Sitting of 26 February 1988

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

Transplant Surgery
9.34 am
Mr. Gwilym Jones: I beg to move,
That this House welcomes recent advances in transplant technology and in the availability of transplant operations through the National Health Service; especially welcomes the Government's commitment to secure further progress in this vital area; notes that the recently published Hoffenberg Report recommends steps to improve the supply of donor organs; recognises that it is the shortage of suitable organs satisfactory for donation that limits people's opportunities to enjoy a greatly enhanced quality of life; calls for action to be taken to achieve further improvements by more effective procedures which, whilst being sensitive to the needs of patients, relatives, the bereaved, doctors and other health professionals, effectively identify potential donors and increase the availability of donor organs.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce a short debate on the very important subject of transplant notification procedures. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in her place. I know that she had to reorganise her engagements to be here for this debate, and I regard that as typical of the generous and willing spirit in which she tries to assist all constructive debate on health. I am grateful to her.
If necessary, I shall declare my interest, although it is not in any way a pecuniary interest. I am privileged to be involved in the Kidney Research Unit Foundation for Wales, which, two years ago, invited me to become one of its vice-presidents. I was proud to accept that position and I am proud of KRUF's contribution to kidney treatment in Wales.
The figures clearly show that, since 1984, there has been a marked and welcome improvement in kidney treatment in Wales—even more marked than the improvement in England. That is the result of a new approach to kidney treatment at two units in Bangor and Carmarthen in which KRUF has played a significant part. In turn, the two new units have played a significant part in the Welsh figures—so much so that the new approach, if properly followed in Wales and elsewhere, could ultimately eliminate all the shortfall in dialysis treatment, probably without the need for extra machinery or staff.
Kidney transplantation is the ideal conclusion to dialysis treatment. I contend that not enough progress is being made in this vital treatment. We are not capitalising on the tremendous fund of good will among the public. The number of transplant operations is increasing and will continue to increase, but so, too, are the waiting lists for transplant operations. We are not making the best use of our resources, by which I mean donors, potential donors and the willingness of the public to facilitate transplantation.
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Why do we not capitalise on the known good will of the public? It is perhaps useful to consider a recent survey carried out by Cambridge university of 1,500 adults' attitudes towards transplantation. On being asked, 80 per cent.—a very welcome proportion—gave gave their approval for the transplantation of any or all of their organs. However, on further questioning, it was discovered that only 23 per cent. of the sample had donor cards in recognition of their willingness to become donors. Furthermore, only 14 per cent. carried those donor cards. We might rely on donor cards to indicate a person's wish to donate organs at the crucial time, but the survey clearly shows that the cards do not provide an adequate means of identifying potential donors. Donor cards should not be written off, but they are certainly not the complete success that we should like them to be or that they were perhaps envisaged when they were first introduced some 17 years ago.
Donor cards are not the only device to promote the needs and benefits of transplantation. There is another Welsh success, again involving KRUF. In 1986-87 KRUF carried out two associated operations. First, it set up Lifeline Wales — a computerised system. It leafleted every home in Wales exhorting Welsh people to register on Lifeline Wales' computer their willingness to donate their organs.
The Lifeline Wales computer could then be consulted by on line computers in intensive care units to ascertain donor wishes. KRUF also held symposiums in 1986 and 1987 and, as a result, it was able to involve the consultants and nurses of all the intensive care units and to expound the benefits and needs for transplantation. Such an achievement would not have been possible as a result of one symposium.
As a result of the increased awareness and publicity of the need and benefit of transplantation, there was a marked increase in the number of such operations carried out in Wales in 1987. Can such an improvement be continued? The achievements of the symposiums and Lifeline Wales cannot be easily repeated. The operations were carried out at no small effort or cost. Indeed, a novelty factor may have been involved that could be lost in repetition.
I am sure that the House will recall that I sought to introduce a ten-minute Bill, the Transplant Notification Bill, on 3 February. Ideally, I would prefer that, this morning, I was moving the Second Reading of that Bill. I know that that is not possible, but I believe that it is pertinent to try to put forward the arguments and objectives of my Bill. The Bill sought to introduce what can popularly be described as "required-request legislation". That legislation would ensure that the necessary questions to ascertain donors' wishes are asked at the right time. I believe that such questions are not asked often enough.
In essence my Bill was a response to the Hoffenberg report—the results of a working party from the medical royal colleges set up on the invitation of the Department of Health and Social Security under the chairmanship of Sir Raymond Hoffenberg. I am disappointed by the conclusions and recommendations of that report. I do not believe that there is likely to be an improvement in the progress of transplantation operations, for which we all wish, as a result of that report. I am especially

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disappointed that the report did not argue that we should grasp any significant nettle that may hold out hope for progress.
The report describes the shortfall in organs for donation — that was the essential reason for the establishment of the working party. It refers to the important criteria relating to brain-stem deaths — an essential part of the practicalities involved with organ removal. The brain-stem death test was first established in 1976 and has been reaffirmed in 1979, 1983 and 1986. The report defines when organs need to be removed. Hearts, livers, pancreases and lungs must be taken from a heart-beating donor—the heart is maintained only as a result of the patient being in intensive care. Kidneys need to be removed at the same time or immediately after death, whereas corneas can be removed up to 12 hours after death.
The report estimates the number of brain-stem deaths that usually occur each year. It also gives the transplant figures for 1986 and the first quarter of 1987. In its introduction, it makes a vital projection relating to kidney transplants. Kidney transplants are our greatest need and represent the greatest number of transplantation operations carried out. The report projects that our total need for kidney transplants could be fulfilled if a greater proportion of the usual number of brain-stem death cases were to become kidney donors.
The report lists eight reasons for the shortfall in organ donations. The first is doubt about the success of the transplantation programme. I agree with the report that that can no longer be considered a valid reason for the lack of organs for transplant. I believe that the public are now aware of the benefits of transplantation; that contributes largely to public goodwill towards such transplantation. The report also states that doubt about the criteria for brain death contributes to the organ shortfall. It refers to certain publicity that has led to worries about brain-stem death criteria. As a consequence, there has been a marked downturn in the number of organs coming through for donation. The report emphatically states that there can be no question that survival is in any way relegated to second place after the need for transplant organs. With equal emphasis, the report says there is no possibility that organs can or will be taken from a live patient.
The report also refers to lack of medical experience and knowledge contributing to the shortfall. The report says that most doctors do not have frequent experience of brain-stem death or transplantation. It believes that doctors will not even encounter such cases once a year. However, the report does not state whether it means most doctors, or most doctors in intensive care units — I believe that there is a significant difference between the two categories.
The report also says that transplantation operations may be affected by the pressure on intensive care beds. There are other priorities with which an intensive care unit must deal that might frustrate the opportunities for organ removal. The report makes the somewhat unusual comment that, if relatives request organs to be donated, the move into an intensive care bed "should be considered". I believe that such a "consideration" is an insubstantial approach to a most important matter.
The report also refers to the effect of limited time—several hours must be spent in making the arrangements
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for transplantation. However, I believe that our transplant teams are well versed in all that is involved and the crucial necessity to ensure that transplantation timings coincide. Indeed, we are all aware of a recent example on television when a donor heart and the recipient had to be brought by aircraft from different parts of the country to Papworth hospital. I believe that transplant teams are geared up for such operations and that there should be no fear about limited time. The report also mentioned the problems of limited theatre time; that relates to the pressure on intensive care beds and the other emergencies with which operating theatres must deal.
Another reason listed for the shortfall in transplants—a new area for consideration—is that of costs. There is an increasing and justified need for clinical budgeting and an awareness of cost within the Health Service that has implications for other treatments.
The final reason suggested by the report for the shortfall was medico-legal constraints, but it believes that such constraints do not represent a problem. I am struck by the thinness of some of the reasons for the shortfall and the omission of what I consider, in common with many others, to be the main problem with regard to transplantation—the need to ask the right questions. Are those questions being asked? If not, why not?
At the beginning of the report, it states that a questionnaire was sent to all intensive care units. However, that questionnaire and its results have not been published— we do not know what has been gained from it. Three oral evidence sessions were held by the Hoffenberg working party, and evidence taken from another 37 individuals, but that has not been published. If all such information had been made available, we would have a much thicker document than the present six pages. Given the importance of the subject, I believe that the report should be thicker.
Recently, another survey has been carried out for the BBC television programme "That's Life". That survey was sent to 200 intensive care units and asked consultants and senior nurses why the important questions are not asked. Three reasons were given. The first was a dislike for adding to distress. There is a natural desire not to increase the distress of relatives at a very emotional time. The second reason given was the lack of training in approaching relatives at that crucial time. The third reason was bad publicity about brain death and transplants. I am surprised at that third reason from consultants and nurses in intensive care units. I feel that that survey, and the one pursued by the Hoffenberg working party deserve to be pursued further to see what else we can learn.
I am even more concerned about a statement from the British Organ Donor Society. It makes the following comment:
"We understand that there are some intensive care units where, as a matter of internal or personal policy, families will not be approached concerning organ donation."
The three reasons given in the survey are worthy of consideration. The statement from the British Organ Donor Society suggests a negative position that frustrates a purpose that we should all like to see pursued.
There are 14 numbered paragraphs of recommendations in the Hoffenberg report, which are largely in line with the reasons given for the shortage of organs. The report reaffirms the working party's conviction about the brain-stem death criteria. The working party report states that brain death means death. It recommends the

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important need for training of medical students and postgraduates in four sectors — the criteria for brain death, the success and demands of organ transplantation, communication with bereaved relatives — that is a particularly important matter — and training in procedures to arrange for transplantation.
The report recommends that clearly defined national and local criteria for the acceptance or rejection of organ donation should be established. It makes the specific point that paragraph 6 of the code of practice on organs for transplantation needs modifying.
In line with the recommendation for training for medical students and postgraduates, the report recommends that there should be similar training for nurses— in assisting with the determination of death, with the removal of organs and in communication with relatives.
The report recommends that theatre arrangements should be simplified. Reference is made to the Cambridge initiative, whereby a single team achieves multiple organ removal. That must be a simpler and better approach to organ removal.
The report recommends that district health authorities should be reimbursed for the cost of providing donor organs. That is an important matter, because it relates to at least three of the reasons that have been listed for the shortage of organs. The main reason given in the report is that entitled cost, and the needs with regard to clinical budgeting, the awareness of cost and the implications for other treatments. There are the further reasons of pressure on intensive care beds, the other priorities that must be considered and the limited theatre time, with the implications that that has for other emergencies.
The report recommends that corneal donation should always be encouraged. It says that there is a need to alter the wording on donor cards.
Running through the recommendations is an advocacy of the need for better information about transplants and their benefit. It says that better information should be provided on a continuing basis inside hospitals and outside hospitals for the general public. Essentially, it is an ongoing public relations campaign to achieve improved transplantation.
On the fundamental matter of the asking of questions about a donor's wishes, the report is not brief, but it is still not as substantial or as positive as it might be. It talks about means that should be found to ensure that donor's wishes are better known. It uses the examples of the Lifeline Wales project and other similar projects throughout the country as possible ways of achieving that objective. It says that organ donation should always be considered. To my mind, that is a perfectly obvious statement.
The report comes down against an opting-out procedure. I would not wish to differ with that argument because with transplantation we should always maintain the important principle of the gift of life, which benefits the giver as well as the receiver, and which in turn comforts the relatives of the deceased.
The report comes down against the concept of required request, but it does not offer any evidence or argument as to why we should not pursue it. Instead, as a stop-gap, the report calls for an audit of the diagnoses of brain death, of the numbers of transplants and the reason for the shortfall. It expects that the senior doctor should make
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the first approach on all occasions to ascertain a donor's wishes. It recommends that each district health authority should develop a policy for transplantation.
With regard to the Hoffenberg report, I would say, "Fine so far, but not far enough." I have a vague feeling of superficiality about it. It has skimped the main problem of the questions that are not being asked often enough. Perhaps the survey would have told us more, but it has not been published. If it had been, we might be aware of another problem that has recently been highlighted by the heart transplant surgeon, Mr. John Wallwork. He sought to define the knock-on effect of the shortage of hearts for transplantation. He said that if hearts could only be transplanted earlier into a fitter patient, it would require less nursing and less caring than is being devoted at present to looking after a less fit transplant patient. That extra nursing and caring could be devoted to an increased number of transplants. I think that that is the most relevant point about that knock-on effect.
Equally relevant is the projection that Mr. Wallwork has made that one in five people on the waiting list for heart transplants may be expected to die before an operation can be carried out. That is an improvement, because until recently it was expected that one in four might die before a transplant could be carried out. We do not know whether any of those aspects were covered in the survey that the working party considered or in the evidence that it took.
The report abruptly comes down against required request, but we are no better informed about it. I suspect that lurking within the recommendations of the Hoffenberg report is the spurious argument that required request interferes with clinical freedom. That spurious argument has yet to be defined in a meaningful way. Clinical freedom concerns judgments about a patient's care. I cannot see how wishes for donation interfere with a patient's care. In that context, Mr. Ross Taylor of the Royal Victoria hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne said:
"By not legislating we are protecting non-existent rights of people in intensive care units in the form of doctors and nurses, disregarding very definite rights of donors and donor families who are not being asked."
I should add that we are disregarding the rights of people who are waiting for transplants. Mr. Taylor goes on to estimate that there is potential for increasing the number of transplants fivefold.
Professor Arthur Caplan of the university of Minnesota is even stronger in his defence of required-request legislation. He has good credentials because, besides being professor of medical ethics at the University of Minnesota, he has been involved with the setting up of required-request legislation in various states of America. That legislation is now in place in the majority—33—of the states. He argues that required-request has nothing to do with restriction or coercion; he says that it offers a choice. Already, thousands of people in the United States have benefited from the coming to pass of required-request legislation. He feels that that is the finest justification for its introduction.
Professor Caplan said that he would say to doctors:
"Take seriously your obligation as healers. Take seriously your duty to transform tragedy into something good. If it's not legislated, then by choice, I would hope that the British Medical Association would very quickly decide to put the policy in place on its own, and it could—there's nothing to stop them from doing it anyway."

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Although I have great reservations about the Hoffenberg report, I by no means totally condemn it. It contains much of great value. I look forward to finding out whether my hon. Friend the Minister can tell me about progress in implementing the important recommendations in the report. By "important considerations" I have in mind the recommendations that each district health authority should institute an operational policy for transplantation and the recommendation that training should be provided for medical students, postgraduates and nurses in all the various areas, not least in communicating with bereaved relatives. Importantly, cost is highlighted in the report. There is the recommendation that district health authorities should be reimbursed for the cost of organ removal.
None of us would want aspects of clinical budgeting or the awareness of costs to be the cause of frustrating further expansion in transplantation. Certainly, there are financial implications, not just in cost but in savings to the Health Service. For example, kidney transplants are the ideal conclusion of dialysis. It is estimated that dialysis costs an average of £15,000 a year for each patient. That expenditure would not have to be maintained and would be a saving that could be applied to further patient care in the NHS.
There is also the aspect that my hon. Friend the Minister recently and rightly observed. Each successful transplant means that an ill person becomes a fit person. There is a greatly improved quality of life and patients would probably resume their occupation or take up an occupation, in turn making a contribution to our economy, at the very least by paying tax. The recommendation about cost in the Hoffenberg report certainly needs to be pursued.
I should remind the House of the minor point about altering the wording on donor cards. The card refers to the removal of eyes. However, it is not eyes that are removed but corneas. The Hoffenberg report has drawn our attention to that possibly off-putting effect, which may worry some people.
We should go further than the Hoffenberg report. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to add lustre to her reputation and to be remembered for a long time as the Minister who seized the banner of required-request and achieved tremendous progress. I have referred to some statistics but it is not enough just to use bald statistics. We are dealing with human beings.
With that in mind, I refer to a recent tragedy that is relevant to the debate. It was written on the front page of the Fareham and Gosport Street Life of Thursday 18 February. It said:
"Genna Trapp died a month before her third birthday because doctors could not find a donor to replace her damaged liver … And they now say Genna should never have died. A change in Britain's transplant laws could have saved her, they say. Liver specialist at King's College Hospital in London, Doctor Roger Williams watched Genna die … He wants drastic changes to make more livers available. 'The law should be changed so that people are automatically asked about donating organs when a child dies', he said. 'It's a system that works in America and it is called Required Request. There are children like Genna dying and they will continue to do so unless this happens. It is a terrible waste.'"
My fear is that our waiting list for transplants could continue to increase beyond the level of potential donations. The current waiting list for kidneys is 3,485.
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Last year, 1,566 kidney transplant operations were carried out. However, our waiting list will not decline at the rate of 1,500 a year, because each year more patients are diagnosed as being in need of dialysis and, eventually transplant. It is likely that the waiting list, even with that level of operations being maintained, will grow by 1,000 per annum. The Hoffenberg report estimates that there are 4,000 brain-stem deaths each year. That means 8,000 kidneys. If our waiting list continues to increase by 1,000 per year, in what year will that waiting list be greater than the potential number of kidneys available for transplant?
There are grotesque alternatives that are being pursued. Attempts are being made to use pig valves and baboon hearts for transplant purposes. For instance, a baby was kept alive in 1984 for 20 days by the transplant of a baboon's heart. I learned this week of a $3 million grant project in the United States of America for the farming of chimpanzees so that their hearts and kidneys can be taken for transplantation. We know of the trade in India of purchasing kidneys from healthy poor people.
Occasionally, some of those techniques might be indispensable in adding to the sum of our medical knowledge, but in general I feel that we are going down dangerous roads. We are taking immoral and unethical avenues that we should not be pursuing. The detestable trade in India of selling kidneys and preying on the poor is but a short step from even more vile practices such as murder, body snatching and the involvement of organised crime. We may detest those practices, but we recognise that desperation for transplants is the essential motivation.
On balance, I acknowledge and praise the tremendous progress that has been made in transplantation and the continuing increase in transplants. It may be said that over 8,000 people are now alive and enjoying a greatly improved quality of life who might not be alive if it were not for the transplant programme. I acknowledge and praise our Government's commitment to wanting to achieve further progress. At the risk of repetition, it is only required-request that will make significant progress. Substantial authorities are in favour of required-request, as are various medical experts. It is already in operation in various states of America.
Arguably, there is overwhelming support for required-request. We can already show good will towards transplantation and a wish to see it expanded further. Closest to home, the chairman of the Kidney Research Unit Foundation for Wales, Mr. Wilkinson, has told me about discussions at the Elephant and Castle in which he participated, where the majority favoured the earliest move to required-request legislation.
Against that is the position set out in the Hoffenberg report, of essentially trying to continue to rely on the voluntary approach, when it must be staring us in the face that the voluntary approach is not succeeding and when the demand on the waiting list is likely to increase. So much has been done and continues to be done. However, I argue strongly that we should grasp the nettle of required-request.
10.8 am
Mr. Ray Whitney: I convey my warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) on the excellent contribution he has made to our debate and to his sustained leadership of a campaign on a crucial crusade which will, when he

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succeeds—I hope that it will be only a short time before he does so—enhance the quality of life of so many of our fellow citizens.
I also congratulate the health authorities in Wales which, in many areas, show a commendable initiative that could well be copied by other regional health authorities in the United Kingdom. For example, Heartbeat Wales is at least two or three years ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom. The results of Heartbeat Wales have been shown in the coronary heart disease statistics. That is another area in which we grievously need to make progress.
When I had the privilege of filling the post now so splendidly filled by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), it became clear to me that organ transplants were a technique that should be looked at positively. The more I examined it, the more I became convinced that it was the way to go. I therefore went to the United States two or three years ago and was deeply impressed by the progress that individual states of the Union had made. Their record since then amply justifies the optimism that most of the proponents of the required-request system then had. It was partly my own enthusiasm which led to the creation of the committee under Sir Raymond Hoffenberg. I share the disappointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North at the failure of the Hoffenberg report to go any further.
Those of us who have examined the issue recognise the immense sensitivities and difficulties about the time of bereavement, and the great anxiety of the next of kin and of the doctors and nurses concerned with the case. We must also recognise that those of us who are not in the profession would offer views on the clinical and medical aspects only with the greatest timidity and sensitivity. That being said, I believe that, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North mentioned — I shall not weary the House by repeating them— we must re-examine what we should do.
Of all groups in the country, members of the medical profession are the most conservative. I am afraid that my hon. Friends at the DHSS cannot just sit back, accept the medical advice and leave it at that. There are clinicians who know of the immense advantages for quality of life and rapidity of treatment — not to mention economic savings in the Health Service — but the balance of medical opinion will always continue to push in the opposite direction. We need leadership from the Ministry and the Department— and from us, as legislators. It is for that leadership, positive encouragement and active promotion that we look to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
10.13 am
Ms. Harriet Harman: I hope the House will forgive me, but I almost completely lost my voice yesterday, and it has only partly returned this morning. I shall be brief and, I hope, to the point.
I warmly thank the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) for bringing the issue back to the House today and for the points that he made in support of his motion, with which I almost entirely agreed. He was right to say that there is agreement that more action is needed and that the situation is unsatisfactory. Advances in transplant medicine have meant that thousands of people, who would otherwise have died or been condemned to lead
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miserable life, can live and enjoy an almost normal one. Many people, because of the shortage of transplant organs, cannot benefit from transplant surgery and must wait a long time in misery, or die while they are waiting. So there is general recognition that something more needs to be done, but there is no agreement about what.
Some would argue that organs should be taken unless the deceased's relatives veto that action. That approach has been adopted in some states in the USA. It dramatically reduces the waiting lists and increases the supply of organs available for transplant. However, some people fear that, however watertight we try to make the system for ensuring that a veto has not been exercised, some people's organs will be taken, despite profound objections on the part of relatives who did not find out in time.
The Hoffenberg report makes nine recommendations, which include further publicity and education but essentially leave the structure of the system unchanged. The Government should adopt all the proposals in the Hoffenberg report and implement them straight away. I also understand the concerns that the report's proposals do not go far enough, will not ensure that enough organs are available for transplant, and will not significantly reduce waiting lists. Required-request is a middle way between requiring people to opt out with a veto and leaving the position as it is now.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North discussed the required-request system, distinguishing it from a voluntary one. I think that the required-request system remains a voluntary system because, after the request has been made, the organs are taken for transplant only if they are volunteered by the relatives. It would become an obligation for the doctor to consider whether an organ donation would be possible, and if the doctor thought that the organs were suitable for donation the obligation would be on him to ask the relatives whether the organs could be made available. Some have expressed concern that that would upset newly bereaved relatives, but I believe that if there were a statutory obligation it would help doctors. They would merely be carrying out a task that they were obliged to do. That would assist them in approaching relatives and making the request. Similarly, doctors ask someone for consent before an operation because there is a legal requirement to do so, and people understand why they are doing it. It does not necessarily mean that they think things will go wrong. It is a formal procedure that people understand doctors must go through.
If doctors explained to relatives that they were required to request the organs and that the decision was entirely up to the relatives, that would be a straightforward procedure which I would welcome. There is no risk in that approach that organs would be taken against the wishes of the relatives, because they would have to be asked. There would also be no risk of relatives, who might have wanted the organs to be donated, not being asked. We should be concerned about that, too.
This is not a substitute for a proper public information campaign about the importance of organ donation and the transplant programme. The required-request system should be accompanied by a public information campaign about the possible benefits for those who have transplants. I urge the Government to accept the approach recommended by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North, and to go further than that. They should do more to promote the development of bereavement counselling and

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to train hospital staff to deal with relatives who have recently been bereaved. At the same time as adopting the required-request approach, I want them to carry out research into the long-term effect on relatives who have allowed organs to be used for transplant. Often, recently bereaved people's feelings change. We might find that people feel a greater degree of gratitude if they have the opportunity to donate their deceased relatives' organs for transplantation.
We need a better understanding of the short-term effect on people. We also need a longer-term research programme to examine the effect on bereaved relatives, particularly parents, of making organs available for transplantation. I urge the Government to make sufficient finance available to district health authorities so that the cost of intensive care is not a deterrent to making organs available. The Government must also take action to ensure that there are enough nurses and medical staff so that the removal of organs can take place. Obviously, I should like to see an expansion and development of research into the matter. It is the responsibility of the Government of the day to provide the basis for medical advance and lay the groundwork for breakthroughs in future.
Transplantation is a difficult matter, surrounded as it is with fears about spare parts surgery. When I asked myself whether I would be prepared to have my organs used after my death, without any hesitation and difficulty I said yes. I have carried a donor card for years. I have absolutely no difficulty about that. My husband, who comes from a Catholic background, is certainly against the cremation of his body. He has a different approach, but he automatically said yes, he would be prepared for any of his organs to be used for transplantation after his death.
We asked ourselves whether, if one of our children suddenly died, we would be prepared to allow their organs to be used for transplantation. We paused and felt that sense of horror that parents obviously feel when they think about their child's organs being taken out of their dead body and donated. For a few seconds, we imagined ourselves in the shoes of the parents of a desperately ill child who needed a transplant. It is easy to understand why the required-request system must be introduced. Our answer to the request would be yes. We must always recognise that there is a sense of contradiction. We must be on the side of those who have the possibility of life, and we must make that possibility a reality by ensuring that organs are available.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North has a great deal of support for his motion. He has the support of many hon. Members who are not able to be here today but have asked me to convey to him their support. They are concerned that the Government should take action. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is not able to be here, but I can say that he fully supports the points that were made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North. I support the endeavours of the hon. Gentleman and hope that the Government will respond positively and take action where it is needed.
10.23 am
Mr. Michael Shersby: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones)
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on his good fortune in the ballot and on choosing the important matter of transplant notification procedures as the subject of debate. I am pleased to support his motion.
My interest in this subject arises from the fact that one of the country's principal centres of excellence in heart and heart-lung transplantation is Harefield hospital, which is situated in my constituency. As a result, I have a close, ongoing relationship with Professor Magdi Yacoub and his team, and take a close interest in the availability of donor organs and the advancement of transplant surgery generally. The only real limitation on the number of transplants that are carried out at Harefield is the availability of donor hearts. The clinical criteria for carrying out transplants are widening as the success of operations becomes more clearly demonstrated.
In 1987, 180 transplants were carried out at Harefield. A total of 550 transplants have been carried out there. The longest survivor is now eight and a half years on from a transplant operation. There is an 80 per cent. survival rate at two years, as against the possibility that all patients would have died within six months had no transplants been carried out. Of the 550 transplant operations, some 250 have been carried out during the past two years. Now, unlike other operations, there is almost complete certainty that patients would have died had no donor hearts been available.
In the current year, Harefield has about £3.1 million to carry out 180 transplants under the National Health Service. That sum includes an additional £740,000, which has just been allocated by North West Thames regional health authority. I pay tribute to the North West Thames regional health authority for the wonderful support that it has always given the transplantation programme at Harefield. The regional health authority and the Hillingdon district health authority have ensured that it is now one of the premier centres of excellence. As evidence of that, the expansion of the National Health Service and the improvement in patient care, only last Thursday Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York opened the new intensive therapy unit at Harefield, which is now providing excellent care for transplantees. The unit cost about £1.4 million. It is yet another example of new NHS facilities being opened and of the way in which the taxpayer is receiving better health care.
The unit looks after adult cardiac and thoracic surgical patients and adult patients who are recovering from heart or heart-lung transplants. It contains a range of highly sophisticated monitoring and life support systems. Alongside it is the new Eric Morecambe department of cardiology, named after the comedian whom we all knew and loved so well and who benefited from cardiac surgery. The building costs were paid by the generous support of the Sportsman's Aid Society, and the furniture and fitting were paid for by the hospital league of friends. I pay tribute to their generosity. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North will not mind referring to those matters in passing.
All the facilities and the substantial available funds can be deployed to maximum effect only if more donor hearts are available. The Hoffenburg report attempts to discuss the present position of organ donation and the reasons for the shortfall in donations. It makes a valuable contribution to a better understanding of the main problems facing doctors and the problems of relatives of deceased persons whose organs are needed for transplants.

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The report sets out to reassure the public about the criteria to be adopted before organs are removed. It is clear, reassuring and helpful on brain stem death.
As my hon. Friends, the Members for Cardiff, North and for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) and the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) pointed out, the report rejects the concept of legally required request—a concept that has now been adopted in 30 states of the United States of America — whereby a hospital administrator or his assignee should ask a deceased person's relatives for the gift of organs.
As my hon. Friend has said, the option of an effective audit is, in the opinion of the working party, preferable to the legally required-request procedure. My hon. Friend has pointed to all the difficulties that that would present in the future and he is not optimistic that it would lead to an increase in the supply of donor organs. I must agree with him. I am sure it will mean a continuing shortage of donor organs and a continuing waiting list for those patients for whom a transplant is the only hope of life.
I think that I can understand why the report reached that conclusion. No doubt, among the many other matters that they considered, the members of the working party had in mind the distress to relatives of those who have suffered sudden death. However, I wonder whether they took account of the feelings that relatives expressed in "That's Life." They made it clear that if they had been asked to agree to the donation of the organs of their deceased relatives, they would have done so, and that today they would have felt a great sense of comfort that the organs of their loved ones were making it possible for another person to live a normal, happy and healthy life.
The hon. Member for Peckham made what I thought was a good suggestion; namely, that research should be initiated by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), and her Department into the attitudes of bereaved relatives. We need to know more on that subject. We need to know the views of those people who have suffered bereavement.
If the concept of required-request is not to be adopted, what is the alternative? Indeed, is there a reasonable alternative that would lead to an increase in the supply of donor organs? I believe that there is only one realistic alternative and only one other way forward: to secure the support of the public, and especially of young people, for carrying donor cards or, even better, some other form of a much more permanent indication of their willingness, or otherwise, to donate their organs.
Yesterday two young women work-shadowed me in the House of Commons. They came from Bishopshalt and Swakeleys schools in my constituency. Last night we discussed this debate and I asked them about their attitudes towards the donation of organs. I was proud to find that both those young women carried donor cards. One of them had obtained her card from a chemist and the other one had seen the cards in a doctor's surgery and collected her card from there. The only realistic way forward is to ensure that the vast majority of people are persuaded to carry a donor card, especially young people.
One nasty aspect of this whole business is that often in serious accidents the donor card is separated from the individual who has suffered the accident, and it is not found until too much time has elapsed to remove an organ. We need to find other ways to signify an individual's agreement to donate organs. The report talks about the
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possibility of agreement, or otherwise, being shown on a driving licence. Another possibility would be that each individual who holds a driving licence should be entitled to notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre of their wishes and that that information should be kept on the DVLC computer. Another way of handling this matter might be to encourage the wearing of what in world war 2 were called "dog tags"; in other words, a simple and elegant chain around the neck, perhaps with a small plate bearing one's name and an indication of one's wishes.
In addition to those identification procedures, I believe that there is another way of tackling the problem. I urge my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to discuss with her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the carrying out of a sustained education programme in our schools.
Public opinion on this matter is most likely to change if people make the decision themselves. Young people are far less apprehensive about such matters than their parents. They have grown up in an era when heart and heart-lung transplantation is almost an every-day occurrence. They believe in it and are proud of it and in many cases want to support it. That presents an alternative way forward to required-request. We should secure the voluntary support of the public, and especially of young people.
I welcome the motion most warmly. It is important. It could well be that in the next year many people who receive heart or heart and lung transplants will have cause to be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North for drawing attention to these matters. He may have succeeded in taking a major step forward in encouraging many people to indicate their wishes now and thus make more organs available.
There is no doubt that in the years to come major advances will be made in cardiac surgery of every kind. It could well be that within a decade or more we shall no longer have to rely on the transplantation of human organs, and that it will be possible to substitute for them artificial organs of some kind. Although we have not yet reached that stage, I have no doubt that it will come. Until it does, I have no doubt that we need to secure the support of the population of this country to donate organs to make it possible for other people to live.
10.36 am
Mr. David Wilshire: I thank my lion. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) for giving all of us who feel strongly about this subject the chance to join the debate. The part of the motion about which I wish to speak relates to identifying donors and obtaining organs. However, having heard the discussion about required request, I am prompted into saying something further about that.
The reason I want to join the debate is that I can speak from direct personal experience. It is important that those of us with such experience join in, because far too often any discussion of these issues is either academic-led or medical-led. I believe that those of us who have been through the mill ought to speak up; we have something to contribute.
Six and a half years ago our daughter choked to death at school. She was taken to hospital and my wife and I rushed there. To this day. I can remember every awful detail of what followed. We were surrounded by enormous help and a huge amount of support so what I want to say

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implies no criticism of anybody. However, no use was made of any part of Sarah's body. No thought was given to it by us, and it was not mentioned to us by anybody else.
Six and a half years later the dust has settled a bit and it is possible to think positively and constructively about what we went through. Sharing that sort of experience may well help people to come to some sort of conclusion of their own, and it may help us to nudge people towards thinking about it for themselves. Indeed, it may nudge the medical profession into plucking up the courage to ask more often. I use the word "nudge" and will talk about "encourage" deliberately, because I am against compulsion. I am against legislation trying to force anything in this sensitive area.
That experience taught me and my wife three things. Our first conclusion was that a great deal more could be done to encourage people to think about these nasty issues when there is no crisis. We had long since carried kidney donor cards, but if only, when there was no crisis, somebody had encouraged us to think about the unthinkable—our children's possible death—we could have done something then. We would have mocked and said, "Of course we do not need to think about our children's death", but in our case circumstances proved otherwise.
Our second conclusion is that some thought needs to be given to what happens when people have been encouraged to do something for themselves. I have a feeling that no one in the NHS or anywhere else knows that I carry a kidney donor card. The chances are that if I turn up when someone is interested in knowing whether I have a card I shall be in no position to tell that person, and there is a good chance that I shall turn up without my wallet. If someone said to me, "Here is a computer-based register. Would you like to put your name on it?" I should be the first to volunteer.
The third conclusion that I reached was that ways must be found of asking distraught relatives whether they are willing to help. Much has been said about required request. My experience teaches me several things. Any suggestion of the right to remove must be resisted at all costs. Any suggestion that distraught relatives have to go through some sort of system of opting out must be resisted. Compulsory asking is far too insensitive a way to deal with an issue that is complex and needs to be handled in a different way. I realise that what I am saying means that there will probably be fewer organs available than if we went down the road of compulsion. My experience taught me. Although I regret that I was not asked, I cannot bring myself to accept that compulsion in that circumstance would help.
The problem is that someone must do something and it has to be done at the worst possible time. It is in the moments after an unexpected bereavement that the question must be asked. Time is of the essence and, sadly, accident victims are often the best source of organs. If progress is to be made, the asking process must be made natural and normal. Whatever we decide to do, we must all accept that there will always be a risk of hurting people when one asks. Sometimes, one will even outrage people, but, looking back, I wish that someone had asked me.
How should we get the question asked? Perhaps training could be given — this has been mentioned several times in the debate—to all hospital staff in how
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to decide for themselves whether the bereaved people with whom they are dealing are the sort whom they should ask, and training could also be given in how to ask. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will consider whether district health authorities and family practitioner committees could be encouraged to develop local guidelines on how to set up some sort of system for getting the question asked more often.
Perhaps people such as myself who have been through this mill and know, although we are laymen, exactly what we are talking about, could somehow be encouraged to volunteer and the hospitals be asked to keep a list or register of those whom they could telephone asking them urgently to come and talk to people going through what others had been through before. I stress that it must be encouraged request, not required request.
If we are to make progress, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North wishes, it will come from identifying donors and obtaining organs rather than from anything else. Looking back on what happened to me, I believe that we must encourage people to think the unthinkable. We must persuade them to offer parts of their own bodies and, when they are least able to think about these matters, to agree that parts of their relatives' bodies can be made available as well.
If my personal experience teaches me anything, and if that experience is of any help to other people, I sum it up like this: I wish that I had been asked and, as I said earlier, I mean no criticism of anyone that I was not, because I could always have said no. Because I was incapable of thinking clearly at the time and because no one asked me, no part of my dear daughter's body has ever been able to help anyone.
10.44 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mrs. Edwina Currie): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) on his success in the ballot and on again giving us an opportunity to debate this important subject. His speech was not only interesting and extremely well researched but a major contribution to the debates and thinking on these topics.
I thank also my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney), for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) and the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) for their speeches. I was deeply moved by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne. I was going to read out some letters from parents whose children had died and who had been unable to make a donation of that kind, but my hon. Friend's comments have made that unnecessary. I hope that his words will move the nation as they have moved me.
As part of my research for this debate, I read through some old Hansards on the subject. It was a fascinating exercise for anyone interested in how attitudes have changed in this tricky subject, and I recommend it. If one goes back to 20 December 1960 and the debate on the Second Reading of the Human Tissue Bill, we find Mr. Kenneth Robinson, then the Opposition spokesman on health, telling the House:
"About ten years ago I was approached by certain members of the medical profession about the difficulties of getting sufficient corneas for grafting. I spoke to the then Minister of Health and asked whether there was anything I could do by way of publicity and Parliamentary Questions. The right hon. Gentleman went away and, having seen his

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advisers, came back and said to me, 'For heaven's sake do not raise this matter. Corneal grafting is going on, but the moment we give it any publicity there will be religious objections and the whole matter may come to an end. So please leave it alone.'" —[Official Report. 20 December 1960; Vol. 632, c. 1235.]
The thought that these days anyone would have strong religious objections to corneal transplants probably seems preposterous to us, and the thought that these days any Minister of Health might want to discourage progress is, I hope, also preposterous.
The Human Tissue Bill was not the first legislation on this subject, for it replaced and augmented the Corneal Grafting Act 1952 which, in turn, augmented the Anatomy Act 1832, which was the first legislation on this subject, and parts of which are still extant. To look back on all that was an interesting exercise. There were ten-minute Bills, one after the other, in the 1960s and 1970s, many at the instigation of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). There was the statement in the House 20 years ago, almost to the week, again by Mr. Kenneth Robinson following Britain's first heart transplant.
The House, in the shape of its Back-Bench Members, has an outstanding record in raising this important issue, but some features have struck me forcefully. First, there has always been much public support for the transplant programme. The British public has always been interested in the subject and very supportive. Outright opposition has always been confined to relatively few people among the lay public. Secondly, one of the key necessary changes has had to come in attitudes to death. I noted with interest the words of Norman St. John-Stevas, now Lord St. John of Fawsley, in the debate in February 1969, in which he said firmly:
"death is the final and irreversible cessation of perceptible heartbeat and respiration."—[Official Report, 26 February 1969; Vol. 778, e. 1739.]
Twenty years on I think that it is now generally accepted that brain-stem death is the appropriate criterion. Legislation in other countries copies our codes on brain-stem death, which have been in operation here for some time.
The third feature which is obvious to anyone who looks back into this subject is that the surgery is technically much trickier than anyone expected. The first 100 or so kidney transplant patients all died and the first heart transplant patients never left hospital. For many years, the success of kidney transplantation was below 50 per cent. Only recently have many of the technical difficulties been overcome, with increased attention to the removal of the organ, so that it is not damaged, and to the insertion in the patient requiring the transplant and with the advent of cyclosporin and other drugs, which have been an immense help in preventing rejection. This is now one of our most, rather than least, successful forms of surgery.
The fourth thing that struck me was that there were never enough organs. There never have been enough organs and I suspect that there may never be enough organs. When Lord Ennals stood at the Dispatch Box and some 700 kidney transplants a year were being done, the waiting list was 1,200. We could now cover that in about eight months in any particular year. However, I suspect that our waiting list now, to which attention has been drawn, suggests that there is possibly no natural limit to what could be done in this area.
Far more people are now on dialysis, and the advent of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, which is
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particularly helpful to diabetics and to the elderly, has shown that many people can be kept alive for longer and many more people can benefit. One might speculate that in future the transplantation of heart or kidney might be as commonplace as putting in a heart pacemaker. With the improvement in anaesthesics that is now occurring, it may well be done in future under a local anaesthetic. One can see that by the beginning of the next century, in other words another 20 years on, the debate may take much the same form about not enough organs as now.
Yet what has become apparent in all the years during which this has been discussed is that the operation is never commonplace and never can be. It is not commonplace for the recipient for in many cases we are talking about people who face death quickly or, if not death, many years of misery on dialysis. It is never commonplace for the donor, the family or the staff concerned. My experience goes back to the early 1980s when I was the chairman of the Central Birmingham health authority. I can well remember walking into the Queen Elizabeth hospital one day to find the place abuzz. When I asked what was going on, they looked at me and said, "If you find out, chairman, you will stop it." I had to promise that I would not interfere before they would tell me that Mr. McMasters was going to do a liver transplant that afternoon. Everybody knew about it and was excited and apprehensive.
It is worth bearing in mind that the staff are also affected by this. The lady concerned needed 42 pints of whole blood, the entire laboratory was up for many nights testing her every 15 minutes. The intensive therapy department was completely tied up looking after her and a large number of other operations had to be cancelled. Everyone was excited that it should happen and devastated when, despite the fact that the operation was successful, the patient died. We must bear in mind that all our staff, not just the doctors, are greatly affected by this event.
Our record on organ transplantation of all kinds is excellent and all those concerned can take pride in it. We have more patients with a functioning kidney graft than any other country in Europe—about 7,000 people. In 1986, the most recent year for which we have comparable figures, we were the leaders in Europe, together with the Federal Republic of Germany, in the total number of kidney transplants performed. We think that it managed two more than we did. For transplants using cadaveric donors, we were clearly in the lead with some 1,500 compared with about 1,200 in West Germany. No other country in Europe had over 1,000 in that year, although many are now increasing their transplantation programmes rapidly.
Our heart-lung and liver transplant programmes are probably the most successful in Europe, and have expanded year by year in the 1980s as the operation has become technically much more successful. I apologise to the hon. Member for Peckham. I mean absolutely no criticism of anyone before 1979, but the figures I have are only for the period under this Government. In 1979, we performed 842 cadaveric kidney transplantations in the United Kingdom; the provisional figure for last year is 1,479. That is a total increase of some 76 per cent. In 1979, we did three heart transplants; last year, we did 244. We did no heart-lung or liver transplants in 1979, but last year we did 72 heart-lungs and 170 liver transplantations. There

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are no longer any accurate statistics on corneal grafts because it is now routine, but we believe that between 1,500 and 2,000 such transplants take place every year.
The survival rate of the transplants is improving all the time. In 1982, only about 50 to 60 per cent. of patients with a heart transplant were surviving for a year; now it is about 80 per cent. From 1977 to 1983, about 40 per cent. of liver transplant patients survived for a year; by 1985, the proportion was about 70 per cent. and it is rising. In 1980, some 61 per cent. of patients with kidney transplants still had that kidney functioning after a year; in 1985, the figure was 77 per cent. This is encouraging, but it puts even more pressure on us to increase the number of organs available for transplantation. As all hon. Members have said today, large numbers of people still die in circumstances which could make them suitable donors but where donation is not even considered.
The operations are not only successful, but getting cheaper. I noted with interest a report from Dr. John Wallwork, the consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth hospital in Cambridge, in The Daily Telegraph of 19 February 1988. The newspaper said of heart-lung operations:
"The operation, which takes between 2½ to six hours, used to cost £22,000, including hospital care for 12 months post-operatively, With advances in treatment which allow the patient to return home after three weeks—half the time initially allowed—the cost has dropped to £15,000."
Kidney transplants now cost us about £8,000 and about £2,500 in following years. If someone has a good job, they probably pay more than that in tax, and that point has been well made.
Mr. Shersby: My hon. Friend has said that the cost of a heart-lung transplant is about £15,000. Does she agree that the cost of a heart transplant is substantially less than that?
Mrs. Currie: My hon. Friend is ahead of me slightly. To finish the comparison for kidneys, a kidney transplant costs £8,000 haemodialysis varies between £12,000 and £15,000 and CAPD varies between £8,000 and £10,000. That is based on a 1982–83 study, but uprated to current prices. It shows how much a kidney graft is entirely cost-effective, especially considering the high success rate that I have mentioned.
A heart transplant costs £12,000 at current prices and a liver transplant £18,000 on current prices for an adult and £25,000 for a child. We must reflect that, since the alternative is almost certain death and in many cases these people can be returned to normal life — indeed, for children a lifetime of normal life — they are a bargain and value for money. On that basis alone, we should continue to pursue them.
I mentioned that our success on transplantation has been helped by a considerable measure of public support. The most recent survey that I have been able to lay hands on was that by the British Kidney Patient Association which commissioned a survey by Gallup, published in January 1987. It shows that 68 per cent. of all those questioned said that they would agree that their kidneys could be used after death for transplant purposes and 66 per cent. said that their hearts could be used. That was at a time of considerable controversy about this topic. Twenty years ago the figure was roughly the same, about 70 per cent.
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Our approach to organ donation is that it should be voluntary, that the rights of individuals must be protected and that the education of the public is vital. That is the basis on which we have the most successful programme in Europe. Public education — I have heard many good ideas about it today — has been focused on repeated campaigns through poster displays and advertisements on television, in doctors' surgeries, in banks and many other places. These usually involve the distribution of our donor cards.
While I accept many of the criticisms that have been made about the donor card scheme, we emphasise that all those who carry a donor card should discuss their wishes with their families so that, even if the card is not found, the family of the potential organ donor will know what that person would have wanted. We must also get across the message that families do not have to wait to be asked. They can, should and do let the doctors know the wishes of their loved ones. We have co-operated with commercial organisations, sportsmen, entertainers and other well-known people, and at present British Telecom is helping us by including cards with telephone bills sent to customers in the London area. We are grateful for that help. At present some 5·5 million donor cards are in issue.
We are in no doubt that publicity has a direct effect on the number of donor organs becoming available, but it can go both ways. A "Panorama" programme in 1980 gave the public a bad impression of organ donation and the number of kidney transplants dropped by over 8 per cent. in the following year. In 1984, Esther Rantzen publicised the case of Ben Hardwick who needed a liver transplant, and when we renewed the donor campaign the number of kidney transplants increased by 26 per cent. Therefore, many other children owe their lives to Ben's circumstances.
In December 1986, a series of newspaper stories suggested that people diagnosed as brain-stem dead were not actually dead and was followed almost immediately by a fall in donated kidneys. That explains why the 1987 kidney transplant total is marginally down on the record 1986 figure. But I was able to take part in the "Gift of Life" programme on 10 January this year, and again the figures have turned upwards dramatically. I pay tribute to Esther Rantzen and the team from "That's Life" for the efforts that they have made. They do not know the figures that I am about to read out, which are a tribute to their work.
I examined the figures for the number of transplants reported to the United Kingdom transplant service in the four weeks following the "Gift of Life" programme and compared them with an exactly equivalent period at the beginning of 1987. At the beginning of 1987, we did 72 kidney transplants. At the beginning of 1988, we did 138, which is almost double. At the beginning of 1987 we did 83 cornea transplants. We think that we did 143 at the beginning of this year, although, as I said, the figures for corneas are a little uncertain and are almost certainly higher than that.
At the beginning of 1987, we did 12 heart transplants. This year, the figure was 21. We did no heart-lung transplants at the beginning of 1987. In the first four weeks of this year, we did 13. In 1987, we did nine liver transplants. This year, we did 17. In the four weeks from 10 January to 6 February 1987, the lives of 21 people were saved by heart, heart-lung and liver transplants. In the four weeks from 9 January to 5 February this year, 51 lives were saved. All those people will join me in expressing thanks to Esther Rantzen and her team. I met her recently

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at the Woman of the Year lunch held by Woman's Own magazine, and I was delighted that she was chosen Woman of the Year by the readers of that magazine. That was well deserved.
There is still much more to be done, but we believe that a considerable impact has been made in the education of the general public. We are less happy about the attempts to make professional staff in the Health Service more aware of the need for donation. It is clear that more cadaver organs would become available if more relatives of potential donors were approached about the possibility of donation. In that I agree completely with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North and other hon. Members have said. Although it can be distressing at a very sad time, it can also provide an opportunity for something good to come out of a tragedy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said that he had visited the United States to see what had been done on required request. After his visit, we approached the medical royal colleges and asked them to recommend how we might proceed on the subject. They have told us that hospitals should have clearly defined procedures for identifying potential donors and for referring them to the appropriate transplant unit or co-ordinator.
We do not know how many organs there are that might be suitable for transplants, nor do we know why those organs are not made available. There are many possible reasons. Staff may be unaware of the need for organs. They may be unwilling to approach relatives at a difficult time. The relatives may be unwilling to agree, even though they know that the deceased person would have wanted his organs to be used. In many cases, doctors are unlikely, or feel unable, to proceed because of the distress that they or the relatives may feel.
There may be different problems. For example, if there is pressure on intensive care facilities, it will not always be possible to use them to maintain a donor in a suitable condition until organs can be removed if another patient's life could be saved by using the facilities. Because we do not know the relative importance of the possible reasons, we agree with Sir Raymond Hoffenberg's working party that there is a need for an audit of cases where organ donation is a possibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North asked how we are getting on with that. I have in front of me an outline of a draft circular that has not yet gone beyond the word processor stage. We intend to issue a draft circular soon to the health authorities. We shall then have the usual three-month consultation period, as we do on draft circulars, and we expect to issue the circular proper later this year.
Some district health authorities have already started to audit brain-stem deaths. I understand that audits are being conducted in Cambridge and Brighton, and there may be others. It is interesting to think about the headings that may be contained in such a draft circular. For example, as my hon. Friend said, we shall ask health authorities to ensure that hospitals in which potential organ donation is likely to arise have written procedures for the identification of potential organ donors and for notification of the appropriate transplant staff. We shall ask authorities to record all instances of brain-stem death, collecting information that will be set out clearly in the circular, and reporting the results to the Department.
I take seriously the points that have been made about training, and we shall give careful thought to the matter. We are after two things: first, consistent information; and,
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secondly, the creation of structures within health authorities and within each hospital involving all the staff concerned. By the very means of collecting the information, those structures will he set up. I am confident that that will have a beneficial effect. It will force every doctor to consider whether a person who has died offers the opportunity for donation. It will also force doctors to consider their attitudes to the matter and to record precisely what they propose to do. The information to be reported from the audit of each case of brain-stem death will show whether the transplant co-ordinator was notified and, if not, the reason—the age of the donor, infection, malignant disease, unstable circulation, relatives not approached, relatives refused and other items. We are giving serious and urgent thought to whether we should collect more information than that, although I am conscious that in the United States one aspect of the required request programme that produced complaints from medical staff was the number of forms that had to be filled in. That put some of them off.
We have taken seriously the work that has been done on required request in the United States, and my hon. Friend is not alone in believing that we should follow the American pattern and require hospital staff by law to ask relatives for permission to take organs. The medical royal colleges have advised against that, and I understand why. Apart from anything else, and despite the fact that we have had legislation for nearly 30 years, the United Kingdom programme has not been based as much on the law as it is in other countries, especially the United States, and we would not lightly change that.
I have gone into the matter in some detail and I put on record our thanks to the United States authorities, especially those in New York state, with whom we are in close touch. I have many documents from America, including some that were sent to us only a couple of weeks ago. During the past two years, 30 American states have passed laws requiring hospitals to request organs or to develop procedures for doing so when a clinically suitable patient dies. From 1 October 1987, a federal law took effect establishing a national system for organ sharing, which we already have, and stating that hospitals should not participate in Medicare or Medicaid unless they developed written protocols for the identification of organ donors. That is precisely what we intend to do following the Hoffenberg report.
As yet, there has been no reliable or even regular collection of data on the effect of the laws introduced in the United States. It is important to put on record the fact that there is only anecdotal feedback. Indeed, there is little on which we can draw. Few articles have been written. I have read all of them, and they have not yet convinced me to change my mind. An article by Tolle and others in the "Annals of internal Medicine 1987" pointed out that Stanford university medical centre had experienced a 38 per cent. increase in heart and heart-lung donations since implementation of the law in California. An article by Kayali in "Dialysis and Transplantation 1986" said that in New York donations had increased by 48 per cent. and corneal donations by 160 per cent. since the advent of required request laws. We have also received a communication from Oregon showing that corneal donations there have increased by 134 per cent. since the introduction of the laws.
I am going into this in some detail because this is my best opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the

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Member for Cardiff, North and to say why our thinking does not entirely go along the lines that he advocated, although I do not disagree with him entirely, as he knows. The first interesting factor is that the number of transplants in the United States is increasing steadily anyway, and some of the change that has been attributed to required request legislation might have happened without it. For example, the number of liver transplantations since 1982 has been doubling every year. In 1981, there were 26 liver transplantations, and there were over 60 the following year, over 160 the year after, over 300 the year after that, and over 600 in 1985. Therefore, the rate of growth has been fast.
The rate of growth of the number of heart transplantations in the United States has also been doubling every year; there has been a substantial increase. The rate of growth of kidney donations went up by between 10 and 15 per cent. every year before the required request law.
When we look in detail at what is happening in New York—my most recent communication from New York was on 15 January this year — we find that, unfortunately, despite the fact that detailed figures on organ procurement were collected in the first 17 months after the introduction of the law, we do not yet have a clear answer. Between 1985 and 1986, the number of organ donors was rising. In 1987, the number of donors dropped. The number of organs procured changed in ways that were not entirely consistent. For example, the number of hearts went down, the number of livers went up, and the number of kidneys seemed to be fairly static. That suggests a different pattern of harvesting from the donors who become available. It does not suggest an increased number of donors. In this country, that is one of the things that we should be keen to get at. The increase in organ donors in 1986 was not maintained in the first months of 1987.
It follows that required request might not have been an unqualified success. Again, personal communications from New York show that the variation, which seems to be diverse across the different centres in New York, seems to be a function of the personalities and attitudes at different hospitals. Part of the problem in places such as New York are rising worries about AIDS and that in the past a large proportion—as much as 20 per cent.—of the programme has been based on living donors. New York is trying to shift that emphasis.
A report to the governor and the legislature in 1987 from the New York state Department of Health contains a sentence that struck me:
"It was frequently observed by surveyors that success in organ and tissue retrieval was largely the result of a strong commitment by key medical staff, supported by clear direction from administration and programme coordinators."
We are after exactly the same thing. We are convinced that, by the implementation of the Hoffenberg report, we can have the essential ingredients of the success that seems to have been developed through the required request legislation. But perhaps we can make it much more consistent across this country, which already has such a strong record and history in organ donation.
I give my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Cardiff, North and everyone in the House this firm pledge. I have given it on television and it is probably appropriate that I give it in the House now. If the Hoffenberg system does
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not work and does not produce what we want, we shall consider it again, but I suspect that among the other things that it will produce will be a lot of evidence about what actually happens in our hospitals, which will assist us if we feel obliged to persuade the House in future that legislation is required.
Ms. Harman: Will the hon. Lady set a particular period within which she expects the Hoffenberg proposals to work? Although she is refusing required request, those of us who favour it would be much reassured if she said that the Government would give the proposals four years to work and that, if they did not, we should have required request. Will she give us that guarantee, even if she does not accept required request now, as we should like her to?
Mrs. Currie: I am sure that the hon. Lady will understand that I cannot give absolute views on that, because a successor of mine might have to act on the results. Our present view is this. We expect that the circular will be out before the end of the year. I hope that we can get everybody started on it — I should prefer a fixed date, such as 1 January. We are considering and taking advice on that. I hope that the bulk of the hospitals that might be involved in the programme will be by the beginning of next year—in other words, by this time next year. It will be at least 12 months before we have any consistent figures.
Apart from anything else, the accident patterns in this country have seasonable fluctuations. I think that it would be wise at least to give the system another year after that before any firm conclusions were drawn. In other words, we are talking about around 1990 before it would be wise to draw up any strong conclusions about whether the programme has worked. It seems sensible to do so.
Meanwhile—let me make this point once more—as the system is introduced, the essential ingredients of what the Department of Health in New York state feels to be the working in parts, the effective parts, of its system will be brought in this country. We hope that, by voluntary means, as several of my hon. Friends have said, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne, we can achieve the success rates that are anticipated and hoped for by everybody concerned.
No one would expect me to stand at the Dispatch Box without saying something about prevention. One of the things that struck me as I went back through 30 years of debates was that nobody asked questions about how we prevent end-stage kidney failure, which leads people to need the donations in the first place. Therefore, I asked for some professional advice and I should like to offer the House this information.
I am told that the commonest cause of end-stage kidney failure, which is glomerulonephritis, cannot be prevented, but control of hypertension, which often accompanies that disease, can slow the progression to give the failure. I am advised that the role of raised blood pressure in the development of kidney damage is twofold. First, high blood pressure per se, particularly in its most severe forms, can cause kidney damage and renal failure. Hypertension by itself accounts for some 10 per cent. of all cases of end-stage renal failure. Control of hypertension has already succeeded in halving the number of cases proceeding to kidney failure. It is therefore absolutely essential for anyone who is interested in the organ donation programme, particularly kidney donation, to take into account the fact that high blood pressure is a key factor.

581
That is one of the items that we are taking into account as we develop our reforms of primary care. We are particularly keen that general practitioners should know and be able to take cognisance of the fact that kidney failure and high blood pressure are associated, particularly in ethnic minority populations, in which hypertension is more severe and damaging. There is also concern about certain drugs and the effect that they can have on kidneys. Those matters are kept under constant review by the Committee on Safety of Medicines.
I am also aware that many children suffer from kidney failure. I understand that the role of urinary tract infections causing kidney failure has been greatly clarified in recent years. All the research points to the fact that damage to the kidneys is done in young children when infection and vesicureteric reflux—otherwise known as VUR—coexists. VUR is a condition in which the urine goes the wrong way—it goes up to the kidney. It is usually due to an inborn malformation, which can be detected by ultrasound screening. The value of such ultrasound screening in the prevention of kidney scarring is now being studied in Cardiff, thanks to the generous support of the Laura Ashley Foundation. That also suggests that infections should be controlled in children, or they can cause permanent damage, particularly later.
The principal inherited disorder often found in children is polycystic disease of the kidneys. It is now possible to detect that condition in utero. But there is a certain amount of difficulty in recommending therapeutic termination, for many patients with polycystic disease live to a ripe old age, particularly if a rise in blood pressure is detected and controlled. Strict control of diet is also an important and valuable factor, particularly in the postponement of end-stage renal failure, when the kidneys are weakening. Research is being done on that in various centres.
I should like to conclude by making two important points. We must have the support of the public in this area of work. We cannot go faster than public opinion, but I am reassured by the remarkable interest and the remarkably consistent support that they have demonstrated through opinion polls and in other ways. We must have the support and understanding of the medical profession and all the staff concerned, for that work will always demand the highest standards of technique, which is why we limit the number of centres where we can do the work, because nothing succeeds like success, particularly with the medical profession.
It is also a matter of ethics. The programme is based ultimately on trust. Those are the absolute necessities. We believe that the cautious, methodical and detailed approach recommended by the Hoffenberg committee will achieve those results and thus help us to secure the programme in future. I have taken careful note of all the points made and I am glad to repeat my pledge that if we do not make progress this way, we will give the matter further consideration.
11.20 am
Mr. Gwilym Jones: We have had a worthwhile debate on this important subject. Friday is not the easiest day for debates. As the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) said, right hon. and hon. Members who would have wished to be here have been unable to take part because of the commitments that we all try to juggle, and because Friday is a popular day to he in our constituencies.
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The debate has focused attention on this subject, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Peckham, to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney), who was kind enough to be one of the sponsors of my Transplant Notification Bill, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), who has had to leave for a constituency engagement, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, who has an obvious constituency interest in the form of Harefield hospital.
As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said, we were all most moved by the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), whose personal experience is most apposite to this emotional subject. I cannot applaud highly enough his speaking out. We need his contribution to this subject. He takes a slightly different approach from me, but it is clear that we all want to achieve the same objective. There is plenty of opportunity for constructive debate about how we reach that objective.
I join my hon. Friend the Minister in applauding the BBC television programme "That's Life" on "Gift of Life", which was shown on the first Sunday in January. All the publicity has been rewarded by a doubling in the number of transplants performed. We had an excellent response from my hon. Friend the Minister. One of the greatest values of these debates is hearing a ministerial contribution. My hon. Friend has done a valuable service to the future consideration of this subject with her well-considered speech. What she said will be considered widely. I was pleased to learn that there is a draft circular on the word processor, and I hope that it will be in place by 1 January.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will continue to consider cost and the recommendations of the Hoffenberg report — reimbursing district health authorities for the cost of removing organs. My hon. Friend talked about the required request experience in the United States. She said that much of what is said to have happened as a result of it might have happened anyway. The other approach is that the success of medical advance breeds demand. The more successful transplants are, the more people will be encouraged to add their names to the waiting list. There is no point in queuing for operations that are not available, but many techniques have been devised only recently. We shall have to run faster merely to stand still. My hon. Friend mentioned a waiting list of 1,200 some years ago. That could now be dealt with by eight months of operations.
I regret that my hon. Friend the Minister is not in full agreement with me, but I know that she will continue to give the matter deep consideration. I appreciate the pledge that she gave on the "Gift of Life" television programme, which she has now repeated in the Chamber. I have hopes of the consideration that she will give the matter and of the progress that we shall make.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes recent advances in transplant technology and in the availability of transplant operations through the National Health Service; especially welcomes the Government's commitment to secure further progress in this vital area; notes that the recently published Hoffenberg Report recommends steps to improve the supply of donor organs; recognises that it is the shortage of suitable organs satisfactory for donation that limits people's opportunities to enjoy a greatly enhanced quality of life; and calls for action to be taken to achieve further improvements by more effective procedures which, whilst being sensitive to the needs of

583
patients, relatives, the bereaved, doctors and other health professionals, effectively identify potential donors and increase the availability of donor organs.

Property Services Agency
11.25 am
Mr. James Couchman: I beg to move,
That this House urges the Government to convert the Property Services Agency as rapidly as possible into a fully commercial organisation whose future would depend upon successful performance at the market place.
I have noted that the second report from the Environment Select Committee on the Property Services Agency, Session 1986–87, and the Government's observation thereon, are relevant.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to move the motion. I do not win many raffles — unlike my wife, who is forever drawing her own tickets out of the tombola drum — and I still await any significant win on the football pools, but this is the second time since I was elected in 1983 that I have had the second motion on the Order Paper.
The first occasion was on 22 March 1985, but the preceeding debate finished at 2.20 pm, leaving me just 10 minutes in which to give my reasons for choosing the subject of my debate. As the Chancellor had that very week yielded to most of my demands in his Budget—my motion appeared on the Order Paper just six hours before the Budget was delivered—I did not need to labour my point. Today I am more fortunate, thanks to the comparative brevity of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), who has presented a worthy motion to the House.
I have plenty of time—about three hours—in which to explain why I have chosen the future of the PSA as the subject of my motion and to try to develop the argument why I think that it should be converted as soon as possible into a fully commercial organisation.
When my name came up in the ballot for today's debate, I thought, "Good. It will give me another opportunity to expose the iniquity of the PSA in relation to the sale of land declared redundant to the Ministry of Defence's needs in my consituency". Upon considered reflection, it seemed that a narrow and parochial subject would be more appropriate to an Adjournment debate, and that it would be unlikely to attract much vocal support from my hon. Friends.
Thus I decided to chose the somewhat broader subject of the PSA's future. The announcement on 3 February by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State that the Crown Suppliers is to be privatised — with my unequivocal support—encouraged me to think that the time is ripe for the PSA to take the first steps towards whole or partial privatisation by being set up as a Government trading fund.
Mr. Ian Gow: My hon. Friend whetted my appetite. He mentioned the sale of land in his constituency by the Ministry of Defence, that sale being the responsibility of the PSA. Perhaps my hon. Friend could satisfy my keen interest and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) the chairman of the Select Committee on the Environment with just a few sentences on this topic.
Mr. Couchman: I can hardly wait to satisfy my hon. Friend's desire for knowledge on this subject. He need have no fear—I shall tell him and the House about it.
During Question Time on 3 February, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary was careful not to underrate the

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difficulties of privatising the PSA. He did not encourage me or my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who I am delighted to see present, or my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), who cannot be with us today, to believe that such privatisation was just around the corner. Indeed, he stressed that the PSA does not yet have proper commercial accounts.
At Question Time on 17 February, my hon. Friend the Minister encouraged my hon. Friend the Member for Wells to believe that he is willing to cosider seriously the recommendation in the report by Deloitte Haskins and Sells that the PSA should be set up as a trading fund, but discouraged notions of early privatisation.
On Thursday 18 February, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a most important statement about the future management of certain Civil Service functions, and announced that the Government have accepted major recommendations in the efficency unit's report "Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps". In particular, my right hon. Friend paved the way for certain important executive functions to be established as agencies — some to be retained within the Civil Service but some to be placed outside it.
The PSA is already an agency headed by a chief executive, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber. It seemed to me that this should not preclude the placing of the PSA outside the Civil Service. I suggested to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that, presumably, those Government activities that were wholly or mainly commercial would lend themselves to being set up as agencies.
Furthermore, I suggested that my right hon. Friend might consider existing agencies such as the PSA as suitable candidates to be placed outside the Civil Service. My right hon. Friend agreed that functions of Government that are essentially commercial services would lend themselves to being set up as agencies outside the Civil Service. She also reminded me that the Government are considering and reviewing the PSA and how best to reform its activities. I hope that today's debate will prove to be one more modest step towards that reform.
To initiate on blind prejudice a debate on a subject as important as the future of a £3 billion turnover Government agency employing more than 22,000 people would be foolhardy indeed, not to say monumentally impudent. Therefore, I have spent a good deal of time reading about the PSA to augment the limited but not encouraging knowledge gleaned through dealings with the PSA in my constituency. I have been much helped in my research by the second report of the Select Committee on the Environment for 1986–87, which deals with the PSA. I have read volume I most carefully and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi)—who I am delighted to see in his place—on the concise distillation of so much evidence into just 28 pages. I must confess that my reading of the evidence in volume II was more selective. My research has also been helped by the Library and its splendid staff.
I do not want to repeat in detail what I said during Adjournment debates about the PSA's estate agency activities in the Medway towns. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne has requested information and it was my constituency experience that led me to my unease about the present operations of the PSA.
586
Therefore, it is as well to offer a brief resume to illustrate my case. On talking to other hon. Members who represent garrison towns and constituencies, I find that my experience is reflected in theirs. Perhaps my prejudice is not so blind after all.
The 1981 Defence review recommended the closure of the Royal Navy base and dockyard at Chatham, which was mostly in my constituency and about which I have spoken on many occasions. Aside from the cataclysmic loss of employment in the area, that closure, which was confirmed and ultimately carried out in March 1984—the Falklands campaign notwithstanding — posed the problem of what to do with 500 acres of land and several hundred old and outdated naval dockyard buildings that have not been available for upwards of 400 years.
The PSA's response to the challenge that such a disposal potential offered was twofold. The largest, and arguably the finest, collection of scheduled monuments in the country, would be mothballed — closed up, made wind and weather proof and left. The historic Georgian dockyard would simply be abandoned to the ravages of time and weather. The PSA's solution for the so-called modern — that is Victorian—or commercial dockyard was to dispose of each of many dozens of buildings and areas of land piecemeal to the highest bidder—indeed, to any bidder, as most of the buildings had long outlived their useful lives and were in poor condition.
It was only as a result of local indignation and shock at the proposal of such a shoddy solution to what the PSA saw as an inconvenient problem that Gillingham council and Kent county council prevailed upon the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Patrick Jenkin, who is now Lord Jenkin of Roding, and a more far-sighted and productive solution emerged.
A commercial dock operation was set up by the Medway ports authority in one of the basins to augment that body's operations at Sheerness. A trust was set up under the chairmanship of Lieutenant-General Sir Steuart Pringle to manage and develop the historic dockyard as a living museum. It must be said that much of the trust's funding was already committed by the PSA to substantial and long overdue maintenance work on the fine Georgian buildings.
The central and largest part of the yard, including the huge naval barracks known as HMS Pembroke was handed to English Industrial Estates Corporation, now English Estates, to undertake an integrated development. That redevelopment is now going ahead under a most imaginative scheme, but I stress that it was local pressure that brought about a worthy solution to this difficult problem.
The PSA's answer would have led to fragmented and partial occupation of the best of the outdated buildings. The rest would have fallen into dereliction, so replicating all the problems of London's docklands from the 1960s to the 1980s. It was simply too big a challenge for the PSA to comprehend and, in any case, as the land was to cease to be occupied by the Crown, the PSA was not really interested. As it was, we were left with some difficult problems in the form of unwanted tenants let into the dockyard on short leases or licences by the PSA in the twilight months of the base.
That insensitivity to the legitimate aspirations of the local community has been repeated by the PSA in its handling of the disposal of Ministry of Defence land declared redundant to the Army's needs in 1985. My hon.

587
Friend the Minister will know that I refer to the land known as the Great Lines, Lower Lines and East Camp and Garrison No. 2 sports ground in my constituency.
Inevitably, in a garrison and Navy-based town, much land finds its way into the Crown's hands over the centuries—I stress "over the centuries". Some of it, such as the dockyard, is intensively used, and when such a facility is closed the land cries out for imaginative redevelopment. Other parts, acquired perhaps as fortification land or as a safety cordon around a great establishment, remain undeveloped open land. In time, such open space is used, courtesy of the services, as open recreation land to be enjoyed by the local people as a green lung in what is usually a tightly developed and urban area around the military establishment. That was the case in my constituency. It comes as a shock to local people suddenly to have their open space threatened by the Ministry of Defence declaring the land redundant and the PSA being commissioned to dispose of it.
When that happens, would it not be sensible for the PSA to sit down with leaders of the local community to discuss sensible development where that is appropriate and the conservation of open land where that is the responsible disposal? Such a sensible and sensitive course of action has not commended itself to the PSA. Its response to the task has been to file a series of predatory and highly-provocative planning applications.
When thwarted by local council refusal the PSA has appealed under planning law—as it is entitled to do—to the Secretary of State for the Environment. As such appeals are sent to the PSA's Secretary of State, I believe that people have a right to feel a certain amount of cynicism about natural justice. There is public disquiet about what is considered to be an incestuous relationship. The PSA has conducted its affairs in this regard in a most obtuse and awkward way. It has refused even to prove title to the land to the local council.
I do not wish to labour the particular when my motion is about the general.
Mr. Gow: Before my hon. Friend leaves this part of his fascinating speech, will he explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) and myself what has happened so far with the land? Has the Secretary of State appointed an inspector to determine the appeal, and is it to be determined by written representation or by public inquiry?
Mr. Couchman: There have been three applications, two of them for highly contentious land. I understand that the first application is under appeal to the Secretary of State. I am not yet aware whether an inspector has been appointed or whether that inquiry will be determined by written representation or public inquiry. I suspect that, because of the vast interest and disquiet in my constituency, it will need to be determined by a public inquiry. One of the other applications has also been rejected, but I am not aware, that an appeal has been lodged.
The third application concerns less controversial land. Indeed, development on that land would be welcome to the local council and it has prepared a planning brief. I suspect that, in due course, planning permission for
588
development of that land will be given. There are, of course, the usual matters to be ironed out between the applicant and the local council.
I have tried to illustrate a certain ineptitude in the PSA's role as the Government's estate agent. In the case of the dockyard disposal, its approach was flabby, lazy, unimaginative and uninterested. In the case of open space land, the PSA has proved unwilling to consult and insensitive to local aspirations. Another unsatisfactory feature of its role as the Government's estate agent is what I consider to be the dichotomy of responsibility. If one challenges the PSA about its disposal of land it states that it is just acting as the estate agent. If one challenges the holding Department—the MOD in this case—one is referred back to the PSA because it is claimed that the PSA is responsible for the disposal of the land. It is a sophisticated version of pass the parcel, and it is extremely frustrating.
I understand that there is a growing feeling wihin the MOD that it would like to regain control of its land management affairs from the PSA. That would certainly eradicate the problem of split responsibility. Indeed, when the MOD is rearranging its land holdings, but staying in a given area — the great military establishment, the Royal College of Military Engineering has remained in my constituency at Brompton barracks — it will wish to maintain its good relationship with the local community.
I understand from paragraphs 65–71 and 83 of the Select Committee's report—as well as comments in the more general paragraphs—that there is good reason for concern about the PSA's handling of the MOD estate. Attention was especially drawn to the "built heritage"—the handling of some 500 historic buildings gives cause for grave concern. With 270,000 hectares on some 4,500 sites in the United Kingdom and abroad the MOD needs, as the Select Committee succinctly put it in recommendation (g), sharper focus of the strategic control of the defence estate and the gradual untying of its management and capital works programme from the PSA. The prospect of losing its monopoly with regard to defence estates should be sufficient to concentrate the minds of those charged with PSA management.
Hon. Members have only a limited contact with the Civil Service and few of us have an opportunity to see the PSA in operation. We tend to encounter the work of the PSA only when there has been a particularly glaring failure or shortcoming—perhaps an unusually serious time or cost over run that excites interest of the Public Accounts Committee or the Environment Select Committee. The Derby Crown court or the Hanslope park scheme for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office mentioned in the debate on Estimates on 24 June 1986—column 249 in Hansard — by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) spring to mind.
We also hear of the PSA when there has been a serious fraud such as that perpetrated by the PSA staff at Hampton court — recently successfully prosecuted—or indeed the series of frauds investigated by Sir Geoffrey Wardale during the early 1980s. It is inevitable that such scandals jaundice the views of hon. Members about the PSA. They overshadow some of the best work done or supervised by PSA.
Tribute is due to the PSA. My hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, in his foreword to the PSA's report for 1986–87, said:

589
"The Property Services Agency at its best is outstanding and has a deserved reputation for its achievements."
I understand that the fabled Durbar court of the Foreign Office is a magnificent example of refurbishment. However, paragraph 40 of the Select Committee's report expresses concern about the conservation of historic buildings and states:
"More energetic central supervision of historic buildings to prevent their deterioration or damage by insensitive treatment, must be operated by PSA."
The Committee also offers robust criticism regarding general maintenance and refurbishment. In particular it is extremely critical about the unacceptable level of backlog of maintenance, regularly running at £100 million.
When speaking of the achievements of the PSA, I must pay tribute to those who were responsible for the remarkable civil engineering project in the Falkland Islands, the Mount Pleasant complex. I have seen that considerable military establishment. I visited the islands, courtesy of the MOD, in 1985 and was grateful for that magnificent runway that allowed us to travel in a wide-bodied jet instead of the more spartan circumstances of a Hercules. In paying tribute to the PSA personnel involved in one of the great civil engineering projects of the 20th century, I also applaud the consortia of our great civil engineering companies that carried out the construction. That immediately highlights another question about the PSA's operation.
In a briefing paper distributed recently by Sir Gordon Manzie, the PSA's chief executive, much was made of the fact that almost 90 per cent. of PSA's activities — measured in expenditure terms—are carried out by the private sector. I applaud that. The key components of such private sector work include 100 per cent. of new construction, although under PSA management, and 85 per cent. of maintenance. The directly-employed labour force of about 9,500 now carries out only 15 per cent. of the maintenance work. Some 65 per cent. of design work on major projects is also contracted out, with PSA in-house teams now responsible for only 35 per cent. of such work. I applaud such contracting-out, but it again begs the question of the PSA's role.
I understand that Government land and property must be vested with some definable entity. For the time being, the PSA is a suitable holder of the 8,000-plus freeholds and leaseholds of the civil estate and the 4,500 establishments that comprise the vast defence estate. However, that is by no means an immutable situation.
The National Health Service owns many hundreds of properties. It designs and builds new hospitals and it upgrades and maintains its hospitals and clinics. It does that without the influence or help of the PSA.
Paragraph 57 of the Select Committee's report points out that the performance of the Health Service in managing its capital programme — £1 billion for this year—governed as it is by the capital procedures code, Capricode, compares very favourably with the PSA's performance, particularly in relation to the important aspects of cost and time overrun.
Tens of thousands of schools are built, maintained and owned by local education authorities. There should be little difficulty in vesting property ownership, construction and maintenance functions in individual Departments. Already, the somewhat bureaucratic property repayments
590
services system represents a first step towards making Departments more conscious of and more accountable for their property costs.
The Select Committee clearly expressed reservations about whether the PRS system represents the best way forward to commercialisation, but at least it is a step in the right direction.
I have tried, without mimicry of the Select Committee, to touch on the important responsibilities of the PSA—estate ownership, management and agency, its duties in regard to design, construction and maintenance and its supervision of the increasing private sector contracting.
I have said little about the Crown Suppliers because my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, in his statement of 3 February, has already cast the die about the future of that part of the organisation. He has set in train a process which should be followed in respect of the PSA.
Those who are worried about the PSA feel that the problem lies with its management. It is frequently said that the National Health Service suffers from a superfluity of administration but a lack of management. That perception of stifling bureaucracy pervades when one reads the Select Committee report on the PSA or when one has contact with a local PSA office. It would be an interesting experiment to contract-out the duties of one of the PSA's district works offices to the private sector. I cannot help feeling that such an experiment would focus sharply on the difference between a commercial contractor's or consultant's office and the present bureaucratised and over-regulated operation that pertains in the DWO. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will conduct such a scheme when he is searching for more commercial accountability. Perhaps he will comment on that idea when he replies to the debate.
Paragraph 72 of the Select Committee's report concisely sums up the failure of the original concept of creating an all-embracing agency providing a "total" service to client Departments. It points out that the PRS system has given Departments a taste for increasing control of their accommodation matters. That applies to Departments other than the Ministry of Defence, to which I have referred. It is clear that the PRS system of assessed rents and delegated works and maintenance gives Departments a greater sense of responsibility, although I understand from the Select Committee's report that the accompanying bureaucracy tends to dilute that benefit.
The Select Committee recognised the problems of Departments competing for accommodation if the estate were to be fragmented. The PSA has had only modest success in rationalising its highly valuable office and storage accommodation, particularly in central London. There still appears to be an unacceptable amount of vacant space, and when the Select Committee took evidence, the PSA admitted, in its supplementary note dated 3 February, that it had about 3·5 million sq ft of accommodation "surplus for disposal" or unallocated on the civil estate in September 1986. While 3·6 per cent. appears to be a relatively modest figure, it equates to the area of about 140 superstores. I should be interested to hear my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary give the relevant figure for 1987 to see what progress has been made.
If the level of voids is a performance indicator, the performance of the PSA in disposing of unwanted space still has some way to go. The initiative and impetus for that disposal must surely come from central management. The

591
success or failure of the disposal of that vacant capacity is a measurement of the senior management's determination in this important matter.
The findings of Sir Geoffrey Wardale on financial control and management were strongly critical and are worth repeating. In section 4.2 he said:
"The fundamental problem which we have identified relates to management's reluctance to acknowledge that problems exist and its lack of vigour in handling them when they are identified. We believe that this indicates a degree of complacency on the part of management, which is reflected in its attitude towards dishonesty and fraud."
Section 4.3 says:
"This problem has resulted in a failure by management to recognise that there are shortcomings in respect of a number of important matters."
Section 4.5 says:
"The concept of financial control is not sufficiently understood. Management control techniques are inadequate either to prevent or to detect cases or irregularity."
Section 4.6 says:
"The policy for disciplinary action against both staff and third parties is unsatisfactory."
Section 4.4 says:
"Furthermore where management has identified that a problem exists, for example that the existing management information system is defective, prompt action has not been taken to ensure that the deficiency has been rectified."
I freely admit that those words were written almost five years ago. What worries me is that succeeding reports from Select Committees and the Comptroller and Auditor General during 1984 and 1985 reinforced the Wardale findings. More sinister is the Select Committee report, which in paragraph 6 sets out what the Committee called the,
"PSA's weakness of attitudes and organisation"
and enumerates them as follows:
"Lack of energetic central management of the Government Estate. Lost opportunities in the property market and inadequate use of 'spend to save' schemes because of the inflexibilityof 'annuality' accounting; serious neglect of maintenance because of inadequate funding; cost and time over-runs in project control; lack of responsiveness to clients; defective performance measurement."
I said "more sinister" because four years separate the Wardale report and the Select Committee report, but there seems to have been precious little improvement in those intervening years. The Select Committee was clearly impressed by criticisms levelled by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors and the Royal Institute of British Architects, which is mentioned in paragraph 5.4. The perception of problems in the management structure and process of PSA is clearly general. Furthermore, the views of the institutions were reinforced by individual firms of surveyors and contractors.
I have spoken at length about the symptoms of a deep malaise and weakness in the way in which the PSA performs its duties and responsibilities. There have clearly been improvements since the darkest days. The present management has introduced changes that have gone some way to untying the strings between the PSA and its client departments. The PRS scheme has made those Departments more aware of their accommodation costs and information technology strategy is in an advanced stage of preparation. Sir Robin Ibbs's efficiency unit has proposed far-reaching changes in project management. Resource-cost budgeting and examination of overhead
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costs are now playing their part in ensuring tighter financial controls. The next major change will happen in 1988 when Departments will become directly responsible for meeting from their Votes the cost of major civil building projects funded from their expenditure programmes. They will be able to commission outside agents rather than the PSA. That will be a good test of client satisfaction. That major change was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 23 July 1987.
I fear that although those changes may improve the situation, the PSA will still be an overblown bureaucracy, insensitive to the aspirations of its client Departments from which it will become progressively decoupled. Apart from holding the Government's Crown freeholds and leaseholds, it is difficult to identify any of the PSA's responsibilities or functions that could not be performed equally well or better by the private sector. I respect the skills of many individual personnel in the PSA, but the corporate performance leaves much room for improvement. I do not wonder at that. I suspect that professionals in land management choosing between a career in which they can exercise entrepreneurial skill in the private sector or the comparative safety of the job security in the Civil Service will choose the PSA only if they are lacking in ambition.
What is to be done? I am forced to conclude that only the disciplines of the market will bring about a sea change in the PSA's philosophy, enabling it to compete successfully for its own client Departments' business and—who knows—other private and public sector business. Furthermore, from all that I have read and heard I am forced to conclude that the Government have been tardy in accepting the Deloitte, Haskins and Sells report recommendations. Conventional Vote-accounting arrangements should give way to full commercial accounts as soon as possible or as soon as the new information technology systems allow. The PSA should be converted to a trading fund under the Government Trading Funds Act 1973. Thereafter, it should be possible to determine whether the PSA is performing well or badly. Sir Gordon Manzie admitted to the Select Committee that that could not presently be done. That statement is contained in paragraph 7 of volume 1 of the Committee's report.
Once the PSA is established as a trading fund producing a proper profit and loss account and balance sheet and given a three or four-year track record, serious consideration should be given to full privatisation by way of a management buy-out. The Crown's land holdings would not be part of such a flotation or sale. Professional and trading functions and possible special refurbishment activity would represent the core of a new public limited company.
I have spoken at length and critically about the PSA. I have not done so out of malice, although I confess that the unhappy relationship between my borough council and the PSA was the catalyst that galvanised my choice of motion. I hope that some of what I have said has been positive and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be equally positive. I certainly hope that his response is more positive than the Government's response to the Select Committee report published on 20 January 1988, to which I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will wish to refer in some detail. It remains only for me to say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to move my motion.
12.3 pm
Mr. Irvine Patnick: I do not intend to paint the gloomy picture painted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman). Sadly, because of a constituency duty, I shall be unable to hear all the debate, and for that I apologise to the House now.
I shall describe the PSA as I see it. The issue is not black and white: there are varying shades of grey. The PSA has good and bad points, as would be expected but, above all, it must try harder in order to succeed.
The Order Paper says that the second report from the Select Committee on the Environment and the Government's observations thereon are relevant. Those I have read. Indeed, they are so relevant that I looked at the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi). On page 125 of the report of 14 January there is a lovely little phrase that bears repetition. He was talking to my hon. Friend the Minister and he said:
"there is at present no objective way of assessing the success … of the PSA in the round. Now, as the responsible Minister, does that give you any cause for concern, and if it does is there any solution you see to the problem of not being able to assess the efficiency or success … of the PSA?"
My hon. Friend the Minister, a politician to the end, said:
"It does cause me concern."
That is an understatement. On page 126 he said:
"At the moment they cannot really prove that they are as efficient as the private sector. They can say it and I have no doubt that in many areas they are just as efficient as the private sector, but at the moment there is no way in which they can demonstrate that: but I think that a trading account or commercial accounts would move towards enabling them to demonstrate that."
It is against that background that I continue the story.
Since 1986, the senior management of the PSA have been boosted — I could say strengthened — to include from the private sector three non-executive members, each with a separate skill. One is skilled in construction, one in finance and the other in property. It is interesting to look at the PSA's main business. I bow to the superior knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham, who has obviously looked at the matter through not only a microscope but a micro-microscope.
If we exclude Crown supplies, I see the PSA's main business as the management of all the Government's civil and defence estates, the management of Government maintenance, and the design and project management of all new work. The total package of work is valued at just under £2·8 billion. That is a lot of money, and is not a sum to be sneezed at.
The staffing level of the PSA was 24,000 as at December 1987. That includes 14,500 professional, technical and administrative grades. I assume that that is what they are called. Since coming to the House I have learnt of many new things. The staff of the PSA includes a glorified direct labour organisation; directly employed labour. I imagine that there must have been teams of people sitting there coming up with that phrase. The directly employed labour totals 9,500 people. The total staffing level has been slimmed down from the fat cat days of 1979, when it was 36,000.
It is interesting to examine the way in which the slimdown was achieved. It is due to a major shift of work to private sector contractors, but further changes have also been made. During my education in the House, I have also discovered the acronym FMI, which stands for financial
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management initiative. The House of Commons is a place where one learns a lot. I am sure that my education must have been sadly neglected before coming here. Believe it or not, the FMI was Government-inspired. It has given Departments greater responsibility, including responsibility for their own accommodation. That must be progress.
How is the £2·8 billion spent and where does it go? I discovered that 90 per cent. of it goes to the private sector and I have no worry about that. All construction work goes to the private sector. A total of 85 per cent. of the maintenance work goes to the private sector and consultants from the private sector will be executing over 66 per cent. of all design and management on new work.
I appreciate that some of the Government's building, design and construction has not been the responsibility of the PSA. However, a further part of my education has been the examination of Government buildings. I was surprised to read that PSA projects won 14 national and international awards in 1986–87 and have so far won 31 such awards for 1987–88.
Some of those that I have seen in London would not win any awards for beauty or being pleasing to the eye. Some buildings can best be described as functional, with limited—if any—architectural merit.
I have been looking at some of the buildings that the Government own. The DES building is what I would call typical 1960s. The Department of the Environment's building is like three sore bandaged fingers sticking tip into the air, and looks as rude as the image that that conveys. The building must have been designed as a sick joke, housing as it does the people responsible for the environment. If one walks from Victoria Station, one will see that they have put up some beautiful concrete walls, of which I would have been ashamed in my time as a building contractor. They are covering those walls with a creeper, which is growing at about half an inch every ten years. The crack in the wall has been there for a long time, and whenever I examine the creeper as I walk past, I see that it has still not yet crept over the crack. It might have been easier to face the structure with some of that imitation stone that they stick on the outside of decent buildings and then wonder why they are damp inside.
The modern building that houses the Home Office is a classic concrete construction; it is pretty, well done and pleasing to the eye. The new DHSS building not far from here is also good, and the Treasury building is, I suppose, the best that money can buy. In Sheffield, we have a building that is the headquarters of the Manpower Services Commission. It brings employment to the city, but it is not aesthetically pleasing. It is a crenellated structure, a mixture of Legoland and a pyramid on which a giant has stomped, squashing it to the ground. Lest anyone should think that other Government buildings, with the employment that they create, would not be welcome in Sheffield, I assure the House that they would. But taste, style and architectural merit would make them even more welcome.
I have given these examples because I appreciate that some standards need to be set and kept for Government buildings to set an example. A cadre of professional skills is needed, from architects to stonemasons, to do work, to supervise, execute and co-ordinate. They need to be London-based, but the PSA does not need to be London-based—it could be a vehicle or shelter for such work.
To continue with some of the PSA's other duties, but not exhaustively, I may say that I learned quite a lot from

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my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham. Rents and service charges are a key component of the PSA. In the United Kingdom, defence work estates and overseas estates amounted to 18 per cent. of the PSA's turnover in the private sector. My education in the House has also been improved, while I have been up in London, as they say, by learning that the Government-inspired charging system has been implemented for all Government Departments and all accommodation has been subjected to internal checks for efficient usage. But the PSA is still big business, as I said earlier, despite having 1,000 civil estate holdings fewer—that is another expression that means it has a great deal of property—than in 1980 when it had just under 1 billion sq m—0·926 million sq m of space — it still holds 1,000 holdings with 11·4 million sq m of space. Some holding; some property.
The PSA is also responsible for the disposal of surplus property; this year's yield from the sale of property will be £120 million.
The location of the PSA's staff is also interesting. Two thirds of them are outside London, with offices in Scotland, Wales, London and seven other regions; it is responsible for 143 district offices, together with Ministry of Defence work overseas, mainly in Germany. That is the size of the PSA empire.
Meanwhile, Ministers may be considering a report mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham recommending that the agency become a trading unit and be put on a commercial footing. But the time scale must be one of the key points for consideration, as the Environment Select Committee report said in paragraph 85. Paragraphs 85 and 86 are worthy of the House's attention. Paragraph 85 states:
"While we are convinced of the need to open up the PSA to competition, we are equally certain that a substantial core of skills needs retaining as one unit, even if this may be on a reduced scale; and that, if central management of the estate as a property resource needs strengthening, as we believe then PSA is the only candidate for this role. But in carrying out this important strategic task, the PSA will need to have its influence strengthened."
Three more points will serve to illustrate the route that the PSA needs to follow:
"(a) new financial arrangements should be established for the PSA based on commercial accounts and a Trading Fund and the Government Trading Funds Act 1983;
(b) in any future system, a central body of PSA expertise should be retained as one unit, as a source of specialist expertise to Departments and other clients …
(c) in the light of (a) and (b), the PSA should be restructured to create a leaner, fitter and more professional organisation with reduced overheads, eliminating the wasteful overlap between professional and administrative work identified in paragraphs 54 and 55, so that the PSA can compete effectively and provide an efficient service in all its traditional areas of work."
12.18 pm
Sir Hugh Rossi: Over the years, the PSA has been the subject of much criticism, ranging from accusations of inefficiency to corruption. All is not well with the PSA — that was the impression gained by the Environment Select Committee as a result of our yearly examination of the PSA main estimates. So we embarked on an inquiry into the PSA and published our report last March, to which the Government responded in January. This is the first opportunity the
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House has had to discuss the report and the reply to it, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) for making this possible and for the terms of his motion, which he so ably introduced and which I firmly endorse. I am also grateful to him for his kind remarks about my Committee's work and report, which he found a useful source of reference.
The general view of the PSA formed by my Committee as a consequence of our inquiry is encapsulated in the evidence given by Sir Nigel Mobbs and Mr. Idris Pearce, who were brought in from the outside property world to act as chairman and member respectively of the advisory board of the PSA between 1980 and 1986. We begin our report with the following quotation from their evidence:
"The PSA contains much that is good and much that is unjustly maligned. Its weakess lies in its attitudes and its organisations, rather than in its people. To rectify this the Government and the Treasury should redefine the role and purpose of the agency, give it proper authority and delegated powers and start to assess it by results rather than by its adherence to procedures."
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) reflected those conclusions in his speech.
I am somewhat disappointed that the PSA does not appear to be a possible candidate for treatment as a freestanding agency, under the recent report to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, entitled "Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps". Perhaps it is because the PSA has such a large budget that the Treasury does not wish to release it from its stranglehold. But it is precisely because of the dead hand of the Treasury upon it that the PSA has not been able to perform as it should.
Mr. Gow: My hon. Friend underestimates his own powers of persuasion and his eloquence. He should put his faith in the Minister. I am sure that, following my hon. Friend's unanswerable arguments, that which he wishes to happen will happen.
Sir Hugh Rossi: I wish I had such confidence in myself as my hon. Friend appears to have. Nevertheless, as a result of his encouragement, I shall return to the argument with even greater enthusiasm and force.
In giving evidence to my Committee, Sir John Cuckney, the chief executive of the PSA from its inception until 1974, told us that, when he was first asked to accept that position, he was led to understand that the PSA would be
"a free-standing departmental agency",
but that, in the end, it was established as part of the Department of the Environment. He considers that that decision was
"a very great pity",
and missed an opportunity to move towards a trading fund with greater freedom from vote accounting.
As our inquiry proceeded, it became more and more apparent to the Committee how great a pity that was, and how important it was that serious moves were taken to redress the initial mistake of not creating a free-standing agency along the lines of the Crown Suppliers, which have shown the value of the trading fund route and commercial accounting.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham enumerated the six weaknesses of attitudes of organisation listed in paragraph 6 of our report, and I shall not repeat them. However, I draw attention to the fact that three main interlinked themes emerge from the Select Committee's inquiry and report.

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The first theme I term "investment and annuality". That as much as anything else, exemplifies the effects of too strong Treasury control and, consequently, the rigid application of time-honoured Treasury conventions. The property market is not one in which strict annuality is appropriate. The existence of so-called annuality is understandable. The Chancellor of the Exchequer raises income for the Government and the various Departments in his yearly Budget. Therefore, expenditure is calculated also on a yearly basis. However, within that annual expenditure little, if any, distinction is made between capital investment and ordinary current running costs, so opportunities to acquire good properties at reasonable cost are missed.
The PSA has recently laid a supplementary estimate to cover the cost of some favourable purchases. That may be a sign of greater commercial realism, but the system that we examined is too slow and unresponsive to market opportunities, and good buys are snapped up by somebody else.
Also, annuality forces the acquisition of leaseholds rather than freeholds. The price of a good freehold may be prohibitive within the annual budget. Therefore, a lease is taken at a lower sum within the budget. In modern days, such a lease is subject to regular rent reviews which, in the long run, cost the taxpayer a great deal more for what is essentially a wasting asset. That cannot make financial sense for a continuing organisation such as the Government.
The next main theme of the report is the maintenance of property in Government ownership. Maintenance suffers from the same problem of annuality. There was a strong tendency to look for savings in a current year, at the expense of, probably, higher costs later. An example is the roof at Sandhurst. In 1972, repairs were estimated at £300,000, but they were deferred for 10 successive years. Finally, the cost was £3 million—partly, it is true, as a result of inflation, but mainly because of the effects of the neglect of essential maintenance work over the 10 years.
Another matter of concern was the evidence of inadequate maintenance of historic buildings in the defence estate. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham has addressed the House in some detail on that matter. It is probably understandable that the Department of Defence is more concerned to spend available money on modern military hardware than on historic royal arsenals such as that at Woolwich, which have been shamefully neglected.
Therefore, the Committee felt that the PSA should operate a more energetic system of inspection and supervision and have a landlord-and-tenant relationship with Departments on the basis of strict tenant repairing covenants. In that respect, we welcomed the increased delegation to Departments of maintenance and minor new works which, when they have acquired the necessary skills in-house, will he able to operate much more efficiently and cost-effectively than has been the case until recently.
The third theme, which recurs throughout the report, is the need for current accounting on a commercial basis. It affects not only matters of investment and maintenance to which I have referred but such things as responsiveness to clients and management performance. In their evidence, Sir John Cuckney and Sir Gordon Manzie, the present chief executive, stressed the importance of that. Evidence from other witnesses revealed continuing cost and time
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overruns on construction work. Much of that was due to clients making changes to their briefs, over which a stricter regime must be exercised.
Witnesses in design and construction complained of over-long lines of communication within the Department and the PSA, too much administrative cross-checking, slow decision-making, and a high staff turnover during the contract. It was difficult for the contractors to deal sensibly when the manager in the PSA would be a different person in successive months. Tendering and contracting difficulties also came in for heavy criticism.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: When my hon. Friend refers to high staff turnover, could he tell us whether that is a function of people being promoted or moved within the organisation, or moving out of the organisation altogether?
Sir Hugh Rossi: It is a mixture of both. Natural promotion within the PSA means that the manager in charge of a contract is moved away and that somebody else comes in, who has to start all over again and who possibly has different ideas about the way in which a contract should be run. People trying to carry out their obligations under a contract find it impossible to accept that situation recurring over a period.
Another aspect of that was criticism from, for example, consulting engineers, that the manager with whom they had to deal was an administrator, and somebody who did not have the scientific knowledge to assess the advice that they were giving—often their advice was not accepted for bad reasons, and certainly not for professional reasons. Therefore, the management of contracts is an area of difficulty. We felt that those criticisms are real and cannot simply be ignored.
On construction and design a matter not before the Committee, but of which I have subsequently heard is that Richmond terrace, which was praised just now by my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam and which looks a most attractive building from the outside, nevertheless required the intervention of the Minister for Social Security and the Disabled at a late stage, asking why there was no real provision for access for the disabled to that building. I believe that about 30 variations had to be made to the architects' plans so that the Minister could ensure that he would be able to see some of his clients, who would naturally want to visit him in their wheelchairs. I also understand that not long after occupation, the temperature in that building was running at about 90 deg F. Therefore, questions need to be asked and answered.
We came to the conclusion as a Committee that the commercial approach to the PSA operations was the only way in which the necessary internal structural changes, which have been subject to constant morale-lowering tinkering over the years, could be achieved. It was at that point that we noted the success of the Crown Suppliers' trading fund arrangements and its commercial approach.
As has already been said, it is doubtful whether the PSA system as presently constituted earns its keep. It is costly to administer, and the benefits are not easily quantified, as was admitted to us in evidence. Untying is a step in the right direction but, by itself, it is not enough.
The Committee came to the conclusion that the original concept of an all-embracing agency has failed the test of experience. The property repayment service, introduced in 1985 to bring home to Departments the cost of the

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accommodation that they occupy, gives a confused message, which is rapidly becoming more confused as new modifications and extra categories are introduced. We believe that the office estate must be treated as a central unit, and that the PSA should continue to have a landlord-and-tenant relationship with its clients. Our principal conclusion was that the PSA should remain the central agency, but operating on a commercial basis as a trading fund.
After we had published our report in March last year, the Government received a report that the Department of the Environment had commissioned from the consultants Deloitte, Haskins and Sells. The consultants confirmed my Committee's findings. They certainly endorsed our view that the PSA adopt commercial accounts as a prelude to establishing a trading fund. If one took the Committee's recommendations seriatim they would show that, to the extent to which Deloitte's were briefed to consider the same areas looked at by the Committee, they have come to broadly similar conclusions.
What I find most disappointing is that, although the Department has had the Committee's report since March 1987, and the Deloitte report since last summer, it has not reached a decision. Certainly it had not declared a decision on those matters in its response, published but a month ago. I hope that, in the intervening few weeks, Ministers' minds will be concentrated on this subject somewhat more than they were a month ago, especially in view of this debate. I hope that I shall hear a more positive response from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State than was made in the Government's observations on last month's report.
For the purposes of the debate, I have addressed my remarks to those aspects of the Select Committee's report that were raised directly by the wording of the motion, but it might be valuable for hon. Members to look at the report as a whole if they have time, because other important aspects are worthy of consideration.
Having criticised my hon. Friend the Minister for those parts of the report to which the Government have not responded, may I say that I am grateful for those positive responses that have been made to some of our other recommendations—the fact that the defence estate is to be untied from the PSA, although no time scale has been announced; the fact that staff are to be trained in Departments to be able to deal with property, management and maintenance matters; and the fact that greater resources will be made available for maintenance purposes so that there is not a rerun of the Sandhurst situation or a continuing backlog of about £100 million a year.
This has been a helpful and useful debate for ventilating a Committee report, although I should have preferred it to take place in prime time, when more hon. Members could have considered our findings. The Opposition have fielded only one lone Front-Bench spokesman, totally unsupported throughout the debate. If they expect to form a Government and to deal with administrative matters, they should consider these matters. One can think only that they do not expect to have to deal with these problems in the foreseeable future, and therefore administrative matters are of little interest to them.
If hon. Members wish to help the Environment Select Committee and feel that is reports are of some value to the
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House, I point out that there are two other reports—"The Planning Appeals System", in which we deal with major inquiries such as Sizewell, and "Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments", which has attracted great attention outside the House. I should welcome any hon. Member who is lucky in the ballot choosing those as subjects, because I fear that the Government may not find themselves able to give us time to consider them. While dealing with the Government, may I ask my hon. Friend the Minister when I shall have a response to our report on water pollution, which we published last May? The Government are well out of time.
Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham for raising this subject.
12.38 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) on his fascinating speech. Like him, I have a considerable defence interest in my constituency, having both Regular and Territorial units there. I should like to focus in the next few minutes exclusively on defence, principally the PSA's role within the Ministry of Defence and as it relates to district headquarters, and then refer to the relationship with the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve Associations.
Last year the level of defence spending through the PSA was about £1·5 billion. About £800 million was spent on new projects and rather more than £600 million on maintentance. The dissatisfaction within the armed forces of their treatment by the PSA is running high. Buildings which desperately need repairs are left unrepaired and the state of many of the quarters is one cause of the present high wastage which is primarily among officer grades and, to a lesser extent, in other ranks. Projects are running behind. It is not just a case of insufficient funding and, indeed, it is not primarily to do with the funding level; it is the enormous amount of waste resulting from mismanagement.
I shall give the House just one example of that. When I was living in Germany a friend of mine, who was a dependant of an army officer, took a temporary painting job during the summer with the PSA, which has a large labour force of German civilians. During his first week he completed his week's allocation by Tuesday night and was immediately told that he had offended the German union by doing his work so quickly. Most of us would agree that Germans are not normally known as an idle nation, and it takes a remarkable degree of mismanagement for the level of productivity to be so low. Anybody who has lived in Germany with BAOR will relate how the productivity of those who come to repair quarters is so low as to be almost unbelievable.
The worst aspect of the PSA as the armed forces see it—my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham touched briefly on this — is its complete and utter failure to provide anything like a cheerful and responsive service to its customers. Its attitude is one of bureaucratic muddle.
The district headquarters under the Government's financial management initiative are supposed to have much greater control over the funding of operations in their area, but on the property side progress has been absolutely minimal. There is now a small sum that can be spent directly by district commanders, but the PSA is still on one side and is not in any sense under the control of the district commander.

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At every level in individual garrisons there is no real relationship with the PSA. There is neither a customer-supplier relationship, because the garrisons cannot go to anybody but the PSA, nor is there a direct command relationship. The PSA is in the cosy position of being the only body allowed to organise the supply of services, yet it is not under the direct control of those whom it is supplying.
What is the solution? My hon. Friend made a good speech about the Select Committee's recommendations, and I am delighted that part of the report suggested detaching the MOD operations of the PSA—nearly half the total—from the other operations. I firmly believe that at the macro level the PSA's MOD operations should be handed over to the MOD. The Select Committee is absolutely right on that. I may mention by the by that contacts in central staffs in the MOD inform me that even for something as basic as placing their bid for the long-term costings, the PSA is always the last to get its bid in and always the most difficult to get any accurate forecast from. It would be thoroughly healthy if the entire operation were taken over by the MOD itself.
I want an end to the remaining direct labour force employed by the PSA. The Government have made much progress in this area, but about 15 per cent. of maintenance staff are still directly employed, and the figure is higher overseas. There is no need for direct labour. All the work should be put out to contract.
To move from the macro to the micro level, the maintenance side, which accounts for almost half the total budget—more than £600 million—should be handled at district level instead of centrally from Whitehall. It would be much more efficient if district commanders had substantial powers to control maintenance in their areas and, in turn, to delegate powers to garrison commanders. It would be more efficient if the manager responsible at district level and his counterparts at garrison level were made directly responsible to the district commander, instead of being part of a framework reporting directly to Whitehall. He should not only be geographically located in the district headquarters, but the district commander should be able to hire and fire the individual. Once all the work is contracted out, at least at garrison level and possibly at district level, too, we should put retired officers into those posts. They understand the frustrations of the armed forces in relation to maintenance problems. They are also trained, at least in the case of the Royal Engineers, who used to do all this work overseas, in project management in civil engineering and works.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham will forgive me for mentioning the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve Associations because this is on the edge of his motion. A further complication is caused by the fact that Ministry of Defence works that apply to territorial units are handled by the TAVRAs. They are at least equal in incompetence to the PSA. Furthermore, those completely unnecessary bureaucratic bodies— I have never discovered anything useful that they did—are not even conterminous geographically with district headquarters. A unit that deals with one district headquarters whose companies are dispersed to separate locations may have to deal with two different TAVRAs. Paperwork is the bane of all units' life, especially territorial units where the small permanent staff are overstretched, so they have to deal with two more bureaucratic organisations to get their drill halls repaired.
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Severing the Ministry of Defence work from the PSA would give the Secretary of State for Defence an excellent opportunity to reopen the debate on whether we need the TAVRAs, especially in the light of the structure that I propose for bringing the work much closer to the user.
If the Government carried out the Select Committee's recommendation to hand over the work to the Ministry of Defence, it would make an enormous difference to morale in the armed forces. Within the same budget, a much larger proportion of quarters and barracks would be brought up to standard, which would do much for our soldiers' morale.
12.49 pm
Mr. Ian Gow: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) on the subject that he has chosen for the debate. It was chosen wisely, and my hon. Friend's speech matched its importance. You have had the misfortune, Madam Deputy Speaker, to miss not only the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham but the speech by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi). He made a speech filled with a deep knowledge of the Property Services Agency, which he gained throughout the years of his distinguished chairmanship of that Committee. Our debate has been enriched by those two speeches.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green saw fit to rebuke the Labour party because at no stage today has there been more than one member of that party in the Chamber. However, I do not know why my hon. Friend reserved his rebuke for only the Labour party. Ought not that rebuke to have been applied even more severely to the Liberal party, not one single member of which has seen fit to attend this most important debate? Is not the absence of the Liberal party even more astonishing when it claims, rather spuriously you may think, Madam Deputy Speaker, to be the party that cares passionately about the environment and about the buildings entrusted to the care of the PSA?
I wish to make only one other preliminary observation, and that is to express my respectful disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham about security of tenure being one of the characteristics of those who are employed by the PSA. It is within your recollection, Madam Deputy Speaker, that not so long ago a former chief executive of the PSA, following an appearance before the Public Accounts Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, left office on account of the most unsatisfactory replies that he had given to a Select Committee of this House. So my hon. Friend was wrong to say that security of tenure is one of the characteristics of those who work for the PSA.
Before I come to the main part of my speech, I want to address a serious question to my hon. Friend the Minister, which arises out of two answers that I received from our hon. Friend the Parliamentary-Under Secretary of State for the Armed Forces. Those replies were given six weeks ago today, on 15 January 1988. They revealed a deeply disturbing state of affairs. My hon. Friend told me:
"As at 30 November 1987 … the total number of service houses and flats"—
that is to say, houses and flats owned by the Ministry of Defence—
"vacant was 15,801." —[Official Report, 15 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 412.]

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Of those 15,801 empty houses, the Ministry of Defence had decided that 2,397 were surplus to its requirements. Even if one deducts 2,397 from 15,801, there are still more than 13,000 empty houses and flats owned by the Ministry of Defence. Of course, the House understands that there have to be empty houses and flats owned by any landlord. Time has to be allowed for a changeover. Sometimes there is an incoming tenant who has to be decided upon.
I should like to ask my hon. Friend who, although not the Minister responsible for housing, is an Under-Secretary of State in the Department of the Environment, whether he is quite certain that none of those 13,000-plus empty houses and flats, none of which were surplus to the requirements of the Ministry of Defence, could have provided a home for the homeless in any part of the kingdom.
Does my hon. Friend understand how absurd it would be for a house or flat owned by the Ministry of Defence, and not in a sensitive area where there might be security implications which made it impossible to use it, not to be available? Will he please consider that question? The PSA may manage those houses and flats, which is why the matter is relevant to the debate.
Will my hon. Friend inquire whether we could, under the short-hold system introduced by the Housing Act 1980, make some of those houses and flats available even on a short-term basis to house the homeless or to provide mobility, thus enabling the unemployed to move from one part of the country where they cannot get a job to another area where they may be able to get one?
The other part of the answer given on 15 January was:
"2,397 houses and flats had been declared surplus to MOD's requirements and were still owned by the Ministry of Defence. Of these, PSA had been instructed to sell 844".
I put it to my hon. Friend the Minister that I have little doubt—perhaps he has no doubt—that all, or virtually all, those 844 houses and flats are empty. My hon. Friend knows what happens to empty property. It gets vandalised. Local authorities tend to receive no rates and, most appalling of all, an empty house is unable to provide accommodation either for those who seek it or for those who would seek it if they knew that it was available.
Sir Hugh Rossi: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for his kind remarks about me. Does he agree that if the PSA were established as a free-standing trading fund, it would have an incentive to realise its assets more readily and put the money in the bank so that it could be used for what the PSA wants to use it for?
Mr. Gow: I agree with my hon. Friend. I shall return to that matter.
I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that, at 15 January, the PSA had been instructed to sell 844 houses and flats. I am urging him, when he gets back to 2, Marsham street, the building whose architectural features my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) had occasion to mention, to ask his private secretary to get an answer to these questions: how long have the 844 houses and flats which the Ministry of Defence has asked the PSA to sell been empty, and how long is it since instructions to sell were received? I put that question because the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces did not answer a key part of the question that I asked him last month. I asked:
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"how many houses and flats owned by his Department are surplus to requirement; in how many cases the Property Services Agency has been instructed to sell such properties; and how many properties remain unsold (a) more than four months, (b) more than 8 months and (c) more than 12 months after the Property Services Agency was instructed to sell them."
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary replied:
"I regret that the information required to identify the number of the properties remaining unsold after four, eight and 12 months is not available to the PSA".— [Official Report, 15 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 411.]
I am making a grave charge against my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces. However, although the charge is levelled against him, it is, I am afraid, also a charge against my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, for whom I have a great regard. When Ministers give answers that involve more than one Department — something that happens frequently — the other Departments concerned are always consulted. Therefore, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will have told my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces that the information was not available to the PSA.
Mr. Couchman: My hon. Friend makes an extremely telling point. I am sure that he will be interested in the question that I asked my hon. Friend the Minister earlier this week. I asked him how many outstanding planning applications the PSA had and for some detail on that. The Under-Secretary replied:
"The information is not available centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost." — [Official Report, 22 February; Vol. 128, c. 60.]
Does my hon. Friend agree that that suggests a certain lack of central control of the Property Services Agency?
Mr. Gow: Yes, I agree with every word that my hon. Friend says. His intervention reinforces my point to the Minister. The PSA knows how many houses and flats remain unsold four, eight and 12 months after instructions to sell have been received. It is deeply regrettable that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces should have given a parliamentary answer which, to my knowledge, is untrue.
I have read most carefully the report of the Select Committee on Environment. I believe that that report has done a great service to Parliament and to Ministers.
My hon. Friends will note with satisfaction that the hon. baronet, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) is now seated in his rightful place on the Treasury Bench—a Bench from which I deeply regretted his departure some years ago. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to contribute to the debate, because, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, he has a profound knowledge and understanding of the PSA.
I have read most carefully the report of the Committee of which my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green is Chairman. I believe that the most telling paragraph is paragraph 72. Of all the paragraphs—there are many — this was the one that most caught my attention. I wish to remind the House what that paragraph said:
"The original concept of an all-embracing Agency has failed the test of experience. PSA was established to provide a 'total' service to Departments, but its functions are gradually being chipped away by its client Departments. It has been found to be too impotent, and too cumbersome, with lines of communication that are far too long."

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The concluding sentence of that paragraph — the last which I wish to read—states:
"As a result, PSA is facing a consumer revolt. Its clients have acquired some direct responsibility under the PRS delegations, enjoy the freedom it gives them and some at least are wanting more."
I am sure that they are the words of my hon. Friend. They display the kind of clarity and precision that we have come to expect from my hon. Friend who is a distinguished lawyer as well as a distinguished author.
The House will note that we have been joined by my hon. Friend the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household. He is here in weekend attire to listen to this important debate, initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham. There may be military establishments managed by the PSA in the Vice-Chamberlain's constituency — it is almost certain that there is something in his constituency managed by the PSA. If the PSA has been invited to sell something my hon. Friend should not be too anxious because I do not suppose that it will have been sold yet. However, I do not wish to be led astray, even by the most welcome presence of the Vice-Chamberlain.
I had just quoted and paid tribute to the report of the Select Committee. I wish to contrast that report, which pointed out the deficiences of the PSA, with the words of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment in the annual report of the PSA for 1986–87 —the latest available report.
Those words have already been quoted, quite rightly, by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham. If, for the second time in the debate, those words are quoted from the Conservative Benches, it is because they are words of my right hon. Friend, and, above all people, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State should heed the words of the head of his Department. Indeed, from time to time, the Secretary of State will be making reports on the progress of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and therefore I commend his words to my hon. Friend. It may be that I shall make a report to my right hon. Friend on the speech of the Parliamentay Under-Secretary when he comes to reply. One of the joys of being out of office is that one does not have reports written about oneself by Ministers.
The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household (Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones): They are written by the Whips.
Mr. Gow: My hon. Friend says that reports about us are written by the Whips. I will have a discussion with the Vice-Chamberlain about that on another occasion because otherwise you, Madam Deputy Speaker, might rule me out of order.
In the PSA's annual report, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said:
"The Property Services Agency at its best is outstanding and has a deserved reputation for its achievements."
I find myself in respectful agreement with those words.
Until two and a half years ago I had, by one of those accidents of events, ministerial responsibility for the PSA. The remainder of my speech will not be a criticism of the PSA. On the contrary, it will he directed at the sheer impossibility of the tasks that Ministers have asked it to perform.
I underline the tribute that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State paid in the PSA's annual report. Ministers are to blame for the PSA's shortcomings, which were inevitable given the tasks that we asked it to carry out. I include in my rebuke to Ministers a rebuke to myself.
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I must accept my share of the responsibility for the failure of the PSA, or its diminished successor, to carry out the role that we asked it to perform.
There is a devastating sentence later in the PSA report. It was overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham, although he reminded the House of what appears on page 11. My hon. Friend reminded us that 85 per cent. of the maintenance work for which the PSA is responsible is carried out by private contractors. He said that all new construction work is done by private contractors. That comes as no surprise to me. If all new construction work is not done by the PSA but by private contractors, and if 85 per cent. of maintenance work is done not by the PSA but by private contractors, do we need the PSA to be involved in new construction or maintenance work?
If a Government Department wants a new building, why is it necessary to involve the PSA? If a Government Department believes that rain is coming in through its roof, would it not be sensible for it to obtain, from a builder or roofer, quotations for its repair? Do we need the PSA?
My hon. Friend the Vice-Chamberlain, who is clad in his weekend attire, may be about to make a journey to his constituency. There he may see roofs that were damaged during the storm of 15 October 1987. Will he be saying to his constituents, some of whose roofs may not have been repaired, "You must go to the PSA. It will be able to arrange for your roof to be repaired"? That advice will not be given by my hon. Friend.
If asked by his constituents about repairs to their roofs or leaking taps or about repainting a factory, warehouse or office he would not say, "Go to the Property Services Agency and have it done." On the contrary, he would suggest tht his constituents went to a builder if they wanted a new roof or a painter if they wanted their property painted. Even if one of his constituents said that he needed a new warehouse, he would tell him to go to an architect who may be able to design the new warehouse.
Do you, Madam Deputy Speaker, see why the chief executive of the Property Services Agency agrees with that? The sentence in the PSA annual report, which was overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham, made a deep impression on my mind. As I have said, the PSA annual report was published after my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green had written his outstanding report. My hon. Friend the Vice-Chamberlain has only been able to rush in to the Chamber from his other activities. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green made a telling point — not within hearing of the Vice-Chamberlain—that his report had been produced by the Select Committee on 23 March 1987. Have I got that right?
Sir Hugh Rossi: Yes.
Mr. Gow: By common consent, today is 26 February 1988. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green reminded the House that his report was produced in March last year and that it was not until January this year that he received a response. I am glad that the Vice-Chamberlain is present. There are now three Ministers on the Treasury Bench. We do not always have three, so we are greatly honoured. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton was also on the Treasury Bench a moment ago but he is no longer a member of the Administration.

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We can remind those three Ministers of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. The Government have many resources, the Department of the Environment has many Ministers and the Property Services Agency has 25,000 employees. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked why it took from March 1987 to January 1988 to produce a reply to the report.
I have news for you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If you and I got together to prepare a reply to the report we could have completed it within 24 hours. The report is so clear and lucid. Why did it take the Government so long? How many Ministers are there in the Department of the Environment? I believe that there are six or seven. There are also some Ministers in the House of Lords.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton has just returned to the Chamber. That is good news. I remind hon. Members that my hon. Friend held the same position in the Department of the Environment as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green once held. If I have that wrong I hope that I will be corrected. Therefore, two former Under-Secretaries of State for the Environment are in the Chamber. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton was in the Department of the Environment and in charge—as he was — of the PSA and had received a report dated 23 March from the chairman of the Select Committee — one of the most senior and respected figures in the House—when does he think that he would have replied?
Sir George Young: I am glad to have this unexpected opportunity to intervene so early in the debate. I recall receiving several reports from the Select Committee. On one occasion, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) even threatened to deduct my salary because of the PSA's performance.
I have no doubt that he would have received some response and I am sure that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies he will give a full account and a proper answer to the questions that my hon. Friend has posed, a number of which I was not in a position to listen to.
Mr. Gow: I do not want to be guilty of tedious repetition by making my speech again. That would be testing the patience of the Chair—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I am listening carefully.
Mr. Gow: I do not want to be led astray because I want to get to the key passage that was overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham. I wanted to call in my support — one may think this strange — the chief executive of the Property Services Agency and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. On page 2 of the report there is a picture of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The report is available to all my hon. Friends. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary keeps a copy of it by his bedside—we all know that. It is an excellent photograph. I do not know whether it was taken by a photographer employed by the Property Services Agency, but we let that pass.
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On page 3 there is a picture of the chief executive of the PSA—again, an excellent photograph. I pay tribute to the photographer; again, he could have been from the Property Services Agency.
Mr. Rowe: Does my hon. Friend have any views on the possibility that the excellence of the photographs reflects the excellence of the people being photographed, and that that excellence may well depend on the fact that they are both maintained by the Property Services Agency?
Mr. Gow: I agree with my hon. Friend. A number of properties in his constituency are managed by the agency. I am paying tribute not only to the quality of the photographs but to that of the people. Who appointed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did. Who appointed the chief executive? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment did. I agree that both of them are of the highest quality, just as one would expect from appointments made by the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State.
I do not want to be led astray any more, because I want to come to the important sentence that supports what I am saying, which is that the Property Services Agency is being asked to do something that it should not be asked to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green could not have taken it into account because it was published after he wrote his excellent report. I hope that the hon. baronet, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton will give me his attention. I see that my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is now in his place. I give him a special welcome because he occupies the Treasury Chambers in Great George street. That building is not a monument to brilliant management by the Property Services Agency. Alas, I was a Minister there only for 10 weeks. I add that I did not leave it because it was such a ghastly building, but I must say that it is not well maintained. I can well understand the PSA trying to get its own back on the Treasury by deciding not to treat it particularly kindly. The PSA report says:
"Work for the biggest customer — US forces in this country—has been increasing considerably in volume in recent years."
Mr. Garel Jones: It is on page 9.
Mr. Gow: The Vice-Chamberlain is closely following the debate. It is on page 9. If the Financial Secretary would like a copy, I am sure that we could get one for him. It says:
"Work for the biggest customer — US forces in this country — has been increasing considerably in volume in recent years."
It goes on:
"That for British Telecom, formerly a very large customer, is running down and will cease altogether in the next few years as the privatised British Telecom make their own arrangements for work."
Just so. British Telecom was a captive customer. It has moved sensibly, wisely and to the advantge of all into the private sector. It currently employs PSA for a great deal of its work. In the annual report, we read that in the next few years it will make its own arrangements for work. That is work currently done by the PSA. The Vice-Chamberlain will read the words "will cease altogether".
That is the theme of the debate. It was also the theme of the response that was given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary in his answer to my hon. Friend the

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Member for Edmonton (Dr. Twinn), the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State, Department of Energy:
"From the same date"—
That is, 1 April this year—
"Departments will be able to test the market, and to use agents other than the PSA for design and project management".
Later in my right hon. Friend's reply—I shall make a copy available to the Vice-Chamberlain — the word "untying" is used on two occasions. Again, that is of the greatest importance. My right hon. Friend said:
"The introduction of competition, by untying Departments from PSA, will provide an opportunity for Departments to test other sources of supply as well as an incentive for further improvement of the efficiency of services provided by PSA."
That is what we must do. We find the word "untying" in the next paragraph. It states:
"Under untying"—
My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham may think that that is not a felicitous choice of language—
"Departments will not necessarily be expected to test the market from the outset or to use agents other than the PSA." — [Official Report, 23 July 1987; Vol. 120, c. 433.]
That does not go nearly far enough. I wish that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary had gone further.
In the foreword to the annual report, the Secretary of State said:
"1986–87 was a year of preparation for change as individual Government Departments have been getting ready to accept greater responsibility for managing their own operations, including their accommodation requirements."
That should happen. Government Departments should be free to decide whether to engage the Property Services Agency or another agency. To this day, I have not understood why the Ministry of Defence does not instruct an estate agent to sell the houses, flats, land or buildings that are surplus to its requirements. Earlier, the Vice-Chamberlain nodded his assent when I invited him to agree to the proposition that if one wants to build a new building in Watford, one would instruct an architect to design it and a builder to build it.
If my hon. Friends wished to sell a house, they would not go not to the Property Services Agency, but to an estate agent. I put this point to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. If he had a house or flat in this country that he wished to sell would he go to the Property Services Agency? Would he put a telephone call through to the chief executive or to his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment asking whether he would be able to arrange for that house or flat to be sold? I do not think that my hon. Friend would do that, but I shall give way to him if I have misunderstood his intentions.
I ask myself the grave question, "Why do we still have so much tying?" I know that I have said that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury used the word "untying" twice in that telling parliamentary answer, but there is still too much that is tied between the Property Services Agency and Government Departments. The more we can allow Departments to choose who should carry out the functions that are at present too frequently still carried out on a monopolistic basis, the more we can allow freedom and competition, which will help the Property Services Agency to become a better organisation, more responsive to the needs of Departments and able to render a better service.
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I hope that when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary replies to the debate, he will explain that the Government intend to liberalise the Property Services Agency still further and that Departments will be able to choose who they wish to carry out the services that are presently carried out by the PSA. As the House knows, I look forward to the day when the Property Services Agency will be entirely in the private sector.
1.32 pm
Mr. Andrew Rowe: When I entered the Chamber this morning, it was a lovely day. I do not know what it is like now outside in the big wide world. As I walked through St. James's park, I became increasingly aware of the pleasure that was being derived by a number of Londoners with nothing to do but exercise their dogs; by a number of tourists who were enjoying the view; and by the large number of people such as myself, who were using the paths in St. James's park to get from their home to their place of work directly through one of the more pleasant parts of this great city.
I could not help reflecting that the park would make a wonderful site for a large number of private houses. Why should a relatively small number of people enjoying themselves prevent the exploitation of that central space for private housing? We know that the royal parks are run at a loss. Indeed, if one looks at the scandalous way in which their landscape is being allowed to age, one realises that the loss at which they are run should, for the purposes of environmental conservation, perhaps be increased.
I wondered why we do not have applications for private housing in St. James's Park, Hyde Park or Richmond Park. Of course, there are two reasons. The first is that, by a happy accident of history, the royal parks are protected by a Act of Parliament and if planning applications were received they would have to be dealt with through an Act of Parliament in this place. The second reason why the threat to the London parks is not great—not yet—is that among the people who walk those paths and enjoy the sunshine are Ministers of the Crown and senior civil servants. That is why London's inhabitants enjoy this large and beautiful environment.
When one gets out to some insignificant provincial centre, such as the Medway towns, there are no senior civil servants to walk their dogs and enjoy the sunshine. Ministers come only occasionally usually under pressure from hon. Members — such as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman), whose debate this so aptly is—and, as soon as they have been, they are whisked away in their ministerial cars, another troublesome assignment duly clone.
As a consequence of this London-based introversion, what happens to green spaces in places such as the Medway towns is of no importance. It takes a poor second place to the need of the Property Services Agency in this respect alone — as this debate has so well demonstrated — to act precepitately. In nothing else, as far as one can tell from this debate, does the PSA exert itself to act with any dispatch, but when it comes to putting in planning applications on the Great Lines at Gillingham, of course the PSA tries to act with such dispatch that it does not even have the courtesy to sit down with local authorities to work out the best way of dealing with their conflicting needs.
Mr. Couchman: I am especially pleased to see my hon. Friend here, because he shares this problem with me in the

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Medway towns. In view of the answer to my question on Monday 22 February, this week, it may not be known to central management of the PSA that any planning applications have been made for development in the Medway towns.
Mr. Rowe: That is a possibility, but one diminished by the activity of my hon. Friend, who has at least told Ministers on several occasions—on some of which I had the honour of helping him, I hope— about the threat under which the Great Lines lie.
In case you do not have this piece of knowledge, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Great Lines are a large area of green space which has remained a green space because, for defence purposes, no buildings were allowed to be erected on it. Given that this land has been insulated from any development or planning by local councils, the local councils have made shift to place their houses, shops and other buildings in other places, leaving this as a guaranteed green lung for the people of the Medway towns.
There it stands on a great hillside overlooking the Medway towns, easily the most prominent natural feature for many miles, in an area that has been sacrificed to allow the people of south London to move out into the countryside. The whole of the rest of the Medway towns is now a network of housing estates, built densely, partly because the local authorities have been able to say, "There is this large area of green space for the recreation of the people of the Medway towns."
Now we find that the Ministry of Defence no longer has a need for this open space. The Ministry hands it over, as it is bound to do, to the PSA. The PSA is under an obligation to maximise the profitability of the land it holds, although, as we have heard in the debate, its performance in that task is curiously patchy.
Without any consultation with the district councils and the people most directly concerned, the PSA submits ad hoc, haphazard planning applications in a way which will cause maximum damage to the environment. As we have heard, parts of that space could properly be developed, but oh no, we do not have any consultation with a Government agency about that. We must simply accept planning applications thrown in by the PSA as it suits it. Were it not that this debate has demonstrated that the idea of a Machiavelli lurking in the PSA is absurd, I would wonder whether these applications are as haphazard as they appear. Perhaps they have been worked out on some amazing plan, so that by developing these parts other parts will become less easy to defend. That is unacceptable, and I urge the Minister at least to give us an undertaking that the PSA will consult the people of the Medway towns about the disposition of the whole of this area.
Within my constituency there is a large farming estate which, after a great deal of searching by the MOD, was chosen as the ideal site for a training area. Everybody in my constituency welcomed the MOD application to use this area as a training area, but it will not happen—for one simple reason. The PSA was outsmarted by a neighbouring farmer simply because its procedures are so cumbersome, and, as the Select Committee report pointed out, its lines of communication so long that it was unable to respond at anything like the pace needed to conduct a simple commercial transaction in the market place.
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If that is the case, what possible defence can there be for the PSA acting as the Government's estate agent? It is perfectly clear both from this example and those adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) this morning that the PSA is incapable of acting in the commercial market as an estate agent, and that that function should be taken from it.
If, as we have heard today, Ministers are unable to answer questions of simple fact and to comment on matters of detail in the Select Committee report, does that not suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) is right and that both the task to which the PSA addresses itself, as well as the agency, are too large, too amorphous and too confused to be effective?
I had intended to restrict my remarks simply to examples from my local area, but this debate has demonstrated to me beyond peradventure the paramount need for an overhaul and a grand redistribution of functions. The PSA seems to be constitutionally incapable of performing the many functions which it is expected to perform. Most of them should be handed to other people, and the expertise which it has acquired in design and certain other areas should be concentrated on a small area and made available to anyone who chooses to use them.
One of the most interesting pieces of information that I have gleaned recently is that the local authority in Nottingham has carried out a useful experiment in using schools as joint property. As rolls fell, the authority found ways of keeping open schools by using some of the buildings as community centres for old people and as day bed centres for minor operations. Provided that people can act directly with other Departments, such joint use of buildings will occur more frequently, but it will happen rarely, if ever, if everyone must go through a third party.
For that reason, too, I believe that the role and function of the PSA should be diminished and that responsibility for making management decisions should be devolved to those who are directly concerned with the outcome.
1.45 pm
Mr. Roland Boyes: I shall speak briefly to give the Minister ample time to reply. I shall be asking him some questions, and if he cannot answer them immediately, I shall be happy if he writes to me.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) on his success in the ballot and on choosing an important subject for discussion. He said that it was the second occasion on which he had been successful, but today he is more fortunate in having adequate time for his motion to be fully discussed. He said that he did not have as much luck with the football pools, but that is shared by all of us.
Although I did not agree with everything the hon. Gentleman said—he would not expect me to—I thought that his speech was interesting and well-argued. It will certainly please his constituents. But it was no surprise to me that he made such a logical speech. The hon. Gentleman's higher education was at Newcastle university and some of his political education was gained in the north-east when he attempted to win the seat of Chester-le-Street. I believe that it was his first attempt to gain a parliamentary seat. He probably did not go there with much hope of success, but his experience there helped him to get a seat where people welcomed his views. It is unfortunate that many of the important aspects of his

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education in the north-east have been thrown overboard during the past few years, but from his speech today I believe that there is plenty of potential for recovery.
The fate of the Property Services Agency has been much discussed recently, and the debate is opportune. I regret that the Government have not provided time for a full debate, but have relied on a Back-Bench motion debated on a Friday when hon. Members on both sides of the House have busy schedules in their constituencies. But, as the hon. Member for Gillingham said, it requires luck for the second motion to he reached. If the first motion had been so important that many people wanted to speak on it, we should not have had even this short debate.
For too long, the future of the PSA has been dogged by uncertainty, with its fate hanging in the balance. In whatever direction the Government steer the PSA, the present position causes uncertainty and much loss of morale among the staff. There would be many advantages in retaining the PSA in the public sector. The opportunity for it to demonstrate its viability and ability is affected by the Government's constant interference. It appears to many, both inside and outside the PSA, that the Government are deliberately attempting to demonstrate that the PSA cannot work, by creating an air of uncertainty. To Opposition Members, that calculated destruction is abhorrent.
There has been a continuing reduction in the number of staff from some 39,000 to about 24,000 a cut of about 36 per cent. The maintenance arrears come to over £100 million on the civil side and over £100 million on the defence side. Although the Under-Secretary announced an expanded budget for that work in the next financial year, the PSA no longer has adequate staff to tackle the problem. It is ludicrous that the Government's policies have undermined the PSA's work in that way. If the PSA is to become a more commercially minded organisation, it must be allowed to do so without continuing and continuous ministerial interference.
It is Ministers who have decided that two thirds of PSA design work must be handled by private consultants, as a matter of policy, irrespective of whether in-house design is better and cheaper for the taxpayer. It has been demonstrated that it is about two and a half times more expensive to undertake externally the PSA's works programmes. Not only that, but the use of private consultants jeopardises the integrity of the PSA's work.
The Public Accounts Committee was recently told that the PSA had blacklisted 31 firms for fraud or performance. Many comments have been made about the staff in the PSA, but only 34 PSA staff out of over 25,000 or 30,000—the figure could be as many as 50,000 if one takes into account the turn over of staff—have been prosecuted for fraud since 1981. I believe that only 29 were found guilty of an offence. Do the Government accept that the policy of forcing the PSA to use private consultants for Government contracts is now giving rise to serious public concern?
It is ridiculous and naive for Conservative Members to suggest that the PSA should be privatised. If that happened, what arrangements would be introduced to ensure accountability for the expenditure of huge amounts of public money? The PSA's expenditure in 1986–87 was about £2 billion. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who has now left the Chamber, made much of that. From 1 April 1988, Departments will be "untied" from using the PSA for major projects worth more than £150,000. If Government Departments still choose to use the PSA because it offers
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good value for money, will the Minister accept that as a good enough reason not to privatise it? That should and will be an important indicator to the Minister when he is determining the PSA's future. It is vital that the Government, like most big commercial companies, retain an in-house works, estate and design organisation. The Government must not bow to pressure from inside and outside Parliament to privatise the PSA.
The PSA has a good track record in protecting taxpayers' interests. Its good name must not be jeopardised by gratuitous privatisation mania. Yesterday during the statement about electricity privatisation my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said that it represented
"a triumph of ideology over common sense". — [Official Report, 25 February 1988; Vol. 128, c. 456.]
I have to say that if the Minister is considering privatising the PSA, I must echo that comment.
The Government have so far failed to give the PSA any assurance that it will be retained in the public sector. In the Southwark district works office, an experiment in privatisation is going on against the advice of senior permanent officials. Will any assurance be given that the office will not be privatised if it proves cheaper to keep the work in-house? If political prejudice forces the PSA to take non-commercial decisions, how will it be successful in the market place, as the motion demands?
It would he helpful if the Minister would stop prevaricating and announce publicly his decision about the PSA's future, following the Environment Select Committee's report. Perhaps he is under pressure from Conservative Members. This is one matter on which I hope the Minister can give us some information. It is nearly a year since the Environment Select Committee report was published on 23 March 1987. I accept that the Government's observations were printed on 20 January 1988, but it is about time that the Minister made a full statement on the Government's attitude to the report.
Will the Minister comment on what is to happen to the 65 per cent. of the PSA's work that is undertaken for the Ministry of Defence? Will he acknowledge that the PSA has an unparalleled record of securing good value for money in MOD building work? There has been much conjecture and discussion about the relationship between the PSA and the Ministry of Defence and between the Secretaries of State for Defence and for the Environment. It would be useful, if the Minister could comment on that.
When will the Minister release the report prepared by Deloitte, Haskins and Sells? Will he release it? I understand that there are matters of commercial confidence in it. Does the Minister accept that several reports that contain confidential information have, nevertheless, been published with the relevant chunks removed or blocked out? It would be useful if the report was released so that the public could have the advantage of knowing what it says. The prevarication is appalling, considering the implications for a 24,000-strong work force. There are tremendous implications for them and they want to know the Minister's intentions.
If the PSA is to be more commercially viable, it must be free to take decisions based on commercial considerations rather than the ideological prejudices of Ministers. This is not the time for a full-scale debate on the PSA. Although I welcome this opportunity to discuss the future of the PSA, we must discuss the Minister's proposals for its future. He knows from private and public

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statements made by the Opposition that we will oppose privatisation of the PSA should such a measure be brought before the House.
I hope that the Minister will give the work force and trade unions—not just us politicians—some idea about his plans for the PSA. We are anxious to know what they are. I hope that he can make a positive statement in the next 30 minutes.
1.59 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Christopher Chope): We have had an excellent debate and some formidable contributions, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) who introduced the debate with a detailed and strong analysis of the problems and difficulties to ensure that we started off on a sound footing. Certainly, his criticisms of the Property Services Agency — we have heard many such criticisms — were constructive and without rancour. That is the spirit that has typified our debate.
We also had a formidable contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), whose chairmanship of the Select Committee on the Environment, which reported on the PSA last year, has been referred to frequently. We have all looked at that report and thought about it seriously.
We heard a typically strong contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who has great knowledge and experience of the Property Services Agency. We have heard other contributions— all from Conservative Members—drawing attention to particular constituency issues. My hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and for Gillingham referred to the Great Lines. My hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) and for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) made useful contributions, and apologised that, because of constituency engagements, they would not be here for the end of the debate.
This is our first debate for a long time on the Property Services Agency. Although it has been on a Friday, it has been a full half-day debate and it is disappointing that the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) has been alone on the Labour Benches, while the Liberals and the SDP have not been represented at all. As was pointed out in the debate, that shows Opposition Members' lack of interest in the administration of the Government. They lack interest because they do not expect to have the opportunity to participate in it again.
Mr. Boyes: Might it not show that a number of hon. Members are engaged in other activities and that it is remiss of the Minister to have allowed this debate only because one of his hon. Friends was lucky enough to win the opportunity to raise this subject in a raffle? It is not becoming of the Minister to comment on the number of hon. Members present on a Friday. There were very few Conservative Members present when I spoke, but I did not find it necessary to lower the tone of the debate by commenting on that fact. This has been a cool, calm, well-argued debate, and I hope that the Minister will not be reduced to such remarks in his speech again.
Mr. Rowe rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is for the Minister to reply.
Mr. Chope: It is a matter of priorities. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green who first noted that, with the exception of the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington, this debate has very low priority for Opposition Members.
Mr. Rowe: The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) spends much of his time and energy tabling motions relating to my constituency and other Kent constituencies; yet, when a motion is tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman), he cannot find the time to turn up.
Mr. Chope: I understand what my hon. Friend says about that.
Shortly, I shall discuss the particular issues that have been raised, including Great Lines and other pieces of land within Gillingham. In the meantime, the Government are happy to accept the terms of the motion, and I welcome the opportunity that my hon. Friend has provided of taking stock of the PSA and the way in which it is evolving.
The PSA has existed in its present form since 1972. It was established as a separate agency within the Department of the Environment to carry out many of the functions previously discharged by the former Ministry of Public Building and Works. PSA's activities cover both the civil estate, where ownership of property is vested in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, and the defence estate, which is vested in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.
Apart from the Crown Suppliers, the PSA's responsibilities, as ordered at present, fall into three main areas. It acquires, leases and manages Government property and disposes of it once it is no longer needed. It manages the design and construction of new works, and it maintains Government property. The expenditure involved is, as we have heard, considerable. The PSA's total annual turnover amounts to £2.8 billion, with almost £550 million attributable to estate management, more than £1,300 million to design and management of new works, and more than £900 million to maintenance.
The PSA now is different from the PSA that we inherited in 1979. We have initiated sweeping changes in the management of Departments across Government under the umbrella of the financial management initiative. For PSA, that radical thinking challenged the previous conventional wisdom that all accommodation matters should be funded, organised and implemented centrally. We have also fostered, and the PSA has responded to, a policy of using the private sector where it offers better value for money than doing work in-house. We have also had to deal with particular problems affecting the PSA alone, rather than the Government as a whole. I should like to outline what we have achieved under each of those headings.
First, as a direct consequence of the financial management initiative, we have introduced for the civil estate a charging system — the property repayment services system. That acknowledges that individual civil Departments should decide what they require by the way of accommodation, and pay, annually, a charge assessed by the PSA for their occupation. Improvements to the system are still needed to ensure that it reflects more accurately the prevailing property market. But the basic

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principle of applying market forces through financial pressures promises a more rational and more economic use of property.
A further feature of the PRS system is the transfer of the more routine works responsibilities to Departments. Under standard rules, civil Departments now take charge, within their own vote allocations and without recourse to PSA, of jobs up to £5,000 in value and all internal decorations. The Departments of Employment and of Health and Social Security are experimenting with a more radical option, whereby they take on maintenance up to £100,000 per job and minor new works of up to £150,000 per job.
We are, as I shall explain later, still exploring the question of how departmental and PSA responsibilities for the civil estate are best divided. We can, however, justly claim that we successfully challenged the idea that all accommodation issues should he handled separately, and in isolation from other operational requirements.
On the defence estate, the position is somewhat different in that the Ministry of Defence decides. In the light of its operational requirements, on the accommodation it needs. Here also, however, responsibilities have been transferred from PSA in a number of establishments where local service commanders operate local works maintenance budgets. Under those schemes the commanders are responsible for jobs up to £1,000 in value.
Secondly, on use of the private sector—I am not sure whether the extent to which we use the private sector is generally recognized—100 per cent. of new construction is carried out by private sector contractors. More significantly, 65 per cent. of design and management of major new works is now done by private consultants, with the remaining 35 per cent. or so being done in-house by PSA. This is the exact reverse of the position in 1979, when the vast majority of work was in-house. Moreover, we have now reached the stage where 85 per cent. of maintenance of Government property is carried out by private sector contractors, with the PSA's directly employed labour force carrying out the remaining 15 per cent. That compares with 70 per cent. of maintenance carried out by private contractors and 30 per cent. by the directly employed labour force in 1979.
The switch of work to the private sector has been accompanied by a reduction of the directly employed labour force. Within an overall staff reduction in PSA of 34 per cent. since 1979 — from about 36,500 to about 24,000 — DEL has reduced by 50 per cent. — from approximately 19,500 to the present figure of about 9,500.
During the course of the debate a number of concerns about the PSA have been expressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and others raised the issue of fraud and corruption. I must say that there is no sense of complacency about fraud and corruption in the PSA. The Wardale report of 1983 alerted us to the inadequacy of the PSA's defences against fraud and corruption. That was given substance in 1984 when the News of the World published allegations about malpractices in certain London local offices, and police inquiries were set in train. The trials that are currently taking place at the Old Bailey give fresh publicity to fraud and corruption. However, all the events that are being referred to in court took place in 1984, or earlier. The current trials are the culmination of a long and difficult police investigation.
Since 1984, the PSA has reorganised and substantially strengthened the management of its district works offices. Improved monitoring and control procedures have been
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introduced and regular inspections of local offices vet not only the results of their works but the procedural and technical routes that were followed in carrying them out. Detailed contract audits have been held across the organisation and computerised records of all tenders have been set up in key areas so that monitoring for unusual contractual patterns can take place on a continuously updated basis.
A special unit has been set up to help management to undertake investigations of possible irregularities and random inspections of individual offices. That unit has the task of ensuring that lessons learnt in one part of the organisation are applied everywhere else. Ministers and senior management accept that eradication and prevention of recurrence will require continued vigilance and a regular review of the defence mechanisms.
It is worth emphasising that those who are employed by the PSA are probably more concerned than hon. Members about the publicity that has been given to some of those trials and about the lack of emphasis that has been put on the fact that the irregularities date back to 1984 and before. Certainly there is a stain on the character of the PSA as a result of that fraud and corruption. I hope that, without being complacent about the matter, the House will accept that we have taken action to ensure that, so far as possible, there is no repetition of those events.
With regard to disposals, we were not satisfied that the procedures and practices of the PSA met our objective of keeping Government holdings to a minimum. Therefore, we have placed increasing emphasis over the past three years on speeding up the disposal process carried out by the PSA. Disposal receipts, which total Fed £43 million in 1984–85, are likely to amount to almost £120 million this year.
Sir Hugh Rossi: Will my hon. Friend confirm whether those proceeds go back to the Treasury or whether they can be used by the PSA for necessary maintenance and other works that may be required?
Mr. Chope: The funds that come from the Ministry of Defence belong to the Ministry of Defence, but the funds that are raised on the civil estate belong to the PSA. The expected amount of receipts is taken into account when the budget is set at the beginning of the year. Therefore, it would not be fair to say that all the receipts can be used by the PSA on maintenance of its stock.
Sir Hugh Rossi: Does that not mean that there is a lack of incentive for the PSA to dispose of properties?
Mr. Chope: Perhaps there is, to some extent, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in arguing the case for more money to be given for the maintenance budget for the next financial year, was able to secure substantial increases. The Treasury — the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in particular — expects that there will be increased income from the sale of surplus properties. It would not be right to say that the issue of selling properties is completely isolated from the need to find as much money as possible for maintenance. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had not been able to satisfy my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the PSA will be able to increase its receipts from disposals, he might not have been so successful in securing the increased level of funding for maintenance for the coming year—up from £90 million to £105 million — which is a significant improvement over the current year.
My hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham and for Mid-Kent mentioned the Great Lines. As my hon. Friends

619
know, I have been to Gillingham to look at the situation, as has my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Armed Forces. We are aware of the concern expressed by local people, the council and our hon. Friends. As a result, we hope that we will be able to convene a meeting soon between representatives of Gillingham borough council, the Ministry of Defence and PSA officials to consider how best to proceed with the disposal of all the MOD's local land holdings, which have been or are expected to be declared surplus. Those arrangements will be set in hand shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent seemed to suggest that there was a conspiracy to bring forward individual items of surplus land, secure planning permission on them and then bring forward some more. In order to allay his concerns, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces and I agree that it is important that surplus MOD land holdings in the area should be considered as a whole with the local council. I hope that the discussions I have mentioned will enable that to happen.
I know that one particular planning application that has caused a lot of concern is the disposal of No. 2 Garrison sports ground. I understand that the planning application on that sports ground was rejected by the local council. As with all matters relating to surplus MOD property, the PSA acts under the instructions of the MOD. I am able to tell my hon. Friends that the instruction from the Ministry of Defence is that no appeal should be lodged against the refusal of planning permission in respect of that sports ground.
Mr. Couchman: That is good news and will be well received in the Medway towns.
Mr. Chope: I am pleased with the response. If we can look at all the other outstanding planning applications and the possibility of surplus pieces of land coming from the Ministry of Defence, there will be scope for resolving the matter once and for all, so that the balance between the needs of the local community and the objectives of the Ministry of Defence and the Government of selling the land for the best price can be achieved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham spoke of the PSA's achievements as well as its problems. I would not like to allow this occasion to pass without mentioning a few of the positive achievements that stand as landmarks to the PSA. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham referred to the Falklands airport. I was lucky enough to be able to go and look at that in January this year. There is also the restoration of the Temperate house and the new Princess of Wales conservatory at Kew, the concentrated programmes for construction of new prisons and new courts, the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre and the refurbishment of Durbar court. All those are cause for legitimate pride. So, too, for example, is the PSA's record in winning national and international design awards. That was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam. Those numbered 14 last year, and this year there are already over 30. I have also seen, from firsthand experience, that PSA staff are professional in the true sense of the word. The future of the organisation, to which I shall turn shortly, must depend on the quality and dedication of the people who work in it. On that basis, the PSA can face the future with confidence.
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I have outlined the main areas with which we have dealt since 1979 and the changes so far made. However, we are not content to rest on our record. Provision of Government accommodation should in essence be a commercial operation with the client able to exercise choice on the grounds of quality, price and delivery time offered.
Subject to the exceptions that I have mentioned, which are so far generally at the lower ranges of expenditure, the distinction between Departments' clients, on the one hand, and a PSA supplier, on the other has not been clear enough. Moreover, the PSA as a supplier, has enjoyed an unchallenged monopoly, which is not healthy. Client Departments must have the freedom, and acquire the skills, to choose between different suppliers and we must develop a PSA whose success depends on its business ability, under competitive pressure. The PSA should not rely in business on its position as a Government Department. This is not a threat to the PSA; rather, it is a challenge that should enable it to exploit its strengths and expertise and demonstrate that it has the capacity to win and retain business on its own merits.
A number of hon. Members asked for the privatisation of the PSA. It is necessary to ask what privatisation would amount to. Would it be appropriate for the whole agency, or only parts of it? Would it be a practicable option without commercial accounts? Those are some of the questions that must be answered.
One of the key issues to be addressed is the civil ownership function. My hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham, for Eastbourne and for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to that. The Secretary of State for the Environment, on behalf of the Government, owns more than 2,600 freeholdings, and leases almost 5,300 holdings — almost 8,000 holdings. The day-to-day task of managing the civil estate has been devolved to the PSA. When the Select Committee looked at this matter it recommended:
"While we are convinced of the need to open up PSA to competition, we are equally certain that a substantial core of its skills needs retaining as one unit, even if this may be on a reduced scale; and that, if central management of the estate as a property resource needs strengthening, as we believe, then PSA is the only candidate for this role. But in carrying out this important strategic task, PSA will need to have its influence strengthened."
The pure civil ownership function is complemented by an estates services function which could be described as maintenance, minor new works and estate services. There is clearly scope for those functions to be done in the private sector. Indeed, that is the policy that we have been pursuing since 1979.
On maintenance and minor new works there are two functions to be performed—the commissioning of work and its execution. Eighty-five per cent. of the maintenance work is executed by private contractors. The commissioning work is for the occupying Department, with PSA acting as managers and the private sector agents carrying out the bulk of the work. But the PSA's role may also be carried out by private sector agents, as in experiments, to which I shall refer, in Southwark and Colchester.
On the estate agency side, most of the purchases and sales of land are conducted by private sector agents commissioned by the PSA, but about half of the sales and purchases are done on behalf of the MOD. In such cases, the PSA operates as a middleman estate agency service on

621
behalf of the MOD as client. I agree with the points made in the debate to the effect that the issue of whether that relationship is an ideal one needs examining.
The third main function of the PSA is project services — the commissioning and management of major building and civil engineering contracts for other Government Departments. The PSA is the largest client of the construction industry, with 100 per cent. of its construction contracts being carried out by the private sector. The project management is a key function in responsibility and has recently been the subject of a detailed efficiency scrutiny. The recommendations of that scrutiny should lead to much improved performance.
The key developments that are taking place now are several. First, on 1 April, we are about to take the important step of untying, pursuant to the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary last July. That announcement was welcomed by the PSA because it means that the PSA will be able to demonstrate that it can provide good quality services to other Government Departments without having to depend on a monopoly. This development will place a considerable amount of responsibility on Departments to ensure that their requirements are thought through, that changes to agreed briefs are kept to a strict minimum and that they are properly equipped with the necessary skills as project sponsors to oversee translation of requirements into finished products. For the first time, a main area of PSA activity will be exposed to outside competition.
The next issue that we need to address is how far and how rapidly other PSA activities should be similarly treated. The untying of major civil projects has set the pace. We shall need to follow that with a firm programme in other areas.
Then we have a major commission into project management, to which I referred briefly. I expect that when we see the results of that, we shall get demonstrably improved results. We are in the process of setting a timetable for an action plan. As soon as that is done, we want to get quick implementation of the recommendations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham suggested that, as an experiment, we should contract out the management of one of our district works offices. Some months ago, we initiated the start of such a procedure. The hon. Member for Houghton and Washington said that it was not popular within the Property Services Agency. I am not sure that he is right. The experiment will be useful. We shall invite tenders for the management of the Southwark district. We shall compare the results and performance of that district with other district works offices and see whether benefit is to be gained from that type of arrangement.
Mr. Boyes: In a letter dated 30 November 1987, the principal establishments officer of the PSA wrote to Mr. Williams, the vice-chairman of the DWC in Bristol, stating:
"this is an experiment".
He went on to state:
"the cost of the lowest acceptable offer will be compared with PSA's own overhead costs and Ministers have agreed that we should proceed only if we are satisfied that good value is likely to be secured."
On a previous occasion, when the then Secretary of State was the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), an attempt to contract out was defeated by the
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fact that the PSA was cheaper and better value for money. Will the Minister assure us that, if the PSA's costs are cheaper at the Southwark office, there will be no contracting out? The passage that I have quoted implies that the lowest tender, irrespective of whether it is higher than present costs, will be accepted.
Mr. Chope: The purpose is to get better value for money. If there is no sign that we shall do so, we shall not proceed.
A second experiment relates to the estate management of defence lands in the Colchester area. That has already been contracted out to a private firm of agents. I shall meet them soon to assess the progress that has been made and the lessons that can be learnt from it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to a delayed response to the Select Committee report. I heard what he said. Before Christmas, I discussed with him the relative merits of giving what. In essence, was an interim answer, as against delaying further to provide him with the definitive response once we, as a Government, have decided what to do on the Deloitte report. We have sent an interim response, and we certainly hope soon to be able to reach a conclusion on the Deloitte report. Although the report on the pollution of rivers and estuaries is rather outside my direct responsibility, I can tell my hon. Friend that we hope to be able to publish a response in the form of a memorandum in April.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne said that it had taken a long time to get out such responses. Sometimes, in Government, it takes longer to say yes to recommendations than it does to say no. I hope that he will take some encouragement from that.
This has been a useful debate and I hope that all who have participated will realise that there is no complacency on the part of the Property Services Agency. We face serious challenges, but I believe that the staff and those employed in the PSA will face the challenges and perform even better.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House urges the Government to convert the Property Services Agency as rapidly as possible into a fully commercial organisation whose future would depend upon successful performance at the market place.

MALICIOUS COMMUNICATIONS BILL
Ordered,
That Standing Committee C be discharged from considering the Malicious Communications Bill, and that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Coachman.]
Committee on Friday 22 April.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at the sitting on Monday 29th February, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 15 (Prayers against statutory instruments, &c. (negative procedure)), the Motion in the name of Mr. David Steel relating to Education (Scotland) may be proceeded with until half-past Eleven o'clock, or for one and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later.—[Mr. Maclean.]

Orders of the Day
DATA PROTECTION ACT 1984 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Not moved.

CONCESSIONARY TELEVISION LICENCES FOR STATE RETIREMENT PENSIONERS BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Not moved.
HOUSING (WAITING LIST RESTRICTIONS) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Not moved.

UNFAIR REPORTING AND RIGHT OF REPLY BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Hon. Members: Object.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 15 April.
Land Registration Bill [Lords]
Read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Sir George Young.]
Madam Deputy Speaker: May I draw the attention of the House to the fact that it is very unusual to take a Committee stage without notice. Is there any objection? Very well.
Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, and Prince of Wales's Consent, on behalf of the Duchy of Cornwall, signified.]
Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 75 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Night Flights
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Maclean.]
2.33 pm
Mr. Tom Cox: The issue that I raise for today's Adjournment debate is in no way political, yet it affects people who live in the constituencies of many hon. Members. It certainly affects the area in which I live and which I represent, in south-west London. I stress that it is a problem that worsens year by year. Indeed, people's complaints increase year by year. While one can complain about day flying and the noise and disturbances from which hundreds and thousands of people suffer, one has to accept that there will be day-time flying. However, I suggest that night flying is another issue, and one on which action could and must be taken.
We hear a great deal about people's rights. That must always be the concern and priority of the House. I put it to the Minister that night aircraft noise is a violation of people's rights, yet many suffer during the day and night. I have sought to keep myself updated on Government policy in statements on this issue. The overwhelming view is that there is a great deal of talk but little reaction to control this problem.
A recent statement on quotas by the Department of Transport says that the number of night flights will be increased. People may say, "Oh yes, but by quieter aircraft." That is little comfort to people who already suffer from aircraft noise. At the airports inquiries in the period 1981-83, the inspector, Mr. Graham Eyre QC, said:
"Because of the dense population under the flight paths at Heathrow a substantial number of people are unjustifiably affected by night noise. I strongly recommend that a total ban, save for emergencies, should be introduced as a matter of urgency."
What was thought necessary then is certainly necessary now, and will be fully reported by residents and many hon. Members. The Minister's reply to me this week on aircraft movements over the past five years clearly makes that point — increases at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted occur year by year.
In recent weeks, we have heard of the near misses by aircraft, and they are causing deep concern. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that issue. The ever-increasing problem we face is the density of air traffic movement in the south of England. I and many other people believe that it will be only a matter of time, because of this issue and its dangers, before a call for more night flying is made. I ask the Minister to give a clear undertaking that any demands along those lines will receive no support from his Department.
It is of increasing concern that talk is getting under way on the need for a fifth terminal at Heathrow. The claim about need can easily be made on the grounds of pressure. Will it be rejected? Again I ask the Minister for a clear statement. Once there were to be only three terminals at Heathrow — we now have four. An article on a statement made within the past few days by Sir Norman Payne, the British Airports Authority chairman, quoted him and said:
"'We are starting to look at the expansion of Heathrow and the need for a fifth terminal.' A new terminal would boost capacity at Heathrow by 15m passengers to around 53m."
I suggest that, if there were to be any allowance for further developments at Heathrow, it would be at the cost of suffering by the residents who live in that area.

625
What is to he the future development at Gatwick airport? I am aware of the existing 40-year agreement, but we all know that such agreements can be overturned. There is deep concern in the minds of many people that such an agreement could be overturned. Without doubt, the overriding fear is that, on either development, more night flights will be allowed. I ask the Minister for a clear statement on both issues.
Why does there appear to be no clear Government policy on, or indeed encouragement of, much greater development of provincial airports? Several areas would welcome that. Not only would that reduce the air traffic density, but it would reduce the number of night flights in the south. We often hear what I say is an excuse that people would not want to fly to such provincial airports, but that has never been tested. We now have a modern inter-city rail service, and for many people who use Gatwick or Heathrow, travelling expenses would be less if they could use a provincial airport. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister why no further encouragement is given to that type of development.
A recent statement on monitoring night noise is confusing. It states:
"Noise of departing aircraft will continue to be monitored continuously."
Why only departing aircraft? Why is there no monitoring of landing aircraft? The statement continues:
"The night noise climate will be monitored each summer."
Why not all year round? Night noise occurs all year round and causes disturbances all year round. A further issue that has not been fully considered is the noise levels of cargo flights when leaving airports. I hope, if not during this debate then subsequently, to hear from the Department about surveys and its thinking on cargo flight movements.
We hear a great deal in the reports from the Department of Transport about quieter aircraft, and we welcome that, yet over 28 per cent. of the air traffic movements in 1986–87 at Gatwick involved the noisier 111 aircraft. There are still too many air traffic movements by noisy aircraft which cause misery to many people during the day and night. I reject the policy contained in the airports policy White Paper of 1985 which states:
"Policy on night noise is firmly based on research into the relationship between aircraft noise and sleep disturbance and … this should continue to be the basis for decisions."
I, and I am sure many others, would say that, once woken, that is it; there is no going back to sleep. Where is the concern for those people? The Minister will be aware of the anxiety about delayed departures. Despite assurances on quotas, they continue to occur. Under pressure from airlines, noisy aircraft are allowed to continue under this grouping. Such actions do nothing to build public confidence in Government policy.
The record is there for everyone to check. The daytime noise climate is undoubtedly worsening in the south as traffic increases, and the Department's predictions on this issue have been wrong. Many think, sadly, that it will be wrong again on noise levels of night flights, and the public will suffer as they have suffered for many years.
I recently asked about noise insulation grants, and there is undoubtedly an urgent need for them. The qualification for eligibility for grant must be updated. The figures that the Minister gave me earlier this week show that traffic has increased considerably, and the criteria based on figures for 1980 are now out of date. It is unbelievable that insulation grants are not given to schools or hospitals.
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Aircraft noise has existed for a long time. I am sure that hundreds of thousands of people agree with me that it is getting worse. Flight movements are increasing and there is pressure for more night flights. Many people believe that flights should be monitored in summer and winter. Many believe that the infringement levels must be reviewed and that we need a clear statement from the Department on future development in the south and in relation to regional airports.
What discussion is there in the European Community? If the Minister cannot tell me today, perhaps he will write to me. We need much more joint action on the control of noise, night flying and group limitations. The EC transport and environment committees could play a major role in co-ordinating policy. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister what his Department and the EC are doing.
We live in a modern, scientific age of great development. I refuse to accept that hundreds of thousands of people must continue to suffer such torment if they live near major airports. If the Government acted, they would have overwhelming support in the House and in the country.
Only the Government — not individuals or any Member of the House—can take action to improve the position. The issue is important to many people.
2.47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): The House will he grateful to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) for introducing the debate. Aviation has been on the parliamentary agenda more often than most people expected during the past few weeks, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will regard it as helpful if I give the House some information that the Civil Aviation Authority published today in relation to a recent non-incident at Heathrow.
In a press notice, the CAA said that the captain of an Air Canada aeroplane which was thought to be slightly high and fast abandoned his approach. The CAA considered that to be good airmanship since a pilot should be completely satisfied before completing a landing. Air traffic control at Heathrow confirmed that there was no aircraft on the runway, and that the previous landing aircraft had already cleared it. The Air Canada aeroplane was never lower than 1,000 ft and was a mile out when the go-around was initiated.
The hon. Gentleman spoke mainly about night noise, but he also mentioned daytime disturbance and the development of airports away from London and the south-east. On the latter point, investment in regional airports has grown dramatically, as has their use. The Government want that to continue. There is no purpose in dragging people down to Heathrow or Gatwick unnecessarily when their aviation needs could be met in Birmingham, Manchester, Scotland and elsewhere.
The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. Perhaps I can give him some of the answers now, and then, as he kindly suggested, if there are further points to take up, I shall deal with them in correspondence.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the possibility of a fifth terminal at Heathrow. The 1985 White Paper said that the Government could not make a commitment at that stage, but would keep such matters under review. That remains so. A new terminal would need planning

627
permission. The White Paper also said that the release of the Perry Oaks sludge works site for the airport was highly desirable.
The hon. Gentleman asked about delayed departures. I understand that the number of delayed departures allowed for in the summer of 1987 was 60 each at Heathrow and Gatwick. The number of delayed departures that took place was two thirds of that figure, so that was better than people had expected.
The Government have continually taken a deep interest in the subject of night flying. As a Government, we are committed to the expansion of aviation, which is good for jobs in the aviation industry. About 67,000 people are employed at Heathrow and Gatwick. If there was any threat to that employment, hon. Members on both sides of the House would be very concerned.
We must also be prepared to respond to anxieties among the public about aircraft noise. People's anxiety about the effects on sleep of night flying are and will always remain high on the list of priorities. That is why, on 10 February, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced new restrictions on night flights at Heathrow and Gatwick from 1 April 1988, for five years. Those restrictions are broadly in line with the proposals published in November last year for night restrictions at the two airports. My right hon. Friend set out his objectives. The aim is to improve the night noise climate around the two airports without imposing unnecessary restrictions on the airline industry.
I should like to explain the Government's policy on noise control at airports. Local problems are best solved at that level. At all airports, we expect the owners or operators to reduce, as far as is reasonable and practicable, the disturbance caused by their operations. The Government have assumed direct responsibility for noise control at the designated airports— Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead. The hon. Gentlman said that the most effective way of tackling aircraft noise is to reduce it at its source. If we had silent aircraft, we should not have a noise problem. We must move within the realms of the possible and practicable.
Successive Governments have recognised that one of the most effective ways of reducing aircraft noise is to encourage airlines to operate the quietest available aircraft. The operation of non-noise-certified aircraft on the United Kingdom register was banned from 1 January 1986, one year ahead of most other European countries. That ban was extended to foreign-registered jets from 1 January this year. That was the first permissible date under the international agreement. The banning of non-noise-certificated aircraft from the United Kingdom has had a dramatic effect on the noise climate around our airports. That is demonstrated best by the improvement in the daytime noise climate around Heathrow, the busiest international airport in the world.
The 35 noise and number index contour is generally accepted to be the onset of annoyance for the average community. The number of people around Heathrow living within that contour has sharply reduced. It was 2 million in 1976 and was less than 700,000 in 1986, the most recent year for which figures are available. I recognise that both the hon. Gentleman's constituency and mine are outside that contour.
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Most developed countries with aviation interests agree that the next logical step forward would be to ban the operation of the next noisiest group of jets, the so-called chapter 2 aircraft. Several studies are taking place into the most appropriate way of introducing such a ban, while taking into account the legitimate interests of the aviation industry.
The hon. Gentleman asked that Britain should take a leading role in that. I confirm that we are playing a major role in the studies now being undertaken by the European Civil Aviation Conference, the European Community and the International Civil Aviation Conference.
Unfortunately, noise standards do not themselves solve the problem. People, including some in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, will continue to experience some discomfort. Their discomfort can and must be eased by the implementation of operational measures at Heathrow and Gatwick, including the use of quieter approach and departure procedures, the use of special departure routes, called noise preferential routes, maximum noise limits on departure and, most importantly, restrictions on the type and number of aircraft that can operate during the night period.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the same attention that is given to take-offs should be given to landings. Aircraft make the most noise when they are taking off, so that deserves priority attention, although we should not ignore the noise associated with landing.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's announcement of the new night restrictions policy is the culmination of a long process which was announced in 1981. We then reviewed restrictions at Heathrow and Gatwick and set new quotas which ran until March this year. The Government said that when most of the noisier movements at night had been phased out, there would be a further review. The process of phasing out the noisier movements was completed in March last year.
In 1986, comments were sought on night flights, and reports of research into aircraft noise and sleep disturbance were commissioned by the Department of Transport. The consultation papers, "Night Flights at Heathrow" and "Night Flights at Gatwick", reported the conclusions of the review and announced proposals for future night restrictions at those two airports. More than 250 responses were received.
When announcing his policy, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave all the views that were expressed in the submissions careful consideration. We were, and remain, mindful of people's reasonable expectation of a good night's sleep. I often wish that the party managers in the House had the same regard for our sleep.
At Gatwick, the Secretary of State is determined that night noise should be further reduced during the next five years. The new night quotas will mean a quickly reducing number of flights by the less quiet aircraft in favour of more flights by quieter, modern aircraft. At Heathrow, the number of night flights allowed will be limited to about their present level, thus preventing any increase in disturbance.
Take-offs in the small hours are particularly disturbing so, during that period, except for a few aircraft which are unavoidably delayed, take-offs only by modern, quieter aircraft will be allowed. That should achieve a considerable improvement in the noise climate during the most sensitive period.

629
These modern, quiet aircraft, which we call night noise group C, will be used more by day than at night, especially at Gatwick. That will help the daytime noise climate as well. That will be welcome news to the hon. Gentleman. The requirements for that category of aircraft are even more stringent than the International Civil Aviation Organisation's so-called chapter 3 standards, which are for aircraft with later and quieter high bypass ratio engines.
We shall continue to monitor the night noise climate and the noise made by individual aircraft against the maximum night noise limit, which is less than the daytime noise limit. We are prepared to consider whether additional monitoring is necessary to verify the reduced disturbance caused by quieter, modern aircraft. We think that it is important that local people have confidence in noise monitoring. We intend to conduct monitoring openly.
In the proposals, we emphasise that we set great store by the process of consultation and the functions of the airport consultative committees. Nominees of local authorities sit on such committees. We shall invite the committees to nominate representatives of local people to sit with representatives of the aviation industry on an advisory committee to consider all aspects of night noise monitoring.
At Gatwick, we expect two years' monitoring to show that the disturbance at night is getting better rather than worse. If that is the case, we shall revise the quotas. That will not he necessary at Heathrow, because we are cutting the quotas there, so the disturbance will be less.
Despite all that has been done to mitigate aircraft noise, there will still be some people close to major airports who continue to be disturbed by aircraft. For such people, noise insulation grants were made available. The first scheme was introduced at Heathrow in 1966 and at Gatwick in 1973. The most recent schemes, which were introduced in 1980, ended in 1985. We understand that several other airports have noise insulation grant schemes.
As was promised in the 1985 airport policy White Paper, the 1980 Heathrow and Gatwick schemes have been reviewed. The review suggested that there were small areas outside the scheme boundary at each airport which should
630
be included in the scheme retrospectively. We are discussing with the British Airports Authority the suggested small adjustments to the scheme boundary, and we shall make an announcement when the discussions are completed. Any additional grants will be paid, as before, by the BAA. There will be no change to the qualification for eligibility, the description of dwellings, the specification of work to be done or the residential qualifications date.
Airport operators are free to purchase properties adjacent or near to the airport boundary that are severely affected by aircraft noise. In January 1987, the BAA's Heathrow and Gatwick airport companies announced voluntary schemes to purchase noise-blighted properties near the two airports. The schemes are still open and have more time to run.
At Stansted, we shall supplement noise abatement measures as the airport develops. In the short term, present night restrictions will continue. A provisional departure route structure will be introduced on 7 April this year. We shall continue to consult on the final route structure. We are also committed to introducing a new noise insulation scheme when the airport throughput reaches 2 million passengers a year. The present throughput is half that number.
As I said, the hon. Gentleman has done the House a service because concerns need to be brought to the attention of the Government and the authorities and information to the attention of those affected, who want to know the prospects for the future. I hope that my remarks will have given them confidence that matters are getting better and will continue to do so — without restricting unnecessarily the growth of aviation. I hope that I have shown that as our airports have become busier we have become more mindful of the needs of those who live near them. The House can rest assured that the Government are most unlikely to take any action that would make life more unpleasant for those who live around our airports.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Three o'clock.

EMPLOYMENT

  Quarrying
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment why no prosecutions were undertaken in the period covered by the Mines and Quarries Inspectorate's report for the period ended March 1986 in the light of the number of accidents therein reported.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The Health and Safety Executive's inspectors make use of a range of enforcement techniques from advice and persuasion, through the issues of enforcement notices to prosecution. Prosecution is regarded as the last resort and was not judged to be appropriate in any case during this period.

  Unemployment Benefit
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many unemployed benefit claimants there were in each parliamentary constituency at January; and how many of them were(a) aged under 25 years, (b) aged under 25 years, and unemployed for 12 months or more, (c) aged under 25 years, and unemployed for six months or more or (d) of any age and unemployed for 12 months or more.

  Mr. Lee
  I am sending the hon. Member a table showing the number of unemployed claimants in each parliamentary constituency in Great Britain, for each of the age and duration categories requested, on 14 January 1988, which is also available in the Library.

  Construction Industry (Accidents)
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment in what form figures for the accident rate on building sites are collected.

  Mr. Nicholls
  Accident rates are calculated nationally for the construction industry by dividing the total number of relevant accidents to employees reported to the Health and Safety Executive by the estimated total number of employees in the construction industry.

  Tourism
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information he has as to how many local authorities(a) have a designated tourism office, (b) have a department or sub-department of tourism, or (c) have a tourism officer employed within an economic development unit.

  Mr. Lee
  This information is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, I welcome the fact that a large and increasing number of local authorities have staff with specific responsibilities for developing tourism within their areas.

TRANSPORT

  Cabotage
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects the European Transport Ministers to discuss the question of cabotage rights for European shipping within the European Economic Community.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  My right hon. Friend intends to raise the question of shipping cabotage at the Transport Council of Ministers next month with a view to a more substantive discussion at a subsequent Council under the current German presidency.

  Air Misses
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what is the official definition of a risk-bearing air miss;

  (2) what is the official definition of a reported air miss.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  In the Civil Aviation Authority's published air miss statistics, air misses are categorised as A, B, or C depending upon whether there was a definite risk, a possible risk, or no risk of collision. Risk-bearing air misses are those in categories A and B.

  In the same context a reported air miss means an air miss reported by any civil or military pilot in United Kindom air space. Reports are filed when a pilot considers that his aircraft may have been endangered by the proximity of another aircraft to the extent that a risk of actual collision existed.

ENVIRONMENT

  Inner-city Partnership Programme
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the value of the inner-city partnership programme for Lambeth for 1988–89 in real terms as a percentage of the allocation for 1986–87/88.

  Mr. Chope
  The 1988–89 allocation is 82 per cent. of the 1986–87 allocation and 88 per cent. of the 1987–88 allocation, at 1988–89 prices. But in 1986–87 Lambeth underspent its allocation by over 13 per cent. and estimates for 1987–88 indicate an underspend of a similar proportion. The allocation for 1988–89 is a slight increase on the estimated 1987–88 out turn at 1988–89 prices.

  Vacant Land (Tower Hamlets)
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the London Residuary Body will transfer the open space on the junction of Bruce road and Powis road, E3, to the London borough of Tower Hamlets with a view to incorporating it into Bromley recreation ground and enabling plans for an under-fives playground to proceed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The future of this site is currently under discussion by the LRB and the council of the London borough of Tower Hamlets. It is open to the London residuary body to make a proposal to the Secretary of State for the transfer of this property to the council under section 67 of the Local Government Act 1985.

  Homeless Persons
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply of 1 February to the
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  hon. Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) Official Report, columns 429–30, what are the criteria used to determine the allocation of money for housing projects for the homeless to the local authorities listed.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) on 20 January at cols.749–52.

  Rugby Matches (Crowd Control)
  Mr. Hayward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with the presidents of the home country Rugby football unions concerning crowd control before, during and immediately after major rugby matches.

  Mr. Moynihan
  I last met the president of the Rugby Football Union on 16 December 1987 and I had brief discussions with the presidents of the Welsh and Scottish Rugby Unions on 20 February 1988. The question of crowd control was not discussed at either meeting.

  Northamptonshire County Council
  Mr. Michael Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total number of full-time equivalent employees of the Northamptonshire county council as at the end of December 1979, December 1983, December 1984, December 1985, December 1986 and December 1987.

  Mr. Chope
  The results of the joint manpower watch December 1987 survey are not expected until towards the end of March 1988. The numbers of staff employed by Northamptonshire county council, at September for each year, are as follows:

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total Staff (FT + PT)

  1979

  1

  1

  1

  1980

  9,775

  8,532

  18,307

  1981

  9,471

  8,321

  17,792

  1982

  10,327

  8,527

  18,764

  1983

  10,264

  8,330

  18,594

  1984

  10,331

  8,480

  18,811

  1985

  10,347

  8,837

  19,184

  1986

  10,163

  9,362

  19,525

  1987

  10,123

  9,656

  19,779

  1 Data not available.

  Source: Joint Manpower Watch for England.

  Full-time equivalent figures are not available for individual authorities.

  Derelict Land Survey
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the latest derelict land survey.

  Mr. Chope
  The returns for the next derelict land survey are due in by the beginning of October. Information will then be analysed, and we expect to be in a position to publish the results of the survey in the summer of 1989.

  Member's Correspondence
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the hon. Member for Walsall, North 340
  will receive a reply to his letter of 1 February regarding a representation to meet his officials over the Wimpey no-fines properties in Blallenall, Walsall.

  Mrs. Roe
  I replied to the hon. Member on 24 February.

  Property Services Agency
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if the Property Services Agency is using external accountancy practices to check consultants' fees; how many instances of discrepancies have been discovered; and if he will list, by directorate and region, the amounts received from refunds or by a subsequent reduction of fees;

  (2) pursuant to the answer of 2 February, Official Report, columns 531–32, if he will describe the nature and scope of his Department's inquiries into the case of procedural irregularity involving the consultant Maurice Baguley in relation to the overseeing of maintenance contracts at the Property Services Agency's works offices at Westminster and Teddington.

  Mr. Chope
  There were no cases of irregularity arising from the employment of Maurice Baguley and Partners, on the maintenance management contract at the PSA district works office at Westminster, which was successfully completed in June 1987. No inquiries have therefore been instituted. The case to which I referred in my answer to a previous question, columns 531–32, related to an employee of the consultants T. Dunwoody and Partners who are employed at Teddington district works office on a similar contract.

  The procedural irregularity was uncovered during one of the routine management checks carried out at all district works offices which were instituted as part of the agency's drive to maintain efficiency and probity in its operations. Subsequent inquiries included interviews with the consultancy partners and the consultants' employee involved and also checks on all other contracts handled by that employee. It was following his interview that the employee handed in his resignation. There was no evidence whatsoever that any other employee of the consultants' firm was involved or had acted irregularly.

  Lambeth Bridge House
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment who are the landlords and freeholders of Lambeth bridge house, Great Westminster house and Horseferry house; and whether the owners have recently expressed any concern about the state of repair of these buildings.

  Mr. Chope
  The landlords and freeholders of Lambeth bridge house, Great Westminster house and Horseferry house are, respectively, Adamant Investment Corporation Ltd., Legal and General Assurance Society Ltd. and Pearl Assurance Ltd.

  I can confirm that discussions have been held between PSA and the landlords of Lambeth bridge house and Horseferry house on the extent of necessary repairs and maintenance. Work on both buildings will commence in the next financial year. Repairs to Great Westminster house are the responsibility of the landlord. I am advised that the landlord does not propose to effect any repairs and intends instead to demolish and redevelop the

  341
  building. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food staff are due to leave the building by September this year, on lease expiry.

  Urban Programme
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the projects funded in each of the London boroughs through the urban programme announced on 9 February.

  Mr. Chope
  The allocations announced on 9 February were provisional, and do not relate to an approved list of projects. They are subject to approval of the inner area programmes submitted by each authority.

  Water
  Mr. Leigh
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether domestic rateable values will continue to be used for water charging purposes once they are abolished for local authority purposes.

  Mr. Moynihan
  It is clearly not in the interests of consumers that the water industry should continue to use rateable values for water charging purposes indefinitely, once domestic rates are abolished for local authority purposes from 1990. The Government therefore intend to amend the Local Government Finance Bill to prohibit the use of all rateable values, both domestic and non-domestic, for water charging purposes from 1 April 2000. This will give each water undertaker a period of 10 years after domestic rates are abolished in which to choose and introduce alternative means of charging.

  Consultants
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the number of occasions where consultants employed by the Property Services Agency have been discovered by it to have overcharged for consultancy services; and if he will also identify in relation to each occasion the amount of money subsequently repaid, or the amount of subsequent fee reduction.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: As part of the agency's established procedures, PSA staff check all fee accounts submitted by consultants. Any inaccuracies or overcharging are dealt with immediately, normally by making the necessary adjustments to the consultants fee account before payment. Most adjustments are of a routine nature and bearing in mind that thousands of consultants' accounts are submitted on a monthly basis, no central record is kept of such adjustments.

  On some very large projects a firm of chartered accountants is being employed by PSA to conduct an independent audit on certain aspects of the consultants' bills. To date bills from nine major consultants have been audited by the firm and savings of over £1 million representing some 2·5 per cent. of consultant fees have been made in the fees claimed. The commissions concerned were let by two directorates, the Directorate of Defence Services 1 and the Directorate of Civil Accommodation.

  London Docklands Development Corporation
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give details of all spending over budget in the last financial year by each department of the London Docklands Development Corporation.
  342
  Mr. Chope
  Provision was made for LDDC's expected expenditure by votehead, as recorded in table 1 of class X, vote 3, of the main Supply Estimates (HC 227—IX, X: March 1987). A further £2,163 was transferred from the Merseyside development corporation when it became clear that MDC would not require its full allocation. Of this transfer, £1,163,000 was allocated to votehead (F) and £1,000,000 to votehead (G). Virements between other voteheads were either within the LDDC's delegation limits, or were approved by the Department. Outturn compared with final provision, as amended, in 1986–87 was therefore as follows:

  £ thousands

  Final Provision

  Outturn

  A. Running costs

  9,500

  10,624

  B. Estate management; maintenance, rates, security

  3,900

  3,301

  C. Environment improvement works

  6,200

  7,100

  D. Land purchase

  15,000

  12,800

  E. Land reclamation and site preparation

  8,118

  8,364

  F. Provision and renewal of gas, water, etc main services

  13,600

  5,363

  G. Roads and transport

  26,500

  8,701

  H. Support for industry — grants and loans under the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978

  700

  483

  I. Support for voluntary organisations and social facilities

  3,900

  4,114

  J. Docklands Light Railway

  6,000

  5,554

  K. Housing

  200

  —

  Gross Total

  65,781

  66,404

  Deduct: (Y) receipts used to offset items A and B

  900

  1,523

  Net Total

  64,881

  64,881

  1 Plus 1,163 transfer.

  2 Plus 1,000 transfer.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Acrylic Yarn Imports
  Sir Marcus Fox
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether the concerns of the United Kingdom acrylic yarn spinners about imports from Turkey have been raised with the European Economic Community in Brussels recently; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs informed the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on 22 February of the industry's serious concern about these imports. I have previously indicated to my hon. Friend that there was an overriding need to agree textile restraint arrangements with Turkey. Nevertheless, I have ensured that our growing concern at the import levels for acrylic yarn is made clear to our Community partners and the Commission. They have been told of the mounting evidence of damage from Turkish imports to United Kingdom acrylic yarn producers who have been forced to introduce extensive short-time working. I shall continue to monitor the domestic situation closely. If sufficient justification for seeking action from the Commission emerges, I shall act accordingly.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Pension Funds
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any plans for the conversion of the pension funds of academic and technical officers in former British dependencies into pay-as-you-go schemes.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Four Indian family pension funds were converted into "pay-as-you-go" schemes in 1985. Nine colonial widows' and orphans' pension funds — Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malaysia (Sabah), Malaysia (Sarawak), Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Zambia — were converted in 1986. Three others — Guyana, Kenya (European Officers) and Kenya (Asian Officers)—will be converted once the apportionment of assets to be vested under the British Government's control has been agreed with overseas Governments concerned. The overseas superannuation scheme and the overseas service pensions scheme and fund are also scheduled for conversion in due course. None of these funds and schemes are exclusively confined to academic and technical officers.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the last audit was done on the pension funds of academic and technical officers in former British dependencies; and when the next one will take place.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Funds under the control of the Overseas Development Administration are audited annually. We do not have comprehensive information on funds administered by other Governments.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps have been taken to ensure that all those entitled to benefit from the pension funds of academic and technical officers in former British dependencies are in receipt of those entitlements.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The primary responsibility for ensuring that any entitlements are put into payment rests with the beneficiary concerned. However, the Overseas Development Administration is also attempting to establish the present whereabouts of several thousand former contributors and contingent beneficiaries, the great majority of whom served on short-term contracts in the former British dependencies and who, for one reason or another, have lost contact with the schemes. In addition, upon receipt of notification of the death of an officer, the ODA checks whether any widow's or dependants entitlement exists under the funds and schemes under its control.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many of the pension funds for British academic and technical officers in former overseas dependencies run by the Overseas Development Administration are indexed; how this has been applied; and from what date the indexation began.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The pension funds and schemes administered by the Overseas Development Administration are not themselves index-linked, but all expatriate officers' individual pensions awarded under those schemes are elegible for an index-linked pension supplement under United Kingdom pension increase 344
  legislation. The date from which pensioners have the benefit of indexation varies with their individual circumstances.

  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commomwealth Affairs how many pension funds for British academic and technical officers in former overseas dependencies are run by the Overseas Development Administration; and if he will list them.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Forty-eight widows' and orphans' pension schemes and funds are administered by the Overseas Development Administration. Details are as follows:
  Colonial and other Widows' and Orphans' Pension Schemes Administered by the Overseas Development Administration Aden Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1967.Barbados Public Officers' Widows' and Childrens' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985 Barbados Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.Belize Public Officers' Widows' and Childrens' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1982.Belize Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 19821 4 Joint (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) Public Officers' Widows and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.Cyprus Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.East African Community (East African Scheme) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.East African Community (Railways and Harbours Corporation) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.Fiji Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1975.The Gambia Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1974.1 Ghana Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.2 Guyana Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund (UK) Scheme 1978.Jamaica Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.1 3 4 India Family Pensions (Transferred) (UK) Scheme 1985.2 Kenya Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1977.2 Kenya Asian Public Officers' Family Pension Fund (UK) Scheme 1977.Kenya Asiatic Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pension Fund (UK) Scheme 1977.Malawi Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1975.Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.1 Malaysia (Sabah) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.1 Malaysia (Sarawak) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.Malta Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.Mauritius Public Officers' Widows' and Childrens' Pension (UK) Scheme 1975.Mauritius Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.Nigeria Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.Seychelles Public Officers' Widows' and Childrens' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.1 Seychelles Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.1 Sierra Leone Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.Singapore Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1977.Sri Lanka Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1979.Sudan Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1973.345 Tanzania (Tanganyika) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.Tanzania (Zanzibar) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.Tanzania (Zanzibar Asiatic Officers) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1976.Trinidad and Tobago Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1986.Uganda (European Officers) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.Uganda (Asian Officers) Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.Zambia Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.1 Zambia Public Officers' Widows' and Orphans' Pensions (Defunded) (UK) Scheme 1986.Zambia Transferred Federal Officers' (Dependents) Pensions (UK) Scheme 1985.2 Overseas Superannuation Scheme.2 Overseas Service Pension Scheme.1 Formerly funded schemes converted to "pay-as-you-go" schemes.2 Funds scheduled for conversion.3 The Indian family pensions scheme comprises the following defunded schemes:Indian Civil Service Family Pension Fund (Transferred)Indian Military Service Family Pension Fund (Transferred)Indian Military Widows' and Orphans' Fund (Transferred)Superior Services (India) Family Pension Fund (Transferred)4 The total of 48 includes the Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland schemes and the Indian family pension funds counted separately.

  Public Officers
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the criteria used by his Department for assessing whether or not those working in former British dependencies prior to independence were public officers.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The term "public officer" does not identify a single group of officers who worked in the former British dependencies. In broad terms, it covers those who worked in a territory's central Government service. But each country's law and administrative procedures have their own variations and exceptions: an assessment of whether an individual was a public officer for any particular purpose can only be made in context.

  Non-administrative Officers (Compensation)
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many non-administrative officers in former British dependencies received lump sum compensation on independence; and what criteria were used in assessing who received such compensation.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  No central record exists of the occupational status of the tens of thousands of overseas officers whose pensions are the responsibility of the British Government, or of whether they received compensation for loss of career. The information could be compiled only at disproportionate cost. The criteria for determining eligibility for compensation, which varied from territory to territory, were set out in each country's schemes.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 9 February,Official Report, column 125, why it is not possible except at disproportionate cost to state (a) how much money given by Her Majesty's Government was applied for training and scholarships for (i) Greek Cypriots and (ii) Turkish Cypriots in the last three financial years and (b) how many (i) Greek Cypriots and (ii) Turkish Cypriots received training or scholarships funded wholly or partly by Her Majesty's Government in the last three financial years.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Within the technical assistance training programme expenditure on training and scholarships for the period in question is not recorded separately in terms of whether the recipients are from the Greek or Turkish parts of the island. The costs are attributed to the country as a whole as expenditure is incurred. To determine the sums expended by community would require examination of all the files of those who received awards in the three years concerned.

  Following my earlier reply, arrangements are being made to ensure that in future both numbers of recipients and sums expended from aid funds on each community are recorded.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Nursery Education
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many three and four-year-old children in each local education authority area in England are in(a) full-time and (b) part-time nursery education in private nursery schools; and what percentage of the estimated three and four-year-old population in each local education authority area this represents for the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Dunn
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many three and four-year-old children in each local education authority in England are in(a) full-time and (b) part-time nursery education, in nursery schools and nursery classes of primary schools, excluding any children in reception classes in primary schools and any children in private schools; what percentage of the estimated three and four-year-old population in each local education authority area this represents; and what is the average hourly attendance, per week, of these children in (i) full-time and (ii) part-time nursery education, for the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Dunn
  The information requested on the numbers and percentages of children in maintained nursery education in January 1987 is given in the table. Information on the average hourly attendance of these pupils is not collected centrally.

  Full-time and part-time pupils aged three and four in nursery schools and classes—January 1987

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Percentage2

  Barking

  95

  861

  24·5

  Barnet

  148

  1,706

  24·7

  347

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Percentage2

  Bexley

  24

  578

  11·6

  Brent

  355

  1,781

  30·1

  Bromley

  0

  122

  1·9

  Croydon

  90

  507

  7·0

  Ealing

  19

  2,310

  28·4

  Enfield

  0

  1,383

  21·0

  Haringey

  419

  1,427

  32·4

  Harrow

  0

  789

  16·1

  Havering

  1

  225

  4·4

  Hillingdon

  3

  2,592

  43·3

  Hounslow

  1,317

  2,294

  64·5

  Kingston upon Thames

  71

  777

  27·4

  Merton

  48

  1,321

  32·6

  Newham

  136

  3,404

  51·3

  Redbridge

  21

  426

  8·4

  Richmond upon Thames

  13

  503

  14·3

  Sutton

  0

  665

  15·8

  Waltham Forest

  148

  2,050

  36·6

  Inner London

  8,070

  11,833

  33·7

  Birmingham

  2,722

  5,114

  27·2

  Coventry

  190

  1,449

  19·7

  Dudley

  151

  1,989

  28·9

  Sandwell

  363

  2,595

  37·0

  Solihull

  0

  1,330

  30·2

  Walsall

  161

  3,026

  48·3

  Wolverhampton

  0

  3,432

  52·0

  Knowsley

  17

  1,551

  30·2

  Liverpool

  1,011

  3,892

  40·2

  St. Helens

  6

  1,184

  25·3

  Sefton

  63

  1,537

  23·2

  Wirral

  32

  1,435

  17·1

  Bolton

  531

  1,701

  30·2

  Bury

  203

  510

  15·8

  Manchester

  3,906

  2,269

  50·2

  Oldham

  703

  1,226

  30·6

  Rochdale

  182

  1,500

  27·6

  Salford

  1,920

  724

  44·1

  Stockport

  229

  670

  12·5

  Tameside

  97

  1,706

  32·2

  Trafford

  8

  593

  11·3

  Wigan

  25

  1,828

  22·6

  Barnsley

  41

  2,499

  44·6

  Doncaster

  62

  3,004

  39·3

  Rotherham

  380

  2,241

  38·5

  Sheffield

  585

  3,739

  37·6

  Bradford

  461

  3,933

  30·3

  Calderdale

  493

  798

  25·8

  Kirklees

  10

  3,627

  35·0

  Leeds

  420

  4,709

  29·5

  Wakefield

  118

  3,300

  42·2

  Gateshead

  48

  1,354

  28·6

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  1,191

  1,259

  36·6

  North Tyneside

  111

  1,937

  45·5

  South Tyneside

  77

  1,477

  43·2

  Sunderland

  145

  2,677

  33·2

  Avon

  1,502

  1,399

  13·0

  Bedfordshire

  683

  3,619

  28·3

  Berkshire

  261

  4,438

  23·9

  Buckinghamshire

  0

  2,095

  12·8

  Cambridgeshire

  202

  1,644

  11·5

  Cheshire

  114

  3,741

  16·3

  Cleveland

  13

  7,200

  45·4

  Cornwall3

  41

  1,246

  13·4

  Cumbria

  154

  1,744

  16·8

  Derbyshire

  856

  4,610

  24·3

  Devon

  245

  1,700

  9·0

  348

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Percentage2

  Dorset

  0

  739

  6·0

  Durham

  324

  4,674

  33·3

  East Sussex

  7

  940

  6·9

  Essex

  193

  1,864

  5·5

  Gloucestershire1

  0

  0

  0·0

  Hampshire

  16

  1,706

  4·5

  Hereford and Worcester

  150

  753

  5·6

  Hertfordshire

  178

  7,213

  30·0

  Humberside

  1,015

  5,351

  29·9

  Isle of Wight

  15

  88

  4·3

  Kent

  5

  1,792

  4·9

  Lancashire

  174

  4,638

  13·4

  Leicestershire

  1,493

  3,483

  21·4

  Lincolnshire

  151

  768

  6·9

  Norfolk

  5

  825

  5·2

  North Yorkshire

  275

  2,171

  15·9

  Northamptonshire

  380

  1,943

  15·9

  Northumberland

  133

  1,373

  20·1

  Nottinghamshire

  370

  9,942

  42·4

  Oxfordshire

  164

  1,568

  12·4

  Shropshire

  2

  1,095

  11·3

  Somerset

  47

  25

  0·7

  Staffordshire

  2,430

  3,177

  21·3

  Suffolk

  16

  1,999

  13·4

  Surrey

  83

  2,437

  11·3

  Warwickshire

  28

  1,689

  14·8

  West Sussex

  25

  478

  3·4

  Wiltshire

  2

  201

  1·4

  ENGLAND

  39,392

  211,737

  21·3

  1This authority has no nursery schools or classes.

  2Total number of three and four year old children in nursery schools and classes as a percentage of the estimated three and four year old population.

  3Includes Isles of Scilly.

  Education Reform
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will set out, in respect of each inner London borough council(a) the actual number of staff transferring to it on 1 April 1986 as a result of the abolition of the Greater London council and (b) his estimate of the number of staff to be transferred to it at 1 April 1990 as a result of the abolition of the Inner London education authority.

  Mr. Dunn
  [holding answer 18 February 1988]: Some 100,000 staff were transferred from the Greater London council to successor authorities by the main statutory order. Of these, the majority transferred to the joint authorities and the Inner London education authority, and separate figures by boroughs are not available. My right hon. Friend has said that we expect block transfer arrangements to cover well over 80 per cent. of ILEA staff, that is over 56,000 full-time equivalent staff.

WALES

  Prescription Charges
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the number of National Health Service prescriptions issued per year in Wales in respect of single-course treatments for which more than one prescription charge was levied; and what are the revenues accruing.

  Mr. Grist
  This information is not available.

  It is not possible to identify from information given on prescription forms whether the items being prescribed are for a single course of treatment or otherwise.

  Felinheli (Port Dinorwic) Bypass
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he now anticipates building of the Felinheli (Port Dinorwic) bypass in Gwynedd will begin; and when he proposes to go out to tender with regard to this scheme.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The Felinheli (Port Dinorwic) bypass is programmed to start in the period January 1988-December 1990, as set out in "Roads in Wales 1985". Invitation of tenders will depend on the satisfactory completion of statutory procedures and the availability of financial resources.

  Eye tests by hospital opticians1

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Clwyd

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  East Dyfed

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Pembrokeshire

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Gwent

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  119

  Gwynedd

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Mid Glamorgan

  215

  86

  77

  152

  41

  90

  51

  Powys

  28

  64

  49

  36

  27

  36

  39

  South Glamorgan

  12

  36

  44

  27

  50

  32

  46

  West Glamorgan

  118

  22

  200

  620

  331

  517

  518

  Wales

  373

  208

  370

  835

  449

  675

  773

  1 First attendance as an out-patient.

  Dental inspections by the community dental service1

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  21986–87

  Clwyd

  47,687

  59,584

  64,030

  54,259

  48,045

  44,667

  43,357

  East Dyfed

  54,967

  54,959

  33,601

  34,839

  32,901

  31,915

  38,494

  Pembrokeshire

  16,091

  15,508

  17,406

  19,861

  17,269

  Gwent

  68,063

  66,385

  60,562

  77,991

  60,344

  65,431

  56,609

  Gwynedd

  16,941

  11,349

  12,082

  12,426

  20,266

  21,799

  19,125

  Mid Glamorgan

  90,742

  99,859

  92,070

  84,760

  86.396

  77,365

  72,369

  Powys

  17,987

  22,071

  16,708

  20,275

  18,423

  19,200

  22,109

  South Glamorgan

  44,056

  44,694

  45,205

  45,128

  41,555

  43,383

  41,768

  West Glamorgan

  42,303

  42,276

  43,036

  40,971

  45,486

  49,366

  53,157

  Wales

  382,746

  401,177

  383,385

  386,157

  370,822

  372,987

  364,157

  1 Includes first and subsequent inspections.

  2 Financial year 1986–87.

  Hospital Out-patients (dental)1

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Clwyd

  2,987

  3,027

  2,941

  2,897

  2,635

  3,180

  3,573

  East Dyfed

  996

  937

  1,036

  1,642

  1,461

  1,715

  1,933

  Pembrokeshire

  356

  908

  687

  670

  641

  725

  768

  Gwent

  2,072

  2,258

  2,717

  3,210

  3,103

  3,237

  3,154

  Gwynedd

  1,506

  1,452

  1,455

  1,451

  1,567

  1,812

  1,364

  Mid Glamorgan

  1,357

  1,506

  1,686

  2,573

  2,878

  2,845

  2,303

  Powys

  —

  —

  —

  129

  191

  178

  227

  South Glamorgan

  22,451

  21,906

  18,413

  18,383

  19,878

  21,980

  20,927

  West Glamorgan

  4,352

  3,884

  4,317

  4,848

  5,033

  4,887

  4,114

  Wales

  36,077

  35,878

  33,252

  35,803

  37,387

  40,559

  38,363

  3 First visit as an out-patient (dental surgery and orthodontics).

  (thousands)

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Eye tests by the General Ophthalmic Service in Wales

  576

  489

  499

  519

  561

  597

  623

  Dental examinations by the General Dental Service in Wales

  1,458

  1,467

  1,542

  1,580

  1,637

  1,665

  11,751

  1 Financial year 1986–87

  Eye Test and Dental Examinations
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many(a) eye tests and (b) dental examinations took place in Wales in each of the years 1980 to 1986 by area health authority; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Grist
  [pursuant to his reply, 30 November 1987, c. 405–8]: I regret that the last line of the table—namely, that part which related to dental examinations by the general dental service—contained errors. The following table provides the amended information:

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Attorney-General whether the review of the Government's legal service will examine and make recommendations on all aspects of the management of legal staff of the Crown prosecution service and the office of the procurator fiscal.

  The Attorney-General
  The terms of reference of this review are to consider:

  1. what legal services are needed by the Government;

  2. how those services can most effectively and economically be provided and organised, taking account of the Government's policies of privatisation and of contracting out;

  3. what changes are needed in the management of legal staff in Government service, including their recruitment, retention, training, deployment and remuneration, so as to make best use of them;

  and to make recommendations.

  The review will therefore cover the work of the Crown prosecution service and, I understand, the office of the Procurator Fiscal. However, it is unlikely to look in detail at the structure and organisation of the Crown prosecution service because the department is so new.

  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Attorney-General whether he is satisfied with the workings of the Crown prosecution service; and whether he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  The Crown prosecution service has now been in existence for almost 18 months throughout England and Wales, and slightly longer in the old Metropolitan local authority areas. It has had a difficult time, principally because it has not yet been able to recruit all the lawyers needed, and this has placed great strains on its staff, who have had to work long and hard to cope with these shortages. I am more than satisfied with their work.

  There has also been a considerable amount of criticism of the service's work. Some of it has been well founded; more of it has not, deriving from shortcomings for which the service itself was not responsible. Despite its problems the Crown prosecution service is fulfilling the tasks set for it; there is now a prosecution service in every area of the country, national policies on prosecutions have been developed and implemented, and there is increasing evidence of an improvment in the quality of cases coming before the courts. The Director of Public Prosecutions has decide on a management strategy for the future of the service which will build on these achievements.

  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Attorney-General what changes have taken place in the remuneration of the staff of the Crown prosecution service since their salaries were debated in the House on 11 December 1985,Official Report columns 1009–24.

  The Attorney-General
  In addition to the 1986 and 1987 Civil Service pay awards the following changes have been made to the pay of staff employed within the Crown prosecution service:

  1. An allowance payable to Crown prosecutors and senior Crown prosecutors working within the London, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Kent and Thames Valley areas of the Crown prosecution service. This allowance is also payable to grade 6 lawyers working within the London, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire areas.
  352
  2. An additional allowance is payable to Crown prosecutors and senior Crown prosecutors who cover some weekend or bank holiday court sittings.

  3. Following the transfer of staff from local authorities to the Civil Service a number of pay anomalies were identified. The great majority of these have been resolved and this has involved the payment of additional salary to some 500 staff.

  4. An additional increment has been added to the salary scale maxima of those staff at grades 4 to 7. This increment will be awarded to those officers whose performance meets the criteria for payment of a performance point.

  The following table indicates the salary scale minima and maxima of staff employed in the grades shown within the service, as they were at April 1985 and as they are now.

  Salary scales Minimum and maximum

  Grade

  As at April 1986

  As at January 1988

  5 Chief Crown Prosecutor (Mainly)

  20,964–25,533

  124,765–29,465

  6 Branch Crown Prosecutor (Mainly)

  17,000–22,926

  118,786–26,335

  7 Equivalent to Senior Crown Prosecutor

  13,508–18,363

  115,030–21,092

  Crown Prosecutor

  10,500–15,000

  11,603–16,576

  Senior Executive Officer

  10,980–13,801

  12,225–15,779

  Higher Executive Officer

  8,896–11,265

  9,985–12,878

  Executive Officer

  4,953–8,917

  5,870–10,292

  Clerical Officer

  3,149–6,293

  3,664–7,247

  Clerical Assistant

  2,898–5,054

  3,314–5,799

  Senior Personal Secretary

  6,088–7,797

  8,400–10,150

  Personal Secretary

  5,322–6,607

  6,607–7,846

  Typing Manager

  7,600–8,800

  8,400–10,100

  Typist

  4,400–5,720

  4,964–6,363

  1 Includes additional increment payable under the performance scheme.

  Mr. John Morris
  To ask the Attorney-General how many officers have been seconded from outside London to London in each quarter since the Crown prosecution service was set up; what was the extra cost of such secondments, and what is the present shortfall of staff(a) generally and (b) in the London area.

  The Attorney-General
  The number of officers seconded from outside London to the three London areas since the Crown prosecution service became fully operational on 1 October 1986 was as follows:

  126 in the quarter ended 31 December 1986;

  160 in the quarter ended 31 March 1987;

  132 in the quarter ended 30 June 1987;

  33 in the quarter ended 30 September 1987;

  26 in the quarter ended 31 December 1987.

  The extra cost of such secondments was approximately £630,000.

  As at 30 January 1988 the Crown prosecution service had vacancies for 718·5 staff. Of these 253 were within the London area.

  Commonhold
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Attorney-General what is his response to the recommendations of the working group of the Law Commission on commonhold (Cm. 179); and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  The working group report Cm. 179, to which my hon. Friend refers, was published in July
  353
  last. It makes far-reaching recommendations. A decision on implementation will be taken when these have been fully considered.

CIVIL SERVICE

  Government Offices (Smoking)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service if he will give details of arrangements for designated non-smoking areas in Government buildings.

  Mr. Luce
  [holding answer 25 February 1988]: This information is not held centrally. It is for each Government Department to determine arrangements for non-smoking areas in its buildings taking account of local circumstances.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make it his policy to ban smoking in all Government offices; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Luce
  [holding answer 25 February 1988]: It is for individual Government Departments to decide what measures to take to restrict smoking in their offices. I encourage Departments to take whatever steps are practicable to achieve this and have asked Departments to give every encouragement to local managers to conduct surveys of the attitudes of their staff with a view to extending non-smoking areas in offices.

  In my own Department, management, staff and trade unions are co-operating in a trial ban on smoking at the workplace. I will pass on the lessons from this exercise to other Government Departments.

SOCIAL SERVICES

  Out-patient Waiting Times
  Mr. Hayes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to publish details of out-patient waiting times on a district by district basis; and if he will make a statement.

  Number of patients on in-patient waiting list at 31 March, 1981 to 1987, for Leicestershire District Authority.

  Specialty

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  General medicine

  10

  4

  3

  3

  15

  3

  6

  Neurology

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  11

  Cardiology

  165

  250

  298

  230

  172

  225

  183

  Rheumatology

  0

  0

  0

  6

  15

  0

  4

  Geriatrics

  87

  67

  51

  70

  65

  61

  10

  Units for younger disabled

  6

  11

  15

  12

  11

  16

  0

  General surgery

  1,232

  894

  983

  668

  912

  1,172

  928

  Ear, nose and throat

  759

  870

  852

  887

  1,208

  1,371

  1,553

  Traumatic and orthopaedic

  2,113

  2,112

  1,969

  1,596

  1,391

  1,226

  1,340

  Ophthalmology

  621

  442

  465

  492

  515

  573

  727

  Radiotherapy

  34

  59

  47

  71

  82

  106

  14

  Urology

  147

  113

  377

  358

  331

  396

  452

  Plastic surgery

  602

  500

  555

  436

  553

  818

  1,091

  Thoracic surgery

  154

  173

  246

  282

  358

  307

  446

  Oral surgery

  127

  225

  374

  373

  557

  482

  260

  Gynaecology

  815

  836

  603

  655

  1,040

  1,124

  1,151

  Mental handicap

  49

  42

  37

  37

  33

  0

  0

  Mental illness

  17

  0

  4

  2

  0

  7

  15

  G.P. other

  3

  3

  1

  1

  4

  4

  9

  Psychogeriatric

  41

  70

  86

  59

  57

  61

  68

  Forensic Psychiatry

  0

  0

  0

  0

  11

  10

  10

  Total

  6,982

  6,671

  6,966

  6,238

  7,330

  7,962

  8,278

  354
  Mr. Newton
  Information on out-patients waiting times is not at present collected centrally.

  Cervical Cancer
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the average waiting time nationally for the results of cervical cancer smear tests; and what is the average waiting time for women in north Staffordshire.

  Mrs. Currie
  I regret that this information is not held centrally in the form requested. According to Health Circular HC(88)1, published on 12 January, the target for laboratories is that they should aim to send the result of a cervical smear to the doctor who submitted it within a maximum of one month of receiving it. Health authorities in England reported that in December laboratories serving 56 out of 191 districts were not achieving this target. The average processing time for these 56 districts was seven weeks. Where backlogs do exist they are being tackled mainly by the recruitment arid training of more staff, by the use of other laboratories and by overtime working.

  The average processing time in North Staffordshire districrt health authority in the same period was eight weeks.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table showing the waiting list figures by specialty in the Leicestershire health authority as at 31 March for each year from 1981 to 1987.

  Mr. Newton
  The requested information is given in the table.
  355

  Specialty

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  of which percentage waiting over a year

  25·6

  25·1

  21·2

  19·6

  14·8

  14·2

  113·6

  1 Value imputed as numbers waiting over a year not available for Trent region.

  Cancer Screening
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cervical cancer screening laboratories there are in Great Britain; what is the ratio of adult women to laboratories; what are the levels of staffing per laboratory; and how much funding each laboratory receives.

  Mrs. Currie
  In 1986 in England there were 196 NHS laboratories. The number of women aged 20 to 64 (the eligible age group for routine screening within the computerised call and recall system) was 13·69 million, a ratio of 69,871 women to each laboratory. If they were all screened every five years, this would generate an average of 13,974 smears a year for each laboratory. On average in 1986 the number of cervical smears screened per laboratory was 18,923 and the average number of staff was 4·4*. Information on funding is not available centrally.

  * Source: DHSS form SBH 140.

  NHS (Management)
  Mr. Hayes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce an integrated National Health

  The number of patient on the in-patients waiting list in Crewe District Health Authority by specially as at 31 March 1981–87

  Specialty

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  General medicine

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3

  Dermatology

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  3

  0

  Geriatrics

  3

  3

  0

  1

  7

  0

  0

  General surgery

  2,186

  2,366

  2,499

  2,169

  2,343

  1,681

  915

  Ear, nose and throat

  521

  702

  747

  675

  736

  654

  195

  Traumatic and orthopaedic

  160

  222

  290

  198

  361

  330

  335

  Ophthalmology

  140

  182

  151

  161

  153

  202

  219

  Urology

  308

  325

  505

  471

  689

  682

  665

  Oral surgery

  183

  219

  297

  353

  405

  362

  356

  Gynaecology

  592

  653

  698

  644

  754

  766

  824

  Mental handicap

  16

  15

  15

  15

  15

  15

  0

  Psychogeriatric

  0

  0

  0

  4

  4

  0

  0

  Total

  4,109

  4,687

  5,202

  4,691

  5,467

  4,695

  3,512

  of which percentage waiting over a year

  37·5

  43·4

  42·6

  42·6

  44·2

  44·7

  37·6

  Single Payments
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services for how long supplementary benefit single payments were made in the United Kingdom; what was the cost thereof for 1983–84, 1984–85, 1985–86 and 1986–87; and what are the latest figures for 1987–88.

  Mr. Portillo
  Regulated single payments have been made since November 1980. The information requested on expenditure is given below:

  £ million

  1983–84

  183

  1984–85

  266

  356
  Service management system based on the United States of America model of Provider Review Organisations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moore
  As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Government are undertaking a wide-ranging, internal review of the National Health Service. At this stage we are not ruling out any proposals for reform.

  Crewe District Health Authority
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will tabulate by specialty the number of cases dealt with by the Crewe district health authority for each year since 1979.

  Mrs. Currie
  I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad) on 17 December 1987 at column 715.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will tabulate by specialty the waiting list figures in the Crewe health authority as at 31 March in each year since 1981.

  Mr. Newton
  The information requested is given in the table.

  £ million

  1985–86

  368

  1986–87

  365

  1987–881

  166

  1 8 April 1987 to 12 Janary 1988.

  Note: Information for 1986–87 and 1987–88 is provisional.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report for each local office in Great Britain the single payment expenditure for the 32 weeks ended on 7 April 1987 and for the corresponding period in 1985–86 and 1984–85, and the supplementary benefit case load for each in the same period.
  357
  Mr. Portillo
  The single payment expenditure by each of the Department's local offices in Great Britain for the 32 weeks ended on 7 April 1987 is available in the table "Supplementary Benefit Single Payment Expenditure, 27 August 1986 to 7 April 1987".

  The number of people receiving supplementary benefit, by local office, on 10 February 1987 is available in the table, "Analysis of Supplementary Benefit Claimants as at 10 February and 28 July 1987".

  Copies of each of the tables are in the Library.

  Similar information for the corresponding periods in 1984–85 and 1985–86 is not available in the form requested and would be disproportionately costly to obtain.

  Church Hill House Hospitals
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to transfer mentally handicapped patients from the Church Hill House hospital, Bracknell, to community care settings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  It is for the health authority and the local authority to co-operate to provide a comprehensive range of co-ordinated health and social services for mentally handicapped people and their families. The total number of residents at Church Hill House is expected to fall from 220 in April 1987 to 165 by April 1990. Community provision is expected to increase by 75 long-term beds and 29 short-term care beds. The East Berkshire health authority has also made significant progress in the provision of four community teams and a range of day care in co-operation with social services to ensure that people in the community are adequately supported. A decision about the remaining residents and the long-term future of the hospital will be taken in the light of the success in developing new services.

  Health Centres
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make it his policy to encourage general practitioners to purchase health centres from health authorities.

  Mr. Newton
  We already provide financial incentives to general practitioners to purchase health centres offered for sale by health authorities.

  Sickness and Invalidity Benefit
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the total number of people claiming sickness and invalidity benefit at the present time; and what was the number of people claiming sickness and invalidity benefit in February 1987.

  Mr. Portillo
  The total number of people claiming sickness and invalidity benefit as at 9 February 1988 was 1,298,000, and at 10 February 1987 was 1,297,000 (figures rounded to the nearest thousand).

  Drugs (Costs)
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make it his policy to encourage dispensing chemists to issue a receipt for each dispensed prescription showing the cost of the drugs dispensed.

  Mr. Newton
  We have no plans to do so.

  South-East Thames Regional Health Authority
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the estimated population for each of the last 10 years for the South-East Thames regional health authority area and each of its constituent district health authority areas; and what estimates are available for the future.

  Mrs. Currie
  The latest available information is given in the table. Population projections based upon the mid 1985 estimates have been produced for each year up to 2010. The projected figures for a selection of years are given in the table.

  Persons (thousands)

  Estimated Resident Population at Mid Year

  Health Authority

  1977

  1978

  1979

  1980

  1981

  (a) Actual South East Thames RHA

  3,601

  3,585

  3,580

  3,587

  3,589

  Brighton DHA

  302

  300

  299

  298

  298

  Eastbourne DHA

  205

  208

  210

  212

  213

  Hastings DHA

  151

  151

  152

  153

  154

  South East Kent DHA

  252

  253

  253

  255

  256

  Canterbury and Thanet DHA

  284

  285

  287

  291

  293

  Dartford and Gravesham DHA

  221

  222

  224

  225

  224

  Maidstone DHA

  185

  186

  187

  189

  190

  Medway

  315

  316

  318

  320

  322

  Tunbridge Wells DHA

  200

  200

  199

  199

  200

  Bexley DHA

  217

  217

  216

  217

  217

  Greenwich DHA

  214

  213

  214

  216

  216

  Bromley DHA

  299

  299

  298

  298

  299

  West Lambeth DHA

  184

  176

  170

  166

  163

  Camberwell DHA

  233

  227

  224

  222

  222

  Lewisham and North Southwark DHA

  339

  333

  329

  326

  323

  Estimated Resident Population at Mid Year

  Health Authority

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  South East Thames RHA

  3,585

  3,586

  3,595

  3,602

  3,619

  Brighton DHA

  299

  300

  299

  297

  298

  Eastbourne DHA

  216

  218

  221

  224

  228

  Hastings DHA

  155

  157

  159

  162

  164

  South East Kent DHA

  257

  257

  260

  262

  264

  Canterbury and Thanet DHA

  295

  294

  296

  300

  301

  Dartford and Gravesham DHA

  224

  223

  223

  221

  221

  Maidstone DHA

  191

  192

  194

  194

  196

  Medway

  322

  322

  321

  322

  324

  Tunbridge Wells DHA

  199

  198

  198

  196

  196

  Bexley DHA

  218

  218

  218

  219

  220

  Greenwich DHA

  216

  216

  216

  216

  218

  Bromley DHA

  298

  299

  298

  298

  297

  West Lambeth DHA

  159

  158

  157

  163

  164

  Camberwell DHA

  216

  214

  216

  212

  212

  Lewisham and North Southwark DHA

  321

  320

  319

  317

  317

  1991

  1996

  2001

  (b) Projected (1985-Based) South East Thames RHA

  3,685

  3,758

  3,822

  Brighton DHA

  298

  301

  304

  Eastbourne DHA

  236

  245

  252

  359

  1991

  1996

  2001

  Hastings DHA

  171

  178

  184

  South East Kent DHA

  273

  283

  292

  Canterbury and Thanet DHA

  312

  320

  327

  Dartford and Gravesham DHA

  221

  222

  222

  Maidstone DHA

  201

  207

  212

  Medway

  333

  341

  348

  Tunbridge Wells DHA

  194

  194

  194

  Bexley DHA

  218

  220

  222

  Greenwich DHA

  221

  227

  233

  Bromley DHA

  300

  304

  310

  West Lambeth DHA

  165

  165

  163

  Camberwell

  217

  220

  223

  Lewisham and North Southwark DHA

  326

  331

  335

  Repetitive Strain Injury
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take steps to ensure the compiling of statistics to indicate the scale of repetitive strain injury problems in Britain.

  Mrs. Currie
  I regret we cannot do so as such problems are mostly treated by general practitioners. The cost of compiling comprehensive statistics on the wide range of conditions treated by general practitioners would greatly exceed the benefits obtained from the information.

  Free School Milk and Meals
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services which pupils will be entitled to free school milk and free school lunches following the social securiy changes which come into force in April.

  Mr. Portillo
  Pupils in families who receive income support will he entitled to free school meals on the same basis as those in families who currently receive supplementary benefit. Milk may be provided as part of the meal. In the new family credit scheme, the child credits include an extra £2.55 a week, in each week of the year, in place of free school meals. It is estimated that around 100,000 more school-age children will benefit under the family credit scheme compared to those who currently receive free school meals under the family income supplement and local authorities' discretionary schemes combined.

  Mr. E. A. Kerrod
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services why the appeal against a reduction in the amount of his reduced earning allowance by Mr. E. A. Kerrod, of 49 New road, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, which was submitted to the clerk to the social security appeal tribunal in Cardiff on 26 October 1987, has still not been heard; how many other cases await decision by the tribunal; what is the average and longest period that an appeal is outstanding; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  I understand that Mr. Kerrod's appeal has been listed for hearing on 9 March 1988.

  In Wales, for the quarter ending 6 June 1987, (the latest available figures) there were 10,767 appeals awaiting to be heard and the average length of time from lodgement to hearing was 18.4 weeks. Individual figures are not available for appeals taking more than 21 weeks to clear; 25 per cent. of all social security appeals fall into this category.
  360
  The subject of delays in the hearing of social security appeals is of great concern both to me and to His Honour Judge Byrt, who, as the president of Social Security and Medical Appeal Tribunals, has the responsibility for administering the social security appeal tribunals in Great Britain.

  Judge Byrt has written a statement which sets out the practical difficulties presently facing his organisation and the steps which he is taking to overcome them. A copy of this statement of 4 February 1988 has been placed in the Library.

  Supplementary Benefit
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people are in receipt of the long-term rate of supplementary benefit for the latest date and for equivalent dates in the previous five years.

  Mr. Portillo
  The information requested is contained in table 34.40 of "Social Security Statistics 1987", a copy of which is available in the Library.

  Tobacco
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will seek to ban the sale of tobacco products for oral use; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Currie
  The Department has written today to a number of companies that manufacture tobacco products for oral use, their representative organisations and other interested parties to inform them that, pursuant to section 11(5) of the Consumer Protection Act, the Government propose to make safety regulations under section 11 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 to prohibit persons from supplying or from offering to supply, agreeing to supply, exposing for supply or possessing for supply, certain oral tobacco products. The Government are concerned that the use of such products is causally associated with an increased risk of oral cancer. Bodies whose interests are affected are asked to make representations on the Government's proposals by 26 May 1988. The products we are considering are fine cut, ground or particulate tobacco products prepared, sold or advertised for oral use other than smoking or chewing. This does not include traditional solid chewing tobacco, loose tobacco for making up into cigarettes or snuff for nasal use. We are primarily concerned with products used in the mouth, often in a moist form held between the cheek and the gum, which can give rise to cancer of the mouth.

  Thalidomide
  Mr. John M. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what representations he has received regarding a constituent of the hon. Member for Solihull, Miss Nancy Hood, of Beechwood Park road in Solihull, and her need for the drug thalidomide; and what steps he will take to ensure its availability to her;

  (2) if he will make a statement regarding the sources of availability of the drug thalidomide as a treatment for certain skin ailments.

  Mrs. Currie
  [holding answer 21 January 1988]: No product licences under the Medicines Act for thalidomide tablets are held in the United Kingdom. Two sources of the unlicensed medicine are available: the West German

  361
  orginators who impose supply requirements which are not possible to comply with and a Brazilian manufacturer whose product is of unknown quality and related safety. The Department is willing to conduct tests in which the Brazilian product is compared with that produced by the originator. If Miss Hood's doctor is satisfied with the results of these tests he would be able to obtain a sufficient supply to treat her on his own responsibility in accordance with the provisions of sections 9(1) and 13(1) of the Medicines Act 1968 and the Medicines (Exemption from Licences) (Importation) Order 1984.

  Health Services (Demand)
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give the most recently available estimates of the percentage changes in demand on the hospital and community health services due to demographic change for each year from 1972–73 to 1995–96; and if he will put in the Library details of the methods used to arrive at the estimates.

  Mr. Newton
  [holding answer 18 February 1988]: The estimates of growth in demographic demand on the hospital and community health services for the years 1972–73 to 1995–96 are as follows:

  Year

  Per cent.

  1972–73

  0·0

  1973–74

  -0·1

  1974–75

  0·0

  1975–76

  0·1

  1976–77

  0·2

  1977–78

  0·3

  1978–79

  1·0

  1979–80

  1·3

  1980–81

  1·1

  1981–82

  0·4

  1982–83

  0·4

  1983–84

  0·5

  1984–85

  0·6

  1985–86

  1·3

  1986–87

  1·0

  1987–88

  1·0

  1988–89

  1·0

  1989–90

  1·0

  1990–91

  0·9

  1991–92

  0·7

  1992–93

  0·5

  1993–94

  0·3

  1994–95

  0·3

  1995–96

  0·9

  Details of the method used to arrive at the estimates are given in answer to question 2 of the Social Services Select Committee Report, Session 1986–87, "Public expenditure on the social services 1987" (HC413).

  Number of available beds in each London District Health Authority for the years 1979 to 1986.

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  District Health Authority

  Barnet

  2,840·7

  2,799·6

  2,771·3

  2,748·1

  2,670·4

  2,550·9

  2,444·8

  2,324·0

  Harrow

  908 ·1

  901·6

  914·0

  938·4

  934·8

  877·9

  904·5

  886·3

  Hillingdon

  1,627·5

  1,479·6

  1,528·04

  1,525·7

  1,498·9

  1,405·9

  1,378·2

  1,329·1

  Hounslow and Spelthorne1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,548·1

  1,497·3

  1,446·9

  1,381·7

  1,356·3

  Ealing

  1,708·9

  1,712·9

  1,752·6

  1,724·9

  1,663·4

  1,622·3

  1,543·4

  1,509·2

  Brent

  2,315·9

  2,332·3

  2,262·5

  2,272·9

  2,203·1

  2,058·8

  1,939·0

  1,882·9

  Paddington and North Kensington

  1,364·7

  1,275·8

  1,235·7

  1,215·7

  1,210·9

  1,187·0

  1,2113

  1,208·4

  Riverside2

  ..

  ..

  ..

  ..

  ..

  ..

  3,464·6

  3,090·6

  362
  Estimates of increased demand on services from demographic change are expressed in expenditure terms but this does not imply that increased spending is the only way in which increased demand can be met.

  Pharmaceuticals (Adverse Reactions)
  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services on how many occasions his Department or the Committee on Safety of Medicines has investigated allegations that a pharmaceutical company failed to report adverse reactions to one of its products; on what date each inquiry commenced; in each case whether or not the allegation was found to be generally justified; and when the allegations were justified, what action was taken.

  Mr. Newton
  [holding answer 23 February 1988]: The Department is currently investigating allegations that two pharmaceutical companies failed to report known serious adverse reactions to the Committee on Safety Medicines. The investigations which began respectively in November 1986 and November 1987 are continuing. Because information on suspected under-reporting is held on files relating to specific products and containing full licensing information, a count of earlier possible instances cannot be made without disproportionate cost.

  Busparone
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received about the prescribing of the drug Busparone; what his response has been; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Newton
  [holding answer 24 February 1988]: I have received no representations about prescribing Busparone. This is a licensed medicinal product and doctors are free to prescribe it if they think it clinically appropriate for their patients. In common with all such products, Busparone will be subject to the special reporting arrangements of the Committee on Safety of Medicines in respect of suspected adverse drug reactions.

  Health Authority Statistics
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list by London health authority the total available patient beds for each year since 1979.

  Mrs. Currie
  [holding answer 2 February 1988]: The available information is given in the table.
  363

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  Barking, Havering and Brentwood

  3,283·2

  3,237·8

  3,182·8

  3,095·0

  3,033·0

  2,984·2

  2,877·9

  2,764·8

  Hampstead1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,963·4

  1,918·5

  1,893·7

  1,874·6

  1,818·3

  Bloomsbury1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  2,486·7

  2,489·5

  2,344·4

  2,115·8

  1,971·0

  Islington1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,176·9

  1,104·8

  1,018·4

  916·6

  865·8

  City and Hackney1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,887·2

  1,883·9

  1,852·8

  1,754·2

  1,685·8

  Newhara

  940·6

  923·5

  936·4

  886·5

  845·4

  877·2

  879·8

  8761

  Tower Hamlet1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,433·2

  1,396·4

  1,363·3

  1,354·7

  1,289·6

  Enfield

  1,233·8

  1,216·6

  1,137·2

  1,087·1

  1,113·7

  1,076·3

  1,068·9

  1,055·2

  Haringey

  1,235·8

  1,122·3

  1,142·6

  1,156·6

  1,108·8

  1,027·9

  986·4

  1,071·9

  Redbridge

  1,654·8

  1,655·0

  1,650·4

  1,632·6

  1,644·3

  1,630·2

  1,616·9

  1,552·8

  Waltham Forest

  3,310·7

  3,317·9

  3,244·8

  3,050·5

  2,841·9

  2,667·4

  2,508·0

  2,406·6

  Bexley

  1,653·2

  1,666·9

  1,635·1

  1,584·8

  1,542·5

  1,468·4

  1,435·3

  1,386·3

  Greenwich

  1,776·9

  1,666·1

  1,623·0

  1,598·4

  1,611·1

  1,585·8

  1,516·6

  1,333·6

  Bromley

  2,590·8

  2,490·6

  2,466·4

  2,376·6

  2,295·6

  2,116·2

  1,988·9

  1,887·0

  West Lambeth1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  2,100·2

  2,119·4

  2,065·8

  1,992·8

  1,887·1

  Camberwell

  1,432·3

  1,366·4

  1,332·3

  1,289·3

  1,279·1

  1,232·4

  1,263·7

  1,231·7

  Lewisham and North Southwark

  2,335·5

  2,257·1

  2207·5

  2,184·7

  2,194·3

  2,058·0

  2,047·7

  1,909·5

  Croydon

  3,191·8

  3,089·0

  3,006·0

  2,928·9

  2,860·4

  2,728·2

  2,637·3

  2,396·5

  Kingston and Esher1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  1,563·7

  1,517·0

  1,456·9

  1,416·2

  1,377·6

  Richmond, Twickenham and Roehampton1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  978·5

  970·0

  916·1

  867·7

  859·5

  Wandsworth

  2,870·9

  2,688·8

  2,543·4

  2,475·7

  2,493·8

  2,533·8

  2,337·5

  2,234·3

  Merton and Sutton

  2,687·1

  2,609·6

  2,509·7

  2,495·4

  2,477·0

  2,389·8

  2,332·4

  2,235·0

  The Hospitals for Sick Children

  517·4

  506·0

  543·8

  494·4

  473·7

  418·3

  409·8

  402·2

  The National Hospitals for Nervous Diseases

  356·5

  355·4

  344·6

  355·7

  350·8

  341·1

  348·7

  337·9

  Moorfields Eye Hospital

  207·7

  203·9

  204·1

  207·8

  2101

  181·1

  163·1

  151·7

  Bethlea Royal and Maudsley Hospitals

  471·9

  492·0

  496·7

  500·8

  497·6

  505·9

  504·2

  511·3

  The National Heart and Chest Hospitals

  602·9

  570·3

  577·4

  555·6

  552·4

  540·1

  448·6

  423·2

  The Royal Marsden Hospital

  360·7

  360·6

  350·1

  340·2

  342·6

  332·6

  343·7

  354·2

  Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte's1

  ..

  ..

  ..

  891·4

  899·7

  916·6

  868·1

  844·6

  The Eastman Dental Hospital

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  0·0

  Total — GLC

  43,480·3

  42,297·6

  41,598·8

  56·751·6

  55,746·1

  53,672·6

  55,143·6

  52,707·9

  1 Comparable figures not readily available because of NHS restructuring on 1 April 1982.

  2 Comparable figures not available prior to 1985.

SCOTLAND

  Education Budgets
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent by each regional authority

  Expenditure on repairs and maintenance expressed as a percentage of the education budget.

  Region

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  Borders

  1·96

  2·15

  2·49

  1·84

  2·29

  Central

  3·36

  3·32

  3·96

  3·83

  3·93

  Dumfries and Galloway

  2·89

  3·60

  3·94

  3·13

  3·93

  Fife

  4·42

  4·42

  4·13

  3·95

  4·00

  Grampian

  4·38

  3·95

  5·21

  3·35

  4·01

  Highland

  3·05

  3·58

  5·62

  3·05

  3·88

  Lothian

  3·81

  4·64

  4·13

  4·20

  5·10

  Strathclyde

  4·56

  5·06

  5·05

  4·97

  4·51

  Tayside

  3·91

  4·37

  3·97

  3·61

  3·96

  Orkney

  1·97

  3·16

  2·57

  3·73

  3·32

  Shetland

  3·96

  3·58

  3·39

  3·42

  3·60

  Western Isles

  3·41

  4·85

  2·73

  2·92

  2·66

  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the Official Report the percentage
  364
  in Scotland on repairs and maintenance of schools, expressing this as a percentage of each region's education budget in each of the past five years.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information available is given in the following table which has been compiled from local authority financial returns and budget estimates.

  of each region's education budget spent on (a) teaching staff and (b) non-teaching staff in each of the past five years.
  365
  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information requested is given in the following tables:

  Region/Islands

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  (a) Expenditure on teaching staff as a percentage of total education spending

  Borders

  57·0

  57·9

  56·3

  58·0

  59·6

  Central

  57·7

  57·3

  57·1

  56·7

  59·1

  Dumfries and Galloway

  57·7

  57·5

  57·1

  58·8

  59·8

  Fife

  56·3

  57·6

  55·9

  57·5

  59·9

  Grampian

  58·0

  57·7

  57·0

  58·8

  59·6

  Highland

  56·6

  56·1

  56·1

  57·6

  59·4

  Lothian

  57·6

  56·7

  57·9

  55·6

  55·4

  Strathclyde

  50·5

  50·3

  49·9

  51·1

  52·9

  Tayside

  57·5

  56·6

  56·2

  56·7

  58·3

  Orkney

  52·4

  51 2

  46·9

  48·0

  48·3

  Shetland

  47·6

  48·3

  48·1

  47·8

  50·6

  Western Isles

  53·3

  50·0

  52·0

  51·1

  3·9

  (b) Expenditure on non·teaching staff as a percentage of total education spending

  Borders

  12·7

  12·9

  12 ·9

  13·4

  12·8

  Central

  14·9

  15·1

  15·2

  15·8

  15·7

  Dumfries and Galloway

  13·8

  13·6

  14·1

  14·2

  13·7

  Fife

  15·6

  16·1

  15·9

  16·8

  16·4

  Grampian

  15·8

  16·4

  16·0

  17·0

  16·5

  Highland

  13·6

  13·7

  13·5

  13·4

  12·9

  Lothian

  19·7

  19·8

  20·0

  19·4

  18·5

  Strathclyde

  19·4

  19·4

  19·3

  19·8

  19·1

  Tayside

  15·3

  15·6

  16·0

  16·1

  16·4

  Orkney

  16·0

  15·5

  16·4

  18·2

  17·5

  Shetland

  17·0

  17·2

  17·5

  18·5

  18·9

  Western Isles

  12·5

  13·8

  14·8

  15·1

  15·2

  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the Official Report the amount spent per pupil on books and relevant education material, adjusted for inflation by each regional authority in Scotland in 1978–79, 1982–83 and 1986–87.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information available is given in the following table which has been compiled from local authority financial returns. Expenditure on equipment was not separately identified in these returns until 1982–83.

  Expenditure per pupil on text and library books and educational tools, equipment and materials

  £s at 1986–87 prices

  Region

  1978–791

  1982–83

  1986–87

  Borders

  7·16

  11·76

  14·48

  Central

  7·53

  29·89

  32·41

  Dumfries and Galloway

  11·02

  27·91

  46·97

  Fife

  9·32

  24·63

  38·13

  Grampian

  8·80

  31·68

  35·25

  Highland

  22·86

  43·79

  43·32

  Lothian

  10·07

  30·12

  30·54

  Strathclyde

  13·11

  29·92

  31·60

  Tayside

  5·83

  35·81

  40·51

  Orkney

  4·76

  37·93

  40·51

  Shetland

  12·04

  18·18

  57·43

  Western Isles

  4·33

  67·87

  24·98

  1 Figures for 1978–79 relate only to expenditure on text and library books.

  Hospitals (Competitive Tendering)
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list all individuals and organisations he has met since June 1987 in order to discuss competitive tendering in hospital services, together with the date of those meetings.
  366
  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  On 13 August 1987 I met Mr. Murray and Mr. Howell of the British Hostels, Restaurants and Caterers Association and Mr. Hall, Mr. Bisley and Mrs. McVee of the Contract Cleaning and Maintenance Association. On 15 September 1987 I had discussions with Mr. Rawlings, Mr. Colling and Mr. Slark of the Association of British Laundry, Cleaning and Rental Services. I have also discussed competitive tendering with health board chairmen. As a result of these exchanges I asked the Scottish Home and Health Department to arrange the seminar on competitive tendering held on 2 October 1987.

  Mentally Ill People
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was(a) the number of admissions to mental health hospitals, (b) this figure expressed as a rate for the health board catchment population and (c) the amount spent on community care projects for mentally ill people, for each health board and for each year from 1980 to 1987.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The requested information on admissions to mental illness and mental handicap hospitals is published annually in "Scottish Health Statistics", copies of which are available in the Library. The latest year for which information is available is 1985. Information on the costs of community care projects is not held centrally.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Spandau Prison
  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects to complete negotiations on the future of the site of Spandau prison, Berlin; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  In accordance with a prior agreement, the site is now under British control.

  Malaysia
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he last met representatives of the Malaysian Government; and what subjects were discussed.

  Mr. Eggar
  My right hon. and learned Friend met the Malaysian high commissioner on 17 January when they discussed a number of bilateral and regional matters.

  Guatemala
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on relations with Guatemala.

  Mr. Eggar
  We have normal diplomatic relations with Guatemala, whose return to democracy in late 1985 we warmly welcomed.

  Mr. Vassiliou
  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has sent a message to Mr. Vassiliou on his election victory in Cyprus.

  Mrs. Chalker
  No. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sent a message of congratulations to Mr. Vassiliou immediately after his election. The message was delivered to him on 23 February.

  Mr. J. A. Smith
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has received from the British high commissioner in Harare in the case of Mr. J. A. Smith of 195 New Cheveley road, Newmarket, on whose behalf the Zimbabwe social welfare pensions office convened a medical board on 9 November 1987.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Zimbabwe social welfare pensions office has informed our high commission in Harare that "their convening a medical board on 9 November 1987" means that Mr. Smith's medical papers have been sent to the DHSS asking for a British medical board to be convened on its behalf. This board is asked to assess the degree of Mr. Smith's disability and to determine whether or not the disability is in a final and stationary condition. The papers reached the appropriate DHSS section on 24 February where the request is under urgent consideration. Meanwhile, since Mr. Smith has already provided a private medical report to the Zimbabwe authorities, the high commission in Harare has asked the Zimbabwe social welfare pensions office whether a medical board in the United Kingdom is still necessary. As I said in my letter of 16 February to my hon. Friend, I will let him know when we have clarified the position.

PRIME MINISTER

  Value Added Tax
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to her answer of 16 February,Official Report, column 821, if, in the light of the decision of the European Court of Justice on 23 February on the zero rating of spectacles and hearing aids, it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government that it will insist on the United Kingdom's rights to determine zero rating.

  The Prime Minister
  This particular European Court decision concerns the interpretation of the exemption provision of the EC sixth directive on value added tax, which was agreed by all member states, including the United Kingdom, in 1977, and is consequently binding. The Commission proposals advanced by Lord Cockfield are proposals only, and cannot be adopted without the unanimous agreement of all member states. We shall continue to insist on our right to retain zero rating.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Cannon Row Buildings
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what plans exist to convert the former Cannon row police station into parliamentary offices; when those plans are now likely to be put into effect; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The Services Committee recommended that the building should be refurbished for short-term occupation pending redevelopment under phase II of the Bridge street development scheme. The proposed occupants are listed in the Committee's Second Report 1986–87, paragraph 5 (HC 378).

  The report quoted a mid-1988 completion date, but I understand from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope) that completion should not now be expected before spring 1989.

  Rail Warrants
  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what is the current annual cost of administering the rail warrant scheme for right hon. and hon. Members.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The information requested for the current year could not he obtained in the time available and, given that, even then only at disproportionate cost.

  Comparative figures, as at 11 November 1986, for 11 member states of the Council of Europe at appendix F (pages 93–99) of "Volume 2: Surveys and Studies of the Review Body on Top Salaries 24th Report: Review of Parliamentary Allowances, April 1987" (Cm. 131-II).

  Parliaments (Travel Concessions)
  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will list, on the information available to him, the public travel concessions available to members of the domestic parliaments of member states of the Council of Europe.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The current annual cost of administering the rail warrant scheme is not identifiable. However,
  369
  the total charge to the Parliamentary and Privy Council: House of Commons Vote (Class 20 Vote 8) for the year 1986–87, in respect of rail travel by right hon. and hon. Members, their spouses, children and staff, amounted to £819,933·87.

  Rooms and Facilities (Booking)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if rooms and facilities provided in the House can be booked for use other than in the name of an Officer or hon. Member of the House.

  Mr. Wakeham
  No.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Surplus Products
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the cost of disposing of surplus agricultural products in the United Kingdom for the current year.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The cost of disposing of surplus commodities (beef, cereals, milk and milk products, olive oil, sugar and wine) in the United Kingdom in 1987–88 is estimated to be £603 million. This covers export refunds (net of MCAs), subsidies for internal disposals, losses on sale out of intervention, and depreciation of beef on entry to intervention.

  Co-responsibility Levies
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries how the agreement of co-responsibility levies will affect British producers and producers in each other EEC country.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  [holding answer 25 February 1988]: The agreement reached by the European Council on the cereals co-responsibility levy will reduce returns to all Community cereal producers by the equivalent of up to 3 per cent. of the intervention price for common wheat if the Community cereals harvest exceeds the production thresholds of 160 million tonnes.

  The Council also agreed that the levy should be collected at the point of first sale and not as at present when the grain is processed, sold into intervention or exported from the Community. The detailed ruls for implementing this are under discussion, but the cost of he levy will continue to be borne by the producer. Small cereals producers will be relieved of the burden of both the basic and supplementary co-responsibility levy; again, the detailed rules on this provision are still under discussion.

  Medical consultants by speciality in each Health and Social Services Board at 30 September 19

  Eastern Board

  Northern Board

  Southern Board

  Western Board

  Specialty

  1F/T

  2P/T

  3J/A

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  Accident and Emergency

  5

  1

  —

  6

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Anaesthetics

  36

  8

  3

  47

  7

  3

  10

  10

  —

  10

  7

  1

  8

  Cardiology

  10

  2

  —

  12

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Chest Medicine

  4

  1

  1

  6

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dermatology

  2

  2

  1

  5

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  ENT

  4

  5

  —

  9

  2

  1

  3

  1

  2

  3

  1

  3

  4

  General Medicine

  19

  4

  8

  31

  8

  3

  11

  4

  2

  6

  8

  —

  8

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Equal Opportunities
  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he is taking to tackle promotion disparities favouring non-Catholics among educationally qualified entrants to the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

  Mr. Stanley
  As indicated in the reports produced by the equal opportunities unit of the Department of Finance and Personnel, monitoring of the outcome of promotion procedures forms part of the comprehensive monitoring arrangements introduced in respect of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. If this monitoring should indicate that there are promotion disparities attributable to religious affiliation, appropriate remedial action will be instituted.

  Housing Executive Tenants
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the rate of financial assistance given to new Housing Executive tenants who are in receipt of supplementary benefit.

  Mr. Needham
  Tenants on supplementary benefit would generally be entitled to housing benefit, the amount being related to their rent arid rates. Like other claimants on supplementary benefit they would also have access to single payment provided that the prescribed conditions were satisfied.

  Consultants
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the number of consultants by specialty in each health board in Northern Ireland in 1979, 1983 and 1987, showing in each case how many consultants were on full-time National Health Service contracts in these years.

  Mr. Needham
  The information requested is given in the following tables. It should be noted that (i) consultants whose sessions are split between different boards are shown under the board with which their major involvement lies; (ii) the vast majority of part-time consultants have a maximum part-time contract which is equivalent to 10 sessions per week commitment to the Health and Personal Social Services; for example, in 1987 there were only seven consultants with contracts less than the maximum part-time; (iii) joint appointments are those where consultants are appointed jointly by Queen's University, Belfast, and the Eastern health and social services board and time is divided between teaching medical students and clinical work.
  371

  Eastern Board

  Northern Board

  Southern Board

  Western Board

  Specialty

  1F/T

  2P/T

  3J/A

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  General Surgery

  10

  14

  4

  28

  8

  5

  13

  4

  4

  8

  6

  2

  8

  Geriatrics

  3

  3

  1

  7

  2

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  Nephrology

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neurology

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neuro-surgery

  2

  1

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Obstetrics and Gynaecology

  3

  12

  5

  20

  1

  6

  7

  1

  4

  5

  2

  3

  5

  Ophthalmology

  5

  2

  3

  10

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  1

  3

  Orthopaedic Surgery

  2

  13

  2

  17

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  2

  Paediatrics

  6

  1

  6

  13

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  Paediatric Surgery

  3

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Pathology

  18

  1

  12

  31

  2

  —

  2

  3

  1

  4

  2

  —

  2

  Plastic Surgery

  1

  5

  —

  6

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Psychiatry

  15

  1

  6

  22

  7

  —

  7

  5

  —

  5

  7

  —

  7

  Radiology

  16

  1

  1

  18

  3

  —

  3

  2

  —

  2

  4

  —

  4

  Radio Therapy

  3

  —

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Rheumatology and Rehabilitation

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Special Care

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  3

  —

  3

  1

  —

  1

  Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Venereology

  1

  1

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total

  180

  80

  55

  315

  41

  18

  59

  40

  13

  53

  44

  12

  56

  1 F/T = Full Time

  2 P/T = Part Time

  3 J/A = Joint Appointments

  Medical consultants by speciality in each Health and Social Services Board at 30 September 1983

  Eastern Board

  Northern Board

  Southern Board

  Western Board

  Specialty

  1F/T

  2P/T

  3J/A

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  Accident and Emergency

  6

  —

  —

  6

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Anaesthetics

  45

  6

  3

  54

  10

  1

  11

  10

  —

  10

  8

  1

  9

  Anatomy

  —

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Cardiology

  9

  2

  —

  11

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Chemical Pathology

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Child Psychiatry

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical Electrophysiology

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical Neurological Physiology

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

  —

  —

  4

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dermatology

  2

  2

  1

  5

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  ENT

  4

  5

  2

  11

  3

  —

  3

  2

  2

  4

  1

  2

  3

  General Medicine

  20

  9

  5

  34

  10

  —

  10

  7

  —

  7

  8

  —

  8

  General Pathology

  2

  —

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  General Surgery

  11

  14

  4

  29

  10

  2

  12

  7

  2

  9

  7

  1

  8

  Geriatrics

  5

  1

  3

  9

  3

  —

  3

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  Gynaecology and Obstetrics

  7

  9

  6

  22

  4

  2

  6

  4

  3

  7

  4

  2

  6

  Haematology/Blood Transfusion

  4

  —

  2

  6

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Histology

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Histopathology/Neuropathology

  4

  —

  6

  10

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Immunopathology

  —

  —

  2

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Infectious Diseases

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Medical Genetics

  —

  —

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Medical Microbiology

  4

  —

  1

  5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Mental Handicap

  3

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  Nephrology

  3

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neurology

  3

  —

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neuro-surgery

  2

  1

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Ophthalmic Surgery

  6

  2

  3

  11

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  —

  3

  Orthopaedic Surgery

  1

  14

  2

  17

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  2

  Other Departments

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Paediatric Surgery

  3

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Paediatrics

  6

  1

  6

  13

  2

  —

  2

  1

  —

  1

  4

  —

  4

  Physiology

  —

  4

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Plastic Surgery

  —

  5

  —

  5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Psychiatry

  12

  —

  4

  16

  8

  —

  8

  10

  —

  10

  7

  —

  7

  Radiology

  16

  1

  1

  18

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  4

  1

  5

  Radiotherapy and Medical Oncology

  4

  —

  1

  5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Rhuematology and Rehabilitation

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Venereology

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total

  197

  83

  59

  339

  56

  5

  61

  51

  7

  58

  52

  9

  61

  1 F/T = Full Time.

  2 P/T = Part Time.

  3 J/A = Joint Appointments.

  372 373

  Medical consultants by speciality in each Health and Social Services Board at 30 September 1987

  Eastern Board

  Northern Board

  Southern Board

  Western Board

  Specialty

  1F/T

  2P/T

  3J/A

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  1F/T

  2P/T

  Total

  Accident and emergency

  6

  —

  —

  6

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Anaesthetics

  42

  13

  3

  58

  10

  1

  11

  11

  —

  11

  8

  1

  9

  Anatomy

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Cardiology

  11

  2

  —

  13

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Cardiothoracic surgery

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Chemical pathology

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Child and adolescent psychiatry

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical genetics

  —

  —

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical neuro-physiology

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Clinical pharmacology

  —

  —

  4

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Dermatology

  3

  2

  1

  6

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  2

  —

  2

  ENT

  4

  5

  2

  11

  3

  —

  3

  3

  1

  4

  2

  2

  4

  General medicine

  24

  4

  6

  34

  10

  —

  10

  6

  —

  6

  9

  —

  9

  General medicine/special interest geriatrics

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  General pathology

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  General surgery

  10

  11

  3

  24

  10

  2

  12

  8

  1

  9

  8

  —

  8

  Genito-urinary medicine

  2

  1

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Geriatric medicine

  6

  1

  3

  10

  3

  —

  3

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  Haematology

  4

  —

  2

  6

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Histology

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Histopathology

  7

  —

  7

  14

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  Immuno-pathology

  —

  —

  2

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Infectious diseases

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Medical microbiology

  5

  —

  2

  7

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Medical oncology

  —

  —

  2

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Mental handicap

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  1

  —

  1

  Mental illness

  17

  1

  6

  24

  8

  —

  8

  5

  —

  5

  9

  —

  9

  Nephrology

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neurology

  3

  —

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Neuro-surgery

  2

  1

  1

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Obstetrics and Gynaecology

  7

  9

  4

  20

  5

  2

  7

  4

  4

  8

  3

  3

  6

  Ophthalmology

  7

  1

  3

  11

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  —

  3

  Orthopaedics

  2

  14

  2

  18

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  2

  3

  Other departments

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Paediatric surgery

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Paediatrics

  7

  1

  5

  13

  2

  —

  2

  3

  —

  3

  2

  —

  2

  Physiology

  —

  4

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Plastic surgery

  —

  5

  —

  5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Radiology

  20

  4

  —

  24

  5

  —

  5

  4

  —

  4

  4

  —

  4

  Radiotherapy

  5

  —

  —

  5

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Rheumatology and rehabilitation

  3

  —

  —

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Urology

  4

  —

  —

  4

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Total

  224

  82

  60

  366

  64

  5

  69

  55

  6

  61

  56

  8

  64

  1 F/T—Full time.

  2 P/T—Part time.

  3 J/A—Joint appointments.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table showing for each district of the Northern, Western and Southern health and social services boards, the number of people on waiting lists for each specialty for the last five years for which figures are available, giving a breakdown of the total waiting list by time spent on list.

  Mr. Needham
  I am sending to the hon. Gentleman and arranging for copies to be made available in the Library of tables showing, for each district unit of management of the Northern, Western and Southern health and social services boards, the number of in-patients on waiting lists at 31 December by specialty and by time spent on list for 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986. As a result of industrial action, information is not available for 1982.

  Information on out-patient waiting lists could be extracted only at disproportionate cost.

  Sheep Monitoring
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many scintillators were available to and used by his Department for the live monitoring of sheep in the restricted areas of Northern Ireland in each month from May 1986 to May 1987.

  Mr. Viggers
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: The use of scintillators for the live monitoring of sheep commenced with the use of one scintillator in June 1986. This number was increased by three in October 1986 and to five in February 1987.

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of Slate for Northern Ireland when live monitoring of sheep on a general basis was introduced in the restricted areas of Northern Ireland following the Chernobyl accident.

  Mr. Viggers
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: Live monitoring of sheep in Northern Ireland commenced in June 1986 across the Province including those areas which later became subject to restrictions.
  375
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when restrictions were first placed on the movement of sheep in Northern Ireland following the Chernobyl nuclear accident; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Viggers
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: 15 September 1987; until that date, using the United Kingdom action level of 1,000 bq/kg, monitoring since the Chernobyl accident showed no need to introduce restrictions.

  Irish Citizens
  Sir John Biggs-Davison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many Irish citizens are estimated to be resident in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Renton
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) on 27 January 1988 at columns 255–6.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Exchange Rate
  Mr. Wells
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the implications of the rise in United States' domestic demand for prospects for the restoration of stability of the dollar exchange rate with the pound sterling.

  Mr. Lilley
  Exchange rate stability requires progress in eliminating excessive imbalances, in particular the United States budget and current account deficies as well as corresponding surpluses in Asia and Europe. Encouraging progress has been made, with legislation passed just before Christmas to reduce the United States budget deficit in 1988 and in 1989.

  Customs
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what level of international collaboration has taken place to monitor the transition to the new system at customs posts throughout the European Economic Community.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: The European Commission is responsible for monitoring the transition to the new system and is consulting member states. Early indications are that the changes have been introduced successfully throughout the Community.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what reduction is anticipated in the customs officers required by Her Majesty's Government at internal borders as a result of the reforms made by the single administrative document under the Customs '88 project.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: The single administrative document is a measure for facilitating trade by rationalising official documentation. Once the new system has settled in, it should reduce both delays at Customs and the incidence of error, but the improvement is not quantifiable.

  Road Transport (Small Businesses)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals exist for helping small road transport companies meet the additional costs of adapting existing computing systems to handle the new single administrative document under the Customs '88 project.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: The introduction of the single administrative document has given firms the opportunity to simplify their procedures and review their arrangements for producing Customs declarations. There are no plans to meet any transitional costs incurred from public funds.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what special provisions have been made to help small businesses engaged in road transport since the adoption of the single administrative document under the Customs '88 project.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding reply 22 February 1988]: The launch of Customs '88 was preceded by a two-year publicity campaign which provided the information necessary for all businesses to prepare themselves. It has not been necessary to make special arrangements to help small businesses engaged in road transport.

DEFENCE

  Weapons Systems
  Mr Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 26 January,Official Report, column 156, to which particular weapons systems the Montebello requirement (a) applies and(b) does not apply.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  The report considered at Montebello in 1983, when NATO Defence Ministers agreed both to a reduction in the Alliance's land-based nuclear stockpile in Europe and on the need for possible improvements to ensure the effectiveness, responsiveness and survivability of remaining forces, examined the question of the future size and composition of NATO's theatre nuclear stockpile as a whole.

  NATO Meeting (Denmark)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is to be discussed at the NATO planning meeting at Kolding, Denmark, on 26 and 27 April; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) on 22 January at column 899.

  Ships (Lost Components)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, what screening is operated by contractors employed by his Department in relation to crew members on board ships transporting sensitive military components; what precautions his Department requires contractors to take; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The level of sensitivity of military components determines the extent of screening required
  377
  for crew members. The security aspects are defined in each contract and it is the contractor's responsibility to meet these. Particular items of structure lost in this incident were not of a highly sensitive nature.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, if he will give the dimensions, approximate weight and function of each of the Vanguard submarine sections lost on 5 and 6 February.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The dimensions, approximate weight and function of the sections are as follows:

  (a) 9m diameter × 2·4m × 57 tonnes—forward dome.

  (b) 12m × 9m × 1·6m × 2·5 tonnes — deck/tank structure.

  (c) 14m × 9m × 0·2m × 15 tonnes—deck structures.

  (d) 14m × 8m × 0·2m × 12 tonnes—deck structures.

  (e) 5m × 3m × 0·2m × 1 tonne—deck structures.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, when he expects the inquiries into the loss of Vanguard submarine sections to report; what resources are being directed to these inquiries; at what level his Department is represented; what interim measures have been taken, pending the outcome of the inquiries; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  An investigation has been mounted by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd under the terms of its contract. The committee of inquiry includes an officer from the staff of the principal naval overseer at VSEL. The VSEL report will be issued to MOD early March, and will be considered at high level within the Department. As an interim measure taken pending the outcome of the inquiry, VSEL has informed its subcontractors that careful attention must be given to future transportation arrangements by sea.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answer of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, what were the weather conditions at the time of the loss of Vanguard class submarine sections on 5 and 6 February.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The weather conditions generally prevailing in the Mallin and Irish sea areas for the periods in question were:

  5 February

  Surface wind from a south westerly direction force 6 to 7

  Weather: Occasional showers

  Visibility: Good

  Sea: Moderate to rough

  6 February

  Surface wind west to north-west force 7 to gale force 8

  Weather: Occasional showers

  Visibility: Good

  Sea: Moderate to rough

  However conditions in these areas are known to be locally variable.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, if he will give further details of the numbers and types of picket boats exercising surveillance over the Vanguard submarine forward dome structure; whether any armed Royal Navy vessels are in the vicinity; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The MOD initially requested that a picket boat he stationed in the vicinity of the position 378
  where the dome was reported to be lost. Subsequent search operations in the area to ascertain the exact location make this unnecessary. This arrangement will be reviewed if there is any time gap between the search and the salvage operations. No special deployment of Royal Naval vessels has been considered necessary as a result of this incident.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, what assessment he has made of the metallurgical suitability of the lost Vanguard submarine sections for further use; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  No assessment of the metallurgical suitability for further use of the submarine sections can be made until they have been recovered.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, when his Department first announced publicly that more Vanguard class submarine sections have been lost off Walney island on 6 February; if he will describe the nature of these sections; what precautions were taken following the loss of the forward dome structure on 5 February to avoid losses of further sections; why these precautions were not effective; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The secondary structure lost near Walney island was internal deck and tank units. The precise precautions taken following the loss of the forward dome structure and why these precautions were not effective has yet to he established and is a matter for the committee of inquiry.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answers of 15 February,Official Report, columns 448–50, if he will now answer the question from the hon. Member for Linlithgow as to his assessment of the risk of the lost Vanguard class submarine forward dome structure falling into the hands of a foreign power; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The forward dome structure, which is not of a highly technical or sophisticated nature nor highly classified, is of such a size that it could only fall into the hands of a foreign power of an overt salvage operation were to be mounted. The risk of this in the close vicinity of the Scottish coastline and within United Kindom territorial waters is negligible.

  Defence Research
  Mr. Hill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will take steps in the Council of Ministers of the Western European Union to bring about a major effort to harmonise national operational requirements for military computer systems and initiate a joint European defence research programme between Western European Union member countries and other Western European countries wishing to take part; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  WEU Ministers are agreed that the appropriate forum for the pursuit of collaboration in defence equipment is the Independent European Programme Group, which comprises all the European members of NATO with the exception of Iceland. The IEPG has active programmes of work on increasing collaboration in defence research, including a number of computer-related programmes; and on the harmonisation
  379
  of operational requirements, where computers are considered in the context of the weapons systems employing them.

  Smoke Hoods
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans for the equipping of military transport aircraft with passenger protection smoke hoods.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  We at present have no plans to fit smoke hoods to transport aircraft, although we are examining them and there is a continuing programme of flight safety improvements designed to maintain the excellent safety record of the RAF air transport fleet.

  Anglo-American Defence Agreement
  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff in his Department are currently deployed on the administration of the 1958 Anglo-American mutual defence agreement in the atomic control office.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Currently two persons are employed on atomic control office business concerned with the administration of the 1958 United States/United Kingdom agreement for co-operation on the uses of atomic energy for mutual defence purposes.

  Electroconvulsive Therapy
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answer of 15 February,Official Report, column 446, how many soldiers have been treated with electroconvulsive therapy over the last two years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested is not readily available and cannot be provided without disproportionate cost.

  Service Men (Depression)
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answer of 15 February,Official Report, column 446, how many soldiers who applied to leave Her Majesty's forces during the last 12 months gave depression as the reason, or otherwise complained of that condition; and what treatment was given to the 13 service men diagnosed as suffering from depression.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested on the reasons given for applying to leave the services cannot be ascertained without disproportionate effort. It is not my Department's policy to discuss the medical treatment of individual cases, details of which are held in confidence.

  MOD Houses
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Ministry of Defence houses there are in (i) Wales and (ii) Alyn and Deeside; how many such houses are currently empty; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  As at the latest dates for which the information is available, the numbers of MOD houses and flats were:380

  Married quarters1

  Civilian houses2

  (i) In Wales

  Total

  2,577

  132

  Empty

  379

  59

  (ii) In Alyn and Deeside

  Total

  300

  Nil

  Empty

  29

  Nil

  1 As at 30 November 1987.

  2 As at 31 March 1987.

  Many of the empty properties are either undergoing or awaiting works services, temporarily empty pending the arrival of new occupants or in process of disposal.

  Sergeant Jarvie
  Mr. Ron Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will pay compensation to Sergeant Jarvie of the King's Own Scottish Borderers following his reinstatement after his retrial for alleged misconduct; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  I will write to the hon. Member.

  Radar Stations
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what date he expects the three weather radar stations in Scotland to become operational; and to what extent the stations will adequately cover all of Scotland, including the Shetland Islands.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 22 February 1988]: Discussions are proceeding between officials of the Scottish Office and the Ministry of Defence and, as indicated in my reply to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) on 8 December 1987, at column 153, the Hebrides, the Highlands north-west of Aberdeen and the Edinburgh or Glasgow areas are likely to prove the most suitable sites. Data from stations placed in these areas, when taken with other information available to the Meteorological Office, are expected to lead to improved short-period weather forecasts and provide timely estimates of precipitation at the surface throughout Scotland. Radar coverage will not extend north of about 59 deg. north. However, alternative methods of measuring precipitation falling on the Shetland and Orkney islands are available. Present plans are that installation would take place in the early 1990s.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Prisoners (Visits)
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instruct prison administrators to send out visiting orders to relatives of prisoners at least two weeks prior to any visit.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Establishments in England and Wales have been encouraged to issue visiting orders up to a fortnight before the 28-day period of validity begins, if this is administratively feasible and if they are aware that otherwise a planned assisted visit would have to be postponed.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instruct prison administrators to
  381
  send copies of endorsed visiting orders to the new unit dealing with assisted prison visits to promote better coordination of services.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We intend to study this idea in the light of experience of the operation of the new unit.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will specify the meaning of the term "substantial period", in prison department forms F2022AS and F2022S, with respect to assisted prison visits.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand that it has been the normal practice of DHSS local offices, in administering the assisted prison visits scheme, to regard four months' cohabitation as a sufficiently substantial period to entitle an applicant to assistance, provided that the other conditions of the scheme are met. We see no reason to alter this guideline, which will continue to be applied flexibly.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the subsistence expenses and childminding costs of persons visiting prisoners referred to in paragraph 10 of form F2022AS, are discretionary where proof of claim is provided.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Yes. Payment of subsistence or childminding expenses may be withheld if the assisted prison visits unit is not satisfied that they were necessarily incurred in the course of visiting an inmate; or they may be met only in part if the amounts specified are excessive.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his Department will be assuming the responsibility for the statutory obligation previously discharged by the Department of Health and Social

  Prosecutions for Television Licence Evasion in the United Kingdom

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  England and Wales

  80,029

  89,747

  102,154

  115,559

  165,385

  Scotland

  5,063

  7,058

  7,542

  7,121

  9,004

  Northern Ireland

  341

  575

  645

  782

  838

  United Kingdom

  85,433

  97,380

  110,341

  123,462

  175,227

  Irish Citizens
  Sir John Biggs-Davison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many Irish citizens are estimated to be resident in England;

  (2) how many Irish citizens are estimated to be resident in Wales;

  (3) how many Irish citizens are estimated to be resident in Scotland.

  Mr. Renton
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) on 27 January 1988 at columns 255–56.

  Prison Officers (Accommodation)
  Mr. Jack Thompson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list Her Majesty's prisons which provide living accommodation for prison officers, and their families; if he will identify the number of units 382
  Security, of informing claimants about specific benefits consequent upon the establishing of the new unit dealing with assisted prison visits.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No such statutory obligation applies, or has ever applied, to the assisted prison visits scheme. None the less, we shall be considering the adequacy of present information about the Scheme.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what circumstances individual prison officers are asked to give an opinion as to whether or riot an assisted visit expenses claim is justified; and if he will make it his policy to discontinue this practice.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Under present arrangements prison officers may be asked to confirm or clarify from their records details which are supplied by applicants for assisted visits. We have no plans to discontinue this practice.

  Television Licences
  Mr. McTaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been prosecuted in each of the last five years for non-payment of television licences; and what percentage of those were pensioners.

  Mr. Renton
  Figures are given in the table. These have been supplied by the national television licence records office, which instigates all prosecutions for television licence evasion.

  No information is held by that office about the ages of those prosecuted. However, Home Office records show that in 1985 and 1986 fewer than 20 defendants proceeded against in England and Wales for offences under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts were of pensionable age.

  at each such prison for the years 1985, 1986 and 1987; and if he has any plans to increase prison officer family accommodation.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information requested is not readily available for 1985 and 1986 and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. For 1987, the information, as at 30 September, is as follows. There are no plans to increase prison officer family accommodation.

  Her Majesty's Prison Service establishments which provide living accommodation for prison officers and their families (Number of units at 30 September 1987)

  Number

  Acklington

  104

  Albany

  120

  Aldington

  29

  Ashford

  172

  Ashwell

  22

  Ask ham Grange

  14

  Aylesbury

  85

  Bedford

  60

  383

  Number

  Birmingham

  63

  Blantyre House

  22

  Blundeston

  46

  Bristol

  77

  Brixton

  366

  Brockhill

  35

  Buckley Hall

  16

  Bullwood Hall

  19

  Camp Hill

  59

  Campsfield House

  33

  Canterbury

  60

  Cardiff

  49

  Channings Wood

  37

  Chelmsford

  81

  Coldingley

  127

  Cookham Wood

  27

  Dartmoor

  85

  Deerbolt

  81

  Dorchester

  44

  Dover

  49

  Drake Hall

  36

  Durham

  99

  East Sutton Park

  13

  Eastwood Park

  23

  Erlestoke House

  36

  Everthorpe

  33

  Exeter

  73

  Featherstone

  54

  Feltham

  127

  Ford

  22

  Foston Hall

  13

  Frankland

  85

  Gartree

  118

  Glen Parva

  114

  Gloucester

  40

  Grendon/Spring Hill

  88

  Gringley

  10

  Guys Marsh

  32

  Haslar

  15

  Hatfield

  38

  Haverigg

  83

  Hewell Grange

  25

  Highpoint

  87

  Hindley

  46

  Hollesley Bay

  103

  Holloway

  181

  Hull

  72

  Huntercombe/Finnamore Wood Camp

  87

  Kingston (Portsmouth)

  27

  Kirkham

  34

  Kirklevington Grange

  14

  Lancaster

  21

  Latchmere House

  59

  Leeds

  58

  Leicester

  58

  Lewes

  75

  Leyhill

  38

  Lincoln

  67

  Lindholme

  172

  Liverpool

  124

  Long Lartin

  130

  Lowdham Grange

  36

  Low Newton

  31

  Maidstone

  93

  Manchester

  119

  Medomsley

  9

  Morton Hall

  39

  New Hall

  26

  Northallerton

  18

  Northeye

  32

  North Sea Camp

  30

  Norwich

  74

  Nottingham

  31

  Onley

  61

  Oxford

  31

  Parkhurst

  170

  Pentonville

  214

  384

  Number

  Portland

  97

  Preston

  36

  Pucklechurch

  42

  Ranby

  50

  Reading

  75

  Risley

  179

  Rochester

  55

  Rudgate/Thorpe Arch

  61

  Send

  34

  Shepton Mallet

  22

  Shrewsbury

  12

  Stafford

  56

  Standford Hill

  73

  Stocken

  46

  Stoke Heath

  20

  Styal

  37

  Sudbury

  15

  Swansea

  23

  Swinfen Hall

  51

  Thorn Cross

  19

  Usk

  37

  The Verne

  67

  Wakefield

  99

  Wandsworth

  257

  Wayland

  60

  Wellingborough

  40

  Werrington

  10

  Wetherby

  22

  Whatton

  46

  Winchester

  128

  Wormwood Scrubs

  375

  Wymott

  108

  Remand Prisoners (Police Cells)
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners were held on remand on 22 February in police cells in the Metropolitan police area, the Greater Manchester police area, the Merseyside police area, Lancashire, the West Midlands, West Mercia, South Wales and Devon and Cornwall, respectively.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  On 22 February there were 360 remand prisoners in police cells in the Metropolitan police area, 42 in the Greater Manchester police area, 20 in the Merseyside police area, 27 in Lancashire, 73 in the West Midlands, 18 in the West Mercia, 22 in South Wales and 17 in Devon and Cornwall.

  Metropolitan Police
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish an independent inquiry into the extent of the influence exerted by the Masonic order within the Metropolitan police; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We are aware of the allegations which have been made about Masonic influence in the Metropolitan police, and the concern to which these have given rise. We are also aware of the need to respect the freedom of choice of the individual police officer where this does not affect his impartiality. My right hon. Friend will be discussing the matter with the Commissioner.

  Miss Jurdotic Ladlina
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when his Department's office in Croydon received a letter and passport which was sent by
  385
  registered post on 6 January by Miss Jurdotic Ladlina, a Yugoslav national, residing with Mr. and Mrs. Whiteley of 161 Church road, Southend-on-Sea; and if he will take steps to ensure that Miss Ladlina has her passport returned to her before her departure on 20 March.

  Mr. Renton
  Severe delays in dealing with correspondence in Lunar house have arisen because of the huge intake of correspondence and applications for citizenship which arrived in the last weeks of 1987. I recently announced the introduction of emergency measures to deal with the arrears of work on 16 February, at columns 862–63. It has not been possible to identify Miss Ladlina's letter from the information given, but the immigration and nationality department would normally expect to establish its receipt if full postal details, including the recorded delivery or registered postal packet number, the date of posting, and the purpose of the application can be provided. If the hon. Member will arrange for these details 386
  to be sent to me I will ensure that further inquiries are made and every effort made to return the passport as quickly as possible.

  "Gun Sense is Good Sense"
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the initial print order for the publication "Gun Sense is Good Sense"; when it was first printed and subsequently reprinted; and when he now proposes to make further supplies available to the public.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Some 750,000 copies of the leaflet "Gun Sense is Good Sense" were printed as part of the campaign in 1983 against the misuse of air weapons. A further 50,000 copies were printed in both 1985 and 1986. A new leaflet to promote the safe use of air weapons was produced as part of the regional air weapon campaigns held at the end of 1986 in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester police force areas and we are evaluating what form future publicity material should take.

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Truro.

Benzodiazepines: Prescribing
Lord Blyth: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to discourage the long-term use of benzodiazepines.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the British National Formulary, which we send to all doctors, has for a number of years advised that benzodiazepines should be given only for short periods because of the danger of patients becoming dependent on the drug. The Committee on Review of Medicines published guidelines warning about dependency in 1980, and the Committee on Safety of Medicines reinforced this advice last month in a mailing to all doctors advising use of benzodiazepines for two to four weeks only and only for severe anxiety or insomnia.
Lord Blyth: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply. Is he satisfied that the so-called next generation of tranquilisers —said to be non-addictive—will be non-addictive? Can he give the House the criterion on which they are said to be non-addictive?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the dangers of addiction are well recognised. But these drugs are not dangerous if they are prescribed responsibly in accordance with the advice I detailed in my orginal reply.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, in view of the increased abuse by, or addiction of, patients and the unnecessary charge on the resources of the National Health Service caused by the widespread practice of repeat prescriptions, are the Government and the Committee on Safety of Medicines prepared to give very clear advice to GPs that they should not give repeat prescriptions? Secondly, will the noble Earl congratulate MIND on its highly successful campaign against minor tranquiliser abuse including widespread establishment of support groups by local mental health associations for those seeking to be free of addiction?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, yes. We congratulate MIND on what it has done in this respect. We and the medical profession are anxious to control the level of repeat prescribing. Many doctors recognise the need for regular review of repeat prescriptions and operate their own control systems. The health departments already monitor instances of prescribing that seem to be excessive using information from the prescription pricing authorities. Discussions with the
1418
professions are taking place on how information about repeat prescribing can be improved. This will enable doctors to exercise a greater level of control.
Lord Auckland: My Lords, is it not a fact that conditions such as insomnia can be cured or at least curbed by a number of other drugs, some not available on prescription? Is the drug in question not one which should be discouraged in any case?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, that is somewhat wide of the Question. However, GPs will be free to prescribe if they think their patients will benefit from new drugs. They are obviously free also to prescribe "benzos"—which I understand is a colloquial use of the word. They must decide what is best for an individual patient. A brand new drug, buspar/buspirone, is not related to the benzos. It is too early to say whether or not widespread use will produce dependence.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, will the Government consider printing on the packet of drugs a cautionary note to the user?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, that is for the general practitioner to advise when he recommends the dosage that the patient should take.

DoE Consultative Document
11.10 a.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the status of the consultative document issued by the Department of Employment on restrictions on the employment of young people and the removal of sex discrimination in legislation, who has been consulted, and whether the House will have the opportunity of debating the results of that consultation.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, the consultative document to which the noble Baroness refers was sent to the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Unions Congress, the Health and Safety Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission and a number of other interested organisations inviting comments. Copies are available from the Department of Employment on request. Opportunity for debate is a matter for the usual channels.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he not agree that while a number of the Acts concerned with protective legislation are outdated and probably in need of revision, their total abandonment would be a very serious matter which would require the utmost public scrutiny, including scrutiny by your Lordships' House. Can he please say when further information, and a full report, will be available?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as the noble Baroness will agree, the Government are very much addicted to sweeping away useless regulations. However, I certainly accept that in this case we would wish to do so only after careful consultation, and careful consideration following that consultation. On the timing, the noble Baroness will be aware that we are under some constraints because of the requirement in one of the proposals that relates to the ILO Convention.

Education Acts: Consolidation
11.12 a.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to start the process of consolidating the Education Acts, and how long they think that this process will take.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the process of consolidation is under discussion with the Law Commission but would not in any event begin until after the enactment of the Education Reform Bill currently before Parliament. The length of time taken to consolidate major legislation of this nature varies, and is difficult to predict until the Commission has looked at the task in more detail.
Baroness David: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does the fact that implementation of the consolidation will occur only after the Education Reform Bill becomes an Act not mean that we shall have a succession of education Bills almost every year, one being brought forward before the last has been fully implemented? It will be interesting to know the answer to that question. What consultations will there be about consolidation when the process begins?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, it is too early to comment upon consultation. As regards any future legislation on education, I should like to point out to the noble Baroness that if the Government were to introduce major education legislation in the next session of Parliament it would naturally be taken into account in considering the timing of the consolidation. However, such matters would be discussed with the Law Commission before a decision was taken.
Lord Peston: My Lords, will the Minister ask his right honourable friend the Secretary of State whether it is possible for a document to be produced later in the year explaining and clarifying the law as it will then stand, bearing in mind the large number of lay people, notably parents, who will be involved in the education decision-making process as governors and in other ways and who will have great difficulty in understanding the complexity of the law as it applies to them?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I shall take into account the comments of the noble Lord.

Television: Violent Programmes
11.15 a.m.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures are being taken, following the BBC's television programme on 15th February 1988 about violence, to give further warnings to viewers about violent programmes.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, responsibility for the content of programmes, and for possible warnings to viewers about the content of programmes, rests with the broadcasting authorities. However, the Government recognise the need for stronger and more effective oversight of standards relating to the portrayal of violence and sex on television. The Home Secretary has announced his intention to set up the Broadcasting Standards Council.
Lord Gainford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Has he any information as to a definite link between the unfortunate crimes of violence about which we hear so much and violence on television?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the question of a link between television and behaviour has been the subject of extensive research, though the results can he read in different ways. The nature of any casual link, if it can be firmly established, may be complex. However, our broadcasting arrangements are based on the view that it would be wrong to ignore the possible dangers and the public concern about them. The broadcasting authorities readily acknowledge their responsibility for care in deciding what should be screened.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, will the noble Earl accept that the question of a link may be a matter of acute controversy, but that the question of the distastefulness of programmes of this kind to many people is not a matter of controversy and that there is a strong case for suitable warnings being given from that point of view?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am aware of the public distaste such as the noble Lord has mentioned. I believe that he understands that there exists a longstanding principle that the Government do not intervene in programme matters which are properly the responsibility of the BBC or the IBA. The Home Secretary could not issue directions about the provision of suitable warnings without breaching that principle.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for the care that he has taken in answering these Questions. Is he aware that there have been occasions on which the Government have intervened, causing great public disquiet? In view of the general feeling about the programmes which have been described, can he say what will be the nature of the council to which he has referred and which his

1421
right honourable friend is setting up? When is it being set up? Will the right honourable gentleman appoint members to the council? Will it be a council for the whole of the United Kingdom? Will there be Scottish and Welsh councils? What will be its nature and powers?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, in answering the question posed by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, I shall be as brief but as succinct as possible. As regards composition, the council will consist of a chairman and six members. The Home Secretary hopes to announce the appointment of a chairman in the near future. As regards the date, the council will be put on a statutory basis but it will be established initially in advance of legislation. I understand that good progress is being made on the administrative arrangements and we hope to make a further announcement about the BSC shortly.
As regards the council's remit, it will provide a focus for public concern about the portrayal of violence and sex on television, radio and video and it will selectively monitor relevant programme standards.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Earl on the way he has answered the three Questions. Is that to be a precedent?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the generosity of the noble and learned Lord. I am equally grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for fielding the fourth Question.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend answer the question put by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition as to the powers of the Council?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, it is as yet too early to know what will be the precise powers of the BSC.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, does the noble Earl recognise, as I am sure he does, the widespread concern about this matter in all parts of the House? Will he agree that there is also a great deal of public anxiety about the way in which sex and violence are dealt with by some tabloid newspapers? At a time when he is trying to persuade the BBC and the IBA about this matter, will it be possible for Ministers to discuss the subject with the proprietors of some national newspapers?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I repeat that I am well aware of the feelings not only in this House but outside it concerning the public distaste for many programmes which appear on radio and television. A debate was recently initiated in your Lordships' House about the possibility of setting some form of statutory control on the press but it was thought that, for the time being, that would be most unwise.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it has been the common experience of those who complain to either the BBC or ITV
1422
about programmes which have violence and excessive sex in them that their complaints are usually brushed off and that the setting up of this independent council by the Home Secretary will he widely welcomed throughout the country, especially by parents when they see programmes which are unsuitable? Will my noble friend convey to the Home Secretary my warmest congratulations?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his generosity.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, when the powers of the council have been finalised by the Home Secretary and those advising him, will there be some opportunity for us to examine the important powers which this urgently-needed council will then possess?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, perhaps I may advise the noble Lord that the BSC will not be a regulatory body and will reinforce, not hijack, the responsibilities of the broadcasting authorities. However, it will be influential and will be able to consider and analyse complaints, initiate discussion and research and, where necessary, express and publicise views on individual programmes without waiting for its annual report.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware how welcome his replies are to a number of people and how wise my noble friend Lord Nugent was in saying exactly what we feel? Can the noble Earl say to what extent Scotland will be represented on the proposed committee?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I cannot give my noble friend an answer, but I shall write to him.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, can we seek to get beyond always speaking of violence and sex and sex and violence as though they belonged together, since violence is always a bad thing and sex is not always a bad thing?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, there are other matters of considerable distaste besides violence and sex.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, if my noble friend believes that there may be no link between what is broadcast on television and the way people behave, does he not also agree that those who advertise on television are wasting their money?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I believe my noble friend is rather wide of the Question.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, if I may refer to the supplementaries by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, though I recognise that the Minister may not be able to give actual details of the powers given to this council, perhaps I may ask the noble Earl whether he recognises that there is much criticism about the inadequate powers of the Press Council and that something much stronger than that is required for this broadcasting council.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I believe that the question posed by the noble Lord is wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Annan: My Lords, with reference to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, about the unwillingness of the authorities, particularly of the BBC, to acknowledge shortcomings in the past, did he take note of a speech by the chairman of the governors of the BBC to the Institute of Directors in which he acknowledged the faults of the BBC in a way which has never been done before? Is the noble Earl aware that the chairman, Mr. Hussey, is taking account of the very strong feelings on this matter, and does he agree that that is an extremely good thing?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I believe that demonstrates the wisdom and independence of the chairman of the BBC.
Lord Sefton of Garston: My Lords, can the noble Earl tell us whether the remit of the new body will cover two grown men trying to bash each other's brains out, even though it is in a boxing ring?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I believe I have said quite enough about what we hope the BSC will do. I hope the noble Lord will understand my point.

Public Utility Transfers and Water Charges Bill
11.24 a.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is a Bill of only eight clauses and three schedules, but it makes provision for two of the most important industries in this country. Over the coming months, the water and electricity industries will be preparing themselves for major changes which lie ahead. The privatisation of both industries is a fundamental election commitment of this Government.
Our experience hitherto with privatisations is that they transform the attitudes of those within the industry. Privatisation not only makes an industry more responsive to commercial pressures, but also allows it to take advantage of commercial opportunities. It also fosters a greater awareness of the needs and wishes of customers. Taking industries out of the public sector means not only a welcome source of income to the Exchequer but also that they need no longer compete for public funding with our other major spending priorities. But perhaps most important of all, privatisation encourages the wider spread of share ownership so that individuals and in particular employees can take a genuine part in the running of that industry.
Those are the main reasons the Government are determined to press ahead with privatisation of water and electricity at the earliest opportunity. Clause 1 of this Bill will enable the water authorities and the electricity supply industry to co-operate with government as we take our proposals forward. It will also, in the case of water, enable us to make progress with the establishment of the National Rivers
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Authority, which we believe is an important policy initiative in its own right. Clauses 2 to 7 and the schedules are about charges made by water undertakers, and more particularly about metering. They will enable compulsory trials of metering, and will facilitate the introduction of metering more generally.
Clause 1 gives an express power to the relevant public utilities to act in relation to government proposals for the transfer of any of their property or functions to another body corporate. I should like to describe the significance of this power in relation to the water authorities.
In April 1985, a Question from my noble friend Lord Nugent was the occasion for a debate in this House on the discussion paper on the privatisation of the water authorities which the Government had produced at the start of that month. It was in February 1986, after responses to that discussion paper had been considered, that we published a White Paper setting out our intention to transfer the water authorities into private ownership. In May 1986, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, initiated a debate on the water industry and on the privatisation proposals. Only a few weeks after that debate my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced that the Government were putting back the legislation for the privatisation of the water authorities so that we could extend the period for considering the complex issues involved.
In the manifesto, we reaffirmed our commitment to water privatisation. We said, however, that we would confine it to the utility functions of water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal. The non-utility functions of regulation and river management would not be privatised but transferred from the 10 water authorities to a single new national body, the National Rivers Authority. We provided more details of the NRA proposals in a consultative document last July, and a policy statement which was issued just before Christmas.
The utility functions of the water authorities represent on average some 90 per cent. of their expenditure, which now stands at about £2.5 billion on the revenue account, and about £1 billion on the capital account. So the water utility companies of the future will be very major businesses. Placing them in the private sector will open up to them a range of new opportunities. However, I stress that there will not be unfettered ability for them to raise their prices. Charges will be controlled, we intend, by a director general of water services whose task will be to ensure that customers are getting a fair deal. By contrast, in expenditure terms, the water authorities' regulatory and river management functions account for a far smaller part of their operations. But those functions are nevertheless absolutely vital.
In the months that followed publication of the 1986 White Paper we listened to the many voices which spoke up about our proposals. In particular, the Government were persuaded that it would not be right for a private company to have powers to regulate the activities of others in terms of what people can put into and what they can take out of rivers and other water sources. In that context, it has to be said that there have been increasing signs

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recently that the existing water authorities' structure is coming into question even within its public sector context. I am sure that your Lordships will know of the 1985 river quality survey which showed that the progressive improvement in the quality of river waters since the late 1950s had faltered somewhat and that there was a very small, but still worrying, number of instances of deterioration.
Although many factors can affect water quality at the institutional level we have increasingly been led to question whether responsibility for safeguarding river quality should be left in the hands of those who, by operating sewage treatment works, are responsible for the single, most significant polluting load which the river system has to bear. I do not say this in any way to denigrate the good work which water authorities have done, and continue to do, in cleaning up all forms of pollution. But the tension of their dual role under their present responsibilities is undoubtedly a difficulty.
Therefore, the Government have concluded that we should leave the regulatory functions in the hands of a public body to be called the National Rivers Authority. The authority must have an effective presence at regional level in the river-basins to take over the work of regulation. Its decisions will be, and will be seen to be, impartial, consistent within a national framework and based on a proper knowledge of local services.
Care for our rivers goes beyond regulation and also includes the activities of water resource control, flood defence, land drainage and fisheries. We have therefore decided that the N RA must be responsible for those functions as well. I must say that our proposals have been widely welcomed by those who have responded to our consultation and Clause 1 will enable us to take those proposals forward as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
The Bill also paves the way for the privatisation of the electricity supply industry by conferring in Clause 1 an express power on electricity boards and the Electricity Council to prepare for the restructuring which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy announced yesterday in another place—a Statement which was repeated in your Lordships House. I will therefore briefly say that the Government's intention is that privatisation should give customers and employees a better deal and a real stake in the electricity industry. We believe that although it has a good record, the industry will achieve even more once it is in the private sector and thus freed from government interference and made accountable to its customers and shareholders. The proposals announced yesterday are based on six principles which were set out in the White Paper and which I will not repeat today.
An essential element in the new structure of the industry, which was mentioned yesterday, will be the increased scope for competition, particularly in the generating side of the industry. It is to ensure that this will develop that the changes we are proposing to the Central Electricity Generating Board's role are necessary. We look to the industry's management and employees to assist in carrying out these changes; and we believe that this Bill will help them to play a constructive part in that process.
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That is the reason for Clause 1. I apologise for the rather lengthy explanation but I felt that this was the moment when I could run over the ground. The remainder of the Bill, Clauses 2 to 7 and Schedules 1 to 3, is mostly concerned with providing a special regime for compulsory water metering trials. These clauses and schedules also clarify and update the existing law on metering and water charging generally.
The possible extension of water metering to domestic consumers has been debated at length for years; but in 1985 a joint water industry and Department of the Environment study recommended that the Government and the water industry should begin to work on the presumption that an extension of water metering might be worthwhile from an economic point of view. This was because metering should reduce demand by improving the detection of leaks and cutting down on inessential use. In turn, this will lead to better planning and programming of future investment on expensive infrastructure. The study also suggested that water undertakers should carry out a number of controlled trials of compulsory metering and recommended a number of changes to legislation.
However, since the group reported we have introduced a Bill in the other place to abolish domestic rateable values in most parts of England and Wales. New domestic properties and conversions will no longer be assigned a rateable value after 1st April 1990, and new charging methods will have to be found for water services. In addition, the rateable values for existing properties—largely those stemming from the 1973 revaluation—will become increasingly out of date.
The Government therefore intend to amend the Local Government Finance Bill, which is in the other place, to prohibit the use of rateable values for water charging purposes as from 1st April 2000. This will give the water industry a period of 10 years in which to introduce suitable alternative means of charging for water services. Metering is the most obvious but not the only option. Other suggestions include those based upon household size, floor area or a flat rate charge—possibly with extra charges for, say, hosepipes and garden sprinklers.
It will be for each water authority and water company to evaluate each of these options and decide which method is most suitable for its area. The decisions will not be the Government's. But whatever method is chosen it will have to comply with the essential principles set out in Section 30 of the Water Act 1973, repeated in Clause 3 of this Bill; namely, that charges must have regard to costs and must not unduly discriminate against, or show any preference to, any classes of persons.
Last year the water industry announced the sites it would like to include in a nationwide co-ordinated programme of trials. Since then the industry has been consulting its customers, who are likely to be affected, about the implications of the proposals. The industry has done so, of course on a provisional basis. Although it is still early days and tariffs have yet to be agreed by the Secretary of State very few customers have objected to the principle of the trials. Indeed, some undertakers have received complaints

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from people who are disappointed that the area they live in has not been proposed for a trial.
Clause 2 of the Bill confers charging powers on statutory water companies similar to those of water authorities under Section 30 of the Water Act 1973. The power will be additional to, rather than as a replacement for, their existing charging powers which are mostly in local Acts. The whole point of Clause 2 is that it will make it easier for the statutory water companies to participate in the metering trials and to introduce alternative charging systems to replace domestic rateable values in the future.
Clause 3 re-enacts the provisions, which I have already mentioned, of Section 30 of the Water Act 1973 relating to having fair charges enshrined in statute. These concern having regard to the cost of providing services and not showing undue preference to, or discrimination against, any class of persons.
Clause 4 provides for a special regime for charges made in connection with the metering trials. The difficulty is that no matter how carefully a water undertaker may fix trial charges, those customers taking part or those who are excluded could claim that they are being discriminated against compared with other customers. Furthermore, it may not be possible for undertakers to ensure absolutely that the tariffs in certain areas, being experimental, reflect costs precisely.
So under Clause 4 the constraints of nondiscrimination and cost-relatedness are lifted from charges in the trial areas. Instead, each water authority or statutory company wishing to carry out a trial is to submit proposals to the Secretary of State. He is then required to take into account the interests of the customers taking part in the trial and various other matters, including consultations with customers. My right honourable friend will then wish to see that the proposed charges are as reasonable as possible in the circumstances.
Clause 5 and Schedule 1 contain detailed operational provisions dealing with regulations, the metering of new domestic supplies, powers of entry, meter installation costs, information about meter readings required by undertakers where water and sewage services are provided by different undertakers, and arbitration in cases of dispute. The remainder of the Bill is largely technical, dealing with consequential amendments, repeals and definitions.
There is one more matter. One of the most important metering provisions is to be found in paragraph 6 of Schedule 1. This makes it clear that when a water undertaker's customers are metered compulsorily, the water undertaker and not the customer will in normal circumstances be required to meet the cost of installing the meter and any associated equipment. Under paragraph 1 of Schedule 1, however, developers will be responsible for meeting the cost of metering new domestic supplies where this is required by undertakers.
There is no doubting that although this is a comparatively short Bill it contains important provisions which are designed to enable two of our key utility industries to prepare for privatisation and for the water industry to decide what alternative to
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ratable values they wish to use as the basis for charging customers in the longer-term future. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Belstead.)
11.42 a.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for his introduction of the Bill and for taking us through it in his usual meticulous and clear manner. I apologise for my noble friend Lady Nicol, who I am afraid is indisposed today and is unable to take part in the debate. I know she would have liked to take part in it because she has strong views on these matters, particularly on water. As the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal said, she initiated a debate at rather a crucial time in the evolution of government policy.
As the noble Lord has said, this is a short Bill but an important one. I say straight away that we do not like it. We are opposed in principle to the privatisation of utilities. We believe that utilities should stay within the public sector. I understood the noble Lord to say that the question of principle has been decided by the electorate. I shall have something to say about that later. The Bill also deals with the arrangements that the Government propose. I shall comment upon them in, I hope, sufficient detail for the noble Lord to answer certain questions about what is going to happen.
Before I do that, I should like to say that there are certain consequential effects of privatisation to which the noble Lord did not refer when he introduced the Bill, and the initial provisions of it, with a eulogy for privatisation. There is a welfare problem. I do not have to go over the ground that your Lordships have already covered in the cases of British Telecom and British Gas. It is clear that when utilities are privatised the treatment of the consumer is not necessarily—if I may put it at it lowest —better than it was when the utilities were under public ownership. I remind your Lordships that in the days when local authorities collected water and sewerage charges disconnections never happened. The local authority paid the authority on behalf of defaulters and then took action against them as rate defaulters to obtain payment, with all the necessary welfare considerations that a local authority will bring to bear.
When the water authorities decided to go for direct billing not only was this a large extra expense but it introduced the curious phenomenon of waterless households. The numbers are now rising. In default of any assurance to the contrary we must assume that, if and when water authorities are privatised, the commercial imperatives which these companies will have to follow will lead to even greater numbers of waterless houses. The welfare argument is one which we cannot ignore.
There is a second consequential effect of privatisation in the economic argument. Privately-owned utilities will inevitably look for their supplies at the cheapest rate in the short term. They are not particularly interested in ensuring that other industries which may be their long-term suppliers have a healthy future. Perhaps I may explain by citing

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one example of what I mean. I take the case of the South of Scotland Electricity Board and British Coal. The South of Scotland Electricity Board uses 4 million tonnes of Scottish-mined coal per annum and there are agreements in operation until 1992 and 1995.
The SSEB has recently tendered for future supplies from other sources. Despite good and improving offers from British Coal there is a real possibility that it will be undercut by subsidised foreign coal. The loss of the SSEB contract will effectively close the Scottish coalfields which were themselves developed to meet the needs of the board. There would be a loss of 4,000 jobs simply because of that policy. Generally speaking, imported coal is subsidised and it is cheap. Once the home fields are put out of action they can never be recreated and they can never be reopened.
If the SSEB is privatised—which is the intention of the Government—in whatever scraps and bits and pieces the Government have in mind, it too will go for the short-run advantage in procuring its supplies and it will pay no regard to domestic industry in the process. We are liable to see our coal industry decline simply because, for the moment, Australian, American or Polish coal is cheaper than British coal. That may not be the situation for more than a year or two, but once a mine is closed down it cannot be opened up again.
The proper costing for supplies to the utilities, particularly for generating electricity, should be on the basis of the long-run marginal cost. It should not he on the basis of short-run marginal cost because these are long-run investments.
Turning to the Bill itself, as the noble Lord said, Clause 1 deals with transfers. In passing, we note that these transfers will be the first pieces of privatisation to take place under the Financial Services Act. We note the general provision under Section 47 of the Financial Services Act which applies to all of us. It says:
"(1) Any person who—(a) makes a statement, promise or forecast which he knows to be misleading, false or deceptive or dishonestly conceals any material facts; or (b) recklessly makes (dishonestly or otherwise) a statement, promise or forecast which is misleading, false or deceptive"
with a view to inducing investment commits a criminal offence. The penalty for such an offence is a maximum of seven years' imprisonment. The Government have to make sure that they do not make, recklessly or otherwise, any misleading statements about what will happen in their privatisation of electricity and water.
Transfers of undertakings to companies are governed by Sections 103 and 108 of the Companies Act and require auditors' reports. I wonder whether, when he comes to reply, the noble Lord will be able to tell us how the Government will establish a fair value for the transfer of water authorities and electricity boards. In the case of water authorities, the 1973 Act allowed for transfer of assets. The assets were then mostly unregistered. At the time very few water authorities had a complete register of their assets. Even now, a number of water authorities do not have a complete asset register. They know that a pipe starts here and ends there but they do not quite know where underground it goes. These assets were transferred at historic cost.
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At the time nobody quite knew what the historic cost meant. Since then water authorities have compiled accounts according to historic cost and in some cases CCA accounting. Is that the right basis of accounting for such a transfer? There is no mention in the Bill of the transfer being at fair value. But it must be at fair value; otherwise the prospectus cannot be written accurately and will be misleading. If it is to be at fair value, how will that fair value be established? On what basis are the assets to be valued?
Secondly, with the creation of the National Rivers Authority, as the noble Lord pointed out, part of the activity of the present water authorities will be hived off into a new quango—a name we used to hear in those early days of 1979 and 1980. This new quango will take over part of the activity and part of the costs of the water authorities. In any prospectus for a water authority plc, we will need a five-year profit and loss account. That profit and loss account will have to be audited and restated for the past if, within five years of flotation, we are to take account of the removal of the activities which will go into the National Rivers Authority. I invite the House to imagine the accounting problems of restating water authority accounts to 1984 or 1985 when the water authorities are privatised.
If that is a problem, what about the problem with electricity? The electricity authorities, like the water authorities, have little idea of the exact locus of their underground assets. The White Paper to which the noble Lord referred says that the CEGB will be split up, area boards will have new responsibilities and the national grid will be partially owned by each area board and so on. The accounting problems and legal problems in splitting the CEGB and making a proper prospectus will be formidable. If the noble Lord thinks that that can be done overnight or easily, I advise him to try his hand himself. I have tried. And splitting up even small companies is complicated. If one tries to split up an activity like the CEGB, which does not know where a good many of its assets are, one really is in trouble.
The requirement not only of the Financial Services Act but of the Companies Act is that there should be an audited statement to say that the accounts will be true and fair. I challenge the noble Lord to demonstrate to us how these accounts can possibly be true and fair in the light of the proposed government policy. Clause 2 does something quite simple. It confers on statutory water companies the power to levy taxes. That is an extraordinary constitutional doctrine. I have always understood that taxes were levied by Parliament and not by private companies. However, Clause 2 gives the same power to statutory water companies as is at present held by water authorities in the public sector and therefore under the control of the Secretary of State who is responsible to Parliament
If a statutory water company or a water authority plc is allowed to fix charges—such charges as the company thinks fit—and is then allowed to demand and recover charges fixed in the manner it feels fit, this is equivalent to a tax. Up to now we have had a rate. When water authorities charge through the local authorities, it goes with the domestic rate. It still

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comes as a water rate and is charged on the basis of valuation of the property. I shall come on to metering in a moment. The problem is that metering will not be universal for a long time and so water companies, as they are to become, will continue to have to charge on the basis of a property valuation. That is a tax. I find it hard to see how Parliament can possibly confer on statutory water companies or anybody else the right to levy such a tax.
In Clause 3 there is nothing about the welfare argument. I brought up that argument in my introduction but Clause 3(3) deliberately sets out, as the noble Lord said, to ensure that no undue preference is shown to any class of persons. There is no ability to make allowance for welfare situations. If people are dying of hypothermia, it is tough luck. If people do not have water and cannot have a bath, that is tough luck. We cannot discriminate in their favour because the Bill tells us that we are not allowed to. That seems rather odd.
The noble Lord said that a good deal of the Bill is concerned with metering trials. Indeed it is; and I shall not go into the complications involved in water metering because, as the noble Lord said, we have debated this on many occasions. The problems are formidable. I come now to the major problem. Who will pay for all the work that will have to be done to implement the Bill? The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum says that the Bill contains no public sector manpower implications and that the costs will add to public expenditure only if, and to the extent that, external financing limits need to be increased for these purposes. The vast army of accountants and lawyers who will march into these organisations will be paid for by the consumer or by the investor when he comes to invest.
What will happen—and it could easily happen—if privatisation is not a success? What will happen if the market is not receptive to the flotation of water authorities? What will happen if the market is not receptive to the flotation of the electricity boards? Who will then pick up the tab? It will be the consumer. The consumer ultimately will pay. I can conceive of many types of market condition that will not allow the Government to float the water authorities and the electricity boards.
Millions of pounds—and I mean millions of pounds—will be spent on professional fees to set up the system which the noble Lord has described. He says that the Government have a mandate from the electorate to do this. The mandate doctrine is a difficult one. The mandate does not make it mandatory on the Government to do something. The mandate is permissive. If a policy turns out to be so lacking in sense that the Government decide that although they thought it right at the time of the general election they have come to the conclusion that it is not right and have decided to withdraw it, there is nothing in the doctrine of the mandate which says that they have to do it. Many people on all sides of the House feel that the privatisation, especially of water, is a serious mistake. On electricity there are definitely divided views. We are clearly opposed, and some noble Lords opposite are in favour.
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As we go forward we see that privatisation is rapidly becoming something of a farce. I am sure your Lordships will remember a film—before the war I think it was—called "King Kong". King Kong was a giant gorilla who ultimately went berserk and ran around New York smashing up everything and pulling down the Empire State Building. I think that the Government's privatisation programme has become rather like King Kong. The Government are running around and smashing up companies and, similarly, as happened at the end of "King Kong", all the taps will run dry and all the lights will go out. That is what will happen if the Government pursue this policy.
Therefore I ask the noble Lord, the Lord Privy Seal, in all earnestness to take this unpleasant little Bill away and throw it in the waste paper basket.
12.1 p.m.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, I too should like to thank the Lord Privy Seal for having explained not only what is in the Bill but also what is intended by it, although not expressed therein. I also thank him for having explained the purpose of it so clearly and in a manner which is likely to keep the temperature as low as possible. I must say that I too do not like the Bill. But I come to that conclusion not in advance of considering the Bill but on having considered its intentions.
First I should deal shortly with what is in the Bill, which of course is very little. If I leave out the first clause, there are six clauses and three schedules dealing with water charges, the main effect of which is to remove from the consumers the choice that they at present enjoy of whether to pay their bills by volume or on the basis of rateable value. As I understand it, ever since 1981, domestic consumers could have opted for payment by volume but they have not done so. As regards domestic consumers, not more than one-tenth of 1 per cent. have decided so to do.
The noble Lord put forward the argument of the need to be less wasteful with water. I cannot attach much importance to his argument. Supposing, for example, the compulsion of paying by volume had the maximum effect of saving some 10 per cent. in the use of water by domestic consumers, it would thereby save approximately 4 per cent. of the total consumption of water. That is the most that any such compulsion could achieve.
So what happens to water? Seven and a half times that amount—30 per cent.—goes down the drain; 30 per cent. is lost because it leaks into the ground through faulty pipes, and so on, in the course of distribution. That is where we should look for saving in water. But to put a compulsion on the consumer to pay by volume for the sake of saving a comparatively minor quantity is not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable that the Government should, by way of the Bill, take wholly excessive powers in two respects. First, the powers that they take—albeit they are described in the Explanatory Memorandum as being,
"Powers to prepare for privatisation"—
of course go much wider than that.
There is no single mention—not one word in the text—about privatisation or the NRA which is also

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contemplated. The Bill provides, as the noble Lord, the Leader of the House said,
"that any property or functions of a relevant public utility"—
when they are being transferred,
"shall include the power to do anything which in the opinion of the utility…is appropriate for the purpose of—
(a) facilitating the implementation of the proposal for the transfer".
The transfer could be any type of transfer. If they wanted to do so the Government could decide to transfer the whole of the electricity industry to the Corporation of London. That is a body corporate. I cannot see much point in them doing so, but what I am trying to make clear is that the Bill provides powers which go far beyond privatisation alone. If I have that wrong, no doubt the noble Lord will tell me so when he comes to wind up. Indeed, to be fair to those who have drafted the Bill, the rubric refers to:
"Power to act in relation to proposals for privatisation etc.".
It is the "etc." that is the important part.
I also dislike the removal of accountability from Parliament. In subsection (4) it states that:
"the powers conferred by this section"—
which as I have already said are very wide and much wider than the Government need—
"in relation to a proposal shall he exercisable whether or not Parliament has given any approval on which the implementation of the proposal depends".
If, for example, the Secretary of State for the Environment has a further change of mind, he is entitled to think again on certain matters. He has already had one important change in regard to the NRA. Let us suppose that, on thinking again, he should decide that the pressure is now moving in the other direction, and he wants to remove the NRA, but much expenditure has been incurred by the water authorities in preparing for a reconstruction which involves that body. Then Parliament could not complain at all even though all that money would be wasted. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, pointed out, millions of pounds will be involved in the preparation towards privatisation which the Government have in mind. Secondly, we are, by way of the Bill, invited to say that the expenditure shall no longer be subject to the criticism of Parliament. Therefore, in those two major respects we think that the Bill goes too far.
The main focus of the Bill is privatisation of two of our major industries and two of the remaining national assets which the Government have not yet got their hands on. On these Benches, our approach to privatisation or nationalisation is not dogmatic as it is on the opposite Benches. We do not regard changes of ownership as being crucial. Whether an industry is owned by the Government, in trust for the nation, or owned by private individuals, it can still function efficiently. We do not accept the view that it is automatically more efficient for an industry to be run in the private sector than in the public sector. It is often alleged but it is never proved. However, we accept that if you have good management in either sector, you achieve good results; conversely, if you have bad management, you have bad results.
It is evident that the Government and everyone else seem to be wholly satisfied that the management of both electricity and water is good. We do not accept
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the argument that the Government keep trotting out: that one of the major advantages of privatisation is that the presently nationalised industry will be free from government interference. That is a most extraordinary argument to come out of the Government's mouth.
If the Government think that their actions are damaging the nationalised industries; if they think that Cabinet decisions are unwise and that they should stop interfering, as they put it, with the nationalised industries, it is open to them to do so. They need not continue to reach had decisions and interfere in a damaging way. They could come before the House and say, "We had better privatise this industry, because so long as it is nationalised, it will he subject to our damaging interference".
I do not accept the view—I had a great deal to do with this matter, as does every Chief Secretary— that the contribution to the thinking made by the Treasury, and which no doubt continues to be made by the Treasury, is anything other than helpful in the national interest. We reject the rather silly argument that the only way to get rid of government interference of the wrong kind is to privatise an industry.
Nor do we believe that an industry should he free from accountability. It should be accountable to Parliament through the Government (through a Minister) or to its shareholders. The White Paper is ambivalent about the industry being accountable to its shareholders. On the one hand, the White Paper says that it is right that the industry should be accountable to its shareholders, and that that will exercise a beneficial influence on the actions of managers, directors, and so on; but, on the other hand, it compares that with accountability to the Government and thinks that one is much less than the other. Accountability is necessary in each case.
We judge each privatisation proposal on its merits. We try to see where the national interest lies, but we state that it is up to those who want to make the change to prove that the change is in the national interest. The onus of proof lies on whoever wants to make the change, whether from nationalisation to the private sector or the reverse.
We believe that where a natural monopoly exists, the natural place for that monopoly is in the public sector. The public should be protected by a public corporation, with all the familiar safeguards that go with it. What is anathema to us is a private monopoly of the kind that gas has clearly turned out to be and, if we are not careful, the industries we are talking about—I know that we are not dealing with their privatisation at the moment, but that is what the Bill is about—are likely to be.
A private monopoly is anathema to us because the protection which the Government say that they can provide artificially through Oftel, Ofgas and all those other bodies which are supposed to have the power to protect the consumer against the commercial driving force of the boards of the privatised industries, would have to be so burdensome as to stifle the enterprise and initiative which is held to be the justification for privatisation.
We conclude that if either a public or a private sector industry is working well, we should leave it

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alone. Water and electricity are held to be highly efficient. When the Secretary of State introduced the Bill in another place on 21st October, he praised the water authorities for their efficiency, labour-saving, high investment and sound financing. As to electricity, he said that the industry's safety record was second to none.
The noble Lord, Lord Marshall, has been universally acclaimed to be a good boss. With regard to the recent hurricane, we all recollect that the managers and workers in the electricity industry coped magnificently with the difficulties involved. Against all that, there must be pretty solid arguments to justify the enormous upheaval that will be involved in privatising those two industries.
Let us look for a moment at water. As we all know, some 99 per cent. of all households are connected to a public water supply. The supply of water is a natural monopoly. That was so stated by the Prime Minister in January 1985 when she said that the water authorities were natural monopolies. It was repeated by the Secretary of State in October last year when he said:
"I recognise that the provision of water services is a natural monopoly".
I repeat, the natural setting for a natural monopoly is a public corporation or public utility where the goal is the most efficient way of serving the public, rather than the maximisation of profit for a shareholder. The Government recognised that in the other place when the Secretary of State, in introducing the Bill, said:
"The business of protecting the environment and the conservation of rivers, and of ensuring that all the disparate interests, including those of the utilities. are protected, is essentially a public sector regulatory function".—[Official Report, the Commons, 21/10/87; col. 770.]
That is why the Secretary of State is setting up the NRA. We accept that if we are to have such a reconstruction, the NRA is essential. But it is difficult to see—we do not yet know the details of the way in which the water industry is to be reconstructed—that there is much scope for competition in the distribution of water. The consumer will still be left with no choice. That is clear. He will have one tap, or two if he has hot and cold water coming from the same source. It will not be open to him to obtain his water from a different source. The only difference that the Bill provides is that he will no longer have the option to pay by volume.
Most of what I want to say about electricity has already been said. I see that the clock is ticking on. We cannot see that the creation of two generating boards in the place of one will provide the kind of competition that is essential to protect the consumer where there is again a natural monopoly which will be turned from a public monopoly into a private monopoly.
We feel strongly that there is nothing in the Government's proposals or the White Paper about protecting the environment, so we conclude that the restructuring of the electricity supply industry does not necessarily involve a change of ownership. The little bit that has been done could have been done by making two generating boards in place of one. It
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could have been done very easily without changing the whole, with all this upheaval. The customer will still face a monopoly supply. It will be a private monopoly instead of a public monopoly. We share the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Marshall, that at the end of the day the consumer will have to foot the bill.
I say to the Government that if these two industries are—indeed they are—working well, if there are going to be all these difficulties in trying to turn them into monopolies with a modicum of competition which will be totally inadequate, why not leave well alone?
I am afraid that the Government have made it absolutely clear that their first priority is not the efficiency of the industry. Their first priority is the transfer from the public to the private sector, according to their dogma and philosophy, of every industry which rests in the public sector. We know why they are going to do it. They are going to do it because at the end of the day the Government will get a once-for-all windfall which will not be available to any future government; a once-for-all windfall of immense proportions, which they will use not for reinvestment either at home or abroad. They will use it for reducing the burden of taxation in a way which inevitably helps those who already pay the larger share of the burden; that is to say, it will help the rich rather than the poor. It will accentuate the divide between the haves and have-nots
It will, in turn, result in the sucking in of foreign imports and will thereby imperil the one sensitive, vulnerable part of our economy which even noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber accept; namely, the balance of payments. That is what will come if this Bill goes through and the Government's proposals go through with it.
12.20 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I should like to thank my right honourable friend in another place and my noble friend the Leader of the House for the exposition of the Bill which he gave us, delivered most lucidly and with his usual charm and persuasion. I may say that it was very far from the ravaging King Kong suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. It all seemed very sound and sweet, though I have one or two comments to make.
My noble friend referred to the debate which I raised here on an Unstarred Question two years ago on the White Paper which was produced at that time on the Government's plans for privatising the water industry. My major objection to the proposals which I explained to the House was the constitutional one. At that time the Government's plan was to privatise the regional water authorities, complete with their existing functions. They would then become owned by private shareholders, being made responsible for the statutory regulatory functions under the 1973 Act and for the statutory water quality standards under the 1974 Control of Pollution Act and the EC regulations. The Government have met my objection satisfactorily by creating the National Rivers Authority.
Here I take up a point which the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, made. It is curious that the National

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Rivers Authority, which after all will be a very important statutory body, is only mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum and is never mentioned in any of the clauses. It would have been normal to take powers specifically in one of the clauses, anyhow—perhaps in a subsection of Clause 1—to give a definition of what the National Rivers Authority will be. My noble friend may care to look at that.
He has told us that this is the paving Bill for privatising the water industry and that we shall get substantive legislation in the next Session. The Bill will split the industry into a National Rivers Authority appointed by Parliament, responsible for statutory functions, and 10 regional plcs responsible for the operating functions. I do not know whether or not the Government took note of my earlier observations, but they certainly met my observations completely. Of course, they do so at the price of splitting the industry.
My second major point is that in last summer's general election my party, as my noble friend rightly said, campaigned on privatisation policies, specifically mentioning water. Thus the wish to do this has been fully endorsed electorally. Indeed, governments all round the world are now busy privatising. Even Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do so. So I do not think I can continue to oppose this in principle, though I doubt whether there will be much joy in it for the Government or anyone else.
The economic structure of the industry is one of static demand plus huge environmental responsibilities. So profit prospects are not good. I accept that in principle my noble friend is entitled to do this; therefore I must give the best support I can to making the Bill as good as it can be when it comes along next year.
First, let me say to my noble friend that the Government's statement on the NRA is in my view entirely satisfactory, clear and rational. But inevitably it amounts to a process of amputation limb by limb of the functions of the existing regional water authorities and their transfer to the National Rivers Authority. This is painful reading to all who have worked so hard over the past 14 years to make a success of the Water Act 1973, with its concept of integrated river basin management which is generally acknowledged by water engineers to be the best in the world. However, given the Government's decision to privatise, this is the price that has to be paid for the strengthened incentive, which I recognise, towards management efficiency which my noble friend believes he can achieve with privatisation.
Certainly the NRA needs a regional structure, to which my noble friend referred, and it must be in constant contact with the life of the rivers on the ground. Rivers are living things and arouse strong local loyalties and passions. This is to be achieved by taking over the regional water authorities' regional committees for land drainage, fisheries and navigation where appropriate. But it implies taking over some thousands of staff from regional water authorities and creating the NRA, turning it into a quite hefty organisation. There is a danger of an overlarge bureaucracy growing up, and, more serious, a duplication of expensive professional services such as
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monitoring and hydrometric work which will also be needed both by the NRA and by the new private water companies for their functions.
I have heard that the regional water authorities are now making doubtful noises about whether they could offer contract services to the NRA to perform some of these functions for the NRA in order to avoid duplication. I urge my noble friend to look at this very closely, to try to make sure that where possible the new private water companies on contract perform professional services, in order to avoid duplication by the NRA, consistent of course with the independence of the NRA.
I now turn to the financial structure. As my noble friend has told us, the water plcs are to be free to make the best profit they can for the benefit of their shareholders. My noble friend has told us that the charging limits will be laid down for each plc by the director general of water services. The water quality objectives will he laid down by the NRA. Within those parameters, the water plcs will he free to make the best profit they can and pay the highest dividend that they can to their private shareholders—the new owners of the industry.
I believe that that is a mistake both in principle and in practice. The better structure is that of the existing private water companies—a statutory limitation of dividend—where the surplus goes to reducing charges to the customer. This system has been tried and tested by the private water companies over many years and it works very satisfactorily.
It also has the initial attraction of eliminating the need for the impossibly difficult task of the director general of water services of annually fixing the charge level for each new water company which is consistent with its making a profit and not charging too much to the consumers.
In my view there are two main reasons why that preference should be accepted. I believe that most people will feel an ethical objection to the idea of the water charge they pay to a monopoly supply company providing a profit which pays an increased dividend to private shareholders. The weight of that objection is obviously a matter of opinion, but I believe that that is cogent.
The second reason is a practical one and relates to the long-term capital needs of the water industry. The capital expenditure of the industry now runs at about £1 billion a year. It is the major element in the annual increase in water charges which everybody dislikes. This heavy rate of capital spending will not decrease. On the dirty water side, in addition to renewal and expansion of treatment works and long-sea outfalls there is the formidable liability to renew the greater part of hundreds of thousands of kilometres of sewers. The water authorities have been diligently surveying these buried assets. In my notes I have put a query after that word, as I do not know whether they are assets or liabilities. But the ultimate cost of renewing or replacing these is unknown. Nevertheless, it will be large and it will stretch over many years.
The clean water side is probably well provided for as regards supply for the present; but transmission problems are comparable in scale with the sewers. The present ad hoc policy of "repair on burst" needs

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to be replaced by a comprehensive programme of repair and renewal again involving huge long-term expenditure.
Then from time to time there will be windfalls of the kind that we have just had of de-nitrification which will cost the industry something in the order of perhaps half a billion pounds. That kind of thing may arise as a proposal from the EC or by some environmental matter which blows up from time to time. That is inevitable. The industry is basically concerned with protecting the environment.
Unlike conventional industry, the continuous heavy capital expenditure for the water industry is to be seen against the background of a virtually static demand. So despite the economics of modern technology, the trend for charges is inevitably upwards.
One or two private water companies may have scope for private property development, but the heavy weight of capital expenditure will continue as now to be the major influence on the annual increase in charges. I ask my noble friend in all seriousness whether he really sees the new private water companies, clobbered as they are with this big capital expenditure and with increased charges, ever considering paying an increased dividend to their shareholders? I just do not believe there is scope for that.
I suggest to my noble friend that the proposal to free plcs to make an unlimited profit is unsound in principle and impractical in practice. I hope that he will give further thought, and that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will also give further thought, to turning to the statutory structure of the existing water companies.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, mentioned the problem of preparing for privatisation by completing an audited statement of the existing assets. That of course clearly has to be done before going to the market. I have never seen such a statement, but I think that it would be a formidable undertaking.
I wish to add one point about the metering trials. Yes, I am sure that this measure is absolutely right. Clearly when the new community charge comes in, the exposure of the existing rates basis for charging becomes even more theoretical so the introduction of meters must be right. There is also the constitutional point that for the private companies to go on indefinitely levying what is in fact a tax in principle as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, said is most undesirable even in the interval up to the year 2000. I am entirely in favour of compulsory metering.
I have one point on tariffs which I should like my noble friend to consider. When the government are constructing the tariff structure, they should construct the tariff on the basis of a small fixed charge for a minimum quantity of water which would he sufficient for small households with low incomes, such as retired people and others, so that the quantity measurement would only come on after consumption of that minimum amount. That would relieve households with small incomes of anxiety about the use of water. It would possibly save them anxiety
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about hardship as a result of hygiene. That is a small but I think important point as regards the community as a whole. Apart from that, the metering arrangements seem to me to be good. I was glad to see in Schedule 1 that the cost would fall on the industry. It is a very tepid welcome that I give to the Bill. I hope that my noble friend will take note of my points.
12.36 p.m.
Lord Elliott of Morpeth: My Lords, I am very pleased to follow in this debate my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford. My noble friend has a very detailed knowledge indeed of the water industry which I think we all recognise him to have. In fact I think his experience in the water industry is possibly unique. I do however have some experience myself and I declare an interest. I am at this time chairman of one of the bigger statutory companies. I am a vice-president of the Water Companies Association and for 12 years I had the honour to be the president of that body.
I have no objection at all to privatisation in principle. This Government's privatisation programme is one of the main reasons for their outstanding successes. To roll back the frontiers of state ownership and to provide the nation's utility services with the greater strength and direction of purpose which life in the private sector brings must be to the benefit of all. Not only is the improvement of services encouraged, but privatisation means that the substantial drain on the public purse is eliminated.
I was so very pleased to hear what my noble friend Lord Nugent said about the statutory model in the industry. The statutory water companies have been in existence for a very long time. They have served society for a very long time. In July of this year, I hope, I shall preside over the 143rd annual general meeting of the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, and I shall be very proud to do so.
For several hundred years, in some cases, the companies have demonstrated to the public that they give a very good service indeed. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate as I see it that the water industry can he privatised in that a quarter of it is privatised already. Something like 25 per cent. of the population of England and Wales receives its water from the statutory companies.
The companies vary in size. The largest supplies a population of 1·3 million, but all of them are completely in the private sector. Their shares are listed on the Stock Exchange and are traded in the normal way. They raise money for capital works by making new issues of stock, if I may say so, without any difficulty at all.
They are liable to corporation tax. They are not a drain on the public sector borrowing requirement. Where they differ from public limited companies and others in the private sector is that Parliament in its wisdom has subjected the companies to a series of financial controls in order to make absolutely sure that the consumer is protected against the abuse of a monopoly.
In any monopoly situation there must be some form of regulating mechanism because the consumer is captive. In the normal commercial world the

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interests of the customer are looked after by competition and market forces. A business failing to satisfy its customers does not remain in business. Where consumers have a choice, they exercise it.
However, where a monopoly exists, competitive market forces must be replaced by some form of regulating mechanism. In an absolute monopoly situation such as that found in the water industry, I believe that the regulatory mechanism must be absolutely effective. The system of regulating the statutory water companies at this time is based on profit limitation. Dividends are subject to maximum limit and coupled with that, the law requires that any surpluses made by the undertaking are returned to the consumer. The expectations of shareholders under that system are fettered and each company and board can devote its energies to forming judgments as to how its legal responsibilities to the consumer may he discharged.
The statutory company, as we constantly suggest, is consumer oriented. I noted with interest that when the Bill was before another place, Mrs. Virginia Bottomley put it in another way. It was a rather nice way. She said:
"Statutory water companies, based on a philosophy of service, act as mutual companies together with the consumers". [Official Report, Commons, 2/2/88; col. 941.]
That is the system of regulation which has been in existence for a long time; it is well proven and effective. Throughout the privatisation debate in another place, ministers consistently paid tribute to the proud tradition of service of statutory water companies and the great contributions that they have made to the nation's water supply industry. I take this opportunity, as a vice-president of the Water Companies Association, to thank them for their regular tributes.
I should like to turn for a moment to the government proposals. It is proposed that the utility functions of the water industry should be privatised as plcs with no limitation on profits. Instead, consumers are to be protected by a new body which will put a ceiling on prices and lay down standards of service. The suggestion is that shareholder pressure on the utility companies will encourage them to operate as efficiently as possible so that they can produce the maximum dividend which the price-regulated income from consumers permits.
Perhaps I may make this comment about the industry in general. The water industry in this country is a very substantial business. There are 10 regional water authorities and 29 statutory water companies. It is the intention, I understand, that the water companies, under the terms of the Bill, will be brought under the same regulations as the new plcs.
I ask your Lordships to imagine the size of the body which will have to be brought into being to undertake this regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, used the term "quango". I had not heard that term for some time; nor had I heard of King Kong for some time. Possibly it is appropriate. It will be necessary for that body to be absolutely certain that the consumer is properly protected. Such an organisation will have to be very large. It will also be expensive. Where is the money to come from? There is only one source, as I see it, for that money. That is
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the consumer. Whether consumers will be happy about having their water charges increased because of that method of privatisation, I leave your Lordships to judge.
I make clear at this point that I wholly agree with the setting up of the National Rivers Authority. As has been said several times in the debate, we all accept the common sense of keeping the important responsibility for water resources and environmental regulation in the public domain. My remarks are directed at the proposed office of water services.
As my noble friend Lord Nugent and several other noble Lords have stated, the water industry is very capital intensive. From my own practical experience of the industry as chairman of a statutory company, I can confirm that capital investment is constant. It is essential. As anyone experienced in the commercial sphere will realise, the obvious way of maximising profits in a situation of price regulation would be the reduction of capital expenditure, and the potential for that in the water industry—again, I speak from experience—is very considerable. Much of our capital investment is unseen. It is under the ground. A great deal of it has to be scraped, lined and renewed. The mains are constantly in need of repair and maintenance.
In addition to that, water is a long-term business. There has been great criticism in the North of England over the Kielder reservoir. It has been said that it contains far more water than is ever going to be needed. The same was said about the Catcleugh reservoir which is owned by the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company and was constructed at the beginning of the century. It was obvious to those living and working in the North of England that had the Catcleugh reservoir not been constructed at that time the North-East of England would have been very short of water just after the last war. I give that as an illustration of how long-term, capital investment in the water industry is. One must look ahead 50 or 60 years, or even longer.
If there is a reduction in capital investment, the security of the water supply, both in terms of sufficiency and quality, can be jeopardized in the longer term. I recognise that the Government fully appreciate that potential underinvestment would be dangerous and serious. The Bill proposes that the director general of water services will have a responsibility for monitoring capital expenditure to see that it is sufficient. He must also, in conjunction with his new body, make quite sure that the capital investment has been made. Again, I ask your Lordships to envisage the resources which will be necessary for that official to carry out his task.
One is tempted to say that with all the controls which this new body will have to put on the new plcs, it will be very difficult for the plcs to operate as such. The Government also seek to make it clear, and have done in another place, that the director general will not be responsible for the running of the water undertaking. However, surely effective regulation requires that in fact, if not in law, that will be what he shall have to do.
I therefore go on to pose the question of whether, even given adequate resources, the regulatory system which is proposed will provide protection for the

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consumer which is adequate. As I said earlier, an absolute monopoly must have absolutely effective regulatory control. I have touched on capital investment. However, there are other matters such as water quality, pressure and customer service which are just as vital.
Those of us in this House with experience of the commercial sector will be well aware of the pressures on management to provide the best possible return to the shareholder. I find it difficult to believe, as I am sure other noble Lords will, that any system of regulation can be devised which will permit and encourage shareholder pressure and yet effectively protect the consumer. To put it another way—again, I follow my noble friend Lord Nugent—I believe that the plc ethic and effective protection of the consumer are incompatible in a total monopoly situation. Either the consumers are properly protected and the shareholders are disappointed or it will be the other way round.
Having dealt with the disadvantages of the plc model, in fairness I should like to examine the statutory company model in the same way. As I have said, I believe that the efficiency, good service and value for money which has been provided by the water companies over many years is not in question. What is said, and has been said in another place, is that the regulatory system of profit control provides too little spur to efficiency, since expenditure can be passed on directly to the consumer. That may be so, but it has not been borne out in practice. Before changes in the water authorities' rates of return requirement made comparison meaningless, over two-thirds of the statutory companies charged domestic consumers less than the relevant authorities. Moreover, until 1974 the statutory companies were subject to price regulation as well as to profit control. It was not at the behest of the companies that price regulation was removed at that time.
If this is the only disadvantage of the statutory model, I suggest to my noble friend that it can be remedied much more effectively, economically and simply than can the disadvantages of the plc model. Is there any reason why there should not be a small office of water services created to carry out the same role as that currently undertaken by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? If that were done, would it not provide an external spur to efficiency? It would be far less unwieldy and much less expensive, but the well being of the consumer could be absolutely assured.
It is for these reasons that I appeal to the Government through my noble friend to give further consideration to the utility services of water, sewerage and sewage disposal—what in the industry we call the core business—being privatised on the profit-limited statutory model adapted as I have suggested. The non-core business would then be dealt with by plcs within the same corporate group. This view is very strongly supported by the CBI.
I apologise for having taken up so much of the time of the House, but I believe that if the Government were to privatise the core business on the statutory model they would find their proposals for privatising
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the water authorities much more acceptable to consumers in business and private sectors alike.
12.53 p.m.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, this is enabling legislation and perhaps the last chance of influencing the Government's policy for privatisation of the electricity industry. Since yesterday's Statement, it is clear that no major changes in their policy are likely. Nevertheless, I still think it is not inappropriate to state the objections to the policy; and perhaps at later stages of the implementation some notice may be taken of what I say, since I represent the views of many.
The Government's contention that the cost of electricity can be reduced by privatisation is surely a chimera, and is only used for political argument. Where can savings and increased efficiency come from? The CEGB's power stations are as efficient as modern technology can make them—some say even at the expense of reliability. Some small savings in the number of staff employed might be possible, but comparisons with manning levels on the Continent are not valid because the CEGB provides design and maintenance staff, which should not be counted in making a fair comparison. There will be the ability to buy cheaper foreign coal, but that is a side issue which need not depend on privatisation.
Having said that, I am not in principle against the creation of new privately-owned generating stations, large or small. The difficulty is in formulating a longterm agreement for the use of their potential output. The grid ought to bring in power stations in order of their efficiency to meet the load. In any case, you cannot ship large quantities of electricity over considerable distances without significant loss and also destabilisation of the grid, due to the reactive current component. To dismember the whole of the CEGB and privatise the area boards is simply upsetting something which is working well.
Here I quote from an American's remarks on this subject:
"If you were starting to organise your system from scratch, we'd have a darned good try at selling you our way of doing things with regulated investor-owned monopoly utilities. But if you've got a good system that works efficiently—and we think you have—then don't mess it about.".
If the recent article in the Financial Times represents the Government's thinking, the controls they propose for the privatised industry render the definitions of free enterprise and competition within the industry quite meaningless in this context. The Government seem set on the dogma of privatisation regardless of the circumstances, and I am reminded of the sportsman who shot at anything that moved. The Government seem to desire to privatise anything that trades. However, the Government are not complete fools and I suggest that in this case there are even more important considerations. These are, first, that if new power stations could be paid for by private funding it would greatly reduce the PSBR, and if any existing power stations could be sold off the money would be useful, as it has been from other sources.
Secondly, it enables the Government to escape from the obligation of taking most of the coal needed

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by the coal-fired power stations from our own pits at much higher prices than those of imported coal. This would of course conceivably introduce desirable competition in our own coal industry. Thirdly, there is no doubt a desire to avoid trade unions having the potential power to bring this country very quickly to its knees by a strike in the electricity industry. But in this area we have most sensible and responsible unions. Splitting up the industry could lead to a much more dangerous situation. So much for open government and informing the public of the reasons for government policy.
Finally, if the Government are determined to pursue their policy, regardless of its side effects, into an uncharted sea, I remind them of the CEGB's policy and that of the electricity boards of trying to buy British. I suggest to the Government that in an uncharted sea one should move slowly, first noting any lessons from the experience of other industries both in this country and abroad. In this context they might properly try to get the private sector to fund some new coal-fired power stations. They will privatise the area boards, but that is hardly relevant because it may well increase the costs to the consumer. As it is, the existing arrangements have only to cover running and capital costs: they do not make a profit. Many of us deeply regret the dismemberment of an efficient organisation and the move into the unknown without at least having felt the way forward.
12.59 p.m.
Lord Monk Bretton: My Lords, I should like to give this Bill a word of welcome and I can assure your Lordships that it will be brief but cordial. I do not feel that it should really be regarded as a contentious measure because it is not the measure that is in fact going to privatise water and sewerage: nor is it going to privatise a single electricity-generating enterprise.
On what would be more contentious—in other words, actual privatisation—I am not sure that the subject is strictly relevant to the Bill. I do not intend to say too much about that primary decision at this stage. Perhaps the less I say the better. I am tempted to make a few brief remarks. What matters is not who owns and runs the services, but whether the regulatory framework adequately protects the public. Thereafter it is how the services are best run that we have to consider.
I believe that privatisation has brought some advantages. It can better motivate; it can take a load off the public sector finance; it allows greater flexibility in provision of services, and so forth. In that connection it is fair to mention that since privatisation British Telecom's charges to the public have fallen by nearly 9 per cent. in real terms. There have therefore been some benefits to the customer therein.
So much for politically charged remarks. I shall give the ultimate in shorthand descriptions of this Bill as opposed to the admirable way in which the Bill was introduced to us by the Leader of the House. The Bill does two things. It enables an advance setting up of a shadow organization—that includes in particular the new national rivers authority—prior to
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privatisation. It also provides this pilot scheme for metering water supply.
With regard to the first aspect, I believe that it will provide us with smoother transition in advance of privatisation. It is a much more complicated matter than it looks, and therefore there is much to be said for endeavouring to run in this machinery in good time, and carefully, and to think further about some of the difficulties and problems that have been mentioned today in this debate. Another advantage is that it will probably reduce staff uncertainties in the industries concerned. That is very much to the good.
On the matter of water metering, this has been written on the wall for a very long time. I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said. He felt that metering would save so little. I believe that that is what we want to find out. We know that a substantial amount of water is supplied by meter as commercial supplies. There is no proposal to introduce universal metering in this case. It is simply an attempt to do so in those areas where it would help the situation most. My feeling is that metering is much more a matter of logistics and not a matter of politics. It is something that is likely to take place anyway. Therefore there is everything to be said for a pilot scheme.
I should like to take this opportunity to make a few remarks about water in particular where it impinges upon rural affairs and the land, a subject on which I am better informed. I say at once that I also have an interest. First, perhaps I may congratulate the Leader of the House and his right honourable friend the Minister in another place on achieving a great meeting of minds in this area since the initial proposals on water privatisation made before the last election. First and foremost, I welcome the decision to retain in government hands the policing function and to set up the National Rivers Authority for the purpose of looking after the environmental aspects thereof, and in particular the matter of pollution.
I believe that whatever may be said for total river basin management, it is absolutely right for government to have retained this policing role and not to have allowed water undertakings to be judge and jury in their own court. That has been very strongly held in both National Farmers' Union and Country Landowners' Association quarters. I know how greatly relieved they are that this matter has been handled in the way that it has. I do not think that such an enormous chunk has been taken out of the total river basin management concept. I understand that it is about only 10 per cent.
The NFU and the CLA are naturally keenly involved in riparian matters. For this reason they are very pleased that it has been decided to retain the regional flood defence committees, formerly the regional land drainage committees; and that the Ministry of Agriculture is to appoint two members out of the 10 or 12, one for agriculture and one for fisheries. They had hoped for three. The proposal was originally for only one. I am glad that they had at least half a loaf; or it might be fairer to say that they received two-thirds of a loaf.
I should like to ask about one point. In forming the National Rivers Authority, will the same balance of

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representation be accorded to the Ministry of Agriculture? I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell me something about that.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say that the Government deserve congratulations on progress to date. I wish the Bill every success and an easy passage.
1.7 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to your Lordships for taking part in this debate. It has been interesting. It has well illustrated the close attention that your Lordships always pay to the water industry as part of our concern for wider environmental matters. Although some of the points that have been put to the Government have not been uncritical, this has been a short debate that has shown a depth of knowledge and experience of the water industry, and of the power industry, which would not necessarily have been matched elsewhere.
The noble Lord. Lord Williams of Elvel, in his later remarks in a robust speech, suggested that the doctrine of the mandate did not necessarily pertain with regard to the proposals of the Government to privatise both water and electricity. I felt that my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton gave a quiet and effective reply. He thought that privatisation had carried with it advantages for other industries over the past few years. My noble friend Lord Elliott was very robust in expressing his support for privatisation, although my noble friend made no secret of the fact a little later in this speech that he would like to see privatisation on a rather different basis than the one put forward in the proposals of the Government at the present time.
Perhaps I may make one very simple point of which I think we are all aware but it is worth making for the record. This is a Bill that does not represent the measure to privatise either the water or the electricity industries. We intend to bring forward in due course, as soon as we can, the main Bill to privatise both water and electricity.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, before the Minister strays too far from the point that he was making about the mandate, I should like to point out that it has been stated that at the last election the Conservative manifesto did not include a reference to water but, having regard to the fact that the progress of water privatisation had come to an abrupt halt, the impression given was that it was no longer part of the Government's policy. Is the noble Lord in a position to throw any light upon that assertion?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I shall correct myself in a few moments if I am misleading the noble Lords. My memory is quite clear that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made an important speech early in the election campaign during which he made absolutely clear the Government's position as regards intended water privatisation. Early in my opening speech I covered the ground which, in effect, was covered by my right honourable friend's speech in May of election year.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, perhaps I may remind the noble Lord of the manifesto on which his party fought the election. The proposal appeared in it, stating that the Conservatives would,
"establish a National Rivers Authority to take over responsibilities for ensuring strict safeguards against the pollution of rivers and watercourses and to pursue sound conservation policies. The water supply and sewage functions of the water authorities will be transferred to the private sector".
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, is reading from my party's manifesto. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord sees fit to have a copy of the manifesto on the Bench beside him——
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I was reading from the National Rivers Authority document.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am sorry. I am mistaken as to what the noble Lord was reading out. I remember that document very well. An important consultation document, it was followed by a second document just before Christmas. That led us through to the position in which we find ourselves today of having a paving Bill which will lead towards the main privatisation proposals that we have not yet reached but that will need to be the subject of privatisation Bills.
I should like to stick to the point that I was making to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. It is that in an important speech early in the election campaign my right honourable friend the Secretary of State made the Government's position absolutely clear. It was the ground covered by my right honourable friend to which, among other matters, I referred in passing earlier in my speech. I was pointing out the fact that we have not reached the main privatisation Bills because my noble friend Lord Nugent said that the National Rivers Authority is not mentioned in the Bill. That is because at this stage the Bill does not and could not establish the NRA. Instead, Clause 1 empowers bodies to prepare for transfer of property or functions to other bodies—not merely the NRA but a variety of public limited companies. That is why the drafting is probably right although, as with everything else my noble friend puts to me, I shall look again at the point he made.
I turn to deal with the second part of the Bill. Several noble Lords have expressed concern that compulsory metering could mean hardship and even threaten public health standards. That was said by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and it was echoed elsewhere. The noble Lord suggested that there is at present a rising trend in the number of disconnections made by water authorities. The evidence does not bear that out. The figure for 1986–87 showed that approximately 7,400 disconnections were made by the water undertakers; that is about the average for the last decade.
As regards the future, to which the noble Lord quite rightly referred, I can advise your Lordships that water undertakers already observe a stringent code of practice in respect of disconnections. As a result, they cut off a water supply only as a last resort. That code of practice will continue to apply over water authorities' utility once the water authorities' businesses have been privatised.

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From the considerable experience of metering overseas, and in the major area of non-business metering in the Malvern area where it has existed for about a century, there is no evidence to suggest that metering discourages essential use. I believe that my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton is right to say that one of the reasons for metering is that we wish to see whether it is possible for water to be used with greater care than is sometimes the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, suggested that metering would almost inevitably lead to a reduction in demand of approximately 4 per cent. and he considered it far better to concentrate on the detection of leaks. One of the purposes of the trials is to discover whether metering leads to a reduction in demand. In 1985 the Department of the Environment water authority committee concluded from its study of experience overseas that a reduction in both indoor and outdoor use is possible. The committee also took the view that metering will lead to the better detection of leaks, and the trials will prove whether such reductions are possible.
I believe that metering is unlikely to lead to a greater number of disconnections due to increased charges. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, the code of practice will exist in the future in the same way as it has in the past.
I should now like to give two assurances which I did not include in my opening speech but which it may be useful to have on the record. In opening, I mentioned that Clause 3 re-enacts certain provisions of Section 30 of the Water Act 1973 which regulates water authority charges. Some concern has been expressed—although not by your Lordships today—about the direction-making power within the provision vested in my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. The clause as drafted retains a power to compel water undertakers to comply with directions given by my right honourable friend relating to the composition of charges. The power has never been used but the Government have agreed with the Water Companies Association that the Bill should be amended to make it clear that the Secretary of State's power of direction under the provision does not prejudice the statutory companies' abilities to provide a reasonable return on capital so long as they remain under their present financial framework.
The second assurance I should like to give relates to the scope of consultations on proposals of water undertakers wishing to carry out trials. It has not been raised by your Lordships but it has been raised many times in another place and outside the House. The Government accepted a suggestion from the Opposition in another place to ensure that the Secretary of State must also have regard to consultations with consumer bodies as well as with consumers. We intend to amend the Bill accordingly.
I should like to answer some of the points raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, waxed eloquent about the difficulties as he saw them in valuing water authority assets prior to the moment of privatisation. I was a little intimidated by the noble Lord who not only appeared to be blinding me with science but was possibly frightening me off ever getting as far as being party to bringing forward the necessary prospectuses. Yet as I listened to the noble
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Lord there was a hint of the old adage about trying to find a difficulty for every solution.
The fact of the matter is that the value of water authority assets has been put by some people at £27 billion, and I think that that is how they stand in accounts. That represents depreciated current replacement costs of assets which are in use. The noble Lord will be the first to say to me that that is not the worth of the assets. The value to be put on the business as a whole, of which assets are only one part. will depend on many things: profit levels, investment needs and investment opportunities. The market will determine the value and Her Majesty's Government will ensure that the value is obtained.
The noble Lord then said, "How do you account for the split-up of water authority assets into the National Rivers Authority components?" Most of the existing assets, including all the reservoirs, expect to transfer to the public limited companies but some of the assets will go to the NRA. The water authorities will be expected to produce schemes of organisation which, among other things, show what assets are going to the NRA, and our accountants and those of the water authorities will be working closely to ensure that all the prospectus's accounting requirements are met.
The noble Lord took me to task—or rather took the Government to task—because Clause 2 gives water companies the power, as the noble Lord said, to levy taxes and to fix charges as they feel fit and therefore Clause 2 is nothing more or less than a taxation. With respect, I do not believe that that is so. The ability to fix charges as they see fit is constrained by the requirements of Clause 3(3) which I spoke of in my opening speech. I shall not go over that ground again except to say that perhaps the noble Lord will remember that the requirements are that charges must have regard to costs and not show undue preference against any class of persons. These requirements have ensured fair charges in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Nugent for his support for metering and I am grateful to him for his support for the concept of the National Rivers Authority. My noble friend and, indeed, my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton both made the point that it is important to have it seen to be the case that the public limited companies of the future are not judge and jury in their own cause. That is something which both my noble friends feel the setting up of the NRA will achieve and will also meet the point which has been put sometimes about a need for a competent authority in European Community terms. Both my noble friends referred to the importance of the NRA from an environmental standpoint.
My noble friend, Lord Nugent warned about the dangers of having an overlarge NRA. It will be important to see how much work may be contracted out—another point which my noble friend particularly put his finger on. My noble friend also asked whether the Government would use their best endeavours to see that contracts were made possible. The nature of the work involved in each of the NRA's different functions is varied. Work such as land drainage can be very different in various parts of the country. Therefore, there will be different durations

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of contract and the choice of different arrangements will need to reflect that. We anticipate that there will be a varied pattern of arrangements, as there is at present, in the way in which work is carried out by different authorities.
My noble friend also asked about the hydrometric network and whether or not it is important to see that there is not unnecessary and wasteful overlap. The hydrometric network measuring rainfall, ground water and river flows is needed by both the NRA and the plcs—hence the difficulty. The aim would be to avoid unnecessary duplication by exchange of information wherever possible, and detailed arrangements will have to be worked out, depending on local circumstances.
My noble friend, together with my noble friend Lord Elliott, made important points about their desire to see the profit-limited statutory model being used as the basis for this privatisation. As regards the 28 statutory water companies, we have said that we intend to bring them into the framework of economic regulations which will apply to the privatised utilities plcs. That will include charges control, existing government controls over the statutory companies' dividends and related matters that will be ended. It will then be for each statutory company, or rather for its shareholders, to decide whether it wishes to continue in its present form or to opt for conversion to a public limited company.
The Government carefully considered whether to privatise this industry on the statutory water company model, but we have rejected this approach for two main reasons. First, we do not think it is sensible to write out the constitutions of the new utilities in pages and pages of statute with all the inflexibilities that involves. The plc model under the general framework of the Companies Acts avoids those difficulties. Secondly, the statutory water company model, although it has served us well for many years—and my goodness me, my noble friend Lord Elliott had every right to be able to claim that he is involved in a part of the industry which has a proud record—is set up with a constitution which does not contain within it the stimulus inbuilt to efficiency.
If I may say so, that may be all right for the statutory water companies that we have known producing water supplies. We shall be talking about rather different companies because there will be companies of the plc status in the future which will not only be providing water but will be involved in sewage disposal and sewage treatment. The stimulus is provided by the plc model under a price control regime because share is the one we have favoured because shareholders will have an incentive to make their companies more efficient and so more profitable. However, I have listened carefully to both my noble friends and I shall be drawing the whole of this debate to the attention of my right honourable friend.
My noble friend Lord Nugent ended by saying that measured tariffs should include a free or cheap allowance to encourage water consumption for essential purposes. A number of different tariffs will be tested in the trials, including some which include
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a free allowance within the standing charge and also rising block tariffs incorporating a cheap block.
Perhaps I may briefly make one or two quick points on electricity before I finish. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, made the point that the creation of two generating companies will not provide competition and that the consumer will still be subject to a monopoly. With respect, I believe that that is a little less than fair. The privatised electricity distribution companies will have a wide choice of sources of generation: the two new generating companies, existing and new private generators, the distribution companies if they wish to generate themselves, and supplies from Scotland, France and elsewhere. Competition will provide downward pressure on costs and prices and we believe will thus benefit the consumer. There will also be competition between the distribution companies through comparison and emulation and there will indeed be an effective system of price regulation to protect the consumer.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, made the point that the grid is very important and the proposals of the Government will risk destabilising it. However, the grid will be retained as an integral national network. It will direct power stations so as to meet demand at the lowest cost and the major advantages of the grid with a merit order of an operation will be maintained. What will be different is that the grid company will operate on the basis of contractual relationships with generating and distribution companies.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, that is not the point I made. I was saying that there is a limit how far current can be shipped economically. If it is shipped too far the reactive component will destablise the grid. It is a technical point that I made, and nothing else.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, perhaps I may look again at the point made by the noble Viscount. If I have missed anything I shall write to him.
The noble Viscount referred to shipping, and this brings me to the final point. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, and other noble Lords asked what effect the Government's proposals will have on British Coal. I simply say that coal will continue to be the major source of fuel for electricity generation for years to come. British Coal has increased its productivity by 50 per cent. in the past four to five years. Perhaps I may add that investment has absolutely poured into the industry. I believe I am right in saying that we have seen some £6 billion invested by the Government in the coal industry since 1979, with £2 million a day being invested, and that has led to the provision of much better machinery. This will mean that in looking for contracts—because that is what we will be talking about for the future—British Coal, on the doorsteps of the power stations, will be in a very stong position.
I conclude by thanking your Lordships for taking part in the debate. The Government are committed to the genuinely popular ownership of industries which have been nationalised in the past. This Bill will help to achieve that objective in two of the most significant industries in this country. However, in the water

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industry there is the additional objective, particularly mentioned by my noble friends Lord Nugent and Lord Monk Bretton, of helping to achieve the birth of the National Rivers Authority, with all the benefits we intend that that will have for the management of our river systems and our other river resources. The Bill is but a preliminary step on the road to the major changes which lie ahead, but it is a vital first step and once again I commend the Bill to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Business
1.33 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to say a few words about the Unstarred Question in the name of my noble friend Lady Cox. There is of course no time limit applied to Unstarred Questions, but I think it is generally accepted that these should he at least noticeably shorter than the time allowed for short debates. As there are 15 speakers on the list I know that noble Lords will bear that in mind, in addition to the fact that your Lordships like to pay particular attention on a Friday to the interests of the staff of the House.

Christian Teaching in Schools
Baroness Coxrose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all state schools provide a Christian act of worship and Christian religious education for all children whose parents request them.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to open this debate, because it reflects widespread concern. Parents and teachers from as far afield as London, Bristol, Derby, Preston, Newcastle, Bradford and Manchester have expressed grave anxiety over the failure of many schools to keep the law, as embodied in the Education Act 1944, to offer pupils opportunities for religious worship or instruction in the basic tenets of the Christian faith. In a nutshell, this debate is about the concern that, as a nation, we are in danger of selling our spiritual birthright for a mess of secular pottage.
I stress that I recognise that the situation is complex and that it is important not to oversimplify the issues. Therefore, in my opening speech I will merely attempt to survey the situation, to indicate the nature and extent of the concern to which I have referred, to offer a brief analysis of some of the issues and to raise some questions for clarification and consideration; questions which I believe are particularly timely given the impending advent of the Education Reform Bill in this House.
I am extremely conscious of the fact that the subjects of this debate touch on matters of deepest conviction which transcend party political commitments. I am therefore most grateful that noble Lords from different parts of your Lordships' House will be contributing their wisdom, knowledge
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and experience to help us to achieve what I hope will he a constructive discussion of issues which I, declaring an interest as a Christian, believe are of the greatest importance to us as a nation.
Perhaps I may briefly explain my choice of the wording of the Question before us. Some people have criticised it, saying that the words "whose parents request them" make it too narrow because, legally, Christian education and worship should be available to all children. I agree, and I should like to see that achieved. However, I have chosen this form of words because it highlights the extent to which we have failed to fulfil the law. The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that some parents who want, and even request, Christian worship and Christian-based religious education for their children are being explicitly denied them.
I will first discuss the issue of worship and then turn to religious education. The Education Act 1944 requires schools to begin the day with collective worship, attended by all pupils unless their parents request otherwise. Although it was not stated that the act of worship should be Christian, it was clearly Parliament's intention that it should be so. For example, during the debate on the 1944 Act in your Lordships' House the late Lord Selbourne, speaking for the Government, stated:
"It is the intention of the Government and of the Bill that the religious instruction required to he given shall he Christian instruction, and that the corporate act of worship shall he an act of Christian worship.".
The extent to which this law is widely broken is illustrated in a survey by The Times Educational Supplement in December 1985, which found that only 6 per cent. of maintained secondary schools came close to obeying the Act's requirement that each day shall begin with collective worship involving all pupils.
Let me hasten to say that, as the current Education Reform Bill recognises, this failure to keep to the letter of the law may often be due to logistical difficulties—for example, the lack of a hall of sufficient size to house the entire school—but as just over 20 per cent. of schools held full assemblies at least once a week one can presume that they had sufficient space. Further, almost 10 per cent. reported never holding an act of worship and only 30 per cent. still expect their pupils to sing a hymn.
Some schools give other reasons for this failure to comply with the law; for example, that they have a majority of pupils of other faiths. However, head teachers who respect the spirit of the law have adapted to these situations by providing, for example, for worship for pupils of different faiths. There is no justification for breaking the law by denying the act of Christian worship for all pupils whose parents do not wish to exercise their right to withdraw their children from it. Repeated opinion polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of parents want their children to have a Christian-based act of worship at school.
What is happening in too many of our schools is not only a failure to comply with the law—though that is serious enough—but also a failure to provide young people with a spiritual experience of worship and with an opportunity to become familiar with

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some of the most precious expressions of Christian faith which are part of this country's heritage, with the scriptures and with prayers and hymns, which have been the spiritual resource of incalculable value for countless people in times past and present.
This is a dreadful betrayal—and I mean "dreadful" literally. Even if young people do not appreciate the experience of worship while they are at school, it provides them with an opportunity to become familiar with some of the deepest expressions of the human spirit and for those to enter into their minds and hearts to be available as a resource in times of need later in life. Anyone who has contact with people who are in extremis is aware of how often they find comfort in the prayers, hymns and psalms learnt, sometimes reluctantly, in childhood. To deny young people the opportunity to become familiar with these spiritual resources is to leave them bereft indeed.
It is against this background that examples of such denial need to be seen. The parents in Dewsbury, who are reluctantly keeping their children out of school, are doing so partly because that school refuses to provide a Christian act of worship. It seems the ultimate irony that this is a Church of England school. I cannot help but wonder how the Anglican Church can have allowed that situation to develop. Moving South, a parent told me that at her child's school the head refused to allow the Lord's Prayer because he claimed that it is out of date. Why should these schools be allowed to deny parents the right to Christian worship? It is not good enough to say that we are no longer a Christian society. T. S. Elliot in The Idea of a Christian Society claimed:
"A society has not ceased to be Christian until it has become positively something else".
As a nation we have not yet declared ouselves to be something else. A survey published by the Bible Society in 1983 found that 85 per cent. of the population in England declared that they thought of themselves as Christian and only 7 per cent. declared a commitment to a non-Christian faith.
I now turn to a brief discussion of trends in religious education. With leave, I will use the abbreviation RE in the interests of brevity. Before discussing the cause for widespread concern I must stress that there have been some very good developments as exemplified in the 1987 agreed syllabus for Surrey. Parents and teachers in many other places have expressed anxiety over two issues. One is the dilution of Christian teaching in a multi-faith mish-mash. The other is secularisation by concentration on social and political issues.
For more than 20 years after the 1944 Act, RE syllabuses were Christian-based, but over the past 15 years many have been influenced by the Shap working party on world religions and have developed multi-faith syllabuses in which Christianity is treated as just one among many faiths and perhaps not even the predominant subject for study. Moreover, some multi-faith syllabuses are so worded as to allow inclusion of secular and political creeds such as humanism and the militant atheism of Marxism. Their inclusion seems, to say the least, a contradiction in terms. Of course there is a strong case—and I must emphasise this—for including some
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teaching about the other great world religions, especially in a society where these religions are practised. Such teaching can increase understanding and respect, which are essential values in a pluralist society. But that is very different from presenting young people with a position of extreme relativism in which all belief systems are presented in a value-free hotch-potch as exemplified in a book which I am told by teachers is widely used in RE. It is called Beginning Religion. I shall place a copy of this book in your Lordships' Library.
It shows page after page of grotesque and sometimes frightening pictures of religious rituals such as human sacrifice and a spine-chilling photograph of an Aborigine initiation ceremony. The Lord's Prayer is discussed on the same page as Shamanism. There is considerable emphasis on the occult. This edition actually suggests that children should try to find out what happens at a seance. I gather this has been omitted from a later edition. However, preoccupation with the occult and with phenomena such as witchcraft is a recurring theme in many RE courses.
Parents in York report that a class used all its RE lessons for a whole term to learn about witchcraft, including the use of videos of witches' covens. A number of RE inspectors in ILEA sent a letter to all schools warning against the traumatic psychological effects of teaching the occult in London's schools.
How has this situation deteriorated so drastically? Some of the developments are, I suggest, a result of confusion of multi-culturalism, multi-racism and multi-faith education. The fact that Britain is a society of many races and faiths is highly significant. But many who have come to live here from other countries, especially from the Caribbean, are Christian. Christianity remains the dominant religion in this country, and without an understanding of Christianity no real appreciation of our history or our culture is possible.
Moreover, this fact is recognised by many people of other faiths who are very keen to send their children to Christian schools and are not at all averse to their having what they expect to be a predominantly Christian-based education. As regards teaching their own faith, many of them would far prefer their young people to be taught this by their own religious leaders rather than to have a half-baked presentation from schoolteachers. Such instruction in school by their own religious leaders is also allowable under the 1944 Act. So it is important to put recent attempts to broaden RE into multi-faith syllabuses into context. The initial endeavours to include an understanding of other faiths were laudable. But that does not justify a transformation of the entire RE syllabus into a kaleidoscope of shallow ideas about myriad belief systems from Shamanism, ancestor worship and the occult, to a study of other faiths which leaves pupils ignorant of the basic tenets of Christianity.
Graham Turner, in the Daily Mail of 25th November 1987, describes a school in Sussex where children said that they learnt about Hinduism and

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Sikhism, but hardly anything about Christianity. He writes:
"Eleven Out of 15 youngsters said they had no idea who Pontius Pilate was. 'Wouldn't even know how to spell it'. said one. 'Not a clue who he or she is', said another".
Some of the most surprising teaching material has been produced by an organisation with the word "Christian" in its name: the Christian Education Movement. Its book on Spring festivals gives graphic accounts of the Chinese New Year, of Krishna festivals, before coming to the Jewish Passover and then giving only a very cursory account of the Christian Easter, before concluding with "Making a Mobile for Chinese New Year".
As regards older pupils, the new GCSE syllabuses do not help. The previous GCE and CSE syllabuses, although multi-faith, remained predominantly Christian. But now the national criteria for GCSE state that syllabuses will he based on the study of one, two or three of the major world religions, and it will be possible to have no Christian content at all.
One of the most disturbing aspects of these developments is that some Christian teachers feel unable to teach this new-form RE because they feel it is a betrayal of their faith. Another cause for concern is the predicament of some parents. For example, in Manchester some parents wish their children to have a predominantly Christian-based RE. But Manchester's multi-faith syllabus is integrated into other subjects and consequently the authority has ruled that it is not feasible for these parents to exercise their legal right to withdraw their children from RE which they find unacceptable. This is another example of the way in which the provisions of the 1944 Act are being violated.
Before I begin to draw a conclusion perhaps I may briefly mention the other aspect of RE which many parents are finding unacceptable. I refer to its use for partisan political purposes. For example, the GCSE religious studies syllabus from Doncaster is heavily laced with CND material with no comparable discussion on defence and disarmament or alternative views. The syllabus from Alperton school in Brent shows how RE is to be part of an integrated humanities course with highly politicised messages. Of course there is a case for consideration of social, political and moral issues from a Christian perspective. But that is a world away from using RE to legitimate one-sided, simplistic answers to complex, controversial problems.
I conclude by raising a number of questions in an attempt to search for remedies for these widespread concerns. First, perhaps I may ask the Minister what is the response of the Government to the suggestions that I believe are being made in another place—certainly in many other places—that RE should be one of the foundation subjects in the new core curriculum and that it should be predominantly Christian. Secondly, I ask my noble friend what the Government intend to do about the current failure of so many schools to provide a Christian act of worship. I understand that some rewording in the Bill is designed to solve the logistical problems. However, is anything more substantial being envisaged to put a stop to a situation in which the law is being constantly violated?
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Thirdly, perhaps I may draw my noble friend's attention to the fact that there has been a mushrooming of new religious schools established at great personal cost by parents who feel that the Government have failed them by allowing the situation to deteriorate to the extent that I have indicated. There are now more than 60 new Christian schools and others about to open. This dramatic—one might say "desperate"—growth rate reflects our failure as a nation to provide state schools which enshrine the moral and spiritual dimensions of education. I shall never forget a West Indian parent-governor at the Christian John Loughborough school in Tottenham saying that the local schools had failed so miserably that he used to have to send his children back to Jamaica to get a good old-fashioned British Christian education. But since the John Loughborough school was set up, he could send them there. But that is an expensive option and these new Christian schools run on faith and a shoestring. May I ask my noble friend whether the Government are able to suggest any ways in which they may be able to give financial help to these schools, many of them set up because we have failed to provide the Christian based education required by law.
My final questions are not for my noble friend the Minister but for all who care about the future of Christianity in this land. Perhaps they should be addressed especially to the major Churches, which are in a particularly influential position in which they could have protected, defended and enhanced the preservation of a predominantly Christian-based RE and religious worship in our schools. But judging by the developments we have witnessed and by some of their own reports, such as the Durham report. they appear to have condoned or even contributed to the dilution, and in some places the demise, of our religious heritage.
Many parents and teachers feel that they have looked in vain to the leaders of our Churches for a stand against the erosion and loss of Christian teaching and worship in our state schools. What other representatives of any world faith are so permissive about a dilution of their faith into a syncretistic relativism which implicitly or explicitly undermines its distinctiveness and its authenticity? Will the Church leaders speak out in defence of Christian education and worship, or must the people continue to protest alone, and to seek solutions at great personal cost and sacrifice? I cannot help but feel that the true guardians of the faith in our schools today are found not in the main body of the hierarchy of the Churches, or in the councils of Synod. but among the grass roots Christian communities up and down the land, among local parents, teachers and clergy. Perhaps they will prompt those in authority to take action before it is too late and before even more of our young people are denied an opportunity to study and to worship in the Christian tradition which is their spiritual birthright.
1.53 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, in beginning her remarks the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred to opening a debate. This is an Unstarred Question. There is no Motion on the Order Paper. We are not asked for Papers. We are

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merely asking for an answer. I should have thought that it was possible to get a fairly short answer to a specific question. However, if Friday afternoon is to be the occasion for a full dress debate on a thorny subject of this kind, I think that the Procedure Committee ought to have a look at it. I am sorry to start on this reproving note. I have high regard and great respect for the noble Baroness, but I think she raises this deepy controversial and serious matter at the wrong time and on the wrong day. Why then did I put down my name?
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I thought I would ask that question so that I can give a simple answer. I put down my name merely to suggest to the noble Earl who will reply to the Unstarred Question that the answer ought to be "Not at all". Mine is not a religious approach in any sense at all. My approach to this matter is humanist. I merely wanted to enter a caveat and claim a place in the debates which we shall almost certainly have when the Education Reform Bill comes to your Lordships' House.
I shall be very brief indeed. I have the privilege to follow the noble Baroness but the disadvantage of not knowing what other noble Lords will make of this occasion. She has taken full advantage of it and I do not blame her for that. I admire the way the noble Baroness goes hotfoot along the corridors of power and in and out of your Lordships' House pursuing some noble cause or some matter upon which she feels passionately. I wish there were more noble Lords and noble Baronesses to do the same. We would really be a very live body if it were so. However, I am not going to be drawn this afternoon into this deeply sensitive and controversial matter. I am content to say that when the time comes I shall be glad to have the opportunity of saying a great deal about the history—particularly the history—and in my opinion the economic and social consequences of our obsession with religion in education in our schools.
I do not believe that there is any such thing as religious education. There is religious indoctrination, which is a different matter altogether. That is really what we have. I content myself with those few remarks just to give some indication of the line I shall take when the time is appropriate for me to do so. In the meantime, I shall leave the debate to other noble Lords who have put down their names. It does not take 12 apostles to support the noble Baroness to get a simple answer out of the Minister to a simple question. Now he has an ample choice of replies: "As soon as possible" is one; "Not yet"; "In due course"; "The matter is under active consideration" are others. We could all think of the answers that the Minister might give. I suggest that whatever answer he gives it should be as brief as that and then we could all go home. That is all we want to know. As for the rest we can deal with the matter ad nauseam—that is what it will be—when we have the main debate on the Education Reform Bill.
With that I have made my contribution to the appeal to the Minister to reply to the Unstarred Question of the noble Baroness.
1.58 p.m.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, the noble Baroness is to be congratulated on the way in which she has introduced this important subject. This is not a party matter and I speak only for myself. I was tempted to say that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread", but I realise that that would hardly be courteous to the present company. At the same time I must admit that it is my heart that has led me to speak today and my head is still trying to absorb the complex details.
We are debating a Christian act of worship and Christian religious education in our state schools. The first question we have to ask is whether Christianity as a religion is worth promoting. My convinced answer is that it certainly is and I believe it to be vital to our national well-being. In his book The Heart of Healing, published in 1971, George Bennett, an Anglican parson, said this:
"Society does not generally realise how much it owes to the spread of Christianity. Once a country's life has become permeated by the faith which we all so easily take for granted, that country becomes healthy, prosperous and happy. But now we live in days of change, and one dreads to contemplate what might be the eventual results if our permissive society gains ground".
It is no coincidence that Christianity at its best is so closely linked with beauty of architecture, of music, of language. I accept the truth of the saying that ugliness is one sign of a wrong attitude to life.
I am disturbed by the words of Christ that tell me to take up my cross; but I have rejoiced at the sound of Mozart's Ave Verum sung in the great cathedral of San Marco in Venice; at Kathleen Ferrier singing the Angel's Farewell to Gerontius in the Festival Hall in London, or merely watching cricket on the county ground at Worcester with the Anglican cathedral dominating the scene from across the river Severn. I believe Christianity offers the most profound teaching the world has ever known and at times its language is sublime.
I support the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, wholeheartedly in her plea that Christian religious education, and, as part of it Christian worship, should be provided when parents request it for their children. I accept that that requirement raises many difficulties, not least that of staffing. However, I believe that the problem can be overcome, given the will. I shall be most interested to hear what other noble Lords have to say on this matter. It is of course essential in our society today that other faiths should be accepted, but Christians still form a clear majority. In 1944 anything else was not even considered.
In an interesting debate on religious education in February 1977 in your Lordships' House the noble Lord. Lord MacLeod of Fuinary, quoted a delightful, if disillusioned, poem by an RE teacher, Mrs. Sanderman, called "I only teach RE".The poem starts,
"Oh, no, I am not a Christian, a Moslem or a Jew.
Involvement would unsettle my objective point of view".
It ends by stating:
"Their spiritual development does not depend on me. No let them get their faith elsewhere, I only teach RE"
The whole poem is well worth reading in that it succinctly emphasises the dangers of too broad an approach to religious education by teachers who are often not genuine believers.

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What can be said about demand? I understand that there is an increasing number of new Christian schools being started in this country as parents become more concerned about values prevalent in some state schools. Some parents are simply worried about declining moral standards; others find that the teaching is inconsistent with the Christian faith.
My elder daughter teaches in a small Christian school in Rochester. When the school was started about 20 years ago, it was very much on its own. Now it has contact with many other Christian schools which have since been established and others which are in the process of being started. Some, like most independent schools, are fee paying; but others have nominal fees or no fees at all, relying on gifts—the noble Baroness touched upon that point. Therefore the ability to pay is not a criteria for accepting pupils. My daughter says that they have many more applications than they can accept. Even if more independent schools were started they would not be able to meet the needs of all the parents who wish their children to receive Christian teaching, free from what has all too aptly been described, in some cases, as actual persecution.
I should like to ask the noble Earl in his reply to answer two questions of which I have given him notice. First, it has been said that there is strong evidence that the vast majority of our population desire religious education for their children. That was the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in 1977; and the noble Baroness also mentioned this. Does the noble Lord agree that that assertion is true?
Secondly, the great majority of our independent schools—those selected by parents—do have religious education and an act of collective Christian worship. Will the noble Earl say whether he knows of many independent schools that might be termed totally secular?
I agree with the view that education which excludes religion altogether is not proper education. We need fully developed people, not merely brilliant scientists or mathematicians and so forth. On the 18th May 1977 in this House the noble Lord, Lord Blake, sought to call attention to the lack of an adequate Christian content in religious education in local education authority schools. He closed his speech with such wise and telling words that I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I repeat them. He said:
"My Lords, I would end by simply saying that the danger is not so much positive hostility to Christianity, though this does [not] exist in some quarters. The danger is, rather, that a generation will grow up which has not forgotten, but which has never even known, what Christianity is about and has never had an opportunity to know. I am not pressing for evangelism or for indoctrination; I am pressing for knowledge. I hope of course that knowledge will lead to belief, but it may not in every case or in quite a number of cases. What in my view would be a real tragedy would be an education which, by apathy. omission or neglect, deprived the coming generation of a whole dimension of their Western cultural heritage and left them ignorant of one of the most important aspects of human existence".—[Official Report, 18/5/77; col. 713].
I can myself only end by humbly saying that I wish that I had written those words myself. They remain all too relevant.
2.5 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Truro: My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me, should this debate
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continue after 3.30 p.m., if I leave before the end for distant parts.
No one with a concern for the contribution for the continuation of the Christian tradition in our schools will be other than sympathetic to the matters raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, in her Question. Because the Church shares with the Government the belief that the spiritual dimension is such an important element of education it is watching with great care the way in which the Education Reform Bill treats school worship and religious education in our country. When the Bill comes to your Lordships' House, the bishops will want to contribute in a major way to the debate on that aspect of the matter. Meanwhile, I am sure they will welcome the opportunity provided by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for views to be aired at this stage; those views will be studied with special interest in the Church.
I have no wish to make excuses for failures in the field of school worship and religious education. National attitudes have changed, especially since 1944; fewer people go to church and there are fewer teachers to conduct the act of worship or to teach the religious subject. Of course, many more people in these islands represent other faiths or none at all.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, was not prescribing—nor would I wish to do so; nor indeed would I want to—just to defend Christian leadership. I should just like to say with respect to the noble Baroness that all of us who claim to be Christian have some degree of responsibility in the matter. All of us in this House will be eager to see how the Government handle those two matters when the draft Bill is presented, together with any amendments which the Government, or others, put forward.
Like one or two other noble Lords, I should like to ask several further questions which are implied by the original one.
The first concerns the act of worship. How frequent, I wonder, is that intended to be, according to the terms of the Question? There is nothing in it to suggest that specifically Christian worship is to be provided daily or even regularly. Is it to be in addition to multi-faith acts of worship or as an alternative? I believe that the Secretary of State has said that he would welcome invitations to be given to local clergy and ministers for that purpose. I wonder whether that is so.
Christianity is described, and has been described in the debate, as the dominant religion or, perhaps, as was put in another place a little more modestly, as the lead religion in this country.
I ask myself, and your Lordships, whether that implies that other faiths are seen as anti-Christian. Or could it be, as I believe, that all faiths, like all human beings, have a touch of the divine about them, and that in consequence all of them point in some way to Him who claims to be the fulfiller of all truths'? I know that many Asian parents, for example, are happy that their children should receive that Christian religious education in some Church schools. Religious education, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is not the same as indoctrination. I should be glad to engage in a modest conversation with him at some future time about semantics if that is how he sees it.

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Those Asian parents of whom I speak are happy and eager that their children should experience that Christian worship. To experience worship of any sort is not the same as to find oneself required to make an act of personal commitment. Those parents believe that it is at least a vital part of this country's history, the country to which they have come, and where, of course, many of them have now been living for several generations. They admire the Christian ideal for life: to love the Lord your God; to love your neighbour as yourself. They want for their children Christian standards—honesty, self-control, compassion, forgiveness, humility, self-sacrifice and service to others. Those of course are not exclusively Christian, but they have been taught, practised and lived for many generations. They are Christianity's great contribution to our national life, to say nothing of the faith from which they spring. We cannot wholly separate faith from morality. How we see the universe largely determines how we live and what our attitudes are.
So, I ask those questions and how the matters which we are debating are to be enforced in the schools. It must be said that the great and, to many of us, wonderful Act of 1944 has not been wholly successful because it has been found so difficult to insist upon the daily act of worship whether or not it be Christian. Of course, how difficult it has been to enforce the teaching of religion throughout our schools.
Some serious questions arise on that score as well. There has been mention of the agreed syllabi. They are said to be unsatisfactory in many places. I know that that is true. Are there to be, I wonder, in the course of the presentation of the Education Reform Bill, some new guidelines or even stipulations about the composition of those agreed syllabi? How will they be enforced when qualified teachers in that subject are, alas, so scared—I should have said scarce? Perhaps that was a Freudian slip. Will the Government give more encouragement, and perhaps better status, to teachers of religious education in our schools? I could become anecdotal about that.
There is also the sensitive issue of whether or not religious education should be part of the core curriculum. I should not wish at this stage to rehearse the arguments. They are many, and it will he a very sophisticated debate that we shall have later on. Those are probably not matters for today. I look forward, however, to hearing or reading the Minister's reply and still more to following the debate on the Education Reform Bill when it reaches your Lordships' House. Let it just be said from this quarter of the House that I, for one, am delighted that this question has been put to us and that we have been able to spend at least a short time on it. I can assure the House that I for one should want to answer the question very simply. Indeed we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that it is basically a very simple question. He had a very different answer from the one I would want to offer. My answer would be simply, yes.
2.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend Lady Cox for posing what I believe is a very
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fundamental Question and one which I hope will be given a great deal more thought. This is despite the words and probably the right advice from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, that now is perhaps not the time to enter into the debate. Nevertheless I shall take advantage of the opportunity presented to me.
As I mentioned briefly in my maiden speech in your Lordships' House, education is very much about the academic, the moral and spiritual welfare of our children. Religious education in our schools is not necessarily about making little Christians of our children. If that were the objective, then one could say that we had signally failed. But, as has been suggested, it is their birthright to know of the history, the culture and the tenets of the religion in order that we may lay down foundations and in order that they may later make choices.
However, I must express surprise and, I think, disappointment at some of what has been said by the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues in the Church. I support them in being concerned about the Education Reform Bill and the place of religious education within it. But my question to them is: where have they been over these past years as this subject in our schools has been very much in demise? Where were they as I sat around the table with my colleagues on the Standing Conference for Religious Education, fighting like a tiger to retain an element of Christianity as a predominant part of religious education in the curriculum? I went to see a bishop, putting a heartfelt plea for his support in the work we are trying to do. A quarter of the conference, like a quarter of the conferences in many counties, is made up of Church of England appointees. They were not the people to whom I could look for support. That was a great disappointment to me.
In answer to the right reverend Prelate who asked whether we see other religions as anti-Christian, my reply would be a resounding, no. I do not see other religions as anti-Christian but I believe the teachings of Christianity about tolerance of other people and other religions is a very real part of learning about Christianity.
Next, I wish to mention the Bishop of Durham—not, I hasten to add, the present Bishop of Durham but a predecessor, the late Ian Ramsey, who, I believe, was responsible in part for much of the nature and the way in which religion is taught in our schools. It has certainly given rise to much of our present concern. Two particular aspects were advocated, an open pedagogy approach to religious education and the setting up of standing conferences, one of which I have just described, where a flexible approach to the 1944 Education Act was advocated. Unfortunately, this is where world religions, humanism even communism, and various nonreligious stances were seen to be treated as alternatives and equal to Christianity. Much of what the World Council of Churches was saying was supportive of this and the discovery approach—the quest for meaning and the search for values required of our children, very often too young to cope.

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I refer to Education and Indoctrination by Roger Scruton, Angela Ellis-Jones and Dennis O'Keeffe. I quote from their chapter on morality and religion:
"A teacher who sought to induce moral principles in his pupils by asking them to explore the various 'alternatives' would be engaged in a self-defeating task. We do not discover the moral reality of murder by giving it a try, nor do we come to a better understanding of the evil of rape or torture by experimenting with a variety of points of view upon them, or by trial and error …The issues here are immensely difficult. But two thines ought to be made clear. The first is that finite creatures have need of morality if they are to survive. They also…have need of religion…Children. as Aristotle put it, enter the palace of reason through the courtyard of habit, and in morality and religion it is the habit, not the reason, which counts. No parent. anxious for his child's welfare, could wish him to be deprived of morality; and most parents would wish their children to have a basic familiarity with the tenets of religion, and the kind of meaning that it imparts to our experience".
BBC "Panorama" on 17th December 1984 reported that,
"currently eight out of ten parents favour the presentation of religious education in schools.
Furthermore, Christianity is part of our cultural inheritance. Without it, much of the literature, and philosophy that we have inherited, and the basic forms of our law and institutions, would be unintelligible. Its language, its melodies, and its moral presence arc revealed to us in all our surrounding world, and a child who was not brought into contact with it would be a stranger in the society to which he is destined…The exposure to alternatives may defeat the purpose of religious education as much as it defeats the purpose of morality: it offers to place idle curiosity where there should be certainty and trust. The crucial feature of religious belief is that. unlike political belief, it is essentially addressed to the individual, his conscience and his salvation. It is a guide to life and a source of confidence".
What we have heard by educationists, and sadly sometimes supported by our Church leaders, is a kind of intellectual indulgence. We have had the advocacy of Ronald Goldman in 1964 and of course that of Piaget, who argued that children at a young age were not able to grasp the tenets of religion. Therefore they indulged in the thematic approach and learnt more about the wool of the sheep and the goings-on of the shepherd and very little about the teaching of the Bible.
I have already hinted at my own experience as a member of a standing conference in Cambridgeshire. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for making one more quote. I had to fight particularly hard after having to concede defeat on very much of what the syllabus had to say to put in the following sentence:
"This Conference, while recognising that pupils' cultural and religious backgrounds will vary, believes that we have an educational responsibility to see that Christianity is the religion which is studied in the greatest detail".
It took many months to have that put into the syllabus.
We can all be anecdotal but there is not time to go on and on and I shall give noble Lords just two examples of incidents that made their mark on me. One such incident was the child who died just before his fifteenth birthday. Throughout that child's secondary school life the closest he came to Christianity in his religious education was during the term in which he died when he was studying the Turin Shroud as a detective story. He had of course covered witchcraft and a number of "isms" including Marxism.
I also refer to a personal experience gained when visiting a school one day at harvest festival time when the children were taught to believe that planting the
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seeds in the ground and seeing them grow was magic. I am also reminded of Birmingham in 1974, when, after its syllabus had been produced, objectors complained about the inclusion of communism as one of the "isms" in that syllabus.
I have to put on record my admiration for Peter Shepherd and the work of West Sussex County Council in the way it set about preparing its religious education agreed syllabus. It really is a model and I recommend that your Lordships read it. That council also went out of its way in the preparation for that document to survey the people whom it served. It found what the "Panorama" programme also found —that the majority of people in our community want a Christian-based religious education syllabus in our schools and that the people who were opposed to it were many of the people who formed the standing conference on education and some of the Church leaders.
We must be concerned not only about the children with supportive backgrounds whose parents have a positive view in wanting their children to have religious education in school. It must also include those children from families who are not supportive or who are inadequate for one reason or another. I believe that we owe it to those children to give them a framework. After all, school will be the only anchor in their lives. Therefore, we have a duty.
Perhaps I may be presumptuous enough to suggest some ways forward. First, we must get away from the mixing-bowl approach to this great subject. Secondly, we need a clearer statement of aims for the subject. Thirdly, we need closer scrutiny of some of the agreed syllabi. I believe that they have been scrutinised only cursorily in the past. Fourthly, we need enhanced status for the subject and the teachers who teach it.
Returning to the words of the Motion, it asks for a Christian act of worship for all those children whose parents request that. I have made a plea for those who take no view in the matter. However, we need to remind ourselves that such matters are not compulsory. For children whose parents do not wish them to have such acts of worship, there is no compulsion. They have the power and ability to opt out.
I wish to end, again presumptuously, with a quotation from the Bible:
"If we have no vision then the children perish".
Baroness Seear: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, perhaps she can confirm, on reflection, that she did not intend an attack on the late Ian Ramsey, who was, to many of us, a guiding theologian and guide.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I was not attacking that gentleman; I was attacking some of the things that he advocated.
2.20 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: My Lords, I should like to say at the outset how grateful I am to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for putting down the Motion and thus permitting the exchange of views on this important topic. I find myself largely in agreement with the

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noble Baroness, although my knowledge of religious education is clearly much less extensive than hers.
Nevertheless, we have only to look at the state of the nation to see how crucial and timely today's debate is. It always surprises me that whenever the Government are defending their record concerning the health of the nation, they invariably do it in economic terms. We hear that the economy is vibrant and growing at X per cent. per annum. We are told that inflation is low and shows no signs of increasing. We hear that the money supply is under control, that unemployment is falling and that unit labour costs are very competitive. That is encouraging and I should not wish to belittle the achievements of the Government in that regard. In fact, giving credit where credit is due, I take the view that the British economy is now in better shape than at any time since 1945.
However, is that really what we are talking about when we look at the health of the nation? Surely a much truer indication would be given by examining the divorce rate, which is now the highest in Europe; by examining the abortion rate, which is up from 6,000 in 1968 to 275,000 in 1987; and by assessing the increase or decrease of violent crime, muggings, rape and child abuse. Surely those figures indicate far more accurately the moral state of play in this country. If I may say so, they portray a pretty dismal picture. The sort of adjectives one might use to describe the overall health of Britain would be "pitiful", "depraved" or "appalling".
Perhaps I may turn to the cause of that unhappy state of affairs. Noble Lords will judge for themselves in that matter, but it seems to me that there are three principal reasons for the collapse of moral standards in this country. First, there is the failure of the Government to support the family in any meaningful way. After their nine years in office, it is still cheaper in some circumstances to live in sin than to live within marriage, which is a ludicrous state of affairs. We can only hope that the Chancellor will put this right on 15th March when he presents his Budget. Indeed, the right honourable Member for Finchley is herself frequently making statements which are supportive of the family, though regrettably her actions do not always match her words in this regard.
Secondly—and I hope I shall not offend the right reverend Prelate who sits in front of me when I say this, because I do not wish to be offensive in any way and I enjoyed his earlier intervention —there has been a complete failure on the part of the established Church in this country to communicate the gospel in a manner which is both relevant and meaningful to ordinary people in today's terms. There are of course happy exceptions, but in general our churches are pathetically empty because they fail to meet the needs of ordinary people in 1988.
Thirdly, there is the failure of parents to devote enough time and energy to bring up their children effectively and in a manner which will meet their needs in body, mind and spirit. Generally, their bodily needs are fairly well met; their mental needs are met in some degree, depending on circumstances; and their spiritual needs are met scarcely at all. Thus at the end of his formative years the child is quite
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unbalanced, and the result can be seen by scanning the headlines of almost any newspaper you choose to pick up.
This is a Christian country and at one stage in the Coronation service the Archbishop hands a Bible to the Monarch with these words:
"This is the most valuable thing this world affords. Here is wisdom. This is the Royal Law. These are the lively oracles of God."
Are these not weighty words, and are they not just as relevant to her subjects as to the Monarch herself? As the Coronation service is essentially a State occasion, surely we ignore these words at our peril. Perhaps I might also add that in 1987 the Bible was easily the best selling book in this country, which clearly demonstrates people's hunger for spiritual food.
Your Lordships will be glad to hear that I am finally, and by a somewhat circuitous route, coming to the point. That is of course the relevance of a Christian act of worship and Christian religious education in state schools. Following a recent Question put down by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, in this House on 4th February, the noble Lord, Lord St. John of Fawsley, showing his usual wit and charm which is so much appreciated by your Lordships, in pressing the Minister (the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper) had this to say at col. 1188:
"Does she further agree that trying to teach RE and leaving out the act of worship is like trying to teach astronomy and leaving out the stars?"
Noble Lords will judge for themselves, but it seems to me that we are slipping at a disturbing rate into a slough of despond so far as the moral health of the nation is concerned. Observing the failure of the Government to support the family, the failure of the established Church to faithfully proclaim the gospel and the failure of parents to prepare their offspring for the rigours of this life, let alone for the next, it seems to me that the only chink of light is that our schools should offer a Christian act of worship and Christian religious education, so that our children should have at least some sure Christian grounding in their formative years. I therefore wish to make clear my wholeheared support for the noble Baroness and to thank her for letting us have this opportunity to air this important subject.
2.35 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, I should like to begin where the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, left off by thanking the noble Baroness on behalf of your Lordships' House, and on behalf of the laity of this country, for taking a lead in ensuring that this matter is properly discussed.
Before I come to the point, I should like to tilt a lance—not for the first time—against my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. He calls himself a humanist. He is nothing of the kind. I do not think that he knows what humanism is. I wonder whether he has ever read Pico de la Mirandola's dialogue between God and Adam which was the foundation of Renaissance humanism. Has he read the Cambridge Platonists of the late 17th and early 18th century'? I doubt it. What he is is an old-fashioned 19th century rationalist born out of his time. But we shall splinter another lance together

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when the education Bill is discussed. In case noble Lords think that there is anything personal between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, we have been old friends and colleagues for many years. It is nothing new if we sometimes fundamentally disagree with one another.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. Will he allow me then to call myself a dissenter? I think that that is fairly understood.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, a universal dissenter. Perhaps I may start with a couplet from Hilaire Belloc. What is it that,
"Surrounds the horizon of my memories Like large and comfortable trees?"
It is family prayers before breakfast in my grandfather's large Victorian household. At Edward VII's coronation my grandfather was the same age as I am now; that is, 80 next birthday. Having lived through the reigns of George V, William IV and Victoria he was getting set in his ways, as indeed I am now. The whole household met before breakfast, servants and all, and my grandfather read the prayers and the blessing at the end. On Sundays, there were evening prayers as well. I went there very frequently because my grandfather's home was used as a quarantine station when either I, or my sister, had one of our usual childhood infections: measles, mumps, whooping cough, chickenpox, German measles, colds, coughs and sneezes, and all the rest of them. When one of us had one of these infections the other was exported to my grandparents. I was therefore accustomed to living in their household.
At my prep school we had prayers before breakfast every morning, and of course evening prayers on Sundays. When I went to public school I found the same regime as I would have found had I gone to Oxbridge, which I did not. Finally, I joined your Lordships' House where we begin our proceedings every day with prayers as an act of corporate worship. It therefore seems to me very natural and proper that we should have an act of corporate worship to begin our proceedings every day, although this happens after lunch while in my grandfather's household it was before breakfast.
However, there came a very significant pair of events. Thirty years ago there came into existence the permissive society, which eroded our morals, and a sort of petty Fabian Butskellism, which eroded our economy. I am now concerned with those who are maturing into middle age and who were brought up under those two regimes. If we take a professional career as running roughly from 25 to 65 years of age, with a midpoint of one's career at about 45, those who are now 45 were those who matured during the beginning of the permissive society. Are we surprised at the result? Those supporting the noble Baroness are the survivors of a shipwreck to whose navigation the episcopate contributed very little. It is the laity who are fighting like Christian soldiers and who have no illusions about how hard they have to fight in order to set the episcopate a good example.
I turn to Ronald Butt in The Times of the day before yesterday. With your Lordships' permission,
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perhaps I may quote his last paragraph. He was exploiting the theme that appetite grows by what it feeds on:
"As people lose their ability to be shocked, those predisposed to violence are encouraged by the moral climate to assume that society thinks that violence is all in a day's living. The pretence that it is required for the 'integrity' of the programme is largely bogus. Until the age of film, books and plays addressed the realities of violence and sex, without being invited to use the voyeur's peephole. The truth of the matter is that if the cultural climates were healthy, television producers and programme Commissioners would know what was right to transmit without guidelines, watersheds or arguments about censorship. The fact that these loom so large in the argument indicates that something is gravely wrong in the state of mind with which they approach their responsibility".
What was gravely wrong was the upbringing that they had in the foundations of the permissive society.
I should like to pass to a quotation from Paul Johnson in the Daily Mail of 8th February. He was blunt and almost unkind about what he called the "chattering classes". He describes the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York as the "establishment made flesh". He insisted on the truly more representative views of the noble Lord, Lord Mason, on the other side of the House in the context of Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill. He wrote:
"So mixed-up were the bishops that, when it came to a vote, three. including the Archbishop of York, voted against the clause, two voted for it, and all the rest abstained".
For the sake of intellectual honesty I should like to point out that, so far as I know, "all the rest" consisted of one member of the Bishops' Bench. During the course of the debate on Clause 28, I at one time counted six bishops. Five are accounted for, so I assume that one abstained. Therefore, to say "all the rest" is something of an exaggeration. Paul Johnson continued:
"Why are the bishops so confused'? Because so many of them have abandoned their traditional role as custodians of the moral law and joined the Chattering Classes. As such, they have drifted apart from the real nation".
Those are harsh words. I do not know whether I should be justified in applying them to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro. I shall read what he said with care in Hansard tomorrow. His speech was highly texturised and needs careful examination. However, I hope that he will draw the attention of his right reverend colleagues to this debate and to the fervent wish of the laity that they give more militant leadership as they would be giving in the Christian Hindu population in India and not drift with the permissive tide.
2.42 p.m.
The Earl of Cork and Orrery: My Lords, as a result of my fascination with the early life story of my noble friend Lord Halsbury, I should like to give a brief word of explanation as regards my standing in this connection. I claim and profess to call myself a Christian, having been baptised into the Church of England in infancy. As the years went by I served the Church in various capacities: as a sidesman; a server; a churchwarden; a member of the parochial Church Council and Diocesan Council; and as captain of the tower. Some noble Lords may not know that that is a resounding title belonging to the leader of a band of bellringers.

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Approximately 15 years ago I asked for and received permission to transfer my obedience—if that is not too strong a word—to the Orthodox Church, to which I still belong. I mention that in the hope that it may convey the idea—not that I am being impertinent in talking about a Church from which I have no apostacy—that I can speak as a former Anglican looking out from the inside and as a present Orthodox looking in from the outside. That may convey the idea that I have given some thought to the questions I wish to ask, however sketchy may be my ideas of the answers.
I should like to ask, first, why the Lords Spiritual are represented only by the duty bishop. The original Question seems to have been partly forgotten by some speakers. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said that he might offer the answer, no. The right reverend Prelate said that he would certainly offer the answer, yes. The Question asks what steps the Government are taking? I hardly think that either of those previous answers is relevant.
The question is: what are the Government up to? No more than the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, do I want to enter into a dissertation on various academic subjects, but what is not an academic subject is the question of what is religious instruction or religious education. I enter a plea at this moment for the total abandonment of the expression "RE". To my way of thinking, that is a rubber stamp that has no meaning whatever and comes down with devastating effect, blotting out any Christian or religious content that the expression may be intended to have. It is like PT; something which is taught. You cannot teach education and you cannot learn education unless you happen to be a student in a teachers training college. Something else should take its place.
What is the function of the Church? To my way of thinking, it is to mediate from God to man—I do not know whether I should be contradicted on this, but if the right reverend Prelate or anybody else cares to contradict me I should be happy to hear it—and to understand and expound for the benefit of the faithful, or hopefully faithful, the words of the 11th and 12th verses of the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John, which states:
"As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even them that believe on his name: which were born. not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. nor of the will of man. but of God".
What does that mean? If I want to know what it means I should be able to ask a bishop. I am not being personal. I believe that is what the Church exists for and that must be the foundation of all religious education, which must begin with small children. How does one begin with small children? You cannot teach them that sort of advanced doctrine. The teacher should know from the very outset that that explanation of what it means to become the sons of God should lie at the far end of the path on which he is setting the first trembling footsteps of his pupils.
They may not go very far. Where will they start? I suppose they will start with the idea of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, and God as a benign father sitting up in the sky. Many people do not reach any further than that. I have one particular friend I can think
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of—and I probably have many—who never reached any further than that. One friend I am thinking of is a man of about 60 who does not believe in God at all and once said to me that he did not understand how I could either. I then discovered on talking to him that the God in which he did not believe was a god in which I could not believe any more than he could. It was simply the old man in the sky, with which he became stuck at school and never progressed any further. I feel that something must have been wrong with the instruction that that man received. I did not offer him any instruction because it is a little late now.
The first part of the Question deals with the daily act of worship. I am not quite sure what that is intended to signify, but I think it means morning assembly, which could be conducted by anybody who is competent enough to think of a prayer and a couple of hymns. Is that what worship really is? I found a definition in a dictionary which said what worship really means. It states:
"To show profound religious devotion and respect to, adore or venerate God or any person or thing considered divine".
Is that what one gets in morning assembly? I dare say that it does not particularly matter. The psychological benefit can well be achieved, as it may well be achieved, by our prayers at the opening of the day's Sitting in the morning or the afternoon.
However, is it possible that this is too frequent an occasion for a "devoteness" (if there is such a word) to remain in the minds of those who experience it? Should it be less frequent? I do not know, but they are important questions. It is easy to say that morning assembly is sacred and that we must cling to it, but I have a feeling and a fear that perhaps people may grow up to think for the rest of their lives that worship—a profound, deep and important word in anyone's life—is simply a couple of prayers and a hymn in an atmosphere of chalk dust and floor polish.
This is slightly symptomatic, to me, of much that has gone on in the Church over a number of years. I have seen the great and glorious, divine liturgy of St. John Chrysotom reduced through the Mass, through the Holy Communion, down to strange distortions and changes that have been brought about, until it has become known in its shortened form by a number. I wonder what St. John of the Golden Mouth would think now of what it has become. With that have gone changes in the language, in the liturgy itself, until we have a departure from the old uniqueness of the English language in using for the divine a particular pronoun. God alone was addressed as "Thou". Now he is addressed at times, I understand, as "You" and his son is—the second person in the Trinity—referred to as "Your Son". I confess to a feeling, which perhaps will not endear me to some people, that the God depicted by Michaelangelo on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, or by Blake as a figure of enormous majesty, has been reduced to something not really distinguishable from a child's own father or grandfather, perhaps even wearing a collar and a tie. It seems to me that somehow the whole idea of religious education or instruction has gone. Mysticism has gone; the magic has gone, and mostly the poetry has gone.

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The Government are being asked in this Question what they are going to do to ensure that it should be restored; at least, that is my understanding of the Question. What do the Government propose to do to cause the Church—it must be the Church; the Government cannot do it themselves—to set up a proper organisation to establish syllabi for instruction in matters of the divine? The matter is urgent and vitally important, and I greatly applaud the Question tabled by my noble friend.
2.53 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I should like to turn the Question on the Order Paper round. We have already heard that some 87 per cent. of the population in the country is Christian or professes to be Christian. The vast majority will only attend church on three occasions in their lives or in other people's lives: at their own or someone else's baptism; their own or someone else's wedding; and their own or someone else's funeral.
That does not mean to say that they are not Christian. They live by the standards that they understand to be Christian. They would be horrified if anyone said that they were not Christians. I do not believe that one must go to church regularly to be a good Christian. In fact, often those who go to church regularly, perhaps two or three times on a Sunday, arc appalling Christians for the rest of the week, not living by the tenets of their faith at all.
I am sure that the vast majority of those who call themselves Christians and have children do not themselves feel capable of teaching their children properly about Christianity and how to be good Christians. They very much hope that this will be done for them at school by someone whom they think is better qualified than they. Therefore can my noble friend assure the House that Christian clergymen will be invited into schools to teach Christianity? The schools should also invite the clergymen of other religions, particularly those religions which are popular in the area, to teach about their religions. Can the noble Lord please confirm or assure me that a Christian act of worship and Christian education will be provided for all children whose parents specifically do not wish them to be withdrawn from such worship and education?
Over the past 30 years or so we have had a terrific influx of people into this country of religions which are other than Christian. Yet this country has been basically Christian for something like 1,400 years. Our way of life, our toleration of the ideas of other people, is experienced frequently in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who very often finds himself the only person speaking from his point of view. In some other societies he would have disappeared a long time ago. I hope that we are going to continue to be tolerant. I do not always agree with the noble Lord; but I very much enjoy his speeches, and I respect his point of view. That tolerance arises from my Christian upbringing. Our law, toleration, customs, culture and the way we organise ourselves in society, are all based upon Christianity.
In order that those of other religions can be fully assimilated into this great nation of ours while they do not have to be made Christians, I feel that they
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should be taught the tenets of the Christian religion so that they can understand why this nation works as it does. We have in this House quite a high proportion of members of the Jewish faith. I am sure that the vast majority of them understand the differences between their faith and Christianity and that they were taught those differences at school. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, calls himself a humanist. I do not see the difference between humanists, Mohammedans, Hindus and Buddhists because they all need to understand the society in which they live. Can the noble Lord therefore assure the House that all children will be given this basic instruction in the religion that is the majority religion and the state religion of the country?
2.59 p.m.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. If I may say so, she is a modern St. George attacking the dragon of ignorance and unbelief that is undermining our society. But I wonder whether her lance is the most effective weapon to kill the dragon in the 1980s. Is it appropriate to the condition of our schools and society to prescribe that the act of worship in school assemblies and the form of religious education should be explicitly Christian? The values which we have inherited have come to us through centuries of Christian teaching. Like the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I had the advantage of going to family prayers every morning as a child, with the family on one side and the servants all filing in on the other side of the dining room table. Would it not be more effective in transmitting the values that we cherish and respect to leave it to the discretion of teachers and school governors to decide the form which the transmission should take? It is no good trying to push Christian forms down unreceptive throats.
One thing is clear. It is the teachers conducting the assembly in schools who discharge the practical responsibility of getting the message across. To carry conviction, they must do it in the way they judge to be best for the particular conditions of the school. An attempt to force them into a prescribed mould would probably be counter-productive or at least ineffectual. It is unlikely that public opinion would support efforts at enforcement against the judgment of head teachers and governors any more than has been the case in the past 20 years under the 1944 Act. Rules from the centre would become dead letters.
Clifford Longley observed in The Times earlier this week that the schools operate against a background culture of agnosticism. We may not like it but this is where we are. Most parents have no commitment to any Christian denomination or belief. Children are being reared in a largely pagan or non-Christian atmosphere of worship of Mammon. What after all is the main object of religious education? Is it not for teachers to transmit to children a respect for truth, compassion, a sense of service, the other Christian values and to develop the capacity for free inquiry that enables them to form independent judgments? The task, delicate, difficult and more important, as other noble Lords have said, than any other part of education, is to ignite and cherish the flame of true values in the heart and mind.

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Sometimes as in Church schools with committed Christian teachers the Christian framework of worship and instruction will be effective. Sometimes perhaps a reality of worship may be achieved and transmitted—rare I think. But the general object is to transmit the values, not the framework. Teachers and governors must be free to decide what methods should be employed. If they are helped by the increased support of parents and communities, we may again begin to move upwards to a stronger positive acceptance of what all the main faiths have seen as the necessary principles of a humane society.
In conclusion, I should like to pay tribute to the right reverend Prelates who have come under a certain attack in this debate. They, I think better than anybody else, can appreciate the difficulties that confront all those who are engaged in this immensely important task of trying to transmit the values.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may put a point to him. He questioned the efficacy of teaching RE to unreceptive children. On that basis, we would not teach maths and probably would not even send our children to school.
Lord Thurlow: My Lords I can only say to the noble Baroness that I think it is a different sphere in teaching. To impart forms of knowledge is a much simpler task than seeking to transmit values.
3.5 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I warmly welcome and congratulate the noble Baroness on her brilliant speech to the House. It was, if I may say so, typically brilliant, especially at this pertinent time: just before we embark on discussions in the Education Reform Bill.
We are asking the Government to ensure that there is a Christian act of worship and Christian education in all state schools. An act is doing something; it is not just a lesson by a teacher who might not be a Christian and who therefore may not believe in what he or she is saying. An act of worship means prayer and perhaps a hymn. Perhaps "Onward Christian Soldiers" would sometimes be appropriate.
We all know that there are far too many children becoming adults in our schools who have no faith and no Christian or any other religion. The Christian religion is part of our country, part of our heritage, with the Queen as head of the Church and the nation. For that reason, if for no other, religion must be taught and an act of worship made part of the curriculum in each and every school.
We are aware that many parents are without a religion and therefore without a faith. That fact is a sad off-shoot of the permissive society, as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, has already said. But that fact does not excuse parents from abrogating their responsibilities and asking the schools for tuition for their children. It is the children's right, as the noble Baroness has so eloquently said.
However, we have a dilemma. In my view teachers cannot be expected to teach something in which they
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do not themselves believe. It would carry little conviction with the young minds of today. It is quite possible that those who appoint school staff and boards of governors will be unable to find suitable staff in certain areas. As my noble friend, Lord Swinfen, said:
"In these circumstances I think that the parish priest should be invited and, indeed, welcomed into the schools to take the act of worship and give religious tuition".
I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can tell us whether his and my noble friend the Secretary of State would welcome that idea. In my view this issue is most important for future generations. A sound grounding in religion is one of the most precious bequests that we can leave to our children.
I conclude, because time is running on, with a short story that actually happened in your Lordships' House. I gave tea to a barely two-year old little girl the other day in your Lordships' dining room. She looked at the ceiling and said "Church, church!" But, after a very large ice cream, she said, "Church, where is Jesus?"
My Lords, there is hope for future generations.
3.10 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Cox, in her inspiring and rousing speech, has given us all an opportunity to stand up and be counted. All of your Lordships, with one noble exception (whom I should like to congratulate on his unusual and deliciously short speech, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro, when he decided to jump off his episcopal fence and speak his own mind) have done just that.
Great Britain is supposed to be a Christian country. We have an established Christian religion. It is down in our statute books that that religion should be taught in our state schools. It is our duty to see that there is an act of Christian worship in our schools. We cannot all sit around with our heads in our hands, listening to the cocks crowing and saying, like St. Peter:
"It is nothing to do with us. We cannot do anything about it".
Our Christian faith is dear to us. It gives us courage and support when we cannot go on any more. The basis of that faith is laid in childhood.
"Among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found"
is part of the Collect for the fourth Sunday after Easter.
The world will continue to change. Do we not want those same joys of the spirit to go on into the next generation? The words of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer and our hymns have been a great comfort to many people in times of deep stress. I remember during the war that two of my aunts (my noble relatives) were air raid wardens in Lambeth. They were in the post at Kennington Road when it was hit by a bomb. That bomb buried 19 people alive. They were sitting knee-deep in water, in the dark, for nearly three days before they were dug out. During that time, my aunts kept up everyone's spirits by repeating aloud all the hymns, psalms and passages from the Bible that they could remember. Of those 19 people, five came out of the hole alive. Two of them

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were my noble relatives. Last night on looking through their Bible, I found the 40th Psalm marked:
"He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock".
Their friend, the late Bishop of Kingston, F.O.T. Hawkes, who christened me, once wrote:
"You must realise that you are in God's loving keeping, and in his loving arms no evil can come to you".
We in your Lordships' House are blessed with the spiritual benefit of daily prayers. Let us see that that blessing and comfort can be shared also with the children of our nation.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I too should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for putting her case so well, and so movingly, if I may say so. I should like to concentrate on the Christian act of worship rather than on Christian religious education. I go further than the noble Baroness. although I quite understand the reasons for her wording, and should like to enlarge the question to ask whether at least a brief act of traditional Christian worship should not automatically be provided for all children, unless their parents specifically request otherwise. I say brief because it is counter-productive to bore children, and I say traditional for reasons which I shall come to. This has nothing to do with fervent religious zeal, something which I totally lack myself and tend to be suspicious of in others. It has everything to do with what, at the risk of sounding sententious or melodramatic, might be described as first our English heritage and secondly what sociologists would term social cohesion. That is not a phrase one particularly cares for, but at least everybody can understand broadly what it means.
More than 25 years ago some Moslem friends of mine from the Indian sub-continent sent their son to a well-known English public school, and asked if I could possibly pay him a visit from time to time. When I took him out for the first and, I fear, the only time, since the school was rather a long way from London, I was extremely surprised when he asked me to be sure that I got him back in time for evening chapel. He then revealed that notwithstanding his Moslem background, he attended school chapel as a matter of course, though not necessarily participating in every prayer. I found this highly praiseworthy.
So far as I could establish, the motivations of his parents were threefold. First was the commendable feeling that when in Rome it is only polite to do as the Romans do, provided it does not clash with your own deeply held convictions. If only more people felt that way nowadays! Of course, this was helped by the fact that in Islam Jesus is a highly revered Moslem saint. The second motivation was, I suppose, a natural desire that their son should not stand out too much from the crowd at a time when conformity was prized, particularly in English boarding schools. The third was the desire that, without abandoning in any way his Indian Moslem background, their son should have a proper English education. For this to be successful it was necessary not only to be acquainted with secular literature and poetry from Shakespeare
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onwards but with the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, and with at least parts of the Book of Common Prayer.
Several years earlier I myself spent more than a year at a boarding school in the United States. Every conceivable Christian denomination was represented there from Christian Scientist to Greek Orthodox. In addition, about 30 out of the 500 boys were Jewish by religion; but to the best of my memory every single boy attended the short morning assembly at which we said together the Lord's Prayer—the traditional version, it goes without saying—and nobody objected. After all, as one of the Jewish boys said to me, "Let's face it, the Lord's Prayer is a Jewish prayer", and of course he is absolutely correct so far as its origin is concerned. Whether saying this prayer every day made us any more virtuous, I cannot be sure, but at least it helped in some sense to bind us all together.
Furthermore, if those boys without a strong Christian background had not been given the opportunity of learning it, they might well have found themselves isolated from their fellow citizens at various times later on in life. Surely every schoolchild in this country, whatever their parents' beliefs, should have some minimal knowledge of' those prayers, psalms and hymns which to some extent transcend religious boundaries and which have for generations been loved throughout the English-speaking world. One thinks of the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, Christmas carols and all those hymns with the best tunes which are not excessively sectarian in character.
Naturally, we are not only concerned with traditions or with aesthetics. As the right reverend Prelate suggested, one would hope that much of the moral and ethical message would sink home in a way which would please even wholly non-religious parents. In this context, I well remember my first visit to Turkey in 1953, when I met a number of anticlerical intellectuals and professional people, heirs of Atatürk, one might say, who were busy nonetheless in trying to promote a revival of Islam, a religion in which they themselves scarcely believed, in order to curb the growth of crime and juvenile delinquency.
If a childhood acquaintance with the best known prayers, hymns, psalms and Bible passages happens to be of use and comfort later on in life, at times of personal crisis, war, national emergency and so on, so much the better. But even if this teaching does no more than ensure historical continuity together with imparting a reasonable degree of cultural and social unity to our society, it would still be entirely worthwhile.
3.21 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I apologise for inserting myself at this point, but I promise to be extremely brief. I hope that a parent's request for an act of worship and a parent's request for Christian religious education will be treated quite separately and distinctly, as I believe that in this country we have many non-Christian parents who would be perfectly satisfied that their children should be brought up in their own religious beliefs and who indeed would be deeply unhappy if it were to be otherwise.

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What they earnestly want for their children is the ability really to appreciate and understand Western art and culture which draws so very strongly upon Christianity for its inspiration. I suppose that a non-Christian person looking (shall we say?) at the Adoration of the Magi by Rubens or hearing a performance of Handel's Messiah would say, "Here undoubtedly is a stupendous work of art. How I wish I could really understand what it is all about".
If we can fill that gap in the knowledge of our children in the course of educating them, enabling them, if they choose to take advantage of it, to understand Christianity and fully appreciate Western art and culture, we shall be doing them a good service. Perhaps some of them will take advantage of it.
3.22 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, I must confess that I was somewhat surprised to see the Question of the noble Baroness on the Order Paper, considering that the Education Reform Bill is being discussed in another place at this moment and that we shall be discussing these very questions when the rather controversial Bill reaches us after Easter. Nonetheless, I always admire the way the noble Baroness speaks, and her eloquence.
The right honourable Kenneth Baker constantly compares his Bill with the 1944 Act of Mr. Butler. That Act was a real reforming Bill and its genesis was very different from that of the present Bill. Several years of genuine consultation with all parties and particularly with the Churches had contributed to the wisdom and long life of that Act. The consultation was not, as now, a few months of consultation during the summer months when a lot of people connected with education were on holiday and when not a vast deal of notice was taken of the responses to the consultation documents.
However, unusually, some notice was taken of the responses to the questions on revision of Sections 25 and 26 of the 1944 Act which concerned the clauses dealing with collective worship. The noble Baroness quoted them.
The 1944 Act was concerned to provide a legal basis for what was then the norm in most schools. It was probably expected that the collective worship would be Christian but it was not so stated in the Act and it is not the law.
Section 26 specifically states:
"the collective worship … shall not, in any county school, be distinctive of any particular religious denomination".
But 40 years on, with the structure of our multi-faith, multi-cultural and multi-racial society so changed. the situation is very different. I have read that in one Church school in Blackburn 96 per cent. of children are Moslems. It is the neighbourhood school.
There has been a good deal of writing on the subject of education in our multi-cultural society. The Swann Report on the education of children from ethnic minority groups in 1985 said:
"Given the miltiplicity of beliefs now present in society, it is not surprising that we have received much evidence about the difficulties generated by the requirement in the 1944 Act for the daily act of collective worship and the provision of a particular form of religious
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education. We therefore believe that the government, in consultation with religious and education bodies, should look afresh at the relevant provisions of the Act to see whether alterations are called for after an interval of forty years".
The National Association of Head Teachers set up a working party to consider possible revisions of Section 25. Recommendations were made calling for changes in the wording of the Act to provide a legal basis for school worship to be held less frequently, delegating responsibility to governors in consultation with the head,
"to determine the nature and frequency of acts of worship".
The Select Committee on Education in another place also made recommendations proposing amendment of the law.
The reality is that a collective act of worship for all pupils is a physical impossibility for many schools, and it has not been happening. That is recognised in Clause 79 of the Baker Bill. We are glad that the Government have listened, at least partially, on that subject. The clause gives choice and flexibility and the schools can respond to local circumstances. That is very important as local circumstances are so different.
The act of corporate worship can take place at any time during the day and in groups rather than in a single body. That has been generally welcomed by the Churches. I am surprised that it is left that all pupils on each school day shall take part. I do not believe that that is practicable or that it is likely to happen. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, who has been persistent in asking questions on the subject, is satisfied with Clause 79. On one of his questions on the subject in July 1986, I noted the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. He said:
"Is he further aware that both the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London … have spoken of their wish for greater flexibility in the approach to the law—not with regard to the flexibility of their conviction that religion should be part of the total education experience, but with regard to the fact that the whole education scene has changed greatly over these last 40 years and that many people, including the Churches, hope that this matter can be approached with greater flexibility than it is now?".—[Official Report, 17/7/86; col. 1015.]
The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, speaking for the Government, agreed. With some reservations there seems to be general agreement on what will happen, even if the noble Baroness and noble Lords who support her are not totally satisfied.
As regards the request by the noble Baroness for all schools to provide Christian religious education for those children whose parents request it, it is asking too much and again it is hardly practical. Indeed, would all children (some of' them post-16) want it? The 1944 Act made RI a legal requirement in all schools, with an opportunity for parents to withdraw their children. Clause 6 of the new Bill ensures that that is complied with. Nowhere is it specified what religion is to be taught. Again, 40 years on, there is a need for a new look.
The changes that have happened in our society have forced local education authorities to change, and that is reflected in the agreed syllabus that each authority has to produce. I shall quote from Birmingham's syllabus:
"A generation ago the purpose of religious education in county schools was to nurture pupils into Christian faith … In the present

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circumstances religious education is seen as an educationally valid component of the school curriculum, subject to the same disciplines as any other area of study. It is thus directed towards developing a critical understanding of the religious and moral dimensions of human experience and away from attempting to foster the claims of particular religious standpoints".
A comparative study of Church and county schools entitled Faith, Culture and the Dual System, by Bernadine O'Keefe, in 1986 has a very interesting chapter on RE. What it shows is a vast diversity in the amount, methods and aims of the schools in the survey. There is diversity even within Church schools. Some teachers were concerned to promote a religious response, but the comments of other teachers show that while their aim is still pupil-centred, the personal beliefs of the pupils are not the teachers' concern. One said:
"The main aim is to understand the significance that religion can make to human life and experience. How religion can affect the whole of someone's life. I am not trying to turn Out good Anglicans, but to show them that a religious outlook on life is still a viable option in the 20th century. I want them to think about ultimate questions".
The report comments;
"These replies support much of the current thinking on religious education, which sees the main aims of exploring the nature of religion in terms of beliefs, practices and interpretation, rather than one of establishing or even nurturing faith".
In a non-Church school, that seems a reasonable aim to pursue. Another teacher said:
"The main aim is to acquire a reasonable knowledge about world religions, including Christianity".
These extracts focus attention on RE and the impact it can have in playing an important role in bringing about changes in attitudes, countering misunderstanding and challenging prejudices and stereotypes. It is very wise, in my view, not to demand Christian religious instruction in a socity such as ours at the end of the 20th century. A greater understanding of other people's beliefs and way of life is essential for harmony in society. What I would plead for is a wide discretion to be given to LEAs and heads, and not for central direction. I was glad to see in an article written by Mr. Baker in The Times on 1st February these words:
"I want to hold to the principle established in the 1944 Act that the nature and content of RE should be locally determined. I am against central prescription in this sensitive area".
I hope he holds to that: flexibility is essential. It is there now and should not be discouraged. If parents want specifically Christian religious education, most have the opportunity to choose a Church school for their children. The Schools Council's view was that the tradition of our national life has been largely shaped and sustained by behavour and ideas closely associated with the practice of religion, and particuarly of Christian religion. Since education involves a thorough exploration of' the environment and the received culture, this source of our national heritage should be studied and appreciated. An investigation of religion and its claims is thus an important part of our education in Britain, whether the pupils have any religious affiliation or not. I would add that they should have a knowledge of the Bible and also of the faiths and cultures of other races who now form part of our very diverse society.
That society presents challenges for all schools. many RE teachers have not yet equipped themselves fully to cope with the change. There are many implications for the training of our teachers and for
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in-service training. This is something that the Swann report stresses, and I hope that when the Minister replies he will have something to say on this last point.
3.34 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, the Government welcome this opportunity to debate an important subject and are grateful to my noble friend Lady Cox for raising it for discussion. The serious contributions made by your Lordships have served to emphasise the importance with which we regard this matter.
Many countries find it impossible to contemplate providing for either religious education or worship in schools, regarding such matters as separate from the education process and more the preserve of the family and the Churches. That schools in this country have successfully provided religious education and worship for many years is, I think, a testimony not only to the success of the 1944 Education Act but also to the tolerance and understanding of the British people in overcoming the barriers of different faiths and denominations.
The Government have consistently made clear the importance they attach to both religious education and to worship in our schools. Both are required by statute. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that we have no intention of changing this. The response from parents and others to the national curriculum proposals demonstrates continued support for the subject. My noble friend Lady Blatch also mentioned recent evidence of eight out of 10 parents supporting the place of religious education in our schools.
Clauses 6 and 15 of the Education Reform Bill will serve to strengthen the existing requirement for religious education in schools making clear the duty to provide instruction and establishing a complaints procedure to ensure that the law is upheld. Clause 79 of the Bill, while giving schools greater flexibility in mounting collective worship, at the same time reaffirms the requirement for daily worship in all maintained schools for all pupils unless withdrawn by their parents.
I shall come in a moment to the central theme of this debate; that is, the place of Christianity within religious education and worship in schools. But first I should like to say a little more about religious education in relation to the Government's proposals for a national curriculum.
There are very good reasons why religious education should not be a foundation subject in the terms proposed for legislation on the national curriculum. That was one of the points raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro. At present, what religious education is given in schools is determined locally. This local discretion would be threatened if religious education were a foundation subject, as would the present right of parents to withdraw their children from the subject. It could mean that the content of religious education in Church of England, Roman Catholic, and Jewish voluntary schools would be taken away from governors and instead determined centrally and inscribed in tablets of stone. I would therefore agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, on the undesirablity of this.

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It is suggested by some that religious education could be a special case retaining the local discretion and right of withdrawal while still calling itself a foundation subject. This would be the worst of all worlds; a foundation subject without an automatic requirement to teach it to all pupils. It is far better surely to rely on the existing provisions of the 1944 Act, suitably strengthened by the provisions of the Education Reform Bill. I can assure your Lordships that, despite what many appear to believe, the Government's decision not to include religious education within the national curriculum is intended to protect the subject rather than devalue it.
In moving to the main purpose of the debate, I should like first to comment on the place of Christianity within religious education. Those responsible for drafting the 1944 Act would certainly have envisaged that the religious education in our schools would be predominantly Christian in character. However, nowhere in the Act is there any requirement that religious education should be Christian. The Act simply requires that religious education should he provided in all county and voluntary schools; that in county schools it should be non-denominational; and that it should be given in accordance with the agreed syllabus.
Ever since the Act came into force there have been debates similar to ours today on the meaning of the 1944 religious education provisions. This continuing debate has both witnessed and contributed to a change in the way religious education is perceived in its aims and the way it is taught and in the content of the subject. Initially, the agreed syllabuses concentrated on study of the Bible, reflecting not only the predominance of Christianity and Judaism but also a particular view of the "instructional" nature of the subject to be taught in schools.
Over a period of time both the Churches and those directly concerned with teaching religious education, particularly in county schools, have come to see the subject more as a means of exploring beliefs and values rather than that of instructing pupils in the tenets of a particular faith. Furthermore, with the gradual development of what is now a multi-faith society there has been a growing recognition that religious education must provide an opportunity to examine and understand faiths other than Christianity.
However, we should not exaggerate the shift of emphasis that has occurred in religious education. Evidence from Her Majesty's Inspectors shows very clearly that, generally, Christianity is still at the core of religious education in our schools. The central place of Christianity is ensured by the agreed syllabus procedure, which automatically involves the Church of England in the preparation of agreed syllabuses and gives the established Church the right of veto. But the Church of England and the other churches have quite rightly recognised the important part religious education must play in establishing greater understanding and cohesion within society.
The question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, is to ask what steps the Government are taking to ensure that all state schools provide a Christian religious education for all children whose parents
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request it. As I have already pointed out, contrary to the overall impression given by my noble friend Lady Cox, the evidence available shows that a study of Christianity remains central to the religious education provided in all our schools. The Government accept that there are some parents who would wish their children to have exclusively Christian religious education. Such preference is already provided for by the 1944 Act partly by the right of parental withrawal, but also by the option available to parents to send their children to aided denominational schools.
It can of course be argued that not all parents have access to aided schools where they can be guaranteed religious education wholly in accordance with a particular faith. But where they do not, there is no reason why pupils withdrawn from religious education in maintained schools should not receive tuition in accordance with their parental preference. The 1944 Act specifically provides for such circumstances, and allows alternative religious instruction to be given during school hours either on the school premises or elsewhere. There should be no question therefore of children being obliged either to participate in religious education with which their parents do not agree, or to receive no religious education at all.
As the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, have said, there have been a number of instances in recent years of local communities opening independent schools where there is a particular religious emphasis. This is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon and there are also Jewish and Moslem schools on the Register of Independent Schools. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, I understand that there are schools catering for almost all philosophies and faiths, as well as some which pursue an entirely secular curriculum.
I am afraid however that there is no possibility of the Government providing financial assistance to independent schools in the way that the noble Baroness would clearly like. Were we to do so, the very independence which is enjoyed by such schools would inevitably be eroded. The taxpayer would rightly expect controls to be imposed on how his money was being spent and there would be constraints which independent schools would find unacceptable.
My noble friend Lady Cox has also raised the question of the provision of Christian worship in schools. I have already mentioned Clause 79 of the Education Reform Bill. I can answer the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro by saying that this preserves the requirement for daily collective worship in all maintained schools.
The content of worship is I think more problematical than the content of religious education. There is no statutory procedure for collective worship analogous to the agreed syllabus procedure for religious education. Furthermore, the 1944 Act is entirely silent on the form collective worship should take, other than the requirement that for county schools, worship should be nondenominational in character. There is certainly no requirement in the 1944 provisions that worship should be Christian, although in practice the

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Christian tradition has been and still is at the core of the worship provided in most maintained schools. It is therefore for the schools themselves to determine content, although it is clear that what is provided must be a genuine act of worship and not just a secular assembly merely providing a means for school announcements and serving an entirely administrative purpose.
I suggest that a debate on the precise meaning of worship would occupy your Lordships for many hours, without reaching any clear conclusions, with respect to my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery. In many schools, particularly those where Christianity is the accepted religion of the vast majority of pupils, worship should, we believe, be seen in the terms described in the Newson Report. The report argued:
"Corporate worship is not to be thought of as an instrument of education—though it is that—but as a time in which pupils and teachers seek help in prayer, express awe and gratitude and joy, and pause to recollect the presence of God".
Clearly the mounting of worship for pupils of different faiths is a more difficult matter, requiring great sensitivity by the teaching staff. However, many schools have found ways appropriate to the setting to hold acts of worship which celebrate and reflect shared values, common to all communities. To some extent the lack of prescription in the Education Acts has allowed collective worship to develop to take account of the changing nature of society. In the Government's view, this change is inevitable if collective worship is to retain one of its prime purposes, that of an occasion which brings pupils together in collective contemplation of matters spiritual.
This was spelt out very clearly in a number of responses to last year's consultation exercise. For example, the response from the Christian Education Movement stated:
"It is important that any worship by sections of the school enshrines the principles of present collective worship and does not separate pupils by Christian denomination or by faith. Where there is a wide range of faith communities represented among pupils worship must acknowledge this plurality".
This I think serves to emphasise what the Government see as the unifying purpose of worship in schools. We would not wish to see a situation where children in maintained schools are divided into separate acts of worship for different religious groups. This would in the Government's view run contrary to the aims of collective worship that I have already described.
The question raised by my noble friend Lady Cox is to ask what the Government are doing to ensure that all state schools provide a Christian act of worship for parents who request it. As with religious education, so it is with collective worship. For parents who specifically want their children to participate in an entirely Christian act of worship, without any reference to other faiths, the option exists to send their children to denominational voluntary schools. If such schools are not conveniently available, parents have the option to withdraw their children from collective worship and schools may allow parents to organise separate acts of worship on the school premises should they so wish, be they Christian, Moslem or Jew. I sincerely hope, however, that most parents would recognise the value of a truly collective act of worship in schools, which while not necessarily exclusively
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Christian is nevertheless a meaningful act with spiritual content. Such spiritual content might help to lessen the anxieties of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, concerning the decline in moral standards.
I hope that what I have had to say provides your Lordships with reassurance that the Government fully support the place of both religious education and collective worship in maintained schools and that practice in the vast majority of schools still reflects the dominant place of the Christian faith within our society. In the Government's view, it is of the utmost importance that all children, whatever their ethnic and religious background, should be introduced at school to those Christian beliefs and values which permeate our traditions and culture. I hope that reassures my noble friends Lord Swinfen, Lady Macleod and Lady Strange. It is entirely appropriate for Christian and other clergy to be involved in religious education and collective worship in schools.
The Government also believe that religious education in maintained schools should provide all children with some understanding of faiths other than their own. Similarly, where there are pupils of more than one religious background, schools should devise forms of collective worship which have meaning for all pupils.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady David, that we must recognise the nature of the society in which we now live. We are no longer a predominantly Christian nation and our schools reflect the multi-faith nature of Britain in 1988.
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the noble Earl said that we are no longer predominantly a Christian nation. There may be a sense in which that is true although I hope it is not, but so far as the other faiths are concerned, the proportion in this country is still very small.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I accept and understand the point that the noble Earl makes.
The part played by schools in ensuring religious tolerance and understanding is an important one and is successfully achieved in many maintained schools through religious education and collective worship. At the same time we must continue to take account, so far as possible, of strongly held religious convictions, allowing parents a clear choice. The Government believe that the present statutory provisions concerning religious education and worship preserve that choice. We also believe that the enforcement provisions contained in the Education Reform Bill will in turn ensure that the law is properly enforced and that all children are able to benefit from religious education and collective worship in our schools.

Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Bill
Returned from the Commons to enable corrections to be made to certain amendments; the amendments accordingly were corrected, and the Bill returned to the Commons.
House adjourned at ten minutes before four o'clock.

  EUROPEAN FOUNDATION TREATY PROPOSAL: FUNDING
  EUROPEAN FOUNDATION TREATY PROPOSAL: FUNDING
  EUROPEAN FOUNDATION TREATY PROPOSAL: TAX CONCESSIONS
  EUROPEAN FOUNDATION TREATY PROPOSAL: TAX CONCESSIONS
  GUILDFORD AND WOOLWICH BOMBINGS: REPORT
  GUILDFORD AND WOOLWICH BOMBINGS: REPORT