeral? Much greater flexibility is required here, so once again we are looking for a relaxation of the guidelines.
Paragraph 12 is curious and dangerous. It places great weight upon recommendations made by the appellate authorities. But some adjudicators, as a matter of practice, do not make recommendations. Are people affected by their decisions to be disadvantaged by a personal idiosyncrasy? In my own personal experience of cases, some fairly recent, even if an adjudicator does make a recommendation, perhaps on compassionate grounds, the Minister is quite likely to disregard it. So, is absence of a recommendation to be a barrier even though a favourable recommendation is not necessarily a protection? This condition too must be changed.
So we are looking for major alterations in this new document and we expect the Minister of State, when he winds up the debate, to promise such changes. But, above all, we ask why such a document is needed at all. The present system has worked quite satisfactorily, even though we acknowledge that it is a considerable burden on the Home Office, just as it is to those of us who have to resort to it. But it is a necessary system. After all, decisions by immigration officers are not reached on the basis of a set of scientific criteria; they are in the end,

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however intensive the questioning, reached on the basis of hunch, and that hunch is liable to be faulty. The evidence for that judgment is the number of times that the immigration officer's original decision not to admit is overturned by the Minister when he has considered the case after a stop imposed following a Member of Parliament's intervention. That experience alone is justification for the stop system. That stop system is needed because facilities at the ports of entry, and particularly at Heathrow, are so inadequate as often to militate against fair treatment for those seeking entry.
Six months ago I was involved in a case whose details were so disquieting that I wrote to the Prime Minister herself about it. It related to a woman constituent of mine who had gone to Heathrow to meet her brother-in-law from Pakistan. Complicated details related to this visitor, which it was anticipated might militate against his admission. I passed on these details to the Home Secretary well in advance so that he could make the immigration officers at Heathrow aware of them. It was the previous Home Secretary, not the right hon. Gentleman. The Home Office did no such thing, so that when the visitor arrived he started from scratch. My constituent, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, and was accompanied by two small children, was made to wait for 10 hours while the case was considered. Telephone calls too numerous to count took place between the Home Office and myself. I was in Yorkshire at the time attending a family celebration, which of course was completely disrupted by these events.
In the end temporary admission was agreed, but the visitor was not released to his relative for a further two hours after that decision, and it was achieved only after still more telephone calls from me. The immigration officers alleged that my constituent could not be found, but she had been sitting patiently for hours precisely where they had told her to sit. Having gone to London on Sunday morning to meet her brother-in-law, she did not get back to Manchester until six o'clock the next morning, having lost her night's sleep.
I asked the Prime Minister to investigate the case, and in her reply she said:
"It is quite clear that there was a serious breakdown in communications, due to the volume of work and the intensity of pressure under which the whole staff at Terminal 3 were working at that time … there was an unfortunate and lengthy delay in contacting Mr. Mahmood's sponsors and implementing the decision to grant him temporary admission."
The Prime Minister offered her personal apologies to my constituents. Every hon. Member involved in such cases could provide a comparable example, but in too many cases these problems do not reach a Member of Parliament, let alone the Prime Minister. That is why the stop system is essential as a protection and a means of revealing incompetence and inadequacy.
Mr. Faulds: With reference to incompetence and with reluctance I should like to trump my right hon. Friend's story. I have a case which is now in the hands of the Home Office in which a chap who was refused entry was given back somebody else's passport on which he travelled to New Delhi, where he had to serve a term of imprisonment while the matter was sorted out.
Mr. Kaufman: That is one of the problems of the way in which these cases are dealt with. In too many cases
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things go wrong. I have made several complaints to the ombudsman, not about the policy, but about the administration of the policy. In his responses he has revealed serious inadequacies in the interpretation service, including faulty rotas, absences of those who should be present, and the allocation of interpreters whose language aptitudes are inappropriate to the person being interviewed.
This necessary stop system relates to unsatisfactory administrative arrangements, and to some immigration staff who, although predominantly courteous, are sometimes rude or offensive. Too often it seems to those on the receiving end that the objective is not to facilitate the right of entry laid down clearly in the immigration rules, but to find excuses for denying entry.
Let us be clear that in most cases we are talking not about those seeking to obtain settlement, but about those seeking entry as visitors. That is why the reference on the cover of the guidelines to "immigration cases" is inaccurate. Let us be clear also that we are talking about people who, according to the immigration rules, have a statutory right to enter, subject to certain conditions. On 29 October the Home Secretary referred to people
"who do not qualify as visitors under the rules".—[Official Report, 29 October 1985; Vol 84, c. 827.]
and the Minister of State talked about people who sought to come to this country at the invitation of Members of Parliament
"knowing that they had no claim to entry."
But almost all the people involved have a claim to entry because the immigration rules give them a right to enter as visitors. The problem is that that claim to entry is too often obstructed or denied by immigration officers carrying out the policy of the Minister. In the end, despite the inadequate, humiliating or offensive treatment of too many of those who arrive at the ports of entry, it is the policy that is wrong.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Kaufman: I shall not give way, as I have spoken for a long time, and am coming to the end of my speech.
The policy is based on suspicion, prejudice and paranoia. That is why we need, not obstructive guidelines, but a change of attitude and, above all, of policy. Many of the Minister's problems could be avoided if he were to change that policy. By that, I do not mean an abandonment of immigration control. Primary immigration is in any case at an end, and a Labour Government will certainly maintain firm immigration control, but unlike this Government, it will be a non-racist, non-sexist, immigration control. Even more important, in the short term, as a priority act of administrative action, the moment we take office we shall ensure—
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: No chance.
Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman will never be here to see it. He will have to grow a bit before he wins another seat.
The moment we take office we shall ensure that Labour's firm but fair immigration control will be administered humanely and with the respect that is due to those who seek to enter. There will be no discrimination whatever between those who come from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, and those from countries where travellers predominantly have white skins.

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Because the position, which was revealed by the arguments that preceded the issue of these guidelines, is so objectionable, and because we continue to disagree with much of the content of the guidelines, we have sought this debate. We are using it to put before the country, not only our commitment to immigration control, but our absolute determination that such control shall be fair, decent, humane and, above all, non-racist, and non-sexist. Because we see none of those essential ingredients in the Government's approach and policies, we shall force a vote tonight.
4.46 pm
Sir Edward Gardner: The control of the entry into the United Kingdom of people from abroad is a serious and growing problem. Nothing that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has said has done or could do anything to resolve it. I say that with regret, which is probably felt on both sides of the House. The right hon. Gentleman had the opportunity of making and, in his own words, has made, a long speech. He also had an opportunity to make recommendations which might have been of use and which we could have treated seriously, but he has chosen not to.
There are three questions that we must answer in considering the wisdom, or lack of it, in the guidelines. The first is why there has been this breathtaking increase in the number of representations on immigration cases by Members of Parliament. The increase has been breathtaking because in the three years preceding 1982 the average number of representations made was 1,000 a year. The following year the figure doubled. The year after that it trebled, and in 1985 the increase was sixfold—61 per cent. up on the previous year.
There are undoubtedly various speculative reasons why that should have happened. Obviously, one cannot attribute it to the increase in the number of Members of Parliament after the 1983 implementation of the Boundary Commission's recommendations, when there were 15 additions. That could not in any way be responsible. Nor can it be attributed to any change in the law relating to the entry of people as visitors because the Labour Government had to follow exactly the same law. There has been no change in the criteria that immigration officers apply.
Mr. Dave Nellist: I should like to set the statistics in context. The hon. and learned Gentleman describes the whole thing as a problem. Is he aware that almost a million more people have left this country in the last 20 years than have come in? He mentioned the number of representations made by hon. Members about people who were refused entry, but has he compared the number of representations as a percentage of the number of refusals? If he does that he will find that his two, three and sixfold increases are totally wrong.
Sir Edward Gardner: The figures are before the House and can be considered. How they are interpreted is a matter for each hon. Member. I shall be surprised if any right hon. or hon. Member seeks to argue that this is not a problem of the deepest and greatest concern to all of us and to our people. It is properly described as a problem. I do not say that there should be any change in the way that the law is applied, or that the criteria used by the immigration officers should be altered to interfere with the right of access by hon. Members to the Secretary of State.
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I disagree with the right hon. Member for Gorton about the recommendations in the first draft of the guidelines. He said that the draft is in some way unconstitutional and an attempt to deprive hon. Members of their right of access to the Secretary of State. It was recommended that before going to the Secretary of State an hon. Member should go directly to the port to make sure there was merit in his reference. The draft was intended not to destroy the right of access but to make sure that the right was exercised in proper cases.
Mr. David Winnick: The hon. and learned Gentleman is the Chairman of the Select Committee on which I sit. Does he not agree that what he has said is inappropriate? In matters of housing, social security, pensions and taxation hon. Members do not act as judges. When constituents write to us or come to our surgeries we do not decide whether they are eligible for benefits, but take the matter up with officialdom. What is the difference between such cases as that and cases where people ask us to make representations about relatives or close friends who have been refused entry?
Sir Edward Gardner: First of all, these people are not constituents. I am not suggesting for one moment that the original guidelines should not have been amended in the way that they have been amended on consultation. I am submitting to the House that the right hon. Member for Gorton was wrong in intention and wrong in fact in his interpretation of the guidelines. One realises that some hon. Members would like the gates of Britain to be opened wider so that more people could come in with less difficulty. Other hon. Members would like to see the gates taken off the hinges so that there was no control of any kind—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Who'?"] I hear speeches inside and outside the House and the strong impression one gets from them is exactly that which I have described to the House. No doubt speeches will be made today from which that inference could be strongly drawn.
Ms. Clare Short: By his allegations the hon. and learned Gentleman is muddling everything. We are talking about people who seek to visit our country, see their relatives and leave. We are talking about how we treat people who seek to visit our country, and not about immigration or settlement. It is important that senior hon. Members such as the hon. and learned Gentleman should not muddle the debate in this way.
Sir Edward Gardner: If the hon. Lady is muddled about my meaning, I am certainly not muddled about what I am saying and what I intend to say. I am talking about people who come here without entitlement to enter and who may not be given that entitlement. If they get in they will overstay the limit of time that we can tolerate.
Mr. Kaufman: It is important to clarify what the hon. and learned Gentleman says about whether or not people have a right to enter. The immigration rule about visitors says quite clearly:
"A passenger seeking entry as a visitor, including one coming to stay with relatives or friends, is to be admitted".
The rule then sets out the conditions that have to be satisfied before a person is admitted. But it says that he "is to be admitted". Accordingly, he has a right of entry unless he fails to satisfy the conditions.
Sir Edward Gardner: This is the whole point: this is what we are talking about, and it is at the heart of the debate. The second question is about the effect of the

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increase in representations made by hon. Members about immigration cases. The first of those effects is a serious one that we must take into account. I hope that we all do. That increase diverts the energies and the concentration of immigration officers and results in appalling delays to the great majority of passengers who properly come to this country.
It is a matter of common sense that delays and a concentration of effort in the wrong places cost money, and it is ultimately the taxpayer who has to pay. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary told the House, if the system is subjected to serious strains—as undoubtedly it is at present because of the increase in representations—it is in danger of being destroyed. Most speeches in the debate will be directed towards how the Government should deal with this problem. In cases where an application is made for a stop on a decision by an immigration officer, and where that application is by way of reference to the Secretary of State, I should like to see some means of distinguishing between cases which have merit and cases which have no merit.
Mr. John Whitfield: My hon. and learned Friend's point is apposite to the debate. How on earth can any such distinction be made—and such a distinction ought to be made—if hon. Members are not required to speak to the immigration officer at the port of entry?
Sir Edward Gardner: I take that point. It is one for which I have a great deal of sympathy. Other hon. Members might also feel sympathy for it. Because of my great anxiety I have looked very carefully at the guidelines. The last thing that one wants to do is to give the impression to anyone, in this House, in this country or abroad, that we are in any way offending against this country's reputation, for fairness in matters of this kind. I recommend the guidelines to the House as being reasonable, sensible and well balanced. If they are followed, as one hopes they will be, we shall be able to increase the efficiency of the system and cut down the delays.
Mr. Corbyn: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Sir Edward Gardner: No.
They will be a means of preserving the reputation of this nation for fairness.
5 pm
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: It is fairly well known that there is a considerable number of people from the Indian sub-continent in my constituency. The Home Office and the Minister of State, the hon. and learned Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Waddington), know that I deal with a large number of cases on a day-to-day basis, including Sundays, and sometimes Christmas day and Boxing day, that involve hold-ups at Heathrow airport. Therefore I have considerable experience of this matter. It may come as a surprise to some hon. Members that I did not receive a letter of admonishment from the Minister of State. I have had my leg pulled about that; some of my hon. Friends suggested that I must be slipping.
When I deal with cases that involve another constituency I am always most careful to ensure that a link of some kind can be found with my constituency. Hon.
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Members who represent other constituencies may not always be as readily available as I, or my wife, may be. My home is near Heathrow airport and my constituency is also close to that airport. There are occasions, therefore, when people in Birmingham, Glasgow, Gravesend or elsewhere, including the adjacent constituency of Hayes and Harlington, do not get the immediate response that is needed when a passenger is required to return to his country of origin in a matter of two or three days.
A passenger is sometimes detained because of an hon. Member's intervention. Then he has to await the heavily weighted decision of the Minister of State, Home Office. If the Minister of State wishes to ease the burden on the Home Office, he ought to consider introducing a more realistic period of consultation with hon. Members who are snowed under with these cases. It might then be possible to lighten the burdens of the whole system, including those of hon. Members and the Home Office. I invite the Home Secretary to consider that point.
I have already suggested that one means of lightening the burden would be to consider the reasons given by immigration control for the refusal of leave to enter this country. We should comb through those cases with meticulous care to find out how frequently flimsy grounds for refusal of leave to enter this country have been given. Sometimes it is said that the hosts or the incoming passengers have lied, because a discrepancy has been discovered between the amount of time for which passengers have asked for leave to visit this country and the amount of time for which hosts have asked to welcome their relatives. Although the Home Secretary is not in his place, I hope that when he reads Hansard he will pay some regard to my remarks.
The occasions are rare upon which incoming passengers or their hosts set out to circumvent immigration control. There are such occasions, of course, but during the many years that I have been Member of Parliament for Ealing, Southall, few people who have entered the United Kingdom as visitors have absconded and gone adrift. There may have been two or three such cases during the 20 years that I have been a Member of this House. Visitors to this country would be miracle men if they could understand our immigration laws and rules. Very few of the indigenous people understand all their ramifications.
I hope that the public will understand that in this debate we are not discussing basic immigration: or large numbers of people arriving at Heathrow airport and other airports who hope to settle illegally in Britain by means of subterfuge.
I am grateful for the continuous courtesy and co-operation of the immigration staff in the Minister's office. They are not responsible for the system or for policy. The Government are responsible for the system and for the harshness, in many cases, of the way in which visitors from abroad, particularly from the Indian sub-continent, are treated. In some cases they travel with a letter from, perhaps, auntie who says, "When you arrive I want to introduce you to a nice girl who is a British passport holder." But that is what makes the world go round. Young men from this country have gone to the four corners of the world looking for and finding brides. Those who go abroad on holiday sometimes accomplish the same task. That should not be held against visitors to this country. Furthermore, the host community knows that a limit is placed upon the length of these visits. They fill in forms as sponsors.

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Unlike the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler) I do not send out circular letters. I notice that he is shaking his head. I understand that he gives a great deal of assistance to the immigrant community in Bradford, North and he is to be commended for doing so. However, although people queue up at my surgery to express apprehension about the way in which their relatives will be treated when they arrive at Heathrow airport, their apprehension sometimes proves to have been unnecessary because I hear little about it afterwards. I assume, therefore, that the visitors enter this country without too much difficulty and that as they motor away from Heathrow airport they can see that brillant sign which says "Welcome to Britain".
However, some visitors are not so welcome to Britain. In those cases, I say that if there is time they should write to me. If there is time, I respond in writing and set out the duties of immigration control. I tell them that, if all the details that they have given me are the absolute truth, there should be no difficulty about granting admittance for a legitimate visit.
The importance of people being granted what I call a legitimate visit rather than temporary admission, which hon. Members achieve as a result of our intervention, is that, if they are granted temporary admission, a mark is put in their passport. This means that, if they want to visit another European country, they will not be granted a visa. Furthermore, they will not be granted a visa to visit Canada if they have relatives in that country.
I could make a long speech, but I do not intend to do so. However, I wish to make one or two points which may help the Minister of State and the control system. I have already pleaded for a meticulous look at the reasons given for refusal. They will eventually be given by Ministers to Members of Parliament who intervene.
When I encountered the Minister in the Lobby he would say that he was fed up writing "Dear Sydney", so I suggested a compromise whereby I would write "Dear D." and he would write "Dear S", as that might relieve the tension on his wrist.
Mr. Jeremy Hanley rose—
Mr. Bidwell: I would like to get this off my chest; I will give way later.
I understand from a former Minister of State that the present Minister of State, Home Office, is probably the most overworked and overburdened Minister in the Government. I defy him to say that he can consider, with meticulous care, the mounting number of cases which we are bringing before him. That validates the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) when he presented to the House, without opposition, a Bill to provide for an appeal system before the departure of the passenger.
It worries me that it is possible for a passenger stuck in Harmondsworth or another detention centre to be there for up to three weeks. There is one passenger who is presently detained about whom I am most anxious. I am told that a reply is pending, as the draft is before the Minister of State. I am depressed because I have to talk to the relatives of that person and try to justify the fact that someone can be stuck in such a detention centre for three weeks or more before the ultimate decision comes into force.
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It is rare for the Minister to overturn the immigration control attitudes. I suggest to the Minister and his officials who are listening to this debate that there is a great deal of leeway within the present system and that those responsible for immigration control should be encouraged to reconsider whether they have a solid case, which would be upheld by public opinion, for refusing passengers admission. It is not a question of discrepancies which may sometimes arise because a travel agent has advised a passenger to tell certain lies on arriving at the port. We could do a good deal to lighten the Minister's burden, and it would lighten mine as well. I would be delighted if that was the case.
I have intervened in other cases. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has pointed out, we are reluctant to canvass cases in other Member's constituencies. However, sometimes the constituency Member, for various reasons—I am not calling them racist, although there is one particular case who would take that label—has been embroiled in long-standing immigration cases. Community relations officers—I will not name the places but I would name them later if necessary—will inevitably approach friends in other constituencies if they are dealing with a temporary admission.
Immigration officers often advise hosts and friends when a passenger has entered a two-day temporary admission. If the Member intervenes, the admission may be extended to a couple of months or more. The passenger will be invited to appeal if he is refused leave to enter but he may not do so, often because of expense. Therefore, he does not achieve the stay for which he asked. That has its own logic. The visitors do not run away. That is very rare; in my long experience, there have been perhaps two or three cases. They do not abscond, as the Minister calls it.
Mr. Hanley: Few hon. Members are treated with such universal respect in this matter as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell). I ask for one word of advice. When the hon. Gentleman meets constituents who are anxious about whether their friends or relatives will be allowed into the country as visitors, does he ever advise them to seek voluntary entry clearance in the home country before they depart?
Mr. Bidwell: I was considering that before I started my speech today. However, there are difficulties. I have asked the Minister's office for advice. Why do we not introduce a universal entry certificate requirment? Why do we not ask for visas? I am not pleading for such a system. Our relationship with Indian sub-continent, the to-ing and froing of business men, makes it difficult. Let us consider visits.
The founders of the Southall community were those who left Jullundur to avoid being cheap labour. From the inception of that community in Southall we fought to get them trade union rights. The constituency of the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) is not far from mine. He has visited my constituency on occasion in tragic circumstances. I value has visits, as they show a nonparty approach to problems. I have always made a nonparty approach to solving the problem of immigration, and in that sense the hon. Gentleman's remarks about my attitudes being acceptable across the House are correct. I have never regarded immigration as a matter that we

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should thrust into a party political collision. The non-party approach is necessary in the struggle for racial harmony, but I shall justify it another time.
We are not discussing the broader issues of immigration. Practicalities do not promote the idea that one should be able to obtain an entry certificate. If people flew from Jullundur or came overnight to Delhi they might spend two or three days in Delhi. The delay in Delhi is due to lack of staff to deal with entry to Britain. This could be avoided by a great extension of the staff in Delhi or Bombay, but the Home Office is not willing to promote that. If the Home Office were to insist on an entry certificate, there would have to be a considerable increase in staff to cut the abominable delays. It must also increase the staff in the pocket areas of migration in the Indian subcontinent—Bangladesh, Sylhet, Assam, Bombay, Islamabad, Jullundur, Amritsar, Delhi—those pockets of migration which affect Bradford and my constituency.
Visitors may be asked to obtain an entry certificate, but one realises how difficult that may be. People may make the long journey to Delhi and then be refused. I have seen such problems for myself when I have visited India over a number of years.
People have sought asylum because of the difficulties in the Sikh community, the recent attack on the Golden Temple and the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi. Presumably the guidelines do not apply to Member's representations in respect of asylum seekers. Such applications are automatically referred to the Home Office by the immigration services. However, I should like this clarified when the Minister replies.
Because of subsequent reactions to the guidelines, the Home Secretary has back-pedalled on the substance of Members' rights. I thought he would do so, because he must understand that Members are jealous of their rights. I asked about this matter years ago, when I first came to the House. I asked about taking up the grievances and problems which affected other constituencies. I was given a ruling—not a fundamental ruling—that it was a matter of convention and courtesy. It is difficult to follow these courtesies; one often does not have the time to do so, and it must be a belated action.
One certainly does not wish to jump in and deal with matters in neighbouring constituencies. We know that some Tories have an abominable attitude and will not help Asian people as they would help non-Asian people. I think that it is valid to mention that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) has even dared to complain about my taking up cases affecting his constituency. The Asian people concerned, however, who have friends a stone's throw over the border between the hon. Gentleman's constituency and mine, say that it is useless approaching him because he has made it clear publicly that he will not touch them with a barge pole. That being so, the only way for them to achieve the second look at that matter afforded by the present system is by coming to the Member in whose constituency they have friends and relatives.
Mr. John Carlisle: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must protest strongly on behalf of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks), who clearly had no warning of the allegations that
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have been made. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) should withdraw those comments unless he has already cleared the matter with my hon. Friend.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): This is a matter for debate, but if an hon. Member intends to refer to another hon. Member, it is customary for him to give notice to that Member.
Mr. Bidwell: Given the overspill of Asian people into Hayes and Harlington, it is difficult for me to explain the circumstances in which I am placed. The hon. Gentleman is the architect of his own misfortune. He told me that he was complaining to the Minister about my intervention, and I want the whole world to know that. I retain a friendly attitude to him if I can, so I told him that he must be suffering from a death wish because with that attitude to a substantial proportion of his constituents he could not hope to survive the next election.
Mr. Tim Brinton: The hon. Gentleman has also alluded to my constituency. He recently had a meeting with my community relations council which led to publicity in the local paper to the effect that he was prepared to take on cases in which I refused to intervene. I am perfectly convinced that the hon. Gentleman is goodhearted in his approach, but he has also said that in his view this privilege for Members should be decided by Members themselves. Will he tell the House whether he has ever refused to intervene in a case brought to him and, if so, what would be the reasons for such a refusal? I shall then better understand his approach to the problem.
Mr. Bidwell: I have frequently refused, when I did not think that the case was powerful enough. For instance, when a person has been told to leave at a particular time, there may be special pleading from the Gravesend community relations council. The essence of the matter is that if a Member of Parliament, even one who I understand is not contesting the next election—[HON. MEMBERS: "What has that to do with it?"] It has a lot to do with it. If a Member of Parliament is held to be failing his constituents in some way it is perfectly valid for them to go to another Member of Parliament who is willing to take the matter up.
In conclusion, I re-emphasise my plea to the Minister to ease the burdens that neither of us wants by looking more carefully at the reasons advanced, especially with regard to visits. Much of the difficulty would then vanish. Better still, he should examine the feasibility of the proposals by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West for an appeal system. That suggestion is validated by the proposals made when the Immigration Act 1971, which I opposed, was being put together. If the Minister took that proposal on board, he could get on with his other duties and pay more attention to fighting the crime wave instead of being involved in the detail of these cases.
5.24 pm
Mr. Michael Shersby: First, I pay a warm tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State for the admirable way in which he and his staff deal with representations made by hon. Members. There can be little doubt that he has one of the most exacting jobs in the Government and that he does it with distinction. He is always fair, courteous and accessible, he takes enormous trouble to consider every case and he is ready to look again when Members ask him to do so. Perhaps it has been the

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efficient way in which my hon. and learned Friend and his predecessors of both political parties have dealt with these matters which has led over the years to the gradual increase in representations by Members of Parliament in immigration cases. The immigrants themselves, the visitors to this country, their representatives and organisations in this country know about the procedure and that in itself may generate more inquiries of hon. Members and thus more representation. It may also be due to the way in which Members themselves deal so assiduously with the cases that they raise.
I thought that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was perhaps rather ungenerous in his remarks today. He said that I did not go out of my way to assist my constituents. I hope that on reflection he will withdraw that statement. I regularly assist my constituents, as do nearly all hon. Members I know who represent constituencies surrounding Heathrow, one of whom is the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell).
Ms. Clare Short: I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who is no longer present, was intending to make a witty remark. He had no evidence, such as copies of letters, to suggest that the hon. Gentleman went out of his way to assist constituents, but there was no suggestion that the hon. Gentleman did not give adequate service to his constituents.
Mr. Shersby: That kind of humour is lost on me. If the right hon. Gentleman chooses to employ it and then to be absent when I reply to it, he has only himself to blame.
Mr. Bidwell: I acknowledge the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) as my Member for Parliament, as I live in his constituency. No occasion has ever been mentioned to me—had there been such an occasion, I am sure that it would have been mentioned to me—on which the hon. Gentleman has not been most helpful to those who come to see him.
Mr. Shersby: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Corbyn rose—
Mr. Shersby: I will not give way again, as I wish to get on.
I thought that the right hon. Member for Gorton made a wily, carping speech designed to curry favour with the ethnic minority communities. He quoted various cases, one of which he had raised with the Prime Minister, to justify a major attack on the rules, but he said nothing about the thousands of visitors who come in without difficulty or the many cases in which, following the intervention of Members of Parliament, the people concerned are admitted swiftly and courteously and made welcome to our country. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman's speech will upset and disturb many immigration officers who are my constituents.
An important aspect of today's debate is the substantial increase in the number of cases raised by Members of Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke of a 61 per cent. increase since 1984. That must be a matter of concern to the Home Office. It is also a matter of concern to me and to other Members representing constituencies around Heathrow and other ports of entry
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because it entails the diversion of officers from their work at the control points and slows down clearance of the majority of passengers who are eligible for admission.
Each time I return to Heathrow I look carefully at the queues of passengers and spend a few minutes seeing how long it takes to get through the barriers. I compare my experience at Heathrow with my experience overseas. In general people trying to visit this country can enter swiftly and without undue difficulty. When I compare Heathrow with some overseas airports, I think we are very fortunate. I pay tribute to the officers who act fairly and courteously and who at all times attempt to help people, whatever the hour of the day or night. I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say that we want visitors at Heathrow to enter the country quickly and courteously.
Because of the tremendous pressure being exerted on the Home Office, it is right that the House should be asked to review the procedures. While hon. Members wish to retain their undoubted right to make representations to the Minister of State, surely there must be a sensible balance between that right and the need to maintain efficient and effective immigration control. That control has to be exercised in accordance with the Immigration Act 1971, an Act supported by most people in Britain. I want to see it continue to work well.
Cases which last for many months and in which a visitor is not removed within two months of arrival result in the eventual cost of removal being passed to the taxpayer. That does not help to maintain good community relations. I am concerned that a system which has generally worked well, as several hon. Members have said, is at risk. If the House does not take account of the serious strain on the Home Office the system will become unworkable.
What would be the alternative if we did not have the system of representation by Members of Parliament and the stop facility? The only alternative would be that immigrants refused entry would have to be removed, as the original Act intended. Many hon. Members with large immigrant communities will agree that such a change would not be welcomed either by the House or by their constituents. Therefore, I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has given thought to the new guidelines setting out the practice to be followed by hon. Members in normal immigration cases. I for one welcome the consultation which my hon. and learned Friend has undertaken and the willingness he has displayed at all times to make changes in the original guidelines as published following the consultations.
I also welcome my hon. and learned Friend's understanding of the fact that a requirement to the port of entry would place a great and unacceptable burden on an hon. Member. Swift access to the private office of my hon. and learned Friend is essential if we are to do our job as hon. Members. I am also glad that my hon. and learned Friend recognises that in many cases hon. Members would still feel obliged to put a stop notice on removal, whatever facts were presented by the immigration officer. It is right that the requirement to refer cases to the ports has been omitted from the new guidelines.
I want to comment on several important aspects of the revised guidelines. I welcome the definition of the role of hon. Members. That is most useful and I hope my hon. and learned Friend will draw it to the attention of new Members of the House when they are elected. Casting my mind back some 13½ years, I cannot recall receiving any guidelines from the Home Secretary of the day in 1972 as

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to how I should deal with immigration matters in Uxbridge. I was left to find out by experience, as most hon. Members are. Fortunately, I was able to draw on extensive local government experience. Without that, I might have been in difficulty. I hope my hon. and learned Friend will ensure that when new Members enter the House they will automatically receive the guidelines.
It is right that only the constituency Member should take up a case unless, because of illness or absence, another hon. Member has been requested to deal with his or her constituency business. I am pleased that the guidelines state that hon. Members with a special interest in the problems of a particular national group who wish to raise an immigration case must first consult the constituency Member concerned. If we depart from the long-standing and established convention of the House we shall only get into difficulty. The convention which exists commends itself to most hon. Members. The constituency Member has the absolute right to act for his constituents and that right should never be abused by another hon. Member who claims a special interest in a national group.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Does the House realise that if we pass the rules tonight, as I hope we shall—
Ms. Clare Short: We are not voting on the rules but on the Adjournment.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Whether or not there is a vote on the Adjournment, there is virtual acceptance by the House of the guidelines. Does my hon. Friend realise that the convention, which we ought to keep, will become rather more than a convention, because it will be laid down in the guidelines and, therefore, will apply?
Mr. Shersby: I take the point that my hon. Friend has raised. I think the guidelines make it clear that it is a convention. The guidelines, which are not rules, emphasise the convention which we all understand.
I also welcome the emphasis that is placed on the fact that temporary admission of a visitor is not a grant of leave to enter, but an alternative to detention. If that point could be made more widely known, it would be of advantage to all concerned. In fairness to visitors and to our constituents, it must be clearly understood that those who become engaged or who marry while on temporary admission are ineligible to stay on the basis of that engagement or marriage. I am sure the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall will agree that many of the problems we have to deal with involve people who become engaged or who marry while in the United Kingdom on temporary admission and who expect to stay here.
There are enormous problems when an hon. Member who wishes to help, very often a young couple, has to tell them what the position is. It is vital for would-be immigrants to know that the immigration rules require them to get entry clearance from abroad. It would be much easier if that were done. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall made the point that there are not sufficient staff in our embassies and high commissions abroad to make that possible. My hon. and learned Friend might like to comment on that when he is replying to the debate.
During consultation on the guidelines there has been discussion about the fact that they will prevent hon.
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Members from intimating to relatives that, should a passenger get into difficulty, he or she may seek the advice of a Member of Parliament. I am sure that that was never intended. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear in his speech, the intention was to point to the undesirability of the practice of inviting people to come to this country to seek entry, knowing that they had no entitlement to come. I wonder how often that has happened. New Members of Parliament should be advised on that point and they should realise that if they provide letters giving the impression that people have an entitlement to come here, they will create great difficulties.
Mr. Eric Deakins: How is an hon. Member in any party to know whether someone from overseas, whether from Bangladesh or the United States, has a right to come here as a visitor, which is what we are talking about?
Mr. Shersby: I do not think it is for an hon. Member to make that judgment; it is for the officer at the port of entry to make the judgment. If hon. Members take it upon themselves to give such advice they may get into difficulty. I very much welcome paragraph 19 of the guidelines, which makes it clear that if that happens, temporary admission will not be granted readily. That is quite clear, and we all know where we stand. I welcome that guideline and hope that it will be supported throughout the House.
I am also glad that my hon. and learned Friend has extended the deadline for written representations from 10 to 12 working days. This change will be welcomed by all hon. Members. The right hon. Member for Gorton mentioned the real problems involved in contacting hon. Members at weekends. We all have other obligations at weekends, not only to our constituents but to our families, and it is not always easy to contact us. I wonder whether my hon. and learned Friend would be willing to consider the possibility of allowing several clear working days to elapse, so that a visitor wishing to make representations to an hon. Member would be able to do so during a working day rather than at a weekend.
Even if they are not perfect, the revised guidelines are firm and pretty fair. I hope that all hon. Members will help to make them work. If they work, we shall all be better able to serve the interests of our constituents and of those who wish to visit our country.
5.42 pm
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: I should like first to associate myself with the comments made about the helpfulness of the Minister's private office in these matters. I, too, have found it to be unfailingly helpful. I genuinely sympathise with the Minister of State. His job must be one of the most unpleasant tasks in the Government, and I do not believe that it is lightly carried out. The problems are problems of principle, concerning our attitude towards immigration and towards minorities, rather than of implementation by the Minister.
I accept that there are a few who wish to circumvent the rules by coming here as visitors. However, the evidence available to me and my colleagues suggests that such people form a tiny proportion of the total and that the communities themselves are aware of the damage done to their general case if people seek to circumvent the rules.

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Such incidents are indicative of the desperate circumstances that people face in other countries, but that is another matter.
A Government's political attitude must influence administrative actions. If a Government support right and principled attitudes by guidelines and the force of law, that will without a doubt influence the actions of immigration and entry clearance officers. I do not doubt that the Government's general attitude towards immigration is unsympathetic and that that transmits itself to the officials who have to implement the policy.
We all have stories about how people are affected in practice. One story was told to me by a white constituent who was, I suspect, not generally sympathetic to the idea of people from ethnic groups coming to this country. He told me that he had returned from a trip to Amsterdam on a plane carrying a large group of white people who were openly talking about the drugs that they had used in Amsterdam and had brought back with them. Apparently, they were smoking pot on the plane. At Heathrow all those people went straight through the immigration controls. The one Asian couple on the plane, however, were immediately stopped by immigration and subjected to the procedure. Such incidents have a bad influence on people in our own communities, and show that there is some discrimination in the way in which we treat people.
We need to work on our individual cases within the Government's overall philosophy. Although I want to replace the Government as soon as possible by people of a different philosophy, I should attempt to do as well as I can for my constituents within the rules. Hon. Members gain nothing by acting irresponsibly on these cases. We must build up an acceptance of the impartiality and responsibility of individual hon. Members, whatever our individual opinions may be on Government'policy.
It is not always easy to tell the communities that one represents—
Mr. Corbyn: I think that I heard the hon. Gentleman say that he did not condone hon. Members acting irresponsibly on immigration matters. So far as I know, the only person who has claimed that hon. Members act irresponsibly is the Minister of State. Are we to understand that the Liberal spokesman agrees with the remarks made by the Minister of State when he started this ridiculous charade?
Mr. Meadowcroft: That is not a helpful intervention. What I was referring to was the macho symbolism of some hon. Members who are delighted to appear on the list of 23 and who believe that that has helped them to gain re-selection. But that attitude is not helpful to the cases that they are trying to represent.
Sometimes we have to try to tell people in our own communities that there are reason why a certain person should not be admitted. I remember the Minister of State telling me categorically that the person concerned in a certain case was involved—at a time of high stress—with the Khalistan movement. I had to tell the Sikh representatives in Leeds that, as far as I was aware—the Minister had given me his word—that person was so involved and his admission as a visitor would not be helpful at that moment. The community accepted that because in other—admittedly rare—cases we had been able to achieve a change in the Minister's policy. Such a relationship will be difficult to build up under the rules put before us today.
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Essentially, the system that we are trying to operate cannot cope with the numbers of people involved, and we are therefore faced with the problem of putting bureaucratic regulations in place of a real policy. It is not only immigration officers who are taken off other work. Hon. Members who would dearly love to be able to make progress with other work find themselves diverted towards urgent and complicated cases involving people stopped at the point of entry and appeals from relatives or friends to the hon. Member for ways and means of securing entry. All too often, prima facie, the person should never have been stopped.
We are dealing with ordinary people from ordinary families who are trying to come here for a visit and are stopped at the point of entry on a technicality. They, and I, are baffled as to why that happens. I am distressed by the impression that is given to many ordinary families in this country, especially in the Asian community, by the type of bureaucracy that is encountered on entry to this country.
The Minister of State should openly recognise the fact that temporary admission is another category of immigration or entry. It is used by the Minister as much as by hon. Members as a way of securing entry, in effect on bail, and as a way of retaining people's passports. That is the crucial point. If someone is given leave to enter, there is no way in which his passport should be retained.
Mr. Madden: It would be unfortunate if the hon. Gentleman were to mislead our constituents by seeking to give the impression that it is lawful to retain the passports of those on temporary admission. The Minister of State and his officials have, on a number of occasions, assured hon. Members that if passports are requested they will be immediately returned.
Mr. Meadowcroft: I am well aware of that, but the corollary is that if one insists that the passport is returned, that is an encouragement to the Minister to say that there are no grounds for allowing the person to enter. If one insists, it is easier to say no than to allow them to retain the passport, in which case they may say yes. If one is endeavouring to secure permission for someone to stay in this country for a relatively short period, one has to accept—whether or not it is legal—that the passport will be retained. That is yet another guarantee for the Home Office. I do not say that that is right; I say that it is what happens.
Mr. Madden rose—
Mr. Meadowcroft: One of the problems faced by the Minister—it is a problem that he should take far more clearly on board—is that of the clash of cultures as it affects what is said by people coming into this country when they are interviewed separately. In many of the cases that we face, hon. Members have to explain what is meant by what people say when they come in.
Let me give three examples. Recently, a visitor to one of my constituents had a letter from her sponsor advising what to say and what not to say in particular circumstances. As far as I could make out, there was no suggestion that the sponsor was advising the visitor to tell untruths or misrepresent the facts. The letter simply explained what it was beneficial to emphasise in order to cope with the particular inquiries that would be made. That was held to be a reason why the visitor should not be

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admitted. That is ridiculous. The visitor was euphemistically described as somebody of modest background. In other words, she was somebody who would find it difficult to communicate in a bureaucratic situation. The sponsor was only being helpful, but that boomeranged. That was the result of a clash of cultures and what happened was unforgivable.
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if only we could get people to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth most of our problems at the airports would disappear?
Mr. Meadowcroft: I wish that that were the case, but I have examples of people telling the truth, particularly when a question was put in a negative way, when often the response from a person who comes from India or Pakistan—
Mr. Corbyn: There are racist immigration officers.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: When accusations of racism are made from a sedentary position, that is a disgraceful abuse.
Mr. Meadowcroft: people are sometimes asked questions in a way that causes them to respond in a way that does not help their case, even if they are telling the truth. Sometimes the problem stems purely from a clash of cultures.
A man whose sponsor was his brother was asked by an immigration officer if his brother wrote to him. He replied that he wrote to him once a month. The brother, his sponsor, was asked whether he wrote to his brother, and he said that he did not. The letters were going to the head of the family in India—the mother—who passed the letters on to the other members of the family. Both men told the truth, but the visitor's answer was detrimental to his chance of being admitted.
An older Muslim woman is often, sadly, regarded as being in a somewhat shameful position if she is not married. Long delays in the cases of fiancés and husbands entering Britain are detrimental to the woman's standing in the community. Sometimes cases are not dealt with in rotation and a person can be a figure of fun in the community because other partners have come in who may have applied later.
Members of Parliament are not being approached by excessive numbers of people. It appears to be one in five. Sometimes, because of the problems, hon. Members are asked to provide letters in advance. In effect, they are testimonials of the sponsors in Britain which can be taken to the airport to show that they are people of standing in case there are problems. Sometimes I resent the extra work load which often proves to be unnecessary because people's fears are unrealised. We should not have to go to extra trouble simply because people are fearful that they will not be treated fairly when they enter the country.
The new guidelines are better than the old, but they are not satisfactory. They are wrong in principle because they seek to instruct and to limit hon. Members in the carrying out of their duties on behalf of their constituents. If that precedent were accepted it might reappear in guidelines on the way in which we represent our constituents in cases concerning the Department of Health and Social Security,
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the Inland Revenue, and so on. Hon. Members should realise that if they give ground on this simply because the Home Office has had a problem, they are laying themselves open to new areas of control. That is an extremely dangerous principle and precedent, and we should oppose the guidelines on that ground. In effect, the guidelines are a bureaucratic answer to a problem of principle which should be dealt with as such.
The problem of the time gap and whether the person to be approached is the immigration officer or somebody else has already been mentioned so I want to concentrate on constituency links. Another cultural problem is that, however distant, the many members of a visitor's family often regard themselves as one family. It will be difficult for the Minister to determine who is the appropriate Member of Parliament. The family will often have representatives in a number of constituencies and the number of constituencies concerned could probably be counted as the number of hon. Members in the House at the moment.
Sir Trevor Skeet rose—
Mr. Meadowcroft: I will not give way because I am anxious to allow the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members to speak in the debate.
If the Minister tries to limit the right to make an application to the sponsor's Member of Parliament, the families will pick the sponsor from the constituency with the most amenable Member of Parliament. The problem will not be solved. The bureaucratic nonsense will simply be shifted further on. We should consider the circumstances rather than limiting the choice of hon. Member.
Some hon. Members take the view that because the immigration officer looks at the case, he or she has made an appropriate decision, with which the Member does not want to interfere. I doubt whether the same Members would accept such a decision if it was made by the DHSS or the Inland Revenue if a constituent was complaining about his or her treatment. In such cases a Member would look into the matter with an attitude far different than if it were an immigration case.
Our task is surely to assist constituents to express themselves more fully or to discover the reasons for a decision. That is not just my opinion; it is also the opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer), with whose views I doubt whether I would agree on virtually anything else. On 29 October he made the extremely valid point that
"it is not the function of any hon. Member to act as judge and jury in deciding whether or not an individual should be allowed entry, but only to make responsible and proper representations to the Home Office".—[0fficial Report, 29 October 1985; Vol. 84, c. 834.]
That is exactly the case. The guidelines will not assist the hon. and learned Gentleman nor me to do that job, so they should be opposed whenever possible.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that the 10-minute limit on speeches will operate from 6 pm, and I appeal for the co-operation of hon. Members.
5.57 pm
Sir Dudley Smith: I agree with some of what the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) said, but it seemed to me that the Liberal

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party policy is very much one of doing away with controls over visitors. That would lead to a great deal of trouble. If people could enter Britain with almost no checks, we would soon have a strong flow of immigrants.
Like several other hon. Members, I want to pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State. He always shows great courtesy in the way that he handles these cases. He is firm but fair. He has done an excellent job and I hope that he will go on doing it for a long time. He gets a good deal of trouble from me, because I am one of those who regularly corresponds with him, as, I suspect, most hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon do as well because we have a large number of immigrants in our constituencies. I have about 7,000 people from the Sikh community and they have many relatives and friends who wish to visit them here for holidays and for family celebrations. I always do the best that I can to assist them when they have a genuine case.
I agree that we are not judge and jury. It is extremely difficult for us to make our minds up, but we should apply some criteria when we receive applications. I try to encourage a leading member or members of the ethnic minority community to introduce Mr. or Mrs. Y and to give me the reasons for an application. I submit that to my hon. and learned Friend and usually he allows the visitor to come for a short time and that is good. But where there is a strong suspicion that a person is trying to evade the system, it is an hon. Member's duty, perhaps not to be judge and jury, but to say that in such circumstances he will not be a party to the attempt. Otherwise, he is just a rubber stamp. That would be quite wrong.
I did not know that some hon. Members refused to handle such cases. I would not do that, even if I had only a handful of immigrants living in my constituency. After all, such people have every right to come here as visitors so long as they are genuine. However, the cases must be carefully considered. In recent times, in particular, some of the replies that I have received from my hon. and learned Friend have shown that the immigration officer who perhaps turned down the request had very convincing reasons for believing that the person had no entitlement to enter the country.
Those who are entitled to come here temporarily, or on a permanent basis have nothing to fear from the system. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, the rules have not changed. However, those who have an illegal purpose in mind and who are trying to trick their way into the country must be stopped by any Government in the interests of the majority of people in this country.
We would be mad to have an open-door policy. This country has a large ethnic population, and we must have sensible and strict controls. It is very much in the interest of British residents with an ethnic minority background that the rules should be properly applied and that their relatives should know that they are allowed to enter the country temporarily for a family celebration or holiday.
I know that there is no chance of my next idea being pursued immediately, but I believe that it is worth exploring the possibility of a visa system. In some ways, I wonder why the Home Office has not considered it before for all Commonwealth and foreign visitors. I mean all foreign and Commonwealth visitors; not just the black or coloured ones, but the white ones as well.
I am very conscious of the fact that I need a visa to go to India, Australia or the United States. There is quite a rigmarole before one can obtain such visas. I am fortunate
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in that, like many other hon. Members, my American visa is indefinite. Nevertheless, it has to be obtained, and renewed from time to time. Many countries that have had some sort of association with us in the past demand visas.
I believe that the Home Office should consider a visa system because it would regulate our intake from other countries. Those entitled to come to Britain would be able to do so without too much difficulty, and there would not be the alleged discrimination—which I do not necessarily believe takes place—between those who happen to be black and those who happen to be white. It is said that those who are black are given rather a hard time when going through the immigration procedures.
An alternative to a visa might be a bond or guarantee given by the person who would be responsible for accommodating the visitor. It may well be the brother, sister, or even the mother and father. A leading member of my local Sikh community, who is also, I am glad to say, a Conservative councillor, is very helpful to me in such matters. He wondered why the Home Office did not suggest that the guarantor should sign a document, swear an affidavit or put up a bond. The guarantor could say that Mr. X or Mr. Y was entering Britain and that he would guarantee that Mr. X or Mr. Y would return at the end of his holiday. The guarantor would then forfeit his bond if the visitor decamped.
I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister will accept that many of these people are very responsible. Hon. Members will know, as I do, of cases where the visitors have vanished. When that happened in my area recently, there was great ill feeling among those who had been responsible for recommending the man to me. They felt guilty, and have made every effort since to trace the miscreant.
The role of the Member of Parliament is essential when it comes to making a stop plea to the Home Office. It is said that sometimes the matter is not followed up, and that, having obtained a stop, the Member of Parliament has not written to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister asking permission for the person to stay. That represents a great abuse, and whoever has done it is wrong and has failed in his duty.
I do not take kindly to other hon. Members coming into my territory, particularly on such matters. I have had two such cases, but only one, I am glad to say, where I felt that the person was intruding. In the other case, the Member was courteous enough to write to me and I allowed the case to go through. But I would feel affronted if there was a string of such cases, and I believe that it would bring the whole business into disrepute if immigrants who might be refused entry were touted around from constituency to constituency by Members of Parliament who felt that there was some need to do it. It is essentially the role of the Member of Parliament in the area to be visited to shoulder at least some of the responsibility.
Despite all the criticisms that have been made, I believe that the system is good, although it provides a good deal of work and difficulty for the Member of Parliament and for the immigration service. Recently, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister told me quite sharply about a visitor who did not go back. I believe that he should come down sharply on all of us and let us know when someone has not kept to the terms of his admittance. There should then be a responsibility on the Member of Parliament to go back to whoever guaranteed that person as a genuine visitor.

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I deplore the remarks of the right hon. member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) about immigration officers. They have a difficult and trying job. There may be bad apples among them, as there are in every walk of life, but my experience is that they are courteous, dedicated and very skilled. No cause is advanced by such an attack, especially when it comes from a right hon. Member of his standing.
We need better co-operation from the local community just as we need the continued and firm approach of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister. I am very satisfied with what he is doing. He is doing it in the interests of the country as a whole, and I can certainly commend this document.
6.8 pm
Ms. Clare Short: I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has restated the history of this dispute. Some wild and unsubstantiated allegations have been made by the Minister of State against unnamed Members of Parliament. He produced a potential list of names, which was no doubt drawn up for his own purposes. When he produced it, he did not claim that it included every hon. Member who was guilty of one of the six so-called abuses that he mentioned in his letter.
I shall outline two cases that the Minister of State told me represented abuses. I do not apologise in any way for anything that I did in either case. Hon. Members should know the sort of thing that the Minister calls an abuse and should know what he expects us to do to our constituents. The first concerns a girl called Baljit Kaur, whose case I have raised on the Adjournment before. She was born in Birmingham and grew up there. With her mother, she visited India to see her granny who was getting old. The family had agreed that if she met anyone she liked, she could consider marrying. She did, indeed, meet someone she liked, and she married him. In the Asian community a new sort of marriage is evolving that lies somewhere between the traditional arranged marriage and our traditional love marriage. She found a young man she liked and they married in India so that her granny could be there.
Baljit stayed with her husband in India hoping that he would get his visa and that they would return to Birmingham together. She became pregnant and returned home to Birmingham to get proper medical care. Having been born in Birmingham, she found that she did not have the immunities that the people who grew up in the village in India had, and she tended to get sickness, which was bad for her pregnancy. She came to ask me to help hurry the arrival of her husband so that he could be with her before the baby was born. That was my initial involvement in the case. I wrote to the Minister and he wrote back saying that the fact that someone was pregnant was not a reason to bring forward an interview.
Eventually the baby was born—it was a lovely little girl—and the husband was desperate to come and see his daughter. He had his interview and was refused. The couple were devastated, as was I, because this was my first experience of a primary purpose case. I went to see the Minister on a number of occasions. I explained to my constituent, Baljit, that she would have a right to bring her husband here as a visitor, at least to see his first child. I
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thought it would be sensible if he came on that visit at about the same time as his appeal against the refusal was heard so that he would be able to give evidence in his own case. All of that was done.
The Home Office admitted him at the port and the appeal adjudicator admitted him to give evidence. Sadly and disastrously, the case was turned down and eventually the young couple went to Ireland. I do not know where they are now and I hope that everything is well for them. I still feel very badly about what was done to them. After that, the Minister has the cheek to suggest that I have done something improper in allowing a young woman to have a visit from her husband to see his first child for the first time.
The second case of so-called abuse was that of a young man who lived in Tanzania. His family came to Birmingham in 1981 on a quota voucher which entitled British citizens to come and live in Britain. He was over 21 and was therefore not allowed to come with them. He applied twice for an entry certificate to come for a visit. As every hon. Member who has any experience of immigration will know, in practice, though not in theory, anyone who has ever applied to come for permanent stay will never be allowed to visit. That is what was happening to this family. When they applied to come as a family they knew that their son was over 18 or 21—I cannot remember which—but they said that they would like him to come with them if he could. The answer was no. He stayed in Tanzania and set up a small business, which is beginning to prosper.
Twice the young man applied to visit his family—his mother, father, sister and brother—whom he had not seen for some years and twice he was turned down in Tanzania. The family in Birmingham came to see me. I wrote a letter explaining that there was no legal obligation to have a visa, that he was entitled, as a Commonwealth citizen, to come without a visa and that he should therefore come over. I said that he would probably have trouble at the port because there is no doubt that anyone who has been refused an entry certificate for a visit will have trouble. I told his family that, if he had such trouble, they should telephone me. All of that was done.
He came and saw his family. They all came to my advice bureau and they all cried—father, mother, sister, brother and he—because they were seeing each other after such a long time. He returned to Tanzania before the Minister's letter arrived saying that he should go back. That is the second case of so-called abuse. The letter I wrote is the letter that was leaked to The Daily Telegraph. That is the outrageous behaviour I am supposed to have indulged in that helped to spark off the row we are engaged in today.
I think that the Minister should be ashamed of himself. It is outrageous for anyone to suggest that any hon. Member seeking to represent their constituents in that way is misbehaving. I resent it. It is wrong and suggests that we should neglect the needs of our constituents in a way that I am not willing to do.
I should like to explain to the House how it goes in Ladywood and at my advice bureau. I have an advice bureau every other Saturday in my constituency. It takes place from 10 in the morning and continues until about 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Large numbers of people who are willing to sit in a queue for that length of time come to say that their granny might be coming to visit, a sister might be coming or that a nephew is coming for a

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wedding. They say, "I am frightened that they will be refused. What shall we do?" In each case, I explain in detail how the system works. I explain that, if there has ever been an application for permanent settlement, a visit will not be allowed and that there will almost certainly be a refusal at the port. I tell them that they should then ring me.
I then write to the Minister and it takes him two months to reply. It used to be three months, but he has got the time down since then. He has been working at it since the row started. I explain, because it is the truth, that he always upholds the refusal. I explain that when I send the letter back to my constituent, the visitor has to go, even if a marriage or anything like that is planned. That is how it works. My constituents go away clutching a piece of paper with my telephone number on it.
Because I do that, and I do it repeatedly, and try to give my best advice to my constituents, I am in breach of paragraph 19 of these new guidelines. It will be held against all those potential visitors that I explain in that way to my constituents how the system works. That is outrageous. It is a constitutional breach that a Member of Parliament should not explain in truth and sincerity how the system works without biasing the potential right of their constituents to have a visitor from abroad.
The truth is—the House should note this—that almost anyone who is unmarried cannot get in as a visitor. That is because visitors are entitled to marry and remain. Because the immigration service thinks that every unmarried Asian coming in wants to marry, as a number of them do, it refuses the lot. Since the Minister changed the rules about marriage for women, the immigration service is now refusing many young women. That is one reason for the increase in the number of cases facing the Minister.
The Minister would be more honest if he took away the right for people who are here as visitors to marry and stay. It would not then be necessary to refuse every unmarried Asian male who seeks to enter Britain and, increasingly, every young Asian female. That is the way in which the system works. It is based on a prejudice and on seeking to exclude from a legal right a group of people—Asian people—who wish to come here as visitors.
I am probably running out of time, but I want to ask Conservative Members to please stop talking about immigration and about people trying to come into the country illegally and staying. That is another debate, which we will be happy to have with them, to challenge their prejudices. Today we are talking about family visitors and the rights of families to stay together. Yes, we deplore the action of the Soviet Union when it prevents families from being united and we claim to support the Helsinki Final Act and the right of families to be united. However, when it comes to our own Asian population and their wish to be close to members of their own families from abroad it is another matter. Suddenly we hear about swamping and immigration and so on.
The other thing that Conservative Members should understand is that the reason for the increase in the number of cases the Minister is facing is the increase in refusals. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) quoted the figures. If we could break the figures down by poverty or background, they would be much grosser. Obviously, from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan many wealthy people—business men, journalists and academics—travel to and from the
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United Kingdom and have no trouble coming through Heathrow. However, if one comes from a village and a poor family there will be trouble. I am certain that, if my constituents have a poor background, the likelihood of refusal of their visitors is about 50 per cent. That is my experience and theirs. They are poor, proud and hard working people from a poor background.
The Minister's guidelines are not necessary. Instead, we should stop refusing genuine visitors and treat our constituents with the respect they deserve.
6.18 pm
Mr. John Wheeler: So far, the House has enjoyed a good-natured debate about an issue which, essentially, concerns the relationship between individual Members of Parliament, and the relationship of hon. Members with the Home Department.
I, too, thank my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State and very much appreciate the excellent work that he does, and the sympathetic way in which he receives the representations of hon. Members, myself in particular.
The control work of the immigration service is difficult. The officers do it with immense compassion and care. I know from my observation of their working practices that they try to assist visitors to the United Kingdom in a very reasonable way. They have interpreters on duty, and they have procedures for interviewing individuals, to try to ascertain the true purpose of their visit when there is any doubt. I particularly welcome the statement by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that 52 further posts are to be provided to improve the arrangements. That is good news.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) referred to the number of people from the Indian sub-continent who were being stopped at Heathrow, in particular. The facts are that only about 1 per cent. are ever stopped at Heathrow—99 per cent. of visitors from the Indian sub-continent who seek to enter the United Kingdom, for whatever reason, come through without hindrance. That is the measure of the matter. Therefore, we are concerned basically with the 1 per cent. of people who, for one reason or another, are subject to the immigration officers' control.
The guidelines that we are considering seek to provide a working formula, a relationship between hon. Members and the Home Department. They are generally to be welcomed, and I endorse them. There was a departure from the original draft guidelines, where my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State suggested that hon. Members should contact the port of entry to ascertain the facts. I fully understand the reason why that was included in the original guidelines. I think that hon. Members, regardless of where they sit, will know that it is difficult to make a decision about whether to phone the Minister's Department to impose a stop, as it is called, on whether a person should be deported.
That is the one occasion when an hon. Member has a direct means of intervening with the Executive. It is the one occasion when an hon. Member is acting in a quasi-judicial role. I believe that there is an obligation for the Member, under those circumstances, to take into account several factors—a duty to the country, a duty to the House and the rules that the House has approved, a duty to his or her constituency as a whole, a duty, too, to the immigration officers who are, after all, civil servants

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seeking to discharge their function fairly and honourably, as well as a duty to the individual who has sought the hon. Member's intervention.
If the hon. Member is seeking to discharge all those functions honestly, he would probably like to have the best available information to hand upon which to base a decision. Frankly, listening to the story of the application and then checking the facts with the immigration officer at the port of entry is a very good way of trying to understand exactly where the balance of truth lies. I frequently do that myself. I find that the chief immigration officer is always helpful. He willingly reads over the notes that have been taken, willingly answers questions and enables me to make a judgment on an informed basis about whether I should intervene with the Executive and the way in which its function is being discharged. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable and honourable way to proceed.
Although I note that the guidelines remove the obligation for an hon. Member, in the first instance, to approach the immigration officer in that way, I commend the principle behind that because it is sound if we are concerned about balance and fairness between the various competing interests that we have to judge as Members of the House.
The role of an hon. Member intervening in another hon. Member's constituency is a serious point. This place works only if we behave in an honourable way towards each other. If we intervened across the constituency boundary, choas would reign. It would become an unimaginable nightmare for us all, and is therefore undesirable. A Member should take up a case in another Member's constituency only in very exceptional circumstances.
Mr. Corbyn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Wheeler: I shall not give way. I want to press on.
If there are special and exceptional circumstances—for example, if an hon. Member is ill or away—the hon. Member may say to a colleague nearby, "Please cover for me." However, as a general principle, that is wrong. It is within my knowledge that, unfortunately, there has been a certain amount of touting around, of seeking to find an hon. Member who would do the bidding of an individual or pressure group, willy-nilly and without regard to the consequences. There is some evidence that that has gone on. It must be wrong, and we must oppose it in the interests of the good administration of the House.
Mr. Bidwell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Wheeler: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I press on, but time is limited.
In looking at the deadlines, we must have some sort of working relationship with the Home Department. In setting a deadline of 12 working days, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State has got it about right. However, the guidelines are no more than that. Just as there are always special cases in respect of immigration matters as a whole, so there are always special circumstances that will affect the interpretation of the guidelines. My hon. and learned Friend has made it clear that he is always willing to consider those special circumstances.
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I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend's private office. Outside No. 10 Downing street, he has perhaps the largest private office of any Minister, as befits the amount of the correspondence that he has to cope with. I, and I believe most other hon. Members, find that his private office is always willing to be of very great assistance to hon. Members who approach it. It is always willing to give useful advice and to see that cases are properly considered. In a dificult area, we try to establish fairness in the way in which we handle those immigration cases.
As the right hon. Member for Gorton said, even the Opposition intend to have a form of immigration control. The immediate consequence of that is that sooner or later, whatever the form of control, one will create hard cases, where there is an area of dispute or doubt. Any country that seeks to control entry into its jurisdiction, as we do in the United Kingdom, and as all other western countries do, comes up against the difficulty of making the procedures work.
I welcome the guidelines. They are a fair attempt to provide a working arrangement. I wish them well.
6.28 pm
Mr. Stan Thorne: Like many other hon. Members who are participating in the debate, I have a large Asian community in my constituency. Many of the Asian families in Preston have been there for a period of anything from 10 to 20 years. Many have become naturalised British subjects. They still tend towards the extended family culture that was their background. Thus visitors seek to come and spend some time with them in their homes.
When we consider the Minister's proposals we are considering the question of human rights. We accept that it is a human right for people from many parts of the world to visit their relatives and close friends in this country. Many Asians in this country, after their experiences of the past few years, feel that their visitors are treated as criminals at airports. They feel that their visitors are not on trial but are guilty as and when they arrive. The only protection that the visitors have against such a situation is their relatives' Member of Parliament. Clearly, what has been at issue over recent months, directly or indirectly in this House, is whether hon. Members should continue to have the right to make direct representations to Ministers about cases.
I like other hon. Members would like to pay tribute to the way in which the Minister's private office responds when approached by hon. Members. Very often, one gets the impression that it is grossly overworked and under pressure. In spite of that, my experience is that it has been helpful. I wish that I could say the same for the Minister who is responsible for these matters.
Like other Members who have spoken today, I have regular surgeries. Today, almost 80 per cent. of the people who come to see me are Asians with problems that are directly associated with relatives, visitors, fiancés and so on. When these people enter a surgery, they are clearly looking for guidance from the hon. Member with regard to what they have already heard, directly or indirectly from other sources, are likely to be their problems on arrival at the airport. They want to know if they should go to the airport and, if so, how many of them should go. They want to know if they will be interviewed and what the nature of the interview will be. They want to know what regulations govern entry.

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One tries to give these people some guidance in advance. Regrettably, of course, we sometimes do not get that opportunity. The first we know about an arrival at the airport is a telephone call which may come on Christmas day, new year's day, or a Saturday or a Sunday. The timing of the telephone call is obviously immaterial to the visitor but the hon. Member must try to respond.
Some of the visitors are fiancés who come purely to see members of the family. The very fact that they are fiancés places them in a different category and makes their position almost hopeless. Some visitors come to see their wives and they very rarely get past the immigration office, although that sometimes happens. The main task of the Member of Parliament is to represent those cases and to assist those people to meet their families.
I should like briefly, in the time available, to give an example of a recent case in my constituency. I do not want hon. Members to suggest that it is an isolated case which could not happen more than once because I am sorry to say that that has not been my experience.
The son of the sister of one of my constituents was working in Arabia. He came on a visit to the United Kingdom intending to go on to a further visit in India to see relatives. He carried with him a three-way air ticket Dhahran to London to Bombay to Dhahran. He also had a letter from his employer of five years, saying that he was well paid, receiving 250 rials a week and that he had given my constituent's relative three months' holiday and hoped that my constituent's relative would enjoy that holiday with relatives here and in India. My constituent's relative carried £1,500 in cash so there was no question of his not being able to pay his way. He arrived on Saturday 8 March and he departed on 8 March to India on the instructions and at the behest of the immigration officer.
There were long interviews at the airport, including an interview with the would-be visitor's uncle, a constituent of mine who has lived in Preston for 20 years. He was interviewed from 8.15 pm for three hours. He had no previous experience of the kind of cross-examination to which he was subjected and he did not know much about the work circumstances of his sister's son. How could he have? The interview that took place was, in his words, "shocking", "insulting" and "provocative". He is a diabetic with a heart condition. He collapsed during the interview and a doctor was brought in to attend to him.
That is the experience of a relative of someone who came to Britain for a visit. I cannot help feeling that if the visitor came from white South Africa or was a white European or a white American, that situation would not have arisen. It is no wonder that one feels that racism plays a part in the way that decisions are made at airports and in the Minister's office in such cases.
We should be considering more humane rules covering the entry of visitors to this country. It is clear that the Government's policy is not based on humane treatment and the protection of human rights, but is a deliberate policy of restricting entry to Asians. That is the Government's raison d'être.
6.37 pm
Mr. Derek Spencer: On 29 October last year, I received a letter from my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, saying that among my cases was one which represented the problems with which his Department was faced. I was asked in that letter if I would consent to the publication of the letters
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about my case. I wrote back on 5 November to say that I was of course only too willing for full publication to be made of that and any other correspondence relating to immigration matters that had passed between my hon. and learned Friend and myself. It was very important to my constituents that such matters should be fully ventilated. I am curious that Opposition Members did not write back in similar terms.
Most visiting has nothing to do with immigration. The more flexible the visiting policy, the less strain there is on other parts of our immigration laws. I do not share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) that we are in any way exercising a quasi-judicial function. How can I, as a Member of Parliament, elected to represent the constituents of Leicester, South, who include 18,000 people of Asian origin, in this one area and not in others, act in a quasi-judicial capacity? I regard that argument as a complete non-starter.
I shall state my position and be judged on it. I regard myself as an advocate—albeit a responsible advocate—on behalf of my constituents, who wish to receive a visitor. It is against that background that I invite my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State to consider a number of points. First, will he ensure that the interpreters in the secondary examination area at terminal 3 use direct speech and do not use indirect speech? It is inappropriate for an immigration officer to say to the interpreter, "Ask him this—" and to get the answer, "He says that—". It should be done exactly as it is in the courts and other places where accuracy of representation is essential and direct speech should be used.
After all, the crux of the matter often lies in the credibility of the person being asked the question. That is a tricky enough problem in a court where people using a language with which they are totally familiar speak face to face with others in direct speech. When the examination takes place in the secondary examination area through an interpreter it is an even trickier problem. It is not surprising if, in individual cases, immigration officers from time to time make mistakes about the credibility of the person to whom they are putting the questions.
Secondly, will my hon. and learned Friend instruct immigration officers to attach only due weight, and not undue weight, to lies that might be told by the potential visitor? There is too great a tendency to jump to the conclusion that, merely because someone is telling less than the truth, he is disqualified under the rules from entering. That is not so and should not be so. I invite my hon. and learned Friend to say that the immigration officer must be satisfied that the lie is relevant to the issue which he is considering and that there may be other reasons why the person is telling lies. Experience of life shows that a person sometimes tells lies to bolster an otherwise good case which he reasonably fears will not be believed by the person to whom he is speaking. That fact is sometimes overlooked.
My third point concerns deadlines. Will my hon. and learned Friend adopt a relaxed attitude to them? A letter which he sent to me and which contained deadlines took three times as long to arrive as an identical letter sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester). I believe that, if we apply strict and unrelaxed deadlines, we shall come to grief.
My fourth point concerns removal costs. It is not generally known that, when the Minister has eventually turned down the Member's representation and said that the

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person here on temporary admission must go home, there is no objection to that person using his own ticket. Greater publicity should be given to the procedure whereby the visitor can use his ticket to go home and save the public purse. Recently, I have put this system into operation in my constituency and found that people were only too willing to pay their way back in just the same way as they paid their way here. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will give publicity to this. Merely because, at the end of the period of temporary admission, a person is told to go and instructions are given for him to leave the country should not mean, ipso facto, that the public purse has to pick up the tab.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary asked us to save the system. Frankly, I cannot save it. All I can do is work with it, with fairness and responsibility. That is what I sought to do under the old rules and what I shall seek to do under the new.
6.44 pm
Mr. Max Madden: The origins of this debate and the guidelines go back to last October, when the Minister of State, Home Office, met a deputation from the Immigration Service Union. The discussions were obviously very heated. The hon. and learned Gentleman has denied that the deputation threatened to withdraw co-operation in replying to representations by Members of Parliament in immigration matters, but it is clear that the ISU demanded that something be done about the number of representations by MPs on immigration matters. It was taken to heart by the Minister of State in the sequence of events so comprehensively outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).
There was a series of extraordinary events, including serious allegations by the Minister of State against a number of hon. Members for abusing the immigration laws. Days later, there were two full-page feature articles in the Daily Telegraph. The second carried the headline,
"Blake Baker concludes his report on unwelcome arrivals—MPs ready to greet dubious immigrants".
The article contained a mass of detailed confidential information which I was told in answers to parliamentary questions could only have been made available by immigration service management and/or the private office of the Minister of State.
The article produced a list of Members of Parliament, described as the
"Top 20 MPs in the Terminal Three representation league."
It was an interesting list. It included the Conservative hon. and learned Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer)—I agree with many of the views he expressed today—the Conservative Members for Slough (Mr. Watts) and for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler) and, surprisingly, the Conservative Member for Luton, South (Mr. Bright) who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State. The article stated:
"Some might argue that more than half their interventions were justified. The converse is that nearly half were not.
What can be done? Apart from beefing up the Immigration Service, there could be extra controls at overseas points of departure, but that would mean extra burdens on British missions abroad. A financial bond by sponsors has been suggested.
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A good first step, however, would be for MPs to restrict their intervention to only deserving cases of which they have firsthand knowledge and which they are prepared to substantiate."
Following several parliamentary questions by myself and others, I was eventually told that the disclosures to the Daily Telegraph were to be the subject of an internal inquiry in the Home Office. After some time, I was given a copy of a letter dated 27 February by the Minister of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), which stated:
"The Home Secretary and I regret what occurred. The disclosure of your letter, the leaking of the statistical information and the manner in which both documents were handled within the Department were wrong. As a result new instructions have been given to staff in the Immigration Service making it clear that free circulation for general interest of copies of MPs' correspondence with their constituents is a serious breach of confidence; that such correspondence must be given the same protection as other official information; and that failure to do so can give rise to disciplinary and, in certain circumstances, criminal proceedings. It has also been made clear that while it is good management practice to make available to staff statistical and other information of current or topical interest about their work, official information which is available for management purposes should be appropriately restricted in its circulation."
So much for the internal inquiry and the clear breach of the Official Secrets Act. We were told that further inquiries would involve some 300 personnel and so far as the Home Office was concerned the matter was closed.
It is very clear indeed that the number of representations from Members of Parliament has increased in recent years. That is clearly due to the fact that the number of people refused entry to this country has also steadily increased over recent years. In 1983 the number refused entry was 13,981, in 1984 it was 17,355, and in a recent answer to another parliamentary question I was told that in 1985 the number refused entry was 18,505. Of those, more than 10,000 originated in the New Commonwealth and Pakistan. As has already been said, only a very small number seek the help of MPs—something like one in five.
In my view, this situation will continue until something positive is done. Yesterday I suggested action that could be taken by the Government—the introduction of a right of appeal, which could be exercised here, for those refused entry. That is a very modest proposal which was first made in 1967. I hope very much that, instead of making wild allegations about the irresponsible behaviour of MPs in these matters, the Government will seriously consider the introduction of such a welcome reform, which would in fact be the introduction of natural justice into these matters, and will allow those who are the subject of appeals to attend the hearings in the country where they are being held.
I am very concerned about a number of matters in connection with the immigration service. It was the subject of very critical comment by the Commission for Racial Equality, which criticised the racist attitudes of many immigration officers, the stereotyped attitudes which they adopt towards members of ethnic communities, the quality of their training and other matters.
I am very concerned about the very serious allegations that have been made concerning changes to and endorsement of the passport of a Hong Kong British passport holder, from which there were surreptitious and unlawful deletions which resulted in the person concerned being expelled from the United Kingdom.
I complained to the Minister of State about these very serious matters on 14 November 1985 and received a reply

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on 5 December saying that the Minister of State shared my concern about the allegations and agreed that a full inquiry would be carried out. That was confirmed on 13 January, since when I have heard absolutely nothing further. I hope that the Minister of State will be able to let me know very quickly what the present situation is with regard to the inquiries.
Terminal 4 will open on 1 April. At the moment it is seriously understaffed with immigration officers and no interpreters have been appointed. I was told that terminal 4 immigration staff would have to use the eight interpreters who are available at Heathrow. Instead of again abusing MPs who are trying to assist their constituents, the Minister of State would be much better employed ensuring that there are adequate numbers of immigration officers trained to do their jobs properly at all ports of entry, and certainly that there are appropriate numbers of interpreters with proper training and proper career prospects to help immigration officers at those ports of entry.
I will not reinforce the criticism of these guidelines that have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but particularly by Opposition Members. In my view they are unacceptable and unworkable and remain unconstitutional. I certainly believe that they are wholly unnecessary.
I have proposed the introduction of a right of appeal, an increase in the number of immigration officers and improvement of the training of immigration officers. Those steps would reduce much of the burden now on the Minister of State and his officials and I hope very much indeed that the Government will respond suitably.
These guidelines are clearly designed to intimidate black and Asian British people into not seeking the help of their constituency Members of Parliament. These rules have clearly been introduced as part of the political direction which the Government have pursued ever since 1979 to introduce, step by step, further restrictions on entry into this country and to present more difficulties for people who wish to visit this country to stay with their relatives and friends here. A leak last year indicated that, within days of the Conservative Government being elected in 1979, officials were seeking by administrative means to make it more difficult for people to visit this country freely.
I hope that that political direction will be recognised and that when the Minister of State winds up we are not going to have a further dollop of waffle and abuse levelled against those Members of this House who seek to help their constituents. I hope that we shall have some indication that he is going to take positive action to tackle the problems which he, and he alone, can tackle. I hope that he will consider seriously the proposals that I have made and not treat us again to the sort of abuse and wild allegations with which we have been greeted so often in the past.
6.56 pm
Mr. John Carlisle: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), although I did not agree with much, if any, of his speech, particularly because of what happened recently when I was a visitor to his constituency. Perhaps if I had let him know in advance, I would not have had to face the problems that I had at the university in his town; I might have received the courteous treatment which I believe is given to people when they come to this country.
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I must at the start totally refute the impression given by Opposition Members that we have a set of racist immigration officers and that there are racists in the Home Office who are intent upon making the system unworkable, on picking out a particular set of visitors and making life unbearable for them.
The Labour party seems to believe that it is its prerogative and privilege to represent what are known as the ethnic communities. That is nonsense. There are hon. Members on the Tory Benches with larger numbers of such constituents than any Opposition Members have and I know from my own experience that everyone is given the fairest treatment.
But, in a situation such as that faced by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State and the Government, in which there was misuse or abuse of the system, the Government were absolutely right to draw up a set of guidelines—and they are only guidelines—for Members of Parliament to follow.
In 1979, when I came into the House, facing a new experience, as most of us do in these conditions, I would have welcomed certain guidelines. I am glad to see that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) is in his place. He complained that the number of refusals is up. I suggest that he is casting a slight on the officials by implying that they are employing a different interpretation of the rules as they stand. Those rules have not changed, as the right hon . Gentleman will know, since they were introduced in 1971.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman was totally wrong, in giving the statistics which he produced, to ignore the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), because immigration officers are bound to look at those from disadvantaged countries much more closely than at those coming from more prosperous countries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?" ] On the basis that it is obviously going to be far more tempting for visitors from those places to overstay. This is partly the problem. It is naive of the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends to think that every visitor who comes through Heathrow airport or any other port of entry is a genuine visitor who has every intention of returning to his point of departure. Obviously, the majority do, but it is right that we and the Home Office should be vigilant. I am extremely pleased that the guidelines have been produced.
It is disturbing that at a time when, at last, immigration numbers are decreasing, which I and all Conservative Members welcome, the number of refusals seems to be increasing. That almost gives the hint that more people are trying the system. They are doing so because of the assistance that they have been given by certain hon. Members. They are trying the system because they know full well that some people will slip through the net.
For Opposition Members to chastise the Government for having stricter rules and interpretation of them and for considering closely those who visit the United Kingdom is, as usual, pure humbug. They do so for nothing more than political advantage. They seek to curry some favour with a certain sector of the community. Conservative Members, who represent fairly the interests of all their constituents from wherever they come and whatever their colour, will certainly be better respected at the general election.
I am worried about the present system because it is the easiest thing in the world for hon. Members, their

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secretaries or others who must deal with queries if hon. Members happen to be absent, to put a stop on, without thinking of the consequences or the merits of a particular case. Moreover, hon. Members know that once the intended visitors arrive and have had a stop put on them, the process of appeals and, ultimately, of removing them is long. It is a fact that a number overstay, and we are naive if we think that they do not.
Frequently in local and national papers one sees the publicity that such cases attract and, indeed, which Opposition Members attract in their political interests. The emotional side is emphasised and we have stories of "tugs of love". Under the system of appeal such people can stay for many years. It must be prudent for any country to examine carefully those who enter, whether as visitors or immigrants.
The guidelines must be accepted, and I welcome them for three reasons. First, there is absolute evidence, as the Minister has shown and Opposition Members have almost admitted, that there is some misuse of the system. Hon. Members have undoubtedly been advertising the fact that they are willing and able to help any visitor who comes and who is in trouble. I am a little worried, regarding cross-constituency interest, about the part of the guidelines which talks about national groups being used as an excuse for one hon. Member to take cases for another. That is an extremely easy excuse.
Mr. Nellist rose—
Mr. Carlisle: I shall not give way because I do not have time.
That makes it easy for another hon. Member, usually from the Opposition, to take up a case, in the hope of gaining political advantage. That is a dangerous road to follow.
The second reason why the guidelines must be accepted is that some of us have faith in immigration officers, their staff and the staff at the Home Office. Opposition Members, especially the right hon. Member for Gorton, have cast aspersions on the integrity of those officers who are doing a difficult job, which I find disgraceful. I tend to trust, if I can, men and women who have been trained to do their jobs and who have long experience on the basis that the authority given to them under the Immigration Act 1971 should not be absolute, but should certainly be considered and, in the majority of cases, accepted.
The third reason is that the various representations from hon. Members are clogging the system. That means more disappointments for those who are genuinely waiting to immigrate under existing laws or to visit. Because Opposition Members have been misusing and abusing the system it is probably making it more difficult for the majority of genuine visitors to enter. Hon. Members who have visited terminal 3 at 8 o'clock on a weekday or weekend morning, as I hope all hon. Members have, will understand how the system can clog up, and appreciate the time that it takes for people to come through immigration control. It is right that they should be vetted, but the system will virtually disintegrate under the spurious claims of Opposition Members in an attempt to bring in virtually every visitor who makes a protest.
More consideration should be given to the point of departure, where more questions should perhaps be asked of those who seek to visit. That could stop the heartache
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when people arrive who are obviously not genuine visitors. I urge my hon. and learned Friend the Minister to make further investigations into whether more work and, possibly, manpower can be put at that end to avoid the problems that we face at this end.
If hon. Members are so keen to represent and put a stop on virtually any case of refusal that comes to them, they should put their money where their mouth is and become the sole sponsor for the visitor. That should be published and the general public should know when those genuine visitors, as we hope they will be, return. In that way, hon. Members who make representations can be responsible for their actions.
I welcome the guidelines. They will be of tremendous use to hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I hope that they will receive a welcome from all parts of the House this evening.
7.6 pm
Mr. David Winnick: I doubt whether anyone will describe the speech of the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) as a helpful contribution to our debate. I should declare that I am the chairman of the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service, although, obviously, that has no financial implications.
The Minister of State and his predecessor have given the strong impression that they resent the large number of representations made by Members of Parliament in cases involving refusals at airports and related matters. The Minister's predecessor, as early as the summer of 1979, was quoted in the press as saying that he was upset at the time spent signing letters to Members of Parliament about visitors' refusals. Last week the present Minister, in exchanges in the House, complained of the large number of letters that he had to sign which, apparently, had been scribbled—I use his word—by immigration officers.
It would have been wholly unsatisfactory to insist that Members of Parliament must contact the chief immigration officer about refusals when the sponsor has contacted us. All hon. Members know that there are no difficulties in contacting the Minister's private office, or in contacting the duty officer at the Home Office in the evenings or at weekends. Certainly, I have not experienced any difficulty. Leaving aside all the other issues involved, it is doubtful whether it would be so simple to contact the chief immigration officer, for example at Heathrow. Some hon. Members have mentioned the Minister's private office, and I wish to join them in stating that I have always found the staff helpful and courteous. I make no complaint about his private office.
When constituents contact hon. Members about the refusal at ports of relatives or close friends, it is not part of our job to act as some sort of judge and decide on the merits of the case. The original guidelines suggested that, if we contacted the chief immigration officer, he would tell us about the matters involved, and that we would then make the decision whether to make representations.
As I said in an intervention, when matters come before us concerning housing, social security, pensions and taxation, and all the other issues about which our constituents write to us or come to our surgeries to see us, we do not act as some kind of judge. We do not decide whether a person should be rehoused, nor do we look into all the merits of the case. Our job as Members of Parliament is to write as sympathetically as possible to

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officialdom and to make the best possible case on behalf of our constituents. There is no difference between cases like that and cases in which constituents come to see us about a close relative or friend who has been refused permission to enter as a visitor.
It is rather important to get our words right, because we are not talking about immigrants. The people about whom representations are made in such cases deny that they are potential immigrants. They are not immigrants in any sense, any more than the millions of visitors from all over the world who come to our shores and are presumably welcome—because tourism, it is said, is useful to the Exchequer—are immigrants.
The sponsor is usually worried and tense and in a state of distress when refusal occurs. He might well have been waiting at the airport for a long time, often overnight, and getting little information about the passenger he is there to meet. He becomes increasingly worried about what is happening. We have to picture the situation in which many of our constituents find themselves. At places like Heathrow more could be done, I believe, to advise people when a passenger has been held for further and prolonged questioning. The Home Secretary is now present and I hope that he will take note of that suggestion. Why is it not possible at Heathrow, and perhaps at Gatwick, to have an information desk manned by an immigration officer who could give up-to-date information about these matters?
I am often told by constituents—and I believe them—that they find it extremely difficult to get information about why someone has not been allowed in, but when refusal has not yet occurred. That difficulty should be resolved, and it would be beneficial, certainly for community relations, if something were done. It is also the case that many of the people contacting us have lived in Britain for many years. They are totally law-abiding—that is rarely in question. They often resent the fact that because the person whom they have sponsored, a close relative or friend, is coming from the Indian sub-continent that causes far more difficulties than if he or she were coming from some other part of the globe. They feel that people coming to Britain from the Indian sub-continent face far more difficulties than other people.
I readily accept that not everyone who says he wishes to visit Britain is a genuine potential visitor. I also accept that it is the job of immigration officers to satisfy themselves about each passenger under the relevant immigration rules approved by the House. Like my hon. Friends, however, I sometimes wonder whether there is an excessive amount of suspicion when a person comes from the Indian sub-continent. People who have lived in Britain for many years, who pay their taxes, and who have never broken the law and would never dream of doing so, resent being treated almost as criminals when they go to Heathrow and are subjected to hostile questions.
I am rather disappointed by paragraph 2 of the guidelines, which says that the Minister will not normally intervene to overturn a decision about refusal taken at the ports. I suppose that is why I have never received a reply from the Minister about refusal cases where he has not accepted the decision of the immigration officer. Presumably, in most such cases the letter that is signed by the Minister was written by the immigration officer or the chief immigration officer responsible for the refusal. It is hardly likely that that person will challenge his own decision.
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I am far from happy either about paragraph 12 which says that the Minister is unlikely to overturn a decision where an appeal is dismissed and no recommendation is made by the adjudicator. In the main, I am not talking now about visitors' refusal cases. Some cases, often of settlement, are important—this is about immigration—and I hope that if new facts are given after an appeal has been turned down and after an hon. Member has written to the Minister of State, the whole case will be looked at properly and fairly even if no recommendation was made by the adjudicator. Some adjudicators seem to accept that they should not make a recommendation.
Paragraph 17 was the subject of a great deal of comment in the debate. I am not touting for business. Like my hon. Friends, I am always reluctant to take up an individual case from outside my constituency. I need a good deal of persuading to do so. I always reply to nonconstituents—I am not talking just about immigration cases—and explain, politely and courteously I hope, that there is a long-standing parliamentary convention that a Member of Parliament does not take up individual cases from outside his constituency.
If some hon. Members on the Government side refuse as a matter of principle to take up cases of people who are refused entry, not only is that unfair to the passenger, but also, of course, to the person who has lived in Britain for many years. Just because a person lives in the constituency of such an hon. Member, why should he not be able to contact his MP to have the matter taken up? It is difficult simply to turn down a person in these circumstances and tell them that we are not able to pursue the case.
I hope the Home Secretary understands that point. My interpretation of the wording of paragraph 17 is that no one but an MP can contact the private office. That seems rather unfortunate and I hope that my interpretation is wrong. If, for example, one is away—say at the height of the summer or attending to parliamentary duties—I hope that the agent of the Member of Parliament will be able to make representations. The Home Secretary is nodding about what I have just said. It will be in Hansard and I shall send a copy to my agent just in case there are any difficulties.
I hope to see a fresh approach and more understanding from the Minister of State, who I hope will take a positive approach and not adopt a resentful feeling that receiving and signing hon. Members' letters is not right. That is all part of his duty as a Minister of State, just as it is our duty to take up cases about our constituents.
7.19 pm
Mr. Geoff Lawler: I should also like to acknowledge the great patience shown and the sterling work carried out by the people in my right hon. Friend's private office. I also acknowledge the extreme helpfulness of immigration officers at the ports. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was extremely unrestrained in making allegations. I have a chance to answer, but officials in my hon. Friend's office and immigration officers do not have the same opportunity. For that reason the right hon. Gentleman's remarks were all the more disgraceful. I hope he will take an opportunity to withdraw them—especially his remark accusing me of touting. As the debate progressed he must have learned that the practice I follow and which I have

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explained to him is copied by a good number of Members in an effort to be helpful to their constituents. If he wishes to withdraw and apologise, I shall give way.
Mr. Kaufman: I greatly admire the hon. Gentleman's pro forma letter. I never thought of something like that, because I thought the Home Office would disapprove of it. Now that it has the stamp of approval of the Home Office, I might start using it myself.
Mr. Lawler: I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not apologised. As long as he uses the letter in the same responsible way as I use it, I will be more than happy to let him have a copy. His speech was short on, indeed completely devoid of, any constructive proposals—in contrast to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who produced the most constructive proposal to come out of this debate: the appointment of 52 extra staff. That will be good news for all visitors to Britain.
This debate is about how to make a manifestly unfair system that is open to abuse work in an efficient manner. There is a danger that the demands of the minority who are refused admission will affect the rights of the majority. The rights of the majority are to enter this country with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of delay. The reason for this debate is that those rights are being infringed because of the time that immigration officers have to take in preparing reports, following representations from hon. Members.
It is not much of a welcome to arrive in a country and then have to wait eight or 12 hours before a decision is made about whether one will be allowed to enter the country. What would be the reaction of hon. Members if they arrived in Pakistan and found that they had to wait for 10 hours before such a decision was made? What would be the reacton of an hon. Member who went to meet his mother at Heathrow and found that he had to wait eight or 10 hours before a decision was made? Therefore, we have to balance the rights of the majority against the rights of those who are refused admission to this country. It is important not to forget the right of the majority to enter this country with minimum delay. The guidelines have been drawn up in order to try to alleviate those delays.
Of people refused admission, there are those who try to flout the system. It is acknowledged that people try to enter this country by the back door by flagrantly abusing the visitor system. However, the low numbers of absconders among those who are given temporary admission show that the majority of visitors are genuine. They sometimes fall foul of the regulations for two reasons. First, they fall foul of them through ignorance, lack of intelligence or lack of preparation. They may be unaware of all the questions that they will be asked. I should find it extremely difficult to draw up my family tree. I do not even know the names of all my cousins. Therefore, I understand some of the problems that face those who are less well educated.
Secondly, some people are misled by advisers in their host countries. That is deplorable and I hope that the Government will make representations about it to high commissions and embassies. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State is aware of the fact that recently I have had to deal with the sad case of a young man who was advised to tell lies. He was told that if he told lies he would stand a better chance of getting into this country.
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If he had told the truth, he would have had no problem. As it is, through his own folly and through being misled by advisers, who I dare say are making a pretty penny out of the racket they run, he has had to return home.
All these factors affect one group of people in particular: people from the Indian sub-continent. They account for 11 per cent. of non-EEC visitors but for 55 per cent. of the refusals. Despite that, it is wrong to imagine that everybody who is refused leave to enter is a potential illegal immigrant and that therefore we should wash our hands of them.
As the system exists, it is an abdication of responsibility if Members of Parliament do not use it and give a fair hearing to somebody who is refused entry. Hon. Members are only too happy on numerous occasions to prove that officials in other Departments are not always right. Therefore, nobody would claim that immigration officials are always right. They may not have all the facts. However, as with most official matters, there is a line of appeal: that line of appeal in immigration cases is through representations by hon. Members. Hon. Members therefore have a duty seriously to consider using the system and not to abdicate their responsibilities. Right hon. and hon. Members must acknowledge that it is equally wrong to ignore the "pressure to emigrate" argument. That must be acknowledged as common sense. It would be wrong to ignore the fact that some people will try to abuse the system by using the visitor system as a means of entering the country for permanent settlement.
The way to stamp out abuse is by having effective control and ensuring that the message gets back that the immigration system cannot be abused, because those who try to abuse it will be caught out. Fewer people will then try it on by coming to this country and attempting to use the visitor system to enter and settle here permanently.
I applaud my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's attempt to introduce a more efficient and better service for our constituents. I deeply regret the withdrawal of the first draft. I do not believe that the new guidelines will result in any change in the existing practice. They merely restate what is done now. The only definite change is the unfortunate removal of the instruction that in the first instance Members of Parliament, should go to the port of entry. I saw nothing wrong with that suggestion.
It is important for Members of Parliament to be made aware immediately of the reasons why somebody has been refused entry. Therefore they should contact the port of entry in the first instance. They could then decide instantly whether somebody was abusing the system and trying to enter the country on a false passport, using a cock and bull story that could not be supported by a shred of evidence. Members of Parliament would not seek then to make representations on their behalf. If, however, there has been a genuine misunderstanding, or if all the facts are not known, Members of Parliament can advise and help the sponsor to make more effective representations.
The initial draft would have been extremely helpful to our constituents. It would have enabled Members of Parliament to provide a much better service. It is a great shame that it was withdrawn and that we must continue to use the private office as a go-between. It is difficult to know how we can help to clear up misunderstandings if we do not know what the misunderstandings are in the first place. In no way would it have affected the rights of Members of Parliament, and it would have saved the time of all concerned.

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I regret the removal of this positive step, and I hope that it will be reconsidered. It was removed for all the wrong reasons. It was removed partly because of a genuine misunderstanding and partly because there may be those who do not wish to get involved in such cases. However, it was also removed because of the deliberately misleading propaganda campaign that was waged by the Opposition. They waged a scaremongering campaign which needlessly, as I have seen from my mail bag, raised anxieties among the Asian community. That was thoroughly irresponsible and it is to be condemned.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lawler: In a moment.
I shall give an example of their deliberately misleading and irresponsible campaign. Recently I visited an Asian community centre where a petition was going round which said: "Please sign below, condemning these new guidelines which will restrict visitors' rights." The wording was only in English. Having talked to people there, I knew that a significant number of those who were being asked to sign the petition were unable to read English. Nevertheless, they were being told that it was all right to sign the petition, despite the fact that the wording at the top of the petition was a gross distortion of the intentions of the original draft guidelines.
Mr. Sheerman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lawler: We are on a time limit. I feel sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that that is why I do not intend to give way.
Mr. Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman said that he would give way.
Mr. Lawler: I have changed my mind.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Earnest Armstrong): Order. The hon. Gentleman is almost on his 10 minutes. He has another few seconds; that is all.
Mr. Lawler: As for the decision that somebody should be deported after four days, I ask for flexibility. That will create difficulties if arrangements have to be made in Pakistan or Bangladesh for somebody to meet a young girl or an elderly mother at the airport and convey them for some distance. There should therefore be flexibility.
If we are to be honest, the existing system is a safety valve. The system is not adequate, but it is a safety valve which, if screwed down further, will be unfair to visitors and sponsors. If, however, the screw were to be loosened, the system would be open to abuse and would be unfair to honest visitors and to the rest of the community. What we really need is a new system.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has exceeded his 10 minutes now. I call Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.
7.29 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: It is unfortunate that there is a 10-minute time limit in this debate.
The reasons for the debate are due entirely to the Home Office, which has created this issue. It has peddled it and used the media to attack Members of Parliament who take up immigration cases.
In a reply given to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) on 19 March, the Home Secretary
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grandly said that the guidelines now being issued are intended to find a "means of improvement" for hon. Members taking up immigration cases. Frankly, I fail to see what can be an improvement in a system that is designed to curtail the role of hon. Members effectively to represent people in this country who are suffering great difficulties because of the immigration laws.
Some weeks ago I quoted a letter which had been sent by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mrs. Rumbold) to firm of solicitors about an immigration case with which I was involved. She wrote:
"I wonder if you are aware that David Waddington is working towards the introduction of new regulations which will prevent MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn exercising an open market in allowing people, such as Mr. X, from coming into this country with illegal passports."
To put it mildly, that is a disgraceful letter. It is a disgraceful assertion which, I believe, could come only from private discussions with the Minister of State.
The background to this problem is largely of the Home Office's creation. We are now offered a new set of guidelines which are, frankly, unworkable. They are also unfair and serve to undermine the ability of a Member of Parliament to represent people in this country.
Paragraph 3 relates to representations and states that the removal of a passenger will be
"deferred for a period of 12 days to enable the Member to submit written representations."
I do not know whether the Minister has any experience of what it is like to represent an area where one is dealing with many immigration cases with a limited number of staff. It would be physically difficult to get the necessary amount of work done in that time. The Minister has the largest office in Whitehall, but individual Back-Bench Members are lucky if they have one and a half or two full-time staff.
Paragraph 6 goes on to say there will be
"removal as soon as practicable",
after the Home Office has made a decision on an individual case. I thought that normally there was an opportunity for a second representation if the Member of Parliament felt aggrieved at the first decision. It appears from the guidelines that that facility will be weakened, if not removed.
Paragraphs 17 and 18 go on to discuss the role of constituency Members when dealing with these matters. I have taken up many immigration cases and I freely admit that not all of them are, by any stretch of the imagination, from Islington, North. The cases may involve people from communities with which I have a special interest. They may be people who, because they are absolutely desperate, have sought me out on a Friday night, a weekend, or on a Christmas day. I have also had cases from constituencies where people do not feel able to go to their own Member of Parliament because of the known attitude of that hon. Member towards minority ethnic communities in Britain. I trust that the Minister will recognise that this service must continue.
In the guidelines we are told that copies of correspondence will be sent to the hon. Member the Home Office believes represents the immigrant concerned. How will the Home Office decide the constituency of a refugee or an asylum-seeker who has arrived at Dover western docks on a Sunday night? What ability does the Home Office have to decide that? Theme will be a serious invasion of individual's privacy as a result of these guidelines.

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The record of successive British Governments on matters of immigration is not an honourable one. We discovered from the debate at Christmas and from earlier revelations that the maintenance of artificial queues for entry clearance from the Indian sub-continent was a deliberate act of immigration policy.
On 16 January in a parliamentary answer to me, the Minister of State, Home Office admitted that the waiting lists of people for entry clearance at Dhaka in September, 1985, was 12,800, at Islamabad it was 7,000 and at New Delhi it was 1600. They are variations on the figures for December 1983 and 1984, but, nevertheless, they are disgracefully long waiting lists. If the Minister says that everybody must seek entry clearance in their country of origin and still maintain the disgracefully long waiting lists, is he surpised that there is a problem at some ports of entry in Britain? The Minister must consider seriously the staffing at the high commissions and the number of entry clearance officers in Britain.
I am often closely involved with the issue of refugees and asylum-seekers. On arrival, those people are often in a desperate state. Again, the record of the British Government and, indeed, most European Governments, in respect of treatment of asylum-seekers, goes well outside the United Nations 1951 convention on the treatment of such people. Poul Hartling, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, made a statement on 29 April 1985 in which he said:
"Negative public attitudes and in some cases xenophobic reactions have tended to focus on asylum-seekers largely because of the inadequate appreciation of their special status and needs as a group distinct from the much larger category of alien economic migrants, but also for reasons such as their limited propects for successful integration in the prevailing economic climate."
That is said within the context of the poor record of a number of European Governments in their attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers. There must be a serious debate on this issue and an examination of the record of the British and European Governments on this matter.
Last year the European refugee charter was put forward by a number of organisations and people of Europe. It makes a number of demands. The first is:
"Every refugee granted asylum by a member country of the EEC should enjoy the same rights of movement, work and political activity as nationals within the EEC."
One of the reasons why refugees and asylum seekers are badly treated throughout Europe is that they lack political rights. They have no voice and they are treated like shuttlecocks in international political manoeuvring. It is time that people understood what it is like for people arriving in Britain in a desperate state, suffering from political persecution, who then have to go through the indignity of the treatment they far too often receive from the immigration services at the ports of entry.
Those hon. Members who are keen to defend everything which the immigration service do should put themselves in that position. Last May we went through the hideous experience of the Home Office creating, peddling and refusing to recognise the way that Tamil people in Sri Lanka were being treated and the fact that they were seeking refugee status outside Sri Lanka. A visa restriction was introduced for those people. We have still not had an answer on when that visa restriction will be lifted—it
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was supposed to be a temporary visa restriction. Last December the Home Office did not adequately deny that it would not introduce visa requirements for those coming from Bangladesh. That resulted in many frightened people attempting to come into Britain over the Christmas period. It also led to an aggressive attitude from the immigration service towards people coming from Bangladesh.
At terminal 3 at Heathrow airport in December 1985, of the 688 people who were refused entry and removed from Britain, 140 were from Bangladesh. I dealt with a number of cases of Bengalis who had arrived over the Christmas period, and some of the questions which were put to them were absolutely disgraceful. One young man, whose case I took up with the Home Office, was asked why he wished to come to Britain over the Christmas period. He said he was coming for a holiday, to see friends of his mother's, and visit the sights of Britain. After he was unable to state a number of sights in the country that he would visit, and he admitted that he was not a Christian, he was then asked why he was coming here for the Christmas holiday. He was put through a humiliating experience and finally returned to Bangladesh, having lost money on his holiday. The only piece of Britain that he ever saw was Ashford remand centre.
A case came to my attention this Sunday of an Iraqi who has refugee status in Europe and who sought to come to Britain to celebrate the Kurdish new year at Kensington town hall on last Sunday. He was asked why he had been to see a Member of Parliament who had been to Russia and Afghanistan many times. I was that Member. I have never been to Russia or Afghanistan and I resent the way immigration officers should criticise and penalise individual arrivals in this country because they have chosen to seek assistance from an individual Member of Parliament—[Interruption.] There is nothing amusing about that, and I hope the Under-Secretary of State will consider this matter urgently.
If these regulations are allowed to go through they will curtail the rights of Members of Parliament to represent people, many of whom are desperate and are in danger. They are rights which must be protected.
7.39 pm
Sir Kenneth Lewis: I have listened to most of the debate, which has been fascinating, and I have reached one conclusion—that despite Opposition criticism of the guidelines, this must still be among the easiest of all countries to get into. I entirely support people coming in for holidays or to stay with relatives, but it is totally unrealistic to allow people to buck the system and to stay permanently. It is clear to anyone with any common sense that the reason why we need the guidelines is that there are people who try to get round the system. But for those people there would be no problem.
I pay tribute to the way in which my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State handles these matters. Of all Ministers, he and his private office must be under the greatest pressure in terms of personal cases, and Members on both sides have paid tribute to him. I was sorry that the guidelines that he originally proposed were redrafted, although I recognise the pressures from various directions. Nevertheless, he may be sure that we regard the work done by him, his private office and the immigration officers as extremely valuable to both communities—those who come in and those who receive them.

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It is a false assumption to think that immigration officers set out to be unduly difficult. Now and again, an officer may have had a busy day and not be so sympathetic as he was when the day began. That happens with everyone, even those who come to Members' surgeries. [HON. MEMBERS: "And the Members."] Yes, indeed. By and large, however, immigration officers deal sympathetically with people. The problem is the weight of numbers. The figures show a substantial increase in the past two years and something must be done.
The Opposition intend to divide the House. When I said in an intervention that they would be voting on the guidelines, I was told that the Division would be on the Adjournment, but that is a mere technicality. If, perchance, the Opposition won the Division, they would say that the guidelines were a dead duck and the Government would no doubt have to think twice about them. I am glad to see that the Opposition Front Bench spokesman agrees. So we shall be voting on the Minister's paper and once it is passed it will have parliamentary sanction.
The convention that we have discussed of Members not interfering in other Members' constituencies will then be established, as it were, in print. It has always been the convention that Members do not take up cases in other constituencies. If that convention were overthrown generally, for whatever reason, there would be chaos. The official Opposition do not favour proportional representation and argue, as I do, that we should retain the present system of voting and of every Member having a constituency so that constituency relationships can be retained. If Members can deal with cases in other constituencies, we may as well not bother with our special type of democracy.
The hon. Member for Ealing. Southall (Mr. Bidwell), one of the most reasonable Opposition Members, surprised me when he said that he had many times taken up cases of immigrants seeking to come in from outside his constituency. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who is no longer present, said the same. I cannot accept that. Members are doing it for one reason—not out of sympathy but seeking to curry favour and saying to immigrants already in their constituencies, "This is what we have done not only for you but for people in other constituencies." When the Government's proposals are passed today, that kind of activity should stop.
I do not have many immigrants in my constituency, but this has happened to me. I had examined a case—anyone who knows me knows that I looked at it fairly and properly, without any rush, because I do not have many immigrants anyway—and I had decided that there was no case for that person to come in, or at any rate no case for my intervention. If the immigration officer took a different view, that was a matter for him, but I saw no case for intervention and said that I would not intervene.
Another Member of Parliament, not far away—I shall not name him as he is not present and it would be unfair—was approached, took up the case and achieved a stop. I asked the Home Office to send me a copy of the letter sent to that Member and to tell him that the copy had been sent. I then told the Member that if it happened again I would put it into the local paper that he was so enthusiastic about people coming into this country when they should not that he took up cases even in another Member's constituency. It has not happened since.
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There is intense pressure from people seeking to get round the system and to come into this country.
Mr. Ron Leighton rose—
Sir Kenneth Lewis: I will not give way as I have only 10 minutes.
It is not in the interests of immigrants already here to have a system with great leaky holes. There may be arguments between the two sides of the House as to how far immigration should go, but there is double talk. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said that of course he did not want to allow immigration to get out of hand and that there must be restraint, but then he said that the Opposition would vote against the Government's proposals. They cannot have it both ways. If we are to keep a tight hold on the number coming in, people must not be allowed to come in unlawfully through the back door by pretending to be merely visiting for a month or two.
I believe that the limit of stay should be two months rather than three months, because I believe that after three months the fare is paid by the British taxpayer. I am not altogether convinced that we should not have a visa system, although I appreciate that there are difficulties, so I shall not press that. Scarcely any other country does not have such a system. British people now need visas to get into Australia. Until we have a system of that kind, there will be problems and difficulties.
I support the guidelines and the work of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, which I believe to be in the interests of the Asian and other communities who come here to stay with us, as well of the indigenous population.
7.49 pm
Mr. John Cartwright: I welcome the reasonable and moderate way in which the Home Secretary introduced the guidelines. He was at pains to reassure us about how they will work. However, many of us fear that the guidelines will be operated on the basis of the words as they are written down and not on the basis of the soothing comments of the right hon. Gentleman. I want to add my voice to the concern already expressed from both sides of the House about the operation of several of the guidelines.
In paragraph 6 we are told that, if a representation has not been received from the hon. Member after 12 working days, the person concerned will be removed as quickly as practicable. In the many cases which I have taken up over the past 12 years, I have usually been able to get representations in within 12 working days, but it is not always possible. There are practical difficulties. Sometimes there is a need to obtain a lot of supporting evidence. Sometimes there are language problems and difficultes in interpreting. Occasionally, if I dare say it, firms of solicitors are involved. As we all know, that slows down the whole process.
If we are to have a time scale of 12 working days, it must be operated with reasonable flexibility. It has already been pointed out that there may be practical problems of communication as well. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will assure us that at the end of the 12 days, his private office will attempt to remind the constituency Member about a case lest a communication has gone astray. It would be intolerable if people were simply removed at the end of 12 days without such a practical safeguard.

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Even more worrying is paragraph 9 of the guidelines which suggests that where the Minister has upheld an immigration decision against allowing somebody to come in, that person will have only four days after the decision before he is removed. If all went well and the Member of Parliament was in his place, ready to receive the letter, he could just about get the information to the constituent within the four-day period. There is not enough time allowed to get the views of the Minister, to give them to the constituent and to get the constituent's response. Sometimes that would be the first occasion on which the constituent would have seen the detailed arguments set out on paper. It is not reasonable to suggest this narrow four-day period after the Minister has approved the immigration officer's decision before the person concerned is removed.
On the vexed question of paragraph 17 and the role of constituency Members, I welcome what the Home Secretary said about a flexible approach; I hope that it will be flexible. The idea of the Minister's civil servants in the private office checking constituency boundaries to try to work out whether a Member of Parliament really had a right to raise a case is a frightening prospect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) pointed out, many of the people involved have relations in different constituencies. The implication of the paragraph as it is written is that where the hon. Member is sick or absent, there has to be a formal arrangement for another hon. Member to take up the case on his behalf. I find that hard to accept in the real world. Members of Parliament do not tend to write each other formal letters saying, "Please take up my cases while I am absent or sick." In the real world arrangements are much more flexible and reasonable.
In my borough of Greenwich in south-east London there are three Members of Parliament, all from different political parties. We have a good working relationship on these issues. The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) and the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) are clearly more efficient than I am because they manage to close their offices during the month of August. My office keeps going, which means that I get all the immigration problems during August and I take them up on behalf of my parliamentary colleagues. Often there are problems at weekends. If someone wants advice in an urgent case on a Friday night, there is no time to send him off chasing another Member. I raise the matter, I inform my parliamentary colleague and I make it clear to the Minister that I am raising the case on behalf of another Member of Parliament. I give the Member the opportunity to take up the case, if he wishes. Therefore, there has to be flexibility in the operation of that rule.
I must also underline what other hon. Members have said about cases which the constituency Member directly involved is not prepared to take up. Occasionally, cases are brought to me by a constituent who is a distant relative of the person concerned and who is not the primary sponsor. When I ask why his brother, cousin or uncle in another part of the country has not taken up the case, I am told that his constituency Member will not get involved. Sometimes when I check that out, I find that that is fact. I make no apology for taking up such cases. If I have even a tenuous constituency link, I think that it is right that I should do that.
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I am also concerned about paragraph 19 and about prior advice to travellers emanating from hon. Members. It is suggested that an adverse view will be applied only where the Member of Parliament is
"fully aware that a passenger is most unlikely to be admitted under the Rules".
That seems to imply a subjective judgment on the part of the immigration officer, the Minister or the Minister's civil servants about what was in the mind of the hon. Member when he took the action. That is a difficult thing for anyone to attempt to do.
My experience is that people come to me and say, "My relation is coming for a family wedding. It is a very expensive journey. There is a lot of money invested in this trip and we do not want to discover when he arrives on Friday night that he will be sent back on Saturday morning. Can you please help us before he sets out?" I am sure I do the same as other hon. Members. I advise that the person should bring every possible shred of evidence which will convince the immigration officer that he intends to go home at the end of his stay. I also point out that if there are problems the person can contact me. I make no apology for that. In most such cases, people come through the immigration system with no difficulty. Therefore, again, there must be a much more flexible attitude than is suggested by the guidelines.
My experience of a great many problems experienced by visitors seeking temporary admission is that the private office is usually helpful. Most visitors seek permission to stay one month or two. The intervention of a Member of Parliament usually means that visitors get two or three months. When the Minister's letter refusing admission is finally received, many have already gone home. They have made a voluntary departure. Many others go rapidly after the Minister's decision. Having asked for one month, one or two want to stay for six months. I tell them clearly that that is not possible.
I have had two cases of absconders that I am aware of, both in the same month and from the same source. I regret those very much. I am sorry that they managed to evade immigration control but I am much more concerned about the hundreds of decent, honest people who would not have been allowed to attend family weddings and visit their relatives in this country had it not been for my intervention. That alone justifies the involvement of Members of Parliament in such cases.
I pay tribute to the Minister for the helpful view he has shown in cases of permanent settlement in my constituency. In compassionate cases and political asylum cases he has been very helpful. But he upholds every decision of the immigration officers in relation to those coming here for visits. Since many have gone by the time he tells me that they cannot come in, it seems to me that he is accepting too glibly the views of the immigration officers.
Unlike other hon. Members who have spoken from the Opposition side of the House, I think that there is a case for having guidelines. It is a good thing for hon. Members to know exactly what their powers are and how they can be operated. It is better to have them clearly written down than to have to learn the system on the job. But the guidelines must be fair, reasonable, practical and as simple as possible. Certainly they must not fetter the rights of hon. Members. The power of Members to involve themselves in the operation of immigration control is a vital part of the job of a Member of Parliament in

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monitoring the operation of the Executive. The guidelines, even in their revised form, could undermine that very important monitoring job. That is why I shall vote against the motion tonight.
7.59 pm
Mr. John Whitfield: I wish to concentrate on the fact that the provision in the original draft for hon. Members to contact immigration officials has now—unfortunately, in my view—been withdrawn. The immigration officer is at the centre of this issue. Under section 4 of the Immigration Act he has the statutory power to admit or to refuse entry.
Like many of my hon. Friends I was appalled at the passage in the speech of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) when he said that the immigration officers were prejudiced, suspicious and paranoid. Such language would be appalling on any occasion. To apply it to the immigration service, which I have much experience of dealing with, is not only totally inaccurate but deeply insulting. The right hon. Gentleman was invited to withdraw his remarks, but a few minutes ago he refused to do so. If he had applied those epithets to some of the views of his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) they might have been more appropriate. That lady made an impassioned speech.
Mr. Sheerman: It was a good speech.
Mr. Whitfield: It was a good speech, but it was a prejudiced, suspicious and paranoid speech. Many hon. Members on the Opposition Benches practise in the racial discrimination industry. They resort to such speeches to inflame racial passions. It is no surprise to me that, apparently, so many of the hon. Lady's constituents are worried in advance about whether their relations will be allowed to come to this country. The hon. Lady is frightening them. She is putting fear and paranoia into their minds by using such language.
There has been an increase in the size of the problem. That is why we are debating the issue. There has been an enormous increase in the number of visitors to this country and a corresponding increase in the number of people legitimately stopped at the ports of entry by the immigration officers.
Mr. Nellist: How big an increase?
Mr. Whitfield: We are concerned this evening about whether those who arrive at the ports of entry are visitors. Opposition Members seem to suggest that when anyone arrives at the port of entry and claims to be a visitor, that claim must be accepted at its face value. That attitude is nonsense. It is the difficult job of the immigration officers to interview people. There are three or four grades of interview—hon. Members who have inspected the system will understand how it works—and only a very small percentage—less than 2 per cent.—are stopped. They are stopped because the officers genuinely believe that they are not visitors but are trying to enter the country for some other purpose.
The stop power that hon. Members have brings with it a great deal of responsibility. It is not to be likened to our general duties as hon. Members to represent the interests of our constituents in dealing with local government and Government Departments. We have a power to interfere with the statutory power of the immigration officers. That power must be exercised in a quasi-judicial way and with
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responsibility. It is not simply a privilege. I cannot think of a better way of responsibly exercising that power than by speaking to the immigration officer who has dealt with the case and who will read out the notes in the file. One could then make a decision as to whether one should exercise the power to prevent removal.
The guidelines state quite clearly that the Minister of State will intervene to overrule the decision of the immigration officer only if he is aware of "new and compelling" evidence for overruling that decision. There has been little reference to that part of the guidelines. How can the Minister of State exercise his discretion if the representations made to him by the hon. Member concerned do not take into account the reasons why the immigration officer made his decision in the first place? The Minister of State cannot direct his mind to the question whether there are "new and compelling" reasons unless he focuses on that point. Hon. Members have a duty to consider that point before deciding whether to make representations to the Minister of State and, indeed, before deciding whether to intervene and place a stop on removal.
I was very surprised to hear some of my hon. Friends, as well as Opposition Members, objecting to contacting the ports. I understand that some hon. Members have said that that would impose too much of a burden on them. That is an extraordinary statement. If they had argued that too great a burden would have been placed on the immigration officers—who have many other things to do—one could have understood the argument, but for an hon. Member of whatever political persuasion to complain of the burden of having to ring the port of entry seems extraordinary.
It is also extraordinary that some hon. Members would apparently wish to put a stop on cases whatever the facts might be. Those who take such an attitude seem to be in danger of seeking power without responsibility and wishing to intervene blindly in cases without any reference to the facts.
We operate our system of immigration control instead of a visa system. Many of my hon. Friends would prefer a visa system. There are difficulties connected with such a system. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Sir K. Lewis) said, this country must be one of the easiest in the world to gain entry to. When we are dealing with visitors or potential immigrants from the Asian sub-continent we must remember that the rules that apply to those going the other way are totally different from those that operate here. I am sure that the Pakistani and Indian Moslem communities in my own constituency would not themselves wish the system to he made any easier that it already is.
Mr. Sheerman: Do they want to make it harder?
Mr. Whitfield: No. They wish the system to operate in a responsible and restrictive manner, because that is what immigration control is about. They would deplore some of the remarks that have been made by Opposition Members about the immigration service.
I seriously request my hon. and learned Friend carefully to consider reviewing the rules within a short time. I suspect that, without the requirement on hon. Members to ring the immigration officers at the port of entry and find out the reasons for the initial decision, the number of stops and representations that have brought the present system so near to collapse will continue to increase.
8.8 pm
Mr. Dave Nellist: Tonight's debate clearly arises from the Home Office's attempt to restrict the right of Members of Parliament to challenge refusals at the ports of entry of people who wish to visit Britain. As previous speakers have made clear, and as the press has reported in the past 10 days, the original document issued by the Minister of State was changed before tonight's debate. That is not so much a U-turn as an S-bend which has been imposed on the Minister by his foreman, the Secretary of State. But the restrictions that are left will create serious difficulties and injustices for the relatives of the people in Coventry and other towns and cities who are affected by the Government's immigration controls.
We have heard from the speeches of Tory Members, that have been prefaced in remarks made outside the House and in newspaper articles, that it is all a question of numbers. That is a game that Tories love to play. It was started by the Prime Minister in 1978 in her famous television interview when she talked about Britain possibly being swamped by people of an alien culture. Some Tory Members go rapidly downhill when they carry on from those remarks.
What are the numbers under consideration? Let us start with an analysis of the people who are affected by the Home Office guidelines. The latest figures are from 1984 when a total of some 7·7 million visitors came to Britain. That is an average of 21,000 people a day. The number of visitors who were refused entry was 17,355, or 50 people a day. The number of people who sought assistance from a Member of Parliament was 3,532, or 10 people a day.
Tory Members justified the new guidelines by saying that since 1984 there has been an enormous increase in the number of cases taken up by Members of Parliament, which is putting such a strain on the limited resources of the Home Office that it is necessary to restrict the rights of the Members of Parliament. Well, I have the figures for 1985. The number of cases in which Members of Parliament made representations to the Minister of State, Home Office, was 5,694—in other words, 15 cases a day. If the Home Office cannot handle 15 cases a day—people who may have invested their life savings to come for a once-in-a-lifetime visit to see a distant family—it is not for the Minister to restrict the rights of Members of Parliament. Why has he not considered an increase in staff in his office or the ancillary departments within the Home Office in order to deal with that huge increase in work of an extra five cases a day?
Incidentally, while we are playing the numbers game, I notice that virtually no Conservative Member has let slip that there happen to be 200 million people or more who could arrive here tomorrow morning as visitors without the Minister of State being able to do a thing about it. Under the much-loved treaty of Rome, under which the Tories took us into the Common Market some 15 years ago, that is the number of people who, with the free movement of capital and labour and all the rest of the phrases which justified our entry into that big business club, could arrive here without restrictions similar to those that we are discussing tonight.
The difference is that visitors from the EEC will still be tourists, like the relatives of my constituents on whose behalf I have made representations to the Minister of State,
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but they will be spending deutschmarks, not rupees. Visitors who come from north America will be spending dollars and not rupees. When the Government, and those Tory Members who have spoken so far tonight, say that those Labour Members who have spoken are somehow accusing the Government of a racist attitude, there is an element of that. The statistics show that those who have been refused entry to Britain from the Asian sub-continent—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and so on—are 44 times more likely to be refused entry at a port of entry than someone who comes from north America.
The second theme in the debate is an attempt by the Minister and the Government to reverse the concept of justice which is supposed to operate in Britain. I shall not digress into what has happened recently in Wapping and during the miners' strike to show what justice in Britain really means, but I shall say that the guidelines turn the concept of innocent until proved guilty on its head. Every schoolchild in Britain is taught that, under the British system of justice, a person is innocent until proved guilty. The Government are trying to change that concept in a number of ways.
I am a member of the Committee which is considering the Wages Bill which gives power to an employer who thinks that somebody has stolen some money from the till to declare that person a thief, deduct the money that has been stolen from his wages and then to offer the person the right to go to an industrial tribunal to prove his innocence—guilty until proven innocent. There is an element of that in the guidelines that we are considering tonight.
The entry clearance officer will decide that somebody who seeks to come into Britain as a visitor is guilty of breaking one of the rules and that person will be told to prove his innocence from 10,000 miles away unless a Member of Parliament can intervene on his behalf, asking for a review of the case by the Minister of State acting on behalf of the Secretary of State. I would prefer the Bill that was proposed yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), of which I am a sponsor, which gives people the right to appeal in Britain. The rules boil down to the fact that an entry clearance officer can declare that somebody is guilty and the only chance of proving that person's innocence is if a Member of Parliament intervenes.
Again today, Tory Members have said that there are widespread abuses and misuses of the system. I have yet to hear a concrete illustration to back up that argument, but in all the cases that I have handled since I came to the House in 1983 where an entry clearance officer has told a relative or a friend of one of my constituents that he is not a genuine visitor to Britain and that he will have to go back, not one person has absconded.
In several cases I have made representations on behalf of a visitor who might be asking for, say, a three-month holiday, and it has taken the Home Office four months to review the case. I have had to apply pressure to get the person's passport back so that he can leave after his three-month holiday to go home. Before the Home Office can work out whether a person who has been accused of not being a genuine visitor is a genuine visitor, that person has had his genuine holiday and is trying to return home.
It often takes three or four months to work through such cases. The checking of statements is a detailed business which requires cross-checking of all the questions asked. It takes the Home Office, with all its resources, reference books, legal expertise and staff three or four months and

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sometimes more to deal with such matters. Yet Members of Parliament are asked to complete a similar exercise. That was initially to be carried out in 10 days, but as a concession we have now been allowed 12 days in which to build up a quasi-legal argument against the Home Office, with all the resources that it has to defend its position.
The hon. Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) referred to the idea that Members of Parliament are willingly going around the country collecting the cases of other Members of Parliament. That is a fatuous suggestion. The Labour party proposes a 35-hour week, but there are times when I think that we should bring in a 35-hour day so that I can at least have a couple of hours off. The work load of a Labour Member of Parliament, particularly in an inner-city area with getting on for 50 per cent. unemployment, makes that a ludicrous suggestion.
But it does happen that Tory Members will capriciously refuse to take up a family's case and the only alternative is to find a more sympathetic Member of Parliament to act on that family's behalf.
Mr. Wheeler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Nellist: I shall give way in a moment.
One such case has come to light as a result of discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). An Egyptian man was an overstayer who had, like many others, breached immigration control, through a combination of ignorance and carelessness. He asked the hon. Member for Westminster, North to intervene with the Home Office. He was told that he would have to exercise his right of appeal from abroad. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants managed to get in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North. He took up the case with the Minister and asked him to exercise his discretion, because the man had had a long-term relationship with a British woman. The Minister exercised his discretion in favour of that Egyptian man, and that couple are now happily married and in this country. But if it was left to some Tory Members, that appeal could have been made only from thousands of miles away and would have caused great distress and unhappiness to those people.
Another important restriction, the 12-day rule, is to be found in paragraph 3. But what would happen if my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Park) was on holiday, and if I and my secretary came down with flu after agreeing to cover his immigration cases? In such circumstances, how could a Member of Parliament compete with Home Office staff, who can cover for one another? The Member of Parliament would have to sift through all the arguments and the extraneous and often irrelevant questions of entry clearance officers, along with the relevant points of law.
Paragraph 19 amazes me, because the Minister has seriously put forward the idea that knowledge of one's rights under the law is prejudicial to exercising them. That is what paragraph 19 would, in effect, mean. What other section of British law means that knowledge of one's rights under it is prejudicial to exercising them?
I turn to the theme underlying the rules and the Government's attitude towards Asian workers and immigration in general. That provides, after all, the backdrop to this debate. It is ironic that, with the active participation and support of the right hon. Member for
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South Down (Mr. Powell), the Tory Government toured the world in the 1950s and 1960s asking people to come to Britain, because it was short of labour. It was a bit of an illusion, but they said that we had a booming economy and needed people to work in our factories.
When that illusion petered out in the 1970s and 1980s, those same Tory politicians, backed by their friends in the media, began to encourage working people, and particularly those suffering from the deteriorating economy—the unemployed, the elderly and those in receipt of supplementary benefit—to see immigration and those of a different colour skin as the cause of their problems.
Such talk increases and fuels the conditions in which racism, Fascism and organisations such as the neo-Nazi National Front breed. Immigrants, and their relatives and friends who wish to visit them, are not the cause of bad housing, deteriorating living standards or high unemployment. Black and Asian workers, particularly the young, often suffer the most from such conditions. We have a Tory capitalist system that is willingly presided over by a Tory capitalist Government who cannot deliver the goods. That is why there is mass unemployment. It is nothing to do with the number of black or Asian workers in Britain.
These rules and restrictions on the right of Members of Parliament adequately to defend their constituents' relatives and friends, or the rights of passengers and visitors to this country, are based on the same prejudice and racism that are at the root of much of Tory legislation on this issue and, unfortunately, of previous Labour legislation. That legislation is discriminatory and racist in its operation. It causes hardship and suffering. I look forward to the day when we have a Labour Government who will sweep away all such legislation to where it really belongs—in the dustbin of history.
8.24 pm
Mr. Patrick Ground: There is a large ethnic minority of Asian origin in my constituency, and I have made many representations to the Home Office since the election of June 1983. I came with some trepidation to hear whether I was one of the 23. But, like the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell), I escaped.
My experience of dealing with representations is in some respects very similar to that of the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist). I have seen all those who have been refused entry, with their sponsors, and in practically every case I think that they have returned home more or less at the end of the stated period. I share the feeling that many people of modest means who have paid a lot of money to come here would have forfeited it but for the system, with all its faults.
Like the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall, I attach great importance to the sponsor. Unlike many hon. Members I regard the sponsor as the constituent on whose behalf I am acting. The visitor is not strictly speaking a constituent. The sponsor's position is extremely important. Often, he has paid for the visit, or he has certainly contributed to it. He normally provides the visitor's food and accommodation. I do not accept the view that Members of Parliament who make representations in such cases are acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) meant that. I think that he really

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meant that Members of Parliament should show judgment in making representations to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister.
I believe that a Member of Parliament exercises his judgment when making representations if he is satisfied, as far as he can be from the representations made to him by the sponsor and the visitor, that the latter will return at the end of his short stay. The sponsor is essential at interviews, because the visitor often cannot speak English well enough to conduct a detailed conversation. It is the sponsor who greatly influences one's confidence as to whether the visitor will return.
I have found sponsors to be generally reliable and responsible, and concerned, in the interests of their good reputation and understanding, to ensure that such undertakings are honoured. When anything has gone wrong, they have felt considerable responsibility for it. As the Member of Parliament often needs to see the constituent or sponsor, I believe that the time limits in the guidelines are a cause for some anxiety. Plainly, it is difficult in many cases to arrange a surgery appointment and see people concerned within the time limit.
I am convinced that some flexibility and good sense must be shown by the Home Office—I am sure that it will be—to cover the situation where a Member of Parliament has been unable to arrange an appointment in sufficient time to make representations within the time limit for reasons of time, pressure of work, holidays or whatever. Certainly, for those hon. Members who make a large number of representations, it is no laughing matter to be tied to a rigid rule.
I am content that it should be a guideline and I am confident that it will be treated accordingly, with the understanding which has been shown, in my experience, by the Office of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State. I should like to join those hon. Members who have complimented the staff on the courtesy, patience and competence they have shown in administering an extremely difficult system.
I do not believe that the reasons for the increase in immigration cases—or visitor cases representations more accurately—is due to any change in the habits of hon. Members. I believe that the Asian community is now becoming more settled, established, confident and economically prosperous, and Asians have enormous numbers of poorer relatives whom they wish to invite to this country. With the cheapening of air travel and the increasing habit of travel in the Third world, there is bound to be an even greater increase in the future in the number of visitors coming to visit members of the Asian community here. I think that the Home Office must face up to that prospect and discover how it will deal with it.
One area of improvement was suggested in the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer). He suggested that some guidance or instruction could be given to immigration officers so that, where there has been an application for permanent settlement and some blatant lie or exaggeration told in the interview, they do not automatically refuse entry. Perhaps they do not. However, there is a pattern to cases, and it appears that even in cases of minor dishonesty or vanity, refusal is the result. Many of the people concerned have simply exaggerated their worldly goods or income for reasons which are perfectly understandable when they
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come from a village in India to a vast modern airport in what must seem to be a relatively prosperous country. They naturally want to exaggerate their position. That is perfectly understandable and will no doubt continue. That should not be a reason for refusing entry to a visitor.
Similarly, many of them forget some relative whom they choose to forget and fail to mention to the immigration officer in the family tree interrogation. I do not want to be critical because I think that the decisions of the immigration officers, on the whole, are perfectly understandable when they see the people before them. I can well understand how the decisions are arrived at. However, I think that in the future there is room for the immigration officers' attention to be attracted to the real question of whether the visitors are likely to go home at the end of their stay, not whether they have told fibs or varying sorts of exaggerations in the process.
I am concerned that when potential visitors to this country go to Foreign Office establishments abroad and say that they want to visit this country they are told that there is no need for visas or any form of documentation. Those same people, when they arrive in this country, can be subjected to the immigration procedure, told that their reasons are not genuine and that they should return straight away, when they or their relatives have spent vast amounts of money to come here.
I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir D. Smith) that we should look at a visa system. If India and the United States can administer visas surely it is not beyond the bounds of the competence of the Foreign Office to do likewise. That would take out much of the unfairness and administrative hassle of the present system. Similarly, the question of guarantees should be looked at further to see whether that is a short cut to a solution to the problems we are experiencing.
In all the discussions on guidelines we must not lose sight of the fact that we are really considering a safety valve which prevents a great deal of human misery, unhappiness and loss of resources. We are doing so in a context which ensures that the visitor system is basically honoured. I agree that we are talking not about immigration but about visitors. I also agree that if visitors can come and go with reasonable freedom and generosity of treatment, that helps to make the strict rules on immigration much more acceptable in the community. I think that that must be borne in mind when the Government are fixing time limits for removing people. They should err in favour of giving them the few weeks or months for which they normally come.
I view the guidelines with some anxiety but I have come to the conclusion that they will work if they are interpreted and followed with the good sense and flexibility which, on the whole, has been the practice of the Home Office in these matters, and with the continuing courtesy, efficiency and skill of the staff who administer them. Therefore, I shall support the guidelines, but I think that for the future the possibilities of a review of procedure should be borne constantly in mind by the Home Office. The guidelines in themselves will not reduce the problem of numbers and the massive scale of administration will remain and should be tackled before the machine is over-encumbered as it has been in recent months.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Opposition Front Bench will try to catch my eye at 9.10 pm. On behalf of those hon. Members who still wish to speak, many of whom have strong constituency interests and have been here all afternoon, I appeal for even more brevity.
8.38 pm
Mr. George Park: I want to add my tribute to the Minister's staff. However, in my opinion, the words on the Order Paper are not correct. We are not discussing immigration cases today. We are discussing the difficulties experienced by visitors from the Indian sub-continent and the attempts by the Home Office, in issuing guidelines, to constrain the attempts of hon. Members to get the same treatment for those with brown skins and a working class background as that given to those visitors who have white skins.
If we were to accept the proposed guidelines, they would establish a dangerous precedent which would undoubtedly be used by other Government Departments. Since 1974 I have encountered only one case out of many hundreds where an individual sought to evade the immigration laws. Unlike some Conservative Members, I have not experienced floods of people coming into the country as visitors and then trying to disappear.
Frequently, however, very temporary admission is granted, sometimes of only three days' duration, for the flimsiest of reasons, in cases where the sponsors, my constituents, who are known to me, are sincerely prepared to guarantee that the visitor will return at the end of his visit. I can confirm the experience of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), in that I am often asked to provide a letter, which might help to expedite the passage of people's relatives through immigration, because, as my right hon. Friend said, they expect trouble. That should not be so.
At a meeting with the Minister of State, because of arguments about what is actually said at interviews, it was suggested that the interviews should be taped. Those who were in the delegation were then faced with estimates of the cost, which suggested that the estimaters were setting up a studio for "Panorama".
It has been suggested by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) that if only everyone told the truth, there would be no problems. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is in his place. But sometimes the truth is not enough. During the period of office of the Labour Government—therefore, I shall not be accused of bias—I had a case to deal with of a lady seeking a visa being asked for details of her family, who, she said, were at home, but she could not bring them to the High Commission. The problem was solved only when the then Minister visited her village. The Minister was the husband of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short). He discovered that the men in that family were woodworkers, and had carved the family tree in the wooden mantlepiece around the fireplace. So the lady did have the family tree details, but obviously could not bring them to the High Commission. Therefore, honesty and truth are not always sufficient.
The proposed guidelines are not helpful, and I do not think that they are intended to be. However, what would help is a requirement that all visitors to Britain be treated in the same way.
8.42 pm
Sir Trevor Skeet: It is important that there should be a balanced view. This evening, we have heard of three plus points. The draft rules will be subject to further revision if that is found necessary. That is essential. We have the code of practice and, furthermore, the 52 extra staff to do the additional jobs.
I also pay tribute to the Minister for the work that has been done over the past years. Some 25 per cent. of my electorate comes from abroad. Like the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) I have a certain amount of experience in this line.
I should like the Minister to clarify one point for me. The total number refused entry in 1984 was 17,355. The number of refused passengers who were represented by Members of Parliament was 3,532. That figure increased in 1985, as we have been told today, to a total of 5,694, and it escalated to 7,000 m 1986 on an annual basis. However, unhappily, we do not have the figures on the other side for the total refused entry during 1985 and 1986. I feel that they are rising in direct proportion. Some people are lucky to have Members of Parliament who can intervene on their behalf. The Minister will remember an intervention that I made. I was successful in getting an immigrant put on a dialysis machine. If I had not succeeded, he would have died. That is one of the things a Member of Parliament can do for his constituents.
Who should take up cases? That matter is referred to in paragraph 17 of the guidelines. I say that it is the responsibility of the local Member of Parliament. That is determined by where the sponsor lives. It must have occurred to hon. Members that if the sponsor is changed, with the consent of the Minister, another Member of Parliament can be invited to intervene. For example, the sponsor might live in Bedford, but his local Member might be away on extended leave and thus not be able to act. He or the family could go along to the private office or the Department and ask for another sponsor to be appointed with a fixed address to which the person could go. In that case, that Member of Parliament could intervene. Therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Sir K. Lewis) was right to suggest that it must be the local Member of Parliament who deals with those cases, since otherwise there will be some interesting but tumultuous changes.
When the draft rules came out, I read them most carefully and came to the conclusion that it would assist Members of Parliament if we could refer to the port of entry first. In fact, I have done that on several occasions. I always interview immigrants when they come from abroad. I cross-examine them and come to my own conclusion. Where I cannot make the ends meet, I may consult the port and get additional guidance. Those at the port might say to me, "We have much more information on this case than you could possibly get. If you will take into account this additional information, you may come to the conclusion that we have reached." I would not necessarily be persuaded by it, but such guidance is extremely useful in reaching a conclusion.
I hope that when the Minister reconsiders the matter, generally he will remove or revise some things to which we have not referred today, such as the primary purpose rule. That is causing much more confusion than anything

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else to my constituents and those who are coming in. However, as it does not arise directly out of the debate, I shall leave that aside.
Paragraph 2 of the guidelines states:
"the Minister will not normally intervene to overturn the decision of an immigration officer unless he considers that there is new and compelling evidence which was not available to the immigration officer."
It occurs to me that compassionate factors may well be new. They may not come up at the time. That may be an additional point. Immigration is inclined to overlook the cost for the immigrant of coming in. The sum of £500 or £600 is large. I pray in aid the fact that of the people who have been represented by Members of Parliament, who have done so remarkably well, only 2 per cent. have absconded, gone to ground or been lost on the way, which is a trifling figure. I have had long experience, exactly the same as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell). He has had a low percentage, too. If the immigration officers are so concerned with the build-up of cases, and they make mistakes, the advantageous influence of the Member of Parliament must be maintained.
8.48 pm
Mr. Ron Leighton: I apologise for not having been present at the beginning of the debate. I was engaged on Select Committee business.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), referred to an article in the Daily Telegraph, which gave the league table of hon. Members who had dealt with cases at terminal 3. I gather from that that I am number four, so only three hon. Members have dealt with more cases than me. However, despite that, I was not on the Minister of State's list of hon. Members who had, as he put it, abused the regulations. If I have dealt with all those cases and have not committed any abuse, that must give me some status in this debate. Not having committed any abuse, I feel very sore, annoyed, and angry about the situation. Perhaps the Minister also feels sore and angry about the job that he has to do.
Ms. Clare Short: He should resign.
Mr. Leighton: Yes, the Minister could resign. I am told that only about 1 per cent. of the travellers who pass through terminal 3 at Heathrow are stopped. I sometimes think that all those people must come from the London borough of Newham. That is how it seems to me. I feel like an extension of the Home Office and I resent that. I resent the work that I have to do and the hours that I spend feeling like an extension of the Home Office. The Home Office should give me a member of staff, a civil servant who would sit in my office. Instead of my ringing up a civil servant, why should I not have a civil servant to do all the work that the Minister of State causes me through the current system?
I should like that point of view to be taken seriously. I sometimes think that I speak to the Minister's private office—to which I pay tribute—more than the Minister does. If my having a member of staff who is a civil servant is not a good arrangement, perhaps the Minister of State could use his influence with his colleagues to give me an extra allowance. I could then employ—as I have to—one person simply to deal with the problems faced by visitors entering through the airport.
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I suspect that some form of instruction has been issued to the effect that when in doubt, say no. The visitor will go to a Member of Parliament who will take up the matter and if there is a problem, the Member of Parliament will make representations and have everything put right. I cannot think of any other explanation for the present situation.
Anyone who wants to visit this country ought to be allowed to do so. Why should they not be allowed to do that, especially if they have relatives in this country? Hon. Members know, and I know from experience in my constituency, that numerous people are unreasonably refused entry. I stress unreasonable. The proof of that lies in the constant correspondence that I have with the Minister of State and he must get fed up with that. In his replies, he says that he has carefully considered my representations but on balance, having given great consideration to the matter, he concludes that he must uphold the immigration officer. That means that the relative of my constituent who wanted a two-month visit has had a three-month visit while the Minister has been considering my representations. Therefore, the Minister of State sadly authorises the departure of my visitor. I must then write another letter and have my special employee write to say that the Minister of State has turned my visitor down but he has had his three-month stay. That must prove that my visitor was a genuine visitor and that the immigration officer had it wrong. The vast majority of the cases that I deal with are dealt with on that basis. I resent the repetitive work that I have to do which involves dozens of cases every month.
I shall consider only paragraph 19 in the guidelines. That paragraph concerns hon. Members advising people to travel. I have people coming to me saying that they have relatives coming to this country. I tell them that this is a free country and that they can come here for a visit. However, my constituents say that they expect trouble as all their friends have had trouble. I tell them that if it is a reasonable case they should have no problems and that their relatives should be allowed entry. My constituents are not satisfied and say that they have spent hundreds of pounds and they want to know where I will be on a Sunday morning in four weeks' time in case of difficulty. I have to tell them that I do not know. They then want to know where I will be at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I tell them that, with a bit of luck, I will be in bed. My constituents are worried and they ask me to write them a letter. Now, I do not do that very often, but I have written a letter to whom it may concern to vouch that a visitor is genuine. I do not know if that was the wrong thing to do, and I trust that the Minister of State will clarify that for me.
When I make representations, what case am I supposed to answer when I am told that a person is not a genuine visitor? I do not know what has happened in the interview at the airport and I do not know why the immigration officer has turned the entrant down. What I do know is that there have been umpteen cases when the immigration officer has been wrong. Why can I not have some account of the interview, and know why the immigration officer has said that the visitor is bogus or wrong? I would then know what case there was to answer. I hope that the Minister of State can comment on that.
Mr. Bob Edwards: I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) is aware that I have

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two visitors in my constituency who came to this country to attend weddings and meet relatives. One of those visitors has been in detention for four weeks at public expense and the other for three weeks. I cannot get any reply or justification for that state of affairs from the Home Office.
Mr. Leighton: That sort of situation causes terrible aggravation and hardship for individuals and aggravation for Members of Parliament. It disgraces this country and it is uncivilised and barbarous. There should be more immigration officers to deal with these matters, and the Home Office must make some changes. We cannot carry on in the present way and I ask the Minister of State if I may have an extra worker from the Home Office to work for me to deal with the problems caused in my constituency by the Minister's Department.
8.58 pm
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: I would like to join in the warm tributes that have been paid this afternoon to the Minister of State and his staff. I would also like to welcome the guidelines, for the benefit that they accord not just to ourselves as hon. Members, but to the bulk of the minority communities who wish to abide by our laws and who wish to dissociate themselves from the malpractice that clearly exists.
The guidelines are needed as a protection for the basic tolerance and good nature of this country. Sustaining that tolerance and preserving our tradition of sanctuary must not be undermined by the activities of the few hon. Members and those outside the House whose motives are, to put it mildly, somewhat questionable and give cause for concern.
The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) said earlier that we do not prevent people coming to this country from the United States. He is absolutely correct. If a visitor comes from New York, whether he is white, Hispanic or coal-black, we hand him back his American passport and say, "Have a nice day." We do that because there is no inward pressure for settlement from the United States and that is why it is wrong for the hon. Member to argue in that manner. We discussed that pressure in May of last year and that was challenged by Opposition Members and there was talk of the repeal of legislation. We heard that talk again today. There could be nothing more damaging to existing and future good community relationships than the dismantling of existing controls.
In the May debate, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) spoke of only a handful of thousands awaiting the right of settlement. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman read the article in The Sunday Times last week about a group of entry clearance officers. The article was entitled
"The little white ghetto of Gulshan".
A queue of 11,600 people were awaiting clearance. This week, the Select Committee on Home Affairs was told that there were 30,000 dependants of Bangladeshis living in Tower Hamlets seeking admission. If that is a handful of thousands, it is a very big handful. Refugees and those seeking asylum are one thing, but people merely wanting to live here are entirely different. Because of these pressures, I believe that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is right to bring in these guidelines as a means
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of helping the peaceful integration of those minority groups who are already here and recognise the dangers of further inward pressure for settlement.
Last time I made these remarks, I received letters from what I called the Nottingham race relations industry. They were very instructive. They make my points for me. For example, the Transport and General Workers Union referred to "poisonous comments"; the National Union of Teachers said that my remarks were "ill-informed and potentially inflammatory"; the Inland Revenue Staff Federation spoke of "scant regard for people involved with the problem"; the Communist party of Great Britain referred to a "serious slur"; the Nottingham Inter-Union Race Relations Group said "inept and dismissive"; and the Pakistan Friends League spoke of
"thousands of black people facing burocratic obstruction. We seek a more positive and generous"
and so on. The prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour party in my seat of Nottingham, South, referring to the rights of black people to live in this country, asked:
"Where was the evidence of pressure to immigrate."
If he and those other correspondents cannot see that evidence, they are either blind to the problem or do not, for whatever reason, want to see it.
I believe that, in the context of what we seek to achieve, these are reasonable guidelines. However, I ant a little disappointed that there is no reference in them to encouraging—I asked for no more than that—hon. Members to check with immigration officers before making representations. If an hon. Member has made an inquiry and is satisfied that there is a reasonable case to put to the Minister, I am sure that he will put the case to the Minister. If the information that the hon. Member receives does not lead him to feel that there is a case to put, it is reasonable for him to tell the Home Office that he does not intend to make representations. There is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of many other hon. Members that the shopping around technique applies.
Stabilo Boss is a marvellous modern invention because it isolates the nub of paragraph 19. I marked out the words
"If there is clear evidence that a Member … advises him to travel without entry clearance on the presumption that … he will gain access … on temporary admission … then temporary admission will not readily be granted."
Paragraph 19 does not seek to avoid the kind of guidance an hon Member can give to his constituents—for example, the letters of identification to which many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler), have referred and which I have given to relatives of people when I have known the family background and have been satisfied that the intended visitor would be a visitor and that production of a letter would avoid embarrassment at the port of entry.
In short, if these guidelines allow hon. Members to act fairly and justly on behalf of their constituents—I agree that our constituents are the sponsors, not the visitors—they are right and should work. The original draft contained one phrase, which relates to paragraph 19, to the effect that we must not allow temporary admission to be used as a device. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House have been embarrassed to find that temporary admission had been used as a device, even by people whom they thought they knew. If we give the guidelines a chance, if we try to make them as public as we can among the communities in which we deal day by day and if We take them in the spirit of good faith intended by Ministers, these problems will rapidly diminish.
9.4 pm
Mr. David Young: I apologise Mr. Speaker, for not being here at the beginning of the debate, but I wrote to you explaining the reason.
My concern here is that these guidelines seem to be setting the convenience of Ministers and immigration officials above the rights of hon. Members. Justice is being lost and the rights of Members' constituents are being denied. The person who is held may very well not be a constituent, but his relations who intervene and are the sponsors are our constituents. In these days when people hark back to Victorian values, it should be remembered that the Victorians gave some weight to the family and family life. This is of no less importance for an Indian or Pakistani than for a Britisher with a white skin.
My concern about these guidelines is, above all, that I know from the Asian community in my constituency how they are being interpreted. One person in Bolton said to me—he was not criticising—that it is rather tragic that Her Majesty is working so hard to cement the Commonwealth and the rules and regulations that the Government are producing seem to be dividing rather than uniting.
I would say to the Minister that if there is all this burden of work on his Department there is a simple solution. He admits, when questioned, that the people who come in to visit their relations in virtually every case abide by the agreement to leave the country. Why is it, if these people are such a danger, that when an hon Member intervenes they are allowed to be released and they leave at the time stated? Why, then, should they be detained in the first place? It does not happen to South Africans or Americans, and as they are leaving and are merely visitors there is no question of settlement.
These are the things that worry my constituents, because it is not an impartial law; it is a partial law. It depends on one's country of origin and it appears in some cases to depend on the ethnic group to which one belongs. The Minister's argument is that there are these terrible Members who are breaching the conventions and it is not for Ministers to police them. It certainly is not. I would regard that as a violation of privilege. It is for the House to deal with conventions.
Let us remember that when hon. Members deal with other hon. Members' constituents it is not in the immigration area alone, and not all the Members are members of the Labour party. Does that mean that education is going to provide guidelines, that industry is going to provide guidelines? Are we going to change the whole system when, even on the Government's own estimates, very few people break the rules, if indeed the rules are being broken?
Presumably, what will happen now is that if I am on holiday abroad and I am not here to intervene on behalf of my constituents, they will lose their rights. This concerns me very much. Does this also mean that the hon. and learned Gentleman will now release the instructions given to immigration officers by the Home Office? I have asked several times for this and the answer has been no.
Has the Minister—this is a reasonable question—tried to contact the immigration service other than as a Minister? It takes me an awfully long time to do so, and if I am expected to do it for something like 20,000 Asians who are British and who may have families here, it is going to take even more time. Is the Department going to
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accept a reversed-charge call from Cyprus, for instance, because, if nobody can represent my constituents when I am out of the country, I must do it? Will the Minister pay for that, or is this merely a device to divert attention from the Department and to make the system so cumbersome that hon. Members will not have the right to represent their constituents? My constituents and I are deeply worried, and that concern is not confined simply to the Asian community. In the British system of government, people look for their freedom.
9.9 pm
Mr. Gary Waller: Many hon. Members who have spoken have described the guidelines in the most virulent terms, as an attack on the rights of immigrants and visitors. However, they skirted round the guidelines themselves and failed to explain why they found them so objectionable.
During the past seven years I have made representations on behalf of many hundreds of constituents, and I cannot think of a single case in which I would have found these guidelines a hindrance. Moreover, I do not believe that any of my constituents on whose behalf I have made representations have found me wanting in my actions on their behalf.
I wish to make only one brief point as time is extremely short. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) spoke about what one could reasonably describe as a type of charade in which hon. Members are involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham. South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) said that temporary admission was sometimes used as a device. One must accept that that is frequently the case. Even the report of the immigration and nationality department in 1984 said:
"temporary admission goes some way towards taking the sting out of a decision to refuse admission on arrival."
Would it not be possible to introduce a new sort of admission, perhaps restricted admission, which requires the entrant to stay at the address of the sponsor where he is known to be and from where he will be required to leave after a period of, perhaps, two months? In that way, the uncertainty would be taken out of the issue, and he would not be expected to leave at four or five days' notice when a reply is received from the Minister. Because the number of those who abscond is so small, that solution may be acceptable to all concerned. I appreciate that there would be a new problem in that the individual would have been granted some sort of admission, but I hope that that could be overcome.
We should reconsider the immigration rules, keep them under review and see how we can make them fairer. However, these guidelines can only help with the implementation of the rules. They are to the advantage, certainly of hon. Members, and, ultimately, of those who depend on them.
9.12 pm
Mr. Alfred Dubs: Today's debate on the guidelines that the Home Secretary has devised for Members of Parliament must be seen, and has been seen rightly by many hon. Members, in the context of our overall immigration policy. If there were not so much concern and anxiety about many aspects of the way in which the Immigration Act 1971 and immigration rules are being implemented, there would not have been so much

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anxiety about the guidelines. That is not to say that we would not have been critical of them, but the measure of our concern is reflected widely throughout the country.
In case there is any misunderstanding I wish to emphasise, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) did earlier, that the Labour party believes in immigration controls, but without a racial or sexual bias. We are concerned about the guidelines because they come from a Government who have said on more than one occasion that their intention in immigration policy is to keep the numbers down. That theme has underlined many, but not all, of the speeches of Tory Members this evening. Guidelines which are intended to further a policy to keep numbers down, regardless of the needs, considerations and rights of individuals, must be suspect. In the main we are talking not about people coming in for settlement, but almost entirely about visitors, and some hon. Members were not clear about the difference between the two. This Government have a history of trying to limit hon. Members' rights in immigration cases, but they have never gone as far as they have in these guidelines.
Some figures were quoted about the number of refused passengers represented by Members of Parliament. I have looked at the figures and tried to understand them in the light of the Home Secretary's speech. Not all the figures for 1985 are to hand, but the figures made available to us so far show that between 1983 and 1984 the number of refused passengers represented by Members of Parliament increased by about 1,000. At the same time, the number of persons refused entry increased by 3,500. Whatever the Home Secretary says about an enormous increase in the number of representations by Members of Parliament, they are a reflection of the total number of people refused entry.
One other possible reason why more Members of Parliament are approached is that the minority communities are, happily, becoming increasingly aware of their rights. It is a sign of their greater involvement as people whose future is in Britain that they come to Members of Parliament and ask us to act on their behalf when they want members of their families to come along.
There is another side to the Home Secretary's argument about increasing pressure and a need for guidelines. Not all the pressure is increasing. The figures about outstanding appeals against all refusals in connection with immigration show that in December 1980 nearly 16,000 appeals were outstanding. By December 1984 the figure was under 10,000. Whatever else may be said, there is some sign of a diminution of pressure on Home Office resources in aspects of the immigration problem other than the one that directly concerns Members of Parliament.
In 1981, 1,057 people appealed against court refusals. Last year the figure was down to 681. The Home Secretary suggested that there is increasing pressure all along the line, but that is not true because in some areas there is less pressure. One of the reasons for our anxiety is that the guidelines tell us how to do our jobs on behalf of our constituents. Why should the Home Office, alone of all the Departments, be doing that? If the Home Office was keen to be helpful to Members of Parliament it would have included in the guidelines things that are not in the guidelines. For example, it would be helpful, if one were going this path, to say that Members of Parliament should let the Home Secretary know when facts that are not known and cannot be taken into account if a case goes to appeal, come to light. I could give other examples, but if
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the guidelines are to operate as the Home Secretary suggests that might have been a better way to go. I prefer not to go down the path of the guidelines.
I repeat what many of my hon. and right hon. Friends have said, that many of us do not like handling immigration cases. They are time-consuming and difficult and arise at all hours of the day and night. We do them, though we often regret the necessity and the pressure on us, because that is the only way we can achieve justice for our constituents.
I also support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) and I will give some evidence to support it. He said he had a suspicion, but to me it is a fact, that immigration officers refuse visitors in the knowledge that Members of Parliament may well take up the case, that the person will then get seven or eight weeks in Britain, and that the Minister of State will uphold the immigration officer's refusal. That was certainly said to me on a recent visit to Heathrow. As an immigration officer at Heathrow airport said to me, "Everybody therefore should be happy. Members of Parliament have got what they want. Visitors are allowed in. The refusal is upheld." That is absolutely absurd. I have told the Minister of State before, and I repeat it in good faith—
Mr. Waddington: The hon. Gentleman must be careful about what he says. He is not saying, is he, that the immigration officer refused entry because this person was going to be granted temporary admission?
Mr. Dubs: I do not want to put words into the mouth of an immigration officer. I am arguing against the way in which some immigration officers behave. If the Government are willing to distort the way in which they approach intending visitors—
Mr. Waddington: I did not say that.
Mr. Dubs: The Minister says that he did not say that. If I have to repeat what was said to me, I am happy to do so. The immigration officer said to me that, knowing that Members of Parliament are likely to take up these cases, he was more likely to put down a refusal, knowing that in the end the Member of Parliament would get that person in on temporary admission. That is absurd, but the absurdity starts at the point of entry—Heathrow airport. It does not start with Members of Parliament. It is not an argument against the stop system. It is an argument that immigration control, particularly as regards visitors, should be applied fairly and properly.
Mr. Bidwell: This raises the absurdity of a two-day temporary admission to give time for the Member of Parliament to intervene. If the Government are prepared to risk giving a couple of days of liberty to people who come to the United Kingdom, why cannot they be provided with a decent form of admission?
Mr. Dubs: That is precisely the point. That is why some hon. Members have serious doubts about this proposal.
When the guidelines were first mooted, I wondered why it was thought to be necessary to introduce them. I have before me a circular from the Immigration Service Union that was sent to members of the union on 14 November 1985. I want to refer to two points that are contained in the circular. It refers to
"the problems caused by uncontrolled representation by Members of Parliament."

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The circular also says:
"The ISU delegation welcomed these developments and undertook to supply a list of the types of cases which the union considered as having no proper place in the system of MPs' representations."
Perhaps I am a little naive, but I am wondering whether the pressure that came from this particular source resulted in the decision of the Home Secretary and the Minister of State to act as they did. I understand that the original suggestion that all representations by Members of Parliament should go through chief immigration officers has been dropped because those who work in the immigration service realised that it would place a great deal of additional work upon their shoulders. Many hon. Members warned some time ago that that would happen. Despite the fact that the Home Secretary has climbed down by responding to the many criticisms and significantly toning down the guidelines compared with the original version, they contain a number of features to which many hon. Members on both sides of the House still object.
The Home Secretary said originally that it was necessary for Members of Parliament to approach chief immigration officers. We were concerned about this, both in principle and in practice. It represented a major departure from the principle that hon. Members have the right of direct access to Ministers. For this purpose access to the private offices of Ministers is the same as access to Ministers. It was not a fair approach to say to Members of Parliament that the analogy of Department of Health and Social Security officers in their dealings with members of the public should be used. When we take up immigration cases are we supposed to be advocates on behalf of our constituents or do we adopt a quasi-judicial function?
Some have argued that Members should approach the chief immigration officers rather than the Minister to obtain all the background information. Part of that argument is that Members of Parliament should act in a quasi-judicial role. For the life of me I cannot see how we can be expected to do that. It would be against the whole basis of many of the representations that Members take up on behalf of constituents on a whole range of subjects.
We are simply not able to judge for and against the admission of a person into a country. All we can do is to satisfy ourselves that there are reasonable grounds for that individual to be admitted. It is not necessarily the case that a long chat with the chief immigration officer would change the basis on which we make representation to the Minister. That also assumes that there is time to go to the chief immigration officer. Members of Parliament who take up visitor cases do so with good will and in the belief that there is a reasonably good case for that visitor to be admitted. It is not a matter of a quasi-judicial function but it is a matter of Members acting as advocates.
I wish that the guidelines had said that the time limits were advisory. In most cases it is reasonable that they should be adhered to and we seek to do that. However, there are times when that is difficult. That is especially true with the four-day and five-day limits set out in paragraph 9 and 14 respectively. It may not be possible to reach a constituent on the telephone. Also, the post is not that good. If any of us are away for a day or two we simply cannot get word to our constituent in time. It is proper that
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our constituents should be able to hear from us before a further decision about their future or about a relative's future is made by the Home Office.
The vexed argument whether Members should be utterly confined to taking up cases within their constituencies has taken up more time than anything else. The practice of my colleagues and myself is that we do put on stops on behalf of colleagues who may be away, ill or difficult to reach. There are also incidents when we may put on these stops on behalf of a Conservative Member of Parliament if that Member cannot be found, to enable the visitor to stay in the country long enough to ensure that the Member of Parliament can consider whether he or she wishes to make a representation on the visitor's behalf.
There is also the case where Members have a specialist interest, and that is acknowledged in the new version of the guidelines. However, some Members of Parliament bluntly refuse to take on immigration cases. What are we to do? There are two conventions which collide. One convention is the exclusive relationship of constituents to one Member of Parliament but the other convention is that everyone has basic rights. If those basic rights are ignored for whatever reason by a Member of Parliament, who is to say that that individual should not go to another Member and say, "I have basic rights. Help me to achieve those rights." That is the nub of the argument.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Change the sponsor.
Mr. Dubs: It is not as simple as that. Often there is no time to do that. When we are approached it is sometimes better, in the interest of the constituent or the person, to say that we will make a representation to the Home Office on their behalf.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: I would not disagree with anything that the hon. Member has said. However, there is a problem regarding representation and we have to address ourselves to it. Does he not agree that there is a problem of "shopping around" and that if one could solve that problem it would be better?
Mr. Dubs: I do not agree at all that there is a problem of shopping around.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: We have one.
Mr. Dubs: I do not have that problem. I simply get people desperate that representations should be made but unable to find, perhaps on a Saturday evening, the Member they are looking for.
Mr. Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a further problem with the guidelines as proposed by the Minister? If a Member of Parliament refuses to take up immigration cases, for perverse reasons or out of prejudice, and the individual then goes to a Member who is prepared to take up the case, the Home Office proposes to copy the correspondence to the original Member who either flatly refused to take up the case or whose reputation makes him unlikely to be approached by people with immigration problems because they know the prejudice on which he operates.
Mr. Dubs: My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. In my view, it is improper for the Home Secretary to suggest in the guidelines that if a Member becomes involved in a case in another constituency the correspondence should be copied to the Member for that constituency. We are approached on a confidential basis,

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sometimes precisely because the person is unhappy about going to the Member of Parliament in that constituency. We should respect that confidentiality and the Home Office should also respect it.
It may be a matter of embarrassment for the Home Secretary, but the views of one or two Conservative Back Benchers are such that the ethnic minority communities regard those Members as extremely hostile and would not want private information to be sent to them. It is therefore wrong for the Home Secretary to suggest in the guidelines that that information should be made available. If it is made available with permission, that is all right, but to make it available just like that is inappropriate and unsatisfactory.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that very few Conservative Members actually refuse to take cases? A number of others, however, may decide when they get a case that there is no substance in it. It is in those circumstances that we object to the individual going to another Member.
Mr. Dubs: There may be few, but there are certainly some, and we must be as concerned about people in those Members' constituencies as about people in our own constituencies.
One or two Conservative Members have referred to visas. In Bangladesh the current failure rate for visa applications is 30 per cent. People voluntarily apply for visas—there is no need to do so because they could simply arrive at Heathrow as Commonwealth citizens. The refusal rate at United Kingdom ports for people from Bangladesh is about 2 per cent. There must be some reason for the difference. Moreover, as the Minister will confirm, the success rate in appeals against the 30 per cent. refusals is about 50 per cent. A disturbingly high refusal rate in Bangladesh is suggested by the difference between the refusal rates in Bangladesh and at United Kingdom ports as well as by the high success rate of appeals against refusals in Bangladesh.
The cost of a visa regime would be enormous. An entry certificate officer costs the Home Office about £50,000 whereas an immigration officer based here costs about £15,000. The introduction of a visa system in the sub-continent would involve enormous difficulties, of principle as well as of cost and of practice.
I share the concern of those hon. Members, mainly my hon. Friends, who have referred to paragraph 19 of the guidelines about the consequences of hon. Members giving advice to people in their constituencies who wish to have visitors. Although the wording is now different from the original version, it still suggests that hon. Members are not behaving properly and that somehow we are conniving at getting into the country people who would not be admissible under the rules. It becomes a matter of subjective judgment in the end. The way the guidelines are worded still implies that the friends and relatives of constituents are to be penalised if our constituents have sought advice from us. I hope that the Home Secretary will think again about that because it is pernicious and wrong.
The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Whitfield) attacked the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birminingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short). That attack went too far. The hon. Gentleman was not right to say about my hon. Friend what he said. Her speech was good; it was
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honest and reflected what many of us and the majority of people think. For the hon. Gentleman to cast such a slur on my hon. Friend was uncalled for and absolutely wrong.
In the debate we are not talking mainly about whether hon. Members should be helped to have easier or more difficult jobs, although that is a consideration which matters to us; what we are essentially concerned with are the rights of people here to have their relatives and friends come to stay with them as visitors. That is a basic right. The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Sir K. Lewis), who is connected with the tourist industry, made a speech which suggested that he was totally against tourism to this country, if I understood correctly what he said. Yet he has two entries in "The Times Guide" which suggest that he is busy in the tourist industry when he is not in the House.
The right to have one's friends and relatives come here as visitors is basic. We all want our friends from abroad to come here as visitors. We should not deny that right to some people because of the colour of their skin. In the end that is at the heart of the guidelines. That is why we are against them and why I want the House to vote against them tonight.
9.37 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): This has been a good-tempered debate. I am grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for the points they have made. This was a difficult nettle to grasp. Hon. Members are naturally jealous of their rights and privileges and they are quick to react if they think that those rights and privileges are being infringed. I do not think many hon. Members really believe that we can leave things just as they are. There was an increase in representations by hon. Members in port cases alone from 1,000 in 1982 to 5,700 in 1985. The score in 1986 is likely to be at the very least 7,000.
Mr. Leighton: Why?
Mr. Waddington: Those figures relate just to port cases. Total representations were over 16,000 last year and no doubt will be higher this year. I want to make these points because obviously they have not gone home to certain Opposition Members in view of the sedentary intervention which was made just a moment ago. Immigration officers apply exactly the same rules now for visitors as they did when Labour was in power.
Ms. Clare Short: How do they interpret them?
Mr. Waddington: They operate them under precisely the same instructions and in precisely the same way. Taken as a percentage of total passenger traffic, refusals of people from the Indian sub-continent are few and far between. Of all passengers, 99·8 per cent. are admitted; of passengers from the Indian sub-continent, 99 per cent. are admitted.
The increase in representations cannot be accounted for by the increase in traffic or by the increase in refusals. I remind hon. Members of some key figures. In 1982 just over 12,000 people were refused entry; in 1983, 13,900. That was an increase of 14 per cent. Between 1983 and 1984 there was an increase of 24 per cent. in refusals but between 1982 and 1983, against an increase in traffic of 10 per cent. and an increase of refusals of 14 per cent., there was an increase in representations by hon. Members of no less than 150 per cent.
Hon. Members: Why?
Mr. Leighton: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Waddington: Between 1983 and 1984, against an increase in traffic of 13 per cent. and an increase in refusals of 24 per cent., there was a 40 per cent. increase in representations by hon. Members.
Mr. Corbyn rose—
Mr. Leighton rose—
Mr. Straw rose—
Mr. Waddington: I should go on.
Mr. Corbyn: When the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to the total number of passengers arriving from the sub-continent, could he make it clear whether he means all passengers of whatever nationality or passengers from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Pakistan? Having done so, I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman would be forced to concede that a far higher proportion of nationals of the sub-continent are refused than of the total figure of arrivals from those places.
Mr. Waddington: The figures that I have given are correct. When we talk of passengers from the Indian sub-continent, we mean Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. The figures for Sri Lanka are not included.
There are those enormous figures—
Mr. Leighton rose—
Mr. Straw rose—
Mr. Waddington: I will not give way. I was left very little time. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) spoke for twice as long as the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) spoke for longer than he should have.
In the face of those figures, it seems extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should ask why the guidelines are needed at all. The right hon. Gentleman said that the present system works satisfactorily.
Mr. Leighton rose—
Mr. Waddington: That was an extraordinary statement. It is extraordinary, too, that we should be told that in too many cases things go wrong. Our staff do their level best to prevent things going wrong but with the pressure of the system to which the enormous increase in representations contributes—
Mr. Straw: Why?
Mr. Waddington: I will not give way.
With that pressure, it is surprising that things do not go wrong more often. Immigration officers are spending much of their time writing letters to hon. Members—or to me, to send to hon. Members. Some of those hon. Members have put a stop on a case and taken no further action at all. The immigration officers would be far better employed clearing passengers through the controls without delay.
The burgeoning of the practice of putting stops on cases has other undesirable effects. First of all, the control is undermined. Because of the pressure of work and the very generous policy of temporary admission, a person who does not qualify to enter gets into the country anyhow. The
1036
hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) made a joke of that, but it is a serious matter. People who do not qualify for entry get into the country all the same and can then stay for as long as they would have been entitled to stay if they had been granted leave to enter.
That state of affairs is not satisfactory. It occurs for two reasons. The first is that we are generous about temporary admission and allow people into the country instead of keeping them in detention as we could. Secondly, as a result of the increase in representations by Members of Parliament and the pressure of work on the immigration service, it is taking longer to deal with those cases than it did some years ago.
Another undesirable effect is that people who do not get temporary admission—luckily they are a minority because of the generous policy pursued—are kept in custody for longer than any of us would wish, again because of the pressure put on the system. No Labour Member would want that to continue.
The third unfortunate effect of all this is that the country is having to pay more and more in the way of the passage costs of people who have eventually to be removed—
Ms. Clare Short rose—
Mr. Waddington:—but who are not removed during the period when the cost falls upon the immigration service.
Ms. Short: The Minister is misleading the House.
Mr. Waddington: There has been a real—
Ms. Short: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The reason the country pays to return passengers is because the Minister—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must make a point of order, not a point of disagreement.
Ms. Short: Is the Minister allowed to mislead the House?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Nobody misleads the House. The Minister makes his own speech.
Mr. Waddington: If the hon. Lady will be patient, I shall get on to something which she said and I am sure that she will wish to intervene at that stage.
There has been a real process of consultation. We revised the original draft guidelines in the light of what was said. It is a pity that a number of hon. Members did not like the proposal that an hon. Member should approach the port to put on a stop, but we have accepted the views of a large number of hon. Members on that. I am sure that on reflection Labour Members will not cavil at the fact that we listened to what hon. Members said. I should have thought that that was the object of a consultation exercise such as this.
We are not trying to force anything down the throats of hon. Members. We are merely informing hon. Members how we intend to operate the system. It must operate. It is in the interests of all hon. Members that it should be operated. We must make the system work and that is why we have presented the guidelines to the House.
I shall not dwell for long on the speech made by the right hon. Member for Gorton, but he made a particularly nasty attack on the immigration service. In doing so he ignored the Commission for Racial Equality report which concluded that decisions made by immigration officers were not motivated by racism. He ignored entirely the

1037
report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs and its unanimous conclusion that the staff of the immigration and nationality department deserved commendation, not criticism. It was a grossly unfair attack and it was a completely ignorant attack because the right hon. Gentleman cannot have bothered to investigate any of these reports to which I have referred.
Some hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Gorton, have failed to recognise that there is more pressure to immigrate from some parts of the world than others. That is why there is a difference in refusal rates for visitors in the case of people seeking entry from some parts of the world compared with people seeking entry from other parts of the world.
Labour Members were quick to make political points this afternoon about refusal of entry statistics. But it is worth bearing in mind that if one looks, for instance, at refusals of people seeking entry as visitors from Pakistan in 1978 and compares that with people from Pakistan refused entry in 1984, one will find precisely the same percentage. I am slightly wrong. It is 1·1 per cent. in one case and 1·3 per cent. in the other. One should be very careful about quoting refusal rates.
A very silly comment was made about the present system working well. It is not working as well as it should do. But the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) complimented the staff of my private office, and I am grateful to him for doing so. I should like to compliment them myself, as they work marvellously in a very difficult job. The hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Thorne) stood alone in the House when he made a disgraceful remark about racism in the Minister's office. He stood alone in that, as all hon. Members who take such matters seriously know how well my staff work and the service that they give to hon. Members. Some hon. Members made unsavoury allegations about racism and the immigration service. I repeat what I said earlier about the conclusions of the CRE report.
The hon. Member for Southall called for a right of appeal in this country for visitors refused entry, and took up the theme raised yesterday by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) in his ten-minute Bill. But in making a decision about such matters one has to look at the administrative burden and at the difficulty of removing people within a reasonable time scale after they have gone through the appeal system. The whole appeal system can he spun out for a long time as Members of Parliament know from dealing with constituents who have become wrapped up in appealing against a refusal to extend their stay. When people exercise a right of appeal in this country and are turned down by the adjudicator and then by the immigration appeals tribunal, they are not slow to go to their Members of Parliament and to get them to come to me. Consequently, I am by no means confident that, if we had a right of appeal in this country, there would be less pressure on the Minister's office.
Mr. Bidwell: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Waddington: I shall not give way, as I have little time left and there are important matters to deal with.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) mentioned keeping passports. I shall repeat what was said to him by Opposition Members. If anyone wants his passport back, he has only to ask for it. I cannot for a
1038
moment believe that the hon. Gentleman has evidence of someone having a decision made against him because he had previously asked for his passport back. Many strange things happen, but I am sure that that has never happened.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) mentioned two cases in which she was involved. Of course, I shall not go into the facts of them. However, in paragraph 19 of the guidance we are talking about people being invited here when the Member of Parliament concerned knows that they are not entitled to enter. The Member of Parliament may know that the person could obtain legal entry to this country only as a result of obtaining entry clearance abroad, and that the person has not done so. If a Member of Parliament told a person that he should come anyhow, even though he would be refused because the Member of Parliament would apply for temporary admission, the vast majority of hon. Members would say that that was wrong. Surely everyone would agree that that would be a very odd way of using the privilege to put on a stop—
Ms. Short: Now may I ask my question?
Mr. Waddington: Yes.
Ms. Short: The hon. and learned Gentleman is completely wrong. As he knows, a Commonwealth citizen is entitled either to apply for an entry certificate for a visit or to come without one. I told someone who had been refused, not because of the rules but because of the prejudiced way in which they were interpreted, that he was legally entitled to come here without an entry certificate and that I would assist if he was then refused. That is absolutely in accordance with the law. What the Minister just said is wrong in law and in fact.
Mr. Waddington: The hon. Lady doth protest too much.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) asked that the time limits be flexibly enforced. We all have to be sensible about that. I recognise that, however carefully we draft guidelines of this sort, one will find exceptional cases. I can tell hon. Members that it is the intention of the Home Office to try to operate the guidelines sensibly. I think that the feeling of the House tonight was that it is about time we spelt out what ought to be a reasonable time in which to make representations; otherwise cases can go on and on.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer) made some interesting points. I shall look into his point about interpreters using direct speech and about too much attention being paid to lies. However, I suspect that it is difficult to ignore the fact that a person has exercised deception when one is asked to decide whether a person is telling the truth when he says that he only wants to enter the country for a short visit and will then return abroad. My hon. and learned Friend said that he would act responsibly under the new guidelines. I am sure that that is what he will do and that that is the wish and the intention of all hon. Members who have been present during the debate. I am sure that we can make the new system work.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) said that the misuse of a system to make representations can disadvantage genuine visitors. I am sure that that is true and we should continue to make that

1039
point as hard as we can. If we have pressure on the system, such as we have, it can obviously lead to delays at the ports, which could otherwise have been avoided.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Lawler) said that he thought it was a pity we left out the provision about approaching the ports. I think that it would have been helpful to hon. Members to be able to hear the reasons for the refusal at first hand from a senior immigration officer. I realise that it would have involved hon. Members in more work and some expense in telephoning the port concerned. However, I do not accept that any issues of constitutionality were involved, because it is plain that when a person puts on a stop now he is not asking me to exercise any discretion. He is merely ringing my private office and asking it to relay a message to the ports. It is an automatic process which has nothing to do with the hon. Member's right of access to the Minister. That point was completely bogus. However, I can see that hon. Members would have been faced with more work and they already have an enormous amount of work to do in constituencies with a large ethnic minority community.
There has been a misunderstanding about the time limit of only four days after I have rejected a submission by an hon. Member to reverse the decision made by an immigration officer. In fact, we work on four days now. We do that as a courtesy to hon. Members so that we can make absolutely sure that they will receive the letter from me saying that I have rejected their submission before the person who is going to have to return abroad is told by the immigration service. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about there.
On the matter of poaching, I would merely say that I understand the anxiety which has been expressed by some hon. Members. However, I have to tell hon. Members that they may not have a clear idea of the aggravation that has to be borne by my staff who are faced with angry Members from both sides of the House.
Mr. Ray Powell rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That this House do now adjourn:—
The House divided: Ayes 116, Noes 185.

Division No.117]

[10 pm

AYES

Alton, David

Clay, Robert

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Clelland, David Gordon

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Barnett, Guy

Cohen, Harry

Barron, Kevin

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Corbett, Robin

Bell, Stuart

Corbyn, Jeremy

Bermingham, Gerald

Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

Bidwell, Sydney

Craigen, J. M.

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Crowther, Stan

Boyes, Roland

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

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

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

Dewar, Donald

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Dixon, Donald

Bruce, Malcolm

Dormand, Jack

Caborn, Richard

Douglas, Dick

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Dubs, Alfred

Cartwright, John

Eadie, Alex

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

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

Clarke, Thomas

Evans, John (St. Helens N)

1040

Fatchett, Derek

Maynard, Miss Joan

Faulds, Andrew

Meadowcroft, Michael

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Michie, William

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Mikardo, Ian

Flannery, Martin

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Forrester, John

Nellist, David

Foster, Derek

O'Neill, Martin

Foulkes, George

Park, George

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Patchett, Terry

Freud, Clement

Pavitt, Laurie

Garrett, W. E.

Pike, Peter

Godman, Dr Norman

Radice, Giles

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Randall, Stuart

Hardy, Peter

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Harman, Ms Harriet

Richardson, Ms Jo

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Robertson, George

Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

Rooker, J. W.

Howells, Geraint

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Hoyle, Douglas

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Sedgemore, Brian

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Sheerman, Barry

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Silkin, Rt Hon J.

Kirkwood, Archy

Skinner, Dennis

Lamond, James

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

Leadbitter, Ted

Steel, Rt Hon David

Leighton, Ronald

Strang, Gavin

Livsey, Richard

Straw, Jack

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

McCartney, Hugh

Thorne, Stan (Preston)

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Wallace, James

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Wareing, Robert

McNamara, Kevin

Winnick, David

McWilliam, John

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Madden, Max

Marek, Dr John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Maxton, John

Mr. Ray Powell.

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

Amess, David

Freeman, Roger

Ashby, David

Galley, Roy

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Baldry, Tony

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Gow, Ian

Best, Keith

Greenway, Harry

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Gregory, Conal

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Griffiths, Sir Eldon

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Ground, Patrick

Brinton, Tim

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Brooke, Hon Peter

Hanley, Jeremy

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Hargreaves, Kenneth

Bryan, Sir Paul

Harris, David

Buck, Sir Antony

Harvey, Robert

Budgen, Nick

Haselhurst, Alan

Burt, Alistair

Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

Butterfill, John

Hawkins, Sir Paul (N'folk SW)

Carlisle, John (Luton N)

Hayes, J.

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

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

Hayward, Robert

Cash, William

Heddle, John

Chapman, Sydney

Hicks, Robert

Chope, Christopher

Hind, Kenneth

Cockeram, Eric

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Cope, John

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Cormack, Patrick

Hordern, Sir Peter

Dykes, Hugh

Howard, Michael

Emery, Sir Peter

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

Fallon, Michael

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Favell, Anthony

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Hunter, Andrew

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Forth, Eric

Jackson, Robert

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Franks, Cecil

Jessel, Toby

1041

Jones, Robert (Herts W)

Newton, Tony

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Nicholls, Patrick

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Norris, Steven

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Onslow, Cranley

Key, Robert

Ottaway, Richard

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Page, Richard (Herts SW)

King, Rt Hon Tom

Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Knowles, Michael

Powley, John

Knox, David

Raffan, Keith

Lang, Ian

Renton, Tim

Lawler, Geoffrey

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Lawrence, Ivan

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Lee, John (Pendle)

Robinson, P. (Belfast E)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Roe, Mrs Marion

Lester, Jim

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Rowe, Andrew

Lilley, Peter

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Lord, Michael

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Lyell, Nicholas

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Sayeed, Jonathan

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Shersby, Michael

Madel, David

Silvester, Fred

Major, John

Sims, Roger

Malone, Gerald

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Maples, John

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Marlow, Antony

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Spencer, Derek

Mather, Carol

Spicer, Jim (Dorset W)

Maude, Hon Francis

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Mayhew, Sir Patrick

Stanbrook, Ivor

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Stern, Michael

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Miscampbell, Norman

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

Sumberg, David

Moate, Roger

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Temple-Morris, Peter

Moore, Rt Hon John

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Moynihan, Hon C.

Tracey, Richard

1042

Trippier, David

Wheeler, John

Twinn, Dr Ian

Whitfield, John

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Whitney, Raymond

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Wilkinson, John

Waddington, David

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Winterton, Nicholas

Waldegrave, Hon William

Wolfson, Mark

Walden, George

Wood, Timothy

Wall, Sir Patrick

Yeo, Tim

Waller, Gary

Ward, John

Tellers for the Noes:

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Mr. Michael Neubert and

Watts, John

Mr. Tony Durant.

Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

Question accordingly negatived.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.)
STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  PROFESSIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO MEDICINE
  That the draft Professions Supplementary to Medicine (Winding up of Remedial Gymnasts Board) Order of Council 1986, which was laid before this House on 10th March, be approved.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND)
  That the Local Authority Grants (Termination) (Scotland) Order 1986, dated 6th March 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 13th March, be approved.

  LEGAL AID AND ADVICE
  That the Legal Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1986, dated 13th February 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd March, be approved.—[Mr. Maude.]
  Question agreed to.

PETITIONS

  Shops Bill
  10.13 pm
  Mr. Richard Alexander: I beg leave to present the following petition:
  To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
  The humble petition of residents of Newark Constituency sheweth that the undersigned are opposed to the provision for unlimited Sunday Trading in the Shops Bill currently before Parliament, recognising that Sunday has special characteristics as a day of rest, recreation and worship for the benefit of our family and community life.
  Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House do maintain legal limitations on Sunday Trading to ensure that the special character of Sunday is protected.
  And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  Father Timothy O'Sullivan of the Holy Trinity church is the leading signatory to the petition, which was signed by 1,160 of my constituents. The petition reflects the concern of many of my constituents. I have pleasure in presenting it on their behalf.
  To lie upon the Table.
  10.14 pm
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls: I present this petition of behalf of some 2,000 signatories in my constituency of Teignbridge. The terms of the petition are that they are opposed to the provision of unlimited Sunday trading under the Shops Bill at present before Parliament, recognising that Sunday has substantial characteristics as a day of rest, recreation and worship, to the benefit of our family and community life.
  This is a substantial petition. The principal organisers, as I understand it, were a Mr. and Mrs. Holding of Teignmouth in my constituency. They are to my knowledge local Baptists and I recognise many of the signatures to this petition as those of Baptists who have spoken to me at least at one meeting.
  I think that it is fair that I say of those people who asked me to present the petition on their behalf that I can entirely understand their motives, aspirations and hopes. The only way in which I differ from them is in that, although I understand their fears, I feel that they are misplaced. Having said that, the depth of concern that they felt in presenting this petition to me was entirely evident and it is certainly no hardship to present it in that light.
  The conclusion of the petition reads:
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House do maintain legal limitations on Sunday trading to ensure that the special character of Sunday is protected.
  And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Arms Control (Verification)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Maude.]
  10.16 pm
  Mr. Keith Best: I am pleased to initiate this important debate, because we all have an interest in peace. There can be no dispute that arms control, particularly in respect of nuclear weapons, has a major part to play in achieving greater global security and prolonged peace. Verification is an essential part of that process. As was pointed out in the United Kingdom working paper of 1 August 1983 to the Committee on Disarmament, entitled "Verification aspects of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty"
  "What is at issue is the political will to recognise that the correct path towards an agreed Treaty—however long it may prove to be—leads through detailed considerations of verification issues. Once we are confident that those problems have been resolved—and the solution must not permit disequilibrium in international relationships by allowing one side to gain advantage over another—then we can move towards the final banning of all nuclear tests."
  In that same document it was pointed out that verification is not detection alone but detection and identification.
  The Government remain firmly committed to the pursuit of a verifiable comprehensive test ban and are actively working on the problems that remain in achieving one. This was reaffirmed as recently as 7 June 1985 in this House when my right hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce), then in the position now occupied by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) whom I welcome, not least as my mother's constituency Member, was replying to an Adjournment debate on a test ban treaty. He pointed out then that:
  "We should be proud of the fact that Britain played a leading and distinctive role in the early 1960s, in drawing up the partial test ban treaty … Together with the United States and the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom participated fully from 1977 to 1980 in trilateral negotiations on a comprehensive test ban treaty … The United Kingdom has played a full and active part in … multilateral discussions at the Geneva conference on disarmament, where a nuclear test ban working group was established in 1982."
  The United Kingdom tabled two working papers on "Peaceful Nuclear Explosions in Relation to a Nuclear Test Ban" and the paper to which I have already referred.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham said that the Government
  "remain convinced of the value of further work in Geneva towards a comprehensive test ban".
  We are committed to seeking progress towards it. During that debate he also said
  "no test ban treaty can be truly worth pursuing which does not contain adequate safeguards of compliance by all its signatory parties."
  that is a contention with which I agree. He also pointed out:
  "we are not looking for perfect or 100 per cent. verification".—[Official Report, 7 June 1985, Vol. 80, c. 616–17.]
  The whole House will know that of the non-proliferation treaty we are required to show that we are using our best endeavours to make progress towards nuclear disarmament, and the final declaration of the third review conference of the NPT, held in Geneva last August to September, called upon the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom to reconvene their trilateral negotiations on a comprehensive test ban treaty by the end of 1985.

  1045
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in a speech at Harrogate on 27 March 1982, said
  "We want a Comprehensive Test Ban. Negotiations under that Committee (The Committee on Disarmament at the UN in Geneva), alas, are going far too slowly, but it remains this Government's objective."
  Our commitment to a comprehensive test ban treaty is not unique. Yet, I believe that we have a particular role to play in acting as a catalyst and seeking to remove obstacles. Clearly, however, bearing in mind that we possess only about 3 per cent. of the world's nuclear weapons compared with 95 per cent. in the possession of the United States and the Soviet Union, we must look to agreement between the super powers, and the effect that we can have on it. Hon. Members may recall that in his written statement on 24 February 1986, President Reagan said,
  "We are also pleased that the Soviet Union has indicated publicly that it now recognises our long-held position that verification of negotiated agreements is critical. We intend to pursue in specific terms at the negotiating table General Secretary Gorbachev's public offer to resolve any necessary verification issues."
  Even more recently, on 6 March of this year Paul Nitze, special adviser to the President and Secretary of State on arms control matters, said that it was vitally necessary that any new arms control agreements incorporate stringent verification measures including measures more comprehensive and exacting than in any previous agreement. He welcomed implicit recognition of that point suggested in those parts of Mr. Gorbachev's public statement dealing with on-site inspection and other co-operative measures that may be necessary. Accordingly, Mr. Nitze stated, the United States intended to pursue Mr. Gorbachev's overture on verification. He spoke of the ultimate goal of a world committing the total elimination of nuclear weapons, and the fact that the new Soviet leadership tried to deal concretely with the problem of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, or at least gave the appearance of doing so. He complained, nevertheless, that the Soviet proposal was front-loaded in that its first stage called for measures that would assure the USSR superiority in virtually all categories of military capability at the end of that stage, reserving for stages two and three things that could be of interest to the West, and leaving a number of the essential preconditions to the non-nuclear world wholly uncovered.
  Almost exactly a month after the Adjournment debate last year to which I have referred, the Government submitted a paper to the conference on disarmament entitled "Seismic Monitoring for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban". This is a full and technical document dealing with the matter, and acknowledges that seismoligical methods offer the only practical long-range means of monitoring compliance with the treaty banning underground nuclear weapon test explosions. We should not forget that the limited test ban treaty which came into force in 1963 prohibited nuclear explosions in space, in the atmosphere and in the oceans, and there has been no serious objection raised to the monitoring of compliance with that treaty. The threshold test ban treaty was signed in 1974 between the United States and USSR limiting underground nuclear weapons tests to yields of 150 kilotons, and I have not heard of any difficulties in monitoring compliance with the specific nature of that treaty.
  1046
  The United Kingdom's paper to the conference on disarmament states that a negotiated ban on underground nuclear testing would certainly demand setting up a global seismic network for monitoring at teleseismic ranges. How such a network would be provided has not been decided, although the activities of the ad hoc group of scientific experts appointed by the conference on disarmament suggest that parties to a treaty would contribute existing stations to the network. If ihat were the case the network would not be optimised from the technical point of view, the locations of stations would not be ideal for the global monitoring role, and the equipment at some stations would not be of the highest possible quality. It concludes that on the basis of data currently available it is estimated that a properly designed and deployed global network of seismic stations would achieve a detection threshold of a magnitude of four, and art identification threshold of a magnitude of four and a half throughout the world, which could enable nuclear tests with yields above a few tens of kilotonnes to be undiscovered. The paper concludes:
  "At least for the present it appears that monitoring at teleseismic ranges by itself would be insufficiently effective to permit a test ban to be brought into force."
  The most interesting section of the paper, however, is that which deals with high seismic frequencies, and paragraph 55 which states:
  "It appears from the above that there are possibilies for test ban monitoring in observing higher seismic frequencies than have hitherto been considered. It will be necessary to demonstrate that high frequency signals can indeed be detected over a variety of source/receiver paths and to investigate whether the sources of detected high frequency signals can be identified as earthquakes or explosions with adequate assurance. If a high frequency programme was successful in these respects, there would be promise of at least a partial technical solution to the low yield and the decoupled explosion problems. However, for monitoring against low yield decoupled explosions, regional stations would certainly be required because the seismic magnitudes would be equivalent to a strongly coupled explosion of 200 tons or less."
  One major obstacle to this advance in detection and identification has been removed by the Soviet Union reaffirming its position at the Geneva summit in November 1985 that it is prepared to have internal seismographic stations installed. In an interesting article in the Financial Times of 19 November 1985, Mr. David Fishlock in an article "Monitor to Beat Test Ban Cheating" wrote:
  "If a complete test ban on nuclear explosions were ever agreed between the US and the Soviet Union the system could give the necessary assurance that neither was cheating. But first the Soviets would have to gain the kind of confidence the US is beginning to show in NORESS, its prototype seismic detector in Norway. The Norwegian Regional Seismic Array is a pattern of seismic detectors laid over a circular area of pine forest three kilometres across near Hamar, one hundred kilometres north of Oslo. The array of 25 seismometers detect and pinpoint the explosion. Regional seismometers overcome the objection about confusion between nuclear explosions and earthquakes. The differences are readily apparent in seismograms, but lessen with distance. Moreover, another objection to existing verification techniques, decoupling or the carrying out of explosions in caverns rather than in holes or in highly compressible ground so as to muffle to shock waves, can be spotted by NORESS. As NORESS has a range of about only 2,000 kilometres it will need to be located on Soviet as well as Western soil. Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, thinks that arrays can be installed for about one million dollars each."
  Verification requires that each nation has a reliable and objective means of monitoring the military activities of the other. In the debate on verification and in the interests of our goal of a comprehensive test ban treaty, we cannot rely on the evidence of yesterday. We must constantly review

  1047
  the technological advance of verification techniques which are being rapidly enhanced. Satellite and aerial photography, seismology, radar and radiation detection have been refined and improved since their introduction. New methods of infra-red sensors, image and data-processing techniques and synthetic aperture radar are available. Synthetic aperture radar enables the United States to monitor areas in the Soviet Union that are covered by clouds and are in daylight only for a few hours each day. It does not have great resolution but images can be computer-enhanced.
  Advanced conventional radar based on land, sea or air, can easily track Soviet missile tests and is very reliable. Over-the-horizon radar is utilised by the United States. These devices project beams that the ionosphere which acts like a mirror and reflects into the interior of the USSR. Radar of this type also provides useful information about the velocity of the missile. Radio receivers on the ground and on high orbit satellites intercept the stream of messages that the missile during testing sends back to the ground and those messages describe the performance and conditions of the various parts of the missile.
  The messages, known collectively as telemetry, include information on how much fuel is being burned, the commands that the guidance system is sending to the rocket, and the temperature and pressure that different parts of the missile are experiencing. All these signals are intercepted by US monitoring facilities. By correlating such telemetry data with information about the motion of the missile gathered by ground based radars, US intelligence officers know not only that the USSR has tested a missile, but also discover many of its performance characteristics.
  These are means of gathering intelligence about missiles, but the means of monitoring underground tests are also highly advanced. A nuclear explosion is a point-like event that releases a huge amount of energy abruptly into the environment. The limited extent and the suddenness of such an event, force the device to release its energy in much shorter waves which have far higher frequencies than an earthquake, which is a widespread event. As a result, the waves from a nuclear explosion can be detected and recognised by their frequency characteristics even if they are accompanied by those of an earthquake.
  The unmanned seismic stations which Sandia National Laboratories has devised have been tested, and there are now five such stations in the US and Canada for practice and demonstration purposes. These stations communicate constantly by satellite relay with a central control facility in the US, making them virtually tamperproof. The USSR has accepted a proposal for the emplacement of such stations on its soil during negotiations for a comprehensive test ban treaty. Consequently, there appears to be no technical obstacle to monitoring with great competence underground nuclear tests releasing as little as one kiloton or less of energy. These assertions need to be investigated critically and carefully. I hope that my hon. Friend will do so.
  We are committed to a comprehensive test ban treaty. The United States House of Representatives has passed a motion calling upon the President to:
  1048
  "Propose to the Soviet Union the immediate resumption of negotiations towards conclusion of a verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."
  The Soviet Union is prepared to have unmanned monitoring devices on its own territory and the United States Administration seeks the total elimination of nuclear weapons, yet that does not happen. I do not underestimate the problems associated with adequate verification, but these are capable of solution in the near future if not at the present time. Perhaps there is a need for a third party exerting influence. With the high international reputation that the United Kingdom enjoys, a reputation that has been enhanced under this Government, we are ideally suited to that task.
  Six world leaders in the five continents peace initiative recently made an offer to Moscow and Washington to assume a direct role in the monitoring process of verification. The proposal grew out of the peace initiative presented by the six leaders in May 1984, a summit meeting of the leaders in New Delhi in January 1985, and scientific studies of nuclear test monitoring undertaken by US seismic experts. The leaders have said that they are ready to offer their good offices in order to facilitate the establishment of effective verification arrangements.
  The violence and uncertainty of the world is manifested by the tragedy that one of those leaders, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated. Her son, Rajiv, has taken up his mother's mantle in this regard and pursued it with great energy. Another of those leaders was Mr. Olof Palme, tragically assassinated so recently. The five continents peace initiative has been sponsored by Parliamentarians Global Action, formerly Parliamentarians for World Order, of the international council which I have been privileged to be the chairman. A comprehensive test ban treaty will by itself not give greater global security. The potential use of nuclear weapons is not wholly inhibited by banning tests. The effectiveness of modern nuclear weapons can now be tested increasingly by computers without the need to rely on tests at all. We still need to find a system of international arbitrament of disputes which is universally acceptable and removes the need for possession of weapons of mass destruction. Only then will there be the capacity for prolonged peace but, as is acknowledged and pursued by this Government, a comprehensive test ban treaty is an important step forward. It is within reach if we are prepared to stretch out and grasp it.
  10.30 pm
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tim Renton): I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Mén (Mr. Best) for the opportunity which his keen interest has given me to restate the Government's view on this important subject of verification in arms control. I should also like to thank him for complimenting the Government upon their commitment to the arms control process. I congratulate him, too, upon the extent of his technical knowledge that he has shown in the remarks that he has just addressed to the House.
  My hon. Friend has joined other hon. Members in calling for the resumption of trilateral negotiations for a comprehensive test ban treaty, so it is timely that I should now restate clearly that the Government remain firmly and actively committed to the arms control and disarmament

  1049
  process, in which our aim is the strengthening of peace and security at lower levels of armaments and military expenditure.
  However, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in her speech to the United Nations second special session on disarmament in 1982, verification is the heart of the matter, not an optional extra. It is an essential ingredient if any arms control agreement is genuinely to enhance stability and security. It is virtually impossible to achieve perfect verification. On the other hand, inadequate verification is unacceptable since it would undermine the very confidence which arms control agreements seek to promote. It is equally impossible to quantify in precise terms what level of verification would be acceptable for any particular arms control agreement.
  The degree of verification required in each case will be a matter for considered political judgment, taking technical considerations into account. This judgment will include the extent of political confidence on one side that the other side will comply with the treaty in question. Effective verification and confidence have to go hand in hand.
  To build this confidence we need to have satisfactory answers to some basic questions. For example, will undetected evasion of the agreement provide a significant military advantage? Will significant non-observance of the agreement be detected early enough, in time to allow the necessary counter-measures to be taken? Even if the evidence of such non-observance is available, will it be convincing enough to justify such counter-measures? And if we feel satisfied on these points, will we then have the ability to deter any temptation to depart from strict compliance with the agreement?
  Arms control agreements, if they are to work, must therefore contain clear, unambiguous and effective provisions dealing with these questions and providing the maximum guarantee of strict compliance.
  As my hon. Friend has just said, the Government remain fully committed to the goal of a verifiable, comprehensive test ban treaty. We see such a treaty as an important objective in our overall arms control policy, but we remain seriously concerned on the self-same score of verification. It is wrong to dismiss these concerns, as some do—though not my hon. Friend—in a cavalier fashion. Key security interests would be affected by any such treaty, and the risks created by undetected non-compliance would be especially grave.
  There are at present inadequacies in our ability to detect and identify nuclear tests. Claims that these technical problems no longer exist, and can therefore be ignored, are simply not borne out by the scientific advice available to the Government. Wishful thinking on this key matter must not be allowed to over-ride impartial scientific analysis. Our experience of previous negotiations in this area suggests that these remaining problems will not be easily resolved; and against this background we consider it premature to resume negotiations until solutions become more apparent.
  Let me explain our reservations. Seismology offers the most realistic prospect for verifying a comprehensive test ban treaty. Every year thousands of earthquakes occur which in seismic terms show similar characteristics to those of nuclear tests. When such events, and nuclear tests, occur above a certain level of seismic activity, we can detect them and we are confident that we can distinguish between them. At lower levels of seismic
  1050
  activity, we are less confident that we have the necessary ability both to detect and identify them correctly especially for small nuclear explosions. In the present state of the art our assessment is that the best which could be achieved is thresholds of detection and identification above the level at which militarily significant testing can occur.
  Another argument is that the risks involved in this leakage are acceptable. We do not agree. Let us remember also that we know relatively little about the geological data of other possible testing sites, such data being essential for the accurate interpretation of seismic events. We may indeed be able to detect and identify high-yield tests conducted at sites whose geological features are familiar to us. Tests involving small nuclear explosions elsewhere could be more difficult—even impossible—to identify, especially if they were conducted with deliberate subterfuge.
  As my hon. Friend said, the full range of issues involved in seismic monitoring was thoroughly aired in the paper the United Kingdom tabled at the conference on disarmament at Geneva last July. It followed two earlier papers to which my hon. Friend also referred.
  We do not believe that these papers have received the attention they deserve. One way for them to receive this attention would be for more work to be done in the ad hoc group of scientific experts in the conference on disarmament, to which the United Kingdom would be prepared to contribute. In parallel we will continue to seek an appropriate mandate for an ad hoc committee to discuss these and related matters.
  Another idea for verifying a comprehensive test ban Treaty is third country monitoring or an international seismic monitoring network. In this context my hon. Friend has referred to the "six nation" offer of October 1985 to set up monitoring stations on their territory as part of an international network to monitor a nuclear test ban. This offer was directed to President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev in the run-up to their summit meeting in Geneva. The latest six-nation appeal, at the end of February, was similarly directed at the leaders of the two super powers.
  There are difficulties with these ideas. First, the seismic stations would have to overcome all the difficulties I have described. Even if any stations used high-frequency monitoring, we do not yet know enough about the capabilities of this technique to place confidence in it achieving adequate verification. But third country monitoring could have a role to play in any adequate verification regime. We certainly hope that those of the six Nations which are members of the conference on disarmament will pursue their ideas at Geneva. As for satellite monitoring, it may help to complement seismological verification, but no more. It is one thing for a satellite to discover and photograph a hole in the ground but it is another to say what that hole is for or what is in it.
  In my hon. Friend's interesting speech he also referred to the NORESS experiment being developed in Norway. On 20 November last year I said in the House that this is an interesting development which merits further study. I assure my hon. Friend that our minds are open to all new developments in this area.
  My hon. Friend also referred to the announcement by the Soviet Union that it is prepared to have internal seismographic stations installed on its territory. It is true that Mr. Gorbachev in his January proposals offered some

  1051
  form of on-site inspection, but this was in vague terms and only, in his words, "where necessary." Let the Russians explain in detail what they mean. The Americans, on the other hand, deal in specific proposals. For example, in July last year President Reagan offered technical exchanges on verification problems, including the idea of a visit by Soviet experts to witness a US test with any equipment that they wanted to bring.
  The Russians have so far failed to address this offer with any seriousness, but it would be a useful step forward in discussing verification in the context of the threshold test ban treaty to which my hon. Friend referred, or the peaceful nuclear explosions treaty, signed but not ratified in the 1970s. Progress towards ratifying those treaties would help to build confidence before tackling the much more difficult issue of a CTBT. Despite the lack of a positive Soviet response to the July offer, President Reagan has just repeated his invitation for a visit to Nevada at a specific time in April. This would allow the Russians to examine a specific and highly promising technology called CORRTEX, which might well provide an adequate basis for verifying yields of explosions and thus help resolve verification issues in the context of the TTB and PNE treaties. We would welcome progress towards ratification. The Soviet response so far has unfortunately once again reportedly been negative, but I very much hope that this will not be their last word.
  In contrast with those practical proposals, which President Reagan has been making since 1983, the Russians have been promoting an unverifiable moratorium on testing. This is accompanied by claims that existing means of verification are adequate, or that if only others would join the moratorium verification would not be a problem. I ask my hon. Friend to contrast the realistic, practical approach of seeking to make progress in areas where it should be possible with the approach of proceeding from the outset on the assumption that the desired objective is already a fait accompli.
  Has Mr. Gorbachev's position moved beyond the Soviet position of the early 1960s that verification should be concerned only with the reduction phase of an agreement and not with verifying the residual armaments remaining in place? The answer to that important question must be found at the various negotiations which are now in progress. We were frankly disappointed by the first such evidence of how we are to interpret Mr. Gorbachev's positive words when translated into deeds. He stated in January that in the Vienna talks on mutual and balanced force reductions he was willing to accept reasonable verification measures. We therefore looked for a constructive response to the Western proposal of December 1985.
  This proposal removed the apparent obstacle of prior data agreement which the East had claimed to be a
  1052
  stumbling block to progress. The West at the same time accepted the Eastern concept of a time-limited agreement involving the United States and Soviet reductions put forward in the Eastern proposal of February 1985. Thus, the Western proposal represented a significant concession and provided a sound basis for progress after so many years of deadlock. Yet the Warsaw Pact's response last month was, alas, merely a rehash of the proposals that the Eastern side tabled in 1983. They were inadequate then and they are inadequate now, because on both information exchange and verification they fail to provide the necessary basis for ensuring the accurate monitoring of compliance.
  Verification is also a key issue in the search for a comprehensive and lasting ban on chemical weapons at the conference on disarmament in Geneva. The proposed verification regime for the convention in question is the most extensive yet envisaged for an arms control agreement. Given the widespread industrial application of many chemicals which can be used to produce such weapons, the verification procedures must on the one hand ensure compliance with the convention yet, on the other, they must not compromise commerical confidentiality, or interfere with the day-to-day operation of countries' chemical industries. The United Kingdom, I am glad to say, has taken a leading role at the conference in recent years in proposing verification methods with this aim.
  A system of international inspection will, it is generally accepted, be required to monitor the destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles. Routine international inspections will also be necessary, we believe, to check that such weapons are not subsequently produced. In addition, we maintain that an extra element of inspection on challenge is essential in order to deter cheating. The United Kingdom is this year chairing these negotiations for a chemical weapons convention in Geneva and we are pressing very hard for progress.
  I agree with my hon. Friend that an agreement with inadequate verification is worse than no agreement at all. The aim of verification must be to generate confidence in arms control agreements.
  Once again I should like to thank my hon. Friend for his recognition of the Government's efforts in this most important sphere. Arms control is very much on the East-West agenda this year, more so than for a great many years. In these circumstances of hope it is even more important than ever that we find agreement on realisable measures of verification. That will move the arms control process forward.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate have continued for half an hour, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

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

Chiropody Service for the Elderly
Lord Wallace of Coslany: 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 to what extent the chiropody service for elderly people has been improved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, from 1978 to 1984 the number of elderly patients receiving National Health Service chiropody increased by 20 per cent. to over 1.5 million.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that three years ago I was told that there was an acute shortage of chiropodists? That is probably not the case today because it is quite easy to have treatment for £5 to £6 a go, whereas people on the National Health Service find that as economy measures are introduced the period before an elderly person gets treatment has now been extended to about three or four months. That is a vital matter. It is not a question of toe nails; it is callouses and other treatments. That means that a person is liable to fall or be unable to get about. This is a vital service and not the Cinderella that it will soon be.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is quite right. Unfortunately, for many years chiropody in the National Health Service has not been as comprehensive a service as we would wish, primarily due to the shortage of state registered chiropodists. There are now almost 20 per cent. more whole-time equivalent chiropodists in the National Health Service than in 1979 and they are treating more patients and providing more treatments. We are making progress. With regard to waiting lists, we do not centrally collect statistics on waiting time or waiting lists for chiropody and certainly have no evidence that they are increasing. Unnecessary waiting is regrettable but it is another facet of the general shortage.
Lord Inglewood: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is sure that there are no obstructions in the way of training, which I believe at one time held up the number of skilled chiropodists?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Government and the Chiropodists' Board of the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine are seeking to increase the intake of chiropody schools and so the
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number of qualified chiropodists. Since 1978, five new schools have opened, increasing student output by over 50 per cent., and another is planned. However, it will be some years before this significantly improves the position.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, bearing in mind that 95 per cent. of the time of the 5,750 state registered chiropodists is spent serving the needs of elderly people and that elderly people are very high among those with low incomes and very dependent upon the National Health Service, is it not disturbing to the Minister that only 50 per cent. of state registered chiropodists work in the National Health Service because of pay and conditions, and that 15 per cent. of funded posts for chiropodists in the National Health Service are not filled? What do the Minister and her colleagues propose to do about what is a very disturbing condition at a time when the number of very elderly people is growing steadily?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have already given details of the number of schools which have been opened and the one which is to be opened. We have advised health authorities where they cannot provide a full chiropody service, that they should give priority to elderly or handicapped people, expectant mothers and schoolchildren.
It is up to each authority to define those groups as closely or widely as their staff resources allow.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness what has happened to the home chiropody service, which so many elderly people found absolutely invaluable and which now seems to have disappeared from almost every area? As the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, said, there are now far more elderly people in society, which means that there are twice as many elderly feet. Many of those feet cause trouble and the right place for them to be attended to is in the elderly person's home. What has happened to those home services? Is there any chance of their being restored?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the patient's home is the second most common place of treatment. While the proportion of treatment at home has declined in recent years, it still accounts for some 19 per cent. of total treatments.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, forgive me for coming to the Dispatch Box again, but perhaps I may again ask the noble Baroness the crux of my question, which was: is there something that can be done by the department to remedy the fact that 50 per cent. of those who have been trained as registered chiropodists are now working privately and not in the health service? Is there something that can be done about that, because it is a trend which seems to be progressing?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I sometimes have difficulty in finding the crux of the noble Lord's questions to me, but with regard to privatisation of National Health Service chiropody services, it would be open to health authorities to make arrangements to contract out provision of National Health Service

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Chiropody services if they considered that that would provide the most efficient and effective service. They would need to monitor the service very carefully to ensure that it provided value for money and that standards of care and treatment were maintained. Employment in the National Health Service is open only to state registered chiropodists. Private sector chiropodists, however, are a quite flourishing profession, and we have no plans to restrict their practice outside the National Health Service.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, I apologise for putting a further supplementary question. Is the noble Baroness aware that the home chiropody service is absolutely vital because those are the worst possible cases which need treatment? There is a delay in treatment taking place. As I have said, there is a gap of up to four months between one treatment and another. Will she ask her right honourable friend to get someone to have a look at this matter—I know that it involves a certain amount of investigation—because it is vital?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have sympathy with what the noble Lord said and I shall see that his remarks are drawn to the attention of my right honourable friend.

Family Income: Tax Contribution
2.43 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: 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 change there has been in the share of the average family's gross earnings taken in total taxes since 1978–79.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, the share of taxes and national insurance contributions for a family on average earnings has risen by two to two and a half percentage points since 1978–79.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, in view of that Answer from the noble Lord, can he explain how it comes about that the Government, who were elected on a pledge to reduce taxation, have in fact increased it?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, I am glad to enlighten the noble Lord. If we look at what counts with people, which is the amount of money that they take home and not the amount of money that they pay in taxes, we find that the income of those on average earnings between 1973–74 and 1978–79 went down by 2·9 per cent., whereas since 1978–79 their income has gone up by 18·2 per cent. in real terms. It is your income that you spend and not your taxes.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the figures he has given take into account the fiscal element in fuel charges since the Government came into office?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am assured that the figures take account of both direct and indirect taxes and national insurance.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, in view of the second answer of the noble Lord, is he aware that the actual answer to my Question is 34·6 per cent. in 1978–79 and 37·3 per cent. in the current financial year? Does this not show that the average family—the average by definition of this Government—is paying higher taxes today than it was at the time of the election of the Government, when they were pledged and elected on a manifesto that promised reduced taxation irrespective of take-home pay? Does this not show that that promise has been breached?
Lord Young of Graffham: No, my Lords, because the only matter that counts surely is the amount which a family has to spend on rent, rates, food, living and everything else, including VAT. If we take the net expenditure after deducting for taxes, we find, whether a person be single, married with no children or married with two children, on half average earnings or on double average earnings, he will have far more in net take-home pay now than in 1979. Perhaps, for the benefit of all your Lordships, I will cause the figures to be placed in the Library.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the Conservative Government were elected on a manifesto which undertook among other things to transfer taxes on income to indirect taxes on expenditure, the reason for that being that it was thought better to allow more people to spend their own money in the way they chose?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords. But the Government were also brought into power in order to see the economy become wealth-creating again. What these figures represent is the fact that year after year those of us in work, and even those of us out of work, can see an improvement in our net income in real terms.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is not the noble Lord a little worried about the figures he has given and the implications? Have not people on half average earnings had their tax increased by 100 per cent., while those on 10 times average earnings have had their tax reduced by 22 per cent? In addition, those on 10 times average earnings have had much higher wage or salary increases than those on average and half average earnings. Therefore, those at the top of the scale in every respect have done very much better than those at the bottom. Are not the Government operating a Robin Hood policy in reverse?
Lord Young of Graffham: No, my Lords. I think all your Lordships can take comfort from the fact that those on half average earnings have seen, since this Government came to power, an increase of about 15 per cent. in real terms. It is also true that there are many now on perhaps 10 times average earnings, and maybe even more. But is it merely a coincidence that that has come about at the same time as we have seen

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a vast increase in the wealth-creating ability of this country?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, however much the Opposition try to denigrate the obvious, the increase in national savings and in spending in the shops shows quite clearly that people who are in work have been infinitely better off over the last six years than they were before?
Lord Young of Graffham: Yes, my Lords, and I hope they will continue to be as long as this Government follow the same policies over the next decade.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that nobody wishes to denigrate his or the Government's efforts? But were there not many schoolchildren in 1979 who in 1986 are teenagers in families? Perhaps the father is earning a bit more than he did in 1979 but he has a much bigger burden to bear if he has teenage children on the dole, and they have no chance whatsoever of spending their money where they like. They have to scrape together every ha'penny from their unemployment benefit. That is still the scourge of this nation.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am not in the slightest bit complacent about unemployment; no one could be in view of the current figures. However, we are unique in providing for the first time in Europe—indeed, I believe in the industrialised world—three years as a guarantee for all 16 year-old school leavers; two years on YTS and one year available to those on the new workers scheme. That will ensure that for all young people leaving school this year at the age of 16 unemployment is becoming an option, and I hope that it is an option that they will not take.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in view of the Minister's endeavour to prove that the essence of my noble friend's Question is not a matter that he would like to answer, will he now proceed to answer quite factually the Question?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the noble Lord asked a very simple Question. He asked:
"what change there has been in the share of the average family's gross earnings taken in total taxes since 1978–79".
I pointed out that they have gone up by 2 to 2½ per cent. But I should be guilty of misleading the House if any noble Lord gained the impression that that meant that people were worse off than they were in 1978–79. In fact, they have seen an unequalled growth in real incomes. That is something at which all Members of your Lordships' House should rejoice.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, are we to take it from the Minister's reply that the position is not as responsible financial organisations have declared; that there has been a change in society insofar as the rich have become better off under this Government while the poor have become poorer? Is he challenging such statements by responsible organisations?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I do not know to which responsible organisations the noble Lord refers. I am merely saying that those on half average earnings are, if they are single, 15·3 per cent. better off in real terms; if they are married with no children, 14·8 per cent. better off; and if they are married with two children, 14.9 per cent. better off. To me, that means an increase in real terms in living standards.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, the noble Lord said that we were unique in Europe in having a scheme to provide training for school leavers. Will he tell the House how many countries in Europe have as high a percentage of unemployment as we have?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, there are countries with higher unemployment. As concerned as we are all with unemployment, it seems slightly strange—does it not?—that every question that I am asked, no matter on what subject, always ends up with unemployment.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: But the noble Lord is the Employment Minister, my Lords; he is the Secretary of State!
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes to put down a Question dealing specifically with that point, I shall be glad to answer it. Our unemployment is by no means the worst in Europe. Indeed, I would suggest that in regard to young people we are making the best efforts to deal with the problem and that our record stands comparison with any other country in Europe.
Lord O'Hagan: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the figures in Brussels show that this country is creating jobs at a faster rate than any other member state of the European Community?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, we are a long way from the Question. If we may keep to it, I think that would be of advantage.

Local Enterprise Agencies: Secondment
2.53 p.m.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage large firms to second some of their executives to local enterprise agencies.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, Business in the Community is taking the lead in encouraging an increase in secondments to local enterprise agencies from large firms. Such secondments can qualify for tax relief. The Government fully support Business in the Community's efforts in that area.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Does he have any figures of the number of persons, organisations and companies that have taken advantage of the schemes and are setting an example for others to follow?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, at present the total number of local enterprise agencies is some 240 in England and some 320 in the United Kingdom as a whole. There are in England as far as we can see 166 people on secondment from the private sector. That figure is increasing all the time. I cannot help the noble Lord as to the companies and organisations that have provided those 166 people, but I shall be happy to let him have that information if he wishes.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there are a good number of large companies that have needed no prompting to second executives to local enterprise agencies? Indeed, faced with the need to reduce the number of people that they can themselves employ if they are to remain internationally competitive, have not such companies actively taken the lead in promoting agencies in the localities in which they operate?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I pay glad and grateful tribute to the many organisations and companies in this country that have allowed some of their brightest executives to go into local enterprise agencies and to help with the promotion and growth not only of new jobs and businesses through those agencies but also with the many other programmes run by the Manpower Services Commission. Indeed, it is a sign of the responsibility felt by the private sector for the state of the economy and for those not in full employment. I am very glad to pay tribute to those organisations.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in view of the fact that most of the local enterprise boards have proved themselves to be very successful and are, in the Government's terms, highly cost-effective in creating new jobs in the areas covered by them, will not the Government consider giving active financial support, on the ground of pure cost-effectiveness, to those boards which have shown as a matter of experience that they can create jobs at far lower cost than some of the other enterprises that have the support of the noble Lord's department?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am glad on this occasion—and, alas, it is only on rare occasions—to be fully in agreement with the noble Lord. I am happy to remind all in your Lordships' House that on 1st April the local enterprise agency grants scheme will commence for a period of five years. That scheme will give money to local enterprise agencies up and down the land but only to those in need of central government assistance; those whose income is no more than £60,000 in the first year. Such support is designed to taper off as local enterprise agencies come to rely upon the support of local industry. We felt that the best way to ensure that agencies remain relevant to needs is for them to demonstrate to us that they can obtain help from the private sector.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, why should support taper off? If the enterprise boards are so successful, surely the Government should seize the opportunity with both hands to stimulate employment in their localities, albeit in agreement with private
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enterprise. Why do the Government not put some dynamism behind the scheme instead of tapering it off, with the objective of putting as much burden as they can on industry which has already been handicapped by the policies of the Government?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I hardly think that local enterprise agencies have been handicapped by the policies of this Government. Indeed, they are almost a creation of the policies of this Government. Where I suspect we depart from the noble Lord is that we believe that continuing support from government without a demonstration of the support of the private sector would succeed only in institutionalising the agencies and would cease to make them relevant to the creation of small firms in a short time. We are here ensuring that local enterprise agencies will always be relevant to the needs of their localities, because they will have to demonstrate continually that they have support from the companies there.

Family Law Bill [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the law relating to the jurisdiction of the courts in the United Kingdom to make orders with regard to the custody of children; to make provision as to the recognition and enforcement of such orders throughout the United Kingdom; to make further provision as to the imposition, effect and enforcement of restrictions on the removal of children from the United Kingdom or from any part of the United Kingdom; to amend the law relating to the jurisdiction of courts in Scotland as to tutory and curatory; to amend the law relating to the recognition of divorces, annulments and legal separations; to make further provision with respect to the effect of divorces and annulments on wills; to amend the law relating to the powers of the courts to make declarations relating to the status of a person; to abolish the right to petition for jactitation of marriage; to repeal the Greek Marriages Act 1884; to make further provision with respect to family proceedings rules; to amend the Child Abduction Act 1984, the Child Abduction (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 and the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord give an indication of how many pages in the statute book this will add?
The Lord Chancellor: Surprisingly few, my Lords.
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Public Trustee and Administration of Funds Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision with respect to certain functions of the Public Trustee, the Accountant General of the Supreme Court and the Court of Protection as respects the management, protection or administration of the funds and other property and, if under disability, the affairs of private persons; and with respect to the investment expenses of the National Debt Commissioners. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Business of the House
The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Bruce of Donington set down for 9th April shall be limited to 5 hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10, 11, 12, and 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates set out in Appendix H to the Companion to the Standing Orders shall apply to the debate with the substitution of "5 hours" for "2½ hours" and "25 minutes" for "20 minutes".—(Viscount Whitelaw.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

European Communities Committee
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Wilson of Langside be added to the Select Committee on the European Communities in place of the Lord Harris of Greenwich, resigned.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Museum of London Act,

Law Reform (Parent and Child) (Scotland) Act,

Local Government Act,

Peterhead Harbours (South Bay Development) Order Confirmation Act.

Rates Reform
3.2 p.m.
Lord Marshall of Leeds Lord Marshall of Leeds rose to call attention to the burden of rates and to the case for spreading this burden in a fairer and more equitable fashion; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, before speaking to the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper I should like to thank all those who have put down their names to speak in this debate this afternoon. Had I not known of their sincere interest in the subject and their expert and especial knowledge of it, I might have been tempted to compliment them on their unselfishness, perhaps their masochism, in remaining here for this debate on the very day that the House goes into its Easter Recess.
I deliberately drafted the Motion in the most general terms in order that the whole canvas of the financing of local government could, if required, be debated. Although I did not specifically aim the Motion at the Green Paper, neither did I intend to exclude it from deliberation in the debate. Rates account for 10 per cent. of all taxes levied. They represent the local contribution towards financing local government whose expenditure represents over a quarter of total public expenditure and is 11 per cent. of the GDP.
In 1984–85, local government provided £45 billion worth of services; but how fairly was the cost of those services spread, and what degree of relationship was there between payment, on the one hand, and the user, on the other, and, indeed, entitlement to vote? I hope I can secure agreement on all sides of the House that something needs to be done to improve the arrangements for the financing of local government. By the time we reach the end of this debate I should like to think that we could also reach some broad agreement on the form the improvements might take.
However, before focusing on possible changes in the financing of local government, perhaps we need to spend a little time on the case for change. We all know that the rating system pre-dates organised local government, as we know it, by almost 300 years. The rating system was in operation during the reign of the first Elizabeth, even though there was no organised, countrywide system of local government in this country until the Municipal Corporations Act of, I think 1875, and when the 1888 Act established the county councils. However, the rating system has repeatedly come under pressure during the 20th century and has been, I think, under continuous pressure since 1974; for the burden of domestic rates, due partly to an over-narrow tax base, is at present unfairly concentrated on too few shoulders. Annual rate increases, particularly when they are well above inflation, exacerbate the problem for those who pay rates, whether domestic or non-domestic.
In the latter sector, the high level of rate poundage can be a compelling reason why some businesses decide to close down and move away and why others are simply not attracted to set up business in such highly rated or (should I say?) over-rated areas. Ironically, those are generally the very areas of the country which are currently in decline. Only a few days ago, a northern businessman was quoted as

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saying that a heritage of penal rate rises had discouraged the area's hard-hit industry.
These pressures will not simply go away. We have to do something and we can only do something that will work when we have decided what sort of local government system we want. The Layfield Report spelt out the broad choices that were available in 1976, and those choices are still relevant. We have to decide whether we want the main responsibility for decisions about the levels of local services and the costs of those services to lie with central or with local government. We cannot choose, as the Labour Government did in the late 1970s, a middle way. There is no middle way except one which confuses responsibility and obscures accountability. We have to choose whether we want local government, on the one hand, or local administration of national services, on the other. When, and only when, we have made that choice we have to look for the most appropriate way of financing the system that we have chosen.
I hope that we shall choose local government rather than local administration. If we do so, we have to accept that local government should be responsible for raising most of the money which it spends; we have to accept that local government should draw as much as it can of that money from as wide a group of the local electorate as possible; and we have to ensure that local government can be held accountable locally for the consequences of its policies on both spending and service conditions.
The present arrangements for the financing of local government simply do not meet those objectives. Central government put in too much of the money, and in addition the way in which government put in much of that money, through the block grant system, leads to massive swings and inconsistencies from year to year. There is ample proof of that in the rate changes for the coming year.
In order to demonstrate this point, I ask your Lordships to look for just a moment at how the block grant distribution, which is the biggest single source of grant-aid to local authorities, has changed between 1985–86 and 1986–87. The total overall has not changed very much. In 1985–86, Parliament voted for £8·489 billion of block grant as part of the rate support grant settlement. For 1986–87, Parliament has voted £8·280 billion of block grant, which is a reduction of just over £208 million, or 2·5 per cent. But the distribution of that money from one settlement to the next has changed dramatically.
Perhaps I may give the House a few examples of this change. London's grant is up by £175 million, or plus 14 per cent.; the metropolitan areas' grant is down by £116 million, or minus 4 per cent.; the non-metropolitan areas' grant is down by £264 million, or minus 6 per cent. At individual authority level, the changes from one grant settlement to another are even more marked. Let us take the case of three London boroughs. Islington is up by £21·2 million, or plus 71 per cent., from £29·8 million to £50 million; Lambeth is up by £19·2 million, or plus 36 per cent., from £53·2 million to £72·4 million; Kensington and Chelsea is up by £13–5 million, or plus 84 per cent., from £16·1 million to £29·6 million.
Let us look now at three counties which represent very different organisations of London government. Hertfordshire is down by £18 million, or minus 30 per cent. I shall not give the actual sums. Surrey is down by £13·7 million, or minus 38 per cent.; Essex is down by £11·4 million, or minus 99 per cent. I know that those figures are only snapshots at one point in time, but they demonstrate the volatility of the grant system, and it is the volatility of the grant system which flows through into rates. Because grant is such a major source of local government funding, swings in grant are reflected in swings in rates, which may have less to do with the council's own spending decisions than the uninitiated observer might suspect.
Let us look again at those three London boroughs. They have all recommended a reduced rate for 1986–87, as follows: Islington down 18 per cent.; Lambeth down 3 per cent.; Kensington and Chelsea down 26 per cent. Some commentators will claim that this has been made possible by the reduction in the GLC precept, owing to abolition. Others, somewhat cynically, will point either to the London borough elections in May or to creative accounting—and your Lordships will understand what I mean by "creative accounting".
That is the effect on the three London boroughs, but what has been the effect on the three counties that I specified. They have all recommended increased precepts. Hertfordshire is up by 21 per cent.; Surrey is up by 12 per cent.; Essex is up by 18 per cent.
It would not be fair to say that the size of government grants and the volatility of the grant system put pressure on rates and to leave it just like that. One could not make such a statement. The fact is that the rateable value base itself is seriously flawed. There has been no domestic rating revaluation in England since 1973 and a rating revaluation of non-domestic properties is long overdue. It is doubtful whether it will be possible to carry out a comprehensive revaluation of domestic properties because, as the Layfield Report demonstrated in 1976, the rateable values of the 18 million dwellings in England rest on the rental evidence supplied by a mere 13,700 properties, and that is a very weak base to say the least.
We all know that rateable values for similar properties vary substantially across the country. Inland Revenue figures show that the rateable value of the so-called standard house varies from £674 in Westminster to £472 in Elmbridge; £291 in Greenwich; £254 in Manchester; £165 in Barnsley and £146 in Islington. That variation, which is a factor of almost five from highest to lowest, is surely much wider than the variation in prices for comparable properties across the country. But though all rateable values are out of date and domestic rateable values are seriously flawed, rateable values underpin the whole system of local government finance and even affect the distribution of the block grant to local authorities about which I have been speaking.
So the end result is an implausibly wide range of average domestic rate bills. In 1985–86, the range of average domestic rate bills was as follows. Inner London ranges from £747 in Kensington and Chelsea to £371 in Wandsworth, with an average of £572; outer London ranges from £747 in Haringey to £353 in Bexley, with an average of £464. Now let us look at

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the metropolitan areas: the rate bill ranges from £511 in Newcastle, to £212 in Calderdale, with an average of £344; and in the non-metropolitan areas it ranges from £188 in Barrow-in-Furness, to £498 in Epsom and Ewell, with an average of £314.
It is difficult to believe that variations of that magnitude in average domestic rate bills can be the result solely of variations in local spending patterns, though I have to admit that increasing spending on services, say by twice the rate of inflation (which is not unusual in certain cases) can have a very significant effect. If the variations are not so much the result of local spending decisions, then in my view it is surely difficult to argue that they are fair. Not only is it worth questioning the fairness of the results of the present arrangements; it is also necessary to question the basic hypothesis that householders should be responsible for meeting the net expenditure of their local councils—that is, spending on services minus the income from grants and charge for services.
There is a good case for saying that too few people pay directly towards the cost of local services. There are 35 million adults in this country. There are 18 million households, of which only 15 million households pay rates and only 12 million households pay full rates. This is not enough. If we are to retain local government as we know it in this country, more people must have a direct stake in what their local council spend as well as in the services those councils provide; for until we reduce the amount of funding coming from central government, and until we increase the number of people paying something towards the cost of local services so that we get a wider personal and a more stable business mix of contribution, we cannot have and shall not have locally accountable local councils.
If local accountability is worth preserving—and I happen to think that it is—it is certainly with some anxiety and not a little apprehension that we reflect that in 1948–49 30 per cent. of local authority revenue expenditure was financed by those who were entitled to vote in local elections. By 1983–84 this proportion had fallen to just 12 per cent. In my opinion, this created a power vacuum into which central government intruded in order to protect local ratepayers from the damaging consequences of the more extreme political decision-making at local level, examples of which in the past few years have not been hard to seek.
I have already mentioned the effect on business and I shall not repeat it; but this decline from 31 per cent. to 12 per cent. is dramatic. Its consequences are that the voter, on average, is able to gain benefit from about £8 in local government spending for every £1 of the domestic rate bill. For every £100 spent there are 12 per cent. of people paying rates, so it is £8 benefit for every £1 of the domestic rate bill. When this signal is recognised, the motivating force to maintain and even increase high local spending is, I suggest, self evident, bearing in mind the fact that the popularity of and enthusiasm for local services is in inverse ratio to the liability to pay for them. To control this high spending without any improvement in accountability, the Government have been forced, as have certain previous governments, to impose increasing controls
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and to exercise reserve powers of limitation on local authorities' expenditure.
My view is that the only way of rolling back such centralising controls and getting the local government system to work is by increasing accountability. That is the solution to which this Green Paper (for the first time of all Green Papers) has addressed itself. Time does not permit me to make more than a passing reference to the Green Paper, but I am sure it will get a thorough airing from those who follow me. We may differ about the precise remedy prescribed in the Green Paper. It is a radical one; but I think that it has to be radical for the time for half measures is past. It is worthy of our most earnest consideration and support, I believe. So I say that the Green Paper should be given at least a fair wind; we shall ignore the accountability argument at our peril, if we are to expect to continue to exercise our democratic rights at local level, as I am sure we all hope we shall, in a continuing democratic society. I beg to move for Papers.
3.26 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I have to confess that I was rather surprised by the choice of this Motion for the Conservative Party debate, because it seemed to be either critical of local government or critical of central government and I knew that the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, was an extremely good local government man and also, I am sure, a good Tory. It just seemed a bit odd. I have very much enjoyed listening to his responsible, fair and factual speech, and I think I could agree with him that something needs to be done to improve the financing of local government. I may not agree with all the solutions of the Green Paper, or, indeed, with all of his premises, but I think that my comments will emerge in the course of my speech and so I shall move on to what I have to say.
It seems to us on this side of the House that if there is a burden of rates it is perhaps because of the actions of the Tory Government who have been in office for the past seven years, years which have seen quite an unprecedented interference with local authorities. We read in the 1974 Conservative manifesto that rates were to be abolished, and that was repeated in the manifesto for the 1979 election. That election brought the Conservatives to power, but rates were not abolished in the course of that Parliament. One could say that it is the inaction as well as the actions of the Tories that have contributed to the burden of rates; that is, if it is conceded that rates are a burden.
By the time of the 1983 election manifesto the commitment to abolition had gone. Instead, there was a promise to legislate to curb excessive and irresponsible rate increases and to provide a general scheme for limitation of rate increases for all authorities if necessary; and, of course, there was the intention to abolish the metropolitan counties and the GLC.
Why are rates so high? It is because the Government have cut rate support grants by £17 billion since 1979–80 as part of a policy both of discouraging local expenditure and of shifting the burden of taxation away from income tax. The Financial Statement and Budget Report in March 1986, (the Red Book) shows

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the cost of 1p off the basic rate of income tax to be £950 million. This means that in 1986–87 the effect of RSG being cut from 61 per cent. to 46·4 per cent. is to enable the Government to have the basic rate of income tax nearly 4p lower than it might have been. It is this reduction in grant that has been the major factor in increasing rates.
The Government's stock answer to complaints about grant reductions is that they are only continuing what Peter Shore or Denis Healey started in the 1974–79 Government. I should like to refute that. Grant was at 61 per cent. at the beginning of 1974; it was at 61 per cent. in 1979. In between, it went up to 66 per cent. to pay for the December 1974 Houghton pay award to teachers. It was not the policy of Denis Healey or Peter Shore to soak the ratepayer in order to give income tax handouts. However, even with the proportion of local government expenditure being met by rates going up from a third at the peak to over a half now, the rating system has not broken down under the strain of this increase. We do not know whether it is near the limit. Maybe it is in Scotland. My noble friend Lord Carmichael will be speaking on the Scotland side of this later in the debate.
Our view is that if there is a burden it is on the shoulders of local authorities and imposed by this Government because of their excessive legislation—12 local government Bills in seven years, seven of them to do with finance. There has been uncertainty and constant changes have been made in the method of calculating and distributing the grants, making forward planning virtually impossible. Take targets and penalties! They were introduced in 1982 against all advice as a panic measure to curb public spending. The system failed to work and it took four years before Mr. Patrick Jenkin abandoned it.
Let us look, however, at the case for rates being considered a burden. It is made in the foreword to the Green Paper. I quote:
"The present local government finance system does not strengthen local accountability".
It then lists the main sources of income. First, there are the non-domestic ratepayers comprising commerce, industry, schools and public buildings, although not, of course, agriculture; and is that fair? These pay just over half—51 per cent.—of total rates levied. There are no subsidies except 50 per cent. for charities. They have no vote but they have to be consulted. Secondly, there are domestic ratepayers; a minority of local electors. There are many who make use of services provided who are not ratepayers. They pay for services only in so far as they contribute through national taxation. Thirdly, we have central government grants to which I have already referred.
Let us examine this further and look at non-domestic ratepayers. Rates are a business expense, but they make up only 2 per cent. of costs for industry and 3 per cent. for commerce. They are allowed as an expense in calculating taxes on company profits. Rates will be a heavier expense now than in 1979 because of the much smaller proportion of grant coming from national taxation; and that is a decision of this Government. It is not the average business that is injured but the marginal business; the one that is otherwise in difficulties and for which rates are a high
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proportion of costs. Other costs on business, particularly the national insurance surcharge, have reduced in the period. So the burden, if any, is particularly on the business with low labour and high premises costs such as warehousing. The Green Paper notes with some truth that rates, though small and not shown to deter business, are an uncontrollable cost and vary from place to place and from year to year.
The Green Paper refers to a recent study by members of Cambridge University commissioned by the DoE. It could not prove very much. Paragraph 2.10 of the Green Paper repeats the usual view from the CBI etc., and I quote,
"But employers' organisations … report that their members have been influenced by rates in making decisions on employment".
However, the DoE commissioned study said:
"the problem with a survey-based approach"—
that is, asking firms what they think of rates—
"is that firms have a vested interest in complaining about rates whatever the level. Rates are, after all, an additional cost imposed on them … The effect of rates cannot be properly assessed by asking firms to give their views"—
nor, perhaps I might add, by listening to noble Lords who speak for industry in this House. Overall, rates cannot be said to be much of a burden, and businesses, of course, receive considerable services in return. They are getting quite a good deal for their money.
The Government's argument would seem to have changed away from the absolute level to the need for stability and uniformity. For that, we would agree that there is something to be said. If the Green Paper proposals were legislated for, the general pattern would be for non-domestic ratepayers to pay less than they do now in areas with high rate poundages, which also tend to be areas of high unemployment such as the North East and Yorkshire. The converse of this would be that in areas with low rate poundages they would tend to pay more than they now do. The CIPFA guide to the Green Paper suggests that businesses in the North of England and most of London, except for Westminster or the City, would pay less and businesses in the rest of the South East and the West Midlands would pay more. There could be some grumbles as a result.
Now for the domestic ratepayer. The Motion calls for the burden to be spread in a fairer and more equitable fashion. There is a section in the Green Paper on those who vote and those who pay. I refer to paragraphs 1.36 to 1.39. The argument is that of the 35 million electors—the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, referred to this—only 18 million pay rates, and of those, 3 million receive full and 3 million partial relief, and that no link between voting and paying is a bad thing. One could say that this is a sexist approach. Most of the non-ratepayers who vote are spouses. Are they really considered as not paying rates? How do the Government think that most households run their budgets?—as a joint effort, I would hope. The whole concept of linking voting and paying is antidemocratic. Following that idea would mean that someone who receives housing benefit would have to have his vote discounted because he is not picking up the financial consequences. It has to be remembered that only about 40 per cent. of the electorate pay income tax. When will the Government apply the same logic to national elections?

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I come now to the "fairer and more equitable" argument. What do the Government mean by fairer? Paragraphs 3.8 to 3.10 of the Green Paper talk of fairness in terms of paying for the use of services as one benefits from them—the beneficial principle—and paying for the services of benefit to the poorer members of the community—the redistributive principle. They carry these twin planks of fairness to the proposal for a community charge, which is called a charge so that people think they are paying for services and which is levied at a flat rate so that everyone pays the same. That is a clear negation of the redistributive principle. We cannot agree with the philosophy behind that. We believe in the concept of community and public provision and not of self interest, the market place and charging. It is a good thing, we consider, for the community to work together to provide decent public services for all who can benefit from them; and the wishes of the community are local decisions. This means that local authorities should have the right to levy taxes and not be hampered by government. I see from paragraph 5·28 of the Green Paper that the Government still intend to keep rate capping under the poll tax.
About the community charge, or poll tax as most people call it, we have grave reservations. The 1983 government White Paper accepted that it would be hard to enforce and that a register other than the electoral would be needed. However, the White Paper went on,
"This would make the tax expensive to run and complicated, particularly if incorporated in a rebate scheme. Without a rebate scheme a poll tax would bear harshly on people with low incomes. The Government agrees with the Environment Committee that this option should be rejected".
The House of Commons Environment Committee in its July 1982 report, which was responding to the Green Paper, Alternatives to Domestic Rates came out strongly against that option, finding it regressive and very difficult to administer and enforce. How would those trying to evade it be caught—all those mobile people like students who move constantly from place to place and from address to address? The administrative problems are enormous. It would be highly expensive to collect and if there were substantial rebates, as one would hope, hardly worth collecting in a great many cases. Incidentally, local government would bear the cost of maintaining the register whereas central government now bears the cost of maintaining the rating valuation list.
Let us look at the impact of rates on groups of domestic ratepayers. Let us look first at households that are not poor, say those taking home £200 a week or more—not the very rich. From 1977–8 the graph of rates payable went ahead of the RPI so that rates are in some ways a greater burden than earlier. But this is hardly surprising given the shift from finance by national taxation to finance by rates as already described. Given that national taxes should have fallen as a result, it is not obvious that the cost of local government overall is a much greater burden than before. Even now rates are not a large percentage of net household income. They are 3·2 per cent. for those on £200 a week. Those people would pay the same percentage if there were a community charge. The rich—those on £400 to £500 a week—at present spend
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2·2 per cent. on rates. With the community charge it would be 2 per cent. The rich will pay less. In theory households with more than two adults should pay more but they will be difficult to detect and it will be hard to enforce payment.
Let us now look at households that are poor. They have not felt rates a burden because they have been insulated from their effect by rate rebates and housing benefit. Those too proud to claim of course have suffered. In future, however, the current social security proposals involve all households paying at least 20 per cent. of their rates. The Green Paper assumes that the social security Bill has become an Act. It assumes it to be in operation. The Government aim to reinforce accountability at the expense of social justice.
Rates vary materially from area to area. The poor in high-rated areas will be the hardest hit. With the current rebates, those with £75 to £100 a week will pay 3·1 per cent. of their net income in tax. With the 20 per cent. minimum they will pay 3·9 per cent. If there were a community charge, with current rebates it would be 2·7 per cent. With the 20 per cent. minimum it would be 3·6 per cent. The poor will suffer. Is that fair?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies have produced this week a commentary on the Green Paper. In the chapter on the Distributional Impact on Individual Households they say:
"The Government's proposals for social security reform will have the effect of increasing the amount of rates to be paid by householders at the lower end of the income distribution".
The same paragraph goes on to say:
"Taking the two charges together, the combined effect of the social security charges and the proposed changes to local government finance, will involve some larger household gains and losses than shown in the Green Paper."
It goes on to criticise the presentation in the Green Paper, particularly Figure 11 on page 25, which it considers misleading in making the community charge seem less regressive than it is. It has other criticisms, concluding,
"To summarise the impact on households: households will, on average, gain or lose depending on which local authority areas they are in"
That is not all that different from now.
If the Government are determined to make fairness their aim in any reform of local government finance, it looks as if further study is needed of this community charge.
The Motion talks of spreading the burden in a fairer and more equitable fashion. But I would ask: have the Government themselves acted in an equitable fashion? Their constant changes in the grant mechansism have meant very unfair treatment to many authorities. In 1986–87 we have the swing to London from the shire counties, London gaining £200 million. As a result of these swings, rates in an area can change considerably even if the level of service is unchanged. Is that fair? This is why we see rates going up by 30 per cent. or more in "good" Tory authorities. Can the Minister tell us whether this situation is to remain the same next year with the inner cities still receiving higher grant; or, the post-aboliton elections being over, will there be a reversal of what happened this year?
Then there is the recycling of the £500 million resulting from the clawback from the overspenders. This was announced too late for many authorities to

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reduce their rate demand although some may have anticipated it. May I ask the Minister whether the total amount announced for recycling in the list of grant entitlements will definitely be paid? For many reasons final spending in local authorities tends to be lower than budgets. Will the Government undertake that any money needed to implement their £500 million grant recycling pledge will be provided when final spending figures are known even if no extra money, beyond the settlement, seems to be needed now? I should like to have an answer from the Minister on this point.
Then there is the £76 million that the GLC is not permitted to spend. I understand that the failure to spend produces £64 million additional grant, and this is at the expense of all authorities. It could cost other authorities a considerable sum, say half a million for a shire county. This is the kind of thing that happens with the system that the Government have invented. Are they intending to put any more money in for 1985–86 to redress the situation, I ask the Minister?
What I have been trying to illustrate is how difficult it is for local authorities to operate efficiently, and to plan ahead sensibly, when there is so much uncertainty. Local authorities need certainty. No authority can be sure how much grant it will receive. It has a legal duty to raise enough rates to finance its expenditure. No doubt rates are higher and the burden greater in 1986–87 than they would have been under conditions of greater certainty. This uncertainty is the natural result of a system devised by central government.
Kenneth Baker, at the Tory local government conference, described his own government's system of finance as "a maze, surrounded by a marsh, shrouded in a fog". Those are his words. No business could manage with its finances based on such a precarious foundation or on such out-of-date information. The noble Lord, Lord Marshall, referred to this. The last revaluation was in 1973 based on notional rent, recognised by Layfield as unsatisfactory in his report 10 year ago when he recommended capital revaluation. Adam Smith's canons of taxation were equality, certainty, convenience and economy. I do not think that this Government would get very high marks from him.
I cannot end my speech without a word on Labour Party policy on local government finance, or I am sure that I should be chided by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. What I can say is that we shall not abolish the rates and we shall not introduce a poll tax. Local income tax is being considered. A policy paper is being prepared for the July meeting of the national executive committee when a final paper will be decided on to be presented to the party conference in October. I would suggest that it is perhaps better to take time to consult the local authorities rather than to invent a policy off the cuff, which seems to have been the case with the 1983 Tory manifesto promise to abolish the metropolitan counties and the GLC. We are seeing the repercussions of that now in rate rises, the anguish of the voluntary bodies left stranded, and the fears of those in the arts and theatre world. I hope that we shall come up with a policy that is fair, that does not impose undue burdens, but which will take good care of the
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less fortunate in society. I would be the first to admit that it is not an easy task.
3.48 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I must at once join with the noble Baroness, Lady David, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this immensely important topic. I say at the outset that it seems to me that this is where we all came in. I say that because I am absolutely convinced that each and every one of us has been discussing this very topic from as far back as we can remember in our political lives.
When I look at the very distinguished list of speakers—littered as it is with the names of people with distinguished records of service at various levels in local government—I find myself something of an interloper. Why me? Perhaps I may say that I am here acting as a locum tenens, a capacity in which I have acted very frequently, medically, and in other respects. However, my noble friend Lord Evans of Claughton, who is immensely experienced in these matters, has not yet recovered from the serious illness from which he has been suffering.
I have to say as well that my noble friend Lady Stedman—who, again, has vast experience in local government matters—is also not able to be here. Had they been able to be here, they would both have spoken and your Lordships would have known that this is at least one subject on which the two parties in the Alliance on these Benches are wholly in agreement, and are singing precisely the same tune.
However, let me say at once that I do not want it to be thought that I am not interested in or concerned about this subject; indeed, I am and have always been so. I have always taken the view that local politics and national politics are somewhat different and that they do not always mix. I took the view years ago that there was no more unhappy a political animal than the municipal MP—the man or woman who brought the skills, concerns and mood of the council chamber to the Floor of another place. Similarly, I was inclined to think that the person who belonged properly on the platform of national politics was not always outstandingly successful as a local councillor.
That having been said, how different it is in your Lordships' House. Were we to be deprived in our House of the services of all those noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have had a very distinguished record over the years in local government, your Lordships' House would indeed be impoverished.
I said when I began that this was where we came in. I think I can honestly say that the first political speech which I can recollect making publicly more than 50 years ago was on this very subject. I am sure that everything that I said on that occasion applies today. I believed that it was right then and I believe that it is still right now, and in so far as I can remember it, I shall say it again!
The noble Lord's Motion refers, among other things, to "the burden of rates". One accepts that any tax is a burden, however it is levied. Rates are a tax of a kind and they are therefore a burden. However, the size of the burden, irrespective of the means whereby the rates are levied, depends very much upon precisely

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what has to be paid for out of the rates. In other words, it depends upon what local government is required to do.
I have always taken the view that Parliament in general—both Houses—has been rather too obsessed with the structure of local government at the expense of the function. I have always taken the view that one cannot decide what is the optimum size of a unit of local administration until one is absolutely clear about precisely what it is required to do. Your Lordships will remember the Maud Commission which did such splendid work. How sorry we all are that Lord Redcliffe-Maud is no longer here with us to take part in this debate. However, I think that even that commission fell partly into the trap. It was obsessed with structure, shape and size and did not think sufficiently about function.
There is a further difficulty. The same size of unit is not necessarily ideal for different functions. It does not necessarily follow that if you establish a size of unit of local administration for dealing, for example, with primary school education, it will necessarily be the right size of unit to deal with further education and higher education. Therefore, that situation also causes problems. I am sure that there are many examples which occur to noble Lords.
Part of the present size of the burden of rates, referred to in the noble Lord's Motion, is due to the fact that some matters now undertaken by local government are matters which should be undertaken by central government. I know that for many years we have had arguments about the extent to which education should be a wholly central government responsibility. I know that matters like teachers' salaries have largely become a burden on central funds rather than purely local funds. However, it can be argued that the function of education as a whole may be better administered as a central government function rather than as a local government function. I do not want to go any further into that matter save to say that I think that part of the size of the burden is due to the fact that local government is sometimes required to do, or finds it necessary to do, things which ought more properly to be the function of central government.
I should like to refer to a very minor matter in that connection, and I do so because I know about it in some detail and also because it illustrates very clearly the point which I have in mind. I recently had the somewhat unexpected honour of becoming the deputy pro-chancellor of the University of Lancaster. In that capacity, I have learnt that a body called the Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries Joint Committee—a body which has very close links with the University of Lancaster's department of biological sciences—is threatened with closure. I understand that it will lose nearly half of its annual income and that it will be forced to end its scientific work as a result of the changes in local government. Its funds came from the metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
Nearly all the metropolitan district councils in Greater Manchester and in Merseyside have decided not to continue to support the Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries Joint Committee because of financial
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pressures. That body is responsible for some very important and interesting work such as, for example, lobster stock enhancement; monitoring coastal pollution, such as the high mercury levels to be found in Liverpool Bay—a matter raised by my noble friend Lord Tordoff at Question Time in your Lordships' House not long ago—and also monitoring pollution in that area arising from the reprocessing plant at Sellafield.
When we realise that we are talking about a body with responsibility for monitoring coastal pollution from Cardigan Bay to St. Bees Head, why on earth should it have been the financial responsibility of the metropolitan counties and now of the districts in Merseyside and Greater Manchester? To expect St. Helens in Merseyside or Stockport in Greater Manchester to pay for that kind of work is perhaps courting the kind of trouble which King Charles I encountered when he first asked the Midlands to pay for the navy. That type of matter ought properly to be the responsibility of central government.
However, that body is now threatened with closure. I have quoted it as an example because I know about it in some detail and because it may prompt other noble Lords to think of matters which are at present undertaken by local government and which therefore contribute to the burden of the rates which has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, when in reality those matters should not be undertaken by those bodies at all but should be undertaken by central government.
I come to the crucial question of why we need local government at all. I shall deal with it very briefly. There are those who feel that the logical end to the present trend—the trend of increasing the limitation of the powers of local government—which has been going on in recent years is to recognise that we are a small country and not a vast country and that it ought to be possible for everything to be run by central government. My Lords, ought that to be so? Why do we need local government? We need it, first, in order to make sure that we bring decisions much closer to the people who are affected by those decisions. One of the main purposes of local government is to enable local people to have a say in local decisions which affect their lives in a way which they could not possibly do in relation to central government.
I come to the second reason why we need a system of local government. In my view, part of the strength of our British nation depends upon the diversity of our population and the major differences in our regions of population. One of the purposes of local government is to reflect that diversity in our population. It seems to me that the job of central government is to lay down the broad lines of national policy; but within those broad lines there is room for infinite regional variation, provided there are proper structures which can carry out those variations and which can reflect the views of local communities. Therefore, the second reason why we need a system of local government is in order to reflect local and regional differences in a satisfactory way in our ordinary lives.
Thirdly, we must have a system of local government because central government could not possibly be made sufficiently accountable to the people in a way which would be acceptable. It is by means of local

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government that there is local accountability; or at least there ought to be. The local councillor should be easily accessible and the local council and local council officials should be easily accessible. We must have that type of accountability. Therefore, we need local government. However, if we need it, there is surely no point in having it unless it has powers. It cannot have powers unless it has its own finances and the right to raise its own finances and, having raised those finances, the right to spend them as it wishes within the broad limits laid down by central government.
I am bound to say that if local government in its various layers, whatever the layers may turn out to be in the end, is not given the powers and the finance to provide services which are worth while, the danger is that we shall no longer find people of the necessary calibre to serve in local government. This is one of the new trends. With the increasing limitation of the powers of local government, irrespective of whatever political party we represent, there is increasing difficulty in finding candidates of the necessary calibre to stand for office in local government.
If we continue to diminish the powers of local government, and if we fail to restore powers by giving local government some power to raise its own finance and having raised that finance to dispose of it, we shall cease to recruit people of the calibre of those long-term servants of local government with whom we in your Lordships' House now have the pleasure of serving. We shall look in vain for people of that calibre, and in the end local government will suffer.
What is wrong with the present rating system? The noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, has pointed to many factors, and I say at once that I agree with him about nearly all of them. The first point that is wrong, and the most important, is that it is the one tax (and it is a tax) which pays no regard to people's ability to pay. In a democratic society such as ours, any tax must have regard to the ability of the person to pay.
I know that we have had a system of rate rebates. We have lots of people who do not pay at all because nobody knows who they are, or where they are, or because it is only levied on householders; but a tax must take cognisance of a person's ability to pay. I am bound to say that I regret the persistence of taxes which do not do so. Over the years since the last war successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have pursued redistributive policies which have made a fundamental difference to our society in the way of redistributing income and, indeed, wealth.
I rather regret the extent to which in recent years those redistributive policies, operated by both Conservative and Labour governments, have been put into reverse. One of the matters that puts them into reverse is the rating system. If we do not have a local tax which has any regard to people's ability to pay, we are not following what clearly ought to be a rule.
Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, said, we have a tax which is paid only by householders. Of course, it is simple. When we are talking about it being done in other ways, perhaps I may say that I was interested to read the words of Councillor Jack Layden, the chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. He asks:
"How will local authorities compile the registers?"—
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that is, registers of ordinary citizens. He says:
"Tens of thousands are homeless, many more are constantly on the move."
He goes on:
"at least buildings—on which the rate system is based—stand still long enough to be counted."
That is why it is levied on householders and on buildings—because they stand still long enough to be counted. But that does not make it fair, and indeed it is not fair. It forgets about land; and why not taxes on land values? This is not the occasion to launch a speech on site value rating, a matter with which I have been concerned for many years and in which I know many noble Lords are interested, but it is a matter about which we are somewhat concerned. But why not land, and why only houses?
If it is only houses, there are extraordinary anomalies. We have rates on one house occupied by an elderly widow. The house may be too big for her, but she did not want to move when her husband died. Nor did she wish to move when her children grew up and moved on. Therefore, she stayed on alone in a house which is too big for her. She pays the same amount of rates—that is one, single, elderly person—as the identical house next door which houses 12 healthy working adults. That is ludicrously anomalous and the kind of thing which must be got rid of.
My third fundamental objection to the present rating system levied solely on householders and on property is that it provides a constant discouragement to people to improve their properties at a time when it is desperately important in the national interest that properties should be improved. It is outrageous that merely by installing central heating and improving one's house, one increases one's own rate burden. It provides a disincentive which is quite contrary to the national interest.
Time is going on, and I must pose the question: what should be done? I have examined the Green Paper. I have read it from cover to cover, and I would say at once that I do not disagree with all of it. There are parts with which I agree substantially, and no doubt in due course from these Benches we shall have an opportunity to say so. We shall also have an opportunity to say in more detail what we would like to do.
Some of those things have already been said. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, spelt them out in October 1983 in a debate initiated in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, on a Motion similar to the one we are debating today. On the next occasion we shall certainly spell out our proposals in some detail. In part, we shall want to move to a system of grants, of specific grants for local expenditure, and introduce a system which is both simple and predictable from one year to the next: grants based on objective criteria so that local authorities can plan forward their finances. The system of those grants for specific purposes should be fair and resistant to manipulation by central government for short-term political ends.
Up to a point, that means a measure of hypothecation of the rate support grant or elements contained within it. It is a matter I raised in an earlier debate, and a matter about which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was kind enough to write to me. It is a matter of some

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importance. If it is proper for Parliament to say, as it has recently said, what local government should not spend money on, bearing in mind that much of the money must come from central government, it is also proper for central government to say what local government should spend money on.
I had some experience of this when I was chairman of the Countryside Commission. There is something known as the special rate support grant which goes to those county councils which have within them national parks, and are responsible for national park administration. I had to discuss with the chairman of one county council, when I had to vet their application before it went forward to the Secretaries of State for approval, an item of X-hundred pounds for the provision of wardens which the Countryside Commission recommended.
I had to say to the then chairman, "You haven't got any wardens, and you've never had any wardens, but this figure is still there". He said, "Well, it is a block grant, and being a block grant, once we get it we are free to spend it on whatever we wish". I said, "But you are asking for it again. Are you going to have any wardens?" He said, "No, but it is a block grant". We have to think a little more about this matter of hypothecation, and I do not see that hypothecation in the sense I mean it is an unwarranted intrusion into the powers of central government.
Secondly, we undoubtedly believe that a much higher proportion of local government revenue should be raised locally, and that proportion has fallen in recent years from two-thirds in 1976 to something like one-half now. We should like to see a higher proportion. We should like to see a system of local income tax. But I am bound to say again to my noble friends on these Benches that I see the same difficulty. The areas which need most money are those which will raise least, and the areas which are able to raise the most money are the areas which need the least.
There must be some system of redistribution by means of the rate support grant from central government. I am not sure that I am wholly with the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, who was hinting in the sense that local government should become much more self-supporting and less dependent on central government. If we are to equalise the opportunities in different parts of Britain, a nation which varies greatly from region to region, there has to be a substantial measure of redistribution in relation to local government, and that redistribution can only be brought about by a sizeable grant—an equalising grant; call it what you will—from central government to local government. I do not see that as an infringement on the powers of local government, provided its purpose is properly spelt out.
We shall leave to another occasion further debates on the proposals which will come from these Benches. In the meantime, I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, for introducing this subject. I shall listen with great interest to the speeches of other noble Lords and noble Baronesses who follow, but I want to say that unless we put these matters right we shall not put local government right, and we shall not make service in local government worth while. If we do that, we shall no longer get candidates of the
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right calibre, and that is the most certain way to destroy local government totally and effectively.
4.10 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, the only point on which your Lordships will unanimously agree is that we have considerable cause for gratitude to my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds for introducing this debate in a speech of such authority and balance. As your Lordships know, my noble friend has had a distinguished record in local government and the speech which he gave this afternoon reflected that long and tried experience. If this debate is the success I hope it will be, it will owe a great deal to my noble friend.
From one point of view this debate is undoubtedly a success; that is, the pronouncement which we heard a few moments ago from the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that there was one matter on which the two parties in the Alliance were in agreement, and that is the subject of rates. I had always thought it was only the desire to gerrymander the electoral system, with some continental variegated changes that united them, but now we know that there are two matters on which the Alliance is united. This is a very moving thought for many of us.
I was moved also by the intensely conservative speech of the noble Baroness, Lady David, with her gallant, long-standing defence of a 300 year-old system. I have often though that the name, "the Labour Movement", is almost the greatest misnomer in contemporary politics. On the contrary, nothing is so static, so conservative or so antagonistic to change as the Labour Party. The speech of the noble Baroness, delighfully delivered, as her speeches always are, was redolent of that inherent conservatism. She really did not want to see changes. She even doubted whether there was a rates burden. Two or three times she said, "If there is a burden". I wonder how those words will sound to the millions of our fellow countrymen who in the next week or two will receive rate demands from their local authorities for large sums of money, backed by the threats of the machinery of the law if these sums are not promptly paid. I wonder whether the noble Baroness is really interpreting what people outside feel when she expresses a doubt about the existence of a rates burden.
The noble Baroness went on to say that, if there is a rates burden, it is all the creation of the Tory Government; they ought to have increased rather than diminished the rate support grant. She indicated her distaste for remissions in direct taxation which she believed to be connected therewith. I wonder again whether those people who will find with PAYE next month that their income tax is reduced will quite share that detached view; whether, indeed, those who are in work and who work—and they are, I am glad to say, the great majority in this country—will not be glad to see that they will be able to retain a fraction more of what they have earned and a fraction less is to be deducted by the tax man.
The whole theme of the noble Baroness was that the trouble was lack of a large enough rate support grant. Not once in her speech did she even hint at the possibility that there might be overspending by local authorities. Yet your Lordships have heard again and again on the legislation going through this House of

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the wild extravagances perpetrated by many local authorities, including the one which for the next few days only, I am thankful to recall, will exist on the other side of the river. Simply to assume that all local authority expenditure is all right and that what is needed to prevent an excessive rate burden is to tax the general taxpayer, with moneys to be used in a way that the general taxpayer will have no control over, but simply to be spent by local authorities many of them known to be profligate, is not again, I should have thought, an idea which will be universally popular among our fellow countrymen.
The noble Baroness went on to an idealistic paragraph, all beautifully delivered, in which she said that it should be left to the local community to decide. What realism is there in that when one recalls that half that local community does not make any contribution whatever towards paying for the amenities to be provided and that the other half altogether provides no more than 10 per cent.? There are few of your Lordships who would not be attracted by the idea of nice arrangements being made for which, at the most, you had to contribute only 10 per cent. With respect to the noble Baroness, it is not good enought to reflect how nice it would be if this could be left to the community unless the community itself has to take the burden and responsibility of raising the money to pay for those services and to undertake and face the taxation involved.
Your Lordships know perfectly well that the present rating system is largely under strain because of the enormous increase in local government expenditure over recent years. It has been well said that people pay their taxation in sorrow and their rates in anger. It is undoubtedly the case that the rate burden has risen considerably. The noble Baroness tried to brush aside the burden on industry by saying "Oh well, the rate payment is allowable as a charge against taxation." For a prosperous company making large profits that is a perfectly valid, though not a particularly important, point.
The noble Baroness entirely ignores the fact that many companies are struggling with a deficit or struggling to make even the most modest profit. If a company does not make a profit the fact that the rates, which it has to pay anyhow, profit or no profit, are allowable for tax purposes is a remarkably poor consolation. Indeed, there can be cases where that 2 or 3 per cent. that she brushed aside could be decisive as to whether a company can continue.
The noble Baroness also ignored the impact of the rate burden on the areas about which we are all concerned in this House; the areas of unemployment, particularly in the North, the North-East and the North-West. The knowledge both that rate payments will be high and that the atmosphere locally will be anti-entrepreneurial is the biggest possible discouragement to industrialists in setting up new enterprises in precisely those areas where we all want to see them set up; that is, the areas of high unemployment.
It is no accident that new industries are sprouting up and flourishing in what is sometimes rather easily called the M4 valley; in areas where rate burdens are low and where the local authorities, trade unions and trades council are friendly to new enterprise and to business enterprise. It is equally pretty clear that few
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industrialists with any regard for the well-being of their shareholders would feel disposed to put a new enterprise and new investment into those very cities where we want to see it go. What sensible industrialist at the moment could contemplate setting up a new enterprise in Liverpool, where he knows that local government is in chaos and that the rate burden will be severe? If we are to talk about faith in the cities, the sort of faith in the cities we want is the faith of an industrialist who feels confident that he can set up his enterprise there and give that much needed employment. Your Lordships cannot discuss this issue of rates without realising the increasingly harmful effect of the rate burden on those areas of unemployment.
The whole system is geared to extravagance. If you have a system under which 60 per cent. of the rates are contributed by the disfranchised—that is, by industry, commerce and business, which have no vote—and where among the rest half the people are not paying at all, you have a system which is almost ideally geared to extravagance. Referring to human nature—and I come back to the noble Baroness's delightful concept of the community—naturally, if you have a system where you can vote for benefits which are either going to cost you nothing or which you are going to get 90 per cent. free, that is a system which is designed to attract support for irresponsible expenditures.
That is not academic theory. We have seen this happening in all the cities where the hard Left have been in control, where they have seen fit to go far beyond the normal duties of local government and have sought to indulge in essays in foreign affairs. Your Lordships have only to look across the bridge to see a great notice which says: "You are entering a nuclear-free zone"—a notice put up at the cost of the ratepayers by people who know that it is an utterly meaningless formula designed simply to exploit the natural fears and anxieties of their fellow citizens.
You have these authorities in London, who have set up great police committees, although they have no police responsibilities or powers whatsoever. You have examples—I could quote so many—of those who have used the machine of local government for the forwarding of their party political aims, such as Councillor Knight of Lambeth, who openly said that he will use the council's vehicles to support the Labour Party. He proposes to go on doing it because his one determination is to get the present Government out. You have all this spending, not on the welfare services, to which the noble Baroness is deeply attached—so am I and, indeed, so are most of your Lordships—and which are one of the major functions of local government, but all the use of the rate-collecting power in order to support national political views.
There is another aspect, apart from the gearing towards expenditure, which has not been touched upon in this debate; that is, the system of precepting. Under our present system an authority can, as up to the last few days the GLC could, raise funds, not even by themselves imposing a rate on the ratepayer and accepting open responsibility for it, but by simply precepting the rate-collecting authority and having their dirty work done for them. The precepting system, I think, is a particularly unfortunate aspect of our present rating system because, again, it is an incentive

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to irresponsibility, it is an incentive to expenditure and it makes it only too painfully easy to obtain money for what you regard as good purposes without actually having to face people with that demand.
If I may sum it up, I think this is the real substance of the weakness today of our rating system. Your Lordships know, and indeed I have often quoted in this House, some very fine words from the last speech in the House of Commons of the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan that the problem for all democracies today is so to restrain the public appetite for expenditure as to enable economic growth to take place, not to take away in taxation for present consumption the money needed for investment and development in the future. Your Lordships know that is the problem which faces all democracies, including our own; and in our system of central government at least there is some knowledge among those who vote that if they vote they will have to pay for the expensive policies for which they have voted.
The noble Baroness tried to avoid this by saying that only 40 per cent. of the electorate paid income tax. Every member of the electorate pays some tax, even if it be on a glass of beer or on cigarettes, if a person is foolish enough to smoke them; but, whatever it is, every member of the public pays national taxation. That is unavoidable, and that is known by our voters. But when you have in local government a system such as I have already described, where most of the weight locally is paid only by a minority and where either central government funds or the rates on business carry the main burden, you have a system almost ideally designed to force up expenditures. It is because of that, I think, that the rating system is now in some considerable degree discredited.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said rightly that we in this country have been talking about this for years. I have a nostalgic memory of going, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool in 1963 to announce our proposals for reforms of the rating system. Some of your Lordships may recall that my great and carefully prepared pronouncement on that subject was completely overshadowed by the arrival at Blackpool of my noble friend, then the Earl of Home, with the announcement about his right honourable friend's resignation: that is, the resignation of my noble friend Lord Stockton. Consequently, those well-thought-out words prepared in the Treasury received rather less attention than they might otherwise have done. Even The Times, which on the whole is rather kind to me, said that 20 minutes of the Chief Secretary had never seemed so long.
I quote that personal, somewhat nostalgic anecdote in order to show that at least it cannot be said that the Government have rushed into this matter. There has been no undue haste and even the Green Paper is a consultative document on which, as I understand it, the Government wish to have the views of all concerned, of local authorities and of your Lordships. I hope that public opinion generally, when it is considering this matter, will be more disposed to accept the more enterprising and open-minded approach of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, than to accept the stolid conservatism of the noble Baroness, Lady David.
4.27 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, perhaps I may first add my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds. We have been in some respects long-standing political opponents, but across the political divide we have established a form of friendship and have discussed similar problems, although sometimes we may have wanted to find different answers. The weaknesses I find in his approach, and certainly in the analysis and the proposals suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, are absolutely beyond belief. Are the noble Lords aware of the size of the problem in some of the areas of the country today? There is no system that this Government or a future Labour Government could devise that could be applied universally, because some areas would find it totally impossible to raise increased finance by any means. I shall try to illustrate that in the time left to me.
I am pleased to be able to say that I think the figures produced by the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, will certainly help us in future debates about the analysis of how the present rates are structured and collected. However, I wish to talk about the city of Manchester, where for quite a while I was privileged to be involved in local government and to be its leader, and about the changes that have taken place in that great city since the war. In doing so, I think I can illustrate why the approach suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, would only further exacerbate the difference between the areas of deprivation and the areas of affluence.
In my opinion, if that approach were made to financing local government, the areas of deprivation would increase at the more alarming rate that they are at present. I take my title from an area called Beswick. Beswick was a traditional, stable, working-class area of Manchester. I am going to talk about Beswick and about another area of Manchester that has a national name for deprivation, the area of Moss Side. The two areas were originally dissimilar although they were both working-class. Beswick and Moss Side, until slum clearance started, were the two most densely-populated areas in Europe. Manchester itself at the end of the war had a population of three quarters of a million people. Through some slum clearance and people moving out, its population is now about 450,000.
It is not a balanced community and neither are most of the other big cities. What they have now is an ageing population that increases year by year, and a diminishing number of young people on whom the burden would fall to find the finance that we are talking about. In my opinion, we would be chasing the wrong horse if we thought there was a uniform system that could be put into operation to deal with this situation. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has referred to it.
Let me say that Manchester is a city with acute and growing problems of unemployment, poverty and deprivation and a legacy of industrial infrastructure unsuited to the needs of the latter half of this century. "The problem of the inner city" is not just a political catchphrase but a reality which has to be faced by the local council, the government departments and the agencies working in these areas in trying to deal with

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the situation. I suggest that the case which I am about to make represents a comprehensive rejection of the present approach that the Government have adopted towards inner cities in Manchester and in the other major conurbations.
Successive governments have recognised the magnitude of these problems and have sought to direct resources in a way that tackled many of these problems directly. The previous Labour Government established a system of partnerships which placed due emphasis on the need for a genuine co-operative partnership between national and local government, industry and commerce and the residents of the inner city to develop a comprehensive strategy to tackle the deep-rooted problems of the inner city. The city council in Manchester and its various communities at that time welcomed that initiative and entered into it wholeheartedly. Additional financial resources were made available; but, more importantly, there was an explicit recognition that the budgets of other government departments and the city council's own mainstream expenditure were essential elements of any strategy to arrest the decline in the deprived areas.
I have to say that if anybody thinks that the problems in the centre of cities like Manchester and London can be dealt with without increased government financial support they are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. They will not be dealt with. The policy of partnership has been maintained by the present Government. They have retained the apparatus and the system of annual financial allocation; but in most cases it is a paper commitment only, because while providing the resources with one hand, they have been systematically removing them with the other. The mainstream budget of Manchester City Council, financed through the rate support grant, has been massively cut since 1979 in a manner that shows what this Government really feel about the poor and deprived communities in such areas. To add insult to injury, the Government have come forward with a variety of other administrative mechanisms to display their concern. We have seen city action teams and, more recently, new task forces to support existing agencies in providing help in training, urban regeneration and industrial assistance.
All this would be very welcome, but one has to appreciate that, since 1979, Manchester has lost £400 million of rate support grant and housing subsidy under the present Government. That is a colossal sum. Restoration of that money to Manchester and to the other cities such as Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and the inner London boroughs is a matter of urgency. Successive reports by various non-political bodies—and one, Faith in the City, has been referred to today, one which I think we shall debate shortly—support that point of view. In 1978, in Manchester, the city's unemployment rate was just over 10 per cent. When I referred to Beswick I said that it used to be a very heavily industrialised area with quite high levels of employment, with very little unemployment, and even that only in the very early 1930s during the severe recession. In 1978, the city's unemployment rate was just over 10 per cent. It now stands at 23·8 per cent., which is approaching 1 in 4 of the city's residential workforce. About half of the city's unemployed have been without a job for a year or
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more and nearly 1 in 5 for over three years. How do you collect money off people that are in that situation?
That rate is monstrously high but it conceals large areas where the rate is significantly above the city average. That is why I have chosen Beswick and Moss Side. In the central area of the city, which covers the city centre, Miles Platting, Beswick, Ardwick, Moss Side and Hulme, the overall rate is 34·4 per cent. It is a rate of nearly 43 per cent. unemployment for men in those particular areas. In Hulme, male unemployment is 61·2 per cent.—nearly two out of three men, therefore, having no jobs. I know that Members in other place, Mr. Litherland and Mr. Tony Lloyd, particularly, perpetually raise this situation, but so far without success.
Let me take the example of East Manchester which covers the Beswick area that I am talking about. It is an area that for almost 200 years was a hive of industrial activity. Light and heavy engineering industries, coal mining, chemical firms and textile businesses all thrived in the area. It was known as the "workshop of the world" and was a major reason for the growth and development of Manchester in the 19th century. The decline of industries in the area started in the late 1960s when a number of major employers closed their works. Nevertheless, in 1971, the area still supported 34,000 jobs. Major closures continued during the early 1970s but in 1978 manufacturing employment still accounted for 63 per cent. of all jobs in the area compared to the city average of 26 per cent. so it still retained its identity as a manufacturing base.
Since that date, as the national recession has deepened, job loss in manufacturing industry in East Manchester has become more dramatic. Between 1979 and 1983, 12 firms employing more than 100 people closed down altogether. Between 1971 and 1985, 20,000 jobs have been lost to Manchester, which is 60 per cent. of the 1971 total. The redundancies between 1981 and 1984 account for 4,500 of these jobs. Until 1980, unemployment in this area of the city was about level with the national average and well below the city average. The unemployment rate now in the Beswick city job area stands at approximately 25 per cent. What a disastrous state of affairs for an area which only a decade ago was almost a thriving community! I have to say that the reason for that has not been high wages. It has never been a high-wage area and it has an excellent record of industrial relations. Those particular charges cannot be levelled at the people in that area.
Your Lordships are used to hearing masses of statistics. They tell the all-too familiar story and they have been repeated here and in another place. Nonetheless, they are dramatic. It is easy to underestimate the significance of such a transformation when it occurs within the wider context of urgent urban and regional decline. Such job losses equal the population of a large town, and in fact is comparable, in relative terms, to the scale of job loss in East Glasgow which led in the late 1970s to the setting up of the GEAR project. The cumulative effect of those job losses is also comparable to a community the size of Corby or Consett becoming totally unemployed. That is the size of the problem with which we are dealing.

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The rise in unemployment in recent years in East Manchester, from the national average in 1980 to twice the national average in 1985 has been as steep and dramatic as anywhere, and the deterioration continues. That is the type of situation with which we are dealing.
The problems go far beyond Manchester. The extent of poverty in the city is that at the end of the 1970s about 15 per cent. of the city's population was dependent upon supplementary benefit. By 1984, that figure has risen to 31 per cent. That is despite the fact that there is a percentage of people who are unaware that they can claim and do not claim. Allowing for that, probably in the region of half the city's population is now living on incomes which are at about—and, in some cases, below—supplementary benefit level.
Although the supplementary benefit level can be regarded as the Government's "poverty line", most recent studies have taken 140 per cent. of supplementary benefit level as a more realistic poverty standard. No local information is available about incomes, but over 43,000 residents who, together with their dependants make up about 15 per cent. of the city's population, receive standard housing benefit and are therefore not getting supplementary benefit. In addition, the number of single parent families on supplementary benefit has increased by over half since 1979. The number of sick and disabled people receiving supplementary benefit increased by one-quarter over the same period, and between 1978 and 1985, the proportion of schoolchildren receiving free meals rose from 35 per cent. to 47 per cent.
On health, the situation in Manchester is deteriorating. Some of the statistics are frightening. A recent report prepared by Manchester's three health authorities in co-operation with the city council's planning department has revealed some disturbing facts about the state of people's health in Manchester. The report probes the link between poor health and social environment and it shows that areas with high levels of social deprivation (including unemployment) have concentrations of ill health. For example, areas with high unemployment levels will also tend to have high incidences of coronary heart disease and lung cancer. Those differences mean that, on average, Mancunians are more likely to die prematurely than their fellow countrymen. Some examples of the scale of the problem are that between 1981 and 1983 over 5,000 Mancunians died before reaching the age of 65 years. That was almost 1,400 or 37 per cent., more than should have done had national trends applied. In parts of Manchester death rates due to respiratory diseases and lung cancer were over twice the national rate, while coronory heart disease accounted for amost 80 extra deaths per annum. That is the type of situations that some people think can be dealt with by using a broad brush on a very broad canvas.
I think that today's debate, opened by the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, has been extremely worthwhile. This is only the start of the debate. I am frightened by what may happen in areas such as the ones that I have described. They are not the only cities. Leeds has a similar problem but to a smaller extent because
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geographically it is about seven times larger than Manchester although Manchester also has a bigger population.
Whatever rates system the Government bring in, whether it is some form of local tax, poll tax, tax on employment, property tax or whatever they bring in, unless they are prepared to help areas with severe and sad conditions which are deteriorating rapidly, the inner city problems about which we have been talking will not go away. If they are left to their own devices, they will become worse. It is no use the Government saying to people that they live within a ring fence and that they will get only so much from the Government and must raise the rest themselves because, on the figures that I have quoted, the inner city problems that we have been talking about will continue to grow unless the Government restore the level of funding that existed when they took office.
As I said, the debate is extremely worthwhile. I want once again to express my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, for the constructive and reasonable way in which he introduced the Motion.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, local authorities carry the heavy burden of the provision of efficient local services to their communities while at the same time having to husband their resources so that they do not cripple either local residents or industrial and commercial enterprises. I hope that I will be forgiven by your Lordships for narrowing the debate and commenting on local authority housing departments when considering a fairer and more equitable way of spreading the burden of rates. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, for providing this opportunity.
I seek to concentrate on grass-roots accountability and responsibility. My first point will be about rent and rate arrears. Sadly, throughout the country there are thousands of people who do not pay their rates and rent. From the point of view of common humanity and a sense of responsibility, those who have a council house—a home of their own—and who do not pay their rent and rates are surely penalising those who have no house and thus no home. From your Lordships' House, I presume to appeal to all those in this country owing rent and rates to remember that they live at the expense of those who are homeless.
Officers of housing departments are reluctant to evict people, and rightly so. They have only one sanction, which is the attachment of earnings order procedure. But the courts are so crowded that by the time a case of non-payment of rates or rent is taken to court, several months have elapsed and the debt has grown. It has often risen to unmanageable proportions. May I ask my noble friend the Minister whether special courts are being set up to deal immediately and expeditiously with rate and rent arrears? That may be a duty which later will be assigned to family courts, but they are a long way off.
Another point that I want to make is a democratic one. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said that people know when they are paying taxes. They know that when they drink a glass of beer or have a package of cigarettes they are paying taxes. Many council tenants do not know what their rates are and I believe,

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from an absolutely democratic point of view, that in the demands from the local authority they should be told what are the rates as distinct from the rent. They will then know whether their rates are going down each year or whether they are going up each year, and they will be in a position to gauge whether or not they are receiving a good service.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way? Surely the noble Baroness is aware that every year when there are changes in the rent and rates, each council tenant is advised of those changes. In other words, at least once a year the tenant is made aware of how much of the global sum is related to rent and rates.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. My point is that a number of council tenants in some areas do not know what their rates are, because the rates and the rent are paid together. However, I will certainly look into the matter. I am sure that the noble Lord is very well aware of the situation, but perhaps it varies between different parts of the country.
I now pass on to another point. Under various rating and local government Acts, local authorities can collect what are called void rates; that is, rates on empty properties. In the case of many local authorities, this is not done. Properties stand empty and deteriorate and they are very often kept empty for some reason or another. I know of a particular house that has stood empty for four years, because an aunt wants to leave it to her nephew. She is a fit and healthy 50 and the nephew, who is abroad, is 30. So in the natural course of events, that house will stand empty for another 30 years and I understand that no rates are being collected on it. There are some local authorities which use the void rates, but there are others which do not, and I press local authorities to look very carefully at the management of their empty properties.
I would also say, from the point of view of local authority properties, that when I was working and suffering very severely, as many of us have, in dealing with homeless families, I took out my car one Sunday and made a list of all the empty council properties. There was very good reason why they were empty. It was because they were scheduled for redevelopment, for reorganisation of the roads or something like that. I came to London and decided to walk round Brixton. I found three streets with substantial little Victorian houses that had been empty for four years and were due for redevelopment. Therefore, they were not bringing in rates and were deteriorating.
Furthermore, local authorities are paying out high costs for bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families. I suggest that it is far better to hand over temporarily empty properties to housing associations so that they can, and will, put them in some kind of order—I admit that they would not be in 100 per cent. luxurious order—for homeless families, who would far rather live in a second-rate house than in bed and breakfast accommodation. Also, that would bring in the rates.
I now pass on to the question of accountability and responsibility. I have made inquiries and I know that to formulate tenants' associations and to have them
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run well is a difficult job. But if we are to change the outlook towards debts and personal responsibility in arrears of rent and rates, we have to set up and encourage local tenants' associations and give responsibility to those associations for creating the right attitude of mind towards paying one's rent and rates.
Many tenants have told me that it is very difficult for them to get to their local authority housing offices. I hope that local authority housing departments will once a week set up a local office in a church hall or in a caravan, so that tenants can talk to their local housing staff and discuss with them the problems of their rates arrears. I have talked only very sketchily about rates and rent arrears of local authorities, but I am sure that they can, and should, inculcate into the people of their area a sense of belonging and of responsibility. In this way, rent and rates would be paid and would be more equitably spread, and local people would feel themselves responsible for the vulnerable in their society.
4.56 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, by way of preface to his admirable and much admired presentation of the review of the Motion that is before the House, the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, paid a flattering tribute to those who had put down their names to speak in this debate. I must claim to be exempt from these flattering reflections, because it may surprise your Lordships to know that in the situation in which I find myself at this moment I am reminded of nothing so much as the strength and influence of the sergeant-major. Your Lordships will remember how he used to call for volunteers in terms which implied that you were bound to respond and there was trouble if you did not, and that was it.
It befell that a distinguished member of the Social Democratic Party in your Lordships' House, a man of wide practical experience in local government and a man of vast financial experience, who should have been here today, was unable to be present and I was the volunteer. My plea to your Lordships is simply that I shall have your understanding that that is the position from which I address you in this matter. I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred to himself as a locum, but I must say that he struck me as a mightily effective locum in the extremely able and effective speech which he presented and which I feel I could not possibly match.
We have had a tremendously useful, enlightening and instructive debate and I was interested in the circumstance that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, referred to the problem of unpaid rent and rates. At one time, it was my unhappy duty to preside in a court that had to deal with those matters. It is a perennial hard-core social problem. It is one that we must keep working at and hope that, year by year, we may find a solution to it. I do not believe that the solution will ever be found in the courts, although the courts in the way in which they handle those matters may have an influence for good or bad.
Perhaps the happiest moment for me in this debate was when the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, made some caustic observations about unity in the Alliance: he suggested that it was stretched. I am

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always a little surprised when a man of such tremendous ability and powerful advocacy should resort to so trivial a gibe as the unity of noble Lords on these Benches. It greatly encourages me because it convinces me that noble Lords opposite are a wee bit worried. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, laughs; I knew that he would. But noble Lords opposite are worried.
However, the problem we are considering today was not just the creation of the Tory Government, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, appeared at one stage to suggest, in saying that it had all happened since 1979. The activities of the present Government in the sphere of local government have been calamitous. That has been obvious to us all, particularly in Scotland, where I come from. There is no doubt about that. But the problem did not start then.
The problem started way back. Throughout my life, and long before it, this country has suffered from incompetent government, albeit not continuously. The rates problem is a consequence that flows from incompetent government; not from the incompetence of one government, or from one government since 1979, but from incompetence over the years. The situation became acute after 1979, but whichever government of the Conservative or Labour parties had been in power, the problem would still have become more acute because that is in the nature of such problems.
If governments are incompetent and do not keep events under control as much as they can (although many events in life are outside their control), then those matters that lie within their responsibilility are neglected. They will get worse and worse. That is what has happened so far as rates are concerned; that is why we have the burden of rates, the proof of which has been established, I should have thought, in this debate. There is no doubt that rates are a burden.
The fact that there is a need to consider a more equitable and fair distribution of the rates burden is a consequence of the failure over the years of politicians of either the Labour or Conservative parties to apply their minds sufficiently totally. They appoint committees and then go away and forget about the problem. By the time the committee has reported, the situation is worse. By the time the report of the committee is implemented, the likelihood is that a new set of problems has emerged in the context of rates or whatever the matter may be; and so it goes on.
That is the kind of situation that the Alliance exists to meet. Whether we shall be able to meet it, and whether we shall achieve a success that the other two parties have not, we cannot tell. I make no easy claims, but for the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to be caustic at the expense of the Alliance is going a little too far.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord will allow me to intervene, all that I did, as he may recall, was to quote with great approval the statement made by his noble friend Lord Winstanley that this was the one matter on which the Alliance and the Liberal Party were united. If I cannot quote the noble and learned Lord's Front Bench spokesman without being told that I am being caustic, it will be rather difficult.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, the noble Lord will have his fun—
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, perhaps my noble and learned friend will permit me to intervene also at this stage. I did not use the words "only one matter"; I said "one matter", which is different.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, after all, we have had a thorough and exhaustive review of the matters that are directly relevant to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Marshall. I do not wish to go over the ground again. Many of the subjects on which I had intended to speak have already been covered and it only becomes a great bore if every speaker says the same thing. However, I do not see why I should not take advantage of this point. I do not want to discourage people such as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, from having a go at the Alliance; it keeps us all on our toes, and we can enjoy it.
It is relevant for both the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and for myself to observe that the Alliance was not just born because of a twinkle in the eyes of Mr. Roy Jenkins and Mr. David Steel. It was born, as I saw it, as a response to the awareness of the people that there had been terrible incompetence in government in recent years. The Alliance was a response to that. If we do not meet it when we come to be in a position where we can influence the Government or form a government, we shall be guilty of having betrayed the awareness of the people. That is what we are after, and in the context of this problem of rates we see the need for a new approach and for something to be done.
5.7 p.m.
Lord Ellenborough: My Lords, I too am much indebted to my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds for initiating this important debate. I am sure that both ratepayers and ratepayers' associations up and down the country will be equally grateful for his most impressive speech. It was what one would expect from him after such a distinguished career in local government.
The Government are to be congratulated on realising, if somewhat belatedly, that many of the troubles that have bedevilled local government in recent years have arisen from the prolonged and protracted delay in tackling the basic problem at its roots and from failing to sweep away the much discredited system of rates and reform the financing of local government.
Much time and effort have been spent on such measures as rate capping, the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan authorities and, more recently, the somewhat ill-fated Bill that has just left your Lordships' House, designed to restrain blatant misspending of ratepayers' money for political propaganda. However it is possible that some of those measures would have been unnecessary if earlier action had been taken whereby all who could make a contribution towards the cost of local government should do so. Her Majesty's Government have at last appeared to recognise that, until such time as there is a closer relationship between those who pay the bills and those who vote, there will always be an incentive

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for some local authorities to act in an irresponsible manner.
I congratulate the Government on their excellently presented Green Paper covering so wide a field. I only hope that something will be done—more importantly, that the right thing will be done—before the ratepayer becomes virtually an endangered species, as seems to be the case at any rate in some inner-city areas.
I could not help noticing that Mr. Livingstone has recently received a begging letter from a lady in Harpenden who describes herself as a founder member of the Reluctant Exiles from Islington Association. In the letter, the good lady says that she was forced out of the Left-controlled borough by astronomic rates of £1,178·18p a year on a two-bedroom flat. She goes on to say:
"I understand you have a lot of money you are having trouble finding a home for (a lot of which has been donated by me over the years) and I wondered whether you would consider making me an ex-gratia payment".
That the good lady is clearly in earnest can be seen by her post-script in which she says:
"I might be prepared to become a Lesbian if this would help".
Perhaps I may be allowed that slightly frivolous digression.
I propose to concentrate on the proposals in the Green Paper on domestic rates. I certainly support the proposals on non-domestic rates in principle. I agree that the proposed new central government grant based on assessed local needs has its attractions; though it rests on the somewhat doubtful assumption that it will be possible to devise a simple formula which can be applied uniformly to all local authorities.
I regret that Her Majesty's Government at this stage appear to so strongly favour the proposed community charge as against a local income tax, which I should have thought would be the fairest and most equitable way of spreading the burden currently borne by domestic ratepayers. It may be that Her Majesty's Government are possibly misjudging public opinion. The indications that I have received from ratepayers' associations in the country is that supporters of the Conservative Party, and other parties, in such associations are decidedly coming down in favour of local income tax as against a community charge. My noble friend the Minister may be aware that there appear to be an increasing number of Conservative Members in another place who favour such a system of local income tax as being the fairest and the most practical way of tackling the problem.
The Government have set themselves various criteria by which to judge the suitability of any new method of local taxation: first; is it technically adequate; secondly: is it fair; thirdly: does it encourage local democratic accountability? I suggest that there should perhaps be added one other important test: will it really work in the wicked world as it is? In other words, will it be able to cope with all the uncertainties, complications and opposition arising from the very different kinds of potential taxpayers and the very different conditions existing in various parts of the country?
First, I shall deal with the proposed community charge and whether it is technically adequate. If this
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means: could it raise the approximate 11 per cent. of total local authority income which overall throughout the country is currently raised from domestic ratepayers, if it were eventually introduced in spite of all the difficulties to which I will refer? I suppose the answer must be, yes. As to whether it is fair, I do not find it very difficult to see how any standard annual charge fixed by each local authority for its own area and payable by each adult irrespective of his or her income can be perceived as fair.
According to the Green Paper, it will fall most heavily on the young sections of the community—mainly the 18 to 24 year-olds. It is difficult to see how it could possibly be fair for a 24 year-old just married and earning say, £8,000 per anum, to pay exactly the same as someone aged 48 earning £40,000. Certainly many people in their twenties should be able to afford to pay a contribution towards the cost of local government—perhaps the equivalent of the cost of a television or car licence: £100 or more. This will be all very well if, when the community charge comes in, it is only £50 or £100, but from my understanding of the Green Paper, at the end of the transitional period the community charge will almost certainly be a greater amount than that—perhaps £500; but we do not know.
Moreover, this tax is intended to be paid by students, old-age pensioners, the unemployed and other low income groups including single-parent families. Consequently, the Government accept that rebates will have to be paid—in some cases, up to 80 per cent. On the other hand, those who could easily, by reason of their larger incomes, pay a somewhat higher level of community charge will not have to pay more than the local standard charge. Thus, the same level of local charge in a given area could easily result in an existing domestic ratepayer in a large house and with a high income paying considerably less than he does now because the local authority obviously could not set the standard charge at such a high level that over half of the potential payers would be entitled to claim rebates.
Thirdly there is the question; does it encourage local accountability? Any tax which is payable by all local government electors instead of those who happen to be domestic ratepayers, as now, will certainly lead to elected councillors being much more sensitive to local reactions to their policies. That is what is wanted, and that is good. But that accountability must diminish to the extent to which in any area the lower-paid sections of the community are able to obtain rebates. Again, those residents who now pay fairly large sums in high rates, because they live in bigger and more expensive homes which represent a significant percentage of their respective incomes, may well take less rather than more interest in a local authority's proposed increases in spending in those cases where the impact on their own pockets of such increases is less than under the present system of domestic rates. Therefore, I suggest that we should not assume that, on balance, there will necessarily be a greater overall measure of real accountability.
It is estimated in the Green Paper that around 57 per cent. of the electorate would pay under a system of local income tax. That is a very big step forward compared with the 34 per cent. now paying rates. But

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I should be surprised—in fact, I should be astonished—if there were not (when the time comes, if it does come) pretty substantial exemptions from the payment of a community charge. With a very large number of partial rebates—up to 80 per cent. of the charge—there will probably be very little in it at the end of the day as regards accountability and numbers effectively paying either a community or local income tax.
There is, then, the additional practical test not mentioned in the Green Paper: would a community charge really work in the world as it is today? There are several practical points to bear in mind which I should briefly like to mention. The arrangements for granting rebates to the lower income groups will inevitably be much more complicated than under the existing rate rebate system, for they will have to include a large number of old-age pensioners currently not paying any domestic rates. There will also be students on grants who will be assessed in the areas where they reside during term time, despite the fact that presumably they will normally be registered for the local authority vote at their home address. This seems to make something of a nonsense of local accountability.
Each local authority will have to set up its own register of community charge payers and keep it up to date. As a substantial proportion of the present non-ratepayers who will have to pay the community charge will come from that section of the community which is highly mobile (that is to say, those who change their addresses frequently) there will be many amendments to this list and I should think that much time will be spent in chasing non-payers for what in many cases will be trivial amounts of arrears. Inevitably local authorities will have to increase their staffs in order to carry out this work.
For those reasons, the percentage of community charge income which will have to be written off by a local authority as irrecoverable is bound to be much higher than the percentage of rates income written off under the existing system. In turn, this will necessitate the setting of a higher level of community charge to be paid by those who pay in order to allow for this. During the long period of transition from the existing rate system to the community charge system which is proposed in the Green Paper—a period of several years—all these problems and difficulties will be increased. The cost of collecting arrears of community charge when the level of community charge is low (that is to say, when the existing system of rates runs, as it were, parallel with the new system, as proposed in the Green Paper) will be even more disproportionate to the net return.
All this convinces me, and my view is reinforced by what I hear from members of various ratepayer groups, that the only fair, equitable and practicable way to spread the burden of local taxation and to ensure a real measure of accountability is a system of local income tax. Under such a system all local residents who are in receipt of a taxable income at national level, irrespective of age, would be called upon to pay a local charge based on their income; in other words, the burden would be related to each person's ability to pay, as it is now in the case of national income tax.
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If income tax is considered to be a fair and practicable means of taxation at national level, why should not local income tax be similarly considered at local level? As regards its practicability and cost-effectiveness, there would not be any need for local authorities to establish and maintain their own separate registers of community charge payers with all the attendant complications, because the existing Inland Revenue records of income tax payers throughout the country could be used, especially when PAYE and other income tax arrangements will have been completely computerised in the early 1990s. I do not think that there is any possibility of legislation coming in before then. Moreover, the use of national income tax records, which would include only those persons who are in receipt of taxable incomes, will eliminate the costs incurred by local authorities in processing thousands of claims for community charge rebates from old-age pensioners and students and in trying subsequently to collect a large number of very small sums of money from them.
One matter which greatly concerns me as a Conservative is that one of the main objections to any local income tax is that such a tax would run counter to the Government's commitment to reducing tax on incomes. Yet surely a local income tax would be quite separate from a national income tax. If the Government succeed in reducing the standard rate of tax to 25 per cent. by the next election, they will most deservedly get much credit.
I cannot emphasise strongly enough that any form of payment toward the cost of local government, whether it be in the form of rates, as now, a community or resident's charge, as proposed, some form of local income or services tax, or whatever—and it is a tax demand which whether we like it or not, must be paid because there is no choice about it—will have to be paid from net income.
In conclusion, I should like just to say that the present rating system is unpopular and unfair. A community charge may be even more unpopular and it will be unfair; local income tax will be unpopular but at least it will be fair.
5.25 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject today. It will come as no surprise that few noble Lords on this side of the House agree with many of his conclusions, but I think that the more discussion that takes place and the more light that can be shed on the different proposals and problems involved in local rating and the payment for local services, the better it is for everyone. It is not an easy subject. It is an extremely complicated subject, as I think we have discovered today, if we did not know it before, from all the points of view that have been put forward so far.
I want to speak only about the Scottish position and I intend to speak with some brevity. The reason I speak about the Scottish position is that in Scotland we are at a stage of being able to put forward a view of the very near future, because what is happening in Scotland is something which will be taking place later in England and Wales. Your Lordships will know that Scotland will be the guinea-pig for the propositions put forward in the Government's Green Paper which,

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despite the protestations of Scottish Ministers, is a horribly cobbled-up job. It is overlaid with fine statistics, attractive graphs and beautifully coloured pie charts, and at the end of the day all the techniques of modern selling were used to try to convince everyone that a great deal of thought had gone into it.
I should like to say a brief word to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, whose speeches are always enjoyed by these Benches if only because they exercise our blood pressure frequently. I do not know why I missed his speech at the Conservative Party Conference in 1963. It may well have been for the reasons he gave, that other events rather pushed it off the front page. However, I can assure the noble Lord that far from this subject being well thought out and having been on the boil for a long time, what really brought the whole question of the Green Paper forward suddenly was the revaluation of Scottish property. The Scottish newspapers were full of it and absolute panic set in. It brought forth resignations from within Conservative Party from which it has still not recovered. I do not know what constitutes recovery in terms of Conservatism in Scotland but they have not come very close to it so far. However, that is what brought up this question.
As recently as late 1983, after lengthy studies, and even contrary to the firm promises frequently given by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland that the rating system would be reformed, the Scottish Office concluded that the current rating system was fundamentally sound. That was as late as November 1983. However, because of what happened with the revaluation, the Government decided that something had to be done and they lighted on the idea of a community charge. No attempt to disguise this idea by clever words can get rid of the fact that it is really a poll tax that the Government are introducing. It will be based on a head count. Every individual over 18 will pay a fixed sum irrespective of income or circumstances.
A poll tax was looked at in some detail by the Government in 1983, and a Scottish Minister said in reply to a debate that there was little point in replacing rates with an untried and unfamiliar system having little support from the outset. The idea we have now been burdened with is that of the community charge, which was rejected way back in 1983 and frequently before that.
The Government have claimed in their introduction that many people other than the wealthy will benefit from the community charge. There is an article today in the Glasgow Herald by the present Secretary of State dealing with local income tax which is worth while reading, because he is using almost exactly the same arguments to say how unpopular and unfair local income tax would be as were being used by his predecessor two years ago on the idea of the community charge.
With such a variety of people living in so many different circumstances and in so many different types of houses with different valuations, many people may benefit, but at the end of the day the poorest will pay a great deal more than the others. I myself—and I am far from wealthy—would benefit by a tax, but, by and large, those living in the rich suburbs will do very well
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and those living in deprived inner-city areas and in large housing schemes will be badly hit.
A study in Edinburgh showed that an average family in a council estate called Sighthill would face paying an average £230 more than the household is paying now under the existing system, but an average family in a good residential suburb of Edinburgh such as Colinton would pay £1,060 less. These examples may be extreme, but there are a great many examples, with which I will not weary the House, from one or two of the constituencies of Glasgow that happen to have two ends to them where the difference is also very great. These may be rather extreme cases, but they show what can happen when the community charge is introduced.
No defence of the proposals is possible in terms of social justice, as has been stated by many people already, but this Government have tried to convince everyone that they are concerned with cutting unnecessary costs and are looking for business efficiency. I can think of few things that in administrative terms could be less efficient than the system the Government have chosen. It will be an absolutely bureaucratic and administrative nightmare.
As was said by the noble Lord who has just finished speaking, a new register of residents will need to be compiled, separate from the electoral roll, because we have been told clearly that these two rolls will be kept separate and there will be no connection between them, and so it will not be considered a poll tax. The accuracy of this register will be open to challenge if, as I assume, it will be public, and additions and subtractions will need to be made on an on-going basis as people move about the country, using the services in different rating areas.
Costs will be considerable. If this system comes in, it is reckoned in Scotland that something like 20 per cent. more people will be added to the housing benefit lists, which will mean even more complications and more problems for the local authority administrators. There are other problems. Many young people will be tempted not to register in case there is a comparison between the voters' roll and the community register. This will lead to even greater alienation of young people and will actively discourage them from registering. If they do not go on one register they may well try to get out of going on the electoral register or may be afraid to go and register on the electoral register.
How will the sytem deal with students in residence, second home owners, service personnel and casual flat dwellers? I represented a constituency in another place for 20 years which had a rapidly changing electoral register because of the changes in flat occupancy. How a register as unreliable as that will be used to levy a tax is beyond me. The permutations are almost immeasurable, and all in the name of efficiency and fairness, according to the Government.
The Government's favourite example is that of the single pensioner with an income of less than £50 per week. The advantage of the poll tax, it is claimed, is that rather than paying a large rate bill on a small income the pensioner will pay a more reasonable poll tax of around £250 per year. That is what has been calculated for some of the industrial areas of Scotland;

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but the Government know how false this argument is. That pensioner on a basic pension would have supplementary benefit and pay no rates at all because of housing benefit at 100 per cent. Under Fowler he would still be paying 20 per cent. of whatever local tax is levied. Of course, 20 per cent of £250, as the Government say in some of the statements we have had from the Scottish Office, could be less than the rates bill, but 20 per cent. of £250 is about £1 per week, which for a pensioner paying nothing at all means £1 per week less for food, clothing and heating.
The difficulties in the areas that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, referred to and the question of people or businesses going to them, believe me, are not due just to labour problems but to historic problems. We can go into the whole question of why the labour problems are difficult at some other time. But it is not just that; it is because Britain's wealth was built in these areas. It was built on the Clyde, on Merseyside, in the Lancashire cotton mills and in the Welsh valleys; but it has all drifted south.
As the honourable Member for Henley said in a speech recently, the money has all drifted south and left dereliction in so many parts of the country. If the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, would like to come up to Glasgow, I should be delighted to take him round the city, where we have been pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, despite the great cuts we have had from the Government. Glasgow is now a city that is really showing what can be done by good, responsible local government, dealing with appalling problems; but we still have appalling problems.
The rating system is not the problem. Many improvements could be made in it, and I hope that we will continually look for improvement and polish it and make it a better system than it is now; but that is not really the problem. The main reason for the difficulties, as has already been said by my noble friend Lady David in her speech, is that the Government have been continuously reducing the amount of money going towards making a better society in other parts of the country. For instance, if the level of grant had been maintained in Scotland at the 1980–81 level, an extra £1·7 billion would be payable in Scotland. That means that if we had all that money one year we could do without levying rates for an entire year; we could have a holiday from rates.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, talked about the things we could do to improve rating, and suggested looking at things like land values. I am not going to get involved in a land values argument here, but I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that from the example we had in the Salmon Bill we should have a very full House if we started discussing land values here!
We are not complacent, we are not satisfied with the way rating works, but, as a great Parliamentarian said about democracy, it is a terrible system until you begin really closely to examine the other ones that are on offer.
5.40 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Marshall for
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bringing this debate to us today. It is a most interesting subject and one to which we have to apply a great deal of thought. I do not believe that the Green Paper covers many of the problems that would arise if the change was implemeted. Rates are unpopular. We are constantly seeking some way of changing them.
Rates are unpopular because we have to pay them. We can easily feel aggrieved by the thought that our money is being taken from us and spent in a manner that we would not perhaps wish to see. In the past five years, people have become outraged by the gigantic annual rate increases. They have also been distressed and fearful for the future of their businesses. They have been anxious about possibly being unable to meet ever-increasing demands in their own domestic rates.
The rate-capping legislation was a life-saver for many people as it set limits above which legal demands for rates could not be made. It is ironical that the limit set for the GLC's expenditure in its final year was claimed to be too low by the controlling socialists—so low that they would never be able to manage. Yet the budget, when eventually agreed after all those tortuous days last year, was actually set at a level below rate-capping level. And now we find, at the end of the council's term of office, a spare £76 million which shows that even the rate-capped level was far too high.
This was, of course, money taken from London ratepayers and taken, I consider, under false pretences when that amount of surplus is left at the end. As your Lordships will know, the legal battles are still continuing. Yesterday, the decision was made that the £40 million could not be given to the Inner London Education Authority. And from the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady David, today, it sounds as if a decision has been made about the remaining £36 million. I have not, however heard the ruling.
The surplus was a very small part of what has been thrown away over the past five years. There has been some wise spending but also much wastage of the £9 billion spent by the authority in that time. Yesterday, at the last business meeting of the council, a paper, Working for London, the Final Five Years, a glossy and attractive looking book, was rejected on a vote by the majority of the council. Since 1980–81, the increase in the average rate in inner London has been 101·8 per cent. and in outer London over 86 per cent. It is interesting to see how unfavourably the Inner London Education Authority precept has affected the ratepayers of inner London. The saddest aspect is that the highest education spender is producing the worst education in the country. However, enough of the GLC! That chapter of history closes next week and my membership finishes on Monday night.
Our concern today is to consider a fairer system of paying for local government. I do not find that the proposals in the Green Paper are fairer. Much modification is needed. I consider the suggestions impractical and expensive to implement. There would have to be compiled a register of all resident adults—a separate register, I would emphasise, from the electoral roll. The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that it was a poll tax. It is not a poll tax—a point that I believe has been made clear previously. There are to

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be two registers, one for the electors and the other for those who will be paying the community charge. But the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, is a very sound one. There are people who might deliberately keep themselves off the electoral register because of fears of cross-checking with the community charge. It would therefore have some degree of impact on the electoral register.
It has also to be appreciated that the electoral register in many boroughs is quite hopelessly inefficiently kept now. It is such an expensive business and so difficult to follow up the rapid changes in a very mobile borough that the electoral register becomes out of date very quickly. Only too often, when canvassing on the doorstep, I have been told that someone has died or has left that address perhaps as long ago as a year or two years. This is not for lack of the local authority sending round a man with a form to check. It is simply that there is never anyone at home.
If no one is there, how do you discover the identity of the residents? One can deliver form after form, but if none is returned one never obtains the information. A local council will be involved in endless argument over the dates when people lived in a property. It is made clear that if you live there for only part of the year, you pay only for that part. Equally, if you live somewhere else for part of the year, you would pay only for that part. Again, there would be difficulties with students who are not there at term time. All this seems very vague and difficult. It would be relatively easy to avoid registration and almost impossible to prove how many adults lived in one house.
I can think of a special problem locally, here in Westminster. There will be cases of a 20-room house in foreign ownership where full rates are now paid. Under the new system, the charge for that house would be twice the flat rate of the community charge; that is, equivalent to two adults in residence. Yet there are times when these houses may have 20 or more people in them. It would be most unfair for a two-person charge to apply to such a dwelling. Even if the houses are only occupied for short periods of the year, the council has to maintain footpaths, lighting and amenities and possibly the roads on a full-year basis. The present rating system is much fairer in this type of case. Although central London has a disproportionately large number of foreign owners, this is not a problem that is exclusive to London. People are buying large and valuable properties outside London, and other areas will be affected by this situation.
I have been fortunate enough, with this debate taking place today, to be sent someone's little rate statement. It arrived today. It is not mine. I wish that it was, because it is slightly less expensive than mine. It was sent to a Westminster ratepayer, and it states:
"The Rates Act 1984 requires the serving of this notice which informs you of the amount of General Rate attributable to the property shown below".
This is a two-bedroom house, hard on a railway line. Underground trains roar past every few minutes, although the noise ceases in the middle of the night. It is not what one would call a most peaceful and tranquil setting.
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However, the rateable value of that little house is £947 and the rate payable is £1,283. There is a breakdown showing how the rate is made up. The city of Westminster itself takes £243. The other precepts range from that of the London Residuary Body, which is only £3·98, to the highest for the Inner London Education Authority, amounting to £731. The police precept, I may add, is £140, so it is not the highest. London rate equalisation accounts for £237. All the precepts add up to just a few pence below £1,300. The actual Westminster part is £243, which is almost offset by domestic rate relief. We are therefore comparing amounts of £1,500, £1,300 and £243. The total amount is £1,542 from which the domestic rate relief is deducted.
I cannot see anything that is clear about precepts in the Green Paper. Are all precepts going to be abolished? Will the community charge replace all precepts? What exactly is the community charge replacing? It is a quite significant factor for any ratepayer who receives a rate demand and sees that the local council has control over only £243 out off £1,283. This needs to be spelt out. My noble friend Lady Faithfull made the point that people did not know what they were paying for rent and what they were paying for rates. My noble friend is right. I must support her statement.
I know that the local council should notify people as to what part is rent and what part rates. Most of them do; but some do not. However, with regard to the person who is not paying he does not know. I fill up social security forms for people for dental treatment, and on the form it asks, "What do you pay for your rent? What do you pay for your rates?" They do not know. They have one figure—the amount which is due per week or month. They do not know what part of it is rates and what part is rent. The noble Baroness referred to millions of pounds of rent arrears. If you are one of the people who are not going to pay it does not matter whether you are not paying your rent or your rates; you are quite happy to be not paying the whole amount. You will not differentiate.
I therefore think that there has to be some way of making clear to people what proportion is being spent on local services and what proportion is rent. It may strengthen the hand of the tenants in both regards. They might find that they have the right to ask more questions about one or the other.
I am convinced that our Conservative Government care greatly about those who are unable to help themselves. I believe that there will always be provision made to help those in real need. I thank that the statement that we should like to see everyone pay 20 per cent. is a good statement even if that payment is made out of another Government pocket to help people pay the 20 per cent. There would be a different level of awareness with regard to local costs if people knew the use to which money was being put.
It is certainly an injustice that many local authorities—and I am talking about London in particular—have allowed millions of pounds to accrue in rent and rate arrears. For those local authority tenants no enforcement has been made with regard to rates. However, if someone down the street living in a tiny little owner-occupied house was failing to pay his rates, he would have distraint proceedings taken

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against him immediately. I think that the position in London has been very unfairly dealt with where arrears of these enormous amounts have been allowed to arise and nothing has been done about the rates.
In Westminster, the implications for the national business rate are very grave. I believe the same applies to the City of London. In the City of Westminster 86 per cent. of the rates raised are paid by the business ratepayer. The rateable value of properties in Westminster is much higher than the national average. Because of that the rate in the pound is much lower. If, under this Green Paper, a uniform rate in the pound was introduced, then the payments called for from Westminster business ratepayers would be very much higher. This would have a very severe effect on business. As I understand it, the proceeds of those extra high payments of non-domestic rates would be nationally re-distributed. There would therefore be massive sums leaving the City of Westminster to go to other parts. This would then have what is called a double-ratchet effect. It would leave the domestic ratepayers with a great shortfall of rate revenue, and in order to deal with domestic services there would have to be an increase on the domestic rate. There would be this double effect: a "hike-up" in the business rate, and a consequent "hike-up" in the domestic rate. That is something which must be considered very carefully. Westminster is one of the only parts of the country which receives no rate support grant and is therefore one of the only areas which is not affected by the current changes or volatility in the rate support grant referred to by my noble friend Lord Marshall.
In Westminster it has been assessed that if a family has two adults living in a house it may be worse off than at present. I have an excellent booklet published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. It has prepared an analysis and assessment of what it thinks would be the result in terms of current cost. It believes that a community charge in a rural area might be £90 a head but for inner London it would be £450 a head at present day rates. Two people paying £450 a head each would be considerably worse off, since the average domestic rate for the whole of the City of Westminster is £600 per dwelling. I believe that that would be the opposite of an improvement for the residents.
There were a few points made by other speakers which I felt I had to take up. One was a point made by my noble friend Lord Marshall. He was saying how flawed the present rateable value is. I know in Islington in the Barnsbury area, where there are streets of houses which have been improved and done up, that there are gross inequalities now in the rateable values. If one has done all one's work internally in the house and has made it into a little palace, it will not have been rerated. However, if one has done anything to the roof or window, or something which has called in the Inland Revenue valuation officer, he will then have applied for rerating and the rates will have increased considerably. This has created an unfair situation.
Present rateable values are based on the notional rental value of 1973. There are again areas which I know well where older properties have much lower rateable value than newer properties. This was because in 1973 a period property was not as attractive as it is
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today. However, today such a period home is much more valuable and attractive than the one which was perhaps new in the 1960s, was classified as new and was expensively rated in the 1973 valuation. But positions change, and the rating valuation is so out of date that it is quite wrong at the present time.
I have only a few more points to make. I am sure that everyone will be pleased to hear that because there is nothing worse than speaking for too long at this time of day. I was very disturbed to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, about the sad situation in Manchester. I was disturbed because I think that the situation in Manchester is just London in a worse form. I believe that it is the Socialist control in Manchester which has done so much damage.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, No.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I can see that the noble Lord is going to protest about this.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, since the noble Baroness refers to my speech and the situation in Manchester, I am sorry but I have to rise. Let me briefly put forward the point I made a few weeks ago. I do not necessarily agree with all that the present political leaders in Manchester are doing. But I have to say that if I, with a more moderate approach, had still been in control in Manchester, the problem would have been of the same dimensions. It has nothing to do with the fact that Manchester has mismanaged money. It has had £400 million withheld; £60 million-odd a year.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that comment. However, I do not agree with it because whenever one talks about what is being held or withheld one ignores any penalties or a ratecapping situation that exists. One has only to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael. The noble Lord has told us that Glasgow—with I believe an equally bad situation—is doing something about that.
I have only to look at Tower Hamlets to see how they have managed to develop their rate base—an area which a few years ago we thought had no hope—and to realise that there is hope in these situations and ways of improving them. The message that I have had from people in the North West is that businesses have been driven out of Manchester in the way that businesses were driven out of the Greater London area. We have to be very clear that the rates are highly relevant to business and to the future of the cities themselves.
If one looks at the New York situation a few years ago it was in a bankrupt position. However, all kinds of plans have been developed and it has become highly successful again. Property has been improved. People have come back into New York City itself, into Manhattan. I believe that it could happen in Manchester but one has to have the will to see those changes take place.
Urban aid exists, but I shall not go into it because it is yet another matter. I return to the rate issue as raised by the Green Paper. I believe that the community charge will be impractical and will be very expensive to administer. Moreover, the cost will fall on the local authority instead of national Government. I do not

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believe that the position will be fairer. I thought that the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ellenborough, were very interesting, although I should prefer to see a revaluation. Incidentally, the Green Paper makes clear that there must be a revaluation by 1990 of all non-domestic property, so obviously revaluation is already under way. However, if we cannot have an upgrading and an improvement of the present system, I would tend to favour the noble Lord's suggestion of income tax on a local basis.
I am not happy with the Green Paper as it stands. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the matter.
6 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I, along with other noble Lords, wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Marshall of Leeds, for giving us the chance to debate the important question of rates. Although he said that his Motion was not aimed at the Green Paper, it was a jolly good aim because I failed to see how a great deal of what the noble Lord said was not directed at the Green Paper.
We are all affected by the rates burden. I received my rates demand yesterday. The noble Lord referred to Essex, where there has been an increase of 18·8 per cent. in the county rate. It is said that the increase is due to the loss of grant which has been transferred to urban areas, and that Essex has lost £21 million. A document I have says:
"In addition, the Government has not met its share of inflation which will have in effect reduced the grant by another 10 million".
The document from which I have just read was issued not by a Labour county council, and nor was it issued by a Labour district council. I am grateful for all the information contained in the document, which I received last night, on the county rate, the precept rate and the district council rate.
One matter in the Green Paper with which we can agree is the Foreword. The third paragraph says:
"the main role of local government is to provide services in a way which properly reflects differences in local circumstances and local choice".
I was so pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, indicated that so far as he was concerned he wanted to see local government as such and not local administration of centrally-decided services.
To my mind a great deal of the Green Paper suggests uniformity and centralism which have been our criticism of local government measures introduced by this Government over the past few years. I shall have to read very carefully in Hansard tomorrow what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said. However, it seemed to me that not only was he criticising a few extremist authorities, but he did not seem to have a very good view of local government as a whole. However, I shall read Hansard tomorrow to see whether my view of his speech is correct.
The noble Lord, Lord Marshall, seemed to suggest that one of our aims and needs is to reduce the amount paid from central government. Of course there has to be a limitation on local government expenditure; all governments recognise that to be so. However, why do we have central government grants at all? Surely it is to get some measure of equality or equalisation and to transfer social developments and responsibilities to
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local government. In fact, those points are made quite admirably in chapter 4 of the Green Paper and they can be checked by any noble Lord who wishes to look at them. If noble Lords look at paragraphs 4.5 to 4.10 they will see that the reasons for central government grant are the very matters to which I have just referred.
At the risk of boring noble Lords, I must again remind the House about what has happened with the block grant. Let us remember that in 1979–80 it was 61 per cent. In 1985–86 it dropped to 48·7 per cent. In 1986–87 the drop will be to 46·4 per cent. Since 1979–80 local councils have lost no less than £17 billion from national grant. It is no use people saying that local authorities can save that amount of money. Of course there are savings which can be made by all bodies, but a £17 billion drop in such a short period of time is a massive reduction.
The Government are now proposing two main elements in the grant system: a standard grant which will be based on per head of population; a needs grant which they say will be the assessed cost of providing a standard level of service. That worries my noble friends and me considerably, because if there has been one matter of criticism from all local authority associations it has been the GREA system of assessing the needs of individual authorities in order to get their local rate level. How will the decisions be taken in Whitehall—I refer to "Whitehall", although I really mean Marsham Street—on what should be the standard level of service, bearing in mind the point made by my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick about the varying needs of one authority or another?
We are told in the "Summary and conclusions" of the Green Paper:
"This Green Paper sets out proposals for the most radical reform of local government finance in Great Britain this century".
The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, chided my noble friend Lady David for being conservative and stolid. However, who was it who suggested that there ought to be a thorough reform of local government finance? My Lords, it was the Opposition. On 9th April 1984 we moved an amendment to the Motion for Second Reading of the Rates Bill. That amendment was vigorously opposed by the Government Benches and it was defeated.
However, the Government had previously issued two other documents. In December 1981 there was a Green Paper entitled: Alternatives to Domestic Rates. Indeed, it is mentioned in paragraph 3.7 of the present Green Paper. How much notice was taken of the results of the consultation on that particular Green Paper? Your Lordships must bear in mind that there have been criticism from Government Back Benches today of the present Green Paper.
In 1983 there was a White Paper which presumably was based on the consultations on the December 1981 Green Paper. That White Paper was entitled: "Rates—Proposals for rate limitation and reform of the rating system". I ask again: what notice was taken of the consultative period between 1981 and 1983?
Paragraph 2.15 of the 1983 White Paper refers to the overall conclusions on alternatives to rates. I wish to quote that paragraph in full because in the light of what my noble friend Lord Carmichael has said I think it is worthy of requoting. It states:

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"The Government were fully prepared to propose to Parliament the abolition of domestic rates if consultation had revealed broad-based support for an alternative system of local taxation which satisfied the criteria. However, it was clear from the response to the Green Paper and from the evidence given to the Environment Committee that no consensus can be found for an alternative local tax to replace domestic rates".
The concluding sentence said:
"The Government have concluded and announced to Parliament that rates should remain for the foreseeable future"—
I repeat, "for the foreseeable future"—
"the main source of local revenue for local government".
That was the position in 1983. The present Green Paper was issued, I believe, in December 1985. What has caused the Government to change their attitude? Is their change of attitude based on consultation with local government or is it based on consultation with the local authority associations? I can assure your Lordships the answer to that is quite definitely no.
On one matter I shall congratulate the Secretary of State, and that is that he has extended the period for consultation from 31st July to 31st October. But I must ask again how much notice will the Government take of consultations made during that period? I must ask this because we had consultation on the abolition Bill. How much notice was taken? Almost every person was opposed in the period of consultation to the Transport Bill. How much notice was taken by the Government? I hear my noble friend say, "None".
Therefore, while we have this period of consultation, will the Government take heed of what is said by local government and by the local authority associations, bearing in mind that their own Back-Benchers today have given serious criticism of many points in the Government's White Paper?
The Green Paper says that local government finance is at a crossroads. Every one of us will agree with that. But we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, frankly what we expected. I think he recognises that we expected it. It was a flesh-creeping account of the misdeeds of a certain number of authorities, which I make no attempt to necessarily justify.
Paragraph 1.29 of the Green Paper says:
"The modest success in holding back spending has been accompanied by a worsening of the relationship between central government and even the moderate and responsible local authorities."
That is something we have been trying to say month after month; the breaking down of relationships between central and local government. The paragraph continues:
"Councils which had a long tradition of careful husbandry and efficiently-provided services found it increasingly painful to make savings from a low base."
That is not what the Opposition is saying, that is what the Green Paper says in paragraph 1.29.
Although the 1981 Green Paper stressed that its scope did not extend to alternatives to non-domestic rates, it talked of a national non-domestic rate poundage back in 1981. It was in the Government's mind then, and that is what is now being proposed. Something that that Green Paper acknowledged—and it is mentioned in Chapter 10 of the 1981 Green Paper, but this has not been mentioned by many noble
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Lords—is that industry and commerce benefit from local services, and often substantially. That must not be forgotten.
My noble friend Lady David referred to the sections in the present Green Paper on the question of business rates. The noble Lord, Lord Marshall, said that many firms may have moved away because of the effect of those rates. This was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. My noble friend referred to the study commissioned by the Department of the Environment. Paragraph 2.9 in the Green Paper starts with the words:
"Hard evidence of the effects on business is scarce."
Paragraph 2.10 says:
"How far business rate increases do affect the location and viability of businesses in particular areas must therefore still to a large degree be a matter of conjecture. For most firms, the burden of rates is not so significant that a change in its level would be likely to have a major impact on location decisions."
That is not what the Opposition is saying from the Dispatch Box, it is what the Green Paper is saying, and yet despite that we have the proposals for the national non-domestic poundage.
We also must not overlook that the Rates Act 1984 introduced a new requirement for local authorities to consult with non-domestic ratepayers. The Green Paper recognises that a problem can arise, because if you take away the question of local non-domestic rates from the local authority and you have a national poundage, then that problem of consultation locally with business interests is in some difficulty.
It is suggested in the Green Paper that a way to get over this might be if local authorities were allowed to levy, say, 5 per cent. above the national non-domestic rate poundage to spend on local services. I wonder whether that is put forward seriously as an encouragement for local authorities to carry out the obligation to discuss with business concerns.
The Green Paper suggests that the proposed changes would affect both businesses and local councils according to their level of local spending. Again my noble friend Lady David referred to the comments of CIPFA—which, as we all know, is the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy—who incidentally have issued an excellent guide (not a critique) of the Green Paper, telling us exactly what the proposals really are.
CIPFA have produced an analysis of what the national poundage on a non-domestic rate will mean for all the authorities. I hope that the Government will study it. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, what it means to Westminster, and the effects are going to be considerable. In some areas where the present business rate is below the national poundage local authorities are going to gain; but businesses in those areas will have to pay considerably more than at present.
Where the non-domestic rate is higher than what will be the uniform poundage, businesses will pay less. They will be very happy. But in some areas, looking at these figures, it could lead to a complete crisis in local authority financing. I hope that the Government will not only take note of the criticism but will look carefully at CIPFA's analysis of every single authority in the country as to the effect of the national poundage.

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It is true that the present Green Paper does not refer to a poll tax; it refers only to a community charge. But the Green Paper of 1981 referred to a poll tax. It said that it had not operated in Britain for centuries, and it had never been considered in previous considerations of possible rating reforms. The 1981 Green Paper was very critical of such a tax unless it was used to supplement another one. The Green Paper said back in 1981 that it imposes the same local tax burden on everyone irrespective of the ability to pay. When referring to a poll tax it has been suggested that we are relating this to election polling, but a quick reference to the dictionary suggests that a poll tax means a tax per head, and that is what the Government are proposing.
The 1981 Green Paper said in paragraph 13.20 that a poll tax:
"would impose a higher relative tax burden than domestic rates on households with lower incomes, and a lower relative burden on those with higher incomes".
It went on:
"… low income households would lose heavily".
That is now repeated in Annex C of the present Green Paper.
I should like the Government to justify how they believe that a poll tax, a community charge, call it what you will, will be a fair tax. I hope they will listen to the criticisms of their own supporters.
Reference has been made to the evasion and mobility difficulties. That was mentioned in the 1981 Green Paper, but apparently no notice was taken of the criticism. The 1983 White Paper said in paragraph 5.2:
"The Government have concluded that a levy on earners would not be cost effective to administer and collect, and suggested that such an opinion would not relate to ability to pay".
What has happened in the period of two and a half to three years for that viewpoint to be changed from the Government's White Paper to what we now have in the current Green Paper?
Noble Lords have referred to the position which was clearly outlined in the White Paper and also in the social security proposals that everyone would have to pay at least 20 per cent. of the local tax bill. The suggestion is made that if necessary financial help would be given to meet the remaining 80 per cent. But we are not just dealing with earners. The unemployed will have to pay the full community charge. But the social security system will meet the other 80 per cent. That is how I read the Green Paper. If I am wrong I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will correct me. Students will pay the charge where they are normally resident in term time. Housewives with no individual income will be served with a community charge notice.
How can all this be justified? We are told that there will be a separate register. Noble Lords will give me the credit of knowing a little about the compilation of the ordinary electoral register and the number of visits I have made to Home Office committees complaining about the inadequacy of and the errors in our present electoral register. How will we compile an accurate separate register for community charge or poll tax purposes? This is a bit of slipshod thinking. One branch of the Government in the Home Office which
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finds it difficult to produce an effective electoral register might talk to the other branch if they are now suggesting that we shall have an accurate register for this poll tax.
My noble friend Lady David said that the Labour Party was considering these proposals and would also consider rating proposals, as we have been for some years. These are not things that should be jumped at quickly. I believe the Government have followed a line from 1981, 1983 and 1985 with little regard for what criticism there may have been of some of their suggestions. It is not based on ability to pay. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Ellenborough, with his experience of local ratepayers' groups, said about the possibility of a local income tax and that whatever we do with the rating system regard must be had to the ability of persons to pay and to assist those who cannot do so. That should be the principle on which we should embark.
6.23 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Elton): My Lords, I should like to join the distinguished queue of noble Lords waiting to thank my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds for providing your Lordships with a subject for debate which is of great interest and great importance, and, I may add, for starting our discussion of it with such a constructive analysis of the problems before us.
The terms of my noble friend's Motion call attention to the burden of rates and to the case for spreading this burden in a fairer and more equitable fashion. No one who has listened to this debate can doubt that rates are a burden or that they need to be more fairly distributed. That is something of which the Government have been increasingly aware for some considerable time. The present system is unfair, both between individual ratepayers and between individual local authorities. We have had evidence of that this afternoon. As a government, we have recognised that problem in our own Green Paper, to which many noble Lords have already referred and to which I shall return. But it is not the only problem. There are other things wrong with our system of local government finance besides the conspicuous way in which it favours some individuals and works against others. If we are to review the system and modernise it, we must look at them all.
The first oddity in our present arrangements, and the first problem that we have to consider, concerns not only unfairness in distributing the burden of rates but also unfairness in the electoral sense. On average 60 per cent. of the burden is carried by non-domestic ratepayers, so that for every extra £1 of local spending raised in rates the non-domestic sector has to find 60p. But in some authorities the proportion is higher still. In Camden, for example, business has to find 75p in every 100p of local spending. Camden business pays three-quarters of the costs of the decisions taken by Camden Borough Council but it does not get even one-quarter of a say in what those decisions should be; and those decisions affect it closely.
Nor is the burden of rates simply unfairly spread between the non-domestic and the domestic sectors. There are startling discrepancies, as my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds pointed out, within the non-domestic sector itself. In Newcastle, the rate is 347p in

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the £1; in Gillingham, it is 151p. Those enormous variations reflect the spending decisions of local councils on which the business ratepayer has no vote or sanction. If the enormous differences in the business rates resulted from the policies of businessmen, that might be fair. Having voted for a policy, they must expect to pay for it. But they have not, because they have no vote.
This is a case of taxation without representation. The taxation distorts competitiveness and it is passed on either as higher prices to the business community's customers or as lost investment and lost job opportunities to the local authority's citizens; or, most regrettably and most likely, as first the one and then the other. Those who ultimately meet these costs have no way of knowing how they have arisen. The business rate, which is subject to the control of individual local authorities, is therefore unfair both because it carries with it no voice in the election which affects that control and because the burdens vary for no reason that can be seen and understood by those who bear them.
That accounts for 60 per cent. of the rates, and I now turn to the other 40 per cent.—to the domestic rate. Here, there are anomalies which are very well known and strongly objected to. The noble Lord will hear what I shall suggest when I get to it. Everyone can recognise that it is unfair to charge a solitary retired widow the same amount as a working husband of a working wife. In my example, the widow lives next door to a working husband with a working wife with three working children—not the rather larger family that was referred to from the Liberal Benches. Nonetheless, she lives in an exactly similar house next door. That sort of unfairness we meet in every rateable area because rates are a tax on property and their cost to the invidual is set with no respect to the extent to which he used the services for which he is obliged to pay.
But that is an example only of unfairness between the individuals who pay rates. Another startling feature of the system is how few of them there are. Out of an electorate of 35 million, only about half are liable to pay rates. At present, 3 million of those, as my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds reminded us, have 100 per cent. rebates and another 3 million have partial rebates. Thus only one voter in three pays full rates directly. This means that while 100 per cent. of those entitled to vote in council elections enjoy the services the council provides, only about half of them have to contribute directly, if at all, to the local costs of those services. That makes the link between voting and paying for local services, on the one hand, and consuming them, on the other, too tenuous. Too many people have the incentive to vote for more services and higher spending. Too few have to think what the costs of so doing may be. The linkage of accountability has been broken.
When rates took their present form over 100 years ago, a property tax was appropriate. It was not chosen because property stood still long enough to be counted (as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, suggested) either then or in the reign of Good Queen Bess when the tax was invented. It was chosen because in those days most local services were provided for property. But ever
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since the 1930s, that aspect of local authorities' services has diminished. They have ceased to be responsible for trunk roads, for gas, for electricity, for water and for sewerage.
As their property-based duties have shrunk, their people-based responsibilities have grown, and now they cover the whole range from personal social services and education to housing the homeless. Today, most local services are directed at people and not at property, and it is inappropriate that local taxpayers' contribution to the cost of those services does not reflect that change.
Your Lordships may think that I have said enough already to show my support for the thrust of my noble friend's Motion. If I need to refer to a further defect of our present system it is that it is based on notional values and not real ones, and my noble friend's figures amply illustrated that. This is the source of endless arguments and, if they are to be fair, they need to be revalued regularly; and noble Lords have addressed that problem. But revaluations are wildly unpopular and I am sure that noble Lords from Scotland, which had a revaluation last year, can testify to that.
Either revaluations happen and cause much misery or they do not happen and the rates remain unfair. What we have now is a system which is not simply unfair; it is positively dangerous, because the linkage between votes and policies is broken at one vital point. Of all the anomalies that we now face, it is that one which not only enables but positively encourages councils to ignore the wishes of the people who provide much of the money that they spend about how they are going to spend it. There is a lack of accountability in the system which we cannot afford and, as we look at the cures offered for the other weaknesses which your Lordships have addressed, we must continually ask ourselves whether they will cure that one and whether they will make local government properly accountable. Let us bear that in mind as we look at the various proposals intended to make the system fairer.
We are all agreed that there is a clear case for spreading the burden of rates more fairly. Even noble Lords who have said that and said no more are convinced of it, although on what constitutes fairness there are very divided views, some of them a little odd. Let me start by asking what noble Lords opposite would introduce as a fairer system. The noble Members of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party propose a local income tax.
In a phrase so aptly picked up by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter that I need not repeat it, the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, pointed out that this was something on which his Alliance parties were agreed. The noble Lord himself does not seem to be in quite that happy position, because he was able to argue both that local government should be freer to make its own decisions beyond those of mere administration and also, if I understood him aright, in the same speech to say that government should do more to hypothecate their grant, which is to say that they should do more to say on what the money should be spent. This seems to suggest that he does not agree with himself in respect of local accountability.

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The party that the noble Lord speaks for thinks that it would be fairer because it would take into account ability to pay. This is the device of local income tax. So it may; but it does not exactly—and I must say this to my noble friend Lord Ellenborough—represent a great step forward in accountability. This is something which I find a fatal weakness. The position today is that 18 million people are now liable for domestic rates but 3 million of them are exempted under the rebate. After implementation of the proposals in the social security White Paper, every household will pay at least some rates and that brings the figure up to 18 million again. With the local income tax, the tax base, it is true, would be widened slightly to 20 million people, but some 5 million complete households (or about 15 million people) would still pay nothing at all towards local services unless, of course, those noble Lords are proposing to lower the tax threshold and bring half of our people into tax for the first time.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and his noble friend on making speeches which made no reference to proportional representation; but if that is their proposal I think that even that device would not return them to power.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, the noble Lord will acknowledge that I stated that this was not the time or place in which to put forward our proposals in detail. I said I was not proposing to do so. I referred to one aspect of our proposals and merely said it was one aspect. It happened to be an aspect of our proposals about which I personally had some anxieties. I explained those but I did not go into detail, and I do not think your Lordships would have wished me to do so, on the other aspects of our policy for financing local government.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the intervention for two reasons. One is because I can congratulate him on his courage in concentrating on the aspect in which he had least confidence; it is something which is a good preparation for office. The other is that he has said that it is impossible in a speech of these dimensions to produce the whole case. Your Lordships will forgive me if I am in the same position also and will give the same answer if I am criticised at the end of my delivery.
I should mention the practical difficulties in what is proposed, because we would still need to equalise taxable capacity among authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, made clear, the ability to equalise rateable values among authorities is essential and we should still be left with a grant system as complicated as it is today, shuffling large sums of money around the country in an arcane and obscure way, unless the noble Lord can think of a way out of it, as it were, in the Recess.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I explained and stated positively that I thought it was absolutely essential that large amounts of money should be shuffled about the country in the way to which the noble Lord has just referred. I said that it was absolutely essential that there should be an equalising measure; that that is central government money by means of grant. I explained that and I adhere to it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, we are of one accord, all three of us, the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and I. We all agree on this. What I am trying to say—obviously in a more provocative manner than I intended, since it produced three interruptions from the noble Lord—was that this method seemed to result in a very complicated system; and complexity is something that we are trying to fight away from. If we do not do that, the only alternative would be to leave the inequalities in place and watch inner cities in gathering crisis, as high-income families moved to low-price suburbs. We are on common ground.
The changes to income tax itself would be something not to trifle with or shrug lightly aside. Just to finance existing rate bills, the range of increases would run from 2p to 11p in the pound. That, in the wake of last week's Budget, leaves the taxpaying public with no difficulty at all in distinguishing the taxation policies of our respective parties.
Let me say now that a further and fundamenal flaw in the present system is precisely that it leads, as that would, to a recipe for continuing conflict between central and local government. The present system has built into it the seeds of conflict between national and local government, and the basis of that conflict is simple. Local government is not responsible for national economic performance, but the volume of local government spending and borrowing is so great that it has a large influence upon that performance. The accountability of national government has been preserved through the ballot box. They are answerable to the electorate for the management of the economy. Local government is not similarly answerable through the ballot box. The interests of the two levels of government are bound to be in conflict even when it is not necessary for the Government to protect ratepayers from their councils by direct intervention.
The economic performance of central government depends to a substantial extent on expenditure and borrowing by local authorities. It is central government which the electorate judges on their performance in these matters, as is proved time and again from the Dispatch Box opposite. Your Lordships will gather that I do not think much of the proposals of the Alliance, skilfully though the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, advanced them.
The noble Baroness, Lady David—and she was echoed in this by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill—having sternly upbraided us on taking far too long to come out with our proposals, says that her party is not yet decided; it is going to have a conference later and thinks this is a matter which should be dealt with without haste. I loved that passage, because I have so often been twitted by noble Lords opposite on our failure to come forward with proposals and our tardiness. Labour's proposals attract me, if anything, slightly less than those of the Liberal Party and the SDP. They would retain rates with all their unfairness but they would change the means of assessing them.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the big difference is that nowhere in our election addresses have we said that we will abolish rates. We have asked for a complete review of local government finance.
Lord Elton: My Lords, it was a complete review of local government finance which led to our decision to abolish the rates. Your Lordships have already heard that the noble Lords propose to use a different system of assessing the rates. They would assess them on the basis of capital values. But capital values change—sometimes quite quickly—and that means regular revaluations to keep pace with the continual changes in the capital values. Your Lordships will already have heard of the disadvantages of revaluations from no less an authority than the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, himself. It is this that he proposes to rely upon.
Regular revaluation would cause turbulence and would make the Scottish revaluation look like a storm in a teacup. That is no guess. I invite your Lordships to look at what would have happened if we had been using that system all along. Average regional house prices show that a capital revaluation in 1979 would have made rateable values rise in the North and decrease in the South, in London. A revaluation five years later, in 1984, would have sent rates plummeting in the North and soaring in the South. And what connection would those movements have with the services provided and paid for or the quality of the decisions made by elected councils, or indeed with the ability of the ratepayers to pay their rates? My Lords, I will give way, but perhaps I may say that this is the last time I shall do it. I have been speaking for eighteen minutes and I think I have about three minutes' injury time clocked up already.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, on the question of revaluation, I have never understood—and the noble Lord seemed to compound my confusion—why a sudden increase in valuation should drastically affect the rates as much as he seemed to suggest between the North and the South. Why should the total sum paid by any householder in rates increase as much as the value of the house in the South or decrease as much in the North as he seemed to suggest? It has always been a source of confusion to me, and the Minister has compounded it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the complete answer to the noble Lord's question must be awaited until the eventual clarification of what the policy will be but, as I understand it, it is related to the capital value of the house in which the rated person lives; and that value goes up and down, according to the market, very sharply. I have described the way in which it has done so in the recent historic past. If in fact my mathematical deductions are wrong, I will await with great interest the results of the Labour Party Conference and the publication of their conclusions; and the noble Lord will be able to put me right if I have got it wrong.
I think perhaps this would be a convenient moment at to pick up one or two of the points that were made by my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds in opening. Your Lordships will recall that he referred at some length to the latest rate support grant settlement, and he was not alone in that. I think I ought to say that the settlement was based on a 3·4 per cent. increase in spending. That was determined in the context of an inflation forecast at that time of 4·5 per cent. That is
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the GDP deflator, and it therefore represents in real terms a cut of 1·1 per cent., which is necessary to the Government's efforts to control public spending. I have already described how the role of government affects relationships with local government in that respect.
Though a change in the actual outturn of inflation could well influence the impact of that decision, if local authorities decide to increase spending on pay increases above the central government's assumptions, for instance, that is a matter for the local authorities themselves and for their ratepayers. Local authorities collectively recently agreed to give their manual workes an 8·1 per cent. pay rise. That took them 3·6 per cent. above the predicted rate of inflation; but the Government had already made clear to local authorities that they did not intend to make any adjustments of rate support grant in 1985–86 or any allowance in the 1986–87 settlement for pay increases of that order.
That would be to get the taxpayer to pay a higher real cost for services that are down to local government and that result from local government decisions. Local authorities knew that ratepayers would have to pick up the bill when they agreed to the increase; and the same will apply to teachers' pay unless a specific pay and conditions package is agreed. I accept that the present system, and especially the grant system, obscures the impact of local authority spending decisions, but in these respects high rate increases are clearly not the result of the settlement but are the outcome of the local authorities' own decisions.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, quoted the rate rise in Essex. As background to the figure he gave, I should say that the proposed increase in spending by Essex County Council is not 3·4 per cent., which is the assumed rate for the settlement, nor yet 4·5 per cent., which is the assumed rate for inflation: it is 10·1 per cent. That is an increase in spend and not a reduction in grant. It is not for the national taxpayer to pick up that bill. The settlement was never intended to underwrite substantial increases in expenditure; nor should it.
Of course, I must agree with my noble friend that grant has moved from the non-metropolitan authorities to the cities, and especially London. As my right honourable friend explained in another place in the course of the debate on the settlement, we thought it right to recognise the acute problems of some of our towns and cities. The resources cannot be found anywhere other than from the ratepayer or the taxpayer. We also thought it right that the ratepayer should make a substantial contribution.
My noble friend compared the grant increases in London to the reductions in several shire counties. Again, I will not quarrel with his confident figures although, as my noble friend understands, the eventual outturn will depend on the spending positions on those and all other local authorities. That is important because the abolition of targets and holdback means that grants lost by overspenders will be recycled to all other authorities who are in receipt of grant. I should add that the London boroughs' grants are greatly affected by the abolition of the GLC.

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Those large increases he cited result in part from those boroughs picking up spending responsibilities from the GLC and the grant to support them; and they do not have to spend the money in the same way if they do not want to. The reductions in Islington and Lambeth rates have at least some connection with the fact that those authorities have been rate capped by the Government.
As we are on the subject of rate support grant, I should reply to the specific question put by the noble Baroness, Lady David, about grant recycling. The source of the grant to be recycled is the underclaim of block grant by those authorities spending above the Government's assumptions. In previous years, this has gone back to the Treasury. This time it will go to all authorities; and so the answer to her first question is, yes. If the underclaim is less than £500 million when the authority's budget returns are received, the extra money would be found by the Government. That is the answer to her second question. The initial underclaim is over £600 million already, and therefore this looks unlikely. I should emphasise that the guarantee applies to budget returns and will be implemented in the summer.
The noble Baroness asked about next year. Consultation with local authorities has only just begun. It is too early to say what the shape of the settlement will be, but the overriding impression I have already formed is that all concerned, including the Government, are looking for stability.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull asked for separate billing, as did, I think, my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, of the different elements in a rate bill, between rate and rents. Our rates at 1984, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton (who is not here) recognised, ensured that each council householder receives a statement of rates paid once a year. But payments are made together, and we will look at the question raised by my noble friend. If I may, I will deal with her other points by correspondence because of the time.
I will now turn quickly to the proposals in the Green Paper. Our proposals differ from all those which have so far been put forward. The Government, as now, would continue to provide a considerable sub-stratum of finance on which the structure would rest. At the bottom would be standard grant, distributed so as to reduce local tax bills by an equal amount per adult in every area. On top of that would be the stratum of grant that varied from area to area, reflecting the different needs of each and equalising that need. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, need not be frightened by what we propose; it is exactly what he wants. That is the vehicle for putting the money into the areas which the Government of the day believe need support.
The assessment would be done as now, but, I hope, in a less complex manner by assessing the cost implications of the number of school-age children in each area, the mileage of their road systems, and so on. That would leave all councils in a position where they could finance the same level of service for the same level of local tax or community charge. I draw the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady David, to that provision because as I listened to her comment on the
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effect of that on poor people in different areas it seemed that she was not fully aware of it.
The grant system to achieve that will be radically simplified. It will take account of variations in local authority needs. We intend to simplify the form of the needs assessments and, above all, to make them more stable from year to year so that large changes in grant which are so frustrating to local government are minimised. What we propose also cuts the link between grants and local spending decisions. That puts an end to the paraphernalia of grant schedules, multipliers, hold back, slow back, claw back and all the other necessary mumbo-jumbo of the present system to which the noble Baroness, quite rightly, takes exception.
The non-domestic or business sector would continue to provide substantial resources but its contribution would no longer be subject to the whims of local authorities over whom it has no influence, let alone control. It would be set nationally, once, and thereafter be pinned to the inflation index. Proceeds would be pooled and distributed as equal amounts per adult across the country. A small discretionary local rate could maintain the business link with the local community. The effect of those arrangements would be to leave only one slice of local government expenditure for financing from what was the rates and what we propose should be the community charge. That is the top slice. It is the slice which goes up and down according to what the local council decides.
The domestic burden also would be spread more fairly. Everyone would have a financial stake in his local authorities' spending decisions. Every adult in the household would receive a bill. I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter that the bill should make clear to people who is levying the charges that they have to pay. Help will be given to those who need assistance to meet their payments, but everyone will contribute something and everyone will be able to make clear by voting what their choice is about the service provision and the level for which they are willing to pay.
Under our proposals, all electors would pay and, as a consequence, many more than now would. I am sure, vote to see that their money was properly used. That would restore democratic accountability to our system as well as fairness. It seems to me that the Green Paper is a profitable subject for your Lordships' study and, like the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, I have not had time to go into the half of it. I thank my noble friend Lord Marshall of Leeds for giving us the opportunity for the first bite at the very large cherry.
Baroness David: My Lords, just before the noble Lord sits down, I asked a further question about what would happen to the £76 million that the GLC is not allowed to spend, but in the light of the time I should be happy if the noble Lord would write to me about it.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I also think that the matter is probably sub judice, but I shall write in any case.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Marshall of Leeds: My Lords, when I opened the debate I said that I had not aimed the Motion at the Green Paper and nor had I sought to exclude

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discussion on it. I said that I thought that it would get a good airing during the debate and I was not wrong. At least we in this House have had an early opportunity to discuss the Green Paper and express our views, and very diverse they were, as one might expect. I do not suppose that it will be the last time that we debate this subject in the House during the next six months.
Let me say how grateful I am to my noble friend the Minister for the way that he had replied to the debate. I hope that everyone who cares for local government is as concerned as I tried to show that I was about its future, because I fully, entirely and unreservedly agree with my noble friend who said the present position was dangerous for local government. I take the opportunity to thank all those who took part in the debate and, at the risk of being irrelevant, hope that they have a very enjoyable Easter Recess. I beg to leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

The Multi-Handicapped: Welfare Provisions
6.54 p.m.
Lord Stallard Lord Stallard rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take steps to improve the level of residential and social service provision for multi-handicapped adults within the community, particularly for those aged 16 to 25.
The noble Lord said: In posing this Question I am only too well aware that the subject merits a much longer and more detailed debate than is possible this evening, but I hope that I shall be able to outline some concerns about the present situation and make some suggestions for improvement.
"Multi-handicapped" in the context of my Question means those people who have both a physical and a mental handicap. They are often the most seriously handicapped people in our society. The problems facing those people have been brought to my attention by, among others, the Spastics Society, which, over the past 15 years or so, has found that it is working with and catering for an increasingly profoundly handicapped group of people.
The difficulties that multi-handicapped people face are not new, but changes in expectations and science, medical advances and government policy and so on, over the past 20 years have brought them more sharply into focus. In the early days of the welfare state, young multi-handicapped people would have been brought up in, or have been admitted to, long-stay hospitals for the mentally handicapped, large psychiatric hospitals for the mentally handicapped or, for some, the geriatric ward of the local hospital. Like other Members, I can recall some heart-breaking problems arising from such placements when I was chairman of the local health committee and, latterly, as a constituency Member in another place.
The needs of the multi-handicapped were not then generally recognised by the wider community, as they were kept separate from it—almost hidden away—although it is mercifully true that there have always
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been enlightened and farsighted people prepared to work for the improvement of attitudes, treatment, facilities and resources for the multi-handicapped. The efforts of those dedicated people have produced great changes in community awareness and attitudes to mentally and physically handicapped people as well as changes in expectations among the handicapped themselves. Those people need our continued support, and we should be supporting all in the voluntary organisations and local authorities who work on behalf of the multi-handicapped.
Educational provisions for young handicapped people have also improved tremendously in recent years. The raising of the school-leaving age and the Education Act 1981 have led to an increase in expectation by young handicapped people and their parents. Although a great deal remains to be done, we are all mindful of the advances made so far. But the intensive interest and the resource allocation which exist throughout the school years suddenly evaporate into thin air when the young person leaves school. The All-Party Disablement Group was moved recently to write in a letter to colleagues:
"the statutory services too often fade away like the Cheshire cat, leaving only a smile."
The problem of school-leavers is already well recognised and documented both inside and outside Parliament. There is a great deal of interest in both Houses. Many interesting discussions have taken place and numerous excellent reports have been published outside Parliament about the problems of school-leavers. The problems are more acute for those people with multi-handicaps, who find it difficult enough at any time, but more so now, to get a job or training and who often have merely to return home to parents and have very little further contact with any of the services.
One way of helping to ease that problem is to ensure that all young people receive the full-time education up to the age of 19 which is their right. Some local education authorities appear to be dragging their feet in that respect. My first suggestion to the noble Baroness is that she should request her right honourable friend the Secretary of State to consider issuing a circular to local education authorities reminding them of their obligations under the Acts to provide that education.
I would go further. We ought ultimately to be examining means of extending that right to the age of 25 for young people with special needs. This happens in some other countries—for example, in Australia, I know it has been argued that that would merely put off the problem of what happens after school, but I am convinced that those extra years would make tremendous differences to that group of young people, particularly, in essential communication skills. That would be of invaluable help in equipping them to deal with their adult years.
During school years, these youngsters are in contact not only with education services, but also with health services and therapy services. A recent research study carried out by Spastics International Medical Publications revealed some horrifying cases of young handicapped people who have had little or no contact with social or health services since leaving school. All the cases cited were within two or three miles of the Palace of Westminster and I need give only one

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example to point to the problem. I quote from the Spastics Society's records:
"S.T. is a severely physically and mentally handicapped 20 year-old man. He is totally dependent on his severely depressed mother who lives with her registered sick boyfriend in a first floor council flat. S.T. is overweight and his mum can no longer take him down the stairs in his wheelchair—the lift is always out of order".
We know all the circumstances of this case.
"S.T. is top heavy for the bath hoist and now requires two nurses to come in and wash him every weekday morning. S.T. communicates that he needs something by biting his left arm. Because he has never been taught an adequate communication system, it is difficult to know what he is trying to say to you. The arm he bites has developed a large crusty sore"
and he has had no treatment at all.
"S.T.'s home is a very unstimulating environment, he has nothing to do or look at at home, and never goes on holiday with his mum.
"Although he goes to a local day centre, every week day, it is difficult to see how much he gains from this, without adequate method of communication. S.T. hasn't seen his GP for years, and no longer sees any hospital doctor at all, his only contacts with the caring services are with the occupational therapist at the day centre, the nurses that bath him in the morning, and the three-monthly visit from their social worker".
That is not an isolated case. As I said, these cases are all within two or three miles of this place and, so far as I am concerned, they show the need for extra training in the essential communications services, if nothing else. But of course it goes much further.
What I am saying is that we need a full assessment of need for these young people when leaving school. The statement of need which the Government introduced in the Education Act 1981 should be extended into adult life, and I look forward, too, to receiving into your Lordships' House the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Bill, which was recently introduced into another place by my honourable friend Mr. Tom Clarke. This Bill seeks to carry out what I have suggested by promoting greater co-ordination between the relevant education authority and the social services department, with notification 12 months in advance of when the young person is leaving school.
The Government, as I understand it, sadly are contesting this. They are seeking to reduce the number of contact points suggested between local education authorities and social services departments, because, they say, they fear increased bureaucracy—as though any of us would welcome any more bureaucracy, God knows! But I believe that to have effective planning of services for these young people in adult life the local authority needs adequate warning and discussion. I therefore hope that the Government will drop their objections to the proposals contained in this Bill, and allow it to progress through its Committee and Report stages as it stands, and as it is supported by members of all parties and by all those involved with disabled and handicapped people.
Today, many young multi-handicapped people want to live independently in the community and could achieve this despite their disabilities except for the lack of financial support. I repeat the points I made during the debates on the severe disablement allowance when it was introduced in the Social Security Act 1983. The present cut-off point at 20 years of age for assessment-free claims for SDA acts as a disincentive for young people to stay on in full-time education or to work beyond the age of 20. I had
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argued that the free cut-off point should be raised to 25 years of age, to give youngsters a reasonable period after finishing higher or further education to test their capabilities in the labour market. I hope that that proposition can be reviewed as soon as possible.
Those youngsters who might be claiming supplementary benefit will find that the new proposals for income support and disability premiums act as a further disincentive to independent living. It would appear to me that the more disabled you are, the more you are likely to lose, and the situation will be even worse for disabled youngsters as a result of the decision to pay lower personal supplementary benefit allowances for 18 to 24 year-olds than for all other adults.
I think I can best illustrate this again by another example from the Spastics Society's files. It is about a young lady who is single, 25 years of age and severely disabled. She has renal failure and is treated by dialysis. She is housebound and incontinent and her supplementary benefit is as follows. Her supplementary benefit as a single householder is £29.50. With her additional allowances for heating, diet and so on she accrues another £23.30, making a total at the short-term weekly rate of £52.80. On the long-term supplementary benefit rate, it would amount to £59.80. On the new income support system, someone in her circumstances will get £30.60 personal allowance and £12.25 disabled persons premium, making a total of £42.85.
So we can see already that, even compared to the short-term weekly rate, the income support payment will be £10 a week less and will fall much shorter of the current long-term rate; it will in fact be something like £17 less. That is bad enough, but suppose this young lady were 23 instead of 25. Her income support payment would now be £24 personal allowance and £12.25 disabled persons premium making a total of £36.25. So, to compare that with the short-term rate, the income support payment is now £16.55 less, while in comparison with the long-term rate it is a staggering £23.55 less. So it seems to me, as I said, that the more severely disabled you are, the greater the income loss. If that disabled person happened to be between the ages of 18 and 24, then the financial situation could be really disastrous.
Young persons seeking residential care in a unit or in a house within the community such as are provided by many of the voluntary organisations may also be adversely affected by the new board and lodging limits if they are multi-handicapped. The new limit for physically handicapped people is £180 per week. The cost of providing care in these units is much more than £180; it can be as high as £380 per week in some cases, and it was expected—and it is largely quoted—that local authorities would be able to top up the difference. But we know that in present circumstances, and with all the restraints and demands on local authorities for funds and for money, this is not happening universally. Some local authorities do, but many do not, and in the places where they do not there is a great deal of hardship. The Spastics Society, again, is making up the difference in a number of its schemes and, as a consequence, is working on a budgeted deficit for all its homes, with obvious possibilities of future problems.
The Richmond Fellowship, which cares for mentally ill people, says that if local authorities declined to make up the difference on all their residents their total shortfall would be £99,000 and, in these circumstances, that is a lot of money for a voluntary organisation. The implications for this service are ominous and, while the DHSS and local authorities argue about who should make up the extra money, it is the youngsters who are suffering. The Government have a duty to review the limits and see whether some alterations can be made to deal with the cases which I have pointed out. Otherwise, we shall be storing up real trouble for the future. In that respect, I recommend the recent report produced by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations entitled The Crisis in Residential Care, where all those funding problems are dealt with in great detail. It is an exceedingly interesting document.
There is no short cut. If we are to face the situation and prevent tragic circumstances developing, then there must be an urgent review of the situation affecting community and residential care and the payments for board and lodging.
What will happen to the young people concerned if no residential care can be found for them—and it is becoming in short supply because of all the circumstances I have mentioned? After their schooldays, they will return home to their families. The stress upon the carers will increase as the young person regresses both physically and mentally. The lack of contact with therapists and health services can lead to increasing physical dependence. Above all, hopes and expectations are dashed. At school they had friends and social contacts, but at home they may be socially isolated because of their immobility or financial difficulties.
Such youngsters may have no chance whatsoever of obtaining a job in such circumstances. There is not even the collection of statistics on such youngsters who are severely handicapped in that way. What else can be done apart from the suggestions I have already made? In winding up, I should like to make two further proposals.
First, I urge the Government, through the Minister, to re-examine the recommendations of the Court Report in considering the establishment of district handicap teams to avoid another problem facing the young multi-handicapped—that of falling into the void of provision between mental handicap teams and physical handicap teams. Secondly, I ask the noble Baroness to persuade her right honourable friend the Secretary of State to consider launching a short-term funding initiative.
It could be something along the lines of the Helping the Community to Care scheme, which we all welcome. I suggest that a figure of £10 million would go a long way to establishing suitable projects. Local authorities and voluntary organisations could make applications to that fund for projects such as capital funding for small residential units, independent living schemes, information and advice.
Such a scheme could help not only to provide much needed pump-priming money but also, very importantly, to draw attention to the plight of the
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young multi-handicapped. If the schemes were carefully monitored, they might provide useful data for consideration of an alternative approach and solution to the problems we have been discussing. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to recommend those suggestions to her right honourable friend. In my view, it would be money well spent, for it would be helping to give such young people a start in adult life that many of them are now denied.
I plead that we may extend the work that is done in schools to adult life. We want to spend money now to save many costly tragedies later. I hope that the noble Baroness the Minister will be able to reply in a positive way to some of my suggestions.
7.13 p.m.
Baroness Lane-Fox: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for initiating a debate on a subject that is of wide concern, and for his informative speech. It is a problem that is highlighted by progress. Progress can be fiendish in arousing expectations and then failing to deliver. To be encouraged at school, or even just to be a pupil in a plan, does not prepare one for being thrown back at the mercy of one's family, with nothing else in sight. There are excellent residential establishments, and we know of them, and they are of an increasingly promising variety. However, there are not nearly enough places and many who wish to enter them are bound to be disappointed. It is not every school that gives the kind of expert advice that is so much needed at that stage, and so it is then that school-leavers become housebound and even prisoners in their home. The family's load then becomes really tremendous.
As a patron of the Handicapped Adventure Playground Association, I know that where such playgrounds exist they can prove to be a godsend for collecting up handicapped youngsters. The organisers find that when handicapped pupils become school-leavers living at home, if they can be welcomed back to a familiar playground where they have been happy, they tend to give of their very best. Often the families are surprised by the efforts made by their offspring, even if such visits can be made only once a week.
In cases where the youngsters are mentally handicapped, they can become very useful in routine maintenance and construction jobs. It is because the London playgrounds know that there are many such youngsters in their areas who are not yet included that some have been driven to try to hold more youth club sessions.
In considering the country districts, the Gloucestershire special playground has made a point of trying to search out that category of school-leaver, and even those up to 28 years of age. They are keenly aware of the need that has been revealed. They are resolutely trying to finance the transport of such youngsters to and from the playground. They report rewarding stories of improvements among the cases who attend. The play leader is making a special study of cases in Gloucestershire.
The Prince of Wales's Advisory Group on Disability last week decided professionally to investigate the subject of further and higher education for the handicapped school-leaver, to consider what can be

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done to help. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, who is a colleague of mine on that group, very much regrets that she is not able to be present this evening to participate in our debate.
It is extremely encouraging to learn that the National Bureau for Handicapped Students has been engaged in a survey of the numbers in the category under discussion, for the Department of Education and Science. That really is excellent news. I am glad to hear from them that the response to the survey is about 90 per cent. Sadly, however, the survey reveals a very weighty problem.
I know that there are many people who are thinking hard about this problem, but I believe that at this stage all such people in their homes need in addition to realise what is available in their surroundings. It is known that many youngsters of 19 wish to continue their education. Numbers of them are only then just beginning to develop mentally. Most of us know that those situations are not new, particularly if we were ourselves handicapped school-leavers. We can hope that by better information, the difficulties will grow less. Knowing as I do the depth of understanding that is shown about handicapped people by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, I am reassured that the result of the survey will be for his inspired consideration.
I am sure that all who are present in your Lordships' House tonight would not wish me to delay the House on this day, of all days. I end with a special request to my noble friend the Minister, whose resourcefulness and imaginative ideas are often very much in evidence. Will she consider setting up a system of continuing counselling for the families and parents of handicapped school-leavers? Many families are clueless about existing provisions. That is possibly because they are too tired even to think. They need all available advice on holidays, training, and daily living. They need to know about the right equipment, about benefits, and about actual domiciliary help. They should hear what other recreational facilities there are, and about what openings there are in the arts.
Help and moral support from the special type of adviser, well versed in the ways of the DES, the DHSS and even the Department of Employment, could achieve a great deal. Who knows?—such a service might be established through the existing voluntary organisations. It would certainly be an oasis in a torrid, outlawed desert.
7.20 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, has highlighted a series of very urgent problems. As he said, there are many problems of provision in the community for the mentally and physically handicapped and other multi-handicapped persons. It is only possible to call attention to a few of the most urgent.
Among physically handicapped people who are also mentally ill a major problem is their acceptance in establishments intended solely for the mentally handicapped. Of course, this is true vice-versa. This often causes greater distress than need otherwise be suffered. In particular, I understand that there is insufficient provision for younger patients. There is
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also a series of problems concerning rehabilitation. Very differing skills may be demanded of instructors—or should I say therapists or rehabilitation officers? They seem to me to be a combination of them all.
I am greatly looking forward to hearing the reply of the noble Baroness the Minister. She never fails to bring us great consolation. Can she say whether she considers that there is presently sufficient provision for adequate training of rehabilitation officers for the multi-handicapped? Is it not the case that the Government need to look again at their requirements and how best they may be met?
I invite the particular attention of the noble Baroness to SENSE. That is the short name of the National Deaf, Blind and Rubella Association. Since 1955 SENSE has been calling attention to the problems of the deaf-blind who are living in the community, to the lack of adequate places for appropriate education for them and to the lack of sufficient assessment before they leave units in special schools to re-enter the community.
I understand that it is not known how many are affected by the multi-handicap of deaf-blindness. Would it not be possible to assess them at a very young age in order to get them into specialised units and not in schools with special units for the mentally handicapped or the educationally subnormal, which often occurs at present? This results in their having great difficulty in living in the community and, sadly, they find themselves being placed in hospitals for the mentally handicapped for lack of anywhere else. This may result in their losing any educational skills, or skills with their hands that they have acquired. Can the noble Baroness say what facilities there are for training teachers in this very specialised field? I apologise to her for all the questions I have asked and for any more I may ask. I do not expect her to answer them all this evening.
I find it strange that when the Education Act 1944 listed 10 disabilities that had to be provided for educationally it failed to include deaf-blindness. As I understand it, there is no statutory requirement to provide them with special facilities. Such facilities as now exist are mostly being provided by voluntary organisations in schools for the blind or for the deaf. At Condover Hall for the Deaf in Shrewsbury the Royal National Institute for the Blind has a special unit for a maximum of 30 deaf-blind pupils from 14 to 18 years of age. It is called Pathways. Different local authorities pay the fees.
I know of one case where a young man, now aged 19, was born deaf-blind and brain-damaged because of rubella. As a result of several operations he can now see a little light. He is at present at the Manor House in Market Deeping, near Peterborough, which is a unit run by SENSE for deaf-blind young people. It is a further education and training centre. At the end of his course, when he can no longer benefit by more teaching, he has nowhere to go. His father asks, what then? Where does he go? My Lords, where does he go? Is there not an urgent need to try to find some practical solutions to the problems of such hapless people?
The North-East Essex Health Authority is much to be congratulated. It has a large house in, I think,

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Colchester where there are 11 people who are blind but with additional handicaps. There are two or three who are deaf-blind. They are all very happy there. They have come from a mental handicap hospital and are between 19 and 40 years of age. That is the only health authority to do this so far. Two others are thinking of it. Could not the Government encourage them to stop thinking and do something positive?
7.26 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Stallard has clearly spelt out to the House that a caring society must face the issues that he outlined tonight and that some solutions must be found in the immediate future. Those among us who are not able entirely to care for ourselves have a right to humane care and a reasonable quality of life.
I was particularly interested in what the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, said about Market Deeping. I was privileged to be asked to open the centre at Market Deeping and I have kept in touch with SENSE ever since. For the benefit of the House and for the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, I add that a new SENSE centre is to be opened in Birmingham and a director has already been appointed. I also concur with what the noble Lady said about Condover. Condover School in Shrewsbury is the only school in the country that will take blind, mentally or physically handicapped children who are also deaf. It does not take any other children; only those who are deaf with multiple handicaps.
I want to concentrate my comments on the needs of the blind handicapped. I reiterate what my noble friend Lord Stallard said about the real reasons for drawing to the attention of local authorities the fact that they have a duty to provide education up to the age of 19 years and to make it much more widely known so that parents can demand that from their local authorities. It is a most important point which the Government should take on their shoulders.
But what happens to children after they have left school? Each of the speakers tonight has said that often complete desperation faces the parents. Parents do not know what to do after schooling finishes and after full-time education ends. They are promised all kinds of support and they hope that that support will continue. However, more often than not they are left alone to cope.
With the blind handicapped this is even more serious, because most of the agencies involved do not know anything at all about visual handicap and therefore cannot be as helpful as they might be. After leaving school the visually handicapped are, more often than not, placed in the local day centres or the training centres. These placements are offered to them but often they are not successful, because the trained staff, although trained to look after the mentally handicapped, have no training with the visually handicapped. They find it much too difficult to cope with persons who have that dual handicap.
The strain on parents of the blind and mentally handicapped is therefore constant and severe. They also suffer under the mobility allowance scheme. The regulations for the mobility allowance scheme—in
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simple terms and in terms which have been tested—mean that if you can place one foot in front of the other and propel yourself forward you are classed as being able to walk and therefore you make yourself ineligible for a mobility allowance. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, touched on this point. Will your Lordships imagine someone who has suffered from rubella, who is blind and deaf, trying to walk along a busy main road? He has no sense at all of sight or hearing; he cannot hear the traffic and cannot see it. Yet such rubella sufferers are excluded from receiving a mobility allowance. Surely the time has come for a full reconsideration of the tests which are applied to the mobility allowance.
I repeat that the strain on families is constant. It goes on day after day; it is severe and taxing of energy. It is those families who so desperately plead for projects which will ensure homes in the community.
I speak with a great deal of knowledge because I am the president of the Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind. I opened their hospital for the blind mentally handicapped, and I am also working on two national committees for the blind handicapped. Always when I see parents their plea is to have homes in the community. "Initially", they say, "let us have respite homes so that as long as we can care for our children we may do so, but let us have a respite home so that we can have a chance to have a break". I ask your Lordships to remember that very often the blind mentally handicapped child can be the cause of breakdown in a marriage. Very often the mother has to concentrate on that particular young person so that other matters get neglected, and often this becomes too much for the husband. So respite homes are necessary.
As anybody knows who has met the parents of blind handicapped children, they always ask, "What are the long-term facilities which can be provided?" It is always the same question that they ask: "What happens to him (or her) when I am gone?" Everywhere I go, whether it is to a meeting or a conference, this question always comes from parents who are attending the event. I stand there and say, "We are doing our best. We are trying". But that "best" is nowhere near good enough for this category of young people.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, has said, in most cases the care of the mentally handicapped has fallen into the hands of the specialist agencies and the voluntary sector. Of course the local authorities have also leaned on the voluntary sector—in the nicest way—to make provision in their localities and they support the specialist agencies. But the voluntary bodies are facing a very difficult time. They are finding it almost impossible to discover sufficient charitable trusts to provide for extra capital spending and they are constantly making efforts toward fund-raising so that they can finance extra provision. It is necessary, because they are the agencies which are trying to make places available round the country.
I should like to read your Lordships a question that was put to me at a meeting I attended last week. I wrote it down just as it was asked. There had been something in the press that day about someone's ancestral home. I do not think it concerned a Member of your Lordships' House who is present tonight; I think it had something to do with the National Trust or the English Heritage Society—some body like that

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which was going to purchase this house at a very great cost. At that meeting, a man stood up and said to me: "If the Government can provide millions of pounds to save an historic home, can't a few thousand pounds be found for small home units for the youngsters whom we are talking about tonight?" I had to say to him that I did not know the answer but that I would make quite sure that I asked the Minister that question; and I do so in this debate tonight.
The kind of provision which the parents of the blind handicapped would regard as ideal would of course be groups of houses catering for blind and partially-sighted multi-handicapped youngsters, because they feel that there is here a great difficulty. They would prefer these houses to be put on a regional basis in various parts of the country so that each of the areas would be covered and parents could keep in touch with the homes. They recognise that it is difficult to have one establishment in each locality because the number of young people would be insufficient to support it.
Of course, they recognise that there is a role for voluntary organisations to help in the development of plans and ideas of this kind, but they also recognise that there is a governmental and local authority role as well. One of those roles of the local authority and the Government has been very clearly spelt out by my noble friend Lord Stallard. It relates to paying the bill for youngsters in these establishments.
Perhaps I may go on very quickly to the provision that is already made by the voluntary agencies for the blind handicapped. They are in a very special category. Two institutions have been mentioned by the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss—one at Poolemead and the other at Market Deeping, which are for those who are both deaf and blind. The noble Lady also will know the Wilberforce Home in York, in which she has shown a great interest in the past, which caters for the blind handicapped. There is also Oakwood at Birmingham.
Of course the establishment which has the largest number of residents—and there is no similar establishment elsewhere in England—is the Royal School for the Blind at Leatherhead, which is no longer a school hut which has still retained that title. It caters for 148 residents. There has been a massive rebuilding scheme and there is a completely new environment. The opportunities offered to persons living at Leatherhead are absolutely amazing. Flats have been provided for them and there is a new surge in the whole ethos of the place in offering not only habilitation but also rehabilitation. When I last visited Leatherhead, the director, Bernard Coote, said, "Will you extend an invitation not only to the Minister but to any of their Lordships who would like to visit us?" It would be a very worthwhile visit. The patron is the Princess of Wales and the president is the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Perhaps I may give your Lordships some examples of what is happening. One of the cases that we had before us only last week concerned the difficulty when one is a parent of trying to find accommodation for a blind handicapped youngster. This case concerns a boy who will be leaving school at Easter at the age of 19; he stayed on until then. As he will be leaving the establishment, his parents have been trying for the past
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12 months to find a placement for the boy, since it is impossible for him to be cared for at home. With the help of social workers and school-leaver advisers, for the past 12 months the parents of the boy, who is called Richard, have gone all over the country trying to find a place which will accept him. They have tried 20 establishments but have been unsuccessful. No one has been able to offer Richard a place.
It was only on Tuesday of last week that something came up and he is being given a month's try-out to see whether he will be able to settle in this home. Unfortunately, it is many miles from his parents' home. Nevertheless, they will give it a try. Can your Lordships imagine parents trudging round the country to 20 establishments trying to find a placement for their young son because they cannot care for him at home? It is heartbreaking.
What happens if they do not find a placement? Obviously they find themselves in the large mental hospitals. All too often that is the only solution. Always the parent has to make a most difficult decision. Of course, they will be looked after well by the staff in the mental hospitals, and some mental hospitals are trying to extend the opportunities for the blind handicapped. But once they go inside the mental hospital the problem is that there are no opportunities for extending their vision because the mental nurse is not trained for the visually handicapped. Therefore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox said, there is a deterioration in the person.
Blind mentally handicapped residents in hospitals—and there are many of them already in hospital—are certain to be accorded a low priority on discharge into community hostel facilities because they are so highly dependent. So what are we to have in the future? Are we to have not just mental handicap hospitals but blind mental handicap hospitals, because there do not seem to be any facilities other than those offered by the voluntary agencies? I know that all kinds of funding are used to try to overcome the problem, but nobody seems to have the opportunity of giving benefits because of the dual handicap.
In conclusion, I want to make mention of the Southern Regional Association of the Blind, of which I am the president. It has a committee which has been formed to study the needs, the facilities, the staff training and all the provisions for the blind handicapped. All the members of that committee are professionals; many of them have been compiling reports for the Department of Health and Social Security. They have positions in universities or in other professions to deal with the blind handicapped.
They see the need to appoint a development officer for a period of three years to bring forth a report containing possible solutions, which they say as professionals might be a guide to the department in the formation of a future policy for preventing blind mentally handicapped people going into hospitals and for trying to get out of the hospitals those who are already in so that they can take their place in the community. An approach has been made to the Department of Health and Social Security for help with funding, but the response has not been helpful. I hope that the noble Baroness tonight, after listening to what I have said, will perhaps give that application a little more consideration.

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I close by saying that the major question of practical importance to the severely mental and blind population is something which was recognised as a serious problem in the DHSS review of 1980. In that review regarding the mentally handicapped, which included the sensory handicapped, it said that they may require the provision of special services. The review states:
"Further consideration should be given to the need for extra specialisation and services to be provided".
That government review was in 1980; then we had one in 1984. It is now 1986, and little progress has been made. These children's parents are struggling and trying to do the best for them and they need hope. It is my sincere wish that the Minister will give us cause for hope tonight; otherwise the situation of these children and young people will be hopeless.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I should like to express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for initiating this valuable debate and, if I may say so, for the temperate and constructive way in which he has done so. Also, we can be thankful that we have from three noble Baronesses heard most interesting and knowledgeable speeches, and very moving ones as well.
I think one thing on which we can all agree is the need to find out the size of the problem. Most of us know something of the nature of the problem here and there, but at MENCAP, with which I am associated, I am glad to say that for the past year we have been carrying out a research survey—I am told it is the first of its kind anywhere—a national survey which is being conducted to find out the needs of profoundly retarded and multi-handicapped people and the needs of their parents and those who look after them.
A lot is being done by wonderful people in various fields, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher of Rednal, has with great penetration told us about what is done for deaf-blind. I look back and remember that at Oxford I had a blind tutor who was a brilliant man, and he taught me much of the law I know. It is amazing what can be done with blind people, whether they have aptitude or not, provided there are enough people to help, lead and teach them.
Before I go further, I ought to declare my interest in this debate, because I think I am the only one speaking in it who happens to be the father of a multi-handicapped daughter, who is aged 31. Therefore, I have some knowledge of the problems which arise, although I must say that my wife and I, in spite of our increasing years, are lucky to have been able to deal with them. It must be remembered that a high proportion of these multi-handicapped adults live at home with ageing parents, and those parents have an increasingly heavy burden. At MENCAP a case has been brought to our notice of parents, both old-age pensioners, who have a profoundly multi-handicapped son aged 25 who is blind. They have only had one holiday in the past 25 years.
Following a campaign by parents, a purpose-built unit has been built in one locality attached to a local
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residential unit for the handicapped, and this purpose-built unit offers short-term "respite care"—words increasingly used and, although rather strange, perhaps appropriate—for parents with a profoundly multi-handicapped family member. It was found that the staff ratio there was too low and they had great difficulty finding experienced people. There is a need for more of those locally based special units, with a high complement of specially qualified staff.
But I must issue a warning, because about 20 years ago in the MENCAP eastern region of which I was then president, we decided to set up a holiday home on the east coast of Norfolk. We raised funds locally, the local branch of the Lions helped a great deal and MENCAP helped from the centre as well. We set up this home with a view to enabling mentally handicapped children from all over the region to stay in this home for two or three weeks at a time while their parents took holidays. That is a very good thing.
But what happened? We were able to fill the home from Easter to September but we had to pay for it to be run for the rest of the year. So the original excellent intention had to be largely abandoned. We now have it filled with long-stay handicapped children, young people and some adults. I mention this because no one should be under any illusion about the logistics of this excellent idea. There are problems that must be overcome, but they are problems that are there for those who have the desire and the will to try to overcome them.
"Respite care" is mentioned in the second report of the Social Services Select Committee of another place. I wonder whether I may refer to paragraph 171 of the report. It is very relevant to what has been said in the debate. The committee said:
"We recommend that local authorities give priority to providing respite care sensitive to the varying needs of different people".
The committee then refers to a report of what is called the VCHC, but I do not know what that is, when it wrote, as the Select Committee goes on to say:
"We consider such respite schemes to be cost-effective inasmuch as they may enable young people to remain longer in their natural or substitute home and can also act as preparation for the move from the family home which must inevitably happen when families are unable to maintain care".
So the committee says that from the community's point of view such homes would be cost-effective for that reason. We shall have to explore the matter further. Meanwhile, may I say that I join with the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, in saying that I hope that Mr. Tom Clarke's Bill will reach us. I hope that I am not breaching the conventions of Parliament if I say that I hope it will reach us broadly in the form in which it was presented and not in a truncated form that some of us would find unacceptable. I believe also that there is still quite a long way to go before the many excellent recommendations, some of them admittedly costly, of the Select Committee have been implemented. We had a debate on this about a year ago when it was fresh in people's minds. We did not, however, receive quite the response from the Government—indeed, from my noble friend—that we had hoped for and perhaps she can give us a little more encouragement this evening.
I wish to come now to the question of life-long care in residential homes. This is most important. There are, as already mentioned, quite numerous charitable

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organisations that provide homes of varying size, none of them very big. That is a good thing. They are for long-term care, that is to say, that when parents seek admission for one of their children into the home, if a vacancy can be found, they are given the assurance that the handicapped person will be there for life. This eases the parents' minds. My wife and I have been fortunate in that the foundation of which I happen to be a patron—I was made a patron long after our child went there, so it was not because I was a patron that she was admitted—has accepted our daughter for life in a place where she will be beautifully looked after. These establishments are very expensive to run. They are funded partly by discretionary grants from county councils, paid for by each person.
I should like to ask my noble friend whether she can give us some guidance and help. Sometimes, it is not known which county council should help with the funding. Is it normally to be regarded as the county council where a child, who may have moved away to another part of the country because the parents had a change of job, was first brought up? Is it where the mother, who became a widow, settled, perhaps in another county, after the husband died? Is it to be the county council, if both parents have died, in the area of the home where the child then finds himself or herself? There has been uncertainty about this matter. It has caused worry among the parents of mentally handicapped children whom we know. If my noble friend can give us any indication, it would help.
I must, however, concede that the help given by the county councils is discretionary anyway. And the practice between county councils varies. Most county councils within my knowledge and experience are being very helpful. They realise that it is necessary in the public interest and perhaps in the interest of their own ratepayers, that a voluntary home, a charitable foundation, even outside the county, should be helped in looking after someone who may otherwise be one of their responsibilities. But the matter needs to be clarified, if possible.
There has not so far been any mention, I think I am right in saying, although one noble Baroness referred to it in passing, of a matter in which my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox has shown great interest and has given us great encouragement. It is a question of furniture and equipment for people with multiple handicap. Such people have to spend a large part of their lives sitting in chairs. That does not sound like a very serious problem. But, believe me, it often is so, because people with severe physical handicap sometimes develop abnormal shapes. Our daughter has double spinal curvature and both her legs are misshapen. She cannot walk unless she is held upright. So she cannot get up and just run about. She has to sit in a chair most of her waking life. To find a chair in which she could sit upright and be comfortable was very difficult until we approached the famous College of Furniture in London. Eventually, at some expense, it made a chair which fitted her shape.
This led, incidentally, to my wife being asked to start a charity to make such furniture and to train graduates to do so using the most modern methods. It is called DEMAND. That does not merely mean demanding your money. It means Design and Manufacture for Disability. But using the word "Demand", I can say
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that there is an ever-increasing demand on the skills that this workshop, now a separate workshop from the college, displays. The Government, under Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, have produced this month a work entitled Research and Development Work on Equipment for the Disabled. I obtained this only an hour or two before the debate and have not had time to study it in detail. However, it shows that a vast amount of work is going on in various quarters with regard to this. There is no index, which is unfortunate, but it seems to be nearly all work which is going on in universities, hospitals and research and development establishments. So far as I can tell, the study does not refer to the valuable work also being done by furniture manufacturers and by charitable bodies such as the one of which my wife is chairman. The next time that it is published I think that it should be more comprehensive and should have an index. Perhaps my noble friend would take that on board.
Before leaving the question of residential homes I should mention that, besides getting help in respect of individual residents from county councils and other local authorities, those homes are dependent upon their own charitable funds and, to the extent that it is possible, on private trusts formed for individual residents, although that is a relatively rare possibility. To the extent that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has it in mind to be helpful with charitable trusts, it will help the expansion that we all want of those residential homes which are dependent upon them, and in that we can rejoice.
Baroness Lane-Fox: Hear, hear!
Lord Renton: My Lords, I have spoken longer than I expected, but I conclude by saying this. Recreation has been mentioned. One must always give credit where it is due. I have criticised the almost defunct Greater London Council for wasting people's money on some of its films. But quite recently it produced one interesting and valuable film called "A Sporting Chance", which had nothing to do with betting on horse races. The film showed what can be done for people with multiple handicaps by way of gymnastics, physical training, even badminton, wheelchair polo, riding for the disabled and so on. To the extent that the Manpower Services Commission has been helpful in developing riding for the mentally handicapped, for example, and in various other ways, it is only fair, while we are adopting a somewhat critical attitude towards the Government, that we should acknowledge the fine work which the MSC is doing.
8.3 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, as I understand I am the last speaker before the closing speeches and on the last evening before the Recess, I shall try to be brief. I am supporting my noble friend because I am acutely aware as a general practitioner of the great problem which the multi-handicapped have to face and the burden which they impose on their families and all those responsible for their care.
I would say that this Question is typical of the concern which my noble friend Lord Stallard has for those who cannot speak for themselves. He has been a

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lifelong champion of the underdog both when he was a Camden councillor and later as a Member for Parliament. He was a real friend to many of my patients who took their problems to him. He spent literally thousands of hours listening to them pleading their cause and sometimes going to do battle for them. When his constituency was incorporated into another many of us were very sad. However, I think that everyone in Camden was delighted—perhaps "chuffed" is a better word—when Jock agreed to join us in your Lordships' House.
The kind of person with whom we are concerned tonight is not all that common. Estimates will vary according to where we take our cut-off points as to what constitutes severe disability or severe handicap. Both the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, mentioned surveys which were being conducted to ascertain the extent of the problem and what is being done for these people. I very much welcome this. I wonder whether the department is assisting with these surveys or whether it has any other research in hand of an epidemiological nature which is trying to delineate the problem. I hope that it is not shying away from this because when these facts are brought out the findings may have financial implications.
Most of the problems about which we are talking are present from birth. They may be discovered then or become evident in early childhood. Some handicaps also occur as a result of an infection, meningitis or encephalitis, and some as a result of accidents. We are talking about people with mental handicaps and many of those are also epileptic. They have greater or lesser degree of motor impairment or sensory defect, as my noble friend has pointed out. These are usually due to some form of brain damage occurring either as a result of a congenital defect or to an influence in utero such as rubella—which the noble Baroness mentioned—or occasionally during birth.
There is ongoing research into many causes of handicap. I should like to mention that embryo research, which is a topic of considerable discussion at the moment, is vital here. Can the noble Baroness tell us whether the department is assisting research into the causes of mental handicap? I know that that is slightly off the topic of tonight's Unstarred Question which is about the services for people with these problems. But it is relevant for us to look into ways and means to prevent this happening in the future. Whatever research is being done, the problem will be with us for the foreseeable future.
The lion's share of care, as every speakers has pointed out, is still being carried out by parents. This should not be forgotten. However, middle aged and elderly parents cannot cope. The noble Lord opposite is perhaps an exception. Even when fully aided, for instance, with adolescents and adults who cannot feed, wash or clothe themselves and who may have behaviour which is more appropriate to pre-school children, no wonder residential care is often needed—care which is demanding and labour intensive.
It is not surprising that the limit on the lodging allowance element of supplementary benefit means that nowhere near the cost of caring for this group of
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unfortunate people is met when social security is being used to support them. As my noble friend has pointed out, formerly the local authorities concerned would sponsor each handicapped person in homes run by voluntary organisations and sometimes by the National Health Service. As we have heard, that is now being withdrawn and topping-up by local authorities is becoming the pattern over and above the supplementary benefit payments which are available. However, as several speakers have pointed out, along with the cuts in local authority funding that sponsorship is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.
Therefore, as with other aspects of community care for the elderly and the disabled, there is, as nearly every speaker has pointed out, a very real need for more funds to be made available, probably to local authorities and possibly directly from central government; but as yet we do not know. The money needs to be increased by special earmarked funds for services for the handicapped. As every speaker has said, there have never been quite enough services to cope with the enormous problems which these people pose. Therefore, rather than a decrease in funding, there needs to be an increase to the former levels of provision. Will the Government at least agree to ensure that the topping-up arrangements are guaranteed by the Government centrally so that if necessary they can top-up for these purposes the block grants which are given as rate support?
When the noble Baroness has replied to National Health Service debates on previous occasions her hands have usually been tied when it comes to considering additional expenditure because of the rules which do not allow extra money to be injected into the solution of the problem. Basically, we are asking that previous financial arrangements as regards totals of money should continue and should not be reduced. As my noble friend Lord Stallard has pointed out, a little extra money would be immensely helpful in making the lives of the parents and others who care for this very vulnerable group more tolerable.
Surely, if £1 billion can be found for the taxpayers, then £10 million, which is only 1 per cent. of that gift, could be directed to the least fortunate. I am sure that the noble Baroness knows more thoroughly than I the history of the Conservative Party. However, was it not Disraeli himself who said that the first requirement of good government was to see to the needs of the least fortunate?
8.13 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I should like to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for having entered the list of speakers so late, but I assure the noble Lord and your Lordships' House that I shall make up for it by being the briefest speaker here tonight.
Because of the highly publicised acts of lawlessness that currently exit in this country, it is very easy to forget the many thousands whose plight and whose lot in life is just as severe but whose case is scarcely ever publicised. Although such luckless people abound in all sectors of the community, the purpose of this debate has been to highlight just one of those sectors: those who suffer from being multi-handicapped,

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particularly those aged between 16 and 25, and those almost certainly whose misfortunes never hit the headlines.
In a report recently made by a local Spastics Society parents' association, it was found that there was still very little in their local authority's 10-year strategy that really looked at the needs of the multi-handicapped. Furthermore, the report also stated that in the whole of the region it looked at, there was virtually no provision for the multi-handicapped adult apart from mental hospitals, and indeed the small amount of hostel-type housing that did exist had long waiting lists.
In addition, there was considerable anxiety that where residents from the local hospitals for the mentally handicapped were being returned to the community, inadequate funding was being provided; that is to say, only £54 per person on average compared with £437 per person in some local metropolitan areas. The Select Committee's report on community care has also drawn attention to the danger of no facilities being available to those being discharged from long-stay mental hospitals. The report also noted that because there was no experience in the borough, no tradition of provision for the multi-handicapped, that meant that there was no reserve of appropriate professional skills, no support structures within the community.
Multi-handicapped people have the same desire to live in the community in suitable residential accommodation as other groups of disabled people, yet it appears that those who are most in need are still those with least provision in some areas of the community. Despite the fact that voluntary organisations offer residential provision suitable for this group of young people, there is still a deeply despertate need for more provision.
A group affiliated to the Spastics Society has planned for some years to build two bungalows in a community setting to provide care for eight severely multi-handicapped people, five of whom are living in the community with parents who are becoming too old to care for them. It is not too difficult to imagine the endless and severe strain that must be forever with families such as these. These parents have raised sufficient funds to build the bungalows and throughout this time they have received the support and goodwill of the local authority. The future residents of the bungalows require a high level of staff care, which means that costs for each person would amount to £380 per person per week—similar in cost to schemes run by the DHSS.
However the supplementary benefit limit for the physically disabled is only £180 per week. The local authority could in principle top-up the difference but has now refused to do so. That means that the only alternative for these people when their parents die or can no longer care for them, is a long-stay hospital—precisely the kind of place the Government are rightly seeking to move young people out of. Where such accommodation already exists, such as the Douglas Arter Centre near Salisbury, which provides places for 14 young people with profound handicaps, the fees are £280, well above the amount allowed by the DHSS but necessary to provide the
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level of care needed. What will happen now if topping-up money is not forthcoming? The consequence will be that new projects such as this one may not go ahead.
Inevitably, there will always be call upon call upon the government of the day to help meet the needs of those who suffer. Inevitably, for one reason or another some of those calls will be heeded; others will not. If the Government are seriously concerned about the future of multi-handicapped people, which I am certain they are, I ask most humbly and earnestly that they should reconsider these limits at the earliest opportunity, for until that happens the DHSS and local authorities will only continue to bicker over who is to foot the bill, while young people such as I have described will continue to suffer in silence and in waiting.
8.18 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity created by the initiative of my noble friend Lord Stallard to contribute to the debate on this important question. I should like to say what an interesting and really moving debate we have had on this subject this evening. There are about a quarter of a million people in the United Kingdom in some form of residential care. Nearly half of them are in homes provided by the voluntary and private sectors. A large number of those people are of course elderly, and the numbers will increase as the numbers of people reaching the age 75 and over increase.
However, this evening we have been mainly concerned not with the elderly—although of course they are a major problem in this area—but with very large numbers of young people who are mentally handicapped, mentally ill, multi-handicapped or spastics, for whom the present situation represents, I believe, a crisis in care.
Since the early 1970s there has been a change in government policy on residential care in favour of moving mentally handicapped and disabled people out of large specialist hospitals and back into the community. That has meant a shift in balance between health authority and local authority provision, which in turn created a substantial demand on local authority services.
I understand that there are about 120,000 people with severe mental handicap in the United Kingdom. In 1969 about 56,000 were living in long-stay hospitals. By 1982 the figure had dropped to 42,000. That is a real improvement: we want to find alternatives to long-stay hospitals.
Although many mentally handicapped people live at home in the care of parents, many more are able to live in residential care in the community. Nevertheless, there is still a great need for more residential establishments, not only for the thousands still in long-stay hospitals, but also for the estimated 10,000 people in the care of elderly parents. We heard some moving reports on that from notably the noble Lord, Lord Renton, this evening. Without support from statutory services a heavy burden falls on the families of multi-handicapped children.
The greatest burden is on women. A recent study suggested that in most cases, apart from infrequent holidays, parents of handicapped people had scarcely

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a break of more than a few hours in caring for their offspring in a period sometimes stretching over 30 years. More importantly, of 13 families interviewed in a recent study only three had any plans for alternative residential provision when the parents were no longer able to cope.
There has been a growth in residential care since 1975. Local authority homes provided 5,695 places in homes in 1982. This was an increase of 1,550 places in seven years. But a development of these services is sorely needed. Voluntary sector organisations have a history of providing residential care for people with special needs as well as developing new forms of care. Care for those with severe behavioural problems or multiple handicap has often fallen into the hands of the specialist voluntary sector.
The Spastics Society, for instance, cares for those with a physical disability—cerebral palsy—as well as often an accompanying mental handicap. The National Autistical Society caters for those whose behavioural difficulties put them beyond the range of care available in most local authority homes. The voluntary sector is an important ally in the creation of community-based services for mentally ill people, and this includes residential establishments run by organisations such as the Mental After Care Association, the Richmond Fellowship, and local groups affiliated to MIND.
Until relatively recently people in need of care could look to the local authority for assistance. Where a local authority could not provide the right sort of residential care itself it would agree to pay all, or part, of the fee charged by a voluntary or private sector home. The level of income or capital of an individual was taken into account when assessing how much the local authority would contribute. However, in the past few years responsibility for funding has shifted from local authorities and on to the supplementary benefit system.
In 1980 an Act was introduced which regulated the way in which supplementary board and lodging allowance could be paid to people living in residential care. Changes made to the system in 1983 had the effect of publicising the availability of supplementary benefit for residential care. New homes opened, particularly in the private sector, to meet the demand for care, particularly that coming from elderly people. A less desirable feature from my point of view was the growth of private homes operating for profit.
Furthermore, some local authorities faced with pressure to cut expenditure decided to cease funding for people who wished to enter residential care, confident that the supplementary benefit system would fit the bill. The result was a dramatic increase in the amount of money spent by the DHSS, and plainly the Government had to take some action about that. This led to the current situation when in April 1985 a new system was introduced which set national limits on supplementary benefit paid to people divided into categories according to age and type of disability.
Broadly speaking, the limits ranged from £120 in the case of the elderly to £180 for people under pensionable age with a physical disability, with £150 for mentally handicapped, £130 in respect of the mentally ill, and £130 for people suffering from drug
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or alcohol dependence. It is this system which has created what many believe to be a crisis in care. This has already been referred to by a number of speakers this evening.
As a result major problems now face people wishing to enter residential care who are dependent upon supplementary benefit. First, the limits are too low to cover the cost of care for many elderly people. Most homes caring for the aged charge between £130 and £160. Some 22 per cent. of people over 80 suffer from senile dementia. The cost of caring for this type of resident is said by voluntary organisations to be in excess of £180. Local authorities may "top up" the allowance for people below pension age, but not for those over it.
The Government seem to have based this system on a number of assumptions which I do not think are valid. First, they appear to think that costs are uniform across the country. Plainly this is not so. They are much heavier in London and the South-East. Secondly, that the cost of caring for elderly people is less than that of caring for people under pension age: clearly this is not so, either. Thirdly, that a system of allowing local authorities to "top up" the limits for people under pension age would ensure that the extra costs involved in caring for some people would be covered: this is not necessarily the case. Finally, that there would be no undue hardship or longer-term effects as a result of this system.
In fact the system, as I have said, appears to be leading to some kind of crisis. I draw the information for this from the excellent report produced by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, to which my noble friend Lord Stallard referred in his opening statement.
There is evidence from the voluntary organisations that the care of elderly people in particular may be adversely affected. The most immediate problem is as a result of the low supplementary benefit of £120 and the fact that local authorities are not able to top this up. A survey conducted by the National Federation of Housing Associations running homes for the elderly indicated that charges are between £130 and £160 with higher fees being charged for caring for frail, elderly people. The supplementary benefit system clearly discriminates against elderly people who become physically or visually disabled after pension age, and a very high proportion of them do. Yet the same rate cannot be claimed as if they had the disability before pension age.
As with the care of elderly people, the cost involved in the care of the mentally handicapped has much to do with the degree of dependency or handicap and the amount of staff help required. Residential provision for this category, however, often costs considerably more than the supplementary benefit limit of £150. At Mcintyre Communities, for example, I am told that the costs range from £150 to provide care for 36 fairly able people, to £324 per week, for eight severely handicapped people in another home.
Other examples can be quoted. They demonstrate that costs rise in relation to the degree of handicap and the amount of care required. Moreover, so far as concerns mental illness, caring for such people—and this has been referred to by a number of noble Lords

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in the debate—is labour intensive and there is a high "burn-out" rate among staff. Some special projects cost a lot more. The home run by "Turning Point" in Nottingham, for example, costs £345 per week as it takes in former patients of the Rampton Hospital.
The cost of caring for people with physical disabilities is estimated as being in excess of the £180 supplementary benefit figure. Nor is it true to say that local authorities will invariably "top up". As the noble Earl, Lord Arran, and another noble Lord said earlier, the Spastics Society has had to abandon a scheme which would have allowed multi-handicapped people at present living with ageing parents to be accommodated in a new community scheme, because the local authority will not "top up" that cost for some reason or other. That means that the people concerned face long-stay hospitals eventually when the parents can no longer cope, and that is a solution that I am sure everyone wants to avoid. The Spastics Society also says that it currently works on a deficit for all of its homes. Smaller organisations with limited funds are not in a position to do this indefinitely.
An important part of the training and rehabilitation of many people living in residential care, particularly younger people, is that they should wherever possible be able to go out to work. It is part of the process by which mentally-handicapped people, for example, can learn to live in a normal society. It is also important for people who have been dependent on drugs or alcohol. However, work is difficult to find, and when it is it is almost always low paid.
Certainly such people are unlikely to earn enough to pay the cost of the residental care—which of course they still need—where they are living. Local authority sponsorship, which existed before the present system, was flexible enough to be able to cope with this. The supplementary benefit system does not have this flexibility. When someone is in full-time employment and earning more than a basic amount, the benefit is withdrawn. Many voluntary organisations will carry the shortfall rather than see the individual lose out.
But there are problems. To quote from the executive director of one organisation:
"Work is really important for the rehabilitation process, but if someone goes out to work then we lose out financially because the most they can pay is £50 or £60 leaving us with a shortfall of about £80. At one home in Battersea we have a lot of people who go out to work but we cannot afford to operate an open-door policy there for people who see work as part of their therapeutic programme. We simply cannot afford it".
That is typical of many concerned with this work and this type of care; committed and experienced people who have devoted their lives to this type of work on behalf of others who are handicapped and disadvantaged.
The supplementary benefit levels are not just affecting existing residents; they are also barring the way to residential care for many people in need of it. There is evidence that an immediate response from many private homes has been to stop admitting anybody who would be reliant on supplementary benefit. A Hampshire social worker, quoted in the report of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, says that of the 19 private homes in her area only four are now taking supplementary benefit funded residents.
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The result of all this may well be that many people in need of care will be forced either to stay at home with hard pressed families or in long stay hospitals. Families caring for disabled people face increased financial hardship. The family income is often less than it otherwise would be because a member of the family, usually the mother, stays at home and does not take paid employment. There is the increased expenditure involved in the actual caring, frequent visits to hospitals, incontinence aids, increased laundry, special aids and so on. It has been estimated by the Spastics Society that disability in one member of the family could cost as much as 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. of the family budget. It is nearly always the women who are the carers and who bear the burden.
Incidentally, it is about time that we considered the possibility of providing married women carers and cohabiting women carers with some form of caring allowance. We have to come to terms with the fact that caring costs money. The present system is not satisfactory and has led to what many voluntary organisations are referring to as a crisis in care. It is not satisfactory that the cost of caring should be shuffled between the DHSS and the local authorities, and, finally, all too often, it lands on hard pressed families who are often already disadvantaged. It is the poorest and least able to care for themselves who are suffering. We urge a reconsideration of the present system and an increased allocation of resources.
8.33 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, for providing us with the opportunity to debate this very important subject. I pay tribute, first, to the way he opened the debate, and, secondly, to the Spastics Society which he acknowledged to be his inspiration.
Perhaps I could open my remarks by assuring the House of the high priority which the Government give to services for disabled people generally. The Government have made it clear in guidance issued to health and local authorities, which are the main statutory providers of services for disabled people, that services for the most vulnerable groups in the community, including disabled people, should have priority.
In reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, I should say that, although it is not practicable to calculate the total amount spent on services for disabled people, overall expenditure on a number of services which particularly benefit them has substantially increased in real terms over recent years. For example, between 1978–79 and 1984–85 expenditure by local authorities in England on residential care for young physically disabled and sensorily impaired people rose in cost terms by 35 per cent., on residential care for mentally handicapped children by 79 per cent., and on residential care for mentally handicapped adults by 85 per cent. With regard to social security benefits, total expenditure on all cash benefits for long-term sick and disabled people in 1985–86 will be over £5 billion. This represents an increase in real terms of over 50 per cent. since 1978–79, of which some £380 million is due to real improvements in the average value of benefits paid.

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The noble Baroness talked about the mobility allowance. Decisions on claims for mobility allowance are made by the independent adjudicating authority and there is a system of appeals for those who are dissatisfied with decisions. I emphasise that in view of the independence of the adjudication system neither ministers nor officials of the department can interfere in how walking ability is tested during medical examination or with the decision given on an individual claim. Mobility allowance is not being withdrawn from deaf-blind people. That said, it is recognised that deaf-blind people, and other groups who suffer multiple handicaps can encounter difficulties when walking out of doors and the medical practitioners who examine claimants are encouraged to conduct outdoor walking tests whenever it is practicable to do so.
We also recognise that the problems of disability are increased when a person suffers from more than one type of disability. The multi-handicapped have needs which may require extra facilities or personal care over and above that required by other disabled people. We must be careful that in referring to "the multi-handicapped" we do not lose sight of the fact that they may be mentally handicapped people with additional disabilities or people who have communication difficulties and physical disabilities but who are nevertheless highly intelligent.
Because multiple handicap can involve such a range of different permutations of different types of impairment, the needs of the individual multi-handicapped people are likely to vary very widely. This is one of the reasons why successive governments have been unwilling to impose any sort of minimum standard of provisions in this area. For us to seek to impose minimum standards of service provision could lead to the risk that minimum standards would be treated as maximum standards and thereby inhibit the better development and co-ordination of services that we should wish to see brought about.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, and other noble Lords and noble Baronesses may care to note that in considering ways in which we might encourage practical improvements in services for all disabled people we have been hampered by the lack of up-to-date information about the numbers, the circumstances and the needs of disabled people. For this reason we have commissioned from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys a major national survey of disabled people which is currently being undertaken. Results are expected in 1988 and we hope they will provide the basis for a review of existing provisions for sick and disabled people, including the multi-handicapped.
I shall try to answer questions asked by noble Lords: I hope that I can answer nearly all of them. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, about the special problems of handicapped school-leavers. The transition from school to adulthood is a difficult state in anyone's life but disabled school-leavers may find it more difficult to maintain existing, or to make new, social links. There has been a great deal of research, including some by the DHSS, and many articles have been written about the problems faced by disabled school-leavers. For those disabled youngsters who
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have difficulty finding employment, day care provision is important. The department is currently undertaking a limited study of a wide range of day services, adult training or social education centres and further adult education, including up to the age of 19, which I think the noble Lord mentioned—I think he went further, to 25—employment, sheltered employment, leisure and sport, which my noble friend Lord Renton mentioned. A document is to be produced which will provide authorities and others concerned with pointers to types of day services which have been found to be of benefit to the mentally handicapped. I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Stallard, would give me Mr. S. T.'s name and address, if he would like to. I shall gladly take up his case and any others that the noble Lord may have to hand.
In relation to the social security provision, some disabled people will be affected by the Government's proposal for reform of the social security system to simplify and improve the targeting of cash benefits. The main disability benefits are not affected by that review. The Government aim is to achieve in the long term a coherent system of cash benefits for disabled people. Overall, some 200,000 sick and disabled people will be better off in real terms as a result of these changes—nearly half of them by over £5 a week. With regard to the short-term funding, the department already funds a number of short-term projects in the voluntary sector through Section 64 funds.
The noble Lord, Lord Stallard, referred to the need for multi-handicapped people not to fall between the teams dealing with mental handicap and with physical handicap. I am sure that much more attention is now being paid to all the health and other needs of handicapped people. My department's recent report on helping mentally handicapped people with special needs gives valuable advice to authorities on how to assess and meet the needs of multi-handicapped young people. With regard to the Bill, the Tom Clarke Bill, in another place, the Government are still considering the response to the consultation paper and hope to be able to announce their conclusion on the responses to this exercise shortly.
They fully realise the amount of support which this Bill has got but it will be up to local authorities to pay many of the costs which will be incurred under it, and therefore it is only fair to look at it thoroughly. I understand that the Richmond Fellowship, which incidentally is given a large grant by the DHSS, deals with clients suffering from schizophrenia. The Government are very much aware of the difficulties faced by sufferers and families, which have been graphically illustrated by the media recently. We are anxious to see the provision of a range of support services including residential care throughout the country. This range will need to include services that meet the needs of the small number of young schizophrenic people with additional handicaps. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive range of good quality services capable of meeting adequately the special needs of this group.
Perhaps I may return for a moment to the question of education up to the age of 19. This was brought up at a recent meeting with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The Secretary of State agreed to look at this matter further.

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That was a point which was brought up by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. With regard to bridging loans (which I think several noble Lords mentioned) the department recognises this problem but central funding is not necessarily the best or the only way for creating bridging finance.
However, the Government are thoroughly reviewing this situation. I recognise the noble Lord's point on topping up by local authorities. We have agreed with the local authority associations to set up a joint working party to consider means of harmonising financial support for people in residential care homes. Additionally, we have agreed to carry out pilot studies to test the feasibility of extending local authorities' existing multi-disciplinary assessment arrangements for admission to their own homes to claimants for supplementary benefit in residential care homes and for local authorities to advise on the appropriate level of payment for particular homes.
The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, to whom I am deeply grateful—and there is no doubt that I shall have to write to her—spoke about training courses. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science met representatives of the all-party children's group on 20th March with this subject in view. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State agreed to consider the points raised at that meeting on this matter. Perhaps the noble Baroness was present at that meeting.
My noble friend Lady Lane-Fox asked about counselling. I entirely agree with my noble friend that counselling is a very important subject. Counselling varies between local authority areas and is very much a local matter for the statutory and voluntary bodies working together, dependent upon the particular needs of that area. I realise that that is rather a loose answer but it is the best that I can do.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, asked about adult training centres. She spoke about the difficulty the training centres had in dealing with the needs of multihandicapped people who are mentally handicapped. Meeting their needs is difficult, though I know that some centres cope well. We are looking at the whole range of day services for mentally handicapped people and I am sure that this will provide useful advice for the authorities concerned.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, it is important that the noble Baroness puts in the word "blind" so that this may appear in Hansard. She has mentioned the mentally handicapped but she has not mentioned the blind in that group.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I take the point of the noble Baroness and I am sure that her comment will appear in Hansard so that that important word is emphasised.
The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, talked about the training of hospital and other staff in the specialist needs of multi-handicapped blind and the deaf blind. The training needs of the NHS and social services department staff are primarily a matter for the employing authorities locally and decisions concerning policy on training and the attendance of staff on particular training courses must be left to them. So far as specialist
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training is concerned, my department already funds by 50 per cent. the annual expenditure of the North and South regional associations for the blind who provide specialist training courses for staff working in the field of visual handicap.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, in his very moving speech spoke of respite care, which I think was the first of his questions to me. I very much agree with the noble Lord about the value of respite care and I am glad to say that authorities are paying increasing attention to this. His second point concerned the Tom Clarke Bill. I have already dealt with that. The third point was the question of there not being enough places in residential care, which my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox has already mentioned. This is a matter for voluntary organisations and provision is increasing.
With regard to the guidance as to which local authority should fund, this should really be a matter for local authorities to settle on a commonsense basis; but I know there is a procedure for settling disputes between local authorities when they cannot agree. I was interested by the College of Furniture in London and, at the same time, I should like to pay tribute to the Disabled Living Foundation for the work that they do for providing equipment for people. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Renton mentioned the very helpful measures for charities which were in the recent Budget.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, spoke about research into mental handicap. As he will know, my department funds a considerable number of projects on mental handicap. I will write to the noble Lord in further detail on that matter. With regard to cuts, the government limits on local authority spending are based on the need to control their all-services' expenditure. Parities between services are left to authorities to decide. It would be extremely consistent with the Government's approach for reductions to be made with no cuts in personal social services at all if that is what the local authority decides.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, mentioned Care in the Community. Although this debate has centred mainly, because of its title, on the needs of the young, it is worth repeating that in July 1984 the Government announced the Helping the Community to Care scheme. We are making a total of £10·5 million available over three years, almost all through voluntary bodies. This is aimed particularly at improving care for elderly people and people who are mentally ill or mentally handicapped by assisting volunteers, families, neighbours and others to care for them more effectively and with greater confidence.
The Government recognise that the particular needs of each multi-handicapped person for health, social and educational provision should be assessed on a multi-disciplinary basis. This should be done at an early stage and monitored and reassessed at regular intervals. Clearly, early intervention is particularly appropriate for young multi-handicapped adults, irrespective of whether they are living in residential care or in the community. The transition from school to adulthood is a difficult stage in anyone's life, and this will of course be an especially fraught time for someone with multiple handicaps. The range of disabilities for multi-handicapped people can require the provision of particular types of services, especially

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when they are young people attempting to cope with the other pressures of life.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, said with great authority, the needs of young people who are deaf-blind will not necessarily be the same as those who are both mentally disordered and physically handicapped. So a proper co-ordination of services by both the statutory and voluntary sector is desirable for these clients to enable them to enhance their opportunities to play as full a part as possible in the community. Proper co-ordination of services means proper planning of services. It is this which the Government have been taking active steps to encourage. Progress in Partnership, the report of the working group on joint planning set up by local authority associations, the National Association of Health Authorities and the DHSS, was published in November 1985. We hope that it will lead to rapid progress in developing joint planning and the better use of all available resources.
I realise that probably, despite what I have said, in the eyes of some of your Lordships my role is that of the big bad wolf, or at least of a rather mean grandmother! I hope you will appreciate from what I have said that the Government and the statutory services are taking positive and practical steps to develop and improve the provision of services to young multi-handicapped people.

Motion for the Adjournment
8.54 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, in moving that this House do now adjourn, it has become traditional for whoever happens to find themselves on the Government Benches to wish the official Opposition, the other Opposition parties and everybody in all parts of this House a very happy Recess. I think that, in this House, whichever party happens to be in power at the moment, we take a more objective view of politics than perhaps is possible elsewhere. Therefore, the expressions of friendship between the sides could be more real here and I should like, on behalf of my noble friends, to thank all Members on all sides of the House for the very real collaboration that we have over these matters and to wish them a happy 10 days—or, rather, it is slightly less—in which to rest and become more able to deal with the rigours that are going to be experienced in the future. Whatever we say among ourselves, we are all very grateful indeed for the tremendous help we have from everybody who serves this House, without whom we should not be able to function.
Noble Lords: Hear, Hear!
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, may I join with the Government Chief Whip in wishing those few Peers who are still here at this hour a happy Recess. I should like particularly to join with him in the remarks he made about the staff of the House—all different echolons of the staff of the House—who serve us so well. We certainly hope that they have a restful Recess. I think we are all grateful for this short respite. Knowing that there are an inordinate number of Government Bills about to reach this House from another place and knowing that the summer may be as heavy as, if not heavier than, usual, we shall certainly benefit very much from this short 10-day Recess. We, for our part, and I am sure all Peers, will return invigorated for the fray which will commence again on 7th April.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to associate myself very strongly with the remarks of the Government Chief Whip and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. We would wish particularly to thank the staff for all their endeavours on our behalf and to wish them a very well-earned and peaceful Recess. I should like also to wish noble Lords of all parties and of none a very restful and happy Recess in preparation for the rigours of which we have been warned by the Government Chief Whip.

Clifton Suspension Bridge Bill [H.L.]
Read a first time.
Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Bill [H.L.]
Committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.

Local Government Bill
Returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.
House adjourned for the Easter Recess at four minutes before nine o'clock until Monday, 7th April next.

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