Sitting of 18 April 1988

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

    Disabled People
    Mr. Fearn: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received regarding facilities for the disabled on public transport.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): We often receive representations. We work with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, with transport operators arid authorities, and with vehicle designers and manufacturers to improve facilities for disabled people.
    Mr. Fearn: Is the Minister aware that disabled people are being trapped in the London Underground, mainly because there are no notices at the top of escalators? They go down into the tube and then the escalators cease to run. A few weeks ago, 11 up escalators were not in service. Will the Minister confirm that he will do something about that? Will he also consider whether disabled people can be catered for when the Channel tunnel rail link is started?
    Mr. Bottomley: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I am sure that he will have contacted London Regional Transport direct, and perhaps we may take the matter from there.
    The Channel tunnel will be a railway tunnel, and British Rail has made massive improvements in its facilities for disabled people. Both British Rail and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee deserve to be congratulated.
    Mr. Wigley: Will the Minister confirm that British Rail, in making those tremendous improvements, which I recognise, is made aware that disabled people have a need for toilets as well as seats? Will he discuss that point when opportunities arise? Will he confirm that the committee has links not only with railways and buses but with taxis and aeroplanes?
    Mr. Bottomley: Yes. I ought to pay tribute to those who serve on the Baldwin committee, because they bring a great deal of expertise and concern to bear and provide assistance to the advisory committee and to the Department's disabilities unit. The nationalised industry operators and other private operators would do a great deal better to pay more attention to what is said on behalf of the disabled. People with mobility difficulties make up about 10 per cent. of the population.

    Domestic Air Fares
    Mr. Darling: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with interested parties about the level of domestic air fares in the United Kingdom.
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Paul Channon): None. Fares on domestic services are effectively deregulated. The Civil Aviation Authority intervenes only to prevent anti-competitive pricing on these services.
    Mr. Darling: Is the Secretary of State aware of the widespread concern at the escalating cost of air fares within the United Kingdom, both from the point of tourism—I speak here of British holidaymakers who face add-on costs when they go abroad as well as the disincentive to foreign visitors to visit parts of the United Kingdom other than London—and of regional development? Is the Minister further aware that unless something is done about high air fares there will be a disincentive for firms to move away from London, which is not something that I would have thought the Government would welcome?
    Mr. Channon: The advantages of the competition policy that has been pursued for the past few years means that there is now more choice on many provincial services. There are now four operators on the London to Edinburgh route and six airlines have applied for licences to take over the B-Cal route. We shall have to see what happens, but I entirely agree that it is important that fares should be kept as low as possible. One new advantage is the recently introduced Apex fare, which goes some way towards meeting the points that the hon. Gentleman makes.

    Aviation Safety
    Mr. Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he intends to make any improvements in aviation safety during the next year.
    Mr. Channon: The Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for regulating aviation safety. The authority will be investing £200 million over the next five years. That includes the replacement of the main air traffic control computer, which I recently approved, and the progressive introduction of a computerised air miss alert system.
    Mr. Battle: In view of the recent near misses and the projected increase of air traffic over the summer holiday period, has there not been serious under-funding on computer development? Can the Minister assure the people of this country that safety will take absolute priority over competition in aviation policy?
    Mr. Channon: I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. As to the first part of his question concerning computers, the Government have provided the funding for which the CAA has asked. The matter is now proceeding and I hope that there will be substantial improvements.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Following the near accident at Gatwick airport recently, will my right hon. Friend discuss with the CAA and the BAA the adequacy of the airport as it is presently configured? Will he consider building a proper runway there so that aircraft do not have to use the taxiway as an alternative when the main runway is closed for repair?
    Mr. Channon: I shall consider that suggestion. I share hon. Members' worry about congestion in airspace in the south-east. The problem is not confined to Gatwick. I asked my officials some time ago to collaborate with the CAA and the BAA to produce a forecast of air traffic demand in the south-east and the capacity required to meet it.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Secretary of State completely satisfied with air safety over the new City airport, which is in the London borough of Newham? Does he agree that, to restore some public confidence in air safety over London, it would be in everybody's interests if he initiated a full public discussion, through some form of inquiry, so that representations from all interests could be made? Does he agree that public confidence might be restored in that way?
    Mr. Channon: I hope that the hon. Member will play his part in restoring public confidence. The House will be aware that the number of air misses that pose a danger to the public has declined dramatically in the past few years. There were only 16 in 1986, and I should be surprised if the provisional figures for 1987, which are not yet available, showed an increase. There is a later question about London City airport, but, in case it is not reached, I should say that it is matter for the CAA, which is satisfied that the operation of the airport is safe.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at the beginning of the peak season in air travel, it is irresponsible to put about groundless scares? While near misses must always be a matter of concern, if we consider the number of passengers who are carried it is clear that air safety has improved dramatically during the past 10 years, which is contrary to the impression that getting into an aeroplane is somehow dicing with death.
    Mr. Channon: I entirely agree. All the statistics bear out what my hon. Friend says. Nevertheless, I am in no way complacent about the matter. Any risk is serious. The CAA and all other relevant authorities will continue to pursue measures to make air travel even safer. I have already mentioned the new computer, and the air miss alert system is being investigated. The CAA is involved in a whole host of measures to make air travel even safer. My hon. Friend is entirely right. All the published figures and all the evidence of the past 10 years shows that the number of air misses has declined substantially.
    Mr. Rees: Will the Secretary of State discuss with the appropriate authorities the curious arrangement whereby an aeroplane that is coming in to land at Gatwick in certain circumstances lands on the taxiway? Did someone plan for that, or did it have to happen because of an emergency?
    Mr. Channon: The right hon. Gentleman does not put it quite fairly. The main runway is receiving necessary maintenance, which will take some time. During night hours, therefore—when the airport is less congested—the taxiway is being used. The runway must be maintained at some time. The CAA and the BAA think that this is the right time and the right way in which to do it. If either organisation or I were worried about safety, we would take measures to stop the work.
    Mr. Wheeler: Bearing in mind the tragedy at Manchester, can my right hon. Friend say when he hopes the CAA will report on the specification of safety hoods?
    Mr. Channon: The CAA hopes to finalise the specification for smoke hood's by the end of this month. It will then wish to consult widely other aviation authorities to establish whether it would be a good idea to make hoods mandatory.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Nobody wishes to scaremonger, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is widespread concern as air misses are reported almost every day? Although we appreciate the investment that the right hon. Gentleman has agreed, will he have urgent talks with the CAA and anyone else concerned to establish whether the investment can come to fruition much sooner than the five years he mentioned? It is quite clear that we cannot wait that long to get the matter right.
    Mr. Channon: I am in continual touch with the CAA, which has prime responsibility for these matters. It is as anxious as I am to speed up the process as much as it possibly can to improve the main air traffic control computers. I shall continue to have discussions with the CAA.
    The hon. Gentleman uncharacteristically exaggerates when he says that there is an air miss every day or so. In the past few weeks there have been approximately eight or nine incidents. We do not yet know how many of those involved risk to the general public, but the general figures do not appear to be very much out of line with what has happened in past years.

    Abandoned and Untaxed Vehicles
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to simplify procedures for the removal by local authorities of abandoned, unroadworthy and untaxed vehicles.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: We are considering whether procedures for removing abandoned vehicles can be simplified. Local authorities have no powers to remove unroadworthy or untaxed vehicles.
    Mr. Bowis: Will my hon. Friend consider two points in particular, among the many things that one can do, to improve the situation? First, will he consider initiating discussions with the DVLC and local authorities to see whether we can speed up the transfer of information from the DVLC, which can take 10 seconds for the police, but three weeks for local authorities? Secondly, will he consider the possibility of deeming cars which do not bear tax discs to be abandoned? There is nothing more infuriating for the law-abiding taxpayer than to see cars outside his home, alongside his own car, without any such tax discs.
    Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend will know that the North report covers some of those points. The Government will be considering their response to the recommendations.
    I accept my hon. Friend's suggestion about a discussion on a simple way for local authorities to check with the DVLC. I think he will accept that it is necessary to have some degree of confidentiality in respect of personal records held at Swansea.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that lack of public transport encourages people to use their cars excessively, so that elderly cars become unroadworthy and become the old bangers which are the subject of the question? Does he agree, therefore, that abandoned cars in the Yorkshire

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    dales national park are a particular eyesore? Should he not come to the House as soon as possible to make an urgent statement that the Settle-Carlisle railway will be retained?
    Mr. Bottomley: It has always struck me as rather odd that the hon. Gentleman should ask for a Minister to come to the House as soon as possible when he is already here and answering questions.
    It is far more likely that the abandoned cars were abandoned by those, especially in the London area, who, in growing numbers, have moved to public transport. That is a sign of the success of our policies.

    Warrington (Bus Services)
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has about the level of bus services in Warrington since deregulation.
    The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): The level of bus services in Warrington is about the same as it was before deregulation, but with improvements in some areas.
    Mr. Butler: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a lesson to be learnt from Warrington borough transport, which, with excellent trade union support, has increased its route mileage from 1.7 million to 3 million, its passenger fleet by 65 per cent. and its staff by 50 per cent. since deregulation?
    Mr. Mitchell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for illustrating yet again the advantages that flow from deregulation.
    In addition, I notice that there is increased frequency on the No. 18 bus service, run by Warrington borough transport, and the No. 19 has been increased in frequency from one an hour to two an hour. Those are further indications of the substantial benefits brought by deregulation.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: The next time that the Minister is on a No. 18 or No. 19 bus in Warrington, perhaps he would care to consider that, although Warrington may be a success story, according to the Association of Metropolitan Authorities' recent report on deregulation, patronage is down everywhere else—by 3 per cent. in the shire counties and by one third in Merseyside. Why has only Warrington made a success of deregulation?
    Mr. Mitchell: That is simply an indication that the hon. Gentleman is wholly out of touch with what is happening on the ground. Throughout the country there is about the same level of service as there was before. Increased mileage is being run and, moreover, the savings to ratepayers amount to £40 million a year.
    In addition, because of the removal of the over-heavy hand of regulation, one now sees minibus services sprouting in 250 areas throughout the country.

    Motorways
    Mr. Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many miles of motorway are currently under construction; how many miles are planned to be built in the next five years; and how many miles have been completed in the last five years.
    Mr. Channon: Over 160 miles of motorway construction and improvement have been completed in the last five years. Almost 60 miles are under construction. We are today announcing several additions to our road
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    programme, including our decision that the Blackburn southern bypass will be built as a motorway. This brings our motorway construction programme to 150 milles over the next five years.
    Mr. Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many more miles of motorways or motorway standard roads are needed if we are to have an adequate and modern road system? Does he further agree that, by and large, motorway building brings great safety and environmental benefits to the community as a whole, even if some people in local neighbourhoods are adversely affected? Does he agree that the priority in his road-building programme should be to remove voluminous and heavy vehicles from many inadequately designed roads within the centres of residential areas?
    Mr. Channon: Yes, I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend has said. That is why we have such a large motorway programme. Of course, some of the points raised in the latter part of his question can be solved by bypasses, for which we also have a large programme. For the speed of communications that businesses want increasingly, it is extremely important to have better and faster communications, and that means more motorways and trunk roads. It is also a great help to safety, because motorways are by far the safest roads in the country, and I am sure that the House will have been pleased to see that the recent provisional road statistics show that casualties are very much down.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: What is the Government's policy on motorway tolls? Is any work being done in the Department on toll stations being placed on the existing motorway network, and does the Minister have any proposals for tolls on roads to be built in the future?
    Mr. Channon: I am looking at all ways of encouraging private sector infrastructure, but I certainly have no plans for putting tolls on existing roads.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: The House will undoubtedly welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement today about further expenditure on motorways. Does he agree that there is an appalling waste of time and resources on overcrowded motorways on the present network? Will he tell the House what plans he has to look at the widening of existing motorways—apart from the M25—particularly the M4 east and west of the M25, which every day constitutes a major aggravation for many thousands of motorists trying to reach London?
    Mr. Channon: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The growth of road traffic has meant that some of the motorways are no longer as adequate as they were to deal with the enormous amount of traffic on them. We shall keep that under review. It makes it all the more important that we should continue with a proper programme of building motorways and trunk roads so that we can deal with the increasing problems.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. Friend accept that in my constituency we are grateful for the excellent standards of motorways, which enable businesses to come readily to Lancaster and tourists to come to our lovely city? But we want not only motorways: we want motorway links. Will my right hon. Friend please consider seriously the M6 link?
    Mr. Channon: I was rather nervous about my hon. Friend's question. I thought that there would be a sting in

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    the tail. I shall certainly consider anything that he puts to me. I have opened one motorway link in the past few months. We have that very much in mind as well. It is a question of priorities as to how one spends the money in the roads programme. All I can say is that the roads programme of £3 billion over the next five years is enormous by anyone's standards. It is far higher than in the past, and we shall look at all proposals.

    London Underground
    Mr. Boateng: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to make additional financial provision for improvements in safety standards on the London Underground.
    Mr. David Mitchell: We await proposals from London Regional Transport for any additional expenditure which may be necessary as a result of the lessons learnt from the King's Cross fire. These will be carefully considered during this year's investment and financing review.
    Mr. Boateng: Did the Minister or the Secretary of State receive any advice from the railway inspectorate, either before or after the tragedy at King's Cross, about the need for further investment in safety by London Regional Transport? Can he assure the House, in the light of widespread concern, particularly among users of the Metropolitan, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines, that any necessary investment will not await the outcome of the report, but will be put in hand immediately?
    Mr. Mitchell: The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is that London Underground is planning 50 per cent. more investment in real terms next year than in 1984–85, the last year for which the GLC had responsibility. Moreover, it is planning to spend this year the equivalent of 45 per cent. of its turnover on investment. I do not know of any other corporation in the country that is planning to invest on that scale.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend consider the problems of muggings and other crimes of violence, including robbery, that take place on underground stations and trains late at night, particularly on trains with no guards? Sometimes a train is virtually empty, so people cannot move to a carriage that is occupied.
    Mr. Mitchell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to this matter. We have provided an additional £15 million to fight crime on the London Underground. Recently, I had discussions with the British Transport police to see what can be done to learn the lessons of the effective changes that they have made on the southern end of the Northern line and to employ them elsewhere.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Minister not be so defensive as to answer questions different from those that he has been asked? The question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) related specifically to investment in safety, but the Minister chose to answer about general investment programmes. Is he aware that on 19 November, the day after the King's Cross disaster, I asked the Secretary of State whether LRT would consider quickly the lessons to be learnt from that disaster, make any necessary investment, and take action immediately rather than wait for the report to be finished? Is it not sad that five months later my hon. Friend and other hon. Members should be asking the same question
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    about how seriously LRT takes safety? Will the Minister meet LRT and Sir Keith Bright so that no further criticisms can be made at the inquiry about lackadaisical attitudes to safety?
    Mr. Mitchell: I think that, unintentionally, the hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair. I assure him that I have had meetings with Dr. Ridley about this subject and received assurances that anything deemed to be necessary for safety will not be held up by LRT's management until the completion of the inquiry.

    Aircraft (Fire Safety)
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he or the Civil Aviation Authority has made of the fire safety implications of considerable quantities of duty-free alcohol being carried aboard large passenger aircraft; if he will examine the feasibility of siting duty free shops in arrival lounges only; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for air safety regulation. It says that there is no evidence that carrying duty-free alcohol on passenger flights is in itself dangerous. We do not propose to review the siting of duty-free shops.
    Mr. Dalyell: With regard to the Civil Aviation Authority, Christopher Tugendhat writes:
    "Nevertheless, we would be happy to see any international moves to eliminate its carriage, such as may happen in the EEC over the forthcoming period."
    That quotation was from a letter dated 15 April. Can the discrepancy about the CAA's attitude be cleared up? How much sense does it make to have 500 bottles of booze in the cabin of a jumbo jet during an emergency, bearing in mind the risks with regard to fire and weight?
    Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman does not provide any discrepancy when he reads out the letter from Christopher Tugendhat. Clearly, if 500 bottles are not being carried there could be a saving of £12,000 a year, and that point was made in "The Green Capitalist," which was reviewed in the New Scientist. The important point is that where there is a safety risk the CAA takes action, but where there is not, it does not.

    Tyres
    Mr. Gregory: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of tyres tested on motor vehicles in use have a tread depth below 1·6 mm; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: This information is not available.
    Mr. Gregory: I am slightly surprised by my hon. Friend's comment. Should not the United Kingdom be moving towards a minimum tyre depth of 1·6mm, which has been adopted in a number of countries and proposed as a minimum tyre tread depth for the European Community, bearing in mind that Government car tyres must be changed when they reach a tread depth of 2mm? My hon. Friend is treating United Kingdom citizens with rather less grace than those who travel in Government cars. Further, will he consider the whole width of the tyre tread, rather than a proportion of it? Will we continue to put lives at risk?
    Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend knows perfectly well that we are not putting lives at risk. He knows perfectly

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    well also, as does the tyre industry, that in this country we have safer tyres than most other European countries, as the MOT test detects not only defective but worn tyres. It is not true that the Government car service replaces tyres when the tread reaches a depth of 2mm. Research shows that the present tyre regulations produce the required safety standards.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: The Minister may want to reconsider his answer. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory) is right to say that it is necessary to take into account the whole width of the tyre tread. to improve safety standards. Why will the Minister not come clean with the House and accept the overwhelming case for moving to a minimum tyre depth of 1mm across the whole of the tyre?
    Mr. Bottomley: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman meets me to discuss in detail the discussions that I had with the tyre industry about 18 months ago, during which we considered research evidence about cars' cornering ability in addition to the information that we already had about cars' breaking ability. I think that the hon. Gentleman's fears would then be set aside.
    Mr. Waller: Will my hon. Friend resist attempts to force conformity upon us, when it has been shown clearly that spending extra money and imposing extra costs on motorists will not bring commensurate benefits in road safety?
    Mr. Bottomley: I agree with my hon. Friend. We should concentrate our efforts on aspects of the vehicle, as well as driver and road safety, that produce results. That is how we achieved the lowest death rate since 1954. It is one reason why our safety standards are the highest in the European Community. It is right that we should continue doing what works rather than just what is asked for in the House of Commons or meets a ministerial prejudice.

    Rail Electrification
    Mr. Madden: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the chairman of British Rail to discuss plans for further rail electrification.
    Mr. David Mitchell: My right hon. Friend is always happy to discuss electrification if the chairman so wishes, but I understand that British Rail has no current plans for further major route electrification.
    Mr. Madden: Will the Minister arrange an early meeting with the chairman of British Rail and drop some heavy hints that if the chairman submits an application to electrify the Bradford to Leeds line the Minister will smile upon it? Does the Minister agree that failure to electrify that line would represent economic insanity? Does he understand that many people in Bradford note that insanity, especially as they were recently told that if the line was not electrified shiny new electric engines would be brought into Bradford behind diesel locos? Will the Minister tell the chairman of British Rail that the retention of the Wortley curve and electrification would give the Bradford people, at long last, the opportunity of a fast, efficient, safe and comfortable rail service from Bradford to the rest of the country?
    Mr. Mitchell: I understand that British Rail has already examined the case for electrification of the line from Leeds to Bradford and concluded that the costs far outweighed potential benefits.
    Mr. Adley: Is not the reason why BR has not come forward with any further major electrification proposals the fact that it cannot meet the Government's extremely tight investment criteria? Will my hon. Friend consider that point? Will he confirm that under section 40 of the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 the Secretary of State has ample powers to authorise additional electrification programmes in connection with the Channel tunnel? Will my hon. Friend confirm that it remains the Government's priority to provide the distant regions in particular with the best modern rail links to that system?
    Mr. Mitchell: It is pointless, if an equally good service can be provided by diesels at lower cost, to go for electrification en principe. As for section 40 and Channel tunnel expenditure, I remind my hon. Friend that the Act requires that expenditure to be wholly commercial and not subsidised.
    Dr. Marek: Will the Minister admit that it is clear nonsense that the Bradford to Leeds line should not be electrified under the present scheme, and similarly that it is nonsense that services to cities such as Chester and Wrexham should be not be electrified to the west coast main line at Crewe and that the Blackpool line should not be electrified to the west coast line at Preston? Will the Minister get British Rail to consider producing a detailed analysis of the schemes in terms of investment and its estimate of the extra revenue and extra passengers so that we, the public, and the House, can judge?
    Mr. Mitchell: British Rail proposes electrification when it sees it as worth while. I do not have in my head all the cases listed by the hon. Gentleman, but I recall that the Blackpool to Manchester proposal would have cost £12 million—I think that is the correct figure—and the saving would have been one minute on a journey. The hon. Gentleman fails to recognise just how efficient the modern diesels are, especially the Sprinter services which British Rail is introducing.
    Mr. Sackville: Will my hon. Friend give an assurance that there will be a direct and efficient rail link between the Channel tunnel and the north of England so that we get some of the benefit of that huge investment?
    Mr. Mitchell: The linkage between the Channel tunnel and north of London on the east and west coast main lines has always featured as part of British Rail's proposals.
    Mr. Vaz: Is the Minister aware that Leicestershire county council has commissioned a report on the electrification of the London to Leicester line? Is he further aware that Leicestershire county council, Leicester city council, Nottinghamshire county council, Derby city council and Sheffield city council all support the idea of an electrified line between London and Leicester? What advice does he propose to give to those local authorities and commuters, who wish the line to be electrified as a matter of urgency?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman should not assume that there are automatic substantial benefits from electrification. I remind him that his line, with its HST-125s, is faster than the west coast main line, which has been electrified.
    Mr. Snape: Does the Minister not understand that the electrification of the lines between, for example, Bradford and Leeds, and for that matter, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which is demanded by my hon. Friends and others, is being

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    held up because the schemes fail to meet the criteria laid down by the Department? They fail to meet those criteria because all the schemes are treated in isolation instead of being treated as part of a national rail network. The hon. Gentleman made a comment about the £12 million cost of electrifying the line between Manchester and Blackpool. Can he tell the House how much the M55 motorway between the M6 and Blackpool cost, and whether it was built in isolation or as part of a national motorway network?
    Mr. Mitchell: British Rail runs a national network and it is up to British Rail to decide what form of locomotion it uses to operate most effectively. I know that the hon. Gentleman would like British Rail to go out on a spending spree, like a drunken sailor, but I remind him that when his Government were in office the average annual spend in real terms was £41 million, whereas under the Conservatives it has been £72 million.

    London City Airport
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received regarding the operation of the London City airport.
    Mr. Channon: None, Sir.
    Mr. Taylor: The Minister has answered earlier questions about the increased congestion of the skies over London and the dangers associated with that, which were certainly not promised when the City airport was being praised by the Government. Furthermore, regional links that were promised, such as the link to Newquay and the now abandoned Plymouth link, have not been given their proper value. Does the Minister agree that not only does the City airport appear to have failed to fulfil its promises, but that efforts should now be turned to promoting regional airports in the different areas of this country?
    Mr. Channon: I cannot imagine why the hon. Gentleman should want to knock the London City airport. I am in favour of developing both regional airports and the London City airport. As I understand it from the operator of the line, the reason why the service to Plymouth is not in operation is that it has not been a commercial success. A great many other services can be operated from London City airport. It is a safe airport and I hope that it will flourish.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Will my right hon. Friend advise the House of the planning situation with regard to the operation of the only jet aeroplane which, to my knowledge, is capable of operating from the STOLport in Docklands, namely, the BAe 146? If those inhibitions were removed, would not the commercial potential of this fine airport be very much greater?
    Mr. Channon: I had better not comment on that, because such an application would possibly come to me for approval. Any suggestion of a change to allow jet aeroplanes to fly from the airport would require a variation of the existing planning approval.

    Travelcard and Capitalcard
    Ms. Ruddock: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimates are available to him of the effect which the introduction of the Travelcard and Capitalcard has had on the volume of traffic and level of congestion in London.
    Mr. David Mitchell: No reliable estimates are available, but Travelcard and Capitalcard are believed to have been significant in increasing the use of public transport in London and can be expected to have released capacity on the road network.
    Ms. Ruddock: I thank the Minister for that reply. I believe that Capitalcard and Travelcard must, indeed, have assisted in removing congestion. We Londoners very much appreciate that and are therefore extremely worried about the possibility that Travelcard and Capitalcard may no longer exist if bus deregulation comes into force. Will the Minister guarantee that Capitalcard and Travelcard will continue if bus deregulation should occur in London?
    Mr. Mitchell: When we bring forward detailed proposals for bus deregulation in London, there will be ample opportunities for substantial debate. I am sure that the hon. Lady would not want me to pre-empt her opportunities.

    Coaches (Safety)
    Mr. Cran: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the answer of 7 March, Official Report column 98, what further measures he intends to introduce to improve safety for coach users.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: We intend to require new coaches to meet European standards for the flammability of coach interiors, the strength of coach seats, and anti-lock braking.
    Mr. Cran: Notwithstanding what my hon. Friend has said, does he agree that even after 1 October, in a roll-over, most coach passengers will be unrestrained and will be injured by broken glass from the side windows? If the Consumers' Association is correct in saying that the provision of restraints for all passengers would add 1·7 per cent. to the cost of the coach, does he agree that that would be money well spent and that the Government should encourage it?
    Mr. Bottomley: I shall be happy to discuss that with the British Coach Council. The important point is to try always to deal with the most likely causes of crashes. While pursuing greater coach safety, it is worth remembering that travelling by coach is much safer than travelling in one's car.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Teesside Crown Courts
    Mr. Devlin: To ask the Attorney-General when he next intends to visit Teesside Crown courts.
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): I have no present plans to do so.
    Mr. Devlin: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that a visit from him is long overdue, because in Teesside Crown court the victims of crimes have to wait in the same waiting area as those who may have attacked or assaulted them? I should be grateful if he could find time to come to Teesside and put forward some proposals to improve the situation.
    The Solicitor-General: I sympathise with my hon. Friend and I think that I have some good news for him. New Crown courts are currently under construction in Teesside and are due for completion early in 1991. These will provide 12 new courtrooms with 28 witness and

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    consultation rooms and, particularly pertinent to what he said, a separate witness waiting suite with its own toilet facilities.
    Mr. John Morris: Is the Solicitor-General aware that despite his good news for Teesside, which I welcome, another problem that will remain in Teesside and in many other courts is the absence of dock officers? When a custodial sentence has to be passed, the presiding officer has to send a message to his clerk to ensure that a dock officer is present. A similar situation pertains in magistrates' courts when there are no policemen present. Unhappily, one of these days a great tragedy will occur because no one will be present to search even a defendant on bail before he is arraigned. That is a real problem in our courts.
    The Solicitor-General: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his welcome for the substantial new court building programme that is in train. I recognise the problem to which he refers and, of course, it is in part unfortunately exacerbated by the industrial action in the prison service. Attention is being given to that.

    Crown Prosecution Service
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Attorney-General if he will visit the east midlands regional office of the Crown Prosecution Service.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I next plan to visit the offices of the Nottinghamshire area of the CPS next month. There is as yet no east midlands regional office.
    Mr. Allen: When the Atorney-General visits the office, when it is in existence either in Lincoln or in Nottingham, will he pass on congratulations from his Department on the excellent service that it provides in the area? Will he learn from the prosecuting solicitor service that preceded it and re-examine the salary scales for people in the Crown Prosecution Service so that they can be brought up to the standards in that area? Will he ensure that there is no further extension of the acquittal rate by the Crown Prosecution Service because it is stretched and cannot prepare its cases properly, and often insufficient evidence is presented when the case comes to court?
    The Attorney-General: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said at the outset of his supplementary question. Last month I paid a short and informal visit to the Nottinghamshire office and I wholly endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about its standards. I can tell him that the Treasury has recently made an offer to the unions representing the great majority of lawyers in the Crown Prosecution Service that would secure a substantial rise in pay with immediate effect. I am confident that this will lead to a marked improvement in recruitment to the service and will better reward those who have worked with such commitment, including those in the hon. Gentleman's area, since the creation of the service.
    Mr. Hind: My right hon. and learned Friend's comments on the improvement in remuneration for staff are greatly appreciated. What long-term effect does he envisage that improvement will have on recruitment and morale in the Crown Prosecution Service? Many Conservative Members are concerned about that.
    The Attorney-General: I think that everyone understands that there is a shortage of lawyers generally—
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    [Interruption.] It may be thought that there are too many lawyers in the House, but there is a shortage generally. The Crown Prosecution Service must compete in that environment. I have visited about half the CPS areas, spending a whole day in each. The increased pay now on offer from the Treasury will have an encouraging effect on recruitment and, just as important, on retention.
    Mr. Vaz: Does the Attorney-General agree that one way to solve the crisis in the Leicestershire Crown Prosecution Service would be to split it from the Northamptonshire CPS, so that each operates separately and recruits separately to fill the existing vacancies?
    The Attorney-General: Those two counties will benefit as much as any other area from the increased reumuneration that I have just announced. One problem has been that one of those two counties had no county prosecuting solicitors' department before the CPS was introduced, while the other did. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General has visited those areas. and I am confident that the problem will be overcome.

    Security Services
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Attorney-General how many members of the security services have been prosecuted for espionage (a) successfully and (b) unsuccessfully, in each of the past 10 years; and if he will make a statement.
    The Solicitor-General: In the past 10 years two members of the security and intelligence services have been prosecuted—Prime in 1982 and Bettany in 1984. Both were convicted.
    Mr. Greenway: Is this, or is this not, the unseen tip—the tip of an unseen iceberg—[Interruption.] Well, they sometimes turn over and the tip goes under. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that any person guilty of betraying his country should be vigorously brought to book?
    The Solicitor-General: I have no reason to think that it is the tip of an iceberg or that members of the security and intelligence services are anything other than loyal and dedicated public servants. However, my hon. Friend will recall that Bettany and Prime, who were brought to book and prosecuted, received total sentences of 23 and 35 years respectively.
    Mr. Winnick: No foreign intelligence service with any sense would ever recruit the hon. Member for Ealing., North (Mr. Greenway) as a spy. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it would be helpful if the Attorney-General took seriously the allegations of subversion by some members of the security forces against an elected Government in the 1970s? Is it not essential that the truth be known, whether or not Wright lied?
    The Solicitor-General: I have nothing to add to the statement made in the House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

    Prosecutions
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Attorney-General how many decisions relating to prosecutions he has taken in the last three months.
    The Attorney-General: Too many to enumerate accurately.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Government, as a matter of urgency, review the law as set out in the Company Securities (Insider Dealing) Act 1985 following the case of Mr. Brian Fisher, who was brought before the courts but cleared of the charge of illlegally trading in the shares of Thomson T-Line? Does the Attorney-General understand that this is an important area that needs urgent reform? If no action is taken, many of those involved in the criminal offence of insider dealing will go to court and get off. Is he aware of the cases on the desk of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry relating to Matthew Brown shares? Should, not action be taken in the courts against those people? We demand a prosecution, because they are all guilty.
    The Attorney-General: If the hon. Gentleman is so sure that they are all guilty, one is rather surprised that he troubles with the prosecution. The Government have an unsurpassed record on the introduction of legislation designed to ensure high standards and conformity with proper standards in the matter to which his question refers. I have seen a report of the case to which he referred. I shall ensure that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Home Secretary consider the matter.

  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    AIDS
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commowealth Affairs what requests for assistance he has received for programmes to combat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
    The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Chris Patten): The World Health Organisation is moblising the external assistance needed for AIDS control programmes in developing countries. Subject to parliamentary approval, we shall contribute £4·5 million to support its work this year. In addition, we have taken part in donor meetings, arranged by the World Health Organisation, in four African countries and have pledged a total of £4·6 million over five years towards their national AIDS programmes.
    Mr. Butler: My hon. Friend may be aware that the South African Government have sent about 1,000 migrant workers back to Malawi because they are AIDS positive. Has he received any request for help from Malawi?
    Mr. Patten: I have had no official report on the matter that my hon. Friend has mentioned; nor, as far as I know, has the World Health Organisation. We have received no requests for assistance from the Malawi Government.
    Mr. Boateng: The Minister will be aware that quite considerable success has been achieved by various public health information campaigns on the issue of AIDS in the sub-Saharan region. The spread of the virus is made infinitely worse by the collapse of the, economic infrastructures of many of the most severely affected countries. Does he recognise that, as part of the campaign against AIDS, the time has come to re-evaluate our policy on sub-Saharan debt and to take new initiatives to create in such regions an economic climate that is more likely to enable and enhance, rather than hinder, the combating of AIDS?
    Mr. Patten: I take it that, like, for example, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers last year, the hon.
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    Gentleman is endorsing the Chancellor of the Exchequer's debt initiative. Again, last week, the Chancellor made a speech at the spring meetings of the international financial institutions in Washington. We hope that decisions can be taken by the autumn meetings. It is time that we acted, and acted decisively, on African debt.

    Kampuchea
    Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent changes he has made in United Kingdom aid to Kampuchean refugees on the Thai-Cambodia border.
    Mr. Chris Patten: No recent changes have been made. We continue to provide substantial aid to Cambodians seeking refuge in the border camps, in cash through international relief agencies, and in kind through our embassy in Bangkok. In 1987 such assistance totalled £1·37 million.
    Mr. Mullin: Is the Minister aware of a report that was published recently by Tony Jackson, of Oxfam, suggesting that some of our food aid is finding its way into the hands of the Khmer Rouge? In the light of that, does he not think that a new look should he taken into where aid is going? As he knows, every year at the United Nations we vote for the Khmer Rouge, but I am sure he will agree that it is shameful for his Department to provide it with food as well.
    Mr. Patten: We do not vote every year in the United Nations in favour of Khmer Rouge. With 116 other countries we vote in favour of the withdrawal of foreign forces from Cambodia and in favour of free elections under United Nations supervision. I am surprised to hear Opposition Members attacking that United Nations resolution in such robust terms. Our aid does not go to the Khmer Rouge, and we have received assurances from the relevant United Nations agencies that that is the case.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does the Minister accept that the Thai Government attach considerable importance to aid being given in cash terms—so that they can pay farmers to grow crops—rather than their being sent food of any sort? Regrettably, if they cannot pay farmers to grow legitimate crops, they will grow poppies.
    Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the relationship between the support given to farmers in the region and the importance of preventing an increase in the cultivation of poppies. We have one or two programmes which are attempting to eradicate drugs, and they depend very much on giving the right incentives to farmers.
    Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is a reasonable man—something that distinguishes him from many of his own party. Therefore, knowing what we all know now about the unspeakable horrors of year zero under the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea, why do the Minister and the Government continue to hide behind this 116-nation resolution and vote in the Credentials Committee of the United Nations to recognise the coalition that includes the perpetrators of the barbarism that occurred so many years ago and as a consequence deny, out of expediency, the valuable aid that the people of that country so desperately need today?
    Mr. Patten: I shall not damage the hon. Gentleman's career by paying him a similar compliment in return. I

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    would point out, once again, that what we are voting for in the United Nations is free elections under United Nations supervision and for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Cambodia. Those are entirely legitimate objectives. At the same time, we provide humanitarian assistance for refugees on the borders of Cambodia, and will continue to do so.

    Nepal
    Dr. Michael Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he proposes any new aid for Nepal; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Chris Patten: During my recent visit to Nepal I announced a new British grant of £20 million for development aid.
    Dr. Clark: Does my hon. Friend agree that there are few countries with closer links to Britain than Nepal? Does he also agree that there are few countries more grateful for the aid that Britain gives than Nepal? Is he aware of the need of funds in Nepal for reafforestation? Is he hopeful that some of the welcome £20 million that he has just mentioned will be spent in that direction?
    Mr. Patten: I very much agree with what my hon. Friend has said about relations between Britain and Nepal. He is also right to point to the importance of afforestation schemes in that country. When I recently visited Nepal I was pleased to visit the Forestry Institute, the new buildings of which have been erected with assistance from this country. I met the Forestry Minister and discussed the further help that we could provide to that sector in his country. I also visited the first-class agricultural research station at Pakrabhas, which is also doing a good deal of work in that sector.
    Mr. Cohen: If the Minister consults his Front-Bench colleagues, he will discover that a constituent of mine was treated in a deplorable manner by the Nepalese authorities, in breach of both Nepalese and international law. Will the Minister make the aid conditional on those authorities improving their human rights record?
    Mr. Patten: We have drawn the attention of the Nepal Government to some of the cases raised by Amnesty International.
    Mr. Soames: Is my hon. Friend aware of the anxiety about the future of the Gurkha hospital? Will his Department be able to assist that excellent institution?
    Mr. Patten: We are discussing with the Nepal Government the conversion of Dharan. I agree with what my hon. Friend said about the value of the hospital at that base, and that is something that we shall have to take into account in the next few years.

    Soil Erosion (Assistance)
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance Her Majesty's Government are providing for measures to prevent soil erosion in areas bordering the Sahara.
    Mr. Chris Patten: Through our contributions to the European development fund we are playing a significant. part in supporting measures to combat desertification in countries bordering the Sahara. Projects costing some £123 million have been approved so far under the sixth European development fund; our share of this amounts to about £20 million. In addition, we are providing assistance in the Sudan from our bilateral programme aimed at halting desert encroachment and reducing environmental decline.
    Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that the United Nations environmental programme forecasts the loss of good land in Africa because of desertification? Is he also aware of the estimates from the European Commission of how much of central, east and west Africa will be lost by the same process? Following his helpful reply, does the Minister agree that preventing the loss of agricultural land in Africa should be one of our main priorities for our overseas aid development programme?
    Mr. Patten: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of halting desertification. The Sahara is moving an inexorable 4 m per year towards the Nile. That is why we have some good projects in Sudan; for example, the western savannah project, and the northern region irrigation rehabilitation programme, which I saw for myself. That is why we support the work of SOS Sahel, which is one of the best non-governmental organisations working in the area.
    Mr. Stanbrook: Is my hon. Friend aware that investment in the provision of deep concrete-lined wells in villages abutting the Sahara would benefit this cause to a far greater extent than similar developments elsewhere?
    Mr. Patten: I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of wells in the area. We have several projects to rehabilitate those that already exist and to build new ones.

Persian Gulf (Developments)
3.30 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the latest developments in the Gulf.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonweath Office (Mr. David Mellor): On Thursday 14 April the US frigate, Samuel B. Roberts, struck a mine in international waters in the Gulf, resulting in 10 injuries. The Americans have clear evidence of fresh Iranian mine laying, a cowardly act which we utterly condemn.
In the early hours of today US naval forces bombarded the Iranian operated Sassan and Nasr oil platforms in the Sassan oilfield. We support the American action as a measured and proportionate response to the Iranian mine laying.
Later on this morning Iranian gunboats and perhaps helicopters attacked the American staffed Scan bay oil platform off Abu Musa island. The Hong Kong flagged storage vessel, York Marine, was set on fire in the attack and its Indian crew have abandoned ship. A US flagged service tug, the Willie Tide, was also attacked. We deplore this irresponsible and irrational action by the Iranians with no advance warning. There may well be casualties, but we have no further details at present.
I should add that American warships have also sunk an Iranian fast patrol boat, the Joshan, north of Sassan, in an exchange apparently began by the Joshan. Latest reports indicate that the Iranian frigate, Sahand, has been involved in an exchange of fire with US naval forces. The Sahand has been totally disabled and is on fire.
Mr. Kaufman: Is it not a fact that nine months have elapsed since the passage of Security Council resolution 598 calling for a ceasefire between Iran and Iraq, and that due to the obstinacy and procrastination of Iran no progress has been made in implementing that resolution, despite the Foreign Secretary's assurance then that non-compliance would trigger discussion of possible enforcement measures?
Does the Minister recall the warning that I gave on 21 July 1987, and again on 21 October, that escalation through unilateral United States naval action and consequent tit-for-tat warlike exchanges could lead to uncontrollable escalation, with grave consequences for peace? Has not the ratchet of that escalation been turned most dangerously today?
Her Majesty's Opposition totally condemn the fresh Iranian mine laying which has led to the latest outbreak in the Gulf, as well as the most recent Iranian aggression, including the outrageous attack on the York Marine. However, is not the attack on the York Marine a direct consequence of the United State's attack on Iranian oil installations? How can that United States attack be reconciled with resolution 598, which calls upon all other states to exercise the utmost restraint and refrain from any act that might lead to a further escalation and widening of the conflict?
Will the Minister tell the House how the Armilla patrol and Britain's minesweepers will be affected? When I met them in the Gulf recently, British naval ratings, while ready and eager to do their job for this country, expressed concern at being placed at risk by America's undisclosed
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rules of engagement. The self-imposed role of policing international sea lanes is not the prerogative of the United States or any other maritime nation. Is it not now time that all naval fleets in the Gulf were placed under United Nations command so that Iran and Iraq should be in no doubt that an attack on vessels or installations of any non-combatant nation is an attack on the entire world community? Above all should not the five permanent members now go immediately to the Security Council to demand a mandatory arms embargo on either combatant still refusing to agree to a ceasefire? Nine months have been wasted. We should not waste a single day more.
Mr. Mellor: As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, we have been taking the lead in trying to seek follow-up action at the United Nations and we have been instrumental in providing the drafting of a follow-up resolution for an arms embargo. I am grateful for his support for that policy. It is not through any act or default on our part that a follow-up resolution has not been agreed.
The right hon. Gentleman should be clear about one point. It is bad enough that this war continues between Iran and Iraq and obviously, we, like other members of the international community, want to see it brought to an end, but the persistent attempts by the Iranians to spread the hostilities across the Gulf to attack international shipping that is simply using the right of passage to carry on international trade and to attack installations that belong to countries that are not participating in this war is wholly unacceptable. The only reason why we have not seen more of this Iranian action is the presence of United States, British and other naval forces in the Gulf. Our Armilla patrol will continue to do its duty.
The unacceptable action in the recent incident was clearly the decision of the Iranians to start laying mines again—a cowardly act—the consequence of which was the severe damage done to the United States warship in international waters. In those circumstances, the United States was fully entitled to the right of self-defence, under article 51 of the United Nations charter, to take measured and proportionate action against Iranian oil platforms which, the United States says, are used to facilitate attacks on international shipping. I do not believe that we would be any nearer preventing the spread of hostilities in the Gulf if the United States refused to take action on the provocation offered by this fresh mine-laying incident.
It is crucial for us all to be realistic about this matter. What is entirely unrealistic is the requirement for a UN naval force. There can be no basis for thinking that a UN naval force is a practical proposition at this time. The nearer one gets to New York and the headquarters of the UN, the nearer one gets to a recognition that it is merely a piece of escapism to think that a UN naval force is a credible option in today's circumstances.
Mr. David Howell: Is not the little exercise of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) in America-bashing inappropriate and unconstructive at present? Following the difficulties into which resolution 598 got the United Nations, following in turn the actions by Iraq, which somewhat prejudiced its position, is not the need now for moves to be made on the basis of the widest possible international support to get an

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effective and tough arms embargo against the Iranian fanatics? Is not that the next move that should be made, and will my hon. and learned Friend comment on it?
Mr. Mellor: I agree with my right hon. Friend that there has been fault on both sides in this war. It is absolutely clear that the Iraqis would have accepted resolution 598 and that the Iranians have persistently refused to do so. The international community must address that matter.
Sir Russell Johnston: Is the Minister aware that many people believe that our greatly increased trade with Iran enables it in part to provide the sinews of the war that were behind this incident, and that we should examine our position? The Minister did not make it clear in answer to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) whether he fears that escalation will ensue from action in relation to oil platforms. He did not say whether there were any casualties on the York Marine or whether any holders of British passports were involved. Will he tell us that now?
Mr. Mellor: The best information that I can give to the House is that contained in my original answer: there may have been casualties, but we have no details. As far as we know, the crew of the York Marine are Indian, but that does not lessen the seriousness with which we regard the incident.
As for escalation, I repeat the point that I made earlier. The act that led to escalation was the Iranians' cynical and cowardly mining of international waters—a haphazard business that could have resulted in the loss of any ship travelling in the vicinity. Unless action is taken to ensure that the Iranians are aware that such a policy cannot flourish, we shall see more such incidents. We say that the United States was entitled to make a measured and appropriate response, pursuant to the right of self-defence for all sovereign states under article 51 of the United Nations charter, and that is what the United States did.
As for trade, in recent years our exports to Iran have fallen dramatically, to about £240 million. There is no trade with Iran in armaments or any equipment and supplies that could extend the war. That has been our position for a long time.
Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that Iran must be contained? Does he further agree that, once committed in the Gulf, the United States had to react and that the House should support that reaction? Does he accept that the United Kingdom is involved in matters in which it exercises insufficient overall control? In those circumstances, and accepting the magnificent role of the Royal Navy in the Gulf in recent years, will he do his utmost to de-escalate the position?
Mr. Mellor: The presence of the Armilla patrol is intended as a de-escalatory move. It is intended to protect the free passage of British and British dependency flag shipping, to allow it to carry on what mariners have done for generations and to allow proper trade with countries in the Gulf. We shall continue to do that, and we believe that that is the best contribution that we can make to ensuring that international lawlessness does not prevail in the Gulf.
Mr. Peter Shore: Is it not entirely contrary to international law, and entirely wrong, for the Iranians to attack neutral shipping in a neutral port
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in the Gulf? Was that ship conducted through the Straits of Hormuz by the Armilla patrol, and will it enjoy that protection on the way back? What action will the Minister take with Iran to register our strong objection and to protest at what has been done?
Mr. Mellor: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. The York Marine was not known to the Armilla patrol. As far as we know, it is a Hong Kong-registered vessel that is leased by the Bute Oil Company, which operates the oilfield that was attacked by the Iranians this morning. The ship was being used as a storage vessel when it was attacked.
I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about Iranian attacks on neutral shipping. The attack on Abu Musa island, whose sovereignty is disputed between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, marks an escalation in the conflict because it is a further attack on facilities operated by countries that are not engaged in the hostilities.
As for British action, we wish to take a cool look at the position. We do not have all the facts, and I should not he pressed further on that point now.
Mr. Anthony Nelson: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that there will be widespread support for the clarity and supportive nature of his statement this afternoon? Does he agree that deliberate aggression in international waters invites retaliation? Would it not be unacceptable to have as a response to aggression all international flags of free countries flying under the flag of the United Nations? Countries must be able to exercise their right of self-defence, as the Americans have done, and we should support them fully.
Mr. Mellor: I agree with my hon. Friend. In the past 12 months, Western navies have been in the Gulf and their presence has acted to confine the Iranian willingness to get involved in acts of international hooliganism and aggression. It is part of that policy of containment that a nation should be free to exercise its right of self defence when provocation occurs of the nature that the Iranians have offered. If the Iranians were to think that no such self-defensive action were to follow, it would give them carte blanche to become involved in further actions, such as the mine laying.
Mr. David Young: Both sides of the House accept that there was provocation, but will the Minister tell us whether there was any consultation under the much-flaunted special relationship between the United States and Britain regarding the retaliatory action that was taken? That action must inevitably involve, in some form of escalation, the lives of British seamen. Has the Minister any information about the supply, or promise, of speedboats to Iran by neutral countries such as Sweden? If so, what representations are being made by the Government?
Mr. Mellor: It is a matter for individual judgment, but I believe that the greatest threat to the lives of British seamen is from the laying of mines in international waters by the Iranians. Failure to take action to deal with that puts British seamen at a greater risk than they are as a result of the alternative course that has been adopted.
With regard to what the United States did this morning, we were notified a few hours before, but we were not consulted as such. As to the sale of arms to Iran and Iraq, until there is an arms embargo resolution of the United

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Nations, it is a matter for each country to determine its rules. We, of course, have our own have very clear rules about such sales.
Mr. Robert Rhodes James: I was involved in the establishment, maintenance and administration of a UN peacekeeping force. Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that it is difficult enough to establish an effective land force—as we have discovered in Lebanon, Cyprus an elsewhere—and that the UN is totally incapable of having a UN naval force? Although the UN may have a role in the area, a UN naval force is not the answer.
Mr. Mellor: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said that it had taken nearly six months to achieve a follow-up resolution on paper imposing an arms embargo. How long does anyone believe that it would take to establish a UN naval force? We are faced with a problem not next year or in the next decade, but now.
Mr. George Galloway: Opposition Members are not troubled by the fact that there has been a response against Iranian aggression—we are in favour of a tough response against such aggression; what troubles us, and troubles the Royal Navy personnel with whom I have spoken in the Gulf, is the unilateral nature of such American action. I have heard the Minister say three times in the House that a UN-commanded naval force in the Gulf is impractical. I have never heard him explain exactly how and why that is so. Will he give the House the benefit of such an explanation now?
Mr. Mellor: It is interesting that the one country that has been anxious to see a UN naval force, the Soviet Union, avoided giving details for some months about exactly what that force would involve. When the Soviet Union came up with those details, it appeared that it envisaged a force accompanying vessels, not just to the side of the Gulf not involved in the conflict, but into Iranian ports. The idea of a UN naval force interposing itself between two combatants who are determined to attack shipping serving each other's ports is, I believe, a sign of the hopeless impracticability of the scheme. Such sentiment as there was in favour of a UN naval force before the Soviet Union came up with its plan almost totally melted away once the full details of that plan were given.
Mr. Jim Lester: Did my hon. and learned Friend have time to consult the Gulf Co-operation Council, and if so, what were its views about the incident?
Mr. Mellor: We have not had time to receive any such opinion. We will want to consult our friends in the Gulf about the matter, as it is in protection of their right to trade with us and with other countries freely that we are playing our role.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is a private notice question—an extension of Question Time. We have a heavy day ahead of us.

Shipbuilding
3.49 pm
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): British Shipbuilders has been approached about the disposal of a number of its facilities, notably at Govan on the Clyde and Appledore in Devon. Those approaches are being considered in line with our policy of returning as much of the corporation as possible to the private sector.
As regards Govan, BS has today received a letter of intent to purchase the yard from Kvaerner Industries, a Norwegian company at the forefront of international gas ship technology, which operates an important fleet of its own. Kvaerner Industries is a respected company with expertise in gas-carrying ships which it would propose to build in future on the Clyde. I regard this as a very welcome proposal. I hope that the negotiations succeed.
Should it acquire Govan, Kvaerner intends to transfer its gas ship technology to the United Kingdom via the yard by giving project support and assistance for gas ships built at Govan. Thereafter, Kvaerner plans to develop Govan into its centre for gas ship technology in support of worldwide activities in this sphere.
Kvaerner would want to attach certain conditions to an agreement in Govan. The company says that some restructuring would be inevitable to ensure that the yard is fully competitive in the international market place. As an important part of the agreement, Kvaerner would undertake to place an order for two medium-sized LPG carriers to be built at Govan for delivery in 1990 and 1991.
I also have to tell the House that the chairman of British Shipbuilders has told me about contractual difficulties with the ferry programme at North East Shipbuilders at Sunderland. Naturally, I hope these difficulties can be overcome and I am keeping closely in touch with developments. I shall keep the House closely informed and make a further statement if necessary in due course.
Mr. Bryan Gould: Is the Minister aware that his statement not only places major question marks over the future of the Govan yard, but poses even more worrying questions about the viability of what will be left of British Shipbuilders? With regard to Govan, is this not a further example of the Government's readiness to sell off to foreign interests an investment in a strategic British industry which the Government themselves are not prepared to sustain? If Govan is an attractive prospect to a Norwegian company, why can it not be supported in the national interest by the British Government?
If the Norwegians have work to place with Govan, which is in itself very welcome, why must that be accompanied by giving away the yard? What assurances can the Minister give the work force at Govan and the House about jobs and pension rights? What write-offs of taxpayers' money will be made? What price will the taxpayer receive for the substantial investment that has been made?
Is this death by one thousand cuts not the inevitable consequence of the policy of dismembering British shipbuilding, upon which the Government embarked four years ago? What is the future of those yards in the north-east and the south-west? Will the Minister now amplify his cryptic remarks about Appledore and North East Shipbuilders? Can he categorically assure the House

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that his statement is not the forerunner of a decision, reported in many quarters, to cut British Shipbuilders' lifeline by withdrawing Government support later this year?
Would it not be ironic—though all too typical—if the Government destroyed our merchant shipbuilding industry just at the time when that industry has become technologically advanced and is therefore well placed to take advantage of the increased demand for world shipping? Is the Minister aware that he will not be forgiven if he allows a historic and vital British industry to expire, with all the damage that that will do to jobs, to the regions and to the national strategic interest? I invite the Minister to tell the House that his statement will not be, and is not intended to be, the death knell of British shipbuilding.
Mr. Clarke: What I have announced today is very good news for a part of British shipbuilding on the Clyde, at Govan. The Norwegian company involved is an operator of gas-carrying ships. It has been constructing them, putting its technology under licence, at various yards throughout the world. The company wishes to acquire a yard of its own where that technology can be developed. It has given up shipbuilding in Norway because it is too expensive. It believes that Govan can be turned into such a yard and that it can be the base for the company's activities. It has work to place. That is good news for Govan, where they are building two Chinese container ships which are likely to be completed in the fairly near future.
I cannot give the House details of the basis on which we might dispose of the yard. What I have announced today is that British Shipbuilders has received a letter of intent and that negotiations are now to take place. A purchase of the yard would involve taking over employees. They would be transferred to the new company with their accrued pension benefits intact.
As for Appledore, we have a number of expressions of interest, but they are all commercially confidential at the moment. It would be most unwise of me to run the risk of prejudicing discussions about the future of Appledore by giving further details to the House now.
At North East Shipbuilders, as people in that part of the world know, there are certain contractual difficulties at the moment between British Shipbuilders and the purchaser of the ferries built there. There are six very good ferries in the water in the Wear, and British Shipbuilders is negotiating with its customer how to resolve the contractual difficulties. I hope that those discussions are successful. I am keeping steadily in touch and I shall keep the House informed if I have anything to report.
Mr. Bruce Millan: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that nobody is more anxious than I am to get additional work placed at the Govan yard? I would warmly welcome orders for ships from Norway or anywhere else. What we object to is the disposal, or, more accurately, the give-away, of the yard. The Minister has produced absolutely no justification for that. Why can there not be an ordinary commercial contract? There might even be a joint venture between the Norwegian company and British Shipbuilders. Why is the yard being disposed of, bearing in mind the long-term implications, to say nothing of those for the rest of British shipbuilders?
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What we want for Govan are long-term assurances for the future, not short-term relief. We are talking of an international company which operates abroad. It is closing its own yard in Norway, despite vehement protests from the trade unions involved. There are to be 600 job losses. We are apprehensive about the fact that the same could happen to Govan in a comparatively short time.
Mr. Clarke: Kvaerner prefers to buy the yard. We cannot force it to place orders in a yard on any terms other than those in which it is interested. This is an attractive proposition. At the moment Kvaerner places orders for ships in various yards around the world, using its own technology under licence. It wants to acquire a yard where it can develop that technology and use it as the basis for future developments. That is extremely good news.
While the Govan yard is owned by British Shipbuilders, it is completing work on two Chinese container ships. The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) knows that that work will be completed in the reasonably near future. Lay-offs will begin this year if no other work is forthcoming and, unless other orders are found, the yard will have to close by next year. What I have described today is the most encouraging development that we have seen in regard to Govan for a long time. I hope that the negotiations succeed and that everybody who is interested, as the right hon. Gentleman says he is—I am sure that he is—in the long-term future of the yard will welcome the development, trust that the negotiations will succeed and encourage people to do everything possible to bring them to a successful conclusion.
Mr. Tony Speller: May I press my right hon. and learned Friend, not for any commercially confidential information, but to bear in mind when he mentions the Appledore shipyard en passant the fact that it is one of the smaller but more efficient and highly productive yards and is a vital cog in the north Devon and Torridge economy? When he speaks of the yard, will he bear in mind, despite the yard's relative smallness, its great importance to north Devon and north Cornwall?
Mr. Clarke: I realise the importance of the yard to he economy of Devon, as it is the major engineering employer in the area. It has had some success in attracting orders for dredgers, which are a speciality of the yard. It is encouraging—I hope my hon. Friend agrees—that a number of people have expressed an interest in acquiring the yard and running it as a going business. We will enter such a deal only if we are convinced that it is in the best interests of the yard and of the economy of the surrounding area.
Mr. Bob Clay: Will the Minister confirm that the contractual difficulties at NESL to which he referred are not in any way the responsibility of either the management or the work force at NESL but lie with the purchaser, and that the programme for the delivery of those ships is on time?
Does the Minister also accept that his statement today, with the background of press rumours that have been continuing for some days, strikes great fear into the hearts of everyone who is committed to the future of British merchant shipbuilding? The previous chairman, Mr. Graham Day, who butchered the industry enough, always

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said that one could not sink below the present level of facilities and that any further reduction in capacity would make the industry unviable.
The Minister has given no assurance about the future of NESL and the very uncertainty reflected in this statement, with the further division of the industry and what is happening at Govan, makes it virtually impossible at present for NESL or any of the other subsidiaries to obtain the few orders that are around in the world at present. I believe that the Minister knows that. He should underwrite the future of the industry now. He should stop the rumours and the nonsense. He should keep British Shipbuilders together and enable it to obtain the significant orders that are available at present, rather than sabotage them, as the statement does.
Mr. Clarke: I regret the uncertainty that surrounds the future of the industry, and I understand the demoralising effect of that uncertainty. For that reason, when I was in Sunderland last Friday, I had a meeting with the hon. Gentleman and the trade union—
Mr. Clay: The Minister said nothing about it then.
Mr. Clarke: It was probably a good thing that I did not enter into more detail, because had I done so I would have fed the uncertainty and might have run the risk of prejudicing the negotiations with Kvaerner, about which I could not tell the hon. Gentleman. They have been leaked to the press and have caused some excitement in Scotland. I hope that I have been able to calm fears in Scotland, because it is good news for Scotland.
Meanwhile, it is not helpful for me to enter into the merits of any dispute that may develop between British Shipbuilders and the purchaser of the Danish ferries. I am keeping in touch with the discussions between the chairman of British Shipbuilders and his colleagues and the customer and, as I have said, I hope that those discussions will come to a satisfactory conclusion. If they do not, we may face a serious situation, because the only orders in Sunderland at present are for the Danish ferries. However, if a serious situation arises, we shall face it then and certainly do whatever we can to ensure that the well-being of Sunderland is sustained.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Is not the truth of the matter that there is a vast tonnage of very new general merchandise carriers laid up and that there is a vast number of shipyards throughout the world in competition for the available demand? Should we not therefore welcome the opportunity to bring the focus of specialist skills for specialised markets to shipyards of our own that have no other prospects?
Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend. As he has shrewdly said, this is a buyers' market, where there is a huge excess of would-be builders of ships compared with would-be purchasers. That is why it is so foolish for Scottish Members to say, "We prefer the industry to remain nationalised, come what may," and wait for the purchasers to come along. That is no guarantee that any purchasers will come along.
A good Norwegian company wants to make Clydeside the basis for its particular strength in the market place in gas technology. That should be welcomed by all Scottish Members.
Mr. Chris Mullin: Is the Minister aware that in the past few weeks there have been repeated reports that the Government plan to pull the plug on what remains of the entire British shipbuilding industry, by cutting all further Government aid? Will he say now whether there is any truth in that, and will he recognise that the possible deal with Govan spells ruin for thousands of people in Sunderland?
Mr. Clarke: It makes no sense for one Member of Parliament for Sunderland to complain about the rumours and uncertainty, and for the other Member for Parliament for Sunderland to say, "I have just heard another rumour. Would the Minister like to comment on it?"
As I said to the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) last Friday, on the last occasion that I met him, the Government have taken no new decisions on British shipbuilding since we had a protracted debate on the subject in the House last summer. As hon. Members will gather, this is a fast-moving scene and I am keeping in close touch with events in all the yards. We have to keep the future of the yards under review because the Government have already lost £1·5 billion in those yards over the last nine years. We are putting substantial amounts of money into the yard, but the situation is so serious that one must keep in close touch with it and deal properly with events as they come up, sometimes week by week, as is now the case in Govan.
Mr. Neville Trotter: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that this will be seen as good news in Scotland, with a future assured for Govan? However, does he also accept that there will be great concern in the north-east about the future of the industry there? Will he give an assurance that the Government remain committed to intervention fund assistance for all shipbuilders in this country, and, in particular, will seek every possible order for Sunderland shipbuilders, bearing in mind the difficulties in respect of the Danish ferries?
Mr. Clarke: Fortunately, the yard closest to my hon. Friend's constituency, Swan Hunter, is at present in a good state, has an order book and is doing well in its newly privatised condition.
As I have said, the Government have given substantial support for orders throughout the past eight or nine years and British Shipbuilders has also incurred substantial losses on top of that intervention fund support. If orders come alone, the Government have to consider what is proposed and see what the costs are and whether they are justified to continue maintaining the yard for that particular order. However, at present, I know of no orders in prospect for Sunderland after the completion of the Danish ferry contract.
Mrs. Ray Michie: Why is the Minister allowing British Shipbuilders to take that course, when he knows that the privatisation of Scott Lithgow was really a rip-off? I still do not understand why the Norwegians' buying Govan shipyard will make all the difference. I do not understand why Govan shipyard should not be able to build those gas-carrying ships itself.
I should also like to know what consultations the Minister has had with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish Office on the question of selling off what is known as the jewel in the crown of British shipbuilding, Govan shipyard?
Mr. Clarke: I am not quite sure on what basis the hon. Lady says that the sale of Scott Lithgow was a rip-off. I do not know what she believes British Shipbuilders would be building in the yard if it still owned it. As she knows, that yard has unfortunately not been able to maintain its order book for the oil rig business that it thought it was going into.
I have already tried to explain the basis upon which the Norwegian company is approaching Govan. It is not looking just to place more orders under licence in the cheapest yard in the world. There is no guarantee that Govan would be the cheapest place to go to, if that was the basis upon which the company was operating. This Norwegian company is looking for a base where it can continue to develop its considerable technological skills in this respect. If it acquires a suitable base at Govan, it will immediately start building two ships there, and will also no doubt look to the long-term future there as it develops its technology.
Mr. Allan Stewart: Has my right hon. and learned Friend had an opportunity to see the comment by the convenor of the shop stewards at Govan, who said that, at the end of the day, they want work in Govan? Is that not much more sensible than some of the comments that we have heard from Opposition Members? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that his announcement is a tribute to Govan, not a threat to it? Govan needs orders, and additional technology would be a great help for its long-term future. Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that it is important that the work force is given the maximum amount of detailed information at the earliest possible opportunity?
Mr. Clarke: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We have had sufficient recent experience of the trade union and labour movement driving away prospective jobs in Scotland because of its political views. Many people who work in Govan shipyard, who were worried last week because they could not see where any more work was to come from when the container ships were completed, will now he considerably relieved to hear that a good Norwegian company is seriously interested in maintaining shipbuilding there with these specialised vessels. I am sure that the company will want to give the maximum amount of information to the work force. It is obviously important for the company, if an agreement is reached, to have a satisfactory understanding with the work force and to ensure that it motivates the work force in the right way, so as to achieve success in the future.
Dr. Norman A. Goodman: I am sure that when the Prime Minister visited my constituency she was told of the importance to it of marine engineering and shipbuilding. The Minister referred to Appledore. I remind him that the correct title of that firm is Appledore Ferguson. One yard is in Devon and the other is in Port Glasgow in my constituency. It employs 400 people. What assurance can the Minister give on the continuation of that yard? On the matter of Govan, the two engines for the two Chinese orders are being built at Clark Kincaid in Greenock, and one of the engines was test-run this morning. What assurance can he give the work force at Ferguson in Port Glasgow and Clark Kincaid in East Hamilton street, Greenock?
Mr. Clarke: Those shipbuilding facilities have work now and we are always looking to their future, as is British Shipbuilders. For the reasons put succinctly by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton, (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), it is always difficult to guarantee any sort of future for those facilities, and we shall have to continue to look for future work prospects and future expressions of interest in acquiring those companies. In the case of Clark Kincaid, it is possible that a restatement such as I have made today of the Government's interest in receiving worthwhile approaches for the purchase of the facilities will lead to renewed expressions of interest. There is every prospect that that company could have an assured future.
Mr. Richard Holt: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept, that if he is able to press ahead with the sale of NESL to an overseas buyer who can guarantee orders at Govan, that may well be the best thing that could happen in the north-east? It would be like Nissan, also in the north-east. In that way we could do away with the bad industrial relations in the Sunderland area which have been detrimental to obtaining orders for the area. Instead of losing £1 million a week, we might be able to use that £1 million in the National Health Service.
Mr. Clarke: Neither the chairman of British Shipbuilders nor I have had an approach from anybody interested in buying North East Shipbuilders. I should make it clear that British Shipbuilders and the Government would welcome any serious approach from interested parties. As my hon. Friend is probably aware, some Japanese companies with an interest in technological co-operation recently visited the yard. We shall have to see where that goes. Otherwise, I agree that we have to look to the future in the economy of the north-east. One has to place the concerns being expressed in Sunderland against the fact that Nissan is expanding its facilities rapidly in Washington new town which is in the same borough. It is good to see how successful a company can be in that part of the world, anticipating as it is a huge increase in employment in Washington new town in the early 1990s.
Mr. Nicholas Brown: The remarks of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) will be repudiated in the north-east of England, and the patronising statements from the Minister will find no welcome in that area. The statement tells us nothing about the future for the headquarters of British Shipbuilder, which is in my constituency, except that a nationalised industry will be closed by the Government. I notice that the Minister did not make any statement about future intentions regarding intervention funding. Why does he not come clean with the House and say that today's statement is the death knell of the nationalised shipbuilding industry in this country?
Mr. Clarke: I spent quite a proportion of last week in the north-east, in Newcastle, as well as in Stockton, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. It is obvious to visitors and the majority of inhabitants in the north-east that the economy is reviving rapidly. There is a huge increase in manufacturing investment. Indeed, the principal complaint that I faced as I went around the north-east was that there is now a shortage of modern, larger factory space to accommodate all those who wish to invest in the region. That shows how rapidly the economy is reviving and expanding. I cannot understand why Labour Members

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from the north-east insist on leaping in to talk about the death and destruction of the local economy, thereby undermining the efforts of such bodies as the Northern Development Company, which is beginning to talk about and advertise the substantial successes that the region is now achieving.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is a considerable compliment to the country, and a tribute to the industrial climate that exists, that Kvaerner Industries, which is a highly sophisticated group, has decided to get out of shipbuilding in its own native land of Norway and decided to develop that activity in, of all places, the United Kingdom? Surely that is a much greater compliment than a mere order for ships could possibly be. Is it not about time that the Opposition Front Bench woke up to what is going on in this country?
Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend that most Scotsmen should react by being proud, and to a certain extent relieved, that an important company such as Kvaerner is prepared to commit itself and its future to a shipbuilding facility on the Clyde. A large proportion of the Labour party is so wedded to nationalisation that it would rather see the yard nationalised but dead, than privatised with a future.
Ms. Joyce Quin: Will the Minister take the opportunity at the earliest possible moment to say to his European colleagues that he is not prepared to see British merchant shipbuilding capacity reduced any further, particularly since we have already reduced capacity more than virtually every other EEC country?
Mr. Clarke: I do not think that the European Community has much to do with future capacity in this country, except that we are committed by the sixth directive, which is an attempt to limit the amazing level of state aid that all European countries, including ourselves, have been providing for shipbuilding in recent years. It is a company from western Europe, admittedly not from the Community, but a Norwegian company, that is stepping in and proposing to develop the yard and give it a future. Therefore, I do not think that there is much room for anti-European sentiment on this occasion.
Mr. Michael Fallon: Is my right hon. and learned Friend not to be congratulated by Scottish and English taxpayers on facilitating this approach from a Scandinavian white knight? Which does he think will bring the greatest relief in Govan today: the fact that such an attractive purchaser has appeared from the private sector, or that Mr. Ron Todd will not be able to veto it?
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend does us a service by reminding us of the taxpayers' interest. On the occasion on which we debated British Shipbuilders in the House, I announced an increase in its external financing limit which amounted to £30,000 per head of those employed in the industry. That was the increase alone. The fact that we now have the prospect of an important yard going into private hands with a company that sees it as having a good commercial future is good news. Some Scotsmen will hear echoes of the views of Ron Todd and his reaction to foreign investment in Dundee on terms that he found
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unacceptable in the reactions from some Opposition Members today about a Norwegian company coming along to buy Govan and build its ships there.
Mr. Ernie Ross: Will the House and the Minister accept that the shipyard workers in Scotland are neither simplistic nor naive enough to believe that if there is a future for that yard it cannot just as easily be secured inside British Shipbuilders itself? That is what caused the fury in the yard. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) sells the convenor of Govan short by suggesting that that is all that he said. The shipyard workers in Scotland want to see a future for British shipbuilding. They see that that could be achieved just as easily by the Government taking a greater interest in shipbuilding and perhaps forming a joint venture with the company, rather than by simply selling off their birthright.
Mr. Clarke: I do not believe that shipyard workers in Glasgow will take that view. It sounds as if the hon. Gentleman is encouraging them to turn away the prospect and say, "No, we do not want to have anything to do with Norwegians unless they just place orders." As I have explained, the company will not do that. It wants to buy the yard to have a base from which to develop its own technology. The hon. Gentleman is saying that the shipbuilding workers would prefer to carry on as they are, finishing work on the only two ships that they have to build—the container ships for China—and wait to take their chance on what the world market might offer in the way of more orders in the future. That would be a reckless gamble for them to take. The hon. Gentleman knows that lay-offs will start later this year once the work on cutting the steel for the ships for China is concluded. To adopt the approach suggested by the hon. Gentleman would be to talk Govan into unemployment rather than into the future than Kvaerner appears likely to offer.
Miss Emma Nicholson: I am delighted to remind my right hon. and learned Friend that we have a full order book in the yard in Bideford and continuing orders on the horizon because of the speciality that the yard has developed in building small dredgers. With regard to my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, which I heartily welcome, may I assume that the Opposition would forbid outward investment from us into non-European countries and, in particular, into Norway?
Mr. Clarke: I rather think that they would forbid such investment, but that is not a matter for me. On past form, I think that they would be wholly opposed to us moving too much investment abroad. I agree with my hon. Friend that at present the Appledore yard has a full order book. It plays a specialist role in the industry, as it builds a different type of ship from those built by the remainder of British Shipbuilders. The Government's policy is to welcome any interest in acquiring one of these yards by someone who is interested in offering it a secure commercial future. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be glad to hear that we have had not one but several expressions of interest in the acquisition of that yard.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Will the Minister acknowledge that one of the matters that bemuses those who have some knowledge of shipbuilding is that 18 years ago Mr. Graham Day pulled out of LPG technology when he was chairman of Cammell Laird? The

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technology proposed for Govan is not new. How can we guarantee the enterprising economy about which the Secretary of State for Scotland spoke when a Norwegian company is giving up shipbuilding in Norway and moving to Govan, ostensibly to suit its own interests, and when no British consortium is capable of developing long-established technology and building ships that the world desires at the Govan yard under public or private ownership?
Mr. Clarke: LPG technology has moved on quite a lot in the past 10 years. I know that the Scottish Labour party does not want to acknowledge that anything has moved on in the past 10 years, certainly in industry. We are talking about one of the industry's most successful companies wanting to make the Clyde its construction base. The hon. Gentleman might prefer to carry on with nationalised shipyards, to return to LPG technology and start competing again, but I know what option I would prefer if my future lay in the yard.
Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the only long-term assurance that the yard at Govan and yards elsewhere can be given is for them to produce ships that the market wants at prices that it is prepared to pay? Does he agree that British Shipbuilders has singularly failed in that objective and that this announcement is the only hope for the yard at Govan? Will he remind the House of the money that has been spent propping up British Shipbuilders since nationalisation, and does he agree with many of us who consider that that money has not been well spent?
Mr. Clarke: The total lost since British Shipbuilders was nationalised runs to well over £2 billion, but I shall give the exact figure to my hon. Friend later. Since the Government took office, £1·6 billion has followed the money that was previously lost. Everybody realises that there is no long-term future in doing that. When I visited Sunderland, trade unionists accepted that they were not entitled to timeless subsidies or to have endless losses supported. It is a welcome new phase for Govan to be faced with the prospect of a privately owned Norwegian company, which is very successful in its market, saying that it can make a going business of the yard by building the right product in the right way at a price that the market can accommodate.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call the five hon. Members who have been rising to ask questions, but I ask them to be very brief.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster offer the House an insight into what "some restructuring" means in the context of his statement about Govan? Will he say what level of foreign ownership he considers to be beneficial to the wider Scottish economy? Furthermore, has he bothered to ask Kvaerner what "some restructuring" will mean for Govan?
Mr. Clarke: The answers to those questions will emerge at a later stage if the negotiations are successful. [Interruption.] I am quoting Kvaerner when I say that some restructuring will be inevitable, and I think that that will probably lead to some restructuring of the work force. However, it is far too soon to speculate on what form that restructuring might take. As I said earlier, there will be a
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dramatic reduction in the work force once the Chinese ships order is completed, unless something comes along or these negotiations are successful.
I trust that the understandable concerns of the work force and others will be answered when discussions take place between the work force and the company contemplating purchase and as negotiations, which I hope will be successful, move to a conclusion. I cannot understand why the Scottish National party should think that an optimum level can be determined for foreign ownership in Scottish industry. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be cheered by the fact that it will not involve English ownership.
Mr. Roger Knapman: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, but will he assure the House that British companies will be given an opportunity to bid for the whole of the industry or any individual yard?
Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to make it clear that we are preparing to entertain other reasonable approaches for Govan or the other yeards. We have not entered into an exclusive negotiation with Kvaerner.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Given my constituency interest in firms at the North British Steel Foundry, have the Norwegians given any undertakings about whether they will place orders with industry located in the north of England or Scotland?
Mr. Clarke: So far as I am aware they have not, but the nearby foundries are best placed to provide the necessary equipment and steel to the Govan shipyard if it is to have a secure future under Kvaerner. I expect that the hon. Gentleman will raise that question with the company if the negotiations are successful. I suggest to Scottish Members that it is hopeless, when someone is contemplating investing in or securing jobs in Scotland, to confront them with a list of conditions before they have the honour of providing new jobs or keeping jobs in Scotland. We should be welcoming jobs and overseas interests, not behaving in such a manner as to turn them away.
Dr. John Reid: I welcome anything that saves jobs but, speaking as one of those Scottish Members who occasionally find the profundity of the Chancellor's Anglican thoughts beyond my meagre intellectual grasp, perhaps I can ask him to answer one simple question. If, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, the company must move from Norway to Scotland because production costs in Norway are too expensive, why are we thinking of giving the yard away to it? Are production costs in Scotland far too cheap for our tastes?
Mr. Clarke: I think that the company stopped building ships in Norway about two years ago—[Interruption.]—because it was too expensive—another fundamental truth on which the Labour party would do well to reflect. Since then the company has been contemplating buying ships abroad and using its own technology under licence. It is now contemplating acquiring a yard so that it does not have to licence its technology and so that it can develop its technology at a particular base. It has decided to consider seriously the possibility of making Clydeside that base. As I have tried to assure hon. Members for quite long enough,

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that is good news for Clydeside and I trust that that will be appreciated when the negotiations come to the successful conclusion for which we are hoping.
Mr. Bob Cryer: The Minister keeps talking about good news in the same breath as restructuring. Is not the truth of that euphemism and this statement that restructuring means putting people on the dole? Why should Scottish shipyard workers, or any other shipyard workers, trust this Norwegian company when it has just sacked 700 of its workers? Does that not suggest that the future, beneath all the Minister's PR talk, is very bleak for all the shipyard workers who will be affected by this statement?
Mr. Clarke: Scottish shipyard workers know only too well that they have a job building ships only when there is an order for ships and when someone who has placed an order is prepared to pay for it and guarantee a continuing future for the yard. There is no way in which I could guarantee continuing employment at Govan, within a nationalised British shipbuilding industry, beyond the two Chinese ferries. That is the very serious possibility that we shall face if these negotiations fall through.

Govan Shipyard
4.28 pm
Mr. Bob Clay: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the developments at Govan shipyard and the future of British Shipbuilders."
The Government's statement shows that the Government, having failed for years to develop policies to sustain and support British merchant shipbuilding, are washing their hands of the results, as though it were some God-given act and nothing to do with them. The House should urgently debate certain policies. It is absurd to say that there is no work available, other than what the Norwegians offer to Govan, when the House has recently debated the need for major adaptations to roll-on/roll-off ferries for safety purposes, as called for by the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. The House could debate also a scrap-and-build policy, many other trade and aid packages and Third world orders that British Shipbuilders could secure if there were more support from the Government.
This matter is specific. After all, we have just had a statement from the Government which affects not only Govan but Sunderland, Appledore, and the Ferguson yard on the Clyde, the Kincaid engine works and British Shipbuilders headquarters in Benton house in Newcastle. Altogether, the statement's implications could mean that up to 25,000 jobs will be at stake, allowing for the jobs that are dependent on the people directly employed within British Shipbuilders and their employees.
The matter is urgent above all else because the uncertainty felt during the past few days, which today's statement will undoubtedly worsen, makes it virtually impossible for British Shipbuilders to obtain further orders—for instance, in NESL. It is not likely that a shipowner other than the British Government, who have consistently failed to place public sector orders, would place an order in view of the prevailing uncertainty. That is the reason above all others why the House should debate this matter.
The statement spells the end of British merchant ship building. That is absurd for an island nation. Thousands of jobs are at stake. I have argued on strategic grounds why the House should debate this matter, but we should consider also the jobs and livelihoods of those affected. We are talking about 2,414 people employed by NESL in Sunderland and 326 people employed by Sunderland Forge Services, with the jobs—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has had the time allowed to him. He asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the developments at Govan shipyard and the future of British Shipbuilders."
I have listened with concern to the hon. Member, as I did to the questions a few moments ago. I regret that I do not consider that the matter he raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20 and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

RUC (Code of Conduct)
4.32 pm
Mr. Kevin McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last Friday, the penultimate question on the Order Paper was to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, asking him whether he would place in the Library a copy of the RUC code of conduct. The question was tabled late the day before by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle). The Secretary of State, with the permission of the Chief Constable of the RUC, acceded to his hon. Friend's request.
This code of conduct—indeed, the conduct of the RUC as a whole—has been a point of considerable controversy in the House and in Northern Ireland. The code was issued to the RUC last October but, despite urgings from the Opposition and from the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights in Northern Ireland, the Government and the Chief Constable steadfastly refused to publish the document, which was meant to instil confidence in the administration of law and justice in Northern Ireland.
Last Friday, despite the question which was tabled, the RUC was reluctant to give the information to the press in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Members were already in their constituencies and the parties had not been informed of the Government's intention. No copies were available in the Lower Gallery until late in the afternoon. The Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights in Belfast, although it has read about it in the newspapers, has yet to receive a copy of the code.
In the past, Mr. Speaker, you have frequently deprecated the attitudes of Governments and Ministers who place questions—avoiding controversy on the Floor of the House—when they have a complete change in policy. The Government have issued documents of controversy concerning the administration of law and justice in Northern Ireland, issues that they have dodged on the Floor of the House during the past six months. My point of order is this: how can you defend the rights of hon. Members to examine the Administration if they choose this method to avoid being questioned by Members with legitimate interests and, in particular, when they fail by their action to instil confidence in law and order in Northern Ireland but rather show that they are weakening it by their attitude?
Mr. Speaker: I am aware that this has been a matter of controversy in the House but, equally, I am not responsible for questions on the Order Paper or for questions that are answered. Nothing out of order has taken place.

Single Internal Market
4.34 pm
Mr. Tony Blair: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that the Government today announced their proposals for the completion of the single internal market by 1992. The campaign was launched by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The issue is of immense importance to the country and to our constituents.
No statement is being made in the House or in the other place. Copies of the press release of the Department of Trade and Industry and the Prime Minister's speech are even now not yet available in the House of Commons Library. We have merely been summoned to a private briefing by the Secretary of State at Lancaster house, not even to a meeting in the Palace of Westminster.
I appreciate that you cannot force Ministers to make a statement, Mr. Speaker, but will you state again that the proper place, first and foremost, to announce matters of public policy is in the House and that not to do so is a gross and unreasonable discourtesy?
Mr. Speaker: That would certainly be the case if there were any change of policy.
Mr. Blair: There was.
Mr. Speaker: I recollect that the 1992 matter has been frequently mentioned in the House, and I am sure that it will be frequently mentioned between now and 1992.

Single Internal Market

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  Ordered,
  That the Wolverhampton Urban Development Area Order 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Wakeham]

Local Government Finance Bill (Allocation of Time)
Resolved,
That the Report [14th April] from the Business Committee be now considered.—[Mr. Wakeham.]
Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in its resolution, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 80 (Business Committee)—[Mr. Wakeham.]—and agreed to.
Following is the Report of the Business Committee:
That—
(1) the order in which proceedings on Consideration are taken shall be new Clauses 1, 2, 5 and 7, Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 15, new Clause 13, Clauses 16 to 21, Schedules 2 and 3, Clauses 22 to 28, new Clauses 8, 9 and 16, Clauses 29 to 43, Schedule 4, Clauses 44 to 48, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 49 to 51, Schedule 7, Clauses 52 and 53, Schedule 8, Clauses 54 to 69, Schedules 9 and 10, Clauses 70 to 72, Schedule 11, Clauses 73 to 81, new Clauses 4, 6 and 15, Clauses 82 to 130, Schedule 12, Clause 131, Schedule 13, Clauses 132 to 142, Schedule 14, Clauses 143 and 144, new Clause 14, remaining new Clauses and new Schedules;
(2) the allotted days which under the Order of 22nd February, as varied by the Order of 13th April, are given to the proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading shall be allotted in the manner shown in the Table set out below and, subject to the provisions of that Order as so varied, each part of the proceedings shall be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the third column of that Table.

Table

Allotted day

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

First day

New Clauses 1, 2, 5 and 7

10.00 p.m.

Second day

Amendments up to the end of Clause 12

7.00 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 15 and new Clause 13

8.30 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 20

10.00 p.m.

Third day

Amendments up to the end of Clause 22

7.00 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 28 and new Clauses 8, 9 and 16

9.00 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 36

10.00 p.m.

Fourth day

Amendments up to the end of Clause 81 and new Clauses 4, 6 and 15

8.00 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 103

10.00 p.m.

Fifth day

Amendments up to the end of Clause 114

5.30 p.m.

Amendments up to the end of Clause 144 and new Clause 14

7.30 p.m.

Remaining new Clauses and new Schedules

9.00 p.m.

Third Reading

10.00 p.m.

Orders of the Day

  Local Government Finance Bill
  [IST ALLOTTED DAY]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

  Local Government Finance Bill
    New Clause 1

      Scale of personal community charge payments
      'For the purposes of this part (and subject to the provisions of sections 12 and 13 below) personal community charge shall be determined according to the following scale:

      (a) if the individual liable to pay the personal community charge is not liable to pay income tax, that person shall pay one half of the amount prescribed by the charging authority as the personal community charge determined in accordance with section 29 below;

      (b) if the individual liable to pay the personal community charge is liable to pay income tax at the standard rate, that person shall pay the personal community charge determined in accordance with section 29 below.

      (c) if the individual liable to pay the personal community charge is liable to pay income tax at the higher rate, that person shall pay one and one-half times the amount prescribed as the personal community charge determined in accordance with section 29 below.

      (d) in the case of a spouse who has no income of his or her own, the level of personal community charge he or she shall be liable to pay shall be the same as that of their wife or husband.'.—[Mr. Mates.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      4.36 pm
      Mr. Michael Mates: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      Mr. Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to take the following: Amendment (b), in line 10, after 'charge', insert
      'on sliding scale in which the community charge payable increases from one half of the amount prescribed by the charging authority to one and one half times the amount prescribed by the charging authority in proportion to income, where the community charge is'.
      Amendment (c), in line 15, leave out subsection (d).
      Amendment (e), in one 15, after 'spouse', insert
      'or person living with another person as husband or wife as denned in section 16(7)(b)'.
      Amendment (f), in line 17, at end insert
      'or the person with whom they are living as if in that relationship'.
      Amendment (d), in line 17, at end add—
      '(2) Nothing in this section shall affect an individual's entitlement to community charge rebates calculated under the provisions of section 23 below'.
      New clause 2—Regulations on personal community charge liability—

      '(1) Liability for personal community charge shall be determined in accordance with regulations to be made under this section.

      (2) The regulations shall provide that liability shall be by reference to ability to pay, and in framing the regulations ability to pay shall be determined by reference to taxable income of the person liable.'.

      New clause 5—Liability for personal community charge—

      '(1) Liability for personal community charge shall be determined by regulations which relate the personal community charge to ability to pay.

      573

      (2) Before producing such regulations the Secretary of State shall consult the local authority associations, such groups representing ratepayers as appear to him to be concerned and such groups representing the interests of families and the interests of those on low incomes as appear to him to be concerned.

      (3) In producing regulations the Secretary of State shall have regard to the concept of ability to pay exemplified in liability for income tax:

      (a) before the financial year 1988–89 and

      (b) in and after the financial year 1988–89.

      (4) A report as to progress in producing regulations under this Section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament at the end of a period of one month beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.

      (5) Regulations under this Section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament no later than 1st January 1989 and shall be subject to approval by each House of Parliament.'.

      New clause 7—Local income tax—

      '(1) In accordance with this Part every person resident in the area of a local authority shall be liable to pay to that local authority for any year an amount of local income tax which is determined by that authority and which is proportional to the net income of that person.

      (2) A local authority shall set a rate of local income tax which is sufficient to meet their liabilities, whether in respect of a precept or a levy or otherwise, in so far as they are not met from other sources.

      (3) For the purposes of this Part a local authority is:

      (a) a district council

      (b) a London Borough Council

      (c) the Common Council of the City of London

      (d) the Council of the Isles of Scilly.'.

      Amendment No. 197, in schedule 2, page 82, line 22, at end insert—
      'Provided that for the purposes of section (Scale of personal community charge payments) of this Act a registration officer may not require the production of information from an individual other than a signed statement to the effect that he is, as the case may be, a non-income tax payer, a standard-rate income tax payer or a higher-rate income tax payer.'.
      Mr. Mates: New clause I stands in my name and those of 44 of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I should like to deal briefly with a technical matter. Some authoritative sources have said, first, that my new clause is out of order, which clearly it is not, otherwise you would not have called it, Mr. Speaker, and, secondly, that it would require a money resolution, which clearly would be unsatisfactory and would cause my hon. Friends concern. I took this matter for advice early last week and on 13 April was informed by the Clerk of Public Bills:
      "As drafted your Clause would not require a money resolution. That would only be a consideration if you required the Inland Revenue to be the collecting agent",
      which I do not, as I shall explain. The letter went on to suggest that I should make some consequential amendments, which have been tabled. I want to say to those of my hon. Friends who are listening to some of the arguments that, clearly, that is not what I am trying to do, nor is it the consequence of the new clause in the opinion of the officials of the House.
      I have proposed, aá I think is now generally known, that we introduce, instead of a flat rate charge for the community charge, a banded system with three payment plans. I can say what I have to say in shorthand because the whole debate has had a good deal of publicity and I think that most hon. Members are aware of the terms of my new clause. The first band would be those who do not pay income tax; the second, which contains 90-plus per cent. of the population, would be those who pay income tax at the standard rate; and the third would be those who pay income tax at the higher rate.
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      This was worked out mainly during the Christmas recess and after Second Reading, as a result of what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said on Second Reading to a number of us who were concerned about this aspect, and this aspect alone, of the Local Government Finance Bill. He challenged us, if we knew of a better idea, to produce one. He said that if there was a way of doing it, he would consider it and, furthermore, he would allow us to have it looked at. He has been true to his word. We came up with another plan; we submitted it to him; it was looked at by officials and then he and his colleagues said, "Thank you very much. We don't like it."
      I do not quarrel with that. But the Secretary of State said—this has been a large part of the debate—that the new clause was unsatisfactory because it produced
      "a sudden and painful earnings trap."
      That naturally caused us concern because—
      Mr. Eric Forth: Will my hon. Friend accept that the new clause may also be unsatisfactory because it runs counter to the election manifesto on which virtually all Conservative Members fought the election? Apart from anything else, my hon. Friend must therefore explain to the House why he wants us to digress in a very basic way from the explicit terms of the manifesto on which we fought the election.
      Mr. Mates: I fully intend to explain to the House why I have proposed the new clause and if my hon. Friend will allow me to do that in my own way we can perhaps then debate the proposal.
      As I was saying, one of the major objections to the new clause was that it created a sudden and painful earnings trap. That would have been cause for concern and the suggestion did, indeed, worry many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It was at that point that I went back to the Department of the Environment to speak to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Local Government. Let me say at this point that one of the good things about this debate is that it has been conducted throughout with courtesy and good humour. No personal attacks have been made by anybody against anybody else. We are debating principles and not personalities.
      My hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Local Government then produced a graph, which has been much circulated because I produced it too. It helps the debate that we are both speaking off the same sheet of music. I then put the question to my hon. Friend—I put it again the other night to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State —"Do Ministers agree or do they not that under my scheme not one person in the lower income brackets of society would lose one penny more than under the Secretary of State's scheme?" The Secretary of State has acknowledged that they would not lose, and that is now common ground between us. The phrase
      "sudden and painful earnings trap"
      is not the best phrase that could have been used, for the simple reason that nobody falls into that trap.
      The objection has been raised that the Secretary of State's plan for rebates has a taper and therefore involves a gradual increase of a person's liability to pay as his income rises—that is shown on the graph produced by the Secretary of State—whereas my plan appears to involve a step at the point at which someone comes off the 50 per cent. rate. However, at that moment, one simply reverts to the curve that the Secretary of State has already proposed.

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      Meanwhile, a few people will have benefited—not many but some significant groups in society, the House may think. For example, married pensioners on rather high allowances who would be liable for the full charge straight away under the plan proposed by the Secretary of State will go part of the way on 50 per cent. under my scheme. My proposal will also help certain other groups, such as some of the disabled unemployed who have a high rate of allowances.
      Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham)rose—
      Mr. Mates: Let me just deal with what was originally the strongest objection from the Government. In my scheme, there is no sudden and painful earnings trap whatever and no one is one penny worse off under my scheme than under the Government's scheme.
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Redwood: Does my hon. Friend agree that under the Government's scheme, 9 million people are protected because they are on lower incomes and that, furthermore, all those protected under his scheme are protected because he has preserved the Government's protection, not by virtue of his own scheme? Therefore, if the matter is one of principle, is not that principle taken care of in the Government's proposals? Does not my hon. Friend agree that his scheme involves a large trap for those moving from 50 per cent. to 100 per cent. and from 100 per cent. to 150 per cent.?
      Mr. Mates: My hon. Friend is quite right that both schemes are protected by the Government's rebate system. This debate is not about the Government's rebate system, although it may devolve on parts of it later. Of course the protection is the same with my scheme as with the Government's scheme. However, with respect, my hon. Friend is wrong in the sense that there is no trap between the 50 per cent. rate and the 100 per cent. rate. Where he is right is that there is a trap in the higher rate, and I shall come to that in a moment. I must leave this point, reiterating in the strongest terms the Government's concession that not one person who is lower paid would be worse off under my scheme. The new clause must be considered in that light. It may have other defects and other merits, but it is simply not the case that it is a trap for the less well off.
      Mr. Churchill: I appreciate, as no doubt does the whole House, that my hon. Friend's desire is to help the most disadvantaged in our society. Can he say approximately how many will benefit under his scheme who would not benefit under the Government's scheme?
      Mr. Mates: I cannot say precisely, because the Government cannot tell me precisely. I asked the Government and, in his letter to me, the Secretary of State replied that it would be a small group. I believe that the reason why neither he nor I can answer my hon. Friend's question is that the Government have not finally worked out their scheme. I do not criticise them for that, but the fact that they are unable to tell me means, alas, that I am unable to tell my hon. Friend.
      Let me deal with the step between the standard rate taxpayer and the man on higher rate tax. It is right to assert in that case that there is a step. It has been argued
      576
      that £1 of extra income might produce a large extra responsibility for community charge. There is a step, but I must challenge my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Local Government, who talks about a step of hundreds of pounds. He is using the worse case for his argument, which says that for someone earning about £22,000, £1 of increased income could mean liability for a further £600 of community charge.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: In Camden.
      Mr. Mates: My hon. Friend says, "In Camden." If that is the case and it remains the case, we have failed in the whole object of the Bill, which is to prevent high-spending councils from levying enormous community charges by increasing accountability so that people will not stand for it. If that is going to happen—and I hope that it will—we must conduct the argument using the average increase and not the extreme increase. If we are successful in achieving our aim, the extreme increase will vanish when the Bill becomes law.
      Mr. Edward Leigh: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Mates: Can I just have a sentence or two? I shall certainly give way when I have finished my point.
      Therefore, we must return to the argument about the average, because it is the argument about the average that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister is using. I concede that he is right that, at the £22,000 a year level, a few pounds of extra income will create an extra liability of £85—half the average community charge. If I may say so, for someone on £22,000 income, that represents one ticket to the theatre and one dinner. I do not believe that, given the gains that they will receive from the abolition of rates, the better-off will be unhappy about paying that sum.
      Mr. Leigh: I am afraid that my hon. Friend has to recognise that as a result of his proposals some married couples may have to pay up to £2,400. That is a very expensive trip to the theatre. The result of the new clause would be to allow Left-wing councils, which he has opposed all his life, to drive enterprise out of their areas.
      Mr. Mates: I have to say to my hon. Friend, "I am sorry, you are wrong." If my hon. Friend wants to make a speech and produce these figures I shall certainly answer him. I am merely returning to the principle behind my argument and was simply telling the Minister, who is trying to describe the step effect as a spectre of unfairness, that he must get the matter in proportion. We have conducted the whole debate on the averages across the nation, and under my scheme the average liability for one person is £85. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister shakes his head. Would he like to intervene?
      The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Michael Howard): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his invitation to intervene. If the community charge had been in force in 1987–88, the average would have been £224. Half of that is not £85 but £112, and since, under my hon. Friend's scheme, wives would pay at the same rate as husbands, it is perfectly possible for someone who receives a rise of £1 a year in income to end up, on the average community charge, paying an extra £224.
      Mr. Mates: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend and, of course, I accept his correction. On Second

      577
      Reading, he was working on a standard community charge of £176. It has now gone up, but that is another matter. Instead of talking about £85, I am now talking about £112. That is not an unreasonable step for someone on that level of income who has, quite rightly in the view of most hon. Members, gained so much from what we have done to the taxation system over the years.
      Mr. Jim Lester: Surely the people who would be liable for that step are the people who would gain on their overall budget from the tremendous rate reductions that would follow the introduction of the community charge. They would be paying less.
      Mr. Mates: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point when he says that such people will gain most. That is right, because they have been carrying an unfair burden. They are the people who gained most from the reduction in the higher rate of taxation in the last Budget. That is right too, because we want a lower-taxed society. If we are to achieve that we must add the responsibility to those who will be best off when we have completely revised our old and outdated system of rating—as we are doing. When we turn to a new system, it must be fair. My hon. and learned friend mentioned a salary increase of £1. If a person on a salary of about £22,000 a year gets an increase of £1, his first step is to change his accountant.
      Mr. John Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend agree that many people with such incomes run small businesses and are self-employed, and that it may not be possible for them to take the sort of action that my hon. Friend implies?
      Mr. Mates: I shall leave my hon. Friend to argue that point for himself.
      I shall now explain to the House the method for collecting the community charge under the new clause. This has exercised the minds of many people who have looked at my clause and asked whether it will work and could the charge be collected. Fear has been based on argument from certain sources that has not reflected the way in which my scheme would work. I say again that in trying to work this out I have tried to follow precisely the Government's scheme in every regard so that the minimum change is necessary to the Bill consequent upon my new clause being accepted. The same registration process applies as applies under the Government's scheme. The Government's scheme has some difficulties, but my scheme produces no more.
      The same form would be sent by local authorities to every person liable for the community charge under my scheme as under the Government's scheme. It is precisely the same system. So far there is no increase in bureaucracy or complexity because the bureaucracy and complexity are those that will be required anyway. I propose that there should be three more questions on the form. They are questions that go the heart of the concern of many people and are about the tax situation of the person being questioned.
      The first extra question is: "Do you pay income tax?" If the answer is no, there is an assessment of 50 per cent. of the community charge. The second question is one that obviously applies to most people. It is: "Do you pay income tax at the standard rate?" If the answer is yes, the
      578
      assessment is the standard rate community charge. The third question is: "Do you pay tax at the higher rate?" If the answer is yes, there is an assessment of 150 per cent.
      It would be very difficult and wrong for that information to be traded between the Inland Revenue and the local authorities. In conceiving the scheme I have made quite sure that that does not need to happen. I know that that was the cause of a good deal of concern among some of my hon. Friends. The form is completed on a self-assessment basis and signed with the same implications as apply on the form anyway about whether the person has told the truth.
      Mr. Tim Devlin: Is it not right to say that some people would not be able to verify their income because many self-employed people do not know their income until two or three years afterwards, when the accounts are made up?
      Mr. Mates: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to other hon. Friends for making these points. I am coming to them because I know that they need to be answered. If I could be allowed to complete a point before being asked to give way, it would save the House a little time. I assure my hon. Friend that I shall come to the question that he asked.
      Three extra questions are on the form. Self-assessment takes place and the form is signed. The community charge becomes payable, as under the Government's scheme, and is paid to the local authority. There would have to be inserted in the Bill a power for a random check of whether what people had said was correct. I shall explain that, because it has caused anxiety to some of my hon. Friends. We would have to give the local authority power to send the Inland Revenue a random selection of answers received from the taxpayers, saying that Mr. X has stated that he is a standard rate taxpayer and asking if that is correct, or that Mr. Y has said that he is a higher rate taxpayer and is that correct.
      My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that this was a fiscal nuclear deterrent, in that it would be oppressive because those who were randomly selected would have to have all their affairs gone through. That is not at all the case. My right hon. Friend is not quite right. Ninety nine per cent. of the people of Britain are honest.
      Mr. Cranley Onslow: Is that a Government statistic?
      Mr. Mates: My right hon. Friend asks whether that is a Government statistic. I shall not answer that question.
      Most people in this country are honest, so in most cases the reply will come back from the Revenue that the answers are correct. That will be the end of the matter, because that is the only check that has to be made. In a small minority of cases, the Revenue will say that the answers are not correct. If that is so, an offence has been committed and the law will take its course in precisely the way that it will have to take its course if an offence is committed in the completion or non-completion of the Government's present registration and assessment form. Aside from that, there is no change in the system that I have devised.
      Mr. Butterfill: On that point, does my hon. Friend accept that it will also be necessary to include on the form the tax reference of the person concerned? If that is not done, it would be difficult for the Inland Revenue to obtain

      579
      the information. Will he explain how he will deal with the problem of husbands and wives who are separately taxed or who may have the option to be separately taxed?
      Mr. Mates: All those are complex arguments, which I shall be happy to explain to my hon. Friend, but I shall not take the time of the House to do so now. Suffice it to say that when the matter was examined—I want to be careful about how I say this—the Department of the Environment consulted the Inland Revenue. At my meetings thereafter, that issue did not form part of any objection to my proposals.
      I do not wish to go further than that because I have been saddened by remarks over the weekend suggesting that I have behaved dishonourably by disclosing advice given to me by officials, courtesy of the Department. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State accepts that I have not made one remark about anything said by any official that was not said in the presence of Ministers. What was said to me in my one private meeting with a group of officials has never been made public—unless it was something that Ministers had heard about and to which they had assented. I do not think that that is a dishonourable way to proceed.
      5 pm
      On the operation of my scheme, I concede that some people will fall between two barriers—but it will not affect anyone at the lower end who will be taken care of under the Government's scheme. The only problem with lack of knowledge might arise between the standard rate and the higher rate levels. A few people will face some difficulty and will need advice. I concede that that is a complication that does not exist in the Government's scheme. However, the whole of the tax system is riddled with complications that are constantly referred to and fro between the Inland Revenue and the individual. Only a small number will hop over the barrier—[Interruption.] It is true. Only 9 per cent. fall in the higher rate band, so only a small number will be affected.The problems of evasion have been raised, but they are the problems of the Government's scheme, not my scheme. There is no greater opportunity for evasion under my scheme than there is under the Government's scheme. It is true that there will be problems with collection, but they are the problems of the Government's scheme, not my scheme. The Government have conceded that collection will be a difficult task and also that the scheme will be easier to evade than the current rating system. That is why it will cost twice as much and will require twice as many staff. We understand all the difficulties involved in a radical change in the system—but they are inherent in the Government's scheme, not my scheme. The only problem inherent in my scheme and not in the Government's scheme is that of assessment.
      Sir Peter Emery: My hon. Friend's scheme is based on the conception that a tax system with only two bands will exist for ever. If there were to be a Labour Government, who would introduce many more bands, where would that leave my hon. Friend's scheme?
      Mr. Mates: I hesitate to tell my hon. Friend where my scheme would go should there ever be a Labour Government, but I do not think that it would be a vastly
      580
      different place from where the Government's scheme would go. The point is that there will not be a Labour Government. That is why we must legislate properly now.
      The Government have conceded that my scheme is practical. The Secretary of State said that it could work if the Government wanted it to work—but they do not like my scheme as much as they like their own scheme.
      Mr. Timothy Wood: Can my hon. Friend clarify the effect of paragraph (d)? If an individual is earning £25,000 a year and his wife takes a part-time job and earns £1,000 a year, would that couple transfer from paying one and a half times two standard community charges—that is, three community charges—to paying two community charges? Would that additional income result in a reduction in the community charge?
      Mr. Mates: If I understand my hon. Friend's question correctly, the answer is no—[Interruption.] I beg hon. Members to listen and not to scoff. It is a complex argument. We want to understand such complex legislation. I know that some Opposition Members are not in the least bit interested in understanding. We are trying to arrive at a better solution. A little less scoffing and a little more listening would help.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood) is not right in his assumption. Paragraph (d), as amended—I had made a technical drafting error—puts the spouse in the same position as the wage earner if there is only one wage earner in the family. I acknowledge that that is not an ideal solution and, indeed, it involves a certain amount of rough justice. However, the rough justice will apply only at the upper end, and not in the middle band where 90 per cent. of people fall, who will pay the same as under the Government's scheme. I believe that to be in the overall interest of families.
      Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I am concerned about a point of fairness. If my hon. Friend's new clause is intended to produce a fairer scheme, why was it not considered to be a fairer scheme when the House discussed the Scottish legislation? Why does my hon. Friend propose a community charge for England and Wales that will be different from that already agreed for Scotland? That is most unfair.
      Mr. Mates: I do not want to be drawn down the Scottish road, but if we were to discuss the way in which the charge has been introduced in Scotland, there might be even greater internal dissent. If the House accepts my new clause, obviously there must be an amendment to the Scottish legislation. The same system must apply in Scotland as applies in England and Wales. We now have the advantage of a certain amount of experience in Scotland.
      Having established that my new clause is practicable, I shall explain why I am introducing it. This relates to a question asked earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth). When we started down this most difficult road in an attempt to reform a complex, outdated and unfair system, we said that we would abolish the rating system and replace it with a more broadly based tax that would be based on people's ability to pay—[Interruption.] That is true; we said that in 1974. We said that the rating system was intolerable and that, as a party,

      581
      we would do something about it. We have been trying to do so since 1974. Until we decided to take the plunge last year, we had failed.
      Many efforts were made during our first eight years in office to find a better system—a Green Paper was published, a study carried out and a committee established, but each time we reached the reluctant conclusion that to proceed with any of the options identified would be less satisfactory than staying with the present system. Many of us were unhappy about that. Many were the voices from Conservative Benches saying to the Government, "Get on with it and do something." To their credit, the Government have done just that. I am behind the Government 90 per cent. of the way. Having said that there were three legs to the change, I strongly believe that we have dropped one leg. To many of us, that has made the tax not ideal and not fair.
      Mr. Simon Burns: As a new Member of this House, who was not here in 1974, I find my hon. Friend's argument slightly disingenous and unfair. I fought the election on the 1987 Conservative party manifesto. I assumed that 632 other Conservative candidates fought the election on it. In that there was a quite clear pledge to a fixed community charge. To my mind, the Government have been implementing that pledge, not reneging on it. My hon. Friend's amendment seeks to stop the Government from doing what they are pledged to do.
      Mr. Mates: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course I was coming to what we said in the last manifesto. The line before the line to which my hon. Friend referred states that we shall introduce a fairer system. That is at the heart of the debate. That is why there is some difference on Conservative Benches about the best way in which to proceed.
      Several of my hon. Friends have asked me why I have not accepted the concession that the Government made on Thursday and withdrawn my objections. To their credit, the Government conceded that their scheme was not fair enough, did not do enough for the less well off members of society, and that more help must be given. I congratulate them. It is always difficult for a Government to change course. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—I suspect, with tongue slightly in cheek—said that he had not been responding to pressure and that he wanted to do it, anyway. I do not know.
      The House will recall that, in 1986, we found ourselves in major difficulty with the revaluation of the rating system in Scotland. On that occasion, in much more difficult economic times, the Government had to make an emergency concession of £100 million or so to alleviate the worst of the hardship that the revaluation would cause. That did not make the rating system any fairer, and nor, with the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, will the concession that my right hon. Friend made on Thursday.
      An injustice is not removed by throwing money at it. It may be made less painful, but, if the system is not fair, it must be changed, not the amount of help that is available to it. That is why the Daily Express, under Saturday's banner headline,
      "Not a Penny More",
      could not have misunderstood what my hon. Friends and I are seeking more directly. We have not asked for a penny more. We are not asking for a penny more.
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      One of the reasons I came to the conclusion that this is the best way in which to present an alternative is that fundamental to everything that I am doing has to be the fact that it does not cost any more money. If it did, all my hon. Friends would say, "There he is. He is asking for more public expenditure." I am not asking for more public expenditure. It is right that we should control and restrict public expenditure, but, when we are reforming the whole taxation system, at the heart of it we have to make it fairer.
      Mr. Tony Marlow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I want to ask my hon. Friend a point of clarification with regard to the position of a spouse—husband and wife. Am I right in believing that if one of the husband or wife goes into the higher rate of taxation then they will both have to pay the higher rate of community charge?
      Mr. Mates: No, my hon. Friend is not right, unless they are both earners. The only time when these things are done is when there is a non-earning spouse. I use the word "spouse" because some people regard the word "wife" as sexist. Again, it is a matter of detail.
      5.15 pm
      My right hon. Friend has met some objections and he has responded to pressures. I ask him to remember what is written in St. Matthew's gospel, which states:
      "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."
      I am not asking for a confrontation with the Government—not to have a knock-down, drag-out fight at 10 o'clock tonight. I hope that that will not happen. I hope that those who listen to the debate will hear a n acknowledgement by the Government that, in future, they will base the Bill on the principle that it must relate to ability to pay. If my right hon. Friend says that, but then says, "I think that your scheme is crazy, bad, mad and hare-brained," that is fine with me, because I shall withdraw it, knowing that the Government, with the resources that they have, are bound to come to a better conclusion than I. But the Government need to change that one fundamental principle.
      Mr. Kenneth Hind: Does my hon. Friend agree that 50 per cent. of local government expenditure in most areas comes from the rate support grant that is provided by the Treasury? It is means-tested and comes from income tax. With my right hon. Friend's system, at least half the community charge is means-tested. Surely that meets my hon. Friend's argument.
      Mr. Mates: As I have tried to demonstrate, that meets half the problem. The system has quite rightly tackled inability to pay, but it does not tackle ability to pay. The people who are most concerned about the present system are those who are just above that level—the people who are not at the level at which they get subsidies, but are struggling to make ends meet. As presently drafted, the Bill asks them to pay precisely the same in community charge as the richest alongside them in their communities.
      I am conscious that I have detained the House for too long, and I apologise. It is because of the number of interruptions. I say to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have been good enough to support me and to sign my motion that I do not find it comfortable to stand here, offering criticism to the Government. I did not want the matter to be brought to a head in a full-scale debate.

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      For four months, I have quietly tried to persuade Ministers and others that we can make the change without destroying the legislation. I still believe that we can make the change without destroying the legislation. I believe, too, that my right hon. and hon. Friends who have come with me so far will make up their minds tonight, not about the minutiae—but not about an odd little trap or an odd wart here and there in the legislation. For goodness' sake, if the legislation were perfect, we would not set out with 139 Government amendments—that is after the Committee's deliberations and Second Reading.
      My new clause should not be dismissed as cursorily as some have tried to dismiss it. It is worthy of debate. If, at the end of the evening, there is no concession from the Government, those who believe that this tax must be fair have to go into the Division Lobby to say so. The legislation will go on to the statute book, will become law, and will be effective in 1990. Only then will we know what the people outside this place think about it. Only then will we be able to gauge the effect of the measures that we are taking now.
      I say to my hon. Friends, with the greatest respect, that, whatever else this new legislation is known as, it will be known as a Tory tax. We can accept taxation. Although no one likes it, taxation is acceptable to the vast bulk of people of this country because by and large it is perceived to be fair. My sole anxiety is that we must make every effort to see that this piece of taxation is seen to be fair and thus acceptable to the people at large.
      The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): It might be to the advantage of the House if I give my response to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) and his new clause. I realise that new clauses 2, 5 and 7 have not yet been debated, although they are down for debate at this time, but it is true that all these new clauses suggest alternatives to the Government's plans for raising local revenue. I make no complaint that we are still discussing the principle of that matter even after two years and a very long Committee stage. It is right that we should. It gives me one more opportunity to demonstrate that we have the best solution.
      Our solution is based on two principles. First, it makes nearly everyone contribute, at least a little, to local revenues, so that all can participate in democracy at local level. Secondly, the charge is moderated according to people's ability to pay, without detracting from the first principle of accountability. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) spelt out the Labour party's alternative and I do not intend to dwell on it. I should like to close, but I think that I should address myself to my hon. Friend's new clause. The right hon. Gentleman suggested a local income tax. He is trying to achieve that in new clause 5 and in the amendments to my hon. Friend's new clause. He also suggested capital value rates. To demolish that suggestion would be a very nice debate, but I leave that to others. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has tabled new clause 7—this is about the only issue on which all wings of the erstwhile alliance agree—which proposes a local income tax.
      The longer our debate has gone on, the more I have examined other alternatives. The more I have heard the
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      arguments for those other proposals, the more I have become personally convinced of the merits of our proposals. Locally determined taxes, based in any way on the national income tax system, are all unsuitable as a method of raising money from local people, even for part of the cost of local services. I shall give hon. Members a number of reasons. In this country, local authorities are relatively small geographically, but large in terms of expenditure. The objection that I shall give applies to all the new clauses that we are discussing, and I want to explain why.
      First, a local income tax, or any variant of it, would diminish local accountability. Local services, provided by the local authorities for the local community, benefit everyone in that community. Everyone benefits, so everyone should contribute. Everyone should have the right, through the ballot box, to influence the level of service that is provided and the price that they must pay through their taxes. That is the essence of accountability and of responsible democratic control of the services provided by local authorities.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State tell the House why, in his book, one principle is applicable for local government, but a different principle, whereby people pay for national services according to their ability to pay, has been endorsed for decades by his and every other Government in this country? Why are there different standards for the two levels of government and not the same principle—no taxation without representation—for both, as we are used to in this democracy?
      Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman would be wise to wait to hear what I shall say. I shall have ample response to the points that he has raised.
      Secondly, the large variations in spending between the different authorities cause significant, and in some cases substantial, variations in the rate of taxation between neighbouring areas. The result is a strong incentive for local brain drains, whereby it pays people to move from one area to another to reduce their tax liability. The incentive is at its most severe with a full local income tax, and it is most ameliorated with a local community charge. My hon. Friend's suggestion in new clause 1 for a three-band system is somewhere in between.
      A tax of this sort causes high spending to feed on itself by driving out the better-off and causing the need for higher charges on the less well-off. The unequal distribution of the better-off is bound to set up a need for resource equalisation and, as its effects work through, the resource equalisation system—
      Mr. Tony Banks rose—
      Mr. Ridley: No.
      —gets more and more complex and larger and larger, as we have discovered with the present rate support grant system. That applies to new clause 1.
      Thirdly, the better-off tend already to be concentrated in some council areas, and, alas, absent from others. The grant has either to be switched from the richer to the poorer areas, meaning that people can no longer equate the size of their community charge to the performance of their own council, so weakening the accountability, or—I do not know whether my hon. Friend would like that—they would have to live with the situation where the

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      better-off areas may have a lower community charge than the poorer areas, because they would have access to a number of people paying one and a half shares. That is the obverse of what we should be seeking to achieve.
      Fourthly, the technical arguments are also strong. The Inland Revenue knows that people's incomes are for national income tax purposes, but does not know where they have their sole or main residence. Neither the present system, nor those splendid new computers that the Inland Revenue is soon to commission, tell us that. To graft a system of local charging on to taxable income requires that local authorities not only have to compile a register of persons having their sole or main residence in each area—as my hon. Friend generously acknowledged—but they have to establish what their incomes are, or at least what band of income they fall into for my hon. Friend's scheme. That register would have to be a register of all adults, whether they are non-income, standard rate or higher rate income tax payers, and not just the heads of households. That is an immensely complicated administrative task.
      Paul Beresford, the leader of Wandsworth borough council, expressed this point very clearly only last week, when he said:
      "If the amendment were accepted, one could easily imagine the typical elector's response, having registered for community charge, to find that they also have to declare their personal tax bracket. Furthermore, these well-meaning Back-Benchers have not foreseen the enormous scale of bureaucratic time that will be required to be spent on extracting the information, locating the relevant tax office, checking their declarations and sorting out the inevitable discrepancies. Over and above that, they apparently have given little thought about the number of times this effort must be repeated every year to deal with the changes of residence, jobs and earnings, as well as tax system changes. It would be well nigh impossible to get to grips with the unimaginable complexity of a rebate system in which a small rise in income will usually lead to a lower rebate, but will sometimes lead to a higher rebate, coupled with a doubling in the underlying charge".
      The Association of District Councils, which is controlled by the Conservative party, has expressed similar views, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East knows.
      Mr. Patrick Cormack: I do not quarrel with my right hon. Friend's quotation, but is he aware that the Conservative leader of the Association of County Councils, which is opposed to the present scheme, endorsed that body's opposition, and said:
      "On this crucial issue the Association wishes to see ability to pay reflected to a greater extent than in the present proposal."
      Some councillors may feel that the proposals that have been put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) do not make a great deal of sense, but the general view of Conservatives in the Association of County Councillors is directly to the contrary.
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is confusing two things. At this point I am talking entirely about the possibility of administering the scheme and what that would involve. What the ACC has said is not about that; it is about the principle. I am talking about the administration of the proposal.
      Mr. Devlin: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is very much to be welcomed that, for the first time since the matter came before the House, there is an element of real
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      opposition and of real contribution to the legislation as it goes through the House? We sat through many hours in Committee, during which Opposition Members contributed little, if anything. Therefore, the debate is limited to discussion among ourselves as to how best to implement the financing of local government.
      Mr. Ridley: I agree with my hon. Friend. I only hope that the Opposition's contribution to today's debate will not simply be trying to shout down that which they do not like, while my right hon. and hon. Friends and I debate the issue seriously.
      Mr. Stuart Randall rose—
      Mr. Ridley: No, I have given way already.
      Fifthly, any tax of this sort has to be enforced. There are two ways in which it could be enforced. The first is that the Inland Revenue could be required to tell councils the taxable income of each of its residents. This would be deeply offensive to the House on privacy and data protection grounds, as well as being beyond the present administrative competence of the Revenue.
      The second would be a form of self-assessment—[Interruption.] The Opposition are living up to what I predicted they would do. They are trying to shout down the debate. The second is a form of self-assessment, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East. He suggests that everyone should have to declare his status as a taxpayer. There would then have to be some verification procedure, and that is where the difficulty arises. I gather that my hon. Friend suggests that the council could challenge one in every 1,000 or in every 5,000—what it thought appropriate—and ask the Inland Revenue to adjudicate on whether that person is in the category that he has declared.
      The problem that the Inland Revenue does not know where people live becomes immediately relevant from the moment that the first challenges start. Apart from that, there is the awful opportunity that this would give a local authority to discriminate between those to whom it issued a challenge. I can see politics coming into this. It is an appalling prospect that accusations could be made against citizens on a random basis, with no evidence whatsoever, on whether they fell into one category or another. Who would be the final arbiter? Would the Inland Revenue decide, or would there be some appeal? Surely there should be an appeal either to the commissioners or to some other tribunal or court, to decide whether the details of that person's income as given by the Revenue were correct.
      We had a debate in Committee about the number of people called John Smith who might get mixed up, even in the same local authority area. We must make sure that we get it right, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East has not so far suggested any ways in which that could be done. What would the penalties be?
      Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
      Dr. John Reid rose—
      Mr. Ridley: I have already given way to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes); I give way to the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid).
      Dr. Reid: As the Secretary of State is labouring the point about a bureaucratic nightmare, will he explain why

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      all investigations into income tax can be made with the full support of the Government, without it being a bureaucratic nightmare, when it comes to housing benefit, family income credit or finding out whether an old-age pensioner has £6,000 in the bank, or when it comes to preventing someone from gaining benefits from the social security system, but when it comes to applying to the same system to income verification to alleviate the poorest from paying the poll tax it suddenly becomes impossible and a bureaucratic nightmare?
      Mr. Ridley: Because the social security system will tell the collecting officer, under the community charge, what percentage should be raised from each payer according to the rebate that he is due. Councillors will not get to know about it.
      I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East, to say what the penalties would be for a false declaration. How would he cope with the fact that some incomes are not determined for several years after the tax year has ended? He must make some plan for giving refunds to those who can prove that they were not in the bracket in which they originally thought they might be when they had to fill in the form. That is one of the great difficulties. A person would be asked to state the category that he was in before he could know what his income would be. All those problems would have to be thought out and solved, if solved they could be, which I doubt.
      Sixthly, the concept of basing some form of tax on national income tax is full of anomalies. What may be appropriate as a national relief from income tax may not be appropriate as a local relief. For instance, mortgage interest relief, age allowance, working expenses and even life assurance premium relief all shift the point at which one moves from one level of national income tax to another, yet is it right that they should affect one's liability for a local charge, which is in the nature of paying for the services that are received? A cut in the mortgage rate because interest rates are falling could have the effect of pushing people into a higher band or rate of community charge.
      Moreover, our rebates are closely aligned to the ability to pay. They are based on assessing the needs of the less well off and then assessing their means. Either benefit or community charge rebate is aligned on the gap between the two. Income tax takes no account of needs—it merely takes a slice of the means. Basing any system of local taxation on income tax scales is bound to be unfair to the less well-off.
      For all those reasons, the income tax system is not a suitable vehicle for a locally variable tax on the better-off. It is both easier and fairer to achieve any redistribution of income for which hon. Members seek through the national taxation system.
      Mr. Tim Rathbone: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Ridley: If I may just finish this point, I shall certainly give way.
      Hon. Members can express their views about that proposal in the coming Finance (No. 2) Bill. If it were thought right to charge the equivalent of one and a half community charges on higher rate taxpayers, as my hon.
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      Friend suggests, it could easily be done by increasing the higher rate of income tax from 40p to 41·5p. That would produce the same amount of money.
      The logical extension of that would then be to ensure that the amount raised found its way equally to local authorities through the Government grant system. For those who wish to achieve that objective—I am delighted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able to reduce the top rate of income tax, as I think my hon. Friends are, and I do not want him to increase it again—that system avoids all the complexities, problems and difficulties that I have been highlighting.
      Mr. Rathbone: To return to my right hon. Friend's point about the inequities of the new clause for the lower paid, how can he say that it has any effect on the lower paid when it embraces all the Government's actions to alleviate the burden of the community charge on the lowest paid and when 90 per cent. or so of those who pay income tax will pay exactly the same charge as the Government are asking them to be charged? The new clause will have no effect on the lower paid.
      Mr. Ridley: I have a great deal to say about that, but in order not to dodge the question my answer is that if more money is to be spent on the less well-off by helping them with their charges, there are much more accurate ways of targeting the more deserving, which the Government have already adopted, as I shall show.
      That link with grant, and thereby with national taxation, brings me to the next crucial point. It is necessary to consider the community charge, not in isolation, but as one source from which money will be raised for local services. The community charge in England will provide only about one quarter of the total cost of local services—half will come from Government grants paid from progressive national taxation. That is why households with the top 10 per cent. of earnings will contribute about 15 times as much in total towards the cost of local services as the bottom 10 per cent. Therefore, payment for local services is progressive and based on the ability to pay.
      I quote in aid the words of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who is in a distant quarter of the Chamber—perhaps this is why—when he announced the Government's response in 1977 to the Layfield committee. He said:
      "the Government finance about 60 per cent. or more of local government expenditure through the rate support grant. That is finance out of general taxation to which other people contribute just as much as householders do."—[Official Report, 19 May 1977; Vol. 932, c. 720]
      The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right. He realised that the best way that the better-off could be made to pay more was through their share of the cost of Government grant. That must be right. That also means that our proposals are related to the ability to pay, both at the top end of the scale and at the bottom.
      All these thoughts lead one to conclude that the best system of financing local government based on the ability to pay is, first, that everyone should make a direct contribution to achieve accountability; secondly, to use the social security system to reduce the liability of the less well-off; and, thirdly, to finance the lion's share of spending by progressive taxation collected by the national income tax system and paid as grant. In that way the better-off contribute the highest share. That is precisely what we have done.
      Dr. Keith Hampson: Would the logic of my right hon. Friend's final comment about moving the bulk of the burden on to direct taxation be to transfer the bulk of the cost of education to progressive taxation, such as Lord Joseph proposed, with a 75 per cent. education grant? A specific grant could let the Government off the hook, in that the poll tax could be cut across the board.
      Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is right in theory. If more money is transferred to Government grant, it has the effect of reducing the community charge and increasing what the better-off pay to Government grant. That figure need not be related to any particular services, whether education or police. That is not the right calculation.
      The right calculation is how big a share should come through the grant, and what should be the resulting levels of community charges? All that is open for discussion and debate, and whatever the answer, the mechanism is in the Bill and would be wrecked by the new clause.
      There are additional difficulties with the proposal in the new clause for a one and a half charge for higher rate taxpayers. I expect that that will not satisfy the Labour party, which wants to hit the better-off. Nor does it raise much money—about £200 million, which is sufficient only to cut the basic community charge by 10p a week for those on the ordinary rate of charge, most of which, if not all, would probably be lost because of the extra costs of administration, which, we are assured by local authorities, would be substantial.
      5.45 pm
      Mr. Matthew Taylor: The Secretary of State said that that would cut 10p for the ordinary ratepayer. If there is this much-vaunted rebate extension scheme, which he has announced proudly, it will mean that a student nurse studying in Camden who previously paid 17 per cent. of her income, equivalent to £15·03 in community charge, will pay £14·87, giving her a benefit of 16p. Is the difference between 10p and 16p particularly relevant in this case?
      Mr. Ridley: That depends on many circumstances, and I shall come to the details of the rebate scheme shortly.
      The new clause produces some additional awkward side effects, apart from the administrative problems. The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) identified these and mentioned the large step in liability as one's income passes a certain point. I am sorry that he is not here this afternoon. There are two such steps: one when someone first pays income tax, contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East alleged, and the other when one reaches the higher rate of tax. They could easily be £200 or £300 steps for a couple, and more in the high-spending areas. As my hon. Friend wishes, I shall quote the average figures.
      Obviously, there will be a smaller trap if one goes from the half rate to the whole rate only if the rebate is still there when one travels down that slope, but in many cases there will be a 50 per cent. increase in charge when tax liability is reached. Those are serious traps which could cause people to avoid overtime or more wages. Indeed, they are probably the highest incentive imaginable to operate on the black economy.
      The Leader of the Opposition was right to dissociate himself from the new clause on that ground alone, and I
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      am sure that he will have the courage of his convictions and not vote for it. I shall be glad to hear what he will do He made it clear that he thought that the new clause was bad. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has bullied him to stay away from the debate because he is a doubter in his own ranks.
      With their amendments, Opposition Members have tried to turn new clause 1 into a more overt form of local income tax, which is at least logical in view of all the difficulties of my hon. Friend's scheme. That means that there is no halfway house between the community charge and local income tax, and I accept that that is what hon. Gentlemen are trying to achieve and point out.
      Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: I ant listening extremely carefully to what my right hon. Friend is saying, and he has spent some time saying how unfair the new clause is. Before he sits down, will he explain to those who support the new clause how fair the Government's proposal will be?
      Mr. Ridley: The answer to that is yes. I understand fully the anxiety that my hon. Friends have expressed about the position of the less well-off under our rebate scheme. Throughout our deliberations on the subject, we have been acutely aware of the need to protect people on low incomes from hardship, and I am satisfied that the generous rebate system will achieve precisely that. As the House knows, I improved it last week.
      Mr. Timothy Raison: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the rebate scheme, however generous, is subject to the capital limits from which housing benefit has suffered, whereas the scheme in new clause 1 would not be subject to capital limits?
      Mr. Ridley: That is obviously right, but my right hon. Friend must admit, if he wants to base relief on ability to pay, that those with large capital have the ability to pay.
      My hon. Friend's motive in trying to help people on low incomes is laudable, but his scheme does not achieve what he wishes to do. Its incidence, in terms of those whom it will help, is capricious. It does nothing for those just above benefit level—those between 80 and 50 per cent. rebate. The poorest people are already eligible for 80 per cent. rebate. It does nothing for most of those in areas with the highest community charges, and the help that it gives particular groups depends on the relationship between their tax thresholds and the benefits system. Benefits are much more closely aligned to ability to pay than is income tax, because they take account of needs as well as means. They are a much better basis for helping the least well-off.
      Of course my hon. Friend is right to say that his scheme would make no one worse off, but that would happen, too, with the improved rebates that I suggested last Thursday. On the basis of 1988–89 tax thresholds, the main groups that he would help are single people living in low community charge areas and some pensioners who benefit from the higher income tax age allowances. Thus, its effects would be arbitrary. The new clause would add the quirk that, at the 50 per cent. rebate level, the rebate would not reduce as income increased until the point was reached where income tax became payable. Then there would be a sudden jump in liability, which could mean an additional £100 or £200 in community charge a year, depending on whether it was an individual or a couple, for each extra £1

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      of income. That is another example of the step effect against which the Leader of the Opposition rightly warned.
      We have made our rebate system more generous, but we have targeted it very much better. We have reduced the slope of the taper from 20 to 15 per cent. This means that a single person aged over 25 with a £300 community charge would not have to pay the full charge until his or her gross income reached £4,550 per annum, and that a married couple with two children aged under 11 would have to earn a gross income of £8,800 before all rebate was withdrawn. While preserving the principle of accountability, everyone will benefit if a council reduces its spending. We are now extending help to 9 million people in the very area about which concern has been expressed. I can think of no scheme more closely attuned to ability to pay.
      My hon. Friend acknowledged that if there are difficulties—or warts, as he called them—in his scheme he would be happy for the Government to take it away and come back with an improved scheme. The hon. Member for Copeland was even more generous. He would give me power to make regulations to design a totally new tax by order, which goes even further than my hon. Friend would.
      I ask the House to reject the new clause. We have looked carefully at my hon. Friend's scheme and we genuinely find it wanting in the many respects that I have described. That is not because the details are wrong and could be improved. It is not because the experts in Whitehall could make a thorough and effective job of what my hon. Friend proposes. It is because there are fundamental objections to it, such as I have been rehearsing this afternoon.
      Furthermore, if the new clause found its way into the Bill there would be no further opportunity for the House to improve it. Once the Bill passes through its Report stage the House has no further opportunity to amend it. As it is a taxing motion, I should have thought that my hon. Friends would agree that the House of Commons should get the details right, and I repeat that we would have no opportunity to do so later. We would have to leave the Bill with the massive defects that I have described.
      The new clause would be unworkable. We have achieved ability to pay through the rebate system at the bottom end of the scale and through asking the better-off to contribute to the grant which is the main source of revenue for local authorities. It would be a great mistake for the House to deviate from the sensible plans that the Government have proposed, and I ask hon. Members to reject the new clause.
      Dr. John Cunningham: The hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) made a good speech—a brave speech. The Secretary of State for the Environment made a good speech, too—against a poll tax of any sort. The Secretary of State for Social Services must be thinking that there is hope for him at last. In a long speech, the Secretary of State did not answer the case put by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East, questioning the principle of ability to pay, nor did he move a single inch in that direction.
      The Opposition remain implacably opposed to the idea that a flat-rate poll tax should be used to raise local government revenue. It can never be a fair or efficient tax.
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      It will never be accepted by local government or, more importantly, by the people of Britain. We said that in December and throughout the Committee stage, and we say it again today. As the first leader in the Financial Times today makes abundantly clear, our arguments are well-founded.
      Today the House has another chance—the best possible chance—to make the Government think again. The hon. Member for Hampshire, East deserves credit for providing that opportunity. If his new clause were carried, the Government would be forced to think again. Our purpose is to uphold our view that taxes must be fair and reflect people's ability to pay. We, the House and the whole country know that there is no willing majority for the Bill in the House of Commons. The Back-Bench opinion that has been expressed by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East and his supporters is simply the tip of a large iceberg of submerged discontent and downright opposition among Government supporters. The Secretary of State knows that full well.
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      New clause 1 probably gives the House the only opportunity this evening to vote to make the Government reconsider. I agree with the hon. Member for Hampshire, East that his new clause makes modest but significant improvements to the situation. Of course there are objections to it. We have made our views clear in amendments and in new clause 5. The guillotine timetable is almost certain to prevent a debate and a vote on those amendments or the new clause.
      In its published studies, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has made it abundantly clear that a graduated tax could be made more sensitive if the Government wished it. Ministers talk of poverty traps, but the biggest poverty trap of all is a flat-rate poll tax. That is why it is so roundly and universally rejected by the people. The Secretary of State and the Government do not understand how seriously and persistently public opinion is moving against them.
      Today, the Secretary of State has once again made it clear that he is not interested in fairness or the ability to pay. On 1 June 1987, in Blackburn, he said:
      "I think, in terms of local authority services, people should be paying for what they get. It has nothing to do with how rich you are. In this country we are too sold on the idea that the rich should be made to pay for other people's services."
      On 23 February, in Committee, he said:
      "With a flat rate charge, it must be true that the burden will fall more heavily on those with low incomes than on those with high incomes. That is beyond contradiction in relation to those who pay the full community charge."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 23 February 1988; c. 936.]
      At the annual meeting of his constituency association the right hon. Gentleman went further. The Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Standard of Friday 1 April—an appropriate day—reported:
      "He added that there was no reason why local services should be paid by people according to their incomes. 'Why should a duke pay more than a dustman?' he asked. 'It is only because we have been subjected to socialist ideas for the last 50 years.'"
      That gives some illustration of the depth of thought and intellect brought to bear on the matter of fair taxation by the Secretary of State.
      Mr. Robert Adley: The hon. Gentleman may be unaware that I had my constituency association annual general meeting on Friday evening. Lest he think

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      that people are unaware of the implications of the poll tax, he should accept from me that those of my supporters who believe that if they benefit, they will do so at the expense of the less well-off, are not happy with that proposition.
      Dr. Cunningham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I applaud him for his courage in spelling out his views to his right hon. and hon. Friends. I share his sentiments.
      Mr. Butterfill rose—
      Dr. Cunningham: No, I will not give way.
      Let us consider the considerable amount of time that the Secretary of State has devoted to his concession. The Government's concession to their Back Benchers, who are increasingly unhappy about the impact of the poll tax, does not resolve the essential unfairness of the tax. Conservative Members should not be taken in by the Secretary of State's claim that his concession will adequately help low-income earners. The poll tax remains unrelated to people's ability to pay and the poor will continue to subsidise the rich.
      The full poll tax—an average of £450 a year for two people—will still be payable by a pensioner couple with a net income of £111 a week and a working couple with two children with a net income of £131·80 a week. The Secretary of State was forced to concede that if a person has managed throughout the whole of his life to accumulate as little as £6,000, he will get absolutely no help as a result of the Government's concession. That is the reality of the marvellous new, magnificent, generous concession that the Secretary of State has alleged that he has made.
      If we take the poll tax payment of £250 a year—about the average for authorities in England—which is therefore a tax of £5 a week, it is clear that, even under the Secretary of State's scheme, a single person under 25 with take-home pay of as little as £53·40 a week will get nothing. In other words, 10 per cent. of his or her take-home pay will go to pay the tax, with no Government support. We should not fall for the blandishments of the Secretary of State that, somehow, the concession is wide-ranging and generous. It is as mean and miserable as every other aspect of the proposals.
      Mr. Leigh rose—
      Dr. Cunningham: No, I shall not give way.
      Why is it that, on 23 February, in Committee, the Secretary of State considered that the taper was "generous and eminently justifiable"? He said that about the existing proposals. If he is now suddenly convinced that the taper is not fair and generous, as he then said it was, will he now apply the additional proposals to those families who will have to pay more on their rates between now and the introduction of the poll tax? Will the Government make that concession? Of course not. The Secretary of State knows that only too well.
      Mr. Leigh rose—
      Dr. Cunningham: I shall give way in a moment.
      Why make a concession in an attempt to mitigate the unfairness of it all? What is the argument? The Secretary of State is simply trying to buy off the fundamental opposition of his right hon. and hon. Friends. All he is doing is leaving 26 million people liable to the totality of the flat-rate poll tax. After all that he said about his new
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      concession, 75 per cent. of those over 18 will still have to pay the flat-rate poll tax. That major principle remains for the vast majority of people, including millions on low and average incomes. Where does that leave the famous promise of the Prime Minister? I have before me the press notice in which she promised:
      "Any future local revenue should be based not on property but on the ability of people to pay."
      Where is that promise now? The hon. Member for Hampshire, East is right to remind his right hon. and hon. Friends that the Government are now running away from that commitment, which was part of Tory party policy.
      The poll tax continues to be a huge and growing embarrassment to the Tory party. That is best illustrated' by figures published last week as a result of a MORI poll conducted in the city of Manchester. It showed that 75 per cent. of all respondents believe that the poll tax will discourage registration to vote; 63 per cent. believe that they will be worse off; 76 per cent. believe that the poll tax will involve official snooping and intruding into their personal and family affairs; and 71 per cent. believe that it will encourage the break-up of families. Since the general election there has been a 25 per cent. swing among the population away from the Government's proposals.
      As a result of the Budget tax cuts, the rich will be significantly better off—£2 billion given away to 3·7 per cent. of taxpayers. Half of all tax cuts went to the top 10 per cent. of taxpayers, whereas cuts in housing benefit will damage the family income of millions of people throughout the country. The top 10 per cent. of people will, in addition, enjoy major gains because of changes in inheritance tax. That contrasts with up to 2 million people in low-income families who will receive nothing at all from those same tax cuts.
      By contrast, even Government statistics show that 6 million claimants of social benefits will lose in real terms as a result of the structural changes made to the system and that 1 million people will lose in cash terms.
      Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Gentleman now give way?
      Dr. Cunningham: No, I shall not.
      All the time, the poll tax time-bomb proposals have been ticking away beneath the Tory party, and they will blast the incomes of millions of people who can least afford it. I say to Tory Members who are concerned about the manifest unfairness of it all that there will never be a better time or a better opportunity than tonight to make their Government pause and think again before it is too late.
      In case there are one or two waverers and doubters who feel that, because of the Secretary of State's concession, they ought to abstain or even go into the Lobby with their Ministers, I will enlighten them about proposals now being discussed. I will tell them what is said in a letter to the Secretary of State from 10 Downing street about proposals now under consideration. It is headed "Community Charge Rebates" and is from someone named Paul Gray to Roger Bright, who is the Secretary of State's principal private secretary. At the top of the second page, in sub-paragraph (iv), it states:
      "Further consideration was being given in a group of officials chaired by the DHSS to the implications of the decisions to raise the housing benefit rent taper from 65 per cent. to 70 per cent. in 1989–90. The results of that work, which would involve looking at other options for yielding comparable housing benefit savings, would be for a separate Ministerial consideration at a later date."

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      At the very time that the Government are publicly saying that they are making a concession, they are planning to raise the taper on housing benefit to take even more money away from the very people that the Government say they want to assist.
      In the accompanying correspondence from the Secretary of State's office, there is a letter from a civil servant named Deborah Lamb that begins "Dear Paul", and which refers to the Secretary of State himself. It states:
      "He is coming under increasing pressure in the Local Government Finance Bill where the issue is beginning to be understood by a number of backbenchers."
      At last the message has got through; after two days on Second Reading and three months in Committee, at last they are beginning to understand. I can tell them that the British people are way ahead of them, because they have understood all this for a very long time. Perhaps that is the best reason of all why Conservative Members should support their hon. Friend in the Division Lobbies tonight.
      Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. Before I call the next right hon. or hon. Member to speak, I may say to both sides of the House that a very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are wishing to catch my eye, so I appeal for brief contributions. Mr. Cranley Onslow.
      6.15 pm
      Mr. Onslow: It is good of you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to catch my eye, but it was not my intention to intervene at this particular moment. If I might have a bisque on it, I am sure there are others of my right hon. and hon. Friends who would much rather speak.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Julian Amery.
      Mr. Julian Amery rose—
      Hon. Members: Opposition next!
      Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. To save you the bother of going round the Chamber and finding other Members who apparently do not wish to speak, may we have an assurance that this debate will be governed by normal conventions—that right hon. and hon. Members will have to rise and catch your eye, and that there is not a prepared list of speakers to defend the Government's position?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to have wasted the time of the House. I call Mr. Julian Amery.
      Mr. Amery: I was not expecting, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to catch your eye so soon, but I am grateful for the opportunity. This is the first time that I have presumed to intervene in a debate on the community charge, and I must first declare an interest. For about 65 years I have lived in a rented terraced house, and I must admit that the prospective disappearance of the rating system is inevitably welcome to me. Even more welcome is the removal of the sword of Damocles of revaluation that has hung over my head.
      On broader, national grounds, I welcome the community charge proposal because it enshrines in local government the principle of no representation without taxation. That is the hallmark of a mature democracy. All
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      the same, when I first looked at the proposal and thought about it in the light of many years of electioneering, I felt deep concern. It is important that the charge should be not only fair but acceptable, and I was alarmed by the weight of taxation that will fall for the first time on people wholly unaccustomed to contributing, in any way, to local government.
      Therefore, I confess that I approached the new clause with sympthy. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) bases the new clause on a claim of fairness. He thinks that the present flat rate is unfair and that the criterion should be the ability to pay. That is an arguable point. Income tax can be based on ability to pay because it is raised from a single constituency—the United Kingdom. In so far as the better-off contribute more, the less well-off are enabled to contribute less. How far does that apply to local government?
      I have been unable to find a good analysis of the distribution of wealth, less wealth, and poverty in different local government areas. But ordinary observation will convince many of us that there are some local government areas, such as the city of Westminster, which contain a great body of people who are well off and which would do very well out of my hon. Friend's proposal, and that there are many industrial towns where the better off get into their motor cars and leave. They pay their taxes not where they work but where they reside. I do not think that the extra money taken from the better-off under my hon. Friend's scheme will necessarily benefit the less well-off.
      I doubt whether the principle of the ability to pay can be applied locally. We do not apply it in other branches of taxation. We do not apply it in indirect taxation. We do not apply it in national insurance or rents, whether public or private. In all those cases, the system on which we fall back is the rebate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has produced what appears to me to be a pretty generous rebate offer.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East is perhaps on rather stronger ground when he says that what matters is not so much whether it is fair as whether it seems to be fair. He advanced that argument in a very interesting newspaper article. I have questioned constituents and others on this topic. Two or three have told me that the proposed system is not fair. I asked what they meant. They did not say that it is not fair because it is not related to ability to pay; they meant that they were suddenly being asked to pay up quite a big sum when they had never paid anything before. "It is not fair" is the cry of any Englishman confronted with something unpleasant.
      My guess is that the trouble with the present proposal is that it is a bit too heavy. It will not be easily acceptable because its incidence is too great. I may be wrong. If I am, then let us go along the lines that my right hon. Friend proposes. If, however, I am right, I do not think that the way to tackle the problem is the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East proposes. That is because his proposal does not make the burden substantially lighter for the great majority of people.
      There are ways in which the burden could be reduced. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned a few. It could be lightened by increasing Government grant to local authorities or by reducing local government's responsibilities. This is not the occasion on which to put forward concrete proposals, but I shall illustrate what I have in mind.

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      How far are we justified in calling education a local government service? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in the absence of the Burnham committee, determines what teachers are paid. He lays down a core curriculum. He allows—some might think that he encourages—schools to opt out of local government control. How far is education still a local government matter? But it is responsible for nearly half the local government budget.
      What about the police? During the miners' strike, there was an operations room in Whitehall which virtually created a centralised police force. Strong arguments are put forward by those who know more about it than I do that the career structure of the police would be more satisfactory if it was a national force. I do not know the answers and I do not pretend to, but I submit that the solution to any excessive burden which the community charge may place on the individual—taxation must be acceptable, even if it is not liked—may lie with increasing the central grant to local authorities or by cutting local expenditure.
      I ask those questions to suggest that there is another way in which to consider these matters. The Bill has been called the flagship of the Government's programme. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East really think that the case that he has made is strong enough to torpedo the flagship, particularly on the eve of important local elections? I would not normally indulge in such a party political point, but the opposition is not on the other side of the House; it is over here.
      I wonder whether it would not be wiser to examine the courses of action that I have suggested. I do not pretend to have an answer, but there is plenty of time. The community charge is not to be enforced for another two years or so.
      Mr. Mates: I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend has said. He shows the House time and again what a wise person he is. Of course we would like this proposal to be reconsidered. I must tell my right hon. Friend with all the passion at my disposal that all I want is for the Government to say that they will look at it again. I am not trying to torpedo the Bill or to wreck it. I have looked for another course of action for three months since Second Reading, when I informed the Secretary of State that I could not support his plan and that I would look for another way. I have done that privately. I have not done it in the public eye. I have tried hard not to let the argument surface. We have been told, however, that there is no other way; that the Government's proposal is fair. Some of us do not believe that to be the case. I shall not prosecute this argument to a conclusion. I want to prosecute it until the Secretary of State or the Minister says, "We hear you; we have the point. Let us look at it again and find a fairer way." In that respect, my right hon. Friend and I are in absolute agreement.
      Mr. Amery: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. If I understood the Secretary of State aright—I stand to be corrected—from what I could make out of it, he said, in a passage in which there was a good deal of interruption, that there are other ways in which to tackle the problem, including increasing the central grant. I do not think that he mentioned reducing local government responsibilities, but I have thrown that idea in. Am I acting as a midwife to produce a baby? There is a convenient room behind
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      your Chair, Mr. Speaker. I should be a proud man if my intervention were to lead to a successful meeting there. I shall keep my ears and eyes closed. Meanwhile, my blessing on you.
      6.30 pm
      Mr. Cyril Smith: The suggestion of the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), that this matter refers to the issue of no representation without taxation was particularly interesting. If it is true, in the case argued by the Government, that 50 per cent. of local government expenditure is paid for by taxpayers through taxes other than direct taxation, it is also true of people who do not pay rates at present. They spend money and they pay taxation through indirect taxes. It appears to me, therefore, that that particular argument is not applicable.
      I often give after-dinner speeches, particularly in the north-west. Indeed, on occasions, I am paid for doing so; I make no secret of the fact. In some of those speeches I say that one of the objects of the British House of Commons is for Members of Parliament to dig as big a hole as they can and then drop their political opponents into it. I am beginning to revise my view about this place because, over the past few weeks, the Government have not needed the Opposition to dig the holes into which to drop their opponents. The Government have been perfectly capable of digging their own holes and dropping themselves into them. When we consider what has gone on over the past eight, 10 or 12 weeks, it is quite staggering, and tonight is only one more step along that road.
      We set off with the under-funding of the Health Service. Then we had the Budget, with tax being reduced from a top rate of 60 per cent. to 40 per cent., and help for the rich, when so many causes that could and should have been helped—not just the Health Service, but, for example, extra improvement grants for houses—were not helped.
      We then went on to the social security changes, which are absolutely disastrous, as the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said. I cannot speak for other hon. Members, but I say honestly and sincerely that I have had pensioners weeping at my surgery as a consequence of the social security changes. I have seen people who have been given a £3 a week increase in pension when their rent has increased by £9, £12 or £15 a week. This is relevant to the debate because the concessions announced by the Minister are related to the same benefit that is causing so much upset among pensioners at present—housing benefit.
      Let no one be under any misapprehension. The point on which the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) intervened is absolutely vital. The sum of £6,000—which is chickenfeed—that a pensioner may have saved for his security bars him from all rebates under the poll tax system, and he loses his entitlement to housing benefit as a consequence. The Minister's silly £1 example is ridiculous. What about the pensioner who saves £6,001? We can use that example, too, if we want to get down to silly margins of that kind.
      The final element in digging this great hole is the imposition of the poll tax. While we are talking about the Government digging holes for themselves, I must say that I bet that those councillors who come up for re-election in

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      May 1990 will thank the Government for introducing this in April 1990. I have seen no good timing, political acumen and shrewdness in this place over the past few weeks.
      Mr Norman Tebbit: Is the hon. Gentleman telling us how to win elections?
      Mr. Smith: I have fought 11 elections in my life and won 10 of them, so I am not complaining.
      Mr. Tebbit: I can understand how the hon. Gentleman wins elections. He is a major personality in his own right. The trouble is that he is in a party that has never won a general election in the lifetime of most of us, so it comes a bit much from him and his party to be lecturing us on how to win elections when we have just won three on the trot.
      Mr. Smith: The right hon. Gentleman typifies the points that I wish to raise later. The problem with the Government is that they have become power-drunk and the right hon. Gentleman is an example of that. However, although my party may not have won an election in my lifetime, it has not sacked me as chairman of my party.
      In this debate I simply wanted to make a plea for the members of a section of our society about whom we hear very little, but who are deeply concerned. Thousands of people are suffering mental anguish because of the introduction of the poll tax. I refer particularly to old-age pensioners. They have never done anybody any harm. They have brought up their families. They have saved a few quid to try to give them a little security in their old age. They have been proud of what they have achieved, yet, because they have saved £6,000, they are being penalised.
      Unfortunately, my ability to canvass is now extremely limited, for physical reasons, but in the past 10 days I have been out for 20 minutes at a time, knocking on doors in the run-up to the local elections in Rochdale. Many pensioners have come to me at the door and said, "Cyril, we were just managing. We have just balanced our budget. We have just got it right. Now the Government have taken another £8 or £9 a week off us for rent. We do not know how we are going to pay our way, but, honestly, what are we going to do when we have all that poll tax to find?"
      I readily concede that, in some cases, pensioners' worry and concern are not justified. I tell them that the poll tax is not coming in until 1990, but old people are old people. I tell the Government, whether or not they listen, that pensioners are desperately worried and upset about what has gone on in the last few days in respect of social security changes. Pensioners see the poll tax as yet another burden that they will have to carry. I tell the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) that if I had anything to do with the Government I would explain to pensioners where they stood and what the future held for them, because they are desperately worried about the situation facing them.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Pensioners know that not all of them suffer in quite the same way. My hon. Friend will know that the Prime Minister and her husband, who are pensioners, live in my borough. These two pensioners are in the 5 per cent. who will gain under the poll tax, while 90 per cent. of Southwark households will lose. Many pensioners have nothing and do not have to pay at the moment because they do not have the money. They will be asked to pay a poll tax, but the Prime Minister and her husband will have their rates reduced by nearly £2,000.
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      Does my hon. Friend tell his pensioners that, and what would their response be to that fair system of local government finance?
      Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I do not need to tell the pensioners that, because most of them know already. When I talk to pensioners, I do not try to inflame them. I try to calm them down and stop their worry. I explain that the poll tax is three years away. However, they are upset and worried. They are worried because it is a rotten tax. It is an ill-conceived tax. The new clause does not make it a good tax, but it makes it less rotten. That is why I and my hon. Friends will support the new clause this evening.
      There are many criticisms of the poll tax. I shall not rehearse them all now, because it would not be proper in this debate. However, it will weaken local government and create an army of bureaucrats and snoopers, and it will certainly be more expensive to collect. Above all, it is a compulsory tax that bears no relation to ability to pay. That is why the new clause is an improvement. It at least makes some attempt, however crude, to relate the levy to ability to pay. The concessions announced last week do not answer the fundamental weakness in the basic proposals.
      Rebates imply, rightly or wrongly, that one has to pay first and receive a rebate afterwards. That needs to be cleared up. In any case, if rebates are to be based on national average taxes, as I understand they are, that will certainly penalise the north as against the south. It will penalise the north for a simple reason. Many of the problems that have to be faced by local government in this country—I am thinking particularly of problems with housing and social services—are more apparent in the north than in the south, if only for reasons of history.
      Mr. Howard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Smith: I shall give way in a moment. The Minister can be working out what he wants to say.
      The cost of social services and housing will inevitably be higher in the north than in the south. In any case, if one talks about an average rate of rebate in relation to the poll tax it must imply that some authorities will levy a higher rate than others. Because of social conditions in the north—I am not referring to loony councils; I concede that they exist and I do not defend them—the higher rate of tax will often be in the north. If one refunds only the average level of tax, that means that people in the north will receive less rebate as a percentage of what they pay.
      Mr. Howard: I had hoped to save the hon. Gentleman a bit of time. Will he accept that the rebates will be based, not on the average community charge, but on the community charge levied in each area?
      Mr. Smith: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. I mean that sincerely. I was not aware of that and I am delighted to hear it.
      As I was saying, there are loony councils—
      Mr. David Clelland: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the statement by the Secretary of State that the system of rebates is designed to help the poorest is the same as the statement that was made when housing benefit was introduced? However, this month we

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      have found that millions of people are losing because of changes in the benefits system. What guarantee is there that there will not be changes in the rebate system?
      Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman has made a valid point. Perhaps the Minister should take that on board when somebody challenges the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) about what would happen if the band of tax changed or the Government changed. It is equally applicable to concessions.
      I am glad to say that the official Opposition are supporting the new clause, as we are. There was a time when the Leader of the Opposition announced that they were not going to support the new clause. I can understand that point of view. Let me be frank. If we were speaking in terms of pure party political strategy, we would be daft to support the new clause. The new clause will help to get the Government off the hook on the matter of the poll tax. Many of us in one sense, not a caring sense but a party political sense, will not be upset if the poll tax is carried, because it will do the Government a lot of harm and it will do other parties a lot of good. Therefore, as I have said, I can understand the view of the Leader of the Opposition. Ultimately, he came to the opinion, as he often does, where he said, "I am their leader; I must follow them."
      6.45 pm
      Mr. Tony Banks: At least we know who is the leader of the party.
      Mr. Smith: I am sure that the House will be glad to know that for this short spell, today's debate, I am acting as the leader of my hon. Friends.
      I find it difficult to believe that this Government, or any Government, can seriously set out to attack those least able to defend themselves. That is what the Bill is doing. It attacks the pensioners, the sick and the disabled. As I said to the right hon. Member for Chingford, I can conclude only that the Government have become power-drunk. They have had eight or nine years with a substantial majority and they have lost no major decisions in the House over that time. There comes a time in politics, or anything else, when Governments think that they cannot lose and that they can get away with anything. If the new clause were to be carried tonight, it would do the Government a service in terms of political appeal. It would do them good, in that it would say, "Hang on. We will put up with just so much and no more. You have gone too far on this matter."
      My party has always made it clear that it favours a local income tax. We believe that that is a fairer system because it works on the basis of from each according to his ability to pay. New clause 7, which is being considered with this new clause, makes that point. We have published detailed proposals on how that would be implemented and we would be glad to send a copy to any right hon. or hon. Member. New clause 1 is a move towards the principle of relating local government taxation to income tax. That is why we shall support it.
      We have been given by the Secretary of State a long list of reasons why the new clause will not work. I began to wonder whether the London marathon was finishing today or yesterday. I listened with great interest—well, I listened anyway—to what the Secretary of State said. With the exception of young members such as the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who said that this was his first
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      Parliament, we all know how to defeat a new clause. There are many hon. Members who have served in past Parliaments, and there are plenty of ex-Ministers on the Conservative Benches. They all know that all one has to say is that it is badly worded, would not work or that the civil servants have said it is clumsy and so on. We all know all that and we have heard it all before.
      If the Government wanted to introduce a poll tax that was related to the ability to pay, they could do so, and they know it. What matters about the new clause is not what it recommends, but the principle that it establishes. That is the key issue on which we are being asked to vote tonight. It establishes the principle that any change in local government taxation should result in a system that bears some relation to the ratepayer's or taxpayer's ability to pay.
      I commend the hon. Member for Hampshire, East for moving the new clause, and my colleagues and I will support it.
      Mr. Tebbit: Listening to the debate, one feels a sense of déjà vu. If the words, "Greater London council" were substituted for "community charge", I seem to have heard all the same arguments being made by many of the same people.
      The same degree of opportunism was being practised by the Labour party on that occasion as we have seen today. It is prepared to support a clause that it opposes merely to seek to cause further embarrassment to the Government. I do not blame it for doing that, and it is perfectly entitled to do so. However, that shows that the Labour party still has no policy of its own to stand by. At least the Liberal party has a policy to stand by that is totally impracticable, but the Labour party has not even an impractical policy.
      I am an unrepentant supporter of the community charge, and have been ever since I invented it in the early 1970s. I recollect that I wrote a paper to the then Secretary of State for the Environment suggesting that the community charge was the right way forward for the reform of local government. I was then a young man and untutored politician, so I called it a poll tax; I had not thought of calling it a community charge.
      I finished my paper by suggesting that if the system were in force no one would conceivably dream of proposing to change it for a system so arbitrary and unfair as the rating system. I added that I very much doubted whether any Government would bring forward the system because of the difficulties, anomalies and the cries of "It's not fair" based on the definition of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery).
      I was wrong about that. I must tell the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) that the Government are not power-drunk. We have a Government who have the courage to implement their manifesto. I realise that the hon. Member for Rochdale finds that objectionable because he did not like the manifesto and has never been a support of a Government that implemented their manifesto. However, he will have to put up with that.
      Local government finance is a very difficult problem indeed. We do not have to pinch letters from the Labour party's headquarters to know that it opposes its own policies.
      As usual, the debate is not about alternative policies being advanced by a would-be alternative Government, because the Labour party is not an alternative Government and does not have policies to put forward. As

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      so often happens, the debate is about various ways of modifying or changing to some extent the agreed policies of the Government and Conservative party. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) moved his new clause in the way that he did. He did so not in an arrogant or argumentative way, but in a thoughtful way, seeking to make his point in the best possible manner. It seems to me that he still has not quite accepted the basis of the community charge. He still has not accepted that it will account for only one quarter of local government finance, with the other three quarters being paid according to the ability to pay.
      Of the one quarter that is represented by the community charge, the Government's assumption is that below a certain income level—that at which it is assumed full payment can be afforded—there will be increasing remission to a minimum payment of 15 per cent. We are saying that there is a level of income above which the elector should be able to afford to pay all the community charge.
      I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East has accepted that argument. He is saying that the community charge should be adjusted so that wealthier people pay more than their nominal share and so that nobody below a certain level pays as much as the full nominal share. I think that that is the wrong approach. We should accept that, whether it be a matter of food, clothing, a roof over one's head or the payment of local authority services, for those who cannot afford to pay there should be help so that they can pay, and that that help should be graduated. Once one gets over that level, there is no case for adding a further level of penal taxation, which is what my hon. Friend is proposing. I believe that that misunderstanding has caused him to move the new clause.
      Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that, for someone who has a take-home pay of £53 per week, paying one tenth of that amount in poll tax is not a reasonable definition of ability to pay?
      Mr. Tebbit: I make two points in response to the hon. Lady. First, she is coming towards my view in conceding that there is a level at which my argument is correct. She feels that the levels being proposed at present are too low. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give us the levels."] I think that, broadly, the Government have got it right. [Interruption.] We would get on much quicker if Opposition Members interrupted less. [Interruption.] I think that Opposition Members are making my point rather well.
      According to the hon. Lady's argument, one must look not only at the income of the individual but at their needs and pattern of expenditure. We are talking about a single person who is not a householder, not paying rent and living in a home that is being provided, at least in part, by other people. He receives £53 net in take-home pay, and we are asking whether it is unreasonable that 10 per cent. of that amount should go towards the costs of providing local authority services which he enjoys and which are very much greater in value than that one tenth. We do not say that he should receive a subsidy for clothes, food or drink, so why do we say that he should receive a subsidy for the services that he receives from the local authority?
      Mrs. Fyfe: The point that Opposition Members have been making is that we are talking about a tax, not the buying of goods. What proportion would an hon. Member or a Minister be paying of his take-home pay in poll tax and how would that compare to the rates that he is paying at present? We are talking about the ability to pay and a fair system that takes a proper proportion of a person's earnings. Labour Members do not consider it fair for someone to have to pay £5 out of a weekly income of £53.
      Mr. Tebbit: I am glad that I have saved the hon. Lady the trouble of making her speech, but she makes the point perfectly. There are those of us who believe that the taxation element of local government is well provided for by the 75 per cent. of local government costs which are not paid by community charge and that there is an element of services which are rendered by local government which should be paid for according to the cost of the services rather than according to the income of those receiving them. The hon. Lady has rightly illuminated the major difference that splits the House and, to some extent, has illuminated the minor difference that splits my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East and myself.
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      Misunderstanding of the nature of the community charge leads my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East to bring forward a new clause which patently will not work and will generally make matters worse. Unfortunately, he did not find time to deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) about the plight of a man and wife. The man may pay one and half times the community charge and his wife may be out at work. She may suddenly decide to stop work and have a child. She may have been paying community charge on the basis of one charge, but, now that she comes back home to have a child and is dependent upon her husband, she has to pay one and half community charges—according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East—because she is taken to have the same financial circumstances as her husband.
      That is not to nit-pick at new clause 1. It is to suggest that there is not a new clause of the kind which my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East seeks which could conceivably be designed and which is fairer than the present system. In the same way, my hon. Friend has no defence against the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Pavilion—that the extra revenue which would flow from the 50 per cent. charges would flow overwhelmingly to the wealthy local authorities where wealthy people live, not to the poor local authorities where poor people live.
      I think that the best course for my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East would be to accept that his new clause is misdirected. He is trying to achieve something through a system which will not allow it to be properly and effectively made. If my hon. Friend wants the system to work in a way that gives more help to the less well-off, the right way to go is along the lines which have been outlined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the path which he has already taken. I very much hope that my hon. Friend and his supporters will withdraw the motion and support the Government.
      Mr. Kevin Barron: If the right hon. ,Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) had listened to his hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr.

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      Mates), he would have heard him say that he was not targeting anything in the new clause towards the less well-off. The targeting is the well-off, those on £22,000 a year. The hon. Member for Hampshire, East made a brave speech, trying to put balance into a Bill that hon. Members think is very unbalanced. Despite the 16 interventions in the hon. Gentleman's speech—15 of which disagreed with the new clause—he made a good speech.
      Mr. Devlin: Would it be right to say that all the interventions in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) came from Conservative Members and not one came from the Opposition? At that time, only 78 Opposition Members were present and there are now only 36. If the Labour party is so virulently against this tax, why is there not better attendance, while the Conservative Benches continue to be full?
      Mr. Barron: The hon. Gentleman will find out in the Division Lobbies at 10 o'clock why no Opposition Member opposed the new clause.
      The Secretary of State made a somewhat rambling speech. In Committee, more that 200 Government amendments were tabled. For this five-day debate another 139 Government amendments have been tabled. But the Secretary of State said something that left me with a smile on my face. He believed that the way to a fairer distribution of wealth was to have a flat-rate tax, as proposed in the Bill, and use the income tax system. On 15 March, 750,000 people were given a tax rebate worth £2 billion a year, so the Secretary of State must have made today's comments somewhat tongue in cheek. Only the Opposition have talked about what really matters—exactly how the ability to pay will operate. The new clause attempts to deal with this aspect, which will affect not Members of the House of Commons—none of us will be affected—but the country in general.
      Unlike the right hon. Member for Chingford, I cannot say that the words "Greater London council" can be replaced with "community charge". The right hon. Gentleman aspires to be leader of a political party that could win office, but he will never be a leader unless he knows the effect of legislation where it matters, in the constituencies. We have been worried about the Bill for a long time in terms of its effect on the community.
      I am concerned about the regional effect of a flat-rate tax in terms of ability to pay. In Yorkshire and Humberside—the area of my constituency—household income is 73 per cent. of the income of those in the south-east. Effectively, this means that 70 per cent. of households in Yorkshire and Humberside will lose under this new tax and 71 per cent. in the south-east will gain. The right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) is on record as calling this a Tory tax. It is a pay-off for people who voted Conservative and it attacks people who have not returned Conservative Members.
      Using the Government's formula and the 1987–88 rates, the local authority calculation is that the average rates increase throughout the Rotherham metropolitan borough will be 32·2 per cent. There are 20 villages in my constituency which have 30 houses or more. Only five villages will be gainers under this legislation and 15 will be losers. The average rates increase throughout my constituency will be more than 50 per cent. I shall show two extremes in Rother Valley. There is the village of Catcliffe, which has old railway, back-to-back terrace
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      housing near the former Tinsley railway yards. The increase in domestic rates will be 73 per cent. In the village of Letwell, which has about two dozen big houses, the rates will decrease by 19·8 per cent.
      Small terraced houses have been referred to. I live in a village called Maltby, where at present the average increase based on average rates is 42 per cent. A couple living in a small private terraced house in my constituency will face an increase of about 220 per cent., on 1987–88 figures, when the poll tax is imposed in Rotherham. A couple living in a house with a rateable value of £55 now pay £157 in rates. Under the poll tax, they will pay £504—an increase of £346.
      Even given the rebate system in the Bill, we are still left with a £53 trigger; above that figure, a single person in my constituency will pay the full rate of poll tax—the same as the millionaire, and there are not many of them in my constituency. A couple with £140 a week earned income will have to pay the full amount. There will be no rebate for them. The increases are excessive and many households will simply not be able to take them.
      It is predicted that if the community charge is introduced in Rotherham borough, the spending power of residents over the age of 18 will be reduced by about £12 million. The position would be made worse by the fact that the areas of Rotherham facing the largest increases would be those where the propensity to consume is the highest, and those who benefit from the introduction of the community charge may convert into savings the reduced call on their incomes. It is clear that the biggest losers would be those living in the areas of poorest housing. Consequently, it would be almost inevitable that the gap between the poor and the better-off would grow.
      The borough council estimates that the cost of collection will increase from the £1·3 million that it now costs to collect the rates to about £2·9 million—an increase of £1·6 million. My area is impoverished. That money should be spent not on collecting the poll tax but on trying to raise the community above its present level of poverty. I see nothing in the legislation—I include the uniform business rate—that would help. [Interruption] The amendment is about the ability to pay. I am trying to educate hon. Members, if they will only keep quiet.
      I have in front of me a brief sent to hon. Members today by Age Concern, which is extremely worried about the effects that the poll tax will have on care in the community. It says:
      "The imposition of the … charge will erect further barriers to care in the community. People in residential and nursing homes … will be exempt from the charge; but those moving in and out of care, or moving into sheltered! accommodation, will be liable. Furthermore, households in which an elderly person is cared for by relatives or friends living under the same roof will be penalised by the community charge."
      I understand the implications of the community charge for families that include young people. The head of an impoverished household may feel that a youngster of 17½ is a threat to that household's income because he is approaching the age at which he is liable to pay some or all of the tax. The Government say that people should come out of care and into the community, and to attack households caring for young people in that way is quite wrong.

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      Imperfect though the new clause may be, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will support it to try to bring some sense into the Bill before it damages not only my community but many hundreds of others.
      Sir George Young: It is no secret that the last time the House discussed the Bill, in December last year, a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends were thinking of voting against it or abstaining, but voted for it at the end of the day. There are three reasons why those who had reservations then should support the new clause.
      First, last December my hon. Friends and I were asking hon. Members to vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. Had we succeeded, the flagship would indeed have sunk. Tonight, we are asking them, not to vote against the Second Reading and thus to sink the flagship, but merely to adjust the direction in which it is sailing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) described the new clause as "a minor difference." It would be wholly consistent for those who supported the Bill on Second Reading, but with reservations, to vote for the new clause.
      Secondly, a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends voted for the Bill on Second Reading in the belief, hope or expectation that it might be amended in Standing Committee to take account of ability to pay. Attempts to do that in Committee were not successful. If my hon. Friends now want to inject ability to pay into the Bill, they have to vote for the new clause.
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      Thirdly—and this is the more powerful reason—we are now better placed to consider the measure in the context of the Government's programme of economic and social reform. The fiscal framework for this Parliament is now clearer as a result of the Budget, and the social security framework is clearer following the implementation this month of new measures. Although it may be inconvenient for local government Ministers, one simply cannot isolate this Bill from other legislation in assessing the impact of the Government's actions on living standards and disposable income for various sections of the community—in particular that section of the community whose incomes are just above benefit level.
      Most Conservative Members have no difficulty at all in defending the Budget. The economy is performing better. Revenues are higher than budgeted for and there is evidence of a virtuous circle. Furthermore, all taxpayers benefit from the Budget. Likewise, the vast majority of us can back the social security reforms—particularly given the extra expenditure and the Government's undertaking to monitor the arrangements closely and, it is to be hoped, protect any casualties. While the Bishop of Durham and our political opponents may find it convenient to juxtapose the two reforms, it is perfectly possible to defend each of them intellectually.
      However, without the new clause, the Bill commits the very crime of which our opponents accuse us, and we have no alibi. The Bill transfers resources from the poor to the rich, and does so in a highly visible and undeniable way. In two years' time the community charge will reduce the taxes paid by the better-off because the rateable value of their houses, which is above average, will tend to disappear from the equation. Under the Bill we shall reduce the taxes paid by the better-off not by reducing taxation or public
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      expenditure generally, as happened in the Budget, but by shifting the burden on to the shoulders of the less well-off. Likewise, under the Bill as drafted, the nearly poor will pay more, not, as under the social security reforms, to help the very poor, but to help the better-off.
      Against the background of the Government's social and economic changes, it is wholly alien to our party's philosophy to introduce a taxation measure that pushes the burden on to the shoulders of the poor and the less well-off. The Bill will have a particular impact on one group of the population—those who are not well enough off to benefit from the Budget changes but who are not poor enough to get help from social security. This group includes those disadvantaged by the capital cut-off, by charges and perhaps by higher rents introduced by the new rent regime. This measure will disadvantage a vulnerable group of the population.
      Mr. Leigh: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Sir George Young: In deference to the large number of hon. Members who wish to speak, I shall give way only once. Who better than my hon. Friend?
      Mr. Leigh: Will my hon. Friend address the point made by the Secretary of State in his opening speech? He said that if the new clause was accepted it would raise £200 million at the cost of creating a significant earnings trap and that it would be easier to raise that extra money by increasing the higher rate of income tax.
      Sir George Young: I shall come to that point in a minute. With a dismissive sweep of the arm, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that any attempt to raise local revenue by a form of local income tax was inherently impossible—ignoring the fact that that is exactly how the vast majority of civilised countries fund local government and that not one civilised country funds local government in the way proposed by the Bill.
      New clause 2, which stands in my name, proposes a slightly more radical approach to the matter by abolishing the bureaucracy, intrusion and cost required by the community charge register. Instead, it suggests the use of the database of the Inland Revenue, which has the names and addresses of 30 million people. That seems to me to be quite a good starting point for any tax.
      When we raised this matter in Committee, I was surprised at the weakness of the case against it, but the case has been greatly strengthened by the Budget decision to tax married women separately. This will broaden the base of any local banded tax or graduated income tax. I have no doubt that in time we will end up with something that is rather like new clause 2. However, new clause 1 is far easier to commend to my hon. Friends because it is much closer to the Government's proposals.
      I shall now deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh). He implied that there was some exciting discontinuity in my hon. Friend's proposals which constituted an earnings trap. In a rather extravagant article in a newspaper on Saturday, Woodrow Wyatt made exactly this point when he said:
      "Mr. Mates wants all those with a taxable income of £19,300 and above to suffer further massive redistribution by paying a community charge 50 per cent. more than anyone else. This is a higher earner disincentive trap."
      We are talking about £100 for someone whose disposable income after mortgage interest tax relief, pension relief and

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      any other relief is about £20,000 a year. The discontinuity that ought to concern my hon. Friend is that of the national insurance scheme. When one's income rises from £38 to £40, one becomes exposed to 5 per cent. tax on the lot. Is my hon. Friend saying that £100 to someone on £23,000 a year is pernicious and an earnings trap, but that the same figure for someone earning £40 is quite acceptable?
      Mr. Roland Boyes rose—
      Sir George Young: No, I shall not give way, because I gave an undertaking that I would give way only once.
      The British people instinctively recognise what is unjust. The community charge, or poll tax, has been extensively debated and discussed over the past year and, despite heroic attempts by the Front Bench, there is still a belief in the country that it is unjust. The concession made on Thursday does not address the heart of the problem. In a sense it makes the matter worse, because on Thursday the Government sawed away even further at the branch of accountability, on which they have been rather precariously perched, by reducing the number of people who pay the flat rate tax—which was the main argument for the scheme.
      It would be far easier to present this policy to the country if new clause 1 were added to the Bill. It would take some of the rough edges off the proposals and enable us to defend the Bill by saying that we have attempted to link it to ability to pay. I urge those of my hon. Friends who believe that the policy as it stands is damaging to the party, and at variance with our tradition, to support my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) in the Division Lobby.
      Mr. Dick Douglas: Anyone listening to the debate would think that the community charge was to be introduced in 1990, but we know that in Scotland it will be introduced next year. We also know that the whole process of administering the charge is being brought into force in Scotland. In his interesting speech, the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) gave himself, perhaps quite rightly, some backhanded compliments on winning elections. The community charge or poll tax was the Conservative flagship in the election in Scotland as well, and look what happened there. To look at that is to deal in much more up-to-date terms with the actuality of what can happen.
      I say to all hon. Members but especially to Conservative Members that if we were being politically devious we would let this tax pass because nothing is more likely to ensure a comprehensive Labour victory in the next general election. I speak from experience. The Opposition do not need to tell lies about this legislation but just have to tell the truth about what is happening. We do not have to manufacture any phraseology about it but need use only the words that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for the Environment have used.
      I should like to quote from a speech by the Secretary of State for the Environment on 19 March:
      "Therefore, it must be right for all the people to pay a charge for local services, just as all the people can vote for them."
      Of course, on the basis of his own argument that is not true. He went on to say:
      "That is what we mean by accountability."
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      I should also like to quote from a pamphlet written by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) in 1985. The hon. Member has gained some reputation as being the architect of the poll tax. He said:
      "To exempt people from liability to pay the poll tax, or to pay it for them through the social security system or via some scheme of rebates, would be to destroy accountability."
      That point has been made before in another context. The minute one tries to ameliorate the impact of this tax one moves away from accountability.
      In his speech on 19 March, the Secretary of State, no doubt anticipating some of the arguments to be made by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), said:
      "There is now general acceptance that rates must go, and be replaced by a charge on people, as opposed to property. But there are critics who say that the Community Charge does not reflect ability to pay. They are wrong, and we are winning that argument too."
      How were the Government winning the argument on 19 March when they had to make concessions a few days ago? Was the argument so overwhelmingly won by the speeches of Ministers that they could afford to make the sort of concession that they did make, which is only a palliative?
      The tax affronts the basic tenets and canons of taxation that people of all parties have accepted. Some hon. Members misquote and misdirect the words of Adam Smith. The first canon of taxation that he enunciated was related to the ability to pay. That was a measure of a tax's efficacy.
      We know that the poll tax offends against that because the Secretary of State and others do not want a tax that is related to ability to pay. They want a penal tax. They argue that we should clearly identify what they choose to call large spending local authorities, profligate local authorities. They want to show the community charge, the poll tax, in national terms and to ask people to look at local authority bills and try to equalise the national impact of the tax. This will not work if local authority services are to remain local.
      I return to what is happening in Scotland. I agree with the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) that those of us who conduct what we euphemistically call surgeries meet people who say that they will not be able to pay the tax. It is not that they want to break the law, but that they cannot pay the tax. In Scotland those people will be faced either with the poinding of their furniture through warrant sales or by arrestment of wages. That is what will happen, and we know that because of pressures on people from other Government legislation. Perhaps local authorities in Scotland will ameliorate some of the difficulties that those people face, but is it really the sort of tax that we want to introduce in 1989?
      I predict—I say this especially for the right hon. Member for Chingford—that if we tell the truth about the poll tax during the coming elections in Scotland, the Tory party may well be eliminated from every council. Of course, I would not weep about that. The tax is repugnant because of its basic unfairness. Any defence of it is based either on the desire to control so-called profligate local authorities or the desire to enforce accountability—but there is no defence on the ground of fairness.
      I do not want to disobey the laws to which I am a party, one step removed, in this House. However, we must unite those who cannot pay the tax because of a lack of resources and those who will not pay it because of conscience.
      Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: When the hon. Gentleman faces the Scottish electorate in the May local elections, will he put forward his party's alternative either to the community charge or to the current system?
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      Mr. Douglas: I find myself in enough difficulty speaking for myself, let alone for the Labour party. I agree with the view taken by Layfield, who was rather fulsome about a local income tax. Paragraph 105 of his report states:
      "The present structure of local government is a further complication. Generally LIT"—
      that is, local income tax—
      "could not be introduced at the level of districts. However, we consider it would be feasible to operate LIT for each of the Scottish regions and islands."
      Therefore, there is some feasibility in a local income tax, but I should prefer to retain some form of property tax.
      I repeat that in Scotland we must unite those who will not pay on grounds of conscience and those who cannot pay because they do not have the resources. Such a stance may or may not prove popular. Generally speaking, we are a law-abiding party and a law-abiding people, but there is no shame—[Interruption.] The House has its last chance tonight to recognise what it did not recognise in the Scottish legislation.
      I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member for Hampshire, East and other hon. Members who have had second thoughts—even though I may not agree with them. Unless we decide otherwise tonight, the poll tax will be in place in Scotland within a year—[HON. MEMBERS: "Good".] If hon. Members say, "Good," they are actually saying that Scotland should be used as a guinea pig for the rest of the nation. I cannot accept that.
      Those hon. Members who are supposed to be interested in the Union—more Conservative Members than Opposition Members feel such an obligation—must take care how they vote tonight because it will be a signal to the people of Scotland on how we should proceed constitutionally in this House.
      Mr. John M. Taylor: It is sad to follow an honourable legislator who concluded his remarks with an invitation to his fellow citizens to disobey the law. If we are not here in good faith as legislators, determined to live with the end product and to work for it or against it politically, we have no business to be here at all.
      I shall be brief because I spoke on Second Reading and I have not changed my mind on any particular. There are taxes in society that are ad valorem or that are related to the ability to pay—for example, corporation tax, capital gains tax, taxes on benefits in kind, stamp duty and special car tax. Above all, income tax is not merely related to the ability to pay, but is a direct tax on the ability to pay.
      All civilised societies should have such a tax, but that does not mean that all taxes should take the same form. We all pay the same for many goods and services, and there is an inherent fairness in that on the basis that equity is equality. There cannot be a more egalitarian regime than everyone paying the same. However, the community charge is not an exact egality because the poorer and most hard-pressed members of society will have rebates of up to 80 per cent. That is the essential derogation from the principle of everyone paying the same.
      Mr. David Winnick: The Secretary of State has confirmed that a multi-millionaire in any given
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      area will pay precisely the same as a pensioner in that area who has only a small income but has more than £6,000 capital. Does the hon. Gentleman think that to be fair?
      Mr. Taylor: The pensioner would pay the same as the multi-millionaire for a loaf of bread or a gallon of petrol. The richer man makes his heavier contribution to society through the other taxes that I mentioned. The hon. Gentleman well knows that a rich man travelling on a bus pays the same fare as other people, including the pensioner unless that pensioner has a bus pass.
      Mr. Tebbit: Has my hon. Friend noticed the Opposition's assumption that the current rating system is fair? They assume that a schoolteacher in my constituency, who is paid not very much more than a schoolteacher in the north of England, should pay three or four times as much in rates simply for the privilege of living in my constituency. While we all accept that that is a very great privilege, it is overdoing it a little.
      Mr. Taylor: My right hon. Friend is correct. There has been a deafening silence from the Opposition on any alternative.
      The poll tax will be levied to pay for local government services in general. For local authority services in particular—for example, the use of swimming baths, the removal of garden refuse, application for planning permission, and so on—we all pay the same. For services that have a specific charge, the rich and the poor pay the same, with the exception of certain derogations available to the poor. If it is right to pay the same for specificially provided municipal services, why is it wrong to charge for them generically and generally? We have enough income tax in this country. Even the enlightened Labour Administrations in New Zealand and Australia have seen the necessity to pull down income tax if they want vigorous economies. Quite rightly, this Government have pulled down rates of income tax. I do not want any more income tax through the back door, by having a banding on local revenues.
      Mr. Cormack: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Taylor: I have given way twice. I am anxious to proceed. I do not wish to offend my hon. Friend. I shall give way if his remarks will be brief.
      Mr. Cormack: My remarks will be brief. Would my hon. Friend have advocated people paying at the same rate, irrespective of the quality and location of the house in which they live?
      Mr. Taylor: People who live in different quality houses take the same bus from the same bus stop and pay the same bus fares. That would seem to be an illustration of the proposition upon which I have been asked to comment.
      All hon. Members who have contributed to the debate so far, particularly those with some predisposition to the new clause, have assumed that, at any given time, any given individual knows his tax band. Frankly, that is not true. It is certainly not true for the self-employed or for schedule D taxpayers, who are taxed on a preceding year basis. Alternatively, if that is not a problem in itself, during the year they may receive an accrual that will alter their tax band and will certainly affect their tax payments in the following year. Many people on schedule D do not know

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      their tax band to within two years, nor are they being obscure in that regard. The Inland Revenue does not know it either, so there is no point in asking.
      I shall vote against the new clause. I have been in favour of a poll tax since 1977. I shall vote for the poll tax, even though it is called a community charge.
      Mr. Martin Redmond: New clause 1 is about people's ability to pay. Although there are anomalies within the clause, "owt is better than nowt". It is certainly better than what the Secretary of State is proposing. Conservative Members would do well to come down from their ivory tower to the world of reality, as the world of reality has poverty and despair. A classic example involves two Conservative Members who, for one week, attempted to live on the dole and, of course, ended up in debt. There is not enough reality among Conservative Members. That demonstrates why many Conservative Members are quite willing to sacrifice the poor of this country on the altar of greed and selfishness.
      My constituency is within the Doncaster metropolitan borough area. Doncaster is a mixed area of pit villages, agriculture and industry. Property in Doncaster is reasonably priced—so much so that, with the east coast line electrification, London commuters will save thousands of pounds when they buy houses in Doncaster. Because house prices have historically been low, the rateable value of property in Doncaster is also low. The impact of the poll tax on the population of Doncaster will be devastating.
      Based on figures produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, in 1988 expenditure terms, the equivalent poll tax will be about £300 per person. A person living in a house with a rateable value of less than £100 will be worse off under the poll tax. Twenty-five per cent. of homes in Doncaster have a rateable value of £100 or less. A couple will be worse off if the rateable value of their home is less than £200. Ninety per cent. of homes in Doncaster have a rateable value of £200 or less. A family of three will be worse off if the rateable value of their home is less than £300.
      A family of four adults living in Mexborough, recently named by a university study group as the poorest town in England, pay £160 in rates per year. Their poll tax will be £1,200. Hon. Members should contrast that with a person living in a village a few miles away and currently paying £3,800 a year in rates. If he lives alone, he will pay just £300 in poll tax. How does that help the elderly widow who is currently paying the same as the household with four adults? She will pay the same as the person in the mansion up the road.
      7.45 pm
      The Government claim that many individuals will benefit from the poll tax. There may be hurricanes in Hampshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdon, but in Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham there will be a tidal wave of poverty as a result of the tax. It is a tax on the family. The tragedy is that when the Prime Minister came to power she talked about the need to maintain family unity. The thrust of the Government's legislation has been to drive families apart. On the one hand, the social security and housing benefit changes virtually force young adults live at home. On the other hand, if young adults live at home, their families will pay more in tax.
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      Families in my constituency are close-knit. That is to be expected in the north. Many young people do not leave home until they are married, and some even stay on afterwards. How many parents will stand by and see bailiffs take their children's belongings because they cannot pay their poll tax? Very few in my constituency will do that. The family will stick together and pay for all its members.
      Whether there is a rebate scheme or a banded tax, the vast majority of my constituents will lose under the pal tax. It is not just a flat-rate poll tax that will cause that state of affairs. The redistribution of resources between regions will have a most profound effect. How can it be fair and reasonable for Yorkshire and Humberside to lose resources, while the south-east of England outside London gains resources?
      At the moment Doncaster receives grant, which partly makes up for its low rateable resources. The proposed grant system will take no account of resources, only needs. based on a comparison with a district in Surrey. The. people of Doncaster will have to make up that loss out of their poll tax payments.
      The administration of the new system will cause costs to rise. Currently, Doncaster council sends out 80,000 rate bills, and the 35,000 council tenants pay their rates with their rent. If the Bill becomes law, in April 1989 the council will send out 110,000 canvass forms. When an entry is made in the poll tax register, over 200,000 notifications will have to be sent out. In April 1990, over 200,000 bills will be sent out. The cost of administering the charge will be wholly met by poll tax payers. The local council will keep track of the population over 18 years of age and, each year, will have to estimate what population movements will take place.
      At present, 18 per cent. of properties change hands each year, but up to 30 per cent. of people move in and out of property. How can the council keep track of such movements without large staff numbers and frequent visits to people's homes? The poll tax will be ripe for people to avoid paying it.
      A recent survey found that one person in 10 said that they would rather not vote than pay the poll tax. These are normal, honest people. If the trend were to be repeated around the country, 90 per cent. of those on the register would have to pay an extra 20 per cent. the following year to make up the shortfall and satisfy the council's need for that year. This will be a problem facing all councils and every individual in the council area. The answer is either for the council to employ more staff, or for all population movement to be monitored in some way, and of course that has implications for civil liberties.
      The poll tax is a bad tax. It fails the test of a good tax. It is regressive and does not take into account the ability to pay, even with a rebate scheme. It is open to avoidance and abuse. It may work in Japan, but there it is only a tiny element in a huge local tax system. In Britain it will not work, as no doubt our friends in Scotland will demonstrate. If the Government are so convinced that the country wants this poll tax, why do they not have a national referendum on it?
      Mr. Onslow: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am particularly grateful to you—
      Mr. Allan Rogers: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) has spoken in the debate and sat down. He cannot be called twice.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall not penalise the right hon. Gentleman for a genuine mistake which I made in the Chair.
      Mr. Onslow: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker for responding in that way to that rather churlish intervention from the Opposition Front Bench. I recognise that I am fortunate in catching your eye now because one does not often get two bites of the cherry in this House. I shall not trespass on your generosity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by making a long speech, but my anxiety to intervene now rather than sooner was prompted by a desire to listen to what was being said and not to take up time in debate.
      Having listened to the debate, I must say at once that we have been discussing quite a complex subject and it is a great pity that much of it could not have been discussed in Committee. However, I understand how these things happen and obviously, that was not possible on this occasion. It is also clear that the new clause that we are discussing has nothing especially to do with the principle of the community charge as such.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) made a very able speech in introducing his new clause and went out of his way to emphasise that he was 90 per cent. in favour of what the Government were trying to do. I understand that to be support for the community charge with a reservation of 10 per cent. If I am wrong, no doubt I will be corrected.
      The discussion and the thinking behind the new clause are prompted by a difference in the perception of equity in the treatment of higher-earning local residents under the proposed system of community charges. Again, I did not detect that my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State differed significantly about the impact that the proposed arrangements would have on those who are at the lowest end of the earnings scale or those who have no significant earnings at all.
      I do not think that we are talking about that. We are talking about a fairly narrow point affecting 9 per cent. of the potential payers of the community charge up and down the country. That is because some people see a problem with the proposals which the Government have brought forward, in that they do not seem to be fair and in line with what was promised in our manifesto. I confess that, if such a problem exists, my hon. Friend has brought forward what the scientists call "quite a neat solution" to it at first sight. However, I say that the more closely we look at it, the less neat it seems to be. Indeed, I am not sure that I accept that the problem exists at all.
      We were talking in our manifesto about introducing a fairer system, and practically everybody reading those words would have understood them to mean "a fairer system than the rates", which we all agree are unfair. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East agrees that the rates are an unfair system. By posing the manifesto test, I do not think that the case stands up any more than it can be said that the words in our manifesto committed the Conservative party to the introduction of an income-linked scheme.
      The possibility of a local income tax was repeatedly and specifically excluded during the long-drawn-out election
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      campaign. I believe that most of my hon. Friends understood that. When there were references to an ability to pay, they were in the context that, if there are people who have genuine difficulty in paying, that difficulty will be recognised and taken care of in the scheme. That was precisely the point to which those words went, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) have pointed out.
      I ask my my hon. Friend what he thinks will happen if his new clause is passed, if anyone should go into the Lobby with him to vote for it. The Opposition Front Bench gave its game away fairly clearly—and not very surprisingly—by making it clear that it stands for higher charges for people with higher earnings. Broadly speaking, that is what Socialism is about, and I was not surprised that they were so frank about it. I was also not very surprised to hear that, broadly speaking, the Socialist party is in favour of greater complexity and bureaucracy in the affairs of local government, which will mean more employeees for NALGO. It is in favour of greater intrusion into people's private affairs, including their tax affairs.
      Anyone who has listened to the debate, as I did, must have realised that the scheme proposed by my hon. Friend would not work and could not work unless each signatory to the questionnaire dealing with the community charge was obliged to subscribe his tax reference number as well as his address. Without that tax reference number, there would be no way of telling in Wales which John Jones was which, and in England which John Smith was which.
      My hon. Friend should not have dismissed as lightly as he did the clear statement by my right hon. Friend that that information would have to be available to local authorities, and would no doubt be used by local authorities of a Socialist frame of mind in ways which would not be welcomed by my hon. Friends at all. I doubt also whether any of our supporters would welcome it.
      Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Onslow: No.
      Mr Dalyell: Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me—
      Mr. Onslow: No. I am going to be brief. It is sometimes necessary to raise one's voice to the hon. Gentleman to make him understand.
      I also understand why the Scottish Labour MPs, to whom I am about to turn, should be tempted to vote for my hon. Friend's amendment. It was made clear by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), who is not with us at the moment, that he was anxious to incite civil disobedience. The passing of this amendment would create even more opportunities and excuses for him and his hon. Friends to do just that. There is no doubt that there will be great confusion, if not chaos, in local government in Scotland if the amendment were to be passed.
      Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Onslow: No.
      I turn now to a third group who I understand are likely to support the amendment, although I do not think that

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      there are any of them here at the moment. I well understand why some Northern Ireland hon. Members might seize this opportunity for what would seem to them to be a logical protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement by voting in favour of my hon. Friend's amendment, even though they know, as I do, that the hon. Gentleman is one of the strongest and stoutest supporters of that Agreement. To the hon. Members from Northern Ireland, that may appear to be a logical, natural and respectable thing to do. However, my hon. Friend should be careful in the supporters whom he attracts to his corner.
      I can understand all those things. I understand the less than reputable motives which may lead the various groups I have named to vote in favour of the new clause. However, I do not understand why my hon. Friend should seek to press it to a Division.
      In his response to the new clause, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it perfectly clear that if one is seeking equity in a fiscal system, that is already embodied in our taxation system, under which, the more one earns, the more one becomes liable to pay. As my right hon. Friend said, it follows from that that the more that local goverment expenditure is funded from the Exchequer, the fairer the overall effect. There is absolutely no gainsaying that.
      8 pm
      My hon. Friend's proposal is an insignificant and minor search for equity, which could be achieved in a much more significant and dramatic way by the transfer of a greater share of local government funding from local residents to the taxpayer at large. I do not understand why my hon. Friend is distracting his many colleagues, who would like that objective to be achieved, by leading them down a path where, for insignificant consequences, enormous damage may he done.
      If my hon. Friend wants the principle of ability to pay to be enshrined in the system of local government finance, he and his friends should use the next two to three years to press more and more for the transfer of the funding base to the Exchequer and to taxpayers as a whole. They should not look in the direction to which they seem so attracted this evening.
      Ms. Hilary Armstrong: This has been an interesting debate, in which we have heard some interesting arguments from Conservative Members. I was interested to hear the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) argue about the problems of privacy in new clause 1. He seems to have forgotten the base on which the rebates will he assessed. People will have to declare an income to get a rebate. It seems rather peculiar that we are again hearing the argument that it is all right for those at the lower end of the income scale to have their income exposed and to have no privacy, but that we cannot have that for people at the top end. Those inconsistencies and that division seem perfectly acceptable to some Conservative Members and are at the heart of much of our opposition to the fundamental abandonment of any idea that taxation should be based on the ability to pay.
      I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is not in his place. I should have liked him to be here so that I could say a little more about him, but never mind; I shall obey the conventions of the House and confine my remarks to what he said. He talked about the community charge as if it were not a tax and as if one
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      should pay, not according ability to pay, but because one receives services. Therefore, one would be paying for the services. That is a remarkable argument, which, in a sense, expresses the poverty of the Government's morality.
      As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not use the school services of my local education authority. I have no need to use them, nor will I use them, because I do not have any children. However, I do not say that therefore I do not have a responsibility to pay for those services, because I believe that I do have a responsibility and I want to have that responsibility. I believe that local and other services are part of the way in which we, as a civilised society, have decided that we shall organise our society. Therefore, it is my responsibility to contribute to the community and to do so according to my ability to pay, not according to the extent to which I use the services. The arguments of Conservative Members have been based on the extent to which we use the services. I reject that completely. I hope that the House will say that we want to develop a community and that we recognise that all must contribute to that community.
      The real problem is that the Government see many of the people of this country as mean, selfish and riot prepared to contribute to their communities, and prepared to pay only for what they get. That is an indictment of the Government. The British people are not like that. If the Government began to treat the British people with a bit of respect, that would enable the people to feel that they were part of a united country and the Government might get a better response from them—[Interruption.] It was interesting that the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) who is now making from a sedentary position—
      Mr. Devlin: Will the hon. Lady give way?
      Ms. Armstrong: No, I am responding to what the hon. Gentleman said earlier. He asked why, if the Opposition are really bothered, we are opposing the Bill, because if it is going to be so bad for the Tory Government the electorate will recognise it. I find such arguments sad. I did not come into politics to make people suffer to prove a political point.
      I hope that the Government will change their mind about the tax. I hope that they will base it on ability to pay. I say that not because I think that I will get electoral advantage out of it, but because I know the effect that the tax in its present form will have on the people whom I have been sent here to represent.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) made a general point about the north-south divide. It is a tragedy that the Government talk about the need for economic recovery, but are introducing yet another way of penalising the north for the benefit of the south, because money will flow from the north to the south. In the context of the general economic debates that we are having in the Chamber at the moment, that is crazy. It will make communities such as mine much less able to be independent and self-sufficient and less able to pay their proper contributions to the country.
      Mr. Hind rose—
      Ms. Armstrong: No, I shall not give way.
      I want to speak about one group that has not been mentioned and about people who will be some of the greatest losers—women. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Conservative Members might find this difficult, but

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      reality is that 77 per cent. of those who are judged as being in poverty among those of pensionable age are women. It is a fact that the majority of people who are carers in our society—people who are at home, looking after elderly or disabled relatives—are women. I have a high preponderance of them in my constituency, partly because my constituency has particular health problems because of the nature of its industry, but also because there is still strong family loyalty in my constituency. Women see it as their responsibility to keep their relatives at home for as long as possible. At the moment those relatives are not liable to pay rates, and many people get rate rebates, but that will not be so under the system that the Government are proposing.
      The lunacy of that system is that it will encourage such families to say that they cannot cope any longer and that they will have to ask their mother or disabled relative to be taken into care.
      Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Lady give way?
      Ms. Armstrong: I am sorry, but I shall not give way. I have been asked to be brief.
      Until now, single parents and carers have been eligible for rate rebates.
      Mr. Butterfill: That is not true.
      Ms. Armstrong: I can take the hon. Gentleman to visit dozens of people in my constituency for whom that is true. Perhaps he would like to meet some of them. Many women in my constituency do not work, again because of the traditional nature of the industry there. They will now have to pay the tax, despite having no income, so I plead with the Government to reconsider that. If they want to say that they believe in getting rid of the divisions in society and want to create a country where people can work together, they need to consider the particular needs of some groups whom I represent.
      Whatever the electoral consequences, any Government should be anxious to win the support of all the people and not depend simply on the support of those who can afford to pay for their policies.
      Mr. Michael Heseltine: I rise to support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates). The whole House understands that this debate, which stretches back over a decade or so, can always be extended into a discussion about the options before us. That then provides an opportunity for avoiding a decision or for moving to a further stage in the legislation, at which point it becomes harder to change one's mind.
      My right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) made a persuasive speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) put forward several suggestions. It was suggested that if we take some expenditure out of local authority budgets and transfer it to the centre, the community charge level can be containable, so the problem that we may have to address will be diminished. If colleagues seek to increase local authority expenditure and public expenditure, the way to do it is to shift more of the costs of various services from local authorities to the central Exchequer.
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      That is not a reflection on the Government. They will undoubtedly do all in their power to contain the budgets transferred to them from local authorities, but, as night follows day, as local authorities are relieved of whatever level of expenditure one transfers, they, faced with the choice of offering more services or reducing the level of rates or community charge, will spend more money on a wider range of services. Naturally, they will certainly make some reduction, but it will not be commensurate with the burden that central Government have assumed. Any of my right hon. and hon. Friends who believe that there is a way forward by switching resource expenditure to central Government are exciting the prospects for local authorities to exactly what we in this Government have spent 10 years trying to avoid—increasing the rate of public expenditure.
      The whole House knows that I approach this as someone who, for better or worse, has been involved in the process that arose from the commitmen—
      Mr. Winnick: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Heseltine: I know that the hon. Gentleman has an interesting set of points to make, but we cannot always give way, or not enough hon. Members will have a chance to make their speeches.
      I was present at the shadow Cabinet meeting when it was originally decided that we should make a further commitment to the British people to replace the rates with a system that was fairer and reflected people's ability to pay. That was when the debate began and it has gone on since, both when we have been in opposition and in government. It fell to me, both in opposition and in government, to produce a solution that my colleagues in the shadow Cabinet or Cabinet believed met those two criteria. Perhaps it was my failure or lack of ingenuity, but, whatever the explanation, we could not find a system that met the criteria of fairness and people's ability to pay. For that reason, it was not difficult to persuade the shadow Cabinet in 1979 that as a priority we should reform rather than replace the rates. That did not seem to do our electoral prospects irreversible harm.
      It fell to me as Secretary of State for the Environment to look into that in government, with all the help available for specialist and expert advisers and with all the advantages of a major Department of State, in a way in which the Opposition and, with respect to my hon. Friend, even Back-Bench Members cannot be expected to do. We published a Green Paper in 1981. I carefully listed the poll tax as one option, and without any shadow of doubt it is now a matter of recorded history that, faced with the arguments, there was hardly a debate. The Cabinet was not prepared to introduce what we then called a poll tax, because it was neither fair nor did it reflect people's ability to pay.
      8.15 pm
      Let us have no illusions about this. It was not until local authorities, largely under the control of the Labour party, sought to exploit the circumstances and to introduce an element of confrontation with the Government, quite out of keeping with the character of local government and its relationships with central Government, that this Government, understandably, were forced once again to raise the fundamental question of how we should replace rates, and to put that at the top of the political agenda.
      The problem has been exposed time and again today: to bring some democratic pressure to bear on authorities with

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      the most extravagant expenditure policies, it was necessary to make their constituents feel the consequences of those high expenditure decisions by making them pay for those policies.
      Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Heseltine: No. The hon. Gentleman must forgive me.
      The House will not question that the poll tax undoubtedly has that characteristic of accountability, which is why it was chosen as the way forward. Nobody chose it because it was a perfect system. No one claimed that it was a system without blemishes or disadvantages. Who would question its administrative complexity or the regressive nature that is inherent in that type of taxation? Certainly not the Government Front Bench, and rightly so. It unquestionably met the overriding political priority of forcing those who vote for high expenditure policies to feel the consequences of their actions, and that political objective has overridden all other political disadvantages which had previously proved decisive.
      When the proposals were first announced, the idea was that the charge should be per head of the population and be met equally by all adult voters. That, at least in theory, would have brought to account high-spending local authorities. The problem is that, from the moment the proposals appeared, their unacceptably regressive nature forced concession after concession, to the point at which today we are left with few of the originally claimed advantages and all of the self-evident disadvantages.
      I speak for a large number of my right hon. and hon. Friends and perhaps for some Opposition Members when I say that we welcomed the protection of the very poor that was inherent in the Government's pre-election rebate scheme. My right hon. Friend has gone further and he deserves praise for that. But the more concessions the Government make to protect the poor, the less effective the community charge becomes in meeting the priority of accountability.
      As universal accountability diminishes, another more damaging divide emerges in its place. The further we move to protect those just below the poverty line, the more we promote a sense of grievance in those just above the poverty line. The childless couple will pay the full charge if their income is above £100 a week.
      Many of my colleagues will recognise the similarity between that case and what has happened in the social security reorganisation, where those just above the poverty line with £10,000 in the bank are bewildered by the fact that the allowance has been changed to £6,000. It is precisely those people—who tend to live in less valuable homes, who have bought their homes and paid for them throughout their working lives and who, until now, have paid relatively low rates because their properties had a low rateable value—who will most resent the new proposals.
      I have no message for Labour Members, but I say this to my right hon. and hon. Friends: those are the people about whom we should be most concerned, because modern Conservatism has widened its appeal by embracing the instincts of those who want independence and self-reliance. If there is a pivotal point at which the political pendulum is hinged, it is that group of people who have lifted themselves not to great wealth, but clear of dependency on the state and into a position of self-reliance
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      —the council tenants who have bought their homes, the newly self-employed and the thrifty who have saved for their retirement. It is those people, still living in the old terraced houses on council estates everywhere, which the local rateable value reflects as being on low incomes, who will suffer disproportionately from the Government's proposals.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East did not argue that he had a formula of impeccable integrity to deal with all those issues, and the Government will again make fun at the margins. Very generously, they conceded that when we are talking about the threshold of the higher band of tax, only £100 or so is likely to be at stake for those who have a net take-home income of more than £20,000. They put forward the idea that someone with the wit, the skill, the ingenuity and the imagination to reach the point of threshold and to move £1 over it lacks the wit, the ingenuity and the skill to say to his boss, "I do not want the other £1," or to say "Look mate, if you want me as a young budding manager in this company you had better pay me £201 to make it worth my while." The bosses will say, "No. We are not prepared to negotiate with you on the threshold of this senior management level into which you are going." That shows the credibility of my right hon. and hon. Friends' argument.
      I concede that there will be some people—poor things—who will not discover until a year or so later that they have entered the realms of fantasy where they earn such high salaries. If we vote for my hon. Friend's proposals tonight, we shall have to explain the position to those people on the doorsteps.
      I have received a letter from the town clerk of Wimborne Minster town council—not an area associated with the Labour party or the raving loonies of the Left-wing extremist authorities. He wanted me to know about the effect of the community charge on a typical low-rated house with a rateable value of £100. He told me that the consequences of the Government's proposal will be that a rates bill for two people will increase from £218 to £570.
      The poorest people living in that area of Dorset will have to pay an extra £352 a year. They will be unable to negotiate a pay rise to cover the penalty of moving from one band to another. They will have no choice but to pay the increase. They will not be doing so to avoid the extravagances of Labour authorities, but to protect themselves from Dorset county council—to bring accountability to parts of England that are and always have been Tory controlled, in the name of enhanced local government accountability.
      The House will wish to judge whether we are striking the right balance between the poor chap facing the agony of the decision whether to accept another £1 and go into the higher band and those people who are forced to accept the thought that, at that level of prosperity, they will have to pay another £7 a week because we introduced a community charge that was fair and reflected people's ability to pay.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East must plead guilty to the charge that his proposals are complex. In a well-reasoned speech, my hon. Friend made clear how complex they are. But the House will wish to ask whether his proposals are complex or whether the community charge itself is complex. My hon. Friend proposes that the form should ask one or two extra questions, but he did not design the system under which 35 million citizens will

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      receive those forms in the first place. Those forms will have to be checked by an army of local authority officials. If I am bitter, it is because, when I was Secretary of State for the Environment, I greatly reduced local authority manpower, only to see it increase again now to police, not my hon. Friend's proposals, but the proposals of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
      Those officials are there to record not only whether 35 million people are honest enough to declare whether they have lodgers, children or other family members in their homes, but the 3·5 million people who will move every year, claim rebates and change their circumstances. Perhaps their incomes will increase—I cannot tell. But the Government suggest that we register 35 million people, with all their lodgers and second homes, 3·5 million of whom will move every year in the ordinary course of life.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East must plead guilty. He has made the system more complex, but where will the electorate believe the responsibility lies? My right hon. and hon. Friends will wish to ponder the answer to that question. My hon. Friend may have made a system of enormous complexity marginally more complex, but I do not believe for an instant that the public will perceive that the weakness of what will happen is the fault of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East.
      We are told that my hon. Friend's new clause is unnecessary, because the rich already pay more. That is an interesting argument, and again my right hon. and hon. Friends will wish to ponder how convincing it will sound when, as they stand on the doorsteps explaining the complexities of the system, they point to the large house across the road and say, "Do not worry. They are paying more for local services because they pay more taxes."
      Taxation is not just a matter of arithmetic; it is a matter of perception. When we are trying to persuade people at the lower levels of income to pay a great deal more than they have ever paid to their local authorities, and they know that they are paying precisely the same as the richest in the land, they may not accept the argument that the richest in the land pay more through the tax system. That will be especially so in those low-spending Tory local authorities where the amount of taxpayers' support coming through will be extremely small, because there will be no need in some of those authorities for there to be any equalising process from central Government. If there is, it will be very little because it will basically be the community charge and the business unified rate.
      8.30 pm
      Mr. Howard: If my right hon. Friend is so totally opposed to the introduction of the community charge, can he tell the House why he voted for its introduction in Scotland?
      Mr. Heseltine: I have no doubt that it was for exactly the same reason as other members of the Cabinet who were just as opposed to the concept of a poll tax and who were faced with the decision of what to do: we recognised the wider political party interests involved.
      Is my hon. and learned Friend saying that what he wanted me to do was to go around the country before the election arguing against the policy that he was proposing? That was not what my right hon. and hon. Friends were urging me to do. I do my best to help the Tory party, but
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      I do not believe that I would have been helping it by following the advice that my hon. and learned Friend is apparently suggesting that I should have taken. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Before the Labour party starts down the track of assuming that anyone who speaks for any party at any time believes in every single thing that that party says, what about its nuclear disarmament policies? The majority of the shadow Cabinet do not believe in one-sided disarmament policies, but they had no difficulty in advocating them during the election campaign.
      The revolution of opportunity that the Government have made their own and upon which they have embarked rests upon the concept of consent. Increasingly, as the decade has advanced, that consent has been forthcoming because the spreading wealth and ownership that it has generated has created its own sense of fairness. Those who excelled were admired because so many in society had themselves gained. The entrepreneur at the top of the pile was seen only as an example to stimulate the newly self-employed. The council tenant saw the attractions of home ownership—even for those who had made significant gains in large valuable homes—and became determined to share in the growing prosperity.
      The Conservative party has enabled that consent to be drawn in gathering scale from the community at large. But the assumptions of that fair society are challenged by a local charge, independent of people's resources. The fairness upon which we pride ourselves is affronted. If my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East pushes his new clause to a Division, I shall vote for him and his new clause. I shall do so not from any sense of enthusiasm for the detail, but from an unswerving allegiance to the principles upon which it is based.
      Mr. Harry Barnes: New clause 1 and clause I need to be seen in the context of the assault on local government and local democracy that has been launched by the Government since they were first elected in 1979. Grants have been cut from 61 per cent. to under 40 per cent. In Derbyshire, grant capping has occurred. In the Bill there are proposals to introduce poll tax capping because, despite all the arguments about accountability, people are not to be trusted to be accountable if they vote for high poll tax levels.
      The impact of cuts and capping has been to destroy a system of rating. Rate increases have taken place to provide much needed services. The cuts have enabled the Government to destroy the system and then come along and describe it as unfair and to argue that the poll tax is the only alternative. Rates had a rough and ready justice about them in that, in general, the poorer people lived in poorer property and the rich lived in larger properties. A tax that was related to the size of property, together with other facilities introduced a reasonable fairness to the system. The poll tax is no solution to the problems that have been created.
      Local government has also faced the abolition of the metropolitan counties. The county of South Yorkshire was abolished. On one occasion, a fantastic bus service was provided in that area and all sorts of provisions were made to ensure that other services were linked with that transport system. Local government is also faced with privatisation proposals in relation to the Government's plans for contract compliance. All those measures have

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      combined to push local government down. Now the poll tax provisions are to be introduced, and they represent the final destruction of local government and local democracy.
      In common with other hon. Members, I wish to discuss the fairness or otherwise of the measure. The poll tax, given certain exemptions and the rebate scheme, insists that, within the same district, everyone should pay the same amount per head. Furthermore, the internal logic and the pressures of the Bill are clearly intended to try to introduce a form of rough and ready harmonisation across the districts so that the level of poll tax charged in different areas of the country will, as a result of the pressures of the legislation and political pressures, be roughly the same. It will be quite possible for us to talk about millionaires in different parts of the country who will be expected to pay the same as people who live in modest circumstances.
      The exemptions—they will be dealt with in later amendments—either deal with modest elements in terms of the deserving who need to be considered, or affect prisoners, visiting forces and diplomats. Those categories represent an additional problem in terms of whether they should be added to an exemption list.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) referred to the press release issued by the Department of the Environment on 13 January. It stated that 53 per cent. of householders would be gainers, but "householders" does not describe the population who will be poll taxed correctly and fairly. In Dronfield in my constituency, the figures in one street have been investigated. They show that 26 households will be gainers and 15 will be losers. However, if we add that figure to the number of those over 18—the electorate—in those houses, it means that there will be 42 gainers and 47 losers.
      The whole thing is mad political arithmetic on the part of the Government. They are introducing a measure by which there will be far more losers than gainers among the electorate. In the south-east, 71 per cent. of households will gain, compared with 70 per cent. of losers in Yorkshire and Humberside. The divisions between the north and the south will be exacerbated.
      My constituency is within the east midlands, within which 51 per cent. of households will lose—60 per cent. of those in the north-east Derbyshire district area. My constituency is wedged between the Labour-dominated constituency of Bolsover and the Conservative constituency of West Derbyshire. It is split down the middle socially. To the east there is a solid Labour area and to the west there is a strong Conservative area.
      Let us consider the seven wards where there will be the major losers and the seven wards where there will be gainers. They are divided entirely on political grounds between Labour and anti-Labour political forces, mainly Conservatives and Independents masquerading as Conservatives. That is an unhealthy situation, which will be reflected in the rest of the country.
      It is a serious problem for my constituency. Places such as Renishaw, where the pit is being closed and where 70 per cent. of households will be losers, will contrast sharply with areas such as Brampton and Walton, where 59 per cent. of people will be gainers. It is not healthy to have such figures. The social reality to which they relate will mean some people supporting the measure merely because it will be to their own benefit, whereas others will desperately oppose it because they cannot pay the poll tax and feel justified in not paying it in those circumstances.
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      That will create great social problems as people find that they are unable to meet the bills that they are expected to face.
      There are many other inappropriate measures in the Bill, which we shall be debating later, following on from the clauses that we are discussing now. They include the serious attack on civil liberties mentioned by Conservative Members in connection with the new clause and concern the difficulties of obtaining information. However, that is nothing compared with the difficulties in the bureaucratic system set up by registration officers seeking to unearth information. They will seek to unearth information which, first, requires registration.
      Secondly, when such registrations need to be checked, immediate reference will be made, initially, to the electoral register. This register will create considerable problems because the information from the MORI survey in Manchester, together with the indications from Scotland, suggest that masses of people will not register for the electoral register as a means of avoiding, or seeking to evade, payment of the poll tax.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we have been down that road for some time in Scotland? I held an open meeting in my constituency last Friday, when the hall was packed, and at question time there were only two dissenting voices. People there are beginning to realise how fair is the community charge in Scotland.
      Mr. Barnes: I am sure that there are many right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House who have attended packed meetings in Scotland and who have faced an entirely different situation from that which the hon. Gentleman describes. Whatever it may be that is generating public response at particular meetings, there will be situations in which masses of people will begin to disappear from the electoral register.
      Mr. Brian Wilson: I had no intention of intervening in my hon. Friend's speech, but one might as well stop the House from being completely misled by the unscientific evidence just presented by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). I advise my hon. Friend that, when the Government set out with this legislation, the opinion polls of MORI and System 3 showed that 40 per cent. of those questioned supported it. After two years of the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleagues going forth in an effort to multiply, support for the poll tax in Scotland has fallen to 15 per cent. I am sure that my hon. Friends in England and Wales cannot wait for the Government Front Bench to do a similar job there, because the more people know about poll tax the more they reject it.
      8.45 pm
      Mr. Barnes: I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, which puts the situation in Scotland into proper perspective.
      In addition to the attack on civil liberties that I have mentioned, tremendous centralisation is involved in the Bill, which follows from the clause now before the House concerning the need for poll tax provisions. I have already mentioned poll tax capping, which gives greater authority to the Secretary of State. He also has power over rebate levels and the operation of the national business rate. That is a trend in which the Government are involved in

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      education, which gives considerable authority to central Government. When I raised that point during the debate on the timetable motion, I described the Secretary of State as acting like a municipal Mussolini. I did not expect that he would enjoy being so described, but when he came to sum up afterwards, he thought that it was some form of compliment.
      The worst element of the centralisation factor is that which begins to use the Bill so that, when it comes to elections, people are given Hobson's choice in respect of how they should act. Labour authorities will have to decide whether they are to protect services or are to take the poll tax down, because it will even hit people entitled to rebates and others in modest circumstances. In that situation, it will be something of a Hobson's choice operated by the system, because Labour authorities must act like Conservative councils or they will find that the pressures on them are unreasonable. People in the electorate will begin to abstain or keep out of the electoral system, which would help to achieve the results that the Government require.
      That situation, added to up to 10 per cent. of people disappearing from the electoral register, is one of the most serious ills in this measure. It could be described as disfranchising the people. It is something about which all right hon. and hon. Members should be deeply concerned.
      In the House on 28 March, during a debate on community charges in Scotland, the Minister of State said in summing up:
      "The hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham), in a telling intervention, asked what was the point of all the petitions that he and his hon. Friends have been submitting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) pointed out, they could be a useful source of names and addresses for the community charge registration officer."
      Later, my hon. Friend asked:
      "Is the Minister saying that from now on the names and addresses on petitions will be used for purposes of gathering the poll tax?"
      The reply was:
      "That is broadly what I suggested."—[Official Report, 28 March 1988; Vol. 130, c. 851.]
      I hope that the Secretary of State will disown those remarks and state that petitions will not be used in that sense and that duress will not be placed on people signing petitions objecting to legislation.
      A fact sheet published by the House of Commons Public Information Office deals with the subject of petitioning. It points out:
      "The right of the subject to petition the Monarch for redress of personal grievances, well known and exercised, probably since Saxon times, was implicitly recognised in Magna Carta; and more explicitly laid down in legislation in 1406 … Parliament itself arguably originated in those meetings of the King's Council which considered petitions. The first known petition to the Lords and to both Houses of Parliament date from the reign of Henry III."
      It is a serious interference with the rights of citizens in this country when Ministers suggest that petitioning rights are something that should be used against people who take a line and oppose measures that the Government wish to push forward. The Government's authority should not be used in this way. This legislation introduces serious democratic interference, unless the Government will move
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      away from this particular aspect, both in terms of the electorate, where the franchise is being reduced, and in terms of the traditional rights for petitioning.
      Mr. Allan Stewart: I am sure that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) will forgive me if, in view of the constraints of time, I do not follow his more general arguments, but I should like to comment later on what he said about Scotland.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) has made a genuine effort to meet problems which he recognises in the Government's proposals, but the question for the House is whether the alleged benefits would be greater than the consequences of voting for new clause 1. It should be remembered that those consequences will have an affect north as well as south of the border.
      The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), the new militant in Scottish politics, was right in one respect when he said that the situation in Scotland is different. As he said, the Conservative party lost support in Scotland at the last general election. I must tell my right hon. and hon. Friends who may be in some doubt about the point, however, that one of the reasons for that loss of support was revaluation. It was politically cataclysmic, and my right hon. and hon. Friends south of the border are fortunate not to have experienced it.
      Mr. Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend agree that the very people in Wimborne to whom our right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) referred would be likely to suffer most from revaluation?
      Mr. Stewart: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. It is my experience that revaluation was cataclysmic because it highlighted the unfairness of the rating system.
      In support of new clause 1, my hon. Friends have concentrated on ability to pay and the rather different political argument about what the Conservative party has said in manifestos and the like. I think that ability to pay is not just the obverse of inability to pay. It is about the effects on people who are either genuinely unable to pay or have great difficulty paying. In principle, therefore, the ability to pay argument can be met by a rebate system, as is proposed by the Government.
      My hon. Friends are right to consider the effects on certain income groups of community charge and general taxation, but that also is in principle a concern of the Government. It is something that they can correct, if they perceive injustices, using the income tax system.
      As for the argument about what has been said previously, it is quite clear that what is important is not what may or may not have been said in 1974, when the Conservative party lost the election, but what was said in 1987. The manifesto then was absolutely clear. We said that we proposed to introduce a fixed rate charge. If any people were in any doubt about what that meant, they had only to check the Scottish legislation. It is inconceivable that a system radically different from that introduced north of the border would be introduced in England and Wales. I do not see how anyone who went into the subject could have been in any doubt about what kind of system the Conservative party proposed.
      Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Stewart: No. I have already said that I shall not give way because of the lack of time.

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      The new clause may produce small benefits for certain groups. It has other disadvantages, some of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) and others have mentioned. We would introduce a wholly new principle in British taxation the—principle of self-assessment. It works in other countries, but the proposal presents several major difficulties. It is clear that a local authority would need to have a tax reference number to pass on to the Inland Revenue. Moreover, one of the features of self-assessment systems is that they work only when the penalties are pretty severe.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East said that he thinks that 99 per cent. of the population are absolutely honest. That is a pretty optimistic view. Self-assessment requires fairly major penalties to be effective. The figure in Eastwood is 101 per cent. Another of the difficulties with a self-assessment system is that forms would have to be filled in on the assumption of a person being in a certain income bracket, but that could change in the year because of changes in earnings and because of variations in mortgage interest rates.
      I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends who are considering voting for the new clause will consider the consequences for Scotland as well as south of the border. It is quite clear that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench believe that new clause 1 would lead to an unworkable system and that the Bill would have to be withdrawn. The consequences for Scotland would be chaos. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East said that he recognised that there would be a need to amend the Scottish Bill, but it is not a Bill, it is an Act which comes into effect next April.
      The consequences of accepting new clause 1 for Scotland would be cataclysmic. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East, who is leading one of the non-payer campaigns, would he encouraged, as would others. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will take account of the implications north and south of the border before they vote.
      Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I note with interest what the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) said about Scotland. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from what happened there. It seems that many of the hon. Members who voted for the Scottish legislation did so without understanding it. Of the 44 signatories to the new clause, 36 have supported the Scottish legislation at some stage. On 5 March 1987, moreover, the Abolition of Domestic Rates (Scotland) Bill was given a Third reading. Fifteen Scottish Tories voted for the imposition of a poll tax. Three months later, more than half of them were unemployed. That is what has happened in Scotland as a result of passing ill-advised and ill-thought-out legislation. Some people are living with the consequences.
      We have heard that this is a flagship Bill. We have had one flagship speech. It was not the flagship HMS Poll Tax but the flagship HMS Henley. It was perhaps the most stirring and memorable speech of the debate. Where that flagship is sailing we do not know. What turbulent seas it may be going through we can only guess, but I suggest that we shall look back on tonight's debate as the disappearance of HMS Poll Tax in a stream of bubbles, unmourned and lost in a grey, distant sea.
      We support the new clause because it improves the Bill marginally. The Bill is bad and it is better to have a less bad Bill. It is not that we believe that the Bill will be welcome
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      if the new clause is agreed to. We support the concept of a local income tax. Nothing that I have heard tonight and nothing that I have heard from the Minister or others has persuaded me that a local income tax is impracticable. If other countries can do it, we can do it, and it is a fairer system for raising revenue.
      9 pm
      Tonight the chickens have certainly started coming home to roost and three points have become clear from the debate. First, the basic principle behind the tax has not won general acceptance on either side of the House. The doubts that we have heard from hon. Members who have spoken and the doubts that have been apparent on the faces of some of those who have not spoken, during speeches by both Back-Bench and Front-Bench Members, have spoken volumes.
      We have heard from which stable the Bill came. It came from the Chingford stable, which may well explain a considerable amount about the Bill. It may be known in future as the Chingford vision, but the Chingford poll tax is certainly nothing to be proud of. I should have thought that the silence that greeted the Secretary of State when he finished his speech would have brought the message home to the Government. As Conservative Members will be aware, there is of course a great difference between a poll tax and a flat-rate poll tax. That is essentially what we are debating here.
      Secondly, there is a difference between hon. Members in their understanding of the concept of fairness. The term "fairness" has arisen in many speeches and has meant different things to different people. To the Conservative party, it appears to mean that people pay the same price for a commodity or service that they obtain, irrespective Of their ability to pay. The Secretary of State quoted the case of someone on an income of £4,500 as an example of someone who would not be hard done by as a result of the Bill, but the European Community has defined £115 a week as the poverty level. In those circumstances, a married couple without children will certainly be taking the full impact of the Bill.
      The present rating system is certainly unfair to single pensioners and widowers, but the poll tax is manifestly more unfair to many more people and that is why it needs to be amended. If it is not amended tonight, we should send a message to another place to say that we are expecting it to do what we have failed to do in Committee and in the Division at the end of this debate.
      I do not know whether Conservative Members who talk about fairness and having an even charge for each service really mean that education, public health and the social services should be treated as commodities, like beer, cigarettes or Mars bars. Certainly fairness means something different to many of us and I suspect that that does not just apply to this side of the Chamber. I suspect that the concept of fairness means very much more o many Conservative Members as well. That will be their test when they come to decide how to vote at the end of the debate. That reflects the great division, not just between both sides of the House, but in the approach to fairness in life.
      It is ironic to claim that there should be an even charge for local services because the people who receive them do so in even quantities, whether or not that is true. That argument has not been put forward in respect of central

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      services. If we are seriously saying that, on the same basis, the charge for hospitals, roads or security services should be on an even basis, the argument loses its validity.
      Thirdly, centralisation is an implicit and inevitable consequence of the poll tax. The right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) rightly put his finger on that when he said that, if services are to be offloaded from local government, there will be a temptation for local government to spend more on the residual services. However, if we follow the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, services should be devolved from the centre to local government and local government should be given the freedom to make the charges that it considers fair for funding those services. Those charges should be within a structure that is sufficiently flexible to allow that and to maintain a basic level of service in all parts of the country.
      However, if we go down that road without an amendment—perhaps not the amendment proposed tonight, but a more sophisticated amendment from another place—we shall inevitably have a crescendo of calls for services such as education to be directly funded from the central Exchequer. We have heard some hon. Members talk about that tonight, and, if the Prime Minister had not given an absolute commitment in the Chamber in March last year not to bring education into the central Exchequer, the Government might have moved much earlier in that direction.
      It is ironic that we are holding this debate only a few weeks after a Budget in which rich people were given a great helping hand, whereas poor people were given next to nothing; and only a few days after the implementation of the social security changes, which have hit poor people even more. We have seen what has happened in Scotland. In Wales, too, with lower average wages, and where the rates are at present relatively low compared with many areas in England, there may be a massive reaction against the tax. Certainly there is no mandate for the changes in Wales, any more than there is in Scotland.
      This is a flagship debate. It may be rather late in the day to be looking at the central principle of the legislation but, my goodness, it is much better to recognise the inherent weakness of the legislation even at this late stage than to put on the statute book an Act that will be unworkable and unfair and which will cause a massive reaction throughout these islands.
      Sir Peter Hordern: My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made a powerful speech against the community charge. I suspect that he would have made an even more powerful speech against the idea of a local income tax and a yet more powerful speech against the old rating system. I was unable to detect in any of the words of my right hon. Friend what proposal he might favour in regard to local government expenditure.
      My right hon. Friend did one thing clearly. He damned with faint praise—although I understand that he will support it—the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates). The House will recollect that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East said that he supported 90 per cent. of the Local
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      Government Finance Bill. It was quite clear that my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley supported little or nothing of the Bill.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East said that he was prepared to have his new clause looked at as it was. He said that he thought it was workable and right in principle. I know that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends believe that, no matter what the finer points of it, the principle is what matters. I can well understand that point of view, because I was attracted by the idea of a graduated charge when my hon. Friend first mentioned it. However, the more I have looked at it, the more convinced I have become that not only would it be unworkable but it would be unfair in practice as well as in principle. I shall tell the House why.
      First, I take it that we are all agreed that the Government's concessions last Thursday have brought them into line with the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East and that at least the lower paid have rebates that are more satisfactory than they were. I do not think that there is any difference among hon. Members on that point.
      Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Sir Peter Horden: I will not give way, because I have little time. If I had more time, I should be delighted to give way.
      The difference in the practicality of the new clause is on the higher charge for higher taxpayers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley said that there is little in that. He said that all that is involved is an extra £110 per head for the rich and that that will not cause much difficulty. I can well understand that point of view. What is not simple—this was mentioned earlier—is that there are some people on the margin. They do not know whether they will be in the higher tax bracket or not. That is not a small number. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley suggested that few people might fall into that category.
      I have made some inquiries of the Inland Revenue. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East consulted the Inland Revenue among all the other civil servants that he consulted. My inquiries lead me to believe that there are as many as 500,000 people who each year change from being in the category of a standard rate taxpayer to being a higher rate taxpayer. They can do so by any manner of events. They may lose their job, change their occupation or merely have a rise.
      It is all very well for my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley to say that it is simply a matter of negotiating with the boss. We are talking about 500,000 people, by whom, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East, a form of self-assessment will be made. It will be checked by local authorities with the Inland Revenue. As has been said, anyone who does the self-assessment has to face the sort of inquiries that take place in the United States. I can assure the House that, if that were to be the case, it would be a much more rigorous examination than anything that happens now. It is an impractical suggestion.
      What would be the practical effect if my hon. Friend's new clause were to come to pass? I understand that it would raise £200 million and that by redistributing that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East, said, it is not extra money—the rich would pay £110 extra

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      and the poor would be asked to provide £5 less. All those mountains are to be moved so that the poor will pay £5 a year less before expenses and charges. We are talking about a new clause that, for those paying at standard rate, will make a difference of perhaps £3 or £4 a year, which is hardly a great matter on which to go to the stake.
      It is important to consider some practical effects of the new clause. Some of my hon. Friends suggested earlier—my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) did so—that a form of local income tax would be more to the point. Indeed, that is what the Social and Liberal Democratic party has suggested in its amendment. Conservative Members who believe that should join the Social and Liberal Democratic party in voting for new clause 7.
      New clause 7 would destroy accountability. In however poor a form, the community charge has some effect with regard to accountability. All the faults with a local income tax that have been mentioned in successive White and Green Papers still remain. I am not saying that the community charge is perfect, but there is no perfect form of charge.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East suggested that his measure would at least help the poor. The practical effect of the new clause is that rich people living in the south of England would pay a higher charge. He suggested that the extra money thus derived would mean that standard ratepayers living in that area would pay less. The total effect would be that the community charge in rich areas would decline, whereas in poor areas it would increase: in other words, the very reverse effect that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East wants.
      If my hon. Friend wants to address the problem, he should try to ensure that poor people are helped by the rate support grant. I believe that this is a very important matter, because in successive years—indeed, ever since the Government took office in 1979—the central plank of the Government's policy has been to reduce rate support grant as a proportion of local government expenditure. There may have been a good case for that in the first two or three years, but if anybody wants to impose difficulties on local authorities and the poorest people they have only to reduce rate support grant, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley did more than anybody else. I believe that that will he the test of the Government in future years.
      My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has at least kept the rate support grant steady. If it declines as a proportion of the whole, we shall no longer be able to claim that the rich, through taxation and the operation of rate support grant, pay 15 times as much as the poor. It is important that, as a proportion, the rate support grant remains at least as large as it is today, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that proposition. I am sure that it will not be an easy measure to get past the Treasury.
      In the past, when a reduction in the rate support grant has been proposed, and when some of its effects on local authorities, not on the needs element or their ability to pay, have been seen, some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have voted against it. There cannot be a fixed-rate community charge with a reducing element of rate support grant. I do not believe that that can be tolerated. If it is argued, perfectly validly, that extra support for local authorities should be given through the rate support grant, as envisaged, the high proportion of support given at present must at least be maintained.
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      I am sure that the motives of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East in moving the new clause were admirable. I believe that as it stands it is fatally flawed in practice and principle. It follows as a necessary collorary that my right hon. and hon. Friends, In considering the proportion of rate support grant, should remember what has been said in the debate and act accordingly.
      9.15 pm
      Mrs. Fyfe: We have heard from the hon. Member for Horsham (Sir. P. Hordern) the extraordinary proposition that hon. Members should vote against new clause 1 because, if people assessed themselves for the poll tax, there would be closer examination of that self-assessment than there is for the national income tax. The country will listen with interest to that argument. Many millions of honest people who have no control over their tax because they pay through the PAYE system will join me in saying that anyone who honestly declares his income for tax purposes has nothing to fear from such a close examination and it is only right that people should pay what they can afford to pay and what the law requires them to pay. That argument is an irrelevance in this debate.
      Many Conservative Members have clearly shown that they care a lot about the fact that people on low incomes will pay the same as the richest in the land. The duke arid the dustman have been contrasted. We have learned with great interest that the Secretary of State believes that the dustman should pay the same as the duke. That will resound in Conservative ears for many elections to come. It so happens that the House of Commons does not represent dukes—not yet, anyway—but there are hundreds and thousands of dustmen who will listen to that argument with interest.
      The Low Pay Unit, which has been described by the Economic League as a subversive organisation, has produced much interesting information about pay. It has pointed to the appalling fact that poverty among the low paid is worse than it was more than 100 years ago. People on low pay are worse off relative to the average in 1886. Consider how much work was done by social investigators in the late Victorian years and the state of poverty then, when people lived in appalling conditions. It will happen all over again as society increasingly criticises what is happening at the Government's hand.
      The bottom 10 per cent. in the earnings league earned 68·6 per cent. of the average wage in 1886, compared with 64·4 per cent. in 1987. It is appalling that 100 years of parliamentary Government have put the poorest paid in a worse position than they were 100 years ago; yet, instead of recognising that, the Government have been bent on demanding that the lowest paid—those who bring home £53 a week—pay the same as the richest. There are 9·4 million workers who earn less than the decency threshold of 68 per cent. of average earnings laid down by the Council of Europe. Forty-four per cent. of the total work force is affected—an awful lot of people, who will oppose this poll tax.
      I have one last word of warning about the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart). Hon. Members should not pay attention to his attempt to pull 'the wool over their eyes. Any Conservative Members deceived into thinking that in the case of the Scottish legislation they were voting

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      against revaluation, and not the poll tax, will live and learn. I look forward to the day when Conservative Members do.
      Mr. Jeff Rooker: In many ways, this has been a unique debate. In my 14 years service in the House, this is the first time that I have seen two Conservative Members called in succession who did not even rise to speak. That must be a unique experience for all hon. Members. It is a new technique, from which my hon. Friends will attempt to learn.
      We all pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) for the way in which he introduced the debate. This has been a general debate that goes to the heart of the Bill. Hon. Members have not bothered too much with facts, but have dealt with principle, because that is what the new clause is all about. It goes to the heart of the Bill. The new clause will undermine the flat-rate nature of the poll tax; that is its whole purpose. There are several ways of doing that, but not all of them are available for debate because of the guillotine.
      Many people outside the House are bewildered. At a meeting yesterday afternoon, one of my constituents said to me, "I do not understand. If twice as many people are to pay the same grand total of local government taxation under the poll tax, how is it that me and my wife in our semi are going to pay more in poll tax between us than we pay in rates?" He said, "If 35 million, not 18 million, will be paying how come we are going to end up paying more?" The answer is that the rateable value of his house is less than the average. As instanced by hon. Members on both sides of the House, he is the very kind of person who will end up paying more for his household in poll tax than he pays in rates, and there are many such people in many of our constituencies.
      From day one—even in the Green Paper—we were told that one of the reasons for the introduction of a flat rate poll tax was universal accountability, for all the world as though members of households are unaware and do not contribute to local government at the moment. They do contribute. Everybody knows that they contribute. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have said so.
      I did not think that I should be able to pray in aid the leader of the Conservatives on Birmingham city council, but in a recent letter to The Birmingham Post, Councillor Reg Hales, who complained that I had used figures dealing with individual losers rather than households, said:
      "Mr. Rooker complains that I refer to households in assessing the effect of the charge on Birmingham residents, but isn't that how most families work out their expenditure —as a family, not as individuals£"
      That is exactly our point. The 18 million ratepayers have 12 million spouses. Already more than 30 million adults contribute directly to the system of local government taxation. It is a falsehood to claim that they do not.
      Over the weekend, I honestly thought that we had not been given a concession on Thursday. Given that we were to have a big debate on Monday, I thought, "On Friday, or Saturday, they will do the sums. They will work out that it is not a concession at all." I warned my hon. Friends, "They will have something bigger still on Monday. We have to be prepared for the real concession." Thursday's so-called concession was not worth a row of beans. What a way to deal with the flagship of the Government's legislation.
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      The press release made no mention of the cost of the concession. "An extra million people on rebate, and yet no figures to show the public expenditure cost," I said to the Prime Minister. Of course there were no figures. That cost will be £130 million, and neither the Prime Minister nor the Secretary of State had the guts to tell the House that a ministerial decision had already been made to claw back the £130 million in 1989–90 by changing the tapers in housing benefit.
      That means that the Government intend to claw back the cost of the concession in the year before the poll tax is introduced. They did not even have the guts to tell us that. In the correspondence that we have read from Paul Grey, Roger Bright and Deborah Lamb, it is all there for everyone to see. We have had the Budget, we have had the social security and pension changes, and now we have the poll tax itself. To come along after all that with a so-called concession that is to be paid for by further cuts in benefit to the very low-paid people whom the Government claim they are trying to help is nothing short of damned outrageous.
      The Government will prattle on about the gains. Let us look at the figures. The Government have never published a set of rebate tables. They say that they cannot do it. They have never published figures about income or the poll tax or about what the rebates would be. The Library can do it, but not once during nearly 160 hours in Committee did any of the three Ministers change any of the figures produced by the statistical section of the Library about the community charge rebates paid for last December. The Government could have worked them out on the basis of knowing that they would be based on the housing benefit scheme.
      What happens after the so-called concession to protect the flagship£ It is still the case that in not one local authority except Camden will a student nurse obtain a penny in rebate. That is a measure of the concession on rebates. Student nurses receive £5,000 a year gross. That is £76 a week net, and the amount of poll tax payable will be higher if the Government meet the nurses' pay claim. Perhaps student nurses in Camden will not get a penny either. That is the measure of the rebate concession.
      A couple with young children will receive no rebate if they earn over £130 a week—an income that is well below average earnings—and a couple with no children will receive no rebate if their earnings are over £100 a week. Those are the figures that will apply under the average poll tax authority, and we know that the tax payable will be £224, near enough £5 a week per adult.
      A couple with a net income of £100 per week will be expected to pay £10— that is, 10 per cent. of their net income—in local authority taxes. The same rate applies to the worker under 25 years of age who will receive no rebate once his earned net income goes above £50 a week. His poll tax will be £5, or 10 per cent. of his income. Conservative Members say that that is OK, that the expenditure pattern of such people is different from the pattern of the well off and that they do not need to spend. They do not have the money to spend. Conservative Members talk as if such people had spare coppers to pay the poll tax. They say that the system is OK for the low-paid. A couple on £100 a week are low-paid and the Government take the view that it is all right for such people to pay 10 per cent. of their net income in poll tax.
      The Government have attacked the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) and talked about a massive

      637
      earnings trap for higher rate taxpayers. For people on net incomes of over £400 a week, the poll tax payments will not be 10 per cent. of their net earned income. It will not be even 8, 6 or 5 per cent. Only 1·6 per cent. of their net income will be paid in poll tax. That compares with 10 per cent. for a couple on £100 a week. That is a measure of what we are dealing with.
      Mr. Leigh rose—
      Mr. Rooker: No, I shall not give way, because there is no time. The hon. Member voted for the guillotine, as did a majority of his hon. Friends. They have curtailed the debate and have prevented the Opposition from debating new clause 5 and new clause 7. There was no genuine debate on new clause 2, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir George Young). The guillotine has meant that we have to restrict debate to new clause 1. When the guillotine falls it will not even be possible under the rules approved by the Government for hon. Members to vote for any of the alternatives. New clause 1 is our only option. Not even amendment (d) to the new clause or any of the other new clauses can be voted upon.
      The Minister will have plenty of time to deal with interventions. He will have to come up with another concession, because Thursday's concession will not save the flagship. We know that it will be paid for by the recipients of benefit and that it is not worth much to the low-paid. As the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) said, it destroys at a stroke the idea of universal accountability, as does the very concept of a rebate. About 9 million people might benefit, but 26 million adults will pay a flat rate charge unrelated to their income. That must be unfair.
      If anything has come across in the debate, even from Government supporters, it is the question, which Tory manifesto counts—the 1974 or the 1987 one? One Conservative Member as good as told the hon. Member for Hampshire, East that although the 1974 manifesto referred to fairness and to the ability to pay, the 1987 manifesto did not, and as the electorate voted on that manifesto, we were stuck with it.
      The Tories do not want to know about the concept of ability to pay, because it was not in their last manifesto. It was in their manifesto in 1974 when they first pledged to abolish the rates, but now that the time has come to put that pledge into practice, it is convenient to forget about the ability to pay. That is grossly dishonest in a parliamentary democracy that is founded upon the concept of a contract between the winning party and the electorate.
      Mr. Tebbit rose—
      9.30pm
      Mr. Rooker: I am not giving way to that hon. Member —[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] No.
      The legislation is about local government taxation. I accept that it is also about the grant system and business rates, but the central argument is about local taxation. It is not a tax bill or a money Bill in the conventional sense of a Finance Bill. During the early stages in Committee, we sought a ruling, through the Clerks, from the experts in the House on what would happen if a Member who was not a member of the Government sought to move an amendment that would introduce a new tax—something
      638
      that cannot be done in a Finance Bill. We were told that that would be perfectly in order in the House of Commons because, as the money did not form part of the Consolidated Fund, we were not bound by those rules.
      We were also advised that the other place operated under its own rules. We wanted to know what would happen if, during the final stages in this House, a hint was given that perhaps the other place might make some change. We were told that we could not be sure of that because this House does not control the other place. 1:n fact, we now have further and better advice from the Public Bill Office. Any Conservative Member who thinks that he can cop out tonight because the experts along the Corridor—those who know about local government and fairness—may force the Government to think again, is wrong.
      I wish to quote one brief paragraph about financial privilege as it relates to the Bill:
      "But there are some types of amendments in respect of which the Commons cannot waive their privilege because the Speaker is directed by Standing Order to prevent their consideration by the Commons by negativing them forthwith. Such amendments are said to constitute 'intolerable' breaches of privilege. An amendment to change the nature of the community charge to local income tax would be 'intolerable'. So would an amendment to introduce 'banding' of the charge. The latter would be intolerable because the Commons have fully debated and decided against `banding'."
      There is no Tory long-stop along the Corridor. The decision must be made tonight, and the guillotine ensures that that will happen at 10 o'clock. It is the only way to force the Government to think again—that is what the passing of new clause 1 would achieve. It is not a perfect mechanical tool that has had expert technical drafting. Everyone knows the consequences that will flow for the remainder of the legislation. However, because the Government have a majority, the guillotine motion could be rewritten and further proposals could be delayed for a couple of days. We could pass all the consequential amendments without any difficulty. There is nothing standing in the way of that.
      There is no time to do that tonight, but I tell Conservative Members that there will be no time in 1990 when poll tax bills start dropping through doors. There will be no time whatsoever. It will be no good saying, as they said last week in respect of social security, "I wish that we had dealt with the matter in a bit more detail in 1986 to stop this mess-up in 1988." Tonight is the time to change what will happen in 1990. We should get on with it.
      Mr. Howard: The most striking feature of the debate has been the extent to which all the ideas—and all the constructive thinking—have come from the Government Benches. Opposition Members are bereft of any fresh thinking on the matter. Their opposition has been described as vacuous by no less a person that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition himself. They will go into the Division Lobby in support of the new clause, if my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) presses it to a Division, not because they care tuppence about the new clause—the Leader of the Opposition himself has made that clear—but simply because they see in it a device for embarrassing the Government. It is a display of cynicism that is entirely characteristic of the Opposition.
      At the heart of the debate has been the ability to pay. That phrase clearly means different things to different people. For example, the present rating system is poorly

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      related to ability to pay. Nearly half the houses in this country with above average rateable values are occupied by households with below average incomes, and nearly half the households with above average incomes live in houses with below average rateable values. The system that we are sweeping away with the proposals enshrined in the Bill scores badly indeed on the criterion of ability to pay.
      The proposals that we seek to put in place of that discredited system are much better related to ability to pay. Families with a net income of up to £150 a week will, on average, pay less in community charge than they pay in rates. Many of the poorest sections of our community—80 per cent. of single pensioner households and 80 per cent. of single-parent families—will pay less in community charge than they pay in rates. Of course, their position will be significantly improved by the additional rebates that were announced last week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Minister confirm that, despite last week's announcement about rebates, in every area in which the poll tax will be higher than average, no matter what their income may be, all individuals will have to pay something, whereas now some get a complete rebate and pay nothing at all?
      Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is as wrong as he usually is about such matters. People now have to make a contribution towards rates, regardless of their incomes.
      As a result of the proposals by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, those who are least well off at the bottom end of the income scale will have a community charge that is entirely related to ability to pay. That is where it matters most. That is where it will fully apply.
      As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) said in an article in The Times last November,
      "We have to be absolutely sure that…the not quite poor do not get a raw deal."
      I agree with my right hon. Friend. The improved rebates announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will fully meet that requirement.
      I appreciate that many of my hon. Friends would like to see that principle of ability to pay extended throughout the income scale. Taking the system as a whole, as my right hon. Friend has explained, that is indeed the case. The community charge will account for only a quarter of the cost of local authority services. The top 10 per cent. of households by income will pay 15 times as much towards the cost of local authority services as the bottom 10 per cent. So, in that real sense, the rich will pay far more than the poor.
      But some of my hon. Friends say that that is not enough. In their view, the community charge itself must be related directly across the whole range of incomes to the principle of ability to pay. There is only way in which that could be achieved. I hope that my hon. Friends are in no doubt about it. That can only be done through the introduction of a local income tax.
      Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Howard: No, I am not giving way to the party that has made no constructive contribution to this debate at all.
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      I know that one or two of my hon. Friends are in favour of a local income tax, but I suspect that the overwhelming majority of them are not. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East says that he is not. According to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the Labour party may wish to combine local income tax with a property tax, but even that party does not put forward the proposition that local income tax alone should pay the cost of local government. Indeed, Opposition Members were warned in the clearest possible terms against doing so by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)—at the time Opposition spokesman on local government matters —when he advanced no fewer than 10 separate reasons why a local income tax would be a bad way of paying for local government.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East has sought to avoid the dangers of a local income tax, because he recognises them. He has done his best to produce a scheme which relates the community charge more closely to the ability to pay, while avoiding the worst dangers of a local income tax. It is no fault of my hon. Friend that his best endeavours have been unsuccessful. He has, in fact, failed in the task that he has set himself, because it is simply impossible to produce a system which seeks to relate payment to ability to pay across the whole range of incomes without introducing a full-blown local income tax.
      The defects in my hon. Friend's proposals have been referred to more than once—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order.
      Mr. Winnick rose—
      Mr. Wilson: Will the Minister give way?
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister said that he was not giving way.
      Mr. Howard: The defects in my hon. Friend's proposals have been referred to more than once during the debate. The fact is that, as a person stepped from one band to another for a trifling increase in income, he or she would face an extra bill for the community charge which could run into hundreds of pounds a year. That is not simply the case when one moves from the standard rate to the higher rate of income tax. That would also be true—contrary to what was said by my hon. Friend—when one moves from a position of not being liable to income tax at all to becoming liable to it for the first time. That is not an accident. It is not a superficial problem that can be ironed out with a few more Green Papers or White Papers. It is absolutely fundamental to any banded charge proposal.
      Mr. Mates: I am sorry to resurrect this, but there is a fundamental point, which my hon. and learned Friend has already stated, which he must in all honesty repeat. There is a step at each of these stages. Is it not a fact, and has he not acknowledged, that if the House were to adopt my new clause and graft it on to the Government's rebate schemes, not one person in the lower paid bracket would be worse off under my scheme than under his?
      Mr. Howard: As my hon. Friend agrees, up to the point where they reach the step in his scheme, that is correct. However, that does not do away with the trap that is inherent in his scheme. It remains a fact that, as one reaches that trap, for a trifling increase in income, one

      641
      would become liable to pay up to hundreds of pounds more in community charge—[Interruption.] Hon. Members are wrong
      Mr. Mates rose—
      Mr. Howard: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment.
      That is not the case under our scheme. Under our scheme, for every extra pound in income, one cannot lose any more than 15p. However, under a banded charge, including my hon. Friend's version, one can end up losing several hundred pounds.
      Mr. Mates: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. and learned Friend again, but this is such a fundamental point that we must at least make sure that the whole House understands it. If my scheme is adopted, there is a moment when one stops being entitled to pay only half the community charge and becomes liable to pay most, if not all, of it, but at that point—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should wait because this is the interesting point that we must get across. It is when one has lost that half entitlement that one returns to the point on the line at which the Government would place that same person. Therefore, that person would not be one penny worse off.
      9.45 pm
      Mr. Howard: That is not necessarily the case. It depends upon the precise application of the rebate at that point. There will be many cases in which the rebate will not apply and someone will come into tax for the first time and have to meet the full community charge. They will find themselves with an additional liability of several hundred pounds. That is an inescapable consequence of my hon. Friend's case.
      My hon. Friend justifies his proposal on the basis of what he regards as its presentational advantages compared with the Government's scheme. I certainly do not relish explaining on the doorstep or in my surgery to an irate contituent whose bill had gone up by hundreds of pounds a year because his income had increased by a trifling amount that that was a price that he had to pay in order to get a scheme that was more related across the range, so-called, to ability to pay. I would not expect any sympathy from any constituent of mine in receipt of such advice, and I do not think that I would be alone in that situation—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. This has been a very good-tempered debate until now. I ask the House to give the Minister a fair hearing.
      Mr. Howard: My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) referred to several other anomalies that would arise. Some were pointed out in a question that was put to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood) about the position of non-working wives. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East dealt with that by saying that only non-working wives would pay the community charge at the same rate as their husbands. However, I fear that that inescapably leads to further anomalies.
      I shall give the House the figures. Under the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East, in the case of a wife with no income who is married to a higher-rate taxpayer, both the higher-rate taxpayer and his
      642
      wife would pay 150 per cent. of the community charge. If the wife has an income of £ 10,000 per year of her own, and is married to a higher-rate taxpayer, although the husband would continue to pay 150 per cent. she would pay only 100 per cent—less than she would pay if she were a non-working wife. If she has a still lower income, she might end up paying 50 per cent. of the charge while her husband continued to pay 150 per cent. That kind of anomaly is bound to arise under my hon. Friend's scheme.
      The same applies to the other difficulties that have been identified. With the best will in the world, it is no use my hon. Friend saying, "Take my scheme away; look at it again; all I am interested in is the principle." The unavoidable fact is that, if one wants to relate a charge or tax, call it what one will, to income, one has to have an income tax that avoids the steps, the bands and the traps which are such an inherent feature of my hon. Friend's scheme.
      My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made a powerful speech; but it was a powerful speech against the whole principle of the community charge. It was certainly not a speech in support of the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley talked about accountability. He suggested that the Government's scheme had lost accountability because of our rebates. I do not agree with my right hon. Friend about that, but, if he is right, that problem would he made much worse under the provisions of my hon. Friend's new clause.
      My right hon. Friend mentioned the sense of grievance of a person who was above the rebate level and no longer entitled to it. No doubt he would be aggrieved, but how much greater would be the grievance felt by someone who encountered the traps inherent in my hon. Friend's scheme?
      Mr. Heseltine: Why would anybody feel aggrieved at encountering a trap from which he did not lose any money?
      Mr. Howard: I have made it perfectly plain that such people would lose hundreds of pounds for the sake of a trifling increase in income—[Laughter.] Hon. Members may mock, but that is the fact of the matter. The Leader of the Opposition mocks, but he recognised that aspect of my hon. Friend's scheme in its early days.
      Finally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley gave the House an amusing example from Dorset, which he rightly said could be not be regarded as a high-spending council whose irresponsibility we wish to curb. He is right about Dorset county council, but the community charge figures he gave were wrong. He referred to a house in Wimborne with a rateable value of £100, but he did not say that the rate bill now would be £195 and that the community charge would be £173—[Interruption.] Yes, per person. My right hon. Friend gave the figure of £516 for a couple living in Wimborne, and that is nearly £200 more than the community charge.
      Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Howard: No, I want to refer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] No, I must leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East and I want to deal with—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is not giving way.
      Mr. Howard: I want to deal with an important point made by my right hon. Friends the Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) and for Woking (Mr. Onslow). They suggested that the impact of the community charge could be alleviated by increasing the rate support grant—the proportion of local government spending paid by central Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley clearly disagreed with them and expressed a different view, so there is no consensus on that important question. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the mechanism for an increased contribution from central Government and for more money in rate support grant is provided in the Government's proposals. In future years we shall no doubt have to consider how that mechanism is to be used.
      I can well understand the desire of my hon. Friends to find a system of paying for local government that will meet all their anxieties, but that holy grail does not exist. If they want a local income tax—and I understand their view —but I cannot give it to them, neither will the scheme of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East. If they want to keep the existing rate system, as one or two do—and I understand their view—but I cannot give it to them, neither will my hon. Friend's scheme.
      But if they want a new and improved system of paying for local government that will provide the British people with the advantages of fairness and accountability, without the anomalies, uncertainties and, yes, injustices of all other proposals, including that of my hon. Friend, the only way forward is the way that is enshrined in our manifesto.
      How dare the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) talk about dishonesty and our breaking faith with the electorate? Our manifesto sets out in detail the proposals for a community charge, on which we fought and won the general election, and those proposals are enshrined in the Bill. It is for all those reasons that I urge my hon. Friends to reject the new clause.
      Mr. Mates: With the leave of the House, may I make a few comments in reply. Of course I agree with the Minister that it has been a constructive debate, and I do not want it to be spoilt by the only difference of fact that we have had during four months of debate, private and public. During those four months, it has been my hon. and learned Friend's position that, although he did not like it and thought that it was flawed, my plan did not leave any of the lower paid a penny worse off than his did. When I put that to him tonight, he said that it was not necessarily so. That is a world of difference. I am sure that he did not want to mislead the House, so I want to know whether he agrees that if my new clause was carried—I know that there is a jump, and the price that must be paid—no one would be worse off than he would be under his scheme. I would like a quick yes or no answer, because I should hate us to end on any terms other than that.
      Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend knows the answer. Until one reached that trap, it is true that no one would be worse off. But when one reaches the trap, as one's earnings increase by a trifling amount one can become liable to several hundreds of pounds extra community charge. That is the fact of the matter, and it is impossible to escape it.
      Mr. Mates: But it is the same amount of liability as exists under the Government's scheme—my hon. and learned Friend does not deny that—which means that they would be no worse off under my scheme.
      I will not pursue that matter, because, as we go into the Lobbies very soon now, I believe that this vote will not be about the minutiae of the new clause. Nor—I say this with all the passion that I feel—is it about wrecking the Government's Bill. We can still proceed perfectly well with the community charge on a banded basis. That is what many people have been advocating inside and outside the House, and most recently from the heartland of Conservative support has come yet one more plea to reconsider the matter.
      That is why I introduced the new clause, and if a message is sent from the House tonight that we are not entirely satisfied with this aspect of the Bill, I hope that the Government will listen. Until now, they have been listening with a little reluctance. We have a long way to go before the Bill becomes law, and many more changes will be made. Many changes will be made to the Bill this week, and no doubt many changes will be made, not by their Lordships but by the Government, in another place. Complex legislation changes constantly in the light of experience, research and what people are told will be the consequences that no one could have foreseen.
      There is no doubt that that would happen, too, if we were considering the principle of a banded community charge. That is why I have said all along that if they would only concede the principle, I should be content to leave the details to a Government who get most things right—[HON.MEMBERS: "It cannot be donel Hon. Members say that we cannot do it. Last Monday, someone said that we cannot do anything to make the position better. Then 30 of my hon. Friends had signed the new clause. On Tuesday, 40 had signed, but nothing could be done. By Wednesday, 51 had signed, and something was done on Thursday. I am sorry to have to say that, but it is incontestably the truth.
      One does not become more or less disloyal— if that is the word that people wish to use—simply by pressing one's point a little harder. The question is whether one's point is sound. Some of us believe that the point is sound. Some of us believe that the matter should be reconsidered and some of us believe that if it was possible to meet the point, the Bill would be the better for it. If it was met, all of us could go about our soulless task in two years' time and say, "It may not be popular, because no tax is, but we have done our damnedest to make it fair."
      Question put:—
      The House divided: Ayes 295, Noes 320.

      Division No. 262]

      9.59 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

      Adams, Allen Paisley N

      Barron, Kevin

      Adley, Robert

      Battle, John

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Allen, Graham

      Beckett, Margaret

      Alton, David

      Beggs, Roy

      Anderson, Donald

      Beith, A. J.

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Bell, Stuart

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Benyon, W.

      Ashton, Joe

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      645

      Blair, Tony

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Blunkett, David

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Boateng, Paul

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Boyes, Roland

      Gordon, Mildred

      Bradley, Keith

      Gorst, John

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Gould, Bryan

      Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

      Graham, Thomas

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Bruce. Malcolm (Gordon)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Buchan, Norman

      Grocott, Bruce

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Buck, Sir Antony

      Hardy, Peter

      Buckley, George J.

      Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

      Caborn, Richard

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Callaghan, Jim

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Campbell, Menzies (File NE)

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Haynes, Frank

      Canavan, Dennis

      Heath, Rt Hon Edward

      Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Cartwright, John

      Henderson, Doug

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

      Clay, Bob

      Hinchliffe, David

      Clelland, David

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Holland, Stuart

      Cohen, Harry

      Home Robertson, John

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Hood, Jimmy

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Corbett, Robin

      Howells, Geraint

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Hoyle, Doug

      Cormack, Patrick

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Cousins, Jim

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Cox, Tom

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Critchley, Julian

      Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

      Crowther, Stan

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Cryer, Bob

      Hume, John

      Cummings, John

      Illsley, Eric

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Irvine, Michael

      Cunningham, Dr John

      Janner, Greville

      Dalyell, Tam

      John, Brynmor

      Darling, Alistair

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Johnston, Sir Russell

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

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

      Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

      Dewar, Donald

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

      Dixon, Don

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Dobson, Frank

      Kennedy, Charles

      Doran, Frank

      Kilfedder, James

      Douglas, Dick

      Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Knox, David

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

      Lambie, David

      Dykes, Hugh

      Lamond, James

      Eadie, Alexander

      Leighton, Ron

      Eastham, Ken

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

      Lewis, Terry

      Fatchett, Derek

      Litherland, Robert

      Faulds, Andrew

      Livingstone, Ken

      Fearn, Ronald

      Livsey, Richard

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Fisher, Mark

      Loyden, Eddie

      Flannery, Martin

      McAllion, John

      Flynn, Paul

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      McCartney, Ian

      Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

      McCusker, Harold

      Foster, Derek

      Macdonald, Calum A.

      Foulkes, George

      McFall, John

      Fraser, John

      McGrady, Eddie

      Fyfe, Maria

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Galbraith, Sam

      McKelvey, William

      Galloway, George

      McLeish, Henry

      Garrett, John (Norwich South)

      Maclennan, Robert

      Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

      McNamara, Kevin

      George, Bruce

      McTaggart, Bob

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      McWilliam, John

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Madden, Max

      646

      Maginnis, Ken

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Ross, William (Londonderry E)

      Mallon, Seamus

      Rowlands, Ted

      Marek, Dr John

      Ruddock, Joan

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Salmond, Alex

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Martlew, Eric

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Mates, Michael

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Maxton, John

      Short, Clare

      Meacher, Michael

      Skinner, Dennis

      Meale, Alan

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

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

      Michael, Alun

      Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

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

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

      Snape, Peter

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Soley, clive

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Stott, Roger

      Morley, Elliott

      Strang, Gavin

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Straw, Jack

      Morrison, Hon Sir Charles

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Mullin, Chris

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Murphy, Paul

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

      O'Brien, William

      Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

      O'Neill, Martin

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Turner, Dennis

      Paisley, Rev Ian

      Vaz, Keith

      Parry, Robert

      Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

      Patchett, Terry

      Wall, Pat

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Wallace, James

      Pendry, Tom

      Walley, Joan

      Pike, Peter L.

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Wareing, Robert N.

      Prescott, John

      Wells, Bowen

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

      Radice, Giles

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Raison. Rt Hon Timothy

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Randall, Stuart

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Rathbone, Tim

      Wilson, Brian

      Redmond, Martin

      Winnick, David

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Reid, Dr John

      Worthington, Tony

      Richardson, Jo

      Wray, Jimmy

      Riddick, Graham

      Yeo, Tim

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Robertson, George

      Robinson, Geoffrey

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

      Sir George Young and

      Rogers, Allan

      Mr. Robin Squire.

      Rooker, Jeff

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Biggs-Davison, Sir John

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Allason, Rupert

      Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Body, Sir Richard

      Amess, David

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Amos, Alan

      Boswell, Tim

      Arbuthnot, James

      Bottomley, Peter

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

      Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

      Ashby, David

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Bowis, John

      Atkins, Robert

      Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

      Atkinson, David

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Brazier, Julian

      Baldry, Tony

      Bright, Graham

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Batiste, Spencer

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Bellingham, Henry

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

      Bendall, Vivian

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Budgen, Nicholas

      647

      Burns, Simon

      Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

      Burt, Alistair

      Harris, David

      Butcher, John

      Hawkins, Christopher

      Butler, Chris

      Hayes, Jerry

      Butterfill, John

      Hayward, Robert

      Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Heddle, John

      Carrington, Matthew

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Carttiss, Michael

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Cash, William

      Hill, James

      Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

      Hind, Kenneth

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Chapman, Sydney

      Holt, Richard

      Chope, Christopher

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Churchill, Mr

      Howard, Michael

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

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

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Colvin, Michael

      Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

      Conway, Derek

      Hunt, David (Wirral W)

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Hunter, Andrew

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Cope, John

      Irving, Charles

      Couchman, James

      Jack, Michael

      Cran, James

      Jackson, Robert

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Janman, Tim

      Curry, David

      Jessel, Toby

      Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

      Day, Stephen

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Devlin, Tim

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Key, Robert

      Dicks, Terry

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Dover, Den

      Knapman, Roger

      Dunn, Bob

      Knight, Greg (Derby North)

      Durant, Tony

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Eggar, Tim

      Knowles, Michael

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      Lang, Ian

      Evennett, David

      Latham, Michael

      Fallon, Michael

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Farr, Sir John

      Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

      Favell, Tony

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Lightbown, David

      Forman, Nigel

      Lilley, Peter

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

      Forth, Eric

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Lord, Michael

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Luce, Rt Hon Richard

      Franks, Cecil

      Lyell, Sir Nicholas

      Freeman, Roger

      McCrindle, Robert

      French, Douglas

      Macfarlane, Sir Neil

      Fry, Peter

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Gale, Roger

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Gardiner, George

      Maclean, David

      Gill, Christopher

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Goodlad, Alastair

      McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Madel, David

      Gow, Ian

      Major, Rt Hon John

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Mans, Keith

      Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

      Maples, John

      Greenway, Harry (Eating N)

      Marland, Paul

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Marlow, Tony

      Gregory, Conal

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Grist, Ian

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Ground, Patrick

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Grylls, Michael

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Mellor, David

      Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

      Miller, Hal

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Mills, lain

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Hannam, John

      Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

      648

      Moate, Roger

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Speller, Tony

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

      Moore, Rt Hon John

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Morris, M (N'hampton S)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Morrison, Hon P (Chester)

      Stanley, Rt Hon John

      Moss, Malcolm

      Stern, Michael

      Moynihan, Hon Colin

      Stevens, Lewis

      Neale, Gerrard

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Needham, Richard

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Nelson, Anthony

      Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

      Neubert, Michael

      Stokes, John

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Sumberg, David

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Summerson, Hugo

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Page, Richard

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Paice, James

      Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

      Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

      Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

      Patnick, Irvine

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Patten, Chris (Bath)

      Thorne, Neil

      Patten, John (Oxford W)

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Thurnham, Peter

      Pawsey, James

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Tracey, Richard

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Tredinnick, David

      Portillo, Michael

      Trippier, David

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Trotter, Neville

      Price, Sir David

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Raffan, Keith

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Redwood, John

      Viggers, Peter

      Renton, Tim

      Waddington, Rt Hon David

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Ridsdale, Sir Julian

      Walden, George

      Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

      Walker, Bill (Tside North)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Waller, Gary

      Rossi, Sir Hugh

      Ward, John

      Rost, Peter

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Rowe, Andrew

      Warren, Kenneth

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Watts, John

      Ryder, Richard

      Wheeler, John

      Sackville, Hon Tom

      Whitney, Ray

      Sainsbury, Hon Tim

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Scott, Nicholas

      Wilkinson, John

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Wilshire, David

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Wood, Timothy

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Woodcock, Mike

      Shersby, Michael

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Sims, Roger

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Mr. Robert Boscawen and

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be
      further considered tomorrow.
      Mr. Neil Kinnock: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. At the conclusion of the debate tonight, it is clear that at least 38 members of the Conservative party have voted for the new clause presented by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates). Other Conservative Members abstained and yet others were cowed and coerced into supporting the Government.
      It is clear that the flagship is badly holed and sinking fast and that the measure will leave the House for another place without a clear mandate from the House of

      649
      Commons. The country will know that, the other part of Parliament will know it and the Bill can still be stopped in its tracks.
      It is only right, given the importance of this issue—[Interruption]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I called the Leader of the Opposition.
      Mr. Kinnock: It is only right, given the importance of the issue and the small nature of the Government's majority, that we secure from the Government tonight a statement as to their intentions on a measure that will relate local taxation to the ability of people to pay.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The House has made its decision.

  PETITIONS

    Pensioners
    Mr. Speaker: There are six petitions and I shall call Mr. Roland Boyes first.
    10.20 pm
    Mr. Roland Boyes: I beg to ask leave to present a petition. It shows that pensioners in the Tyne, Wear, Durham and District Pensioners Associaton
    "will suffer great hardship because of the poll tax, the increases in the price of electricity and the meagre winter heating allowance."
    It is signed in the name of Mr. Huggins of 49 Wenlock, Biddick, Washington and many others.
    The poll tax is a uniquely selfish piece of legislation. Pensioners are just one of the already disadvantaged groups that will be hit hard by its effects. We have the obscene situation in which a third of single pensioners will be worse off by up to £5 a week, a million pensioner couples will be paying more than they do now and those who choose to care for elderly relatives will have to consider whether they will be able to afford to keep the old person in the family home. Inflicting further hardship on the old and forcing families to put elderly relatives into local authority homes is a wicked, vicious and immoral act on the part of the party that is supposed to uphold family values.
    I received a letter this morning from an elderly woman in my constituency—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman he must not make a speech when presenting a petition. He should summarise the letter briefly.
    Mr. Boyes: The letter was from an elderly woman who has already been hard-hit by the social security changes. That letter says it all. It says:
    "With all that the Government is doing to old people, what on earth is there for us to live for?"
    That is the question.
    To lie upon the Table.
    10.21 pm
    Mr. Bob Clay: I beg to ask leave to present a petition with over 10,000 signatures collected by the Tyne, Wear, Durham and District Pensioners Association, members of the Labour party in Sunderland and by the Sunderland campaign against the poll tax. The petition reads:
    "To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Honourable Petition of members of the Tyne, Wear, Durham and District Pensioners Association and other pensioners sheweth:—
    That pensioners will suffer great hardship because of the introduction of the poll tax, increases in the price of electricity and the meagre winter heating allowance. Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will urge the Government to take such actions as are necessary to prevent pensioners suffering because of these circumstances. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
    As I have said, over 10,000 people have signed the petition. There are many thousands of signatures from the Tyne and Wear area being presented tonight and there are many thousands of people still signing the petition. The

    651
    signatures still being taken in the Sunderland area, other parts of Tyne and Wear and, no doubt, throughout the rest of the United Kingdom, demonstrate that the people of this country are overwhelmingly opposed to the wicked and evil piece of legislation that will make so many people worse off and so many wealthy people even more wealthy.
    The people who are presenting the petition believe that the poll tax is a piece of social inequality. It is the most appalling piece of legislation going through the House at present and the overwhelming majority of people, as sthe petitions prove, wish that it could be stopped.
    To lie upon the Table.
    10.23 pm
    Mr. Don Dixon: Like my hon. Friends the Members for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) I beg to ask leave to present a petition. The petition reads:
    "To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, the humble petition of Members of the Tyne, Wear, Durham and District Pensioners Association and other pensioners."
    It is in the name of James Sim, the secretary, 38 Ellen Court, and many others in the Jarrow constituency.
    The petition states:
    "That pensioners will suffer great hardship because of the introduction of the poll tax, the increases in the price of electricity and the meagre winter heating allowance."
    Tonight we have heard many speeches from both sides of the House about the hardship that the poll tax will inflict on the poorest in our community. This petition is not from those who talk about the hardship but from those upon whom it is imposed.
    To lie upon the Table.
    10.24 pm
    Mr. Chris Mullin: I beg leave to introduce a petition signed by several hundreds of pensioners in my constituency and elsewhere in Tyne and Wear.
    Like the other petitioners that have been presented, the signatures were collected by the Tyne and Wear, Durham and District Pensioners Association in protest against the proposed poll tax, the rise in electricity prices and the meagre winter heating allowances.
    652
    The petitioners pray that the House will take such actions as are necessary to prevent pensioners from suffering as a result of those and other measures.
    To lie upon the Table
    10.25 pm
    Ms. Joyce Quin: I wish to present a
    petition on behalf of 300 pensioners who are resident in my constituency and the surrounding area of Tyne and Wear.
    The petition urges the Government to take measures to prevent pensioners suffering hardship because of the poll tax, the increases in the price of electricity and the meagre winter heating allowances.
    I know from my contact with the signatories to the petition that they are concerned about the range of Government policies affecting pensioners, such as the cuts in housing benefit, the refusal to maintain the link between pensions, prices and earnings, the refusal to introduce measures such as concessionary television licences and the squeeze on local authorities, which mean that the concessionary provisions for travel that are offered to pensioners are being reduced or are under pressure in many areas.
    Under the Government, pensioners look forward not to a long and happy retirement but with apprehension to trying to make ends meet in difficult circumstances. What a reward for a lifetime of work and contribution to society.
    The petition reads:
    "Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House will urge the Government to take such actions as are necessary to prevent pensioners suffering because of these circumstances."
    To lie upon the Table.
    10.26 pm
    Mr. David Clelland: I wish to submit a petition from pensioners who are living in and around my constituency in Tyne Bridge. It has been organised and submitted by the Tyne and Wear. Durham and District Pensioners Association and other pensioners.
    The petition sheweth,
    "That pensioners will suffer great hardship because of the introduction of the poll tax, increases in the price of electricity and the meagre winter heating allowance."
    The petition has been signed by 343 pensioners, who will feel badly let down by a small majority in the House.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Supplementary Benefit Appeals
  Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell]
  10.27 pm
  Mr. Eddie Loyden: You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will recall that last week Mr. Speaker accepted an application by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) for a debate under Standing Order No. 20.
  The debate was on the effects of the Social Security Act 1986 on claimants in receipt of DHSS benefits. Mr. Speaker rightly adopted the rare practice of granting a debate under Standing Order No. 20. Opposition Members were fully aware of the growing anger and concern of the vast majority of British people. To some extent that anger and concern was reflected in the atmosphere in the House last week. The anger of Opposition Members was evident, and the Opposition Front Bench made it clear that people outside this place were becoming aware of the worst excesses of this Tory Government.
  The uneasiness of Government Back Benchers was indicative of their uncertainty about the social services review and its effect on hundreds of thousands of claimants, be they old, young, unemployed, sick or disabled. This aspect is part of the general debate about the DHSS and the legislation's effects on the appeal system.
  The Government have ignored all the approaches made by every strand of society—the churches, the voluntary sector and citizens advice bureaux. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) has said that the CAB was infiltrated by a bunch of Trots—the sort of statement that we begin to expect from the more reactionary Conservative Members. The Government cannot be persuaded to listen to anyone on the results of the changes in the Social Security Act and in the appeals procedure.
  The appeals machinery in the DHSS has been in crisis for a long time. Some people have waited as long as nine months for their appeal to be heard. Everyone should recognise that there is something radically wrong with a system that was designed to give claimants the opportunity to appeal against DHSS decisions and have their appeal heard by an independent body, so that they were seen to get a fair deal and their entitlements under the regulations.
  I shall refer to two cases out of many. Mrs. Maher applied for a dietary addition and her case began in September 1977. I wrote to the Secretary of State and to Judge Byrt, the president of the social security appeal tribunals, and her case was eventually heard later in the year,. During the eight months she waited for the case to be heard, she was denied the dietary additions to keep her well and she lost two stone.
  Mr. Doyle's case started in June 1987 and was heard in February this year, after constant correspondence with the DHSS and the Secretary of State. That is an indictment of the DHSS procedures, which should make access available to appeal tribunals so that claimants' cases are heard within a reasonable time of their application being submitted.
  There are two DHSS offices in my constituency—the Garston office and the Childwall Valley office. So that the
  654
  House will not think that I have picked out two particular cases, I shall recite the list of cases sent to me by the CAB in February this year:
  "T1944 Client applied for mobility allowance on 1.7.87., claim disallowed on 22.7.87. Appealed 14.8.87. tribunal listed for 10.2.88. 6 month wait.
  T919 Appeal against overpayment. Appeal received by the DHSS 25.3.86 tribunal been adjourned several times by DHSS to obtain more evidence. Still no date for hearing. Client very anxious over accusation from DHSS which was carried on nearly 2 years.
  T1704 Appeal adjourned on 10.7.87 because client was too ill to attend still no date listed for new appeal. 6 months.
  T1927 Appeal received 22.5.87. hearing listed for 26.1.88., adjourned because of incomplete tribunal—already 9 months.
  T1926 Appeal received 29.5.87. appeal listed for 16.9.87 (5 months) but tribunal adjourned because papers sent to wrong address, next hearing listed for 26.1.88., 8 months total …
  T1754 Appeal received by DHSS on 9.10.86. date of appeal list 28.7.87. (9 months). This was for a cooker, an essential item. Papers again sent to wrong address, new appeal set for 8.1.88. 1 year 2 months later."
  If Ministers try to defend and justify such delays. which affect the most vulnerable sections of our society, it will give us an even clearer indication of the Government's lack of consideration and concern for the poor and the weak in our society. It is an absolute scandal that Ministers have made excuses and criticised the take-up campaigns launched by the welfare rights people in an attempt to ensure that claimants knew their entitlements and that they were properly represented.
  When I complained about the delays, I received a letter from the local office of the DHSS saying that it was due to the backlog of appeals. On the question of single payments, it is significant to note that in a period of 18 months the budget was more or less halved from £390 million to £150 million. That may well be one of the reasons for the delays in hearing appeals. I am convinced that the Government have used delays as a ploy do deprive claimants of their rights. They have elongated the period of appeals so that the claimants are caught by the new regulations. It is an absolute scandal that the DHSS should be placed in that position because the Government are not prepared to make the trained additional staff available to deal with the so-called backlog of appeals.
  It is significant, too, that the president of the appeal tribunals, Judge Byrt, to whom I wrote about two of the cases to which I have referred, said of the statistics that he set out in his long report:
  "I would not however wish anyone to think that I or anyone in the Social Security Appeal Tribunals is not concerned about the misery and hardship lying behind the facts."
  In spite of what the statistics say about the undoubted increase in the number of appeals being lodged, they disguise the fact that in Liverpool, for example, there are pockets where appeals have increased by about 85 per cent. Those appeals have been the subject of long delays. It is no wonder, therefore, that Judge Byrt in his reply should abrogate responsibility for the hardship and misery caused by the delays. He makes it clear that the statistics ought to be looked at and that the delays in the appeals system should be considered by the Department because of the misery caused to people.
  We know that much of the DHSS appeal system will be ended by new regulations and that appeals will no longer be possible over single payments. In many cases those payments are important to people who have to claim for additional items either on the birth of a baby or on getting

  655
  a council flat for the first time. I have had cases in my constituency of people applying for bed and bedding who have had to lie on the floor while waiting for the decision of an appeals tribunal. In this dynamic economy of 1988, that is the sort of situation that arises in patches in this country of popular capitalism. That is constantly ignored by the Government.
  Today we have seen evidence of the uncaring nature of the Conservative party and its complete disregard of the people who are appealing to it. The Government have completely disregarded those who have constantly warned them that the pressure placed on these people will eventually reach the point at which it will explode in the Government's face. The sooner that that happens the better, because the Government listen to nothing and in all probability only direct action by people will shift them.
  The Government have not become complacent: they have become arrogant and believe that everything that they say has been written on tablets of stone. They bring legislation to the House and no Conservative Member dares to oppose it or contest what the Government are doing to the poorer people in our society. Conservative Members know that week after week they hear in their surgeries and at meetings complaints of the kind that I have outlined. They know what is going on, because they must see it in their constituencies. It is a disgrace that when the Government are being criticised Conservative Members can sit on the Benches and disregard the opportunity to do something to help.
  Between 1974 and 1979 I did not fear to go into the Lobby against the then Labour Government when I thought that they were wrong. It is about time that more Conservative Members recognised that many of the things done by the Government deserve to be called wicked by the people who say that the Government are composed of wicked people. I have illustrated what will ensue as a result of the policies being pursued by the Government against the poor and, in particular, the elderly.
  Today I received a letter from a 94-year-old woman who tells me that her benefit has been cut to £39 a week. She has no idea why it has been cut, and at the age of 94 no one would expect her to have. She does not understand what is going on. Can any Conservative Member, or can the Minister, justify that cut to a 94-year-old woman? How can I or the Minister answer her?
  Time and again the Government were warned that such cases would emerge. I have had another letter from a 78-year-old woman faced with a similar situation. Such letters will pour into the House in the coming months. Members of all parties will receive letters from constituents who do not understand why a country that claims to be, and still is, one of the world's richest can treat its old, its sick and its poor in such a way.
  It is the responsibility of the Minister not to roll out a litany of figures and tell us the cause of this, that and the other, but to say that the cases that I have outlined are only the tip of the iceberg. He should say that they will not continue to be dealt with in the way that they have been dealt with in the past.
  I want an assurance from the Minister that no staff cuts in the DHSS will result from the fact that the appeals system will no longer apply to single payments. There are plenty of empty offices in every major town and city that
  656
  could be used to help to speed up the appeals system generally. There is no excuse for the Government's complacency. I hope that the Minister will respond positively and ensure that there is immediate action to end the misery and hardship of hundreds of thousands of people.
  10.45 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Portillo): I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden), despite his remark about the Government not listening. The hon. Gentleman has raised a matter of great concern both to me and to His Honour Judge Byrt, who is the president of the social security and medical appeal tribunals.
  At the outset, I wish to make it quite clear that I wholeheartedly agree that the delays experienced by appellants in some parts of the country must be reduced. I shall outline the measures being taken both by the DHSS and by Judge Byrt to overcome the present problems. Before doing so, I remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1984 we established an independent body to administer all social security appeals, not just those for supplementary benefit. The creation of an independent administration has been seen, both in this House and outside it, as a very positive step.
  On the problem of delays, in Great Britain the average time for a case to get to a hearing from the lodging of an appeal has steadily increased over the past four years from 12·9 weeks in the second quarter of 1984 to 20·3 weeks in the second quarter of 1987. Those are the latest available figures. Almost certainly it is now longer than that in some parts of the country. The reason lies in the marked increase in the number of appeals. In Great Britain in the second quarter of 1984, 72,000 social security appeals were made, while by the second quarter of 1987 the equivalent figure was 176,000. That represents an increase of 144 per cent. over the four-year period. Appeals against decisions on supplementary benefit, both the weekly benefit and single payments, have increased by 62 per cent. over the same period, from 62,000 to 100,000.
  The number of claims to benefit, and especially single payments, have increased markedly over the period and the number of appeals is partly a reflection of that. In addition, the whole process of the social security reviews leading up to the Green and White Papers and the changes brought about by the Social Security Act 1986, have put and kept social security very much in the public eye. There have been numerous take-up campaigns throughout the country that have encouraged people to apply for their possible entitlements to benefit. Such campaigns cannot always be accurately targeted and, as a result, more people have had claims refused. Therefore, more appeals are likely.
  It will be clear to the hon. Gentleman that both social security local offices and the tribunals have been under increasing pressures in recent years, and we have sought to respond to that broadly in three ways. First, on structure, we have taken steps to adapt the social security system to the needs of the 1990s. The introduction of income support this April should simplify the system for all concerned. In particular, the replacement of the present system of single payments with the new social fund, which will provide grants and offer interest-free loans both to people in

  657
  receipt of income support and otherwise and have its own system of reviews, should result in a very considerable easing of the burden on the social security appeal system.
  Single payments amount to almost 40 per cent. of all appeals, so their removal will ease administration in the president's office and in the DHSS. The cost of an appeal is about £200. which is far higher than the value of single payments, which average about £80. The new system of income support will be far simpler for staff to administer and for claimants to understand. Neither the local offices nor the tribunals will have to deal with the vast number of expensive appeals for relatively small amounts.
  By those structural means, it is expected that the over-burdened tribunals will, by the end of the year, have a more manageable work load. I therefore disagree with the hon. Gentleman's remarks as reported in the Liverpool Echo:
  "The benefit system is in crisis and things are going to get much worse when the new social security system comes into operation in April."
  The opposite effect is likely to occur.
  Secondly, among the improvements, we have sought to ensure that the social security offices and the tribunals have more staff to carry out their tasks. Thus, the element of social security local office staffing that is allocated for appeals work has been increased between 1984–85 and 1987–88, while the administrative staff of the president's office increased from 427 to 709 over the same period. Special efforts are currently being made by thre president to reduce delays. His staffing requirements have been met in full for the next six months to help to achieve that end, and, in the autumn of this year, a further staffing review will take place, with a view to achieving further significant reductions in delay.
  Thirdly, we have sought to improve the administrative procedures for handling appeals within the DHSS. A DHSS central management services team has recently completed a study of procedures for appeals work in central, regional and local social security offices. Because of my awareness of the concern of hon. Members over appeal delays, I have arranged for copies of that report of be made available in the Library. Each of the recommendations of the report has been carefully considered, and a programme for implementation of those that are agreed will shortly be drawn up.
  It is relevant also to refer to the operational strategy, which is the term used for the computerisation of social security benefits. The plan to computerise the assessment and payment of income support is on course for implementation over the coming years. That will simplify the administration of income support by improving the accuracy of initial assessments and the quality of explanations to claimants. Such improvements should thereby help to reduce the number of appeals.
  However, as I said, the major problem for the tribunal system has been the marked increase in the volume of appeals in the last year or so. While within a social security office the manager has scope to redeploy his staff to meet changing work patterns, I am aware that that is not the case for the presidential organisation, in which all administrative staff are solely concerned with servicing appeals.
  As the president administers a wholly independent organisation, it would be wrong for me to speak here on his behalf. However, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, Judge Byrt has written a constructive statement that sets
  658
  out the practical difficulties presently facing his organisation and the steps that he is taking to overcome them. I have already placed a copy of his statement in the Library so that all hon. Members may have the opportunity of reading it. However, it might be helpful if I quote some extracts from it, although I readily admit that I am quoting selectively, because the hon. Gentleman and others have the whole letter to refer to.
  In the early part of the letter there is a narrative on how the problems of the SSAT have built up. However, the narrative ends on an optimistic note. Between August 1987 and the end of the year, the number of tribunals held and cases cleared has steadily increased, mainly as the result of the arrival of a new influx of staff, recruited and trained in the summer months, following their nominal allocation to OPSSAT on 1 April 1987. The monthly session rate has increased from 3,558 in July to 4,478 in December; and the figure for cases cleared has risen from 15,740 to 18,803.
  The three smaller regions in the south and south-west have now reduced their waiting time to an average nine weeks; with fine tuning, this period can be reduced still further. Each of the four bigger regions in the north of England and Scotland have begun to make appreciable inroads into their backlog. The main disadvantage they suffer is the size of that backlog, which hangs round their necks like the proverbial albatross and slows them down.
  Judge Byrt set out some of the achievements of the OPSSAT, which are worth recording. Between July 1986 and December 1987, the number of sessions increased from 2,730 to 4,478, the number of cases cleared increased from 10,135 to 18,803, and the staff increased from 527 to 709. Judge Byrt commented that the figures reflected the enhanced efficiency of an organisation bedded down and familiar with its work. Although delay is currently running at an overall figure of 19 weeks, this is now on an improving curve, having peaked in July at about 21 weeks.
  The conclusion of his letter is:
  "OPSSAT is committed to doing what it can to improve the position on tribunal delays in any way it can. In this, the organisation is supported by a staff whose morale is sustained by the belief that they are fulfilling a positive and worthwhile serve in the community. It is difficult to assess the time when that service will be restored to the standards which OPSSAT was created to achieve. The Spring and Summer of this may yet hold surprises for us. My estimate is that November 1988 will see the improvements we all seek and I believe that to be a realistic expectation."
  The hon. Gentleman will know, too, that Judge Byrt has a series of comments to make about the specific
  problems in Liverpool. He has ensured that as much work as possible should be transferred away from Liverpool to
  relieve the burden of the appeals that are actually being heard in Liverpool. Southport supplementary benefit appeals, for example, are now being heard by the Southport tribunal instead of in Liverpool. It is hoped that the Skelmersdale work can be sent to Wigan. Obviously, those measures will help Liverpool. Judge Byrt concludes
  by stating:
  "I have every expectation of heavy inroads into the Liverpool arrears by September."
  I very much share that hope.
  Mr. Loyden: The Minister will have discovered from that correspondence that I have raised the matters on numerous occasions, both with regional organisations and with the president of the appeal tribunals. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those long delays in the local area could well have been overcome by opening up additional

  659
  offices in the area? Approaches made by the CAB and myself fell on deaf ears when it came to opening new offices in order that procedures could be speeded up.
  Mr. Portillo: I know that the hon. Gentleman has paid careful attention to the correspondence, so he will know that the problem that is being dealt with. In Liverpool, the appeals load accelerated from just 639 cases in August
  660
  1986 to 1,509 in December 1986. With the best will in the world, that was a very rapid rate of increase for anybody to be asked to deal with.
  However, as I said to the hon. Gentleman at the beginning of the debate, I am not here to tell him that there is not a problem. I agree that there is a problem, and it is one that we very much wish to address. I want him to appreciate that within the DHSS and the OPSSAT the problems are being addressed with great vigour.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Eleven o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Justices Clerks
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any plans to review the training of justices clerks in the juvenile courts; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  Training is provided for magistrates court clerks in the law, practice and procedures of juvenile courts, and such training is kept under review. Following a recent consultancy study on the future provision for staff training in magistrates courts, a unit is to be set up in the Home Office to promote and co-ordiate systematic appraisal of training needs. This will include training needs of staff working in the juvenile court.

  Nationality Applications
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the recent steps he has taken to deal with the backlog in the processing of nationality applications at Lunar house.

  Mr. Renton
  Good progress is being made with the measures I announced on 16 February at column 863.

  Prisoners (AIDS)
  Mr. Irving
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prisoners are known to have contracted the AIDS virus while in custody;

  (2) how many of those prisoners identified as HIV antibody positive have had VI R restrictions ordered by a medical officer or stamped on their records.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  On 13 April 1988, the prison population of England and Wales included 58 inmates reported as having been identified as HIV antibody positive; 170 such cases had been reported since central monitoring began in March 1985. There is no evidence that any of the inmates became infected while they were in prison custody. It is likely that once identified, all will have been made subject to viral infectivity restrictions. The nature of the restrictions will have varied from case to case.

  Name

  First appointed

  Present appointment expires

  Present annual remuneration

  Sir Ian Trethowan, Chairman—appointed by Home Secretary1

  1 October 1982

  31 December 1990

  2£28,250

  Sir Patrick Meaney, Deputy Chairman—appointed by Home Secretary1

  18 March 1985

  28 February 1991

  2£ 11,300

  Mrs. A. McCurley, Member—appointed by Home Secretary1

  1 April 1988

  31 March 1991

  2£8,475

  Sir Thomas Pilkington, Bt Member—ex-officio (The Jockey Club)

  n/a

  n/a

  (not paid by the Levy Board)

  Police, Probation and Prison Services (Expenditure)
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the percentage increase in(a) cash terms and (b) real terms since 1981–82 in expenditure on (i) the police service, (ii) the probation service and (iii) the prison service.

  Mr. Hurd
  The increase between expenditure in 1981–82 and estimated expenditure in 1987–88 for the three services is:

  Cash terms per cent.

  Real terms per cent.

  Police

  65·4

  22·9

  Probation

  76·0

  30·8

  Prisons

  65·0

  23·0

  Trevor Monerville
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish a judicial inquiry into the role of the Stoke Newington police in the arrest and detention of Trevor Monerville.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. The allegations about Mr. Monerville's treatment by the police are already being investigated under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority. I understand that the investigating officers continue to be denied access to the relevant medical records by Mr. Monerville's legal representatives, and that this is causing difficulties to the investigation.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Hurd
  The amount spent by my Department on official hospitality in 1987–88 was about £44,000.

  Horserace Betting Levy Board
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of the chairmen and directors of the Horserace Betting Levy Board; and what are their periods of office and their annual remunerations.

  Mr. John Patten
  The Horserace Betting Levy Boa rd consists of a chairman, a deputy chairman and six members. Details are as follows.
  283

  Name

  First appointed

  Present appointment expires

  Present annual remuneration

  Mr. M. E. Wates, Member-ex-officio (The Jockey Club)

  n/a

  n/a

  (not paid by the Levy Board)

  Sir Neville Macready, Bt CBE Member-ex-officio (The Jockey Club) (Chairman, Horserace Advisory Council)

  n/a

  n/a

  2(paid, £11,300 as Chairman of the Horserace Advisory Council)

  Mr. A. Bruce, Member-ex-officio (Chairman, The Bookmakers' Committee)

  n/a

  n/a

  2(paid, £8,475 as Chairman of the Bookmakers' Committee)

  The Lord Wyatt of Weeford, Member-ex-officio (Chairman, Horserace Totalisator Board)

  n/a

  n/a

  (not paid by the Levy Board)

  1 Part-time appointments

  2 Paid out of the levy on bets on horse races.

  Broadcasting Standards Council
  Mr. Michael Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to announce the name of the chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  My right hon. Friend hopes to make an announcement on this matter shortly.

  Immigration
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for leave to remain in Britain made by persons who arrived as visitors and subsequently married a settled person were outstanding at 1 April.

  Mr. Renton
  This information is not collected.

  Lunar House, Croydon
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much overtime, expressed in hours and salary cost involved, have been worked by employees of the immigration and nationality department, at Lunar house, Croydon, since 1 January.

  Mr. Renton
  The number of hours worked as overtime by staff in the immigration and nationality department at Lunar house between 1 January 1988 and 31 March 1988 was 22,768. The estimated cost of the overtime for the period is £159,000.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many passports were being held at Lunar house on 21 March and of these how many relate to(a) applications for citizenship and (b) applications for variation of leave.

  Mr. Renton
  It is not possible to say exactly how many passports are contained in the 45,000 unopened envelopes containing citizenship applications.

  As of 11 April, there were 14,000 unopened packages containing passports and relating to applications for variations relating to leave; all these have been received since early March.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many letters that remained unsigned by his hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) as at 14 April relative to immigration matters.
  284
  Mr. Renton
  No record is kept of the number of letters awaiting signature but best endeavours are always employed to complete such work as promptly as possible.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Government's views on DNA fingerprinting in immigration cases will be published; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to a question from the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) on 15 April at column 256.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons initially given temporary admission to Britain were subsequently given leave to remain in Britain on an indefinite basis in(a) 1985, (b) 1986, (c) 1987 and (d) since 1 January, respectively.

  Mr. Renton
  The information requested is not available centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Deportation
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of persons deported from Britain in 1985, 1986, 1987 and since 1 January, respectively.

  Mr. Renton
  Figures are available only for the whole of the United Kingdom. The annual totals for 1985 to 1987 were published on 17 March in table 14 of Home Office statistical bulletin "Control of Immigration : Statistics—Fourth Quarter and Year 1987" (issue 5/88), copies of which are in the Library. The figures for the first quarter of 1988 will be published in the next issue of the bulletin, in June.

  Passports
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications were made for passports at each of the passport offices in 1985, 1986, 1987 and since 1 January, respectively.

  Mr. Renton
  The information is not available in precisely the form requested. The table shows the number of new passports issued and amendments made to existing passports in each of the last three years, and in the first
  285
  three months of this year. It is estimated that about 365,000 applications of all types were at the various stages of processing within the six United Kingdom passport offices at the end of March 1988.

  1985

  1986

  1987

  l1988

  London

  576,595

  593,313

  493,653

  131,153

  Liverpool

  538,437

  661,355

  655,191

  204,167

  Peterborough

  472,669

  577.096

  580,133

  173,332

  Newport

  435,192

  503,317

  514,390

  181,106

  Glasgow

  162,338

  191,164

  190,400

  45,167

  Belfast

  53,434

  68,651

  77,198

  19,009

  Total

  2,238,665

  2,595,102

  2,510,965

  753,934

  1 January to March.

  Gipsies (Trespass)
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has had representations about the lack of effectiveness in practice of the provisions of the Public Order Act 1986 in respect of preventing trespass by gipsies on unofficial sites; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have received a few letters from hon. Members and others about the power given to the police in section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986 to direct groups of trespassers to leave land they have occupied. The provision applies equally to all groups of itinerants. Its use is an operational matter for the senior police officer at the scene.

  Police National Computer
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements have been made to allow the Guernsey police and the States of Jersey police access to the police national computer.

  Mr. Hurd
  The Guernsey police and the States of Jersey police have always been able to obtain information from, and to provide information for, the police national computer through individual United Kingdom forces at the discretion of the chief constable concerned. These arrangements have recently been reviewed, following requests by Guernsey police and the States of Jersey police. With the support of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland). it has been agreed that these forces should henceforth have direct access to the PNC, through terminals situated in the islands. This facility, which will enable the forces to obtain information needed to carry out their duties and to enter information which may assist United Kingdom forces, will be subject to the same conditions as regards the protection of PNC information as apply to all other PNC users.

  EC (Passports)
  Mr. Evennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received to date on the proposed introduction of the new European Economic Community British passport.

  Mr. Renton
  About 40 letters have been received from members of the public, either direct or through hon. Members, since the announcement on 11 February 1987 that the new form of British passport would be introduced 286
  from July 1988. In responding to concerns expressed by some correspondents we have made it clear that, although in a common format agreed in 1981 with other member states of the European Community, the new machine readable British passport remains a national one issued under the royal prerogative.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Education Support Grant
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, pursuant to the reply of 26 January,Official Report, column 137, he will state (a) the names of the 22 local education authorities engaged in the pilot schemes receiving education support grant and (b) the amounts of education support grant paid in each financial year to date to each authority.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Details of the local education authorities involved and the grant paid are as follows:

  Financial years

  1985–86 £

  1986–87 £

  1987–881 £

  Local education authority

  Inner London education authority

  88,244

  169,543

  99,470

  Coventry

  112,060

  121,605

  95,939

  Wigan

  93,203

  97,860

  84,910

  Dorset

  114,750

  169,610

  87,500

  Essex

  232,395

  220,500

  178,448

  Lancashire

  43,074

  62,930

  42,840

  Leicestershire

  117,040

  122,850

  99,463

  Oxfordshire

  117,040

  122,850

  116,500

  Somerset

  117,040

  122,823

  99,400

  Suffolk

  78,260

  83,048

  66,500

  East Midlands consortiums2

  176,448

  216,246

  92,736

  Welsh joint education committee3

  155,461

  161,712

  120,893

  1 Figures relate to claims paid to date. Those for 1987–88 are not final totals.

  2 Comprising Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Nottinghamshire Local Education Authorities.

  3 Comprising Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Powys, Mid-Glamoragan, South Glamorgan and West Glamorgan Local Education Authorities.

  Polytechnics Governors
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the value of the selection contract for new polytechnics governors after the passing of the Education Reform Bill awarded to Tyzack and Partners; and whether this contract was awarded on the basis of open tender.

  Mr. Jackson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) on 3 March at column 626.

  AIDS (Video)
  Mr. Peter Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) if the anti-AIDS video entitled "Your Choice for Life" was produced with the intention of general exhibition to schoolchildren of secondary school age;

  (2) if he will take steps to make available to schools an alternative to the video entitled "Your Choice for Life";

  287
  and if he will undertake to include in such a film material stressing the importance of family life from the recent television broadcast entitled "Susie's Story";

  (3) if he will make it his policy to ensure that schools choosing to exhibit the anti-AIDS video entitled "Your Choice for Life" give such preparation and follow-up as is necessary to encourage pupils to recognise the effectiveness of chastity before marriage and fidelity within it as the best protection against AIDS;

  (4) what steps he has taken to ensure that the contents of his letter accompanying the anti-AIDS video entitled "Your Choice for Life" are known to the teachers concerned in the exhibition of the film.

  Mr. Dunn
  The video "Your Choice for Life" is designed for pupils aged 14-plus in a supervised setting. The accompanying users' guide for teachers emphasises the importance of follow-up discussion on the family, fidelity and chastity before marriage. Use of the package, and reinforcement of its messages, are matters for individual school's governing bodies, as my right hon. Friend's letter to the chairmen of governors made clear. It is open to governors to adopt alternative or supplementary materials, but the Government themselves have no plans to replace the video.

  Personal, Social and Health Education
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) what advice he proposes to give to schools on the role of personal, social and health education in relation to the national curriculum;

  (2) what definition of personal, social and health education his Department uses for the purpose of advising schools.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Personal and social education covers a range of areas of the curriculum, including health, careers, political and environmental education, and economic awareness. Elements of it will be included in what children learn through the national curriculum as cross-curricular themes in science and elsewhere. We acknowledge the valuable part which the provision of personal and social education can play in preparing young people for adult life.

  Russian Language
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has as to the reasons why Russian is no longer taught at A-level in state schools in inner London; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Individual schools and local authorities decide which A-level subjects they wish to offer. The Government's policy for the diversification of modern language teaching in schools should, however, lead to an increase in the number of state schools offering Russian at both GCSE and A-level.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it his policy to encourage the teaching of Russian in state schools.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The statement of policy, "Modern Languages in the School Curriculum" published in January by the Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Wales encouraged a greater diversity of languages offered in the school curriculum. Russian,288
  together with German, Italian and Spanish, should be one of the languages to benefit most from this policy. The Government are providing grants for pilot projects in some local education authorities in England to prepare and implement plans for diversification.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he has taken to implement the proposals of the Annan report on the teaching of Russian.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The Annan report entitled, "The Teaching of Russian" was published 28 years ago and made recommendations about examinations, teaching materials and pupil visits to the Soviet Union. These are matters for examining bodies and local education authorities.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The Department spent £21,975·44 on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Medical Research
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the proposed expenditure on medical research for 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1991–92.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Government's planning provision for the Medical Research Council, which has responsibility for basic and clinical research, is as follows:

  £ million

  1989–90

  156

  1990–91

  152

  1991–92

  152

  These figures will be subject to review in the normal way in this year's public expenditure survey.

  The University Grants Committee funds medical school and university infrastructure through its general block grant to the universities, but it is not possible to identify sums going to medical research as such for the above years.

  Nor are figures available in respect of medical research charities and the pharmaceutical industry, both of which provide major funding for medical research.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science to what extent(a) the Government and (b) the research councils give priority fundings to specific areas of medical research; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Government fund basic and clinical medical research mainly by allocations to the Medical Research Council, made on the advice of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils.

  The Government have earmarked funds for AIDS research, but it is generally for the Medical Research Council to determine its priorities for funding.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been, for each year since 1975, the expenditure on medical research at 1988 prices.
  289
  Mr. Jackson
  Since 1975–76, Government funding of the Medical Research Council, which has responsibility for basic and clinical medical research, has been as follows :

  (1988–89 constant prices)

  £ million

  1975–76

  104

  1976–77

  105

  1977–78

  98

  1978–79

  101

  1979–80

  105

  1980–81

  112

  1981–82

  143

  1982–83

  141

  1983–84

  143

  1984–85

  141

  1985–86

  139

  1986–87

  141

  1987–88

  146

  1988–89

  147

  Note:

  In 1981–82, £14 million (£20 million at 1988–89 prices) was transferred back to the science budget (MRC) from the Health Departments in respect of funds transferred from the science budget (MRC) to the Health Departments under the "Rothschild" arrangements of 1973–74 to 1975–76.

  GCSE
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any plans to increase the academic content of the GCSE; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The GCSE is intended to provide an appropriate balance between academic content and understanding and practical applications. It is for the GCSE examining groups and the Secondary Examinations Council to review syllabuses to secure such a balance in practice.

  Information Technology Equipment
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will give details of the spending by local education authorities on information technology equipment over and above that spent by individual schools out of capitation allowances broken down by local education authority for each of the last five years for which information is available.

  Mr. Dunn
  The information requested is not available. Local authorities are required to submit returns of their total expenditure on educational equipment, but they are not required to break it down into types. Nor are they required to indicate how much came out of or was spent above the capitation sums allowed to schools. For 1988–89, the Government have approved expenditure of £19 million on "IT in Schools" for support through education support grants. All LEAs have received an allocation but no returns for actual expenditure are yet available. £8.5 million of this sum is available nationally for the purchase of microcomputer systems.

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the numbers of children in each education authority in England, Scotland and Wales who received free school meals up to April 290
  because their parents were in receipt of family income supplement and at the discretion of the education authority, respectively.

  Mr. Dunn
  In October 1987, the latest date for which information is available, the total number of pupils in England authorised to receive free school meals because their parents were in receipt of family income supplement or at the discretion of the LEA were 128,394 and 115,806 respectively. Details relating to individual authorities are published annually in School Meals Statistics, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Information in respect of Scotland and Wales is the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales respectively.

  Student Unions
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he proposes any changes in the arrangements by which student unions affiliate to, and fund, the National Union of Students.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  The Government recognise that many individual students do riot wish to be represented by the National Union of Students; they are also concerned that taxpayers' money made available to student representative bodies should be used to provide services to students and not used for political campaigning. However, to limit freedom of association, by restricting the right of local student unions to affiliate to a national body, would raise complex legal issues. I conclude that it is first necessary to look at the arrangements for student union membership and the provision of services to individual students at both local and national levels.

  To this end, I intend to gather on a sample basis up-to-date information on the organisation and cost of student services within institutions, on the legal status of local unions, and on the organisational and financial links between such unions and the NUS. I am confident that institutions and others will wish to co-operate with this survey; and I shall be glad to receive any information or suggestions which interested parties may wish to put forward. On the basis of the information I obtain, I will reach conclusions on the best action to take and will then consult all concerned about these conclusions.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what support Her Majesty's Government are prepared to give to the reconstruction of Sri Lanka after the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Britain has pledged a grant of £20 million in support of a three-year programme of reconstruction which was discussed at a special meeting of the Sri Lanka aid group in Paris last December. During my visit to Sri Lanka last month I signed an undertaking giving effect to this pledge and had useful discussions with Sri Lankan Ministers about its use.

  Rajasthan
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance Her Majesty's Government have offered to India as a result of the famine in Rajasthan.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  In response to the 1987 monsoon failure, in Rajasthan and elsewhere, we have contributed :

  £3 million to the Government of India/UNICEF water
  and sanitation programme;

  £250,000 to Christian Aid for village tubewells;

  £250,000 to Save the Children Fund and £53,000 to Oxfam
  for their respective drought relief programmes.

  We are also considering a major bilateral village well drilling project.

  All these projects involve Rajasthan, though not exclusively.

  Kampuchea
  Sir Russell Johnston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will now reconsider the provision of development assistance to Kampuchea.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  I see no reason at the present time to change our stance on aid to Cambodia. The Government's view is that, while it would be wrong in principle to give development aid to the current regime in Phnom Penh, we are nevertheless prepared to consider providing humanitarian assistance in the context of an internationally-organised relief effort. In addition, we shall continue to provide assistance for Cambodians seeking refuge in the camps along the Thai-Cambodian border.

  Sub-Saharan Africa
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a further statement regarding aid to sub-Saharan Africa.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be a high priority recipient of British aid. In 1986 British aid to the region through bilateral and multilateral channels amounted to about £470 million.

  Ethiopia
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to seek to visit Ethiopia.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  I hope to visit Ethiopia again later this month.

  Rhodesia and Nyasaland
  Mr. Stanbrook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government's policy towards the treatment of former members of the public service of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland whose pensions have not been taken over by the British Government.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Pensions of public servants of the former federation are paid from the Central African pension fund and responsibility for awarding pension increases falls to the three former partner states (Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe). However, we are aware that the 292
  majority of federal pensioners have not received any pension increases under these arrangements. The British Government are ready to play their part as one of the guarantors of the fund in the talks which are taking place between the former partner Governments to find a solution to the problem.

  UNICEF
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was Her Majesty's Government's contribution to UNICEF for each year from 1978–79 to 1987–88 at constant 1979 prices.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The information is as follows:

  Contributions at current prices (£ million)

  1978–79 prices (£ million)

  Year

  General Fund

  Special Appeals

  Total

  General Fund

  Total

  1978–79

  4·500

  0·664

  5·164

  4·5

  5·2

  1979–80

  15·800

  1·751

  7·551

  5·0

  6·5

  1980–81

  4·300

  1·456

  5·756

  3·1

  4·2

  1981–82

  5·900

  0·083

  5·983

  3·9

  3·9

  1982–83

  5·900

  0·069

  5·969

  3·6

  3·7

  1983–84

  6·000

  0·025

  6·025

  3·5

  3·5

  1984–85

  6·000

  1·000

  7·000

  3·4

  3·9

  1985–86

  29·550

  1·338

  10·888

  5·1

  5·8

  1986–87

  3·250

  6·570

  9·820

  1·7

  5·0

  1987–883

  7·000

  8·223

  15·223

  3·4

  7·5

  1 Special increase to mark International Year of the Child.

  2 £3·25 million, originally planned to be paid in April 1986 was paid in March.

  3 Figures for 1987–88 are provisional.

  GOBI Programme
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has earmarked any of the Government's 1987– 88 contribution for the GOBI programme; and for what purposes.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  We do not earmark our contributions to UNICEF specifically to GOBI measures (growth monitoring, oral rehydration therapy, breast feeding and immunisation). Through our contribution to UNICEF's general fund we support GOBI programmes and initiatives and some of our contributions to UNICEF's special appeals are primarily for these measures, including immunisation.

  Cyclone Bola
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance he has made to the New Zealand people to assist in reconstruction in the aftermath of Cyclone Bola.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  On the advice of our high commissioner in Wellington we provided immediate assistance in the form of a cash grant of £40,000 for the New Zealand Government to allocate for urgent relief work.

  Aid Recipients
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the six major recipients of funds from the Overseas Development Administration in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The information is as follows:
  293

  1985

  1986

  19871

  India

  India

  India

  Sudan

  Malaysia

  Bangladesh

  Bangladesh

  Bangladesh

  Kenya

  Kenya

  Zambia

  Zambia

  Indonesia

  Kenya

  Malawi

  Ethiopia

  Sudan

  Tanzania

  1 Provisional.

  Falkland Islands
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will detail the annual amounts expended by the Overseas Development Administration in the Falkland Islands in each year since 1979.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Following is the information :

  £ million

  1979

  0·915

  1980

  1·015

  1981

  1·058

  1982

  4·025

  1983

  9·053

  1984

  6·016

  1985

  10·700

  1986

  10·252

  1987

  18·165

  1 Provisional.

  Africa (Aid)
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the recommendations of the United Nations advisory group on financial flows to Africa; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  As my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary told the House on 23 March, Her Majesty's Government welcome this report. It is a useful analysis of Africa's debt problem which we were among the first to highlight. We welcome the group's support for the debt initiative by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We shall study the report and discuss it with our partners.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Land Registries
  Mr. John M. Taylor
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the present backlog at land registries.

  The Attorney-General
  Applications for registration have more than doubled over the past five years and rapid growth continues. To meet the increased demand, some 1,745 new posts have been authorised since June 1987, four new offices are being opened and computerisation is being extended to all offices. It is hoped thereby to make rapid inroads into the backlog and to achieve target times for all transactions within the next two years.

  Director of Public Prosecutions
  Mr. Archer
  To ask the Attorney-General when he next proposes to meet for official discussions the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what he proposes to discuss.
  294
  The Attorney-General
  I expect to meet again the Director of Public Prosecutions in the near future. We shall discuss matters relating to the Crown prosecution service.

  Legal Aid
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Attorney-General what is the latest estimate of the cost of running the legal aid service in 1987–88.

  The Attorney-General
  The estimate for total net expenditure on legal aid in 1987–88 is £438·463 million. The latest estimate for the administration of the service is £37·5 million.

  "New Statesman" (Material)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Attorney-General whether the Director of Public Prosecutions will give instructions that all the remaining items removed by the police from the office of the New Statesman in connection with inquiries into the alleged unauthorised disclosure of information about Project Zircon should now be returned; if he will list the main categories of material removed; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  With the exception of one item, all such material has already been returned. The material consisted of documents considered by the police to be relevant to their inquiries. The retained item is currently the subject of civil litigation.

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Mr. Hind
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a further statement on the progress of the Crown prosecution service.

  The Attorney-General
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) on 26 February 1988 at columns 353–54. I am pleased to be able to refer, too, to the pay offer that the Treasury has recently made to the unions that represent the great majority of lawyers in the Crown prosecution service. This offer would secure a substantial rise in their pay with immediate effect. I am confident that this will lead to a marked improvement in our recruitment figures, and will better reward those who have worked with such commitment since the early days of the service.

  "Spycatcher"
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will give a breakdown of the most recent available figure For the costs of all court actions in respect of the book "Spycatcher".

  The Attorney-General
  The total amount of costs expended to date in all court actions in respect of the book "Spycatcher" is about £522,000, plus about £90.000 for travelling and subsistence.

  Shops Act 1950
  Mr. Stanbrook
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on his policy towards the enforcement of the Shops Act 1950 in the light of recent court decisions about the extent to which such enforcement is compatible with the treaty of Rome.
  295
  The Attorney-General
  Enforcement of the Shops Act 1950 is, by virtue of section 71 of that Act, the duty of local authorities, which have the necessary powers. I have accordingly taken the view that action on my part to enforce the Act will only rarely be appropriate. Last month, however, I wrote to the Association of District Councils to request authoritative information about the scale of the enforcement effort. Whether the provisions of any part of the Act may be found to be incompatible with the United Kingdom's obligations under the treaty of Rome is not a question which affects the responsibility for enforcement of the Act.

  Wright Case
  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Attorney-General what is his latest estimate of the total costs that Her Majesty's Government have incurred or are liable for the Wright case and ancillary litigation involving the media; and how much of this has already been disbursed, giving particulars for each case.

  The Attorney-General
  The list of proceedings in connection with the book "Spycatcher", including the litigation against the media in this country and in New Zealand and Hong Kong, with the approximate amount of costs expended to date, is as follows:

  Civil Proceedings for Breach of Confidentiality

  Amount £

  Australia:

  Attorney-General v. Heinemann (Australia) and Wright:

  494,500

  New Zealand:

  Attorney-General v. Wellington Newspapers and Others:

  74,000

  England and Wales:

  Attorney-General v. Guardian, Observer and Sunday Times:

  42,500

  Hong Kong:

  Attorney-General v. South China Morning Post:

  1,000

  Proceedings for Criminal Contempt of Court

  Attorney-General v. Independent

  15,000

  Attorney-General v. Sunday Times (including for injunction to restrain threatened contempt):

  750

  Sunday; London Daily News; Evening News:

  250

  I cannot usefully estimate future costs

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Attorney-General how much was spent by(a) the Law Officers' Department and (b) the Lord Chancellor's Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  The Attorney-General
  The total amount spent by(a) the Law Officers' Department and (b) the Lord Chancellor's Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88 was£2,550 and £16,305·99, respectively.

  Mr. Anthony Parnes
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will deposit in the Library the evidence filed with the court in Los Angeles in support of the application to extradite Mr. Anthony Parnes.

  The Attorney-General
  No.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Chile (Helicopters)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United States Government about their vetoing of the sale of 10 Sea King helicopters to Chile.

  Mr. Eggar
  It has been the policy of successive British Governments not to comment publicly on their discussions with other Governments relating to particular defence sales.

  Military Equipment Sales
  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what have been the results of the inquiry into allegations in connection with the manufacture of military cathode ray tubes by National Regunning Ltd. under licence from Thorn EMI;

  (2) what have been the results of his Department's inquiry into the alleged supply through BTR Sarmcol, of the BTR Flexitank to the South African defence forces.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We are satisfied that no British company has acted illegally in these cases.

  Buccaneer Jets
  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what evidence his Department has received of United Kingdom-supplied Buccaneer jets being used for attacks on African states.

  Mrs. Chalker
  None.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Soley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have had any recent discussions with the Government of Turkey on the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister discussed the problem of Cyprus with the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr. Ozal, in Ankara on 7 April. She reaffirmed the Government's view that good-will gestures by all the parties would make the resumption of intercommunal talks easier.

  United Nations Council for Namibia
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government made any financial contribution towards the cost of the conference of the United Nations Council for Namibia in Istanbul on 21 March; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We did not contribute towards the cost of the conference.
  297
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what status Her Majesty's Government attach to decisions, resolutions and decrees issued by the United Nations Council for Namibia.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Such pronouncements from the council are regarded as null and void.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Eggar
  The forecast outturn for spending on official hospitality by both wings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the financial year 1987–88 is estimated to be £5.1 million.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he intends to ratify protocol No. 4 and protocol No. 7 to the European convention on human rights; what are the considerations which will influence this decision; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Government have no plans to ratify protocol No. 4, but we are considering whether to ratify protocol No. 7. In considering ratification, we study the consequences for our law and practice, and the acceptability of these consequences, within the context of our wish to support the work of the Council of Europe so far as possible.

PRIME MINISTER

  Community Care
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Prime Minister if she plans to meet Sir Roy Griffiths to discuss his report on community care; and if she will make a statement on its conclusions with particular regard to the call for a new ministerial appointment.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government are considering carefully all the recommendations in Sir Roy Griffiths' report on community care, including the proposal for a designated Minister responsible for this area, and we will bring forward our proposals in due course.

  Offices of State
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list all offices of state to which a disqualification exists on grounds of religion; if she will state in each case the origins of that disqualification; if she will state the denominations and religions excluded from each office; and if she will state the Government's policy towards these prohibitions.

  The Prime Minister
  The office of Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland may not be held by a Roman Catholic. This disqualification is contained in the Catholic Relief Act 1829, section 12. There are no plans to introduce legislation on this matter.

  Newspapers and Periodicals
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Prime Minister what newspapers and periodicals are provided out of public funds for 10 Downing street; and how many of each are purchased.

  The Prime Minister
  10 Downing street obtains copies as necessary of a wide range of national, international and regional newspapers, periodicals and magazines.

  Hampstead and Barnet District Health Authorities
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations she has received regarding the proposed merger of the Hampstead and Barnet district health authorities and from whom; and what response she has made.

  The Prime Minister
  None. There is no such proposal.

  Staff Statistics
  Mr. Grocott
  To ask the Prime Minister what was the average salary paid to members of her office(a) in 1979, (b) in 1983, and (c) in the latest year for which figures are available.

  The Prime Minister
  Figures are not now available for 1979 and 1983 and cannot be obtained except at disproportionate cost. The average salary paid to members of my office in 1987–88 was £18,403.

  Mr. Grocott
  To ask the Prime Minister how many people were employed in the Prime Minister's Office(a) in 1979, (b) in 1983, and (c) in the latest year for which figures are available.

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) on 12 November 1987 at columns 169–170.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Sittings (Suspensions)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Lord President of the Council when was the last time a Minister of the Crown used the powers in Standing Order No. 10 to move that the proceedings of a sitting be suspended.

  Mr. Wakeham
  14 July 1969.

ENERGY

  Coal Production
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what was the total amount of coal produced in(a) Wales. (b) Scotland, and (c) England in the last year for which full figures are available; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1968.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  Coal production by countries was as follows:

  '000 tonnes

  Year

  (a) Wales

  (b) Scotland

  (c) England

  1968

  19,735

  14,054

  136,010

  1969

  17,431

  13,255

  124,970

  1970

  15,874

  12,705

  118,510

  299

  Year

  (a) Wales

  (b) Scotland

  (c) England

  1971

  17,154

  14,284

  117,950

  1972

  13,842

  12,065

  95,900

  1973

  14,024

  12,634

  105,400

  1974

  10,932

  10,556

  88,957

  1975

  12,096

  12,573

  104,009

  1976

  11,576

  12,189

  100,035

  1977

  11,346

  11,274

  99,530

  1978

  12,227

  11,360

  99,990

  1979

  11,585

  10,972

  99,812

  1980

  11,807

  11,832

  106,446

  1981

  11,702

  10,759

  105,008

  1982

  11,829

  10,143

  102,739

  1983

  10,920

  9,208

  99,126

  1984

  3,598

  3,581

  44,003

  1985

  8,406

  6,685

  78,956

  1986

  10,611

  6,925

  90,556

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Parkinson
  An estimated £40,600.

ENVIRONMENT

  Nuclear Waste
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next expects to meet the chairman of Nirex to discuss matters relating to the management of nuclear waste.

  Mr. Moynihan
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) on 17 February at column 673.

  Sporting Events (Attendances)
  Miss Emma Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimates he can give of total annual attendance figures at(a) football, (b) cricket, (c) horse-racing and (d) all professional sporting events for the years 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87 and 1987–88.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The information is as follows:Information held by the relevant governing bodies and the Racecourse Publicity Agency gives the following estimated attendances:
  (a) Football : League matches and the major Cup competitions.

  million

  1984–85

  21·8

  1985–86

  20·5

  1986–87

  21·4

  1987–88

  114·7

  1 Up to January 1988.

  (b) Cricket: Domestic First Class Matches, Test Matches and one Day Internationals.

  million

  1984

  0·95

  1985

  0·95

  1986

  0·82

  1987

  0·71

  300
  (c)Horseracing.

  million

  1984

  3·7

  1985

  3·7

  1986

  3·9

  1987

  4·3

  d) I am not aware of any professional sporting events. estimates of attendances at all

  Water
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what arrangements the Government have made to comply with the European Community directives with regard to dangerous substances in water; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  In England and Wales, water authorities are the competent authorities for implementing European Community directives on the discharge of dangerous substances to the aquatic environment. Guidance on implementation is issued by means of departmental circular; a revised version of the current circular (DOE 18/85; Welsh Office 37/85) will be issued soon. In Scotland, the river purification boards are the competent authorities and receive similar guidance from the Scottish Development Department. The Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland is responsible for implementing the directives in Northern Ireland.

  The competent authorities are responsible for authorising discharges containing substances specified in the directives and for setting emission standards. Wherever possible the United Kingdom adopts the quality objective method of compliance. Discharge consents are set to ensure that the concentration of a substance in the receiving water does not exceed that specified in the appropriate directive. Both emissions and the receiving waters are monitored regularly to ensure compliance.

  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what arrangements have been made between Her Majesty's Government and the European Commission for United Kingdom compliance with the European Community drinking water directive.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The Government provide information to the European Commission in respect of the United Kingdom's compliance with the EC drinking water directive, and in response to any questions which the Commission may have.

  Common Land
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the Government intend to introduce a new Bill for common land as recommended by the Common Land Forum; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  My right hon. Friend announced on 29 January 1987 that the Government accept the case for legislation based broadly on the Forum's report and intends to introduce a comprehensive commons Bill at a suitable opportunity when parliamentary time permits.

  Council House Sales
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will send a copy of the results of his
  301
  Department's survey of tenants' attitudes towards estate sales to the Nottingham city council; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Roe
  The research, which has been commissioned in a number of local authorities, has been examining the factors which are important in a tenant's choice of landlord. The research is not yet complete, and no separate results from the small sample of Nottingham tenants who participated will be produced. When we have a report, we shall consider whether to publish it.

  Water Privatisation
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent discussions he has had with the trade unions regarding water privatisation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  On 18 April, officials from the Department met representatives of NALGO to discuss the proposed establishment of the National Rivers Authority and the privatisation of the water authorities' utility functions. The water authorities will themselves consult the trades unions on the schemes of re-organisation which they will be asked to prepare once the Public Utility Transfers and Water Charges Bill has received Royal Assent.

  Right to Buy (Funds)
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what funds will be made available to charitable housing associations to allow tenants who have applied to exercise their right to buy since 1 June 1987 to carry out that right; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Roe
  Tenants of charitable housing associations do not have the right to buy, but may qualify for a transferable discount under the home ownership scheme for tenants of charitable housing associations. £19 million has been allocated for the scheme in the Housing Corporation's cash-limited approved development programme for the current financial year. Applications received from 1 June 1987 are being held on a waiting list; the Department will review the position with the Housing Corporation later this year in the light of expenditure on applications in the pipeline.

  Rating Reform
  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to receive the Price Waterhouse report commissioned by his Department on administering the community charge; and what arrangements he is making to publish the report.

  Mr. Ridley
  I expect to receive the report in May. I am considering how best to disseminate its findings.

  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the cost of extending the taper on the community charge rebate from 20 per cent. to 15 per cent.; and what additional resources will be allocated for this purpose.

  Mr. Howard
  The cost is estimated at between £115 million and £130 million in Great Britain at 1988–89 prices, in a full year. Virtually all the cost to individual local authorities of the rebates they make is met by specific grants.
  302
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many mentally handicapped people(a) in receipt of severe disablement allowance and (b) not in receipt of severe disablement allowance will not be exempt from the proposed poll tax;

  (2) how many severe disablement allowance claimants will be exempt from the proposed poll tax on the grounds that they are severely mentally handicapped.

  Mr. Howard
  Under the exemption proposed in schedule 1(4) to the Local Government Finance Bill, all those who are exempted from the personal community charge by reason of severe mental handicap will be in receipt of severe disablement allowance. In addition. some mentally handicapped people receiving SDA will be exempt because they are being cared for in hospitals and nursing homes. It is not possible to say how many mentally handicapped people not in receipt of SDA will riot be exempt from the community charge. The Government are reconsidering the scope of the exemption for people who are severely mentally handicapped.

  Pollution
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of illegal discharges into rivers and streams of silage effluent and other toxic wastes from farms in each water authority area during 1987; and if he will state the number of prosecutions for such offences in each area during that year.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Final figures are not yet available, but full details of water pollution incidents caused by farm wastes and of prosecutions by water authorities during 1987, will be published in the next few weeks jointly by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Water Authorities' Association.

  Housing Association Maintenance Budgets
  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what restrictions have been imposed on housing association maintenance budgets; what steps have been taken to assess the impact of such restrictions; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  No restrictions are placed on housing association maintenance budgets. However, for the purposes of establishing associations' eligibility for deficit grants and their liability to surrender rental surpluses, the reasonableness of maintenance expenditure is assessed by reference to prescribed maximum levels known as maintenance allowances. 'These allowance levels are reviewed annually to take account of price movements, and in addition a survey of maintenance expenditure is planned this year.

  Housing Corporation
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list at 1988–89 prices his Department's(a) gross provision and (b) net provision for the Housing Corporation's approved development programme (i) to provide homes for rent, under conventional funding, (ii) to provide homes for rent, under mixed funding arrangements and (iii) to provide homes for sale; and if he will give this information for each year since 1978–79, together with an estimate for 1988–89.
  303
  Mr. Waldegrave
  The available information is as follows:

  Housing Corporation Approved Development Programme

  Provision £ million 1988–89 prices

  Net

  Gross

  Of which provision for homes:

  (a)

  (b)

  1(i) rent

  2(ii) rent

  (iii) sale

  1978–79

  686

  693

  —

  —

  —

  1979–80

  719

  726

  —

  —

  —

  1980–81

  757

  775

  —

  —

  —

  1981–82

  684

  726

  667

  —

  59

  1982–83

  884

  984

  839

  —

  145

  1983–84

  775

  927

  758

  —

  169

  1984–85

  735

  818

  689

  —

  129

  1985–86

  687

  775

  645

  —

  130

  1986–87

  637

  746

  631

  —

  115

  1987–88

  666

  737

  605

  35

  97

  1988–89

  655

  737

  620

  39

  78

  1 Conventional funding.

  2 Mixed funding.

  Local authorities' housing investment programme capital allocations1

  £ millions 1988–89 prices

  Region2

  1978–79

  1979–80

  1980–81

  1981–82

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  North

  348

  270

  237

  162

  189

  138

  127

  103

  88

  77

  68

  North West

  654

  510

  477

  365

  441

  348

  319

  259

  213

  194

  148

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  429

  330

  291

  235

  279

  212

  193

  157

  132

  118

  102

  West Midlands

  548

  379

  333

  238

  266

  221

  215

  184

  161

  141

  119

  East Midlands

  400

  245

  199

  172

  199

  145

  132

  108

  91

  82

  61

  East Anglia

  131

  88

  73

  66

  85

  69

  70

  59

  47

  44

  34

  South West

  268

  191

  163

  144

  180

  131

  132

  112

  110

  87

  72

  1 For 1978–79 and 1979–80 figures are the total of HIP blocks 1, 2 and 3, including energy conservation and thermal insulation allocations. From 1980–81 figures are the initial allocations comprising basic allocations and homes insulation scheme allocations. For 1982–83 only, additional retrospective allocations are included.

  2 Regions used are standard statistical regions.

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list at 1988–89 prices his Department's initial housing investment programme allocations(a) to English local authorities, (b) to local authorities in Greater London, (c) to metropolitan authorities outside London, (d) to non-metropolitan

  Local authorities' housing investment programme allocations: England

  £ millions: 1988–89 prices

  1978–79

  1979–80

  1980–81

  1981–82

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  London boroughs and GLC

  1,785

  1,356

  1,177

  768

  820

  667

  648

  542

  469

  405

  372

  Metropolitan districts

  1,339

  992

  909

  648

  783

  625

  579

  478

  407

  359

  300

  Non-metropolitan districts in South East

  702

  517

  420

  350

  389

  308

  308

  264

  228

  199

  150

  Other non-metropolitan districts

  1,439

  1,027

  864

  735

  856

  639

  610

  504

  435

  383

  305

  Total

  5,266

  3,892

  3,370

  2,501

  2,848

  2,238

  2,145

  1,788

  1,539

  1,347

  1,127

  Notes:

  1979–80 figures arc the totals of HIP blocks 1. 2 and 3, including energy conservation and thermal insulation allocations. From 1981–82, figures are the initial allocations comprising basic allocations and homes insulation scheme allocations.

  South East is the standard region comprising the authorities in the Department of the Environment administrative Eastern (excluding East Anglia) and South Eastern regions.
  304
  Note:

  Prior to the introduction of the Approved Development Programme in 1981–82 the figures show total grants and loans on housing association schemes sponsored by the Housing Corporation.

  Housing Investment Programme
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list at 1988–89 prices his Department's initial housing investment programme allocations(a) to local authorities in the north, (b) to local authorities in the north-west, (c) to local authorities in Yorkshire and Humberside, (d) to local authorities in the west midlands, (e) to local authorities in the east midlands, (f) to local authorities in east anglia, (g) to local authorities in the south-west; and if he will give this information for each year since 1978–79, together with an estimate for 1988–89.

  Mrs. Roe
  The figures are given in the table.

  authorities in the south-east, and (e) to English non-metropolitan authorities; and if he will give this information for each of the years 1979–80, 1981–82, 1983–84, 1985–86, and 1987–88.

  Mrs. Roe
  The table contains the figures for each year from 1978–79 to 1988–89. I regret that there was an error in the 1978–79 allocation figures given in the reply to the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) on 31 March at columns 709–10.

  Housing Capital Expenditure
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list at 1988–89 prices his Department's gross provision for local authority housing capital expenditure during each of the years from 1978–79, together with an estimate for 1988–89.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Gross provision for local authorities' capital expenditure on housing for each year since 1980–81, expressed in 1988–89 prices, has been as follows:

  (1988–89 Prices)

  £ million

  1980–81

  3,398

  1981–82

  3,095

  1982–83

  3,351

  1983–84

  3,119

  1984–85

  2,993

  1985–86

  2,633

  1986–87

  2,778

  1987–88

  3,051

  1988–89

  3,048

  Public expenditure planning for the years 1978–79 and 1979–80 was on a different basis. Figures for those years cannot be provided, except at disproportionate cost.

  System-built Houses
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment why Estate Action assistance was refused for 1988–89 by his Department to Walsall metropolitan borough council for repair work to the Wimpey no-fines properties in the Blakenall area of the borough.

  Mrs. Roe
  The Estate Action programme is directed at schemes to revitalise run-down estates, to improve management, and to increase tenant involvement. Walsall's bid for extra resources for Blakenhall did not address itself to enough of these matters to win priority in the programme.

  Local Authorities (Rating and Capital Expenditure)
  Mr. Heddle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his statement in the House on 9 March.Official Report, columns 325–7, what is the position of bona fide building contractors and developers who have negotiated genuine schemes with local authorities involving planning gain and an element of barter.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Under the proposals announced on 9 March, where a local authority acquires property, or where works are carried out on property which a local authority owns and valuable consideration for the acquisition or the works is given but not in money, then prescribed expenditure will be scored as if the acquisition or works had been paid for in cash. The proposals do not affect the existing provisions under which:

  (a) nil prescribed expenditure is scored when land is acquired by way of gift; and

  (b) payments which are made to a local authority in accordance with an agreement under section 52 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 but which arc not sums received in respect of the disposal of land or other assets are treated as capital receipts which may be used in full to justify additional capital expenditure.

  National Sporting Bodies
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to refrain from seeking to influence national sporting bodies in their decisions on overseas tours and other policy matters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Decisions on overseas tours and other policy matters are for the governing bodies of sport. In the case of South Africa, the Government remain committed to the Gleneagles agreement and to discouraging sporting links.

  Gipsies
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment on how many occasions his Department has made use of each of its powers to effect removal of gipsies from unauthorised sites(a) if the local authority has a full number of designated sites and (b) if it does not; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Roe
  My right hon. Friend has no such powers. The control of unauthorised camping is a matter for the local authority or the landowner concerned, or in certain cases where public order is threatened, for the police.

  European Charter of Local Self-government
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy towards ratification of the European charter of local self-government; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The Government support the broad principles underlying the charter, but we do not accept that the content is appropriate for a binding international agreement. We therefore have no plans to sign or ratify the charter.

  London Residuary Body
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply of 20 January,Official Report, column 758, which of the services listed have now been transferred; and to which successor body they have gone.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 14 April 1988]: Of the services listed in my earlier reply, the housing association loans have been transferred to the boroughs and relevant district councils, and the industrial mortgages have been transferred to the boroughs in which the mortgaged properties are located.

  Water Quality
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all those waters which fall within the scope of article 1(2)(a) of directive 76/160/EEC and which do not meet the standards set by the directive.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Patten) announced the results of the 1986 survey of bathing water quality on 30 April 1987, Official Report, column 186. The results of the 1987 survey are being collated.
  307
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, by region, the number of cases concerning excesses of industrial solvents in drinking water from 1979 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: This information is not available.

  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the capital investment programme of each water authority in England and Wales to meet the requirements of the EEC directive on the quality of drinking and bathing water.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: We are at present discussing these programmes with water authorities as part of the corporate planning round.

  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects all Britain's bathing beaches to comply fully with the EEC water quality directive.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: The majority of bathing waters in the United Kingdom already meet the standards set out in the directive.

  Water undertakings are currently spending some £70 million per year on improvement programmes designed to bring all remaining identified bathing waters up to the directive's standards. The Government will shortly be reviewing progress and timetables with the water undertakings in the light of the 1987 survey of bathing waters.

  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list for each water authority the number of derogations sought and received from 1979 to the latest available date due to excessive levels of lead in drinking water.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: No derogations have been given for lead under article 9 of the EC drinking water directive. An application was made to the European Commission under article 20 of the directive in 1985 for a five year delay in implementation of the lead parameter in certain areas of the United Kingdom while action was taken in accordance with an agreed programme to reduce lead levels. This programme has been very successful and is now nearing completion in England. At the end of 1987, the number of water supply zones where treatment measures were being or were to be installed had been reduced to 30. These are listed by water authority area :

  Water authority

  Water supply zones

  Anglian

  8

  Northumbrian

  1

  North West

  16

  Yorkshire

  5

  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will update the figures given in the Official Report on 24 April 1986, column 235, regarding the anticipated costs of bringing (a) nitrate levels and (b) lead levels in drinking water to those stipulated in EEC directives.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: The Department is currently seeking an update of the nitrate costs from water undertakers. The costs for new water treatment measures to reduce lead levels are about
  308
  £500,000 for capital and about £500,000 annual running costs. The cost of replacing lead pipes in properties has not changed significantly, although the number of properties requiring such replacements will have decreased since the numbers were last estimated.

  Conservation (Payments)
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the amounts and beneficiaries of payments made to date by the Nature Conservancy Council, as a result of developments not taking place on sites of special scientific interest since the inception of the scheme.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 12 April 1988]: I refer the hon. Member to the Nature Conservancy Council's annual reports, copies of which are lodged in the House Library.

  The reports contain figures on the numbers and value of management agreements concluded by the Nature Conservancy Council under section 15 of the Countryside Act 1968. Individual agreements are treated as confidential matters between owners and occupiers of sites and the Nature Conservancy Council, and it is not our policy to disclose details. The Nature Conservancy Council has no power to make management agreements under the 1968 Act over land not of SSSI quality.

EMPLOYMENT

  Adult Training Scheme
  Mr. Ray Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the criteria for paying supplementary grants in connection with the proposed adult training scheme.

  Mr. Nicholls
  Supplementary grants will be available within the new adult programme of employment training to assist in the provision of higher cost training. The criteria for paying these grants are currently being considered by the Manpower Services Commission. The Commission expects to have more detailed information available shortly.

  Settle-Carlisle Railway Line
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when he expects his Department to have completed an assessment of the study by John Jarvis and Sons plc on the tourism potential of the Settle-Carlisle railway line area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lee
  The study by J. Jarvis and Sons is a welcome contribution to the development of tourism in this very attractive part of the country and is being currently considered. The English Tourist Board and the Manpower Services Commission have both expressed interest in the study's findings.

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the latest figures for employment in(a) the coal industry, and (b) the electricity using industries.

  Mr. Lee
  In January 1988, the latest date for which figures are available, there were 143,000 employees in
  309
  employment in the coal extraction and solid fuels industries in Great Britain. The figure has not been adjusted for the effects of seasonal variations.

  Statistics are not kept for the numbers employed in those industries which use electricity as a principal source of energy.

  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the parliamentary constituencies in which the number out of work and claiming benefit declined by more than 25 per cent. between August 1984 and February 1988, including in the table for each constituency the total for(a) August 1986, (b) February 1988 and (c) the percentage reduction.

  Mr. Lee
  The following information is in the Library. The table shows the number of unemployed claimants at 9 August 1984 and 11 February 1988, together with the percentage change for each parliamentary constituency in Great Britain where the number of unemployed claimants has fallen by 25 per cent. or more. The figures are affected by seasonal factors and by changes in the coverage of the count.

  Unemployed claimants

  Parliamentary constituency

  9 August 1984

  11 February 1988

  Percentage change

  Wantage

  2,391

  1,231

  -48·5

  Henley

  2,020

  1,055

  -47·8

  Chesham and Amersham

  1,742

  936

  -46·3

  Newbury

  2,650

  1,451

  -45·2

  Tunbridge Wells

  2,519

  1,389

  -44·9

  South West Surrey

  1,661

  925

  -44·3

  Horsham

  2,180

  1,217

  -44·2

  Basingstoke

  3,250

  1,818

  -44·1

  Mole Valley

  1,726

  972

  -43·7

  Witney

  2,646

  1,493

  -43·6

  Corby

  5,914

  3,400

  -42·5

  Gillingham

  5,479

  3,251

  -40·7

  Brentwood and Ongar

  2,438

  1,451

  -40·5

  Welwyn Hatfield

  3,123

  1,866

  -40·2

  Guildford

  2,097

  1,257

  -40·1

  Oxford West and Abingdon

  3,152

  1,892

  -40·0

  West Hertfordshire

  3,594

  2,159

  -39·9

  Maidstone

  3,525

  2,121

  -39·8

  North West Surrey

  2,356

  1,424

  -39·6

  Reigate

  2,023

  1,226

  -39·4

  South West Hertfordshire

  2,530

  1,536

  -39·3

  North West Hampshire

  2,361

  1,441

  -39·0

  Mid Sussex

  1,991

  1,218

  -38·8

  Esher

  1,563

  964

  -38·3

  Aylesbury

  2,741

  1,694

  -38·2

  Saffron Walden

  2,392

  1,474

  -38·1

  East Surrey

  1,625

  1,013

  -37·7

  Medway

  5,264

  3,294

  -37·4

  Sevenoaks

  2,416

  1,514

  -37·3

  North Hertfordshire

  3,573

  2,252

  -37·0

  Mid Kent

  4,837

  3,056

  -36·8

  Ruislip—Northwood

  1,779

  1,124

  -36·8

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  2,612

  1,655

  -36·6

  Spelthorne

  2,328

  1,479

  -36·5

  Woking

  2,387

  1,519

  -36·4

  Reading West

  3,334

  2,130

  -36·1

  Reading East

  3,923

  2,518

  -35·8

  Wycombe

  2,932

  1,902

  -35·1

  Congleton

  3,322

  2,156

  -35·1

  Harlow

  4,426

  2,875

  -35·0

  Croydon South

  2,023

  1,316

  -34·9

  Wokingham

  1,970

  1,282

  -34·9

  Beaconsfield

  1,700

  1,107

  -34·9

  South East Cambridgeshire

  1,892

  1,240

  -34·5

  Wealden

  1,907

  1,256

  -34·1

  Crawley

  2,485

  1,637

  -34·1

  Rochford

  2,828

  1,867

  -34·0

  310

  Parliamentary constituency

  9 August 1984

  11 February 1988

  Percentage change

  Hertford and Stortford

  2,093

  1,382

  -34·0

  East Berkshire

  3,196

  2,116

  -33·8

  Braintree

  3,283

  2,177

  -33·7

  Aldershot

  2,971

  1,974

  -33·6

  Surbiton

  1,554

  1,034

  -33·5

  Banbury

  3,263

  2,180

  -33·2

  Billericay

  3,882

  2,599

  -33·0

  Harborough

  2,566

  1,721

  -32·9

  Croydon central

  3,609

  2,435

  -32·5

  Basildon

  6,712

  4,530

  -32·5

  Chertsey and Walton

  2,099

  1,418

  -32·4

  Wimbledon

  2,894

  1,959

  -32·3

  South west Bedfordshire

  3,766

  2,550

  -32·3

  Buckingham

  2,561

  1,742

  -32·0

  Stevenage

  4,059

  2,764

  -31·9

  Dagenham

  4,311

  2,937

  -31·9

  Kettering

  3,308

  2,255

  -31·8

  Tonbridge and Mailing

  2,678

  1,827

  -31·8

  Cheadle

  2,921

  1,996

  -31·7

  South Colchester and Maldon

  4,240

  2,901

  -31·6

  Hornchurch

  3,047

  2,087

  -31·5

  Southend west

  3,590

  2,460

  -31·5

  Cambridge

  3,554

  2,437

  -31·4

  St· Albans

  2,462

  1,690

  -31·4

  Milton Keynes

  6,750

  4,637

  -31·3

  Loughborough

  3,709

  2,549

  -31·3

  Wellingborough

  4,111

  2,835

  -31·0

  Carshalton and Wallington

  2,899

  2,001

  -31·0

  Rutland and Melton

  3,473

  2,401

  -30·9

  Salisbury

  3,208

  2,228

  -30·5

  Castle point

  3,430

  2,383

  -30·5

  Oxford east

  4,025

  2,803

  -30·4

  Cirencester and Tewkesbury

  2,976

  2,074

  -30·3

  Richmond-upon-Thames and Barnes

  2,675

  1,868

  -30·2

  Slough

  4,629

  3,238

  -30·0

  Pendle

  4,597

  3,222

  -29·9

  Alyn and Deeside

  4,694

  3,296

  -29·8

  Upminster

  3,029

  2,136

  -29·5

  North Dorset

  2,181

  1,539

  -29·4

  Twickenham

  2,307

  1,628

  -29·4

  Kingston-upon-Thames

  2,408

  1,702

  -29·3

  West Gloucestershire

  4,609

  3,259

  -29·3

  South West Cambridgeshire

  2,500

  1,771

  -29·2

  Rugby and Kenilworth

  4,512

  3,202

  -29·0

  Northampton north

  4,789

  3,401

  -29·0

  Worcester

  5,030

  3,574

  -28·9

  The City of London and Westminster South

  5,423

  3,856

  -28·9

  Blaby

  2,915

  2,074

  -28·9

  East Hampshire

  2,419

  1,722

  -23·8

  Mid Worcestershire

  6,016

  4,285

  -23·8

  Davyhulme

  4,937

  3,520

  -23·7

  South Ribble

  4,626

  3,303

  -23·6

  Stratford-on-Avon

  3,314

  2,376

  -28·3

  Dudley West

  6,716

  4,822

  -28·2

  Southend east

  4,675

  3,358

  -28·2

  Huntingdon

  3,511

  2,522

  -28·2

  Uxbridge

  2,625

  1,886

  -23·2

  North Bedfordshire

  4,573

  3,286

  -23·1

  Bosworth

  3,557

  2,557

  -28·1

  Leicester east

  5,919

  4,259

  -28·0

  Macclesfield

  3,400

  2,450

  -27·9

  Dartford

  3,454

  2,494

  -27·8

  Shipley

  3,592

  2,596

  -27·7

  Chelmsford

  3,035

  2,196

  -27·6

  Stroud

  3,743

  2,713

  -27·5

  Warley east

  7,171

  5,201

  -27·5

  Eddisbury

  5,028

  3,649

  -27·4

  Barking

  4,042

  2,937

  -27·3

  Hazel grove

  3,630

  2,642

  -27·2

  Winchester

  2,057

  1,498

  -27·2

  311

  Parliamentary constituency

  9 August 1984

  11 February 1988

  Percentage change

  South Suffolk

  3,281

  2,391

  -27·1

  Rossendale and Darwen

  4,728

  3,448

  -27·1

  Coventry south west

  5,006

  3,652

  -27·0

  Leicester south

  7,612

  5,557

  -27·0

  Thurrock

  5,822

  4,252

  -27·0

  Epsom and Ewell

  1,901

  1,392

  -26·8

  North Colchester

  4,129

  3,027

  -26·7

  Bristol west

  7,347

  5,394

  -26·6

  Ribble Valley

  2,164

  1,589

  -26·6

  Sutton and Cheam

  2,029

  1,492

  -26·5

  Hyndburn

  4,170

  3,067

  -26·5

  Bath

  3,817

  2,809

  -26·4

  Aberavon

  4,762

  3,508

  -26·3

  Burnley

  5,949

  4,389

  -26·2

  Watford

  3,235

  2,388

  -26·2

  Staffordshire moorlands

  3,608

  2,664

  -26·2

  Cheltenham

  4,381

  3,235

  -26·2

  Epping forest

  2,816

  2,080

  -26·1

  Altrincham and Sale

  3,354

  2,478

  -26·1

  Leeds north west

  4,426

  3,271

  -26·1

  Leicester west

  7,299

  5,397

  -26·1

  Bury south

  4,622

  3,421

  -26·0

  Hertsmere

  2,595

  1,922

  -25·9

  Ravensbourne

  2,017

  1,495

  -25·9

  Romford

  2,776

  2,059

  -25·8

  Gravesham

  4,984

  3,701

  -25·7

  Brentford and Isleworth

  4,165

  3,093

  -25·7

  Stockport

  4,845

  3,598

  -25·7

  North Wiltshire

  3,518

  2,614

  -25·7

  Northampton south

  4,032

  3,000

  -25·6

  Ashford

  3,396

  2,528

  -25·6

  Wyre forest

  5,135

  3,823

  -25·6

  Wanstead and Woodford

  2,199

  1,645

  -25·2

  Wrexham

  5,000

  3,742

  -25·2

  Nuneaton

  5,462

  4,089

  -25·1

  Central Suffolk

  3,097

  2,319

  -25·1

  Stoke-on-Trent central

  5,909

  4,432

  -25·0

  Daventry

  2,713

  2,035

  -25·0

  Pudsey

  3,202

  2,402

  -25·0

  Bishop Auckland

  7,166

  5,378

  -25·0

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people in(a) Burnley and (b) Pendle have been unemployed for over one year; and what percentage of the work force this represents.

  Mr. Lee
  The following information is in the Library. On 14 January 1988, the numbers of unemployed claimants who had been unemployed for one year or more in the Burnley and Pendle travel-to-work areas were 1,790 and 1,162 respectively. These totals represent 4·6 per cent, and 3·9 per cent, respectively of the number of employees in employment plus the unemployed in each travel-to-work area.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the total number of people unemployed in (i) Burnley and (ii) Pendle who are(a) 18 to 21 years of age, (b) 22 to 25 years of age, (c) 26 to 30 years of age, and (d) 31 to 35 years of age; and what percentage of each respective age group this represents.

  Employees in Employment changes in the levels of employment between June 1979 and June 1986

  Thousands

  Manufacturing Industries

  Service Industries

  All Employees

  Numbers

  Percentages

  Numbers

  Percentages

  South East

  -124

  -465

  -24·9

  441

  8·7

  East Anglia

  60

  -6

  -2·9

  81

  20·1

  South West

  -32

  -70

  -15·9

  68

  6·8

  West Midlands

  -224

  -289

  -29·3

  91

  8·5

  312
  Mr. Lee
  The following information is in the Library. The following table shows the number of unemployed claimants in the Burnley and Pendle travel-to-work areas on 14 January 1988, for the available age groups which most closely correspond with those requested. Unemployment rates by age are not calculated below national level.

  14 January 1988

  Unemployed claimants

  Burnley travel-to-work area

  aged 18–19 years

  368

  20–24 years

  870

  25–29 years

  662

  30–34 years

  488

  Pendle travel-to-work area

  aged 18–19 years

  278

  20–24 years

  682

  25–29 years

  464

  30–34 years

  349

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the number of people registered unemployed in the Tottenham constituency on the latest available date; what proportion of the working population this represents; and what are the corresponding figures for each month since June 1979.

  Mr. Lee
  My Department does not calculate unemployment rates for areas smaller than travel-to-work areas. Unemployment statistics for parliamentary constituencies are available only from June 1983, and are available from the Library.

  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what was the change in the number of employees in employment in each of the English regions, in England, and in Great Britain, excluding Northern Ireland, between 1979 and 1986;

  (2) what was the change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in each of the English standard regions, and in England as a whole between 1979 and 1986;

  (3) what was the percentage change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in each of the standard English regions, and in England as a whole between 1979 and 1986;

  (4) what was the change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in Great Britain, excluding Northern Ireland between 1979 and 1986; and in each case what was the percentage change.

  Mr. John Lee
  The figures are as follows:
  313

  Manufacturing Industries

  Service Industries

  All Employees

  Numbers

  Percentages

  Numbers

  Percentages

  East Midlands

  -37

  -112

  -18·5

  107

  14·2

  Yorks and Humberside

  -225

  -246

  -34·7

  85

  8·1

  North West

  -414

  -345

  -35·5

  -24

  -1·6

  North

  -170

  -142

  -34·5

  24

  3·6

  England

  -1,166

  -1,675

  -27·0

  873

  7·6

  Great Britain (excl. Northern Ireland)

  -1,550

  -1,982

  -27·9

  895

  6·8

  The figures have not been adjusted for the effects of seasonal variations.

  Some of the decrease in the manufacturing figures will he the result of the re-classification of jobs such as industrial cleaning, computer services and road haulage, previously done by manufacturers' own employees and now done by sub-contractors. This developing feature of our economy has the effect of exaggerating the extent of the move from manufacturing to service sector employment.

  "Training for Employment"
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the information in figure 5 of the paper entitled "Training for Employment" for each region of the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The information is only available at disproportionate cost.

  Job Search Boundaries
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment which offices were chosen for the additional questions on job search boundaries which have been piloted in restart interviews from 1 February; and how many interviews have been conducted in each chosen office.

  Mr. Lee
  The 11 offices in which the form was launched and the number of interviews conducted at each location from 1 February 1988 to 25 March 1988 are as follows :

  Number

  Billingham

  1,600

  Dundee

  1,422

  Ea ling

  1,558

  Huddersfield

  1,192

  Leicester

  3,115

  Plymouth

  2,043

  Port Talbot

  1,240

  Preston

  1,396

  Stoke

  2,454

  Watford

  828

  Wimbledon

  1,276

  Industrial Premises (Inspections)
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report (a) the number of registered premises under the factory inspectorate and the number of factory visits by factory inspectors and (b) how frequently, on average, industrial premises can expect a routine visit from a factory inspector, for each year from 1974 to 1987, inclusive.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The Health and Safety Executive does not hold information on the number of premises registered with the factory inspectorate for the years 1974 to 77.
  314
  The number of registered fixed premises for the years 1978 to 1987 is as follows:

  Date

  Number of premises

  1 January 1978

  280,716

  1 January 1979

  300,718

  1 January 1980

  309,915

  1 January 1981

  309,100

  1 1 January 1982

  576,456

  1 January 1983

  468,609

  1 January 1984

  393,237

  31 March 1985

  395,860

  31 March 1986

  399,885

  31 March 1987

  401,815

  1 The figure for 1982 is the first of those produced from a computerised database which was based on the Department of Employment census. The database was initially inflated by premises for which the Health and Safety Executive was not the enforcing authority.

  Factory inspectors made 153,835 visits to factories in 1974. Information for the years 1975 to 1987 is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  The factory inspectorate's programme of preventive visits is planned on the basis of a rating system. There is no fixed period between inspections, workplaces with poor standards, poor management or high risk potential being inspected more frequently. Information is not available on how frequently, on average, industrial premises can expect a routine visit from a factory inspector.

  Health and Safety
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish the total funding for the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive for each year from 1974 to 1987, inclusive.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The total provision available to the Health and Safety Commission and Executive for each year since 1974 is:

  Year

  £ (million)

  1974–75

  13·6

  1975–76

  28·6

  1976–77

  39·3

  1977–78

  45·4

  1978–79

  48·6

  1979–80

  58·1

  1980–81

  73·7

  1981–82

  84·7

  1982–83

  86·0

  1983–84

  93·1

  1984–85

  95·4

  1985–86

  98·8

  1986–87

  100·0

  1987–88

  102·3

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report

  315
  (a) the number of deaths, (b) the number of serious and major injuries and (c) the number of employees in the construction industry for 1970 to 1987 inclusive for (i) public, (ii) private and (iii) public and private construction.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The available information is given in the table below.

  Year

  Numbers of reported occupational injuries to employees in Great Britain resulting in:

  Numbers of employees (construction industry)

  Death

  Major injury

  (1000's)

  1970

  204

  ..

  ..

  1971

  201

  ..

  1,159·0

  1972

  19

  ..

  1,193·0

  1973

  23

  ..

  1,269·0

  1974

  166

  ..

  1,223·0

  1975

  18

  ..

  1,207·0

  1976

  156

  ..

  1,203·0

  1977

  130

  ..

  1,167·0

  1978

  12

  ..

  1,161·0

  1979

  11

  ..

  1,201·0

  1980

  12

  ..

  1,192·0

  1981

  105

  1,690

  1,086·0

  1982

  100

  1,950

  1,034·7

  1983

  118

  2,178

  1,021·4

  1984

  100

  2,288

  1,015·8

  1985

  104

  2,239

  991·8

  1986–871

  90

  2,538

  975·3

  .. not available.

  1 provisional.

  Note:

  The construction industry is as defined by Standard Industrial Classification 1980 (SIC80) Division 5. This definition has been applied retrospectively for the years 1970–1979.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was(a) the estimated number of building sites and (b) the number of construction Health and Safety Executive inspectors for the years 1970 to 1987, inclusive.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The HSE does not keep estimates of the numbers of building sites. All inspectors in the factory inspectorate sector of the HSE may work in construction groups. The number of experienced Inspectors employed on construction work for the years 1979–87 at 1 January is as follows :

  Year

  Number

  1979

  86

  1980

  87

  1981

  90

  1982

  89

  1983

  88

  1984

  88

  1985

  86

  1986

  84·5

  11987

  75

  1 September

  No information is available centrally for the years 1970–1978. In addition to the 75 experienced inspectors, there were another 17 qualified inspectors working in construction on 1 September 1987. It is planned to recruit enough factory inspectors to bring the total number of experienced inspectors in construction groups nationally to around 100 by 1990.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how frequently the average building site has been inspected for each year from 1970 to 1987.
  316
  Mr. Nicholls
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the final outcome, in terms of(a) construction sites visited, (b) prohibition and improvement notices issued and (c) prosecutions initiated for the construction site blitzes carried out by the Health and Safety Executive in 1987.

  Mr. Nicholls
  During the construction site blitzes carried out by the Health and Safety Executive in 1987, 4,289 construction sites were visited, 1,006 prohibition and 28 improvement notices were issued, and 25 prosecutions were initiated.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment which areas of the country, or London boroughs, will be blitzed by construction inspectors during the current year; and when.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The Health and Safety Executive plans to carry out the following construction blitzes in 1988:

  April

  "Black Country"

  Lincoln

  Torbay

  West Wales

  Worcester

  London—(North London)

  May

  Bradford

  Hertfordshire

  North Wales

  June

  Plymouth

  Folkestone

  September

  Buckinghamshire

  Bolton

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The provisional figure for 1987–88 is £29,000.

  Ethnic Monitoring
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) how he defined the term "significant employers" in the context of the review of ethnic monitoring practice in the private sector;

  (2) what firms or employees were included in the review of ethnic monitoring practice; and on what basis they were selected.

  Mr. Nicholls
  No review of ethnic monitoring practice has taken place. The figures provided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in reply to the hon. Member on 30 March 1988,Official Report, columns 526–7, represent information gathered from the normal operational activities of this Department's race relations employment advisory service. No precise definition of "significant" is applied by the service but the major private sector employers visited are those regarded as likely to benefit from specialised advice which can assist the

  317
  employer to formulate or develop policies and practices which ensure equal opportunity. RREAS provides a confidential service and details of individual organisations visited cannot be given without seeking the consent of those organisations. Resource considerations make this impracticable.

WALES

  General Council of British Shipping
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received concerning the closure of the Cardiff office of the General Council of British Shipping; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  None since 1986.

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he has yet reached a decision concerning the community charge in relation to the residents of Caldey Island. Pembrokeshire.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  I refer my hon. Friend to the letter I wrote to him on 15 April, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Nurses
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many nurses are currently employed by health authorities in Wales; and how many are undertaking further training to improve the scope and standard of their skills.

  Mr. Grist
  The whole-time equivalent of nursing and midwifery staff (excluding auxiliaries) employed by health authorities in Wales is given in the following table. Information on the number undertaking post-basic training courses is not immediately available but I will write to the hon. Gentleman about this as soon as possible and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  District Health Authority

  Whole-time equivalent as at 30 September 1987

  Clwyd

  2,817

  East Dyfed

  1,598

  Gwent

  3,132

  Gwynedd

  1,547

  Mid Glamorgan

  4,025

  Pembrokeshire

  515

  Powys

  723

  South Glamorgan

  3,422

  West Glamorgan

  2,871

  Welsh Language
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales on what occasions he has met his Department's working party on the Welsh language.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The Working Group has met under my chairmanship on 3 occasions since January. My right hon. Friend is fully informed of its deliberations.

  Elderly People
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he has taken to(a) ensure that health
  318
  authorities and social service departments were made aware of the fact that, from 11 April, elderly people will no longer have access to private nursing homes until their own homes have been sold and (b) increase funds for community care provision to cater for the increased number of elderly people who need nursing care and have to remain at home.

  Mr. Grist
  I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given to him by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services earlier today.

  Coal industry
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people are at present employed in(a) the north Wales coalfield and (b) the south Wales coalfield; and what are the corresponding figures for 1978, 1968 and 1958.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Available data are National Coal Board/British Coal estimates of the numbers on colliery books.

  North Wales (Thousands)

  South Wales1 (Thousands)

  1958

  29·1

  399·6

  1968

  23·6

  350·6

  1978

  41·2

  429·0

  1987

  41·0

  410·2

  1 Includes Forest of Dean (1958), Somerset (1958 and 1968).

  2 Calendar year average, includes Ifton colliery, Shropshire.

  3 Time of year unknown.

  4 At 31 March.

  Steel Production
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the total crude steel production in Wales in the last year for which full figures are available; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1968.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Crude steel production figures for Wales from 1968 to 1987 are given in the following table:

  Total production of crude steel

  '000 tonnes

  1968

  8,383

  1969

  7,703

  1970

  8,448

  1971

  7,910

  1972

  8,573

  1973

  8,451

  1974

  6,705

  1975

  5,471

  1976

  6,348

  1977

  6,000

  1978

  6,039

  1979

  6,936

  1980

  2,951

  1981

  4,386

  1982

  4,137

  1983

  4,854

  1984

  5,020

  1985

  4,731

  1986

  4,849

  1987

  5,431

  Source: Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau

  Fishing Industry
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proportion of the United Kingdom fishing fleet the Welsh fleet represents; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1968.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  In 1986, fishing vessels over 40 ft in length operating from Wales amounted to 2·7 per cent. of the United Kingdom total. During the period 1968 to 1985 the figure varied between 1·9 per cent. and 3 per cent. of the United Kingdom total. Comprehensive data on vessels under 40 ft are not readily available.

  Self-sufficiency
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the level of self-sufficiency of Wales in each of the following products:(a) fish, (b) mutton and lamb, (c) poultrymeat, (d) beef, (e) oats, (f) cheese, (g) liquid milk, (h) barley, (i) potatoes, (j) pigmeat, (k) eggs, (l) wheat and (m) butter.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Estimates of the ratio of production to consumption in 1987 for each of the food products are given in the following table :

  Self sufficiency (production/consumption)

  (a)

  Fish

  not available

  (b)

  Mutton and Lamb

  3·5

  (c)

  Poultry (chicken only)

  3·1

  (d)

  Beef

  3·9

  (e)

  Oats

  not available

  (f)

  Cheese

  1·9

  (g)

  Liquid milk

  3·2

  (h)

  Barley

  not available

  (i)

  Potatoes

  0·7

  (j)

  Pigmeat

  0·4

  (k)

  Eggs

  0·7

  (l)

  Wheat

  not available

  (m)

  Butter

  2·1

  Estimates of production are based on figures from the Aggregate Net Income calculation and the Milk Marketing Board. Estimates of consumption are taken from the results of the national food survey, based on a small sample of 120 households in Wales and are therefore subject to some estimation error.

  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the level of self-sufficiency of Wales in terms of electricity produced and consumed; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1968.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Available data for production and consumption of electricity are shown in the following table:

  Total available and supplied to distribution system

  All sales to customers1

  1968

  14,306

  11,380

  1969

  13,246

  11,885

  1970

  13,244

  12,601

  1971

  13.219

  12,554

  1972

  17,320

  12,197

  1973

  19,501

  12,754

  1974

  23,176

  12,415

  1975

  18,604

  11,859

  1976

  21,618

  12,592

  1977

  22,950

  12,920

  1978

  23,735

  13,229

  320

  Total available and supplied to distribution system

  All sales to customers1

  1979

  25,481

  14,286

  1980

  20,606

  12,707

  1981

  23,974

  12,742

  1982

  21,885

  12,844

  1983

  21,063

  13,074

  1984

  22,338

  12,988

  1985

  22,931

  13,972

  1986

  20,944

  14,748

  1 Excludes direct sales by the CEGB, which cannot be allocated between Wales and England without disclosure of figures relating to individual establishments.

  Source: Department of Energy and "Digest of Welsh Statistics".

  Exports and Imports
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the total tonnage of(a) overseas export trade and (b) overseas imports trade through Welsh ports during the last year for which full figures are available; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1968.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The information requested is given in the following table:

  Foreign traffic through Welsh seaports: all overseas trading areas

  million net omnes1

  Imports

  Exports

  1968

  29

  7

  1969

  34

  9

  1970

  36

  10

  1971

  39

  10

  1972

  39

  11

  1973

  43

  11

  1974

  46

  11

  1975

  35

  9

  1976

  37

  9

  1977

  30

  8

  1978

  31

  9

  1979

  31

  9

  1980

  24

  10

  1981

  21

  212

  1982

  20

  8

  1983

  15

  8

  1984

  21

  8

  1985

  23

  9

  31986

  24

  9

  Source: HM Customs and Excise.

  1 Excluding crates and other packaging.

  2 Partly based on sample data.

  3 Provisional.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  In 1987–88, my Department spent £22,365.99 on official hospitality.

  Labour Statistics
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what was the change in the number of people employed in(a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in Wales between 1979 and 1986;
  321
  (2) what was the percentage change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in Wales between 1979 and 1986.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Available data show the following:

  Employees in employment

  Change

  Per cent. change

  Manufacturing

  -112,000

  -35·5

  Services

  -16,000

  -2·8

  Source: Department of Employment Quarterly Series.

  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the change in the number of employees in employment in Wales between 1979 and 1986.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The numbers of employees in employment in Wales at June 1979 and June 1986 were 1,033,000 and 861,000 respectively. This represents a change of 172,000.

  Economic Regeneration
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the amount spent by each district authority in Wales during the last year for which full figures are available on economic regeneration; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1979.

  Mr. Grist
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: It is not possible separately to identify expenditure on economic regeneration, at which a number of different activities of local authorities are wholly or partly aimed.

SCOTLAND

  Education Expenditure
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the per capita spending on primary and secondary education in each school board area.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The table, which has been compiled from local authority financial returns, gives information on current expenditure per pupil in primary and secondary schools in each education authority in 1986–87, the latest year for which information is available.

  £s at out-turn prices

  Region

  Primary

  Secondary

  Borders

  1,091

  1,601

  Central

  961

  1,651

  Dumfries and Galloway

  946

  1,713

  Fife

  1,021

  1,706

  Grampian

  1,021

  1,725

  Highland

  1,033

  1,622

  Lothian

  1,033

  1,846

  Strathclyde

  1,066

  1,787

  Tayside

  988

  1,768

  Orkney

  1,249

  2,007

  Shetland

  1,391

  2,503

  Western Isles

  1,094

  2,138

  Information about individual schools is not held centrally. The School Boards (Scotland) Bill now before Parliament will establish a separate board for each education authority school; each board will have the right to receive information on expenditure related to the school.

  Roads (Improvement)
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a programme for trunk road improvements in Scotland to update the report, "Policy for Scottish Roads," last published in 1984.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  A further policy document will be issued, but it will need to take account of several forthcoming reports, particularly that on routes south of Edinburgh and the feasibility studies on the upgrading of the A74 to motorway. I hope that publication of the policy document will be possible in the spring of next year.

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many extra posts will be created in the Scottish courts administration in 1988, 1989, 1990 as a result of the community charge legislation.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The explanatory and financial memorandum to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill estimated that up to 40 additional staff will be required. This estimate remains unchanged and additional staff will be deployed to the courts as and when required.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what figures were available to him, when he considered alternative introduction dates for the community charge, concerning the likely average individual charge in 1988–89.

  Mr. Lang
  Calculations of illustrative personal community charge levels have been made only on the basis of the charges which would have been required to replace actual domestic rate income. No future projections of personal community charge levels—which would be entirely speculative—have been made. My right hon. and learned Friend has always been concerned to secure the benefits of the community charge system for Scotland as soon as possible.

  Oil Landings (Shetlands)
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much has been paid to the Shetlands council as an automatic percentage of oil landed for every year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Lang
  That is a matter for the Shetland Islands council. I have no locus.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Rifkind
  The amount spent was £41,983.

  A96 (Roundabout)
  Mr. Robert Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has decided what kind of inquiry there will be as a result of objections to proposals to establish a roundabout at Selattic quarry on the A96 at Inverurie road; when such an inquiry is due to commence: what
  323
  notice will be given to objectors; and if objectors who have or who have not yet lodged objections will be allowed to propose alternative schemes.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I am not yet in a position to say whether or when a public inquiry into the proposed line of the Bucksburn diversion will be necessary. This will depend on whether the objections received to the published draft road order can be resolved by negotiation and also on public reaction to the draft compulsory purchase order to be published in the summer.

  If an inquiry is held, objectors will receive no less than 28 days notice in writing of the date, time and place. Objectors would have the opportunity to propose alternative schemes at an inquiry.

  Mr. Robert Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many objections have been lodged against proposals to establish a roundabout at Selattic quarry on the A96 at Inverurie road.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Twenty.

  MV Hebridean Isles
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has as to what sum of compensation was paid by Cochranes Ltd., of Selby to Caledonian MacBrayne for errors in the design and construction of the MV Hebridean Isles; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  No compensation payments were made by Cochranes Ltd., to Caledonian MacBrayne.

  Scottish Development Agency
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the Official Report the names of the chairman and directors of the Scottish Development Agency, their periods of office and their annual remuneration.

  Mr. Lang
  The information on the chairman and board members is as follows:

  Name and Position with Period of Office

  Remuneration£

  Sir Robin G. Duthie CBE—Chairman

  30,508

  1 January 1988 to 31 December 1988

  Douglas F. Hardie CBE—Deputy Chairman

  16,760

  1 January 1987 to 31 December 1988

  Iain Robertson Chief—Executive

  49,025

  1 September 1987 to 31 August 1992

  James S. Gordon CBE—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1987 to 31 December 1989

  Robert Cowan—Member

  1 January 1988 to 31 July 1992

  Ian C. Wood CBE—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1987 to 31 December 1989

  Sir Peter Main—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1986 to 21 December 1988

  James F. G. Anderson CBE—Member

  3,776

  1 March 1986 to 31 December 1988

  George F. Robertson FRICS—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1987 to 31 December 1990

  Gavin H. Laird—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1987 to 31 December 1990

  Dr. Graham Hills FRSC, FRSE—Member

  3,776

  1 January 1988 to 31 December 1991

  Sir Alex Fletcher—Member

  3,776

  324

  Remuneration£

  1 January 1988 to 31 December 1991

  Sir David Nickson CBE—Member

  3,776

  1 July 1988 to 31 December 1988 (Chairman) 1 January 1989 to 31 December1993)

  Mr. Robert Cowan is chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board (HIDB) as well as a member of the Scottish Development Agency board. His salary is paid by the HIDB.

  Labour Statistics
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what was the change in the numbers of employees in employment in Scotland between 1979 and 1986;

  (2) what was the change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in Scotland between 1979 and 1986;

  (3) what was the percentage change in the number of people employed in (a) manufacturing and (b) the service industries in Scotland between 1979 and 1986.

  Mr. Lang
  The table gives the available information. The figures are subject to revision when further information becomes available.

  Estimated change between June 1979 and June 1986

  Employees in employment

  Number

  Per cent.

  All industries

  -214,000

  -10

  Manufacturing (SIC 2 to 4)

  -194,000

  -32

  Service industries (SIC 6 to 9)

  +36,000

  +3

  Education (Ministerial Correspondence)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his answer of Tuesday, 12 April,Official Report, column 44, what resources are being devoted by his Department to the investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of recent correspondence between his office and that of the Prime Minister concerning opting out of the education system in Scotland.

  Mr. Rifkind
  I have nothing to add to my reply of 12 April to the hon. Member at column 44.

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish statistics showing nursery education provision in each of Scotland's regions.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information is set out in the table.

  Pupils aged 2 to 5 years in education authority nursery schools and departments (provisional figures for September 1987)

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time and part-time

  Borders

  —

  397

  397

  Central

  12

  2,493

  2,505

  Dumfries and Galloway

  3

  432

  435

  Fife

  201

  4,078

  4,279

  Grampian

  261

  2,440

  2,701

  Highland

  5

  619

  624

  Lothian

  779

  7,238

  8,017

  325

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time and part-time

  Strathclyde

  1,123

  16,607

  17,730

  Tayside

  487

  1,915

  2,402

  Orkney

  —

  85

  85

  Shetland

  —

  110

  110

  Western Isles

  —

  —

  —

  Scotland

  2,871

  36,414

  39,285

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of Scotland's three and four-year-olds receive nursery education; how many are full-time; and how many are part-time in their attendance.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) on 25 February at columns 277–78.

  Fines
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to come to a decision on whether to introduce a unitary or day fines system in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  This is one of several proposals which we shall consider when we have the results of the current study of the effectiveness of the 15 fines officers appointed to work in the sheriff courts, which we expect to receive in the near future.

  Anthony Cavendish
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the latest costs in Scotland in the proceedings relating to Anthony Cavendish.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Proceedings in Scotland in relation to Anthony Cavendish's book "Inside Intelligence" have been brought by the Lord Advocate on behalf of the Government. The costs which have been incurred to date in relation to those proceedings arise from court dues and printing costs and amount to £931·06. These costs do not include any element in respect of the expenses incurred by parties to the proceedings in the nature of fees and other expenses, and liability for their payment will only be known once the proceedings are concluded and when accounts have been lodged and taxed by the relevant authorities.

  Bus Services
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what consideration he has given to the problem of bus services being withdrawn while the route is subject to a process of competitive tendering; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Regional and islands councils in Scotland have the power to subsidise any service which they consider to be socially necessary and which is not being provided on a commercial basis. If it appears that the time scale of the normal tendering process might lead to a gap in the provision of a service, the local authorities have the power under section 91(2) of the Transport Act 1985 to enter into temporary emergency agreements to maintain or replace services or to secure a new service.

  Pay Beds
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the number of private patients using pay beds in the Tayside health board area on the latest available date; and what are the corresponding figures for each year since 1979.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 24 March 1988]: The information requested is given in the table:

  Year

  Number of private patients

  1979

  56

  1980

  43

  1981

  30

  1982

  15

  1983

  83

  1984

  123

  1985

  137

  1986

  115

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Developing Countries (Debt)
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list all the developing countries which have outstanding official debts, including export credits, to the United Kingdom and give figures for (i) their outstanding official debts in 1978 and in the latest year for which figures are available and (ii) the total amount of debt relief and cancellation of their debts between 1987 and the latest year.

  Mr. Peter Lilley
  [holding answer 14 March 1988]: It is not the practice of this or previous Governments to reveal the exposure of the Export Credits Guarantee Department to individual countries. Figures for amounts at risk and debt restructuring by area are published in ECGD's "Summary of Audited Trading Results 1986–87." Information relating to other official debts is listed as follows:

  Official debts outstanding to United Kingdom1 in 1978 and 1986

  (£ millions)

  Country

  Amount of Principal Outstanding

  Debt relief2 1978–1986

  at end 1978

  at end 1986

  Antigua and Barbuda

  0·495

  0·457

  —

  Barbados

  3·225

  6·517

  —

  Belize

  1·971

  13·429

  —

  Bolivia

  0·404

  0·271

  —

  Botswana

  18·542

  22·596

  20·682

  Brazil

  5·665

  3·675

  0·961

  British Virgin Islands

  2·460

  2·488

  —

  Cameroon

  1·610

  26·796

  —

  Cayman Islands

  0·986

  3·224

  —

  Colombia

  3·928

  3·124

  —

  Costa Rica

  6·726

  27·392

  0·929

  Cote d'Ivoire

  2·839

  21·959

  0·280

  Cyprus

  1·079

  0·989

  —

  Dominica

  1·943

  5·989

  —

  Ecuador

  8·494

  7·562

  —

  Falklands Islands

  0·281

  0·167

  —

  Fiji

  13·304

  29·915

  —

  Gambia, The

  5·173

  0·581

  5·219

  Ghana

  21·739

  3·717

  50·877

  Gibraltar

  2·336

  1·327

  —

  Grenada

  1·310

  2·379

  —

  Guyana

  24·003

  27·550

  —

  Honduras

  —

  16·531

  —

  327

  Country

  Amount of Principal Outstanding

  Debt relief2 1978–1986

  at end 1978

  at end 1986

  India

  519·116

  264·171

  3—

  Indonesia

  39·064

  31·506

  39·853

  Jamaica

  31·330

  73·268

  8·894

  Jordan

  30·323

  39·233

  —

  Kenya

  32·999

  29·936

  0·750

  Lao, Peoples Democratic Republic

  —

  0·035

  —

  Lesotho

  0·866

  1·597

  0·404

  Liberia

  0·086

  5·925

  —

  Malawi

  53·217

  32·636

  30·884

  Malaysia

  38·336

  38·336

  2·020

  Malta

  2·658

  8·859

  —

  Mauritius

  10·569

  12·472

  —

  Montserrat

  0·087

  0·003

  —

  Nicaragua

  0·615

  0·585

  —

  Nigeria

  34·377

  12·002

  —

  Papua New Guinea

  0·350

  17·626

  —

  Paraguay

  5·062

  4·220

  —

  Peru

  5·062

  4·194

  —

  Philippines

  —

  14·939

  —

  St. Kitts and Nevis

  1·782

  0.947

  —

  St. Lucia

  5·328

  5·262

  —

  St. Vincent

  1·371

  0·919

  —

  Senegal

  —

  1·000

  —

  Seychelles

  2·085

  11·687

  —

  Sierra Leone

  9·000

  1·236

  10·409

  Singapore

  26·443

  11·188

  —

  Solomon Islands

  4·220

  13·182

  —

  Sri Lanka

  25·531

  8·866

  25·210

  Sudan

  8·860

  0·665

  9·914

  Swaziland

  19·708

  32·187

  —

  Tanzania

  6·263

  20·063

  6·198

  Thailand

  3·799

  42·596

  —

  Tonga

  1·198

  1·988

  —

  Trinidad and Tobago

  0·690

  2·436

  —

  Tunisia

  0·742

  0·431

  —

  Turkey

  39·348

  84·235

  18·842

  Uganda

  19·136

  3·316

  22·090

  Vanuatu

  0·265

  0·814

  —

  Vietnam

  1·981

  1·970

  —

  Yemen, Peoples Democratic Republic

  3·749

  4·163

  —

  Zambia

  49·894

  97·256

  7·313

  Zimbabwe

  6·436

  49·581

  455·821

  1 Relates to amounts outstanding to Overseas Development Administration and Commonwealth Development Corporation.

  2 Includes amounts for cancellation of aid loans and amounts for rescheduled aid loans by ODA. (Principal and interest).

  3 In place of normal debt forgiveness £564 million is being givenin the form of local costs grants.

  4 Relate to debts of former Rhodesian Government (mostly excluded from 1978 figures).

CIVIL SERVICE

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Luce
  Final figures for 1987–88 are not yet available. The latest estimate of the amount spent by my Department on official hospitality during that period is £14,500.

THE ARTS

  Van Dyck Portrait (James, 1st Duke of Hamilton)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Minister for the Arts if he will make a statement on the decision of his reviewing 328
  committee to put a four-month stop on the export of Sir Anthony Van Dyck's portrait of James, 1st Duke of Hamilton.

  Mr. Luce
  The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art considered Sir Anthony Van Dyck's portrait of James, 1st Duke of Hamilton, in the context of the Waverley criteria, as it does all items referred to it for consideration. The committee concluded that the portrait satisfied the Waverley criteria and, therefore, recommended a four-month deferral of a decision on the export licence application. It further recommended that if, after one month, no public collection had shown interest in acquiring the portrait, consideration should be given to granting an export licence at that stage.

  National Theatre Board (Chair)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what relevant experience of arts administration he took into account when appointing Lady Soames as the new chair of the National Theatre Board.

  Mr. Luce
  The most important quality required for senior posts of this kind is that of leadership.

  Museums and Galleries
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Minister for the Arts (1) how many staff at(a) the Tate Gallery, (b) the British museum (c) the Victoria and Albert museum work (i) full-time and (ii) part-time on inventory records;

  (2) what is his estimate as to how many additional staff would be needed at (a) the British museum and (b) the Victoria and Albert museum to bring inventories up to date within three years;

  (3) what has been (i) the purchase grant and (ii) the conservation grant at (a) the Tate Gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in each of the last 10 years;

  (4) what have been the budgets for (i) storage, (ii) security, (iii) research and scholarship, (iv) administration, (v) advertising and manufacturing, (vi) exhibition and (vii) training at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in each of the last 10 years;

  (5) by how many (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum will need to increase their staffing on assuming responsibility for maintenance from the Property Services Agency in April;

  (6) what additional information on the condition of (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum has been produced by the Property Services Agency in the process of preparing to transfer responsibility for maintenance of these museums to their trustees;

  (7) what are the aspects of the Property Services Agency's biennial visual survey of (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum; and whether he will publish the last three Property Services Agency biennial surveys of its museums;

  (8) what he estimates is the cost of backlog maintenance and restoration of the fabric of the building at (a) the British museum and (b) the Victoria and Albert museum;

  (9) to what posts the additional maintenance staff will be appointed, and at what cost, at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum;
  329
  (10) what estimate has been made as to how many conservation staff would be needed to be employed in order to clear the conservation backlog within 10 years at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum;

  (11) what is the conservation backlog at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum;

  (12) how many individual students have used the research facilities at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in each of the last five years;

  (13) how many applications for access by students and others for scholarship and research have been received by (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in each of the last five years;

  (14) what was the cost of storage space in (a) 1977 and (b) 1987 at (i) the Tate gallery, (ii) the British museum and (iii) the Victoria and Albert museum;

  (15) when the existing security systems at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum were (i) installed and (ii) uprated;

  (16) what action has been taken to rationalise security procedures at the British museum; and when;

  (17) how many security staff were employed at (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in (i) 1977 and (ii) 1987;

  (18) whether he will list all objects stolen or otherwise missing and unaccounted for from (a) the Tate gallery, (b) the British museum and (c) the Victoria and Albert museum in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Luce
  I shall write to the hon. Member and will place copies of my letter in the Library of the House.

  South Bank Board
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister for the Arts if he will place in the Library the terms of the trust deed setting up the South Bank Board as an independent body.

  Mr. Luce
  [pursuant to his reply, 14 March 1988, c. 432.]: I have today placed a copy of the trust deed in the Library of the House.

DEFENCE

  Civilian Employees
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many civilian employees have left the armed services in each year since 1974;

  (2) how many civilian employees have left the Army in each year since 1974;

  (3) how many people have joined the Army as civilian employees in each year since 1974;

  (4) how many people have joined the armed services as civilian employees in each year since 1974;

  (5) how many civilians were employed in the Army in each year since 1974.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  There are no civilians employed in the armed services. Ministry of Defence civil servants work in support of the armed services and the following tables show the numbers of full-time equivalent United Kingdom-based civilian staff, excluding casuals, in the MOD as a whole, in the three service Departments taken together and in the Army Department alone on 1 April for 330
  each year from 1974 to 1987 and for 1 March 1988, the latest date for which information is available, together with the available details on intake to and outflow from these areas for the 1985–86 and 1986–87 financial years and for the 1987–88 financial year to 1 March 1988. Such data were not available prior to 1985–86 and the figures given exclude data in respect of a small proportion of staff whose records are not held centrally.

  Ministry of Defence United Kingdom based civilian staff1

  As at 1 April

  Total

  In navy, army and air force departments

  In army department

  1974

  248,876·0

  173,786·0

  66,626·0

  1975

  247,600·0

  167,511·0

  65,031·0

  1976

  244,547·0

  165,576·0

  63,531·0

  1977

  235,905·0

  160,699·0

  61,108·0

  1978

  227,506·0

  156,269·0

  59,131·0

  1979

  224,697·0

  155,365·0

  58,730·0

  1980

  218,026·0

  150,181·0

  56,018·0

  1981

  208,761·0

  144,501·0

  53,097·0

  1982

  197,491·0

  136,358·0

  50,279·0

  1983

  190,334·0

  133,557·0

  49,440·0

  1984

  181,183·0

  126,241·0

  47,564·0

  1985

  174,077·0

  122,062·0

  46,267·5

  1986

  169,462·5

  119,203·5

  45,673·5

  1987

  164,002·5

  115,346·0

  43,489·0

  19882

  144,315·5

  96,777·0

  42,283·0

  1 Full time equivalent staff, excluding casual employees and royal ordnance factory staff.

  2 Figure is for 1 March 1988.

  Intake of United Kingdom civilian staff1

  During

  In total

  To navy, army and air force departments

  To army department

  1985–86

  13,874·0

  10,463·0

  5,443·5

  1986–87

  13,889·0

  10,075·5

  4,757·0

  1987–882

  12,688·5

  9,345·5

  4,939·5

  1 Intake from outside MOD, including transfers from other Government Departments.

  2 Up to 1 March 1988.

  Outflow of United Kingdom based civilian staff1

  During

  In total

  From navy, army and air force departments

  From army department

  1985–86

  17,925·5

  12,999·5

  6,037·5

  1986–87

  18,455·0

  14,206·0

  6,572·0

  1987–882

  331,441·5

  327,395·5

  5,861·5

  1 Outflow to outside MOD, including transfers to other Government Departments.

  2 Up to 1 March 1988.

  3 Includes 16,546 staff lost through the contractorisation of the Devonport and Rosyth dockyards.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many deaths by suicide have been recorded among civilian employees on defence contracts in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  No record of deaths of civilian employees of defence contractors is kept by my Department.

  NATO Exercise (Firth of Clyde)
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the size, nature, extent and purpose of the NATO
  331
  exercise to be held in the Firth of Clyde in August and September; what consultation is taking place with fishing, recreational, industrial and other interests; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  I assume that the hon. Member is referring to Exercise Teamwork 88, a major NATO maritime exercise to be held later this year in the Atlantic and Norwegian sea areas.

  Detailed plans for associated exercise activity in the Clyde are not yet finalised, but it is expected that some ships will depart from the Clyde. There will probably be some exercise mine-laying activity in the area, and, as part of the routine planning process, mine-laying areas have been discussed and agreed with representatives of fishermen who work the area. A local area warning message about the exercise mine-laying activity will also be issued well in advance of the exercise, in accordance with our normal procedures.

  Combat Body Armour
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he now expects combat body armour to enter general service in the Army; and how many vests will be procured during 1989.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Subject to the outcome of the troop trial, we plan to introduce combat armour into service in 1989. We plan to procure 15,000 vests during the 1989–90 financial year.

  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many sets of combat body armour have been produced for troop trialling; when the trials are planned to take place; and when contracts are likely to be placed for bulk delivery.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  2,000 sets of combat armour have been procured for the troop trial. It is due to start in May and be completed by November. If the trial is successful, the first contracts for bulk delivery are expected to be placed by April 1989.

  Procurement Expenditure
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of his Department's procurement expenditure was spent in(a) Wales, (b) Scotland, (c) Northern Ireland and (d) each of the standard English regions, during the last available financial year.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Percentage regional estimates of the Ministry's equipment procurement expenditure during the financial year 1986–87 are as follows :

  Area

  Percentage distribution1

  Wales

  2

  Scotland

  5

  Northern Ireland

  1

  North

  8

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  3

  East Midlands

  3

  East Anglia

  3

  South East

  49

  South West

  13

  West Midlands

  4

  North West

  9

  332
  1 These individually rounded estimates are based only on the location of the main contractors, and do not allow for subcontract work done in different regions. Expenditure on international collaborative projects is excluded.

  Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd.
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will meet the management of Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd., to discuss the progress of the inquiries as to(a) why a large section of a new nuclear-powered submarine came to be welded on upside down at the Barrow yard and (b) why sections of a Trident submarine were lost overboard from a Bahamas registered cargo vessel off the Mull of Galloway and Walney Island in February.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  I have no plans to meet the management of VSEL at present.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The amount spent on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88 was £3,111,845. The amount quoted represents total expenditure borne on defence votes for the provision of official entertainment, apart from a small element of expenditure overseas which has yet to be brought to account. The figure includes therefore expenditure incurred not only by the Ministry of Defence itself, but also by formations and establishments of the armed forces at home and overseas, and by individual officers occupying command and international appointments for which entertainment allowances are payable.

  Weapons and Ammunition (Transport)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the categories of weapons currently being transported by road from the base at Caerwent.

  Mr. Freeman
  No. It is not our practice to provide details of weapons or ammunitions stocks at particular sites.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will consider the safety implications at Royal Air Force Caerwent of changing the transport of ammunition from road to rail.

  Mr. Freeman
  I am satisfied with the current arrangements for the transport of ammunition to and from RAF Caerwent, which involves movement both by rail and by road.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any propoals to improve the security of the transport of ammunition by contractors employed by the United States Army during collection, parking, and delivery of the loads.

  Mr. Freeman
  No. These responsibilities fall to the United States authorities who are subject to the same regulations governing the storage and handling of ammunition as Her Majesty's forces.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if, in the interests of safety, he will stipulate that at least two drivers per vehicle are employed in the transport of ammunition from Royal Air Force bases.
  333
  Mr. Freeman
  In accordance with the provisions of the Conveyance by Road of Military Explosives Regulations 1977, attendants are provided for each driver, or, where there is an organised convoy, in the leading, last and every fifth vehicle.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what arrangements are made to ensure that drivers of ammunition lorries at the Caerwent base are sober and in a fit condition to drive before their vehicles are loaded at the base, Newport docks or other loading centres.

  Mr. Freeman
  The authorised explosives representative at the site is responsible for ensuring that ammunition is handled in accordance with the provisions of the Conveyance by Road of Military Explosives Regulations 1977.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if lorries transporting ammunition from the Caerwent base are escorted by military personnel.

  Mr. Freeman
  No.

  Drinking Clubs
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will review arrangements for the establishment and regulation of drinking clubs on Royal Air Force bases including the admission of civilian personnel.

  Mr. Freeman
  Bar facilities are limited to the provision of officers' messes, sergeants' messes, junior ranks' clubs and in certain cases civilian canteens. These are well regulated and arrangements are kept under local review. The admission of civilian personnel to service facilities is only by invitation and is subject to strict control of local commanders.

  Ammunition (Storage and Handling)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what checks are carried out to ensure that personnel responsible for the storage and handling of ammunition are not working under the influence of alcohol.

  Mr. Freeman
  The handling of military explosives is strictly regulated. Unit standing orders specify that no person under the influence of alcohol is to be allowed to enter ammunition storage or handling areas. The transportation of military explosives is also strictly regulated (Statutory Instrument 1977 No. 888—Conveyance by Road of Military Explosives Regulations 1977) and imposes similar restrictions in relation to vehicles.

  Benbecula (Visit)
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the purpose of the visit of a group of United States military officers to Benbecula on 15 February.

  Mr. Freeman
  Two United States military officers from HQ 3rd air force transited through Benbecula on 15 February following their visit to a joint RN/RAF exercise in the north atlantic area.

  Low-flying Aircraft
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what is the minimum height at which Royal Air Force aircraft are permitted to fly over land in Cyprus;

  (2) what is the minimum height at which Royal Air Force aircraft are permitted to fly over land in Belize;

  (3) what is the minimum height at which Royal Air Force aircraft are permitted to fly over land in the Falkland Islands.

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: RAF aircraft are stationed in Cyprus, Belize and the Falkland Islands for operational rather than training purposes. It is not our practice to comment on operational details.

  Aircraft Accidents
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the rate of major accidents per 10,000 flying hours, in each year since 1971, for(a) Royal Air Force fast jet aircraft, and (b) all British military fast jet aircraft.

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer 31 March 1988]: Since 1971, the major accident rates for fast jet aircraft of the Royal Air Force have been as follows:

  Fast·Jet Cat. 4/5 Accident Rate Per 10.000 Flying Hours

  Year

  Rate

  1971

  2·35

  1972

  1·89

  1973

  1·21

  1974

  1·19

  1975

  1·10

  1976

  1·21

  1977

  0·80

  1978

  0·90

  1979

  1·49

  1980

  1·13

  1981

  1·28

  1982

  1·22

  1983

  1·25

  1984

  0·86

  1985

  0·73

  1986

  0·58

  1987

  0·84

  The major accident rates since 1971 for all Royal Air Force aircraft are as follows:—

  Year

  Major accident rate per 10.000 flying hours

  1971

  0·66

  1972

  0·46

  1973

  0·51

  1974

  0·32

  1975

  0·45

  1976

  0·58

  1977

  0·34

  1978

  0.49

  1979

  0.52

  1980

  0·48

  1981

  0·50

  1982

  0·49

  1983

  0·46

  335

  Year

  Major accident rate per 10,000 flying hours

  1984

  0·38

  1985

  0·33

  1986

  0·31

  1987

  0·28

  336
  Tri-service information of this kind is not recorded centrally and could not be obtained without disproportionate cost and effort.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Green Pound
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of the green pound in the light of the intended fiscal harmony within the EEC in 1992.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The completion of a single Community market for agricultural products by 1992 requires removal of monetary compensatory amounts which are applied in agricultural trade. I have told the Agriculture Council that it would be appropriate to take a measured step in that direction in the context of the 1988 price fixing.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The provisional figure for expenditure in 1987–88 is £44.000.

  Milk (Hormones)
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to prevent growth hormones being used to boost milk yields; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I see no justification for such steps.

  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has about the health consequences for milk consumers of additional fat in milk stemming from the use of growth hormones in dairy cattle; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I understand that the fat content of milk over a whole lactation from dairy cows treated with bovine somatotropin lies within the range of fat content of milk from untreated dairy cows.

  Surplus Food
  Mr. O'Brien
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what responses he has received from organisations which wish to take advantage of the European Community scheme for distributing surplus food; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: I shall be making an announcement soon.

  Green Pound
  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to have achieved a 9 per cent. devaluation of the green pound; what steps he proposes to take to reduce the competitive disadvantages currently suffered by British farmers within the EEC; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: Devaluations of green currencies are generally best made in the context of the annual price fixing, when their effect
  338
  on consumers and taxpayers, as well as on farmers, can be properly assessed. I have made it clear to the Agriculture Council that some devaluation is justified in the current price-fixing and will be pressing for it. In the pigmeat sector, where MCAs are creating rather than preventing distortions, I am pressing for the abolition of our MCAs, but there are conflicting views within the Council and this will not be easy to achieve.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State For Northern Ireland how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Stanley
  £247,882 was spent by the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Departments.

  School Assemblies
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under what direction or regulation the state schools in Northern Ireland have been given the authority to hold, during their assemblies, a public signing of the peace pledge organised by the "Choose Life Campaign"; and if he will make a statement.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: No directions have been issued to schools on the matter, nor is it covered by any regulation.

  Rallies
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) under what direction or regulation the divisional youth offices of the Northern Ireland education and library boards have been given authority to provide transport to a "Choose Life" rally in the King's hall, Belfast, on 23 April;

  (2) what is his policy towards the provision of free transport by education and library boards for attendance at rallies to be addressed by persons who have made public statements accusing the security forces of murder; and if he will make a statement.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 15 April 1988]: The provision of transport in the circumstances described is a matter for decision by individual education and library boards.

SOCIAL SERVICES

  Road Accidents
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether his Department has made any studies of the cost to the National Health Service of transport-related accidents.

  Mrs. Currie
  No specific study of these costs has been carried out, but the Department does form an estimate of the likely annual cost of treating casualties of road traffic accidents. The latest available estimate (England 1985) puts the cost at £124 million.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Gordon Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people will receive reduced
  339
  housing benefit or no housing benefit as a result of the changes in social security on 11 April because of (a) the rise in the rent taper from 60 to 65 per cent, (b) the 20 per cent. contribution to rates, (c) the £6,000 capital rule, (d) the changes to non-dependant deductions and (e) other changes, broken down into (i) two-parent families with children, (ii) one-parent families with children, (iii) pensioners, (iv) young single people under 25 years and (iv) others;

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what are his latest estimates of the number of households and global sums concerned in the recent changes in social security benefit in respect of(a) the number of households who will be required to pay an additional contribution to rates, (b) the median sum concerned and (c) the global additional national sum for which affected householders will be now liable;

  (2) if he will state in respect of the recent and immediately forthcoming changes in social security benefits (a) the number of households who, other than any increased contributions to the rates, will be disadvantaged, (b) the median sum per household and (c) the total national global reduction for those concerned in (a) above.

  Mr. Portillo
  Answers to these questions in the form requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will indicate the latest number of losers as a result of changes in housing benefit in each local authority area in England.

  Mr. Portillo
  I regret that the information is not available.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will break down the £650 million to be saved on housing benefit into claimant categories of (i) families with children, (ii) pensioners, (iii) young single people under 25 years and (iv) others; and what proportion of the savings is due to the 20 per cent. contribution to rates in each case.

  Mr. Portillo
  We estimate that the requirement for ratepayers to pay a minimum of 20 per cent. of domestic rates saves some two thirds of the total housing benefit saving of £650 million. It is not possible to break these figures down by claimant categories.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost of raising the level of savings under which housing benefit is payable to £10,000 on the assumption that(a) the rules for other benefits are unaltered, (b) the interest actually received on savings and not an arbitrarily assumed return is used in assessing benefit and (c) no change is made to the rule that those with savings of under £3,000 receive benefit in full.

  Mr. Portillo
  Of the order of £60 million.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of those receiving housing benefit in each of the last three years had(a) no savings, (b) savings of under £3,000, (c) savings of £3,000 and under £6,000, (d) savings of £6,000 and under £10,000 and (e) savings of over £10,000.

  Mr. Portillo
  I regret that we hold no data on the capital holdings of those who have received housing benefit over 340
  the last three years. Government estimates of the effects of the new capital rule are based on extrapolations from the family expenditure survey.

  Bronchitis and Emphysema
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has now received the reports of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council investigations into the possible extension of bronchitis and emphysema as industrial diseases; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eadie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to have the report from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council dealing with the prescription of chronic bronchitis and emphysema as an industrial disease; and whether he intends to ensure it is published without delay.

  Mr. Scott
  I refer the hon. Members to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) and the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) on 14 March 1988 at column 472.

  Nurses
  Mr. Prescott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how his Department calculates the number of nurses registered with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting who are not currently practising nursing, and who are to be targeted in the campaign to recruit and retain nurses launched on Thursday 24 March.

  Mr. Newton
  An analysis has been carried out of the live register of United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC), concentrating particularly on those nurses, midwives and health visitors who have confirmed or updated their registration details, but not paid the new periodic fee. The rationale for concentrating on this group is that, while their non-payment of the fee implies that they are not working in nursing, their desire to maintain a correct record of their registration particulars suggests the possibility of their availability for nursing work at a later date or if work become available to suit their personal circumstances. The UKCC estimates there will be a United Kingdom total of 85,000 people in this category once the periodic fee exercise is complete. The UKCC has advised district health authorities of the service it is able to provide in forwarding recruitment literature to this group of people.

  Oldham Home-making Scheme
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received from Oldham metropolitan borough concerning the Oldham home-making scheme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  We have received representations about the delay in RHA funding for this scheme. It was one of a number considered by the RHA against its target of resettling a record level of 150 patients in the community in 1988–89. I understand that three schemes for Salford, Bolton and Manchester have been given priority for this year with other schemes including the Oldham home-making scheme remaining under consideration for funding in subsequent years.

  Age Allowance
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the value in 1971 money of the 25p age allowance for those aged over 80 years, which was introduced in 1971.

  Mr. Scott
  At 1971 prices, the 25p age addition is currently worth five pence.

  Nursing Homes
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he has taken to(a) ensure that health authorities and social services departments were made aware of the fact that from 11 April elderly people will no longer have access to private nursing homes until their own homes have been sold; and (b) increase funds for community care provision to cater for the increased number of elderly people who need nursing care and have to remain at home.

  Mr. Portillo
  It is not necessary for a person to sell his home before entering private care. However, when he takes up permanent residence in a residential care home or nursing home he will not be entitled to income support if the net value of his former home together with any other capital goods he has exceeds £6,000. The value of the previous home will he disregarded in certain circumstances including if it is occupied by the person's partner.

  The need for additional community services should not arise and there was no need to consult social services or health authorities.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what discussions he has had with the major clearing banks regarding the availability of loans for persons needing immediate access to capital locked up in their home for use to pay nursing home fees, in the light of the withdrawal under the new social security regulations of loans from his Department for this purpose.

  Mr. Portillo
  We have written to all the major clearing banks. They have assured us that loans will be made available in these circumstances, subject to the normal conditions.

  Local Offices (Partitions)
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the total cost of strengthening partitions in public sections in his Department's offices in Bradford south and west; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  Work to strengthen partitions has been carried out only at Bradford, south local office and this cost £309·75.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the total cost of strengthening partitions in public sections of his Department's offices in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  This information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  There has been no change in the Department's policy with regard to the level of protection provided for staff. Local office managers have responsibility for deciding the appropriate level of protection, in consultation with their local staff and trade unions.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Moore
  Estimated expenditure on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88 is £86,250. In addition, the Department spent £56,235 in its role as host to the world summit on AIDS.

  Supplementary Benefit
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his latest estimate of the number of people on supplementary benefit broken down into (i) claimants, (ii) dependants, (iii) children and (iv) families with children.

  Mr. Portillo
  In February 1986, the latest date for which information is available, the position was as follows:

  Number

  Claimants

  4,938,000

  Partners

  1,127,000

  Children under 16 years

  2,123,000

  Other dependants

  104.000

  Families with children under 16 years

  1,137,000

  Source: Annual Statistical Enquiry.

  Industrial Death Benefit
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services for what reasons he has decided to withdraw future payments to widows in respect of industrial death benefit; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Buchan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the withdrawal of industrial death benefit from widows to whom it was awarded before April 1988, in the light of his Department's social security notes of February 1988, which stated that in existing cases payment would continue.

  Mr. Scott
  Industrial death benefit has been abolished in respect of deaths occurring on or after 11 April 1988. In these cases, industrial widows will have access to the same weekly benefits as national insurance widows, including the tax-free lump sum of £1,000, where appropriate, but they will not have to satisfy the contribution conditions. Where an industrial death occurred before 11 April 1988, industrial death benefit will still be payable, though its higher weekly rate has been aligned with that of national insurance widows' pension. This has entailed removal of the industrial preference of 55p a week. However, people in receipt of industrial death benefit will retain the important right to receive other benefits based on their own contributions (for example, retirement pension) on top of their death benefit. The reasons for these changes were set out in a consultation paper on the industrial injuries scheme, issued by the Department in December 1985, and were based on the proposals contained in the 1981 White Paper "Reform of the Industrial Injuries Scheme" Cmnd. 8402.

  National Insurance
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the total amount collected from
  343
  (a) employers and (b) employees in national insurance contributions in the last financial year; and what amount from these contributions went into the National Health Service funds.

  Mr. Portillo
  The information is as follows :

  Estimated receipts1 from Class 1 National Insurance Contributions in 1987–88 (Great Britain)

  £ million

  Estimated receipts

  Allocated to National Health Service

  (a) Employers

  213,700

  1,250

  (b) Employees

  12,600

  1,350

  1 Provisional estimated outturn.

  2 Net of Statutory Sick Pay and Statutory Maternity Pay deductions of £950 million.

  Social Fund
  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what local contingency arrangements have been made in the Port Talbot and Neath local offices of his Department in the event of the office's social fund budgets being exhausted before the end of the 1988–89 financial year.

  Mr. Portillo
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) on 4 March at column 746.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the 1988–89 social fund budget for his Department's offices serving the London borough of Barnet.

  Mr. Scott
  The local offices serving the London borough of Barnet are Barnet, Edgware, Hendon, Highgate, Neasden and Wood Green. Information on their social fund allocations for 1988–89 was contained in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) on 4 November at columns 774–81.

  Pensioner Households (Expenditure)
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what surveys have been undertaken to discover the extent to which pensioner households have different expenditure patterns from those of other households.

  Mr. Scott
  The annual family expenditure survey measures the income and expenditure patterns of a nationally representative sample of households, and the results, which are published, are broken down between pensioner and non-pensioner households.

  Social Security Upratings
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will make it his policy to use the all-items retail prices index to uprate income support at future social security upratings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  We will announce our decisions concerning the uprating of income support at the time of the general uprating statement in the autumn.

  Expenditure
  Mr. Gordon Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table showing the real increase in expenditure in social security between 1978–79 and 1987–88 broken down into the main reasons for the increase on the same basis as contained in the "Government's Expenditure Plans 1987–88 to 1989–90", volume II, 3.15, paragraph 39.

  Mr. Scott
  Over the period 1978–79 to 1987–88 the social security programme increased by £13 billion (at 1987–88 prices) or by 39 per cent. in real terms. The main
  reasons for the increase were:

  (i) £4 billion due to real increases in the average amounts of benefit paid (whether due to changes in the basic rates of benefit or other factors)

  (ii) £3·75 billion due to increased numbers of unemployed people receiving benefits

  (iii) £2·5 billion due to increased numbers of retirement pensioners

  (iv) £2·25 billion due to increased numbers receiving disability benefits

  (v) £1·5 billion due to increased numbers of single parents receiving benefits

  (vi) £0·75 billion reflecting the increased costs of administering a larger number of claims for benefits offset by reductions of:

  (vii) £1 billion reflecting the introduction of statutory sick pay and a decrease in the incidence of short term sickness.

  (viii) £0·75 billion from reductions in the numbers of widows and children and in the numbers of women receiving maternity benefits.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the current numbers of people waiting for (i) urgent and (ii) non-urgent operations in each specialty in the Leicestershire district health authority.

  Mr. Newton
  The latest available information is given in the table. The September 1987 waiting list figures are being compiled and will be published as soon as possible. Following the recommendations of the steering group on the health services information, the classification of cases as urgent or non-urgent has been dropped, and much more detailed information about waiting times will be available.
  345

  Patients on in-patient waiting list at 31 March 1987 District health authority: Leicestershire

  Specialty

  Total

  Numbers Urgent cases

  Numbers Non-urgent cases

  All

  On list more than one month

  All

  On list more than one year

  Percentage non-urgent cases on list more than one year as percentage of total

  General medicine

  6

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Paediatrics

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Thoracic medicine

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Dermatology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Neurology

  11

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Cardiology

  183

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Rehabilitation

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Genito-urinary medicine

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Rheumatology

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Geriatrics

  10

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Units for younger disabled

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  General surgery

  928

  —

  —

  —

  44

  4·7

  Ear, nose and throat

  1,553

  —

  —

  —

  195

  12·6

  Traumatic and orthopaedic

  1,340

  —

  —

  —

  218

  16·3

  Ophthalmology

  727

  —

  —

  —

  29

  4·0

  Radiotherapy

  14

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Urology

  452

  —

  —

  —

  7

  1·5

  Plastic surgery

  1,091

  —

  —

  —

  568

  52·1

  Thoracic surgery

  446

  —

  —

  —

  22

  4·9

  Oral surgery

  260

  —

  —

  —

  30

  11·5

  Orthodontics

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Neurosurgery

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Gynaecology

  1,151

  —

  —

  —

  10

  0·9

  Psychiatry children

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Mental handicap

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Mental illness

  15

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Adolescent psychiatry units

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  G. P. other

  9

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  G. P. dental

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Accident and emergency

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Anaesthetics

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Audiological medicine

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Cardiac surgery

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Child assessment unit

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Endocrinology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Forensic psychiatry

  10

  —

  —

  —

  1

  10·0

  Gastroenterology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Haematology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Medical oncology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Nephrology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Paediatric surgery

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Pathology

  0

  —

  —

  —.

  —

  0·0

  Psychogeriatric

  68

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1·5

  Radiology

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Restorative dentistry

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Spinal injuries unit

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Paediatric dentistry

  0

  —

  —

  —.

  —

  0·0

  Other

  0

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0·0

  Surgical specialties—sub-total

  7,962

  —

  —

  —

  1,123

  14·1

  All specialties—total

  8,278

  —

  —

  —

  1,125

  13·6

  Consultants
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what information he has on the proportion up to 10 per cent. of National Health Service salaries earned by consultants from private practice.

  Mr. Newton
  This information is not collected centrally.

  AIDS
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects his Department to publish Dr. Joe Smith's report on monitoring HIV infection; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  As I said in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) on 9 February at column 168, we propose to publish this report. I cannot yet give a precise date, but expect it to be fairly shortly.

  Yorkshire RHAs
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the financial position at the end of the first half of the current budgetary year of each of the 17 Yorkshire regional health authority districts, together with the four districts in South Yorkshire covered by the Trent regional health authority.

  Mr. Newton
  Both the initial allocation of funds and the release of funds to DHAs during the year are the responsibility of the regional health authority concerned. The hon. Member may therefore wish to contact the chairmen of the Yorkshire and Trent RHAs for details of the allocations for 1988–89. At the same time, she may wish to discuss arrangements for receiving details regarding districts mid year financial positions when they become available.

  Disregard Threshold
  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost of raising the disregard threshold for social security benefits from £6,000 to £10,000.

  Mr. Portillo
  £70 million, assuming that the tariff income begins at £3,000.

  Doctors' Pay
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on doctors' pay.

  Mr. Newton
  The hon. Member must await the publication of the report of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration.

  Adjudication Officers' Guide
  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services when the adjudication officers' guide will be published; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  [pursuant to his reply, 31 March 1988, c. 661–621 In addition to the adjudication officer's guide, the third annual report of the Chief Adjudication Officer is being published today and copies have been placed in the Library. It provides information on the standards of social security adjudication. I thank the CAO for his detailed report and I welcome the recognition that the new income support scheme and other aspects of the reform of social security should lead to an improvement in adjudication standards.

  National Health Service Building Programme
  Mr. Knox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the National Health Service capital expenditure projects, costing more than £1 million, which have been completed in the Staffordshire, Moorlands parliamentary constituency during the past 14 years and those projected in the next five years.

  Mrs. Currie
  [pursuant to her reply, 12 April 1988, c. 81]I am sorry that my earlier reply was incomplete.

  The information requested is as follows:

  Completed schemes:

  New Cheadle geriatric unit—completed July 1987—cost £5 million.

  348
  Projected schemes:

  Leek Moorlands hospital redevelopment— estimated completion date 1989—cost £2·079 million.

  Biddulph Neighbourhood hospital— estimated completion date 1993—cost £1·65 million.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Jamaica and Windward Islands
  Mr. Sackville
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received about bilateral trade agreements with Jamaica and the Windward Islands.

  Mr. Maude
  None.

  Space
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) what progress has been made in identifying a new director general for the British National Space Centre; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what is the Government's policy on the RADARSAT and Columbus space station projects; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps he is taking to review the position of British participation in European space ventures; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The Government have considered carefully the options for the Columbus polar platform and RADARSAT earth observation projects. I am pleased to announce that we shall be proposing today to our European Space Agency partners that the United Kingdom should take a leading role in the polar platform. This represents a sensible next step, based on our consistent policy of supporting earth observation, where a commercial market can be developed through the acquisition and processing of data for sale to end users. We joined the ERS-1 project under ESA in March 1982; ERS- I is due to be launched in 1990. I announced on 10 February 1988, at column 250, our decision to establish a new Earth observation data centre at Farnborough costing an additional £20 million. We are now set to proceed with our next major project, the polar platform, at a cost, including the associated instrumentation, of over £250 million during the next 10 years.

  I am also pleased to announce that industry will be contributing up to £5 million of the cost of the polar platform. This demonstrates in the clearest possible way British industry's support for our decision and its confidence in the longer-term commercial prospects.

  Having decided to enter Columbus, the Government will not be entering the Canadian RADARSAT project. RADARSAT is a good project and we have spent £4·5 million examining it carefully, but it is essentially a one-off project on a smaller scale than Columbus and we would not have offered as good a base for commercial exploitation. To pursue both Columbus and RADARSAT would involve expensive parallel development of different platforms. We expect to receive most of the information RADARSAT would provide through our membership of ERS-1 and Columbus.

  Over the last 10 months, we have been urged to enter a wide range of space projects which would have cost the

  349
  taxpayer well over £1 billion in total. I believe that I have now made a sensible choice to join those projects which offer the best value for money for the British taxpayer and British industry. We have also appointed a new director general for the British National Space Centre. He is Mr. Arthur Pryor, a senior official in my Department. One of his main tasks will be to work closely with industry in order to maximise returns from our new investment in the polar platform.

  Tyneside City Action Team
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what has been the annual expenditure of the Tyneside city action team for 1985–86, 1986–87 the half year to October 1987, indicating the amounts which have been spent on(a) research and development, (b) enterprise agencies, (c) advice and consultancy to small businesses, (d) grants to service and (e) grants to manufacturing industry.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The city action team based in Newcastle comprises the regional directors of my Department, the Department of Employment and Department of the Environment. Expenditure by the three Departments in the area of CAT for the period requested by the hon. Member was :

  Year

  Amount £

  1985–86

  109,181,000

  1986–87

  162,501,000

  April to October 1987

  84,728,000

  Expenditure in the categories requested was as follows:

  £000s

  1985–86

  1986–87

  April-October 1987

  Research and Development

  50

  73

  27

  Enterprise Agencies

  nil

  100

  87

  Advice and Consultancyto small businesses

  2,347

  3,138

  1,385

  Grants to service industry

  1,394

  2,204

  2,503

  Grants to manufacturing industry

  24,968

  52,215

  25,871

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what liaison arrangements he has established between the Northern industrial development advisory board, the Tyneside city action team and the Tyne and Wear urban development corporation.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The main task of the North Eastern industrial development advisory board is to advise on applications for regional selective assistance under section 7 of the Industrial Development Act 1982 and on industrial opportunities in the region. The regional director attends the board and is also a member of the city action team. The city action team also works closely with the Tyne and Wear urban development corporation through a system of regular meetings.

  South Africa
  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps he is taking to ensure that United Nations Security Council resolution 558 is being respected within Britain.
  350
  Mr. Maude
  We implement fully the terms of the
  voluntary United Nations Council Resolution 558 of 1984.

  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of
  Lancaster if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy on the advertisement of South African-manufactured arms in British publications.

  Mr. Butcher
  The Government are not aware of such
  advertisements. However, we operate a strict and rigorously controlled embargo on the import of arms, ammunition, military vehicles and paramilitary equipment from South Africa.

  Engagements
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list his official engagements in the County Palatine since he assumed office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  I have undertaken seven official engagements in the County Palatine since 1 assumed the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, twice in my capacity as Chancellor, as follows :

  14 July 1987 pm
  Minister of State engagement : Keynote speech and panel discussion at the Alvey Conference, university of Manchester institute of science and technology, Manchester.

  24 July 1987 am
  Chancellor of the Duchy engagement : Chancellor, Mrs. Clarke, Mr. Smith (Principal Private Secretary) and Mrs. Smith joined Her Majesty the Queen for lunch at Crewe Hall Farm, Cheshire.

  24 July 1987 pm
  Minister of State engagement : Launch of Preston task force at Preston town hall. Accompanied by Mr. Atkins.
  Chancellor of the Duchy engagement : Attendance at Magistrate's Association annual summer training conference round-up dinner at Lancaster university, keynote speaker right hon. Douglas Hurd, MP.

  9 October 1987 pm
  Minister of State engagement : BBC Radio 4's "Any Questions Panel" in Liverpool.

  19 February 1988
  Political engagements: Meeting with Manchester action committee (St. James' Club, Manchester); tour of Salford quays; Cheadle Conservative association champagne buffet and reception (Bramhall).

  26 February 1988 am
  Inner cities visit: accompanied Prime Minister for launch of information technology institute at Salford university; opening of Campbell's new manufacturing facility at Salford quays.

  14 June 1988
  Inner cities visit : Inner cities working breakfast in Liverpool. Accompanied by Mr. Trippier. Opportunities for other Liverpool inner city/regional engagements to be added as the Minister wishes.

  13 July 1988 (notified to DTI-NW am 15 April 1988)
  Inner cities visit : Opening new premises at Plastics (Manchester) Limited in Levenshulme. Mr. Clarke has also agreed to open Hoskyn Group Plc's new premises in Sale. Again, opportunities for other Manchester/ Salford inner city or regional engagements to be added, as the Minister wishes.

  Regional Development Grant
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the amounts of regional development grants in Lancashire in each year since 1975; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  It is not possible to provide figures in respect of the "old" regional development grant scheme because information was not maintained by individual areas.

  The following regional development grants have been offered to businesses in the west Lancashire district, which is the area in Lancashire with development area status and eligible for regional development grant :

  £

  1984–85

  12,000

  1985–86

  1,405,422

  1986–87

  2,742,827

  1987–88

  7,150,822

  Burton Group
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) when he estimates his Department will complete the section 447 investigation into the Burton Group; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he has considered ordering a section 432 investigation into the Burton Group's takeover of Debenham; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  Inquiries under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985 into Burtons are in progress, as the company has itself stated. Beyond that I cannot comment.

  Takeovers
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he has considered ordering a section 432 investigation into the Guinness Group takeover of Bells; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  The inspectors appointed on 28 November 1986 to investigate the affairs and membership of Guinness may inquire into this matter to the extent that they consider necessary.

  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will institute an inquiry into whether any two or more of(a) the following persons, Roger Seelig, Anthony Parnes, Lord Spens, David Mayhew, Gerald Ronson and Sir Jack Lyons and (b) the companies Morgan Grenfell or Cazenove have been involved jointly in any takeover other than Guinness's takeover of Distillers within the past five years.

  Mr. Maude
  No.

  Enterprise Initiative
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what his Department intends to spend on promoting the enterprise initiative in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Expenditure by my Department on promoting the enterprise initiative during 1987–88 totalled £6·8 million.

TRANSPORT

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to meet the chairman of British Rail to discuss British Rail's investment proposals under section 40 of the Channel Tunnel Act.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Not at this stage. BR is not required to publish its section 40 plan until the end of 1989. It intends to use the time to consult widely with interested parties in the regions.

  Accident Statistics
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many people were injured on the roads in 1987.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Too many.

  The number of casualties in 1987 is provisionally estimated at 308,000. This is the lowest number recorded in any year since 1958. Motor traffic has increased by 380 per cent. since 1958. The provisional estimate of the number of deaths, at 5,110, is the lowest since 1954. The number of pedestrians killed is the lowest since records began in 1926.

  A full breakdown of the provisional estimates is given in statistical bulletin No. [88]10 which is available in the Library.

  Metropolitan Counties
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent discussions he has had with bus operators in metropolitan county areas.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I met a delegation of public transport company managing directors from the metropolitan areas on 22 September 1987. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, also met representatives of the Bus and Coach Council on 22 February of this year. From time to time I meet various operators to keep myself informed as the benefits of deregulation unfold.

  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what change there has been in the number of passengers using bus services in the metropolitan counties following bus deregulation.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  In 1986–87, the latest date for which figures are available, bus patronage in the metropolitan areas outside London declined by 12 per cent. over the previous year.

  Air Traffic Control
  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the ability of United Kingdom air traffic control to handle the volume of traffic expected during the summer months.

  Mr. Channon
  The Civil Aviation Authority tells me that the national air traffic services will be able to handle the traffic expected this summer, subject to peak hour flow management.

  Railways (Overcrowding)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has as to which rail lines are currently subject to particular overcrowding.

  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has as to which rail lines are currently subject to particular overcrowding.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) on 29 March at column 455.

  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will publish all information he has on overcrowding on trains.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  1 have asked the board to set out, in its annual report and accounts, progress towards achievement of its quality of service objectives which, for network South East, include load factor standards.

  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has discussed with the chairman of British Rail the problem of overcrowding on trains; and if he will make a statement.

  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has discussed with the chairman of British Rail the problem of overcrowding on trains; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has discussed with the chairman of British Rail the problem of overcrowding on trains; and if he will make a statement.

  Dr. Moonie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has discussed with the chairman of British Rail the problem of overcrowding on trains; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will ask the chairman of British Rail to meet him to discuss overcrowding on trains.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I meet the chairman regularly to discuss matters of mutual interest including, from time to time, quality of service.

  Road Transport (Driving Hours)
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the proposed European Economic Community regulation to amend the permitted driving hours in road transport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We still await a formal proposal from the European Commission to amend the drivers' hours regulations.

  Transport Safety
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to seek to increase his enforcement powers in relation to transport safety.

  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to seek to increase his powers to enforce safety standards on foreign companies operating within the United Kingdom.
  354
  Mr. Channon
  The safe movement of people and goods is one of my top priorities irrespective of whether the operator is British or foreign. Effective enforcement of safety standards is an essential and regular part of that. I keep my powers for this purpose under regular review but have no immediate plans to seek to increase them.

  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to provide funding specifically for improvements in transport safety.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Transport safety is one of our main priorities. A large part of the resources the Department provides are directed to maintaining and improving it.

  Ms. Quinn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy that safety should be a higher priority than financial cost in making regulations concerning transport policy.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The main reasons why we make transport regulations are to ensure safety and provide environmental protection. When drawing up regulations, we also take account of convenience and the efficient use of resources.

  British Rail
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the chairman of British Rail; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  My right hon. Friend last met the chairman of British Rail on 28 March. A variety of railway matters were discussed.

  Road Accidents
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many deaths have occurred in transport related incidents in the United Kingdom in the past year.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The number of deaths in transport accidents in Great Britain during the period July 1986 to June 1987, the most recently available 12 months, was 5,860.

  These statistics are obtained from death registration data and include all transport-related accidental deaths.

  Approximately 95 per cent. of these accidents are accounted for by road accidents. The remaining accidents are accounted for by rail, sea and air accidents.

  Departmental Staff (Safety Matters)
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he intends to increase staffing levels for safety-related matters within his Department.

  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what percentage of all staff in his Department are employed to improve safety standards in transport.

  Mr. McTaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff in his Department are employed solely to enforce or improve safety standards in transport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Fostering and improving transport safety is one of the objectives of the Department and is of concern to all staff. Some groups with particular responsibilities for supervision and enforcement are:
  355

  Number

  Railways inspectorate

  37

  Surveyor generals organisation

  407

  HM Coastguard

  569

  Driver testing and training

  1,715

  Road safety policy and vehicle standards and engineering

  92

  Vehicle inspectorate

  1,550

  Vehicle components approval

  70

  Air accidents investigation branch

  41

  Many of the 628 staff at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory are directly engaged on safety improvement research, and a major part of the work of the 5,401 staff at DVLC is concerned with documentation required for road safety purposes.

  Road Haulage Cabotage
  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last discussed road haulage cabotage with other EEC Transport Ministers.

  Mr. Channon
  On 16 December last year, at the Transport Council in Brussels.

  Subsidiary

  Date of sale

  Purchaser

  1

  National Holidays Ltd.

  14 July 1986

  Pleasurama PLC

  2

  Devon General Ltd.

  19 August 1986

  Management

  3

  Badgerline Ltd.

  23 September 1986

  Management

  4

  The Southern Vectis Omnibus Co. Ltd.

  7 October 1986

  Management

  5

  Cheltenham and Gloucester Omnibus Co. Ltd.

  31 October 1986

  Management

  6

  Maidstone and District Motor Services Ltd.

  7 November 1986

  Management

  7

  Cambus Ltd.

  5 December 1986

  Management

  8

  PMT Ltd.

  15 December 1986

  Management

  9

  South Midland Ltd.

  19 December 1986

  Management

  10

  Midland Red (West) Ltd.

  22 December 1986

  Management

  11

  Midland Red Coaches Ltd.

  22 December 1986

  Management

  12

  The Eastern National Omnibus Co. Ltd.

  23 December 1986

  Management

  13

  Trent Motor Traction Company Ltd.

  30 December 1986

  Management

  14

  City of Oxford Motor Services Ltd.

  15 January 1987

  Management

  15

  The Yorkshire Traction Co. Ltd.

  28 January 1987

  Management

  16

  West Riding Automobile Co. Ltd.

  29 January 1987

  Management

  17

  National Travel (East) Ltd.

  29 January 1987

  ATL Holdings Ltd.

  18

  East Yorkshire Motor Services Ltd.

  3 February 1987

  Management

  19

  Eastern Counties Omnibus Co. Ltd.

  26 February 1987

  Management

  20

  Alder Valley Engineering Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  21

  Bristol Engineering Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  22

  Carlyle Works Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  23

  Eastern National Engineering Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  24

  H & D Distribution Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  25

  Kent Engineering (NBC) Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  26

  Southdown Engineering Services Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  27

  United Counties Engineering Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  28

  East Kent Road Car Company Ltd.

  5 March 1987

  Management

  29

  Hampshire Bus Company Ltd.

  2 April 1987

  Stagecoach Ltd.

  30

  Pilgrim Coaches Ltd.

  2 April 1987

  Stagecoach Ltd.

  31

  National Welsh Omnibus Services Ltd.

  7 May 1987

  Management

  32

  Northern General Transport Co. Ltd.

  7 May 1987

  Management

  33

  Provincial Bus Company Ltd.

  8 May 1987

  Management/Employees

  34

  South Wales Transport Company Ltd.

  8 May 1987

  Management

  35

  Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Co. Ltd.

  8 May 1987

  Management

  36

  Wilts and Dorset Bus Company Ltd.

  24 June 1987

  Management

  37

  Shamrock and Rambler Coaches Ltd.

  3 July 1987

  Drawlane Ltd.

  38

  Cumberland Motor Services Ltd.

  22 July 1987

  Stagecoach Holdings Ltd.

  39

  Wessex National Ltd.

  23 July 1987

  Management

  40

  Western National Ltd.

  6 August 1987

  Plympton Coachlines

  41

  Milton Keynes City Bus Ltd.

  7 August 1987

  Management

  42

  Midland Fox Ltd.

  18 August 1987

  Management

  43

  Luton and District Transport Ltd.

  21 August 1987

  Management-Employees

  44

  West Yorkshire Road Car Company Ltd.

  25 August 1987

  Mr. Alan

  Stephenson+ Parkdale

  Holdings plc

  National Bus Company
  Mr. Roger King
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many former constituent businesses of the National Bus Company have been bought by their management; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Some 40 of the National Bus Company's 70 privatised subsidiaries were bought by management or employee teams. This excellent figure reflects our policy of spreading wealth in the community instead of concentrating it in the hands of the state.

  Mr. Robert Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list, in chronological order with sale dates, each of the National Bus Company subsidiaries sold to date, stating in each case the individual or company to whom the company was sold, and whether the sale was to a management buy-out, staff buy-out or outside bidder.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The information requested is as follows :
  357

  Subsidiary

  Date of sale

  Purchaser

  45

  Bristol Omnibus Co. Ltd.

  18 September 1987

  Midland Red West Holdings Ltd.

  46

  Voyage National SA

  23 September 1987

  Gurna Ltd.

  47

  Southdown Motor Services Ltd.

  2 October 1987

  Management

  48

  Northumbria Motor Services Ltd.

  21 October 1987

  Management

  49

  Alder Valley South Ltd.

  30 October 1987

  Frontsource Ltd.

  50

  United Counties Omnibus Company Ltd.

  18 November 1987

  Stagecoach Holdings Ltd.

  51

  United Automobile Services Ltd.

  2 December 1987

  West Riding Automobile (through Caldaire Ltd.)

  52

  Ambassador Travel (Eastern Counties) Ltd.

  4 December 1987

  Eastern Counties Omnibus Company- Management

  53

  Midland Red (South) Ltd.

  10 December 1987

  Cheltenham and Gloucester Omnibus Co. (through Western Travel Ltd.)

  54

  Berks Bucks Bus Company Ltd.

  15 December 1987

  Len Wright Travel

  55

  Hastings and District Transport Ltd.

  16 December 1987

  Management

  56

  Crosville Wales Ltd.

  21 December 1987

  Management

  57

  London Country Bus (North West) Ltd.

  5 January 1988

  Management

  58

  Midland Red (North) Ltd.

  27 January 1988

  Drawlane Ltd.

  59

  Lincolnshire Road Car Company Ltd.

  28 January 1988

  Yorkshire Traction Company Ltd.

  60

  East Midland Motor Services Ltd.

  5 February 1988

  Management

  61

  London Country Bus (South West) Ltd.

  19 February 1988

  Drawlane Ltd.- Speyhawk Land and Estates Ltd.

  62

  Gatwick Engineering Company Ltd.

  29 February 1988

  Frontsource Ltd.

  63

  Ribble Motor Services Ltd.

  2 March 1988

  Management

  64

  Kentish Bus and Coach Company Ltd.

  15 March 1988

  Northumbria Motor Services (through Proudmutual Ltd.)

  65

  North Western Road Car Company Ltd.

  16 March 1988

  Drawlane Ltd.

  66

  National Express Ltd.

  17 March 1988

  Management

  67

  National Travelworld Ltd.

  24 March 1988

  Badgerline Holdings Ltd.

  68

  Crosville Motor Services Ltd.

  25 March 1988

  ATL Holdings Ltd.

  69

  North Devon Ltd.

  29 March 1988

  Management

  70

  Southern National Ltd.

  29 March 1988

  Management

  In view of the number of people involved in these purchases it would not be practicable to list them individually. If the hon. Gentleman would like details of particular sales perhaps he would write to me.

  It should be noted that a number of management and third party sales included provision for equity participation by employees generally.

  Airline Competition
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received on the future of airline competition policy in the United Kingdom and in the European Community.

  Mr. Channon
  I have received many representations from airlines and other interests, the majority supporting competition in the provision of air transport services.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement as to the implications for airline competition of the recent statement by the European Commissioner for Transport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend welcomes the agreement reached between the European Commission and British Airways, following the merger with British Caledonian Airways. The agreement is compatible with BA's proposals accepted by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which opened up major opportunities for other United Kingdom airlines to operate services on domestic and European routes.
  358
  The Government remain committed to their policy, set out in the 1984 White Paper, of encouraging a sound competitive multi-airline industry, promoting competition in all markets, and ensuring adequate safeguards against anti-competitive behaviour.

  Nationalised Industries (Safety)
  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to seek to extend his powers to enforce safety improvements on nationalised industries.

  Mr. Channon
  None at present, but I shall be studying carefully any recommendations made by the investigation into the King's Cross fire on the monitoring and enforcement of safety provisions.

  Road Safety
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on current standards of road safety.

  Mr. Bottomley
  We are making good progress. Despite a 5 per cent. increase in traffic, last year road accident deaths were down 5 per cent., seriously injured down 8 per cent. and child pedestrian casualties down 9 per cent.

  Most road accident indicators show a decline over the last 20 years when related to the growth in traffic. We have the best road safety record in the European Community and one of the best in the world. That is no cause for complacency.
  359
  In publishing last July the report of the interdepartmental review of road safety we set the objective of accelerating the reduction in road accident casualties so as to reduce the number by one third—from 300,000 per year to 200,000—by the year 2000.

  Motorways
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what further proposals he has for motorway road construction and repairs to existing motorways.

  Mr. Channon
  We are continuing to develop and improve the motorway network. Seven schemes are currently under construction and a further 26 are in preparation with a total value of over £1 billion.

  There is a continuing programme of major structural maintenance. In 1988–89 we expect to renew some 80 miles of existing motorway.

  Network SouthEast
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the chairman of British Rail to discuss passenger safety on Network SouthEast.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I meet the chairman regularly to discuss various matters of mutual interest. At our last meeting the chairman briefed me on the recent tragic incident on the Orpington-Victoria line and on the measures that British Rail is considering in the light of that.

  Passenger Transport Authorities'
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the chairmen of the passenger transport authorities; and what subjects were discussed.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  My right hon. Friend saw chairmen of the passenger transport authorities on 13 July 1987 to discuss precept control. Since then, I have seen the chairmen of some of the authorities to discuss their individual expenditure levels and precept limits; the chairman of the West Yorkshire passenger transport authority also led a delegation of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities which called on me on 2 March to make representations about the proposed change of the passenger transport authorities from precepting to billing authorities.

  Manchester Airport
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next intends to visit Manchester airport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend has no immediate plans for a visit.

  Motorways (Speed Limits)
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what percentage of motorway traffic he estimates exceeds the mandatory speed limit.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  A national speed survey was carried out in 1987 and the results were published in January. This showed :360

  Percentage exceeding limit

  1987

  1983

  (a) Vehicle subject to 70 mph

  Cars

  36

  40

  Two-wheeled motor vehicles

  50

  47

  Buses and coaches

  9

  31

  Vans

  22

  19

  Minibuses

  12

  22

  (b) Vehicles subject to 60 mph

  HGVs—Rigid

  21

  30

  HGVs—Articulated

  22

  50

  (c) Vehicles subject to 50 mph when survey taken in 1983, now 60 mph

  Car towing

  7

  64

  Although the proportion exceeding the 70 mph limit on motorways has fallen, there has regrettably been no decrease in the proportion exceeding 75 mph.

  London Underground
  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when his Department last made a study of the threat to passenger safety caused by the danger of fires on the London Underground.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Fire is one of the risks to passenger safety that is monitored by the Department's Railway Inspectorate. Specific studies of this risk were made in connection with the inspectorate's formal inquiries into the underground fires at Finsbury Park (1976), Goodge Street (1981) and Bounds Green (1982). Published reports are available on these inquiries. Following the fire at Oxford Circus in 1984, London Underground Limited and the London fire brigade carried out a joint inquiry. The inspectorate has monitored the implementation of the inquiries' recommendations, which address wider issues of fire safety generally on the underground. The inspectorate also studies the reports of the annual fire prevention inspections carried out by the London fire brigade. Where new work is concerned, such as the Heathrow extension, the inspectorate requires an assurance that the fire authority is satisfied as to fire precautions before the works are opened to the public.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on safety standards on the London Underground.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Safety standards on the London underground are primarily the responsibility of London Regional Transport. LRT and London Underground Ltd. have a statutory duty to observe the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act and, where applicable, they are also required to observe my Department's published railway construction and operation requirements. The chief inspecting officer of railways provides an annual commentary on the underground's safety record in his reports on railway safety in Great Britain, copies of which are in the Library. The record has been generally satisfactory. It would be wrong for me to make any comments on matters that are currently under investigation as a result of the King's Cross fire.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to meet the chairman of London Regional Transport to discuss the performance of London Underground Limited.
  361
  Mr. David Mitchell
  My right hon. Friend and I meet the chairman of London Regional Transport from time to time as and when the need arises.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has about the reduction in numbers and percentage of employees of London Underground Ltd. in the regional and telecommunications departments since 1984; what authorisations he has given to such reductions; and if any reference to such changes has been made by Her Majesty's inspectors of railways.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Staffing both in aggregate and in particular departments is a matter for the boards of London Regional Transport and London Underground Ltd. The Department has no information about staffing levels in the areas referred to. Changes in those levels would not need to be referred to the Department in general or the railways inspectorate in particular.

  Central London
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has for controlling the amount of traffic entering central London.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  There are no plans for direct control of the amount of traffic entering central London.

  Concessionary Bus Fares
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will now seek to introduce a national concessionary bus fare scheme for pensioners; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  No. It is for local authorities to decide what arrangements to make for concessionary travel in their areas, and how to help elderly people most effectively within the resources available to them.

  Air Traffic (Delays)
  Mr. Batiste
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action he will take to reduce delays for air travellers flying from London's airports.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him on Monday 28 March at column 355. The Government seek to discharge their functions at the London airports with the same efficiency as at other airports.

  Vehicle Seat Belts
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what studies his Department has made of the safety implications of the greater use of vehicle seat belts.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Rear-seat passengers are seven times more likely than front-seat occupants to be ejected from vehicles in crashes because they are less likely to be wearing restraints. Wearing a seat belt undoubtedly cuts deaths and injury.

  The Department's monitoring exercise of the effects of the 1983 introduction of compulsory wearing of seat belts and an independent assessment in 1985 by Professors Durbin and Harvey both identified at least 200 fewer deaths and 7,000 fewer serious injuries per year among front-seat occupants of cars and light vans.
  362
  All cars first registered from 1 April 1987 must also be fitted with rear-seat belts. From next October vulnerable seats in new coaches will have to be equipped similarly. Everyone is well advised to use them.

  Departmental Expenditure (Safety Matters)
  Mr. Buckley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of all spending by his Department is used for safety improvements.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  A key objective for the Department is to promote and improve safety across the transport modes. Safety-related expenditure is incurred, for example, on constructing and improving roads, on investigation of road, rail, sea and air accidents, on licensing drivers of private vehicles, buses and lorries, on inspecting vehicles of all types and approving vehicle components and systems, on regulating the bus, lorry and shipping industries and the carriage of hazardous substances, on the coast guard, on research and on publicity.

  It is not practicable to specify the proportion of all spending by the Department which is used for safety improvements. Direct expenditure on safety is bound up with expenditure incurred for other reasons (for example, in the case of road construction), and safety-related expenditure varies widely in character, from physical measures such as road improvements, to research projects, to administrative costs and overheads associated with regulation, licensing, inspection and enforcement.

  Manchester Airport
  Mr. Sackville
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he plans to meet the chairman of British Airways to discuss the future development plans for Manchester airport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend meets the chairman of British Airways from time to time to discuss matters of mutual interest.

  British Caledonian Routes
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received regarding competition on air routes previously operated by British Caledonian.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We have received numerous letters on the subject. Applications from British Airlines for licences for routes previously served by British Caledonian will be considered by the Civil Aviation Authority over the next few months.

  Coaches (Speed Limiters)
  Mr. Conway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when new coaches will be subject to speed limiters.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The regulations will apply to coaches as shown in the following table:

  Date of first use

  Date from which regulation applies

  I April 1974 to 31 March 1984

  1 April 1991

  1 April 1984 to 31 March 1989

  1 April 1990

  On or after 1 April 1989

  Date of first use

  Roads Budget
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the national roads budget was last reduced.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The national roads budget was last reduced, by £14·9 million, in the financial year 1983–84 from £738 million to £723 million. During that year, public expenditure was running ahead of planning totals and a Cabinet decision was taken to cut cash limits on all votes.

  1983–84 was an exception to the steady, upward trend of provision for national roads which has resulted in real terms growth of about 30 per cent. between 1978–79 and 1987–88.

  Since 1979 provision for national roads has been steadily rising as follows :

  National roads public expenditure provision

  £ million

  Year

  Cash

  Real terms (at 1986–87 prices)

  1978–79

  377

  733

  1979–80

  443

  738

  Estimated changes in national casualties during the winter

  Pedestrians

  Others (under 25)

  Others (over 25)

  All road users

  KSI

  Total

  KSI

  Total

  KSI

  Total

  KSI

  Total

  Per cent. reduction

  3.6

  2.2

  1.5

  0.7

  1.0

  0.8

  1.9

  1.1

  Casualty reduction

  300

  590

  180

  350

  100

  400

  580

  340

  No estimates are available on potential accident benefits from a combination of British standard time and double British summer time.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if his Department has made any studies of the cost to the economy of transport-related accidents.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Department of Transport publishes annual estimates of the cost of road accidents. The total cost of road accidents in Great Britain in 1986, the latest available date, was estimated to be £3·8 billion, of which £2·8 billion is due to accidents involving personal injury. The cost of road accidents divided up for different severities of injury is as follows :

  Injury

  Estimated cost £

  Fatal Accidents

  1·5 billion (39 per cent.)

  Serious accidents

  1·1 billion (28 per cent.)

  Slight accidents

  0·3 billion (8 per cent.)

  Damage only accidents

  1·0 billion (25 per cent.)

  Included in the cost of personal injury accidents are estimates of the loss of output due to death or injury (30 per cent.), medical and ambulance costs (5 per cent.), the cost of police and insurance administration (2 per cent.), property damage (11 per cent.) and an allowance for pain, grief and suffering (52 per cent.).

  The Department does not assess routinely the cost of accidents on railways, in shipping or aviation.
  364

  Year

  Cash

  Real terms (at 1986–87 prices)

  1980–81

  536

  754

  1981–82

  685

  878

  1982–83

  739

  883

  1983–84

  723

  826

  1984–85

  795

  869

  1985–86

  816

  841

  1986–87

  893

  893

  1987–88

  976

  936

  Road Accidents (Summer Time Changes)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimates are available to him of the predicted number of fatal and other serious road accidents which would be avoided by a changeover to British standard time or a combination of British standard time and double British summer time.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  A TRRL study published in 1986 estimated, with a number of caveats, that the potential accident benefits of re-introducing British standard time—as during the 1968 to 1971 experimental period—might be as follows:

  Western Environmental Improvement Route Project
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has for public consultation on the western environmental improvement route project; and when any public consultation will be carried out.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We hope it will be possible to seek the public's views on the Department's proposals for the western environmental improvement route towards the end of this year.

  Eurotunnel
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the chairman of Eurotunnel.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I last met the chairman on 15 February

  Trunk Roads
  Mrs. Golding
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of trunk road schemes planned to start between April 1987 and March 1989 have had their commencement delayed.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Of the schemes listed in the 1987 White Paper "Policy for Roads in England : 1987" (Cm 125), for a start of works by March 1989, just under one-third are not now expected to achieve this. These schemes have slipped for a variety of reasons, principally delay in the statutory procedures and technical and design problems.

  Highways (Agency Arrangements)
  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consideration he has given to the interim report of the Audit Commission into improving highways agency arrangements between counties and districts.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Department is considering the report and discussing its implementation with the local authority associations. We welcome the emphasis on securing more businesslike agency arrangements, and look to authorities to review their arrangements in the light of the report.

  Heathrow Airport (Underground Travel)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last made an official journey by underground train to Heathrow airport.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Neither my right hon. Friend nor I have made any recent official journeys on the underground although we have both made unofficial journeys recently.

  Settle-Carlisle Line
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent discussions he has held with local authorities regarding the Settle-Carlisle railway line.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Last Wednesday, I received the terms of the local authorities' revised offer of support for the line. I am studying that, and especially the conditions they have attached to their offer.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will indicate the main implications for his Department of the feasibility study carried out by John Jarvis and Sons plc of the Settle-Carlisle railway; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The report by J. Jarvis and Sons described the potential development of tourist projects in the Settle-Carlisle corridor, rather than the future of that railway itself. The tourist potential of the area is one of the aspects I am taking into account in considering the future of the line.

  Consultants
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many private consultants his Department has employed during the last year on studies of safety standards in transport provision.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  In the calendar year 1987, the Department used nearly 50 different private consultants, industrial companies or associations on just over 70 studies concerned with safety standards in transport provision.

  Litter
  Dr. Michael Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last discussed with the chairman of British Rail his plans to remove litter and rubbish from the tracks at British Rail stations; and if he will make a statement.
  366
  Mr. David Mitchell
  These are operational matters for British Rail and we have not discussed them with the chairman.

  Road Projects (Transport Supplementary Grant)
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport why road projects with a negative net present value can qualify for transport supplementary grant.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  In assessing the merits of schemes for transport supplementary grant, we take into account the extent to which they provide value for money in terms of benefits to traffic, to the community, to industry and commerce, and improvements in road safety and the environment. In certain cases, a scheme with a negative net present value may provide significant benefits which cannot be reflected in the calculation.

  ScotRail
  Mr. Doran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the management of ScotRail to discuss rail investment.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  My right hon. Friend discusses such matters when appropriate with the chairman of the British Railways Board; it would not be appropriate to hold separate discussions with regional managements.

  Light Rail Systems
  Mr. Jacques Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made in developing light rail systems.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The Tyne and Wear Metro and the London docklands light railway are both in operation. Studies of further light rail proposals for London are under way and a number of authorities are proposing such systems elsewhere.

  London Airports (Runway Capacity)
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will undertake a review of the adequacy of runway capacity at London airports in the 1990s.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Our 1985 White Paper "Airports Policy" (Cmnd. 9542) set out the pattern of development of airport capacity, including runway capacity, to meet London area demand into the mid-1990s. The first step in any further work is the preparation of up to date forecasts of air travel demand. The Department is preparing such forecasts, which it expects to publish towards the end of this year.

  Tyneside Metro
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if there are any plans to extend the Tyneside Metro to Sunderland; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  I understand that the Tyne and Wear passenger transport authority and executive are considering the possibility of extending the Tyneside Metro to Sunderland, but no proposals have yet been put to my Department.

  Vehicle Registration
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action he proposes to take on the main conclusions of the report of the consultative group on the vehicle registration system; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  I refer to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) on 3 February 1988 at column 622.

  Foreign Cars (Safety)
  Mr. Warren
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will review safety and legal problems associated with the import of foreign cars for sale which do not carry spare wheels of the same design as those fitted to the vehicle.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  No. Regulations permit the use of spare wheels of different design on a temporary-use basis up to a maximum speed of 50 mph. We are not aware of safety or legal problems.

  Traffic (Haringey)
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the increase in the volume of traffic by vehicle type since 1979 in the borough of Haringey.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Estimates of changes in traffic volume since 1979 are not available at a borough level.

  Official Hospitality
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much was spent by his Department on official hospitality in the financial year 1987–88.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Department spent £84,789 in 1987–88 on the full range of official hospitality.

  Ammunition (Transport by Road)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) whether he will introduce regulations to apply stricter controls to prevent drivers employed in the transport of ammunition by road driving under the influence of alcohol; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) whether he will review precautions for dealing with fire explosion, collision or other accidents involving ammunition in transit by road; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) whether he will review the regulations for the transport of projectile ammunition by road; and if he will make a statement;

  (4) whether he will review the regulations for the transport of explosive ammunition by road; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Later this summer we expect to make the Road Traffic (Carriage of Explosives) Regulations, which will provide up-to-date and coordinated controls covering all aspects of the carriage of explosives by road including the transport of ammunition. They will deal with such matters as the marking of vehicles, training and instruction, and the procedures to follow in the event of an accident. They will reaffirm the 368
  existing prohibition on people under the influence of alcohol being in or in attendance on a vehicle carrying explosives.

  Transport in London (Attacks)
  Mr. Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many attacks there have been on(a) members of the public where transport staff have been involved in assisting those attacked and (b) members of the public unassisted by staff on (i) London buses, (ii) London Underground and (iii) British Rail in the London area in the last 12 months; what were the comparable figures five and 10 years ago; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  This information is not available.

  Road Programme
  Mr. Carttiss
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he proposes to add any further schemes to the road programme.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The last major review of our road programme, which we announced last April, added 82 new schemes to it. On 7 March, as part of the Government's inner cities initiative, we announced further schemes with an estimated construction cost of £109 million. We have now decided to add seven more schemes, expected to cost about £41 million, as follows:

  Schemes added to the road programme

  Region

  Estimated works cost £ million

  All-purpose trunk roads

  1. A11 Roudham Heath to Attleborough Improvement

  ERO

  9.9

  2. A12 Lowestoft Second Harbour Crossing

  ERO

  10.4

  3. A31 Ashley Heath to Ringwood Improvement

  SWRO

  2.5

  4. A46 Pennsylvania to M4 Tormarton Improvement

  SWRO

  4.0

  5. A6 Rothwell and Desborough Bypass

  EMRO

  5.1

  6. A23 Wadden Marsh Bridge

  LRO

  14.0

  Motorway

  7. M—Blackburn Southern Bypass: Extension to Bamber Bridge Bypass2

  NWRO

  5.0

  40.9

  Note

  1 Including private sector contribution of £3 million

  2 Motorway number to be decided

  Bus Services
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will introduce legislation to amend the present statutory provision which results in bus companies being unable to cross-subsidise their more profitable runs with the lossmakers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  There is no statutory provision preventing a bus operator from cross-subsidising unprofitable services with profitable ones. But the Government believes that it is wrong to restrict
  369
  competition in order to facilitate cross-subsidisation. It is better for socially necessary but uneconomic services to be supported openly by local authority subsidy.

  Under the Transport Act 1985 local authorities must go out to competitive tender for any socially necessary services which operators are unwilling to provide on a commercial basis. This ensures value for money and the Government have no plans for amending these provisions.

  Dangerous Materials (Shipping)
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what regulations govern the transport of dangerous materials by merchant shipping; and whether such dangerous materials include tins of paint.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The transport of packaged dangerous goods materials by merchant shipping is governed by the Merchant Shipping (Dangerous Goods) Regulations 1981 (SI 1981 No. 1747) as amended by the Merchant Shipping (Dangerous Goods) (Amendment) Regulations 1986 (51 1986 No. 1069). Tins of paint are defined as dangerous goods when the paint itself is flammable and has a flashpoint of 61°C or below.

  PTAs (Funding)
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list the representations he has received regarding the proposed changes in the funding of passenger transport authorities;

  (2) if he will list the representations he has received in favour of the proposed changes in the funding of passenger transport authorities;

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list the responses he has received to his letter, headed "Proposed changes in financing of passenger transport authorities";

  (2) if he will make available in the Library copies of all the responses received to his letter, headed "Proposed changes in the financing of passenger transport authorities".

  Mr. David Mitchell
  Those who made the 45 written responses to the discussion paper are listed as follows. Almost all were opposed. Thirteen hon. Members have also written to me about it. I have discussed the proposal with representatives of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and hon. Members representing constituencies in Greater Manchester.

  Copies of all the written responses received up to 30 March were placed in the Libraries of both Houses on that day, as I announced in my reply of that date to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King). I am today placing copies of subsequent responses in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Responses received up to 30 March 1988

  City of Birmingham

  Bolton Metropolitan Borough

  City of Bradford Metropolitan Council

  Bus and Coach Council

  Metropolitan Borough of Bury

  City of Coventry

  Greater Manchester Buses Ltd.1

  Greater Manchester PTA

  Greater Manchester PTE

  Greater Manchester Transport Action Group

  Greater Manchester Transport Consultative Committee

  Knowsley Borough Council

  Manchester City Council

  370

  Merseyside PTA

  North Manchester Pensioners' Association

  National and Local Government Officers Association

  City of Newcastle Upon Tyne (1)

  Oldham Metropolitan Borough

  Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council

  Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

  Metropolitan Borough of St. Helens

  Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

  Borough of Sunderland

  Trafford and South Manchester Pensioners' Association

  Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council

  Transport 2000—Derbyshire and Peak District Group

  North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council

  Borough of South Tyneside

  South Yorkshire PTA

  South Yorkshire PTE

  Tyne and Wear PTA

  Tyne and Wear PTE

  Tyne and Wear PTE Group

  City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council

  West Midlands PTA

  West Midlands PTE

  West Yorkshire PTA

  West Yorkshire PTE

  Wharfdale Rail Users' Group

  Responses received after 30 March

  Crosville Motor Services Ltd.1

  Finglands South Manchester Coachways Ltd. 1

  Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council

  Metropolitan Borough of Stockport

  City of Newcastle Upon Tyne (2)

  Reddish Association of Retired People

  1Forwarded by Greater Manchester PTE

  Level Crossing (Representations)
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether in view of the mislaying of the letter to him dated 15 March sent by the chief executive officer of the Rutland district council objecting to the British Railways (Luffenham) Level Crossing Order he will extend the consultation period to allow for these representations by the council to be properly considered by his Department.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  While I have still not received a letter from Rutland district council making representations about the Luffenham Level Crossing Order, a copy of the letter has now been obtained from my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham). The representations contained in the letter will be given full consideration if or when the British Railways Board officially applies for the order to be made.

  Freightliners Ltd.
  Mr. Michael Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what is the cost per annum of repairing and maintaining British Rail's subsidiary, Freightliners Ltd's fleet of rail wagons; what steps are being taken to reduce this cost; and if consideration has been given to renting wagons from the private sector;

  (2) what guidelines his Department has laid down for British Rail and its subsidiary Freightliners Ltd., relating to the repair and maintenance of container wagons by British Rail Engineering Ltd., in the current year and whether the option of renting container wagons from the private sector has been considered;

  (3) if he will make a statement on his policy towards British Rail's proposals for investment in its subsidary Freightliners Ltd.;
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  (4) when he expects to complete his Department's review into British Rail's total demand for container wagons in the light of probable need for additional wagons to run through the Channel tunnel in 1993.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The comprehensive objectives set by the then Secretary of State in 1986 on 21 October 1986 at columns 772–74, require BR's non-supported businesses, including Freightliners, to continue to plan on 372
  the basis of a required rate of return of 5 per cent. on its programme of new investment. BR is also asked to take vigorous measures to broaden the participation of the private sector in the provision of services to the railway.

  Within this framework, it is for BR to assess the numbers and types of wagons needed, taking account of forecast freight movements by rail through the Channel tunnel, and how they should be sourced, repaired and maintained.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury.
Lord Bullock—Took the Oath.

Single European Market: Opportunities
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch asked Her Majesty's Government:
What targets they have for the level of awareness among businessmen about the opportunities presented by the completion of a single European market in 1992, and how they intend to ensure that their targets are met.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, our aim is to ensure that by the end of this year over 90 per cent. of firms in this country are aware of the commitment to complete the single European market by the end of 1992. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has today launched our "Europe Open for Business Campaign" with a national conference at Lancaster House. This will be followed by 20 regional conferences for firms in every part of the country, supported by a comprehensive information service.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very encouraging reply. It would seem that since I first put down my Question it has been overtaken by events. However, I am reminded of the survey in The Times recently which displayed a most woeful ignorance of this matter. Perhaps I may ask the Minister whether he is confident that the target set—that 90 per cent. of businessmen would be aware of the commitment by the end of this year—can be met.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, it is absolutely vital that British business plays its full part in the European Community, in particular after 1992. The DTI survey of companies showed an awareness level of only 16 per cent. when we announced our campaign last autumn. This has now risen to 25 per cent.; our target is over 90 per cent. That is the aim of the campaign that was launched today.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is not the Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, even at this moment attending a press conference at Lancaster House to explain publicly the Government's programme for 1992? Why is he making that statement to the press and to some invited Members of Parliament instead of to the House where he could properly be cross-examined? What has happened that this House should be treated in such a cavalier manner?
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, the single European market has been discussed in your Lordships' House on many occasions. Questions have been answered both by my noble friend and myself on a number of
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occasions in the past few months. The important issue in the single market campaign is to make sure that British business is prepared to meet the increased competition after 1992.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, will the Government encourage British businessmen to give time to the work of determining the new common standards, especially in health and safety, to ensure that they are apposite and not contrived? Such standards have in the past been manipulated as non-tariff barriers to suit particular countries.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, one of the main aims of the single market is to eliminate not only tariff barriers but also non-tariff barriers—so called invisible barriers. Many matters are under review as my noble friend will know. Eighty measures, plus another 70 not included in the White Paper, have been agreed by the Council of Ministers. They include a record 48 during the time of the UK Presidency.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, the Minister has said that the meeting being held in Lancaster House by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, is of vital importance—to use his words—to all British businessmen. Can he give the House an assurance that all businessmen are now in Lancaster House listening to the noble Lord? While that may be so, ought there not to be an opportunity for the British Parliament to be made aware of what the British Government intend to do on this vital issue?
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, I do not think that Lancaster House is large enough to house all British businessmen. However, it is a very important campaign. We are taking the single market very seriously. It is the Government's prime duty to make sure that awareness among British industry is as high, if not higher, than among any of our competitors in the EC.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that what is being said by the noble Lord, Lord Young, has been stated many times in this House and therefore does not need repeating here as a first event? I quite agree that many noble Lords have not heard this material. However, does he agree that this is material that needs driving into people's heads with a hammer? It appears that some people need a hammer for that.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, clearly the awareness campaign has a very long way to go both inside and outside Parliament. But it is very important, as I said, that we make sure that the message is driven home.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that what needs to be driven home into the head of the noble Viscount is the fact that Parliament is important? Is he aware that his statement that this is a very important campaign should have been taken into account carefully by his noble friend the Secretary of State? Would it not have been more appropriate in the circumstances for the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, to be

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here answering this important Question rather than talking to the press in Lancaster House?
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition is better aware than I am that anyone on these Benches answers on behalf of the Government. The Secretary of State unfortunately has other calls on his time. I would be the last to wish to diminish in any way the importance of Parliament, and in particular of your Lordships' House. But it has all been said before in your Lordships' House. The conference at Lancaster House today is specifically targeted on the businessman who, after all, will have to compete in Europe to ensure that British business is at the forefront after 1992.
Lord Alport: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, the architect of the single market, will soon be back among us so that he will be able to explain the effects of the single market for this country?
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord would like to address that question to the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, if a single market is achieved by 1992, will there be a levelling upwards for the workers in this country who in many instances have poorer wage rates and poorer working conditions than their compatriots in the Common Market?
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, the success of British industry will be vital for ensuring that the British worker can earn as much or more than his competitors. The only way to ensure an increasing standard of living for all the British workforce is to do better than the competition—not only in the European Community but in all our foreign markets.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in 1986 our overall deficit on manufacturing trade with the EC was some £11 billion? Would he care to predict that after 1992 that deficit will reduce or increase?
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, the noble Lord should put that Question down for 1992!
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, I could not possibly predict what may happen. Unless British business is made aware and is able to compete after 1992, it is possible that our deficit will rise. The whole point of the campaign launched this morning is to ensure that British business can do as well as possible.

Channel Tunnel: Passengers and Vehicles
2.45 p.m.
Lord Hayter Lord Hayter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, as reported recently in the Guardian (24th March), Eurotunnel has now received permission to carry cars and passengers on the
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same train carriages to save the expense of double handling.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority has recommended that design work may continue on the assumption that passengers in private cars will be allowed to remain with their vehicles in shuttle trains. It has however advised that coach passengers should be segregated from their vehicles unless further evidence is produced to justify the original proposals. These preliminary views have been passed to Eurotunnel though much further work is needed before final decisions are taken. Even if certain classes of passenger were segregated, vehicles and passengers would travel on the same train.
Lord Hayter: My Lords, as the safety authority has issued this report and recommendations, will there be any opportunity for Members of your Lordships' House to study them?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I think the answer is probably, no. We spent a good deal of time last year during the passage of the Bill and in your Lordships' Select Committee discussing this subject. There is a great deal of communication between the inter-governmental commission and the safety authority and Eurotunnel. I do not believe it would be useful for each and every item on that agenda to be discussed in your Lordships' House.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the article referred to in the Guardian stressed that the decision was taken to avoid the cost of double handling? Will he assure the House that that factor was not an important matter in the taking of the decision on this vital issue? As the report also said, there are other matters to be determined. Is one of those to carry out the statement made by Eurotunnel that on each shuttle train a crew of six will be responsible for stewarding and looking after general safety?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord and the House an absolute assurance that the safety authority has made it clear throughout that it will confine itself to the safety implications of Eurotunnel's proposals and not to the economic disbenefits to Eurotunnel. One of the issues upon which Eurotunnel will need to undertake further work is the role of the personnel involved on the shuttle trains.

Child Care and Family Services Legislation
2.48 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull Baroness Faithfull asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to introduce a Bill on child and family law based on the White Paper published in January 1987 (Cmnd. 62).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords, I cannot at present add to

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the reply given by my noble friend Lord Arran to my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood on 27th January that we shall introduce legislation on child care and family services as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. However, is he aware that the courts, the probation service, social workers and the families themselves will be disappointed and distressed, taking into account that in 1984 there was a report from a committee in the House of Commons; in 1985 a consultation paper; and in 1987 the White Paper? If the Minister's reply means that there is insufficient parliamentary time, when will we have some legislation?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, my noble friend will know that I cannot, with the best will in the world, anticipate the contents of the Queen's Speech for next Session, or indeed for any other Session. Having said that, I hope that there will be no undue delay in bringing forward legislation on this important matter.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, bearing in mind the supplementary question asked by the noble Baroness, may I ask this question. Can the Minister say why the Government are giving top priority to bitterly opposed legislation concerning such matters as social security, education, the poll tax and optical and dental charges, rather than to this measure (which is likely to receive support from both sides of the House) as regards which there is a deep sense of urgency that it might do some good for the people of this country?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I cannot and do not accept that the Government have their priorities wrong. Reasonable time must be allowed in all legislation in order to prepare major overhauls—in this case that of child care law. As regards social security and the other issues, reasonable time for preparation has been given. The fact that we are seeing an upsurge in interest at this time—which is the point of change—is hardly surprising. However, the noble Lord can never say that inadequate time was given to the preparation of social security changes.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, the Minister apparently believes in the infallibility of the Government's judgment on this matter. Therefore will be accept that there is in this country a deep disquiet about young people in danger and about the effect on family life? While I realise that all governments are entitled to choose their priorities, will he convey to his colleagues in the Government and to his right honourable friend the Secretary of State that there is deep disquiet because the matter to which the noble Baroness has drawn our attention is being pushed further away and it should be reconsidered?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it would clearly be impossible to have legislation in this Session in respect of the White Paper mentioned in the
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Question. As I have said, I hope that there will be no undue delay in bringing forward legislation on the matter and I stick by that statement.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, is it not the case that the competing jurisdictions between the various courts which now handle matters in the field of family law have become a matter of general dissatisfaction and discontent and is this not an urgent matter to which, in the battle for priority, priority should be given?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, to an extent I agree with the noble and learned Lord. The Government are obviously concerned to achieve the best possible arrangements for dealing with family business in the courts, wherever they happen to be and at whatever level in court hierarchy they may be. However, the Government's first priority is to get right the substantive law, especially that concerning the upbringing of children, and then to examine the structure and procedure of the courts.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, if the Minister agrees that there is a priority importance in abolishing the conflicting jurisdiction of courts, will he not also agree that added to that is the priority to deal with juvenile delinquency? Is he aware that one of the causes of juvenile delinquency is the way in which matrimonial disputes are dealt with and the divorce rate is increasing? Accordingly, will the Minister tell his right honourable friend who is dealing with the matter—and perhaps also the noble and learned Lord sitting on the Woolsack—how much importance is given by the Opposition in this House to the creation of family courts?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that that message will not go unrecorded or unreported.

Education in Europe: Proposals
2.54 p.m.
Baroness Young Baroness Young asked Her Majesty's Government:
What proposals they are considering to help with the problems that may arise over the education of children of British families working for short periods in the European Community after 1992.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, there are no specific proposals, but there is no reason to suppose that an increase in mobility among workers between European Community member states following the completion of the internal market in 1992 will change the nature of the problems which already arise over the education of children. However, your Lordships may wish to know that an EC Council directive of 1977 requires the host country to ensure that appropriate educational provision is made for the children of migrant workers who accompany their parents abroad, and we expect that our national curriculum proposals will also help.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does she not agree that the problem identified in her reply is likely to increase post-1992 when far more people will go to work in Europe? Does she also not agree that some discussion between her department and the Department of Trade and Industry on the real problems of children who need to follow a British curriculum—for want of a better term—should take place?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I agree that this is an important and increasing problem. We are in contact with the Department of Trade and Industry. The national curriculum will ensure that all pupils study a broad and balanced curriculum to the age of 16, which is the pattern of our European neighbours. That should help as regards the problems of transition.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Opposition also believe that a problem exists? Naturally, parents do not wish to be separated from their children. Day schools are needed when parents are abroad for a short time. How much are the Government now spending in relation to this matter, and will the DTI produce funds to meet what will be an increasing problem?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, this is an existing problem. We are looking at ways of ensuring that the situation is improved. To that end the Government support the role of European schools and the role of British independent schools abroad. There is a variety of local education authority provision to meet the needs of parents abroad.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, will the Minister take into account the significance of the international baccalaureate in respect of this Question? Can she say whether the proposed national curriculum will make it easier to qualify for that?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the objectives of the national curriculum are not designed to fit in precisely with the international baccalaureate. However, the Government believe that the introduction of the curriculum will help pupils. Its broad and balanced nature, in addition to the series of tests and attainment targets and the system of testing, will tie in better, as do the GCSE examinations.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that the availability of a British-type education at a reasonable cost is an important recruiting element in obtaining suitable staff to work on the Continent in support of the Community?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government recognise that British-type schools provide a valuable service for British citizens working abroad. For that reason we welcome the efforts of COBISEC, a body representing the interests of 25 independent schools mainly situated within the European Community. In addition the Ministry of Defence makes special financial arrangements for the children of service personnel.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, does the noble Baroness not agree that most other nations within the European Community make special arrangements for such children? Will the Government study those arrangements to ascertain what can be done on our part?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, yes. We are looking at the problem in that context.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, for a number of years I have taught history in a school especially designed for the children of parents coming to work in this country who wish their children to study in British schools. Is it not true that this matter can best be handled by private enterprise?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, in many circumstances it is extremely well handled and well met by private enterprise.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, perhaps I am right in concluding from the answer which the noble Baroness gave to my question that the national curriculum will make it more difficult for pupils to take the international baccalaureate. That is a straight question; perhaps I can have a straight answer.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am sorry if my reply gave cause for confusion. My intention was to say that the national curriculum should make it easier to comply with the requirements of the international baccalaureate.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the Minister say whether it is likely in the not too distant future, when the subject is discussed with thoroughness, that the British professional education organisations will be consulted for their assistance and advice?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, yes indeed. All interested parties will be consulted and listened to.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I say a word about this afternoon's Second Reading debate.
While, of course, no time limits apply to Second Readings of Bills, your Lordships may wish to know that if every speaker in the body of the debate were to speak for the full 15 minutes recommended as a maximum by the Procedure Committee, the House would sit today until 3.45 a.m.

Companies (Audited Committees) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Consumer Arbitration Agreements Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Health and Medicines Bill
Brought form the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Scotch Whisky Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Education Reform Bill
3.2 p.m.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
May I first of all say what a pleasure it is that in taking this important Bill through your Lordships' House I shall be supported by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and by my noble friends Lord Trefgarne and Lord Arran. The Lord Chancellor's participation is particularly appropriate because, although the main part of the Bill extends to England and Wales only, the provisions relating to universities extend also to Scotland, and the provisions on academic tenure may be extended to Northern Ireland by Order in Council.
Your Lordships will know that one of the foundation subjects of the national curriculum proposed in the Bill is history. It is right for a number of reasons that that should be so; but I think we shall find, over the next two days, that with or without history in the national curriculum the subject of education inevitably evokes historical comparisons and comment. Those closely involved in education have long memories, and I look forward to an instructive debate in which we shall learn much about the Education Act 1902, or the way in which this Education Reform Bill does or does not build on the foundation laid by the 1944 Education Act.
All of that is important, because the development of our education system has been a step-by-step process, each stage consolidating the gains made by previous generations. However, I should like to open this debate by reminding the House that it is now almost half a century since the great Butler Act. The time has come to lift our eyes and to look forward to the challenges of the next century. In doing so, we are not alone. Throughout the developed world, from the United States and through many of our European neighbours to Japan, national systems of education are undergoing unprecedented scrutiny and change.
I start from the proposition that, in a free country, education can be neither wholly a matter of meeting the requirements of society nor wholly about the personal development of the individual. In a responsible democracy there must be room for both: getting the balance right is central to the health of our society. It is becoming increasingly clear that, both as a trading nation and as a society of individuals, we need to improve the standards achieved in our schools. It is not that there is a dearth of excellence, but rather that the standards achieved in good schools have to become much more widespread. This legislation seeks to enable that that should happen.
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We want to ensure that schools and teachers are able to exercise to the full their professional responsibility within and supported by a framework of agreed national objectives. That means removing unnecessary shackles wherever we can while maintaining a framework with national currency, so that parents may be confident that, wherever they live, their children are being given a broad and balanced education and stretched to the maximum of their ability.
Perhaps at this point I could say a word about the role of teachers. The Government believe that their contribution is crucial to the success of the policies embodied in this legislation, for it is teachers who have the responsibility for promoting high standards of excellence in learning and personal development. I pay tribute to the professionalism and commitment of heads, teachers and others in the education service.
There is a welcome and growing realisation even among the teacher unions that they must work with the grain of public concern rather than opposing reform. Teachers have a tremendous contribution to make, but they must join with parents and local communities in achieving the excellence in the education service which is our common goal. Similar points apply also in further education and higher education. The Bill contains provisions in relation to every stage of education which are designed to set institutions free so far as possible to carry out their professional task in the way they think best.
Previous education legislation has concentrated largely on structural reform. This Bill is the first to deal extensively with the most important questions of all, concerning what is to be taught. But I want first to make a general point which relates to all phases of education. I believe passionately that all our young people should receive a properly balanced education which is broad and relevant to their needs. Yes, that means science and technology for all pupils, occupying a significant part of the curriculum and taught in a practical way. But it also means that the curriculum must give an important place to the liberal subjects which help individuals to make sense of themselves and the society in which they live. That is why, for example, history and geography, art and music are each specified as part of the national curriculum. We are setting our sights high. Our goal is nothing less than a better-educated country.
I referred earlier to the historical dimension of this debate. Not least of the achievements of the 1944 Act was the settlement which it represented between the Churches and the state. I believe that its place in the curriculum is fundamental and that the provisions now contained in the Bill, following valuable consultation with the Churches, represent an historic development of the existing settlement. That development includes the Bill's provisions for collective worship and the amendments to protect the ethos of Church schools, to which I shall refer later.
The Government have consistently emphasised the importance they attach to religious education, and a number of measures in the Bill as it stands will help to strengthen that position. The very first clause of the Bill, for example, places a duty on LEAs, governors and head teachers to ensure that schools promote the spiritual development of pupils

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throughout the curriculum. The Bill also introduces a duty to ensure that the legal requirement to provide RE is upheld, and introduces a complaints procedure to ensure necessary action where it is alleged that schools are failing to comply with the law.
But with the help of the Churches we have been able to go further. We have reached agreement on a package of additional measures to provide additional safeguards for the position of religious education in our schools. The Churches are at one with the Government in wishing to retain and improve the present arrangements for local determination of the content of religious education. That is why it would not be appropriate for RE to be a foundation subject in the national curriculum, with centrally determined programmes of study and attainment targets.
But the amendments now agreed with the Churches will make clear the fundamental importance of religious education in schools. Amendments will be brought forward to Clause 2 of the Bill which will identify RE as part of the basic curriculum to be provided for pupils in all maintained schools. We have also agreed that all LEAs will be obliged to establish a standing advisory council on religious education to advise them on matters relating to the subject. They will in addition be obliged in future to review their agreed syllabus for RE when required to do so by their advisory council. This strengthening of the local machinery for agreeing the content of religious education will increase the means available to the Churches, to teachers of RE and to others to improve the state of the subject in our schools. Taken together, these changes demonstrate very clearly, I believe, the importance we attach to religious education for all pupils in all maintained schools, except of course those whose parents exercise their right to withdraw their children.
I turn now to our proposals for the national curriculum. These are at the heart of our reforms. They will give the curriculum in our schools a nationally agreed structure and coherence; set clear and challenging objectives for all pupils; enable parents and teachers to assess the progress of children against these objectives; and guarantee the benefits of a broad and balanced education to pupils throughout the maintained system. Within this new framework, pupils, their parents and their teachers will have a much clearer idea of what is expected of them. They will be encouraged and helped to reach the highest standards of which they are capable; the standards that must be achieved both for the individual's personal satisfaction and if we are to compete effectively as a nation in years to come.
The general principles established in Chapter I of the Bill have not been seriously challenged from any quarter. The Opposition did not divide in another place on any of the key clauses. But I recognise that their concerns have been expressed both within and outside Parliament about the way in which these general provisions will work when implemented in detail subject by subject.
We have addressed these concerns in a number of ways. First, as the Bill has progressed we have taken every opportunity to clarify our intentions, and to
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give those concerned an opportunity to contribute to the thinking. We have already published the report of the task group on assessment and testing and the interim reports of the science and maths working groups. The final reports are due in early summer. These will be the subject of full statutory consultation before becoming the basis of the first attainment targets and programmes of study.
Secondly, we have where necessary amended the Bill to ensure that it fully reflects our intentions. Particularly important have been amendments to increase the flexibility available to schools in dealing with the special needs of pupils with particular difficulties or indeed exceptional talents. We believe that these amendments, which have been widely welcomed, offer an effective package of measures to deal with long and short-term needs of this sort, without sacrificing the overall benefits which the principles underlying the national curriculum can offer to all pupils.
Thirdly, we have made amendments to clarify how the powers conferred by the Bill can be used and how they will be circumscribed. These will ensure that the national curriculum will indeed be the framework we have promised, not constraining but supporting a vigorous and relevant curriculum for all our pupils.
Before leaving the curriculum, perhaps I may refer briefly to the question of charges, covered in Clauses 95 to 100. The Bill contains various provisions intended to clarify the statutory position in respect of charging for a variety of school activities. The Government's proposals have been the subject of thoroughgoing consultation and represent a clear consensus on the best way forward. Above all, they secure the fundamental principle of free school education while clarifying and thereby safeguarding the position of valuable provision at the margins.
As I have said, we want to encourage consistently high standards across our education system. But that does not mean uniformity—far from it. Indeed, we believe that a key factor in improving standards will be parents' ability to exercise choice in relation to their children's school. The provisions in Chapter II of the Bill on open enrolments are designed to extend parental choice, building on principles established by the Education Act 1980.
Many in the education service believed that the proposals in that 1980 Act could not work, yet within a few years they became an accepted part of the education scene. So concern about the provisions of Chapter II of the Bill should be seen against that background. When the noise has died down, the capacity of local education authorities to plan their provision will not have disappeared. LEAs will remain responsible for deciding how many schools there are in their area and where these should be. They will not be obliged to add buildings to some schools while others remain half empty. They will simply have to adapt to the principle that no school should be required to turn away eligible pupils while there is still space in its classrooms.
I have stressed the phrase "eligible pupils", knowing that some concern has been expressed about the ability of denominational schools to protect their particular ethos through their admissions policies. The Government are ready to give the Churches the

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reassurances they seek and to bring forward amendments which require LEAs to reach appropriate admissions arrangements with the governing bodies of aided schools, should this be asked for.
I have spoken about the enhanced responsibilities which will fall to our schools. The Government's proposals for financial delegation in Chapter III will give school governors and head teachers the powers to match those responsibilities. They will be able to target resources—including the most vital resource of all, the teachers—to meet the particular needs and priorities of their school. Better management means better education and the benefits of financial delegation have been widely recognised. After all, the Government's policy builds on and extends what has already been achieved in many places. About a quarter of all LEAs have pilot schemes of financial delegation that extend beyond the limited requirements of the 1986 Act. Their experience has shown that the benefits can be real and extensive.
The department is currently supporting a number of initiatives in recognition of the fact that both governors and heads will need support and training to perform their new role effectively. The LEA will again have a vital strategic role in establishing the basis for allocating resources between schools and supporting their efforts to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in delivering better education.
More open enrolment and financial delegation will encourage healthy competition between local authority schools. But we also need to encourage local authorities themselves to become more competitive. The provisions for city technology colleges in Clause 94 are one aspect of this. But above all the provisions for grant-maintained schools in Chapter IV offer parents and governors who are not satisfied with the service offered by their local authority an effective alternative at no extra cost to themselves. It will be their choice whether to initiate the process of application. Grant-maintained status will not be forced on anybody.
Though grant-maintained schools will be free from LEA interference, they will compete with local authority schools on equal terms. They will not have special privileges. They will not be funded any more generously than they would have been had they remained with the local authority. They will maintain the character which they had as local authority schools and will continue to form part of a local system serving local people.
Turning to Part II of the Bill, which deals with higher and further education, if I may I shall deal with these in reverse order, taking further education first. Clauses 121 to 140 are about further education colleges; the colleges which will be remaining in the local authority sector after the polytechnics and major higher education colleges have been transferred to the new PCFC sector.
Further education is a vital part of the education service. Across the United Kingdom nearly 4 million people take FE courses of one sort or another each year; but we all know that job satisfaction and continuing prosperity depend on the skills of our workforce. Many FE colleges do an excellent job,
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and provide a wide range of education and training. But there is always room for improvement.
The FE reforms in the Bill have two purposes. First, they require each LEA to prepare a scheme which will set out the procedures to be used each year to plan the pattern of further education, to set college budgets in the light of that planning, and to delegate greater control over the spending of budgets to college governing bodies. These provisions closely parallel financial delegation for schools.
The second purpose is to reform college governing bodies. This goes hand-in-hand with delegation. If governing bodies are to have greater power to determine how colleges are run, we must be sure that their size and composition are such that they can do the job effectively. In particular, the Government want to shift the balance of membership, to give a stronger voice to employers, because we all acknowledge that industry-education links are important at all levels; and because employers, after all, represent the main consumer.
I turn to higher education: last year's White Paper set out a range of policies to secure and develop further the distinctive strengths of our higher education system. Some of these policies—the transfer of polytechnics and colleges of higher education from local authority control and the new funding councils—require legislation and are covered in the Bill.
Clauses 105 to 108 enable the Secretary of State to establish the polytechnics and major colleges of higher education now maintained by local authorities as free-standing statutory corporations with charitable status. Clauses 115 to 117 deal with the new funding arrangements for higher education. The Universities Funding Council replaces the University Grants Committee in line with the main recommendation of the review of the noble Lord, Lord Croham, of that committee. The Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council introduces parallel arrangements for higher education in the polytechnics and colleges sector. Some misunderstandings of these funding provisions have already been clarified by the government amendments introduced in another place.
At this stage perhaps I shall do no more than remind the House of the provisions in Part IV of the Bill relating to academic tenure. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will be addressing this and related subjects more fully when he speaks in this debate tomorrow.
I am sure that a great many of your Lordships are impatient to speak, so I shall conclude shortly. Before I do so I must refer to the proposals in Part III of the Bill for the transfer of education responsibility from ILEA to the individual inner London boroughs in April 1990. The proposal that ILEA should cease to be the single education authority for inner London was in our manifesto last May. The reasons for our proposals are well known. Despite repeated urging that it set its house in order, ILEA has maintained a unique combination of excessively high expenditure with mediocre or poor results, particularly in the secondary schools. It is the secondary schools which are at the heart of our education system.

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The Government are convinced that with proper planning the boroughs, as smaller, more truly local education authorities, are capable of responding to parental concern about standards. We share the view of those who argued that the transfer of responsibility would be less disruptive if all the boroughs were to become LEAs simultaneously—hence the amendments to this effect in another place. Parents naturally wish to be reassured about the implications of this important change for their children. I fear that there have been mischievous stories about which have suggested to parents that the schools or colleges which their children attend will be severely disrupted by the transfer. That is just not so. All the staff at every school and college will transfer to the new LEAs as a going concern. Parents need have no fears on that score.
There are wider concerns about the nature of the support services that will be available to schools and colleges after transfer, and no doubt some of your Lordships will raise these issues during this debate. For the present I would say only that the Department of Education and Science will later this week be issuing a draft of the guidance to the inner London boroughs which they will be required to follow in compiling the development plans which will set out their arrangements for assuming education responsibilities. In that draft we shall consider a wide range of issues of the kind that have caused some concern, including those in relation to the scope for co-operative arrangements, and we shall be looking to discuss them in the next few months with the inner London boroughs individually and collectively and with ILEA. I very much hope that noble Lords opposite will use their best endeavours to encourage their friends in the boroughs to co-operate in this process. Delay is in nobody's interest, least of all that of the children.
This is a weighty and most important Bill. It is certainly the most significant piece of education legislation for nearly half a century. Its introduction was preceded by one of the largest consultation exercises ever mounted in the field of education. Comments made have been listened to. Earlier in my speech I gave some important examples of the changes we have already made as a consequence. The Bill was allocated more time in the other place than almost any other legislation since the war. It is designed to take our education system into the 21st century and to provide a lasting framework for our schools, polytechnics, colleges and universities. I commend it to the House
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Hooper.)
3.24 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I must of course thank the noble Baroness for her explanation of the Bill, but to the Bill itself we give no welcome at all. We consider it to be one of the most controversial, most potentially damaging, most ill-considered and most ill-prepared Bills with which this House has had to deal. Perhaps only the Financial Services Bill could compete with it. In spite of what the noble Baroness said, only two months were allowed for consultation before the Bill was published, and that at a season
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when most of those most deeply concerned were likely to be on holiday. Of those who did respond, few were heeded. And yet, significantly, the Bill has grown in size by nearly 35 per cent., from 147 to 198 clauses, almost all resulting from government pentimenti, for only very minor amendments were accepted from the Opposition.
From the other place this patchwork, with criticism and even consideration limited by the guillotine, has emerged slightly scratched but hardly dented. Yet from the moment when it appeared last November before an incredulous education world it has been vigorously opposed. It has been opposed by the local authority associations; by the professionals; by the teaching unions; by Nalgo and the other unions whose members contribute to the education service; by the National Children's Bureau and those involved with children's special education needs; by the Churches and by the CVCP.
Some concessions have been made to the Churches and to the universities—I suspect because the Secretary of State was aware of the enormous pressure that could be exerted by the Bishops' Bench and by the university lobby in this House, and thought it wiser to concede than to be defeated. I would hardly say that the concessions to the Church amounted to "a new religious settlement", as Mr. Baker, comparing himself with Butler, has arrogantly claimed. The universities have succeeded only in modifying the Secretary of State's power over the UFC without seriously reducing it and are still denied a definition of academic freedom.
All these objectors might be said to have a vested interest, but the Bill has also been opposed by those whom it was meant to please. Mr. Baker has said:
"We are removing the balance of power from the producers and giving it to the consumers of education".
But his "consumers" are not at all happy with what they are offered. I have had mountains of correspondence from parents, and petitions as well. Indeed, a petition from Bristol with 772 signatures was handed to me this morning by my noble friend Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe. Parents are worried particularly about the national curriculum, testing and the opting-out provision. They are pleased with the excellent project work going on now in primary schools and the cross-curricula work in secondary schools, all of which could be at risk under an inflexible subject-based curriculum. They have serious misgivings over their children being subject to regular testing, especially at seven. Governors, parent-governors and chairmen of governors have written to express their concern over the much greater and very different responsibilities that they must assume under the scheme for local financial management and opting out. They are also anxious about the commitment of time that will be required of them.
The Government state that their aims are to raise the standards of education in this country and to encourage more young people to aim at higher qualifications and training. We would all go along with that. But will the provisions of the Bill achieve those aims? We are not convinced. What are the hidden aims; or perhaps the not so hidden aims: to reduce, as has been obvious from the 46 local

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government Bills that the Government have introduced, the powers of local government and to increase those of central government? As Sir Peter Newsam has said:
"What if one day this country were to find itself with a Secretary of State possessed of a narrow vision of what education in a democracy should aspire to be, coupled with a degree of self-regard and intolerance of the opinions of others that caused him or her to seek to impose that vision on others?"
This is a constitutional question. We may not have a written constitution but we have constitutional principles against which the laws and actions of government can be measured. Two of those principles are the sovereignty of Parliament and the separation of powers. In the Bill the Secretary of State is taking to himself 366 powers. Indeed, with growing ambition as the Bill has proceeded, he has more than doubled the number that were included at first publication. Perhaps the most significant is Clause 186. There the Secretary of State gives himself the power to make such modifications in any enactment relating to employment, especially any enactment conferring rights on employees, he considers necessary or expedient in consequence of the delegation to governors of schools and higher education corporations of powers to appoint and dismiss staff. His powers can be taken by order. And we know how little parliamentary scrutiny orders receive when they come before either House.
Equally extreme is the transfer of powers from the elected authorities to the Secretary of State. There are few safeguards. The advisory bodies are all to be appointed exclusively by him. The Secretary of State may say that while some powers are being reallocated upwards from local authorities to him, many others are being reallocated downwards to parents and to governors, and therefore the balance is maintained between central and local government. However, local authorities are elected, whereas parents and governors are not accountable to the electorate.
I turn now to the provisions of the Bill, first, the national curriculum and assessment. We do not object to the idea of a national curriculum, nor indeed to children being assessed at various stages of their career to discover whether they are progressing and what their weaknesses and strengths are. But we do object to the inflexibility—the prescriptive nature—of the curriculum as set out in Clauses 2 and 3.
Miss Sheila Browne, until recently the chief inspector of schools, said at the North of England conference:
"If only one could be sure that in the Bill the over-riding sub-clause 1(2) would dominate".
That asks for a balanced and broadly based curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at school and of society. It also prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. However, Miss Brown continued:
"that is light years away from Clause 2 with its itemised requirements for attainment targets, programmes of study and assessment arrangements".
She expressed herself most deeply shocked by Clause 9 which appears to say, "Thou shalt not experiment without permission". If she has not misunderstood Clause 9, she also said that it must,
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"depress performance. We should be nowhere near as good as we are now without the unseen experiments later adopted as orthodoxy".
Since that time we have had the Black Report on assessment in testing. We understand that Mr. Baker has accepted a good many of the recommendations. He indicated in another place that he did not mean what the Bill says and he gave some undertakings that were again expressed at the secondary heads' conference in Reading at the end of March. However, Clauses 1 to 3 are in no respect changed—Clause 9 is, marginally—from when the Bill was first published on 20th November. Therefore we shall be interested to know what amendments the Government introduce and we shall certainly propose many ourselves. My noble friend Lady Blackstone will be speaking in greater detail on that part of the Bill.
I move now to more controversial sections; that is, to open enrolment and grant-maintained schools. There are two aspects to be considered in that regard: the administrative and the educational. As a former member of a local education authority, I know how essential it is, especially at a time of falling or indeed of changing rolls, for the authority to plan the number of pupils each school can take each year in order to prevent one school being oversubscribed, perhaps necessitating the use of Portakabins due to overcrowding, while another, with fewer pupils and probably fewer staff, possibly faces added difficulty in attracting staff and is unable to offer the wider curriculum that, following enactment of the Bill, will be mandatory.
Authorities have been urged to take surplus places out of use. That task will be harder. Parental choice is already widely satisfied: 95 per cent. overall and, in some cases, 99 per cent. achieve what they want. There is no way by which 100 per cent. satisfaction can be guaranteed. Therefore, is it worth depriving education authorities of their power to manage for the benefit of all in order to give a few parents—no doubt the most articulate and pushing—what they want? We should remember that giving parents greater choice will not help those children whose parents are unable or unwilling to exercise that choice in the full interests of their children. Those children may well be the under-achievers that the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, when Secretary of State, was so keen to help. A school is not an automated factory nor just an administrative unit: it is a community of people working together long term at a task that is both demanding and difficult.
Schools which have had their intake reduced since 1979 in a planned way have been able to improve their educational provision. I visited a secondary school at Forest Hill where two classrooms no longer needed as such had been converted for home economics and a business studies centre, with computers and all. What would happen to those amenities if the school had to return to the numbers it had in 1979? We shall move amendments proposing a return to the system under the 1980 Act whereby the LEA in consultation with a governing body can agree admission limits.
Many of the arguments against open enrolment and the creation of CTCs stand for grant-maintained schools as well. The planning function of the LEA would become infinitely harder to perform,

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especially in regard to schemes of reorganisation designed to remove surplus places and to provide a better education for 16 to 19 year-olds. The Audit Commission, the body created by government to keep a watch on local government spending, said that if an LEA wishes to have enough places for all pupils who may need them—its statutory duty—it will have to maintain a large surplus capacity in its schools and that provision will be extremely wasteful. According to the commission, opting out could prejudice potential savings of between £500 million and £700 million.
Grant-maintained schools are bound to be divisive both within their area and within themselves. Can one imagine the conflict among parents, children and teachers of differing views within the school when the proposal to opt out is under consideration? Incidentally, teachers are not to be consulted—apart from those who are governors. They would simply be transferred like luggage. Therefore, selection would inevitably come in by the back door. What real safeguards would there be for children with special educational needs and also for community education, largely ignored in the Bill?
The voting arrangements are quite intolerable. The fact that a small proportion of parents could decide so important a question is manifestly unjust as even some Conservative Members of the Standing Committee believed. It should at least be a majority of the parents elegible to vote. Again, it is ridiculous that a mere 20 per cent. of parents can trigger off the process. Further, the Bill does not define a parent. We shall aim to change those plans, if we do not succeed in taking Chapter IV out of the Bill.
There are several questions I should like to ask the Minister. Will there be a period when a school will have to prove itself capable of running a scheme of financial delegation before applying for grant-maintained status? Will LEAs be expected to provide welfare, careers advice, inspection and advisory services? If so, it will presumably be at full cost. Will the LEA have to take in suspended pupils? The LEA will be left with the responsibility for transport. Will that requirement apply even if the parent does not choose the nearest school? In effect, the LEA will be left with much responsibility and no power.
That situation is also the case with regard to local financial management. I must say at once that we are not opposed to financial delegation as such. It has worked successfully in some places, including my own county of Cambridgeshire. But there was a long preparatory stage for each school. Such time must be allowed. Some primary schools do not want the extra work or their heads and staff diverted from their prime educational purpose. We suggest that the move should be voluntary and not mandatory.
It is in relation to the appointment and dismissal of staff that the greatest doubts arise. The LEA would continue to be the employer. Is there any other sphere of employment in which the employer has no power to appoint or dismiss his own staff and yet is obliged by law to employ staff appointed by another body and to accept all the cost of redundancy or dismissal? The appointment of a head should be a joint appointment. LEA members have much experience
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in the matter, whereas a governing body is likely to have none. Moreover, Schedule 2 to the Bill makes the procedure tortuous. I hope that the Government listen to the Audit Commission, which commented that,
"establishing such a scheme of delgation can be a long-term process taking perhaps 5 to 7 years".
The Government have been very silent on the cost of all these proposals. The Financial Memorandum states that the national curriculum will lead to an extra expenditure of £33 million in 1990–91. The president of the Secondary Heads Association has said that 25 per cent. more staff will be needed. Yet under the heading "Effects of the Bill on Public Service Manpower" I find the statement:
"Overall the provisions in the Bill should not entail a significant addition to the total public service manpower within the education service".
This is cloud-cuckoo land. In addition, the training of governors and staff will require a large input of money, while the Audit Commission sees local financial management, open enrolment and grant-maintained schools as certainly increasing total expenditure rather than reducing it or breaking even, as the Government claim. The ACC's research suggests that an extra £400 million to £500 million per annum will be the minimum required. I hope that the Minister, in replying, will give the Government's present estimate and explain how the figure has been arrived at. I am not going to discuss the sections on further and higher education as my noble friend Lord Peston and doubtless other noble Lords will deal with these. All I should like to say is that we are unhappy at what seems likely to be sharpening of the binary line.
I turn to ILEA. It is entirely wrong that the abolition of that authority, announced in the middle of the Committee stage in another place, should be incorporated in this already lengthy Bill. There should have been a separate Bill. There should have been consultation with parents, with teachers, with the many adult users of ILEA's excellent further and adult education provisions and with the boroughs. There was none. There was no opportunity given for a review under Section 22(2) of the Local Government Act 1985. I suppose the Government were afraid that the results might have forced the same conclusion as that to which the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle (and I look forward to his maiden speech), came to in 1981:
"The overriding factors are educational and financial. The weight of educational opinion, including the voluntary bodies and the churches, is that the problems of inner London call for a single authority of adequate size and with adequate resources to administer its schools as well as further and higher education, and the careers service; and that responsibility for the schools should not be separated from the rest of education. The Government share that view."
On 5th April 1984 the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, said:
"Those whom we consulted, in particular those Members of the House and others with a close understanding of the needs of education in inner London, were overwhelmingly in favour of a directly elected authority. We have been persuaded by their arguments. The nature, the scale and importance of the education service in inner London, taken together, justify a directly elected authority in this special case."
As a sop, there was a power of review written into that Bill so that the authority could be abolished, by order, in about five years. But that decision, to abolish by order, was overturned by this House in

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1985 and the Lords ruling was accepted in another place.
Recent evidence of ILEA's performance is in the leaked report of the Chief H.M.I., Eric Bolton, which is for the most part extremely complimentary, the exception being the section on seconday schools, where there are strong criticisms. Overall, however, Mr. Bolton sees an improving situation.
On 1st December last, at Second Reading, the Minister of State said (at col. 856) that the Government's aim,
"is to improve both the quality and the cost-effectiveness of education in inner London. That would not be achieved at this stage by imposing educational responsibilities on unwilling boroughs".
And yet, my Lords, that is what the Government now intend to do.
Both this Bill and the 1986 Act (not yet fully implemented) place large new burdens on LEAs, and one just cannot imagine how boroughs inexperienced in running an education service can possibly cope by April 1990. They will be having to deal at the same time with the introduction of a new, complex and controversial system of local government finance, with changes to housing administration deriving from the Housing Bill now in another place, and with the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering. How can the Government's proclaimed aim of improving the quality of education in inner London, with all its many and huge inner city problems, be achieved in this way? What we have here is a vindictive political decision, made with no real consideration for over a quarter of a million school children in London and about half a million in further and adult education. Nine out of ten head teachers are against the change. Governing bodies are against it.
Last week we had the result of the parents' ballot, which has shown very clearly indeed that the parents are strongly opposed to the boroughs being handed the education service in inner London. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a body to which one would think this Government would listen, speaks highly of ILEA's business education initiative and industry school links, saying
"the financial management and budget procedures have been successfully extracted from those of the GLC and are conducted with high professional standards".
In the face of all this opposition, how can the Government have the nerve to proceed with this ill-judged, hasty and dangerous plan? With the evidence mounting daily, could the Government have the good sense to think again? Would they at least have the review that was legislated for in 1985? We would be prepared to abide by the conclusions of that review.
As the plan to abolish ILEA is a purely political measure, so is this whole Bill. The solution of education problems is not the primary aim of this legislation; that aim is political. With the array of appointments that the Secretary of State can make, and can approve or disapprove, the Conservatives are going to be in untrammeled control. It is instructive to compare this Bill, so grandly named, with the two great Bills earlier in this century, the Fisher and the Butler Acts. Both were consensus
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measures, carried with the support of all parties and of the Churches. Both were passed after two years of consultation. Contrast this Bill and the massive opposition to it. It is most important that this revising chamber should give the most careful consideration to provisions that have been inadequately discussed, if at all, in another place. I am doubtful whether seven Committee days will be enough for the scrutiny of what should be three separate Bills. We will examine the Bill in all its detail. There are bound to be a very large number of amendments, all of which must be discussed.
I have spoken for longer than I should have liked, but the blame for that must rest with the Government for presenting us with such a long, obstinate and shoddily-constructed Bill. Its true shoddiness, however, lies not so much in its construction as in its central concept of the facile contrast between consumers and producers of education: on one side the goody parents, rescued by an all-wise Government, and on the other the wicked exploiters, the authorities and the professional educationists. In this soap-opera scenario there is little room for the real consumers of education, the children and other learners, except as goods to be handled—mere pigs-in-the-middle. There is little appreciation of the complex world, multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary and multi-motivated, in which education must operate in Britain today. There is less than proper respect for the teachers. Some of these are no doubt less than competent, but many are very good indeed and, if they are to give of their best, they deserve to be held in much higher esteem. I was glad to hear what the Minister said in her opening speech about the teachers, for they are the essential partners of the learners in an intricate and intimate process, of whose true nature the Government appear to have very little understanding.
3.50 p.m.
Lord Ritchie of Dundee: My Lords, I too should like to thank the Minister for her clear exposition of the Bill. I also express my appreciation of the fact that I have the great privilege of speaking early when there is a long list of illustrious names to follow me. I shall try to be as brief and relevant as I can, but where I fail I too will blame the Government for producing such a lengthy and compendious document. I shall confine myself to the question of schools and leave to other of my noble friends on these Benches who have much greater experience the subject of further and higher education.
We have already said, and I need not repeat it at length, that the Government's aims are to raise education standards and to increase choice. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady David, that those are what one might call the overt objectives of the Bill. There are also covert intentions about which the Government are perhaps less inclined to talk at the moment.
I shall take the Bill's provisions briefly in order: first, the national curriculum. I should like to make three comments about what we on these Benches feel in that connection. I shall not disagree with the core subjects, but it amazes me that for the so-called "other foundation subjects" we are presented by the department, for the last decade of the 20th century,

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with a list of subjects which one might have expected to have been presented for the first decade. Surely the department is aware that the whole trend of modern teaching is towards the breakdown of subject barriers; that all teaching is becoming integrated; and that the curriculum should have been expressed in areas of study—I am speaking of the so-called "other foundation subjects"—which allows much more flexibility than those named subjects, because pupils will apparently be tested in those subjects up to the age of 16. They will be tested in those isolated, discreet subjects. I do not see how that will be possible. I cannot wait to know how a 16-year-old tone deaf child will be tested in music.
Secondly, we are concerned that if those subjects are to be named those that are not named will be devalued. Apparently only the named subjects will be tested. As a head teacher said to me a short time ago, "Believe me, the subjects that are not on that list will not be taught, because we shall all want to attain high standards. We shall therefore want our children to pass the tests and get a good record, and so those other subjects will be left out". Thus may be seen the restrictive effect of naming subjects in that way. That appears on the page immediately following the one which refers to a broadly based curriculum.
Thirdly, to my mind the most serious omission from the list indicates a similar, although more glaring, failure to link with Clause 1. Clause 1 states, among other things, that the curriculum should provide for the moral development of pupils. Where, pray, comes the moral development bit in the proposed list of subjects? At a time of grievous social ills, with the crime rate continuing to rise, with family break-ups, which are a potent source of crime abounding, child abuse and child neglect proliferating and personal debt increasing, should we not nominate the teaching of what is in fact taught in nearly all schools under a heading such as life skills, personal and social development or home economics? How can those subjects be left out?
How can we leave out of the list, for example, the teaching of parenthood, child care, family responsibility, budget balancing, economic awareness and civic and social responsibility? Because moral and physical well-being are closely linked, how, with the threat of AIDS, drug abuse, smoking and bad diet, can we not nominate health education?. Those subjects are taught in schools, but if we have a list and they are not on it there is a grave danger that they will not be taught.
I shall not speak about testing, because although at first the education world had grave apprehensions that the plan was for a standard test to be administered to all children at a standard age and that results would be published and used to compare one school with another, the task group has produced a civilised report, and I understand that the Secretary of State will be civilised enough to consider it carefully. I hope that he will implement a great deal of it.
Open enrolment is to be offered to give greater parental choice. I believe that that is a delusion. I shall take a simple example which is the type of thing that I can understand. If one has three schools in a catchment area—school A, school B and school C
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(school A which is the good school, school B which is the not so good school and school C which is the bad school)—all parents will want to send their children to school A, the good school. School A will open its doors with the result that it will become oversubscribed and overcrowded. Its standard will then fall.
Meanwhile, the standard in schools B and C will also drop because the numbers will fall below the optimum economic level. So the only people who will be possibly satisfied will be a small number of parents who can send their children to school A at the expense of the other schools in the area. However, that scheme is under trial in Scotland. There are varying reports of the results. I hope that in due course the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, will tell us about it.
I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 19(9), which provides:
"For the purposes of section 6(3)(a) of the 1980 Act (which excludes the duty to comply witha parent's preference as to the school at which education is to be provided for his child if compliance with the preference would prejudice the provision of efficient education no such prejudice shall be taken to arise from the admission to a school in any school year of a number of pupils in any relevant age group which does not exceed—
(a) the relevant standard number; or".
It will have been difficult to follow that subsection. What I am pointing out is that, whereas the 1980 Act provided that the managing authority would have the right to close the numbers of a school if it was considered that that school's efficiency might suffer, that provision is to be waived.
On local financial management, varying degrees of delegated management are being tried out in about half the LEAs in the country, as has already been said. It has been largely done in my authority of East Sussex, which introduced its first pilot scheme in 1980. It has been doing some good work in that respect; for example it has devolved such things as energy costs, books, equipment, stationery and telephones.
In considering whether to go any further, the authority must be careful. As soon as one begins to delegate the hiring and firing of staff, one may run into great trouble. The aided schools already have that system right. They form about 20 per cent. of the total number of maintained schools. With only that number, management is still possible. If all schools could hire and fire their own staff, I do not see how local authorities could manage staff at all. I do not think that that proposal should be proceeded with in a hurry and certainly not without full consultation among all concerned bodies. I know that many of your Lordships are greatly concerned about the proposal to allow schools to opt out of local authority control.
I shall refer briefly to the three points which concern us. If the plan goes forward, it is most important that the proposed grant-maintained schools should not constitute an especially privileged tier of educational provision. The atmosphere is heavy with that suspicion. What otherwise is the point of the proposal when the scheme of local financial management will give so much administrative freedom to schools under LEA

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control? The Minister has said that the grant-maintained schools will not be more generously funded than the ordinary schools within local authority control. I cannot find this in the Bill as drafted, but I shall take her word for it.
Meanwhile, perhaps I may draw the attention of noble Lords briefly to some of the small print. Here I would ask noble Lords to turn to page 64 of the Bill where Clause 67(3) says:
"Grant regulations may also provide for the payment to the governing bodies of such schools—
"(a) of grants (to be known as special purpose grants) in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred by them".
Then it sets out three ways in which it may be incurred. Paragraph (b) says:
"of grants (to be known as capital grants) in respect of expenditure of a capital nature incurred or to be incurred by them of any class or description so specified".
Finally, it says in subsection (4):
"Grant regulations may provide for special purpose grants to be payable on a regular basis".
If that is not additional funding, what is? Perhaps the Minister can explain this to me.
I shall not bother noble Lords to turn to any other of my references because time does not allow it. But your Lordships will find in other places in the Bill provision whereby the Secretary of State may allow the numbers in those schools to be less than the absolute maximum. Perhaps it would be better if noble Lords would turn to page 91 which concerns Clause 92(1)(d). This relates to the change in the character of the school which has opted out:
"references to a change in the character of a school include, in particular, changes in character resulting from education beginning or ceasing to be provided for pupils above or below a particular age, for boys as well as girls or for girls as well as boys, or from the making or alteration of arrangements for the admission of pupils by reference to ability or aptitude".
So it is quite clear to me that the hidden intention of the grant-maintained schools is to provide another tier of privileged education.
I wonder also, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, was saying, whether account has really been taken of the heavy burden of work and responsibility that will fall on governing bodies and head teachers in the grant-maintained schools and on the locally managed ones. In the circumstances it seems highly doubtful whether enough men and women of the right calibre will be found to undertake the responsibility of governorship. The parent governors to whom I have spoken say things like, "We are more than ready to do everything we can for the school where our child is. We shall support it in any way we can, go to school functions, help in fund raising, sit on governing bodies, join the PTA, but we don't want to run the school. Other people are paid to do that". That is what the governing bodies are being asked to do in the locally financed schools and in the grant-maintained ones.
There is another danger which concerns us; namely if this is to constitute a heavy burden of responsibility, the people who are persuaded to do it may be the wrong ones. They may be the people whose interests are really political. Governing bodies are not assemblages of angels any more than local authorities; they too are susceptible to political
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manipulation. Some parents are very interested in seeing to it that the right kind of parents sit on the governing body in the school, by which they mean the politically acceptable ones. There will also be the phenomenon of "the pushy patent" who is determined to sit on the governing body and who then proceeds to consider school affairs entirely from the point of view of his or her own child or children. Anything else that affects the school is of no interest to such parents. I as a professional have suffered from the "pushy parent" and a sore burden they are to bear.
Clause 43 on page 38 makes it clear that the Secretary of State can add to the governing bodies of schools if he so wishes or replace any people who he thinks are incompetent. This looks very like packing. We would not be unduly concerned perhaps about that under the present urbane incumbent of the secretaryship, but in years to come it might fall into different hands.
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady David, when she says that the procedure whereby a school can opt out of local authority control by a simple majority of voting parents is entirely unacceptable. I am sure that noble Lords will draw attention to the other clause in the proposed procedure here and will wish to make amendments.
I shall not dwell on the question of the city technology colleges except to say that it was hoped that the city technology colleges, would not be any more selective than the grant-maintained schools. But I have to say from a press report about the intake of the Kingshurst City Technology College in Solihull that apparently the average IQ of the new intake is higher than the normal average so that it does not look very promising in that respect.
I now come to the most acutely contentious issue in the Bill, the proposed abolition of the ILEA. The manner of introduction of this proposal without notification in the Conservative manifesto, despite what the Minister said; without notice to Parliament, without review or consultation, in midstream at the Committee stage of the Bill seems to me to show what I should almost describe as an insolent disregard for democratic principles. I believe that the ancient Greek hubris is at work.
Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that London has had a strategically planned education service since 1870 when the London School Board was established. It was absorbed into the London County Council in 1903. In 1965 the GLC replaced the LCC, and the outer London boroughs became their own education authorities and the inner 12 formed the ILEA. I quote Sir Edward Boyle who was then Minister of Education. He said:
"In Inner London we shall have one single local authority…. The reason … is that as one gets towards the centre of London so the pattern of schools and technical colleges becomes less and less related to borough boundaries.".
That is still true today. I have heard this mistake made in your Lordships' House. At no time ever have the Inner London boroughs run their own education service. It has always been central.
Let me remind noble Lords that it was this House which, at the time of the abolition of the GLC, insisted that the ILEA should continue to exist as a

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directly elected body. The first elections of the re-born ILEA took place in May 1986, not quite two years ago. I maintain that that is not time enough to judge whether or not its performance is satisfactory. Are we now to rubber-stamp a reversal of that decision without further consultation in your Lordships' House?
We all know something of the worst aspects of the work of the ILEA, but the newly formed ILEA has been trying to put its house in order. Noble Lords will all have heard recently of the many services that are offered to children, parents and adults in London. I shall not run through an entire list of them. We are particularly interested in the learning support services; the Learning Resource Centre in Kennington; the Research and Statistics Centre on which all the LEAs depend for guidance and for help; adult education; after school care; community education; and music. There are many, many more as your Lordships know. I have not mentioned the guaranteed access to schools across borough boundaries for children at any age. Where is the increased freedom when this is inhibited by borough control? By no means would the local boroughs be able to take over this enormous London-wide network of provision.
I have visited some London schools in recent months in south London and in Hackney. Everywhere I get the same response from teachers. They say that the ILEA provides a unique service and that that is one reason why they teach in London. There is in fact already a hemorrhage of teachers from London with the present threatened changes.
I was speaking to some parents in Hackney two or three weeks ago and advancing the Government's claim that the services which would no longer be provided by the ILEA would be provided by Hackney Council. The parents said, "Hand our children over to Hackney Council? You must be joking." They said that it had taken them 18 months to get the spikes removed from the community playground which were a danger to their children.
As noble Lords will know, Hackney is one of the councils which is in very deep financial trouble. Then came the result of the Parents' Ballot Campaign. There was more than a 94 per cent. majority and more than a 55 per cent. turn out. The poll is almost more remarkable than the final vote.
The abolition of the ILEA cannot improve standards of education. The disruption and reorganisation will create a blight in London education for years, certainly for the school life of many thousands of children who are now at school. They only have one chance and one education. This proposal cannot widen choice. The confinement to individual boroughs and the cuts in spending are bound to narrow choice. We do not believe that this proposal has anything to do with improved standards, wider choice, parental choice or the paramountcy of the child. We think it has everything to do with politics.
Throughout the Bill there runs the theme of centralisation. I thought that the Secretary of State had about 180 new powers but I am out of date. The noble Baroness, Lady David, said that he had over
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300. At every turn the powers of the LEAs are diminished and the powers of the Secretary of State increased. As I have said, this may not matter at present, but it may matter in the future. If we had a Government of the far Right or the far Left we would be enabling the Secretary of State of such a Government by this Bill to have some very dangerous powers.
Good work in education has been done in the past by this Government—I am thinking of the GCSE and the TVI programmes—but I believe that the Bill in its centralising thrust, in its attempts to reintroduce selective schooling by the back door and in its threat to academic freedom presents a grave threat to the education service as we know it. We must be prepared to challenge it at every step.
4.13 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, after 44 years it is right that the basic legislative framework of our education system should be reviewed. The Bill presently before the House—I too am grateful to the noble Baroness for her introduction—signifies the decision of the Government that the present situation demands a new, radical Act that will restructure the education system.
I must say that I too regret that, having taken such a decision, the Government did not recognise that it demanded far more time for consultation than was made available. I wish to express my gratitude to the Secretary of State for his accessibility and for his willingness to listen. I should not wish in any way to minimise my gratitude for that which I have much appreciated. But at the same time having to deal with this matter in a very short space of time as the Bill is going through Parliament has in my judgment seriously affected the possibility of a coherent Bill being produced.
It is not surprising that many who support the Bill's overall objectives, as I do, have serious concern about the method of its proposed implementation and the details of its administrative provisions. However, that is now in the past. Given the realities of the situation, we must concentrate on the future. This House must use its influence so that, depending on one's point of view, a potentially good Bill is made even better or the deficiencies of a basically flawed Bill are remedied.
As with many other pieces of legislation, only time will tell whether this is a good Bill: only time will tell because so much of the Bill leaves a great deal to be spelt out in subsequent orders and regulations. Only time will tell because as regards schools so much will depend on the satisfactory recruitment, training and retention of governors. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, for his remark about the difficulty of getting suitable people to serve as governors. That is a particular problem in some parts of my own diocese in London. Only time will tell whether this is a good Bill because of the as yet unforeseeable extent and impact of grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges. Only time will tell because, whatever merits there may be in the Bill—I believe that there are merits in it—so much will depend on the satisfactory recruitment, retention, motivation and co-operation of staff

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particularly of head teachers in schools and their teaching and non-teaching staffs.
Rumours have reached me and indeed articles in the press have intimated that the Church has somehow been "bought off" by agreed amendments regarding RE. I wish to take this opportunity to state unequivocally that, although we have our own institutional stake in the system which after all we did begin and although we have a special interest in religious education, the Church of England is concerned for education as a whole and therefore in the Bill as a whole, for county and controlled schools as well as aided, for further and higher education, for the youth service and for adult education.
I am sorry that the Bill which claims the title of "Reform Bill" with its very wide spectrum of educational activity covered in its 198 clauses is silent on the question of the youth service and the adult education service.
I said earlier that I saw merit in the Bill and indeed I do. I have been critical of the consultation process but I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his willingness to listen. Whatever reservations we may have about the means to be adopted, with many others I wish to welcome many of the aims behind the Bill and to acknowledge the part that it has played in focusing attention on important areas of education. I shall mention a few: raising standards, dispelling complacency, involving parents and keeping them better informed, enhancing the role of school governors, devolving more power to the local area, increasing choice, doing more for the 20 per cent. or so of children who for far too long have been getting all too little from their years of schooling, moving towards a national curriculum which is broad, relevant and differentiated, and forcing us to ask questions about the purpose of education.
I welcome the amendments which have already been made (as for example in Clause 12(4)(ii) and in Schedule 10) which means that we now have an additional mention of children with special education needs.
I believe that all children have certain needs today in relation to our pluralist society wherever they live. If it does not prove possible to include such a reference in the Act, I hope that any later guidance on the national curriculum will accommodate that area of concern. I could wish for some indication that the Government had taken heed of the Swann Report.
I warmly welcome Clause 1(2) which again seems to me to indicate that attention was indeed paid to responses to the consultative document on the national curriculum. I commend the reference to the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical elements for a balanced and broadly based curriculum. The importance of the spiritual area of experience is recognised by many who have no religious axe to grind. For example, it was recognised by Her Majesty's Inspectors in their admirable red book Curriculum 11–16, where it is listed as one of eight areas of experience.
Although the national curriculum proposals in the Bill are largely subject based, I note that the Secretary of State has often referred to cross-curricular approaches, and it is interesting to recall what the
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HMI document had to say about that in connection with the spiritual area of experience:
"the spiritual aspects of human experience can be explored for example, through art, music and drama, as well as in say, history, literature and religion, but those planning the exploration need to know where they are going, and those engaged in it need to be helped to recognise what they have discovered".
I hope that those responsible for the national curriculum will bear those words in mind.
I should like to turn to the subject of religious education. I welcome, as do the Churches, the undertaking of the Secretary of State as regards religious education which was given during Report stage in another place and is now confirmed in greater detail by the Minister. One of our concerns was that, although there were references to religious and spiritual education in Clause 1, there was no subsequent reference to it. One had to turn up the old 1944 Act to discover matters to give it any substance. Now it has been put in the Bill as it now stands. It is given a higher profile as an essential part of the basic curriculum, and it is the first subject to be mentioned.
Although the amendments which are likely to be forthcoming will not go as far as some in the world of religious education would like, I am prepared to acknowledge the undertakings in that area as an acceptable and significant step forward. I need not repeat what is now proposed because it has been admirably stated by the Minister.
However, I should like to endorse what the Minister has said about the response of the Church. The provisions which are to be made present both opportunities and challenges to the Churches. I shall be taking all possible steps to ensure that those opportunities are taken and that the challenges are met by the Churches taking a vigorous and sensitive part in the production of the agreed syllabuses and by providing a supply of good men and women to train as teachers, especially in RE, whether in initial or in-service training. The Churches must not ask the Government to do their job for them. It is for the Churches to respond to the opportunities which those amendments will provide.
I welcome the Government's intention to reinforce the agreed syllabus machinery. Although it has been in operation for some time, it can still produce good syllabuses adapted to local situations. With very few exceptions, most agreed syllabuses accord a proper importance to the place of Christianity.
Perhaps I may give two examples. The first comes from Hampshire. The syllabus is very important because it has been adopted by about 20 LEAs—over one-quarter of those adopting new syllabuses in the last 10 years. It is said that the content of the syllabus,
"will be drawn largely from the study of Christianity in its many forms".
The second example comes from Birmingham in 1975. It states:
"It is important that all pupils should study Christianity in some depth since it is the faith which has moulded and had the greatest influence on British life and character".
Notwithstanding that and the fact that only two or three agreed syllabuses do not provide for teaching to be predominantly Christian, there are those who wish to press for an explicit requirement in the legislation that it should be. However, although I can

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understand their concern, I have grave doubts about the wisdom of such a proposal. I know that the other Churches share my doubts. There is nothing new about that. A similar suggestion was made in a debate in this House in 1944. The arguments against such an amendment then were set out on behalf of the Government by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, who was a devoted Christian and churchman. Those arguments seem to me to be just as valid today. However, I shall listen carefully to the arguments of those pressing for that provision.
Perhaps in passing I may quote the head of a RE department who has just written to me. She says:
"The effect of GCSE must not be underestimated. In spite of the many criticisms directed against GCSE, it has one really great asset. Each of the boards offers a Christianity option in the religious studies syllabus. For the first time in my teaching career I can teach for examination purposes some Church history, Christian doctrine, the Sacraments, ways of worship and the ecumenical movement".
She adds:
"Candidates are actually expected to know the Apostles' Creed".
As regards school worship, I should like to welcome the Bill's relaxation of the requirement of the 1944 Act with the greater flexibility which will be given to schools. That is a flexibility which I advocated in giving evidence to a Select Committee of another place.
Turning to grant-maintained schools, as has been widely anticipated and predicted, without opposing them in principle, I have reservations about the procedure for schools to acquire that status, as well as having grave doubts about the particular means of procuring the laudable aims of increasing choice and giving people more local autonomy.
I understand that the Secretary of State has set his face against amending the clause which deals with voting by parents to set the wheels in motion for acquiring grant-maintained status. I hope that he will reconsider his stance on that matter. I understand that he believes that the simple majority of those voting formulae has served the country well and that he is out of sympathy with alternative "fancy franchises", as he has called them.
To my mind it is not a question of a simple, plain franchise or a fancy franchise but a question of what is an appropriate franchise, bearing in mind that parents whose children will be in the school once a decision on the school's status has been implemented will have no say, yet other parents whose children will have left by the implementation date will have a vote. Choice is a complex and complicated creature. The exercise and fulfilment of some people's choice with grant-maintained schools and the proposals for open enrolment may well have the effect of restricting the choice available to other people. It may have a deleterious effect on other schools and possibly lead to the creation of racially segregated schools.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the interest of the Church of England in the Bill is not confined to Church schools, religious education and Church colleges. It is now, as it always has been, a concern for education and the philosophy which must inevitably underlie it as an indispensable element in the development of people both as individuals and as members of society. It is that overarching concern, with its respect for truth as such and not merely for
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productivity, which leads me to share the concern for academic freedom. I hope that your Lordships will hear later in the debate from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester on that point.
That same concern leads me to hope for an amendment to the clause relating to the polytechnics funding council to secure endorsement in legislation of the Church' commitment in higher education. That is a commitment which the Secretary of State has welcomed and which he says he wishes to see maintained.
Before I sit down. I must say somthing as the Bishop of London with regard to the proposal relating to the abolition of ILEA. Frankly, I view the future with dismay. Whatever the deficiencies or extravagances of ILEA, the prospect of a simple devolution to the boroughs and in a relatively short time is most alarming. If the necessary special and advisory services are to be provided to meet the extraordinary needs of inner London, that can only be done without unnecessary and very expensive duplication by some form of unitary authority to operate in those spheres.
There are different views about the abolition of ILEA, but in my experience I find on all sides the belief that simple devolution to the boroughs, some very small, will neither meet the needs of inner London nor serve to provide the stability which the Churches in inner London so desperately seek. The Churches have positive suggestions to meet this need which we shall be putting to the Secretary of State. If necessary, I shall seek to secure amendments in later stages. I shall look very carefully at the guidelines about which the Minister spoke, but I doubt whether they will allay our concern as they will presumably be based on direct devolution.
A Bill as wide-ranging as this cannot but arouse anxieties. The draft before your Lordships, with its 198 clauses, suggests that the education world is in for a considerable period of settling down, sorting out, trying to implement the requirements of the Act and I am sure coping with many unforeseen outcomes. This will make great demands on all involved in the education service when for so long so many have been crying out for a period of stability. Ensuring that the positive and constructive potential in this Bill is nurtured and brought to fruition will call for the highest standards of public service in all local institutions by those who teach and by those who administer at whatever level and from government great sensitivity towards and understanding of all those who will be carrying out their work in the context of a restructured service, the service which will in some form result from the Education Reform Act of 1988.
4.32 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady Hooper on explaining so clearly this long, complicated but very important Bill before the House today, and by saying to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor that we look forward to hearing what he has to say in opening tomorrow, as well as to the speeches by the two main speakers.

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I support this Bill. At its heart is the importance of education standards—those concerned with proposals on the national curriculum, on assessment and testing, on financial delegation to schools and on the secondary principle, which is greater parental choice through open enrolment, through the development of the city technology colleges, and the opportunity for schools to opt out if they so wish.
Time is limited, and today I shall concentrate on one aspect only of the Bill. I shall not refer at all to special education, though I believe that to be a very important aspect of the Bill and I welcome the amendments already in it and the very helpful memorandum sent by my noble friend's department on that subject. Nor shall I comment on ILEA, important though that is, except to say that at the time of the election the Government went to the country on the principle that the boroughs could individually opt out. It was clear that three were going to do so and that two more were almost certainly going to. That would have left a very confused picture; and that would have been the alternative to what is in the Bill. I shall say nothing today about higher education, although I regard that as very important, although like many others I greatly welcome the amendments that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made to the original Bill to meet many of the real concerns that have been expressed by the universities.
All of us have seen enormous changes in education over the past 50 years, whether it be in the organisation of education, in teaching methods or in the whole development of the child-centred philosophy. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when I served on a local education authority, the authority operated the tripartite system, which had much to recommend it. One of the many reasons why that system came to be criticised was that it was said that the less able were labelled as failures and almost by definition failed. That was replaced by the comprehensive system, now in operation almost entirely throughout local education authorities. But after 20 years of comprehensive schools, particularly many in the inner cities, it has become clear that it is just those children in the middle range of ability and at the lower end of the ability scale who are not doing as well as they should. The evidence of Professor Price is that those children are at least two years behind their German and Japanese counterparts in mathematics. That is unacceptable.
It is not good enough to criticise that evidence, as some educationists have, on the grounds that
"reference to standards has relevance only to what is happening in competitor countries".
That seems to me to be a most dangerous statement. It is particularly dangerous when one considers that only today my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and my noble friend Lord Young are explaining about 1992. We have to face a highly competitive world, and it is unrealistic not to recognise that.
Furthermore, reports from the schools inspectorate indicate that far too many children throughout the ability range under-achieve. I saw much evidence of that when I was in the Department
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of Education and Science. The fact that there is such a wide variation in standards—of course there are some very good schools, but not all reach a high standard—is worrying for parents. We see that parents are in fact voting with their feet, and against all the expected evidence the fall in school rolls and the high level of fees—more children, a higher percentage than ever before, are going to independent schools. There is evidence that many more parents would choose independent schools if they could afford to do so.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, has indicated that the education establishment is unhappy, and I do not believe it is good enough to suggest that we are now in the best of all possible worlds. Quite simply, we are not. Nor is it good enough for the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, to say that we are basing this Bill on political expediency. There is a very real concern about what is happening to the education of the children of this country. I expect there will be agreement throughout the whole House that as a country we require an increasingly skilful population. There will be fewer unskilled jobs in the future. It is not a kindness to anybody, least of all to the pupils themselves in school, to pretend that that is not so. They will need the greatest skills that they can acquire to face the rest of this century, let alone the 21st century.
This brings me to the proposals within the Bill, the most important aspect of which is the national curriculum, the three core subjects and the six foundation subjects, applied as far as the core subjects are concerned throughout the 11 years of compulsory education. That overcomes one current criticism of education; that is, that far too soon a great many children specialise and drop subjects. Under the foundation subjects all pupils will be obliged to keep up a range of subjects to the GCSE. That must be welcomed.
I also welcome what my noble friend said this afternoon, and what has become increasingly clear; that the Government now have a much more flexible approach to the national curriculum and the amount of time spent on subjects. Many teachers have stressed to me the importance of maintaining the ability to teach three sciences—biology, physics and chemistry—classics and a second modern language, as well as those many other subjects which have already been enumerated, including home economics and the subjects on life skills. I am sure we all welcomed and greatly appreciated the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I very much welcome what has been said about religious education.
I think we are going to need a much clearer definition of what is meant by "technology"; and no doubt we shall have a debate on what we mean by the whole range of subjects summed up by the description "personal qualities" which are undoubtedly important. I also hope that, in any testing and assessment, matters such as attendance records will be regarded as very important. After all, if you are not in school you are not learning.
At the end of the day it is the content of the subject which really matters. The success or failure of this legislation will hinge on that. We shall all need to be

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assured that the proposals made by the National Curriculum Council and the working parties will meet the criticisms that have been made. I welcome the statement made last week by the Secretary of State for Education and Science that the content of the curriculum for teachers in training is to be reviewed and revised.
The second principle is that the education system should be more responsive to the users and to those most concerned—the parents and the employers. Both have a very important role to play under this Bill, particularly as school governors. The proposals on open enrolment will build on success. The immensely imaginative scheme for city technology colleges will replace what were called the technical secondary schools, which fulfilled a very valuable aspect but which have long since disappeared—and, personally, I deeply regretted their demise.
Although I recognise that there is a great deal of concern about opting out, my reading of the Bill suggests that it will not be easy for a school to opt out; nor, indeed, should it be. But it provides flexibility and gives power and choice to parents who are dissatisfied with the local education authority and who feel that their children are trapped in a school about whose principles they feel deeply unhappy.
In preparing what I might say I asked two organisations with which I am concerned—the National Westminster Bank and Marks and Spencer, both of which take on thousands of school leavers each year—what they were looking for. It is interesting that both emphasised the personal qualities of reliability, of attendance records and of being able to work as a team and co-operatively, as important and as aspects which must not be lost sight of in the curriculum.
I shall conclude with a word about the teachers. I welcome very much the remarks made by my noble friend the Minister and by the noble Baroness, Lady David. If this Bill is to work the teachers' support is essential. They have had a bad press recently. I hope that we can now put the unhappy affair of last year's strike behind us. Yet the fact is that thousands of teachers did not strike. At this very moment, while we debate, there are thousands of conscientious and dedicated teachers who do not get into the columns of the press and on whom the education service depends.
We must recognise that teachers face a much more difficult world today than the one in which most of your Lordships were at school. They have to cope with innumerable changes, from the use of computers to the new examination systems such as GCSE and new courses like TVEI. They also have to deal with far more disruptive pupils. That is a statement which is made by every teacher to whom I have spoken. That problem has many causes, not least the ever-rising number of pupils who come from broken homes. But that is a subject for another debate. I think that we must recognise the importance of the teachers, we must recognise the problems which they have to face, and we must hope they will understand what we say.
Like all your Lordships I have been deluged with letters about this Bill. I have tried to read all of them. I have been struck by how many are based on
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inaccurate information. It is important that in the course of the Committee and later stages of this Bill we get across what the Bill actually says about the curriculum, about the subjects, about opting out and about testing and assessment. I trust that to those who are willing to listen—and I hope there will be many—we shall be able to give the assurances for which they look.
Those of us who are taking part in the debate on this Bill and those of us in the education service are in truth on the same side in wanting to see a better standard of education for all our children. I wish the Bill well. It is far too important to fail.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the Bill before the House will do serious damage to our education system if it is enacted without substantial amendment. It is riddled with false assumptions about the existing system. It is a tragic missed opportunity as far as concerns remedying defects, and of course there are defects. It is a piece of social engineering based on the ideology of the market place. As such it is flawed in its conception because a free market can never operate in relation to a public good like education in the way that it can operate for consumer goods like television sets or motor cars.
A moral order based on the exercise of individual self-interest in a market society is not one to which many of us on this side of the House would in any case wish to aspire. Moreover, in the end it may be self-defeating because choice based on market principles in a public service such as education may well end up by eliminating some of the choice which already exists, as I shall try to show later. The Bill is full of internal inconsistencies with respect to one of its most important objectives—the provision of greater choice for parents.
Perhaps the most serious of the false assumptions on which it is based concerns the views of parents. The Government continually ascribe views to parents for which there is not a scrap of evidence. We are led to believe that parents are deeply dissatisfied with the nature of schooling in this country and in particular that they believe that the switch to comprehensive secondary education has been a failure. All the survey evidence suggests quite the reverse. Most polls show an extremely high level of satisfaction. Certainly during the long and damaging teachers' industrial action that satisfaction fell. That was the fault of the Government whose handling of the teachers' pay claim could not have been more inept.
The evidence also suggests that parents support the comprehensive principle. In authorities where there has been an attempt to swing back to selection parental opposition has been so strong that the authorities have been forced to change their minds. In spite of what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has just said, parents are not fools. They know that bringing back grammar schools also means bringing back secondary modern schools. Does the noble Baroness believe that less able children did better in those schools? All the evidence suggests quite the contrary.
Nor is there too much evidence that parents want to take over the running of schools. While they nearly

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all want to be involved in the education of their own children as far as possible, that does not extend to running the schools completely. Few have either the time or inclination and most would prefer to leave it to others with more expertise.
Turning to the lost opportunities, where in this Bill are the clauses creating universal nursery education? Where are the clauses dealing with the failure of the system to retain more young people in full time education after the age of 16? Where are the clauses creating an entitlement to adult education so that those who missed out earlier can catch up later? It is now over 20 years since the Plowden Report recommended nursery education for all children whose parents wanted it. It is nearly 15 years since Mrs. Thatcher's White Paper accepted the Plowden proposals, yet we are still far short of the necessary number of places. The Government are fond of referring to the French so far as concerns the national curriculum. Why do they not follow the example of France on pre-school provision, where 90 per cent. of the age group benefit? Why do they not look to Sweden and Germany for ideas on how to keep young people in full-time education after the school leaving age? We are now close to the bottom of the OECD league in this respect and that is a disgrace.
In commenting on the Bill before us, I want to focus on those parts concerned with schools. The proposals for a national curriculum involve a quite terrifying concentration of power in the hands of the Secretary of State. We are told that he will seek advice. However, that is little consolation when we hear that he will hand pick all those who give him advice. No other education body has a right to nominate those advisers. Can it really be right to give so much control over the vital matter of the content of what children learn to one person? Is not the Institute of Economic Affairs—hardly known for its Left-wing tendencies—right to be worried when it says,
"not the school, not the teacher, not the parent, not the pupil but the Secretary of State shall decide … it is frightening to think that Chapter I will give enormous power over what 7 million children are to be taught to a very few people and ultimately to one man"?
As the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, has implied, this or any future Secretary of State will be able to impose his whims with virtually no safeguards. In a healthy constitution is this the kind of legislation that we want?
What I find puzzling is the about-turn that the Government have done since 1986 when the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, told this House:
"The Government like its predecessors has no intention of introducing central control and imposing a rigid framework in place of the healthy local diversity we now enjoy … The preference to make central priorities prescriptive would be to trespass on the ability of locally elected authorities and the schools themselves to respond to local priorities in setting their own curriculum policies within broad areas of agreement".
What has happened to produce such an extraordinary volte-face? While no one would dissent from the need to develop a flexible core curriculum, the Government's proposals go far beyond this. They will deprofessionalise teachers and lead, I fear, to a further decline in their morale. In spite of all the populist talk about parents, they are not mentioned. Choice for pupils will be more restricted and there is
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a serious danger of ossification and an inadequate responsiveness to change.
Open enrolment and opting out are simply a massive "con" trick on suspecting parents. They also represent a more cynical and ruthless attempt to undermine local government than any we have seen so far even from this Government. They are not simply random ideas to deal with particular problems as perceived by the Government. They are part of a concerted effort both to destroy local education authorities as we know them and to operate the education system on the basis of a rather nasty version of the survival of the fittest.
Let me take open enrolment first. The 1980 Act set out a framework which made it possible through admission limits for local authorities to seek an orderly reduction in school rolls at a time of dramatic demographic decline. Above all, it has ensured that children are protected in under-subscribed schools. Since over 90 per cent. of parents are able to send their children to their first choice of schools—I repeat, my Lords over 90 per cent.—the introduction of open enrolment is in any case quite unnecessary. It will also have a number of unfortunate effects. Some schools will be overcrowded with over-large classes. Others will be uneconomically small. It will be hard to achieve high standards in both. It will be particularly difficult to maintain the curriculum in the unduly small schools except at extremely high cost. More children travelling to school from outside their own locality will lead to children living closer being denied places and therefore to increased transport costs.
However, the main problems are, first, that parents' expectations may be raised unrealistically. There can never be completely open enrolment because the practical issues of space prevent it. Secondly, the sensible managment of demographic change in the interests of all pupils will be impossible. Thirdly, the choice for parents in the end will be reduced as schools collapse and eventually have to be closed.
Even more controversial are the proposals for grant-maintained schools. The Government's purpose in inventing this creature is clearly to create a new tier of semi-selective schools. They have found that they cannot bring back grammar schools because public opinion is against them, so they have invented a new way of doing so by the back door. It is nonsense for the Secretary of State to claim that no school will be allowed to change its status, thus preventing the reintroduction of selection. Once head teachers no longer have to apply local authority guidelines, all the pressures on them will be to select the most disciplined, the most manipulable, brightest children; and to keep out the potentially disruptive children, those with difficult and unsupportive parents, and those with special needs. The schools will select the parents rather than the parents selecting the schools. Pressure will be exerted to keep up high test scores and high examination results and to keep down the extra costs associated with special needs, with remedial teaching, and with pastoral work for those with family problems. There can be little hope that grant-maintained schools will contribute to the much-needed integration of

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children with special needs into mainstream education.
The Bill fails to provide answers to many important questions about the creation and operation of these schools. How is a parent to be defined for the purpose of balloting on opting out? Can an application go to the Secretary of State even if a tiny minority of parents vote in the ballot? What will the Secretary of State do when schools opt out to avoid closure? Will he accept such applications and thus prevent sensible economies and rationalisation that he advocates for local authorities? How will grant-maintained schools provide all the back-up services currently available from LEAs? Who will take on the complex task of working out charges—assuming that they will have to pay for these services—and then for administering such a scheme? What will happen if a community school opts out? Will its facilities be lost to the community?
There are many more unanswered questions about the proposal, and we need the answers. However, the fundamental, unanswered question is this. Why create this new brand of school? The ostensible reason is to give at least some schools more freedom and autonomy and thereby to widen choice. There are other parts of this Bill—namely, financial delegation—that will provide just that freedom and autonomy. Therefore why also have maintained schools? As I have said before, in spite of all the rhetoric about choice for parents, it will be reduced in most cases because the schools will do the choosing rather than the parents.
Finally, I should like to say something about the proposals in the Bill to abolish the ILEA. As a parent, an ex-school governor and an ex-chief officer in this authority, I have some knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses—perhaps rather more than the Secretary of State, who has not sent his children to ILEA schools although he lives in London. Of course the authority has some weaknesses; most organisations do. However, the Government have chosen to dwell only on them and indeed greatly to exaggerate them and to give no credit for its many innovations which have now been adopted by the Government themselves. Who introduced parent governors first? Who pioneered graded assessment? Who introduced a measure of financial devolution to schools? Who was the first to grant independent status to its polytechnics? The answer to all those questions is the ILEA.
The Government's main complaint has been of high spending; but they have failed to acknowledge the far greater spending in London by the Metropolitan Police and by social services departments than elsewhere. Indeed the "London effect" in these areas is far greater than in education. Greater social need requires greater social spending. In any case, the Government do not need to abolish the ILEA to control spending on inner London education. They have invented rate-capping. As a result nearly £100 million is being cut from the ILEA's budget this very year.
The second main complaint is about its so-called poor standards. As my noble friend Baroness David has said, here the Government take a position that is
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out of line with what their most senior expert adviser, the senior chief inspector in the DES, believes to be the case. He has described primary provision as similar to that found in the country as a whole; provision for under-fives as among the best in the country; further education as generally good and in some cases excellent; and adult education as a first rate service in every respect. It is only the secondary stage on which he is critical. To my knowledge there is no senior responsible person in the ILEA who does not admit that major efforts have to be made to improve the overall quality of secondary education. Work is going on at this time to achieve that.
It should also be noted that an analysis of examination results carried out by the University of Sheffield indicates that the ILEA comes 56th in a league table of 96 authorities. What are the Government doing about the 40 authorities with lower scores? Are they intending to abolish all those also?
If a government decide to abolish a major organisation such as the ILEA they have some responsibility to ensure that the alternatives they are proposing will be an improvement. The Government have totally abrogated all responsibility in this respect in their pursuance of a disgraceful act of political spite. The boroughs are far too small to provide the range of support services needed, especially for an area as deprived as inner London. They will be unable to attract the high quality administrators and advisers needed. They will be unable to provide the range of specialist provision offered by the ILEA whether in special education, in music or in adult education. Their record in relation to their existing services cannot give confidence about their performance as education authorities. Finally, they have quite enough changes to contend with as a result of other legislation in housing, employment matters and especially in relation to local government finance.
London parents are aware of all those reasons. They fear for their children's education if the ILEA is abolished, which is why so many voted for its retention. Do the Government intend to ignore this overwhelming vote in favour of the ILEA and yet pretend that they take the views of parents seriously?
I speak as one of the beneficiaries of that great piece of education reform, the Butler Act 1944. The tragedy of the Bill before us is that it will undermine many of Rab Butler's great achievements by destroying his carefully constructed partnership between central and local government, by selling parents a phoney, cardboard cut-out version of choice and by reconstructing many of the inequalities in education provision which people in all parties have worked so hard to remove since 1944. We are only too well aware of the need to improve the skills and the understanding of all our people, not just the few who can fight their way into a segregated group of good schools. In this Bill the Government, far from creating opportunities for all our people, are letting down employers, parents, teachers and the children themselves on whom our future depends. The nation will suffer if the philosophy behind this Bill is allowed to prevail and its ill-thought out and destructive proposals are implemented.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, it falls to me to outline briefly and broadly where I and my colleagues in the SDP stand on this Bill, particularly in relation to schools. Later today my noble friends Lord Flowers and Lord Perry of Walton will apply their great knowledge and experience to the provisions for higher and further education. Tomorrow my noble friends Lord Young of Dartington, Lord Hanworth and Lady Stedman will address various topics that fall within the Bill.
Recently there has undoubtedly been great concern in the country about the situation in schools, but the Government's response disappoints because this is not so much an education reform Bill as a reform of the machinery of education. The trouble is that the no doubt genuine desire of the Secretary of State to improve the quality of education is inextricably entwined with the Government's long-running institutional quarrel with local authorities. So the message of the Bill becomes blurred, and its thrust blunted, as vast tracts of it are not to do with education at all but with rearranging the bureaucratic boundaries. One must to some extent discount the outraged cries of the providers of education whose monopolies are threatened. It is hard to see how the standard of education will be improved speedily across the country, especially as very little additional money appears to be contemplated to fund the teacher recruitment and training on which the new curriculum must depend.
On the whole our attitude is one of some scepticism concerning what the Bill will achieve in schools, although there are aspects of it that we can support. I am quite unable to muster the degree of antipathy to the Bill expressed in some speeches so far. I shall endeavour to make my comments less condemnatory than practical. I shall deal first with those areas of the Bill which cause us least difficulty.
As regards the curriculum, we support the need for education on a broader and more balanced front up to the age of 16 years. None of us can now hope to be Renaissance man or even late 17th century Royal Society man—though no doubt some distinguished speakers this evening may approach that—with a grasp of virtually the whole realm of knowledge. But early specialisation and a lack of bridges across the science-humanities divide have bedevilled our system for too long. It is good that the Government have indicated more flexibility over the time to be allocated to core and foundation subjects both overall and separately.
However, there are serious worries about resource implications. There is a shortage of teachers and equipment in at least three of the areas that the Government want to promote: science, CDT and modern languages. What are the Government going to do about that? There is no mention of any allocation for this purpose in the financial memorandum at the beginning of the Bill. I also have some reservations about the prescriptive curricular mix. As a nation we are indeed weak linguists, but is it really sensible to force a modern language on pupils up to the age of 16 who show no aptitude? At the very least an expanded programme of intensive immersion in language laboratories and plenty of foreign trips
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will be required. Have the Government faced up to the costs implications of that?
I am extremely concerned about what will happen to that indeterminate and tricky area in which health and sex education meet. Will the AIDS threat be handled as part of biology if the governors are against sex education? What is the role of the HEA in relation to schools? Of course I do not expect the noble Baroness to answer these questions in detail after another 70 odd speeches, but I shall certainly be tabling amendments to try to get some answers.
Turning now to open enrolment—here I part company with some of the previous speakers—I do not myself see the need for such rigid control over admission numbers. It is said that only 4 or 5 per cent. do not get their first choice. But the fact is that there are over 10,000 annual appeals and those who appeal may only be the tip of the iceberg of dissatisfaction. However it does not seem sensible or feasible to pin the number to the baseline of 1979–80 in view of subsequent developments such as the new requirements regarding the integretation of pupils with special needs—of which I have been reminded by the Quaker Board of Social Responsibility and Education—the pressures of the GCSE and the fact that most of the Government's favourite subjects, notably science, languages and CDT, are big consumers of space. Surely we do not want Portakabin schools burgeoning like educational caravan sites all over the country. There must be a sensible balance to be struck here, whereby local authorities and governors in maintained schools can agree the limit but must show good cause for its retention when there are complaints. There may be some better mechanism, but this is something we ought to pursue in Committee.
On local financial management—the subject of Clauses 25 to 41—we have no difficulty in principle. As is well known, this pattern of financial devolution was pioneered successfully with all-party agreement in Cambridge so we have a good pilot scheme to go on, which cannot be said for some other proposals in the Bill. Obviously the scope of devolution is limited as 70 per cent. of a school's outgoings are accounted for by wages, but taking marginal decisions on priorities undoubtedly gives parents a more meaningful role. The main worries concern training for heads and deputies and the likely need for a finance director in larger schools. The fear is that blanket imposition could be chaotic if the way is not prepared. Paragraph 3 of that part of the memorandum dealing with the financial effects of the Bill does not seem to me very realistic when it says:
"Costs in individual authorities should be offset by the more effective use of resources as decision making is delegated to those directly responsible. Training programmes and the provision of specialist advice will need to be directed to support governors and head teachers in managing their budgets".
There is no mention of any additional money there, though I believe there has been some talk of specific grants for training. I think the noble Baroness mentioned some initiative in this field and possibly she could expand on that when she winds up.
I now turn to the more contentious parts of the Bill. The provisions for opting-out, Clauses 49 to 92, have caused a great deal of controversy. The Secretary of State claimed on Sir Robin Day's

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"Question Time", last Thursday evening that he is merely trying to respond to parental concern about bad education. It must be accepted that this concern exists and that there is therefore an argument for giving dissatisfied parents an exit route from a bad or tyrannous authority. There is also attraction in the concept of a plurality of providers as a means of increasing variety and choice. But the Government's method has a number of serious drawbacks. One is that it can be taken as an escape route from an LEA's proposed reorganisation—for example, the creation of a sixth form college or a tertiary college which could be of great advantage to all the children in the area. The second is that privileged treatment for grants could be given to grant-maintained schools thus giving them an unfair advantage over LEA schools, as has already been mentioned. But perhaps the most serious of all is that, after the initial five years, it could and may well—and in fact probably will—lead to a reintroduction of selection which has already been mentioned. I should like to make quite clear our opposition to that.
In a recent speech my right honourable friend Dr. David Owen drew attention to the fact that, according to the evidence, over the past 20 years the performance of non-selective schools in the maintained sector has improved. A slightly higher proportion of pupils at 16 are now attaining five O-levels or CSE equivalents and, on the whole, comprehensive education has out-performed the old grammar school/secondary modern system. There can be no going back on that. That is our bottom line and it is largely why my colleagues in the other place voted against the Second Reading of the Bill.
On these grounds our support for opting out is conditional on strong safeguards against selectivity and a proper threshold for the parental ballot. A simple majority of voting parents on so important an issue is simply not enough, as has already been said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. A number of alternative and better formulae were proposed in Standing Committee in another place, ranging from 40 per cent. of those entitled to vote to two-thirds of those actually voting. No doubt similar amendments will be tabled here and we shall support them. They are backed not only by the Opposition parties but also by Conservative Back-Benchers. At Report stage in another place the honourable Member for Cambridge, for example, said that he strongly supported the principle of opting out but that he believed that the decision must be made by a majority of all parents. We agree with that belief. After all the fact that they have set such an artificially low trigger mechanism does not say very much for the Government's faith in the popularity of opting out.
Another idea is that there should be stronger requirements on the Secretary of State to take into account overall local conditions before permitting a school to opt out. We should also investigate that idea in Committee. It may be appropriate to add here that my noble friend Lord Young of Dartington has a different idea of how parental choice can be increased within the existing system. He is proposing to explain that idea to your Lordships tomorrow and I am taking this opportunity of flagging what I hope will be another interesting speech from this Bench.
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Finally, I should like to turn to the proposals for the abolition of the ILEA, dealt with in Clauses 141 to 168. I should declare an interest as an ILEA parent who voted in the ballot, although I may appear to be rather old for that role. None the less, it is the case. In respect of this matter I believe that we must keep cool heads and not allow our judgment as a revising Chamber to be clouded by rhetoric, whether from the pro- or anti-abolitionist camps. The Government's original idea, which this replaces, was not very good. However, just because two prominent Back-Benchers in another place—neither of them Members for Inner London constituencies—have chosen this issue as a platform for their own political ends and forced their supposedly clean and simply solution on the Government, does not mean that we must also accept it without the most rigorous scrutiny.
Let us first take the case for the prosecution, which I believe must be admitted. I suspect that there may well have been a leakage of sympathy in your Lordships' House since the ILEA was set up in its present form. That is not only because of the much publicised errors of taste and judgment by the authority but also because of its failure under its previous leader to control the unions, redeploy teachers or manage the budget. I accept those criticisms. However, I cannot refrain from reminding your Lordships that, if the Government had accepted our proposals for a proportionally elected authority, for which the ILEA was tailor-made, we should not have had this highly-politicised, union-dominated leadership, or the resultant bad management. I expected the usual guffaw when I mentioned PR and I was glad not to hear it.
Those are the sins; now to the defence. The errors must be admitted and I believe that the present leader is much more aware of them than was his predecessor. Then come the incontrovertible facts, some of which have been rehearsed. The mixture of ethnic minorities and deprivation in London is unparalleled in the country. Many of the ILEA support, research and special services have won high praise. Its adult education is an absolute lifeline to so many people who have written to me and, no doubt, to other noble Lords. Some of them would willingly pay more for it if the authority would drop its ideological objection. The successful organisation of sixth form and tertiary colleges, of which there are a number of excellent examples, also requires cross-boundary flow and so forth. It can be seen that there are arguments on both sides and, no doubt, they will be exhaustively discussed. It is important to ask ourselves what form the discussion should take.
The parents' ballot cannot be dismissed. It delivered a much better popular majority than any government has enjoyed since the war and the turn out was unusually high for a local government issue. It cannot be brushed aside as a mere pressure-group gimmick. For Mr. Baker to belittle the whole issue, as he sought to do last Thursday on "Question Time", by asking flippantly, "Who on earth misses the GLC?" (or words to that effect) is totally to miss the point. The defunct GLC had very few important powers and that is why Mr. Livingstone branched out into foreign policy. On the other hand, the Inner London Education Authority deals on a day-to-day basis with our children, the life-blood of our capital.

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I suggest that in these circumstances there is only one sensible and indeed honourable thing for the Government to do. They should withdraw these clauses which totally ignore the danger of turning over many of our children to a much more politically polarised authority than the ILEA. They should exercise the power that they already have under Section 22 of the Local Government Act 1985—already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady David—to institute a review of the ILEA at any time before March, 1991. The Secretary of State is then obliged to lay that before Parliament. In my submission, that mechanism should be set in motion forthwith, allowing time for a thorough assessment well before the next ILEA elections due in March, 1990. On that basis we can then decide whether we still want a unitary authority for all London education or perhaps for only some aspects of it, and if so, whether it should be elected or appointed, and so forth. I strongly suggest to your Lordships, whether noble Lords are intuitively for or against such an authority, that this is now the only proper way to proceed; rather than the irresponsible and cavalier fashion proposed in the Bill. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will support that point of view.
There are many topics that I have not touched upon. They will be dealt with by my noble friends. Believers as we are in multi-party politics and democratic pluralism, we are fully prepared to enter into constructive co-operation with those of all parties or none to secure improvements to the Bill.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Swann: My Lords, a quartet of Cross-Bench Peers, all of us scientists, have felt most concerned with the issue of academic freedom raised in the Bill. A while ago we decided that there should be tabled a reasoned amendment on Second Reading. As only one Peer can put his name to an amendment under that procedure, I did so last week. We had not expected that the use of this procedure—set out in Standing Orders as a means of inviting the House to put on record a particular point of view in assenting to a Bill—would cause so much concern on all sides, but it did. I rapidly came to the conclusion that it would be counter-productive to persist, and regretfully I withdrew the amendment. Well-worn platitudes come to the rescue on such traumatic occasions, and what began as "nothing ventured, nothing gained" ended up as "discretion is the better part of valour". I comfort myself retrospectively by thinking that one lives and learns even at the age of 68.
Nevertheless, I intend to venture forth in a more conventional way. Academic freedom is not a very satisfactory phrase because it means different things to different people. To those who are critical of universities it conjures up quite unwarranted visions of irreponsible or extreme behaviour, or idleness. On the other hand, to academics it is shorthand for a noble concept, embracing what has long been seen as a duty and a responsibility to a free society.
By the phrase "academic freedom" academics mean independent inquiry and the pursuit of truth, wherever that may lead and in whatever area of
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knowledge. That is far from easy, because by definition new ideas and new knowledge upset the established order of things. In consequence they are often unpopular, on occasions even to other academics. From Socrates through Galileo, to Darwin and on to more abstruse modern concepts, in every area of learning, history is littered with examples of new discoveries and ideas being resisted, sometimes passionately. Yet it is those very advances that have ultimately affected our lives so profoundly, and nearly always for the better.
There have been innumerable advances in the physical sciences on which society and industry depend so profoundly; most recently and most dramatically, I suppose, the computer revolution. As a biologist I think especially of the discoveries that have led to modern medicine and agriculture; yet some of them were resisted or ignored initially and, in some instances, for a long time. I hardly need to remind your Lordships that were this 1850 most of us would be dead because since then, in fact, the expectation of human life has more than doubled.
I should also point out that there are many incapacitating ailments that can now be cured or alleviated where previously they could not. Perhaps the newly arrived spectre of AIDS ought to remind us of the innumerable spectres that hung over our forebears but which no longer hang over us.
I do not want to imply that it is only advances in science that matter. The advances in every corner of knowledge—from the arts to the often unjustly derided social sciences—have led to equally profound if less readily appreciated advances in the understanding of society and mankind. However, the study of human and social behaviour is more complex and more difficult in many ways than the study of natural sciences, and in consequence progress has not been so rapid.
I have referred to the resistance that so often greets new ideas and advances in knowledge. That can even come from within the academic world, and has regularly come from outside it. In past centuries it has come from the Church. Today it usually comes from some sector of society, and in particular from society's organs of government. As one example, let us take the dislike of most Governments for the social sciences. It is this tendency to resist advances in knowledge and understanding that has led the academic world to build up what I shall call an ethos that welcomes new ideas and which abhors attempts to constrain the freedom of inquiry and the subsequent dissemination of new knowledge. Academic freedom therefore has two strands, scholarship and research on the one hand and teaching on the other.
Academics do not themselves invariably live up to this ethos, powerful as it is, but they guard it jealously, whether the threat comes from within or, as nowadays, more often, from without. It is because this Bill looks set to weaken the safeguards that have been established over the years that the world of higher education, and universities in particular, are so concerned.
I want now to look at the perceived threats to academic freedom implicit in the Bill, both internal and external. The internal threat is often related to

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the proposed abolition of academic tenure. This is in fact fairly recent, and is by no means enjoyed by all universities. Nevertheless it has been a partial protection against staff being dismissed because a university wants to get rid of people whose ideas they do not like, infrequent as this may be. I am therefore glad that the Government intend to arrange for grievance procedures in the event of alleged unfair dismissal, and I think that that concession will go some way towards reassuring the university world.
There is a lot more that I could say about the internal injustices and the disincentives to recruitment and promotion to a poorly paid profession that the abolition of tenure will create, but I do not intend to argue the matter. My time is short, and I know that others mean to do just this.
The perceived external threat to academic freedom, however, is in my view, and in the view of many academics, a cause for considerably greater concern. Even the most enthusiastic supporter of this Bill can scarcely deny that it involves throughout a very marked increase in the centralised control of the whole education system by the Secretary of State.
Turning to universities, about which I know most, I welcome the Secretary of State's readiness to limit his powers a little over the proposed Universities Funding Council. But if there were not to be more central control over university funding, one has to ask why it was necessary to do away with the University Grants Committee, increasingly interventionist as it has become in recent years, and create a new body in its place. But—and it is a very important "but"—when one refers to the Secretary of State one actually means, in all but the most major matters of policy, the officials of the Department of Education and Science. It seems to me therefore that a look at their attitude to academic freedom, and that of other departments, is in order. That is not easily done, but their handling of research in universities by means of contracts is very revealing.
Since the Universities Funding Council is enabled to fund universities by means of contracts, and all the expectations are that they will indeed do so, one can hardly doubt that this will be done in the same sort of way, and by the same sort of people, as presently manage contracts for the Government. I suggest that a look at what happens to individual academics today must surely give one an idea of what might happen to universities tomorrow. Have any of your Lordships, I wonder, ever seen the sort of contract forms that the DES and the DHSS, and for all I know other departments, hand out when they are commissioning research from universities? I have acquired some. They make interesting reading and are all much the same.
One form that I have in my hand has 12 pages and something like 45 paragraphs or sub-paragraphs. Some of the conditions are I suppose acceptable, if pettifogging. Others are far from being acceptable, and I want to summarise a few of the worst. The Secretary of State, for instance, will set up a steering group of his own choice to oversee the research, to whom the researcher has to report whenever required to discuss his work and (I quote precisely)
"receive the guidance of the steering group".
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I am told that those groups have become increasingly interventionist. Moreover, the researcher has to have regard to guidance given by the Secretary of State through the steering group or otherwise.
Then, the researcher may not use any questionnaires unless the terms and use have been approved by the Secretary of State. Materials (meaning, it would seem research data collected in the course of work) may not be reproduced or disseminated in the UK or anywhere else without prior consultation with the Secretary of State, nor may they be used for later work without written permission of the Secretary of State. Further, the Secretary of State must be consulted before any written statement, paper or press notice is published, or press or other conference held. A draft of any of these things has to be sent to the Secretary of State well in advance, and publication is subject to his approval.
I can think of no better way of inhibiting good research, of slanting things in the desired direction or of suppressing uncomfortable findings and avoiding political embarrassment. I shudder to think of what will happen to our once proud university system if such thinking creeps into their funding contracts, as seems to me only too possible.
By way of a postscript I should tell your Lordships what the Lords Select Committee on Agriculture and Food Research learnt a few weeks ago; namely, that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's questionnaires and forms for contract funding primarily to the Agricultural Research Council are so immensely involved and complicated that the department is having to lay on training courses for research workers in how to fill them up. In the interests of historical accuracy it should have been recorded in the Minutes, but was not, that their Lordships collapsed in incredulous laughter.
Are your Lordships surprised that universities are apprehensive and mistrustful of the ministerial protestations that they care for academic freedom? I am not exactly mistrustful of Ministers: it is rather that I suspect that all this came about because Ministers once issued curt instructions from a high level about accountability and cost-effectiveness but had very little idea of what would actually happen as a result. If indeed Ministers ever had a sight of all the government-inspired forms and questionnaires that already deluge universities and the research world, wasting endless time and lowering morale yet further, I cannot help wondering if it was in the time-honoured circumstances so beloved by Sir Humphrey Appleby of "Yes, Minister" fame; that is to say, that the papers were tucked away in the pages of some vast report put at the bottom of the last Dispatch Box to be read by the Minister at the end of a particularly exhausting day.
In short, I am saying that government departments are poor managers of men in distant organisations, and especially in creative ones such as universities. It is not their fault. They are told to set up controlling mechanisms, and full-time staff set about it with a will, as is their duty. But I doubt if they have any idea of the mayhem they cause at the sharp end. So I suggest, not entirely with my tongue in my cheek, that a few Ministers and a few Permanent Secretaries

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should spend a while in some university departments on secondment attempting research, lecturing or examining, on tutorials, seminars or counselling on problem students, but above all on trying, incognito, to raise much needed research contract money from each other's departments. The effect could be dramatic.
I hope that I have made it a little clearer why our quartet of Cross-Bench scientists felt so anxious as to invoke a reasoned amendment at Second Reading, inviting the House to put on record a particular view in assenting to the Bill. I hope also that the Minister and your Lordships might reflect on what we believe are very serious issues.
5.32 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, I am fully aware of the anxieties which the noble Lord, Lord Swann, has expressed. As with other issues involved in the universities part of this Bill, it seems to me that the proper procedure is to continue the negotiations, putting forward constructive suggestions which allowed, as the noble Lord agreed, a considerable measure of improvement in another place. We hope when we come to Committee stage that these suggestions will enable some of these problems also to be solved. The difficulty is, as the noble Lord agrees, largely a question of finance. To what extent should the financial controls which central government operate elsewhere be applied? Can they be applied to institutions of higher education and particularly to research? I believe we may still have to face a total recasting of university finances and at that point perhaps some of these problems will seem less acute than they do to us in the universities today.
I should like to return to the main thrust of the Bill. This is a Second Reading debate and not a Committee stage. I refer to a point which has already been made by my noble friend Lady Young, and I put it even more brutally. When I read the correspondence that lands on my desk, whether from individuals claiming to be teachers, parents, concerned citizens or whatever, when I read the statements of the various pressure groups in the education world from which some of these personal letters apear to be derived, when, above all, I listened today with great attention, as I always do, to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady David, which incorporated roughly what I have had across my desk from all these opponents of the Bill, I am struck, as I believe my noble friend is, by the total complacency which appears to reign in the education world when it looks at the figures and the facts.
It is a fact that has not been denied that our school-leavers are two or three years behind the Germans and the Japanese. It was pointed out by the Director General of the CBI in a recent speech that our school-leavers, with no formal qualifications, expect incomes five times the size of what can be obtained in the third world by people with technical qualifications. As a society how can we survive and how can we do all these extra things that we were told should be in the Bill? These are excellent provisions such as nursery education, greater rights to adult education or further education. How can we achieve any of these
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measures in a totally uncompetitive economy? How do we expect an economy to thrive if its raw material, which is the skill of its workforce, is not on a par with that of its competitors? Unless noble Lords opposite can answer that, to my mind their claim to deal seriously with the Bill is a vain one.
I go further. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is not in her place because her speech provided an admirable illustration which I shall have to use in her absence. I believe it is historically correct. Over the past 30 years—this is said in my correspondence from people who oppose the Bill—we have had a high degree of consensus. They say we have had a system of which everybody approves. It gives all children opportunities, besides all the familiar points that we have heard. What they do not say is that it is a consensus based on a false educational philosophy about which the noble Baroness is perhaps the most eloquent but by no means the only exponent in your Lordships' House.
It was somewhat disingenuous of her to quote Lord Butler. It is true that in many respects the Butler Act was an important advance over our previous arrangements in the education world, particularly in generalising the provision of secondary education. However, she appears to have overlooked the fact that long before he died Lord Butler said—it is recorded in his biography written by a Socialist so I have to take it as being true—that the Act had been de-natured by the ideological insistence of the Labour Party on comprehensive education rather than the tripartite system which was the core of his beliefs. After 30 years of their kind of education noble Lords opposite have to explain why, if this consensus on Left-wing education theory is sustainable, Britain is not at the top of every education league, not only by the measurement of mathematical skills, important though that is, but linguistically where I think there is again a poor performance.
Above all, this level of achievement relates to some social aspects to which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, referred. If the school system is so admirable, why do we have such high rates of truancy and a high degree of vandalism? At teachers' conferences when they get away from claiming more for themselves, why do they almost invariably ask, "What are you going to do to protect us from our pupils and in some cases from the parents of our pupils?".
A school system which produces that kind of social consequences and such poor educational results surely cannot claim to be beyond or above criticism. Noble Lords opposite have to face the fact that the reason for a major Bill is that we need a major revolution in our education provision and this must be underpinned by a new philosophy. This applies to curricula as well. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, produced an example of what I call this Left-wing consensus, the idea that subjects are bad things. Subjects are not bad things. It is a moral discipline for a child to learn the content and the methodology of a particular subject. To bury all this in some cross-cultural porridge is no service.
My final point is addressed to noble Lords on the Labour Benches. They often—and I think rightly—speak very movingly of the plight of the young who go out into the world we have built and fail to find a job. They are absolutely right never to

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let us forget it. However, I would say to noble Lords opposite that they must look at the reasons for the failure.
One reason is a lack of qualifications. At the moment there is no shortage of jobs for people with a whole range of qualifications. There is a total shortage of jobs for those whom the schools have left out. Noble Lords opposite are not prepared to face that fact and to say that perhaps they should not have listened to the intellectuals in their party, to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, but should have taken a straightforward look and asked, "What do our children need, and in particular"—and I speak as the son of immigrants—"what do our immigrant children need?". Above all those children need an introduction to the life skills and techniques which will enable them to earn a living as respected members of our society.
Between the social aims of noble Lords opposite, which I applaud, and their educational aims, which I feel are deplorable, there is something which I hope they may find a way of resolving as this Bill proceeds, successfully, as I believe it will, through your Lordships' House.
5.42 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I hope to reply as I go along to one or two of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, in his political diatribe. The noble Baroness started her speech by saying that she expected to hear some history. I shall begin by reminding her of a little history.
In the Autumn of 1943 I was on leave from the army and I went to see the principal of my old college in Durham. I sat with him in his study. He told me that Mr. R. A. Butler had spent the previous night there because he was going around the country discussing a new education Bill. Indeed Mr. Butler and Mr. Chuter Ede spent months going round the country discussing their Bill. I have before me a biography of Mr. Butler by Gerald Sparrow in which he talks about, and I quote:
"the great campaign undertaken by himself and Chuter Ede after the publication of their White Paper in 1943. This was in the nature of a crusade. By touring the country separately and together and addressing all the interested parties, school governors, teachers, the universities, local authorities and the general public, they paved the way for their Bill in Parliament".
That was how they tackled it. And because they tackled it in that way, by an intensive period of personal consultation around the country, they produced an agreed measure. Some noble Lords have talked about consensus as though it were a dirty word, but when it comes to education that is what we ought to aim at.
Mr. Butler's Bill was agreed by the Churches and he himself on more than one occasion paid tribute to Archbishop Temple and to Cardinal Hinsley. It was agreed by all the local authority organisations, by all the teachers' organisations and by both sides in Parliament. Not only that but it took account of three major reports on education—the Hadow Report, the Spens Report and the Norwood Report. We have not had a major report on education in the past 10 years to take account of, but Mr. Butler's Bill had all that
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preparatory period. When it was produced it represented the broadest possible spectrum of consensus about the education system. Compared with that the consultation period for this Bill was a travesty. It was not even agreed in Government.
I have received a great many letters. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, I highly respect these letters from the public. I have one before me from the governor of a large high school in the North of England. It says:
"It is a shame that the Secretary of State has rejected all requests to extend the consultation period. The break-neck speed that legislation is being introduced, together with the distasteful tactics being employed, makes one highly suspicious of the motives of this present Government … When asked to, by the Secretary of State, (in the very, very brief time allowed) many people and organisations gave their views in good faith, believing that the Secretary was genuine in the assertion that the Government wished to obtain broad agreement and it would only act with the agreement of all the partners in the education world".
There was no agreement. Not one local authority organisation has agreed with the Bill. No party, apart from the Conservative Party in Parliament, agrees with it. The body representing school governors disagrees with it. Parents disagree with it. The whole education world is opposed to it.
Because of the trouble taken to secure agreement and consensus, the 1944 Act has endured for half a century. This Bill will endure until the next change of government. The Butler Bill endured, first, because it was a flexible Bill—flexible enough to permit enormous changes over the past half century in the methods, the context and the philosophy of education. Secondly, it has endured because it did not try to dot every "i" and cross every "t", as this Bill does. If noble Lords have read the schedules to the Bill they will see that the paternalistic attitude is quite ludicrous. Thirdly, and most importantly, the Butler Bill has endured because it is a masterpiece of how to distribute power in a public service among all the parties to it—to the Minister, the local authorities, the school governors, the parents and the universities. None had too much power and each could check the excesses of the others.
That was so because Mr. Butler believed, as every statesman since 1870 has believed, that of all the public services education should be characterised by the widest possible distribution of powers among all the parties to it away from central government. That is especially so in our democracy as it is today. I remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, talking about an elective dictatorship. He was absolutely right. Parliament has lost its ancient function of controlling the Government. The Government now control Parliament. So it is particularly important in our democracy as it is that in a service like education power should be widely distributed.
That view about the public education system has always been held for the obvious reason that the raw material of education, the raw material with which the service deals, is the immature minds of our children and young people. It is unique among the public services in that one unscrupulous partner with too much power and without the checks and balances of the other parties could use the service as a powerful instrument of social control. The older ones among us will remember the 1930s and the unscrupulous way

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in which the Nazis in Germany used the schools to capture the minds of young people. Because of that after World War II the Allies saw to it that education was kept as far away as possible from the federal government in Germany. It was put in the hands of Länder governments.
The overcentralisation of power in the educational system poses a real threat to the very heart of democracy. That danger, hitherto always avoided in Britain, is facing us with horrifying starkness in the Bill before us today. We are to have state schools for the first time since 1870. Hitherto we have always had county schools. Now we are to have some state schools because of the lunatic proposal for opting out.
My noble friend Lady David told us that over 360 new powers are being taken by the Secretary of State. I have been in one House of Parliament or the other for 37 years and this is by far the most comprehensive measure for the concentration of power in the hands of a Minister to come before Parliament during that time. Indeed, it is probably the biggest peacetime grabbing of power by a British Government in modern times. Apart from the democratic principle involved, which I believe is very important, we must look at the people who are grabbing the power.
I do not trust the Government—this increasingly Right-wing Government—with that amount of power over the minds of our children. I remind the noble Baroness that the Government do not have the support of the majority of the electorate. They received 42 per cent. of the votes in the last election. In the North-East they received in the region of 20 per cent. In Scotland they received 28 per cent., and in Wales they achieved 31 per cent. But they do not have a majority in England, with only 46 per cent. If I had a child in school at present I should be terrified at the prospect of this Government dictating what he or she had to learn during almost every minute of school life.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York made an extremely courageous speech when in Committee we discussed Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill. In opposing the Government's amendment he said:
"Of course like everybody else I want to protect children and young people, but what I object to in the Bill is the method proposed. I object to it because I believe it introduces a dangerous precedent in the control of ideas by central government … If we establish the principle that central government can say what ideas may or may not be promoted, I believe that we have increased the [danger to our democracy]. I believe … the powers of central government have been increased to a dangerous extent".
The greatest damage that the Government have done in their nine years of office—it is only nine years but it seems like 90—is not in their war of attrition against the welfare state; it is not in the damage done to manufacturing industry and it is not in the conversion of public monopolies into private monopolies. All those measures can, and I hope will, be undone. However, the biggest damage that the Government have done is in the surreptitious change they have tried to make in every minute of every day of every week of every year in the values of the nation.
I do not agree with those values and nor do the majority of the electorate. I do not agree with Mrs.
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Thatcher's harsh values; I do not agree with the profit-at-any-price values of the noble Lord, Lord Young; and I do not agree with Mr. Baker's chromium-plated values, with their insistence that only self-interest brings out the best in people—in other words, the market mechanism. Further, I do not agree with their hatred of social provision of health or education, or in any other matters. One of the most telling remarks made by Mrs. Thatcher in recent years was when she said that there is,
"no such thing as society".
I did not agree with their opposition to a more equitable distribution of wealth. As I have already said, I do not agree with the values of this Government at all. However, they are the people who will now determine what our children will and will not learn. If that does not amount to control of ideas, I do not know what does.
If noble Lords think I am exaggerating the point, I invite them to look at Clause 4, which says:
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State so to exercise the powers conferred [on him] to establish a complete National Curriculum as soon as it is reasonably practicable (taking first the core subjects and then the other foundation subjects); and to revise that Curriculum whenever he considers it necessary or expedient to do so".
It continues:
"The Secretary of State may by order specify in relation to each of the foundation subjects—

(a) such attainment targets;

(b) such programmes of study; and

(c) such assessment arrangements,

as he considers appropriate for that subject".
I believe that if those proposals were properly understood they would horrify the nation.
However, as awful as the Government are, who is to say what kind of government we shall have in the future? Indeed, I think one other noble Lord referred to that. Let us suppose that the Government continue to move to the Right at the speed with which they have moved to the Right in the past nine years, for say another 10 years. If by some mischance they are still in office, what kind of authoritarian government would we have in Britain then?
When the government of the day start to tell schools what they must teach in history, I believe that freedom and democracy are really in peril. One of the glories of our education system has been that it has always given freedom to our schools to devise their own curricula and their own methods. But—and this is not sufficiently appreciated by the Secretary of State or very few people outside the education service—it has been within broad tacit guidelines.
Those guidelines have been twofold: first, those provided by the inspectorate which visits each school nearly every year and keeps the curriculum generally on the agreed lines; and secondly, for older children by the examination system. If the Government required a third guideline for the curriculum they could have introduced a very good pre-war practice of publishing and revising from time to time a handbook of suggestions for teachers. That is one of the best books in the whole of the education literature in this country. Those two broad guidelines have created a broad consensus throughout England and Wales as to what should be taught, but they have left schools free to make the curriculum that they

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provided relevant to the school area and to the social, industrial and commercial life in the area, as well as being a curriculum which utilised the teaching ability of their staffs.
The Government preceded the introduction of the Bill by a campaign of a denigration of our schools and teachers. We constantly hear about bad schools and bad teachers. The process was not started by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle; it was started by the noble Lord, Lord Joseph—who is here today—and has been continued with enthusiasm by the present incumbent.
More recently that overambitious Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, has joined in. He lectured your Lordships on what he thinks is wrong with the education system. The remarks he made about schools being relevant to industry are almost precisely what Mr. Butler said in his 1943 White Paper. However, what the noble Lord did not say was what Mr. Butler often said and what he spelt out in a lecture in London in March 1962. He said:
"the rank and file of our young people must not be put out of all touch with liberal education until they are out of their teens".
That is precisely what the noble Lord would like to do. But of course Mr. Butler was a statesman. Indeed the book from which I quoted is called Study of a Statesman. As I said, Mr. Butler was a statesman who understood what education is all about. Conversely, the noble Lord is a party politician who has no clue as to what education should be about.
The endless condemnation of our schools has even reached the bloodstream of our education press. Today I read an article in the Daily Telegraph written by someone called Michael Durham—whoever he is —which talks about sorting out the flops among teachers. It must be said that few inadequate teachers pass through the net of teacher training nowadays. I believe that our schools are as good as any schools in the Western world; our teachers are as good as, and better than most, teaching professions in the Western world. Our primary schools are quite superb and I do not think that they are excelled anywhere in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, let the cat out of the bag, because what the Government have really been doing in attacking the schools and the teachers is blaming them for the sleazy society that has been created in Britain by their misguided policies and warped values over the past nine years.
One of the most bizarre and divisive proposals in the Bill is that which provides for opting out where the decision to do so is taken by a ballot of parents. A small minority of parents could carry this proposal. I remind noble Lords that the parent body in a school is like the student body in a college. It is constantly changing; it changes every few years. Future generations of parents can be lumbered with something which was decided by parents who have long gone from the scene.
The other matter that I should like to remind your Lordships about in this respect is that parents necessarily cannot appreciate the benefits a school gets from being under a local authority umbrella, from the bulk purchase of toilet rolls to the services of highly skilled subject advisers. If the schools opt out in any number it will make nonsense of local authority provision for the area. It will lead to an increasingly uneconomic use of their resources, of
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administrative staff, buildings, ancillary staff etc. It is a foolish and potentially destructive proposal.
I shall say only one thing with regard to higher education—and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Swann, made this point. If noble Lords read through the provisions on higher education there is inherent in them a considerable threat to academic freedom. However one looks at it, that threat is there. Indeed, it is the most considerable threat to academic freedom ever levelled at the universities. The Bill amounts to a massive intervention by central government, a massive grabbing of power from the primary schools to the universities. I believe that it should be resisted at all costs. The only consolation so far as I am concerned is that the greater part of it will be swept away after the next election.
6.2 p.m.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive yesterday's military man for presuming to enter this very important debate on current education reform. My detailed knowledge of this highly complex subject must inevitably pale in comparison with the depth of experience available elsewhere in your Lordships' House, as typified by the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who has just spoken, and the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, who will speak after me. That is a formidable sandwich to be inside.
I can only plead a long held interest in the subject and a continuing opportunity both in my military days and more recently in my present appointment to keep in quite close contact with schools and teachers. As some noble Lords will appreciate, I have not been without fraternal advice. This has been of immense help to me, but I know that your Lordships will understand if I concentrate on the more general issues and somewhat reluctantly leave to others the particular and emotive problems of education in Greater London.
I think many noble Lords have recognised that the Bill bears some of the hallmarks of having been put together rather hurriedly without perhaps the depth of consultation it deserves. When I first studied the Bill I also thought of the late Lord Butler, who took, as we have heard, up to two years of close consultation before embarking on his historic Education Act, the spirit of which I still believe is very important.
I start in this somewhat critical vein not because, like a much earlier military man and commander-in-chief of the British Army in the 19th century, I am against all change on principle. That is far from the case. In this instance there is an honest divergence of views, as we have heard, as to how good or bad our state education system really is when set against realistic and obtainable standards and in the light of the financial and social pressures within which the system has had to work; and therefore how much necessity there is for sweeping reform as opposed to quieter, more positive leadership, the encouragement of good qualified teachers and the provision of more well-directed resources. Surely the truth is that there are some bad teachers among very many good ones, some bad schools as well as numerous excellent ones and some stupid and even disruptive local authorities as well as many sensible and conscientious ones. It

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might seem only prudent not to disrupt the many in an emotional, even doctrinaire, reaction to the abuses of the few. We have seen too much of that in the past.
Nothing in this world is perfect and in the highly competitive climate which exists today it would be wrong to be at all complacent. Let us assume that we could indeed do better. There are certainly schools which are achieving poor results and a few authorities doing silly and unhelpful things. It is only right that we should be looking vigorously at how we can make the system more efficient. Certainly in this context a national curriculum can do no harm. If sensibly and broadly interpreted it might do a great deal of good. Indeed many people may feel that it is overdue in order to get away from excessively early specialisation, to raise the basic standards particularly of maths and English, which are certainly too low for industry and commerce, and to give proper emphasis and weight to foreign languages, so essential to some in the modern world.
Good schools with little difficulty in meeting such a curriculum would of course need flexibility and discretion in order to cover the subjects they feel necessary to include in their syllabuses. But for bad schools it should prove a most essential discipline, although it is a consideration whether it should not also be seen to apply to independent schools, which also have their weaker brethren.
The question of monitoring progress would seem to go hand in glove with that curriculum if standards are to be maintained. I know that there are differences of opinion on this point. Some will say that successive tests at impressionable ages will put sensitive children under pressure and risk the stigma of failure. I respect that view, although I happen to believe that life is all about pressure and sometimes even about coming last. We do not necessarily do our children and grandchildren any great service by trying to cocoon them from such pressures. As with the curriculum, there must be discretion and latitude allowed to the head teacher as to how these tests of progress are run.
I am not suggesting that the Bill has no redeeming features, but when it deals with transferring power to the parents and to governing bodies of somewhat vague and transitory composition, it seems to me to be on more doubtful ground. The problem with parents, as I am sure most noble Lords will agree, is their transient nature and the limits of their motivation and commitment. In short, they are here today and gone tomorrow. Although they naturally can and should be interested in the progress of their children, they frequently and generally show no great interest in other people's. Of course there are exceptions. There will be a few parents, past and present, with the time, motivation and experience to continue to provide welcome reinforcement to important and useful governing bodies. However, in general most parents want their children well taught by professional, approachable teachers, working under good and impressive head teachers with real authority, rather than finding the time (which most of them do not have) to get too deeply involved in how their children's school is run.
Yet under this Bill, as has been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady David, we could face the prospect that these very parents, or worse, an
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unrepresentative and politically motivated minority of them (although a marginal majority of those who have voted—and of course it could be politically motivated on either side), could set the school on a certain independent path from which subsequently there could be no turning back. Surely this House must try to ensure that there is a sounder basis for such an irrevocable and potentially damaging change.
If it was just a threat that a particular school might be considering opting out of local authority control to become a grant-maintained school—a warning shot across the bows—that might, I suppose, have some merit in making a wayward local authority pull its socks up; but were it to be carried through, let alone actively encouraged on a wide scale, as some seem to be suggesting, the repercussions could be immense.
Such a school, once it was largely cut off from the general advisory, financial, training and other support services provided by local authorities, would to all intents and purposes be in the position of an independent school, although presumably not allowed to charge any fees—or could I be wrong about that? Certainly a school which would now not only have to manage its own budget and administration with presently inadequate staff would then also, after the honeymoon period of per capita funding was over, have to negotiate independently with central government an enlarged budget to compensate for what it had forgone, and would find itself, I am convinced, even shorter on funds than it probably is at the moment.
Such a school would then seek those funds from parents or from the community in one guise or another, and money would pass. So perhaps the Minister will be able to explain exactly how those opted out schools will be funded. I doubt whether it would be convincing to suggest that they will be able to meet any extra expenses out of the money that they save by running their own affairs. In my not inconsiderable experience of Whitehall any such savings would be the first to be removed from future allocation.
As regards financial devolution generally, it is not, I stress, the principle that is wrong (in other areas many of us have fought for that for years) but without the proper staff and the money to pay them, the implementation of devolved management and financial control—total of course for those opting out—could become meaningless and even harmful.
But even if some individual schools were able to negotiate those not inconsiderable hurdles, and somewhat surreptitiously become some sort of voluntary aided link between the public and private sector, as I am sure some schools could, what in the world would happen to the remainder? The state system of education would then be fragmented and left in a constant state of uncertainty.
Local authorities would be denied the opportunity of a sensible and economical reorganisation in their areas as needs fluctuated and be left to cope with a disproportionate number of difficulties, families who have just moved, minority ethnic groups and children with physical and mental handicaps or behavioural or learning difficulties—a situation which would not

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only be inevitably and increasingly divisive but would, I submit, have a catastrophic effect on the confidence and morale of a high proportion of teachers. Some of the poorer local authorities would feel, and in London if ILEA went would probably be, quite unable to cope. Central government might then find themselves having to set up some national authority of their own to pick up the pieces as well as having to deal directly with the opted-out schools, a role for which since 1870 they have been considered unsuited to fill.
What was that observation on hasty reform, attributed, some would say erroneously, to a Roman public servant and observer of life in the first century? If I may remind your Lordships, it went:
"I was to learn too late in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising".
He continued:
"and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation".
The saddest thing of all about the Bill is the complete absence in it of any mention of attracting teachers and winning their hearts and minds once one has obtained them, although I was glad to hear the noble Baroness give some recognition to teachers' professionalism. Yet without that, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London has reminded us, all the organisational changes will at the best represent only an illusion of progress, with in the longer term the core curriculum becoming unworkable and even the freedom of choice emerging as a snare and a delusion.
I have always been brought up in my profession to believe that one cannot lead anyone or get their enthusiastic co-operation unless one respects them; and although sections of teachers have sometimes shown themselves to be their own worst enemies, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, unless positive steps can be taken to establish a sympathetic dialogue with them and to build up their confidence and their self-respect—here proper pay is obviously a vital factor—this reform will achieve little and in some areas will make things considerably worse. I hope that at the end of the debate the Minister will once again reiterate the Government's concern for the teachers in their future plans.
I say all that with some sadness, because I recognise as much as anyone in the House what the Government have achieved to make Britain solvent, to improve its defences and to increase its international prestige; but in this instance I most sincerely believe that they have it wrong in certain important respects where they have put politics before common sense. I feel that much informed opinion would agree with me.
We should be proud of our education system and try to enhance it so that it caters increasingly satisfactorily for all those in this country who cannot afford, and wish to have the freedom of choice not to spend their own limited finances on, something as fundamental as primary and secondary education. We should not give the impression of being somehow somewhat rather ashamed of our education system.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Joseph: My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, although I naturally did not agree with all that he said. I especially did not like being bracketed with the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara. I hope that there will be ample time to discuss in Committee some of the critical points that he made. I should like to congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her introduction of the Bill and to say that I strongly support nearly all of its provisions.
We all ought to recognise with some humility that not under any government since the war have we done especially well with mass education. I agree with my noble friends Lady Young and Lord Beloff, in being absolutely astounded at the complacency of several speakers opposite, and their lack of eagerness to find a way forward. The paradox is that noble Lords opposite sincerely believe and take pride in their own concern for the least prosperous, and yet it is just the least prosperous who have been damaged for some years by the relative inadequacy of our schooling provision.
It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, said, that when in office I constantly referred to the need to raise standards, particularly for the least prosperous. If I am to be accused by the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, of political motivation, I must remind him that I was not the first to raise those worries. It was his own leader, the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, who I think is to talk tomorrow, who raised the worry in many people's minds a full five years before I concentrated upon it.
In my view, we face a wholesale catastrophe, and have faced it for some time—the destruction of potential for a large percentage of children who are severely under-achieving. We compel children and young people to go to school. We keep them there by law for 11 years, and yet we all agree that a large minority—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London spoke of 20 per cent., but I believe that it is a much larger proportion than that—get from school little preparation for life, citizenship and work, little training in self-discipline and little grounding in basic educational tools.
I should have thought that it was common ground in the House that education standards are too low. Why are the standards low? In my view they are low because expectations are low—the expectations of many teachers, the expectations, alas, of many parents. I shall be crossing swords with some relish with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, for when she quotes parental opinion as being decisively against this or that, I remember from my time at Elizabeth House how many schools which HMI and other less expert people, including myself, thought were rather inadequate, rallied, mobilised practically 100 per cent. of parents in order to keep them open, even when a better school was available. So I do not think we should rely too much always on the judgments that depend upon low expectations.
There is also the demotivation of our pupils. Demotivation is rife in our schools; there is some bad teaching; in my view there is some doubtful education philosophy in teacher-training colleges. I do not think a mainly dilute academic curriculum is likely to

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motivate many children. We have had examinations which have not stretched a large proportion of children and the culture of our time is pretty hostile to some of the purposes of education. What a list! The sad result is that nearly all our children go to primary school keen and eager, with bright, shining eyes, but far too large a proportion of them are bored and demotivated by the time they go to secondary school.
In the light of what I regard as a catastrophe, I turn now to the Bill. It seems to me that no one in this debate has produced a better way forward. I am sure that the methods in the Bill are not perfect, but where is a better way forward? I have one criticism, one worry about the school aspects of the Bill. I wish to maintain and argue that non-academic children deserve as good and effective an education and stretching as academic children. Not all children benefit from academic teaching, not even a curriculum that is dilute academic for their sake. In fact, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, although she teased me about the outcome, when she reminded us that parents flinch from introducing grammar schools. Why do they flinch?—because they fear the reintroduction of secondary modern schools. No government since the war have, in my view, made a success of most secondary modern schools. I remember many Ministers of both parties who spoke of securing equal respect for secondary schools, but we have not actually secured it. That is why there is a flinching from the alternative to grammar schools.
I believe that it is vital that the non-academic be properly catered for. If there is not to be selection between equally good and effective schools, academic and non-academic, then there must be selection within schools: streaming and setting, so that each child is stretched to his or her own limits. Of course, I agree strongly with the core, the tested core proposed in the Bill. I should like to suggest that perhaps British history might be added to the core. However, I wonder—and here I am not comfortable to be agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—whether the national curriculum might not impose too tight a straitjacket. I agree that this was not challenged much in the other place; I think it was perhaps a failure in the other place that it was not challenged.
Of course I want to see a broader range of subjects studied to the age of 16 by most pupils. Of course I envy the range of the baccalauréat in France. Of course I realise and agree that many of our children specialise too young. Yet I still worry at the way the Bill is drafted. Admittedly the Secretary of State has reduced the proportion of time from 90 per cent. through 80 per cent. and then to 70 per cent. for the core and the foundation subjects. But it is still too prescriptive. A national curriculum as tightly imposed as that may neglect non-academic children; it may impose, for non-academic children, a dilute academic curriculum and such children will not much benefit from it unless teaching standards improve enormously. It may inhibit some religious schools, it may inhibit the growth of the specialist schools and I have to add that if all the foundation subjects were tested, we would impose too large a testing industry
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upon our schools and squeeze out some relatively widespread non-academic, vocationally geared subjects. That does not mean that I have ventured to make up my mind. I hope that we shall debate this issue in Committee but I hoist a question-mark over the growth of the core curriculum into a national curriculum.
Perhaps before I sit down I may turn to another point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who was joined by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall. Both speakers were critical of opting out; they both referred, particularly the noble and gallant Lord, to the benefit which might come from, as he put it, sending a warning shot across the bow of a perverse local education authority. But surely that is not a consequence to be lightly dismissed. In the extreme case where a perverse local education authority does not react constructively, the state of the children might be better with opting out. It is possible to accept, as I do, that competition is not suitable for every part of life, but still to assert strongly that a bit of competition is jolly useful in most services.
I turn now to the question of the ILEA. I have to maintain that the abolition of the ILEA was always a strong option. I have also to point out to the House, after a rather effective speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that if the abolition were carried through by this House there would be several inner London boroughs who, judging by the performance of their other services, would do at least as well if not better for the children who go to their schools and who use other, and I think better, education services than ILEA. There will be other inner London boroughs who will do just as well and there are a few inner London boroughs as regards which I hope that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will use the consultation procedure, when their plans are discussed, to take decisions to encourage the cooperation or whatever is necessary to secure the good education of the children.
Finally, after a brief hurrah in the direction of the decision embodied in the Bill about polytechnics, I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Swann. I am very sympathetic to the case he made but I feel less than impressed by the civilised tolerance rightly expected in relation to dons, unless it is also extended to visiting speakers, provided they keep within the Public Order Act. A university is above all a place where there should be toleration for all opinions.
I am, as noble Lords will have appreciated, in general strongly in support of the Bill.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, although there are many aspects of this Bill on which I should like to speak, I propose to restrict my remarks entirely to the effect of the Bill on children with special educational needs. I have to say at the outset that this Bill may have a very marked effect, unless it is amended, on children with special educational needs. It is a subject that was hardly mentioned at all when the Bill was first published and was referred to in just one or two sentences in the Minister's opening speech.
The need for special provision is well known; 2 per cent. of children have statements of special

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educational need and up to a further 18 to 20 per cent. of the school population requires some special help in one form or another at some time or another. Indeed, the Advisory Centre for Education says that just under one half of all the advice calls it receives concern special education problems.
The principles to be followed regarding special educational need are well recognised. The special needs of both children and young people range over a very wide extent of need. They should as far as possible be integrated into mainstream education for all or a part of their schooling. Their parents shoud have the right to share in decisions regarding the provision of special help for their children. I have to say that there is widespread concern among parents, teachers and all the organisations in the field of special education regarding what they see as the failure of the Bill adequately to address the problem of proper provision for special educational need. Indeed, unless the Bill is substantially amended it may undo much of the good work of the 1981 Act in securing the integration of handicapped children in ordinary schools.
All of us who are interested in this aspect of the Bill have received a number of letters from parents who are desperately worried about the effects of this Bill on their children. I quote from one such letter written by a mother about her son:
"Nicholas has Down's Syndrome, heart, lung and digestive problems, but first and foremost he is just a little boy with exactly the same needs as any other 4 year-old. … We are convinced that Nicholas has benefited from being exposed to normal situations. We firmly believe, supported by the experience gained from our youngest daughter who also has Down's Syndrome, that our son has a fundamental right to a normal pattern of life, and this includes attending his local mainstream school. We believe expectations should be placed upon him in the same way as any other child …. All of this is happening for Nicholas—he attends his local mainstream infant school where he is making excellent progress, is well liked and very much respected by his peers. Imagine our feeling of devastation on reading the Education Reform Bill—this Bill will radically alter the educational opportunities now available to Nicholas…. The new Bill is reputed to increase parental choice—we have made our choice—it is Nicholas' local mainstream school not a segregated special school."
On considering the provisions for national testing and the core curriculum, as a number of your Lordships have said, it is the very detailed and prescriptive nature of the core curriculum which lies at the heart of the problem. The problems with the core curriculum for children with special education need are merely an exaggerated version of the problems which could well arise for all children.
As a result of pressure in another place there are now no less than four clauses which attempt to deal with the problems of children with special education need in this respect. Under attainment targets there are different orders for different cases. The Secretary of State has been given incredibly wide power by regulation to deal with groups of children to be opted-out or to modify the curriculum. There are some very complicated provisions for children with and without statements of special educational need.
But the problem is that the provisions in the Bill relating to special education need and the core curriculum are entirely negative. There is nothing positive about them. They are all about exclusion and the modification of the curriculum. The words "categories of children" appear, although we thought that that had been banished by the 1981 Act. Apart
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from Clause 12, which deals with children without statements of special education need, there are no rights of appeal for parents.
If any children are to be excluded from all or part of the core curriculum they should have a positive entitlement under the law with proper rights of appeal for the parents of all such children. Special education must be child-centred, flexible and sensitive. The Bill runs a serious risk of failing on all those counts. I quote again from a parent's letter:
"As my son is starting his school career so the Education Reform Bill is coming into being. How will this affect him? He can follow a modified curriculum but who will be responsible for carrying out his modified curriculum? Everyone else in his class will be following the national Core Curriculum: does this mean that he will have a segregated education within the class? Perhaps the village school will be unable to run this dual system and children like him will have to go to special schools. Surely this would be going against the whole philosophy of the 1981 Education Act?"
As regards the matter of testing it appears that there may be some in the higher reaches of government who seem to regard educational testing as roughly analogous to the compilation of a grocery list. A more informed description regarding testing and special education need was given by the Task Group on Assessment and Testing, which stated:
"Children with special educational needs make up a very diverse group. Indeed, it could be said that all children, at some time in their educational career, exhibit special teaching needs which have to be met. Children's learning difficulties may stem from physical and sensory disabilities, behavioural and medical problems, reading and communication difficulties or different degrees of mental handicap. They may be educated in special schools, special classes or units in ordinary schools, or may be integrated into ordinary classes. They may or may not be statemented: policies with regard to statementing differ from one LEA to another. Some children with physical disabilities may nevertheless be scholastically extremely able and it is likely that, in their case, parents would rightly press for their inclusion in the national assessment programme."
I shall deal briefly with opting-out and financial delegation. If schools are to be allowed to opt-out it is essential that local education authorities are given the power to co-ordinate and to mobilise the special education support for all the schools in their area.
There is the problem of the small incidence handicaps. The LEAs have set up support units in selected schools to serve a wide area. These are centres of excellence which must be available to all the children who need the service.
In connection with opting-out and special education need, who is to pay for the speech therapists, the education psychologists, the peripatetic teachers, the central resource centres and all the other central services which the LEAs now provide for handicapped children?
As regards individual schools, the schemes of financial delegation must include specific provision for special education need. There must be earmarked or ring-fenced funding for the extra staffing, the teachers and the ancillary helpers, the modifications to buildings, the special equipment, the ramps, the handrails, the wheelchair access and the adapted toilets. Children with special education need are an expensive minority and proper financial provision has to be made for them.
I conclude with some remarks on the abolition of the ILEA. Here I should declare an interest. Both our children were born with handicaps of hearing and vision. Our home county of Wiltshire was not able to

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provide the resources that they needed so they both attended an ILEA special school. Whatever may be said about some aspects of ILEA activities, its provision for special education is outstanding. It provides no fewer than 111 special schools, 73 specialist units and all the centrally provided services.
I shall take the example of just one school which encapsulates the problem. It is the school which my children attended, and it is the only boarding school for the visually impaired in London. It has 61 children with visual impairment and other handicaps. The school is in Wandsworth. Of the 61 children, seven come from Wandsworth and eight come from the other ILEA boroughs, making 15 in total. Therefore a quarter of the children come from the ILEA area. The remainder are split roughly 50:50 between the outer London boroughs and eight counties from Suffolk to Hampshire. The fees are in the order of £15,000 to £17,000 per head for a boarding place.
Is Wandsworth to be made responsible for a school with a total budget approaching £1 million per annum which caters for seven Wandsworth children out of 61? Wandsworth is one of the more prosperous boroughs, but what of the special schools which for reasons of history are situated in the poorer boroughs? I quote here from the letter of the head of a special school, which states:
"…for example there are at least 3 educational psychologists working for the ILEA who have built up a wide range of expertise in dealing with visually impaired children; we will lose all those administrative contacts who know about the problems of running small, special schools, especially boarding schools. The proposed new authority will have none of this knowledge or expertise—it cannot hope to, it will be learning about running mainstream education; special schools are bound to be the 'also-rans'!".
There is an overwhelming case for a unitary authority to co-ordinate special education in London. I have given an example of just one school, but examples that could be multiplied across the whole field of disability in London.
This House has a heavy responsibility. We have a Prime Minister and a Government whose policies can only be described as triumphalism run riot. We have the education of London's children treated as the residuum of some future contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party, with a major constitutional change affecting London education spatchcocked into the Bill halfway through its progress in another place. We have parents, the teachers, educationalists and all the organisations connected with special education expressing deep and well-informed concern about the effect of this Bill on children with special needs. We have the chance to ensure that the Bill does not result in the education and the lives of handicapped children being made even more difficult, and their parents being given even more worry. This is not a party matter. If we do not amend the Bill to deal with the fears and problems that I have described, we shall bear a very heavy responsibility indeed.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, I should like to begin by saying that, being the 14th speaker in a field of 82, I thought that I would give the House a bit of a break and talk about something
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different. That does not mean that I do not agree with every word of attack which has come from this side of the House. The noble Baroness who opened the debate for us, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone (who got going the guns of the noble Lords, Lord Beloff and Lord Joseph, in the most effective way) have on the whole put the case as well as it needs to be put. Therefore, I shall talk about something else.
To begin, I feel guilty about not speaking about education. That is what the Bill is about. However, that has been well dealt with by other people. The noble lord, Lord Swann, who defended academic freedom with wit and accuracy, was absolutely splendid. I do not think that he needs any help and nor do the other academics.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, pleased me very much by his deep suspicion of opting out. I share that suspicion. I also share his apparent conviction that the Government are putting politics before common sense. That seems to me to be a very military point of view with which I am proud to be associated.
I was also pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, say that he did not think that the Government should rely too much on the wishes of parents. I am sure that he is right. However, that is not the impression we had, particularly when we heard the Secretary of State trying to laugh off the parents' ballot the other night. I was very sorry for him because it was not possible to do that. He put up a reasonable show, but no one could laugh that off.
I wish to concentrate on side issues, and the unplanned side effects of the abolition of the ILEA. Those issues are so numerous that I can only deal with one or two. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, has dealt very well with one of the most important matters, which is special needs. I wish to speak about two small matters and then about the very important matter of music.
I must be allowed to say—even though I am leaving the topics of the general attack on the Bill and the defence of the Bill—that the last-minute decision to scrap the ILEA was an act of spiteful irresponsibility. There were things that were wrong. However, there were more things that were right. To make no effort to correct faults but simply to root up the good and the bad together was a wanton act. I looked up the word "wanton" in the dictionary because I thought I might be exaggerating.
I found several definitions which may or may not appeal to the House. One is:
"insolent in triumph or prosperity".
The other is:
"unprovoked and reckless of justice and compassion".
From my point of view, that fits the case exactly. There may be noble Lords opposite who will take a different view.
The first side issue to result from the abolition of ILEA—I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, will pass my comments on to the Minister, who is not present in the Chamber—concerns the unified language service of the ILEA which consists of 68 teachers of English as a second language working in both primary and secondary schools

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throughout the area. In addition, there are a thousand teachers based in schools. The bilingual under-fives team consists of eight teachers who also work throughout the area. The interpreter/translator service is based at County Hall and is made up of 10 to 12 staff members with an area-wide brief. There are 10 multi-ethnic co-ordinators, one in each division, working across the age range of five to 18 years. All that must be seen against the difficult background of 161 different languages spoken by pupils.
It takes no exceptional insight to realise that that type of problem needs central organisation over the whole wide area. The ILEA has such an organisation which seems to be working reasonably well. After its destruction, what is to replace it? Ability to use English is at the root of the problem of assimilating immigrants in this country. I ask the Minister to tell us in detail how that problem will be overcome after ILEA's decease. I was also going to talk about the Centre for the Deaf and Speech Therapy. However, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has handled that matter.
Thirdly, there are two excellent museums involved —the Horniman and the Geffrye. Some solution must be found to provide them with national funding. That can work perfectly well provided their financial support is not reduced. I think that it will be. This Government have never made a change of that kind to the arts without reducing, in one way or another, the subsidy in existence. I ask the Minister for a clear answer: will there be a replacement of the same amount of money in the next relevant year as those museums received before the abolition?
Lastly—I note that my speaking time does not seem to be shown on the Chamber Clock, which eases my problems somewhat!—I should like to deal with music. There are two aspects of education in music. One is finding and training children with special talents and giving them the opportunity to develop into first-class professional musicians. The other is just as important. That is the presentation of music during primary, secondary and further education so that children who are not going to be artists themselves may learn to appreciate the joys of listening. The ILEA has done exceptionally well on both heads, with some of the best arrangements for children's music which exists in this philistine country. I think that is generally admitted even by its most spiteful detractors.
As regards the selection and training of the talented, the record speaks for itself. There is the London Schools Symphony Orchestra in which I am proud to say one of my granddaughters is a second desk viola. There are 82 children drawn from 12 boroughs and ranging from 14 to 18 years of age. The London Schools Symphonic Band has 92 children aged 14 to 18, and drawn from the same 12 boroughs. The Centre for Young Musicians has 473 children aged 12 to 18 from the same 12 boroughs. I shall not read the names of the boroughs out. However, they range from Westminster to Tower Hamlets and from Wandsworth to Camden. The names are available if any noble Lord wishes to see them.
The teaching at the Centre for Young Musicians is very successful and it shows results considerably above national standards. Sir Michael Tippett and a
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number of leading musicians wrote to The Times on 17th February to emphasise how important it is to bring together talented students and pupils from different institutions across inner London. No single borough can achieve as much by itself. Those widespread opportunities stimulate the excellent results heard at public concerts. They also provide an efficient means of ensuring that pupils studying the same instrument are brought together with the best teachers. ILEA implements that through the centre, which meets every Saturday during school terms at Pimlico School, chiefly for instrumental teaching. I know about that because once again three of my children benefited from it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Carter, we were beneficiaries. It does not take a great brain to see how difficult it would be for any borough to do this. The schools orchestra and the schools band are well known in London, and London is justly proud of them.
There is considerable infrastructure (if I may use such a cliche) behind their success. There are various courses laid on for different performing groups, including the orchestra itself. Only last year my 15 year-old went all round Italy with the orchestra playing under an Italian conductor, which was a wonderful experience. Parents pay for subsistence and accommodation, while the authority pays other expenses. There are regular public concerts. Of the 473 regular children attending the CYM, 57 are of primary school age and the rest of secondary school age. They study any of 22 different musical instruments and the best move into the schools orchestra or the schools band. Teaching is free and instruments are provided on loan. Teaching programmes include ensemble, choir and general musicianship as well as individual lessons.
In the debate on Report in the other place it was suggested by an opponent that good though all this might be, it was unreasonably expensive, costing as much as £2,000 per annum per child. I am glad to say that his facts were wrong and exaggerated by a factor of three. He had not understood that the costs cover not only the 473 regular pupils but also all sorts of out-of-school projects, holiday music courses, junior centres, the Pimlico special music course and a number of projects and courses arranged during school hours. The number of children catered for in one way or another comes to over 3,000. The unit cost is thus not a very meaningful figure but is certainly less than a third of the figure quoted.
So much for the first aspect of music in education, the selection and training of the talented. Pound for pound, this has been infinitely worthwhile, and the reputations of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, the London Schools Symphonic Band and their other groups amply demonstrate that.
I turn briefly to the second point, the presentation of music to all children to give them the opportunity to learn how to enjoy its pleasures. ILEA has already done a very great deal. It has pioneered schemes to collaborate with professional musicians. It has arranged opera attendances for more than 2,000 secondary school children at ENO, and the staff of ENO have come and given them advice. That has now run for 15 years. With the Arts Council they sent 1,200 children last year to hear modern music through the Contemporary Music Network, and 500

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pupils took part in the young concertgoers' scheme. They are doing a great deal which will all disappear unless somebody does something.
The facts I have given make it clear that these opportunities presented to young children are really productive; but they depend wholly on an overall body which is being abolished. They cannot continue to prosper without some very definite action on the part of the Government. The figures I have given show that no single borough can achieve this. I ask the Minister to explain exactly how these good things are to be preserved and not be thrown out with the bath water.
It is no good saying that all these schemes can be carried on borough by borough on a voluntary basis. We have evidence from West Yorkshire to the contrary. After the abolition of the metropolitan bodies a number of schemes for the newly-formed authorities to collaborate with specific services was initiated; they have all since foundered.
It is vital that those with real musical talent should be brought up from their earliest years to give their talent scope to develop real excellence. It is even more important that ordinary non-specially-talented children should be given the opportunity to learn to enjoy even if they never learn worthily to perform. I was one of those. I was taught the violin from the age of seven, but have never gone further than a scratchy solo at the school concert, and I am further away from the skills of a good professional musician than I am from governing the country as a politician. But my whole life has been lined with music for 80 years. Put at its lowest, this has given me a steady stream of innocent pleasure, an awareness of beauty; and, I believe, the ability to be less discontented than many people. ILEA has in a remarkable way been able to give this tremendous advantage in life to a very large number of children in their care. It is that addition to the quality of their lives which is now at risk.
6.55 p.m.
Lord Annan: My Lords, I do not know whether there is a record number of speakers in this debate but there is certainly a record number of living and moribund vice-chancellors taking part in it.
I do not intend to start with higher education. I want to draw the attention of the House to the curious reception that the Bill has had. Its critics say how much they agree with the proposals to establish a national curriculum, to improve the performance of children, to give parents choice and involve them in the schools. But then they go on to rubbish every proposal and give no sign of what they would want to achieve were they putting forward a Bill.
I welcome many of the principles in the Bill. The principle I welcome most—some people will be shocked to hear me say this—is the extension of the powers of the Secretary of State. I know well the arguments which have been put forward this evening against such an extension and I shall not go over them again. But the inability of the Secretary of State to direct education is responsible more than anything else for our school-leavers being so far behind those of other European countries.
Why did Britain have to wait until 1870 for compulsory primary education? Why was the
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Balfour Act of 1902, which introduced compulsory secondary education, so flawed? Why was Augustine Birrell's Bill of 1906 voted down in your Lordships' House? I regret to say that the reason is that the Church of England and the Nonconformist Communion's controlled education and fought each other so bitterly. In 1944 Rab Butler spent his energies in getting peace between the Churches. That absorbed so much of his political capital that he had to leave the form of secondary education to his civil servants. The weakest of the three senior civil servants responsible for drafting that Bill was the one responsible for technical education. The other two defeated him. That is why we have such a low standard of technical education in our schools and why disastrously so few technical schools were founded under the Butler Act.
The Minister responsible for education has no control over the curriculum, nor the staffing of schools and their management. He has no control over the general certificate examinations or any school-leaving examinations. He has no control over something which has enormous influence for bad as well as for good in secondary education, the general certificate examinations.
I am glad to say that under this Bill he is at last in a position to take powers. The opponents of the Bill have said the Government left no time for consultation and reflection. I have watched for 25 years the attempts to change the sixth-form curriculum. I have seen the teachers' unions vote down every proposal. I have seen the NUT wreck Edward Boyle's Schools Council. There is no lack of advice from interested parties. Unfortunately they are usually self-interested parties. In other cases, such as the colleges that train teachers, the advice offered is in accordance with an ideology about teaching which has led to the lowering of achievement by school children. I was delighted to read in the press that the Secretary of State is now going to insist that intending teachers are taught how to teach the three Rs and not be indoctrinated with educational psychology.
Every government are loaded with advice about education, some of it excellent, from organisations which are quite independent, from conferences and from study groups.
In 1976 Mr. Callaghan (now the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan) called for a great debate about education. What happened?—nothing. No single act of importance emanated from his government, from local authorities or from any quarter during those years. All the Government's critics say that they want parents and governors to be more involved. Then, like the parable of the great supper, when the feast is announced they all with one consent begin to make excuse.
And yet the proposal will bring about a massive change. I think that there are about 20,000 schools in our country. That means there will be 500,000 governors of schools. For the first time a vast number of citizens—half a million—will now be involved with the schools in their community. But they will no longer be told what the local authority has decided about their school; they will actually have some power over many matters.

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The Scots and the Welsh have always known the value of education because for them it was the ladder for advancement as they had no connections within the Establishment. Not so the bovine English. Now at last there is a hope of ordinary English parents and citizens being involved in schools in the same way as the Scots and Welsh who have always known that schools are important.
There is one aspect of financial delegation to schools which worries me. One cannot expect 20,000 headmasters to become managers overnight. Their business is to teach, to supervise teaching in their schools and to care for the development of children. They must be given the equivalent of a bursar in an independent school. Show me a good school and I shall find there a good headmaster. Do not overburden heads, who are already overworked with the introduction of the GCSE, with duties that many of them will not perform efficiently without help.
When we turn to the proposals for testing we should not deceive ourselves. There is a large body of opinion among teachers and educationists which is opposed to any plan to raise academic standards. They do not want competition among children or any recognition that one child is brighter than another. Their ideal is that children should be happy at school and never humiliated or made to feel that they have failed. In a recent comparison between German and British children the Germans were far more geared to achievement and far more in awe of their teachers on whose assessment the children's careers depended. In consequence the German children were less happy, more anxious than the British children, less open, less free. But they were better taught and they were more skilled.
I respect the desire to make children happier at school. It was certainly an ideal of my generation. But we cannot neglect another objective, even if it conflicts with that of the quest of happiness—that is, intellectual achievement and the mastery of techniques needed to cope with the world of the future. The question is: are we prepared to see our children more driven and more stretched to realise their potential? Are we prepared to recognise that many children, not just the brightest, are bored with having to repeat endlessly the examples of the grammar in language and maths that they have already mastered? That is why we need tests.
I hope that the Secretary of State will not listen to those who want those tests to be diagnostic and not what their opponents call an artificial measure of achievement and failure. My fear is that in their compassion some teachers will want to fudge the tests. The tests and the national curriculum are matters which I am sure we will want to look at very carefully in Committee but the principle behind them is surely admirable.
I must leave other parts of the Bill, such as opting out, to Committee stage. I have not yet formed an opinion. I have listened with great interest this evening to the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Joseph. At this moment I feel like Reynolds's celebrated portrait of Garrick between the Muses of Tragedy and Comedy—I shall not say whether the noble Lord, Lord Joseph, or the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is Tragedy or Comedy.
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What I cannot leave on one side is the matter of the Inner London Education Authority. I hold no brief for the political direction of ILEA. Mrs. Frances Morrell stands as high in the demonology of my scenario of educational hell as Mr. Fred Jarvis of the NUT. They are both fiends who have disregarded the children and wrecked their school days in order to indulge in their political whims. But to abolish ILEA without considering how its functions are to be carried out seems to me as irresponsible as any act of Mrs. Frances Morrell. There is not even a hint of setting up a body such as that which emerged after the death of the GLC. This is and has been characterised as spite—and I think justly. It is in the spirit of Clause 28. I think it despicable.
It may well be that ILEA should no longer be a political body subject to election. It may well be that like all bureaucracies it has enlarged its functions year by year. Because those functions are educational it is hard to say that any of them is wrong or extravagant. The question is how many of those functions can London afford when the conditions of so many of its schools are so bad? Listening to ILEA parents the other day made me realise what a multitude of services—highly desirable services—ILEA performs. It may perform too many but to abolish it and expect all the boroughs to sustain the present services across their boundaries is ludicrous. To abolish it when teachers in London are exhausted by preparations for the GCSE and when so many posts are vacant is deplorable too.
Perhaps I may press the noble Baroness about the future of arts colleges and of further education colleges in London. It is all very well to say: "We shall hand them over to the boroughs and we shall fund them and give the boroughs the equivalent of what they would get under ILEA". That is not good enough. If the boroughs find themselves pressed to make massive improvements in the schools, which will they opt for when they have that money in their control? Of course they will put it into the schools and we shall see institution after institution in adult and further education disbanded because the funds are no longer available. This needs considerably more thought than it appears to have been given.
No doubt there are some who are appalled that at this stage in my speech I have not even reached higher education. The fact is that I do not see much reason to do so. The vice-chancellors have said that their apprehensions have been quelled by the amendments which the Secretary of State introduced in another place. I am in fact more disturbed than the vice-chancellors by the abolition of tenure, but I shall return to that point in Committee. On the other hand I should like to put one question to the noble Baroness. It is said no British university will now be able to offer a post to an American scholar since he will not have tenure. Am I not right in thinking that under the Bill it is perfectly within the powers of a university to offer tenure to any member of staff it chooses? What is now to be the case is that all members of staff no longer have a right to tenure. Therefore that could lead to what in my mind is much needed in universities—greater differentiation in the terms of employment of the staff and of the salaries of the staff.

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I am bound to say that I think that the head of steam that has been generated about academic freedom has been overdone. Everything that the UFC may do in the future is already being done by the UGC. If the opponents of the Bill ask why it is necessary to say so explicitly the answer is clear. When the UGC was set up it was designed to maintain or expand activities in universities. It was not intended to regulate them. But ever since the new universities were formed, before even the Robbins Committee reported, the UGC was regulating some matters in universities.
The only way in which the UGC can impose its will on universities is to refuse to fund them, as was done recently in the case of the University College of Cardiff. But it seems to me reasonable that in an education Bill of this kind the matter should be regularised. For years now the universities have told the UGC how they would like to develop and what new institutions they had in mind and the UGC has either blessed them or told the university that such a development would be unwelcome. Is this not what the UFC will do?
I very much take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Swann, made. He has hit the nail on the head. It is the effects of Treasury control filtering down to the individual ministries which produce the documents that he quoted. This is what I think universities justly fear. But that is not a facet of academic freedom. It is a facet of university finance and administration. Academic freedom means that no vice-chancellor or professor within the university, or individual or body outside the university, dares to stop academic staff researching, speaking or publishing what they believe to be true. In this matter the dons themselves are the arbiters, and so is their union, the Association of University Teachers.
Any vice-chancellor or head of department will bring a hornets' nest around his ears if he attempts to silence another don. If the Government tried to do so, the explosion would be greater than that which shook a former Home Secretary when he advised the governors of the BBC to ban a programme. A number of our most precious freedoms are guarded by custom and convention, not by statute; and I believe that academic freedom is one.
The University Funding Council may well have to go further. We need greater diversity among our universities. They should not all try to emulate Oxbridge and the top dozen. We need more universities that run sandwich courses. We badly need more universities that discard the present entry requirements and broaden their base of entry. We need universities that do not attempt to teach graduate students. We shall never get diversity unless we have a body such as the UFC to edge universities towards change.
We are dealing with a profession which, like all professions when their ways of life and methods of going about their jobs are called in question, is disturbed and worried and protests at the top of its voice. There is no more conservative profession than the education profession—unless it be the legal profession. Having said that, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, was right when he said that the
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first thing the Government have to do when this Bill is passed, however amended, is to restore the morale of teachers and to get them back on the side of all reasonable people who realise that education can never be confined and defined by education Bills. Education consists of the impact of the teacher's mind upon the children whom he teaches and whom he should love.
7.14 p.m.
Lord Blake: My Lords, I am afraid I am not a superannuated or moribund vice-chancellor. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, said that they constituted a large part of this House. However, I have had an academic career of some length and I should like to express at once my strong support for nearly all the measures in this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, made a great many good points, one of which was his welcome of the extension of the powers of the Secretary of State. I am sure that he is right, and I am sure that only some such extension will break through the log jam that we have. Like the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and my noble friend (and my old friend) Lord Joseph, I was astonished at the complacency which seemed to be felt on Benches opposite about the condition of the British education system. I should have thought that there was ample incontrovertible evidence that things are not as they should be. In the 45 years since the Butler Act a great deal of fossilisation has taken place and matters have not been looked at again de novo.
I welcome a great many of the provisions of this Bill. The national curriculum is long overdue. Like my noble friend Lord Joseph I have a slight hankering for British history to be part of the core. But of course noble Lords may say that I have a slight vested interest in saying that—even an interest that I should declare.
I welcome testing and assessment; more open enrolment; and a greater financial freedom on the part of headmasters and governors—although I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Annan, is right that one cannot expect 20,000 headmasters to become financial managers overnight. The equivalent of the bursars in independent schools will prove to be a very necessary new feature under this reorganisation. I hope that that will be seriously considered.
I do not know how the grant-maintained schools will work, but I feel that the experiment is worth making. I welcome the city technology colleges and the transfer of polytechnics and institutions of higher education to an independent status. I have misgivings on three matters. The first is on the clauses concerning the universities. I am not quite as happy as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, seemed to be about that. I very much share some of the feelings expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Swann. However, it would be ungenerous not to recognise that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has made some very welcome modifications in the university clauses of this Bill. I shall not detail what they are because that would take far too long, but they would be generally recognised as being desirable in university circles.
Having said that, I feel that I ought to animadvert on the vexed question of academic freedom.

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Academic freedom is difficult and perhaps almost impossible to define. Nevertheless, it has become something of a symbol. The academic world suffers at the moment from low morale. That low morale is due to underfunding and other reasons. But it takes the form of a certain resentment against the Government. I do not believe that the Government are popular in academic circles; I do not suppose they are under any delusion on that point. I cannot see why a reference to academic freedom cannot appear on the face of the Bill. It would relieve the resentment and the depression that is felt by a great many dons. I do not think that it would do any harm, and it might even do good.
I do not wish to go into very close detail but my suggestion is this. On page 159, at Clause 173, there is reference to academic tenure. A body called the University Commissioners is established. It is enjoined to exercise its functions having regard
"to the need…to apply the principles of justice and fairness".
I cannot for the life of me see why one should not tag on to those two words the phrase "academic freedom". No doubt it will be said, especially by lawyers, that it would be very difficult to define academic freedom. However, it is extremely difficult to define fairness and justice. It cannot be much more difficult to define academic freedom than fairness and justice. I cannot for the life of me quite see why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State appears to have a great reluctance to see those two rather harmless words added to the Bill. Possibly there may be some move at a later stage towards some kind of amendment on those lines. I do not know.
I have just two other points to make. If I can make them I shall have managed to speak a great deal more briefly than any other of your Lordships. The second point was partly referred in relation to the core curriculum and foundation subjects. I wonder whether British history might not be a part of the core. But I also wonder—this is endorsing what my noble friend Lord Joseph said—whether there should not be more room for other subjects in addition to the core and foundation subjects. For example, I know that some school masters are seriously anxious about the possibility of the classics (I am sure that some noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, would strongly approve of the preservation of the classics as far as possible) and a second modern language being excluded. One will have to see how it works out in due course, but it seems to me that there is the possibility of one of those two important subjects being squeezed out, given the present timetables. It would be regrettable if that happened.
My third point is one which has been made by a good many noble Lords, though not from this side of the House. It concerns ILEA. I do not oppose the abolition of ILEA, and I know very little about ILEA, but on the most superficial appearances it seems to me that not enough thought has been given to all those various common services which ILEA performs. There are a great many of them. To take one example, what will happen to the Central London Careers Office with its computer base, which serves a most useful purpose and is very valuable
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indeed? It does a great deal to help find employment across borough frontiers in London as a whole. Can one seriously imagine 12, 13 or 14 different boroughs all trying to negotiate separately with employers' groups, with no body of that kind to operate as a conduit? That is but one example: many others could be chosen.
I hope that the Government have given close thought to all of this, and that the apparent lack of any clear provisions is only due possibly to the undue haste with which the Bill has been introduced. I hope my noble friend Lady Hooper will reply to that in due course. Having said that, and the minutes of my speech still being in single figures, I will sit down.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, the suggestion has been made that some of us on this side of the House are complacent about the state of British education. Despite that I shall repeat a fact that has already been mentioned. In the last 15 or 16 years, during which there has been a steady move away from selective to comprehensive secondary education, the standard of educational attainment in secondary school children as shown by examination results has steadily improved year after year.
Of course, we ought never to be complacent. We should always be asking ourselves what we can do to improve our education system, but we do not serve education or the people who work in it if we start by underestimating what they have been doing all these years. We must recognise that we have a system of education in which teachers, members of local authorities and governors have worked hard to give us a steadily improving service. If we are to achieve improvement on the lines that the Bill suggests or on any lines, we need the goodwill of the teachers and the goodwill of the local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, spoke particularly about the importance of having the goodwill of teachers. It is unfortunate that we have a Secretary of State who has made a declaration of war against teachers, who has deprived teachers of their right to ordinary negotiating machinery such as enjoyed by members of any other profession or occupation.
It is unfortunate that an element of hostility and malice is contained in the Government's proposals. I am afraid that it appears also in their attitude towards local authorities. If we want to know what the Government really think about the opting-out proposal, let us look at the words used in another place by the honourable lady, the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science. She described opting out as breaking the shackles of the power brokers. "Power brokers" were the words she used to describe the people who serve on local education authorities. Throughout the country those people have been rendering a great service, and they have been very ill-rewarded for many years. That I am afraid is the kind of thing that is poisoning the Government's attempts to improve the education service. There is an element of malice partly towards teachers and partly towards local education authorities.
That is one reason, though only one, why some of us are very sceptical of the merits of what is called the

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opting-out proposal. To begin with it is a one-way traffic. One can opt out, but once opted out I see nothing in the Bill to enable one to opt back again, whatever may happen, despite the fact that the original decision will have been taken by parents who after a few years will have no further connection with the school. Yet the decision they have made when they were parents with children at the school is permanently binding on that school. That does not seem to me a good, fair or democratic arrangement or one likely to lead to good education administration.
It is not only hostility towards local education authorities in general. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, spoke of the way in which the Scots and the Welsh in the past surpassed the English in their zeal for education, but it is true that they also did it through elected local education authorities, not through the kind of device that is proposed in the Bill.
There is one local education authority that is particularly the target of the Government's hatred (I do not think "hatred" is too strong a word)—that is the Inner London Education Authority. Both the two noble Lords who have just spoken expressed some doubt, to say the least, about the wisdom of abolishing the ILEA and expressed some surprise that the Government were doing it. Perhaps I may suggest that there is no reason for surprise here. The ILEA is not being abolished because of any virtues or lack of virtues in the way it has behaved. It is being abolished because it usually has a Labour majority when the elections are held. That is what it is all about and has been for years, as noble Lords who are highly politically minded, or not even highly politically minded, are—and have been for years—quite well aware.
But why is it that it is such a wrong and disastrous decision? Before the ILEA there was the old London County Council. Before that there was the School Board for London. All three bodies covered almost exactly the same area though the population grew somewhat over the years. But it was always a large local education authority and there was always one authority for that large body. Why? I think the reason was that if a large number of people are to be catered for one is in a better position to deal adequately with those who have exceptional needs. That was brought out very well indeed by my noble friend Lord Carter who described the special schools for children with defects.
In a small local authority there will not be enough children with special needs to make it worth a local authority's while to provide the kind of service which a large local authority can provide for people with exceptional needs. That applies not only to those with exceptional defects but also to those who require unusual subjects. If one wishes to provide evening classes in Russian, for example, a large authority is more likely to have sufficient people wishing to join and therefore making it worthwhile to provide the service. Not only can it provide the services but it can back that up with expert staff.
One may ask, "In that case, why don't we have all our local education authorities large in size?" The answer is quite simple. If one draws on the map local education authorities with the population of Inner
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London, one will find that most are far too large in area to be feasibly run as one authority. The staff would not be able to travel around and members of the elected body would be unable to know the district properly. London has the peculiar advantage of having so dense a population on the ground that it is able to give a wide variety of services in a comparatively small area. Therefore it is possible for a member of ILEA to know the whole area as most do. That is the great advantage of London and for that reason it is criminal to throw it away.
The advantages have been developed and I can now strike out several pages of my notes because my noble friends have already dealt with the points. My noble friend Lord Carter spoke of schools for children with special disabilities. My noble friend Lord Donaldson spoke of the London Schools' Symphony Orchestra. We must realise that there is always a Jekyll and Hyde on the Benches opposite. While some will make what show they can for interfering with that orchestra, others will be saying privately to themselves, "What do these nasty people want? Most of them are working class with parents who usually vote Labour. What do they want with music anyway?" That is what we are up against, not from the smooth speeches that will come from the Front Bench but from some noble Lords who are not here at the moment and who will appear when required—
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, does the noble Lord not like music?
Lord Stewart of Fulham: My Lords, the noble Baroness knows perfectly well that I was not referring to her. Let me give one example of the special service that London can render—a service which is difficult for any other local authority to render. It is the amazing network of what used to be called "night schools", or more proudly "evening institutes", which provide almost every kind of education. They provide basic education for many people who come to this country with no knowledge of our language and who perhaps are not literate in any language but wish to acquire it. There are people seeking vocational education in order to obtain and keep jobs. There are older people who want cultural education to enrich their old age. Every kind of service is provided in the evening institute network which works with voluntary education bodies.
What will happen to that if ILEA is cut up into 13 pieces? It is no good saying that each local education authority will prepare a plan. Which of them will include in its plan responsibility for the Horniman and Geffrye Museums, to borrow again from my noble friend Lord Donaldson. The Horniman Museum provides unparalleled natural history and the Geffrye Museum provides social history. There are also the City Literary Institute and Morley College. I wonder how many members of the Government in the Department of Education and Science have visited any of those institutions and are aware of what is at stake.
What is the case urged against ILEA? First, it is that it is too expensive. What a discovery! Matthew Arnold made it when he was appointed an inspector of schools in the last century. I forget the exact figures

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but he pointed out that it was more expensive to educate a child in London than in the provinces. What does one expect? It is more expensive to do anything in London than in the provinces. Those to whom one pays wages and salaries will receive London weighting of some kind. If one buys or rents a piece of land it is bound to cost more in London than elsewhere. London education is bound to be more expensive and I am surprised that those who know something about the processes of government ever regarded it as a really serious argument.
Another argument is that the quality of London education is not what it should be. On examination of that the attackers must retreat from one sector after another. They know that that argument cannot be maintained about the primary schools which are unquestionably good, about the special schools, or about the provision of music and adult education. They are left with secondary education which is one of the most difficult parts of education. I believe it is true that the age at which people commit offences against the law is during the last year at school. That has been broadly true whatever has been the school leaving age over the years. That is so partly because they believe that liberty is coming and they jib at the restraints of school life rather more. In many ways looking after secondary school children is probably more difficult than any other part of the education process. If it can be shown that London secondary education can be improved we shall all be glad to see that. However, nobody has begun to suggest that it can be improved by carving up the London education service into 13 different sections.
That is the situation we are up against. Of course there are provisions in the Bill which one will approve. Indeed, it would be a triumph if in a Bill of this size there was nothing which one could approve. However, it is terribly flawed by the element of malice and ill will sometimes springing from ignorance but, I am afraid, sometimes springing from knowledge—knowledge of what is being done for the people of London and not wishing to see it done as well as it is at the present time. I am afraid that that is why, when we weigh the issue, we are bound to reach a conclusion unfavourable to the Bill.
7.38 p.m.
Lord Flowers: My Lords, I should like to make four limited points. First, I believe that I speak for all currently active Vice-Chancellors in welcoming the principle of a national core curriculum. I do so essentially for the reasons given by the Minister in her opening speech, and providing that it is flexible enough (which now appears to me to be more likely) to allow ample room for the expression of special interests and talents of both pupils and teachers. A coherent national curriculum is an essential concept towards broadening the academic basis of school education and of entrance to higher education for those so inclined. I also support regular pupil assessment provided that its main purpose is—contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Annan—to diagnose difficulties encountered by the pupils. I do not believe that raw assessment data can or should be used to rate the performance of schools without reference to many other relevant factors. I hope that that will not remain the intention behind Clause 15.
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My second point concerns the Inner London Education Authority. I hold no particular brief for it as an organisation, and other noble Lords have dealt with it in any event. Like the noble Lords. Lord Carter and Lord Donaldson (with whose views I am much in sympathy) I wish to see maintained the many and various good things that it has done. Of special significance to me—and here I declare my interest—is the role of ILEA in the provision of and the preparation for degree-level adult education. The noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, has just referred to certain aspects of that. My university, the University of London, collaborates with ILEA in offering 250 courses each year to about 5,000 students at adult education centres throughout inner London. Many have a vocational value or make possible mature access to higher education. Across boroughs there is a great deal of sharing of experience, of facilities, equipment and students, without which the courses often could not be economic.
Wider access to higher education—now a national goal though still poorly funded and not much helped by this Bill as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has remarked—requires the systematic provision of courses and facilities for adult education which we enjoy in London thanks to ILEA. If this provision is to be maintained and developed, it will be necessary to construct some continuing or residuary mechanism for educational planning and co-ordination across London. In this matter I am at one with the noble Lords, Lord Annan and Lord Blake. I shall be interested to hear whether the Government are prepared to consider something along those lines.
My third point brings me to higher education. It seems clear that the Bill was originally based on some sound ministerial ideas on top of which DES draftsmen erected a preposterous structure of detailed powers over provisions and activities of all concerned which was so extreme that the Secretary of State largely disowned them. Vice-chancellors are grateful to Mr. Baker for being so ready to discuss his proposed powers with us and to reach an acceptable compromise. I refer to the duties and composition of the funding councils, his power to direct those councils and their powers to direct the institutions of higher education. What remains in the amended Bill now before the House in this respect is a much needed reform of the very unsatisfactory arrangements under which both we and the Government increasingly suffer at present.
My final point concerns academic freedom. I do not mean tenure, which I regard as an outmoded privilege; nor do I mean to imply that academics should do whatever they like irrespective of the cost or of their duty. Like the noble Lord, Lord Swann, I shall define my terms. I mean precisely the essential right of an academic to propose and test, by exposition and experiment within the law, unorthodox or unpopular views without fear of dismissal on that score or of direct and narrow political harassment. In that sense, academic freedom should be the concern of all of us and it should find an honourable place on the face of the Bill because it is of the essence of higher education and research. I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Blake, on that matter.

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As regards the Government, harassment is now dealt with by curtailment of the powers of direction of the Secretary of State. However, I give warning that it could emerge again in terms of the contractual arrangements with institutions and individuals, to which the noble Lord, Lord Swann, referred, if these are drawn too narrowly.
There remains the question of dismissal where the Bill offers no protection in respect of academic freedom in the absence of tenure. So far the Government have given no ground, but both the Secretary of State and the Lord Chancellor have indicated a willingness to help. I understand that the noble and learned Lord has suggested that the commissioners who are to be entrusted with abolishing tenure by amending our charters and statutes in exercising their functions under Clause 173(2)(b) might explicitly be required, as the noble Lord, Lord Blake, wishes, to subsume within the concept of fairness the right to academic freedom more or less as I have defined it. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be able to say something on that subject tomorrow; but in any event, I thank him for his consideration.
Mr. Baker has suggested, alternatively, in his speech at Report in another place that Clause 174 paragraph (c) might be amplified so that the allegation of a breach of academic freedom would become a proper ground for grievance and appeal. Both suggestions offer hope that we shall be able to find a mutually acceptable solution; but, if not, there are several other possibilities being proposed by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford whose legal background has been of such immense value to us. Of course, we shall be pressing for amendments to one or both of these clauses in Committee.
Perhaps I may respectfully suggest that part of the Government's difficulty in legislating for academic freedom seems to me to derive from their desire to define it in terms which, for example, distinguish the unorthodox from the incompetent. Like the noble Lord, Lord Blake, I doubt whether too precise a definition is needed. One cannot readily define an elephant, but it is recognisable enough when encountered. More emphasis on the mechanisms of recognition—grievance procedures and appeals—and less on definitions would seem to me to be the way to tackle this admittedly difficult problem.
We have heard it said that this is all very well but the maintenance of academic freedom is a matter for management and not legislation. In a sense I agree: it is certainly a matter for management. However, I must ask Ministers to accept that it is they, together with some of their close supporters (such as Mr. Norman Tebbit in a recent interview), who have given the distinct impression that academic freedom is under attack by government. It is only by upholding it on the face of the Bill that a very real anxiety will be allayed; mere speeches will not suffice.
I hope your Lordships will support us on this point. Whether or not you do so however, there remains a great deal for management to do in protecting academic freedom under a multiplicity of threats, each less serious than dismissal but grave for all that, which may arise from within or without our various institutions. The management of universities will not shrink from that onerous duty.
7.48 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I shall limit my remarks to the subjects of academic freedom and children with special education needs. I cannot help reflecting that it is not so long ago that responsibility for universities was transferred to the Department of Education for the first time. If that had not happened we might have had two separate Bills before us instead of this massive and unmanageable document that we are considering today.
I am not going to comment on the much improved provisions relating to the Universities Funding Council except to say that I still have some underlying anxieties about the policies affecting the universities on which the Bill is silent. Listening to the admirable speech of my noble friend Lord Swann, I could not help wondering what the state of play is on the proposals floated by the Government some time ago on contracts between the institutions and the funding council. We are talking about the universities against the background of steadily declining financial support in real terms. I fear too widespread a failure to appreciate what the universities have already done to bring themselves up to date.
My main cause for concern on the Bill relates to the section headed "Academic tenure" beginning at Clause 173. Incidentally, it seems a singularly inappropriate heading since the commissioners, I take it, will have to look at the statutes of all universities regardless of whether they provide for tenure. This will be necessary in order to check on the procedures for appeal against dismissal and also, presumably, on the procedures for dealing with grievances and discipline on which the Secretary of State has promised to introduce proposals to which we are all looking forward.
I have no wish to defend tenure as such though I note that the proposed route means that for some time to come the idle and the unpromotable have only to sit tight to avoid being caught. But I share the concern expressed by a number of speakers that though the commissioners, in revising university statutes, are to have regard to the principles of justice and fairness, they are put under no obligation to pay regard to academic freedom.
I read with interest an article on academic freedom in the highly regarded New Columbia Encyclopaedia which says that academic freedom is a civil right that is enjoyed, at least in statute, by all citizens of democratic countries, although not in the United Kingdom—not yet. By academic freedom the encyclopaedia makes it clear that it means much as we understand it and much as the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, expanded a few moments ago. It was admirably set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, when she answered a Question about the Ruskin College report on 9th November last. It appears at col. 1283 of Hansard. She said:
"The Government takes the view that academic staff should have the freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions."
I readily concede that the phrase "academic freedom" may fall short of perfection in conveying all the connotations of that definition, and it represents a concept which is not easy to define with

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particularity. But as the noble Lord, Lord Blake, pointed out, we already have in the Bill the abstract and undefined concepts of fairness and justice. It is not all that long ago that we were legislating about freedom of speech. The Government have made it clear that this is an aspect in respect of which they have some sympathy with the idea of providing that the commissioners should be called upon to cover it. We look forward to hearing what the noble and learned Lord will have to say on this tomorrow afternoon. Some of us may try to help at Committee stage with one or two suggestions of our own. It is certainly an aspect upon which strong feelings are held but which is pretty widely misunderstood.
There are one or two quite important points on procedure. I have some interest in the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. That college's statutes are set out in an Act of Parliament which was passed in 1985. That Act will have to be amended if these clauses go through. In the legislation of 1877 and 1923, which set up commissioners to revise the statutes of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, there was provision for a parliamentary stage. The orders had to be laid and they could be prayed against. There is nothing like that in this Bill. I wonder if it is right that the commissioners should be able to alter an Act of Parliament without Parliament even being told.
The position of the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College is not unique in this respect and there is something of an argument, if not for following the Oxford and Cambridge procedure completely then for at the very least requiring periodical reports to be made to Parliament. What do these provisions about Her Majesty in Council, which sound so splendid, mean in practice? Is there to be a universities committee of the Privy Council, as was provided for in the Oxford and Cambridge Act of 1877 and which was evidently still in existence in 1923? The Privy Council office is ably staffed but it is quite tiny. Am I right in assuming that when the amendments come rolling in from the commissioners they will at once be sent on to the DES for comment? If so, I wonder what plans have been made to ensure that those references are dealt with, if I may say so, a little more promptly than the occasional reference is dealt with now. It will be bad enough having differing provisions in various institutions over the three-year programme. It will be chaotic if the amendments are allowed to pile up.
There is just one other very short point. Am I right in reading the Bill as providing that redundancy can carry the somewhat novel interpretation that a senior academic can be sacked for redundancy and then immediately be replaced in the same job by someone who is junior and cheaper?
Leaving the universities on that slightly querulous note, I should like to say a few words about children with special education needs. I need not go into much detail in view of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and other speakers, but as chairman of MENCAP I am only too conscious of the anxieties felt by parents and teachers even after the amendments made in the other place to which the noble Baroness referred. I have in mind not just children with statements under the Education Act of 1981 but the much larger number who at some time during their school years have special education
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needs. One of the troubles is that the 1981 Act has itself been very patchy in its operation. There are widespread fears that this Bill will, if anything, make matters worse and result in more children being taken out of the mainstream and made to feel that they are in some kind of inferior position.
Perhaps I may take one or two points that illustrate why there is this concern. Clause 10 deals with exempting categories of children. As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has pointed out, the word "categories" rings alarm bells when surely what we are all seeking is recognition of individual needs. Without entering into the dispute about ILEA, I should like to add my voice to those who have raised doubts about what happens to the special London schools, on which I fear the noble Baroness's comments were not totally reassuring. There is an absence of provision about higher education when so many of the 16 year-olds simply go back to living with their parents. When it comes to a school opting out the parents of those children with special needs will be in a small minority and there must be doubt if their voices will be heard.
Whatever the arrangements that are made when a school is opted out, can one be certain that it will keep up over the years its full share of educating those with special needs, with all the expense and inconvenience which that can involve? As time passes, will these parents really be left with a free choice?
I am conscious that here I am only touching the fringes of a difficult and complicated issue, but to deal with the needs for these children calls for funding and also for commitment and understanding. There are widely-held anxieties that these requirements will not necessarily be furthered by the provisions of this Bill.
8 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I strongly support the Bill for its provisions to enhance education standards, accountability and local democracy. For example, the national curriculum will help to ensure that virtually all pupils receive an education to equip them with the basic competencies needed for modern life, an appreciation of our cultural and spiritual heritage, some understanding of the world in which we live and opportunities to develop talents in fields as diverse as technology, music, art and PE.
The Bill will enhance democracy by giving parents more choice through open enrolment; by giving greater freedom to schools to decide how to spend their budgets; and by giving freedom to schools to opt out of LEA control where parents and schools are unhappy—perhaps because a school's existence is threatened, or because the LEA intends to close a good sixth-form, or is politically meddlesome, imposing policies on schools against their wishes. And the Bill will enhance the accountability of LEAs to schools and to the public and the accountability of schools to parents and pupils. Perhaps that is why measures such as testing and opting out are so fiercely resisted in some quarters.
The idea of testing has been virulently attacked, often on spurious grounds. Many parents have written to me expressing grave anxiety that the names of their children will be publicised. That is not true. The tests are diagnostic in the best sense. They are there to enable teachers to pick up learning difficulties

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at the ages of seven, 11 and 14, in order to help pupils before it is too late. Now, with no national tests before the age of 16, many pupils leave school functionally illiterate and innumerate. That is totally unacceptable. A system of tests, with aggregate scores for a school, will help teachers, parents and the public to assess a school. That accountability is needed because of evidence of widespread under-achievement and because research has shown wide variations between schools with pupils from similar catchment areas, suggesting that some schools are giving their pupils educational short change; and also because of international comparisons, to which other noble Lords have referred, which show British pupils doing less well than pupils in countries such as West Germany and Japan. Systematic testing can do nothing but good, and one wonders whether some of those who oppose it might have something to hide.
The other radical measure designed to enhance accountability has generated astonishing sound and fury. It is the provision for schools to opt out of LEA control. It is important to emphasise that opting out is optional. No school is compelled to opt out. In addition, the right of exit is a fundamental right in a free society. At present, many parents and pupils, especially those who are least well off financially, are trapped in LEAs where they are desperately unhappy and where they are often subjected to intolerable political interference in curricular or other matters. If parents and schools are happy, they will have no incentive to opt out; but if they are unhappy, they should be able to free themselves from unwanted control. There is evidence that even the prospect of opting out is already making some LEAs more responsive to the wishes of parents and schools. But if the provision to opt out is destroyed, or is made so difficult as to make opting out virtually impossible, such LEAs may immediately revert to their bullying tactics, imposing policies against the wishes of parents and teachers. So I believe that opting out is the most important provision of the Bill as it now stands. It will do more to enhance the accountability of LEAs than any other measure. It is essentially democratic. It is one of the most effective instruments for giving power to the people to have been devised in education for decades and I hope that your Lordships will make it easier, not harder, for schools to opt out.
I strongly support the proposals to abolish ILEA. Of course, all is not bad, especially in provision for children with special needs. There are some very good schools. But the overall track record in recent years is of profligacy, ideological interference and poor educational standards, especially in secondary education which is most important for pupils' futures. These failures—
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, how does the noble Baroness deal with the fact that the vast majority of parents want ILEA to continue? She is strong on freedom of choice; but how does she deal with that point?
Baroness Cox: My Lords, perhaps I may suggest that the time for detailed discussion and evidence is the Committee stage and not now. Perhaps I may also
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suggest that many of those parents did not have the full facts put before them. They have been given a one-sided view of the situation. When the full facts of ILEA's track record become known during debates in Committee they will have a greater understanding of why it is quite justified and urgently necessary to abolish ILEA.
On higher and further education, I welcome the removal of polytechnics and comparable colleges from LEA control. Having studied for my first and higher degrees at a polytechnic, I have always appreciated the vision which Anthony Crosland had for the polytechnics. As they have achieved national status they deserve this recognition, while acknowledging the great debt that many of them owe to the civic support which enabled them to attain their well-earned reputations. The only concern I wish to mention now relates to the future composition of governing bodies of ILEA polytechnics, a point which my noble friend Lord Onslow will raise in Committee.
Finally, there are three areas where I believe the fundamental objectives of the Bill (which I wholeheartedly endorse) have perhaps not gone quite far enough. First, I am worried by an apparent monopoly over the public examinations for which a school may enter its pupils. Clauses 5 and 17 specify that the Secretary of State shall determine those examinations. However, in view of justified criticism of GCSE history by courageous teachers in Sussex, I fear that this power could prevent teachers from offering alternatives to syllabuses with which they are unhappy.
Secondly—and perhaps most important of all—I am concerned about religious education and worship. I welcome the alteration to the Bill which I understand will give RE the status of primus inter pares in the core curriculum. But developments since the 1944 Act show how the spirit and the letter of the law have been grossly violated. Many schools have no acts of worship; many pupils have no RE. And often what passes for worship and RE is either a shallow dabbling in a multi-faith pot-pourri, doing justice to no faith, and possibly destroying all faith; or a secularised message, sometimes amounting to little more than political indoctrination. What has happened under the present dispensation, despite the long-standing provision for Church involvement in local committees, is a betrayal of our spiritual heritage in many schools.
This is not the time for detailed evidence—that will be for the Committee stage—but many people believe that we should now rectify the omission of the 1944 Act which failed to specify the predominantly Christian or biblical nature of RE and worship. Of course the right to withdraw children must be safeguarded, and there must be an opportunity for all to learn about other major world religions. But we are still a predominantly Christian country and we need to ensure that our young people do not grow up ignorant of the faith of their forefathers or of the great Christian influence in our nation's spiritual heritage, culture and history. For those parents who have been so dismayed by the failure of many state schools to respect religion that they have set up their own schools at great sacrifice, it will be helpful to have some encouragement that those schools might

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receive fair and favourable consideration if they apply for voluntary aided status.
My final brief concern is in higher education. Many people are disappointed that the Bill does nothing to increase accountability and democracy in student unions. Those closed shops spend huge sums of public money on partisan political activity, and reform of the system is therefore long overdue.
Accountability and democracy are the essential features of this immensely important Bill. It is a charter for giving more power to the people, especially to those who are most vulnerable, who cannot buy themselves out of a system in which they are trapped and where many are desperately unhappy. There can be no more worthwhile justification for legislative change than to give greater freedom and good education to those who are now denied them.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, a million words or more have been written and spoken about the Government's proposals to reform our education system. Indeed, we ourselves will add a million more during the next few weeks—contentious and angry words. If there is anything in the classical belief that truth emerges out of a clash of opinions it should come forth in this House shining and strong.
I very much doubt that truth alone will have the slightest effect on the Secretary of State and his colleagues. What is also needed is for Members of the House boldly to follow the truth, as they see it, through the Division Lobby. However, as we have now seen in another place, even this Government, with their overweening majority and prideful leader, can be persuaded to modify their harsher decrees if some of their members dare even to threaten revolt.
Today's list of speakers is remarkable not only for its length but for the many professional educationists and politicians who have been closely concerned with education who are taking part. There are far more speaking today than tomorrow. However, I cannot claim to be one of them. I am a superannuated—I hope not moribund—journalist. However, I spent five sabbatical years at the Nuffield Foundation. I was then very much concerned with the academic world.
A few moments ago there were three people in the Chamber who were beneficiaries of the foundation. I was also concerned at that time with the primary schools because we were then preparing the ground for Nuffield French.
I have also learnt much about schools from my sister who was for many years the head of a junior school with mostly black pupils in the notorious Moss-side district of Manchester, working in conditions very similar to those of some of the inner London boroughs. Similarly I have learnt much from my daughter who was until recently a teacher in a junior school on the fringe of inner London.
However, to refresh my personal knowledge I visited an inner London primary school a week or two ago. I found that the headmistress was worried about the future of her school as it will be under the new and inexperienced authority. If we say that she
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like all teachers has a real and professional interest in the Bill we should of course be right. However, teaching is not only a profession; it is a vocation. Many, if not all, teachers care passionately about the task that they have chosen in life. They care also about their pay and conditions, for which of course they have a justified personal concern.
In my evidence a bad school—I have visited many—gives itself away in a few minutes to a discerning visitor. The school I visited was obviously a good one. I guessed that it had been built about seven or eight years ago, but I found that it had existed for 30 years. Its good architecture and I LEA's concern for maintenance had deceived me.
It is common to accuse the authority of prodigal expenditure, especially if one has just looked at the educational precept on one's rate demand and one's children are grown up or at a private school. Even ILEA's best friends would not defend it as a model of financial prudence and economy. However, one should also look behind the financial accounts to the authority's traditional generous and affectionate concern for young people in London. That is an inheritance of philanthropic Victorian values from the old London school board and the LCC.
Welfare provisions are needed as much today as ever in the current, much vaunted, successful economy. It is a time, as every teacher knows, when moral confusion presses on social problems. It is a time of unemployment, a time of homelessness for the least capable minority, a time of one-parent families and a time when four out of 10 children in the inner London area have mothers who were born in some other land and are trying to adjust to this one.
I return to the school which I visited. The children there were well behaved, well nourished, neatly groomed and dressed in school uniform. Indeed, one could have taken it for a middle-class school. But appearances deceive. Half the children qualified for free school dinners and clothing allowances. One-third were not white, but there is no colour problem as yet in that school. One-third—not the same third—are members of one-parent families. All in all it was a pretty typical inner London school.
I attended the assembly, which had the Christian element, although no child need attend if his parents wish otherwise. The headmistress had no complaints about lack of books; indeed, she showed me with pride the school library and the two computers that had been provided for pupils. Further, a girl who desperately required special tuition was sitting alone with a teacher. Another girl—a black girl of remarkable grace—has a rare talent for dancing and might be sent to a school where her talents can be developed; that is, if ILEA can find a place and, even more important, if one can be certain of her mother's agreement.
I read through the prospectus given to prospective parents and the head's annual report. It said:
"Class 4 visited Chapel Farm in Surrey … Police showed the video, 'Have Fun—Take Care'. School journey to Swanage … athletics meeting at Hurlingham … won a shield. First governors' meeting for parents … one parent and 10 governors attended".
I thought the last entry was a tragic fact. If the authority that replaces ILEA turns out to be unsatisfactory—I do not think it will—the chances of a school with such a background opting out of local

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authority control are nil. Parents do not have the time, the energy, the will or the social and organisational skills to take on such a heavy responsibility.
The Government have taken the decision to abolish ILEA. It is a sudden, ill thought-out change of plan and a capitulation to political prejudice and ignorance. I shall briefly quote from the report of an education reform group which makes no attempt to underplay ILEA's shortcomings or the complications of necessary reform, but concludes:
"Of all the options open to the Government, those contained within the original Bill"—
that is, when borough could apply for permission to opt out—
"were the least rational and the most likely to cause irreparable damage to the children and people of inner London. Those now agreed by Cabinet and to be inserted in the Bill can be regarded as the next worst. The real and serious charge against the Government is not that it wishes to abolish the ILEA but that it seems completely devoid of any viable conception of what might be put in its place. No Government should be so careless of people's futures".
I shall resist the temptation to quote more from that document, which was compiled by educationists and two education journalists.
I should just like to say a word about my profession. During fairly recent years all the serious newspapers have cultivated first-class education correspondents. They give them a great deal of space to explain what is going on in the very difficult and complicated education world. Surely the Government must think through this problem. They still have time.
The Government should think of creating some unitary body above the boroughs to deal with planning and trans-border problems, special schools and further and adult education. One constructive suggestion flying around is that the boroughs should be deputed to look after the education of the under-16s and that a new unitary authority should have responsibility for the rest.
It would be sad indeed if the fears of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education were realised and that the existence of adult education and services in London were threatened. This would be a great deprivation, especially to those who had limited education at school and who at last, in the second half of life, with the children off their hands, can fulfil a lifetime's desire to learn more about their world, its history and its riches in literature and the arts.
We saw Mr. Baker here earlier this afternoon. He is a genial, well intentioned and, by nature a progressive man. He should be aware that, as in education history the name of Butler is blessed, the name of Baker may well be darkly remembered as the Minister who lowered the standards of London education. Does he realise the dangers? He has shown a certain flexibility as the Bill has progressed elsewhere. He can recognise a red danger signal if it goes on flashing long enough. He should show more flexibility now, and his friends on the opposite Benches should encourage him to do so.
8.22 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester: My Lords, it is almost inevitable that in this debate we should
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continually be referring back somewhat nostalgically to the 1944 EducationAct. I have no doubt that the present Secretary of State is as concerned as was his distinguished predecessor to achieve a creative partnership of the statutory and voluntary bodies in the service of education. I could wish, however, that, as in 1944, there had been a longer period of consultation before the Bill was published and that we were not left with the impression that much of the consultation is taking place, as it were, on a moving escalator as the public debate on the Bill proceeds.
I do not presume to speak as an academic but as a lay officer of a unversity who is concerned about the morale of its academic staff and who has an overwhelming desire to see that any new framework for relations between the universities and the Government should in no way seem to imperil that freedom of thought and speech in universities which successive governments of all parties have sought to uphold for so long. I share the views of the noble Lords, Lord Blake and Lord Flowers, that this should be referred to specifically in the Bill along with references to the principles of justice and fairness.
I am as grateful as any noble Lord who has already spoken for the concessions that the Secretary of State has made and for the willingness which I understand he and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor have shown to have further discussions about possible amendments. Like many others, I am glad that the Secretary of State has told the representatives of the universities that he has an open mind as to how academic freedom should be protected in the Bill.
Universities must not be thought of as though they were departments of state subject to central control, nor as the different regiments of an army under the leadership of a commander-in-chief. Universities are distinct and independent institutions, no two of which are alike. They have come into being at different times. They each have their own history, traditions and statutes. What some of us look for before all else is that the individuality and the particular ethos of a university shall not be put at risk any more than the academic freedom of the teaching staff.
The noble Lord, Lord Swann, in explaining to your Lordships so eloquently the concerns which academics have about their freedom, made it clear that the universities do not wish to protect privilege or to secure a special status for their teaching staff. I hope that the future consultations, yet to take place on the moving escalator, will be concerned with three fundamental freedoms which, regardless of party, class or creed, many regard as being of lasting value to this country. These are the freedom to research in subjects of as yet unrecognised importance, the freedom to question received wisdom and the freedom to be protected from direct and narrow political interference by the government of the day. This is what Sir Mark Richmond, the Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, has said they mean by academic freedom. It is not, he says, a licence to brood comfortably in ivory towers.
I hope that the university commissioners to be appointed under the Bill will be encouraged to deal with each university as an institution in its own right and with its own distinctive character and ethos. If

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they are to do this they will need to have the maximum freedom possible to agree with individual institutions what procedures would work best in their particular circumstances. The commissioners' freedom to act must surely not be too tightly circumscribed by the Bill lest the universities slowly slide into becoming puppets of Whitehall.
I should like to make one suggestion which I hope the noble Baroness who is to reply to the debate tomorrow will be ready to explore. When further thought is given, as has been promised, to setting up a grievance procedure for academics who feel that they are being discriminated against because of their views, perhaps the Secretary of State will also consider setting up an independent court of appeal to which reference could be made in the event of a difference persisting between an individual and the university that he or she serves.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London made it clear earlier in the debate that we on these benches are concerned with the whole field of education, from nursery schools to universities, because we are concerned for the whole nation and all its people. It is for that reason that I have presumed to speak on an area of education for which the Church has no direct responsibility and in which those of us who serve as academic or lay officers do so as individuals and not in any representative capacity. As we look around the world today I believe that the future of our country and its place in the family of nations depends in no small measure on the quality and range of our research institutions and on the ability and the freedom of university teachers. I hope that this Bill in its final form will strengthen our universities as institutions of teaching and research comparable to any the world over.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, by tradition, Second Reading is an occasion for a procession of stately written speeches with many points covered, each brought to an elegant conclusion. I have many such speeches here. I have the 20-minute speech that I wrote at the beginning of last week; the 15-minute speech that I wrote in the middle of last week; and the 10-minute speech that I wrote over the weekend, but under the circumstances, I think that I should restrict myself to the notes that I have scribbled on a card this evening and to one subject only.
I have, during the discarding of those speeches, discarded every other matter of moment, but there is one that I am reluctant and unwilling to discard, and that is the question of the teaching of religious education in schools. I place it at the head of my list, but not only because I am a Christian and wish to share the joy that that can give with everyone else that it is possible to reach. This is not a spiritual debate; we are not making spiritual legislation. I therefore advance the secular arguments of which I think your Lordships should not lose sight. First, I remind your Lordships and, in particular, the Government, that it is a first duty of government to retain and strengthen the fabric of society. A principal instrument for that purpose is the law, not just statute law such as we are discussing this evening, but the law of England that
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has evolved down the centuries—the common law of England.
The function of the law is, above all, to see that right triumphs over wrong. Neither of those two words "right" or "wrong" has any meaning outside a system of morality, and the system of morality in this country is based upon the Christian religion and the Christian literature on which we have been brought up for 10 centuries.
If you remove religion, you remove the justification for morality. If you remove morality, you remove the justification for the law, and we must have a care when we start kicking at the legs of the stool on which all of us are standing in our society. That is a secular issue because without the law there would be no government; and that is a secular matter of concern to my noble friends on the Front Bench.
Another matter is, I suppose, best encapsulated by pointing out the grotesque absurdity there would be if the children of this country were expected to be required to read the works of Bernard Shaw, for instance, or even Shakespeare, or even Marx, and not required to be familiar with the greatest work of English literature—the Bible. That brings me to an important secular point.
We in this country have a good record for the protection of the cultures of our minority peoples, and the principal vehicles for the cultures of all of us have, down the centuries, been our religions. I applaud the way in which we, and the Government, have defended that particular aspect of a multi-racial society, but we must not, in our enthusiasm to protect the cultures of our minority societies, neglect the culture of our majority society. That also is carried on the vehicle of the Christian religion.
If our children are not brought up with a proper understanding of and respect for that, they will lack the sense of security which will enable them to provide a tolerant and friendly home for others of minority persuasions who have to live with them as a result of their histories.
Lord Alport: My Lords, does my noble friend consider that the real basis for the teaching of the Christian religion is by parents in the family and the Church itself, and that that should not be regarded as being the responsibility of an education system?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the danger of having an unscripted speech is that one is drawn rapidly away from one's theme. In this case, however, my noble friend has anticipated what I was about to say. I am, I suppose, in a slightly sardonic way grateful to him.
If my noble friend will allow me to bring that point in where it is relevant, I would say that as a result of all that I have said, I welcome with equal enthusiasm with those who have already welcomed it—notably the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London—the promotion of religious education from the bottom of the third division of subjects to its present position as a compulsory subject. That is to be welcomed, but I am anxious to know what it is that that subject will be now that it is going to have to be taught. Your Lordships can see how my syntax breaks down from the elegant Georgian prose of manuscript when I try to get across this sort of idea.

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I am anxious that the syllabus that is taught shall be principally Christian, for the valid secular reasons that I have already given. I understand that as a result of the welcome advances made in the position of the Secretary of State—his agreement in conversation with the right reverend Prelate and others—what we have is machinery equivalent to the 1944 machinery as established in the 1944 Act. The right reverend Prelate was against the specific mention of "Christian" for reasons which he did not advance but which he attributed to the noble Lord on the Front Bench at the time of the debate on the 1944 Bill. He was kind enough to give me the reference, and I was prudent enough to look it up.
My eye fell in fact on the end of the preceding speech by the then right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester and, in particular, on the last two striking sentences thereof, which were, first:
"If religious instruction is to be compulsory in all schools, we ought to ensure that it is given in the faith in which it is, I submit, intended that it should be given".
The second sentence was:
"We have to think of the future, as well as of the present".—[Official Report, 21/6/44; col. 366.]
The future about which the right reverend Prelate was talking is the present that we now have, and therefore I looked with particular interest at the argument put forward at that time by the noble Earl against the inclusion of specific references to Christianity. He said, in part:
"The Bill gives effect to it in the Seventh Schedule"—
that is, the intention.
"It is there set forth that there must be a conference between four panels, of which one represents the Church of England, another the other denominations, the third the local authorities and the fourth the teachers. They have to agree unanimously on the syllabus, and that at any rate ensures that it will be a syllabus which the Church of England can accept, and the Church of England is not going to accept a syllabus which is not in accordance with the Christian faith".—[Official Report, 21/6/44; col. 366.]
I recall the moving and telling paragraphs of the speech of my noble friend Lady Cox a few moments ago which suggested that in many classrooms what is taught is not the Christian faith, and indeed in many classrooms is not a religious faith at all. If that is so, then there is real reason for concern. I feel that that concern can only be met in a combination of two ways. The first way is a machinery that produces an agreed syllabus that is predominantly Christian in its matter. That is the responsibility of the churches, and if the existing machinery gave that responsibility to the churches, and if my noble friend Lady Cox is right— I believe that she will have further information to give to your Lordships later—then either there was something gravely wrong with the machinery or there was something gravely culpable in the conduct of the churches. I do not mean culpable; I mean deeply to be regretted.
If that is recognised, and if we have under a similar machinery, a syllabus or syllabuses produced which have the balance for which I ask, that in itself is not enough. It must be the case that that balance is delivered into the individual lessons in the classroom and that teachers of strange views cannot pick the fringe passages of the syllabus and teach a totally distorted and unchristian syllabus as a result. That is what I believe is being done. Secondly, if that is
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ensured then there must be a means of remedying the fact when it is not being done. If those conditions are met, I believe that many of us who are at present deeply concerned about what is proposed on this one aspect of the Bill—and I have left myself no time to expand on my approval of the rest of the Bill; your Lordships will have to take it as read—will be deeply reassured.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may raise a point with him. I think he said in his speech that I stated that with the amendments which are to come in the Bill, the situation will be as it was at the time of the 1944 Act. In fact that is not so. There were significant changes in that, as broadcast by the Minister, first, the standing conferences will be mandatory. Secondly, they will be subject to review which will be required. Thirdly, the complaints procedure will be extended in this sphere. I do not for a moment say that the Church has not done all it could but I believe that the provisions which are now being made will enable the Church to take a much more vigorous part than it has been able to take in the past.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as those remarks were before I sat down, I rise, first, to apologise to the right reverend Prelate for having misreported him. Secondly, I am very willing to be persuaded, but it is difficult because I believe this is a matter of deep conscience. I have been much encouraged by what the right reverend Prelate says and no doubt the job will be completed at the Committee stage.
8.41 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, if he had to discard most of his speech, at any rate did not deprive us of the views he holds about religious education. I think my sympathies are with him there, and for that matter with Lady Cox, as long as she sticks to religion. When she gets on to politics, of course, I find her views quite revolting, but as long as we are talking of religion my heart beats at one with hers.
I shall speak briefly, not in a sense from a lack of views but because my views about this Bill have been expressed so well by other speakers, beginning with the noble Baroness, Lady David, that there is no need for me at this time of night to begin to dwell further on them. I might have said something about academic freedom. I know that those who are much closer to the academic scene than I am, like the noble Lords, Lord Morton of Shuna and Lord Peston, will be dealing with that subject authoritatively tomorrow.
I am one of those who benefited from academic freedom in the old days. When I became what was called a student of Christchurch I was regarded as a promising conservative, but after I had been there a few years I turned into a socialist. No one interfered with me; we did not have some inspector coming along. Indeed, he would have had a fairly good case, because a young historian had been elected just before that—my old friend Lord Gordon-Walker, as he became. He started as a rugger-playing conservative when he was appointed and turned into a socialist. So if one had had any sort of planning system, if Mr. Baker had been allowed to come round

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and try to rationalise our place, to have had these two young dons both teaching socialism would have been against the Government's ideas of planning. I am bound to say that the college corrected it all later by appointing Lord Blake and Hugh TrevorRoper—Lord Dacre, as he is now. But at any rate at that time we were left in freedom, or academic freedom, which I certainly valued.
However, I want to deal with another topic very briefly. I want to speak on a Catholic point of view. I would not say "the" Catholic point of view, for the Duke of Norfolk places before us the Catholic view in this House and in his presence I should not dream of saying more than that mine is "a" Catholic view. The Minister is a Catholic, and I hope she is a better Catholic than I am. It would be terrible to think that we had a Minister in charge of education who was not a better Catholic than I, so I am ready to assume that she is. At any rate, all sorts of views have been expressed by Catholics. I am expressing a point of view which is that of the Catholic bishops. I suppose that most people would agree that if they cannot be represented in this House it is just as well that somebody should inform the House of what they are saying.
It is rather important here to disabuse the right honourable gentleman Mr. Baker of the idea that he has reached a settlement. I cannot, of course, speak for the Church of England, from which I lapsed about 48 years ago. I am thoroughly out-of-date there, and the right reverend Prelate has already explained the point of view of that Church this afternoon. But I can speak (not that anyone has asked me to do so, but no one has forbidden me to) in informing the House of what the Catholic bishops think. If there is any doubt about what they think, there is a long press statement which was summarised in some of the newspapers over the weekend. Therefore we know, or we have a very good idea, what the Catholic bishops think.
The right honourable gentleman is under the impression that he has reached a settlement; he boasts about it. I think the noble Baroness was rather sceptical about the settlement which the right honourable gentleman has reached—and he went so far as to use the word "settlement". I have not come across any passage in which he compares himself with Mr. Butler, but I gather that he has done so and said that he is a latter-day Mr. Butler. In fact, that is all codswallop. There is no settlement with the Catholic bishops at all, and I think that should be fully understood before we proceed. Progress has been made in certain directions but, as anybody can see if they look at the statement of the bishops, there are a great many discussions still to come.
On some of the points on the very important issue of the status of religion, I think that a settlement—and I am talking at the moment only of the Roman Catholics—is in sight. As regards opting out, a settlement is in no way in sight. It may be reached or it may not be reached, but at the moment Mr. Baker must not delude himself at all in to thinking that he has reached a settlement.
I shall just read one short passage from the statement of the Catholic bishops and then sit down:
"The concern of the Bishops on this point arises from the fact that Catholic schools are part of the life of the Church and an expression
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of its faith. The bishop has clear and specific responsibilities in the life of the Church. The proposals contained in the Bill deny the bishop the means needed to fulfil these responsibilities".
That is a statement issued by the Catholic bishops last Saturday, so there is a great deal of argument to come. At the moment one cannot see a way forward to a settlement. That is all I want to say. I think it is very important that the Minister and her right honourable friend should not imagine that they have a settlement in the bag.
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, I apologise for intervening again but before the noble Earl sits down perhaps I could say, in fairness to the Secretary of State, that I was at the meeting after which the statement was made. In that context it was quite clear that, in the words he used, "settlement" referred to what we were talking about earlier; that is, religious education in schools. I think I am right in saying that at the time there was no suggestion that a settlement had been reached over opting out, or anything else like that. I think that should be said in fairness to the Secretary of State, because it is not accurate to apply his term "settlement" to the whole range of voluntary schools within the context of the Bill.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I am very sorry to disturb the religious front in any way at all, but the Secretary of State has made more than one misstatement. One of the statements in his Third Reading speech related to that issue. Another statement did not refer to it at all. He actually said that there was a settlement with the Churches and the universities. With due respect, if the right reverend Prelate wishes I will show him the passage. Mr. Baker has managed to mislead himself up to now, but perhaps assisted always by the noble Baroness he will clear his mind and, I hope, propose a settlement.
8.49 p.m.
Lord Butterworth: My Lords, noble Lords will notice that I am 25th on the list of speakers and therefore when I sit down more than half of the day's business will have been discharged. Therefore at this hour I shall confine myself to one subject only: academic freedom. Your Lordships will notice that those words have been used today in two senses—first referring to individual members of staff, and secondly referring to the institution.
The new dispensation under the Education Reform Bill could affect academic freedom in both those senses. We have heard that the Government have already agreed to a number of amendments in the Bill to meet the views of universities. There remains between them one unfinished piece of business, which is academic freedom. As I understand it universities are not opposed to the abolition of tenure but are asking for some provision to be inserted in the Bill to protect it. I believe here that there is a difficulty. No one is prepared to define "academic freedom", and even the Committee of Vice-Chancellors has failed or has not at any rate produced a definition.
It was because of this difficulty that my friend Alex Kwapong who was the former vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana said—I do not think that this

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would be suitable as a definition but it was the nearest that he could get to it:
"Academic freedom consists in being comfortable in one's harness."
I suspect that academic freedom can only be defined as that freedom accorded to a member of academic staff when his contract of service does not give contractual power to the employer to give him notice. In other words, tenure is the outwork of academic freedom. Academic freedom and tenure are really the opposite sides of the same concept. If we really are concerned about academic freedom, we should give some thought as to whether tenure should be abolished.
The inspectors who were appointed to inquire into the problem at Ruskin College ran into the same difficulty. They decided not to define academic freedom but rather to describe it. The description in Part I of their report was quite useful. The last paragraph of that description is I think relevant to what has been said today. It states: whether or not academic freedom is threatened and in the event of a threat the effectiveness of the action taken will depend less upon any statement of principle or upon the procedures laid down essential though they are than upon the nature of the institution. The most effective safeguard of academic freedom and the first line of defence is the cultivation within the institution by tradition and by leadership of an ethos of openness and mutual tolerance of the measured exchange of opinions and of civilised behaviour.
There are two factors which should be considered when one is thinking about abolition of tenure and academic freedom. The first is that in practice only about one half of the academic staff of this country have legal tenure, for many institutions have always had contracts of service allowing the institution to terminate the contract on six months' notice. The truth is that that power is simply not used, for a convention has developed that such staff are treated usually as though they had a contract giving them legal tenure. Hence we have in the country at the moment the situation where half of the academic staff enjoy legal tenure and the other half have no legal protection but are treated as though they have. The second point is that the statutes of most universities lay down that apart from the contract a member of staff can only be dismissed for good cause. So a member of staff can be dismissed for good cause or by reason of the contract. The statutes indicate the procedures by which such cases are to be investigated.
The practices which have grown up around these provisions have in practice made it extremely difficult to dismiss anyone. It takes an enormous amount of time, effort and expense and the chances of failure are often so great that some institutions are increasingly reluctant to put the case to the test. That is a test which has become much greater in my view because of the wide interpretation which the judiciary has given to the requirements of natural justice. Dismissal should be a matter of administration but the smaller the institution, the greater the difficulties when procedures are categorised as judicial.
One question that I should like to put to the Minister (although I realise that it may not be capable
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of being answered within the time of this debate) is the following: do we need the Byzantine procedures of the commissioners? Could we not get rid of all that procedure and have a simple provision in the statute? We could achieve what we want in the Bill if all universities and other institutions were required to have a contract of service which was subject to six months' notice on either side.
I now mention another point which again could be dealt with briefly in the Bill if we had the will to do it. I have some sympathy with those academic staff who if changes are to be made would wish to see tenure abolished for all. They would wish tenure to be abolished at the same time at a given date for all staff. Why not, for instance, take a date, say 1st January 1993, and provide that from that date forward all contracts of service would be subject to six months' notice on either side? The fear is of course that without compensation such action might be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and therefore there would be a successful challenge before the European Court.
It is in fact the case that the European Convention on Human Rights provides for an exception when what is done is done in the public interest. I suspect that the widespread view in this country is that the contract of tenure of academic staff should be brought to an end as an anachronism.
I shall briefly deal with the second meaning of academic freedom—that is to say, the freedom enjoyed by institutions. It has been argued today that that may be threatened by the concept of the contract between the institution and government or more precisely between the institution and the funding council. That piece of machinery—the contract—is quite crucial to the working of the procedures laid down by the Bill. However, the contract as such is nowhere referred to in the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Swann, drew attention to some inelegant contracts which had been issued, as I understand it, from the Department of Education. He hoped that the autonomy of universities would not be impeded by contracts which entered into such detail. The Secretary of State, in speaking to the vice-chancellors in October of last year, went out of his way to assure them that the Department of Education did not have contracts of that kind in mind. In view of what has been said, it might be useful to quote a few sentences from the Secretary of State concerning what he has in mind regarding the contractual arrangements. He said:
"I fully recognise … that contracting arrangements must not be excessively bureaucratic; nor must they be insensitive to the distinctive characteristics of higher education. Indeed, I would put this positively by saying that contract-based funding must accommodate the distinctive nature of our higher education institutions. In particular, contracting must not jeopardise the pursuit of research and scholarship. Nor should it be of a kind that deprives universities of the margin of flexibility they need to seize new opportunities for teaching or research. The Government does not want a system in which institutions have to come cap in hand to the centre whenever they see a chance to provide a new service. But I am equally sure that they will be ready to be accountable after the event for the use to which you have put public funds".
I am sure that if those principles are observed in practice, we will have a contract between the institution and the funding council which will help the relationship of both parties. Indeed, the Croham Committee, when it reported on the funding council,

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had foreseen that a broad contract of that kind might enable the university and therefore the polytechnic to state what its major plans and objectives were and would enable the funding council in the years ahead to monitor the performance of the institution to see that the plans were being properly brought to fruition. I submit that if the contract is developed in that way it will not impede the autonomy of the institutions concerned.
9.5 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I wish that I could emulate the unscripted eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. However, I am afraid that your Lordships will have to bear with my attempts to decipher a rather scrappy and savaged script. First, I should like to say on behalf of my noble friend Lady Masham, who is not speaking because of the number of noble Lords doing so, that she plans to put down an amendment on health education. That matter was also of interest to our late colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. I should like to say how very much we shall miss her.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Perhaps I may say a word or two from the bottom of the noble Earl's league table on religious education. I welcome the amendments promised by the Secretary of State and by the Minister. However, the main worry of the Catholic Church remains that opting out could be deleterious for Catholic education. The policy is that Catholic schools should be open to all Catholic children of whatever class, race or intellectual ability. The Church's fear is that the grant-maintained school could end up with all the elite pupils and that ordinary, run-of-the-mill kids might miss out.
I echo all that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has said concerning special educational needs. He spoke from personal experience and he has said much of what I feel and what the numerous individuals and groups of parents who have contacted me feel. There is deep concern that progress towards integration may not continue. I also agree with what the noble Lord said about the merits of a flexible curriculum to include rather than exclude pupils with SEN.
If we cannot achieve a more flexible curriculum, I welcome the amendments introduced in another place as an attempt to deal with the problem. However, there appears to be no obligation to consult parents about modifications to or exemptions from the curriculum. Furthermore, it is essential if the curriculum is withdrawn that a modified one be applied with the approval of parents.
As regards testing, I am encouraged by what a paper, kindly sent to me by the Minister, had to say about assessment not being on a pass-fail basis and its welcome of the broad framework of the TGAT report. The report recommends that assessment instruments should be made sufficiently flexible to accommodate SEN pupils.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that parents of children with special educational needs have great reason to be worried about the proposed abolition of ILEA. He spoke from experience. As he said, the provision in ILEA in special mainstream schools is
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very much a trans-boundary affair and it is a sphere in which ILEA has been acknowledged to excel. That was said not only by the noble Lord tonight but also by the Secretary of State when he made the Statement on the abolition of ILEA on 4th February (at col. 1187 of the Official Report of another place). He stated:
"The great bulk of special education provision in inner London is good—some of it is very good".
The worries about the future of the crucial central support services of ILEA and whether they will continue have already been mentioned. However, I should like to ask the Minister about the ILEA boarding schools which are situated outside the area. For example, Dromenagh at Ivor Heath is the only ILEA primary boarding school for boys with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Fernhirst, which is just down the road from me at Maidenhead, is one of two ILEA boarding schools for girls with EBD. Who is to take responsibilty for these schools whose work is very impressive and much needed.
The tremendous range of adult education within ILEA will surely diminish after abolition. The Fish Report acknowledged that this was an area where integration had been achieved very effectively. It can be particularly important for the adult with SEN who may have missed out on education earlier in life. If the Government are determined to abolish ILEA, I beg the Minister to consider the need for an overall body to provide for the education of all those with SEN in the London area. I echo the concern about children with SEN being the losers if schools opt out over grant-maintained status.
I therefore warmly welcome the amendments introduced in another place which refer to provision for pupils with SEN in the clauses on the acquisition of grant-maintained status and the change of character or enlargement of grant maintained schools. I feel that Clause 78 also needs amending so that particulars about the premises or proposed premises include a reference to the extent to which they will meet requirements of Design Note 18.
Perhaps I may briefly signal where else in the Bill it is important to make specific reference to special educational needs. In Clause 30 the number and ages of pupils with SEN will need to be taken into account when determining the budget share. In Clause 108 higher education corporations should have to have regard to meeting the needs of students with SEN.
The curriculum and assessment councils, the funding councils for higher education and the governing bodies of maintained FE and HE institutes should each have a member with knowledge of SEN or who himself has a disability or some special educational need. It is vital to ensure that students with special educational needs have the opportunity to benefit fully from further and higher education.
The paper that I referred to before which the Minister kindly sent me reads on page 1:
"It is as important for SEN children as any others that teachers, parents and the children themselves should have their expectations raised".
I think we would all agree with that wholeheartedly, and I am very glad that that is the Government's aim. My concern, and I think that of many parents, is that those raised expectations may not be fulfilled. I hope we can steer clear of exclusion and segregation by

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amending the Bill to ensure raised standards, enhanced opportunities and full participation for all pupils, including those with special educational needs.
9.10 p.m.
Lord Wolfson: My Lords, the Education Reform Bill is a welcome measure to remedy some of the deficiencies in the existing system and should in time enhance the results which are currently being achieved for the nation and the pupils. To paraphrase a well-known expression, the Bill seeks to refresh those parts that the present arrangements do not reach.
The Bill's emphasis on a flexible and well-balanced national curriculum to train the mind and cater for special needs, its encouragement of parental choice and preparing pupils for the practical requirements of a competitive word are well conceived aims and look to the future. At the same time the setting up of a committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Elton to look into the regrettable decline of school discipline is equally important. Clearly meaningful education and anarchy are incompatible. It is unfair to the teaching profession on whom we rely, as my noble friend the Minister pointed out in her excellent presentation.
The amendments put down by the Government in another place to strengthen long-established academic freedoms and to which the noble Lord, Lord Swann, referred are very welcome and go a long way to allay legitimate concerns. I hope that an acceptable definition of academic freedom can be devised on the lines recommended by my noble friend Lord Blake and by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, for incorporation into the legislation, including the same rights for visiting speakers, as my noble friend Lord Joseph pointed out from experience.
In a similar context, greater financial independence is another vital ingredient and is best served by recourse to both public and private funding, particularly for expanding investment in scientific and technological research, the seed corn of the future to which your Lordships' Select Committee made many references in its admirable report.
In addition to the priorities stated in the Bill, which I support, I should like to refer briefly to five other relevant matters which I think should be given greater prominence. The first is the encouragement of basic business education in schools, in particular highlighting the major role of business and individuals in the creation of wealth, the overall economic benefits it brings and its direct relationship with providing sustainable improvements to health care and other social welfare services.
Secondly, pupils should be made aware of the need for more tasteful planning, human scale architecture and better building standards. The inner city environmental failures of the past 25 years make the timing of such a programme appropriate. Thirdly, further provision should be made in the education budget for matching grants to encourage private participation in capital projects, research programmes and the establishment of chairs in higher education. Matching grants would have an important multiplier effect in attracting home and
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overseas funds for investment in education projects, as the CTC funding scheme has shown.
In the context of funding I understand that universities are not eager to dispose of surplus assets for reinvestment because they are not permitted to retain the profits. If that is so, the policy should be modified at least to the extent of fifty-fifty, because, as has been demonstrated, a more reasonable take produce a higher yield in the long run.
The proceeds can be put towards better maintenance of buildings and ancillary fixed assets, at present, an under-funded area.
Fourthly, overall co-ordinated buying policies with product specifications for buildings, equipment, supplies and services should be established. The prudent management of limited financial resources, saving overhead expense and using central buying methods to obtain advantageous value are in themselves a science which the academic world has yet to master fully in order to secure the maximum benefits for the system. There are also opportunities for relatively modest investment to give meaningful economies in energy consumption, particularly in the case of older buildings. I have experience in all of those matters. Such arrangements have to be commercially supervised to ensure competitive performance, and any saving achieved can be reinvested in mainstream education.
Finally, the welcome reference to a modern language as a core subject should be extended to include better facilities for teaching Japanese, Chinese and Russian. Breaking down language barriers will lead to closer trading and human relationships, as we know from experience.
Investment in a well balanced education system, one that caters for all talents and beliefs, is fundamental to the nation's well-being and progressive entry into the world of tomorrow. I believe that as we approach the end of the 20th century the aims and purposes of the Bill advance those objectives.
9.16 p.m.
Lord Parry: My Lords, more than six hours ago, at the very beginning of her speech of introduction, the noble Baroness referred to the fact that inevitably a great deal of history would be introduced into this debate and sought to stem its tide. She also said that the contribution of teachers is crucial to the developments that will follow from the implementation of this Act, if it is so implemented. I thank her for that.
So far as the history goes, I should like to say one or two things. The first is that the teachers who implemented the 1944 Act (which she referred to as the great Butler Act) were for the most part in the schools of Britain as scholars themselves immediately before the war; they were in college during the war, and they went into the teaching services in the staff rooms and classrooms of Britain immediately thereafter. In a sense they were the generation of the Butler Act. It is an interesting point which is not often made that the subsequent careers of those teachers and of the teachers who welcomed them into the classrooms in 1945 and thereafter span almost the total range of public education in Britain. The teachers then have been crucial to the development of

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public education in Britain for a very long time. I totally support the Minister when she emphasises the nature of the teacher and his role in education and in democracy.
I want to tackle two points which have been made from the other side of the House. I hope to do that constructively but nevertheless to point out that there is no point in anyone saying from the opposite side of the House that this side of the House, in all its ranges of colour, in any way believes that everything is well in the educational structure of Great Britain. It has not been well for a very long time. Indeed, there were aspects of its sickness that the Butler Act itself failed to eradicate. I should like to talk about that for a moment.
The other point that I want to make is that if the noble Baroness and her noble friend Lady Young were attempting to suggest to the House that in some way this side of the House was encouraging a recalcitrant attitude in the classroom, that cannot be justified either. We take the view that it is essential to the health of this democracy that the education system should be in good heart and that the teachers in the classroom should not be disillusioned.
It is part of the charge that I make—as a teacher with more than 32 years' service in the classroom—that there is a great deal of disillusionment in the education service. Part of that disillusionment is justified and has historical reasons that go back even beyond the debate that we are having tonight. We do not have time to deal too specifically with them but I shall make that point.
As concerns the attitude of the teacher in the classroom, it stemmed from the very early realisation that bands of underprivilege existed within even the best of state schools. Those bands arise from staffing problems—those are habitual—and from difficulties that arise from the situation in schools in places where there is urban decay. Within our good schools those cause bands of underprivilege at almost every level.
Having said that, I want to move to something quite specific and to pick up a point that was made in the later stages of the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. He said that our record for protecting the cultures of our minority peoples is good. That leads me very neatly to Wales and the Welsh language. The noble Lord's thesis leads me into reminding the House that in Wales we have recently magnified the Welsh language by the production of a Bible which commemorates the 400 years of the Bible in Welsh.
Local education authorities, supported by parents, teachers and successive Secretaries of State at the Welsh Office over the last 30 years have developed a Welsh language policy for the schools of Wales which is beginning to show signs of success. I am concerned that this education Bill in its general provisions now puts that policy at risk. My concern, which is reflected elsewhere in Wales, is that the definition of a Welsh-speaking school contained in Clause 3 of the Bill will lead to a lowering of the status of the Welsh language to that simply of a foundation subject. We do not know the criteria, the set of principles, by which the Secretary of State will decide whether schools are to be exempted from teaching Welsh.
I ask the Minister and her friends this specific question. Is the matter solely to be at the discretion
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of the Secretary of State? Should the Bill not present us with some criteria from which we can make a judgment? Would it not be reasonable to prescribe, for example, that the majority of parents should support the opt-out in the case of a Welsh school if that would threaten the teaching of the Welsh language?
I wish to continue a little further with this point. I do not expect the Minister to be able to answer it tonight. She has a great deal to take on board, as she will also have tomorrow. However, she will be interested to know that the new president of the National Association of Head Teachers in Wales at the association's annual conference in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, this very weekend warned that the plans to allow schools and local education authorities to opt out of teaching Welsh could become a real threat to the language. Mr. John Lloyd Davies is the head of the bilingual Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera in West Glamorgan, a school that teaches through the medium of Welsh. He said:
"There is a danger that if there is a growth of the opportunity to opt out the Welsh language would lose its hold. If that happens it could have disastrous consequences for the Welsh language … There has been a tremendous growth in support for bilingual education which is something the Government should be encouraging".
Welsh will be a core subject in the national curriculum only in schools which teach more than half the foundation subjects in Welsh. It will be a foundation subject in other schools, although governing bodies and LEAs will have the power to apply to the Secretary of State for exemptions from teaching the language. I wish to reiterate that the president of the head teachers' union said:
"The national curriculum is too proscriptive and there is a danger that many very worthwhile activities will go by the board because there won't be enough time for them".
I wish to turn from the National Association of Head Teachers to the National Union of Teachers and to what might have been a joking reference to the general secretary of the NUT. Perhaps I can refer to him in terms of the criticism as one of my best fiends. He has made a massive contribution to British education in his position as general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. I have been proud over the years to have been in association with him as a member of that organisation. However, I wish to take noble Lords from Mr. Fred Jarvis and the specifics to this fact.
I accept that the teacher is central and crucial to education. That is recognised by the Government and all of us tonight. During my life in teaching I have served during the time of all the ex-Ministers, some of them my noble friends who are here tonight—and what a brilliant speech we had from one of them, the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham. I have sometimes felt like the lady who had an issue of blood: in these changing Secretaries of State we had suffered many things of many physicians and been nothing bettered but rather made worse. But they are here now and they are able to contribute to this debate. When they contribute to it let them remember that, important though they are, important though governments are, important though teachers are and crucial to the system, the biggest influence on the education of children is the attitude of parents to the schools in which they are taught.

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If that parental confidence is undermined, as it has been seriously undermined by the political in-fighting that has gone on in this country over education for a considerable time, my goodness it will take a great deal of restoration. However dissatisfied we may be with the system, however critical of current administrations we might be, and properly, the fact remains that, more than any other system of government, democracy requires a force of teachers and a body of parents who accept the basic tenets of democracy itself. If we weaken that, if our education system is so constructed as to make it appear that it is giving greater privilege to certain sections than it does to others, that undermines the democracy of which we are a part.
When we come to grips with this Bill we know that there are good general principles of education that we might all support but we know too that there are very bad weaknesses in the Bill and it has to be amended. If the impression is gained in the country that only a majority in the House of Commons—of the 42·3 per cent. or whatever it is who voted Conservative at the last election—and a majority in this House, which cannot for one moment pretend to be democratic in structure, have brought about an education system that yet again will repeat the flaws that warped the good systems that we tried to construct after the war, again democracy will suffer and no political party will gain.
9.27 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, as the 29th speaker out of a total of about 85 it will be very difficult to say anything original. I was tempted to scratch from the list of speakers, but I understood that if I did there would be a lemming-like activity and we should all have a day off tomorrow.
As I have listened to the debate I have agreed with many noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. I am astounded by the level of complacency and satisfaction with the status quo. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Parry, has just said, almost all the comments that have come from the other side have been very negative about the Bill. Without assessment, without testing, without objectives against which to test, there is no way of knowing whether an individual is making progress, whether a school is making progress or whether the system is a good system. I argue that we do not really know whether we are performing well as a service. There is just an intuitive feeling and a high level of dissatisfaction despite what the polls that have been produced today are saying. There has been no forward thinking and no alternative suggestions, other than "leave things as they are", and that perhaps we should tinker just a little with secondary education in London.
As the Bill progresses through the House I shall be particularly interested in the distinction between genuine argument about the Bill and areas of concern and those arguments which I believe will be mainly territorial. LEAs do not exist for themselves: they are there to serve the children through the schools and through the head teachers. Any argument about perpetuating LEAs simply because they are there will not be an argument that will impress me.
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I rise to support the Bill in the main. There will be details upon which I shall reserve my position and on which I shall await the debate as it unfolds. Second Reading is a time for an overview of the Bill before its more detailed consideration. Therefore, I shall touch on just a few areas of the Bill.
I support wholeheartedly the aims of the Bill: the attempt to raise standards, the extension of choice, however limited, and the improvement of operational management at school and classroom level. I should like to say a word about consultation. Again, much criticism has been levelled at the Government about consultation. Indeed, there was an initial period of two months for consultation. Nobody has mentioned that the time was extended. Nobody has mentioned the enormous amount of peripatetic work done by the Secretary of State and his colleagues in the team going out and about, in and out of schools, in all of the counties in our country. Nobody has mentioned the fact that, publicly, many times the Secretary of State has welcomed written submissions which have continued to come in and which have continued to be considered. Nobody has mentioned the considerable changes that have already taken place in the initial draft Bill in areas such as the percentage of time for subjects in the national curriculum, the changes in the university sector of the Bill (although one would argue for more), the special needs for children, the concession to the bishops on religious education—
Baroness David: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will give way I should like to point out that I specifically mentioned the concessions to the Churches and the universities and my noble friend mentioned the changes in special education.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that interruption but I am referring to approximately 26 speakers who have been fairly derogatory in their comments about the Secretary of State and the consultation process. As a parent of children in the state system, I do not remember Mrs. Shirley Williams engaging in a long consultation process when, as Secretary of State, she dramatically changed from a dual system to a comprehensive system.
As regards the national curriculum, my noble friend Lord Joseph, who is no longer in the Chamber, gave your Lordships something to think about on the issue of flexibility, or the lack of it, in the national curriculum, and its higher prescriptive element. Again, I shall reserve my position on that but I believe that future debates will be interesting. I am particularly interested in flexibility for diversification at the top end of the secondary schools. We shall see to what extent that can be accommodated.
I am very disappointed by what has so far been said about religious education in schools, even with regard to the limited changes that have been made. There is no specific mention in the Bill about a commitment to Christianity forming the core of religious education in schools in this country. I believe that it is right to make that a stated aim. I agree that one does not wish to see testing; nor does one wish to see it made a core subject. However, I believe that Christianity as part of the core should be a stated aim in the Bill.

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A right reverend Prelate earlier remarked on the wonderful mechanism for deciding and determining religious education syllabuses, and that is true. However, I am not so concerned with the mechanism; I am more concerned with the content. It is possible to use the mechanism and to have a syllabus approved and agreed by everyone without Christianity forming any part of it.
As regards assessment and testing, I do not take the rather narrow and negative view that has been mentioned by most noble Lords opposite. The best schools —and there are hundreds of thousands—are constantly assessing, testing and recording the work of children. They do so for daignostic purposes and also have "passed" and "failed" testing, of which I approve. The Bill requires that children are tested only four times in their school life. It is at the ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16. Sixteen is the age at which they would take the GCSE in any event. I believe that to be required by law to be tested only four times is very modest. There are those in the education world who would advocate no testing, no examination and open access to our universities. I believe that many of them are behind much of the criticism of the proposals in the Bill.
In my maiden speech in this House I made a reference to learning how to fail or, putting it another way, learning how to come to terms with one's limitations. I passionately believe that learning to come to terms with one's limitations is as much a part of the education process as learning how to succeed. High expectations yield greater achievements. I hope that in Committee I shall be able to produce the piece of research. However, some time ago research was carried out on EPA schools. Those noble Lords in the education world will know that that is a priority area school. It is a school determined by the Government to have special needs and it was given more resources for its children.
The research was carried out with a group of children in an EPA school and a similar group of children who were not designated EPA in the same way. Their progress was measured and it was found that the children who were not diagnosed or labelled EPA did better. The determining factor was that the expectations of the children who did not have the label were greater than the children who had that label and for whom the teachers had lower expectations.
The other aspect of assessment and testing is the context in which parents receive the information. It is absolutely essential that when we, as parents, receive information about how our children are performing, we understand the context in which the information is passed to us. How often a young child arrives home to say rather proudly, "I got 59 per cent. in geography today". The parent will say, "Well, was that good? What did the top person get? What did the bottom person get? What were the results of the rest of the class"? The child will say, "We are not allowed to know". If the child is not allowed to know, the class does not know and the parent does not know, and the context is lost.
As regards open enrolment, much reference has been made this afternoon to 90 per cent. or more of satisfaction for parents choosing schools. I want to
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argue not only for that particular point but also for the poll of parents in London who have said that everything in the garden is all right. For too long parents have felt a measure of impotency and have adopted the attitude: why should we bother to make a fuss because nothing changes anyway? I believe that as parents realise that they have an influence and some power and that they are able to use it, we shall see a liberating of parents and their choices. We shall see some very different results when those same questions are posed.
After open enrolment we shall no longer have artificial limits to prop up unpopular schools. There will be an end to administrative tidiness for its own sake. There will be a spur for schools to be more positive in attracting pupils; and there will be a general all-round improvement as schools wish to gain pupils rather than lose them.
I take two views on opting out. First, I support it. There is a negative and positive side to opting out and I shall give the positive side first. Why should a school that feels able to go it alone and stand independent but within the state sector not be able to do so? It does not have to have a bad relationship with its LEA or to opt out of all the extra-curricular activities such as teachers' training courses and so on that go on outside the classroom. It can still do those things and have a healthy independence but within the state sector. Of course, the negative side was that touched on by my noble friend Lady Cox. Whether or not we like it, for some children and some parents in this country opting out is a lifeline. We must not deny that lifeline to those children who are trapped within the system. Of course, that is backed by the most important feature in this part of the Bill; namely, that it is not compulsory.
There is concern—and there is concern in my county—about the process which leads to a school opting out. The most important point to remember is that the vote by parents is the first part of that process. That is followed by a long period where the Secretary of State—and all interested parties have a right to make representations—will take all of those into account before making his decision. As was touched on earlier, if a school is up for closure and decides to take up opting out as a method of preventing its closure, the Secretary of State will take that into consideration at the same time as the opting-out proposals. If it is found that that school has the wherewithal to go independent within the state sector without doing any harm to its pupils, the Secretary of State can make a positive decision.
On local financial management (as I prefer to call it and as it is called in my county) I believe that that is the most educationally liberating piece of legislation. I have been a governor of two secondary schools where they have had control over their budgets for over five years. As governors we find ourselves more involved with curricular debate than ever before. We find that liberating resources in order to do something educational is a very worthwhile activity. I believe that governors will rise to the challenge. I am pretty irritated by those members of this House who say "We cannot find the governors, so why bother". It seems to me that being unable to find the governors, or assuming that to be so, is a very defeatist attitude.

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My view is that governors will rise to the challenge. They will achieve much greater satisfaction and they will enjoy making better use of resources when they know that the benefits will go to the children. Above all, local financial management marries together power and responsibility at the point where it matters most and that is at the operational delivery of the service. It is less bureaucratic and it is very democratic. Around the same table there is a committee of parents, teachers, staff, the head and the governors. They discuss how they are going to allocate the resources to their school, which releases enormous enterprise.
I wish to tell only one true story that illustrates how this works. A school in the Fenland area decided that on 1st October when the heating was due to be turned on that it would not turn it on. The suggestion from the head was that they would not turn it on on 1st October, but that they would leave it off for a month. He had a gathering of all the parents and the staff in the school hall where this proposal was discussed.
To start with he was very tentative about it because he realised that he was treading on eggshells by mentioning it. Before the end of the evening, the entire gathering comprising the parents, the staff and the senior pupils, decided that they would not put on the heating. The head had said that if it became cold the heating would be put on. It was decided that if Hell froze over for that month they would not put on the heating.
They determined how the savings were to be spent. In a normal week it cost £2,000 to heat the school and the school knew that if it did not switch on the heating for the month of October it would be able to save £8,000 to purchase some educational equipment. The end of the story is that the heating was not switched on and the school saved £8,000. God smiled on them during that month of October because the weather was rather mild. Come 1st November, it was still unnecessary to switch on the heating, the most obvious thing happened, in that the school suddenly realised that it could manage that side of the school's bursarial activities itself. The school succeeded in putting approximately £15,000 into the coffers. That was all spent on equipment.
The significance of that story—I say this as a member of a local education authority in Cambridgeshire—is that if we had decided that at Shire Hall those very same parents and staff would have taken to the streets with banners with the word "Cuts, cuts, cuts" written all over them. The whole exercise would have been absolutely catastrophic. In all probability the money would have been put away somewhere centrally. The school benefited from its own management decision, and that is what this piece of legislation is about.
I shall be more involved with this subject at Committee stage but recently I thought it was
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important that as a non-Londoner I should visit London schools. I went to visit an ILEA school and I was much impressed with what I saw. I enjoyed meeting the staff and we had a most interesting and constructive discussion. The factor that struck me most of all was the enormous dependence that London schools have on ILEA. I believe this to be a very unhealthy sign and that we should be doing all that we can to encourage independence. This was a school that could easily have lived without ILEA but at this moment in time it is so brain-washed with the belief that unless ILEA is there, somehow the whole world will fall apart. I believe that we should be encouraging a healthy independence.
The advice that I would proffer to the London boroughs at this moment is for them to become involved in development plans. It is really no good their burying their heads in the sand. Early preparation is absolutely essential in order to make sure that they properly provide for their young people should this Bill succeed. One must remember that the abolition of ILEA needs to be seen in the context of all of this legislation; namely, the framework of a national curriculum, open enrolment, local financial management and opting out. In my book, when it is properly thought through this will prove to be a much better deal for London children.
It has been said a number of times today that parents do not want to become involved in the running of their schools. That is absolutely right. An involvement in policy-making is what this is about. The governors and parents will have more of an influence and more of an involvement in policy-making. However, it is the professionals who run the schools, and it is the professionals who should run them.
Unlike noble Lords opposite who have today been critical and have used all their education jargonese to criticise the national curriculum, assessment and testing, open enrolment, the expansion of choice, opting out and financial management at school level, I see the Bill as a liberator for parents who will have greater choice and real involvement and to whom schools will be more accountable, for governors who will have a much more purposeful and challenging job, for teachers who will have an enormous and rewarding professional challenge, and for the children, who are the most important people, who are being prepared for a more complex, demanding and competitive life beyond school. This Bill provides for children of all abilities, including those with special needs.
My last word is about those children for whom there is no family support and for whom school is the only anchor. To offer a sound, moral, spiritual, social and academic framework is not only a responsibility for your Lordships but a duty. It is to that end that I shall support the Bill.
9.46 p.m.
Lord Charteris of Amisfield: My Lords, I hope that it will not be considered entirely inappropriate if as Provost of Eton I say a few words in this debate. I promise to be extremely brief. As Provost I am as completely embedded in the private sector of education as, to use P. G. Wodehouse's immortal phrase, a prawn in aspic. The private sector is not concerned in the Bill at all. However, certain lessons from the experience of the private sector may be of value.
I hope it will not be going too far back into history to quote from a statement from the report of the Clarendon Commission on Public Schools, written in 1870. The statement was:
"The greatest schoolmasters are those that are least interfered with".
There is a great deal of truth in that statement today, and it is absolutely certain that great schoolmasters, and in particular great headmasters, make great schools.
One of the advantages enjoyed by schools in the private sector is that they have been free from interference in the way they run their affairs. I give my support in general to this Bill because I believe that it will tend to allow schools in the maintained sector to enjoy some of the advantages of being able to run their own affairs more fully, advantages which are and have been for many years enjoyed by schools in the private sector.
I also support the proposals that will allow schools to opt out of the control of local authorities, though I do not expect this to happen very often. This power is a useful sanction against any LEA that does not fulfil its functions properly or attempts improper political manipulation of the schools concerned. In my opinion it is worth having the power on the statute book even if it is never used, as I hope it will not be.
I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said about any school which opts out. It jolly well has to have a bursar. Nowadays headmasters spend much too much time on administration and not enough on teaching. If they have to run the money side, they will not do much good.
I hope that the Government, while giving more freedom with one hand to schools to run their own affairs, will not with the other hand put them in the straitjacket of a too inflexible curriculum. I believe that there ought to be a national core curriculum and that it should include religious education. However, I hope that much freedom will be allowed outside the central core.
All good schools in the private sector do in fact—though they are not forced to by law—teach a curriculum that is not at all unlike what is proposed in the Bill. If they did not do so, they would not attract enough fee-paying pupils to be viable.
Finally, I do not think that anyone need get in too much of a lather over the testing process. Pupils in the private sector are tested at least three times a year in one way or another and it does not do them any harm. If that was not done parents would not know how their children were progressing and, to put it
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vulgarly and bluntly, they would not know whether they were receiving good value for money.
The Earl of Longford: M y Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he considers that parent power plays an important part at Eton?
Lord Charteris of Amisfield: My Lords, I am glad to say that there is no such thing as a parent association at the college and that is the greatest good fortune and a boon. They exercise a certain amount of power but in a subtle "My dear boy" way, rather than anything in the nature of public meetings—thank God.
9.50 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, apart from the clauses covering universities, the Bill is about England and Wales. I should like briefly to mention one or two points where I believe the Scottish experience is perhaps helpful in the consideration of a Bill which concerns England and Wales.
First, on the question of the national curriculum people in Scotland are frankly wondering what the fuss is all about. In Scotland we already have in effect a common curriculum. We have a central committee on the curriculum which is appointed by the Secretary of State. We are entirely accustomed to that body setting up specialist groups and as a result of its deliberations the Scottish Education Department sending out circulars to local authorities implementing curricular changes Scotland-wide.
There does not seem to us to be anything threatening about that arrangement. Surely with more devolution of decision-making to schools a common curriculum becomes absolutely essential. In addition, matched as is proposed with the right testing, those aspects taken together provide for a shift in balance towards the better quality and standards and more precise monitoring that are so greatly needed. Clearly that shift has to be made. But at the same time when discussing that part of the Bill, I hope that we shall not succumb to the notion that if the content of the formal curriculum is right and the testing is right, that is the total answer. The way subjects are taught and conveyed also matter. The medium is the message as well as the message itself.
In Scotland we place high value not only on the formal curriculum and its precise objectives but also on what we call the informal curriculum; that is, the clubs, societies, expeditions, sport and the like in which pupils and teachers are involved and which can also have precise measurable objectives. We also value highly what we call the hidden curriculum; namely, the ethos, the atmosphere and values of the school. The examples set by teachers and the objectives of the hidden curriculum can be precise and measurable too. Much of what religious education and assemblies aspire to convey is often picked up as well, or better, through the informal and hidden curricula. When discussing the Bill we must not forget that point.
I agree with a number of noble Lords who have said that with regard to the proposals for the

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devolution of management to schools, there is at issue something far more important than the decentralisation of mechanical arrangements or what present-day parents and teachers think of the immediate advantages of parent power. I believe that the proposals in the longer term hold the key to the most important issue of all, an issue to which a number of noble Lords have referred. They hold the key to making teaching in the state system an enjoyable and satisfying profession once more.
My noble friend Lady Blatch told a story which illustrated that point. As a result of this would come the reduction of many discipline problems and the growing desire by parents to back what teachers are doing. As the noble Lord, Lord Parry, said, that is the key to success for teachers.
Much is being made of parents' apparent commitment to the status quo and their lack of desire to become too involved in schools. This is nothing new and not at all surprising. During eight years on three Scottish school councils, knowing as I did that parents were not always satisfied with what schools were doing, I hardly ever heard a parent member stand up to teacher members. They waited until the teachers expressed their view and on the whole went quietly along with it. The reason for this I think is that parents feel that the teachers are the professionals and should give the lead and they are diffident about interfering. They are also reluctant to alienate their children's teachers.
However, we cannot go on as we are. The increasing politicisation of the state education system and of relationships between central and local government, politicisation within local authorities themselves, whatever their political hue, and politicisation of teachers' organisations, which have become industry-type trade unions, have made it increasingly difficult and often impossible for schools simply to run themselves for the best benefit of their customers in the way they used to in less politicised local authorities and in less politicised times and in the way the private sector does all the time.
Devolution of management will be more expensive. There are a number of problems. To begin with attempts will be made to politicise it, but it will be infinitely worth while in the long run if it enables teachers to enjoy their work again and if it releases their commitment and that of parents to work in partnership with them.
I turn to the universities, because the Bill also covers Scottish universities. There is an anxiety in Scottish universities, as elsewhere, about academic freedom. But Scottish universities are also anxious to know how precisely it is intended that the University Funding Council Scottish Advisory Committee will operate. It is not on the face of the Bill. Attempts have been made to persuade the other place to shunt the Scottish universities out of the mainstream of university funding. These I am happy to see have been resisted, but we need a system within the arrangements in the Bill that will work for the funding of Scottish universities and we shall be probing this at the Committee stage.
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Finally, there is a concern in the Church of Scotland about which the Moderator took the trouble to make representations to this House. It is that the posts which are funded at the moment within the universities and which relate to the Church are not allowed for within the law under the Bill. It is a concern. It is something about which we must find out and which I hope will be clarified before the Bill leaves the House. In general, and on most points, I back the Bill wholeheartedly.
10 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, at this stage in a debate like this one is lucky if one can make one point. The point that I wish to make is that the Bill poses a deadly threat to Latin and the classics as school subjects, and that they must be saved. I was grateful for the implicit support on that point that I received earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Blake. The threat that hangs over all minority subjects, not just the classics, comes not from the idea of a national curriculum as such. Properly framed, after real consultation with real teachers that could have been something we could all support. The threat comes from the inflexible national curriculum, as we see it in the Bill.
I shall, if I may, leave Welsh until the Committee stage. The trouble is that the Secretary of State has decided to choose 10 subjects, and to name them in the Bill as either core or foundation subjects. Religious education is dealt with separately. Ten subjects are to be exalted above all others by being mentioned in a solemn Act of Parliament. Ten subjects must be either far too many or far too few, according to the interpretation of the words "core" and "foundation" neither of which is defined.
If we make the frightening assumption that the Bill means what it says, then every child or at least every unhandicapped child must study every one of the 10 subjects until the age of 16. But there is as wide a variation in the nature of our schools as there is in the abilities of our children. There are village schools, schools in market towns, schools in "yuppified" suburbs and schools in derelict city centres. And the children? Some—all too many—will have done damned well if by the age of 16 they can just about read an editorial in the Sun. There are other children who can romp away with nine or ten O-level equivalents and ask for more: and yet all those different schools and different types of children must conform to this so-called national curriculum.
We know that that is nonsense. It is like the bed of Procrustes, if your Lordships remember him. If you asked him for a night's lodging he put you in a bed. If you were too short for it he stretched you until you fitted. If you were a bit on the long side he lopped off your extremities. In either case, you tended to wake up dead. That is the national curriculum as written in Clause 3.
Shall we look in for a moment on a school staffroom and watch it in action? The head teacher is addressing the staff: "Right—we have to teach these 10 subjects to the whole school right up to the age of 16. What's more, the children will be tested in those 10 subjects. We shall be pilloried in the local paper if we do not do as well as St. Ermyntrude's down the

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road. In these days of open enrolment, you know what that means—no pupils, no school, no jobs. So for sheer survival, we have to rearrange ourselves and rejig the timetable in such a way that we can deliver the national curriculum. Now dismiss from your minds any thought of fresh money for employing more staff. It is up to us. Shall we go through these 10 subjects one by one? Music: how on earth can we cover that? Music for all, even the tone deaf. Boris, you play the piano. Yes, you do, I heard you in the pub. You can keep on with your history, and of course the chess club out of hours, but there won't be any time for all that Russian. Could you bone up on a little classical musical theory and take the lower sets? Splendid. Now, French: Fiona, what's your French like? Semi-non-existent? It can't be, I don't believe it. After all, you know Latin and there's no future in that. No, we'll send you on a course, it will be all right. Now—ouch!—technology."
My Lords, I think we can leave the head teacher at that point to wrestle with her own problems in her own way. That is how it will be, with only the minimum amount of poetic licence. It will lead to the ultimate tragic absurdity: all over England and Wales there will be teachers teaching subjects which they never wanted to teach to children who never wanted to learn. All this, we are told, is an attempt to raise standards and improve choice.
I come now to the second part of my speech. Up to now I have been talking about minority subjects in general. I come to the question of why does it matter if Latin—and of course, a fortiori Greek—are squeezed out of our schools? I shall restrict myself to three of many reasons in ascending order of importance.
First, if we are not too proud we can learn something from recent American experience. The flight of the first Sputnik in 1957, shocking the American people into the recognition that the Russians were ahead of them, set off a full-scale panic in education circles. Everything must be subordinated to technology, and it was. Inevitably, the humanities suffered and Latin suffered most of all. In about 14 years, Latin enrolments in state high schools fell by about 80 per cent. But before the end of that period a new panic had set in—standards of literacy had taken a nose-dive. In the year of Watergate, 1973, it was found that 11 per cent. of 17 year-olds were quite unable to read, let alone fill in a job application form.
It was at this time that a few imaginative classicists, working in slum schools, started to devise courses in extremely basic Latin as part of their campaign against illiteracy. They made it fun, with attractive textbooks, playing around with the more common root words, seeing how the meaning changes according to the prefix or suffix, how words are built—"linguistic Lego," one could aptly call it. Above all, they were stimulating in those slum children an interest in language itself. The results were astonishing. In Indianapolis, for example, it was found that the children who had done this course in basic Latin were in a very short time a whole year of age level ahead of the control group who had not.
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Today in the United States enrolments in classics are increasing. There is an acute shortage of classical teachers. Do we have to re-learn that lesson for ourselves, or could we take it as a warning?
The second reason why I believe it would be to our great benefit to teach Latin to as large a minority of our children as possible stems from the very nature of our English language. It is derived, as you all know, from Anglo-Saxon, from Latin and from Greek. But it would appear from the way in which our language has developed that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were not very much given to abstract thought. So it happens that the higher one climbs up the education ladder the more one encounters and needs to familiarise oneself with words of classical derivation. This is known to people more learned than I as the lexical bar, but I think that even I can understand what they are getting at.
Consider the language of mathematics, of science, of medicine, of philosophy, of the law and (heaven help us!) of legislation. One could almost cut out all the words of Anglo-Saxon derivation and it would make no difference. I exaggerate a little, of course, and I would not dream of suggesting that if one has no classical grounding one has no chance of success in those fields. We all know people who by their achievements could refute such an assertion if anyone were foolish enough to make it.
But it would be equally foolish to deny that those children who have a basic knowledge of Latin enjoy a huge advantage over those who lack it. Suddenly in adolescence, when there is so much else to think about, to find oneself confronted with all those long and strange-looking words, if one has no way of working out what they ought to mean, must be like trying to dance in galoshes. All too many children at that point decide that education is not for them, and they switch off.
I come now (and I must hurry) to the most important reason why we simply cannot allow the classics to vanish from our classrooms for ever. Can anybody dispute that practically everything that is contained in the term "Western civilisation" has come down to us across the centuries on a broadening stream which had three main sources—Athens, Rome and Bethlehem? I shall leave it to others to talk about Christianity. At least religious education gets several mentions in the Bill, unlike Latin or the classics.
Can it be right, can it be healthy, to cut ourselves off completely from our roots? Do we not believe that our children, our grandchildren and their grandchildren have a right to know where it all began, where democracy was born and where the idea of constitutional government arose, and the idea of empire and colonies, and how those empires crumbled and those colonies seceded? Do they not deserve to know that sculpture, architecture, drama, music, philosophy and mathematics are not modern inventions coming presumably, like everything else, from California, but have been growing over here in the old world for thousands of years? Without a sense of the past one cannot intelligently plan for the future.

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Some of us have but a limited interest in the future. But our children and their children have got to live in it. That is what this Bill is all about, so let us try to get it right.
10.13 p.m.
Lord Craigton: My Lords, I start with the advice given by Sir Peter Scott, who said that nothing was more important than teaching the next generation about the value to people of the natural world around us—a world that is so gravely threatened by human ignorance and apathy.
I fear that this Bill as published cannot meet this need and I shall tell your Lordships why. The Secretary of State provides the curriculum, which is to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of society, as well of course as that of the pupils. But which society?
Is it England and Wales? Does it include Scotland and Ulster? Does it include the Common Market? It can and does according to the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume 9, which defines society as the state of living in association with others of the same species; or association with one's fellow men, especially in a friendly or intimate manner; or the mode of life adopted by a body of individuals for harmonious coexistence; or the aggregate of persons living together in a more or less ordered community; or, finally, a collection of individuals comprising a community or living under the same organisation or government.
But the needs of today and tomorrow, which must be dealt with by some of the pupils to which this Bill will apply, are spread over the whole earth, which contains countless societies for which this Bill is not appropriate. Should not our pupils be made aware of those world problems, not necessarily vital or important to our society, however interpreted, though they may be directly affected by some of our actions and policies?
I refer to the actions of other societies which affect us and our society as well as their own; pollution of the air and of the sea and the loss, sometimes even before they are discovered, of plant and animal life that could benefit man. The list is long and getting longer still. But the Brundtland Report at page 8 says it all:
"Most of today's decision-makers will be dead before the planet feels the heavier effects of acid precipitation, global warming, ozone depletion, widespread desertification and species loss but most of the young voters of today will still be alive and most will base their understanding on traditional beliefs provided by conventional education".
With this sure knowledge of dangers ahead, our obligation to our children is surely to prepare them not only to be good members of society, as the Bill does, but also, as the Bill does not do specifically, to be good inhabitants of Planet Earth. After Second Reading I shall put down an amendment to that effect.
That is not breaking new ground. Much is already happening and the Bill should keep up with it. The DES has a specialist inspector for environmental education. The Council for Environmental Education has for years existed only for that purpose.
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The WWF spends hundreds of thousands of pounds to provide ideas and information to teachers to help them to include environmental education in their classroom work. Overseas the WWF Environmental Education Programme has over 300 projects, including projects in Belize, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Greece, Madagascar, Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Rwanda, Zambia and Kenya.
By referring to "society" and not also to the rest of the planet, this Bill fails to acknowledge, except by default, all the environmental considerations that are now known to be essential to the survival of mankind.
10.18 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I begin by saying that I agree with everything that my noble friend Lady Blackstone said this afternoon. I shall use my few minutes to comment on three aspects of the Bill. I wish to comment on one error of omission and two errors of commission.
The error of omission is the failure to require the national curriculum to prepare pupils for life in a multiracial and a multicultural community. This country is now, whether Members of the House like it or not, a multiracial and a multicultural community. There is evidence of much racial prejudice and racial discrimination. Racially prejudiced behaviour can be controlled by law and by example. Attitudes are more difficult to influence. It is in this context that education is so important. From their earliest days children can be influenced in their attitudes to other people and to society as a whole.
In its report entitled Education for All the Swann Committee asserted that Britain is a multi-racial, multi-cultural society, and all pupils must be enabled to understand what this means. The committee recommended that a syllabus recognising the multi-ethnic character of Britain should be used in all schools, not just those with a multi-ethnic population. It said that ignorance breeds prejudice, especially where there is no opportunity for recognising shared interests.
In evidence to the Swann Committee one teacher said:
"School is one institution that everyone between the ages of five and 16 in Britain has to attend, and while it cannot alone compensate for the inequalities of society it does nevertheless constitute one major area of influence, and one which is susceptible to change".
No balanced and broadly-based curriculum should fail to include a commitment to the principles of education for all, to the development of a pluralist approach to the curriculum, and to containing the influence of racism. The failure to include such a commitment in Clause 1 of the Bill is a serious omission.
The first error of commission on which I wish to comment is the proposal to require county and voluntary schools to admit pupils to the limits of their available capacity. If there is a limited number of children and one school admits more than another, the other must admit less. If schools are to be grant-aided according to their numbers, then the school with the larger number will have the larger share of resources. That can result in the smaller school being under-resourced and therefore unsatisfactory. This

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can go on until the smaller school is no longer viable. Population varies. If this policy is followed during the period when there is a small number of pupils the small school can be destroyed. Later, when there is need for a larger intake, the school will not be available. Moreover, Dewsbury warned us—if we are willing to heed the warning—that this development can he along racial lines, with all white schools being well resourced and all black schools—the small ones—being under-resourced, with very serious consequences.
That is the problem that plagued the United States in the 'fifties and 'sixties, and fuelled the civil rights movement. We are very anxious to learn from the United States and to accept its enterprise culture. There are other things to be learnt from the United States, and I beg your Lordships to learn them.
The biggest error of commission is the proposal to abolish the Inner London Education Authority. That is a terrible decision. Inner London has had a unitary education authority for 117 years. The distribution of schools, colleges and other education services, including their catchment areas, has no regard for borough boundaries. It has been based on strategic planning to meet both London-wide and local needs. The borough boundaries, which were created in 1965, are quite irrelevant.
Twenty thousand pupils currently attend inner London secondary schools outside their boroughs. Three-quarters of all students in inner London do not live in the borough in which their college is based. I think I should try to get your Lordships to appreciate that point—20,000 pupils. That is greater than the number of pupils in primary and secondary schools in the London Borough of Islington; greater than the number of primary and secondary school pupils in Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and in the City of Westminster. All of those boroughs will become education authorities if the Bill becomes law.
What is worse, the Bill will create the smallest education authorities in the country. The largest will have no more than 30,000 primary and secondary pupils. The City of London will have no more than 206. The average size of a local education authority in England and Wales is 71,350 primary and secondary pupils. We therefore have these very small authorities in the most densely populated area in the country. Inner London has a density of population of 79 persons per hectare. The next most densely populated area is Liverpool which has 46 persons per hectare. England and Wales have a density of three persons per hectare. Moreover, the boroughs that are required during the next two years to prepare development plans for education, and to run education services from 1st April 1990, include seven of the 10 most deprived local authority areas in Britain. These authorities are not able to do what they are being asked to do.
Education services in inner London have always been planned for the whole of inner London and not for individual boroughs. For example, Kensington and Chelsea has only one county secondary school within its boundary. Secondary schools have always been constructed in the expectation that they will be used by many pupils from boroughs other than the borough in which they are situated.
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I shall give your Lordships an example. Pimlico is a school close to us. Pimlico school is in the City of Westminster. Only 32·95 per cent. of its pupils live in the City of Westminster. A larger percentage, 36·93, live in Lambeth; 11·93 per cent. in Wandsworth; 6·25 per cent. in Kensington and Chelsea; and 5·68 per cent. in Southwark. The remainder—which I think is 6·26 per cent.—live in other boroughs. The school was built in order to deal with all those areas. It was not built as a school for the City of Westminster.
A number of cross-border issues are involved. There is complexity as regards the consultative process and there are financial problems involved in recoupment. If one agrees that the boroughs will take over schools in the area, one has to recoup from the other boroughs. It makes the mind boggle. I wonder really to what extent the Government have thought through the problem. I do not believe they have. The Government have made great play of the scope which will exist under their proposals for inner London boroughs to join together to continue to provide services on a London-wide basis. But they have never demonstrated any real understanding of the scope and extent of such services and the size of the task in inner London boroughs that will confront them.
Not only will the boroughs have to take on education authority functions: they will also have to implement the other major changes in the Education Reform Bill which we are passing through Parliament. Moreover, their finances are already very stretched. I pointed out to your Lordships earlier that they include seven of the most deprived boroughs in Britain. Yet the Secretary of State implies that it will be child's play for them to introduce at the same time a series of joint arrangements so that London-wide services will continue without any break or disruption. They will, at the same time, he implementing the poll tax, which again will have its largest influence on these poor areas in inner London. This is in 1990—the same time.
I mention some of the services that they will be expected to take on. There is the careers service. The careers service in London has never been on a borough basis. It cannot be, because employment is on a London-wide basis and the careers service has to deal with the needs of the people who leave school looking for work. The employers in London are London-wide. So that is nonsense.
Then there is the inspectorate. No, there is no time.
Noble Lords: Twenty minutes!
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: I am sorry. I will stop. It is all right by me. I merely say that really and truly I find the whole performance terrible. The Government clearly did not work through this process. They have not thought through what they are doing. I appeal to your Lordships that when the Bill comes before us in Committee we should give careful thought to what we are doing and amend the Bill so that it will not do the harm that I envisage it will in fact do if it is not amended.
10.39 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, coming late towards the end of today's debate I hope only to detain your Lordships for a short time. However, there are some specific matters that I wish to mention. In Clause 3(3) the key stages of testing children at seven, 11, 14 and 16, which have already been mentioned by several noble Lords, are a cause of concern for parents and particularly for parents with disabled children. The stages at which they are tested should be flexible, especially for those children who may have been out of school for short periods due to illness or to any treatment that they may need. Such disabled children may take longer than usual to reach the same level of learning as children who have no such special needs but that does not always mean that they cannot reach the necessary target. However, I believe that flexibility is essential.
Clause 7(2) mentions the appointment of members of a National Curriculum Council. The members so appointed shall include persons having relevant knowledge or experience in education. Is there not also a need to specify that at least one member should have knowledge of teaching in special educational needs? That would also apply in respect of the appointment of members to the national curriculum councils for further education.
Under Clause 12 it appears that a head teacher may apply such modifications as may be necessary to the curriculum for a child who appears to have a special need, while a statement under Clause 11 is awaited. If I understand the clause correctly that will be for no longer than six months. Is that what is meant in regard to assessing the needs of physically disabled children and also those with poor sight or partial hearing?
The Government have agreed that in some cases there is a need for modifications to the national curriculum. In Clauses 19 and 20 are there any safeguards for schools which are much sought after particularly in rural areas in order to ensure that they can admit children with special needs from their immediate area before those from further afield? Will parental choice allow for choosing a school that is not within their LEA but is suitable for a child with special needs?
The Education Committee of the North Yorkshire County Council finds considerable convergence between its views and those of the general public in the county. It appears to support the broad aspirations of the legislation but has significant reservations about some of the detailed proposals. That applies especially to those connected with testing and opting out. As regards testing, it is felt that Professor Black's report offers reassurance, so long as its proposals are ultimately reflected in either primary legislation or regulations. Testing at the age of seven seems to be the greatest worry. Is it the Secretary of State's intention to confine the information to discussions with individual children and their parents and legal guardians and to treat any information as confidential within the Ministry or LEAs? A statement of this kind would have a very calming effect and would allay many fears and misgivings.
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In rural areas where nursery schools are not numerous—that is no one's fault but is merely a result of geographical distances—unless a child has a good play group to which he or she has been able to go they may find it harder to reach the goal at seven, although that is not always so. There is a fear that free choice on the part of parents may raise false hopes if the school of their choice is over-subscribed and the only alternative is further away and no transport is necessarily available. What will happen in those circumstances?
If parents in those cases wish to exercise their choice of school and opt for a school within the borders of a nearby LEA, has that LEA the obligation to accept financial responsibility for that pupil under the Bill? I understand that there is to be no change in transport to schools. The organisation of transport in rural areas is difficult, especially in North Yorkshire where considerable distances must be covered. Public transport is becoming increasingly rare in such areas and it is not geared to school needs.
A further anxiety is caused by the fact that schools are finding that they can accommodate fewer children. September 1987 is the criterion that they would like and not 1979 as proposed. The reasons are clear. The capacity of many schools has changed and more space-consuming methods required by the GCSE have supervened. A standard number for 1979 may well bear little relation either to the current capacity or operating requirements of the school. How can the situation in 1989 be the same as in 1979?
I should now like to turn to one of the most contentious subjects of all which is known as "opting out". The Roman Catholic hierarchy, the disabled and the LEAs are greatly concerned. In North Yorkshire some misgivings arise from the very scattered nature of the population in parts of what is the largest county in England. It has been suggested to me that the voting should be a majority of 50 per cent. plus one of the governors and a majority of all the parents concerned. As it stands at the moment, it appears that the arrangements for initiating applications of grant maintained status would give undue weight to what could be a minority of parents and governors voting.
The parents of younger children in the locality would have no say in the matter although they have a strong interest in the senior school to which they imagine their children will go. The governors should be required to consult the parents of children in the contributory primary schools. If not, because of the time taken for the due process of law in opting out, many parents of children in the opting out school will no longer have children in that school; but the effect on the primary school children who will, by then, be passing into the senior school need not necessarily reflect their parents' wishes. Why should those parents be denied a vote?
If, in rural areas, a school opts out, it could cause very great difficulty for the LEA to supply enough places for children who are not able, for one reason or another, to go to the opted out school. Perhaps the Minister can say whether a school which has opted out would, within a reasonable time—perhaps five years—be able to reverse the decision and opt in again.

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As a Roman Catholic, I am aware of the anxieties felt by the Roman Catholic hierarchy at the procedure for opting out. It appears that a school could be overturned by minority voting and change the character of the school. To do that on a minority vote is unsatisfactory from every possible point of view.
I look forward to welcoming the Government's amendments on religious education and their agreement to strengthen the safeguards of the religious ethos of denominational schools. There are several points which I believe should be raised in Committee rather than on Second Reading of a Bill.
10.47 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I support this Bill but perhaps I may, at this late hour, speak briefly on five aspects where I believe amendments are required.
My first point concerns home economics or, as I believe it may be renamed in schools, personal and social education. Others have called it education in life skills. The Government's policy in recent years has been to look to local education authorities to provide education which will respond to the needs of the labour market; thus enabling the young to obtain jobs. That is surely right. The Equal Opportunities Commission presses for women to be in a position to obtain jobs equal to men. However, to be either a good employee or employer a satisfactory worker needs to lead a balanced life as between home and work. The domestic skills, business and personal life and the setting up of a home need training. That can be received both at home but also in the school. It is necessary for training to be available in child rearing—the life skills of creating an emotionally secure, stable and happy home. Therefore, home economics (or as I prefer to call it personal social education), needs to figure in the school curriculum for both boys and girls.
How is it that last year the NSPCC allocated £4 million for the training of parents:
"who have never known how to care";
that is, how to care for their homes and children? As boys and girls, all those parents have been through our schools. How is it that they are so uneducated in the home and life skills?
I ask the Secretary of State for Education to review the position with regard to training for life skills and parenthood, and the possibility of this subject figuring in the curriculum. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, suggest that the teaching of home economics will inevitably be devalued unless it is in the curriculum.
My second point concerns children with special education needs, and many noble Lords have spoken on this subject, including the Minister, my noble friend Lady Young, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, who spoke most movingly of his personal experiences, the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth). The Warnock Report and the Education Bill of 1981 laid down that choice should be available to the parents of such children: the choice of living at home and receiving education in their community or of attending a boarding school—for instance, the
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Worcester School for the Blind or the Royal College for the Deaf; or a boarding school for children with emotional, behavioural difficulties; or, indeed, children attending a special day school for autistic or dyslexic children.
I fully agree with my noble friend Lord Joseph and many others who in this debate have called for flexibility in the curriculum to meet the needs of individual children. I gave away the prizes at the Royal School for Blind Children at Worcester. One boy has got to Cambridge and other boys are doing practical and computer work. It seems to me that it is impossible for children with special education needs not to have great flexibility within the curriculum.
I also ask what is to happen to children with special education needs attending an opted-out school. Will that school receive finance provided for the special equipment that is required? I believe that this question has been asked before. If an opted-out school, or indeed any school, finds itself unable to deal with a child with special education needs, will the parents have the option of applying to the governors for their child to be considered to be kept at that school and for that school to receive the necessary financial help? Will parents be able to appeal to the governors, or to whom should they appeal if they feel that their children are not receiving the help that they should get? As regards the assessment tests at the ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16, will there be special consideration given to children with special education needs?
My third point concerns adult education, which includes the many and various classes provided for adults which mean so much to those who have not had the opportunity to receive such education as they would have wished during their childhood. This point also includes those of the ethnic groups wanting to fill in what they have missed and those wanting to learn a skill which they did not learn at school. I cannot speak too highly of the education and social value of further education and adult education. There is also the youth service, which is of inestimable value. At one time in my life I was a club leader and I know what this means to many young people particularly in the prevention of crime.
Bearing in mind the time, perhaps I may speak for one moment on the question of ILEA. I have worked in an authority serving a population of only 110,000. We were our own education authority and we were therefore smaller than practically any London borough. I say that our services were as good in our area as such services were anywhere. I do not believe that the disbandment of ILEA is going to damage or needs to damage education if people have the goodwill, the expertise and the skill. However, in respect of certain aspects outside the school curriculum—the youth service, the adult service, further education and perhaps some of the residential schools outside the area, schools to which the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and others have referred—perhaps we might consider the setting up of a council to cover the inner London boroughs.
At a later stage I propose to move an amendment on truancy. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that it must be tackled. What is the point of us talking

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about education if the children are not there to take advantage of it? We have not tackled truancy in this country. I have read up some research on truancy. The problem concerns not only the children who stay out of school all day but those who register and then disappear, who reappear in the afternoon, register and then disappear again. Usually they do so according to the subject. The subjects from which they mostly disappear are maths and French. We must take note of this point, considering that maths is part of the core curriculum.
I support the Bill. I have made a very short speech. I think I have even beaten the noble Lord, Lord Blake. However, I feel very strongly on these few subjects and I hope that we may make amendments during the next stages of the Bill.
10.57 p.m.
Lord Broadbridge: My Lords, at this late hour I shall speak solely about the proposed Universities Funding Council, the UFC as the Bill calls it. It is not often that as corporate bodies our ancient universities leave their dreaming spires and dedication to research and teaching to involve themselves in front-line politics. When they do so some notice should be taken.
I know that I am not alone in receiving such a letter from a head of house, but on 15th February the right honourable Sir Patrick Nairne, master of my college, St. Catherine's, Oxford, sent me a letter of extreme concern about the provisions of the Bill which affect universities. He enclosed a special supplement to the Oxford University Gazette, bearing the imprimatur "published by authority", of 22nd January 1988 and headed:
"The Education Reform Bill: Statement by Hebdomadal Council",
the latter being the governing body of the university. Being both the home of the great dictionary and of a leading faculty of English, I will before I lapse into my own awful prose quote the first three short paragraphs:
"1. Council views with deep concern those provisions in the Education Reform Bill now before Parliament which affect the universities. As drafted, the clauses in the Bill represent a major threat to the independence of the universities. That independence is crucial to academic freedom and so to freedom of thought in the country as a whole.
2. Under the Bill Government is to be given statutory powers, exercisable through a new agency called the Universities Funding Council ('UFC'), by which control could be exercised over every activity carried on within a university. Even if, as is professed by Ministers, no intrusive use is made of these sweeping powers during the lifetime of the present administration, the powers will remain on the statute book and be available to any subsequent Government determined to impose its will on the university system or any part of it.
3. The Bill heralds a wholly undesirable change in the relations between Government and the universities. Not only is the University Grants Committee ('UGC') to be abolished after nearly seventy years of existence, but with it will be destroyed the non-statutory regime based on established convention and customary law which guaranteed the independence of the UGC. It may well be that the UGC as at present functioning is in need of reform. The Croham Committee, which reported in February 1987, certainly thought so. It wanted an authoritative and vigilant body. But the report also insisted that the new council which is recommended should be 'visibly its own creature, enjoying the confidence of the Government, the universities and the community at large' and that its independence 'ought to be given formal recognition with appropriate safeguards included in a founding instrument'."
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Before I move on from the general to the particular, I wish to draw attention to the first very brief paragraph of an article written by Sir Richard Southwood, acting vice-chancellor of Oxford University, which was published in The Times on 3rd February:
"It is a matter for deep concern that the Government appears reluctant to recognise either the sincerity or the strength of the feelings aroused by the provisions of the Education Reform Bill affecting universities".
Universities are concerned that the insistence of the Croham Report (Cmnd. 81, February 1987) that the new council, the UFC, should be,
"visibly its own creature enjoying the confidence of the Government, the universities and the community at large",
and that its independence,
"ought to be given formal recognition with appropriate safeguards included in a founding instrument",
is not being followed.
Not only are there no such safeguards, but the Bill as amended in another place still expressly provides in Clause 117(6) that the UFC shall comply with "any directions" given to it by the Secretary of State. The subsection reads:
"In exercising their functions under this Part of this Act each of the Funding Councils shall comply with any directions given to them by the Secretary of State".
Closely linked to this subsection, in Clause 117(4) the Bill further provides that sums paid to the UFC for distribution to universities may be paid,
"subject to such conditions as he may determine".
He may impose additional functions on the UFC by delegated legislation. Clause 117(1) places no limit on that power in that he may,
"by order confer or impose on either of the Funding Councils such supplementary functions as he thinks fit".
The subservient position of the new UFC compared to the old UGC is further underlined by the decision to omit from its terms of reference any duty to advise government as to the needs of the university system—and I stress the word "duty"—because Clause 115(7)(b) reads:
"The Council shall also have power … to provide the Secretary of State, in such manner as he may from time to time determine, with such information and advice relating to activities eligible for funding under this section as they think fit".
I submit to your Lordships that having power to submit such information and advice as the council thinks fit is a very different obligation to having a duty to advise. Indeed, it is not an obligation at all; it is something that the UFC can do if the fancy takes it. It appears to run directly contrary to an assurance given to your Lordships' House on 6th May 1987 by the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, and reported in Hansard, col. 207.
I feel that for the foregoing reasons the universities are entirely justified in their reading of the Bill as it now stands that the UFC will be the lap-dog of the Secretary of State and in a position to dictate to universities what activities they must, or indeed, what they must not, carry out. As Sir Richard Southwood further said in The Times article already referred to:
"The universities believe that they can best do their job of teaching and reaearch, and thus best serve the nation, if in their academic operations they are free from state control; at the same time they have never claimed exemption from the need to demonstrate good use of public funds. Putting this another way, there is a problem of reconciling independence with accountability.

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In the past this problem was resolved by the existence of a strong and independent body interposed between government and the universities—the University Grants Committee. Lord Croham's committee, although it found the UGC in need of substantial reform, saw this clearly enough, but the Bill does not follow Lord Croham's lead. The UGC is indeed to have strong powers over the universities. But instead of being independent it will itself be vulnerable to direct state control. The change is fundamental."
The direct state control to which Sir Richard refers is particularly achieved by Clause 115(6) which states that the UFC is empowered to pay money to universities "subject to such terms and conditions as it thinks fit". Remarkably (the word used by Oxford Univeristy) there is a clause which accords to the UFC the right to require repayment of the grant "in whole or in part" if "any other condition subject to which the sums were paid is not complied with", with interest payable in the case of any delay.
The Government have adopted several lines of defence and/or justification to criticisms of the new powers proposed to be conferred on the Secretary of State. The principal line of defence is that the powers would only be exercised as a "last resort" and that every notice would be taken of the views of the UFC and the universities. While I do not doubt the sincerity of the present occupant of the post of Secretary of State, he can hardly bind a successor who thought otherwise and supported his or her actions by reciting the statutory clauses of the present Bill if it were to become law unamended. It would also be naive not to imagine that a threat to use his or her statutory powers might be made for persuasive purposes. As the article says, "it can be enough to brandish a weapon without using it".
Another anodyne given to critics by the Government is a rather technical one. The Government state that the UFC will have greater independence as a statutory body than the present UGC because the latter can technically be abolished at any moment by the simple administrative act of revoking the minute which established its terms of reference. It seems to me that what is far more important is a comparison of the relative freedoms to act of the old and the new body, the former by fact drawn from nearly 70 years of existence and the latter from the Bill before your Lordships.
I hope that I have made my views plain about the implications of the Bill. With regard to the argument of the technical status of the present UGC, in relation to conventions Halsbury's Laws of England states:
"Today, as in the past, much of the practical working of the constitution depends less upon substantive Law enforced by the courts than upon conventional usages founded partly upon the precedents afforded by history and partly upon the needs of the time, which may be said for practical purposes of government to have acquired the force of customary law."
Finally, I should like to make a point about simple majorities. Clause 115(2), dealing with the setting up of the UFC, proposes that the UFC shall have 15 members and that not less than six and not more than nine of the members shall be persons with a knowledge of university affairs. I feel strongly that the latter should form a clear majority, which would be achieved if "not less than eight" were substituted for "not less than six". Give the universities the rope. If they hang themselves, that is another matter; but they have failed to do so through the stresses and strains of over 700 years of existence, during which
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one has even played host to a King and his Parliament, and I fail to see why they should do so now.
I am not convinced by the Government's answers to their critics that all is well—indeed better—and that the universities are merely "crying wolf". The fact is that the universities are severely discomfited and apprehensive of the Bill's provisions and have been subject to successive departmental doses of tranquilliser. The Bill should be amended to maintain universities' obligations to demonstrate good stewardship of the public funds entrusted to them and to maintain their autonomy.
11.9 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, your Lordships will be relieved to know that at this late hour I shall cut most of what I was going to say. The Bill is a fairly major measure. Nearly 45 years after the Rab Butler Bill, with which I grew up, we are now laying the foundations for the next 45 years. It will take us right into the first third of the next century. We must get it right.
With touching faith, the defence of ILEA has come up. I shall seek to put the other point of view. I shall also try to touch on the religious education side of the matter, which I believe is deeply important. It is also appropriate to this House, because we are more free to talk, with all our affinities and loyalties.
Let us take ILEA's results, which are deplorable by any measure one likes to take. As regards secondary education, its costs per pupil, under every heading, are much higher compared with the costs of Manchester and Birmingham, or wherever one looks. They are nearly 20 per cent. up on teaching staff and twice as high on support staff. I have its budget, which shows 40,000 teachers (some of them part-time) and 45,000 support staff. That is not a good ratio, and it is much larger than that of any other area. Its premises-related costs are 50 per cent. higher. There is a great deal of room for economy there.
ILEA's overall cost per pupil is £2,043 per year, whereas the cost in all other metropolitan districts is £1,200. The difference between £2,000 and £1,200 is substantial. If the results were good one would say, "Right—the problems in London are special, but you have produced good results"; but the results are also deplorable. There are some good sides to ILEA. I am picking on the bad points only, but they are important points. In ILEA schools 20·6 per cent. of the pupils leave without a graded result. On too many occasions that means no jobs for that important 20 per cent. The figures for the rest of England as a whole are half that figure.
It is argued—and I understand the point—that the social deprivation in London is more serious, and the racial minorities are larger, than anywhere else. Sheffield University has studied the examination results for socially deprived areas. It divided them into 96 areas and gave points for the various examination achievements. Liverpool was fourth, which was surprising to some of us; Manchester was 10th; Birmingham was 17th—they all have

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considerable problems—but ILEA was 56th. It is in the bottom half despite its enormous expenditure. As I said, ILEA employs two and a half times as many administrators as the average area.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London felt that it would be a disaster if we abolished ILEA. I cannot help feeling that the same phrases were used when we were talking about the abolition of the GLC. It was said to be terrible, and yet two years later it is not mourned; it is forgotten.
As other speakers have said, we must measure absence from school. It is alarming that last week 30 per cent. of ILEA pupils aged 15 and 16, who are coming up to the end of their school careers, were absent. That is an important figure. How anyone can praise an organisation which achieves such a result after 20 years is beyond my ken.
I turn now to the feeling that was referred to and to the poll of 145,000 people that was taken. By the way, if one had six children one had six votes. I suppose one has six times as much interest if one has six children, but it gives a slight advantage to the Roman Catholics. So it was not a normal one man, one vote by any means. But in the 12 London boroughs there are 250,000 pupils within the precincts of ILEA. Therefore, in each of the 12 there is an average of about 20,000 pupils. Some have as many as 30,000 pupils, and the boroughs will take over the responsibility. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that good results can be achieved when there are as many as 20,000 or 30,000 pupils to cope with. Remember that they will inherit the staff from ILEA. It is not as if they are starting afresh; they are already making arrangements to recruit the heads of education. There are the deputy heads of education and they are quite rightly talking to them, making plans for the future.
So I feel confident that ILEA should go. I think it is grossly overpopulated. The figure of two and a half times is very alarming. Its results are very poor when measured by any other competitive areas like the LEAs, the local education authorities. Also today 30 per cent. of the people are absent.
I should like to talk briefly on religious teaching. I have been in touch with teachers who want to see Christian teaching restored as the predominant faith. This Bill gives us a golden opportunity to make ground, to restore some of the position which has been lost over recent years in particular. I welcome the improvements in the Bill which have taken place in the House of Commons. The Archbishop of Canterbury's commission report which noble Lords will have read was called Faith in the City. That drew stark attention to the deplorable state of religious education, particularly in urban priority areas. There is no religious teaching in over 90 per cent. of the schools. The 1944 Act has been much quoted. Lord Selborne made it quite clear, when the commission was talking about religious education, that it was talking about Christian teaching, and I shall not therefore repeat it.
Now we find the Government and churches using the 1944 Education Act as a justification for multi-faith religious education. This is a change of law
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without public debate and without public consent. It is argued that racial minorities make it inappropriate. In a small percentage of schools, and sometimes in certain areas, it may even be a majority are non-Christian. Surely, it is not beyond the wit of man so to organise things that where that happens, special arrangements are made. Now 85 per cent. of the nation claim, in all the surveys of the Bible Society and other organisations, that they are Christians; something between 4 and 5 per cent. equally claim that they wish to follow another denomination or religion. Why should we be bullied; why should we be so influenced, so reticent? One of my predecessors was a missionary in China, in the middle of the last century. He did not go to China because people there were already Christians; he went to China to convert them to the Christian faith. I should have thought that it was the task of our Church here to try and convert those who follow no religion, first and foremost, but even those who follow an alternative religion. It is the Christian religion which we in this country support.
Noble Lords are so well informed that they will not make this mistake; but others do; people somehow think that the Afro-Caribbean communities are not Christians. They are strong Christians. I make visits to the Caribbean in the winter and every time I go to church I am uplifted by their faith. They ought to be proselytising us and carrying the Christian faith to us. In fact, the fastest growing churches in all parts of Britain are the ones attended by the Afro-Caribbean communities. So we must not say that minority racial groups are not Christian; in many cases they are. And they are very staunch Christians indeed.
I know that it would be opposed by some people; but I cannot help feeling that we need to have something a little more definite than the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London seems currently satisfied with. The ILEA 1984 syllabus at secondary level requires the religious education teachers to cover at least six religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Humanism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. Other agreed syllabuses include Marxism. Really, Marxism is not a religion. If one had to include Marxism then one should also have to include capitalism. It is no good saying that the system has been bad in the past because the Churches could have taken a lead in this matter. But they did not do it. The present situation has arisen through lack of leadership. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London seemed confident that all would be better in the future, but I wonder whether he is not overconfident.
I hope that perhaps some of us will put down an amendment to ask that in future religious teaching should be predominantly Christian. Perhaps we could vote on that. That would be a chance to examine in depth with the bishops the pros and cons of defining whether religious teaching should be written into the Bill as being predominantly Christian. I would hope that the majority of the bishops will be present on that occasion and also the Roman Catholic Peers, of whom there are many. We should hear the views of all denominations.
I suggest that this is exactly the kind of subject which we should be discussing in this House, and that it is better discussed here than it is in another place.

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I think this is the place where this subject could be discussed without any Whips. We should be able to have a free vote of conscience on a matter of such supreme importance. We should have an opportunity of hearing the pros and cons. I hope that on balance we shall find it to the advantage of the future of our children and of our grandchildren that the teaching of religious education in our schools should henceforward be predominantly Christian.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I support this Bill. In view of the lateness of the hour I shall try not to make a long, obstinate and shoddily constructed speech, but there are just two points on which I would beg your Lordships' indulgence.
Parents and teachers both bear a heavy responsibility for the future of our country. It is vital that the traditions and ideals which we cherish and which our parents cherished should continue into the next generation.
I support my noble friend Lord Joseph and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, in their idea that British history should be included in the curriculum. I also agree with my noble friend Lady Faithfull about the inclusion of what she calls home economics and what I used to call domestic science. I think that that subject should be included in the curriculum. Although I learned how to scrub a floor, how to blacklead a grate and how to polish brass, I never graduated to the finer points of cooking. When I was first married my husband had to make do with a diet of scones and scrambled egg, tins and tablet.
In 1854 my great grandparents and the local minister founded an industrial school for girls in Errol. It was largely built and funded as the result of a fete which was held at home. The purpose of this school was to teach not only the three Rs and the Christian religion but also all the subjects which would be really useful in their future life, such as how to cook, how to dressmake, how to budget and how to deal with sickness in the home. Colonel Gordon Drummond, who was fighting in the Crimea at the time, was a personal friend of Florence Nightingale. I believe that there should be some provision in the Bill for home economics so that future generations should not be more ignorant than their ancestors were but should be as able to deal with things.
My second point concerns the installation of daily prayers and Christian religious teaching in schools. My noble friends Lady Cox, Lord Elton and Lord Orr-Ewing have already spoken most strongly on this matter. Our children and grandchildren will, I hope, start their day with prayers, as your Lordships do, so that they can put their hand in the hand of God through the bright day and right on until the shadows and evening come.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I shall be brief. This is an important Bill and in general I welcome its proposals. There are many points on which I should perhaps have liked to comment. At this late hour I shall only touch briefly on three.
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The first point relates to religion. Like many noble Lords and like the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, who has just spoken, I welcome the Government's commitment to a daily act of worship. In the vast majority of cases I think that it should be a specifically Christian act of worship. Only when a child's parents particularly ask for the child to be withdrawn should that be done. Where numbers permit, some alternative facility for worship should then be made available for such children.
I am less happy about the provisions for religious education. The trouble with religious education is that unless it is extremely well done it is worse than useless. I do not believe that a child can be given a real idea of the religious view of life by being taught comparative religion. Religion is about commitment. As has been said, it is betting your life that there is a God. I cannot accept that religion can be adequately taught by an atheist or a teacher who has no religious commitment. Which of your Lordships would condone the teaching of swimming by someone who has never put a toe in the water?
On my second point, I believe that I go further than the noble Baronesses, Lady Faithfull and Lady Strange. The majority of us spend the middle years of our lives rearing a family. To some extent the Churches have now abrogated their responsibility to give moral guidance. In some areas of our cities, over 30 per cent. of children are growing up in single parent families. It is of the greatest importance that schools should do as much as possible to help prepare young people for the responsibilities of homemaking and raising a family. It seems strange to have to spell it out. However, in my view that means a stable, heterosexual, two-parent family wherever that is possible. In saying that, I do not for a moment detract from the importance of the extended family or from the marvellous work which is being done by many single parents who are having to look after their children on their own.
A stable environment for children while they are growing up is not only of the utmost importance to the children themselves in giving them security. It also has major implications in the context of law and order and the general welfare of our society. I shall hope to probe that matter further at Committee stage.
Finally, I should like to turn to the question of the independent sector. Approximately 6 per cent. of the children in this country are educated in the independent sector, yet the Bill does not make any mention of it. In a fairly recent debate on a Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm, many of your Lordships testified to the importance and excellence of the contribution made by the independent sector to our national education. Most, though not all, schools in the independent sector are of a very high standard. Some are the envy of the world and widely copied. The independent sector represents a national resource in our education which should not be ignored or downgraded. It should be used as a coherent part of our total educational system.
Speakers on the Opposition Benches are fond of representing the independent system as a hotbed of elitism and privilege. I believe that that is a caricature. I know that many parents make very great

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sacrifices to send their children to independent schools, not for reasons of snobbishness or elitism but because they want, at whatever cost to themselves, to provide what they perceive to be the best education for their children. Let us therefore use the independent system not to nurture privilege but to help to further the great object of giving all our children a better education.
First, the independent system should be subject to the same curriculum and testing requirements as are imposed by the Bill on the maintained sector. Secondly, there should be an opportunity for opting in. If the Government's proposals for opting out are successful, as I very much hope they will be, there is a real possibility that some good independent schools will be subjected to totally unfair competition from opted out schools in the same neighbourhood, the latter receiving 100 per cent. government subsidy. It occurs to me to wonder what attitude the Directorate of Fair Trading might take on this situation.
It seems only fair that the independent schools should have the countervailing option of opting in. Opting in would provide a valuable and positive complement to the Government's proposals and one which would be entirely consistent with their policies.
11.30 p.m.
Lord Ironside: My Lords, it is difficult in a debate like this to avoid being repetitive. I shall not deal with generalities; I shall limit myself to three points that I should like to make.
Before doing so I declare an interest as a governor of four schools: a public school founded in 1553 as a grammar school, which it still is, two voluntary-aided schools and a grammar school. I have gained much experience through this, and I am a foundation member of one of ILEA's girls' schools about which I shall be speaking. I am also on the council of the City University and on the court of Essex University. I must admit to a public school education but not to a university education.
There are many side-effects to education reform, but I support the measures being taken by the Government. We must ensure that they go forward into the statute book amended, as certainly they will be, but I hope very much improved.
Starting with the national curriculum, I agree that it is an important stepping stone for the general run of students, but in my view it does not offer the breadth of education which for the sake of example is offered at the Skinners School, Tunbridge Wells, a voluntary-aided school of which I am a governor, to certain types of student who are early developers: for example, to the budding medic to study additionally two foreign languages or to the language specialist to take two science subjects. It does not allow a boy to keep open his choice between some of the high-powered courses or mainstream courses until the sixth form because it insists on too much time being spent on general basic subjects. This slows down preparation and impedes the brighter students. The aim should be to have a system which teaches the brighter pupils in class with the majority to their mutual advantage and not to prefer a system which
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leaves the brighter pupil to look after himself on the theory that he will probably succeed however the system is supposed to work.
In Kent the local education authority's view is that the national curriculum must be interpreted with flexibility. The Government say that it can be, but I wonder whether there is sufficient flexibility and whether we ought to go further, not only to bring weaker schools and pupils up to standard but to have the flexibility of the curriculum officially validated and approved for schools such as the Skinners School, Tunbridge Wells, aiming at very much higher standards. That would allow such a school to compete on fair terms with leading public schools. Boys from such schools are just as much entitled to desirable openings in life as any other pupils from the independent sector, and we should not try to hamper them by legislation designed to standardise on the lowest common denominator.
I would suggest that an amendment to Clause 1 should include a rider in respect of able children that their interests are not restricted. This would ensure that the National Curriculum Council can be seen to have the flexibility that it should have to make variations in respect of the more popular schools aspiring to higher standards.
I shall now turn to another matter which concerns the governors of one of the ILEA girls' schools in the Borough of Hackney, which is the Skinners School for Girls and which has a voluntary-aided foundation. There are 730 girls at the school, 60 per cent. of whom are coloured. All the principal faiths are represented. I shall not list them because I cannot remember them as well as my noble friend who can list them so easily. Twenty-seven different languages are spoken in the homes of the girls. In due course, in another generation, that will be down to one—it will be English only, presumably.
Hackney borough has no experience of educational management. It is virtually in disarray, it is burdened by a housing calamity and is criticised by the Audit Commission, apart from being pre-occupied with issues of political philosophy. It has not come forward with proposals or plans for the future. It is a member of the ALA (the Association of London Authorities). The school governors fear that it will fall short of providing the services which the school currently receives from ILEA. Schools have become very dependent on ILEA, as my noble friend Lady Blatch has said, and it is also said to have economies of scale; but, as my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing said, it has not shown that it can take advantage of those economies of scale. By definition there will be less spending. The governors want to know what assurances the Government can give that Hackney borough will provide the services for the school to allow it to deliver sound education and improved standards within the borough.
At the moment under the equalisation arrangements Hackney puts in £33 million and takes out £93 million from ILEA. The borough is deprived and has special needs. A lot of thought will have to be given to ways of providing the services needed to make up the £60 million shortfall. No doubt the Government will say that the school governors can opt out. However, the foundation's association with

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the borough goes back 100 years, and such a decision would probably be taken only in the last resort. Assurances are needed now that the school will not lose out under Hackney borough, and I very much hope that the borough is capable of responding.
Finally, I come to university education. The main issue is academic freedom, about which we have heard so much. Perhaps I should not speak on this subject as I have never been to a university; but the vice-chancellors argue that they do not have to be pushed around and are responding to the challenge of change. I believe that the Secretary of State's powers are powers of the last resort and must be available. I support them in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has supported them. I do not regard them as oppressive, and I shall say no more on that subject. What I shall say is that when it comes to research, universities are businesses whose products are ideas. They must make a better attempt to sell themselves to their potential customers.
Industry, by and large, is suspicious of the university mind and of the academic dislike of working to a timescale. But if universities are to serve the nation best, then the professor of the moment is the one who sets himself a target. I think that most of them are beginning to see that commissioned work will not be brought to a university on a plate. The university has to sell itself. The science park helps here, as we have seen at Cambridge. Unfortunately, 60 per cent. of the companies on the Cambridge site are foreign; but it has encouraged other universities to attract British industry to their own versions of the science park.
I am always told that there is a lack of staff to do the marketing. Maybe therefore there is a case for the Universities Funding Council to look at ways of helping the universities to market their ideas as products.
I have mentioned three points; but I think that when this Bill is enacted it will bring quality assurance to education. We have it in design and production and we now want it in education.
11.40 p.m.
Lord Milverton: My Lords, perhaps I may deal briefly with one aspect of religious education: the importance of regarding religious studies as a subject requiring intellectual effort. I am aware that spiritual truth may be discerned in many ways and that the possession of a brilliant intellect is not a necessary requirement for experiencing Christian truth. Nevertheless, the whole weight of Christian tradition shows that religious experience must involve the mind as well as the heart. For this reason I am thankful that religious education is to be statutorily identified as part of the basic curriculum for all pupils in all maintained schools and that it takes its place before the core and foundation subjects.
At the moment religious education is too often regarded as a Cinderella subject suffering from a lack of qualified teachers. One hears such remarks as, "X is a churchgoer, so he or she can take religious education"; or, "Y has some free periods which can be filled with religious education teaching". Churchgoing or good will are no substitutes for professional skill. It would be of little comfort to be
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assured before having a tooth pulled that the dentist, although unqualified, was a good Christian! Christian religious education is a subject which demands teachers who are inspired by their Christian faith and who possess well-informed and well-trained minds.
Piety is no substitute for academic learning. Nor is faith a prop for inadequacy of understanding. Faith enriches and interprets the discoveries of the mind, and intellectual integrity can be an important source of spiritual insight. In religious education every challenge must be examined and every question explored. In this way the minds and imaginations of pupils will be enriched and boredom and indiscipline will be inapplicable. There are many well-trained teachers in religious education who combine joy and enthusiasm with the knowledge of their subject, but there is a most urgent necessity for more to be found.
I should like to end by stressing one or two practical points in connection with this issue. The first is to urge that there may be a more considered approach to the initial training of religious education teachers. I have it on hand that in some departments when a teacher of theology leaves no effort is made to replace that teacher. Theology departments in universities and religious education departments in polytechnics need continued support if they are to maintain their work of training religious education specialists, who in their turn will be engaged in the recruitment of the religious education specialists of the future.
Finally, if religious education is to be seen generally as one of the foundation subjects, some provision must be made for assessment of progress in religious education at the same time as the other foundation subjects are assessed or the Secretary of State's concession will have been a hollow one indeed and the position of religious education seen to be only nominal after all.
We know that religious education in schools is part of a life-long process to maturity. Her Majesty's Government have listened to the church leaders and those engaged in religious education teaching. Now it is for the churches to use the opportunities made available to them. Perhaps I may humbly say that in the parishes we can also try to do better than we have done.
If there is good will and readiness by all to show the quality of being swift to hear and slow to speak—which is the characteristic, on the whole, of this House—it should be possible for all the concerns of all people to be worked out so that this Bill can be even more digestible and also considerably improved during the Committee and Report stages. Basically I believe that this had to be done. May it be done really well at the Committee and Report stages.
11.45 p.m.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, like most of your Lordships, I shall confine myself to one aspect of the Bill, or rather of the Bills, because this is a measure which surely contains two or three separate Bills which should indeed have been introduced as separate measures.

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Before passing to that aspect of the measure I wish, however, to associate myself with my noble friends and other noble Lords who have spoken about the irresponsible part of the Bill which proposes the abolition of that authority that deals with the education of 280,000 children in London—the Inner London Education Authority. As a Londoner I join them in resenting, opposing and hoping to change the provision for the abolition of ILEA.
The aspect on which I choose to speak is that of higher and further education. I do so by declaring an interest of having spent some 36 years in teaching in research. To adapt a phrase which has been used this evening rather a lot, I am not yet superannuated nor moribund—though I am not yet a vice-chancellor, nor likely to be, The noble Lord, Lord Swann, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester have put the essential case, it seems to me, that in changing the relationship between the state and the universities there is in this Bill a threat to that area of academic life which is sometimes called academic freedom and which I prefer to call scholarly freedom.
I do not believe that this is a party issue and in many ways on this issue we find ourselves in unusual company. The Government succeeded in the six weeks following the publication of the Bill in uniting the most extraordinary spectrum of opinion, not merely the presidents of the British Academy, the Royal Society and the Association of University Teachers, but the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, who spoke about the total centralisation of control now proposed for universities and the Warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford, Professor Ralf Dahrendorf, whose phrase I should like to quote because I believe it sums up the central point and makes a point about looking abroad as well as in this country.
Ralf Dahrendorf wrote on 2nd December:
"The Bill must be regarded as threatening by many academics, not least because it removes safeguards of freedom which exist in all other countries of the free world".
He is joined by the Chancellor of Manchester University, Professor John Griffith, by Professor Elie Kedowrie—I believe it is the first time that that spectrum of writers has ever been on the same side —and also by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford whom we all know, because the Minister told us that discussions had been going on with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who is to speak tomorrow.
In parenthesis I must say that I find it very frustrating to come into bat at No. 48 when No. 50, who is to make major pronouncements on this matter, the noble and learned Lord himself, is divided from me by what is left of the night. But the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Sir Patrick Neal, said that these proposals:
"will, if implemented, create a machinery whereby the UFC (described as the agent of Government by no less an authority than Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer)"—
the chairman of the UGC of course—
"will be able to determine what is taught and in which universities with the aid of public funds".
He went on to quote the well-known statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. Robert Jackson, who said a month or so earlier:
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"We (the Government) want rationalisation of provision in just about every discipline, and we would expect the UFC to take forward the work begun by the UGC. This will mean greater concentration. And … will often mean departmental closures".
That is the atmosphere which the Government created before the publication of the Bill and to which the Bill has contributed greatly. It is as though the Butler Act of 1944, to which the Government often look back, had been opposed by a spectrum of opinion which included Professor Hayek and Professor Laski, Lord Beveridge and the youthful Lord Robbins, and Ellen Wilkinson. In that circumstance the great statesman Mr. Butler would have withdrawn the proposals for further consultation. That is what the Government should do in respect of this Bill.
I do not take the view that has been taken by some noble Lords who have spoken—and here I put a new point to the Government. I do not believe that the threat to academic or scholarly freedom comes primarily or simply through the abolition of tenure: it comes through a tripod of measures. First, there is the structure and status of the University Funding Council which is different from the UGC. Secondly, there is the specific financial arrangements, which are not in the Bill. They are in the consultative document dated May 1987, and to my knowledge have never been retracted. Thirdly, in that context, there is the abolition of tenure. I find it strange that some of the noble Lords who have spoken, and who wrote most persuasively about some of the Bill's centralising and controlling machinery, have been satisfied by the amendments so far made in respect of the first two points in that three-point programme. I hope to hear good news and better news on academic freedom from the noble and learned Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, has probably managed to depress university morale in the classroom by his intervention, which was in a different direction. He thought that tenure was an anachronism and that universities should be empowered to dismiss at six months' notice anyone on the staff in any circumstance. I do not know whether the six months' notice would apply to vice-chancellors, but even then I would not be in favour of it. I believe that it has the most extraordinary flavour which now seems to take control of some people when they approach universities. It seems that it must be made terribly easy to dismiss people; and there is surprise when that flavour rubs off on to the staff, with a lowering of morale.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester quoted the speech made in January of this year by Sir Mark Richmond, chairman of the CVCP. Summarising, he said that they were not seeking any kind or privilege but the freedom to research, the freedom to question received wisdom and the freedom to be protected from political interference. He said that it was not a licence to brood comfortably in ivory towers. I believe that it is important to place on record once again the fact that anyone who believes that over the last 20 years academic tenure has allowed people to brood comfortably anywhere either does not know what academic salaries are or has never been near a classroom or a laboratory, and probably both. It is absurd to believe that universities

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are full of idling people with licences to do anything. Surely Sir Mark Richmond was right in saying:
"In fighting for this freedom we are certainly not arguing against the need for change. We are, however, arguing that the provisions of the Education Reform Bill are not necessary to produce change. Change is already happening "
That change is a result of congeries of pressures which are always present in universities in any free democratic society however they are organised. There are pressures from government, from other autonomous areas of society and from students. For many universities one of the most worrying aspects of government policy is the fact that in April 1987 student preference was sharply down-graded in place of the major determinant in planning higher education. It must be the demands for highly qualified manpower, stimulated in part by the success of the Government's economic and social policies. One noble Lord spoke of the Government being sensitive in their approach to universities. That passage shows that the Government have a lot to learn.
That congeries of pressure has, throughout many years, changed universities as it has changed other parts of society. However, the question at stake always, especially when it comes to state money—and it is true in France and other western European countries—is how far the Government try to plan research and teaching down into the classroom and in a dirigiste manner. I have no hesitation in saying that if a Government of my own party proposed to do that, I would oppose it as fiercely as I propose to oppose it here.
The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals is undoubtedly to be congratulated on the concessions which the Secretary of State has made. However, I want to assess how far those concessions have gone. First, the changes permit the UFC to give advice to government; that is excellent. However, the Secretary of State decides whether that is to be in private and I find that rather odd. Secondly, funds are excluded which are privately used by universities from UFC control or mainly so. That is good but the pressure upon universities to raise more and more private money is not necessarily good. University finance is now down to 55 per cent. from public sources compared with 77 per cent. in 1974. There is a point at which pressure to go out and become a client of industry or other sources for money is not a proper policy for a government which believe in public financing of a public higher education service. I believe that point has been reached.
The last change was a concession by the Secretary of State to limit the conferment of extra functions on the UFC and also that he would make directions to the UFC only by order before this House and another place. I believe that should be by affirmative resolution, but that point can be argued in Committee.
It seems to me that this is shadow boxing. Anyone who studies the history of the nationalised industries knows perfectly well that the express direction power of the Minister has never been the main way in which Ministers have influenced nationalised industries. I know the Government have only a few left but they know that from experience. In January 1969 Professor Robson wrote perceptively:
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"The Government can almost always influence a public enterprise to do what it wants whatever the legal text may say."
National universities, to use Professor Kedourie's phrase, will be no different.
The UFC is not like the UGC. The UGC was set up in 1948 to be a buffer betwen the state and universities knowing that that was a state of tension which brought about many changes. It was only by the 1980s that the UGC came to be spoken of as the "agent of Government." One of the matters that has greatly worried our universities is the way in which government Ministers have spoken about both the UFC and the UGC. For example, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary wrote in The Times on 23rd January:
"Constitutionally the University Grants Committee is the creature of the executive… While the UGC is the creature of the executive the UFC will have a statutory basis."
The tenor of the argument was that the two are much the same but the UFC is rather better because it is in a statute. However, as Peter Swinnerton-Dyer said, that was the agent of government. Perhaps I may quote the chairman of the UGC:
"Ministers are no longer thinking in terms of grants, however calculated, but in terms of buying certain services from universities… The Government is here a single purchaser… It will use the power which this situation gives it to press for higher quality and greater efficiency just as Marks and Spencer (for example) does in similar circumstances."
I find it rather extraordinary that that approach to universities has been accepted so easily. I wish to ask the Government specific points on the three areas very quickly, if I may. First, they are the three areas of the UFC, of the funding arrangements and academic freedom or academic tenure. As regards the UFC specifically, why should the UFC, as the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, said, not have a majority drawn from the academic profession? Surely, that is a very simple change. There is a very good argument for making it selected or elected from the universities themselves, but that might be too democratic for the centralising tendencies of the Government which are very plain here as they are elsewhere. I cannot see any argument at all why that should not be so.
What is much more important—and this is not a Committee point but a serious structural issue—is that there is one person on the UFC who will be the power. He is the chief officer and he is to be the general manager of higher education. He is the only person with a full-time, renewable contract. He will have the contact with the DES and with the Government and the assessor on the UFC from the Government. Why should it not be required that his approval has the approval of the academic members of the UFC whether they be in a majority or in a minority? That is an issue which I hope will be pressed in Committee.
Second, as to funding, there has been no convincing reason ever given why some system of grants should not be continued. The Government rely on the Croham Report; but it proposed triennial grants, it is true, with rather different conditions possibly attached, though with far greater discretion than the proposal for funding that the Government have suggested. The proposals are not actually in the Bill, but are in the consultative documents which have to be read with the Bill. There must be some

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system of grants quite different from the proposed system of contracts if university discretion is to be maintained of a kind than can be the basis of free scholarship as we have known it. I quote Professor Griffiths again. He said,
"Free and critical inquiry requires that universities and other institutions of higher education are entrusted with grants which they may use as they think fit."
My only amendment to that would be at any rate for substantial grants that they can use in that way. As regards contracts, the consultative document on funding of May 1987 which is plainly envisaged in the structure of the schedule of the Bill, proposes a system which, even for annual contracts for specific projects of research and teaching, has already been laughed out of court for two reasons. I have never heard the reply of the Government to those reasons. Perhaps we shall hear it tomorrow.
First, the name itself is absurd because the terms are set unilaterally by one side and the decisions about performance and whether they have been broken are also taken by the other side. This can be called a contract and I suspect that the Government will drop the label. I do not think the Government like the semantics of contracts now. But whether they do or not, what matters is whether they intend to go on with the intention to produce funds for universities on a commercial basis with regular, annual monitoring which will kill off a large number of people's interest in research. In one speech the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has taken the example of whether the Government would try to fund Mr. Newton's research at Cambridge on apples. I thought that perhaps one should ask what answer Watson and Crick would have given to the annual auditor as they puzzled away after the double helix. I am perfectly certain that Francis Crick would have given a very short reply.
The position on auditing I wish to put specifically to the Government. In 1967, when the Comptroller and Auditor General—if the noble Lord wishes to interrupt me I shall give way.
A noble Lord: It is a long speech!
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, the noble Lord has interrupted me and I have to reply to him. The Government are about to legislate on one of the most important subjects in this country. Is the noble Lord coming in here at midnight to tell me that points cannot be made at Second Reading? If the Government had had the sense to deal with the matter in a separate Bill we could have discussed it at a civilised hour. I shall give way to him if he wants to make that point.
On auditing, the Comptroller and Auditor General was allowed further access to university books in 1967. It was quite right and proper that that should have been done. This is public money. There must be an audit. The National Audit Office must properly audit university accounts. However, the Secretary of State, Mr. Anthony Crosland, said on 26th July 1967 that although it was part of the Comptroller and Auditor General's duty to question expenditure, it was no part of his duty to question policy decisions or decisions reached on academic grounds.
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I want to know whether the Government still abide by the pronouncement which has stood for 20 years. If they abide by it, why have they not disclosed the terms of the National Audit Office's investigations which were put on paper in October 1987 and which include questions that trample over the whole area of academic objectives as well as normal accounting provisions?
Lastly, I come to tenure, and I come to tenure in that context. Tenure is a worry only by reason of the other arrangements for universities made in the Bill. If the only issue were that university tenure should be renegotiated, that would seem a perfectly proper item on the agenda. However, the grounds that are given for tenure in the context of the new funding and in the context of the UFC really make one fearful in the way that Professor Dahrendorf suggested.
The reason for tenure is that it is the job of academics to be sceptical, to follow ideas where they lead and to apply scepticism to the established order. That is true in all areas. The argument that tenure is of no importance because a large number of university staff do not have it was surely answered by the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth. He said that as there is tenure over a large part of university staff that convention rubs off on to the rest.
I ask this question of those who argue that there is no tenure in polytechnics and that there are some non-tenured staff in universities—and I do not believe that this point has been put to the Government. Do they really think that we would have free scholarship today in those areas and the growth of free scholarship in the polytechnics, which is very important, if there had never been tenure? Do they really believe that? The Government do not believe anything like it.
What areas should this House examine when trying to amend the Bill? I suggest that three areas should be looked at. First, the definition of redundancy itself is wider than that applying under normal employment law, and no grounds have been given to satisfy me for that being so. The guidance that is coming through from government to the UFC will cut off funds and allow the dismissal of staff on grounds that are nothing like the normal grounds under the definition in the Bill but simply because of lack of money.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he is not playing the game, and that I think he knows that he is not playing the game? He is making the longest speech in the debate at this hour in the morning when all other speakers have confined themselves to the length of time that was suggested would be reasonable and proper. I suggest to the noble Lord that many of the points he is making are Committee and Report stage points. He is not playing the game.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I do not regard this as a game. The noble Lord has made his point, but I should like to make mine in my own way. The Government have spoken of grievance procedures as a possible protection. I agree. But surely grievance procedures—this point has never

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been made, and it is a Second Reading point—must lead not to compensation but to reinstatement. That is a fundamental structural issue.
Lastly, the commissioners in rewriting the university statutes are told to take account of principles of justice and fairness. It is essential that there be added to this not necessarily some phrase as vague as "academic freedom" but one which protects staff from discrimination and disadvantage or penalty by reasons of their opinions, their beliefs and their intellectual position.
It is not impossible to draft such a formula. When it is drafted the Government will be on to an area which has been totally undiscussed in another place; they will be on to the area of unfair selective redundancy, which is dealt with in ordinary employment legislation but it is not dealt with in the Bill. By drafting a formula which protects academic staff against discrimination for political, personal or intellectual belief the Government will be enabled to amend the redundancy provisions and thereby improve the Bill. However, if they cannot do that—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, in summing up what I have to say—it would have been much shorter had it not been interrupted—I say that if that is not done it will be a responsibility of this House if we see grave damage to the universities in perhaps the near future.
12.12 a.m.
Lord Renwick: My Lords, I shall try my best to put my few points as fast as possible. In offering a general welcome to the Education Reform Bill I should like to support the Minister on the importance of improving standards for all children and also standards for students in further and higher education. Included in those children and students, however, are many with special education needs. It is on their particular difficulties that I wish to address the House in relation to this Bill.
The report on special education needs of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, drew our attention to the fact that one in five of all children at some time in their school life, or one in six of children at any one time, have special education needs. Those needs do not disappear when children reach 16 and leave school. Many young people in further education also have special education needs.
By far the largest category of children with special education needs are those who have problems with basic skills. The National Child Development Study, which was a longitudinal study of all the children who were born in England, Scotland and Wales between 3rd and 9th March 1958, interviewed all those people at the age of 23. No fewer than 13 per cent. of them had difficulties with basic skills. One in 10 had had problems with reading, writing and spelling since leaving school. It will therefore come as no surpise to your Lordships to hear that those young people were twice as likely to be unemployed as people without such difficulties; half of them had had no training since leaving school.
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While no noble Lord seems satisfied with today's education standards we would surely acknowledge that there have been substantial improvements in the past 75 years. It is all the more startling, then, to discover that the proportion of young people with difficulties in basic skills is almost exactly the same as the proportion of conscripts in the first world war—some 75 years ago—who were reported as having those difficulties. Why should this be so? It is because we have made far too little progress in applying the knowledge that we have in how to educate children with specific learning difficulties and in teaching them reading, writing and spelling.
I am a former chairman of the British Dyslexia Association and am currently chairman of the Dyslexia Educational Trust. In 1984 the British Dyslexia Association introduced a specialist diploma in teaching children with specific learning difficulties. The Royal Society of Arts has also developed a diploma. The Dyslexia Educational Trust has helped by paying bursaries of up to half the fees of teachers attending those courses who cannot obtain help from other sources.
Even so there are probably no more than 500 teachers trained to teach children with specific learning difficulties in the whole of the United Kingdom. Many of those teachers work in the private sector. Post-school, the position is much worse. Only one authority—the Inner London Education Authority—has employed a specialist full time on specific learning difficulties in adult education. That post is now vacant and frozen. An excellent project in ILEA in this field funded by the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit has now come to an end. There is almost no provision anywhere else except that made by committed and dedicated people, often on a voluntary basis.
I should like to turn to some aspects of the Bill which, good though it is, require further consideration if the full benefits are to be delivered to children with special needs. I welcome the introduction of the national curriculum and in particular the intention to introduce diagnostic tests at the ages of seven and 11. The tragedy now is that so many of the children could be helped and are not identified until late in their secondary schooling. The help that could have been given to them so easily early on becomes much more difficult in later years. We know that remedial provision in the final years of secondary schooling is virtually non-existent.
If we are to take advantage of these new opportunities it is essential that the great majority of teachers should have some understanding and knowledge of the fact that they will be faced with classes in which three out of every 30 children have specific learning difficulties. Teachers of reading must be able to diagnose and assess these children and must have the knowledge to deal with their particular problems. For those with the most severe problems we must have a body of trained specialist teachers. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is aware of this and of the efforts being made, largely in a voluntary capacity in the private sector, to increase these numbers dramatically.

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I also welcome the decision to abolish the Inner London Education Authority. No institution, however, not even ILEA, is wholly bad. I have already referred to the fact that only ILEA of all the 104 education authorities in England and Wales has a post, a single post, to help adults with specific learning difficulties. Clearly to divide such a post between each of the London boroughs would be nonsense. ILEA also provides the Ebury Centre for Children with Specific Learning Difficulties. I should not wish to see that centre disappear. It is very important that provision is made for the maintenance of certain joint services by the London boroughs collectively after 1990; and I hope that my noble friend will reassure us on these points.
I am very grateful to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for listening to those people who have raised with him the problems of applying the national curriculum to children with special needs. Clauses 10, 11 and 12 go a very long way indeed towards meeting our concerns. I hope it will not be regarded as carping if I say that a little more is still required. Clause 12 assumes that children will either be exempted temporarily from the requirements of the national curriculum (though I know the temporary periods can be renewed) or should have statements of the special education provision they need made under the 1981 Act. There is still, however, a category of children who will need extra help over a period of two or three years but who should be helped from within the school and will not, therefore, require statements. These children still seem to be excluded—and here I would welcome guidance from my noble friend.
The other problem is that a head teacher can impose, or refuse, a modification against the wishes of parents whose only effective appeal is to the governing body. We are talking about a minority of parents and we know that the governing body is more likely to be representative of the majority whose children do not have special needs. I strongly suspect that such governing bodies in matters of this sort are likely to be guided almost exclusively by the head teacher. There seems to be needed a further right of appeal to an appeal committee.
Local authority maintained schools are in future to be financed through a scheme to be drawn up by the local authority. This will have as its major determinants the numbers and ages of the pupils in the school. The proposal is another that I welcome warmly. It is a well-known principle of management that decisions should be delegated to the lowest possible level and there can be no doubt that decisions about the financing of schools should be taken by the governors and the head teacher. There is, however, a danger. If schools are to be evaluated primarily by their academic results there will be a temptation for head teachers to concentrate on those who are most likely to produce the results and to ignore the needs of those whose learning difficulties may preclude academic success and who therefore are the most expensive to educate.
It is crucial that the scheme of financial delegation includes extra help for children with special needs. I am not here talking only about that minority of
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children who have statements under the 1981 Act. I am talking about those many children with special educational needs whose education is the responsibility of the school and who will not have statements. Any scheme of financial delegation must give extra funding for the education of such children and a requirement for such premium funding should be written into the Bill. Ministers gave assurances in Standing Committee in another place that the Secretary of State would not approve schemes for financial delegation which do not include such premium funding. Secretaries of State though change. If the principle is conceded, that principle should be written into the Bill. Again I should welcome reassurance on this point from my noble friend. The detail can of course be left to regulations and to advice from the Secretary of State.
I have no doubt that allowing schools to opt out of the local education authority maintained system and become grant maintained will be very successful for many schools. The way in which parents have joined together to form organisations such as the British Dyslexia Association shows how capable they are of running their own affairs, including running the schools that their children attend. But there is a danger that children with special educational needs will lose some of the gains that they have secured under the Education Act 1981. Governing bodies of schools do not in our experience pay nearly enough attention to their duties in respect of special education.
A survey in its area by one local dyslexia association showed that only a tiny minority of governing bodies were even aware that they had duties under that Act. The duties to make the provision specified in a statement of special educational needs are imposed upon the local education authority. There are no equivalent duties imposed upon the governors or the head teacher of a school.
It was, I suppose, assumed in 1981 that LEAs and the governors of the schools that they maintained would have no problems in reaching agreement. That has now changed and I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister agrees that it has become important to prohibit the governors of grant maintained (or any other) schools from excluding or refusing to admit a child solely because of that child's special educational needs and to impose upon them the duty of implementing the provisions of a statement.
I have already said that specific learning difficulties are scarcely recognised post-16. Because of this young people who should be able to secure the vocational training that is so important both for them and for the country fail to do so. The British Dyslexia Association knows of only one institution of higher education, Kingston Polytechnic, which makes any special effort to help students who are dyslexic. Outside London there are likewise scarcely any further education colleges that offer such help. The Bill amends Section 41 of the Education Act 1944 to impose a duty upon every local education authority to provide adequate facilities for further education. It then offers some definition of the word "adequate".

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The Education Act 1981 amended the 1944 Act to impose upon local education authorities a duty to have regard in relation to primary and secondary education to the need for securing that special educational provision is made for pupils who have special educational needs. If that was required in relation to schools where local education authorities already made substantial provision, how much more is it necessary for further education, where provision is negligible? Similarly—I shall not argue the case, your Lordships will be glad to hear, because I have already argued it in respect of schools—it is of the greatest importance that schemes for financial delegation include premium funding in further education for students with special educational needs.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, your Lordships may feel that it would be wise for me to postpone the privilege of addressing the House in the debate until tomorrow. Therefore, I move that the debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until tomorrow.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past midnight.

  RADARSAT AND COLUMBUS POLAR PLATFORM
  RADARSAT AND COLUMBUS POLAR PLATFORM
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  PLANT VARIETIES AND SEED CERTIFICATION: REPORT
  PLANT VARIETIES AND SEED CERTIFICATION: REPORT