Sitting of 29 June 1988

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

    Ferry Companies (Subsidies)
    Mr. Barry Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many ferry companies in Scotland receive subsidies from public funds.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): The Scottish Office provides subsidies to two ferry companies in Scotland: Caledonian MacBrayne Limited and P and O Ferries Limited. In addition, some local authorities subsidise ferry operations.
    Mr. Field: Does that answer not show not only the Government's strong commitment to the Highlands and Islands, but the generosity of United Kingdom taxpayers, some of whom live on the Isle of Wight and travel to and from the mainland in unsubsidised ferries, paying the full fare out of their own pockets?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I should mention that this year the provision is for a £6·5 million subsidy to CalMac, to cover its deficit in providing approved services, and for a £4·1 million subsidy to P and 0 Ferries, to reduce fares to the Orkney and Shetland islands. There are about 100,000 persons living on about 75 Scottish islands, many of which have to be reached by long, difficult and stormy journeys. For example, the journey to Lerwick takes 14 hours. We have a commitment to maintaining that subsidy.
    Mr. MacDonald: Will the Minister confirm that Caledonian MacBrayne receives large amounts in assistance from the European Commission towards the construction costs of new ferries and piers, and that such assistance would not be available if it were under private ownership?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: It is certainly the case that the ERDF subsidy is received by Caledonian MacBrayne at present, and it is not at all clear whether it would continue under a different system. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is considering future arrangements for CalMac following his decision to privatise the Scottish Bus Group. He has commissioned the Scottish economic consultants Pieda to advise him in that respect. Whatever structure is adopted, it will guarantee the best quality of service, which the islanders rightly enjoy.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: We very much welcome my hon. Friend's statement that the situation of ferries serving the Western Isles and the northern isles of Scotland is quite different from that of ferries serving other areas of the United Kingdom, and his commitment to them. Will he go a little further and say that he will ensure that in any privatisation proposals the special position held by those services, and the way in which they are viewed by the communities they help, will be fully taken into account?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Yes. Whatever proposals may eventually be put forward will ensure the best arrangements possible. In our election manifesto we pledged to continue the substantially increased financial support and upgrading of ferries and terminals that are so vital to the islands. When I met the STUC and the joint shipping services advisory committee, I acknowledged that those services are a lifeline to the islands.

    Court of Session (Appeals)
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the number of cases on appeal dealt with by the Inner House of the Court of Session in the last five years for which information is available.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The information is as follows:

    Number

    1983

    164

    1984

    159

    1985

    137

    1986

    130

    1987

    104

    Mr. Campbell: Does the Minister accept that, due to the increase in the number of cases in the High Court of Justiciary, Scottish judges are less able to spend time dealing with civil business? Is this not the time for a radical review of the Court of Session procedures, to ensure that civil business is more speedily conducted? In the end, delay is against the interests of justice.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I entirely agree with the hon. and learned Member's comment that delay is contrary to the interests of justice. I confirm that during 1987–88 the number of bench days devoted to criminal business exceeded for the first time those devoted to civil business in the supreme courts. Delays are being reduced, and have fallen from about 10 to eight months, which is an improvement. The 1986 report of the review body on the use of judicial time made recommendations, many of which have been implemented. From April 1987, parties must now appear and give notice that the case will proceed and an up-to-date estimate of how long it will take. That permits more effective planning of court time.
    Mr. Foulkes: When a judge instructs a regional council to keep a school open, who is responsible for making the extra money available to keep the school open without the regional council incurring a penalty?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that that cannot possibly cause further delays in court time.

    Greater Glasgow Health Board
    Mr. McAvoy: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make resources available to Greater Glasgow health board enabling the board to provide geriatric hospital services for all of Cambuslang and Rutherglen within its geographic catchment area; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): The Greater Glasgow health board is conducting a major strategic review of its services for the elderly. This will cover the whole of its area, including Cambuslang and Rutherglen. The question of resources does not arise until the review is complete and building plans have been made in the light of its outcome.
    Mr. McAvoy: Does the Minister agree that the present position causes great difficulties for people from Cambuslang and Rutherglen travelling to visit relatives? Does he further agree that if the review shows that the needs can be met and that further finance is required, that finance will be available?
    Mr. Forsyth: I acknowledge that there has been a long-standing deficiency in geriatric services in the south-east of Glasgow. As I have said, the board is developing its strategies for the services, and we shall certainly take account of the representations that the hon. Gentleman has made about the extent to which those services could be made a priority.
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Given the importance of ensuring adequate services for all the elderly in Scotland, can the Minister tell us whether he is in a position to give a Government response to the Griffiths report and how it will apply to Scotland?
    Mr. Forsyth: I can give an answer, and that answer is no. As I have said, the report is important and we are giving it careful consideration.
    Mr. Graham: Is the Minister aware of the threat to the Crossroads attendance scheme, which services many geriatric people in Scotland? The abolition of that scheme could throw at least 20 people instantly into residential care, which would cost nearly £3 million a year. Will the Minister give us an assurance that money will be available to ensure that geriatric patients in Inverclyde can at least be looked after?
    Mr. Forsyth: I agree that the Crossroads scheme provides a valuable support service for the elderly. Money is available through the MSC, where schemes can be adapted to include an element of training. I understand that there have been problems with some schemes in meeting those criteria. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that I am looking into the matter.

    Rating Reform
    Mr. Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assumptions on the likely evasion rate for the poll tax local authorities will be allowed to make when setting a budget.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): It will be for local authorities in setting their budgets to take into account, among other things, the estimated levels of
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    collection of personal community charge. But it seems that the hon. Gentleman's "Stop it" campaign has not stopped it.
    Mr. Wilson: I am a relative novice in these matters, but that must be the crassest reply delivered by a Scottish Office Minister since I came here. The Minister is proposing to replace a scheme that results in less than 1 per cent. non-collection with a new system which, on the assessment of every independent analysis, is likely to result in at least 10 to 15 per cent. non-collection. Is no guidance to be given to local authorities on what they can do to take account of that? If not, may we have an assurance that local authorities will not be hectored by the Minister if they take reasonable account of that reality?
    Mr. Lang: There is no question of hectoring local authorities. The hon. Gentleman's figures are speculative. The basis of the estimates that we have given so far—I emphasise that they are not forecasts—is the product of rate poundages and local authorities' total domestic rateable value divided by the Registrar General's estimates of the number of adults in each local authority area. On that basis, we estimate that a 7 per cent. cushion is built into the figures, because the actual rate income is less than the total that we have been using.
    Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. Friend agree that the policies of the Labour party and the Scottish National party on the community charge are as confused as their policies on defence? Does he further agree that the very high registration figures, running up to 95 per cent. and more, show that the Scottish people will pay their community charge as laid down in law?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. According to the published figures, the registration process seems to be going well and the attempts of Opposition parties to frustrate the future collection of resources for local authorities seem not to have succeeded. I agree about the confusion of the Labour party's policies. So far as I am aware, it has not yet repudiated the policy set out by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), which is to keep domestic rates, to add volatility by basing them on capital values and to have a local income tax. I suppose that that is something for something—or something.
    Mr. Salmond: Does the Minister consider that overseas service men who have been exempted from poll tax should be included in the evasion rate? How does he explain to people in Scotland that overseas military personnel will be exempt from the poll tax, while tourists coming to Scotland will have to pay the standard charge? Is the Minister saying that the military contributes more than the tourist industry to the Scottish economy?
    Mr. Lang: The arrangements that we are contemplating for overseas service men in Scotland are broadly comparable to the existing system under rates, whereby they make a contribution to the resources of local authorities.
    Mr. Favell: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the bill for Scottish community charge evasion will fall on Scotland and not on the rest of the United Kingdom, and that if the Scottish Labour party succeeds in its campaign to persuade the Scots to fiddle, they will be fiddling their fellow Scotsmen and not the rest of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The only effects of the success of the irresponsible campaign advocated by Opposition Members would be a poorer quality of local services, and the loss of jobs in local authorities.
    Mr. Douglas: Notwithstanding the reasons for evasion, will the Minister consider the issue of exemptions? What progress has he made in giving guidance to local authorities about exemption for the severely mentally handicapped? In addition, what discussions have taken place with the Armed Forces Pay Review Body to compensate service men who will now have to pay poll tax, but previously were compensated under the rates system?
    Mr. Lang: The arrangements that we are proposing for service men are broadly comparable with those under the present rating system whereby if they have a sole or main residence they will be liable to community charge in place of domestic rates, and if they are living in barracks they will make a contribution through a general fund, handled by the Ministry of Defence, which broadly replaces the present system.
    In regard to the severely mentally handicapped, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Local Government Finance Bill is at present before another place and an amendment in that respect will be debated shortly.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will my hon. Friend point out to Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), who told a selection conference that he would not advise his constituents to pay the community charge, that in a democracy all people have to obey the law, and that we disagree with many laws passed by the Labour Government but we obey them?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The level of the community charge will be set by local authorities. The more people who are registered in each local authority area, the lower the charge will have to be.
    Mr. Maxton: Will the Minister first take the opportunity to repudiate what the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) said about Opposition Members asking anyone to fiddle? Secondly, does he accept the CIPFA report, requested by him and the Secretary of State, that there would be 15 per cent. evasion or non-payment of the poll tax? If he accepts that, will he give a guarantee today that next April the Secretary of State will not use his powers to reduce local authority poll taxes if they are set on the basis of that 15 per cent. evasion rate?
    Mr. Lang: I do not accept the figure that the hon. Gentleman has advanced. It is purely speculative. As for the Opposition policy on non-payment, I accept that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) in an article in the Glasgow Herald, said
    "All responsible politicians have now rejected the case for a mass campaign of non-payment".
    Unfortunately, he seems unable to carry all his hon. Friends with him.
    Mr. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Electricity Industry
    Mr. Buchan: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a further statement on the future of the electricity industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: The Government remain firmly committed to their policy of privatising the electricity supply industry in Scotland within the lifetime of this Parliament. The development of our proposals in detail is proceeding well, and draft legislation will be brought before Parliament in due course.
    Mr. Buchan: As the Government's own White Paper stresses that a monopoly will continue and that the boards have been efficient, is there any case for proceeding with privatisation other than political dogma and the pursuit of profit by the Government's friends? Above all, is it not incredibly dangerous and reckless, still in the decade of Chernobyl, to put our nuclear power industry in the hands of private profit-makers? It is one of the most dangerous and foolish things that this dangerous and foolish Government have ever done.
    Mr. Lang: There is considerable advantage to he gained from the development of two free-standing companies in Scotland able to offer competitive sourcing of electricity to Scottish consumers. The important point about nuclear power is the way in which it is regulated, and we are not contemplating any change in the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, which regulates these matters.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Will my hon. Friend remind Opposition Members that Scotland has electricity consumers as well as electricity producers, and that those consumers employ people and have interests as well?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. If we pursued the electricity policy advanced by the Opposition during the last general election campaign, and abandoned nuclear power, electricity prices in Scotland would have to rise by 30 per cent.
    Mr. Millan: It is now more than three months since the White Paper was published, and we have still not had answers to the basic questions that it raised. Can the Minister at least give us an assurance that, whatever else happens, the industry will not be allowed to fall into foreign hands? Nobody believes that it will stay under Scottish control, but can he at least give us that minimal assurance?
    Mr. Lang: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety about this matter. It is an important issue and we are considering it carefully. There will be nothing wrong with a measure of foreign investment in the industry when it is in private hands, but I accept the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety about control or ownership being in foreign hands. That is something that we shall consider closely, and we shall announce our decision at the appropriate time.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that privatisation of the electricity supply industry will give us an opportunity to export electricity to England on a substantial scale? Does he also agree that it gives the Scots an opportunity to invest in the new electricity companies? More important, is my hon. Friend aware that the chairman and senior executives of the British Airports

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    Authority said on the Terrace last night that privatisation is the best thing that has ever happened to them because of the effect it has had on their management, particularly because it electrifies the management as nothing else does?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. I met representatives of the BAA last night and they confirmed to me the great success that has resulted from privatisation. My hon. Friend mentioned the export of electricity to England. That is an area in which the Scottish electricity industry and, therefore, the Scottish consumer, can benefit considerably, provided that electricity can be generated competitively.
    Mr. Dewar: How can the Minister describe the privatised companies as free standing if they are to be linked in a joint operating company for nuclear power? Will he give an assurance that, whatever else happens, there will be separate Scottish legislation when the matter comes to the House? That is surely in the interests of good parliamentary scrutiny and democratic control over what the Government are doing. Perhaps I may echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan). We have asked whether there will be effective plans to limit foreign ownership and more, important, to retain control in Scotland. Continued dodging and ducking on that issue suggests that the Government are prepared to watch an essential public utility being sold to anyone, anywhere, at any price.
    Mr. Lang: We are not ducking or dodging anything. There is an appropriate time to answer these matters. Legislation has not yet been prepared or presented to the House. When it has been, that will be the appropriate time to answer these questions. There is nothing anomalous about two independent free-standing companies sharing ownership of a subsidiary. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the Opposition's desire for separate legislation. That will be decided at the appropriate time. The hon. Gentleman is as aware as I am that there are many matters that affect the industry both north and south of the border.
    Mr. McKelvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has yet reached any conclusions as to what strategy he intends to adopt in order to ensure that control of privatised Scottish electricity boards remains in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: The Government will seek to encourage as many Scots as possible to invest in the Scottish electricity industry. We are considering whether a special share or other form of protection is appropriate and our conclusions will be announced in due course.
    Mr. McKelvey: When the Secretary of State's surrogate perpetrates the plunder of one of Scotland's assets, will he bear in mind the increasing poverty in Scotland? When he clinches the sale of the century, will he at least underpin the position of those in poverty by seeking to guarantee their right to fuel and their right not to be cut off? We do not want to see the same thing happen as occurred after privatisation of the gas industry, where the number of cut-offs leapt by a huge percentage in England and to a certain extent in Scotland. We want cut-offs to be disallowed.
    Mr. Lang: I do not know how the hon. Gentleman can speak about increasing poverty in Scotland when personal
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    disposable incomes in 1986 were 16 per cent. higher than they were 10 years ago. There is no reason why we should depart from the present policy on cut-offs.
    Mr. Steel: If control does not remain in Scotland, how will the Minister explain to the House and his constituents that the common tariff principle, which protects consumers in rural areas in the north of Scotland, will not be applied to rural areas in the south of Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's question that he welcomes the prospect of control and ownership of the companies returning to Scotland, because, at present, the industries are owned by the Treasury.
    Mr. Steel: Answer the question.
    Mr. Lang: On the question of common tariffs, the only requirement is for the north board to provide a common tariff, and it will be able to do so as largely a result of the availability of hydro power. There is no requirement at present for the south board to provide a common tariff and we see no need for that.
    Mr. Forth: Will my hon. Friend resist the pathetic chip-on-the-shoulder paranoia of Opposition Members? Will he contrast the apparent wish of Opposition Members to restrict ownership of a utility to those within a particular geographic area with their welcome for the jobs generated by external investment in Scotland over many years? Can my hon. Friend tell me how many jobs in Scotland depend on investment by what Opposition Members call foreigners? What confidence does he have that restricting ownership to Scots would do any good for the Scottish economy?
    Mr. Lang: Since Locate in Scotland was established in 1981 about 50,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded in Scotland as a result of inward investment. We share my hon. Friend's view that the electricity industry in Scotland is a great potential asset. We believe that by privatising it we will enable Scotland to enjoy the maximum benefit from it.

    Nurses (Pay)
    Mr. Ernie Ross: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the cost of the recent pay award to nurses in each health board area.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: We have already announced that an additional £92 million is to be made available in Scotland to finance the full additional cost of the review body awards. The distribution of that amount among the various health service bodies is currently being calculated. Health boards will be informed of their additional allocations shortly.
    Mr. Ross: The Minister will know that he intends funding only the sum above the 4·5 per cent. that he believes to be the rate of inflation. The Grampian health board will receive only 4 per cent. for inflation, which leaves a shortfall of at least £500,000. What will the Minister do about that shortfall?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman chose the worst possible example to make his point. Grampian health board will have the biggest increase of any health board in Scotland. If he wished to seize on a board to make his

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    point, he would have done better to choose his own health board of Tayside, which will not benefit from the 1 per cent. distribution of resources under the SHARE formula. The overall cash increase for health boards in Scotland is 5·8 per cent., which is well ahead of inflation. We have chosen to allocate that in three parts: first, the flat rate 4 per cent. allocation to all health boards, then a further 1 per cent. distributed differentially according to the SHARE formula and then an additional 0·8 per cent, to meet specific priority areas such as breast cancer, AIDS and the waiting list initiative, from which Tayside, along with other boards that are not benefiting from growth on the SHARE formula, will benefit.
    Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. Friend agree that under the last Labour Government nurses' pay fell substantially in real terms? Does he also agree that the fact that thousands of new nurses have come into the Health Service since 1979 in Scotland shows that they believe that the Conservative party accepts patient care as the first priority? Does he further agree that they welcome warmly the new structure for nurses' pay?
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend is quite right. Under the Labour Government nurses' pay fell by more than 20 per cent. in real terms, whereas under this Government it has increased by 44 per cent. in real terms. For those who dismiss such figures as mere statistics, that means that a sister's income will have increased by as much as £5,000 in real terms as a result of this Government being in power.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Will the Minister confirm, or correct, the impression that in granting extra funds to the Health Service to fund nurses' pay the Government omitted from their calculations those nurses who work in hospice care?
    Mr. Forsyth: No, I cannot confirm that. If the hon. Gentleman is thinking of hospitals in the private or independent sector, which are run as voluntary hospitals, as many hospices are, they would not be affected by our commitment as they are not funded by the Government.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Is not one of the greatest advantages of this nursing settlement that it allows us to pay the proper rate for the job, which is needed by qualified nurses if we are to uphold the NHS?
    Mr. Forsyth: I agree with my hon. Friend——
    Mr. Galbraith: Does the Minister know what his hon. Friend said?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) asks me what my hon. Friend said. The hon. Gentleman should have listened to what he said. My hon. Friend was making a point which, as a Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Gentleman should welcome, namely, that, as a result of the pay review body recommendations, nurses who are involved in clinical duties will be rewarded. For the first time we are providing nurses with a career structure that does not take them into administration if they wish to remain at the patient's bedside.
    Mr. Galbraith: The Minister should not get so angry so easily. As he knows, I have written to every health board in Scotland on this matter and, as the Minister will also know, because they are now in the habit of making private correspondence available to him, they have replied saying
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    that they do not know how much the nurses' pay award will cost, because of the regrading. If, as a result of the regrading, the award costs more than £92 million. will the Minister make the extra funds available?
    Mr. Forsyth: On the point about private correspondence, if the hon. Gentleman has looked at the letter that was sent to him by Grampian health board he will see that it was copied to other Members of Parliament representing that area. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) along with others, wrote to me about that.. The hon. Gentleman should check his facts before he makes such allegations.
    On the hon. Gentleman's questions about the extra costs of the awards, the overall provision of expenditure for the hospital and community health service took into account——
    Dr. Moonie:Yes or no?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman says, "Yes or no?", but the position is that the costs of the review body recommendations were calculated on the basis of the information that was supplied by the boards themselves.

    Regional Industrial Policy
    Mr. McLeish: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the implementation of regional industrial policy since the abolition of regional development grants on 31 March.
    Mr. Lang: My right hon. and learned Friend considers that regional policy will be more cost-effective following changes which included the ending of the regional development grant scheme. Planned spending on regional assistance is being maintained but, through selective schemes, support will be directed to where it is needed.
    Mr. McLeish: Is the Minister of State aware that, because of the rush to beat the 31 March deadline for RDG, there is now a considerable backlog of applications and that that could take between one and two years to work through? Is he further aware that, as a consequence of that, business men in Scotland are not getting grants through as quickly as they should, with the result that there is now some doubt about the total budget available for regional selective assistance and regional development grants? Will the Minister look into those matters and report back to the House about the gravity of that situation, which has been caused by the incompetent decision to phase out regional development grants far too quickly?
    Mr. Lang: I believe that that decision was correct. It is certainly the case that the number of RDG applications increased before the deadline, as one would expect. The hon. Gentleman underrates the capacity of my Department to handle those applications. My officials are giving them as much close and effective attention as they can. The hon. Gentleman will be aware from the public expenditure White Paper that net provision for industrial support over the three years covered in the White Paper remains largely unchanged.
    Mr. Wallace: Will the Minister take this opportunity to clarify the position of the Highlands and Islands with regard to the European regional development fund? Several weeks ago the Foreign Secretary said that a deal

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    had been clinched, although I suspect that that has subsequently been clouded by word from Europe and that that is not the case. Will he clarify the position?
    Mr. Lang: As the hon. Gentleman knows, negotiations are continuing. I am under the clear impression that agreement has been reached that the Highlands and Islands will be covered under objective 5 of the European regional development fund, which relates to rural areas.
    Mr. Fallon: Is not the biggest single threat to overseas investment in Scotland the regional policy of Mr. Ron Todd, who puts the lads at Dagenham before jobs in Dundee? Would not the Labour party be a little more credible if there was any evidence that it made these points to Mr. Todd?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The contrast in the successful generation of employment during the period of this Government with that of the previous Government is a dramatic illustration of the Labour party's inability to control its trade union friends.
    Mr. Canavan: In view of all the hard work by Central regional council in preparing an updated submission in support of enhanced development status for the Falkirk travel-to-work area, where more than 8,000 people remain out of work, why did the Minister refuse a reasonable recent request for a meeting with council representatives to discuss this important matter? Is it not treating my constituents with absolute contempt for this Minister to refuse even to meet local councillors, who received a better mandate to represent their people than did the Minister, whose Government were rejected by more than three quarters of the people of Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: I often meet representatives from many different local authorities. I am sure that if an appropriate issue can be resolved only at a meeting, that, too, can be arranged. The hon. Gentleman will welcome, as I do, the fact that unemployment in Falkirk has fallen by 1,900 in the past year.

    Higher Education
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the provision of higher education in Scotland.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: The number of students in higher education in Scotland has risen steadily since 1979 and is higher now than ever before. Participation rates are above those in Great Britain as a whole. I am confident that our universities and colleges will be able to meet the increasing demands from employers for highly qualified manpower, while still maintaining standards.
    Mr. Marshall: Does my hon. Friend agree that these statistics demonstrate how well Scotland is doing through the Union under this Government? Does he agree also that in future it is much more important to increase the number of places in higher education than to maintain a system of student support that is the most generous in the free world?
    Mr. Forsyth: I agree with my hon. Friend, who speaks with great authority on these matters as a graduate of St. Andrews university and as a former lecturer at two of our universities in Scotland. He is right to point out the
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    importance of the number of students in higher education, both in universities and elsewhere. Contrary to popular belief, the total funding of our universities has increased during the period that this Government have been in power, partly through their efforts at obtaining funding from elsewhere.
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Is the Minister aware that the previous answer is wholly unacceptable, in that since 1986 the Government have cut grants to the eight Scottish universities by more than £12 million? [Interruption.] This year Edinburgh university faces a deficit of £3 million, Aberdeen university faces a deficit of £1 million, and Glasgow university faces a deficit of £500,000, and the hooligan interjections of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) will not change that. In short, the future of many of our brightest Scots is being blighted by this Government through their cuts in education and in funding to universities.
    Mr. Forsyth: If the answer is unacceptable to the hon. Gentleman, it is because it is the truth. I accept that a party that has no policies must rely on claim and counterclaim. The hon. Gentleman has a constituency interest in Edinburgh, which, for research funding, is one of the top four universities in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Griffiths: No thanks to the Minister.
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but last year it received £18 million in research grants and contracts, including the largest grant ever awarded by the Natural Environmental Research Council. The hon. Gentleman should take account of the Fraser of Allander Institute report—an institute that is hardly a friend of the Government—which showed clearly that, in real terms, the income of Scottish universities has increased substantially.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that the emotional exaggeration of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) does nothing to carry forward the cause of university education in Scotland? Does he further agree that although universities in Scotland have been successful in recent years in obtaining funding from sources other than the Government, it would be right to bring to bear on our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the fact that there is a limit to that funding? Are not teaching and fundamental research the primary responsibility of Government?
    Mr. Forsyth: I agree that the UGC's allocation system applies the same criteria to all universities in Great Britain, which the majority of the Scottish universities wish to continue. It is true that Aberdeen's funding from the UGC has declined by £7·5 million, but it is also true that its total income has increased by £190,000 because of its efforts to find additional money. If the Scottish universities are obtaining more funds and becoming less dependent on the Government, surely that is a far healthier position for them to be in and one in which academic freedom can flourish.
    Mr. Norman Hogg: As the Minister has read the Fraser of Allander report, does he agree with its finding that the impact of the cuts in Scottish universities will amount to a cut of £33 million in the Scottish economy by 1990? What is the merit in making those cuts in the academic life of our

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    universities? Who will benefit from cuts that damage academic life, the local economies where universities are based and the economy of Scotland? Who will be the gainers from that policy?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am astonished to hear the hon. Gentleman saying that. If he accepts the Fraser of Allander report's conclusion that the overall net resources to Scottish universities have increased because they have found private and other sources, how can he argue that there has been a net loss to the Scottish economy? The net effect is a net increase to the Scottish economy. Do the Opposition believe that only public expenditure creates wealth, and not money that comes from the private sector?

    Student Nurses
    Mr. Steel: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the figure for the number of student nurses in Scotland; and how that figure is expected to change over the next three years.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: Since 1979 the number of qualified nurses employed by health boards in Scotland has increased by more than 30 per cent.?—from 26,929 to 35,110. The number of student nurses in training has increased by 15 per cent. At 30 September 1987 there were 8,694 student nurses in training in Scotland. The number of student nurses over the next three years will be affected by a range of factors, but we intend to maintain our splendid record in this area.
    Mr. Steel: Does the Minister accept that falling school rolls will make it difficult to keep up the number of recruited student nurses? That is, perhaps, something that the Government can do little about. What effect does he think the poll tax will have on that, given that Scottish student nurses will have to pay it for at least a year, while English student nurses will not? Will that not have a devastating effect on student nurse recruitment north of the border?
    Mr. Forsyth: If it were true it might, but it is not true. As the right hon. Gentleman must know, we have responded to the Project 2,000 proposals and there is no question of the status of student nurses in Scotland being altered in 1990 or of there being a period when student nurses are put in a different position from anyone else. The right hon. Gentleman might have taken the opportunity to welcome the new £32 million hospital in his constituency, which will be opened this week by Her Majesty The Queen, which will have a new training centre for student nurses to ensure that student nurses are recruited and equipped to meet the needs of his health board and his constituency.
    Mr. Strang: Surely the Minister recognises that as things stand student nurses in Scotland, unlike their English counterparts, will have to pay the poll tax in its first year of operation. Surely that is anomalous and unfair. Are the Government prepared to look at that again?
    Mr. Forsyth: That is the unsophisticated version of the argument that the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) was making. Student nurses and every other group in Scotland will pay the poll tax before those in England [Interruption.]—the community charge—because we are introducing the
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    community charge a year earlier. Why does the hon. Gentleman not ask me about the fact that student nurses will stop paying rates in Scotland a year earlier than in England? [Interruption.]
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that Scotland's splendid record for training nurses has been continued and improved under the Conservative Government, and that one of the things that we are so proud of is that in every part of the world one will always meet nurses who have been trained in Scotland? Will my hon. Friend also confirm that nurses, like everyone else who will be required to pay the community charge, will, where their incomes so merit, receive rebates, so all the Opposition's fears are just nonsense?
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend is correct about rebates, but as we have increased the pay of student nurses so substantially they will find themselves moving up the income scale. Those hon. Members who shouted out that student nurses do not pay rates either do not live in the real world or assume that all student nurses live in hospital accommodation, which they do not. The end of rating will be taken into account.

    Rating Reform
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what further representations he has received from England on the poll tax.
    Mr. Lang: Eighty seven such representations have been received since 1 January 1988.
    Mr. Allen: Is the Minister aware that, despite the Government, Scottish higher education still enjoys a high reputation and that a large number of English students go to Scotland for their education? Is he further aware that the poll tax will act as a disincentive to those students and the reduced number of English students going to Scotland to study may well diminish the number of Scottish Tory Members in the House?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman's question makes a change from the usual complaint that we receive in Scotland that there are too many English students corning up. But the quality of higher education in Scotland is such that it will continue to attract English students in large numbers. Where they find themselves liable to pay 20 per cent. of the community charge they will be able to console themselves with the thought that they are saving a substantial amount on rates, which would otherwise be included in their rent and rates payment.
    Mr. Worthington: The Minister will be aware that there is widespread anxiety that, with revaluation and the introduction of the uniform business rate in England and Wales, the present beneficial treatment that the north of England receives in terms of the amount of rates paid will be even greater and there will be a substantial disadvantage to Scottish industry. The Minister will also be aware that the CBI and the chambers of commerce in all sectors of Scottish public life are worried that the Scottish Office is taking no steps whatever to protect Scottish industry and commerce when that occurs. Will he comment?
    Mr. Lang: I shall gladly comment. As a former finance convenor of Strathclyde regional council, the hon.

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    Gentleman knows better than most the measure of the burden that Scottish Labour-controlled councils have laid on business in Scotland over the years, as a result of which Scottish business pays higher rates than other parts of the United Kingdom. Until we can achieve harmonisation of valuation law and practice north and south of the border, we have introduced index-linking in the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 to protect business in Scotland from the depredations of members of local authorities, which is what the hon. Gentleman was formerly.

    Lotteries
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any plans to raise money for health boards by means of a lottery.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: No, Sir.
    Mrs. Fyfe: In the light of that definite reply, will the Minister explain why he contemplates a lottery for the funding of local authorities?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am sorry, but I did not hear the question.
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The reason why the Minister did not——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Mrs. Fyfe.
    Mrs. Fyfe: Conservative Members seem to think that they are wits, but they are only half right. I shall repeat my question. If the Minister thinks it is so easy to answer no in the case of health boards, will he explain why he can contemplate such things to provide funding for local authorities, to reward people who pay the poll tax properly?
    Mr. Forsyth: I apologise to the hon. Lady.
    The national lottery in connection with the collection of the community charge is what I suppose her question relates to. These provisions were introduced in the Local Government Finance Bill at the request of local authorities so that they might have the opportunity to offer incentives to people who agree to pay their community charge in a way that minimises local authorities' collection costs. [Interruption.] I can well imagine why Opposition Members are muttering that that is amazing. It did not come across in that way in the press, but the request came from local authorities.
    Mr. Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that this is a genuine point of order and not merely the hon. Gentleman disagreeing with something.
    Mr. Salmond: It is a genuine point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) was asking her question I heard Conservative Members making racist remarks across the Chamber. I distinctly heard them asking her to put her question in English, which was clearly a racist remark.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Points of order of this sort take up time. Perhaps the hon. Lady was not heard easily from the Government Front Bench when she put her question, but she put it very well.
    Mrs. Fyfe rose——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Other hon. Members want to take part in Question Time, too.

    Scottish Financial Enterprise
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the executive director of Scottish Financial Enterprise; and what matters were discussed.
    Mr. Lang: I met Professor Shaw and other members of the board of Scottish Financial Enterprise on 6 June as part of a regular exchange of views on topics relevant to the financial services industry in Scotland.
    Mr. Bruce: Does the Minister agree that Scotland's growing importance as a financial centre is a considerable asset to the country, but one that could be used to greater advantage? Would he be prepared to discuss ways in which this financial strength could increase the number of home-grown locally controlled enterprises in Scotland, and could initiatives be taken to achieve that?
    Mr. Lang: I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman. Scotland's financial sector has increased by 40 per cent. in employment terms in the past decade. We are increasingly attracting overseas companies to invest in Scotland because of this strength. I know that Scottish Financial Enterprise is perfectly willing to contemplate a greater involvement in parts of Scotland other than just the central belt. We are also developing enterprise trusts around Scotland—there arc 40 around the country—with a view to developing a greater commitment and understanding of enterprise.
    Mr. Jack: Does my hon. Friend agree that the location of overseas financial institutions in Scotland is making a substantial contribution of our balance of payments and is a vote of confidence in the Scottish and United Kingdom economy?
    Mr. Lang: That is absolutely right. It may be because manufacturing productivity in Scotland has risen by 5·6 per cent. a year on average in the past eight years, thus taking us to the top of the league of OECD countries.
    Mr. Ron Brown: Speaking in a posh accent for the benefit of The Guardian columnists, may I remind the Minister that Jackie Stewart and his Tory friends recently visited Gleneagles? Those individuals repeatedly dodged tax and made sure that the Exchequer did not receive sums of money that should have been spent in Scotland. Clearly, something should be done about that. Will the Minister comment on that abuse?
    Mr. Lang: If the hon. Gentleman would like to send me further details of his allegations I shall look at them. As far as I am aware, Mr. Jackie Stewart and some other people recently visited Gleneagles to raise a large amount of money for charity. That is an altogether commendable activity.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Forth: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the Scottish unemployment figures for May 1987 and May 1988; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: The total number of unemployed claimants in Scotland was 346,140 in May 1987 and 296,821 in May 1988. Unemployment in Scotland has now reached its lowest level for six years. The firm downward trend over the last year is clear evidence of the success of the Government's economic policies.
    Mr. Forth: In welcoming my hon. Friend's announcement of this excellent trend in the figures, and in trusting that the Opposition will unreservedly welcome it, may I ask him to confirm that the trend is due to the burgeoning success of the private sector in Scotland? Does he also agree that the traditional and historic over-dependence of Scots on the public sector is now firmly behind us and that we can look forward to a continuing fall in unemployment because of the success of the private sector?
    Mr. Lang: I entirely share my hon. Friend's view about the reason for this growing success of the Scottish economy. He will be as encouraged as I was today to learn that the latest Fraser of Allander Institute report shows that the Scottish economy is now moving in line with that of the rest of the United Kingdom and expects that over the next five years employment in Scotland may grow by 100,000.
    Mr. Dewar: How does the Minister justify his complacent statement that we are performing in line with the rest of the United Kingdom when we have slipped so conspicuously behind the rest of the United Kingdom in productivity, and especially in unemployment rates?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman is wrong about productivity. I said that it had increased by 5·6 per cent. per annum since 1979. That compares with 3·9 per cent. in the United Kingdom as a whole. Scotland has done remarkably well. The news about the Scottish economy now moving in line with the rest of the United Kingdom came from the Fraser of Allander Institute, not from me.

    Rating Reform
    Mr. Allen Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps his Department is taking to encourage local authorities to seek the prompt payment of poll tax as a lump sum.
    Mr. Lang: Following consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities an amendment has been made to the Local Government Finance Bill in the other place which would give community charge levying authorities in Scotland power to offer discounts or other incentives to encourage community charge payers to enter into payment arrangements of financial benefit to the authority. Such arrangements could include payment by a lump sum.
    Mr. Adams: Scottish Opposition Members understand just how much of a lottery Government policy is. Chancellors tend to like lotteries. Will the Minister take this opportunity to try to expunge some of his heinous guilt by saying that he will dissociate himself completely from any local authority attempting to run a lottery for those who can afford to pay their poll tax in one lump sum? That excludes the vast majority of people who cannot afford to pay it in that way.
    Mr. Lang: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the amendment tabled to the Local Government Finance Bill
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    had no effect in changing the law, but simply clarifies it in response to a request from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The provision for lotteries which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Max ton) described as, "Mad—a really crazy scheme," and which his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) described as, "A bad joke", was enshrined in the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976 brought in by the last Labour Government.

    Bus Fares
    Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what has been, in percentages and for each year since 1974, the average increase in bus fares in Scotland.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Information on bus fare increases in Scotland is readily available only from 1980. I have arranged for a table to be placed in the Library which shows annual fares increases from 1980.
    Mr. Wray: Does the Minister agree that since deregulation of public transport there has been a substantial increase in fares and drastic cuts in services in some areas that have brought hardship to large families in perimeter schemes? Does he also agree that all transport should be transferred back to the regional authorities?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: No, Sir. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The figures show that the overall annual fare increases from 1983 have been modest and below the rate of inflation. On routes that are subject to competition, fares have generally fallen or have increased at a rate below the rate of inflation. On other routes fares have generally increased in line with inflation. What has undoubtedly happened since deregulation is that vehicle mileage has increased by 4 per cent. and many innovative services have been introduced. For example, in Fort William, independent Gaelic Bus is competing with the Scottish Bus Group operator, Highland Scottish, and that has led to fare reductions on some routes.
    Mr. Leigh: Will my hon. Friend tell some of the carping Jeremiahs on the Opposition Benches that there were plenty of their spiritual cousins south of the border before deregulation, but that since deregulation they have been strangely silent? Perhaps Opposition Members should take a leaf out of our book.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The object of privatisation is to ensure that the services are more responsive to the requirements and needs of the consumer.

    Mr. Bandur Singh
    Mr. Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress he has made in his inquiries into the treatment in Her Majesty's prison Barlinnie of the late Mr. Bandur Singh; and if he will make a statement.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I understand that the procurator fiscal has instructed the police to investigate the allegations. It would not be appropriate for me to comment before the outcome of those investigations is known.
    Mr. Galloway: Is the Minister aware of the state of anxiety, bordering on real fear, felt in many of Scotland's ethnic communities as a result of this case and others? Can

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    he begin to grasp what it must have been like for a person to spend six months without being able to speak any English, in the cauldron of hate that Barlinnie and other Scottish prisons have become, for no crime other than being in the country without proper documentation? Is there not a better way of treating people suspected of being in the country illegally than slamming them up in Barlinnie for six months, where this particular individual was treated so badly that he ended up dying on a bus in the Punjab when he was released.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of very important points. I have asked the Chief Inspector of Prisons to make inquiries and
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    investigations as to whether the prison service ought to be making any improvements in the arrangements for accommodating those who may be deported. I have given details to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), who raised this matter. One of the reasons why the person was in prison for so long was that the hon. Member for Monklands, West had applied on his behalf for political asylum. Thorough investigations were made, and I shall give whatever information is available to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway).
    Mr. Tom Clarke rose——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take points of order after the statement.

Official Secrets Act 1911
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about reform of section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911.
In a debate in this House on 15 January, I explained that the Government had, since the previous April, been studying proposals for the reform of section 2, and that I hoped to bring forward proposals in the form of a White Paper in June.
I have laid the White Paper before the House today. We have aimed to find proposals that are effective, enforceable and reasonable. We hope to break the deadlock that has beset this question throughout its recent history.
We have taken careful note of the criticisms made of the Government Bill introduced in 1979, together with comments and suggestions made since then, including during the debate on the Bill introduced in January by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). As a result, the proposals in the White Paper include some major changes to, as well as similarities with, previous attempts at reform. I invite right hon. and hon. Members to read the White Paper in full, but I offer the House now an outline of the main points.
The essence of the proposals is that it would no longer be a criminal offence, as it is under the present law, to disclose any official information without authority. The scope of the legislation would be confined to the very small amount of information that it is in the whole nation's interest to keep secret and which would therefore continue to have the protection of the criminal law. Other information which cannot be disclosed without breaching the trust between Ministers and officials, or which a Crown servant has been instructed not to disclose, would continue to be protected by normal disciplinary arrangements.
Six categories of official information would be within the scope of our proposed legislation. They are information relating to defence, international relations, security and intelligence, the interception of communications, information received in confidence from other Governments and from international organisations and, finally, information which is likely to be useful in the commission of crime or in helping a prisoner to escape from custody. These are the areas which we think the legislation should cover. We do not propose that the criminal law should any longer apply to, for example, economic information, or to Cabinet documents or ministerial correspondence in general. Nor do we now think it necessary for information received in confidence from firms or individuals to be covered by a general law on official secrets. These proposals represent a further narrowing compared with the 1979 Bill.
We think it should continue to be an offence for any person to disclose any information relating to or obtained by interception, or any information received in confidence from other Governments or international organisations, because any such disclosure damages the national interest. We accept, however, that not all information in the defence and international relations categories needs the protection of the law. We therefore propose that the disclosure of information falling within these categories should be an offence only if it is likely to result in specified damage to the national interest.
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Proposed tests of damage are set out in the White Paper. Hon. Members will see that they are narrower and more specific than the broad test of serious injury to the interests of the nation which was recommended by the Franks committee and contained in the 1979 Bill. They are designed to leave no doubt about the reasons for including information within these categories in official secrets legislation. The same applies to information likely to be useful in the commission of crime or in helping prisoners to escape. In this case, a test of damage is built into the categorisation, and the prosecution would have to show that the test was satisfied.
For information relating to security and intelligence, we propose a distinction between those whom the nation trusts to carry on their work in complete secrecy, on the one hand, and of those outside the field of operation of the security and intelligence services on the other. For members and former members of those services, together with a number of other people who work in close association with them, we propose that it should be an offence to disclose any information concerning the work of the services or to make any statement which purports to disclose such information. For other persons—that is, for people who are not or who have not been members of those services or in related work—we propose that the disclosure of official information and security intelligence should be an offence only if it can be established positively that it was likely to damage the operation of the security and intelligence services.
If disclosure of information within a particular category is to be an offence only if it can be established that it meets a specified test of harm, then the old question arises—by whom and by what means is this to be decided? The Franks committee, and the Government in that 1979 Bill, proposed that the question should be conclusively settled by ministerial certificate. This was one of the main points of criticism of that Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills later suggested that a certificate by a Minister should be reviewable by some other person or body.
Under our new proposals, however, there are no ministerial certificates. The harm likely to arise from the disclosure would be a matter for the court alone to determine on the basis of argument from the prosecution and the defence. In relation to persons other than Crown servants, the prosecution would have to prove not only that the specified harm was likely to arise but that the accused person knew or could reasonably have been expected to know that it was likely to arise. We are putting our trust in the impartial determination of a jury.
The abandonment of ministerial certificates, and introduction of specific tests of harm for the courts to determine, are major changes from previous proposals. They provide a new framework within which other proposals, made in the context of the 1979 Bill, must be considered afresh. I have in mind particularly the suggestions that there should be a defence of prior publication and a general defence that publication was in the public interest. Within the framework of these new proposals, we do not think it right to provide an overriding defence of prior publication.
In our proposals, arguments about the effect of a second disclosure are for the judgment of the courts within the ambit of the specific tests of harm set by Parliament. So it would be possible on this basis for the court to conclude that further harm was unlikely to arise from the disclosure

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in question because there had been a previous disclosure which had already caused the harm. But we think it would be wrong to rule out the possibility of prosecution altogether just because the information had already been published elsewhere—perhaps in different form to a different audience. Nor do we think it right to introduce the uncertainty into the law which a general public interest defence would inevitably entail.
These are the main features of our proposals as set out in the White Paper. They represent a considered attempt to find the basis for a wide measure of agreement in replacing section 2, which all of us wish to do. If carried into effect, they should dispel any notion that the criminal law is being used to protect information simply because its disclosure would be embarrassing to Governments, still less merely because it is official information. But the law must firmly address the problem of disclosures which are truly damaging to the public interest, and provide clear and enforceable definitions and procedures to enable this to be done.
The House should have an opportunity to debate the proposals before they are put into legislative form. We shall take careful note also of views expressed outside the House. We shall then want to move to early legislation to introduce a fair and effective alternative to section 2.
Mr. Roy Hattersley: Is the Home Secretary aware that many hon. Members—perhaps the majority—believe that prosecution under any Official Secrets Act should be possible only when the disclosure of information has genuinely damaged or prejudiced the national interest? In his statement the right hon. Gentleman has sought to give the impression that he supports that view, and that the arbitrary and unjustified application of an official secrets law is now to be abandoned. A reading of the White Paper, as distinct from the Home Secretary's statement, shows that not to be true.
We welcome, of course, the removal from the provisions of any Official Secrets Act the omnibus clause covering every item of Government information. We agree that many instances of improper revelation are more suitable for internal disciplinary procedures than for the criminal law. Our real concern relates to paragraphs 41 and 42 of the White Paper, which deal with what is called the security services. These are services which in Britain, as in other democracies, should be subject to general parliamentary scrutiny.
Does the Home Secretary recall that many of the repressive and authoritarian acts perpetrated by the Government over the past nine years have been justified by invoking the name of the security services? Is he aware that that catch-all provision still applies? Indeed, in some ways it is reinforced and made respectable. Does the Home Secretary recall that in the debate in January he derided the present law, which is so ridiculous as technically to make the publication of a Civil Service canteen menu an offence? Paragraphs 41 and 42 make it clear that the unauthorised revelation of the menus at Curzon street or GCHQ is to become a criminal offence. Everything that the Home Secretary defines as "relating to security" is automatically the subject of criminal prosecutions without any of the safeguards which his statement has emphasised.
Is the Home Secretary aware that, until the behaviour of the security forces is no longer cloaked in impenetrable
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legal protection, most people will continue to believe, in the words of paragraph 32 of the White Paper, that information is being withheld and
"protected by the criminal law merely for fear of political embarrassment"?
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that any revelation of any information that is said to be "related to security"—"related to security" on the Minister's own definition—will be a criminal offence when carried out by members of the security service, ex-members of the security service, those who work with them and support them, whose who are in frequent contact with them and those who deal with them on a regular basis? These are all areas—and there are more—that have been discredited by section 11 of the old Act, which the Home Secretary pretends that he is in some way removing and abolishing.
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House how the term "relating to security" is to be defined? Unless it is circumscribed with an exact precision, it will allow Ministers to include within that automatic category for criminal prosecution anything that they wish to include. There is no doubt that while the Home Secretary represents this as a libertarian move, Mr. Clive Ponting, who was found not guilty under the existing Act, would certainly be convicted under the provisions that the Home Secretary has set out today.[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I anticipated that a number of Government Members below the Gangway would cheer. They may be pleased by that provision, but they cannot claim that it liberalises the present law.
If Ministers claim that the security services are involved and are connected with almost anything they care to put within that category, none of the defences that the Home Secretary so strongly emphasised will apply. There will be no defence in terms of the national interest not having been damaged. The Minister will have arbitrary and authoritarian power to include within the criminal prosecution section whatever he or his successor chooses to include.
Nor will that test apply—although the Home Secretary gave a different impression in his statement—in one other respect. According to paragraph 51 of the White Paper, the "harmful to public interest" defence does not apply to information obtained from other Governments. I assume that, ironically, that was included to please and placate the United States of America, whose Senate and Congress would not give house room to the proposals that the Home Secretary is making today.
There are many other inadequacies, shortcomings and omissions. There is the absence of a public interest defence, and the fact that although something may already have been published, it can still he the subject of criminal prosecution if its publication is repeated. There is also included within the catch-all, omnibus definition of security matters those things which ex-members of the security services or their associates may say and which happen to be untrue, or are no more than pub talk, but which will nevertheless be automatically regarded as damaging to the public interest.
We shall return to all those shortcomings in the debate. The point that really must be driven home today is this. Today's newspapers, for reasons we can only guess at, predicted a draconian White Paper, and that is what we have been given. However, it is a different White Paper from that which the newspapers predicted—but it is just as

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bad and just as unacceptable in a free society. Anyone who reads the White Paper rather than relies on and trusts the Home Secretary's statement will know that to be a fact.
Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman is making an ass of himself. For more than a week, he has been very voluble in talking to and commenting in the newpapers on this subject, on the basis of wholly inaccurate press reports. In particular, they specified in some detail that there had been some great battle in Whitehall, as a result of which it had been decided to introduce ministerial certificates that would in some way be binding on the courts. That was nonsense, and today it is seen to he nonsense.
I do not expect to carry everybody with me, but every fair-minded person will accept that we have gone considerably further in an open direction than was expected—much further than the Labour Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member were prepared to go 10 years ago. We are, in effect, confining the criminal law not to matters that might be embarrassing for the Government but to matters that really need to be kept secret if our affairs are to be properly run. In that context, it is right to distinguish clearly between Crown servants and members of the public and those who have, as the White Paper puts it, a special and inescapable duty of secrecy, either because they belong, or have belonged, to the security or intelligence service, or have been one of a number of people whose work connects closely with those services.
It is reasonable, when one is talking about security and intelligence information, to distinguish between disclosures by those people and disclosures undertaken by the press or people outside those services, where the test of damage would apply. The right hon. Gentleman speaks as though the Minister was to decide. Of course it will be the jury that decides in all such cases, and the idea that the jury will decide on a menu in a security service canteen is absurd.
I also think that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong to refer back to the Ponting case. That is always a tricky thing to do. If a similar case came up tomorrow, the prosecution would have to face a higher hurdle than the one that the prosecution had to face under the existing section 2. It would have to show, in the Ponting case, that very specific damage had been done to the defence of the nation, which under the existing section 2 does not have to be shown.
I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation, and I believe that he underestimates the change that we propose—a change that means that, for example, a leaked Cabinet paper on housing, however controversial, or the details of a Budget being prepared, will no longer receive any protection from the criminal law. That is a major change, which it is churlish of the right hon. Gentleman not to acknowledge.
Mr. Leon Brittan: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his proposals will be regarded in large part by Conservative Members as a substantial, much-needed and thoroughly desirable liberalisation of the law, and be welcomed as such?
While some details are of course challengeable, does my right hon. Friend agree that the abolition of the system of binding ministerial certificates will in practice mean that, in the majority of cases, the media will be able to argue that the publication is not harmful and is therefore defensible, either because it has previously been in the public domain
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or for other reasons? Does he also accept that the vast majority of the people of this country regard it as entirely reasonable that those who embark on a career as members of the security and intelligence services should accept an obligation of secrecy, provided that there is a satisfactory system whereby, within the public service, complaints of abuse, misconduct and impropriety can be properly investigated?
Mr. Hurd: I am most grateful to my right hon. arid learned Friend. I confirm what he has said, and the substantial relief that the proposals, if approved by Parliament, will give the press.
My right hon. and learned Friend is right to emphasise his last point, and I understand why he did so. It is important that the individual civil servant should feel confidence in the procedure which provides him with recourse to his permanent secretary and eventually to the head of the Civil Service. In the security service fairly recently we instituted the position of staff counsellor—at present held by Sir Philip Woodfield—who has access to me where necessary. I agree about the importance of those procedures.
My right hon. and learned Friend has himself worked hard in this sphere, and has substantial experience of it. I am, therefore, especially grateful for his support.
Mr. David Steel: I hope that the Home Secretary did not give me a different edition of the White Paper from the one that he gave the Leader of the Opposition. On first reading, the White Paper seems to me to represent a considerable victory for the House, and for hon. Members on both sides who campaigned for the abolition of section 2 and the philosophy that lies behind it—in particular the abandonment of ministerial certificates and the specific tests of harm for the courts to determine. Will the Home Secretary confirm that if the White Paper had been in legislative form Miss Sarah Tisdall, for example, would never have been prosecuted and sent to prison, but would have been subject to disciplinary proceedings?
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that I have one reservation, which is the lack of the specific public interest defence? Does he accept that circumstances might arise in which a court could decide that harm had been caused, but the House might consider that the harm was overlaid by the public interest in the disclosure?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the right hon. Member fonTweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) for the main thrust of what he said, which gives the balance rather better than the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) achieved. It is too early to distribute any medals on the subject, but the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale is right. Of course we took into account, as I said we would, points made in the House, including those made in the debate in January on the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills.
I am reluctant to hark back to old cases and say what would have happened. Obviously Miss Tisdall would not have been treated as a former member of the intelligence or security services. I do not know whether it would have been thought that what she did could have passed the test of damage. I do not think that one sensibly can speculate about that.

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The right hon. Gentleman is on to a point that we shall want to discuss at greater length when he talks about the public interest defence. Where there is a test of damage, we have set out certain narrow specific tests of damage which the prosecution will need to establish. In many cases it will find that difficult because the tests are quite high. It would be confusing and difficult if, in addition, we tried to provide in some general form for a public interest defence.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for providing me with an opportunity to read the White Paper an hour or so ago, because the balance of his remarks is confounded by any reading of that paper. It is a most extraordinary document, inasmuch as it makes whole areas of our national life subject to almost mandatory ministerial judgments, without the ability of a court to find otherwise unless a jury decides to put up two fingers. It extends the law into areas to which it did not apply previously, such as where information has been published abroad freely and it was not an offence to publish it here.
It is a very repressive measure indeed. There is no balancing factor—which is very important—of the public interest whereby someone can say that it was necessary for the public to know about something. This goes to the heart of our democratic institutions. The White Paper contains a whole series of very unhappy contentions. It is illiberal and it is not consonant with the experience and practices in Canada, Australia and the United States. I do not know what world we think we live in when we try to bind up a certain class of civil servants so that they may never again speak about anything in their lives in regard to certain duties.
My hon. Friend makes the contention that it will be effective and enforceable, but it will not be reasonable. How will it be reasonable when, for instance, we know that our security services, at the order of the British Government, put limpet mines on Jewish refugees' boats going to Israel? I would argue that it is in the public interest that we know about public policies of that nature. The White Paper will ensure that we know nothing about areas of our national life.
Mr. Hurd: I did not expect to carry my hon. Friend totally, but I must say that I am surprised at the result of his reading of the White Paper. He has fastened on a tiny but important section of official information. He has neglected to observe the great area which is being freed entirely from the reach of the criminal law with substantial influence on how the country is governed. It is a matter on which there will be substantial argument, and I do not agree with him. He is quite right to draw attention to the fact that we intend to bring within the scope of the law cases of matter published abroad as a result of information from this country. The reason for it is set out in the White Paper.
In other respects, as I believe is abundantly right, we are distinguishing between ordinary servants of the Crown and people outside Crown service and those in the particular categories of the security and intelligence services. Of course, as time passes, it will be increasingly possible for members and former members of those services to publish with authority. My hon. Friend knows that that happens already. It is specifically provided for
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here, and it will continue to happen. There is no reason why it should not happen, but I believe that it should be with authority. I believe that my hon. Friend is attacking not so much the content of the White Paper as the way in which the security and intelligence services are run and their responsibility to this House. That is the crux of what he said, and I shall rest on what I have already said in previous debates on the matter.
Mr. Michael Foot: One of the events which have led to this pronouncement—it is not the only one—is the prosecution of Mr. Peter Wright for publishing his memoirs in Australia. He alleged that, for a long time, the secret services grossly misused their power and broke the law with impunity.
Would the proposed changes deprive the Government of the defence that they employed in that case? Would the White Paper make any difference to such a case? Does the right hon. Gentleman understand that, if it makes hardly any difference or no difference, the monstrous acts that have been described could be continued without any proper investigation?
One of the reasons for the disturbance in the public mind is that the Government so resolutely persisted with that case, yet they persistently refused to conduct any proper inquiry into gross breaches of the law. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how his proposals will change that? The Leader of the House will confirm that, a little earlier today, the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, spoke in the Banqueting hall about much earlier events. He explained clearly that the main reason for the glorious revolution of 1688 was the gross breach of the law by the Executive. That has happened often, and we want a change in the law to stop it.
Mr. Hurd: If the right hon. Gentleman's point were true, these proposals would end it, as they will perform in line with the traditions of the House. We are proposing that Parliament should clip the wings of any possible abuse of the criminal law by the Executive. We are proposing to narrow, refine and define. That is in the parliamentary tradition which the right hon. Gentleman and the glorious revolution of 1688 embody. We are dealing with the criminal law which, by definition, applies only within the jurisdiction. It is for the right hon. Gentleman to work out what the effect would have been, under the existing law or under our proposals, if Mr. Wright had remained in the jurisdiction.
Mr. John Wheeler: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any impartial reader of the White Paper would regard it as an extremely liberal and practical document which identifies areas where the law should apply? Crown servants who have a lifetime responsibility to the British people are catered for quite properly, subject to the provision that my right hon. Friend has referred to. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, compared with any recent proposals, particularly those of the Labour party in 1978, this document is a remarkable advance?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has studied these matters deeply. It is noticeable that, when the Labour Government tackled this subject, they proposed to cover Cabinet documents and information on currency and reserves. They proposed to rely on the classification of documents as the test and said that the responsible Minister should review that classification, and that his

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certificate about it should be conclusive evidence. We have travelled a long way since the Labour White Paper and, compared with it, our proposals are a model of openness and liberalism.
Dr. David Owen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that paragraphs 38 to 48 of the White Paper deal with the security and intelligence services and rightly treat them as being different from anyone else working in Government employment, but that it would be far easier for the House to accept the purport of them if the right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister would look again at the case for parliamentary scrutiny of the security and intelligence services?
As to the other parts of this complex and interlocking package, particularly paragraph 51, on information obtained in confidence from other Governments or international organisations, which goes extremely wide, will the right hon. Gentleman live up to the wording in paragraph 61, which says:
"the Government is of the mind that there should be no general public interest defence"
and recognise that the balance of this legislation depends on there being a general interest defence? Without it, it is fatally flawed.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's first point about the need to put in a separate category those who owe a duty of trust and secrecy. I agree that we want to consider carefully the definition of categories and the test within each category.
This is White Paper, not legislative, language, and before it goes into legislative language there will have to be a debate. The House will want to consider carefully the legislative language when the Bill appears. I accept that entirely. I do not think that I have anything to add to the point about a general public interest defence.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Will my right hon. Friend accept that, on close reading, the White Paper seems to be very helpful to state prosecutors? The narrowing of the classification of some types of information no longer covered by the criminal law is welcome, but to many of us of a libertarian frame of mind there are still grave defects in certain sections which I hope will be remedied before legislation is brought forward. How does my right hon. Friend justify abolishing by legislation the two principal defences of iniquity and prior publication which, during the past half century, have allowed some juries occasionally to acquit a few defendants, even under the 1911 Act?
Mr. Hurd: I do not think that my hon. Friend is entirely accurate. We are not abolishing any existing defences. When he talks about the public interest defence—he kindly drew my attention to this this morning—he may be referring to section 2(1)(a) of the 1911 Act where there is a reference to the interests of the state. The courts have never interpreted that in criminal cases as to be distinguished from the interests of the Government.
As to prior publication, when there is a test of damage, with the exception of the security and intelligence services, it will be open to the defendant who it is alleged has committed a damage to say, "My disclosure cannot have committed this damage because it appeared in the Boston Globe or Time magazine a fortnight ago." That will make it that much harder for the prosecution to persevere and to prove that damage done by the second disclosure is as
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serious as is needed under our proposals. The concept of a test of damage, rather than ministerial certificate and a jury deciding, includes to a reasonable extent the defence of prior publication.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Why does the Home Secretary make out that there would have been a higher hurdle for the prosecution in the Ponting case? Given her frame of mind at the time, would not the Prime Minister have seized on paragraph 4 of the White Paper, which says:
"there should be a power for the responsible Minister to designate individuals or groups whose duties necessarily involve extensive familiarity with the work of the security and intelligence services as having the same criminal liability as members of these services in respect of the disclosure of information relating to security or intelligence."?
Whatever the view of the Home Secretary, would not Downing street have insisted that Clive Ponting was in that category and therefore he would almost certainly have gone to clink? Where lie the powers of juries? Would not Mr. Justice McCowan have got his way?
A former Prime Minister is present and he ought to look at the case of Anthony Cavendish. Under the juxtapositioning of paragraphs 42 and 47, how on earth would Anthony Cavendish have not got into the greatest difficulty for talking about the destabilisation of the Heath Government?
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on his first point. He is certainly wrong to suggest that the position of the jury would be undermined. One of the features of the proposals is the reinforcement of the role of the jury. It is difficult to hark back and apply new proposals to old cases, but I believe that the prosecution in the Ponting case would have had to prove that Mr. Ponting had, in one way or another, inflicted damage on the defence of the country, as specified in paragraph 49 of the White Paper.
I will not comment on the position of Mr. Cavendish or on what he might or might not have been prosecuted for. The distinction we make between Crown servants and former members of the intelligence and security services is clear and thoroughly defensible.
Mr. Rupert Allason: Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of the House on beating his deadline for publishing the White Paper by about 32 hours and for confounding many of the recent press critics? He is to be congratulated on scrapping the idea of ministerial certification. That is a step in the right direction. Apart from the idea of judicial review, it is difficult to know what could be a better arrangement than review by jury.
May I suggest that my right hon. Friend should turn his attention to an issue that he mentioned in an earlier reply—the specific section relating to the disclosure without authority of any information on the work of the security and intelligence services? Would he consider including in the legislation a specific mechanism that gives such individuals the opportunity to obtain clearance so that we do not find ourselves in the difficulties that have been experienced recently? In America there is an effective system, and we have recently experienced two cases of CIA chiefs of station in London being able to publish their books in America and England with official sanction. Surely that is a much more sensible arrangement. Will my right hon. Friend carefully consider including such a mechanism in the legislation?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his general support. Of course there is a procedure with which my hon. Friend is familiar. The defects do not seem to have impeded him in making some progress in the matter. This is not a matter for legislation, although my hon. Friend will no doubt develop his case. It is a matter for sensible and sensitive procedures which are fair to people who want to write and which also provide a satisfactory means of safeguarding information that has to be safeguarded.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there is another statement after this and a rare opportunity for Northern Ireland Members to take part in a debate. Therefore, I ask for brief questions, and not on points that may already have been put.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Is the Home Secretary aware that over the past five years there have been revelations from Cathy Massiter, Clive Ponting, Sarah Tisdall and Peter Wright of the political activities of the security services and clear efforts by them to destabilise past Labour Governments? In the light of those revelations, does the Home Secretary accept that his White Paper does nothing towards bringing the security services under political control? Should he not now bring forward proposals to do just that, so that we are no longer faced with the idea of security services, paid by us, which can politically attempt to destabilise a future Labour Government?
Mr. Hurd: That is a separate matter that the House has debated and may one day return to. It is not covered in the proposals. The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set up an investigation into those points and reported the outcome to the House.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government have gone too far in entrusting the safeguarding of the public interest to the verdicts of individual juries, which are notoriously liable to return perverse verdicts in cases of this sort? Who better than the elected Government of the day, controlled by the House of Commons, to determine the public interest?
Mr. Hurd: I am not surprised that a note of criticism from that wing of the argument should be sounded. It provides a healthy corrective to some of the criticisms I have received in the opposite direction. My hon. Friend has a point, and that is why originally and for some time successive Governments have clung to the idea that the Executive should have a say, either a decisive or an influential say, before a jury reaches its conclusion. Having reviewed all the arguments, including my hon. Friend's point, we came to the conclusion some time ago that the game was not worth the candle. In spite of what my hon. Friend says, we believe that the best answer in such cases is to rely on the jury.
Ms. Diane Abbott: Is the Secretary of State aware that the White Paper appears to be a liberalising White Paper only in the context of the press stories that have been floated for at least a week previously threatening all manner of draconian measures? Will he take this opportunity to
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assure the House that the floating of those press stories was entirely fortuitous and was not a deliberate attempt to allow him to bask in the mantle of the great reformer?
Mr. Hurd: We are not as clever as that in the Home Office. It is fairly clear what happened. The persistent critics of the Government on this issue erected, from January onwards, a caricature of Government policy with which they began to frighten themselves. They began to write stories as if we were about to do what they feared rather than what I said in the January debate we would do.
What we are now doing is close to the agenda I then set. It falls exactly within the general approach we have stated consistently to the House.
Mr. Richard Page: I welcome my right hon. Friend's moves to reform section 2 and to bring about the abandonment of ministerial certification. However, will he assure hon. Members and those in the country who are not into the details of the Official Secrets Act that the Government will not hesitate to prosecute to the limit of their legal ability people such as Peter Wright who betrayed their trust in the country?
Mr. Hurd: Decisions on prosecutions are not for me. The balance we want to strike in the proposals includes retaining and making effective the ability to protest, by use of the criminal law, those parts of official information where it is necessary to do that.
Mr. Max Madden: Will the Home Secretary confirm that he is proposing nothing that in future will stop former security officers from retiring overseas and spilling the beans? Can he say what financial implications he believes will result from his proposals, especially in estimated legal costs? Has it ever crossed his mind that the best course would be to repeal the Official Secrets Act and replace it with a freedom of information Act and proper democratic accountability for the security services?
Mr. Hurd: Obviously the criminal law reaches as far as it can and no further. I cannot possibly say whether there are likely to be more or fewer prosecutions. We are trying to define the area in which criminal prosecutions are justified.
The hon. Gentleman's third point is a familiar one which links this subject with freedom of information. Clearly this is not a freedom of information Bill, but I believe that, especially in the areas of the security and intelligence services, no Government have provided more information to the House and the public on such matters than we have.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: First, is it really fair or reasonable that there should not be any public interest defence that a member of the security services can even argue before a court if he has revealed something that was unauthorised, undemocratic and unfair? Does the Home Secretary think that it is fair to say to people, "You can to go court," when the law has taken away all the defences that they might make?
Secondly, can my right hon. Friend say something about paragraph 51, which states that any revelation of any communication from any international organisation, irrespective of the harm which might be involved, will

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result in prosecution? Does that cover all international organisations and, for example, the masses of documents that we get every day from the EEC?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend's first point is perhaps the one which will be most controversial between the Government and their critics on, as it were, the liberal side, although we are now developing some critics on what one might call the security side. Anybody joining one of the services that we are discussing knows—the background of those services makes this clear—that there is a special duty of trust and confidentiality which remains after retirement. Although that duty of trust can be mitigated by gaining consent for the publication of this or that, it nevertheless remains. That is the point that the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) made, and I agree with him.
The House will obviously want to discuss my hon. Friend's point about paragraph 51. Where a Government or international organisation passes any information which is to be held in confidence to the British Government, we would lose that confidence and harm ourselves if we could not keep that confidence. That is the thinking behind paragraph 51, and I think it is right.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Secretary of State agree that it is fundamental to our democracy that Ministers tell the truth and that Governments obey the law, and that that applies especially to the security and intelligence services? Why should it be a criminal offence for someone to disclose that a Minister has not told the truth or that the security forces or intelligence services have broken the law?
Mr. Hurd: Other remedies and recourses are open to such a person, which are better suited to his position and the trust that he has undertaken. We are talking about members of the security and intelligence services.
Sir Ian Gilmour: I welcome a number of features in the White Paper, on which I congratulate my right hon. Friend, but does he agree that one of the absurdities of the past few months has been the attempt to stop the British people reading what every other person in the world has been able to read? In view of that, does he not agree that the inclusion of the last sentence of paragraph 26, which states:
"its further disclosure in this country should be treated in the same way as if the original disclosure had taken place in this country",
is an attempt to perpetuate that very absurdity?
Mr. Hurd: The House of Lords is considering some of the main issues raised by the "Spycatcher" case, so I will not respond to my right hon. Friend's invitation to tread on that ground. I do not think that paragraph 26 falls into the criticism that he made. It is a worry if such circumstances occur. It is reasonable that, as they come forward, our proposals should include that point.
Mr. Bob Cryer: If members of MI5 assassinate, take part in a seditious conspiracy to overthrow a Government, or seek to lie or to disseminate lies and untruths in a campaign against any political party, and if there are members of MI5 who might, for example, oppose the dominant political philosophy in MI5 at any given time—as Peter Wright pointed out, in 1974 that was support for the Conservative party—and supposing that someone wanted to expose the maggots eating away at our
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constitution, is the Secretary of State saying that there are no circumstances in which a member of MI5 would be justified in disclosing a serious attack on our constitutional position or disclosing murder and mayhem, which is what Peter Wright suggested in his book? That would be an outrage against any democratic system.
Mr. Hurd: We are not altering the position in that respect except to the extent that we now have procedures in the security service by which someone in that position can have access to me and, through me, to the Prime Minister. That is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility for those services. The House has often discussed that and I believe that it is the correct way of establishing responsibility for the running of services where the ordinary cut and thrust of public debate obviously does not work and is not justified.
Mr. Alastair Goodlad: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposal to give absolute protection to security and intelligence information follows closely the proposals in the 1978 White Paper of the then Labour Government? Does he also agree that the proposal that the determination of harm should be left to the courts represents a great advance on the preferences of the previous Labour Government for dealing with these matters by ministerial certificate? Will he apply a low test of seriousness to the effusions of the Labour party?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is sensible to bring a touch of historical proportion to such matters. The House as a whole has moved on in 1988. The caricature that I am trying to resist and demolish is the caricature which says that, whereas opinion as a whole has moved on, the Government are stuck in some pre-1978 or pre-1988 position. We are now giving a lead in producing a set of proposals which, in many respects, are the most liberal and most open that have been suggested.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: In what way would the new proposals enable somebody like me—or, more likely, somebody like my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—to demand that the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan), the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, tell the truth about the Westland letter? Will the new proposals enable my hon. Friend to get the truth from the Prime Minister without being constantly told that she has nothing further to add? Will they help him to get the truth from the Leader of the House, which is what he has tried to do on previous occasions? If this had been in operation a decade ago, would the proposals have enabled me to ask the then Foreign Secretary, now the leader of the provos, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), to tell me the truth about the £1 billion Chevaline expenditure which was carried through by the Lib-Lab pact?
Is it not true that this so-called liberal Home Secretary kidded his troops the other Friday when he told them not to back his hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), saying, "Leave it to me, I will introduce some liberal legislation"? Well, we have got it, and I do not think it is liberal.
Mr. Hurd: I will need to look carefully at the matter, but I do not think that anything in our proposals will

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either add to or detract from the parliamentary powers of those two Members of Parliament, which remain substantial.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that nothing in his proposals will inhibit the proper disclosure by civil servants of authorised information? Is he satisfied that the line of authority which is necessary for such disclosure is sufficiently well defined to avoid misunderstandings in the future?
Mr. Hurd: That is a good point. My hon. Friend is touching on a point that has not yet come out of our exchanges. As whole areas such as the preparation of the Budget, or the discussion of a major and perhaps controversial policy in Cabinet, are withdrawn entirely from the scope of the criminal law, the Civil Service will want to look carefully, as would any organisation, at its methods and procedures of discipline because it is on such procedures that it will have to rely in the future if it is to preserve the kind of information which any major organisation wants to preserve within itself. Therefore, it will be in the same position regarding the great bulk of Government information, as is a newspaper, a political party or a company. It will therefore have to consider its procedures, including the point touched on by my hon. Friend, relating to gaining authority for public disclosures.
Mr. Robin Squire: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is a presumption in a democracy in favour of all information gathered at the public's expense being made available to the public, subject, obviously, to certain carefully defined areas, such as national security? Does he feel that the White Paper reflects that presumption?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, the White Paper reflects that presumption and it moves the boundary markedly in the direction of that presumption.
Mr. Tim Devlin: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on abandoning ministerial certificates and on funnelling down secrecy to the six defined areas. Since he mentioned history, how long will those six areas be kept secret? How will the 30-year rule operate, or is he proposing some new rule for when information will become available?
Mr. Hurd: I know of no proposals to change the 30-year rule with the exceptions and procedures built into its operation.
Mr. Bill Walker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us on this side of the House welcome the fact that members of the intelligence and security services must be covered as proposed in the White Paper? Is he further aware that many individuals who work on sensitive matters, who often undertake dangerous activities and are employed on most peculiar engagements, have poor pension schemes? Perhaps more should be done in that area.
Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at prior publication? Is it not well known that one way of disclosing information is to have some obscure publication printed, for example in Eire or Bangladesh, and then to have it taken up by a major paper in the Western world?
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In that way matters which should not be disclosed are disclosed, as has happened in the past. Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that these measures will take care of that?
Mr. Hurd: I note my hon. Friend's first point and the importance that he attaches to it. His second point is just and is a reason why we have not included a complete defence of prior publication. As I said in my statement, we can imagine circumstances in which information is published in a completely different form to a completely different audience.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my right hon. Friend aware that ordinary British people will fully appreciate the principle concerning the security services and have never understood the fuss made by the media? Will he clarify two points in his statement? First, how far will journalists' freedom be extended by the White Paper? Secondly, what will be the position of senior civil servants on Budget secrets? It is possible to envisage disclosed Budget secrets destabilising the financial market in the United Kingdom and abroad.
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend may be right on the second point. We are not proposing to keep or extend the criminal law in that area, except to the extent that the secret may be a matter of defence security or intelligence, which I doubt. Therefore, protection of information on that subject will rely on the disciplinary arrangements within the Civil Service.
There will be a substantial change in the effect of the law on editors and journalists. Only restricted categories of information will be covered and there will be a specific damage test for defence, security, intelligence and foreign affairs. There will be no ministerial certificates and it will no longer be an offence merely to receive information. Where there are damage tests, the prosecution will have to prove that the damage was likely to be caused and that the defendant, jounalist or editor, knew or had reasonable cause to believe that it was likely to be caused. That position is not only safeguarded but enhanced.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: We all know that grandees, meaning Privy Councillors, always have access to documents before mere humble Back Benchers, and we have got used to that. I should be fascinated to hear from my right hon. Friend whether some Back Benchers are to be given documents an hour or two before the rest of the House. It may well be that an excellent precedent is being set. If this is a precedent so that we can all get documents ahead of time and can take a useful part in debate, so much the better, but who will be the sheep and who the goats? It would be lovely to know. Let us all be sheep or all be goats, but let us not all be led into a position where the Home Secretary can choose those whom he thinks are worthy of having his documents.
Mr. Hurd: I shall not go into the business of choosing between grandees. So far as I am aware, no hon. Member received a copy of the White Paper before——
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) did.
Mr. Hurd: Will my hon. Friend let me finish my sentence?
—it was laid in the usual way in the Vote Office.
Mr. Hattersley: May I say how much I wish that every hon. Member who asked a question had read the White Paper instead of having to rely on the Home Secretary's statement. He was asked several questions about definition, but none has been answered.
Paragraph 47 gives Ministers the right to designate groups and individuals who will not be subject to the normal protections and defences which are stipulated in other parts of the White Paper. Will the Minister alone make that designation? I ask him not to speculate on the groups but to answer the specific question: will the right to designate groups and individuals not subject to the normal protection be up to Ministers alone?
Mr. Hurd: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman, by implication, acknowledges the strength of the normal protection which does not exist yet. In designating, the Minister will be bound by the purpose of designation which is set out in paragraph 7—[interruption] Not at all. It is not a power at large, but a power to designate individuals or groups whose duties necessarily involve extensive familiarity with the work of the security and intelligence services. That is a specific point which the House will undoubtedly want to discuss in detail, and it seems entirely reasonably within that definition.

Furniture (Fire Resistance)
4.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. John Butcher): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the fire safety of furniture.
On 11 January 1988 my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs announced the Government's intention to make new regulations about the flammability of domestic upholstered furniture. Draft regulations were circulated for consultation on 1 March and comments invited by 12 May. I am now in a position to announce the changes we propose to make to the regulations as a result of this consultation. I intend to lay the regulations before the House in July.
My hon. Friend announced that the regulations would come into operation on 1 March 1989 for the filling requirements and on 1 March 1990 for covering fabrics. I intend to retain these dates, but to require that furniture supplied to retailers should meet the foam-filling requirement from 1 November 1988. This reflects progress in the changeover to safer materials and gives the retailers a four-month period of grace which will help them to clear existing stocks.
I have decided that covering materials must meet the match resistance test by 1 March 1990. However, some fabrics which are difficult or impossible to treat, but whose burning characteristics are less likely to ignite the filling materials, will be permitted, provided they are used with interliners or barrier cloths which meet the ignition source 5 test. The regulations will specify which materials will be acceptable when used with interliners, and the covering materials concerned will have to meet the cigarette resistance test. This will enable the trade to continue to use many of the fabrics at present on the market, but will not prejudice the level of safety to be achieved by the original proposals.
On second-hand furniture, I have decided that a proposal from enforcement and fire safety organisations should be adopted. From 1 March 1993, all trade sales of modern second-hand furniture will have to comply with the full requirements of the regulations. But from 1 March 1990 to that date the regulations will permit the sale of second-hand, upholstered furniture which complies with the 1980 regulations. Private sales of second-hand goods are excluded from the scope of regulations made under the Consumer Protection Act 1987. I also intend to introduce an exemption from these regulations for sales of furniture manufactured before polyurethane foam was generally introduced as a filling material, which was 1950. Furniture made before that date may be traded as collectors' items, but does not contain the material we are banning. This exemption also means that sales of antique or period furniture and reupholstery of antiques are excluded.
For furniture built into new caravans and for garden furniture, the foam requirement will apply from 1 March 1990, because those two sectors of industry have a seasonal pattern of sales that makes it unreasonable to require them to meet the 1 March 1989 deadline. Second-hand caravans will be excluded. The regulations will contain a number of miscellaneous provisions covering specific matters, such as stretch covers, pillows and cushions.
The EC Commission has not raised formal objections, although some member states did object to our original

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proposals. The Commission therefore asked that a number of points should be taken into account. In the changes that I have announced, I have met many of those points, and I am satisfied that the regulations will go no further than is necessary in the interests of protecting consumers.
The new regulations have a cost for industry and for the consumer. It would be wrong to underestimate the task that confronts industry in meeting the new requirements within a very short time scale, but there has been a positive response to the challenge. A substantial majority share the Government's determination to ensure that the catalogue of death and injury from fires involving domestic upholstered furniture should be reduced as quickly as is practicable.
Mr. Tony Blair: Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to all local authorities, trade unions, fire officers, hon. Members and those in industry who have fought so long and so vigorously on this issue?
I welcome the regulations in so far as they ban the use of killer foam in furniture, bedding and other items, and the phased extension of the ban to second-hand goods, which represents a major advance in fire prevention. However, we are dismayed at the entirely unwarranted exemption of whole categories of ignitable covers from the new tests. The view of fire and of trading standard officers to whom I have spoken is that such an exemption from the regulations will make them seriously defective and will open a potential major loophole in fire safety and enforcement.
Does the Minister recall that the history of the campaign is of initial hostility and scepticism in Government, which has been overcome only by sustained campaigning and publicity? Does he further recall that last October we were told that it was "wholly impracticable and undesirable" to ban standard foam, yet in January he banned it? Does he remember that on 11 January we were told that it was virtually impossible to ban second-hand goods, yet today he has banned them? How many more meals of ministerial words must he eat before the Government listen to the fire safety experts who have been proved right?
Does the Minister realise that tests have shown that ignitable covers, even over interliners, can be just as dangerous? Once burning, the covers can overcome fire-retardant material and, more important, become a fire point for other materials such as curtains and carpets.
Is it right that the regulations will allow, without hindrance, non-fire-retardant foam to be made for export? Secondly, will the Minister give a categorical assurance that he will overcome opposition to the regulations, not just in the EEC, but as they will be affected by the completion of the single European market in 1992? Thirdly, does he agree that we need a national programme to encourage smoke detectors in the home, including the amendment of building regulations to enforce installation in new buildings and in multi-occupation homes, where many of the worse fires occur? Fourthly, does he accept that the trading standards officers who will have to enforce the new regulations must have adequate resources to allow them to do so? Is not that absolutely central to the enforcement of the regulations?
Each year 700 deaths and 7,500 injuries are caused by home fires. Does the Minister realise that the proposals
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will have a huge impact on that carnage only if the Government learn from their past mistakes, remove themselves from the pockets of vested interests in the trade and put themselves in the hands of consumers?
Mr. Butcher: There has been a very intensive and comprehensive consultation period, during which we listened especially to the fire safety officers and those who will be concerned with enforcement of the regulations. I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that one measure in the regulations will henceforth be known as the "Graham compromise"—it relates to second-hand furniture.
I shall restate the context in which the regulations have been brought forward. Even before them, Britain had the most rigorous furniture fire regulations regime in Western Europe. The regulations will make that even more rigorous. It is around that position that the House has coalesced during the past four or five months.
I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said about covers, but some materials are difficult to make match resistant without destroying their qualities. We are stipulating that they can be used over interliners that comply with the very strict ignition source 5 as an alternative to compliance. The effect is still rigorous, but the consumers will have a choice. That is a logical and sensible approach. The exemption is not available to the broad range of mainly synthetic fibres, and in general the predominantly natural fibres burn with less heat than synthetics.
I am satisfied that what we are doing today is compatible with the movement towards 1992. It may take five years for the Commission to come forward with proposals and to set minimum standards. We are already ahead of western Europe, so we have a good chance of complying with any future minimum standards.
The hon. Gentleman will know that smoke detectors are a first issue matter not for me, but for the Home Secretary. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am closely monitoring the experiments in the Granada and Tyne-Tees television areas. If he finds this an agreeable response, I shall consider using my safety campaigns under "Think Safety First", and include in them an element that could raise awareness of safety in the home.
We have consulted the trading standard officers and I think they will welcome the clarity of the regulations, because clarity makes life much easier for them.
Mr. Kenneth Warren: I welcome my hon. Friend's statement. He did not refer to the trade's reaction to his proposals, although there has been a tremendous amount of lobbying by the trade. Will he consider discussing the regulations with our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, because there are equal dangers on public service vehicles, especially aircraft and trains?
Mr. Butcher: My hon. Friend will be aware that a number of companies are already making strong efforts to comply with what they anticipated would be incorporated in today's statement. There has been a positive reaction. We have stuck to the timetable announced in January and I have provided an extra four months of grace for the manufacturing of furniture to the new foam requirements. On balance, that is about right. I have spoken at length

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with the manufacturers and I think that they can cope with the requirements without the viability of the industry being called into question.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: The House welcomes the Government's proposals. However, does the Minister accept that the exemptions and the proposal to categorise materials rather than to provide a safety test for the finished article will cause great concern? Many of those involved in safety believe that people are looking for certification that the combination of fabric and material in a piece of furniture will be safe. Will the Minister ensure that during the transition stage for both new and second-hand furniture, the regulations provide for clear labelling so, that people know whether they are buying furniture approved under the new regulations?
I support the representations—although not made to his Department—for the wider installation of smoke detectors. I am sure that that would make a major contribution to preventing death, because it would allow people to get out before the effects of the smoke became a fait accompli.
Mr. Butcher: The whole thrust of the argument behind the regulations is how, in practical terms, we deliver a much safer range of furniture to domestic users. If the hon. Gentleman examines carefully the import of what we are saying today, he will see that even the so-called concessions have been made in a way that provides an incentive for those dealing in second-hand furniture, such as caravans or garden furniture, to move to much safer items. The old tests—the cigarette tests—still apply to those materials that are exempt. Where there is a combination of materials, we are still talking about the ignition source 5 test for the barrier cloth which must be placed under those materials which manage to get on the exemption list.
Sir Giles Shaw: Will my hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the speed and effectiveness with which he has moved on this issue? I have no intention of following the churlish reception of his statement by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), but I would like clarification on three points.
First, I greatly welcome the decision on second-hand furniture, but is there a way in which advertisement regulations can be used to ensure that such furniture is appropriately described in the period when it does not contain non-inflammable material?
Secondly, is it not a fact that the cloth being used will significantly delay flammability, so there is a significant improvement in safety as a result of my hon. Friend's consequential decision on the use of interlining cloth?
Thirdly, all fire services have been lobbying hard on this matter, but it is not sufficient for my hon. Friend to say that smoke detectors are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, which, indeed, they are. There could surely be a more positive interdepartmental effort to apply smoke detectors.
Mr. Butcher: I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are closely engaged in monitoring the present smoke detector awareness campaigns. I said earlier that I had a legitimate interest given my responsibilities for safety in the home generally. On examination of the regulations, my hon. Friend may note that, for example, the caravan industry is
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prepared voluntarily to put smoke detectors in secondhand caravans when they come back onto the market, and I welcome that. It would be misleading advertising for a dealer to specify that an item that he was selling satisfied the requirements if it did not. On balance, the interplay between second-hand sales through dealers and private sales between individuals is about right.
Mr. Ian McCartney: First, I welcome the Government's decisions on the implementation date and on second-hand furniture, about which I introduced a ten-minute Bill. However, I am worried about the concessions being given to a small number of fabric manufacturers who have been given the potential to drive a coach and horses through the regulations, and it is important that the Minister should answer a number of technical questions. [Interruption.]
If the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) listened to someone who knows something about fire safety, he might stop making ignorant remarks. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are trying to prevent several hundred deaths a year, and I am trying to be positive, not to attack the Minister personally.
Will ignition source 5 tests relate to combustion modified high resistance foam or standard polyurethane foam testing methods? It is important that the barrier test be done under the standard polyurethane foam test and not under the combustion modified test which is already connected to the ignition source 5 test which would therefore be unable to establish whether the combinations were safe.
Secondly, it is important for the Minister to understand that unless those combinations are proved to be safe, he is simply transferring the secondary source of fire from the filling to the curtains, carpets and other materials in the bedroom or living room. It is essential that regulations cut down not only fires caused by foam-filled furniture, but the secondary causes of fire. If we allow ignitable covers in any circumstances, the fires will continue; they will not ignite the foam but they will ignite other items such as curtains and carpets and the death rate will continue. The Minister should state clearly that such materials will be tested.
Mr. Butcher: First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the debate over a long period. I also recognise that he has been responsible for bringing a number of fire safety commentators to my office, and some positive suggestions were made during those conversations.
I hope that the House will not get the matter of materials out of context. We have not made a major and massive concession, because we are talking about materials such as printed cotton, which includes chintz, and about linen and wool. As I said earlier, in general, such predominantly natural fibres burn with less heat than synthetics, but they still have to be stretched over an ignition source 5 barrier material, and that is a rigorous requirement. The ignition source 2 test for non-foam fillings is also appropriate because those non-foam fillings burn with different propensities and my advice is that that test is suitable for those other mixtures.
Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: The House and many companies in Britain concerned with the industry will welcome my hon. Friend's statement, because, as he knows, there has been much uncertainty recently. However, many companies in Britain already

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produce upholstery fabrics that are way ahead of the Minister's regulations and are ready at this moment to put their fabrics in front of blow torches at high temperatures in the knowledge that no flame will go through them. If the Minister would like to see that experiment, as he has said in the past that he would, that can be arranged.
Previous uncertainty will now be allayed a little. However, will my hon. Friend assure the House that the exceptions that he has made will be monitored closely since we do not want to see another aeroplane disaster, such as the one in Manchester, after the new regulations have been laid?
Mr. Butcher: I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that she seeks. When we lay the regulations, there will be a list of materials in the category in question, but, of course, we shall continue to monitor the matter. My hon. Friend has vividly illustrated the strong clashes of opinion that exist on this issue. I do not want the regulations to be rigid or inflexible, so when the list is produced we shall monitor it and we shall take advantage of any technological breakthroughs that permit us to amend it.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is an important day for Irish Members, so may we have brief questions, please? There will be a debate which will allow hon. Members to make longer contributions.
Mrs. Ann Taylor: Does the Minister accept that many domestic British manufacturers have put a great deal of time, energy and investment into perfecting flame-resistant fabrics? Will not his exemptions undermine their work if they are too wide? Is it true that many of the manufacturers of the materials that he says may be exempt are based outside this country, and that there is a particular problem with imported material? Is not one of the reasons for his exemptions a desire to satisfy importers? Surely he should be putting safety first and supporting manufacturers who have invested so much in flame-resistant materials, especially as many of them are located in areas of high unemployment.
Will the Minister clarify the position on stretch-fabric material makers, who have asked for an exemption in certain circumstances if the stretch fabrics are to be used as secondary covering?
Mr. Butcher: I agree with the hon. Lady that the suppliers of foam and materials have made great efforts, and I pay tribute to them for that.
As for whether the exemptions are too wide, as I have just told my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock), the list of exempted materials will be reviewed periodically, which is as it should be.
Imports will have to comply. Nothing in my statement started from a consideration of importers—that was the least of my considerations.
Stretch covers are less of a potential contributory hazard than loose covers, because of their essential construction in respect of fibre type, weight, and use in stretch form, but they will have to meet a match-resistance requirement when tested over combustion-modified foam. I hope that is helpful.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his realistic statement. He has clearly listened to the industries that are involved in furniture and has appreciated the problems of employment, of investment and of the industries, which are considerable exporters from this country.
Does my hon. Friend accept that his statement makes no concession to the furniture fabric manufacturers? I refer particularly to the ad hoc committee of 21 on the timing of the implementation of these regulations.
Is my hon. Friend prepared to make any concession to fabric manufacturers for the huge additional costs that they are likely to incur in meeting the regulations, which he will lay before the House in the near future?
Will my hon. Friend confirm that he has received a letter from the European Commission requesting more time for the industry to meet the proposed requirements that he has announced?
In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend for listening to so many members of the industry who are concerned about employment, investment and the future of manufacturing industry.
Mr. Butcher: I am afraid I cannot offer my hon. Friend any hope that the timing will be changed. I am anxious to comply with the timetable that was first announced by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs. That is what the House expected of me and that is what it is my intention to deliver.
Industry can live with this regime. The balance is about right. There is no erosion of safety requirements, which the whole House has requested vigorously for some time.
I do not believe that concessions to the manufacturers are in order. Some manufacturers of furniture are already marketing furniture which they claim in their promotional material will comply with the new requirements.
I thank my hon. Friend for the vigorous way in which he has pursued his interest in this issue. I hope that he will agree that the formula that has been brought forward is primarily concerned with safety, as all these measures are. But in the case of safer fabrics, they allow some flexibility while still including a rigorous test for the interliner.
Mr. Jim Callaghan: I congratulate the Minister on his statement, but may I point out that on 1 January I invited him to try to evaluate the claims of British Vitafoam, an international rubber company based in my constituency, for its research and development into fire-resistant material? Is he aware that in the past month the Member of the European Parliament for the area, Michael Hindley, and myself were invited by the directors of that company to see for ourselves the research and development that it had achieved in these projects?
May I invite the Minister, in the light of what we have seen, to visit the factory to see for himself exactly what the firm has done? If he cannot come personally, will he ask the directors to send him the video that they have produced on their research and development?
Mr. Butcher: I should like to respond positively to what the hon. Gentleman has said. He could make a beginning by bringing two or three of the company's representatives to my office for an initial presentation, to which I should gladly agree.
Mr. Irvine Patnick: Is my hon. Friend aware of the shortage of manufacturers who make the flame-proofing treatment used on fabrics, and that there is a need for more companies to do that work? Is he aware of the difficulties with man-made fabrics, which appear to present a larger problem than the natural materials that are used? What steps is he taking to ensure that firms look into flame-proofing and do something about man-made fibres?
Mr. Butcher: Regulations sometimes change market conditions, and that will happen as a result of this announcement. I believe that companies will react and develop products and capabilities. There are real pressures and they must be coped with. I am satisfied that most companies that are affected will act.
There is no doubt that the regulations bite hard on synthetic fibres. I am in no mood to change one semi-colon of the parts of the regulations that deal with them, as they have more dangerous properties than some natural fibres.
Mr. Keith Bradley: The Minister spoke of the need for clarification of the regulations for trading standards officers. What procedures should such officers adopt to ensure that pieces of household furniture have been fitted with an interliner or barrier cloth underneath one of the exempted fabrics?
Mr. Butcher: The hon. Gentleman has asked me to project working practices, but all I can say is that we shall work closely with those who are responsible for enforcement, as we have done throughout the consultation period. I pay tribute to them for the way in which they have deployed their arguments with my officials.
I shall carefully examine what the hon. Gentleman said. If the problem that he anticipates arises, I shall return to him with my proposals.
Mr. Iain Mills: I offer my hon. Friend congratulations on good regulations; it is excellent that second-hand furniture has been brought in. Will he consider more resources for trading standards officers to implement the regulations?
Mr. Butcher: I am willing to consider anything, within reason. I recently met representatives of trading standards officers. They told me that their work load was growing ever heavier. They therefore legitimately asked me about resources. The regulations are clear and should not be difficult to enforce, but I am continually examining the resources that are available to these agencies.
Mr. Eddie McGrady: Like other hon. Members, I warmly welcome these regulations for safety in the home. Does the Minister intend the regulations to apply to Northern Ireland?
Mr. Butcher: I see no reason why Northern Ireland should be exempt. Benign measures such as this are often to be welcomed in Northern lreland—[Interruption.] I suspect that not many measures that are unanimously believed to be benign can be announced, but I hope that there is unanimity in this case. I want the regulations to be applied in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Gary Waller: As regards material covers, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a matter of concern that work done by trading standards officers shows that fibre-content regulations are widely flouted,
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particularly in imports? As that creates difficulties for consumers who are anxious to buy safe materials to cover existing furniture, will my hon. Friend emphasise his commitment to using existing powers on fibre-content safety, particularly at the point of entry to this country, in the interests of consumers who are concerned for their safety and that of their families?
Mr. Butcher: I think that there is already awareness in Europe of the import of these regulations, and we shall do our utmost to see that European manufacturers have no excuse for being ignorant of these requirements. Imports will have to comply. My hon. Friend mentioned covers. We are talking about a match test that will apply to both loose covers and covers that come already fitted to the furniture.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: I shall not join in the congratulations to the Minister or in his self-congratulations, because the Government have been dragged to this position because of the deaths earlier this year that aroused such anger in all parts of the House and in the nation. He has not addressed himself to two important questions. One was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) who asked whether the test on interliners would be carried out using standard foam. If they are not carried out in that way they will be worthless.
The second question was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) who asked about the way in which trading standard officers would know about interliners in imported furniture. That is not a trivial matter of detail but is fundamental and the Minister should have had the answer when he came to the Dispatch Box. Will he make sure that he gives a proper answer because this is a potential loophole, makes total nonsense of the exemption and will result in even more deaths?
Mr. Butcher: We should not take admonitions or a lecture from the hon. Gentleman about our care on this matter of safety in the home.
Mr. Lloyd: The Minister should.
Mr. Butcher: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would let me finish. The hon. Gentleman is obviously not aware of such matters as the "Think Safety First" campaign or of the many measures that come out of my Department to raise consumer awareness on safety matters. Something new is happening almost monthly.
I cannot agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said. We were not dragged to make these regulations. We are building on an already very vigorous fire safety regime. Interliners will be tested over combustion modified foam. If I have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman's question or those of his hon. Friends, I will clarify the matter. I am satisfied on the matter of the use of interlinings that this is an appropriate way to bring true safety to furniture that is built using exempted materials.
Mr. Alistair Burt: May I also warmly welcome what my hon. Friend has done? It is an object lesson on what can be done when the mind is put to it. I also pay tribute to the work of Chief Assistant Fire Officer Bob Graham, who has been instrumental in terms of some of the changes that are coming through. May I commend

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the further use of smoke detectors and suggest that the Minister takes my ten-minute Bill as a model for further progress? Smoke detectors save lives now, whereas
Secondly, I should like to raise a matter that has inadvertently been missed by hon. Members who are anxious about this issue. Too many fires are still caused through sheer, straightforward carelessness, drink and cigarettes. Any campaign about fire awareness should not only raise technical aspects and smoke detectors but make people aware that their own carelessness can cost lives.
Mr. Butcher: I think that I have already acknowledged the great help that Mr. Bob Graham, my hon. Friend's friend, has been to the debate. I hear loudly and clearly what my hon. Friend says about smoke detectors. That has come through as a strong theme in the debate. Of course prevention is the best and first policy, but we have to reinforce prevention with regulations, such as those that we propose, understandable public concern is aroused over deaths caused by noxious fumes from the sort of substances that we are discussing. It is a two-level attack—prevention and regulation. I pay tribute to what my hon. Friend has done in his ten-minute Bill. He will not mind if I say again that in the first instance it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I am sure that the signals are coming over loud and clear.
Mr. Graham Allen: The Minister may be aware that I and the Nottinghamshire fire prevention panel and fire officers in Nottinghamshire have written to the Government requesting a serious national programme for smoke detectors in homes—both in new-build local authority housing and in new private developments. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that that is somebody else's responsibility. Will he press the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for the Environment to bring forward proposals and support them wholeheartedly? Secondly, will he also ensure that cotton ignitable covers are no longer exempted under these regulations? Such exemptions mean that more people will die. How many more must die before the Government are dragged kicking and screaming to the Dispatch Box to announce measures in both those areas?
Mr. Butcher: The hon. Gentleman went over the top in his last observations. I and my officials have been painstaking in listening to many representations on this issue from all parts of the House. The paramount consideration has been safety. We have produced a formula that delivers on the safety requirements and does not, as it could have done, call into question the viability of the furniture industry. It will have to deal with these pressures. I believe that it can and, as I said earlier, I think that the balance is about right.
I spoke earlier about linens and natural materials and said clearly that, in general, predominately natural fibres burn with less heat than synthetics. That seems to be the major or almost the only issue on which the Opposition are homing in. When one decodes their comments one sees that they are probably—dare I say it—content with the import of what we are doing.
Mr. James Cran: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement, and especially on what he said about the caravan industry which will have heaved a sigh
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of relief at what he had to say about the possible effects of the draft regulations on the new and used caravan markets. So that I may confirm my understanding, will he confirm the nature of the exemption for second-hand caravans because, as I think he knows, a slowdown in second-hand sales has a detrimental effect on new sales?
Mr. Butcher: Second-hand caravans will be excluded, because inclusion would mean that traders would have to change the built-in furniture at a cost disproportionate to the value of the caravan itself. That would force business into private or pseudo-private sales which would escape important safety checks that the majority of caravan dealers are obliged to carry out by virtue of their membership of the National Caravan Council. My hon. Friend will know that those safety checks on important matters such as gas and electricity are undertaken by dealers in second-hand caravans. Because of the importance of those and other tests, we would not want to do anything that diverted caravans out of that route.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Could we hark back to the question put by my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney)? They ought to be added to Mr. Speaker's list of those Back Benchers who altered events by their actions. The Minister has a PPS and nine expert civil servants in the Box. Before the end of questions on this statement, could he get an answer to the issue about testing of standard polyurethane foam? This is a crucial matter.
Mr. Butcher: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Before I agreed to make the statement I gave instructions to the Box that I wanted no pieces of paper fluttering along the Bench. I do not know whether the people in the Box are complying with that regulation. We came to the view that for covering fabric and foam, this would be an inappropriate test for the great majority of furniture which usually contains other filling materials. I now clearly understand the hon. Gentleman's point and I shall come back to it later.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: I thank my hon. Friend for listening to representations. Will he bear in mind the interest being shown by overseas regulatory agencies in the British-manufactured Firesafe carbon fibre and wool blocking agent, which has considerable advantages not only in terms of safety but of utility and economy?
Mr. Butcher: Yes, I shall certainly consider that.
Mr. James Couchman: I have not heard my hon. Friend mention the reupholstery trade, which is carried out by small traders—often single traders. How will he bring the new regulations to their attention and how will the new regulations affect them? Upholsterers who deal with my trade—hotel and catering—are concerned that they will not have ready access to the new materials, which may be in short supply because the major manufacturers will take up most of what is available in the early stages.
Mr. Butcher: My hon. Friend will have heard my earlier comments about the pre-1950 and post-1950 regimes. My major concern is foam, which is the most dangerous modern development that we seek to tackle in the proposals.

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We are prepared to test mixtures of materials, such as those used in reupholstery, to ignition source 2 because we believe that the properties of non-foam when it burns are different, so that test is more relevant.
Mr. Kenneth Hind: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the regulations. In his statement, he referred to miscellaneous matters, including cushions. Does he intend to include cushion covers sold separately from cushions or does he intend to include cushion covers, which are normally upholstered material of the same type as curtains, in the curtain regulations that his Department is considering?
Mr. Butcher: There will be no requirement for the outer decorative cover of cushions, but the pillow or cushion interior will be required to pass ignition source 2. For that test, the fillings may be tested separately or in combination with an interliner or primary cover. Curtain material, even used over cushions, will not be covered.
Mr. Richard Holt: I am a parliamentary spokesman for the furniture manufacturers, and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his consideration in the consultation period. I also thank his officials for working closely with the furniture manufacturing industry. That has resulted in the date for implementation being brought forward. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the industry is very grateful to the Government for bringing in the regulations at the first opportunity when foams of a fire-resistant nature were available.
The industry has one concern; my hon. Friend did not make one point quite clear. If the regulations are not acceptable within the European Community in the future, will we have to go back a pace for the sake of harmonisation? Will he make it clear that the investment, work and research that the industry has put into reaching these conclusions will not be hammered on the head at some future date in Brussels?
Mr. Butcher: The well-managed and more positive firms in the industry will see this as a marketing opportunity. There are already signs of a positive reaction in anticipation of the regulations.
The European Commission has not entered a formal objection to the draft regulations, but it has requested us to allow equivalent European standards to be used where available. It has also requested that we take account of comments made by member states. We already have the most rigorous regime in Europe. If the Commission seeks a European consensus on minimum requirements, we are well placed to meet those requirements.
Mr. Ray Whitney: Does my hon. Friend accept that the recognition that he has given that the new measures will impose costs on the industry and the public is important and that his acknowledgement that the time scale is short is also crucial? Will he continue—as he has done since he took over responsibility—to maintain close contact with the industry and to take account of technical developments and possibilities and of the concern that still exists about the attractiveness, or lack of it, of the new materials that meet the standards? Finally, and very importantly, will he ensure that the new standards that are to be set for British domestic furniture manufacturers will also be rigorously applied to imported furniture?
Mr. Butcher: There will be equal vigilance to ensure that imports comply with the regulations. I shall, of course, maintain close contact with the industry.
In response to the earlier question raised by the hon. Members for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—the only question that I have not been able to answer—fabrics will be tested over standard foam because that will distinguish better between acceptable and non-acceptable materials.
5.23 pm

Housing (Scotland)
Mr. Nigel Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. A statement was made to the House on 29 March by the Minister responsible for housing in Scotland. That statement affected 800,000 tenants in Scotland who fear the forcible transfer of their tenancies to speculative landlords. He said:
"No solution will be forced on anyone against his or her will."—[Official Report, 29 March 1988; Vol. 130, c. 1003.]
Earlier this week, however, he said of tenants:
"it is possible that a minority might have to transfer against their will."—[Official Report, 27 June 1988; Vol. 136, c. 138–9.]
In view of the fear and alarm that that is causing among Scotland's tenants in the council sector, tenants of the Scottish Special Housing Association and other public sector tenants, there is an urgent requirement for the Government to make their position crystal clear. I wonder whether you, Mr. Speaker, will use your influence and permit the Minister to make a statement today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should genuinely like to answer the hon. Gentleman's point. There has been no reduction in secure tenants' rights and no shift in Government policy on this matter.
The remarks to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and I made during the Commons stages of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, related to the transfer of SSHA tenants to Scottish Homes and to the tenants' choice provisions in part III of that Bill. There is absolutely no question of the Government retreating from the commitments that they gave to tenants on this matter. SSHA tenants will not lose any rights on transfer to Scottish Homes and no tenant will be forced to change to another landlord under the tenants' choice provisions against his or her will.
My remarks during the Report stage of the Housing Bill on Monday night related solely to large-scale voluntary disposals by local authorities. It has always been the case that public sector landlords can dispose of stock to another landlord provided that they have the consent of the Secretary of State, and it has always been possible that
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some tenants might be transferred against their will. That is one reason why we consider it so important that the Secretary of State should have the ability to examine very closely every possible voluntary request from a local authority to dispose of stock. Consequently, we took the opportunity to make absolutely clear the considerations to which the Secretary of State would have regard in examining voluntary applications for disposals, and the protection of tenants will, of course, be a central consideration.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that this will not develop into a debate. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) sought clarification.
Mr. John Maxton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister, but find it astonishing that he should have made a statement in this way. Surely it would have been better for the Minister or the Secretary of State—who seems to prefer cavorting round Scotland on photo opportunities to answering Scottish questions—had applied to you to make a statement.
Mr. Speaker: The Minister did not ask to make a statement at all. It was on a point of order.
Mr. Maxton: The Minister has made a statement, which we now cannot question.
Mr. Michael Fallon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order arises directly from Scottish questions. It is your normal practice, quite rightly and fairly, to give preference to hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies before calling those who take an interest in Scottish affairs but who represent constituencies in England and elsewhere. I wonder whether you will be prepared to vary that practice on occasion. This afternoon, no fewer than 21 Scottish Labour Members failed to turn up—a truancy rate of 40 per cent. Alternatively, perhaps Scottish questions could be rearranged for a day on which Scottish Labour Members are more likely to show up.
Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for who turns up.

Points of Order
5.29 pm
Mrs. Maria Fyfe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I draw to your attention the conduct of a Conservative Member earlier today. When I asked a question in my Scottish accent during Scottish Question Time, this hon. Member had the effrontery to shout, "Speak in English." Such conduct does nothing for what is supposed to be a unitary Parliament. If hon. Members do not understand my accent, that is the least of the things that they do not understand about Scotland.
Mr. Speaker: I am sure that like me, all hon. Members find the hon. Lady's accent entirely charming.
Mr. Tom Clarke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a serious point, and you know that I would not be raising it were it not so. I attended the whole of Scottish Question Time, having tabled a question, as I normally do. I was astonished, as I think all hon. Members were, to hear the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), in a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway), refer to a case in my constituency which I have been pursuing for over six months. In his remarks, the Minister——
Mr. Speaker: Order. This seems to be a continuation of Question Time. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will come to his point of order.
Mr. Clarke: I am seeking your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on a serious matter. When the Minister said that I had sought political asylum for this person, he gave the House the impression that I had agreed that the man should stay in Barlinnie prison for six months. I did no such thing. Can the Minister now be asked to make a statement about that?
Mr. Speaker: I was listening carefully and I heard what the Minister said. Had there been time, I would certainly have called the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) so that he could make his point.

Tenancies of Brewery Companies (Regulation)
5.31 pm
Mr. Speaker: We come now to the presentation of a Bill. Second Reading what day?
Mr. Graham Allen: With permission of the House, now Sir.
Mr. Speaker: No; that cannot be done.
Mr. Allen: In that case, Friday 8 July.
Mr. Graham Allen, supported by Dr. David Clark, Mr. Ron Davies, Dr. Norman A. Godman, Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours. Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Eric Martlew, Mr. Joseph Ashton, Mr. Alan Meale, Mr. Harry Barnes, Mrs. Margaret Beckett and Mr. Frank Haynes, presented a Bill to regulate tenancies of brewery companies; and for other purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8 July and to be printed. [Bill 178.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, Standing Order No. 93 (Public bills relating exclusively to Scotland) shall apply to proceedings on the Electricity (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Bill with the substitution of the words 'committee of the whole House' for the words 'Scottish Standing Committee' in paragraphs (4) and (5) of the Standing Order.—[Mr. Ryder.]

Child Benefit (Forfeiture)
5.32 pm
Mr. Barry Field: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for child benefit to be forfeited by or suspended from parents of persistent truants and vandals.
I thought that I was in grave danger of making parliamentary history by introducing the first ten-minute Bill to be filibustered.
Child benefit costs £4·6 billion every year, one tenth of the entire social security budget. Of that sum, £1·3 billion is paid to 1,790,000 families with an income in excess of £20,000 a year. That is a quarter of the entire expenditure on child benefit, and I cannot accept that collecting taxes and employing an army of civil servants to distribute this universal benefit regardless of need can be justified.
The Bill will begin the process of a long-needed reform of this ludicrous anomaly whereby we spread a little jam thinly rather than concentrating it where it is needed. This measure will establish and highlight the trinity that leads to good citizenship. It consists of: parental responsibility, a sound education and pride in the community.
The forerunner of child benefit was the family allowance, and when he introduced it, Beveridge said that it was a financial aid to parents in meeting their responsibilities and in recognition of certain responsibilities on behalf of the state. The Bill will focus attention on the need for parents to meet those responsibilities in the way in which they bring up their children. Parents and the part that they play are directly related to the way in which children grow up.
In the Home Office report published in 1985, entitled "Parental Supervision and Juvenile Delinquency", of 10 recommendations to parents, number 9 said:
"Turning a blind eye to truancy and unauthorised absences is unlikely to encourage a positive attitude to school."
A recent operation by the West Midlands police, called "Operation Sweeper" returned more than 100 children to either their schools or their parents. Many of the latter were surprised that their children were playing truant, because the school had not informed them.
The Bill requires schools to notify the DHSS when children are absent from school without good cause and this will, in turn, lead to the notification of parents that continued absence could lead to the suspension or forfeiture of child benefit. The point is that parents will no longer be able to plead ignorance as to where children are or what they are up to.
The report into delinquency concluded that a particularly noticeable characteristic of the parents of many of the delinquents was carelessness or laxity in matters of supervision. It found that these parents were less concerned than others to watch over, or know about, their children's doings, their whereabouts or their companions. They failed to enforce or to formulate fixed rules about such things as punctuality, manners, bed time, television viewing or tidying-up. The West Midlands police operation picked up children as young as eight and I cannot and will not accept that it is impossible to regulate the life and actions of children so young.
A recent survey of 10,000 children by the National Housing and Town Planning Council suggests that up to 100,000 schoolchildren are missing school every day to play fruit machines. Later this week, we shall see the
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publication of the Home Office report on amusement machine dependency and delinquency. My Bill will bring to light those parents who are failing to ensure their children's regular attendance at school.
The education authorities are responsible for dealing with truancy and because of this, no national statistics are available. Through my introduction of the Bill, I have been led to conclude that schools are not doing enough to notify parents when their children are absent. Parents have expressed to me surprise and disquiet that they have not been notified, and there is undoubtedly a direct relationship between truancy and crime. During the Birmingham operation, reported crime fell from 82 incidents in April to 46 in May. Children will listen to their parents and copy their example.
A survey commissioned by Blyth Valley council for the Northumberland police and the Keep Britain Tidy Group, found that children blamed their parents for not being strict enough. Of the 2,500 children interviewed, 52 per cent. replied that they would listen to their parents, and only 50 per cent. said that they would listen to the police. Some 40 per cent. said that they would listen to pop stars and only 8 per cent. said that they would listen to the advice of youth club leaders. That was 1 per cent. less than those who would listen to Church leaders or politicians. Parents have power, if only we could encourage them to exercise it.
The final part of this measure would require magistrates to notify the Department of Health and Social Services of children convicted or cautioned for acts of vandalism. Vandalism is estimated to cost the country up to £30 million a year and cleaning up graffiti is costing £23 for every man, woman and child. Let no one suggest that these are problems of poverty. Spray cans of paint, that most popular tool for the graffiti gorilla, cost money, as do the fish and chip papers and Coca-Cola cans that litter the streets, and the over-loud transitor radios. All this behaviour is a manifestation of anti-social behaviour. It is the product of an affluent society in which children are all too often, to use the modern phrase, allowed to do their own thing.
Only yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary at the London conference on vandalism revealed that more than 4,000 vandals were aged between 10 and 13. That shows that they often start their careers at 10 or younger.
I do not propose that the money saved by my proposal will be returned to the Treasury. It will go to finance the working and administration of the measure, and to be distributed to local charities and social workers who specialise in helping children with behavioural difficulties. This would strengthen the tie between the community and the child. The current universal payment by the state is too remote.
There is little that is revoluntionary in the Bill. Since 1983, the DHSS has funded over 100 projects serving juvenile offenders to seek to provide alternatives to custody and care. Suspending child benefit, which in many cases benefits everyone except the child, will, I hope, bring the child and parent back into partnership so that we bring up better Britons for a better future for our nation.
In the 1920s, and 1940s, Eleanor Rathbone wrote "The Disinherited Family" and "The Case for Family Allowances". Her campaign led ultimately to child benefit as we know it today. She said:

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"Children are not simply a private luxury, they are an asset to the community."
My Bill will ensure an end to parental disinterest. It will ensure that children are an asset to the community. The Bill is not an attack on the poor because child benefit is counted as a resource for families on income support, but it is an attack on parents who fail properly to bring up their children.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House divided: Ayes 37, Noes 123.

Division No. 391]

[5.39 pm

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Hunter, Andrew

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Janman, Tim

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Boswell, Tim

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Brazier, Julian

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

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

Mans, Keith

Buck, Sir Antony

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Budgen, Nicholas

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Carrington, Matthew

Paice, James

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Redwood, John

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Shaw, David (Dover)

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

Strang, Gavin

Devlin, Tim

Watts, John

Farr, Sir John

Widdecombe, Ann

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Gow, Ian

Tellers for the Ayes:

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Mr. Irvine Patnick and

Holt, Richard

Mr. David Evans.

NOES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Allen, Graham

Corbett, Robin

Alton, David

Corbyn, Jeremy

Anderson, Donald

Cousins, Jim

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Armstrong, Hilary

Dalyell, Tam

Ashton, Joe

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Dixon, Don

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Douglas, Dick

Battle, John

Duffy, A. E. P.

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Beckett, Margaret

Eastham, Ken

Beith, A. J.

Evans, John (St Helens N)

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

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Bermingham, Gerald

Fearn, Ronald

Bidwell, Sydney

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Flannery, Martin

Blair, Tony

Foster, Derek

Boateng, Paul

Fyfe, Maria

Bradley, Keith

Galbraith, Sam

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Buchan, Norman

Gordon, Mildred

Caborn, Richard

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Callaghan, Jim

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Canavan, Dennis

Haselhurst, Alan

Clelland, David

Heffer, Eric S.

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

402

Hinchliffe, David

Radice, Giles

Hood, Jimmy

Rhodes James, Robert

Howells, Geraint

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Robertson, George

Hume, John

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Kennedy, Charles

Salmond, Alex

Kilfedder, James

Sedgemore, Brian

Kirkwood, Archy

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Leighton, Ron

Short, Clare

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Skinner, Dennis

Livingstone, Ken

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Livsey, Richard

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

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Soley, Clive

Loyden, Eddie

Spearing, Nigel

McCartney, Ian

Steel, Rt Hon David

McGrady, Eddie

Strang, Gavin

McKelvey, William

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

McNamara, Kevin

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

McWilliam, John

Turner, Dennis

Madden, Max

Vaz, Keith

Mallon, Seamus

Wall, Pat

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Wallace, James

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Wareing, Robert N.

Maxton, John

Wigley, Dafydd

Michael, Alun

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Wilson, Brian

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Winnick, David

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Worthington, Tony

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Wray, Jimmy

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Mullin, Chris

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Tellers for the Noes:

O'Brien, William

Mr. Frank Haynes

Pike, Peter L.

and Mr. Alan Meale.

Quin, Ms Joyce

Question accordingly negatived.
5.50 pm
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Has anyone informed you in the last few minutes that there may have to be an interruption in the Government's proceedings, because the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) voted in both Division Lobbies? We want to know now what is the Government's policy on child benefit, in view of the fact that the hon. Lady voted in both Lobbies.
Are you also aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there was a bit of a schemozzle when the Under-Secretary of State, having voted for the motion, was then confronted by a set of pickets in excess of six against the Tory code of practice? They tried to stop her entering the Lobby because they had captured her vote. She then proceeded to enter and vote in the other Lobby. That calls for a statement of policy, so that the House may know exactly where the Government stand on child benefits.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): It is not at all unusual to have a little schemozzle in this place. As to the Minister having voted in both Lobbies, that is not unique or without precedent.

Northern Ireland Act 1974
5.52 pm
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Tom King): I beg to move,
That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Inteim Period Extension) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 7th June, be approved.
This is the fourteenth time that such an order has been moved to extend further the operation of the Northern Ireland Act 1974. It provides an opportunity to review the events and developments of the past year and to examine some aspects of particular concern in the coming year. I intend to speak first about the economic situation, secondly about security, and thirdly about political developments.
The House will know that the steady improvement in the British economy has been reflected by much greater buoyancy this year in Northern Ireland. We can take some encouragement from the significant fall in unemployment. There are about 10,000 fewer unemployed than there were when we met to debate the order last year, and employment, and within that manufacturing employment, have both increased. To all those who have been in contact with them, there is much greater buoyancy and activity in both the Irish Development Board and the Local Enterprise Development Unit than there was two or three years ago, because of the number of active inquiries being pursued.
Significantly, the IDB is dealing substantially less with rescue cases and maintaining jobs and more with the creation of additional new jobs. I think of the headlines of the past few months and of the announcements that there have been about further investment and expansion. I know some of the names by heart; Herdmans, Moy Park, Norbrook Laboratories, Ormeau, Glen Electric, Du Pont, STC and a number of others, which include two major carpet investments. They are all very encouraging in the development of the Northern Ireland economy.
We are conscious that while there has been that improvement, the level of unemployment remains unacceptably high throughout Northern Ireland and appallingly high in some parts of the Province. We still have a long way to go, and I recognise that, although I can point to a much happier prospect across the breadth of a wide range of industries in Northern Ireland—and the fact that it is much more diversified than it was is encouraging in itself—in some of the largest engineering companies—particularly in Belfast—unemployment remains a matter of continuing concern. The Northern Ireland Economic Council drew attention in its report to some of the problems.
At the same time, the skill and resilience of Northern Ireland industry and commerce has been encouraging, even against the background of difficulty in some major firms. The British economy is now into its eighth successive year of growth and we now see all the signs of economic improvement. In the south-east, there are shortages of skilled labour and of accommodation for workers and management, which make Northern Ireland an increasingly attractive location.
My own view is that Northern Ireland now has the best opportunity it may ever have had for attracting new investment into the Province. I believe that I speak regardless of party and of political attitudes to other
404
matters, and for every hon. Member representing a Northern Ireland constituency and for every Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, when I say that we have a total commitment to achieving whatever improvements we can in investment and employment in the Province.
Sir John Farr: Before leaving that very important subject, can my right hon. Friend say whether he will be able to respond favourably to the opportunity that has presented itself for building the largest passenger ship in the world in Belfast? If that opportunity can be seized, it will transform the whole of Ulster's economy.
Mr. King: That project is of the greatest interest and if it can be achieved for Northern Ireland on a satisfactory basis, it will be of considerable benefit not only to Harland and Wolff but also to a wide range of subcontractors throughout the Province and in the United Kingdom. However, I cannot today comment further on that matter. We are just starting to receive the detailed costings and are examining the figures. We shall make a further comment about the approach to the situation at Harland and Wolff and to that project shortly.
Mr. Peter Robinson: The Secretary of State will know that there has been considerable speculation in the Province, not only in the media but generally, concerning the possible privatisation of Harland and Wolff. Can he say whether he or any of his Ministers has had talks recently with any shipowner or potential shipyard purchaser, and whether that is the direction of Government policy on Harland and Wolff? Can he also say whether he would make subject to the purchase of Harland and Wolff the giving of finance to Ravi Tikkoo for the Ultimate Dream?
Mr. King: I have referred rather obliquely to that important aspect, and I understand why the hon. Gentleman has pressed me to be a little clearer. I hope that we will be able to say something about our approach very shortly, possibly in the next couple of days. I can say now that we have made it clear, as it is Government policy, that we are seriously interested in any possibilities for privatisation. We believe philosophically that it is the right way to proceed, and we are also interested in it as a possible way forward for Harland and Wolff. The hon. Gentleman knows very well the considerations that would have to arise and the problems that would have to be tackled.
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: Will my right hon. Friend also include Short Brothers in any statement that he makes about privatisation?
Mr. King: I shall not do so immediately, but Northern Ireland Questions are first in tomorrow's business, and the matter may arise then.
This better economic prospect—this chance to see at last a real future for many young people in the Province, who may have thought not long ago that they had little prospect of employment and a future—is there. The risk that is posed to it, however, is all too clear. We now face a possible threat from the recent terrorist outrages to any further investment that we might seek to achieve. This puts into the starkest relief the point that if terrorism continues—if those who pretend to be concerned about employment and a better future for young people continue their terrorist outrages—they will destroy the future that those

405
young people might be justified in expecting. That has always been of concern to us, but it is of particular concern now.
Mr. David Alton: Before the Secretary of State leaves the subject of the economy in Northern Ireland, may I look forward to his White Paper on fair employment, to be published on Friday? Does he not accept that in the context of 18 per cent. unemployment in the Province, where unemployment is two and a half times higher among young Catholics than among young Protestants, the timetable that he has set is probably not ambitious enough? Will he tell the House how long he thinks it will be before that ratio changes?
Mr. King: In the interest of time, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will excuse me. We have a full day's debate on the subject on Friday, and today's debate has been appallingly truncated by all the statements.
Whatever policies there may be to seek to end discrimination and provide more opportunities and more fairness, those policies all depend on the creation of more jobs. That is at the heart of them, and it is why in my time as Secretary of State I have laid such emphasis and worked so hard on the economic aspect, trying to get more jobs into Northern Ireland. The skills, opportunities, talents and facilities are there; it only takes persuasion, in a sense, along with an understanding of the realities of life in the Province and, above all, a major reduction in terrorist activity.
I do not wish to dwell too much on the statistics for the deaths and apalling injuries that have occurred, awful as they are. But in all the years of violence in the Province, the past year has been marked by the peculiar awfulness of some of the atrocities that have occurred. It has also been marked by the clearest confirmation that the terrorists now have no inhibitions about the targets that they are prepared to attack, or the consequences of their attacks. Considering the events that in the past year have been considered perfectly acceptable occasions for the committing of atrocities—a Remembrance day parade, two funerals, a charity marathon and now a school bus run—that shows more clearly than anything that could be said that there is no longer any inhibition or restraint, but an acceptance of casualties wherever they may occur.
The blind hatred for one school bus driver that made terrorists willing to cause death and suffering to any of those children—Protestant and Catholic as they were—beggars description. I do not believe that we have yet heard one of those nauseating excuses such as the claim that someone else detonated the bomb at Enniskillen. The truth is that no excuse can justify what happened yesterday, or any other atrocity. If there was some malfunction of the detonation device—or whatever other nauseating excuse may be given for yesterday's incident—the fact remains that anyone who plants explosives on a school bus, unless he is mentally deficient, knows perfectly well that there is a risk that children may be killed or maimed.
From the events of the past year, we see beneath the balaclava the true and evil face of those who seek to take power in Ireland. They are striving to reach their objective over the bodies of their fellow citizens, wading through the blood of grievously injured children. Those events are the clearest possible reinforcement for the determination that we need to ensure that the men of violence shall not win.
406
Our prayers must now be for Gillian Latimer, who at this moment is fighting for her life in the royal Victoria hospital.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the time has now come for him to take steps to keep from the council chambers of Northern Ireland the godfathers of the murderers? Does he not realise that Unionists find it very difficult to have to sit in a council chamber with those who will not even rise to their feet to express their sympathy, and who support and try to justify what happened in that school bus yesterday? Does not the right hon. Gentleman also think that the Unionist people are right in their contention that the SDLP should now cease talking to the representatives of Sinn Fein?
Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman knows that I have made absolutely clear my understanding of the deep feeling of Unionists about having to sit in council chambers with people who behave in the way that he has described, and who support and subscribe to the use of violence. The truth is that there is no clean or selective use of violence. The sadness of the awful injuries suffered by Gillian Latimer is that that is what will happen if people go out with guns and bombs and place them wherever their targets may be. In many cases. inevitably, those will he the consequences.
I am very sympathetic to the point made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) about people who support the use of violence sitting on councils. In answer to the second part of his question, I am extremely concerned that Sinn Fein, which is so totally identified with the IRA, should not, in any talks which may be taking place, on which I have made my views absolutely clear, be allowed somehow to dictate the terms in Northern Ireland, and become the obstacle to sensible, constructive discussion between the democratic constitutional parties.
Sir John Biggs-Davison: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has been very courteous to the House. Since the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) mentioned the attitude of the SDLP, perhaps one could say a word of commendation to the SDLP councillors in Fermanagh who voted with the Unionists to unseat the Sinn Fein chairman of the council because he had refused to condemn the Enniskillen atrocities.
Mr. King: We noted that. One of the encouraging developments in the last council elections—I am sorry to say that it was not universal, as there were one or two appointments about which I have considerable reservations—was that there was a willingness to recognise that another constitutional party that had a point of view was in the council chamber, and a recognition that senior posts such as the mayor or the chairman could be held by different parties. That development gave many people who care about Northern Ireland real encouragement.
Mr. Seamus Mallon: I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. So that we may have a total view of the situation in councils, will the Secretary of State confirm that in Newry and Mourne council Sinn Fein is in an unholy alliance with members of the DUP

407
and the Official Unionist party in opposition to the party which I represent, and that that unholy alliance has existed for the past four years?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I am not sure how these matters relate to the motion before the House. We should direct our attention more closely to the motion.
Mr. King: I shall not respond to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon).
Rev. William McCrea rose——
Mr. King: I am sure that the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea) wishes to cite another council where there would be very strong reservations about the decision that was taken. I said that in certain councils I welcome the development of recognition by one party that there was another party in the council chamber.
Rev. William McCrea: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. King: With great respect, in fairness to the House I must make progress.
As the House knows we are facing a serious situation on the security front. Into the hands of evil men—and there are evil men on both extremes in Northern Ireland—have come additional sources of weapons, which, in certain respects, have a capability well in excess of that held by terrorists in previous years. We know that the terrorists are determined to intensify their campaign.
Perhaps against that background we recognise best the enormous debt we owe to the courage, skill and professionalism of the security forces. In the past year there have been some absolutely appalling and tragic incidents in Northern Ireland, but in many cases they could have been very much worse and a number of dangerous incidents have been prevented by the skill, intelligence, ability and courage of the security forces.
We have the skills to defeat the terrorists. Those skills must be deployed within Northern Ireland, but we need the fullest support and co-operation from the Republic. It is a matter of the greatest importance that those arms shipments that we believe are in the Republic of Ireland now, and that include certain additional elements that could cause great suffering, are recovered at the earliest opportunity. I reaffirm the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the Taoiseach yesterday and the commitment to the very closest co-operation in this field. I particularly welcome the new appointments and the reorganisation in the Garda, which I hope will be helpful in that respect.
As for our own security efforts, in which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has been extremely active, we are seeking to apply across the whole range of opportunity every weapon that civilised democratic society can bring to bear against the evil of terrorism. It involves the security forces and their professionalism and arrangements for a new brigade covering the border area, the determination to retain the additional two Army battalions in the Province, and the excellent work and close co-operation between the RUC, the RUC reserve and the UDR.
We are determined to bring every weapon to bear on the industry that supports the terror campaign and to
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improve the chances of conviction. The amendment to the Criminal Justic Bill to introduce the potential for genetic fingerprinting in Northern Ireland may be very helpful in getting proper convictions, given the difficulties of obtaining evidence. Undoubtedly, public emotions aroused by the recent atrocities can be best harnessed to the support of the security forces by the new freephone—with an easily identifiable number for the confidential telephone that has proved extremely effective in increasing the flow of information and help to the security forces.
We are seeking to restrict the funds available to terrorist organisations by tackling the resources gained from smuggling, racketeering, fraud and protection rackets. We are determined to tackle from every possible aspect ways in which we can bring extra pressure to bear gradually to tighten the net around the terrorists in the interests of a better future for all people in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Does the House have an assurance from the Secretary of State that he himself knows on whose authority and under what authority that bug was placed in the hay yard where Michael Tighe met his death? Do we have an assurance that the Secretary of State approves of the way in which that was done?
Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman has tabled a question to me precisely on that matter tomorrow and I shall answer it then.
While I have talked about the vigorous pursuit of effective security, we are determined to fight terrorism under the law. In the past year we have been concerned to take every step we can to help increase throughout the communities of Northern Ireland confidence in the effective and fair operation of the law. It is worth noting that since we last met we have published and made publicly available the code of conduct for the RUC. We have also established the independent Police Complaints Commission. A complaints procedure in respect of the Army is now in place and we have taken a number of steps relating to the operation of the courts in the treatment of accused persons and their rights.
One step to which I pledged myself soon after taking on my present responsibilities, was an attempt to reduce the tremendous time it took for cases to appear for trial and the considerable delays affecting people who wanted to appeal against conviction. We have made considerable improvements, but we are anxious to ensure that any other steps which help are carried through so that people get fair treatment.
Another matter has attracted considerable attention. I undertook, in my statement of 17 February, to keep the House informed about matters arising from the Stalker-Sampson inquiry in respect of matters which fall within my responsibility. The House will be aware that the Police Authority for Northern Ireland has today issued a statement on its consideration of matters arising from observations made by Mr. Sampson in connection with the Chief Constable, the deputy chief constable and Assistant Chief Constable Forbes of the RUC. It has resolved that no disciplinary proceedings should be taken in respect of those three senior officers. I shall arrange for copies of the authority's statement to be placed in the Library.

409
As to the other ranks, the Chief Constable of the RUC announced last week that he has now received the report from Mr. Charles Kelly, and a decision on the nature of any charges and their preferment is likely to come shortly.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. King: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, but I shall give way to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
Mr. Kevin McNamara: The right hon. Gentleman said, "charges and their preferment". Surely the burden of what the Attorney-General said is that they should be disciplinary offences and that there are no charges in the sense of criminal charges, which is how it might be misunderstood outside.
Mr. King: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If there is any misunderstanding, I should make it clear that, if there are any charges, this is a matter for disciplinary charges. It is certainly not one for criminal charges. As the hon. Gentleman said, that was made clear by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in his statement.
Rev. William McCrea: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. King: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I should like to get on with my speech.
Mr. Mallon: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. King: I hope that every hon. Member will have an opportunity to speak, and my hon. Friend the Minister will deal in his winding-up speech with any matters that arise. I have given way a lot.
During the debate on the order one year ago, I talked about the lack of democratic involvement of the people of Northern Ireland in the government of the Province. I also talked about the need to discuss ideas which might be helpful to get a dialogue going. I looked not just to the Unionist parties, but also to the constitutional Nationalist parties for a constructive response. I noticed that, during the debate, the hon. Member for Antrim, North acknowledged that the task would not be easy, but he pledged himself to working for a Northern Ireland
"where there can be real peace, real stability and real reconciliation".—[Official Report, 7 July 1987; Vol. 119, c. 215]
The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) spoke of
"feeling our way forward … not engaging in any high-wire acts, but building solidly on constructive approaches and workable and realistic suggestions".—[Official Report, 7 July 1987; Vol. 119, c. 253.]
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) said:
"the only way in which we can build trust among ourselves is by working together to administer the place. Through working together we will build the trust that has been missing over the years and diminish the distrust and prejudice."—[Official Report, 7 July 1987; Vol. 119, c. 245.]
I was encouraged by the very positive tone of those speeches. They were the starting point for me in my efforts, during the past year, to see whether we can make some progress.
I have had a number of bilateral meetings with the political parties to discuss the future government of Northern Ireland. There have been many signs of a new
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approach, which the House will welcome. I sense a much greater acceptance now among the political parties of Northern Ireland of the need for political dialogue and constructive thinking about the future.
I held several meetings with Unionist leaders. Earlier this year, the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley and the hon. Member for Antrim, North outlined their proposals for changes in how Northern Ireland is governed. The Unionist leaders were frank that they would show how far they would go only in proper negotiations with other political parties and that our dialogue was not such a negotiation. The ideas put to me were a starting point—an earnest of the intent of Unionist parties and confirmation of their interest in moving towards devolved government.
I very much welcome the fact that Unionists have something constructive to say and that they have shown that they have ideas which could be put on the table for discussion. In the light of my exploratory talks with Unionists, and in the same spirit, I sought from the SDLP leadership a statement of their attitudes towards the government of Northern Ireland. They told me that they support devolution and are willing to talk to other constitutional parties about political progress. I look to them in the spirit of last year's debate to find ways in which to carry forward their anxiety to work with Unionists.
I should add that the Alliance party of Northern Ireland and others not represented in the House have also told me that they strongly support movement towards devolution and are ready to contribute towards wider discussions.
I noticed from the speech that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North made in Belfast yesterday that, while he supports the unification of Ireland, he recognises that the Irish Government accept, through the Anglo-Irish Agreement, that the reform of Northern Ireland should take precedence over any political ambitions.
The House will be aware that there has recently been speculation that some other way forward than devolution may be found. I do not wish to restrict the scope of future discussion, but I shall explain why I still believe that movement towards devolution is the right course. In all my talks recently, I have made clear the continuing commitment of both Governments to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which commitment was repeated yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach.
The agreement embodies certain fundamental principles which are vital to Northern Ireland's future. They include the affirmation by both Governments that the status of Northern Ireland can be changed only by consent, acceptance of the need for close security co-operation with the Irish Government in our common cause against terrorism, the need to increase confidence among the minority community in the administration of Northern Ireland affairs and support for progress towards devolution. Those are the principles to which both Governments are committed.
I have also made it clear in discussions with the political parties that I remain ready to listen to and to consider concerns about the agreement, which I know are widely felt. I have made it clear that any wider discussions between the parties should take place without preconditions—I stress that again—and that such discussions are quite separate from the workings of the agreement.

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We and the Irish Government are due to review the workings of the Intergovernmental Conference later this year. A devolved settlement would have major implications for the agreement, as devolved matters would be removed from the ambit of the conference. The greater the devolution, the wider the impact.
The thrust of my discussions with the parties to date has been to seek movement to or towards devolution. It is clear from the history of the past 15 years that lasting agreement on devolution is difficult to achieve. It requires adjustments on the part of everyone. Those adjustments will not be easy to make or to make quickly. Nevertheless, I continue to believe that movement towards or to devolution would best serve the interests of all the people of Northern Ireland.
There are three fundamental reasons for my belief. With every year of direct rule that passes it becomes ever clearer that the elected representatives of the Province lack adequate opportunity to participate in and take responsibility for decisions about the future of Northern Ireland. A devolved legislative assembly would offer people from Northern Ireland control over local services across the Province and real authority over, for example, priorities for education, industrial development, personal social services and the environment. Those are all matters for which local elected representatives should take responsibility.
The second fundamental point is that my talks with the parties have confirmed that devolution is the form of government most likely to command widespread acceptance and support in the community. I do not underestimate the wide differences of perception nor the past difficulties in seeking to achieve devolution. The parties tell me they support the objective of devolution and I believe that they are more likely to agree on steps in that direction than any other.
One of the most important reasons for seeking movement towards devolution—the hon. Member for Foyle got to the heart of this in the quotation I gave earlier—is that two traditions have to live together in Northern Ireland. Sectarianism must be rooted out of the Province. It is no good political leaders criticising sectarianism on the streets when all too often the main political parties appear to be trapped within its confines and are not seen to be giving any leadership in working constructively together with the other tradition.
Movement towards devolution would demonstrate that leadership and would return to Northern Ireland a much greater measure of responsibility for its own affairs. I have noticed comments recently about Northern Ireland being treated as a colony and people have complained about its status as a colony. Yet those comments are made by people who have consistently refused to pursue the opportunities for much greater responsibility for the affairs of the Province.
I do not suggest that a devolved form of government will be established easily or overnight. It is probable that, initially, it may be easier to reach agreement on steps towards devolution which might provide for a greater local input to decision-making. I see the next positive step as being for the political parties to start talking about those things together with the Government. With the benefit of the bilateral exploratory discussions behind us I believe we
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should now be looking for ways of quickening the pace and making further realistic and sustained progress. The next step is clearly inter-party dialogue about the future arrangements for Government in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Ian Gow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. King: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not give way.
I know very well that those suggestions can immediately give rise to every sort of problem and difficulty. The most amateur politician in Northern Ireland has no difficulty inventing or identifying an obstacle to any course of action. We ought to take as our text for today the remembrance that this is the 14th occasion on which the temporary provisions have been renewed. It is the 14th occasion on which we have failed to make progress because on every occasion somebody has managed to find an obstacle or a difficulty or present a reason why nobody is willing to talk.
I say to all hon. Members who will take part in this debate, we have had problems about maintaining a dialogue. We are now, I hope, going to see part of the dialogue take place. That is what the United Kingdom Parliament should make possible. We shall see now whether people wish to identify the obstacles or whether they wish to move forward and see whether there is some way in which we can make a constructive contribution.
I cannot compel agreement but I can certainly do all I can to point the way. I have had the honour of being Secretary of State for nearly three years and I hope that hon. Members will concede that I have sought to show my commitment to the Province and my admiration for the people who live there for their courage and resilience against what is often appalling provocation and trial. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland, who are my great encouragement in my work, to see whether we can point the way forward. It is what the people want and I hope that this 14th renewal debate can be the occasion on which we respond to their cry. I hope that every right hon. and hon. Member who takes part in the debate will see ways in which, instead of identifying the obstacles, they can recognise where there may be bridges to cross so that we can embark on a more constructive phase.
6.36 pm
Mr. Kevin McNamara: For the 14th year in succession we are being asked to renew direct rule in Northern Ireland. On the previous such occasion the Secretary of State, newly reconfirmed in his position, said:
"I am moving for the 13th time an interim extension order."—[Official Report, 7 July 1987; Vol. 119, c. 205.]
I interpreted that, I hope charitably, as a slip of the tongue. Perhaps, carrying his awesome responsibilities, he felt that he was moving the order for the 13th time. If the former was correct, it was the third such order. If the latter was correct, perhaps he should have thought that it was the 19th or 20th time. Perhaps that is the reason why the press have been unkindly suggesting that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) is waiting in the wings to do for Northern Ireland what he did for Liverpool—one garden festival but the basic problems left unsolved. The thought of the right hon. Member for Henley as the McClark Kent of Stormont castle boggles the imagination. I hope that we will hear no more of it.

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What worries me is that there may come a time when the House is asked to renew direct rule for the 19th or 20th time. I am sure that if those who took part in the debate on 15 July 1974, when the legislation that we are renewing went through all its stages in one day, had known that they would have been extending the extension 15 years later, they would have reacted differently. The Bill went through all its stages without a Division on a point of principle. On the one Division that did occur, the Ayes were a mere 11.
It was clear at the time that the Bill was generally welcomed by the Unionists, but there were serious misgivings by the Nationalists. My then hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West, now Lord Fitt, said:
"I cannot pretend to welcome the Bill, coming as it does in the wake of the downfall of the Executive, the power sharing Government and the Sunningdale Agreement which I believe had the support of many people in Northern Ireland who wanted to see justice and a fair Government."—[Official Report, 15 July 1974; Vol. 877, c. 66.]
The direct provision in the Bill was incidental to its central intent, which, as hon. Members will recall, was the establishment of the constitutional convention
"for the purpose of considering what provision for the government of Northern Ireland is likely to command the most widespread acceptance throughout the community there."
After 14 years of direct rule, and knowing the lack of success of the Convention, we can only conclude that, although the people of Northern Ireland are united in their dislike of direct rule, it is at present—regrettably—the only type of government which is tolerable for most in both traditions; it is a highest common factor form of government. If that is the case, so far as I am concerned it sticks in the throat. I dislike the concept of direct rule and I am sure that most people in Northern Ireland—Unionists and Nationalists alike—regard it as second best. It is patronising, undemocratic, unaccountable, remote and inefficient, and it has gone on for too long.
It was interesting that the Secretary of State referred to some powers which could return to Northern Ireland. One is no doubt education. We are imposing on Northern Ireland an education system designed for England and Wales when every voice of popular opinion in Northern Ireland—I stress, every voice—is against the bulk of those provisions and proposals. However, what is even more interesting is that it lies within the powers of the Members of Parliament of both communities in Northern Ireland to take those provisions from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and to decide their own future in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.
It often seems that for Northern Ireland, legislation which is intended to be permanent proves temporary, and legislation which is intended to be temporary, distressingly, becomes too persistent. The emergency provisions legislation has been with us since 1973. The temporary provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1972 have been with us since and the emergency provisions of the Payments for Debt Act 1971 have been with us since. We have been renewing interim period extension orders for 14 years.
Surely it is time that everybody involved made a determined effort to get rid of all the apparatus of extraordinary legislation relating to Northern Ireland. Opposition Members would be happy if we could begin with direct rule and transfer much of what we discuss here to representatives of the people of Northern Ireland, sitting in Belfast.
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Perhaps we should take a few moments to review some of the ways in which during the past year the Government have exercised the authority that was vested in them by the Northern Ireland Act 1974.
The Secretary of State referred to a number of security measures as items for possible future legislation. Subject always to examination, we will give our full support to anything that can stop the godfathers: the trafficking in drugs; extortion; and the falsifying of accounts. We will support such measures, always subject to the content of the legislation and the way in which it is to be implemented.
I hope that when the Minister replies he will respond to my next point. At the time of the Private Thain matter, the general impression was that the position of prisoners held at the Secretary of State's pleasure, and especially those convicted between the ages of 18 and 21, would be carefully examined. In a recent letter to me, the Secretary of State said that he was still considering what to do about that. It would be helpful to the House if we could have some announcement on that.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) will talk about economic matters, I should like to refer to some other events of the past year which the Secretary of State glossed over to some extent. It was announced in 1987 that the Secretary of State was considering the reintroduction of an oath against violence as a condition of election to local government, a requirement specifically outlawed previously by the Conservative Government in 1973.
The Government have refused to repeal the Payments for Depts Act 1971 under which, in the first three quarters of 1987, they clawed back £1,023,053 of invalidity benefit from disabled people in Northern Ireland relating to an emergency dating back to internment and Stormont legislation. In 1987, the Government also announced their intention to end single payments for social fund payments. That step will have a disproportionate effect on Northern Ireland, where unemployment and poverty are greater than in any other part of Britain.
The Government displayed an extraordinary mixture of arrogance and insensitivity in their inept and craven response to the Stalker-Sampson report. Opposition Members demanded a judicial inquiry at the time. Civil liberties organisations, such as the National Council for Civil Liberties in London, and the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Belfast, also called for a judicial inquiry, joining our demand. Now Amnesty International, an organisation which produces reports that the Government respect when they apply to the Soviet Union, Uganda or Indonesia, has called for a judicial inquiry into the disputed killings in Northern Ireland—a call which the Secretary of State has rejected.
There is also today's surprising report from the police authority which the Secretary of State glossed over quickly. That is an extraordinary and amazing situation. By a majority of one, the police authority concluded
"that it was not necessary to appoint an investigating officer to enquire further into Mr. Sampson's observations",
and resolved that no disciplinary proceedings needed to be taken in any of the three cases.
It is extraordinary how that majority of one in that police authority should come to back three senior officers. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall and to hear how that majority was achieved and what happened. By no stretch of the imagination can that majority of one be

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regarded as a unanimous decision and vote of confidence in the three senior police officers of the most controversial police force in the United Kingdom. Of course, it was democratic and it was a majority of one, but let us see what that majority of one decided that they would not inquire into.
The police authority stated:
"Mr. Sampson commented that the conduct of the three Chief Officers justified criticism and referred to short-comings in both operational and administrative matters. The criticisms revolved around operational planning, operational procedures, the conduct of an investigation into certain matters arising out of two of the shootings and an alleged lack of assistance to the Stalker/Sampson enquiry team. The officers concerned strongly denied that these criticisms were valid."
There was a majority of one in a police authority of 16. Was that majority of one achieved by the casting vote? How many people were present and voted on that occasion? A planted question was tabled today about what is to happen to the new police authority. It would be nice to know how many of that minority will be reappointed and, for that matter, how many of the majority.
The one thing that is certain is that that vote by the police authority will not do anything to restore confidence. If the three top officers are still not to be investigated—I should state immediately that the authority said that it was not culpability that was at issue, but a possible further investigation, presumably to find whether they were culpable, in view of what Mr. Sampson said and in view of their escape by one vote—that is scarcely something that will give confidence about the administration of security in Northern Ireland.
That issue raises questions about the other matters into which Chief Constable Kelly has been looking because if those three senior officers have got off without even an inquiry, by a majority decision, democracy is working for those three senior officers for whom there was a vote, but for other officers there is straight disciplinary procedure—although it would look most unfair if strong disciplinary charges were preferred lower down the line. If disciplinary charges are deserved—and we do not yet know what is in the report—they should be preferred, but if they are preferred against the juniors, their superiors should be investigated for culpability. If there are two standards in this matter, it cannot be a good omen for morale within the force or for the general organisation and support for the rule of law in Northern Ireland.
In a sense, all this was to be expected when the Government did not support the rule of law and, for reasons of national security, the Attorney-General, or the Director of Public Prosecutions following the advice of the Attorney-General, decided not to prefer criminal charges. That was straight Government interference, which is why we need to have a proper judicial inquiry. What happened just does not stand up.
The country will face widespread and sustained national and international criticism and the Government will no doubt persist with their transparent arguments against a judicial inquiry. We in the Opposition have not changed our minds, and perhaps the Government will reconsider and change their position, for it is certain that the killings in Armagh and the inquiries and procedures that followed will not go away; they will continue to haunt
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the Government, to undermine confidence in the security forces and to demonstrate the Government's spurious claim to adhere to the rule of law.
The Government's insensitivity to Irish sensibilities has been called into question in other areas. Events in Gibraltar and what followed undid what progress had been made following the adoption of more sensitive policing methods for Republican funerals. Timidity in relation to reforms in the administration of justice resulted in a general perception among Nationalists that nothing had or would change.
There was a most extraordinary exchange between former members of the Fine Gael Government, who negotiated the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and the British Government, alleging bad faith, failure to live up to undertakings, and misrepresentation. The collapse of the supergrass system was seen as a defeat of Government policies, rather than as a concession to Nationalist and international feeling.
Only the Government tried to have it both ways. To the Unionist parties they said, "We cannot interfere with the judiciary," and to the Nationalist groups they said, "This is all part of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It shows that it is working and supergrasses have gone." The Government have refused to budge on the Diplock courts and internment powers. The improvements made—and some have been made—are simply viewed with a degree of cynicism and indifference. Over the past year the Government cannot claim much to their credit on those matters.
We welcome the progress that has been made in conjunction with the Irish Government, and the steps taken by the security forces in finding arms and the proper apprehension of people involved in violence. We rejoice when people are brought to trial and convicted, and we are sad when the Government seem to embark on other courses of action which bring Britain's reputation and the rule of law into question.
In November 1985, when we discussed direct rule, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) said of the people of the Unionist tradition in Northern Ireland:
"I recognise their fears, I know they feel beleaguered, and excluded from designing their own destiny, that they live in constant anxiety about a sell-out and that any failure by a British Government to explain their intentions heightens those feelings of fear. I know that they feel that deals have been done behind their back, and some will feel deep and genuine resentment at that … I plead with the majority of non-Nationalists not to be blinded by prejudice. I ask them to see that the sole beneficiaries of a breakdown would be the terrorists, that the objectives of the constitutional nationalists for the foreseeable future are limited to reconciliation and stability, and to see their acceptance of consent as the absolute precondition of any change. I ask them to see that the common cause of peace is a greater cause than the preservation of this miserable murderous status quo."—[Official Report, 26 November 1985; Vol. 87, c.753.]
It was in such conciliatory terms and with an impassioned plea to both sides to try to break out of their ideological prisons that my right hon. Friend called for support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He saw it as an opportunity for all parties in Northern Ireland to think again and as an agreement which offered something to all sides. It offered them then, as now, a real alternative to direct rule.
The problem with the Anglo-Irish Agreement in so far as it affects these issues is that it seems to have closed off

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in people's minds the ability to see the opportunities for a devolved Administration which existed long before the agreement was invented. Since 1969 there have been a series of major initiatives. Sunningdale and the power-sharing executive collapsed in 1974, the convention of 1975 failed, the Atkins conference was abandoned in 1980 and Prior's rolling devolution scheme, out of Mawhinney, produced no power sharing.
Mr. James Molyneaux: But he was promoted.
Mr. McNamara: That may yet happen to the right hon. Gentleman.
All those constructions were attempts to find a basis for a devolved Administration in Northern Ireland. All necessitated reaching an agreement between Nationalists and Unionists, and with the British Government. But because the possibility of devolution was written into the Anglo-Irish Agreement, suddenly for those opposed to the agreement the concept of devolved government seemed tainted in a way that it had not been before, at least in principle, except perhaps in the Sunningdale agreement.
As an example, I wish to consider briefly what seemed to be the essence of what the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said on this matter. If I am inaccurate in summing up what he seemed to say on "Panorama", I am sure that he will forgive me and explain his comments to me. I am considering the possibilities of devolution as an alternative to the direct rule provisions in the order.
The hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying that there were three preconditions for talks between himself and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), on the one hand, and the Taoiseach, Mr. Charles Haughey, on the other. First, he said, there would have to be an internal settlement in Northern Ireland so that the talks were between Dublin and representatives of both traditions in Northern Ireland. Secondly, there had to be a suspension of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, so in practice, an end to meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference and the closure of the secretariat. Thirdly, there had to be an end to talks between the Social Democratic and Labour party and Sinn Fein.
Rev. Ian Paisley: The hon. Gentleman does not have that right, but I shall correct him in my reply. I made it clear that the internal settlement had to come first; that there could be no negotiations until the other prerequisities, for which we have a mandate in our election manifesto, are carried out; and that any talks between Dublin and Belfast would be on a plain of equality with the people responsible for the government of Northern Ireland dealing with matters of mutual interest with the Government in Dublin.
Mr. McNamara: I gave a fair summary of what the hon. Gentleman said, although perhaps not in the order that he would have wished. The problem is that, whatever the talks with Dublin, those representing the North would be speaking from a devolved government position. Although I want talks to take place between all parties on the island of Ireland, the correct people to talk to Dublin are Her Majesty's Government.
Ms. Clare Short: Surely we would all welcome talks between Unionists, Nationalists, Dublin and Belfast and encourage any agreement that they can reach, rather than get in the way of it?
Mr. McNamara: I was not saying that. My speech in Belfast yesterday made it clear that I would welcome talks among all the constitutional parties, North and South, to work out their future government. That is the whole essence of Labour party policy and it is our position. My hon. Friend, at least on this occasion, has correctly stated our policy.
In summing up the position of the hon. Member for Antrim, North, my argument related to the talks that my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) and his party are having with the Provisional Sinn Fein. Their success will obviously depend on whether he can persuade Sinn Fein to end its support for the campaign of violence being conducted by the Provisional IRA and to recognise the significance for all in Ireland of article 1(c) of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, in which the two Governments declare:
"if in the future a majority of the people of Northern Ireland clearly wish for and formally consent to the establishment of a united Ireland, they will introduce and support in the respective Parliaments legislation to give effect to that wish."
In that sense, there is no way that our party, in supporting the agreement—and interpreting it generously for the Government—would stand in the way of the wishes of a majority in Northern Ireland if they wanted to work towards constitutional unification.
Mr. Peter Robinson: Would the hon. Gentleman clarify his party's position? If a majority in Northern Ireland decided upon some course of action other than entering into an all-Ireland republic, would his party stand in the way?
Mr. McNamara: The provisions of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to which we adhere, and to which our Government and the Republic of Ireland Government were signatories, stated clearly, directly and specifically that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom until such time as laid down in paragraph 1(c).
Rev. Ian Paisley: Read it.
Mr. McNamara: I do not have a copy with me. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to tease out of me whether we would go along with the idea of an independent Northern Ireland, the answer simply is no. We do not think that that would in any way help the people of Northern Ireland, the people of Ireland or the people of this country. However, if the Democratic Unionist party is now in favour of an independent Six Counties, perhaps it should make that clear.
Rev. Ian Paisley rose——
Mr. McNamara: No, I shall not—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
Mr. McNamara: If the hon. Gentleman was stating that as his party's position, we know where the Democratic Unionist party stands. If it is not, when he makes his speech he can say so. In his "Panorama" performance, when driven on that particular point, he said, "If needs be, that is it," or words to that effect.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle and his party are seeking to bring an end to violence in the island of Ireland and to influenc the Provisional Sinn Fein to achieve that with the IRA. If that aim is achieved, all hon. Members should applaud and welcome it, because it gets rid of one of the major difficulties to progress in Northern Ireland for the good of the people of Northern Ireland and, especially, for the Nationalists.
The Opposition hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle will be successful in his discussions with the Provisional Sinn Fein because we believe that—[Interruption.] Does the Minister of State want to make a comment?
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. John Stanley): No.
Mr. McNamara: We believe that anything that is likely to end violence is important.
Mr. Alton: Before leaving that point, I am sure that the hon.Gentleman would wish to clarify his position. Surely he is not suggesting that it is proper or sensible for people from Opposition parties to have direct talks with Sinn Fein.
Mr. McNamara: The hon. Gentleman must speak for his party, but I shall make the Labour party's position absolutely clear. The Labour party will not share platforms or talk to people who advocate a policy of the Armalite on the ballot box. In my first speech on Northern Ireland matters, after my right hon. Friend had given me the honour of Front Bench responsibility, I made that point clearly. That is the Labour party's position; it is committed to seeking a united Ireland by consent.
If my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle and his colleagues who are living in and representing people in Northern Ireland, feel that they can bring those who are indulging in some of the most horrific forms of violence—some of which we witnessed yesterday—to stop and instead to pursue a constitutional and democratic way of seeking to achieve their aim, I do not think anybody should seek to prevent them from doing that. We have every confidence that our sister party in the Socialist International is taking the best road for all the people in the island of Ireland.
The second argument of the hon. Member for Antrim, North was that the Anglo-Irish Agreement should be suspended, which is the point from which I started a few moments ago. The important point is that he is looking at the agreement in the wrong way. The agreement carries at its heart the seeds of its own destruction in many of those clauses that are most objectionable to its Unionist opponents. The Opposition support the agreement and will continue to do so until there is something wider, better and in concrete terms that is acceptable to both communities. When that becomes available we will, quite properly, accept it, but until then we shall support the agreement.
This is only our third debate on the review of direct rule since the agreement was made. In all the previous 11 debates, Opposition Members wrestled with the problem of how to end direct rule and to arrive at an internal settlement for Northern Ireland. Surely, after all that time, we should not countenance the argument being moved
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back, so that instead of being, "We must have an internal settlement before we can end direct rule," the argument becomes, "We must have a suspension of the Anglo-Irish Agreement before we can have an internal settlement before we can end direct rule." If we are not careful, such an argument could regress indefinitely or become circular—something, I fear, that might already have happened.
Unionist Members have argued repeatedly for increased security in the Province, and have condemned the Anglo-Irish Agreement as a failure because it has not ended the violence. There is some irony in their argument, for while violence has undoubtedly continued, and the latest horrific, frightening episode was in Linaskea yesterday—it is a strange policy to unite Ireland by blowing it apart and destroying its young people—the agreement has clearly led to improvements in security and security co-operation. In fact, security has been on the agenda at 15 of the 20 meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference, and in the majority of them it has been the major item for discussion.
I have no criticism of that; I welcome any discussion on security and also the increased evidence of co-operation on both sides of the border in the determination to defeat those engaged in violence for political ends. However, I would not minimise, to the extent that the Secretary of State might have done, the ability to do it on an all-Ireland basis. We would welcome the prospect of the reduction of the remit of the Intergovernmental Conference as a result of an agreement on a devolved administration in Northern Ireland.
Let me end with a brief mention of the review of the working of the Intergovernmental Conference. There is no reason to believe that those who are not party to the review—everyone, that is, other than the two Governments—will be able to have a direct and immediate input. Yet I would like to see both Governments using the November review to encourage the Unionists to come in out of the cold and to see whether they can find a way in which those parties can have an input and a say in matters which come before, and are discussed in, the Intergovernmental Conference, and in matters which come before the civil servants in Maryfield.
The approach of the third anniversary of the signing of the agreement could serve as a catalyst for the review by all parties of past attitudes to the agreement. Out of that may come the potential for political movement.
All hon. Members owe it to the people of Northern Ireland to find a way out of the impasse which continues. We need to remind ourselves that, quite apart from the security matters, dreadful and important though they are, and the constitutional matters that are also important, there are social and material matters unrelated to the national question which are of importance to the people of Northern Ireland—concern for jobs, education for their children, security, decent housing and an opportunity to live in peace. Those are the issues that we should be talking about which could properly be the subject about which representatives of the people of Northern Ireland could talk about in a devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland.
If we take the steps necessary to end direct rule, we shall also have moved some distance down the path to peace and reconciliation; to normality in Northern Ireland. We on the Opposition Benches are committed to working for that. We urge the Government and all hon. Members to bend every effort in that direction. If the 13th debate on an interim period extension order led eventually to talks

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without prejudice with the Secretary of State, let us hope that the 14th will lead to an agreement without any prejudices.
7.11 pm
Sir John Biggs-Davison: That this is to be, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) has just reminded us, the 14th interim period extension order, illustrates the truth of the French saying that nothing endures like the provisional. Apart from the post-Sunningdale period of the power-sharing Executive, Northern Ireland has been subjected to quasi-colonial rule by mainland Ministers, and I share some of the criticisms made by the hon. Gentleman of the system of direct rule.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the extension of abortive—I would say lethal—political initiatives. Three Assemblies have been convened and done away with. I say three by including the Constitutional Convention, which was the scene of turbulent events. I recall a friend of mine who was an Assemblyman and was asked by a friend of his what had gone on during the riot in the Constitutional Convention. He said that he was sorry but he could not help. He could not say anything about it because Mrs. Paisley was sitting on his head—Mrs. Paisley being a member of that Constitutional Convention as well as the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).
A hard-pressed Province is now threatened by another Assembly—a legislative assembly, which means an assembly that will make laws separate from this sovereign Parliament. I am disturbed, dismayed and distressed by the insistence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on devolved government as distinct from devolved administration—the phrase used in the Anglo-Irish Agreement. My right hon. Friend's predecessors have pursued the will-o'-the-wisp of a form of devolved government acceptable to both Unionists and Nationalists.
I wish that Her Majesty's Government would not persist in policies and aims that distance Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. How many decades will have to pass before a Conservative and Unionist Government return to the general election commitment drawn up by Airey Neave? He had the workable alternative to direct rule. I am surprised to hear my right hon. Friend say that devolved government had the backing of both Nationalists and Unionists in the Province. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) can help the House on that matter if he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
When it is argued that devolution, in the sense of devolved government, is what the people of Northern Ireland want, I would ask my right hon. Friend whether he has noticed and studied the high degree of support in both parts of the community revealed in public opinion surveys for what is loosely described as integration, by which we mean not governing Northern Ireland as if Belfast were the same as Finchley— not at all. By integration we mean a distinct system of administrative devolution from this Parliament appropriate to Northern Ireland. Can we not get out of the rut of failed policies and work to bring Northern Ireland into the mainstream of United Kingdom politics so that in time Right and Left can replace orange and green, as has happened over the years in the mainland cities of Irish settlement?
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Were we to do that we would be serving notice on the terrorists that their separatist game was up. Then again, it would remove the fear that closer partnership between the United Kingdom and the Republic spelt the betrayal of Unionism—the fear of deals behind Unionist backs, to use the phrase of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North.
The hon. Gentleman and I both want something better than the Anglo-Irish Agreement. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was looking forward to the November review of the working of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. I am glad of the growing support for an idea which I think I was the first to put forward in the House months ago, for the replacement of what one might call Hillsborough Mark I by Hillsborough Mark II—the replacement of an unequal treaty by a fully reciprocal treaty.
I am one of those who would welcome the setting-up of a parliamentary body representing the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. I have always hoped for a still closer link between two sovereign states already in unique relationship. A united Ireland is not on, except within united islands.
7.18 pm
Mr. James Molyneaux: The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who I appreciate has another engagement and must leave, quoted the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition as saying that the Unionist representatives of Northern Ireland would have a say in our own destiny.
I must respectfully qualify that, because if we go for devolution, as the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Gentleman seemed to be suggesting, we would not have a say in controlling our destiny. I am not saying that we should be in absolute control of our destiny—none of my hon. Friends would say that—but the Anglo-Irish Agreement makes it clear that, in the event of any level of devolution being installed, only certain matters will be devolved. The phrase that appears in every other item of legislation affecting Northern Ireland—"transferred matters"—is not used.
There was meant to be a world of difference, because those certain matters would be decided upon by the Anglo-Irish Conference. It would not be decided en bloc that these transferred matters would be automatically devolved as from the date of implementation. The conference would decide that certain matters—and decide which ones—would be devolved to a structure at Stormont. What it gives, it can take away. That is why devolution under the auspices of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is unacceptable for us.
I want to be generous to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North because he did the House a real service. I shall return later to something that he said. Suffice it to say for the moment that I am sure that my hon. Friends on both sides of the House are grateful to him for the Opposition's assurance that there will be no political or military withdrawal from Northern Ireland. I am also grateful for the assurance—it was implicit and deliberately inserted in his speech, so I am certain that he meant it—that the people of Northern Ireland will never be thrust out of the United Kingdom against their wishes. Those are valuable reassurances.

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Hon. Members who entered the House after the general election last year may be somewhat puzzled by the charade in which we are engaged. They have the opportunity to come here—not many of them have availed themselves of it, and I do not blame them—to take their seats in the circus for the first time in their lives. It is a circus to which they will be invited every year of their political careers unless—this is an important proviso—the House at long last decides that enough is enough.
Proof that this is a circus can be found in the Official Report of 2 July 1984, when the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, now Lord Prior, said:
"the Government hope in the coming months to have detailed discussions with the Northern Ireland parties. Our purpose will be to see whether agreement can be reached on arrangements for enabling locally elected representatives in Northern Ireland to exercise at least some of the functions which are currently discharged by Ministers answerable to this House."—[Official Report, 2 July 1984; Vol. 63, c. 107.]
I do not think the present Secretary of State would disagree if I said that his words tonight roughly followed those lines. He did not depart from them to any great extent.
For 14 years, successive Secretaries of State have been persuaded, or perhaps programmed, to churn out this sort of phrase. They do not believe one word of it. True to form, the Northern Ireland Office is yet again asking the House to renew a temporary interim order for the 14th year. We owe it to the honour of the House to consider whether we can, with any justification, continue to append the adjective "temporary". It is wearing a bit thin after 14 years.
For the benefit of those who consider this ritual to be necessary, let me explain that it is nothing of the sort. Today's exercise is not the inevitable consequence of the removal of Stormont in 1972, when there would have been no difficulty in Parliament saying that it had removed devolved government and proposing then to govern Northern Ireland like Scotland, for example. But Whitehall opposed such a course, for a sinister reason. Northern Ireland had to be kept detachable. So this Heath Robinson tumbril was wheeled out and kept in readiness—it still is—to trundle Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom when the opportunity presents itself.
If anyone doubts me, he need only look at how the Order in Council procedure fits so neatly into the halfway house that we know as the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Northern Ireland has been kept separate from the rest of the Kingdom. It is simplicity itself to exercise joint London-Dublin control over the Province without the House of Commons even being aware of it. Decisions can be made in the joint conference, so let us have none of this nonsense about sounding out, expressing views and considering this, that and the other. We know perfectly well that decisions are reached in the joint conference which override submissions from the natives of Northern Ireland and from those of us who represent them.
Unlike the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers who make statements after ministerial meetings and summits, the Secretary of State—it is not his fault; he is caught in the tram lines—does not make a statement to the House after each meeting of the Anglo-Irish Conference. He dare not do so, because Parliament would then be alerted to what is being done behind its back. I am glad to see the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
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Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney), on the Front Bench. On 30 March this year he published his proposals for educational reform in Northern Ireland. As happened with the parallel proposals for England and Wales, his proposals have been opposed by the Churches in Ireland—they are all-Ireland Churches, so we can call them that.
Before the Churches could receive a response to their submissions they read in the newspapers and in the communiqué issued on 17 June that the Anglo-Irish Conference had discussed those proposals. The communiqué states truthfully and bluntly:
"The Conference discussed also the Consultative Paper outlining proposals for education reform in Northern Ireland. The Irish side drew attention to concerns which had been expressed in the nationalist community about certain aspects of the proposals."
No doubt that intervention by the Dublin Government was welcomed by one of the Churches, but what about the other three? It is true that they can make representations and lobby hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland, but the Minister will not heed what is said in the House.
For that matter—this may not have occurred to hon. Members—the Minister is not even bound to heed the clear view of the House. But he is bound, through his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to—I quote the agreement—
"make determined efforts to reach agreement on proposals put forward by Dublin".
So he can make determined efforts and reach agreement with Dublin, and the House is utterly impotent. Take it or leave it, the Order in Council procedure will ultimately be seen through in 90 minutes flat by the payroll vote.
Many other examples from the communiqué of 17 June illustrate all too clearly how the democratic processes are being bypassed and rendered invalid. For example, appropriation orders and debates on them are rendered utterly pointless. The Anglo-Irish Conference has discussed, and presumably agreed, how British taxpayers' money will be spent in west Belfast. I am not opposed to that. I suppose that the taxpayer will learn in due course of the amount expended on his behalf in that operation. I do not know whether it is intended eventually to extend the scheme to the other 16 constituencies, or whether this is a specific privilege to be accorded to the one constituency in Northern Ireland whose Member of Parliament never takes the trouble to take his seat.
Another item of expenditure is mentioned in a mysterious reference to the economic and social problems of what is called the north-west of the island. That topic has never been mentioned in the House, as far as I can remember. So what need is there for appropriation order debates, including the one that is due to follow tonight?
The inherent defects of the 1974 Act as an instrument for government have been compounded by the imposition of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. What was objectionable in 1974 has now been made completely unacceptable, not just to Northern Ireland but surely to a Parliament which serves as a model for democratic structures everywhere. Northern Ireland Office Ministers are not required—nor, for that matter, are they permitted—to come to the House to explain the views put to them by their Dublin counterparts on any given clause or section of a Bill, let alone on an Order in Council.
When under pressure from a Dublin Government to
"make determined efforts to reach agreement",

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the Order in Council process is a godsend for Northern Ireland Ministers. They need only gloss over the awkward points in a very brief opening speech in a 90-minute debate. In an even briefer winding-up speech, perhaps only 10 minutes, they can with no difficulty ignore searching questions. As I have said, at the end of one and a half hours the payroll vote will see the Government home and dry.
As long as that utterly pernicious system is sustained, it is idle and useless to follow the Secretary of State into discussions on wider issues. That is because the truly monstrous combination of the Order in Council system and the Anglo-Irish Agreement will continue to strangle all democratic development. Either of those monstrosities makes progress and good government impossible.
Ms. Short: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's frustration at the Order in Council procedure. Those of us who have worked in Standing Committees have the same experience. It does not matter how telling the point or how rational the argument, because the Government's vote can push anything through and there is no respect for the quality of the argument from the Opposition. I fear that if the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in getting legislative change other than by Order in Council, he will have exactly the same frustration as he has now.
Mr. Molyneaux: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention because it gives me an opportunity to point to one or two occasions on which, because there was a certain co-ordination and cohesion on the Opposition Benches, we were able to make a dent in a Government with a majority of a 100. I mention, if I may dare, the Firearms (Amendment) Bill on which my party played no small part. We can make the Government listen and I am not as pessimistic as the hon. Lady seems to be about the possibility of our combining forces. The job of Opposition parties in any Parliament is to scrutinise, criticise and oppose the actions and decisions of the Government of the day, whatever their complexion. That is our role and I hope that in the days to come we will have a rather more effective combined Opposition.
Mr. Alton: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that Orders in Council are brought before the House in a peremptory and rapid way and that that leaves so little time for debate that people end up being frustrated? Does he agree that the process does not leave much scope for rational politics?
Mr. Molyneaux: I agree entirely. In certain cases, where the order is of some importance, the process allows for what is called a consultative period. Submissions are made by all sorts of bodies and normally Members of Parliament and parliamentary parties make submissions as well. Education is one such important matter. However, I suspect that in the end the Minister with responsibility for education makes up his mind with the benefit of the advice he obtains from Dublin. All of us on the Opposition side will do our best to introduce some flexibility into his thinking, but unless the Opposition parties stick together and speak with a united voice, I doubt whether we will have much influence over the Minister.
Needless to say, my hon. Friends and I have no intention of giving any credibility to this phoney annual circus act beyond registering our disapproval in the Division Lobby. I shall end on a rather more positive note.
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The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North did us another service. I welcome his declaration as spokesman for the Opposition that he does not regard the Anglo-Irish Agreement as being written on tablets of stone. I understand that he said that in a speech published yesterday in Belfast.
Mr. Mallon: It was Charlie Haughey who said that.
Mr. Molyneaux: I understood from the hon. Member from Kingston upon Hull, North just before he left the Chamber that he had repeated it yesterday. That in itself is good news. However, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North went beyond that and, as I recollect, he said that he was quite prepared to consider an alternative agreement, a wider and more workable agreement. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) will agree that he and I have been saying that privately and then publicly for 10 months. We have said that our two parties are prepared to be positive. We are prepared to assist, to make our contribution to the design of a much wider, more workable and more practical agreement. We are genuine in saying that we regard such an agreement as a prerequisite.
That must be the starting point for everying else that has been talked about in the three speeches that we have heard so far. I hope that we can now persuade the Government to fall into line with the Opposition, with the three parties in the Dail and to say that they, too, are prepared to be flexible and to consider a more workable agreement.
7.35 pm
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: I should like to start by expressing my horror at the bombing of the school bus in Lisnaskea. I hope that the young girl who was so seriously injured will be able to overcome her injuries and resume a normal life. I should like to add my words to those of the Secretary of State in expressing my admiration for the way in which the security forces handle this most difficult and intractable problem of terrorism in Northern Ireland. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude.
As we know, the debate is taking place against the background of the possible attempt to recreate some form of regional administration which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined in his speech. We have just heard the reaction of the Leader of the Ulster Unionist party. What the right hon. Gentleman has said is of the greatest importance and must be taken very seriously by the Government if they want any attempt to create a devolved administration to have any success.
As hon. Members have said, the debate is taking place after almost three years of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and 14 years of direct rule. During all that time the emergency has continued. Instinctively, I welcome attempts to create a more effective system of local government in Northern Ireland, for I think it is generally agreed that since Stormont was taken out of the structure of government in 1972, the Province has had less local government than any other part of the United Kingdom. As we know, that serious deficiency continues from year to year.
After so many failed attempts to create new institutions—sometimes, I suspect, because the House refused to show proper sensitivity to the attitude of Ulster politicians—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is right to prepare the groundwork away from the gaze of the

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media and the public. I hope that he will not restrict himself to those policies put forward by his predecessors, which have so far yielded results of no consequence to the future good government of the Province.
In the course of his speech, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seemed to be putting forward two ideas. In one he talked about the dialogue on Northern Ireland politics that this debate represents—as it should, for this is the Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What is more, we know that that dialogue takes place in an assembly where sectarian, ethnic and religious differences play no part and where the issues involving the other regions of the United Kingdom are similarly discussed.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State then went on to talk about a devolved legislature in the Province of Northern Ireland. I repeat that we have been down that road before. That is why Northern Ireland has no local regional administration, that is why this debate is taking place 14 years on and why we shall continue to have these debates annually if we pursue a will-o'-the-wisp that is beyond catching and which will always elude us.
Sectarianism still exists in Northern Ireland. There are still two traditions and no legislative assembly can succeed while the two traditions have such basically different objectives. On the other hand, a devolved administration committed to local government could handle the local affairs of the Province and implement legislation passed in this House in a way in which sectarian and traditional differences would play only a small part.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State developed his ideas, I wondered whether he was not just picking up what had gone before over the years in the initiatives for Northern Ireland, and whether the Anglo-Irish Agreement was not the unseen hand manipulating the thinking of the Northern Ireland Office. Of course it is true that Northern Ireland is markedly different from other regions of the United Kingdom, not just because it is separated by sea and has a border with another state but because it has a divided population with one half—the larger half, if I may use that expression—bending towards Westminster and the minority leaning towards Dublin.
To that extent, the Anglo-Irish Agreement may seem to mirror the two traditions. No doubt that is why an impartial observer might expect peace, stability and reconcilation to be its natural outcome. As we all know, that has not been the case. In reality, the image in the mirror looks different according to who is holding up the looking-glass.
To Whitehall, the recognition by Dublin that the Province of Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom has been seen as such an important gain that Her Majesty's Government felt the South could have a say in the affairs of the North. In Dublin, the agreement represented an opportunity:—the first that the Irish Government have had since the creation of the Province—to have a say in the affairs of the Province and, as the agreement states, to enable the Government of the Republic to put forward proposals for major legislation and on major policy issues where the interests of the minority community are significantly or especially affected
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"if it should prove impossible to achieve and sustain devolution on a basis which secures widespread acceptance in Northern Ireland."
There are others who look into the glass. The Ulster Unionists, I suggest, see only English and Irish Ministers looking back at them and wonder why their own reflection is not there although they represent the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland. Members of the SDLP are as happy to see the Taoiseach looking back at them as one of their own. As for Sinn Fein, if it looks at all, it would happily smash the mirror with an Armalite round or a bomb, because its political aims do not lie within the status quo and certainly do not include a British presence in Ulster. The mirror charms or repels each who looks into it according to his viewpoint but does little, if anything, to reconcile anyone to anyone else. It does not even reconcile Dublin to London.
We should not forget that the Prime Minister of the Republic, Mr. Charles Haughey, recently stated that his intention was
"to correct the historic inability of the British to understand Irish feelings."
With such a view, is it to be wondered that in recent months the Irish Government have taken a bolder and more interventionist approach in Northern Irish matters—as they did, for example, over the Stalker-Sampson inquiry and over the case of the Birmingham pub bombers? The Anglo-Irish Agreement gives them that say while devolved government is absent from the Province.
What now worries me is whether devolution, as spelt out in the agreement or as referred to by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State this afternoon, is to be what the British Government say it is to be or whether it must meet a formula made not only by the Government with the Northern Ireland political parties but by agreement with Dublin. Who is to decide what
"widespread acceptance in Northern Ireland"
means? That is the only condition on which the Anglo-Irish Agreement will not give the Dublin Government the right to put forward proposals for legislation and so on.
Surely, if there is enough common ground between the political parties in Northern Ireland—always excepting Sinn Fein—for the creation of a devolved administration it would not be right for Dublin to put a spanner in the works simply because it forgoes its right to put forward proposals for major legislation and on major policy issues.
I am convinced that an effective local administration in the Province, to which the community could bring its problems to have them discussed and solved, is far more likely to bring peace, stability and reconciliation than anything that representatives from London and Dublin could hope to achieve, particularly while Belfast seems to be the pig in the middle. No consultation machinery is built into the Anglo-Irish Agreement to enable local politicians to have a say about the vital policies affecting the place where they live and the people whom they represent. That cannot be right.
This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As we all know, Northern Ireland legislation is treated in the most arbitrary way possible. It is appalling to realise that the Northern Ireland Committee last met to discuss business on 26 June 1985, when it considered the draft gas order. In the past three years, a great deal of legislation affecting the Province has gone through the House but, as we all know, those orders were dispatched in the space of 90 minutes each.

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I know of no reason why the Northern Ireland Committee should not be reconvened. It is in the Government's power to reconvene it. It would be a poor substitute for the legislative survey that a Second Reading debate provides, but it would at least allow Northern Ireland Members to consider legislation affecting their Province in more detail and with much greater care than can ever be done in those brief 90-minute debates on the orders.
I do not object to the debate on the extension of direct rule. If tonight we were debating an order that was to extend direct rule for another five years, I should not object, because I want to see this Parliament remain the sovereign Parliament of Northern Ireland, where its legislation is settled and where its great issues are debated. I also want to see, running alongside it, a local administration in the Province that gives Northern Ireland a local government structure on all fours with all the other regions of the United Kingdom. Without that, we are guilty of preventing democracy from playing its proper role in the governance of Northern Ireland.
7.50 pm
Mr. David Alton: I agree with what the hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) said about the need to use again the Northern Ireland Committee, which is allowable under Standing Order No. 99. That would be sensible, and I hope that it would not be long before it would have the chance to sit in Northern Ireland as well, as the Scottish Grand Committee sits in Edinburgh. However, I disagree with what the hon. Gentleman said about a rather diminished form of devolution, perhaps in the form of a regional assembly, running alongside Parliament. I should like to see full-blooded devolution, not just in Northern Ireland but in Scotland, Wales and the English regions.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), speaking on behalf of the official Opposition, spoke about the outcome of the inquiry into the Royal Ulster Constabulary. That outcome, passed by a majority of one, is the worst of all worlds. I strongly support his call for a judicial inquiry. The House should give serious and urgent consideration to the establishment of a Select Committee to oversee the security services and the policing arrangements in a tense situation such as that in Northern Ireland.
The House is faced with several options. The first is the Government's option for steadfastly pursuing the objectives in the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Then there is the option that, to some extent, is favoured by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), which is going back to pre-1985 direct rule and the mythology of a Northern Ireland that is as British as Finchley, to borrow a phrase used by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison). The third option is that which I am sure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) will put forward if she catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. That presents the idea of removing British troops and creating a united Ireland. That is a fairy-tale solution, which would simply replace one aggrieved minority with another.
I support renewal of the British commitment to Northern Ireland, because to do anything less would be to condemn the Province to even greater instability and to civil war. The first of those options, the one that the
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Government are presenting to the House, is the only realistic one. Any fundamental shift in our approach would be music to the ears of all the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland and any pretence at easy solutions, whether military or otherwise, is a lie. There are better and worse options and the development of the British-Irish Agreement, which is what I wish it were called, and the understanding that there now is between the British and Irish Governments, has created the best mechanism for achieving the reconciliation that I am sure is the objective of most hon. Members.
None of this should be shorthand for complacency. We must admit that the agreement has defects. It was born in a climate of secrecy and perceived treachery. Its biggest defect remains the exclusion of the Unionists, excluded initially by an over-secretive British Government and then self-excluded subsequently. For three years, the Unionists of Ulster have said no, but have largely failed until recently to offer constructive ways forward, with the exception of the task force report, with which the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) was associated.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the hon. Gentleman explain something to us, because we are in complete ignorance? I have read and re-read and parsed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and that is something that many who have spoken in the House have not done, because they read into it things that do not occur in it. Where in the Anglo-Irish Agreement is there any provision fog any contribution from the Unionists?
Mr. Alton: What the hon. Gentleman says is valid in the context of this arena and this Parliament, where he makes his contribution. If, instead of boycotting the agreement, he and others were to become participants in it, there is no reason why he should not make his contribution, in the House, to the Intergovernmental Conference. That is the way in which the Government speak directly to the Irish Government. If he is saying that, alongside the Intergovernmental Conference, there should be a new mechanism which allows for the Unionist Members of Northern Ireland to be able to make their input into that agreement, I would support that view.
Therefore, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will come forward with a constructive proposal, setting out in detail how he sees that working in practice. I hope that Unionists will end their boycott of the agreement and exercise their imagination in responding to Mr. Haughey's invitation to open-ended discussions.
I regret the outright refusal of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) to take part in that process. However, I was pleased to hear the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley legitimately and reasonably ask to see the colour of the Taoiseach's money, so that we can see what he has in mind, rather than just accepting the invitations that he has issued from locations all over the world.
It is inevitable that, before the review of the Intergovernmental Conference and the agreement, there will be some manoeuvring, but if that degenerates into a game of hide and seek, the fragile prospect of historic direct talks will be dashed. There is a new mood in Ireland, and I was heartened when I was in Cork recently at the conference of our sister party in the Republic, the Progressive Democrats, to hear its leader, Mr. Desmond O'Malley, say:

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"Mutual suspicion in Northern Ireland is so deep that no agreement could possibly manage at once to satisfy all sides. But there can be no taking away from its fundamental achievement of creating a dynamic climate for change.
That is why Nationalist politicians who only grudgingly accept the agreement are being totally ungenerous. They fail to appreciate the catalyst it has been in breaking the logjam of generations. That is why it was so sad to see it devalued by the present Taoiseach on his recent American fund-raising trip."
Mr. O'Malley went on to make a point that it is important that Unionists should hear:
"The operation of the Agreement is due for review by the Dublin and London Governments by next November. That review is a glorious opportunity to extend the scope of the dialogue beyond the two Governments, and to involve also the constitutional representatives of both communities in the North.
What the outcome of such talks would be is hard to forecast. But if it could lead to that elusive goal of Nationalist and Unionist agreeing on a form of Government in Northern Ireland, nobody should stand in its way … As political intransigence in the North begins to defrost, I want to say to the Unionist community: You are not without friends on this side of the border. I have already spoken of this party's commitment to a tolerant, pluralist Republic.
There is a deep and growing appreciation throughout the Republic of the terrible suffering you have endured, not least in the border areas, where a virtual campaign of genocide has been waged against you by the IRA."
I know from my visit to Enniskillen last month that, in the aftermath of the atrocity there, the Unionists were extremely grateful to the Progressive Democrats who had visited the community and stood beside them in their grief and bewilderment at what had taken place there in the name of a political philosophy based on the gun. Instead of scoffing and being cynical about such remarks, let us examine the new mood inside the Republic and welcome such a constructive approach.
I have great admiration for the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume). He said that he had given endless time and energy to his talks with Sinn Fein over the past six months. I hope that he will put the same time and energy into discussions with the constitutional parties of the other side of the divide.
As long as Sinn Fein is wedded to unity by force it will sustain and not end the divisions in Ireland. Mr. Gerry Adams's admission in the aftermath of Enniskillen that military victory is impossible did not prevent the bombing in Lisburn. Public admissions of the futility of these atrocities have not stopped the cycle of violence. Talking to Sinn Fein while it condones the violence of the IRA is to lend it the clothes of constitutionality. It should stand for what it is, an organisation of brutal killers which uses sickening and bestial methods.
Amnesty International is an organisation for which I would have respect, but it falls into the same trap when it refers to Sinn Fein as an armed opposition group. That is a euphemism and an entirely inadequate description which is grossly offensive to the victims of every outrage committed in the name of Republicanism. If the IRA really wants the troops out and an end to the violence that has disfigured the affairs of Northern Ireland, it must forswear terrorism. Constitutional parties should have no part in dealing with it until it does that.
I have said that the agreement has defects. However, there are things that can be done during the next 12 months to help it develop. The prerequisite to that must be
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full Unionist involvement. I should like to see moves towards the establishment of a joint security commission that will involve both the Irish and the British Governments.
It would be welcome to see the extradition fiascos put firmly behind us. Rules should be established so that we shall no longer have to go through an endless game of charades every time extraditions are attempted. Similarly, there should be joint British-Irish anti-terrorist legislation to demonstrate that the Prevention of Terrorism Act is not a piece of anti-Irish legislation, which is the view of some of those who live in the Irish diaspora in this country. Unlike the hon. Member for Epping Forest, I should like to see the establishment of a British-Irish parliamentary tier.
On Friday, we shall be considering one of the benefits of the Anglo-Irish Agreement when we turn our attention to the White Paper on fair employment. I welcome that initiative, which is a step in the right direction. It will be good news for some of those who feel, quite justifiably, mthat they have been discriminated against for many years purely because of their religion.
I have said that there were better and worse options available. If Britain walked away from Northern Ireland, we would condemn its people to civil war. It would be irresponsible to do that and a capitulation to violence. Unionism, however, must appreciate that the old catch-cries of not an inch and no surrender are no substitute for political endeavour. If movements that offer the illusory but seductive solution of withdrawal without tears are not to be given momentum, constitutional parties must break out of the straitjacket of tribalism.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has the most difficult job of all the members of the Cabinet. There are no prizes and only few chances of spectacular success. There are many wooden spoons and no shortage of heartbreak. The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to the full support and gratitude of the House for undertaking his task, and he will receive it from my right hon. and hon. Friends.
8.5 pm
Rev. William McCrea: I rise once again to discuss an issue which has caused the people of Northern Ireland heartbreak and a continuation of sorrow. If we have direct rule in its present form, with what has gone forth for the past 14 years, my constituents who live along the border will have a continuation of sorrow, murder and destruction.
Some of those who have participated in the debate seem to live in a world that is separated from the realities of Northern Ireland. I cannot object that some of them are living in that world. They have not visited the Province frequently to see the situation for themselves. If and when they do come, they do so at the invitation of a party that has no representation in this place. They usually parrot out some of the speeches of that party, including one from the east Belfast area, which I thought that we were going to hear again today. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is seeking to uplift Mr. Alderdice as much as he can, although Mr. Alderdice has no elected position on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.
The people of Northern Ireland are dismayed and distressed by those who pontificate about the Province. They try to give the impression that the Members of this

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place have all the answers and that the people of the Province are the numbskulls who need to be beaten into subjection. They suggest that at some stage the people of Northern Ireland will surrender their rights as individuals to speak as a democratic people, with a right to vote and for their votes to count in the same way as those in any other part of the United Kingdom.
I know that there are many in the Northern Ireland Office who have no desire to see the end of direct rule. Many of the civil servants in the Northern Ireland assembly objected when members of the Northern Ireland community dared to ask them a question. They objected when they dared to bring them to account. They did not want to answer for some of the decisions that they had taken.
It annoys the people of Northern Ireland that civil servants have more power than the elected representatives of the people. I can assure the House that the civil servants in the Northern Ireland Office will do all in their power to hold on to their authority rather than allow the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland to speak for the people of the Province.
I listened carefully to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). We receive lectures on sectarianism. We are told that we are not to have a closed mind and that we are not to be biased. We are told by Opposition and Government Members that the Anglo-Irish Agreement is leading us in only one direction. If the people of Northern Ireland really want to go into a united Ireland, then both Governments will run through the legislative process to ensure that we get into an all-Ireland situation.
That is the only direction permitted. No other alternative is permitted under the Anglo-Irish Agreement. No other alternative will be listened to by those on the Government Benches. We are clearly told that there is no other alternative from the Opposition. That was made clear by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North. The hon. Gentleman made it clear that the majority view will be heeded when there is a rigged majority in one direction, and that must be towards Dublin.
It is about time that the Government told us how much they feel for the people of Northern Ireland, especially the hard-pressed people in the border areas. I have in mind a constituent of mine who lies buried tonight, Michael Darcy, and his mother, who is left broken-hearted. I feel for these people and others like them.
It is about time that the Government said, "We are for the Union." I have never heard that said since I became a Member of this place. I have not heard that said from the Government Dispatch Box or from those who sit on the Conservative Back Benches. The Secretary of State has said personally that he is for the Union, and I accept that. I am talking about the Government and those who speak on behalf of them. They have not said that they want the people and the Province to be a full part of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Tom King: I am a member of the Government, and I have made the point that the hon. Gentleman raises absolutely and abundantly clear. Does the hon. Gentleman actually want to go somewhere else? A sort of fear seems to pervade these interventions. Actually the Anglo-Irish Agreement says—it is an act of generosity and clear commitment by the Nationalists as well—that Northern Ireland, we accept, is part of the United
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Kingdom and will remain so. [Interruption.] Do not argue. I say to hon. Members, do not argue because the reality is, as everybody knows, that there will be no change.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Do not lie about it.
Mr. King: I am not interested in abuse. I am interested in the people of Northern Ireland and in them knowing the facts. The fact is the Anglo-Irish Agreement states that there will be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the agreement of the majority.
I often think that I have more confidence than many others in the majority in Northern Ireland. I have made it abundantly clear that I do not believe that their views will ever change. However, I accept as part of the reality of a democratic life—and this is part of the Anglo-Irish Agreement—that if the majority of people in Northern Ireland wanted to change the situtation, no Government would refuse to accept a democratic view. Hon. Members sell themselves short if they keep seeking to pretend that they have no confidence in the majority in Northern Ireland wishing to maintain their present status within the United Kingdom.
Rev. William McCrea: I thank the Secretary of State for making another speech. I need no lectures from anyone to know exactly where the Unionists stand. Hon. Members would do better to read the agreement. It is most misleading to lecture my hon. Friends, because we have read the agreement from beginning to end, which many Conservative Members have not done—otherwise they would not have gone into the Division Lobby to support it.
As far as the Anglo-Irish Agreement is concerned, there is no change in the status of Northern Ireland. The question is, what is Northern Ireland's status in the eyes of both Governments? We found out exactly what it is in the Irish Republic's constitution. which claims jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. For the Irish Government, there is no change in Northern Ireland's status, because they believe it is still within their jurisdiction.
The Secretary of State may fool certain Members of his own party, as he has in the past, but he should not come to this Chamber and try to ram his views down the throats of the people's elected representatives. It is our future that is at stake. It is not a part of England, of Scotland or of Wales that is up for sale—it is Northern Ireland, as a part of the United Kingdom. We are British citizens, and we prove that by the way in which we seal our love for being a part of the United Kingdom with our blood. We shall take lessons from no one.
The Secretary of State can sit and mutter away but my constituents derive no comfort from the words that are said from the Dispatch Box time and time again, as to how sympathetic are the Government and how they feel and pray for the people of Northern Ireland. The Government could do more than pray. They could put feet on their prayers and give action to their prayers. They have the power to reach a solution and to stop the IRA from murdering the people of Northern Ireland.
Seated next to the Secretary of State is the Minister with responsibility for defence matters. Quite often in these debates, he sits with a smirk on his face, but he does not know how the people living along the border feel. Never once has he visited them. Never once has he walked into the home of a person who has suffered tragedy and whose

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future is at stake. Those people ask their elected representatives, "Why isn't something done?" When we, as their elected representatives, make speeches, it is easy for others to say, "You shouldn't worry and shouldn't get heated," but it is we who have to walk into home after home.
I assure the House that if any hon. Members representing constituencies in England, Scotland or Wales had to walk behind coffin after coffin, and had to face widows and orphans, it would not be smirks that they would have on their faces but expressions altogether more serious. They would surely return to their Ministers and say, "Something must be done."
If the policy on security has not put an end to terrorism after 20 years, there is something wrong. It would not be dishonourable to change course and to introduce something more effective to stop the IRA's murdering gangs. It is totally misleading to suggest that the Irish Government recognise Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom. They state that there will be no change in Northern Ireland's status without the will of the people, but the status they are talking about was established in the past week in the Dublin court. We shall learn with interest the evidence that was given in the Dublin court concerning the McGimpsey case, and the court's ruling on the status of Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Secretary of State will return to the Dispatch Box and explain away the evidence that was given on behalf of the Dublin authorities.
Rev. Ian Paisley: As it seems impossible for me, as the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, to be called to speak in this debate, and as I have no intention of taking any further part in it, I wish to ask my hon. Friend if he agrees with me on this point. If, as the Secretary of State said, it is right to legislate for a majority and recognise their wishes if that majority is a Republican majority, is it not right that the Secretary of State should also put it on record that a Protestant majority wanting an arrangement other than the present one should also be legislated for?
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) told the House that the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland will never have a say. Should not the Secretary of State, knowing very well that both the Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Popular Unionist party want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, face up to that? However, we do not want Dublin to have a say over us, or a situation in which we are pushed down the street into a united Ireland. That we will not wear.
Whether or not the Minister with responsibility for education smiles, for he has already forsworn his Ulster heritage, does not matter. The Secretary of State cannot always take the majority with him. He says that he knows what the majority believe. He should resign his seat, and I will resign mine, and then we could both fight. He would lose his deposit, because he does not know what the majority want in Northern Ireland.
Rev. William McCrea: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I wrote down the Secretary of State's words as he was speaking: "I believe this is what the people want." That was a very interesting statement, and I would like to know how the Secretary of State has found out the will of the people. He has not found it out on the ground
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—from the ordinary man and woman in the street who elect representatives to the House. I would be happy for the Secretary of State to come to Northern Ireland, seeing that he is so sure that he knows what the people want, and accept the invitation that has been extended to him.
One of his hon. Friends has decided to take an active interest in the Province and may try to stand in North Down. We were listening to lectures from her and perhaps the Secretary of State will come to Northern Ireland, and to North Antrim, and take up the challenge that has been made to him.
The will of the people is expressed at the ballot box. Despite all the rigging and attempts to change it, the fact remains that the Unionists have given their backing to their leaders. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) and my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) have the backing of the people and speak with the authentic voice of the people: let no Minister tell us that he knows better than the elected leaders of the people. It would have been appropriate for my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North, as leader of our party, to put forward his points of view in a Northern Ireland debate, but he has not been called.
Mr. Jim Marshall: The hon. Gentleman claims to have written down the words of the Secretary of State. It is perhaps unfortunate that he failed to write down those of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who made it clear that the official Labour view on Northern Ireland was and is that no majority in the North of Ireland will be forced out against their will—or thrust out, which I think was the word used by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley).
Rev. William McCrea: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. It is very kind of Her Majesty's Opposition to be willing not to kick us out and to let us stay for a little longer. [Interruption.] I have the Floor.
Mr. Mallon: We noticed that.
Rev. William McCrea: That is very kind of the hon. Gentleman. He will know more, because I shall deal with the SDLP in a moment.
It is the will of the people of Northern Ireland that will keep Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom——
Mr. Martin Flannery rose——
Rev. William McCrea: I have a problem, Mr. Deputy Speaker. One the one hand I have heard an objection that my speech is going on too long and that others want to intervene. On the other hand, I would not like to stop a moderate from speaking.
Mr. Flannery: I made up my mind that I would not intervene, because I want to speak later, but my chances of doing so are becoming slimmer and slimmer as the hon. Gentleman's speech continues.
Let me refer the hon. Gentleman briefly to the contribution of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), to whom I always like to listen. I had the general impression that he really wants an independent Northern Ireland with him leading it. Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear whether the Unionists want an independent Northern Ireland or want to stay in the United Kingdom?
Rev. William McCrea: The people of Northern Ireland desire to be full members of the United Kingdom. We do not want to sit on the periphery of the United Kingdom, to be kicked out whenever someone decides on it; we want to be active members of the United Kingdom.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement is nothing better than joint sovereignty between London and Dublin. It does not give Northern Ireland full and equal membership of the United Kingdom. No other part of the United Kingdom suffers the interference of any foreign and on many occasions hostile Government. If this is what is known as equal membership of the United Kingdom, the Unionist majority in Northern Ireland are not willing to accept it.
I say without apology that if that is what is being forced on the people, the Unionists will not walk down the Dublin road. If a choice is to be made, the Unionists can make an alternative choice. If it is right for a majority to choose a united Ireland, a majority can choose some other administration to take over the running of the country. That is the will of the people. That is the route that the Unionists and those living on the border are willing to take if the Government will not give them equal rights as members of the United Kingdom.
I do not know whether it is a deliberate twist of thinking, but people are trying to suggest that Northern Ireland Unionists do not want to remain within the United Kingdom. That is not true. They want to remain, but to do so on the same grounds as everyone else. The Prime Minister herself said that we would be as British and as much a part of the United Kingdom as Finchley. To the best of my knowledge, Finchley has no agreement with any foreign Government to rule its citizens—although I am not sure about that: it may have happened before the House met today. Such circumstances can change very quickly. Liverpool, for example, contains many minorities with different backgrounds, and may desire the intervention of some foreign Government. To the best of my knowledge, however, it has no agreement or joint authority to run its affairs.
All that we are saying is that we seek equal rights as equal citizens in the United Kingdom. That is not too much to ask.
Mr. Alton: Surely the point is this. The hon. Gentleman protests his loyalty to this country and its institutions. If he is loyal to this Parliament, why is it so impossible for him to concur with its majority wishes? The Anglo-Irish Agreement was passed with perhaps the biggest vote in the lifetime of the last Parliament.
Rev. William McCrea: The thinking behind that amazes me. Not one Northern Ireland Member has ever given his allegiance to this Parliament in relation to a particular party or decision. Our allegiance is to Her Majesty The Queen.
Mr. Flannery: What about democracy?
Rev. William McCrea:It is a mockery for the hon. Gentleman to talk about democracy. Democracy in the House is majority rule, and that is what is being denied in Northern Ireland. That is what is being thrown out each time. Let no one sit on his rear end and try to insult the people of Northern Ireland by telling us that this is democracy. It is not. It is an abuse of the democratic rights of the people of Northern Ireland to refuse to listen to their elected representatives.
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I challenge the Government, if they feel that the people have changed their minds and want to go along with the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to put it to the test of the ballot box. The Secretary of State knows that the people will come out with a resounding no. The three principles of the agreement—the rest of the United Kingdom had better realise this—are peace, stability and reconciliation. It is interesting to note that in all the recent debates about the profit of the agreement, Ministers have now moved off those three principles. We never hear them say that the agreement is bringing peace, stability and reconciliation. The most recent statement that I heard from a Minister was that it had brought realism to the Unionist leaders, and the knowledge that they would have to do something other than simply say no: they would have to accept the agreement.
That shows how much Her Majesty's Ministers have learnt. Of course, it is difficult to learn such a lesson sitting behind barbed wire in Stormont; it is difficult to get the message from ordinary citizens in the community. But that can be resolved if the people change their minds. The House had better wake up to the fact that if this is put to the people through the test of the ballot box, the people will reject it. Instead of peace, it has led to turmoil; instead of stability, it has led to further instability; instead of reconciliation, as many Ministers—not in the Northern Ireland Office but in the Cabinet—have admitted, it has not succeeded. A senior member of the Cabinet admitted that in a recent interview.
Let not hon. Members live in cloud-cuckoo-land. Let them face reality. I am an ordinary Ulsterman. I am not a professional politician and I have no desire to be one. I am concerned simply about the future of my children in Ulster. Hon. Members sit down with representatives of the murderers of our children and our people in Ulster.
I listened carefully to a recent debate about Northern Ireland to which the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) made an interesting contribution. He stated:
"No member of my party has ever donned a balaclava or uniform, has ever manned a barricade or carried a coffin of a leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force."—[Official Report, 16 June 1988; Vol. 135, c. 580.]
That is an insult to the integrity and the knowledge of the people of Ulster. It is common knowledge in Ulster that Gerry Adams is not only the leader of Sinn Fein. A recent programme on Northern Ireland showed that Gerry Adams was not only the leader of the political party, but he was an active terrorist in Northern Ireland. Gerry Adams was the leader of a group that organised a bombing in the city of Belfast. There are many more godfathers.
I can give a direct challenge. In the district that I come from, John Joe Davey—and I have to sit in the same council chamber as him—did the final run when Kenneth Johnson was murdered. The Sunday before the murder, John Joe Davey, the Sinn Fein councillor, chose the spot where the bicycle was left for the person who had done the murder to get away. He was followed on the Sunday before the murder. I have given that information to the police, including the timing, the place selected and the rest of it.
Let not the SDLP get off the hook. The representatives of the Sinn Fein with whom they speak are not just members of the Sinn Fein. Someone in the Northern Ireland Office told me that practically every Sinn Fein councillor came from the military wing of the IRA. The SDLP sit down with Gerry Adams. Let them not say that

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they have never donned a balaclava or uniform or manned a barricade. They are sitting down with the men that carried the bombs and executed the murder of people in our Province.
Those hon. Members had better examine their consciences. It is not enough for them to say that they are sorry for the young girl who is fighting for her life. Pious words are past going into the ears of the people of Ulster. It is not enough for hon. Members to come to the House and condemn murder after murder. We have consigned the people of Northern Ireland to 20 years of murder. If it were on the mainland, more than 100,000 people would be dead. Does the Secretary of State believe that hon. Members would be saying nice little words and making nice little speeches to the Secretary of State? He knows that there would be a demand for action, and furthermore, he knows that action would be taken.
We in Ulster are sick of listening to people saying, "We condemn." We are asking for an aggressive policy against terrorists in our country to stop terrorism and bring us the peace that we need. No matter what form of government is adopted in Northern Ireland, and no matter what decision is taken, let no one think that the IRA will fold its arms and go to sleep. Whatever Administration takes over in Northern Ireland—the British Government have the authority and the ability to do that—they will have to defeat the IRA. They will have to take military measures to defeat the IRA, because for 20 years the IRA has carried on a campaign of murder and destruction in our Province. It has safe homes all over the place. Let us not forget that 100,000 people went to the ballot box and voted for Sinn Fein.
If anyone thinks that the SDLP has gained ground, all I can say is that in recent talks the SDLP has lifted Sinn Fein out of the gutter and tried to give it an air of respectability, with the idea that together they will stop the murders. But since those talks more murders than ever before have occurred. The IRA has slaughtered young soldiers; now it is attacking young children. It is all covered over by words of sympathy.
In this debate I heard the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon)—the hon. Gentleman should blush— tell the House very piously that the Unionists, the Democratic Unionists and the Official Unionists in Newry and Armagh joined to appoint an IRA man. He said there was an unholy alliance with Sinn Fein. That is totally untrue. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is untrue. The person who was elected is an independent councillor. The only reason why the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh is crying is because the SDLP candidate was beaten to the chair. It is only sour grapes that led him to mislead the House.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison), who unfortunately has left the Chamber, said that he was delighted that in the council chambers in Northern Ireland the SDLP had turned its back on Sinn Fein and removed its representatives. There is nothing further from the truth. The SDLP in Enniskillen council, after the murder of 11 innocent people, was shamed into dropping the Sinn Fein member that it had appointed in the first place as chairman of the council. But what did it do? If it was shamed in Enniskillen, it shifted the shame to Strabane. It swapped the area in which it gave Sinn Fein
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control. In Strabane every SDLP councillor voted for the Sinn Fein chairman of Strabane council, another godfather of the terrorist group in Strabane. The SDLP put him in power.
In Magherafelt the SDLP joined with Sinn Fein to elect a Sinn Fein vice-chairman. Did it have to do that? Was it under attack? Did the Unionists oppose the SDLP chairman? Not at all. The Unionists decided that they would be smart for the SDLP and put them to the test as they had. five members of the council and were the big power-sharers in the community. The Government have always spoken about the kindness of the SDLP in reaching out olive branches and have said that everything was beautiful from the SDLP point of view. What happened when it came to the election of the chairperson in Magherafelt? A lady took the chair. That lady was proposed and seconded, and no Unionist opposed the SDLP election.
This is an important matter for the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), as his party is under scrutiny. Perhaps it is best that he remains in the Chamber. In that council there was no opposition to Sinn Fein. Indeed, the SDLP did not need Sinn Fein to get the chair. There were five SDLP council members and three Sinn Fein representatives. But when it came to the election of the vice-chairman, every SDLP member voted for the Sinn Fein vice-chairman against the Unionists. Why? That is the new olive branch, that is the new moderate image that is being shown by the SDLP.
Ulster Unionists are not blind to what is going on in our country. Because of the smartness of Gerry Adams, the SDLP has been led like little puppets along the route. The SDLP is now doing the bidding of Sinn Fein because it has been outwitted and outflanked by Gerry Adams. The Sinn Fein is ready and prepared for the next local government election because it has been given its best bonus in years for success for the future. It is only right that we put the situation right.
We then listened to the Secretary of State today. I am interested in how the Minister will reply on behalf of the Government. The Secretary of State said today that the SDLP has put forward proposals in favour of devolution and that it is working for devolution, as are the Official and Democratic Unionists. That is interesting as, a matter of weeks ago, in a radio interview Danny Morrison, Sinn Fein's spokesman and one of those involved in the secretive talks with the SDLP, said for all the people of Northern Ireland and, believe it or not, even the Northern Ireland Office to hear, that, in all its talks, the SDLP had told Sinn Fein that it was not interested in devolution. Since that revelation, there has been not a word of denial from the SDLP. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State told the House today that the SDLP wants devolved government. We hear a different story from a party to the secret negotiations. They have to be secret, and we find that Sinn Fein releases just what information it wants to release about the talks.
I shall be happy to give way if an hon. Member who represents the SDLP wants to correct me. This is a vital matter, and the SDLP should come clean. Perhaps Danny Morrison is doing the dirt on the SDLP. If so, that should be made clear to everyone. If, however, he is speaking the truth, someone else is speaking with a forked tongue.
The SDLP must not leave its new-found friend. It dare not because it knows that Adams has the party where he wants it—he can say just what went on, which is not in the

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SDLP's interests. It was reported in a Belfast newspaper that the SDLP has stated that its policy is not to stop violence but to curb it. That reminds me of a former Minister speaking of an acceptable level of violence. We need an answer to that too.
The Secretary of State said today that the SDLP wants to stop the violence. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North said today that he wished the SDLP well if it wanted to stop the murders and the violence. An SDLP spokesman said that the SDLP wanted only to curb the violence. In other words, the SDLP is telling my constituents that it does not accept the number of people who are at present murdered along the border, and that it wants to cut the number a wee bit. That is the truth, as the SDLP and other parties have used the violence committed by the IRA. There never would have been an Anglo-Irish Agreement if it were not for the murders. The Government were forced to negotiate with Dublin under the shadow of the gun.
There have been calls for inquiries. There are those among the Loyalist community who, under our present system of direct rule, are sickened with the biased calls for inquiries. I am sure we all remember the great hullabaloo about the McAnespie case along the Aughnacloy border. The SDLP ran to Dublin. It has no confidence in itself or in its ability to speak for the minority community, so it has to seek support. A young lad was castigated throughout the country. It was said that he had committed murder.
The Southern Government jumped into the act. Charlie would have to back up the terrorists. He demanded that the body be exhumed. There have been no calls for an inquiry since. There have been no calls for an inquiry into why the SDLP and others agitated to get the body lifted. Why? The answer was not to their liking. The soldier could not be charged with deliberate murder, which was the first charge laid against him. Nobody saw it happen, but everybody was there to make their condemnation.
The cardinal jumped into the act. Why not have everybody in the act? When people want to condemn the British Army, get everybody into the act. He flew home. He did not fly home on account of the murders in Protestant areas, but he flew home and made his speech, in which he said the killings of McAnespie was deliberate murder. When the body was lifted they found that it was not done that way, but a young British soldier had been castigated throughout the world. He has been put on an IRA list. His name has been pulled through the gutter. When threatened and frightened, any young lad can make a mistake. Even Opposition Members can make a mistake. Not so a young British soldier. It is good enough to condemn him before he has been tried properly.
As to the Stalker inquiry, in a newspaper this morning, the Northern Ireland Office is reported as saying:
"a judicial inquiry would not be helpful. But the possibility of bringing disciplinary procedures against officers con-cerned"-—
listen for it—
"was being vigorously pursued."
We are talking about using lads, who were sent out to do a job, as scapegoats. We are being told, "Let's castigate them, for who will be concerned about a young policeman?" Certainly not members of the SDLP.
Mr. Mallon rose—
Rev. William McCrea: The hon. Gentleman will have to contain himself a wee bit. The police authority said today
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that no action will be taken against the Chief Constable and two other senior officers. We have heard that no action will be taken against them in court. What about the ordinary officer? He is expendable. Let us use him as the butt of it all. Let me make it clear in the House that there are persons who, if they are used as a scapegoat, will tell the full story.
Mr. Mallon: Why do they not tell it anyway?
Rev. William McCrea: The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh and his hon. Friends know the names of the Birmingham Six. Why do they not give their names? A member of Her Majesty's Opposition says that he knows the persons who murdered the people in Birmingham but he thinks too much of the Republicans to announce their names. I do not believe that it is right to use young, ordinary policemen as scapegoats. If heads are to roll it should be those of the political leaders higher up the line who gave the instructions in the first place, rather than the young lads who simply carried out their instructions.
Mr. Mallon: Apart from the obvious harm that the hon. Gentleman is doing to the British parliamentary system, he should be concerned about the damage he is doing to the truth. Twice today, once in the House, I said that it is scandalous that the Chief Constable and his two deputy assistant chief constables should be exonerated and that people lower down the line should have to carry the can— those are the words I used—for decisions they made. I will, with the same vigour although perhaps not with the same verbosity as the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea), defend the right of any single policeman. Today I asked the Police Federation to take an interest in this so that we would not find the men at the top going scot-free while ordinary constables suffer for them.
I will go even further. The:hon. Member for Mid-Ulster said that there are people in the police force who could tell all. Would he adjust that to say that they would tell the truth? If they would do that, they would have the support of everyone in the Nationalist community and everyone who values truth in our community. Let us put the right people in the dock. It should be the Chief Constable of the RUC who is responsible, the deputy chief constable who was responsible for the E4A unit and the other deputy chief constable who was in total charge of the special branch.
Rev. William McCrea: I have learned something today. I have learned that the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh has such a love for the British parliamentary system that he is worried about it. That will be news to the people in Newry and Armagh. Gerry Adams will be interested in that as well. It is the first time that I have ever known the hon. Gentleman be concerned about or interested in the British parliamentary system. He has been interested only in using it. I am taking this opportunity to make a few necessary remarks because misleading statements were made in the House earlier. We had better get the facts out in the open. An Ulsterman would rather be told the truth than be told some made-up story just to please him and then be kicked on the pants when he is out the door.
The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh has called for the resignation of the Chief Constable and two other senior officers of the RUC.
Mr. Mallon rose—
Rev. William McCrea: I am not surprised at that, because the hon. Gentleman has called for the resignation of the entire Ulster Defence Regiment. Three resignations from the top of the RUC will be nothing when one considers that he wants every UDR man to go.
I do not believe that the Chief Constable made the decision on his own. The decision went into the higher reaches of the political arena. Therefore, we should not use anyone as a scapegoat. The House is supposed to be responsible, and there are bound to be people in the House who must bear the responsibility for any action taken. I am convinced that there are Front-Bench members of Her Majesty's Government who know more about this incident than the ordinary wee man or ordinary wee officer who carried out the instructions.
The statement from the Northern Ireland Office said that
"disciplinary procedures against officers concerned"—
that is, the smaller officer down the line—
"were being vigorously pursued."
No doubt those officers will have stripes removed and there may be demotion and so on if the Government can get away with it. However, the people at the top will not suffer.
I speak on behalf of the Unionist population, especially along the border areas which are under constant attack by the IRA. The Loyalists do not believe that the RUC has a shoot-to-kill policy. The shoot-to-kill policy in the Province is the policy of the IRA. Every bullet fired by the IRA is shot to kill and every bomb it sets is a bomb to kill, including the killing of the young girls on the bus yesterday. We do not hear about inquiries for those. I have never heard the SDLP ask for an inquiry into how the IRA murdered so many young policemen in Newry. I never heard the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh request such an inquiry.
Mr. John Hume rose——
Rev. William McCrea: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, do not worry.
I have never heard a call for an inquiry into the bombing at Enniskillen. The Roman Catholic Church authorities objected to the searching of the building on the day of the remembrance parade in Enniskillen. For the first time in seven years there was no search of the building, because of objections from the priests and 11 people were murdered. There has been no call for an inquiry as to how that atrocity was able to take place. There has been no inquiry into the incidents at Cappagh when the hunger strikers were buried. There were photographs in the newspaper of the priests clapping at the graveside as the IRA fired the shots. There was no inquiry and no intervention by the security forces to stop that fiasco from continuing.
The only time that the SDLP will call for an inquiry is when it is against the security forces which are trying their best to fight the murderous bunch of rascals in the IRA. The IRA has no qualms about shooting. It never asked Michael Darcy in my constituency to put his arms up. The IRA shot him in the back, as it usually does, while hiding behind a hedge. He is only a UDR man and his life is expendable. It is more important to stop IRA men who are carrying out dummy runs or the full run of their weaponry of disaster and destruction.
Let us have the full details and facts clearly stated in this House. Along the border people are calling upon the
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Government to carry out a policy that will bring an end to the years of trouble and allow everyone in the Province to live in peace.
We have been talking about direct rule. Some months ago 11 people were murdered at Enniskillen. A few weeks ago six soldiers were killed. How did the Government handle that under direct rule? How have they got to the bottom of those murders in our Province? The answer is that the Secretary of State makes a statement. That stops a debate because after his statement a Northern Ireland Member—or any other Member of the House—is permitted to ask only one supplementary question. There is no chance of getting a debate on security even after 11 people have been killed. Even with six soldiers dead, we did not get a security debate. What we got was a short statement from the Dispatch Box which was a cover-up and one question each so that no hon. Member can get to the bottom of the things that trouble the community in our Province.
Direct rule is a fiasco. It is not the answer. The people of Northern Ireland should have the power back in their own hands to decide their own future and should not be run down the Dublin road by an Anglo-Irish so-called Agreement, which is soaked in the blood of the innocent. There have been more deaths in the first year of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was supposed to be about security and supposed to bring peace, than there were for possibly two years before it.
The IRA are on the offensive and the Government are making the security forces go on the defensive. It would be right and proper if the security forces were given backing and assistance. Other things that I have said when putting the record straight have been controversial, but I hope that the House will unite in giving its unreserved support to the security forces in their fight against the terrorists. They have a difficult, even impossible, job and deserve the support of all right-thinking people in the Province, whether they are the UDR, the RUC, the RUC Reserve, or the young lads of the British Army—our Army. They have done an excellent job and are trying their best under difficult circumstances. I suggest that, instead of some hon. Members sniping at them, it would be better if the House gave them its support.
I notice that the spokesman for Her Majesty's Opposition, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North has returned to his place. While he states that his policy and that of the Labour party is that they do not take platforms with the IRA or Sinn Fein, the hon. Gentleman would do well to tell some of his hon. Friends that that is the rule of the game for Her Majesty's Opposition. It is a fact that some of his hon. Friends, be they renegades on the periphery of the party and about to drop off it, or others, have campaigned with Sinn Fein representatives and have brought them to this House while that organisation was backing the murderers of people in Northern Ireland. It is not enough for the hon. Gentleman to state his policy. When is that policy to be adhered to throughout his party, because that would bring some encouragement to the people of Northern Ireland?
9.2 pm
Mr. John Hume: Many people will have found the remarks of the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea) depressing. They will not have any difficulty in understanding why we have a serious problem

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in Northern Ireland when they consider that the hon. Gentleman is also a clergyman who is supposed to be committed to the basic Christian message of loving his neighbour. When we hear such sentiments from that sort of source, no one should be in any doubt why we have a problem in Northern Ireland.
I should like to clear up one or two matters before continuing my speech. We do not need public inquiries into killings by paramilitary organisations because murder is murder. It is as clear-cut as that, so we do not need an inquiry to prove it.
Several hon. Members have referred to the fact that both myself and my party are engaged in direct talks with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA—
Rev. William McCrea: It is not the political wing.
Mr. Hume: It is the political wing of the Provisional IRA.
Ever since I was elected 20 years ago to represent the people of Northern Ireland, I have made it clear that I would talk to anyone if it would contribute to peace and stability. I have talked to everyone—Loyalists and paramilitary members—at their request and there has not been a whimper of complaint from those sources. The SDLP and the Alliance party alone have remained wholly committed to the democratic process and have never had any alliance of any description—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster spoke for exactly one hour. He bored me stiff for most of that period and disgusted me for the rest of it. I have no intention of letting him interrupt my brief speech. We have never had any alliance with any paramilitary organisation. We are wholly opposed to violence. [Interruption.] I shall not take lessons from the hon. Gentleman's party—[Interruption.]—which on numerous occasions has sat down with masked men and paramilitary organisations, not to tell them to stop their violence, but to co-operate with them to achieve political objectives. My party has never done that and has no intention of doing it. We are committed to bringing violence to an end.
Life would be much easier for my colleagues and me if we took the self-righteous stance of simply seeking to maintain our position, and did not in any way engage in the art of politics to persuade others what they should or should not do. We knew from the start that we would be criticised from that source, and if we do not succeed in our objective, it will undoubtedly intensify. If, however, we succeed, there will be silence and that, as well as ending violence, would be a great achievement.
In view of the tenor of the Secretary of State's opening remarks I hoped that this debate would concentrate on the problem that we are all trying to solve. It has been easy to state party positions.
Mr. Peter Robinson: The Secretary of State said that there was a desire to move to talks among all constitutional parties. The hon. Gentleman must know politics in Northern Ireland well enough to know that his present dialogue with representatives of Provisional Sinn Fein, whether he agrees with this or not, forms a barrier for Unionists in any dialogue with his party. Even if his party's aims in those talks were to convince Sinn Fein, and through it the IRA, that there was another way to make progress in Northern Ireland, the events of the past months must show that he cannot fulfil that task. There must come a moment when he has to tell us candidly that
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they will not stop their violence, and it is far better to work with those who want to make progress through the constitutional and democratic process.
Mr. Hume: My party and I have been waiting for the past three years to talk to the hon. Gentleman and his party. If they wish to talk to us tomorrow, we shall talk to them. We shall tell them exactly what we have said to Sinn Fein so that they can make up their minds. We do not change our attitudes to problems according to whom we are talking to, because the problems remain the same.
I hoped that this debate would be about the problem that we are trying to solve. I have noted in the past that when the different parties have defined the problem they have all defined it differently, and they pass one another on the way to the solution.
It is easy for parties in Northern Ireland to whip up emotions based on sectarianism, hatred and bigotry. That is a symptom of what is wrong; that is the problem we are trying to address. Hon. Members have used phrases such as "an internal settlement". What does that mean? The only people who want an internal settlement in Northern Ireland are those who want an independent Northern Ireland. I understand that the Unionists want the problem to be settled in the context of the United Kingdom, but that would not be an internal settlement.
It is clear that there are different dimensions to the problem. There is a clash of relationships in the community in Northern Ireland, but that reflects another clash of relationships in the island of Ireland and another between the two islands. Those three relationships combine to make the problem that we must solve, and we must deal with all of them. We have only to listen to the two extremes in Northern Ireland—one says, "Brits out" and the other says. "No Dublin rule"—to understand that the other dimensions impinge upon the problem and must be dealt with if we are to solve it.
My party has given solid support to the Anglo-Irish Agreement because the framework of the problem, being the British-Irish framework, should also be the framework of a solution. However, it is only a framework. Movement can take place only if the different sections of our community are prepared to work together and break down the barriers between them. In the meantime, the two Governments are working together to deal with that problem.
Can anyone suggest a better and more peaceful way of dealing with the problem than the two sovereign Governments working together as closely as possible? That does not mean that they will always agree—if they did, there would be no need for them to sit down together—but they will do their best to agree on an approach that will bring the problem to an end. I cannot envisage any better way of dealing with the problem than that. If those who oppose that method of dealing with it can suggest a better way, we shall all listen.
By dealing with the problem in that way, the two Governments deal with the day-to-day problems on two levels. One level is what I call the symptoms and the other is the disease that gives rise to those symptoms. The symptoms of the Northern Ireland problem that spring from our division as a people and from the prejudices of centuries are all over the place—for example, discrimination from the past and policing. As we have repeatedly said, policing is not a problem of policemen. The absence of political consensus on how Northern Ireland should be

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governed means that until that is solved, there will always be a policing problem. The administration of justice and all the other matters that we complain about are also symptoms of the underlying problem. Progress is being made on some fronts, but not on others.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) will deal with those matters in more detail if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker. If all those symptoms and the disease—the underlying division between the people that has given rise to it—were satisfactorily cured tomorrow, they would recur in another form. The agreement has made major progress in dealing with that disease and the rigidity that has paralysed the North of Ireland for most of this century.
If we stand back from the problems, we see among the relationships the central one of the Unionist people to the remainder of the people of the island. For their own reasons, they have decided to live apart from the remainder of the island, and they have done so by holding all power in their hands. That position no longer exists; it was not an approach designed to produce peace and harmony. But every time a British Government moved to make the situation fairer, dire consequences were threatened by the leadership of the Unionist people and on each occasion the British Government backed down—the most recent being in 1974.
The consequence of that surrender of responsibility by British Governments was that the leadership of the Unionist people remained in uncompromising hands, in the hands of people who refused to address the fact that they were living in a divided society and had to come to terms with their neighbours and the people with whom they shared a piece of earth. In the Nationalist community it gave encouragement to those who say that the only thing that the British understand is force.
That vicious circle of threats of force from Unionism and actual force from the IRA has paralysed Ireland for most of this century. Now at last that vicious circle is being cut through because the Government have stood firm against those undemocratic threats, and the Secretary of State, who has been in the front line, has taken a great deal of personal abuse in standing up to those threats. But that has made the most significant advance in dealing with the problem since 1920 because the Unionist people are now facing up to the reality that in a divided society one must sort out one's relationships with the people with whom one differs and one cannot for ever seek to hold all the power in one's own hands and use blackmail whenever someone steps in to demand fair play.
That has been a painful experience for the Unionist people because of all that has gone before, but it has also been a healthy one for them and for the community as a whole because now we are all on an equal footing and that is the basis on which real dialogue should begin.
We are willing at any stage, with no preconditions, to enter into dialogue with the Unionists on any matter. We are willing to enter into dialogue about how we should run our community in Northern Ireland without any pre-conditions. We, from our experience, have recognised, and we have told the Secretary of State and have said so in public, that there have been five attempts—the fifth was announced today by the Secretary of State—to create
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devolution in Northern Ireland. We have participated in most of them and we have learned why they have failed. They have all failed for precisely the same reason.
Stormont, which was majority rule, failed because the majority held all the power in their own hands. Why? Because they were afraid to give the minority anything because of their fear of their relationship with the rest of the island. Power sharing was brought down in 1974. Why? Because those of us who were sharing the administration of Northern Ireland with the Unionists were regarded as fifth columnists who were acting on behalf of the rest of the island.
That is still the basic fundamental suspicion of the Unionist people in sitting down to talk to us—the relationship between the Unionist people and the rest of the island. Until they sort out that relationship to their own satisfaction—I am not suggesting any conquest—as well as to the satisfaction of the rest of us, that lack of relationship will always be a destabilising factor. I ask them to sort that out to their own satisfaction by sitting down with the representatives of the rest of Ireland.
I am suggesting that the subject of conversation be how we live together on this island. It is a simple subject. In advance of that, it must be clear that we cannot live together unless we both agree. There can be no conquests, no victories. There has to be agreement. The people of Cyprus will never sort out their problems until the Turkish and Greek Cypriots agree that there can be no victories.
Until now, the Anglo-Irish Agreement has focused on the challenge that it has given to the Unionist people. But, in fairness, that agreement has also thrown down a serious challenge to the Nationalist people. That challenge is a simple one. It says, "We recognise that the Nationalist-Republican tradition in Northern Ireland wants to see Ireland united and the people of Ireland united." We must tell the Nationalists that the agreement really means that the Irish people who want unity must persuade those who do not, and that is the challenge.
This task can never be achieved by the gun or bomb. That must be learned by the Nationalist-Republican tradition in Ireland. Something else must be learned, too. The Government have stood firm against blackmail, and the IRA and its supporters must realise that the past 15 or 20 years have cost the people of Northern Ireland, including many who support the IRA, dearly. In what it calls a war, 3,000 people have lost their lives—the equivalent of 40,000 on this island. Twenty thousand have been maimed; three new prisons have been built and they are full of young people who have been sucked into the violence; 11 walls have been built in the city with the highest churchgoing population in Europe—Belfast—to separate one section of a Christian community from another and to protect the communities from each other. If that does not tell us that past attitudes have brought us to the present position, what else will?
After all this loss, is there anyone in these two islands, even in the membership of the IRA, who thinks for one minute that the British Government, led by the present Prime Minister, will surrender to blackmail? Everyone knows that that will not happen. So the question that IRA members must ask themselves and their followers is whether they will ask their people to pay this price for another decade. That challenge is thrown down and accompanied by the offer that if those people really want peace, stability and unity in Ireland, their task is to persuade those who do not—our Unionist and Protestant

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fellow citizens. That task has never really been faced with great integrity or dedication by Nationalists or Republicans. It will not be achieved in a hurry or easily.
It is about time that we at least started talking together about how to live together. There is nothing to be lost by that. Let us remember that we are doing so in the context of this Government and Parliament and the Irish Government and Parliament, together with 10 other Governments and Parliaments in western Europe, having taken a decision which is much more far-reaching in its effect on the lives of the people in Ireland than the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Not a whimper has been heard from anyone in Northern Ireland about that. It will transform relationships within Ireland and rapidly break down barriers that have gone up since 1920.
The challenge to us and our fellow citizens—the Unionists—is to put our stamp on this change. We can do so only by sitting down together and accepting the invitation that has been issued to us.
9.23 pm
Sir John Farr: I hope that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) will forgive me if I do not follow him. I recognise the sincerity of his views about the island of Ireland, although most of the solutions that he recommended will probably not be received with sympathy by Conservative Members.
I wish to refer to some of what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said. My constituency and the whole House share his admiration for the courage of the security forces. I pay my own little tribute to the courage of the school bus driver who, despite the most severe incapacity after the dreadful bomb yesterday, almost managed to perform a miracle. We are all proud of him.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the opportunities for industry in Northern Ireland. Many efforts have been made over the years, but so many Secretaries of State have not been able to see round the corner. My right hon. Friend is lucky enough to be able to see round it—or, perhaps, to see over the hill—after many years of promises. We are delighted to know that industry is picking up and that job prospects are improving. That must have the approval of every hon. Member who is interested in Northern Ireland.
Over the years we have heard about the terrible problems that successive Secretaries of State have had to face. We can recall one Secretary of State after another having to make important speeches to the House and a sombre House receiving them with great gravity. The debate has properly been almost solely about security. Despite all the grave promises by good, bad and indifferent Secretaries of State in Conservative and Labour Governments, the security situation in Northern Ireland is at least as bad as ever. According to many experts it is probably worse today.
Before dealing with the possible cause of that, I should like to speak about the upsurge in industrial activity in Northern Ireland. We congratulate the Ministers who, over so many years, have put in such hard work. We know about the slog and the backroom work, and about the exhibitions that some of us have been lucky enough to visit to see all the wonderful plans for Belfast. Those plans are now coming to fruition.
I hope that the Secretary of State will seriously consider the possibility of Harland and Wolff building the largest
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passenger vessel in the world. That hope crosses party lines. There is no division about it, because it means jobs. There will be jobs in the building of the vessel, but. as my right hon. Friend rightly said in his analysis, there will also he jobs in the whole of the infrastructure of Northern Ireland. Those jobs will make an immense difference to Northern Ireland. To build the vessel in Belfast may be bending the rules and may involve a large sum that should be invested. But building it in Belfast will be a message of hope for the whole of the Province. When I say that, I bear in mind the farcical events and the big loss that was incurred in De Lorean.
I return to the cause of the present unrest and the terrible violence. As the Secretary of State said, every act of violence in Northern Ireland seems to plumb new lows. We have to face that, but what is the cause of the violence? It would be easy for some of my hon. Friends to say, although I am not saying it, "We told you so." Two or three years ago, some of us said that the Anglo-Irish Agreement would not work and that the trouble would get worse. I recognise that my right hon. Friend and the whole of his Front-Bench team are not only sincere Ministers but extremely conscientious and hard working. It is not because of their addiction to the Anglo-Irish Agreement that Northern Ireland is in its present position.
Some of us who objected to the agreement three years ago are justified in asking my right hon. Friend or the Minister who will reply about the effectiveness of the extradition procedures under the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Some of us, mistakenly or not, were against the Anglo-Irish Agreement or had severe reservations about it. One of them was that we thought that the extradition procedure that was supposed to apply to terrorists south of the border could never be made to stick. Our big regret is that that reservation has so far proved to be well-founded.
It is very difficult to extradite a wanted man from the other side of the border to a court in the United Kingdom. Last week, despite the Government of the Republic wishing a terrorist to be sent to Northern Ireland, a justice exercised his discretion and decided that there was something wrong with the evidence and that extradition should not go ahead.
That simply is not good enough. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Northern Ireland Office Ministers to pay a little more attention to extradition and to examine how the extradition of terrorists from the Irish Republic to Britain works. I know the background, because I am lucky enough to have many good friends at the Dublin bar and on the Dublin law circuit. Many of them, whom I have known for many years, work for a company that is highly esteemed and has done a lot of work over the years for the Dublin Government. Several members of the company have become judges on the Dublin circuit.
For the past five or six years, members of the legal profession have had to have their names removed from the telephone book. Their addresses are so confidential that it is impossible to obtain them. The reason is that in the past five or six years the companies with good old indigenous Irish names, whose barristers, attorneys and so on have served the Dublin Government through difficult times for many years—particularly in the past 10 or 20 years—and have done their will have been subject to the most dreadful intimidation. It is as bad as anything in the North of

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Ireland. They have often had to have Gardai or special branch protection and in some cases they have had to leave the district where they have lived for 40 years.
We must realise that when the justice made his decision last week, he may have had to bear in mind what had happened to many of his colleagues in Dublin legal circles. When we apply for extradition, we must appreciate the problems that justices in Eire, and in Dublin in particular, face if they are honest and brave enough to send a murderer back to face just retribution in Great Britain.
9.33 pm
Mr. Martin Flannery: When I listened to the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea) engaging in his hour-long tirade, I wished that the British people could have heard him. If ever a person did a great disservice—even to his own cause—it was the hon. Gentleman by his tirade. [Interruption.]He makes everybody in the Chamber feel moderate. [Interruption.]He will not even shut up now and let me speak. That is his way, but I shall get on with what I want to say.
Direct rule was introduced precisely because of the attitude that had been manifested tonight. Some Unionists are not quite like that. There seems to be a forgetfulness about what they did. In all my years in the House I have never heard the Unionists admit that they ever did any wrong to the minority community. Never do they admit it. They are so self-righteous. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster frightens the IRA, but by God, he frightens me. His attitude is the attitude that resulted in direct rule.
One or two points have been made here on many occasions, but they should be repeated, because they must not be forgotten. The Unionist majority in the North came about only because a line was drawn by the then British Government, who gave way to blackmail and the threat of violence. That line satisfied the Ulster Unionist leaders at the time because it gave them an inbuilt majority. Those people were not like the ordinary people on this side of the water. There were two separate communities—one the oppressed and the others the oppressors. There is every sign that, but for direct rule, that oppression would still be going on.
On Friday, we shall be debating the White Paper on unemployment. I was looking at it only a short time ago, and it bluntly says that the oppression still goes on. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) spoke to me before he left and I told him that I am not religious, so I am not fighting for the Catholics or for any other religious group. I am fighting for justice and I would fight just as hard for a Protestant minority that was subjected to such oppression. There seems no desire to give justice. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley said that we should set an example and that instead of there being only 14 candidates for the Northern Ireland ministerial posts, there should be 36.
Direct rule came about because of the appalling lack of democracy exercised over the minority by the majority. That had the inevitable result of violence. After pressure from the Unionist leaders, there was a civil rights march, which was attacked by a bunch of thugs. That thuggery against the minority is still latent. After 1969 and the attack on the civil rights march, it became obvious that the
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North could no longer be ruled in the old, undemocratic way, and that it was not willing to be ruled in that way. Those of us who have always believed in a united Ireland know that, ultimately, that must come about. However, we are a long way away from that because of the implied threat of violence, the same threat that occurred in the 1920s. The minority community, which has chafed against the sectarian anti-democracy of the Unionist majority since it all began, reacted against the violence, but it is clear that nothing will change.
The IRA and the opposing paramilitary groups have been given a reason for their resistance. After 1969, when nothing happened to give the oppressed justice, it became clear that paramilitary groups would emerge and a new IRA came about. To this day, paramilitary groups abound, and we must be aware that paramilitary groups on the other side from the IRA carry out exactly the same degradations. We have made it clear that we are appalled by what the IRA has done recently. To accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) of colluding with any form of violence is an insult, and a low and nasty abuse. We all know that the SDLP is doing its best, in the interests of justice, peace and fairness, and that its members would deplore, and have deplored on every possible occasion, violent acts such as those that occur all too often.
What are the conditions for devolved government, devolution or whatever it is called? There is no sign that devolved government would do anything to rectify the situation if it were introduced now. The Unionists have been split wide open under the hammer blows of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Most of them want to return to the old Stormont that created the mess that now confronts us. They want to do exactly what they have done in the past. Whenever we attempt to make them acknowledge that their actions in the past were wrong and created all the problems that we face, they refuse to say one word about the lack of justice for the minority community.
That minority community is ready for reconciliation, but not one word that could be construed as a sign of reconciliation has come from the Unionists tonight. It is clear that the Unionists wish to return to the old Stormont with the same old Stormont mentality. That cannot be done, and for as long as that is the position there must, sadly, be direct rule.
The Unionists think that any democratic practice that helps both communities means that we are heading towards a united Ireland. I believe that that will happen, and to seek to stop any democratic move now because it is thought to be leading towards a united Ireland shows a disgraceful blindness that worries us all. The Unionists are extremely angry whenever these issues are raised. They refuse to admit that something went wrong in the past. That is a clear sign that nothing would be changed if they were left to their own devices.
We are trying to persuade all the communities in Northern Ireland to enter into discussions. Unfortunately, there are divisions, and that fact became as clear as daylight when the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, argued in the most sectarian manner for a statelet independent of the rest of the United Kingdom as a means of escaping the realities.
Where do we go from here? The obstacles are tremendous. One side in Northern Ireland would suggest that they cannot be overcome, but a failure to do so will

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sustain the paramilitarists on both sides of the community. It is in the interests of us all that we should try to ensure that there are regular discussions. I often say to those who are involved in the troops-out movement that the troops will leave only when there is a political situation that admits that no one will be killed when they are withdrawn.
The arguments advanced by the Unionists strengthen the troops-out movement as well as the attitudes of the paramilitarists on both sides of the community. Every gesture of reconciliation is interpreted by the Unionists as a treacherous act. That is their reaction to the honest folk who are trying to engage in reconciliation. Do they believe that reconciliation and democratic procedures are steps to a united Ireland? It is not clear to me and many of my hon. Friends that we are anywhere near anything of that sort. To struggle against democratic practices on that basis involves the use of unacceptable excuses. If the Unionists believe that reconciliation and democratic procedures will lead inevitably to a united Ireland, we shall never have reconciliation.
At some stage, all the parties in Northern Ireland must enter into discussions. That must occur. A large measure of agreement will have to be arrived at before devolved government of any form can be considered. It is time that we proceeded with reconciliation, as that is the deadly enemy of the paramilitarists. Democracy is their deadly enemy. It is sad that there is little democracy flowing to us from the Unionists.
9.44 pm
Mr. Peter Robinson: In some respects the debate is a fraud. We are purportedly debating an interim period extension, but everyone knows that Northern Ireland is governed under an arrangement that was entered into without any legislation appearing before the House and without any accountability to the House. That was the result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. There is not an absolute system of direct rule. The interim period extension that is proposed cannot be taken in isolation from the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which means that the decision for the House will be based very much on the agreement itself. That is currently the position of my colleagues.
I should like to respond to certain of the comments made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume)—though unfortunately in his absence. He sought to give an analysis, albeit a brief one, of the position as seen by the nationalist community. I follow him by giving an equally brief analysis of the Unionist perspective. Although it will be readily recognised that the two do not coincide, the fact that we can hear, or at least read, what the other section of the community sees as being the problem and its solution might in itself be a starting point.
I speak as someone who may be described as a child of the troubles. I entered politics at almost the very time when the first stone was thrown, when the first injury occurred, and when the streets were filled with people unhappy at the arrangements then pertaining.
I joined a party that was not the Government party and which has never been in government. Therefore, it is removed from much of the criticism that was voiced by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery)—criticism which, if he thought about it for a moment, has been levelled against the Government. They are still being accused of discrimination. The cries have not stopped
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from those same sources because the Unionists are not in control in Northern Ireland. There are more calls for inquiries now than when there was a Unionist Government. However, it is not my task to defend past Unionist Governments. As I have said, my party was the official Opposition, so I can safely leave any such defence in the hands of others.
As someone who grew up in those years, I know that there are certain lessons of history that one cannot deny or escape. If one tries to do so, it is at one's peril. Whether or not Unionists like it—and the likelihood is that they will not—there are facts relating to the fall of the Stormont parliament that stand at this moment in time. The reasons why it fell are not to be found in the comments of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) concerning alleged discrimination. It fell because it did not have the consent of the whole community.
That consent was withheld for one reason or another by the minority. Many an institution has followed since then. There was the power-sharing executive, which fell because it did not have the consent of the majority. One initiative after another has been scuppered because one section of the community could not gain the consent and support of the other. We could go on until the present generation dies out and our descendants take over, and if we do not achieve a system of government that has the consent of both sections of the community, no doubt the hon. Member for Belfast, East in the year 2020 could make a speech almost identical to that which I am making now.
Mr. William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that when he speaks about "alleged discrimination", he is speaking about the heart of the matter? It is not a question of alleged discrimination but of real discrimination that has built up over a long period. It is precisely the policies being pursued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, arid in particular that which we shall be debating on Friday regarding fair employment, that offer a degree of hope within the framework of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Mr. Robinson: I could follow the hon. Gentleman down that line. I could tell him that more than 50 per cent. of the houses in the public sector were inhabited by members of the Roman Catholic faith, and that therefore there was discrimination against the Protestant community. I could say that after three years of touting for business in the form of people claiming that they had been discriminated against, the fair employment agency could find only five cases—and they were not all members of the Roman Catholic community.
The purpose of my speech, however, is to deal not with discrimination but with our constitutional difficulties and the security problems that flow directly from them. The failures are caused not so much by discrimination as by a difference of identity. The hon. Member for Foyle said that the Unionists had chosen to live separately from the other people on the island, whatever their reason. A Unionist would say that the nationalists had chosen to live separately from the rest of the people in the British Isles. How we see the problem depends on our angle of vision. What cannot be escaped is that a problem of identity exists, as does the problem of creating a system of government in Northern Ireland with which the two sections of the community can identify, and to which they can give allegiance and support.

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It is not particularly difficult to analyse the problem in simple terms. What is difficult is achieving that system of government. I must tell the House, and particularly the Government Front Bench, that no agreement between London and Dublin—however well-meaning either or both of those parties may be—can ever achieve agreement for the people of Northern Ireland.
In the past I have used the analogy of a dispute within a marriage. If a husband and wife are not getting on well, the in-laws can meet as often as they want and arrive at whatever conclusions they please, but unless the couple themselves sit down to work out their differences and the solutions to their problems, there will be no happy marriage thereafter. Similarly, London and Dublin will not solve our problems in Northern Ireland. The problem is in Northern Ireland, so the solution must be in Northern Ireland as well. That is why I urge, along with many others, that we find an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. For me the agreement does not provide a framework; it provides a straitjacket in which there is no possibility of achieving the flexibility that could bring agreement with other parties.
The Secretary of State should learn from the example of the Opposition Front Bench—and it is not often that I ask him to do that. The Opposition have a precise view about the future of Northern Ireland. They admit openly that they wish for a united Ireland; they recognise none the less that there must be stable government there. While they like the Anglo-Irish Agreement and would like everyone else to support it, they recognise that if agreement can be reached in a better way it is foolish to continue with an agreement that—in my terms at least—has failed. If the constitutional parties can come up with a better alternative, one that they are both happy to support, surely the Government must be prepared even at this stage to encourage it, or at least consider it constructively and positively.
That is what Unionists ask them to do. Until now we have had no clear and precise sign that the Government were willing to consider an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. If they were to say that, they would begin to transform the political situation in Northern Ireland. They would breathe into it some hope that an alternative could be achieved. Judging from the comments of people engaged in what are euphemistically known as the talks about talks, there is not an insurmountable problem in reaching an agreement or finding some formula whereby the various manifesto commitments of the Unionist party in relation to the non-implementation of the agreement during negotiations, can be agreed. If that is not a problem, surely we can move to agreement, or at least a meeting between the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland when the SDLP has concluded its dialogue with Sinn Fein.
I am not attacking the SDLP for the sake of it. I want to see a positive and constructive dialogue between the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Foyle is not present. I am even more sorry that he avoided answering my intervention. Whether he likes it or not, dialogue between the SDLP and the Sinn Fein presents a difficulty and a barrier for Unionists. Unionists cannot be part of a dialogue with the SDLP while the SDLP is talking to Sinn Fein.
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In laymen's terms, the SDLP will be seen as the intermediary between the IRA and the Unionists. Unionists are not prepared to have a dialogue, or even to be associated with a dialogue with the IRA. Whether or not SDLP Members understand our difficulties, I ask them to realise that it is a barrier to dialogue between the Unionists and the SDLP, and as such it presents a barrier to progress towards an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and towards the peace, stability and reconciliation that the people of Northern Ireland deserve, and that I trust all politicians in Northern Ireland want.
They must recognise, although they are slow to admit it openly, that whatever the Anglo-Irish Agreement might mean symbolically to the minority communities, it has not achieved what they hoped it would achieve. Tonight its short-term goal of whether it has obviated the need for megaphone diplomacy—I think that those were the Secretary of State's words—is to be tested. It has not done that. The same difficulties exist between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the Irish Republic. Those difficulties still pertain to the present day.
The agreement's long-term objectives were peace, stability and reconciliation. Before the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in November 1985, the graph of violence steadily and happily had been going down. From 1972 to 1985 the number of deaths occurring through terrorist violence had been decreasing every year. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the graph started to go up.
As for peace, the statistics bear evidence that we are not on the road to peace through the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The lack of political stability affects economic stability and it is quite clear that there is no strength within the Anglo-Irish Agreement to create stability in our Province. I believe that divisions have been greater during our recent troubles.
I do not believe that the Anglo-Irish Agreement ever could have been presumed to bring reconciliation, when it was created as a result of bypassing the Unionist community. Reconciliation with the Unionists cannot come from leaving them aside and refusing to consult them. The whole process of reconciliation involves bringing people along, but that did not occur. The excuse was, "If we had talked to them, they would not have agreed." That does not seem to be the way to achieve agreement or reconciliation between the communities of Northern Ireland.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement is a failure in its long-term and short-term objectives. I believe that there is no advantage for the SDLP within the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It might like to see the discomfort of Unionists, but the agreement has not achieved anything which it could not have achieved by negotiating with Unionists if there was administration at Stormont or if it had negotiated with the Unionist leadership.
I must tell Nationalist politicians and their representatives in the House that the way forward in Northern Ireland is to have agreement with the Unionist community, and the best way in which to do that is to conclude the dialogue with Sinn Fein, which cannot succeed on the basis of promises, or hopes, of the violence being stopped. The IRA has no intention of stopping violence voluntarily. Its raison d'être is violence. Its position in society and its clout comes through violence.

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Sadly, much of the SDLP's clout comes through the IRA's violence. Whereas one can make concessions to the SDLP, one cannot to the IRA.
I want progress in Northern Ireland. I want it through the dialogue that the Secretary of State has suggested. I want it on the basis of an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the SDLP ending its contact with the IRA. The Unionist leaders' outline proposals have been put to the Secretary of State. They do not set the clock back. The hon. Member for Hillsborough is time locked, but Unionists are not.
We have put forward positive proposals, and not for the first time. We asked to talk to the SDLP when it refused to talk to us. We were prepared to take part in the Government initiative in the Northern Ireland Assembly, when the SDLP boycotted it. We put forward proposals in the Assembly but, unfortunately, those who co-operated with the Government and tried to make the system work were punished, whereas those who boycotted the system and abstained were rewarded, just as those who bombed and shot were rewarded with concessions under the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The Government should include Unionists in the process to get an alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement which achieves peace and stability in Northern Ireland.
I ask the SDLP to end its flirtation with the IRA. It should start constructive dialogue with constitutional parties. It has indicated that progress can be made only by the agreement of the constitutional parties. I ask it to take that step. I trust that the next hon. Member to speak will be the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon), and perhaps he will give us some clear idea that that is what will happen.
10.2 pm
Mr. Seamus Mallon: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) for catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for me.
I was accused earlier of having a great respect for British parliamentary traditions. I plead guilty. I come from an area and from a family which know only too well that Parliament is a substitute for war. I know that unless we have parliamentary democracy, however deficient we may regard this forum, with which to deal with problems, we will have war-war rather than jaw-jaw.
I have enormous respect for the parliamentary traditions of the House and its practices. That might be the key to some of the nastiness that we saw earlier. There is one thing which Unionists who remain in the House and I have in common—I do not include my colleagues, who can speak for themselves. While retaining that admiration and respect for the traditions of the House, I want not British troops to withdraw from Ireland but Irish political troops to withdraw from the House.
Part of the Unionist problem, and part of the Nationalist problem, is that we are not part of it here. We are not part of the tradition or the machinery. That shines through every time we hear a Unionist speak in the House. He is crying out, "For heaven's sake, will somebody please like me? Will somebody please treat me as the equal that you tell me I am?" But the House does not do that because the hon. Members for Belfast, East and, for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea) and myself are all Paddies here.
The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): Nothing wrong with that.
Mr. Mallon: I shall come to the Attorney-General later.
We shall be used when it suits the majority opinion in the House, whether that be Conservative, as at present, or Labour, which not so long ago was destroying the North of Ireland. That point unites us. It is one that we must remember when we approach the debate, because it is fundamental.
The hon. Member for Belfast, East said that he believed that members of my party like to see the discomfort of Unionists over the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Nothing could be further from the truth. I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept that with all the sincerity I can muster. Through the years we have lived with too much discomfort ourselves—we still live with it in many ways—to get any enjoyment out of seeing any other Irish Member suffering discomfort as a result of what the British Parliament has decided. That could be a bonding factor between us. We should realise that and stop the nonsense—some of which we saw today—which demeans not just the Unionist argument but the whole political process in which we are taking part.
I sought this opportunity, as I did during last year's debate, to speak to my colleagues of the Unionist tradition, not to Ministers. I seek to speak to them because, irrespective of what happens constitutionally or what is decided by Governments in Westminster, Dublin or Strasbourg, one thing will not change. I will be living beside the same neighbours from the Unionist and Protestant traditions. We have lived there all our lives and we shall continue to do so. That is an immutable fact and there is nothing that the Government can do to change it. There is nothing that an Irish Government or any political force on earth—be it a constitutional or paramilitary force—can do to change that.
If that is a basic fact, there must be a basic conclusion. The sooner we work out a means of living together with respect for both our traditions—a respect which will be to our mutual advantage—the sooner we shall be able to present our strength to this Parliament, the Dublin Parliament and everybody else who believes that, because of our divisions as a people, we are not seriously able to cope with our problems. That is our challenge—not the people sitting on the Government Front Bench or in Dublin. That is the reality we have not yet harnessed.
I take this opportunity to ask the people of the Unionist tradition and their public representatives; as Paddies, let us show the Government that we have two feet on which to stand, heads on our shoulders with which to think and certain political skills.
We do not have to live with the condescension that we often see in political life. We can tell the Government that we are tired of being patted on the head and told, "Good chappies, this will do you until next year," or, "You will get an hour and a half to debate something which is crucially important," or, "You can have a system of justice which is deficient or a job creation scheme which is a nonsense."
We do not have to take such things and we should not do so. That would be the real nationalism which is common to those who call themselves Unionists and those who at present call themselves Nationalists. Our political challenge is to harness that nationalism. If we do so, we shall become the masters of our destiny. We would then not be condescended to by anybody. No one would make

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decisions for us. We would be expressing for the first time the one thing in which I believe and which I hold dear in political life, which is that all people have a right to self-determination and that everybody has a right to determine their own future. As Irish people living in the north of Ireland, we have a right to do that. We should take that right and work on it in such a way that we can end the awful trauma that we have all lived through.
My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) referred to some of the symptoms of the disease. They should not be dismissed easily, because many of the symptoms that we have seen and that we see today have prevented political development and dialogue. I refer to the findings of the Northern Ireland Police Authority. I shall not do so scathingly, as other hon. Members have done, and will not refer to the majority of one, but ask the House to consider whether it is not an absolute tragedy that the Chief Constable and two deputy chief constables of the police service in the north of Ireland do not have the respect or confidence of their own Police Authority or of a large section of the community.
I am not asking them to resign, as has been suggested earlier. However, the political decision should be taken to ask them to go because it is shameless and demeaning that those men remain in their positions, given the findings of their own Police Authority, which is very much biased towards their position. The decent and honourable thing would have been for those three men to resign immediately. I ask the Secretary of State, who is ultimately responsible for security and policing in the north of Ireland, to have the courage to ask them to leave because they no longer have the credibility to exercise authority.
If we are to have proper policing—I want to see that—and a proper system of justice—I want to see that also—let us get rid of the charlatans and those who, more than any others, have debased the name of policing. Let us not allow constables X, Y and Z, as they will be named, to carry the can for decisions taken by senior police officers. That is the sympton which is holding back political progress.
I have 20 parliamentary questions which, despite the political traditions, I cannot table. There is no way in which I can table them because they ask when the inquest on an innocent man who was shot six years ago will be held. There is no parliamentary machinery whereby I can do that. The first questions I would ask are, "Is there to be an inquest six years after that death? If there is, will a jury be called for it? Could we please be told the names of the witnesses who will be called? Will John Stalker be called? Will Mr. Sampson be called? Who will be called from the Greater Manchester police service or the West Yorkshire police service? Will sergeant X, Constable Y and Constable Z, who said in court under oath that senior police officers had asked them to commit perjury, be asked to give evidence? Will the Chief Constable and the deputy chief constables be called to give evidence? What will happen to that one basic piece of, let us call it, justice?" There is no way that I can table those questions.
Will the Secretary of State say what he will do about a Chief Constable who since 15 February has refused to give evidence to the coroner of Armagh? How many times has the coroner asked for that evidence since that date? With the weight of his political authority, what will the right
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hon. Gentleman say to the Chief Constable about that evidence? I suggest that he says, "Put that evidence on the coroner's desk tomorrow morning before you put your resignation on mine." I am angry about this, because it goes to the heart of all these relationships and all the political development that may be possible.
I have two further points to make, not harshly but forcefully. People of the Church of Ireland, the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church and others have been united by the education proposals. They have brought unity to the North of Ireland such as has not existed for years. They have surpassed anything that Barry McGuigan or Jack Charlton achieved. Those proposals have united the people of the north of Ireland. I do not want to make a meal of this, but for God's sake, the Government must listen: those people are not saying what they are saying because they do not like the education Minister or because of any prejudices. It is because the Minister is trampling on a fundamental part of their lives. He is importing an ethic into education which is frightening people of all denominations. He will not improve the education system by trampling on the dreams and fears of those people, and I ask him to think again.
Finally, will the Minister honour the commitments that he gave in this House to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), myself and others about prison releases? We know their effect on the family, the street, the townland, the village and throughout the community. I am sorry to say that the Minister has not honoured those commitments given both publicly and privately across the table. He has let them slide and has not done what he should have done. He has not kept his commitment in relation to prisoners sentenced at the Secretary of State's pleasure and life prisoners.
Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman was not present at the beginning of the debate when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that we would conclude our consideration of SOSPs and announce our conclusions shortly.
Mr. Mallon: I was here at the beginning and did not miss any of the debate. I heard what the Secretary of State said. The understanding—a substantial part of creating a thaw in the communities—has not been kept. With the greatest respect, I ask the Minister to proceed with it.
Throughout the debate we have heard about reconciliation, and I should like a definition of that word. I do not like it, because it does not mean anything any more. There is no problem in reconciling sections of the middle-class people in the North of Ireland, Protestants and Catholics. That is no problem on the Malone road. The Malone road and the Lower Malone road will be reconciled without any problems.
If the word "reconcile" means anything, it means reconciling those on the Falls road with those on the Shanklin road; those in South Armagh with those in Bangor; and those in the Creggan and Derry with those in Ballymena. If that is to be achieved, we have to talk even to those we would not wish to take tea with. If we avoid doing that, we are simply choosing the easy option—and none of us can afford to do that.
10.20 pm
Mr. William Cash: The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) asked whether there was a better alternative to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I have to ask him, and other hon. Members who asked the same question, whether there is a better alternative and what else could be put in its place in the light of the background to the problems of the English in Ireland, the Scots in Irelard and the United Kingdom's relationship with Northern Ireland. All that could be put in place of the agreement is hopelessness, despair and violence—the sort of terrorism that we witnessed only yesterday.
Listening to the speeches tonight——
Ms. Short: The hon. Gentleman has not been here most of the time.
Mr. Cash: That is not so. I have been here for a substantial part of the proceedings. I have taken a considerable interest in Northern Ireland affairs since I came to the House. I will not be diverted by the hon. Lady.
Part of the difficulty lies in the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East about discrimination and consent. I have no intention of making a long speech, but it is important that when the hon. Gentleman speaks of the need for reconciliation he—indeed, all hon. Members—should bear in mind the reality of what has lain at the root of the problems of Northern Ireland, not merely for the past 10 or 15 years or for decades or generations, but for hundreds of years. It is the problem of discrimination.
It is not enough to talk broadly and generally about solving that problem. The route chosen by the Government will, for the first time in the history of the Irish problem, attempt seriously to tackle the questions that lie at the root of discrimination and prejudice. It is a nuts and bolts procedure. When listening to speeches about the agreement, I am sometimes left wondering whether hon. Members have actually read it. The machinery exists for a practical step-by-step approach towards changing the manner in which the people of Northern Ireland treat one another.
Last week the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and I were asked to go to Dublin to speak about the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was rather more of a discussion than a debate. It was curious that in addition to the hon. Gentleman and me there were representatives from both the Government and the Opposition in Ireland. It had been intended that the audience should be composed largely of moderates, but it was significantly packed by members of Sinn Fein and the IRA. It was interesting that IRA members listened to speakers on the platform who, within the acceptance of the agreement, were prepared to put forward constructive ideas aimed at helping the people of Northern Ireland.
Before I went into that debate, I went to the Dail, where I heard a speech by two members on the question of extradition. They did not know that I was there and they were criticising in strong and vehement terms the failure of the extradition arrangements that we witnessed when McVeigh went free the other day.
The point in a nutshell is that on both sides of the water there are people of good will. On both sides of the border between North and South, in Northern Ireland and in Eire, there are people of good will. If we adopt the step-by-step practical approach of the Anglo-Irish
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Agreement, we shall solve those problems because there are people who are interested in achieving a reasonable settlement.
Therefore, I ask those who have criticised the agreement to bear in mind that centuries of prejudice arid bias are at last being tackled with a step-by-step approach, to give it the support that it needs and also to support the order tonight.
10.25 pm
Ms. Clare Short: As has been said, we approach the 14th year of direct rule and this is the 19th year since troops were sent onto the streets of Northern Ireland following the civil rights movement which brought down Stormont and the rotten settlement that it represented.
The civil rights movement was completely peaceful, asking for an end to discrimination, justice in the allocation of housing, the end of gerrymandering, and so on. There was a brutal and violent response within Northern Ireland to those decent demands, and the police and other forces failed to protect the minority community.
It was because of the failure of that settlement that British troops went in. At that time Britain said that we were ashamed of what we had done since partition. We had turned our back on Northern Ireland and left it to Stormont. We had allowed discrimination and all the injustice to fester. Conservative and Labour parties are equally responsible for that. However, we said that it would go on no longer. We would have direct rule and start to put matters right. We would end the discrimination and injustice and have justice within Northern Ireland.
Here we are nearly 20 years later and what is the picture? The Secretary of State has tried to put a bright light on the government of Northern Ireland and what: is going on there, but the truth is that the situation there is a disaster.
In those 19 years, 3,000 people have died, 20,000 have been maimed and injured, the discrimination in employment is serious and has got no better, the criminal justice system is not fair and cannot hold up its head in the world, unemployment in some areas of Northern Ireland is outrageous and there is recruiting of young people by paramilitary organisations on both sides of the sectarian divide. Britain has spent large sums on seeking a security solution in Northern Ireland, building prisons and recruiting security forces. Yet the economy collapses, nothing is any better and there is no hope of progress.
The Secretary of State, in a major part of his speech, advocated devolution within the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. As he spoke, the leader of the Official Unionist party said, "No way. We will not go for devolution within the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement." I do not understand why the leader of the Democratic Unionist party was not called, to represent his party's position, but, as I understand it, that party will not accept devolution within the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. So it is not on. It will not work, but that is what the Secretary of State advocates. It will not help, either. There is no chance of progress and there will be no solution in the method for which he argued.
It is the view of British generals and the British military that there is no military solution to the problem of Northern Ireland. They can never defeat, or be defeated

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by, terrorism. It is the publicly stated view of the IRA that it can never succeed by the use of force, or be defeated by it. Senior representatives of the IRA have stated that publicly. The dreadful future that confronts us is that the present state of affairs could continue indefinitely—with its bloodshed, death, cruelty, inequality and discrimination. That is the most likely prospect.
An important voice has not yet been expressed in this matter because of a malfunction in the democratic system of this country—the voice of the British people. There is a mounting desire and demand in Britain for withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Everyone knows that: it is heard in meetings and pubs around the country, and opinion polls have measured its strength for 10 years now.
No major political party in Britain advocates withdrawal; it is seen as illegitimate in the mainstream political debate. Yet more than half the British people say, time and again, that they want to get out of Northern Ireland. That is a growing part of the truth.
To the Unionist parties who say that we cannot force them out of the United Kingdom, I say: you cannot force us to stay in Northern Ireland. You cannot force us to send our troops there and to keep using plastic bullets to blind people and kill children. The British people are becoming unwilling to stay. That is part of the unspoken political reality that everyone knows.
The reason why I abstained in the vote on the Anglo-Irish Agreement was that the root of the problem is that the partition of Ireland, and the Northern Irish statelet, have no democratic legitimacy. The northern state was created because Unionism threatened violence to get it. That is part of the problem. The border was gerrymandered and the artificial majority there was maintained—because there was always the fear that the Unionists would not remain a majority—through crude discrimination and gerrymandering. Leaving aside the injustice of partition, if the people born in Northern Ireland since then had been allowed to grow up in equal numbers, and if discrimination had not done the job of forcing a differing emigration rate, there would now be a Nationalist majority there. That is why the poison of discrimination and division is part of the border and of partition.
I do not accept the legitimacy of the Six Counties or of partition, or the legitimacy of the way in which the majority has been kept a majority. So I am not willing to give it the respect due to a democratically legitimate group.
On present estimates, according to work done for the New Irish Forum by independent academic experts, there is likely to be a Nationalist majority in Northern Ireland in 2016, which, in terms of the history of Ireland, is not far off. My view, which is representative of the bulk of British opinion but which cannot be expressed in the House without attracting allegations that the person voicing it is somehow a covert supporter of the IRA, is that we should honestly tell the people of Northern Ireland the truth. I think it was the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea), who spoke at enormous length and showed the less attractive face of the Democratic Unionists, who said that Unionist people respect the truth. But they know that Britain wants to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The British people say so; so does the
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Labour party. Our policy is to seek the reunification of Ireland but not to leave unless a majority in the North accept that.
We say openly that we aspire to withdrawal. Conservatives would love to get out of Northern Ireland if they could do it without turning somersaults and leaving chaos behind. We want to get out. I say to the people of Northern Ireland, "You are not British, you are Irish and belong to the history of that country. There could be a much better country there for all of you if you worked together for a better future and better government."
We should say that we wish to withdraw and will back all initiatives that will bring the Irish people together. We should say that Britain will back anything that they agree on. We should use all our influence and resources and so on to seek to withdraw and to seek to encourage agreement between the Irish people about the future. We should come clean. There is no quick-fit simple solution. Britain cannot withdraw unless she leaves behind a stable settlement, because that would be worse than the current situation—if that is possible.
Democratic Unionist Members have hinted heavily that an independent Northern Ireland is seriously on their agenda, and if Britain will not give them everything, that is what they will go for. That was hinted at more than once in the debate. How irresponsible can those hon. Members be about their own people and the place in which they live? They should look at the present trouble in Northern Ireland and imagine how much worse it could be.
Everyone knows that as an independent country Northern Ireland would not be viable. Without the continuing subsidy, there would be terrible problems for the economy. Everyone also knows that the very forces that cause the violence and the bloodshed would be inflamed and enlarged by any suggestion of an independent Northern Ireland. There would be more violence and more exchanges of population and burnings out. How can responsible politicians who represent Northern Ireland constituencies possibly advocate a solution that will bring even more bloodshed, terror and death to their part of the world? It is deeply irresponsible and they should be ashamed of putting it forward.
It is interesting that in Ireland in the post Anglo-Irish Agreement context there are all sorts of strands that could point the way towards a new settlement. The talks between the SDLP and Sinn Fein are of enormous importance. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster spoke for an hour at enormous volume. Perhaps he would sit quietly and let me express my few thoughts. How can he say he deplores the deaths and not say that these talks are worth a try? If the talks succeed and the IRA is persuaded to stop using violence in Northern Ireland, would that not be better for his people and for the people who live near the border? Should we not all applaud and welcome that?
Rev. William McCrea: Would the hon. Lady address her mind to the fact that Sinn Fein has said that in these talks the SDLP has not asked the IRA to stop its murder campaign? The SDLP spokesman told a Belfast newspaper that all the SDLP wanted was a sort of curbing of the present violence.
Mr. Hume: That is totally untrue.
Ms. Short: The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster tries to play games with words about an issue of such seriousness.
Rev. William McCrea: My people are dying.
Ms. Short: That is the very point I am trying to make to the hon. Gentleman. He says that his constituents are dying on the border. I know that there has been an enormous number of deaths there. That is dreadful. We have a chance for that to come to an end and the hon. Gentleman denounces it.
Mr. Hume: As an example of the integrity of the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea), I can tell the House that on the very day of the statement that he complained about in the Belfast News Letter he met me in the corridors of the BBC. I told him that no such statement had been made. I immediately rang the Belfast News Letter and asked whether if any SDLP spokesman had made such a statement the paper would please name him. I told the News Letter it could take it from me as leader of the SDLP that there was no truth whatever in the statement and I asked them to print that.
Ms. Short: There are some positive strands. The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster does not seem to be able to take them up, but others will. The first is the talks between the SDLP and Sinn Fein, and I do not see how any hon. Member could fail to wish those talks well. They will improve life for everyone in Northern Ireland if they succeed. We must all hope that they succeed. I certainly do.
The second sign of hope lies in the very alienation of Unionism from British institutions. The Unionists demand the right to remain British, yet they despise and hate the House of Commons and the way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement was voted through. They rail and shout and demand the right to remain British, but only on their own terms; they must have it their own way. They shout and bluster, but they do not respect British institutions and they do not respect the decisions of the House. As that becomes clearer to them, they feel more and more alienated and separated from Britain.
At the same time, British public opinion sees the Unionists more and more clearly exposed as intransigent unreasonable people with whom it is impossible to deal. A
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poll printed on the front page of the Daily Express a year or so ago showed that about 60 per cent. of the British people polled wanted out of Northern Ireland. When asked who were the most evil men in Northern Ireland, 70 per cent. named the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, 50 per cent. named Gerry Adams——
Rev. William McCrea: What about the IRA?
Ms. Short: I am telling the hon. Gentleman what the poll said; perhaps he could listen for a moment. Those are the facts. That is how things are perceived in this country. The leader of the hon. Gentleman's own party is considered to be more evil and dangerous than the leader of Sinn Fein. I am not saying that that is true. I am merely saying that it is the perception—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster shouted for an hour. Please could we ask him to stay quiet just for a moment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so that I can finish my speech?
Consider the positive strands—the alienation of Unionism and the possibility of an end to the use of violence by the IRA. In addition, the Unionists are so annoyed by the Anglo-Irish Agreement and about the British Government's speaking over their heads to Dublin that they increasingly talk about talking to Dublin themselves. It seem to me that the ingredients are there for an agreement between the Irish people about the future government of Ireland. We in Britain should say openly that we will back such an agreement every step of the way with all our influence and all our resources.
I have no doubt that Britain will withdraw from Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that that is what the British people want, and I know that the Unionists know it. The Unionists live in fear. They rail and shout and are negative. They threaten the use of violence if a change is made against their will. Instead, why do not we all openly admit our aspiration and work for a new settlement in Ireland that will bring a better future for all the people of Ireland? Let us spend the resources that are now being spent on security on building up the economy of Ireland, and giving jobs, hope and a decent future to all the people of Ireland—Catholic and Protestant, in the North and in the South.
10.43 pm
Mr. Jim Marshall: Those of us who have sat through the whole debate will agree that it has been a wide-ranging debate. It has had its highs and its lows—[Interruption.]—and the bit in the middle. Parts of the debate have been depressing. What impressed me was the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) put his Nationalist position in a rational, dispassionate way. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) argued his position equally rationally and dispassionately. That suggests that, if they have the political will, representatives from both traditions can come together to discuss the issues rationally. If a flicker of hope arises from this debate, it arises from those two speeches.
I should like to pay my respects to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whose sincerity in these matters always shines through. His obvious fervent desire for peace and reconciliation comes through, and I am sure that he works tirelessly—I was going to say ceaselessly, but I am sure that he has to sleep—to bring that about.
When I read the speech that he made during this debate last year, and listened to his speech today, I noticed that the Secretary of State has started to use this occasion—with due respect to the Ulster Unionists—as an occasion for a state of the Union message. He talks not just about direct rule but also about the economic and security situation and, if time permits, the social position. Therefore, we have an extremely wide-ranging debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Nr. McNamara) dealt with the general security situation, so I shall concentrate on some of the other points made by the Secretary of State. He is obviously pleased that he is able to refer to the steady improvement of the economy of Northern Ireland as a consequence of the growth throughout the United Kingdom. No one would deny the validity of that. However, I am concerned about the underlying fragility of the Northern Ireland economy and the underlying trend that it has always been the last part of the United Kingdom to benefit from economic growth, and the first to suffer when the economic downturn arrives. I am worried that the improvement of the past couple of years could disappear quickly when the next economic downturn comes.
As the Secretary of State knows and accepts, the unemployment level in Northern Ireland is unacceptably high, hovering around twice the national average. I urge him to continue to assist and promote policies that encourage further Government initiatives to develop economic opportunities in the North of Ireland. If economic growth there is to continue, it will need the consent of all parts of the community—both the majority and the minority. In particular, I urge the Secretary of State to be ready to listen to any group or individual, working in the private sector, the public sector or the voluntary sector, that has ideas and is prepared to offer advice as to how community economic development could take place. I ask him to interpret the position taken by the then Secretary of State in 1985 far more restrictively than hitherto. If the community is to be involved, all parts of it must be involved.
The Secretary of State knows that we condemn, with feeling and vehemence equal to his, the terrorist killings. The maiming of that young girl is unforgivable. It sickens me to hear the IRA's feeble excuse, "We are sorry about
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the girl, we meant to get the bus driver," as though one can discriminate between the death or the maiming of one individual and another. The House shares my abhorrence of that and other atrocities in Northern Ireland.
I apologise to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison), for not being here for the beginning of his speech, but I think he rehearsed yet again the arguments of devolution as against integration, and, not unnaturally in view of his opinion, he came down in favour of integration. He will know, because he was here in 1986 and I was not, that the Secretary of State answered that point then, beyond shadow of doubt. I shall refer later to that speech. It sets out clearly the arguments against integration and those in favour of a devolved assembly in the North of Ireland.
The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) referred to Labour party policy and the right of the people of Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. We accept that Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. There is no policy, or likely policy, of the Labour party that will force those people out of the United Kingdom against the wishes of the majority in the North of Ireland. I want that to be clear. I stated that that was the Opposition's position in reply to a taunt from the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea), and it gives me some pleasure to repeat the statement in response to the comments of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) argued against a devolved legislature and in favour of a devolved assembly. I am not sure what that means. It probably means that he does not want a subordinate parliament and instead would like a regional council of some sort within the North of Ireland. If that follows the logic of the hon. Member for Epping Forest, which leads to integration, I am opposed to the view of the hon. Member for Newbury, as I am to that of his hon. Friend.
I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) welcome two features of the parliamentary Labour party's policy. The hon. Gentleman supports our call for a judicial review of Stalker, which is one that we intend to continue to pursue, with, we hope, increasing strength and increasing parliamentary support. It is not an issue that will disappear. It is one that continues to cast a shadow over the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Whenever and wherever the RUC acts within the law, it will have our support. If the RUC is to have the full confidence of all the members of the community, it must be seen to have rid itself of the ghosts of the past. Those ghosts can be eradicated only through a judicial inquiry.
I was pleased also to hear the hon. Member for Mossley Hill say that he sees the Anglo-Irish Agreement as part of the process of reconciliation. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is the Labour party's position.
It is with some sorrow, if not distress, that I recall the remarks of the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster. I have spent some happy hours—on occasions, days—with members of the Unionist tradition in the North of Ireland. It is a source of pleasure to me that the Unionists whom I have come across are in no way similar to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that even within the North of Ireland the hon. Gentleman is in a small minority. His arguments go beyond the bounds of logic. He wants Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, and when the

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Government and the Opposition state their positions the hon. Gentleman believes neither. If he cannot accept the facts as they are stated to him, it is difficult to begin to understand how any rational argument is ever likely to convince him of anything. I came to the conclusion at the end of his speech that his driving force was irrationality, not rationality. When he next speaks in this place, I hope that I am not the unfortunate person who has to reply on behalf of the Opposition.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle repeat his commitment to the cessation of violence, which is an objective we can all share. I shall repeat a point that I made about him and about the hon. Member for Belfast, East at the beginning of my speech. What impressed me about the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle was his dispassionate analysis of the situation. He is a man who feels passionately about Ireland and its future, but who is able to speak about its problems in a dispassionate way. That should be a lesson to us all—but particularly to those right hon. and hon. Gentlemen whose passion at times overcomes their political powers.
The central question put again and again by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle was, how are the two communities in the North to live together in harmony with the Republic? He emphasised that their problems can only be resolved by rational discussion. I hope that the constitutional parties will get together and begin that rational consultation—sitting around a table together with the Secretary of State, rather than at separate tables.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough stated the Labour party's view when he spoke of being appalled at sectarian violence from whatever quarter—be it against the majority or the minority community. We condemn acts of terrorism as just that, no matter from which quarter they may emanate.
I have already paid tribute to the hon. Member for Belfast, East. He mentioned that political institutions in the North had failed due to lack of consensus. In his view, Stormont failed because the minority community withheld its consent, and the power-sharing Executive did so because the majority community withheld its consent. I draw this conclusion from his remarks. If he and his party are prepared to work together with the minority community, they can build the consent about future political institutions that has been denied them in the past. Success in achieving that objective is within his grasp and that of his party, as well as within the grasp of the SDLP and the official Unionists.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) knows that I hold her in great respect and esteem. I accept her view that there can be no military solution to the problems of Northern Ireland. I accept also her point that withdrawal from Northern Ireland is a popularly held view. However, my own belief, which is also the official view of the parliamentary Labour party, is that withdrawal now would not help the processes of peace and reconciliation.
I echo the sense of shame arising from my hon Friend's reference to the events of August 1969. I remember them well. I was on a fellowship, working for a firm in Basle, when I switched on the television after returning home from work on that dreadful day. I saw the troops marching into Belfast, with bunting hanging out and flags waving. That gave me no pleasure whatsoever. It made me feel ashamed that the British Army was marching into any city, town or village, or any other part of the United Kingdom.
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I share with my hon. Friend the desire to withdraw British troops from Northern Ireland, but that must be done at the right time, and with the consent of the people, who would suffer if British troops were withdrawn precipitously.
As my hon. Friend knows, our view is that such precipitous withdrawal could lead to further bloodshed and violence, and moreover—this would be the worst example of post-colonial oppression—could put the Republic under such severe financial and military pressure that it could do irreversible damage not just to the reputation of the United Kingdom and the people of the North of Ireland, but to the people and institutions of the Republic. For that if for no other reason, it should not be countenanced.
Ms. Short: When I talk about British withdrawal, I am not advocating withdrawal without a new political settlement. I am well aware that simply pulling the troops out would lead to more conflict and bloodshed. What is needed is a political settlement that reduces the cause of violence. Let me make it clear, for the record, that I know that the troops cannot be withdrawn without any other change being made, or the situation will become even worse than it is now.
Mr. Marshall: I am grateful for that clarification. If I misunderstood my hon. Friend's earlier comments, I apologise. I have much more sympathy with what she has just said, and, as she knows, it is much closer to the official Labour party's views than what I thought she said originally.
Every hon. Member regrets the need for the continuation of direct rule in Northern Ireland, but we must accept that until there is a measure of agreement on an alternative mode of government, direct rule must continue. We all recognise the unsatisfactory nature of it, which is highlighted first by the way in which the House deals with Northern Ireland business and secondly by the political vacuum that it creates at local level in the North of Ireland, and the arbitrary power that it puts into the hands of unelected officials there.
While I recognise those problems, my reaction is not to solve the first by making special arrangements for Northern Ireland business, or to solve the second by setting up a special Northern Ireland Committee. In my view, the existing difficulties should be used as a spur for the constitutional parties to recognise the way in which the political process is being abused, and to seek to remove that abuse by getting together to create a devolved assembly that could deal with the problems.
The House has an absolute right to determine the principles on which the future government of Northern Ireland should be based, in the light of the reality of what is happening. The reality is that two communities exist there side by side, and the overwhelming majority of people from both those communities simply want to live together in peace and bring up their families in decency. That natural desire, however, should not hide from us the fact that there are divisions between the two communities, and that those divisions run deep. They are the result of discrimination, and have themselves resulted in alienation.
The divisions and the alienation cannot be healed by rhetoric, threats or security measures alone. It is not possible to legislate away animosity between communities, particularly when it has existed for centuries, but it is

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possible to create a framework in which animosity and a sense of grievance no longer have a fertile soil in which to grow. For that to happen, people need to have a sense of belonging in their community, a feeling that their identity is to be honoured and a belief that they have a stake in the future of their country.
Any arrangements for the government of Northern Ireland must take account of those facts and must be seen to be fair. The House of Commons will not support anything which does not establish fair and effective protection for the minority or which seeks to return to the hegemony of the past. People in Northern Ireland must recognise that the only solution on offer is devolution which involves both communities in the decision-making process.
In that context I should like to support the words of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 19 June 1986. With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker—and I see that I am likely to get that—I shall repeat his words:
"The Government do not support, and would not be prepared to suggest, integration as a policy for Northern Ireland. To sugest that there is no difference between Northern Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom is to ignore completely the backgrond of different histories, traditions, community attitudes and political parties. These differences have evolved over centuries, and cannot simply be discussed"—
I would have used the word "dismissed", but "discussed" will do—
"as minor variations that can be cast aside in a uniform Westminster package. There are fundamental objections."—[Official Report, 19 June 1986; Vol. 99, c. 1218]
I and my party agree absolutely with that point of view.
Politicians in Northern Ireland must recognise the political will of that statement and make their dispositions accordingly. My view is that the constitutional parties have the opportunity to determine their own form of devolved Government in Northern Ireland.
Finally, in the interests of all people in Northern Ireland, I sincerely hope that they will grasp the opportunity which is presented to them. For the record, if there is a Division this evening, we shall support the order.
11.7 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Dr. Brian Mawhinney): Having had the privilege of listening to the debate from its inception, I agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) that it has been wide-ranging. It has been an almost typical debate on Northern Ireland—full of emotion, thoughtful reflection on the political scene and restatement of political philosophies and policies.
If I do not do his political career any great damage by saying so, the House owes the hon. Member for Leicester, South thanks for his forthright affirmation on behalf of his party of support for the security forces, for helpfully pointing out that the dissatisfaction about direct rule should act as a spur for a better system and for making clear his party's commitment to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said and which he repeated to the House this evening.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) asked about the announcement on the Secretary of State's pleasure cases. He will have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister of State's answer. He
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helpfully said that the issue of devolution predates the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It has not emerged as a consequence of the agreement and it is not a concomitant of the agreement. It was an important part of policy before the agreement was signed.
The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) returned to his assertion that decisions are made in the Anglo-Irish Conference. I know the right hon. Gentleman well enough to find it difficult to believe that he believes that. He has been told repeatedly that it is not true. I do him the courtesy of believing that his understanding is greater than for him to accept that as a factual statement. If he does accept it, I must tell him again that it is not the case. His advocacy of a concealed form of joint authority is even less credible at the end of the past year, during which, as others have said, there have been differences of perception—and sometimes action—even within the framework of the agreement, between the two Governments.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not persist in making such assertions, because they do neither him nor the truth any credit. He also said—it is equally untrue—that I am bound by Dublin Ministers because an issue was raised at the Anglo-Irish Conference. That is not the case and the right hon. Gentleman knows it. He also knows, because it has been affirmed frequently enough, that Ministers make the decisions in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Molyneaux: When the Under-Secretary of State checks Hansard, he will find that I said that he is bound, through the Secretary of State, to make determined efforts to reach agreement on any proposals put forward at the Anglo-Irish Conference.
Dr. Mawhinney: I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says. All that was reflected in the conference meeting was what had already been reflected to me by a representative group of the SDLP who came to see me about the education proposals. I am sorry, given what the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) said, that he could not be part of that group, for reasons I quite understand.
The SDLP, the Catholic Church and others have a legitimate point of view to make about the consultative document, just as the education and library boards and Protestant Church leaders do. All are being invited to discuss the representations that they made. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley has prejudged the draft legislation. I regret that—all the more so as we have hardly concluded the first part of what will be an extended consultation procedure on the education proposals. I regret it all the more because there was no response from the right hon. Gentleman's party to the consultation proposals. I find that sad. It is sad that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any of his colleagues on the same Bench, with the honourable exception of the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs), who was at one time a distinguished chairman of an education and library board, thought to respond to those proposals. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman attaches importance to these proposals and to the system out of which they flow. I hope that during the rest of the consultation process we can look forward to his contribution.
Mr. Molyneaux: I was at pains to make it clear that, although the Secretary of State and therefore the Minister were bound by the agreement—[Interruption.]—I am

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sorry that I am interrupting something on the other side of the Chamber—to make determined efforts to reach agreement on any proposals put forward, I said that they were not bound to make determined efforts to reach agreement with us. Those right hon. and hon. Members are not even bound by the House of Commons to reach agreement with the House of Commons on any proposals whatsoever. That is the essential point. I was drawing attention to the futility of any of us putting forward ideas to the Secretary of State or the hon. Gentleman.
Dr. Mawhinney: With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, the essential point is that Ministers will ultimately make decisions which they will present to Parliament for Parliament's approval or otherwise. The right hon. Gentleman has a major opportunity to contribute to that process and I hope that he will do so, even if only on behalf of those whom he has been elected to represent in this House.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) for his comforting words about the attack on a bus yesterday, with which the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) wished to be associated. I understand my hon. Friend's point about no consultation being built into the agreement. He will know and remember that on many occasions my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that he would be happy to brief elected Members of the House on discussions arising out of the conference, were that to be their wish.
My hon. Friend also made a point, as did the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), about the Northern Ireland Committee. Since 1985 and the gas order debate. there has been no specific request for a debate of that Committee. If there were such a request, especially if it came from Northern Ireland Members, the Government would consider it sympathetically. Although that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to determine, I think that I accurately reflect the sympathetic view that he might take of such a request.
Mr. Alton: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point because I am sure that he would not want the record to go uncorrected. In fact, both I and the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes) went to see the Leader of the House about that matter and to request a meeting of the Northern Ireland Committee.
Dr. Mawhinney: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I should make it clear that what I said, I said in good faith. I was not aware of that meeting.
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: May I press my hon. Friend on that point? Is he giving an invitation this evening to the Northern Ireland political parties to make such representations to him because he would like a Northern Ireland Committee to be in existence?
Dr. Mawhinney: The Committee exists and can be activated. I have made it clear that if requests were to be made for it to be activated to look at particular draft legislation, I believe that the Government would react sympathetically.
The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea) made a speech which has already been much commented on, and I do not want to add much more, save to try to encourage him to understand that consent is an absolutely essential part of the democratic process. As the
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intervention by his hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) made clear, consent is already enshrined in the legislation which is part of the legislation of this kingdom. The hon. Gentleman tried to make a point about the status of Northern Ireland. I gently point out to him that he was making that point in the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. There can be no debate about his status. He has the right to make that speech in this Chamber; he does not have the right to make it in the Dail.
Rev. William McCrea: I can assure the Minister that I do not want to make that statement in the Dail. The Republic of Ireland claims jurisdiction over Northern Ireland and has said so in the past week. That is the honest position of the South. In entering into the Anglo-Irish Agreement it has done nothing which would take away from its jurisdiction claim over Northern Ireland.
Dr. Mawhinney: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but that does not detract from my message which I should like him to take away with him tonight, that status is not in question, and the best evidence of that is that he made his speech in this Chamber.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) talked about the clash of relationships, and I agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, South that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) made thoughtful speeches. We were reminded of the need for dialogue between Governments, and that is enshrined in the terms of the agreement. But there must be a similar need for dialogue in Northern Ireland. If we are to develop that dialogue, it must be with an understanding of the history of our Province and the acceptace of the integrity of those who think or act differently from us, within the terms of constitutional politics. We need to develop an appreciation that difference does not have to lead to division. It can be the strength rather than the weakness of a society. In a sense, the hon. Member for Belfast, East picked that up in his thoughtful analysis.
I welcome the recognition of the importance of consent. The hon. Member for Belfast, East encapsulated entirely the fact that in a democratic society government is by consent and that government in a devolved form must command widespread support of both communities or it cannot succeed. That is a self-evident truth, but one which too many people still cannot come to terms with. The hon. Gentleman was right to stress that we must take account of identity.
Most hon. Members would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman that no formal agreement between Governments can solve the problems within Northern Ireland by and of itself. There must be agreement to have internal discussions. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government are committed to the agreement.
The Secretary of State also made it clear that he wished to invite political parties to be involved in discussions without any preconditions, and that is important. The hon. Gentleman said, "If only the Government would say such and such, it would open the door to dialogue." In other words he was saying, "I should like to put a precondition on the discussions which the Secretary of State is inviting my party, other Unionist parties and the SDLP to have with him." The Secretary of State said that he wished to have those discussions without preconditions.

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"Without preconditions" applies to everybody, so I cannot, on behalf of the Government, say what the hon. Gentleman wants me to say. That is not because I will not, but because the offer from the Secretary of State was for discussions without preconditions.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends on both sides of the Chamber will talk to the Secretary of State not on the basis of preconditions, but with confidence in the strength of their arguments. That is the way in which progress can be made. I hope that they will feel that now is the time seriously to consider that proposal.
It has been claimed that the Unionist community was excluded from the development of the agreement. I hope that it will not now exclude itself from consultations with the Government that may be associated with a review of the working of the agreement.
Mr. Ian Gow: My hon. Friend has stressed many times the important democratic principle of government by consent. Does he believe that it is possible to govern one part of this kingdom differently from the rest of the kingdom and differently from the way in which it has been governed previously, save with the consent of a majority of the people who are to be governed differently?
Dr. Mawhinney: My hon. Friend will know that the sovereign Parliament has decided that an acceptable agreement was entered into by this Government with the Government of the Republic. That does not translate into the sort of fundamental difference that I know my hon. Friend honourably believes lies at the back of that agreement.
My right hon. Friend referred to sectarianism and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury supported him. We can make no progress ultimately in Northern Ireland unless the two communities learn to live together. Relations between them will be improved not just by the actions of politicians, but ultimately by the concerted actions of many individual members of the two communities. It is proper and correct that elected representatives should reflect the views of those who elect them. That is legitimate. However, it is not legitimate for that to spill over into a form of sectarianism or perceived sectarianism. I am encouraged by the increasing evidence in the community of Northern Ireland that there is a greater determination of people who wish to live together.
I must draw my remarks to a close—[Interruption.]
Mr. Ken Maginnis: Hear, hear.
Dr. Mawhinney: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's encouragement. He has not graced the debate with his presence for most of the time.
I wish to refer to an interview, on the "Today" programme this morning, with two of the girls who were on the bus yesterday. They were asked questions, and I wish to place before the House the answers of Madonna Murphy. She said:
"I think people on both sides will be very angry, and hopefully their anger will bring them closer together to get rid of the sick people who do things like this."
Madonna Murphy also said that she thought that the people of Linaskea would
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"do as much as they can to create better relations. That's all they can hope to do, and hope that people realise that this is getting us nowhere."
I think that Madonna Murphy spoke for an increasing number of people in Northern Ireland when she said that the present arrangements were getting us nowhere.
I commend the order to the House, but I do so on an interim basis in the hope that we can build on the dialogue in the Chamber this evening. If we can talk here, the people of Northern Ireland will expect us to talk outside in the hope of doing better for the Madonna Murphys and all the other people in Northern Ireland.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 133, Noes 16.

Division No. 392]

[11.30 pm

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Hunter, Andrew

Alton, David

Irvine, Michael

Amess, David

Jack, Michael

Arbuthnot, James

Jackson, Robert

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Janman, Tim

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Batiste, Spencer

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Knapman, Roger

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Lang, Ian

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Lawrence, Ivan

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Boswell, Tim

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Boyes, Roland

Lilley, Peter

Brazier, Julian

Maclean, David

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

McNamara, Kevin

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

Mans, Keith

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Buck, Sir Antony

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Burns, Simon

Maxton, John

Butler, Chris

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Butterfill, John

Miller, Sir Hal

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Mills, Iain

Carrington, Matthew

Miscampbell, Norman

Carttiss, Michael

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Chope, Christopher

Monro, Sir Hector

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Moss, Malcolm

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Mowlam, Marjorie

Cope, Rt Hon John

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Cran, James

Needham, Richard

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Neubert, Michael

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

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Day, Stephen

Nicholls, Patrick

Dorrell, Stephen

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Durant, Tony

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Fallon, Michael

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Farr, Sir John

Paice, James

Favell, Tony

Porter, David (Waveney)

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Portillo, Michael

Flannery, Martin

Quin, Ms Joyce

Forman, Nigel

Raffan, Keith

Foster, Derek

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Freeman, Roger

Redwood, John

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Gow, Ian

Roe, Mrs Marion

Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

Rowe, Andrew

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Ryder, Richard

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Ground, Patrick

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Hanley, Jeremy

Speller, Tony

Haynes, Frank

Stanley, Rt Hon John

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

Stern, Michael

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Sumberg, David

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

477

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Wheeler, John

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Widdecombe, Ann

Thorne, Neil

Wood, Timothy

Thurnham, Peter

Worthington, Tony

Vaz, Keith

Yeo, Tim

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Wallace, James

Tellers for the Ayes:

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Mr. Peter Lloyd and Mr. David Lightbown.

Watts, John

NOES

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Beggs, Roy

Paisley, Rev Ian

Canavan, Dennis

Patchett, Terry

Cousins, Jim

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Cryer, Bob

Skinner, Dennis

Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Gordon, Mildred

Kilfedder, James

Tellers for the Noes:

Maginnis, Ken

Rev, William McCrea and

Meale, Alan

Mr. William Ross.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Interim Period Extension) Order 1988 which was laid before this House on 7th June, be approved.

Northern Ireland (Appropriation)
11.41 pm
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. John Stanley): I beg to move,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 26th May, be approved.
The order has been made under paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974. The draft order authorises the expenditure of £2,020 million. That amount, when added to the £1,598 million approved by the House on 1 March, gives a total voted cash provision for the Northern Ireland Departments of £3,618 million for the 1988–89 financial year. That forms the voted element for Northern Ireland Departments of the public expenditure planning total of £4,564 million, excluding law and order, shown in the public expenditure White Paper, Cm. 288. The House will know that this sum may be increased by supplementary estimates later in the year. The services on which the money will be spent are detailed in the Northern Ireland estimates for 1988–89.
Before turning to the detail of the estimates, I want to highlight certain key features of the Northern Ireland economy. Over the past year there has been a welcome fall in unemployment in the Province. In May, total seasonally adjusted unemployment was about 9,400 lower than a year earlier, although the overall unemployment rate of 17 per cent. is still twice that of the rest of the United Kingdom. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, that is an unacceptable level.
The latest figures for those in employment, which show an increase of 5,000 in the 12 months ending in March 1988, are also encouraging and show growth across most sectors of the economy. The economic revival of Northern Ireland is perhaps most clearly reflected in the construction sector, in which output in 1987 was nearly 20 per cent. above its 1986 level.
As for the future, the United Kingdom economy is now in its eighth successive year of sustained growth and the Northern Ireland economy can be expected to benefit from further growth at national level in the months ahead. In the private sector, independent surveys—for example, by the CBI—show a favourable economic outlook for the Province, with investment intentions and business confidence remaining relatively buoyant. It is encouraging that in the past few months plans for substantial investment in the Province have been announced by Moy Park at Craigavon, Herdmans at Sion Mills near Strabane, Norbrook Laboratories at Newry, Glen Electric at Bangor and Newry, Neotech at Antrim and McDonnell Douglas at Glengormley.
As for the public sector, these estimates are based on forecast total public expenditure in Northern Ireland this year, including law and order, of £5,144 million. That is the highest ever amount in real terms—12 per cent. higher in real terms than in 1978–79. This provides the clearest possible evidence of the Government's recognition of the special expenditure needs of this part of the United Kingdom.
I now come to the details of the estimates, starting with agriculture. The net provision sought in the two votes covering agriculture, forestry and fisheries totals about £127 million. Vote I covers expenditure of about £40 million on national support measures which apply

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throughout the United Kingdom. In the main this is made up of £27 million to assist structural improvements by way of various capital and other grants; £12 million is to support farming in the less-favoured areas by means of headage payments on hill cattle and sheep.
Vote 2 seeks total provision of about £87 million for local agricultural expenditure programmes. This includes £16 million for industry support, and I would draw particular attention to the allocation of £6 million for the first year of the revised agricultural development programme which will commence very shortly. This programme will provide a range of assistance for farmers in the less-favoured areas, including renewal of existing drainage, grassland improvement, and silage effluent and animal waste storage facilities. These measures are extremely important to farmers in Northern Ireland's less-favoured areas, which cover almost 80 per cent. of the Province.
The reopening of the agricultural development programme will place farmers in a strong position to maintain levels of capital investment in farm structures. The aim is to increase efficiency by reducing costs and to avoid an increase in the production of commodities in surplus. This will help to offset to some degree the disadvantages suffered by agriculture because of Northern Ireland's geographical location. The other main elements of the vote are £38 million for agricultural, scientific and veterinary services to the industry, £20 million for drainage and forestry, and £12 million for central administrative services including accommodation.
I shall now turn to the Department of Economic Development. Vote 1 covers expenditure by the Industrial Development Board. In this vote the main provision sought, about £76 million, is for industrial support and regeneration including support for marketing and research and development. In addition, £13 million is required for the provision and maintenance of industrial land and buildings. Taken together, the IDB's various activities make a significant contribution to the strengthening of the Northern Ireland economy by stimulating investment and promoting job opportunities.
The Department of Economic Development vote 2 covers other economic support measures. About £60 million of the £110 million sought is to provide assistance to Harland and Wolff. This will be used largely to assist in refurbishing work within the yard, to provide grants for contract work, to fund redundancy payments and to meet current operating losses. This high level of support is required to enable the yard to meet the persisting difficulties of the world shipbuilding market.
The Local Enterprise Development Unit, the Northern Ireland small firms agency, has an allocation of £23 million. In the last financial year LEDU promoted 4,570 jobs, bringing to over 35,000 the number of jobs that it has promoted since the unit was first formed in 1971. The House will agree that this is a most creditable performance and illustrates the potential of the small firms sector in Northern Ireland.
In vote 3, a total of £116 million is sought for various training and employment measures such as the youth training programme, industrial training, the encouragement of enterprise and the provision of work experience for the long-term unemployed. The youth training
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programme is an important element in the Government's strategy for fighting unemployment. It requires about £34 million this year. This level of funding enables a training place to be guaranteed this year for a minimum of two years to every unemployed 16-year-old and for one year for every 17-year-old. Nobody under 18 need now be on the unemployment register.
Also in vote 3, £37 million is sought for the action for community employment scheme. The ACE scheme is proving extremely successful and provides useful employment for those who have been out of work for at least 12 out of the previous 15 months. The scheme also gives participants improved prospects for obtaining employment in the open market. This provison will enable the number of ACE jobs available to increase this year from 6,200 to 8,000.
The balance of £45 million in vote 3 is made up of £29 million for industrial training, £12 million for other employment schemes such as Enterprise Ulster and £3.4 million on various labour market services such as the Fair Employment Agency. Finally within DED, vote 5 requires a total provision of £17 million; £15 million of this is to cover the orderly rundown of the gas industry. A further £1 million is earmarked to assist industry with the cost of implementing approved energy efficiency projects.
The Department of Environment vote 1 covers roads, transport and ports, and a total provision of £126 million is sought for these services. The major portion, some £102 million, is required for roads, of which some £42 million is for maintaining the existing road system. Vote 2 covers another very important matter—housing—for which £246 million is required to provide assistance to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, to the voluntary housing movement including the co-ownership housing association and to the private housing sector, mainly comprising the cost of the rent assessment machinery. The Government's public expenditure allocation for housing of some £338 million in 1988–89, supplemented by rental income and capital receipts, will mean that gross expenditure on housing should be over £552 million this year.
Department of Environment vote 3 covers water and sewerage services. The total requirement is £84 million, of which over £26 million is earmarked for the capital works programme. Part of this is aimed at improving sewerage facilities in the Greater Belfast area. As a result, there will be an improvement in the quality of the River Lagan. Provision of £21 million is included in vote 4—environmental and other services—for urban regeneration measures. An important element is the encouragement of partnership between the Government and the private sector, as illustrated by the urban development grant scheme, in which every £1 of public money generates £3 of private finance.
The education estimates seek a total provision of £803 million for Department of Education and Science services. Total current expenditure on the schools sector in vote 1 accounts for over half the total provision in the education estimates. A major element of the expenditure is required for the salaries of almost 18,700 teachers. This number of teachers will maintain the pupil-teacher ratio at the improved 1987 level of 18·3. It includes an additional 50 specialist teachers for the continued development of the vocational education programme for secondary schools. Provision of over £6 million is included to increase the number of pupils following courses in science, economics, technology and information technology.

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Expenditure in the schools sector also reflects the expansion of the 11-to-16 programme into a further 50 secondary schools. The main aim of the programme, which commenced in 1984–85, is to improve the quality and relevance of education for all pupils in the age range 11 to 16 but especially for those young people who do not react positively to secondary education.
The current expenditure provision of £250 million to area education and library boards to cover the running costs of controlled and maintained schools represents an increase of 5 per cent. above last year's spending. In the further education sector, provision has been made for an additional 30 lecturers in the priority disciplines of engineering, business studies and microelectronics. The estimates provide for total capital expenditure on education of some £51 million. This will enable a substantial programme of new building work to start, including 21 school building projects worth £30 million. The major projects are listed on pages 104 and 105 of the estimates volume. The capital provision includes almost £2 million for work on the replacement and upgrading of schools for the mentally handicapped, including a start on a major new special school in Belfast.
In the Department of Education's vote 2, provision of £127 million is sought. The bulk of this, some £100 million, covers expenditure on the two universities in the Province, and expenditure on the Open university and on teacher training in Northern Ireland. Grants to the universities are based on the principle of maintaining parity of provision with comparable institutions in Great Britain. The remaining £27 million is for expenditure on arts and museums, youth, sport and community services and the administrative costs of the Department of Education. Provision is also made in this vote for the community relations initiative to promote cross-community contact among young people in Northern Ireland, which was launched by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 14 September last year, and which I am sure commands the warm support of both sides of the House.
For the Department of Health and Social Services, a total of £762 million is sought in vote 1 to maintain and further improve Northern Ireland's health and personal social services. The largest single element within this total is the health and social services boards' expenditure of £625 million. A further £25 million has been earmarked for capital expenditure. This will permit the continuation of a substantial programme of major and minor works, including the first stages of the new area hospital at Antrim, the new block at the Mater hospital, Belfast and geriatric units and day hospitals at Enniskillen and Armagh.
Vote 3 provides £71 million for the Department of Health and Social Services administration and miscellaneous services. Vote 4 provides £825 million for social security. This includes £32 million for support to the national insurance fund. Some £18 million is for payments into the social fund. The balance—£775 million—is for family and non-contributory benefits, as well as means-tested benefits.
I hope that this summary of the main items of expenditure has been helpful and I commend the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order to the House for its consideration and approval.
11.57 pm
Mr. Jim Marshall: I thank the Minister for taking us so carefully through the details of the order. That helps every hon. Member to understand what the order, which is of paramount importance to all the people of Northern Ireland, contains. Important as these measures are, their substance should be discussed by local politicians in Northern Ireland. I regret the absence from this debate of some of the main protaganists from our previous debate, as the order is essential for the well-being of all people in the North of Ireland.
There is much to be welcomed in the order and the Minister's speech. It is good to see the Government's continued adherence—in the North of Ireland, if not in the rest of the United Kingdom—to the importance of economic intervention and public spending. As I conceded to the Secretary of State in the previous debate, there are some optimistic economic indicators in Northern Ireland. The Minister cites the continuing fall in unemployment. among other improvements, and the recently announced expansion of the textile industry.
However, the improvement is relative when compared to the economy of 15 or 18 years ago. I am sure that the Minister will accept that there has been a massive decline in employment in manufacturing industry since the 1970s. Industrial output is still below the level of 1973, and unemployment, even though it is on the decline, still hovers at around twice the national average. I am sure that he will further concede that living standards are among the lowest in the United Kingdom, which is a reflection of both the low wage economy and the high levels of unemployment.
There are one or two worrying signals about the future economic prospects of the North of Ireland. As the Minister did not say much about them, perhaps the Under-Secretary will do so later. The Government will know that a recent report issued by the Northern Ireland Economic Council highlights the fact that the underlying economic position is not based on a fundamental improvement in the economy. Additionally, there has been a worrying excessive growth of credit in the local economy. A recent observation shows that personal credit at the end of 1987 stood between £700 million and £750 million. With the fragile economy that pertains in the North of Ireland. the families that are in debt are in a position that is fraught with disaster.
I do not intend to highlight every detail of the order. I shall refer to one or two examples and my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) will take up some others when she winds up for the Opposition.
First, the Minister will know that Northern Ireland egg producers have become accustomed to extremely low, economic returns. Those returns have often been negative for short periods. In the recent past, the position has worsened dramatically. There are no EC arrangements for effective price support for the industry. Is it possible for the Government to take unilateral action to finance a scheme to enable egg producers to be given financial incentives to abandon their enterprises?
The Government are rightly proud of the recent growth in the linen industry in the North of Ireland. I am sure that they will be aware that the basic raw material, flax, used to be an abundant crop in the North of Ireland. I understand that the recent expansion in the industry has been based on

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imported flax. Some time ago the Government commissioned a report which showed that there could be a revival in the flax-growing industry in the North of Ireland if up-to-date techniques were used. Have the Government any intention of introducing any incentives, or any new new policies, to encourage the production of flax within the North of Ireland?
I acknowledge and welcome, as I have done on previous occasions, the extent of financial support for industrial regeneration. However, if the Government are so committed to industrial development, why are 100 jobs, including 35 Government training inspectors within the Department of Economic Development, under threat?
The Minister of State referred to Harland and Wolff and the measure of public support that it enjoys. I welcome the Government's decision to maintain and increase that support. I am sure that the Minister will agree that Harland and Wolff is of great economic benefit to Belfast and to the Province as a whole. No matter what its future ownership may be—we would differ on that issue—there is an urgent need for Harland and Wolff to continue to exist. The Ultimate Dream project is of some importance in that context. I ask the Minister to be more specific. Can he tell us when the Government are likely to be in full knowledge of the facts of the Ultimate Dream project and when they will be able to announce their response to Harland and Wolff's request for financial assistance?
Within the responsibilities of the Department of the Environment, I wish to raise one point about housing and another about roads. All parties would concede that successive Governments have been generous in making provision to fund Northern Ireland housing. We all accept the need for that, in view of the chronic condition of the housing stock there, which necessitated drastic action.
That finance has been forthcoming. Consequently, housing has greatly improved, but it still falls below the standard in the rest of the United Kingdom. This is not the time to slacken the pace of house building and improvement in Northern Ireland, but unfortunately that is beginning to happen, New house building by the Housing Executive is being reduced, waiting lists are increasing, and there is a growing backlog of improvements and repairs. That situation must be reversed. Northern Ireland is not yet in the fortunate situation where the drive to improve the housing stock can be slackened.
In general, we all accept also that Northern Ireland's road system is good, with most major towns being bypassed and Warrenpoint and Belfast ports being served by excellent dual carriageway and motor road access. However, having recently visited Larne, I wish to make a special plea on behalf of Lame in respect of the A8 between Larne and Belfast. The Minister is aware of the issue and has recently replied to the boss of the port authority, rejecting the plea that I shall now repeat. I hope that in response to my personal submission he will give a less unequivocal no than the one that he gave previously.
Larne is the largest roll-on, roll-off port in Northern Ireland, but its growth may be impeded by the road system linking it with Belfast. Increasingly, the 11-mile stretch of single carriageway between Lame and Belfast is becoming a bottleneck. It also represents a considerable accident risk, as long queues of traffic frequently develop behind
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relatively slow-moving heavy goods vehicles and caravans. As the Minister knows, there are few safe passing places on that stretch of road.
I hope that the Government will show their good intentions towards Lame port and its economic well-being, as well at the high priority they accord to road safety, by announcing that they accept the need for a dual carriageway system to extend along the whole length of the A8 between Lame and Belfast.
On Department of Health and Social Security matters, I shall let pass the opportunity to condemn the Government's complacency and get down to more particular points. Why are the Government refusing to hold a public inquiry into cuts and hospital closures in the Northern health board area? What is the Government's policy on peripheral hospitals such as Down general? In particular, what is the Government's response to the plan submitted by the local medical and other staff to concentrate all the facilities of Down general on the site of the new maternity hospital?
I also wish to ask about the royal group of hospitals, and particularly the Royal Victoria. I do so for a number of reasons. First, in last year's debate, a number of hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies expressed doubts about the long-term desirability of keeping the Royal Victoria. Unfortunately those comments, together with financial cuts, have fuelled the suspicion that a political decision has been made to run down and eventually close the hospital. I sincerely hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to scotch such rumours once and for all by expressing his confidence in all the staff of the Royal Victoria, and in the long-term future of the hospital.
The Minister will no doubt accept that the Royal Victoria is a centre of excellence with a worldwide reputation in many specialties, and is second to none as a major source of medical research. Its medical reputation is one of which all of us, whichever part of the United Kingdom we come from, can be justly proud. Moreover, members of both communities work side by side in the hospital, and it is a major employer of both communities in that part of west Belfast.
The closure of the hospital would be not only a medical disaster but a social and economic tragedy to many thousands of employees and their families. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to my plea on their behalf.
I can only repeat what I said in an earlier debate on appropriations. While we all recognise the imperative of security, it must not be achieved at the expense of other services. Unfortunately, the suspicion lingers in my mind that that may be the case in some key areas of expenditure in the North of Ireland. The Government must also continue to take a lead in encouraging economic activity and co-operation between the North and the South. I am sure that the Minister agrees that inward investment is of paramount importance, and the debate that we are to have on Friday, and the subsequent legislation, will play a large part in determining the level of American investment.
In conclusion, I can give the Government a light pat on the back. But they could do better: they could provide more financial resources. In view of the pleas that we have made and will continue to make, I hope that those increased resources will be forthcoming.
12.12 am
Mr. James Kilfedder: The order, entailing the expenditure of some £2,000 million, is all-important to the Ulster people. Yet under the present colonial-type rule, only one and a half hours have been provided for our debate. How can I tell my constituents—and, indeed, the people of Northern Ireland—that the Government place Northern Ireland high on their list of priorities, when the debate is taking place at midnight after a long and busy day? This is a sad comment on the present state of affairs. Not so long ago, matters covered by this all-important appropriation order were considered carefully and in great detail by the Northern Ireland Assembly. I see here colleagues who served in that Assembly: my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and for Mid-Ulster (Rev. William McCrea).
Rev. William McCrea: When dealing with the budget and the vote for the Education Department, will my hon. Friend reflect on something that may have been raised with him when he was Speaker of the Assembly? The case, which has been going on for some time, is that of a Mr. Crozier from Cookstown, a former teacher.
In a previous debate I stated that Mr. Crozier wanted only to be told why he is being pensioned off on health grounds and then he would take the pension.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder) will agree that in the desire for accuracy it would be correct for me to state that Mr. Crozier would agree to a pension only if his excellent service for 10 years could be proved false and if Dr. Flanagan's report of normal good health could be proved wrong. It is right that that should be stated correctly in Hansard and I ask my hon. Friend to encourage the Minister to be sympathetic to my constituent.
Mr. Kilfedder: I am sure that the Minister has heard what my hon. Friend has said about the matter which he mentioned during the lifetime of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is right that he should put the record straight.
It is sad that the Northern Ireland Assembly no longer exists, because all these matters, which may seem of little consequence to hon. Members from Great Britain, are vital to people in Northern Ireland. Therefore I hope that the day is not long off when the Northern Ireland Assembly can be brought back into being and when constitutional politicians can once again meet at Stormont and work together in a positive mood to improve the conditions of the people of Northern Ireland.
Anyone who visits Northern Ireland will know that, despite the image projected by television, Ulster people are kindly, humourous, good-natured and big-hearted and that it is not their fault that the evil of terrorism haunts them every day and every night of their lives. I hope that we can return to peace in Northern Ireland and that we can work together for the goal of creating a better Ulster for the people who will come after us.
I wish to make use of this opportunity to protest about the effects of the substitute teacher regulation in primary schools. The regulation, which was implemented in September 1987, bars a principal from obtaining a substitute teacher until the third day of absence of one of his teaching staff. The regulation was introduced by the Department of Education in Northern Ireland as part of a
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policy of Government expenditure cuts. Will the Minister say—if not tonight, perhaps later—what was the cost of such teacher cover in primary schools in Northern Ireland in the last school year before the regulation was introduced and what has been the cost for this year to date, which amounts almost to an entire school year?
The Government are concerned only about money. I am convinced that the regulation should be abolished. I am concerned about the primary schools and the boys and girls who are entrusted to those schools by their parents.
When a teacher is absent, the principal of a primary school has to make the unenviable choice between putting that teacher's class in with another class or dividing the class among a number of other classes in the school. We have to remember that classes in schools in many parts of Northern Ireland are already full, and chairs and desks may have to be moved whenever rearrangements are made. As a result of the rearrangements the pupils suffer the loss of proper tuition while the temporary arrangements last. Not only the pupils who are missing the teacher are affected; all the boys and girls in the rearranged classes lose out, because no matter how good a teacher may be, the changes and the crowded classroom will disturb the normal routine and unsettle the children. Therefore they will suffer educationally.
Of course, there is an additional worry for the school because the possibility of an accident is increased and it is more difficult to clear a classroom in case of fire. Therefore, I urge the Minister to abandon the regulation, in the interests of the schools, the parents, and above all, the boys and girls in the primary schools.
I have been informed that the Northern Ireland Schools Examination Council has introduced a new syllabus. Under the old one, Northern Ireland was studied with the United Kingdom, but now, for the first time, it has been taken out of that context and it must be studied as part of a course on Ireland, North and South. I would like the Minister's comments on that. Perhaps he will ensure that the previous arrangement is brought back.
Parents in my constituency and others covered by the South-Eastern education board have a real grievance about the lack of grammar school places for boys and girls who would benefit from such education but do not pass the 11-plus transfer test. The new policy being pursued by the South-Eastern education board means that, even with a controlled school such as Glenlola in Bangor, which has the physical capacity and the necessary teachers to take another 20 to 30 pupils in September this year, no more fee-paying pupils are permitted. That is unacceptable. I have argued with the board and made representations to the Department of Education on behalf of six girls whose parents want to send them to the school. It amounts to discrimination against the girls. If they had been boys of similar education attainment, they would have been given a place in a voluntary grammar school. I do not think that the education board should be a party to discrimination.
We need a reversal of Government policy, which was meekly accepted by the Eastern health board until last year, when even it protested about cuts in hospital services in its area. The board's area includes the city of Belfast, which has teaching hospitals, including the Royal Victoria hospital and the new tower block at the City hospital. They attract vast sums of money, which is drained away from North Down, which I have the good fortune to represent, to the detriment of Bangor hospital, the Ulster hospital at Dundonnell and the Ards hospital.

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The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) will mention hospitals in his constituency, as he has before. We lodge formally a protest with the Minister about the unacceptable situation. Hospitals are being denied the money which would enable them to provide a proper and full service to people in their areas. Vast sums are, however, going to hospitals in Belfast, which has a decreasing population.
North Down borough council has attempted to have a new byelaw accepted by the Department of Environment. The council has endeavoured to control the problem of alcohol and solvent abuse in council parks, piers, promenades and open spaces. Sadly, Bangor is no different from other towns in Northern Ireland, which have suffered from drunks, smashed bottles, shouted obscenities, fights and general bad behaviour. The council submitted a draft byelaw to the Department of Environment for approval, but the Department has so far refused to confirm it
"as it would criminalise an activity not presently illegal and that it considers that the Police already had sufficient powers to deal with the matter."
The truth is that there are not enough police in Bangor, and more police are needed.
I am still awaiting a response to the appeal and complaint that I made to the Northern Ireland Office at the beginning of the year. It replied, acknowledging my letter. It sent another acknowledgement and then another. It then said that it had passed the matter on to the Police Authority. The Police Authority then sent me an acknowledgement. Months later, I have still not got an answer to my demand for more police for the Bangor area.
As a result of the behaviour of drunks in Bangor and those who engage in aggressive conduct, many people in the area, visitors and residents alike, are offended. Something must be done to protect law-abiding people, not only in Bangor but in other places, who are subjected to hooliganism. I urge the Government to recognise the problem that is faced by Bangor and other towns in Northern Ireland.
Millions of pounds have been spent on a new marina and other developments in Bangor, which will transform that seaside resort over the next few years. I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will take the opportunity of coming to my constituency to see the delightful resort of Bangor——
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)indicated assent.
Mr. Kilfedder: I am glad that you are nodding your head in agreement, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We—I am including the Bangor borough council—will put out the red carpet for you. I am not too sure about the Northern Ireland Office. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—I think that he is pointing at his chest; I do not know whether he has something wrong with his chest. He is now pointing at his brain, or rather at where his brain should be——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I thought that the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was adding to the hon. Gentleman's encouragement to me to visit Bangor.
Mr. Kilfedder: The trouble with some people is that they extend invitations to areas for which they do not have
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responsibility. I, as the Member of Parliament for that area, and speaking on behalf of the Bangor borough council—a most distinguished body of people—am extending that invitation to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The Minister was invited to Bangor and has seen the progress that has been made in the marina. He knows about the problems which people will face if they use the marina where young people urinate into the yachts that are already there and smash bottles. That is not the sort of welcome which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would expect. Therefore, I ask the Under-Secretary of State to make sure that approval is given to that draft byelaw.
I turn now to housing. A substantial cut of £5 million in the Housing Executive budget for 1988–89 was made by the Government in March without any notice to the Housing Executive and after the amount for 1988–89 had already been announced by the Government. For the year 1988–89 the Housing Executive had sought a funding allocation of £345 million, but the Government reduced that to £309 million. Therefore, the Housing Executive budget for this year has been severely cut.
According to the Housing Executive, the cuts will have a detrimental effect on the number of new houses to be built in Northern Ireland and on the amount of renovation work that is undertaken. Improvement work will now have to be placed on such an extended time scale that disrepair and need will rise at a far faster rate than the rate at which the Housing Executive can carry out remedial work.
The housing unfitness rate in Northern Ireland is already worse than the average for the rest of the United Kingdom. I pay tribute to Mr. Victor Blease, the Housing Executive's chief executive, who is a totally dedicated man, leading an enormous organisation, and dealing with a gigantic task in Northern Ireland. But perhaps the size of the Housing Executive is its weakness. The repairs carried out on individual homes are not always of a high standard. I have seen many botched jobs in my constituency and my complaint applies to other constituencies in Northern Ireland. Some council repairs are not properly checked by officials, yet the contractor is paid. The executive may then bring in another contractor to make good the botched job, but more often than not, it will not do so, and the unfortunate tenant suffers.
Major renovation work is taking place in various parts of my constituency. At the block of flats in Drumadoon drive, Ballybeen, Dundonald, the contractor has still not completed the work which he started last year. Each block was to have been completed within a relatively short space of time and the tenants were assured that the work would be completed within a few months. Instead of finishing each small block in turn, as promised, the contractor has work going on in all the blocks. That is unfair. He should have finished one block and then moved to the next.
All the tenants are suffering with holes in walls and unfinished work, and even where the contractor has finished, he must come back to make good what was not done properly initially. I demand an investigation into that renovation contract and into other sites where work is prolonged and the lives of tenants are made a misery by delays and the standard of workmanship.
In addition to the undue and punishing delay in completing the work, defects have become manifest, and workmen must correct mistakes. For example, windows can be opened only with the greatest difficulty. It is extraordinary that a contractor can leave a job in that state. There is a further punishment for tenants. They find

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that in their absence workmen have used their kitchens, cookers and cooking utensils, and left cigarette stubs in saucepans. If that is not enough, the contractor makes use of their electricity for power machines. One tenant's electricity bill has more than doubled since the contractor has been there.
That is not how tenants in that sector should be treated. It is not as though rents are cheap; they are not. They have been increased to a level which makes life difficult for those who do not qualify for housing benefit. The recent housing benefit changes have made a cruel difference to many of our senior citizens. Perhaps the Government do not recognise that many people take pride in watching their pennies. The expression used for people who are careful with money is that they "look after" their pennies. These senior citizens of mine who have worked hard all their lives and now deserve some dignity in old age, have to consider how to spend their pennies. It is not a question of being able to discount the pennies and throw the pounds around; they have to watch how every penny is spent.
No wonder I am incensed when I hear of people spending vast sums in the City of London while pensioners are denied what would give them some comfort in their old age. That is why the Government need to show compassion.
There is a need to freeze rents at their present level. In many cases they are already too high in the Housing Executive sector. The Government should seek to help the elderly, the sick, the disabled and, especially, parents with a mentally handicapped son or daughter. I know that the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) wishes to speak, so I do not have time to enlarge on those matters. I give notice that I will return to them at a later stage.
12.35 am
Mr. Eddie McGrady: We have spent five hours discussing the political environment in which the people of Northern Ireland live. It is a great pity that we do not have the same time to debate the bread-and-butter issues that relate to that environment on a day-to-day basis. In the short time available, it would be impossible for anyone to deal in detail with the points raised by the Minister, so I shall make a few general comments.
The principle of the budgetary process in Northern Ireland is based on parity, but it seems to be applied in different ways to different announcements. For example, when parity demands a cut, there is a minus sign; when the plus sign is used, parity means an increase in rents and electricity. The most adverse parity is when it relates to benefits, which are the same as those in the remainder of the United Kingdom, despite the fact that food, transport and energy are much dearer in Northern Ireland. Therefore, the benefits are not of equivalent value.
Agriculture is a base industry in Northern Ireland and it is suffering a grave disadvantage in almost all sectors, be it milk, pig or poultry. The Minister has referred to one or two areas where the producer suffers adversely compared with his counterpart in the remainder of the United Kingdom. The higher cost of transport, both inwards and outwards and the higher feeding and energy costs result in a very meagre profit margin, while the pig industry actually suffers a substantial loss.
Much has been correctly made of job creation, but it must be understood that as well as creating jobs, there must be an appropriate and equal distribution of them,
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because of the peculiar circumstances of the two communities, job distribution will be essential for equal opportunities in job attainment and requirement.
I was glad that the Minister announced the advent of the agricultural development programme and the £6 million that will be provided. I urge him to hasten that programme because the larger part of Northern Ireland is a less-favoured area. I shall be parochial and say that my constituency of South Down is one of those less-favoured areas. It made an application to the EEC in January 1986, through the Department of Agriculture, but there has been no word on it since. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that a more dynamic approach will be made to whoever has the power to make a decision—be he in Brussels or in London—to ensure that those less-favoured areas are declared.
Another area in which the Minister could take immediate and beneficial action for the whole of Northern Ireland—again, it has a particular relevance to South Down—is that of sheep farmers. The hill subsidy is paid in two instalments to both the highland and the lowland farmer. The annual premium for ewes has been paid only in part to the highland areas—that was last November—and there has been no payment at all to the lowland areas. Relief could be given if the will were there to do so.
The very small farmer is making a contribution to the maintenance of his livelihood and that of his family, and I ask the Minister to extend to him basic grants such as those for reseeding, drainage and fencing. That would alleviate some of the hardship.
The Minister may have noticed that I tabled a question to the Prime Minister about assistance for fishermen who had lost their gear, their tackle and their catch through becoming entangled with those mysterious, unnatural objects that move backwards in the Irish sea. I ask him to be more sympathetic in endeavouring to solve those problems.
I have already made general comments about economic development and job promotion. The Government could take a number of steps to help job creation. In March, unemployment stood at 17·3 per cent.—double the United Kingdom average. The Industrial Development Board should make a more vigorous approach to the north American continent. There should be a better presentation of the benefits of establishing inward investment in Northern Ireland. The board's current approach is too sympathetic and sentimental; it is based on heritage, and how many Presidents we gave to America. The hard-nosed business man is not interested in all that. He wants to know about training, grants, education, skills and so on. A hard-nosed sales technique would be much more beneficial.
The Minister said that the CBI was showing confidence because of full order books. Perhaps he is not aware that the CBI is concerned that, despite full order books, there is no real intent to make substantial additional investment, either internally or from abroad. Yet that is really the only way in which jobs will be created. The recent 10 per cent. increase in electricity costs will not help to create viable industries in Northern Ireland. It is a tragedy that the year that young people spend in skilled training under the youth training programme is not recognised as apprenticeship by the respective industries. It would help those young people to obtain jobs if it was judged to be a recognised year of training.

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Another aspect of job promotion is tourism. I pay tribute to Sir Jack Swinson, who retires tomorrow after 14 years' service. He has done a magnificent job and brought a tradesman's dimension to tourist promotion. However, it has been concentrated on particular areas, and now needs a new image.
There are enormous opportunities for expansion to other areas. I especially have in mind Down, which has scenic beauty, outdoor activities, parks, golf courses and all that anyone needs, including the passive holiday enterprise of St. Patrick's country, St. Patrick's heritage and St. Patrick's grave. That has not yet been packaged, but it could be a big sell to the Irish-American community in north America.
Job creation and tourist promotion lead me almost automatically on to roads. In the halcyon days of big money, money was spent on certain areas of Northern Ireland, not on areas such as South Down and South Armagh and other areas outside what I call the new pale. Those roads should be improved and properly maintained.
I am not satisfied with the yo-yo approach to housing finance in Northern Ireland. We still have 131,000 houses in serious disrepair, which is 25·7 per cent. of the total stock, 51,000 are unfit and 49,000 lack at least one amenity. That means that 10·4 per cent. of total housing is in an adverse condition. In addition, 11,000 households are in urgent need. I hope that the Minister will do his best to increase that budget, particularly since he is introducing legislation for the homeless for which there seems to be no budget.
I echo what the hon. Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder) said on health and I put in a plug once again for the Down hospital. However, one particular matter is causing me great concern. I have received a letter from a consultant radiologist who is greatly concerned that, because of obsolete diagnostic X-ray equipment, people in Northern Ireland are receiving two and a half times the necessary radiation dose in the normal application of X-rays. A new nuclear magnetic resonance scanner is required, against which I understand that the Department of Health and Social Security has set its face. That does not involve ionising radiation and is considered to be safe. That is the case despite EC regulations and the strictures of the National Radiological Protection Board and the Health and Safety Executive. Will the Department please look for a few thousand pounds or whatever is required to give that added safety factor to the medical service in Northern Ireland?
Finally, I want to refer to my abhorrence for the consequences of the social security regulations as applied to Northern Ireland. According to a brief survey in my constituency, applications for benefit have dropped by 76 per cent. People who have come to my surgeries have been denied benefit for rates and rents. To say that there is not major deprivation as a result of the social security changes is to fly in the face of the facts that I meet every day in my constituency.
12.48 am
Mr. Seamus Mallon: I am aware that tonight is the debut, or honeymoon, of the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam), so I shall be brief and confine myself to one issue.
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I shall not mention South Armagh, nor shall I mention the imbalance that remains after three years in the number of managers in Government training centres. I do not expect the Minister to give me a satisfactory reply, but I still hope for one.
The urban development grant was provided for Northern Ireland, especially for those areas that have suffered greatly during the past 20 years from the bombings, troubles and all kinds of environmental deprivation. I live in one of those areas, known as Armagh. It has been bombed about 18 times. It has been almost razed to the ground. Surprise, surprise, the Department of the Environment, acting as agent for the international fund, was able to process only one application for the sum of £9,000. One wonders what is wrong. The list shows that Coleraine, another world from Armagh, had six such applications processed, to the tune of £264,700.
That drives me to one of two conclusions; either the DOE is grossly inefficient in the areas in which I live and work—I know that it is anything but inefficient; it is most efficient—or there are differing approaches to the administration of this urban development grant. I would need some convincing by the Minister that there is not an imbalance in the application, administration and payment of the grant.
I hope the Minister will explain this, if not tonight, then on another occasion. I note that Ballycastle received one award of £84,000. Let us remember that the grant exists so that dilapidated buildings can be brought up to standard. And one dwelling was awarded £84,000. In Armagh, one dwelling was awarded £9,000. Downpatrick got £1,500 for one dwelling. Bangor has no problem; it had three grants at £46,100. The hon. Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder) will know of the ravages that the IRA has wrought in Bangor.
I want clarification of where the £84,000 in Ballycastle went. I was told by a Government Department that it was for retail outlets. In my younger days, they used to be known as shops. One should not justify the unjustifiable by clothing it in different verbiage.
12.52 am
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: I start by echoing the words of the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) who said that these are bread and butter issues, which it is important to discuss. It is sad that we have little time left in which to do that, and I shall be brief so as to allow the Minister to answer the many questions he has been asked. I should hate to deprive him of the chance to do that by talking too long.
The Minister mentioned indicators that we should examine to determine whether the position in Northern Ireland is getting better. He listed some that tended to portray the silver lining to some of the grey clouds that can be seen over Northern Ireland. But there are other signs which could have been used and which might have given a more complete picture.
The Minister readily acknowledged the 17 per cent. unemployment—the highest in the United Kingdom. He cited the construction sector, but if he had mentioned the manufacturing sector we should have seen a 30 per cent. contraction since 1979.
Two other statistics will begin to give a true flavour of the degree of social and economic deprivation in the Province. One quarter of the population are on

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means-tested benefits, which gives some idea of the extent of the benefits problem. The second statistic records the number of youngsters who leave school at 16 with no qualifications. We are talking about a quarter of 16-year-old youngsters leaving school in Northern Ireland with no qualifications compared with one tenth in England and Wales. That is a worrying statistic because it creates a climate of deprivation, poverty and unemployment which is a breeding ground for alienation, frustration and paramilitary recruitment. That must be borne in mind.
Mr. David Lightbown (Lord Commissioner to the Treasury): Rubbish.
Ms. Mowlam: The Government Whip might consider it rubbish but if he had listened to a little more of the debate he might be able to comment more constructively instead of making negative comments.
When we look at the picture more broadly, we see that we have to take into account the economic and social situation and the political side and make sure that they work hand in hand.
I should like the Minister to address an aspect of the order that has not been covered—value for money. We have had some suggestions about how the money could be allocated differently, but I should like to be sure that it will be allocated in an efficient, value-for-money way.
I shall give an example of what I mean. In his opening statement the Minister said that 21 new schools are being built. Is one of the schools that he listed the Catholic school being built 100 yd down the road from Skegoneill primary school in north Belfast which is closing this month? If it is, that means that within 100 yd one school is closing and another one is opening. As I am sure the Under-Secretary of State is aware, 21 per cent. of the students of the school that is closing are Catholics. In September, the intake would be 50 per cent. In the Minister's view, that school is ripe for grant-maintained integrated status in line with the Government's policy of supporting integrated education. It is ideal for funding under what are known as the Mawhinney proposals.
It appears to be a scandalous waste of Government resources to close one school and open another, because there is no clear indication that that is not a waste of taxpayers' money due to inefficient management of the Department of Education budget. Similarly, we could look at the allocation of money to nursery education. I am sure that the Minister knows that 84 per cent. of three-year-olds and 25 per cent. of four-year-olds receive no nursery education.
The recent European Commission report shows that Britain is the meanest EC country in relation to nursery education and that Northern Ireland has the lowest number of available places. Has there been any attempt in the order to respond to that problem and to the Commission's report?
When answering that question, perhaps the Minister would also respond to the 1987 policy document "Day care in education for under-fives in Northern Ireland". It proposed the establishment of a central advisory committee to discuss the whole question of the under-fives. I have found no evidence to show that that advisory committee has been set up. People are unable to go to work or have to give up work because of a lack of nursery
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provision or local authority provision in Northern Ireland. Can the Minister say whether that committee has been set up to address that important problem?
When the Minister is replying to the question asked by the hon. Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder), perhaps he could tell the House about the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman mentioned of discrimination against girls in the 11-plus transferability test. Perhaps he could tell us whether the setting of a quota of 27 per cent. for boys and girls when all the statistics show that more girls pass at that age is clearly a case of sex discrimination. Will he support the Equal Opportunities Commission, which wants that regulation changed? Clearly it discriminates against girls who at that age are more capable than boys of passing that examination.
We have heard a great deal about integrated education and there has been much support, supposedly from the Government, for that. Will the Minister address the matter of capital funding for Hazlewood and Lagan integrated schools? We know that Hazlewood has been given funding a month ahead of time, but what about capital funding for other schools that are going for integrated status rather than changing? He knows that without that capital funding new integrated schools are unable to survive. I am sure that Minister will not prejudge the matter but will pay careful attention to all the submissions that have been made about this topic. I should like him to tell the House whether the question of integrated education will be considered.
I shall make a couple more points, and then I will stop to give the Minister a chance to respond.
A number of hon. Members asked about agriculture. I should like to add to their questions by referring to the problems facing seed potato farmers. As I am sure the Minister will know, because of export problems last year crop commitments have been made without adequate financial resources to back them. Until now the Government have refused to help the industry. It is no exaggeration to say that the seed potato sector is on the verge of collapse. About £700,000 investment is needed and 750 jobs are threatened. The Government should have addressed that problem in the order.
As I understand the DED estimates, they include a reduction in the electricity tariff subsidy from £4·5 million to £1 million. Will not that lead to even higher electricity prices—a problem which the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) raised in relation to industrial development? The Minister has acknowledged the problems that pensioners face in this regard.
Will the Minister assure us that in the figures for social security—especially the appropriations in aid—there is not a saving in terms of cuts in social security benefits? We know that the social fund loan will be less than what was paid out in single payments. We know that the transfer from supplementary benefit to income support involves a decrease. We seek an assurance that the appropriation in aid will not in fact represent a cut. The Minister has said about social security that overall it is pensioners who are the main losers in the changes. Can he assure us that there will not be an additional cut in pensioners' income as a result of both electricity price increases and potential benefit cuts?
Can the Minister assure us that the appropriations for the Northern Ireland Audit Office—appropriations in aid of £235,000—represent value for money? I understand that the money is related to contracts that are being

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worked outside the main Government Departments. However, we need to be sure that the Audit Office is doing its job properly and has adequate funding to ensure that Government Departments are acting efficiently in terms of value for money.
1.2 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Richard Needham): It would require 90 minutes rather than nine to answer the torrent of questions that the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) asked with her customary vigour. If I do not get round to answering all of them, I shall of course write to her with full details, and if she wishes to have a further meeting, I shall, as always, be only too delighted to see her.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) pointed out that not many members of the Official Unionist party were present. I do not understand how hon. Members in the Official Unionist party think that they can do anything to lessen the alienation of which they complain so bitterly by boycotting debates as important as this. Last year, I seem to remember, they were here; the year before, they were not. Their behaviour is increasingly reminiscent of the words of the old song:
"First she said yes,
then she said no.
First she said come,
then she said go."
You probably remember them yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The Unionist people of Northern Ireland showed clearly at the last election what they felt about hon. Members who abstained in parliamentary proceedings: they kicked two of them out. But it seems that Unionist Members have once again retired to their tents to complain through the columns of the newspapers that no one is listening to them. It is hard to listen to people who will not talk. We all remember one Northern Ireland Member who came to a debate to abstain in person. Now Northern Ireland Members come to boycott debates in person.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South gratifyingly pointed out that an economic revival is taking place in Northern Ireland, but relative to what happened 15 years ago, it is still fairly shallow. There have been great problems in replacing the old industries, which have been running down in the Province over the past five or six years. The major problem, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is that it is extremely difficult, in the present political and terrorist climate in Northern Ireland, to tempt people back. The best hope for reducing the number of unemployed and getting industry back is to replace war-war with jaw-jaw, and in the earlier debate, we had some signs that we may be making some progress in that process.
The problems of egg producers are felt throughout the country and the Community. I realise the difficulties facing them, but I do not have much more than sympathy to offer.
The hon. Gentleman will remember from his visits to Northern Ireland that the growing of flax, which he mentioned, is a two-edged sword, to mix my metaphors. The retting of flax can create problems of pollution and although, as he rightly pointed out, the climate in
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Northern Ireland is conducive to the growing of flax, it is not as ideal as the climate in other flax-producing areas. However, he is right to say that the linen industry is doing much better, and I hope that that will continue.
There is a question about Harland and Wolff on tomorrow's Order Paper and, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, we hope to be able to make a statement on the future of the yard soon. We are ready to consider any privatisation proposals, but I have nothing of further use to add tonight.
I appreciate that the housing budget for this year is not as much as the Housing Executive asked for. I have to point out to the hon. Member for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder) that if one asks for £500 million and gets only £300 million, one can say that one has had a budget cut of £200 million. However, it would never have been possible for us to fund everything that the Housing Executive wanted.
I probably will not be able to cover all the points made by the hon. Gentleman, but I can say that the outturn for 1987–88 was £500 million, and the outturn for 1988–89 is likely to be £506 million, so there has not been a reduction. In cash terms, that is a small increase. We are still spending proportionately double the amount that we spend in the remainder of the United Kingdom, so we shall continue to be able to reduce the levels of unfitness and disrepair, which are worse in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the country.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South asked me about the road to Larne. If we spend more money on roads, there will be less money to spend on housing or other sectors. We shall look at that road, right the way down to the border. We have been having discussions for some time with the Government of the Republic to try to get that route upgraded, but it is a question of finance. I should like to see stages 2 and 3 of the Newry bypass built, and the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) has pressed me about it and no doubt will continue to do so. However, it is more important to get the housing conditions in Northern Ireland right before we concentrate on roads.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South asked me why there had been no inquiry about the Northern health board's proposals. We looked carefully at the case that it has put, at the consultative procedures and at the alternatives that it was suggesting to its proposed closures, and we decided that its policy should be supported as it was in line with its structure plan. As to the small hospitals in its area and other areas, we shall look at the proposals that come to us, but it is our policy to have major acute hospitals of real quality and we find it hard to staff the much smaller acute hospitals. It is difficult to get staff to go to them.
I cannot think where the hon. Gentlemen got hold of the idea that there was a suggestion that the Royal Victoria hospital might close. Some of those who circulate such rumours are quite capable of creating them. There is no question of there being any danger to the Royal Victoria hospital. In fact, we are spending large and increased capital sums on it. It is one of the finest hospitals, if not the finest, in the country. I support the tremendous work that is does. In the total terms of public expenditure—
It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business).
Question agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 26th May, be approved.

Orders of the Day

  ELECTRICITY (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith. pursuant to Standing Order No. 93 (Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland), as amended by the order this day, That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
  Question agreed to.
  Committee this day.

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): With the leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on motions 4 to 11.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

    AGRICULTURE
    That the draft Agriculture Improvement (Amendment) Regulations 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.
    That the Agriculture Improvement (Variation) Scheme 1988, (S.I., 1988, No. 1056), dated 16th June 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.

    RATING AND VALUATION
    That the draft British Waterways Board (Rateable Values) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 7th June, be approved.
    That the draft Docks and Harbours (Rateable Values) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 7th June, be approved.

    URBAN DEVELOPMENT
    That the Wolverhampton Urban Development Area Order 1988, dated 24th March 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th March, be approved.
    That the Sheffield Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 1988, dated 10th May 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th May, be approved.
    That the Leeds Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 1988, dated 10th May 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th May, be approved.
    That the Central Manchester Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 1988, dated 10th May 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th May, be approved.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
    Question agreed to.

  United States Domestic Waste (Dumping)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
  1.10 am
  Mr. Chris Butler: I have had an opportunity to speak to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and I understand that he is not averse to the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) contributing briefly to the debate if he manages to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, after my contribution.
  It is my duty tonight to report a sense of utter outrage that is felt in the north-west at the proposal of the Manchester Ship Canal Company to import 7·5 million tonnes of supposed American domestic waste into my constituency. The resultant mountain of muck will dominate the flat Cheshire landscape. It will rise to 130 ft and cover 390 acres. Thousands of representations are pouring into me. I cannot over-emphasise the sense of bitterness and amazement among my constituents and among others in the north-west that the proposal should even be contemplated.
  I have experienced this urgency of public opinion only once before, and that was when I was working in No. 10 during the Falklands crisis. On the Beaufort scale of political force, I reckon that if unassuaged these winds could destroy careers, even those of Ministers.
  For the past 18 months there have been barges trawling around the Caribbean filled with sewage, one from New York and one from Philadelphia. They have been trying vainly to find a home. The Manchester Ship Canal Company is suggesting that the poor and under-developed nations of the Caribbean should reject the barges and that it will accept and welcome them for profit. This will be a national issue and the British people will reject the proposition and its defenders.
  In 1986, Cheshire county council, against bitter opposition from my predecessor and the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle), gave planning permission to the Manchester Ship Canal Company to place a tip on Arpley meadows. It was meant to be a strategic long-term facility to take Cheshire's waste for the next 25 years. The council was not disinterested because it agreed to share the profits of the deal. Critically, it entered into a local agreement to encourage the import of waste from outside Cheshire.
  The Manchester Ship Canal Company has interpreted the agreement widely and has entered into a preliminary deal with Tower Water and Waste Ltd. to import 1·5 million tonnes of American domestic waste for five years. A company search of Power Water and Waste Ltd. shows that it has the princely sum of paid-up capital of £2. It has filed no accounts since the company was formed on 23 September 1986. The company will import—I say this so that my hon. Friend the Minister will understand the nature of the beast with which we are dealing—the muck into Liverpool and then ship it every day in 300 22-tonne lorries into the heart of my constituency, through the over-stretched road system around Warrington.
  Why should Ministers be involved? First, it is a question of national importance as to whether we ought to be shipping in large imports of foreign waste. I wonder what areas of the country will be the next to be blighted by a megatonnage of muck. This is the thin end of a
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  potentially enormous wedge. I wonder whether Cirencester, or even Tewkesbury, might be blighted by such imports.
  Secondly, although one might think that the waste disposal authority itself would be the prime mover in stopping such imports, it may not be able to do so because it is over a legal barrel, due to the foolish agreement into which it entered, to encourage imports of outside waste.
  The Royal Commission on environmental pollution, in its eleventh report, concluded that landfill capacity in the United Kingdom is a scarce resource that needs to be conserved. However, these proposals will reduce the life of the tip at Arpley meadows by 15 years. Cheshire, already hard pressed to find landfill sites, will discover that its entire strategic waste disposal policy is jeopardised. Worse, the Manchester Ship Canal Company plans to find another landfill site in Cheshire at the end of the five-year period with a view to importing even more American domestic waste.
  I am told by the man in the street—and he is right—that the American continent is a vast land mass and that ours is a small country hard pressed by environmental problems. Why cannot the American nation find a place in its vast land mass—perhaps in its deserts—to dispose of its waste and not add to our problems? It is paradoxical that the Government are spending £4 billion on clearing the Mersey basin but at the same time we appear to be allowing a towering beacon of noxiousness right on the Mersey's banks.
  The royal commission suggested that the costs of preventing pollution should fall on the producers. I should like my hon. Friend to say whether the Government accept that recommendation, and, if so, how it could be enforced on the municipalities of New York, Philadelphia and Boston. The royal commission commented:
  "The greater the degree of separation between the final disposal of waste and the original process which gave rise to it, the more likely it is that the incidence of costs will be distorted."
  My fear is that Warrington will end up paying the bills of New York.
  The royal commission commented that there is often uncertainty surrounding the composition of a waste. That must be especially so with a megatonnage of waste from the United States. I find it hard to believe that there will be a man with a pan sorting through 7·5 million tonnes of waste before it comes over here or when it arrives. The suggestion that there is one global environment and that US waste is exactly the same as United Kingdom waste is laughable. The United States has a different climate, different insects, different diseases and different rubbish—and different ways of dealing with that rubbish and those diseases.
  I ask hon. Members to pay heed to the words of Mrs. Linda Haslock, who lives 35 miles south of New York. She writes:
  "Non biodegradable plastic waste amounts to 112·8 tons of garbage each day for New York alone—never mind Boston and Philadelphia. It would pay, for once, to have a political jamboree for all those Cheshire officials to come out to Staten Island and spend a day or so surveying the current New York dump at Arthurs Kill and Fresh Kill. The mess is indescribable and the stench detectable up to 5 miles away when the wind is in the wrong direction. Park that lot in Warrington and you have the equivalent of a National Disaster area for years. To say nothing of the inevitable unkillable New York variety of cockroaches which will come with it all and proceed to infest the whole country at a phenomenal rate. Incidentally, the Staten Island Dump is

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  largely responsible for the pollution of the New Jersey Coast. Three days ago a large consignment of used and filthy 'crack' phials and hypodermic needles washed up on the beach … drug dealers' junk."
  There are real environmental risks in the proposals. Who would pick up the bill if the Colorado beetle infested the Cheshire potato crop and destroyed it? Last year we suffered swine fever in this country as a result of imported meat products. There is a danger that small rabid animals would be imported and would infect the native livestock. Who would be responsible if thousands of domestic animals had to be slaughtered within a given radius?
  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food knows what horrors are contained in the proposals. It has been in correspondence with Humberside about the proposals by a shipping agent to bring in 15,000 tonnes from Holland. The ENDS report of May 1988 stated:
  "According to MAFF's veterinary branch, any foreign household waste is likely to contain animal products and as such would be subject to licensing under the Importation of Animal Products and Poultry Products Order 1980. `No such licence would be given due to the animal health risks involved', MAFF says. 'Animal viruses are likely to persist in imported refuse, and could be taken up by seagulls, rats and other animals from British landfills', added a MAFF spokesman."
  Even Chris Bonnington now faces a £400 fine for bringing in the supposed skull of an abominable snowman. MAFF even mounted a raid to seize the skin of a wild blue sheep that he had brought in. I urge my hon. Friend to dispense with this strange reticence about the 7·5 million tonnes that it is proposed to bring into the country, and to end this sorry saga now.
  I realise that money is involved in the deal, but it is dirty money. The British people will be looking for more than the scalp of a yeti if the United Kingdom becomes the dustbin of the world but for paying dollars at the turnstile.
  1.21 am
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: I thank the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) for allowing me to speak. As he knows, we not only have great sympathy with Warrington but are concerned about the potential for our waterways to inflict a similar scheme on us in Cornwall.
  As the hon. Gentleman rightly made clear, waste is now becoming an international problem, with a phenomenal 183,000 tonnes imported to Britain in 1986–87, compared to only 5,000 in the early 1980s. The short-term answer to that international problem has been to pay Third-world countries and the poorer communities—including our own—to accept toxic waste that should be, indeed is, refused by all who are able to do so. While Warrington and Cornwall cannot be compared to Third-world countries, we are told that we should accept waste-dumping schemes because they will improve the job situation in two areas that continue to suffer terrible unemployment, and therefore, in effect, are believed to have their backs against the wall.
  When the CEGB threatened to build a nuclear power station in Cornwall, I was among many thousands who protested. We argued that what was not safe for Plymouth or London was not safe for Cornwall either. Exactly the same is true with this proposal. What is not welcome in New York or Washington is certainly not welcome in Cornwall or Warrington. The Minister must respond to our opposition in Cornwall to the dumping of American domestic waste because of fears of toxicity and the new fear of the spread of diseases to local livestock.
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  The third report of the hazardous waste inspectorate has already expressed fears of transportation of diseases by seagulls and rats in those waste dumps. We all saw not so long ago the farce of New York's rubbish being transported to and fro on massive barges, not being accepted anywhere. The rubbish travelled up and down the east coast of America without takers. It had been claimed that the barges held only the domestic waste that is promised for this country, but it was found to contain toxic waste, and the Americans did not want it to be landed anywhere in the States.
  Must we look forward in the not-too-distant future to barges travelling up and down the south coast of Cornwall with such toxic waste destined for some part of our country? The proposals will mean the importation of 2 million tonnes of waste a year through Falmouth harbour. That is equivalent to 10 per cent. of British domestic waste. The United States is phasing out landfill sites because it has had such bad experience of them.
  The debate will not stop here tonight. Solutions will be found only through an inquiry to answer the fears of the hazardous waste inspectorate, the fears of the people of Warrington and the fears of the people of Cornwall. It is not enough for the applications to be turned down, because they will be back tomorrow, in Cornwall, in Warrington and in other parts of the country. The United States does not want the waste and it believes that it can offload it on to us. Neither in this country nor internationally has a solution been found to the growing problem of waste disposal.
  Government commitment to a full public inquiry generating genuine public trust and support for real, long-term solutions will provide the answer, Meanwhile, the proposals for Warrington and Cornwall most certainly should not go ahead.
  1.26 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Colin Moynihan): First, I should like to address the general background to policy in regard to the handling of waste before moving on to the specific and important issues raised by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler).
  I thank my hon. Friend for the opportunity to discuss the proposed import of waste from America and the wider issues of waste imports in general. I should like to put the debate in context.
  As a general principle, it is right that waste should be disposed of as close to its point of origin as practicable to maximise the effectiveness of controls over its movement and disposal. However, it has been widely accepted that the trade in waste is legitimate and indeed beneficial where the waste is to be disposed of more safely than in its country of origin and where the import does not endanger the availability of disposal facilities for United Kingdom waste. We are all more aware of the international dimension of pollution and it is in the interests of international environmental protection that, where appropriate, wastes should travel to facilities which can deal with them to a higher environmental standard.
  This general proposition has long been the Government's policy and was endorsed by the Lords Committee on Science and Technology as long ago as 1981

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  and again by the Royal Commission on environmental pollution in its 11th report, "Managing Waste, The Duty of Care", in 1985.
  The import of waste has increased since these two eminent bodies reported. However, it must be seen in perspective. Trade in waste is much more widespread elsewhere. The OECD estimated that in 1983 2·2 million tonnes of wastes crossed the borders of the European Community, but in that year only 15,000 tonnes came to the United Kingdom. Reports suggest that trade in waste has risen both in the European Community and throughout the world.
  The United Kingdom has taken a share of this growth but from a very low base level. We still, it seems, import rather less than many of our European neighbours and certainly less than might be expected in view of our size and trading record. It is still a very small proportion of the amount of waste we dispose of annually in the United Kingdom. Imports of special waste amounted to 3·5 per cent. of total special waste disposed of in 1986 and the non-special waste was about 0·3 per cent. of industrial waste arising in England and Wales.
  Imports of special waste—that is, wastes which are dangerous or difficult to dispose of—have increased from 4,000 tonnes in 1981 to 52,000 tonnes in 1986. Those special wastes all go to the specialist facilities I mentioned earlier, providing feedstock for them which allows them to remain in business to provide this essential service for our own waste arisings. As long as the waste is disposed of safely here, the United Kingdom can be proud of its record in the international waste disposal scene and protection of the wider international environment. This trade in special waste meets the criteria set out by both the Science and Technology Committee and the RCEP and is a legitimate trade.
  It is, of course, less easy to see any reasons for importing waste for direct landfill, since all countries landfill waste and therefore have the facilities to dispose of that waste themselves. In 1986, there were imports of around 130,000 tonnes of non-special waste for direct landfill. It was mainly contaminated soil, fly-ash, gypsum and other industrial waste from the Netherlands, which has severe problems with landfill in some areas because of its geology and high water table. The United Kingdom, along with France, West Germany, Belgium and several other countries assisted their neighbour in the disposal of some of the waste. In those circumstances, even import for direct landfill can be said to be in the best interests of the wider environment, provided of course that it is disposed of safely in the country which accepts it. I can confirm that this is the case in the United Kingdom.
  Having set out the Government's general view of waste imports, I shall now consider the matter of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South and the hon. Member for Truro.
  The proposal to ship 1·5 million to 2 million tonnes of domestic waste per annum from the eastern seaboard of the United States of America for disposal in this country is undoubtedly different in kind and in scale from the imports we have received so far. Safe disposal of waste, which is a prerequisite for all disposal of United Kingdom and foreign waste, must depend on full knowledge of the contents of the waste. Paradoxically, it is often easier to
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  guarantee the contents of chemical wastes—acids do not have a different chemical make-up if they are Belgian as opposed to being British—but household refuse is quite a different matter.
  In England and Wales, we have recently laid regulations which specify that certain items of household waste may not be put in a dustbin but should be kept separate to ensure their safe disposal. This applies particularly to clinical waste arising in the home. We have, as yet, no indication that such segregation applies to household waste collection in, for instance the United States of America.
  There are differences, too, in the nature of the articles which may be found in household waste from other countries. The United Kingdom is fortunate in being free of many pests and diseases, particularly those affecting animals and plants, which are common in some other countries.
  Household waste will contain a large proportion of food and garden waste, which must involve the risk of pests and diseases being carried with it. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food restricts the import of any animal products and poultry, of animal pathogens and of listed plants, plant pests, plant products or soils. Such import is normally prohibited unless the relevant authorities in the exporting country can certify that it is free of disease. These regulations would apply equally to waste animal products or plants. It is difficult to see how the United States authorities could certify free from disease the contents of the many hundreds of thousands of dustbins.
  Finally, there are differences in scale between the trade in special waste at 52,000 tonnes per annum and household waste at 1·5 to 2 million tonnes per annum. While imports of special waste and the relatively small amount of non-special waste can be accommodated without diverting disposal resources away from United Kingdom needs, the import of up to 2 million tonnes of waste, even if it did not raise questions of public health and safety, would be a significant increase in the amount of waste to be disposed of in this country.
  This proposal comes at a time when we are re-assessing the availability of void space for waste disposal and other valuable land uses such as recreation and nature reserves. We are also reconsidering current landfill practices in view of the increased number of incidents involving landfill gas. A reappraisal of the geological conditions necessary for safe landfill of putrescible wastes may well reduce the availability of void space in the future.
  For all these reasons, the proposed import of household waste from the United States of America gives grave cause for concern. It is difficult to envisage how the waste can be guaranteed free from disease or pests and, even if it were, I believe that the United Kingdom would have considerable difficulty in accommodating the proposed volumes at a time of increasing uncertainty about the future use of certain types of geology for landfill.
  My hon. Friend has argued that matters of this kind should not be left to local authorities. There may be a case to argue on that point, but the fact is that under existing legislation, waste disposal control and regulation rests clearly and firmly on waste disposal authorities. They, not central Government, have the powers and the duty to ensure not only that waste is disposed of safely in their areas but that facilities are available in the longer term. Thus, for the particular proposals concerning Cheshire,

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  the county council, as waste disposal authority, is both operator of the site and regulation authority for the county, responsible for the planning of waste management in its area.
  It seems quite clear that the proposal to increase the amount of household waste for disposal in the county by 300 to 400 per cent. would require a radical reappraisal of the operation of the site in question and the long-term waste planning of the area. It is for Cheshire, in the first instance, to consider the impact of the proposals on the site and on the plans, as it would be for any waste disposal authority considering any proposals which would radically alter its plans for individual sites or the area as a whole.
  However, as my hon. Friend is aware, I am meeting a deputation from the council tomorrow to discuss the position and ascertain what conclusions it has reached. I believe that it will be an important and decisive meeting, not least in providing me with a comprehensive update on its position and to gain replies to a number of the additional specific points which the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend have brought to my attention. It is an opportunity to hear direct from the council about the position that it has now reached with regard to the possibility of imports of that size.
  For Cornwall, which I understand is a possible alternative destination, a new site has been proposed which will require planning permission and, again, Cornwall county council as planning authority for waste disposal will consider any planning application that may be made in the normal way. Planning permissions and disposal licences or resolutions are normally granted subject to conditions which protect the use of the land and the amenity of the area for its residents. Proposals to alter the scale and nature of any operation would always have to satisfy the normal requirements for safeguarding the environment and the residents' health and amenity. The Government are therefore well apprised of the implications of the proposal, not only for Cheshire and Cornwall but for the country as a whole.
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food maintains a constant vigilance against the risk of diseases coming into the country in products of animal and vegetable origin. Any would-be importers of any material would have to satisfy him that there were no dangers of carrying pests and diseases with that material. On that specific point, I have requested that officials from the
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  Ministry are present tomorrow so that we can further discuss this specific and important point of concern. I also believe that in national terms the scale of the proposal raises serious questions on the availability of disposal facilities, not least in Cornwall and in Cheshire, on which it may be necessary to seek further powers.
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: I thank the Minister for what he has said. In view of his last comment and his earlier comments on the national seriousness of the issue, may I ask whether he feels that such applications would be likely to be called in by the Department of the Environment for inquiry?
  Mr. Moynihan: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not in a position to judge in general in regard to call-in. There is certainly no reason why applications of that type would not be considered for call-in. The hon. Gentleman will be the first to recognise—the House will understand this—that I cannot comment on a specific case in advance of all the details being brought to the attention of the responsible authorities.
  Finally, in the last minute, I would also like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to the announcement today of the Government's decisions on proposed legislative changes on waste management. These proposals will strengthen and extend the powers of waste disposal authorities and extend responsibility for safe management of waste to producers and carriers. A further short consultation paper on amendments to the Control of Pollution Act 1974 will be issued shortly, dealing with matters arising from the consultation process or from events after the process was begun in 1986. Legislation will be introduced as soon as the parliamentary timetable permits.
  All these issues, and all the points to which I have responded, underscore the seriousness with which the Government view the issue. It is a matter of pressing arid considerable importance as well as being of public interest. For that reason, not only will I be having a meeting tomorrow but I will be following up all the points that have been made this evening as a matter of priority so that we can ensure that the widespread public concern and strength of opinion that has been expressed from both sides of the House this evening are properly taken into account.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes to Two o'clock.

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

Acute Hospital Sector: Statistics
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
How the statistics for the acute hospital sector are compiled.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Skelmersdale): My Lords, the centrally-available statistics provide information about acute sector inpatients and day cases and are compiled by tabulating coded data of around 7 million anonymised hospital records. Those on waiting lists and hospital facilities such as beds and operating theatres are compiled from forms submitted quarterly or annually by hospitals or health authorities.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that I have asked a number of Questions which rely on hospital statistics. Perhaps I may give the reason for my concern.
Noble Lords: No, no!
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, would the Minister mind if I gave the reason for my concern? The statistics that he gave me about operations and waiting lists at Worcester Royal Infirmary vary much from the statistics taken from the operating theatre books. For example, in 1983 the Minister said that 650 operations had been carried out, whereas there were 874. He could not give me any figures for 1987.
Noble LordsOrder! Question!
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, in fact there were only 490 operations carried out.
Noble Lords: Question!
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, is it not important that the statistics gathered are accurate in order that planning for facilities for various hospitals may be carried out with some degree of accuracy? Can he give any assurance that the new system for statistical analysis will be more efficient and therefore more effective with regard to patient treatments?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Körner system will indeed be considerably more authoritative and also faster because of computerisation. The computerisation has been delayed by about a year for the proving of the software package which is why matters are not so far advanced as the Government would like. On changes in statistics, I cannot give a reason for hospital theatre statistics being changed. However, statistics in most cases have to be revalued
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before they are put together to form a national statistic base.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, is the Minister aware that consultants throughout the country are very concerned about the financial situation affecting their districts? Bearing in mind the statistics which have just been given by the noble Countess, is the Minister prepared to withdraw a statement that he made on 9th November that an orthopaedic surgeon, Mr. John Guy, in Worcester Royal Infirmary made a statement which misrepresented the situation? Is he aware that the facts that the noble Countess has given substantiate the claims made by the consultant at that time? Is he aware that the consultant much resented the allegation made by the Minister that he was misrepresenting the situation?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I do not have in front of me the details of that exchange in your Lordships' House. However, now that it has been drawn to my attention I shall look into it and apologise in writing to the surgeon concerned if I find that it is necessary. However, the important factor is the services to patients and whether we are becoming a healthier or a sicker nation as a result of the changes that have been taking place in the health service. I have a whole raft of examples on that but the most telling one is that the expectation of life for both males and females is now over four years more at birth than it was in the 1950s, and two years more at birth than it was in the mid-1970s.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the noble Lord has just said that the statistics are improving. Can he say whether account has been taken of the fact that, for example, fractures of the neck of the femur are three times more prevalent in the elderly than the growth in the elderly population, and that they are taking up a lot of hospital beds?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, there is also a longer experience and expectancy of life among the elderly. The number of hip replacement operations has almost doubled since 1974 as a result.

Hospital Admissions: Criteria
2.41 p.m.
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
What criteria are applied by hospital consultants in deciding whether or not a patient should receive hospital treatment.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, consultants' decisions on admission to hospital are based on their clinical judgment. Each case will be treated as individual.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Is he aware that the problem caused with the closure of beds—I shall not say "cuts" because the Minister does not like the word—is that the consultants are no longer able to use their clinical knowledge when deciding whether or not a patient should be admitted to hospital? Is he aware that patients are suffering because they cannot have a guaranteed bed when they need it in an emergency, in particular for intensive care?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it is important that people in emergency should be treated somewhere. It depends how one classifies "emergency." If one means by "emergency" within 12 hours, I believe that this is always achieved. There have indeed been closures of beds for a number of reasons. We have discussed this a number of times over the past 12 months in this Chamber. However, I have also pointed out that the number of cases treated, and operations conducted, has consistently risen over recent years.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, in the Minister aware that, while some noble Lords were sitting very late last night, I was with the Hereford Health District where I was being told by the chairman of the medical committee of drastic cuts in the basic services to patients, including the closure of theatre wards and the standing down of theatre staff, doctors and nurses? Is he surprised that some local people were saying to me that this is a deliberate policy to boost the private sector of the health service because people are now having to wait longer and longer?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, I am very surprised on two counts. First, I regard myself standing at this Dispatch Box as a rather tired statistic. Secondly, because in his discovery I am surprised that the noble Lord did not achieve understanding of the fact that, in spite of the closures to which he referred, even in that district health authority the number of cases treated has gone up, as in other parts of the country.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is extremely difficult to answer this Question on the Order Paper in the form in which it is put because, quite fairly, the criteria must depend largely on ruling circumstances?
Lord Skelmersdale: Yes, my Lords, they must depend on ruling circumstances, but clinical judgment forms the major part of all decisions on admission to hospital.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in some places, for people who have not been able to get treatment in this country, their communities have raised money and sent them abroad for treatment? How does he view that kind of circumstance? Does it not show how keen the community is for health services?
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I could not guarantee that every treatment possible in the world is available in this country. There are some treatments which the medical establishment here treats with a certain amount of suspicion. Therefore it is hardly surprising that if people are determined to have a particular treatment which they cannot have here they raise funds both privately and publicly to send their relatives, or indeed themselves, to other parts of the world to be treated.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, tired as we both are—the noble Lord on the Front Bench and myself on the Cross-Benches—has the Minister read the extremely interesting leading feature article in The Times this morning about the unique opportunity presented by the present investigations into the
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National Health Service to rectify conceptual misconceptions in the original Bevan scheme? Will he write to me about it?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I have not read it. Yes, I shall certainly write to the noble Earl.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the general population in this country must be coming round to realising that National Health Service facilities have to be rationed? Would it not be a good idea if the Government opened to public debate clear guidelines of some kind for who should and who should not be treated and for how long they should be treated?
Lord Skelmersdale: No, my Lords, I do not think that that is the proper role of government. Rationing in the health service in certain areas has existed for many years. An example of such rationing is the waiting lists.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us have very close association with the health service? We have been very proud indeed of the National Health Service since its inception, as we are today. It is doing a magnificent job. Is it not a fact that it has always been taken for granted that the consultant will decide whether a case is urgent enough for a patient to be admitted? My experience, which spreads over a large number of years, is that consultants usually get their way.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. I only add that I am alive today purely because of the good services of the National Health Service.

Trade Deficit
2.45 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby Lord Hatch of Lusby asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have now revised their estimate of the trade deficit for this year and if so why.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham): My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already said, recent figures suggest that the current account deficit in 1988 will be larger than forecast at the time of the Budget. A new forecast will be published in the usual way at the time of the Autumn Statement.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord does not answer my question. If the Government have changed their forecast, why? Why was it that in March the Chancellor forecast a deficit of £4 billion, which has almost or totally already been reached? How does what he has said square with his constant reiteration in this House and in the country that the country is booming? Our trade deficit last month was the largest in history. Is this not a reflection of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's policy in the Budget of reducing taxes for his rich friends who are now spending the money on imports rather than investing in the productive activities of this country?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, the noble Lord, should take more care. He confuses a deficit today with the conditions that existed in the early and middle 1970s, and indeed in the 1960s, when the economy was such that we were in considerable difficulties. We have today an economy that is growing as fast as, if not faster than, any other economy in the industrialised world. Today's deficit of £4·7 billion should be compared with our overseas direct and portfolio assets, valued at the end of 1986 at £236·5 billion equivalent to £4,200 per head. When an economy is growing as fast as ours is growing, it is quite likely that there will be temporary imbalances and periods in which imports will exceed exports. Any similarity between this and the middle 1970s exists only in the mind of the noble Lord.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, will the Secretary of State care to tell the House how he believes that personal tax cuts in the Budget will be helpful to this year's deficit?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I believe that tax cuts in the Budget will be helpful to the growth of enterprise and the economy, and will ensure that the economy continues to grow faster. That is the important question.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that I agree with him that the massive nature of our reserves and overseas assets make an apparently qualitative difference compared with the position in the 1960s and early 1970s? Nonetheless, will he bear in mind the dramatic experience of the United States in the 1980s, which showed that with remarkable speed a country can turn itself from being the biggest creditor in the world to being the biggest debtor in the world? Will he therefore avoid being too complacent about the present position?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I shall resist being too complacent. I accept the fact that the noble Lord agrees with me and I look forward to that continuing in the future. However, I am sure that all noble Lords will accept that there is a difference between the years during which the United States of America ran at a substantial deficit and the economy of the United Kingdom which runs at a surplus.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend not surprised that, at a time when the industrial development in this country is obvious, so many well-informed people who have previously held office and who should have a real understanding of the matter should want to draw attention to the odd quirk which, of necessity, is bound to exist at some time?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I am aware that imports have increased substantially this year. In the three months to May imports of motorcars and consumer goods increased by 12 per cent. Imports of capital goods and intermediate goods, which are the components for manufacturing products, increased by 18 per cent. We are seeing industry gearing up and stocking up, and I believe that that will be a good omen for the future.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, does not the Minister take comfort from a dictum of the Greek
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philosopher, Heraclitus, in the fifth century B.C.? He said, "Panta rhei"—all things are perpetually in a state of flux.
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, this Lord has been a Member of your Lordships' House for long enough to take comfort wherever he can.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, things may be in a state of flux but, on the assumption that the noble Lord has taken a serious interest in the structure of the trade figures that he has been kind enough to provide to Parliament, does the position between ourselves and the EC give him any cause for concern? Is the noble Lord aware that, whereas in 1972 we had a positive visible trade balance of some £200 million, in 1986 we had a deficit of £9·5 billion? Last year we had a deficit of over £10 billion, and on the basis of the results of the last five months the trade deficit with the remaining countries of the EC is running at an annualised rate of £14 billion. I ask the noble Lord not to give a purely rhetorical answer to this question. Has he given the matter serious consideration? What does he derive from an examination of the figures which he has provided? What do they hold for the future and on what basis can he predict any improvement in the balance of payments over the current year?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I recall well the conditions in the early 1970s. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, may be aware that I existed in the outside world in those days and knew well the conditions.
It is my privilege to spend some time travelling up and down our land, seeing the conditions in the country today. There is no comparison between the two periods. I do not believe that one can take part of the trade figures and from that make judgments. I take comfort from the economy as a whole and so, I believe, do most people in industry today.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in financial circles the estimate is that the net effect on the balance of payments for the end of this year will be a deficit of approximately £10 billion? That may or may not be right. However, bearing that prospect in mind, will the noble Lord indicate whether, in addition to increasing interest rates, which appears to be the policy of the Government, they have in mind any other measures which may deal with the situation?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, there are forecasts and forecasts. It is an occupation of many people in the City to continue to make forecasts. I look forward to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer publishing an estimate of the forecast for the balance of payments deficit or surplus in the usual way at the time of the Autumn Statement. I do not believe that at this time it is for me to speculate about the course of interest rates in the future. It is for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with the situation as and when the condition arises.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, while not being complacent will the Minister confirm that the adverse balance of invisible payments deficit was £9 billion in

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1987 but that there was a balance of over £8 billion in invisible exports? Can he give an indication of the buoyancy of the banking, insurance and other services in this year?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I admit the great difficulty of measuring the invisible balances and I believe that is well accepted. It causes us concern and the provision of the statistics is being examined at the present time. For example, 10 million or 15 million tourists visit this country each year. Many of them, if not the vast majority, acquire goods in this country. They may be registered, not registered at all or registered in some way as invisible when perhaps they should better be registered as visible. It is difficult for us, and I believe that it would be dangerous, to take too much from one month's figures. The long history of such figures has shown that they continue to be revised, and almost invariably revised for the better, as the months and years go by. I believe that we must see what the future brings.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, will the noble Lord give a broader breakdown than he gave in answer to a supplementary question when he contrasted the growth in the imports of motorcars with growth in the imports of capital goods? For example, can he say whether there has been a larger growth in the import of consumer goods than in capital goods and raw materials? We should all like to hope that it is the growth of the latter which is creating the deficit at the moment rather than a huge surge in consumer goods?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I have only the percentage increases, which are notoriously difficult if one does not know the base figures. They show that motorcars are up by some 19 per cent. in the first three months while other consumer goods are up by 10 per cent. However, both are up by far less—one-third less than capital goods and equipment for industry. I shall write to the noble Lord and give him a breakdown of the figures. I shall also cause a copy to be placed in the Library.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that he still has not answered my Question? Why in March did the Chancellor of the Exchequer make that forecast of £4 billion, which has already been achieved in June? Is that the way in which the Government handle the economy? Has the noble Lord read the report of the Committee on Overseas Trade chaired by his noble friend Lord Aldington which forecast precisely what is now happening since the oil revenues began to decline? Is the noble Lord's idea—
Noble Lords: Order, order! Too long!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord's idea of a boom one led by credit which will lead to a crash or a boom led by exports which the present figure shows are in decline?
Lord Young of Graffham: My Lords, I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, believes that he is infallible but as a Minister I know that I am not infallible and nor does my noble friend Lord Aldington believe that the report of his Select
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Committee is infallible. They were the best estimates made at the time and that is what estimates are intended to be.

Business
3.1 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead): My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Third Reading of the Education Reform Bill will take place on Thursday, 7th July, As noble Lords will recall, on Monday evening a number of your Lordships on both sides of the House expressed unease with our original intention to proceed with the Third Reading on 5th July as it would not have given enough time for proper consideration of the text of the Bill as amended. I have taken advice on this and find that there can be Rio certainty of receiving the reprint of the Bill as amended on Report by the end of this week. I have concluded that therefore it would be in the interests of the whole House if the Third Reading were deferred until 7th July.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for letting me know in advance that he was to make this Statement this afternoon. He will be aware of our general feeling about the way in which this matter has been handled and that it has caused considerable inconvenience to a number of people. Of course we shall do our best to adapt to the new arrangement to which he has referred.
However, can the noble Lord say that he is now quite satisfied that one day is sufficient for the Third Reading of the Education Reform Bill. Secondly, when will copies of the reprinted Bill be available? He has just referred to the reprint. Is he quite satisfied that that will be available in time for noble Lords in all parts of the House to study it before the Third Reading takes place?
I must once again place on the record our concern about the way in which business is being handled in this House.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: If the legislative programme had been studied with greater care some months ago, it would not have been necessary for this House to sit into the early hours of the morning on several occasions and it would certainly have been unnecessary for the House to sit all night as it has done. Without doubt that places an intolerable burden on noble Lords on all sides of the House and particularly upon those who are chiefly concerned from the Front Bench in dealing with the legislation and those on the Back Benches who have been playing an active part in the debates.
In my view it is not satisfactory for this House to sit on three consecutive days on the Committee or Report stages of a Bill, and on consecutive weeks. It places an unwarranted burden on noble Lords. I hope that that will be considered by the Leader of the House. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to announce at any early date when the House will rise for the Summer Recess and when we shall be expected to return for the overlap period and, indeed, whether the gracious Speech will be made at the normal time.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it was entirely because the Government had to ask for a postponement, and not because representations were made, that they had to change, at some considerable inconvenience, from next Tuesday which had long been a date in the diaries of many noble Lords most concerned? That was inconvenient but it might have been tolerable had the noble Lord been able to negotiate an alternative date. However, as I understand it, the convenience of the Commons received total priority over the problems of this House. Will the noble Lord bear in mind that to be an even-handed Leader he should give regard to the rights of this House as well as to the convenience of the Commons
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I should like to express my regret to both the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, about any personal inconvenience that that may cause. Indeed, I am aware of two particular Front Bench spokesmen for both the Social and Liberal Democrats and noble Lords opposite who not only have worked exceedingly hard on this Bill but have also worked throughout the whole of last night and for whom this is not convenient—in fact, it is not convenient at all. I should like to say that I am extremely sorry about that.
The fact is that it is impossible to find an alternative date which is convenient for everyone. The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked whether I am satisfied that one day will be enough for Third Reading. It is most unusual for your Lordships' House to spend more than one day on the Third Reading of a Bill.
The noble Lord also asked me when copies of the reprinted Bill will be available. As I said in my original statement, because there is no guarantee that the reprinted Bill will be available before the end of this week, I expect and very much hope that the reprinted Bill will be ready for us on Monday morning bright and early. Indeed, if the reprinted Bill were to appear a little before that, no one would be more glad than I. However, I do not believe that that would alter the prudence of having to take the proposed step.
The noble Lord referred to the very heavy burden of work on your Lordships' House. Perhaps I may repeat what I said yesterday in the House. I am the first to recognise the very great burden of work which falls on this House during the summer months generally in years and not least in the year in question. I recognise the work which is being done on major Bills—good work at that and work which I believe is for the good of the legislative process. However, this is not the first time that your Lordships' House has been very busy in the months of June and July.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, that I know the Government in both Houses will be announcing as soon as possible the dates of the Recess. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, asked whether or not it was the case that it was the Government which asked for the postponement. The noble Lord is absolutely right about that, but it was for a good reason—the reason which I gave in my original announcement to your Lordships; namely, that there can be no certainty of receiving the reprint of the Bill as amended on Report by the end of this week.
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The noble Lord then asked whether or not it was for the convenience of the House of Commons that I was standing up and making this statement and was it not necessary for the Leader of your Lordships' House to be even-handed. As Leader of your Lordships' House I believe that I have a responsibility to take account of the needs of the House and the need to make good progress with legislation. I believe that to defer Third Reading on this Bill by two days even-handedly fulfils those two needs.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to ask whether he is absolutely certain that the reprint of the Bill will be available on Monday. The latest information which I have received is that it will not be available until Tuesday. Perhaps the noble Lord would be good enough to check that matter.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, of course I shall check that and shall get in touch immediately with the noble Lord. However, that is not the information which I have received.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, as one of those who on Monday raised the question of the timing of the Third Reading of the Education Reform Bill with my noble friend, perhaps I may thank him warmly for the way in which he has dealt with the submissions made to him which, provided that the Bill is delivered as he has said on Monday, gives sufficient time for your Lordships to study it with a view to the possible submission of amendments. Some of us with ministerial experience realise how difficult it is to alter the timetable and therefore we appreciate all the more the action taken by my noble friend.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. Provided that the Bill appears on Monday, that gives two and a half days for consideration of the Bill as amended and for the tabling of amendments.
Perhaps I may say that for Third Reading that is perfectly acceptable. It will mean that the interval from the end of Report will have been eight days; that is to say six sitting days. What is required in our Companion to the Standing Orders is three sitting days between Report and Third Reading.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, the Education Reform Bill is, in fact, three Bills rolled into one. It is a disgrace and something of a contempt of Parliament that the Government have put so much in one Bill. Therefore, is there not a case for giving, exceptionally, a second day for the Third Reading?
Secondly, from this week's Times Educational Supplement it is apparent that the Secretary of State is already making his preparations to implement the Bill. Indeed, he has already started to do so as though the Bill had passed through Parliament, so there could be no great inconvenience to the Government if it were to be deferred for another week. Why cannot the Third Reading be deferred to the following week, and why cannot we have two days on it?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord finally asks why the Third Reading cannot be deferred to the

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following week. I am not by any means sure that that would be for the convenience of the House. As I said earlier, it is difficult to find a day that is convenient for everyone.
Of course, I have to remind the noble Lord, Lord Glenamara, who will remember this very well as a senior business manager himself, that the Government must wish to make as good progress as they can with their Bills, having regard always to the minimum intervals set out in the Companion to this House and the availability in good time of working texts of the Bill.
As regards the period of time for Third Reading, I repeat that, even allowing for very large Bills which have come to your Lordships' House, it is most unusual for a Third Reading to take longer than one day.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that we admire the tolerant way in which he has accepted the wholesale criticism regarding the management of the House? Is it not time that the House itself looked at the mote in its own eyes? Recently the Leader of the Opposition said that the House generally had been exemplary in the way it carried out its part. However, anyone present in the House should be appalled at the way arguments made in Committee were repeated on Report. They should be appalled at the length of speeches and at the repetition of one argument by several noble Lords when it was unnecessary, all against the general rules of this House. If we want to save time without in any way interferring with the efficiency of the House, it would not be a bad idea if all Members of the House adhered to the rules in the way that they used to and ought to if we are to continue.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls for his generous personal remarks. I simply content myself with saying that there is no question but that we have a very large Bill which has had a large number of amendments. That is exactly what this House is all about, but in this case it has placed a considerable strain on the machinery and that is why I have made a statement today.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I must follow the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, which was without foundation. I followed the debate very carefully in Committee as much as I could. I must say that my noble friend Lady David and her colleagues on this side of the House behaved impeccably in the way in which they dealt with the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. The noble Lord has no grounds at all for making that criticism. If there have been long speeches, they have been from the noble Lord and his colleagues.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, there is no one like the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am not sure that we are making much progress. Shall we simply content ourselves with saying that there has been a great deal of debate on all sides of the House and for that reason the Government gave one extra day on Report and now we are giving two extra days' interval before Third Reading?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, yes, but may I say to my noble friend—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, perhaps I may say to my noble friend that if Opposition noble Lords want any grounds for the comments that I made a moment or so ago, all they need do is read Hansard. That will justify all that I said.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon—
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord—
Noble Lords: The Chief Whip.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I wish to say—
Noble Lords: Order! The Chief Whip.
Lord Denham: My Lords; if the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, will give way for half a minute I will sit down and allow him to rise. Out of courtesy to the House, when a noble Lord rises at the Dispatch Box it is generally accepted that noble Lords have the politeness to give way. I will now give way to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the House appears to consider that it is an act of God that the House has been abused, as it was last night. It is not; it is an act of the Government. The noble Lord says that it is usual for this House to be busy at this time of the year. We all know that. However, is it not the case that this year the Government are trying to pour a quart into a pint pot and that we are the victims because of the excessive legislation, the delays in receipt of that legislation and the use of the guillotine procedure in the other place? Those are the reasons why the practices of this House have been abused and why the personnel of this House have been abused, as they were last night.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, with respect, the noble Lord is not on to a good point. The noble Lord says that the House is receiving legislation very late and that that, among other things, is causing intolerable strain. This busy Session is remarkable for having received legislation in very good time. The last of the main Government Bills due to come here has now arrived—and that, of course, is the Housing Bill which arrived this week.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Ferrers will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement to be made in another place on the reform of the Official Secrets Act.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Report stage of the Local Government Finance Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7 p.m. for approximately one hour and that during this adjournment the Building

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Societies (Limits on Commercial Assets) Order 1988 and the Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order 1988 will be taken.

Community Health Councils (Access to Information) Bill
3.18 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed.

Local Government Finance Bill
Report received.
Clause 1 [The charges]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 1:
Page I, line 8, after ("Part") insert ("and subject to subsection (1A) below").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I draw the attention of the House to the fact that in the Notices and Orders of the Day this Report stage is starred, or flagged, as being set down before the expiry of the recommended minimum interval between stages. Our agreement to that is evidence of the responsibility with which we have been taking not only this Bill but all other major Bills which have come before your Lordships' House.
Amendment No. 1 is to be taken, if the House agrees, with Amendments Nos. 3, 31 and 32. The purpose of these four amendments is to seek to secure the confidentiality of social work records and of all health records, not merely medical records, from the community register. In speaking to these amendments I recognise that the Government have already acknowledged that medical records themselves shall remain confidential and shall not be disclosed to the community charge registrar. I recognise also that the Government have always given assurances that the only information to be made available from the community charge registrar and made public will be the names and addresses of those concerned. I wish to persuade the House that this by no means goes far enough in protecting the necessary confidentiality of the records of social services departments, health authorities and other health organisations. Perhaps I may first of all deal with social services departments though the two cannot be fully taken together because of the interaction between the health and social services departments and the health and social services functions in our society.
Social workers are very often located in hospitals or attached to general practices as well as being located in social services departments. Every day they are collaborating with their medical and nursing colleagues to deal with the very grave social problems which confront them. When they are located in hospitals many of them are approved under the Mental Health Act, which requires them to be concerned, for example, with compulsory admissions to hospitals for people suffering from mental illness.
When this happens and though their main professional connections are with the health and hospital authorities, they are still professionally
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employed by the local authorities and their records are still the property of those bodies. I suggest to the House that under those circumstances, if they are required as employees of the local authorities to have their records made available to the community charge registrar, a coach and horses is being driven into the protection which the Government seek to provide for medical records. The two kinds of records cannot be adequately distinguished and the only way to provide good protection for medical records is to have the social work records provided as well.
I acknowledged a moment ago that the Government would ensure that only the names and addresses are made available. The names and addresses of those who are the clients of social workers is of itself highly sensitive information. Social workers tend to be involved with families where there are hostile individuals and where there is conflict which is causing social or mental problems. A mother could he at risk if information about her whereabouts was made available to the father who had been violent in the past or who could be violent again. Noble Lords who have been reading the pages of the popular press will be well aware that this is by no means a theoretical claim. It happens every day of the week and it is a matter of very grave concern to not only the social work and medical authorities but I believe to all of us in society.
If mothers at risk with children leave the matrimonial home, they will be followed around by the community charge registrar because that is his duty. He is required to do that if he is to maintain a proper register. I suggest to the House that unless the names and addresses themselves remain confidential in these circumstances, the confidentiality and the security of those people are not being adequately protected. The register is not yet in force and has not yet been published, but the evidence from Scotland shows that there are fears of this kind already surfacing. There is suspicion of social workers and the very fact of going to a social worker may lead to information which provides the name and address to someone who might be hostile and cause damage to the people concerned.
That brings me to another point, which is the relationship between the social worker and the client. In very many cases the name and address of the social work client will appear on the community charge register. It should appear on the register because that is the law which we are in the course of enacting at the moment. It will reduce the degree of confidence between the social worker and the client if the client believes that the information is only there because the social work records are not adequately confidential and they are not adequately protected from those who might misuse the information.
It has been suggested that the primary obligation of the social worker should be compliance with the law. Of course they wish to comply with the law, but they have professional obligations to the client which may be in conflict with their general obligations towards society as regards this law. I suggest that that conflict could cause difficulty to social workers. There are also legal reasons why social workers should not be required to contribute to the compilation of the community charge register. For example, social workers are subject, as we all are, to the provisions of the Data Protection Act. Later on we have amendments to deal with that point.
There are particular regulations that require absolute confidentiality on the part of social workers if they are to do their job. I give as an example the adoption regulations where the confidentiality of the identity of the adopted child and of the adoptive family from the natural parents, and sometimes vice versa, is absolutely essential to the successful adoption process. If there is to be a breach of the confidentiality of the social work records and particularly those social work records which come under the adoption regulations, doubt must be cast on the ability of the social workers concerned to comply with the adoption regulations. For all those reasons it seems to us that social work records should not be available to the community charge registrar and there should be an absolute guarantee of confidentiality.
I now turn to Amendment No. 32, which deals with health records. This is a probing amendment because I believed, and I hope that I acknowledged, that the Government have made considerable progress in the protection of medical records generally. The Secretary of State said that the data held by family practitioner committees and district health authorities would not be required to be transferred to the community charge registrar. He said so in a Written Answer in another place on 5th May 1988 at col. 568 of the Official Report.
However, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in response to his noble friend Lord Auckland on 6th June, and perhaps unintentionally, appeared to cast doubt on that decision. In response to a question as regards the confidential nature of these records, he said:
"As regards the first point, I take note of what my noble friend said, but we will be issuing guidance on precisely that aspect".—[Officiai Report, 6/6/88; col. 1116.]
I believe and hope that he will wish to set the record absolutely straight, and that is the purpose of this amendment. We wish to be sure that not only the medical records but all health records are confidential, that their confidentiality is maintained and that the original intention of the Government, as we understood it from the Secretary of State, is continued. We hope and believe that the regulations will reflect that without any doubt whatever. I know that the noble Earl will wish to set the record straight as regards that matter if he possibly can.
I believe that the substantive issue here above all others is the confidentiality of social work records. I hope that for all those reasons the House will feel that an amendment on these lines contributes to public confidence in the social services and also in the health services without in any way significantly damaging the ability of the community charge registrar to do his job effectively. I beg to move.
3.30 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, the four amendments in this group are essentially more concentrated versions of amendments which we discussed at an earlier stage. Your Lordships will recall that we divided on one of those amendments, Amendment No. 58, and that it was defeated. I do not complain for one moment, however, about debating some of the issues again, since these are important matters which both your Lordships' House and the Government take very seriously.
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The effect of these amendments would be to prevent the community charges registration officer from having access to two categories of information. The first category is information held by a local authority for social services purposes; the second is information held by or originating from a GP, a family practitioner committee or a health authority. Both of these proposals are unacceptable to the Government for reasons which I gave in full at an earlier stage. We do not believe that they are desirable, or necessary, or that they would achieve anything in relation to the Bill as it stands.
I should like to start with the prohibition on the use of health authority and GP records. This proposal is, quite simply, otiose because there is no provision in the Bill that would empower a registration officer to request information from these sources. In the Government's view, which will I am sure be shared by the House, it would be absurd to provide that a registration officer should be prevented from doing something he is already prevented from doing.
I should like to take up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, concerning what I said to my noble friend Lord Auckland at Committee stage when he raised the question of health authority records. On reflection I fear that I may perhaps have given an answer which was less than entirely clear. I should therefore like to repeat in the interests of absolute clarity that no health authority records will be disclosed to any registration officer.
I turn therefore to the second part of this proposal—the prohibition on the use of social service information. It is the Government's firmly held belief that certain non-sensitive information, once it is held within a local authority, should be available to the registration officer for the purposes of compiling the register. It is vital to remember that this information will be restricted to that which the registration officer requires in order to carry out his functions—that is, the names and addresses of adults and, where relevant, the length of time the person has spent at that address. Registration officers will simply have no power, therefore, to require social services departments to supply any sensitive or personal data. The basic information will simply be names and addresses; not, for example, an individual's personal history or even the reason why he is known to the social services department.
I know that some people regard even the supply of names and addresses as in some way objectionable. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, clearly takes that view. The Government simply do not believe that it is objectionable to supply a person's name and address to the registration officer if that person is already required by law to register for the purposes of the community charge. I think it is clear that in arguing about the supply of names and addresses we are not talking about sensitive, personal information. We are in fact talking about the evasion of a statutory duty.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, also raised as part of his argument the fear he had about those who might suffer violence—perhaps a wife who had left home because her husband had been attacking her. As he knows full well, under paragraph 16(1) of Schedule 2 there is a power for the Secretary of State to require community charge registration officers to

1601
compile and maintain an extract of prescribed information. We shall prescribe that the extract must not contain the names of people who are living under threat of violence. The concern of the noble Lord is taken care of under that part of the Bill.
I should like to add one final point which I made at an earlier stage on this subject. It relates to local income tax. When listening to the arguments that have been put forward about the community charge, it is essential to bear in mind that any system of local income tax would involve the collection and supply of information about everybody's income. I am sure the House will agree with me that that would pose a far greater threat to privacy and personal liberty than anything which the community charge will entail. In conclusion, I can only reiterate that, while some subsequent amendments deserve your Lordships' support, this one does not.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for the assurances he has given about medical records. I am sure that those involved in the caring professions will be grateful that the record has been set absolutely straight. If the amendments were separated out I would certainly withdraw any amendment referring to medical records. However, the increased security of medical and health records, curiously enough, makes it all the more essential that there should be protection for social services records greater than is provided in the Bill. The arguments which the Minister rejected seem even stronger as a result of the clarification which he has just given.
The Minister said that all we were concerned with was non-sensitive records. He referred to the fact that this information would be restricted to the names and addresses. I thought I had made it quite clear that for many of these cases it is the names and addresses themselves which are the sensitive records. It is simply not enough for the Minister to say that he is prepared to provide by regulation for the names of people living under threat of violence to be excluded from this. In many examples, it is not the names of the individuals concerned on the register which are the significant ones. It could be the names of relatives.
One could have a case of child abuse where an important element in the detection of the abuse would be to know which adults were living in the house. If by any chance one or more of the adults living in the house were not on the community charge register, there could be some reluctance among people in the house or outside the house to come forward and report a case of child abuse for fear that they would be reporting a failure to appear on the community charge register and therefore it would rebound on the person reporting it. It is third parties who have to be considered; not merely the names and addresses of adults themselves.
The assurances which the Government have given on the social services records are simply not good enough. The noble Earl did not make an adequate attempt to answer the points which I made about social services workers who are based in hospitals and are authorised under the Mental Health Acts, those who are dealing with families with hostile individuals and those whose effectiveness as social workers depends on a degree of mutual confidence with their clients.
1602
The noble Earl did not answer the point about social workers' obligations to their clients. Above all, he did not seek to answer my question about the absolute confidentiality required under regulations such as the adoption regulations which would be compromised by the requirements of the Bill. Under those circumstances, we cannot be satisfied that the Government have gone anything like as far as they ought to go. I think it is proper that I should seek the opinion of the House on the amendment.
3.38 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 83; Not-Contents, 124.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Kennet, L.

Ardwick, L.

Leatherland, L.

Birk, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Blease, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

McNair, L.

Bottomley, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Mishcon, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Monson, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Chitnis, L.

Mulley, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Nicol, B.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Northfield, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Oram, L.

David, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Rochester, L.

Ennals, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Seebohm, L. [Teller.]

Ezra, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Fitt, L.

Serota, B.

Flowers, L.

Shackleton, L.

Foot, L.

Shepherd, L.

Gallacher, L.

Stallard, L.

Galpern, L.

Stedman, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Glenamara, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Strabolgi, L.

Grey, E.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Grimond, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hampton, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hanworth, V.

Underhill, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Walston, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hooson, L.

Whaddon, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

White, B.

Hughes, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Hunt, L.

Willis, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Winstanley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Ampthill, L.

Broxbourne, L.

Arran, E.

Butterworth, L.

Bauer, L.

Caccia, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Caithness, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Beloff, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Belstead, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Bessborough, E.

Carnock, L.

Bethell, L.

Chelmer, L.

Blake, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Blyth, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Borthwick, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Cowley, E.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Cox, B.

Brookes, L.

Craigavon, V.

1603

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Marley, L.

Daventry, V.

Marsh, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

De Freyne, L.

Milverton, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Dulverton, L.

Morris, L.

Dundee, E.

Mottistone, L.

Eccles, V.

Mountgarret, V.

Effingham, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elibank, L.

Munster, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Nelson, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Norrie, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Elton, L.

Orkney, E.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Ferrers, E.

Pender, L.

Ferrier, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Forbes, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Gainford, L.

Grantchester, L.

Porritt, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Pym, L.

Greenway, L.

Radnor, E.

Gridley, L.

Reilly, L.

Halsbury, E.

Renton, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rochdale, V.

Hastings, L.

Romney, E. St.

Henley, L.

Davids, V.

Hesketh, L.

Selkirk, E.

Hives, L.

Sharples, B.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Hood, V.

Somers, L.

Hooper, B.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Hunler of Newington, L.

Swansea, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Swinton, E.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Terrington, L.

Kimball, L.

Teviot, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Layton, L.

Thurlow, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Trumpington, B.

Long, V.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Lovat, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Lytton, E.

Whitelaw, V.

McFadzean, L.

Windlesham, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Wise, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Official Secrets Act: Reform
3.46 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I think it might be convenient if I now repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on the reform of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The Statement is as follows:
"In a debate in this House on 15th January, I explained that the Government had since the previous April been studying possibilities for the reform of Section 2, and that I hoped to bring forward proposals in the form of a White Paper in June.
"I have laid the White Paper before the House today. We have aimed to find proposals which are effective, enforceable and reasonable. We hope to break the deadlock which has beset this question throughout its long history.
"We have taken careful note of the criticisms made of the government Bill introduced in 1979, together with comments and suggestions made since then, including in the debate on the Bill introduced in January by my honourable friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills. As a result, the proposals in the White Paper include some major changes, as well as similarities, compared with previous attempts at reform.
"I invite right honourable and honourable Members to read the White Paper in full. But I offer the House now an outline of the main points.
"The essence of the proposals is that it would no longer be a criminal offence, as it is under the present law, to disclose any official information without authority. The scope of the legislation would be confined to the very small amount of information which it is in the whole nation's interest to keep secret and which should therefore have the protection of the criminal law. Other information which cannot be disclosed without breaching the trust between Ministers and officials, or which a Crown servant has been instructed not to disclose, would continue to be protected by normal disciplinary arrangements.
"Only six categories of official information would be within the scope of our proposed legislation. These are information relating to defence, international relations, security and intelligence; the interception of communications; information received in confidence from other governments and from international organisations; and, finally, information which is likely to be useful in the commission of crime or in helping a prisoner to escape from custody. These are the areas which we think the legislation must cover. We do not propose that the criminal law should any longer apply to, for example, economic information, or to Cabinet documents or ministerial correspondence in general.
"Nor do we now think it is necessary for information received in confidence from firms or individuals to be covered by a general law on official secrets. The proposals thus represent a further narrowing compared with the 1979 Bill.
"We think it should continue to be an offence for any person to disclose any information relating to or obtained by interception, or any information received in confidence from other governments or international organisations. Any such disclosure damages the national interest. We accept, however, that not all information in the defence and international relations categories needs the protection of the law. We therefore propose that the disclosure of information falling within these categories should be an offence only if it is likely to result in specified damage to the national interest. Proposed tests of damage are set out in the White Paper. They are narrower and more specific than the broad test of serious injury to the interests of the nation which was recommended by the Franks Committee and contained in the 1979 Bill. They are designed to leave no doubt about the reasons for including information within these categories in official secrets legislation. The same applies to information likely to be useful in the commission of crime or in helping prisoners to escape from

1605
custody. In this case a test of damage is built into the categorisation and the prosecution would have to show that the test was satisfied.
"For information relating to security and intelligence, we propose a distinction between the position of those whom the nation trusts to carry on their work in complete secrecy, on the one hand, and of those outside the field of operation of the security and intelligence services on the other. For members and former members of these services, together with a number of other persons who work in close association with them, we propose that it should be an offence to disclose any information concerning the work of the services or to make any statement which purports to disclose such information. For other persons, however, we propose that the disclosure of official information should be an offence only if it can be established positively that it was likely to damage the operation of the security and intelligence services.
"If disclosure of information within a particular category is to be an offence only if it can be established that it meets a specified test of harm, the question arises by whom and by what means this is to be decided. The Franks Committee, and the Government in their 1979 Bill, proposed that the question should be conclusively settled by ministerial certificate. This was one of the principal points of criticism of that Bill. Others later suggested that a certificate by a Minister should be reviewable by some other person or body. Under our new proposals, however, there are no ministerial certificates. The harm likely to arise from the disclosure would be a matter for the court alone to determine on the basis of argument from the prosecution and the defence. In relation to persons other than Crown servants, the prosecution would have to prove not only that the specified harm was likely to arise but also that the accused person knew or could reasonably have been expected to know that it was likely to arise. We are putting our trust in the impartial determination of a jury.
"The abandonment of ministerial certificates and introduction of specific tests of harm for the courts to determine are major changes from previous proposals. They provide a new framework within which other proposals, made in the context of the 1979 Bill, must be considered afresh. I have in mind particularly suggestions that there should be a defence of prior publication and a defence that publication was in the public interest. Within the framework of our new proposals, we do not think it right to provide an overriding defence of prior publication. In our proposals arguments about the effect of a second disclosure are for the judgment of the courts within the ambit of the specific tests of harm set by Parliament. It would be possible on this basis for the court to conclude that further harm was unlikely to arise from the disclosure in question because there had been a previous disclosure which had already caused the harm. But we think it would be wrong to rule out the possibility of prosecution altogether, just because the information has already been published elsewhere—perhaps in different form to a different audience. Nor do we think it right to introduce the
1606
uncertainty into the law which a public interest defence would inevitably entail.
"These are the main features of the Government's proposals as set out in the White Paper. They represent a considered attempt to find the basis for a wide measure of agreement in replacing Section 2, which all of us wish to do. If carried into effect, they should dispel any notion that the criminal law is being used to protect information simply because its disclosure would be embarrassing to governments, still less so merely because it is official information. But the law must firmly address the problem of disclosures which are truly damaging to the public interest and provide clear and enforceable definitions and procedures to enable this to be done.
"It is the Government's wish that the House should have an opportunity to debate the proposals before they are put into legislative form. We shall also take careful note of views expressed outside this House. We shall then want to move to early legislation to introduce a fair and effective alternative to Section 2."
That concludes the Statement.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for that Statement. I listened to it with some pleasant surprise. Having read The Times of this morning, I had prepared myself for a violent denunciation of the Government's proposals in view of the fact that it has a headline:
"MPs' alarm at secrets reform".
I thought that the Government had learnt no lesson at all from their previous but recent experience when I read there:
"The Government's attempts to reform the law in 1979 foundered on the issue of ministerial certificates".
and then:
"The main focus of concern was the possibility that ministers would be given sole power to decide whether certain information, if published, would be damaging to the security of the state".
My teeth have been painlessly extracted by the Minister. I merely say that it is gratifying to know that those of us who criticised the 1979 Bill upon that basis find now that their criticism has at least been listened to by the Government. To that extent and, I hope with a little graciousness, I congratulate the Government upon that result.
There was no doubt about the fallibility—if I may put it that way—of Section 2. Those of us who have had the opportunity over the past few minutes to read the White Paper found these words in paragraph 8:
"The drafting of Section 2 is archaic and in places obscure, but the central objection is to its scope. It penalises the disclosure of any information obtained by a person holding office under the Crown or a Government contractor in the course of his duties, however trivial the information and irrespective of the harm likely to arise from its disclosure. The catch-all nature of Section 2 has long been criticised".
I do not think anyone could have put that in better language when describing the situation under Section 2, which at present is in force.
It is a great relief to know that under the proposed legislation there will be only one adjudicator of damage to the nation, and that will be the judge in directing the jury and the jury in making its decision. That is a happy outcome of the various deliberations and debates that have taken place.

1607
I do not want to say any more other than to refer to the last paragraph of the Statement where a promise is made that the White Paper will be debated in both Houses of Parliament in July. Having listened to the exchange which took place at the beginning of the proceedings of your Lordships' House, I am left in some doubt as to the adequacy of the time that may be found in July. I merely ask, knowing full well that this is a matter for the usual channels, whether the Minister can confirm that that is a firm date—if I may use that expression—and that whenever that date is reached, full time will be given to the House to debate what obviously is a most important matter for the nation.
My concluding remark is that it appears from the White Paper that although information which is circulated can be the subject of prosecution under the criminal law, there is not a word about what information ought to be available to the public in regard to matters which concern them. One would have hoped that that was covered in some way by the White Paper so that there was an entitlement to information as well as to a prosecution where information is passed on. I merely note that omission with some sorrow.
4 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I wish to join the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in thanking the noble Earl for repeating the Statement and in saying that I think it is right to acknowledge that the Statement was a great deal better than we had been led to expect. Perhaps I may ask a number of specific questions relating to it, bearing in mind that one has obviously had very little opportunity of looking at the detailed provisions of the White Paper.
First, is the noble Earl aware that we certainly warmly welcome the dropping of the catch-all provisions of Section 2 of the 1911 Act which creates a criminal offence in disclosing any official information without authority? That is clearly right. The provision, as I think we all recognise, was an absurdity. Quite apart from anything else, it was increasingly difficult to obtain convictions in courts before increasingly sceptical juries. I think it is right to acknowledge that the new provision would have made it impossible to prosecute an official like Sarah Tisdall, the young woman who was sent to prison for the disclosure of information which the prosecution acknowledged did not in any sense represent an official secret. That being so, we welcome this provision. We also welcome the fact that officials who improperly disclose information, as she certainly did, will be proceeded against under the appropriate Civil Service regulations. That is clearly right.
Secondly, is the noble Earl aware that we also welcome the proposal in the White Paper that the criminal law should no longer apply to the disclosure of economic information or, and I quote the noble Earl's Statement, "ministerial correspondence in general"? Will the noble Earl help us a little about what the qualification "in general" amounts to? We certainly welcome the fact that this means that the disclosure in the Westland case would not now amount to a criminal offence. Here again we believe that obviously if officials or anyone else behave with gross impropriety, as they clearly did in that case, appropriate action should be taken against them.
1608
Next, we welcome unreservedly the abandonment of ministerial certificates. I think all of us recognise that this was one of the most unsatisfactory features of the 1979 Bill. Also we support the accompanying introduction of specific tests of harm for the courts alone to determine. This is something which, I think, is a major improvement. As I have indicated, we welcome it without any reservations at all.
Finally, is the noble Earl aware that we are deeply disappointed that the Government have refused to adopt the proposal in Clause 7 of Mr. Shepherd's Bill? The noble Earl will recall that this featured in our debate in this House and that Mr. Shepherd proposed a defence that a disclosure was in the public interest in so far as the defendant had reasonable cause to believe that the information concerned indicated the existence of crime, fraud, abuse of authority and neglect of official duty. That defence would only have been available, as the noble Earl will recall, if the defendant had taken all reasonable steps to draw these matters to the attention of the appropriate authorities. Is the Minister aware that we very much regret that the Government have not adopted Mr. Shepherd's proposal?
As I have indicated, we think that what the noble Earl has said on this occasion is a substantial improvement on what has been said by Ministers on previous occasions on these matters. However, given some anxiety on some aspects of what has been said today by his right honourable friend, I think we need an early debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has indicated, we recognise the state of pressure on parliamentary time at the moment. But as the Home Secretary has indicated that there is to be a debate in the House of Commons, we very much hope that we shall have a debate in this House. Given the expertise that is available here on matters of this kind, it would be profoundly unsatisfactory were we not to have the opportunity of such a debate.
I very much hope that the noble Earl will discuss the matter with his noble friend the Leader of the House so that we can have a debate, if not before the end of July, certainly in the spill-over Session. We want to receive some assurance that the Government will not take up a final position on the Bill before that debate takes place.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am most grateful to both noble Lords for the welcome which they have given to this Statement. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, had prepared himself for a castigatory speech, only to find that the Statement was not quite as bad as he had expected. In fact, I think he would agree that it was agreeable to him. It just shows that the newspapers are not always accurate—even such papers as the noble Lord reads. However, I am grateful to him for giving a welcome to the Statement.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred, as did the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to whether there should be a debate. It is the Government's intention that there should be a debate in this House. It was the Government's intention, as was mentioned in the White Paper, that it should be during July. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, generously pointed out, obviously there are certain problems with regard to the timetable. Whether the debate is before July or in the spill-over is a matter for negotiation within the

1609
usual channels, but it is our intention without question to have such a debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said that this Statement on what to do with Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act refers to what information should not be published. It does not refer to what information the public is entitled to receive. The noble Lord said that that was an omission in the White Paper. I have no doubt that that was because the noble Lord had not had the benefit of reading the White Paper with quite the thoroughness which is his normal custom. I do not blame him for that because time was short, but he will see that in paragraph 5 the White Paper says:
"This White Paper is principally concerned with information which would, under the Government's proposals, be protected by the criminal law. It does not, therefore, address such matters as the question of public access to official information not covered by the Government's proposals. That is a separate issue which does not arise directly out of the reform of section 2".
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Earl is very gracious. However, I read that paragraph and my reference was supposed to be one of sorrow that the White Paper was not dealing with the information which the public is entitled to have.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for explaining that. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon's complaint related merely to the fact that that was not included; I thought that the complaint related to the fact that there was no reference to it, and that was why I drew the noble Lord's attention to it. But, as the White Paper says, it is a different matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, was kind enough to give a slightly more guarded welcome than the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. He referred to it no longer being a criminal offence to relay ministerial correspondence and so forth. He asked me what it meant when it referred to "general matters". I do not think it would be appropriate to go into the detail of what this refers to. Still less would it be appropriate to go into a retrospective case. The whole point of this is that if there is to be a criminal prosecution, it will be for the courts to decide whether an offence has been committed.
I was glad too to see that he was glad that ministerial certificates were not going to be included. I realise that in a White Paper such as this concerning an issue on which there is a great breadth of controversy and where opinions are genuinely held covering a wide spectrum, not all views can be accommodated. I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, was concerned about Clause 7 of Mr. Shepherd's Bill. We shall have an opportunity to debate this in due course.
I shall refresh noble Lords as regards the procedures that we have adopted. Having considered what we think should be done and having taken into account views which have already been expressed, we produced a White Paper giving the Government's considered views. That White Paper is then to be the subject of discussion in this House, in another place and in the public arena in general. It is only after that that a Bill with firm proposals will be brought forward.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, as the unfortunate Home Secretary who had the responsibility of introducing the previous Bill in 1979, I think it would be reasonable for me to make a short plea to my
1610
noble friend, and indeed to the House, on this occasion. I am encouraged to do so by the reaction of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. I am certain that this subject has to be tackled by Parliament as a whole. We must have a new secrets Act—that is essential. We can only have it if there is a wide measure of consent throughout both Houses of Parliament with the Bill that is produced.
In 1979 I was told that the one thing which prevented that Bill from being acceptable to your Lordships' House—I was not in your Lordships' House of course at that stage—was the ministerial certificate. Consequently, I was very pleased to hear that my colleagues had decided on this occasion to remove the ministerial certificate. I am surprised because I suspect—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will remember this too—that the ministerial certificate played some part in proposals made by the previous Labour Government before 1979, as it did in the proposals of the Government when I was Home Secretary. Perhaps we were all wrong on that occasion. But at any rate, having now moved this way, I hope very much that such a consensus will be able to develop in Parliament.
I hope that we shall not move from one objection in this very difficult field—the ministerial certificate, which is now removed—to another objection on some other matter. There are endless objections which can always be raised. But I believe that in the end Parliament must make a job of it on this occasion.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Whitelaw for having made that intervention, not only because of his personal experience of having introduced the previous Bill and of the problems which that ran into, but also for the fact that he said that there must be a consensus on this issue. Inevitably not everyone will he satisfied. If we are to remove the absurd position which exists at the moment, we must move into a position which, broadly speaking, has the common accord of Parliament, both this House and another place. If we do not do that, the present position will remain. That would be a great pity. I wish to reinforce the view of my noble friend and say that I hope that we shall be able to get the future Bill through with a reasonable degree of accord.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, from these Benches we too wish to add to the unanimity which appears to be present around the House this afternoon. We give the White Paper a cautious welcome. We are delighted to know that ministerial certificates are being abandoned. We have always doubted them. We have always taken the view that a judicial committee of the Privy Council should make these decisions rather than Ministers. But we are delighted that the White Paper appears to have taken on board a lot of the points that were raised in the Shepherd Bill and is certainly an improvement on the 1979 Bill. We shall of course study the White Paper. We hope, like other noble Lords, that it will be possible in our present rather heavy legislative programme to find time to have a debate in this House and to make our views known. But for the time being, without having read the White Paper completely, we offer it a cautious welcome.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Bethell: My Lords, I wish to join with others who have congratulated the Government both on confounding their many critics in this area and also on showing comprehensively that one should not always believe what one read in the press. The fact that the Government are proposing not to introduce a ministerial fiat over official secrets will have a widespread welcome. It is excellent that under the proposed legislation the courts will decide what constitutes damage to the national interest.
I hope that the fact that this matter will be left to the courts may to some extent take care of some of the other aspects of Mr. Shepherd's Bill, in particular the defence of prior publication and the national interest defence. It will of course be open to a defendant in such a case to argue before a judge and jury that damage has not been done to the overriding national interest because of a certain prior publication, whether in this country or abroad. Twelve good men and women true will have to decide whether this defence makes sense.
I have only one note of caution that I wish to strike, and that is on the vexed question of the lifetime duty of confidentiality imposed on certain individuals, especially employees and former employees of the security and intelligence services. This matter will need to be looked at very carefully. It is extremely delicate. But I can see that the proposals in the White Paper could emerge as repressive. One thinks not of this Government or of past governments, but perhaps of some government in the future where the avenues open to employees of this type might not be so welcoming and so available as they are now and have been.
An oppressive government in the future could perhaps use this measure to launch some unauthorised illegal Act through the security services and the intelligence services. There would be no way for a patriotic officer to react other than by breaking the law of the land as it was proposed. However, this complicated matter will have to be looked at very carefully. I am grateful to my noble friend for assuring us that there will be a chance to debate this measure in your Lordships' House. I wish to add my voice to others who have in general terms welcomed what my noble friend has just said.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, it is exactly 50 years since I began protesting against the Official Secrets Act. I have gone on protesting throughout the years. It has been a kind of hobby, but I hope that at last that hobby is to be taken away from me. I was much relieved to hear the Statement this afternoon.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, may we assume that government actions in this field from now on will be carried out on the basis of the principles set out in the Statement and in the White Paper and in accordance with the spirit of those two documents?
Lord Hooson: My Lords, will the Minister consider again the defence of public interest?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, may we have a few replies from the Minister?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, of course I shall be delighted to help the House. I thought that it would be more convenient if those who wished to ask questions put their questions and then I would try to answer them one after the other. That would prevent me from jumping up about six times. But if the noble Lord would prefer me to jump up six times, I shall oblige.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am worried that the noble Earl will have forgotten the questions by that time.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I have been trying to write the questions down. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his sympathy because it is difficult to write, to listen and to think at the same time. But I am doing my best.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, I wanted to ask whether the Minister would consider persuading the Government to look again at the defence of public interest. As he is aware, once a jury has retired in this country, no judge can control it. It is widely believed by those of us who have conducted official secrets cases that juries consider the public interest but put their own interpretation on it. Would not it be safer for the Government to define what the public interest would be within that context? Will the Government consider that matter before the presentation of a Bill?
Lord Morris: My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend, when he considers the wording of the debate which we shall have on the subject, to ensure that our consideration is confined to the subject of official secrets and not broadened to the totally different issue of freedom of information. That would be an aid to our debate. It often happens that questions as regards official secrets are broadened so widely as to obfuscate the issue in its entirety.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the noble Earl has suggested that we should not be retrospective. That is very convenient for the Government. But surely history governs the present and the future. The reason for the publication of the White Paper is the failure in the past of Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.
The Minister also said that there was no intention to avoid embarrassing the Government. I should like to ask the Minister two questions. First, under the new proposals relating to the issue of defence in the White Paper, would Sarah Tisdall or Clive Ponting have been prosecuted? Will the Minister say that the cover-up which the Government and successive Ministers of the Government undertook over the sinking of the "Belgrano", with which both those people were connected and in connection with which the Government used the Official Secrets Act to protect themselves, could not happen again? Would the economy with the truth which went on for two years happen again under the protection of the new provisions within the White Paper as distinct from the present Official Secrets Act?
Secondly, the noble Earl informed the House that one of the exceptions to be included would be ministerial information in general. Would that have avoided the whole scandal of the leaking of the letter from legal officers of the Crown involving Downing Street and the Department of Trade and Industry? Is

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it the intention of the Government to make sure in future that that will not be an offence, that the leaking of such letters cannot be an offence, and that there are no grounds for prosecution if such an action is repeated? Is that not an attempt to avoid embarrassing the Government in the way in which they have been embarrassed over the past four years?
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, may I ask—
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may take up the kind offer of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, and answer some of the questions which have been asked. Otherwise, not only shall I forget what has been asked but I fancy that the questioners may forget as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, gave a welcome to the White Paper on behalf of her party for which I am grateful. She said that it was a cautious welcome. However, I hope that as time goes on she will not be quite so cautious. There has been a real effort to obtain a reasonable result. I am also grateful to her for her welcome of my assurance that ministerial certificates are not going to be reintroduced.
My noble friend Lord Bethell also indicated his support. I am especially grateful for that. I know that he has been concerned about the matter and has introduced debates and a Bill on the subject. It is encouraging that he is in favour of what the Government have done. He mentioned the matters of prior publication, national interest and lifelong duty. I do not believe that it would be appropriate to discuss those matters very much at the moment. This is only a Statement which indicates that a White Paper has been published. It would be better for noble Lords to have time to digest the White Paper and bring the matters forward properly when we have a debate on it.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, for giving a welcome to the Bill. He said that he had been lobbying like mad over the issue for 50 years and that it had become a hobby. I am delighted that we have been able to satisfy the noble Lord. However, I am sorry that we have taken away his hobby. Whether he will be obliged to take up gardening instead, I do not know. However, I hope that it will not detract from this House.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, asked whether the Government would act within the spirit of the White Paper. I certainly hope that we shall; otherwise, there is not much point in producing a White Paper which indicates our intentions. However, we are still prepared to listen before producing a Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, mentioned the defence of public interest. Those who have supported a public interest defence must recognise that the Government's proposal would entirely change the context of the argument. We are now proposing that the harm to the public interest caused by disclosure should be defined and should, when it is not self-evident, be proved to the satisfaction of a court. A general catch-all defence would detract from the clarity which we hope can be achieved in the new law.
Perhaps I may now refer to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch. I believe that he has
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misinterpreted my use of the word "retrospective". I said that I did not wish to get involved in discussing the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about Sarah Tisdall and the arguments which the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has produced about that lady and the "Belgrano". I do not believe that it is particularly helpful in discussing a Statement to attempt to go back and decide what might have been the case had such and such a position existed and what the position would be if the law which is going to be changed and which has not yet been changed or decided on had been in operation. I do not believe that that is constructive.
The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, frowns. However, I am certain that he understands perfectly well that I am saying that I do not propose to indicate what the course of events would have been had a different set of laws applied in those circumstances. My noble friend Lord Morris asked the Government not to stray onto the subject of freedom of information. As I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that is indeed a different matter.

Local Government Finance Bill
4.29 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 1.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington Baroness Robson of Kiddington moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 12, at end insert ("subject to the provisions of paragraph 11 of Schedule 1 below").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 2, which is a paving amendment, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 20 and I shall make reference to the amendments to be moved by the Minister which are grouped with mine. I should like to thank the noble Earl for writing to me and for sending me a copy of the letter which he wrote to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh.
We welcome the concessions made by the Government in the amendments to be moved by the noble Earl and we thank them for going as far as they have. However, before I proceed I should like to make one thing clear and I should like to seek an assurance from the Minister. In view of the fact that there is now to be no community charge imposed on people sleeping rough, I wonder whether the Minister can give an assurance about Open Christmas organised by Crisis at Christmas. That organisation is not a hostel in the true sense. Under the original proposals in the Bill Crisis at Christmas would have been responsible for paying a community charge for its visitors for the six days it was open over Christmas. Most if not 100 per cent. of the people who make use of the six days of Open Christmas are people who normally sleep rough. Can the Minister set my mind at rest by assuring me that there will be no imposition of the community charge at all on the provision of Open Christmas by Crisis at Christmas?
We welcome the concessions made by the Government in relation to hostel accommodation for people undergoing personal care either for drug addiction, alcohol abuse or various other medical reasons. We also welcome the Government's

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concession as far as it goes in relation to general purpose hostels. The Government have agreed that those hostels will not now have to collect the full community tax and then ask for a rebate; they will now collect 20 per cent. of the community tax. However, that still leaves charities with the role of tax collector. In my view that is unsatisfactory.
One can anticipate that many people who need to use those charitable voluntary hostels may be put off from using them because they feel that they must pay the 20 per cent. community tax, which they cannot afford. It could therefore increase the number of people who sleep rough on the streets.
Furthermore, I do not believe that many of those voluntary hostels would even attempt to collect the 20 per cent. charge. It would be almost physically impossible to do so. As a result, as I pointed out at Committee stage of the Bill, the level of service that the hostels could provide would be reduced because they would have to use some of their voluntary contributions to pay tax. That could impose quite a substantial drain on their income and therefore on the services they can provide.
The Minister, in justifying the Government's decision not to allow voluntary hostels relief from the collection of the community charge, states in his letter to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, that:
"People who stay in these hostels make use of local services and can vote in elections".
He also says in the final paragraph of his letter to me that it is essential for
"preserving the vital principle of local accountability".
I should like to ask the noble Earl what are the services from which people who stay at voluntary and charitable hostels benefit. I can see that if a local authority runs a hostel they benefit from the services of the local authority. However, when that accommodation is provided totally from charitable contributions it has nothing to do with the local authority. My contention would be that the only service provided by the local authority is a pavement for sleeping on and the occasional park bench. I do not consider that one should have to pay the community charge for those.
I should also like to ask the noble Earl whether or not he can estimate how many of the people staying in voluntary and charitable hostels are included on the electoral register. It is not very easy to get on to the electoral register. It is certainly not easy for those people who tend to stay one or two days, a week or maybe two in one hostel and can be at the other side of the country when it comes to election day.
I am afraid that I do not believe that the question of accountability and of enjoying the benefits of local authority services and the right to vote in elections applies to the people about whom we are talking. In view of the fact that the Minister has been so good as to make concessions I sincerely hope that he will make this last concession so that we can all agree about the provision. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, before we proceed perhaps I may raise a question of procedure. We have here an amendment moved by the noble Baroness with which has been grouped some very significant government amendments. I wonder whether the House would agree that, although
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normally at Report stage the Minister would be the last speaker before the proposer of the amendment, it would be appropriate for the Minister to introduce his amendments now, for the debate then to proceed and for the Minister to have a further opportunity to reply to the debate.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if that is the wish of the House I should certainly like to do so and take the opportunity which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, has been kind enough to offer me of saying a final word at the end of the debate.
I am grateful for the kind words of the noble Baroness in proposing her amendment. Perhaps she would allow me to concentrate on my own amendments but inevitably, because the amendments are grouped together, discussion will at the same time take on board her concerns.
The government amendments are Amendments Nos. 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 238, 240 and 241. These follow the undertaking given by my noble friend Lord Glenarthur in Committee to look again at the effect of the community charge on short stay hostels for the homeless. As your Lordships are aware, we have considered very carefully the points raised in Committee about the homeless and hostel dwellers. As a result we have brought forward a number of amendments which take into account, and I believe go a very long way to meeting, the concerns which your Lordships expressed at an earlier stage.
Perhaps two of the major groups of amendments that I shall be moving at a later stage are linked. First, there is the question of the homeless, to which the noble Baroness referred. In that respect we have put forward a government amendment that would exempt those who sleep rough. That is a major concession and a major change following consideration of what your Lordships said. The second point is covered by the amendments which we are now considering. The effect of those amendments will be that residents of certain types of hostel will be liable to pay only the minimum 20 per cent. daily contribution for the area without having to apply for a rebate.
So far as concerns hostels, we have already provided—in paragraph 9 of Schedule 1—an exemption for residents of hostels which provide a substantial level of personal care or treatment. We intend that regulations under paragraph 9 will cover many of the hostel residents about whom concern was expressed in Committee: for example people receiving personal care while undergoing a programme of rehabilitation for drug or alcohol abuse in hostels such as those run by Phoenix House—which is of concern to my noble kinswoman Lady Masham of Ilton—and the Simon Community, which is of concern to the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The exemption will also cover people with mental or physical disabilities receiving personal care in hostels. I believe that many of those in Ryder homes come into this category, so some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder of Warsaw, are also met.
The hostels not covered by the exemption will be what we call general purpose hostels, which provide accommodation and food for individuals who stay there for anything from a day or two to, in some cases, much longer. Residents of such hostels are

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quite different from those people in need of a substantial degree of care for whom we believe an exemption is justified.
People who stay in general purpose hostels make use of local services and can vote in local elections. Because they are not receiving professional care or treatment, they are considerably freer to come and go than those in the hostels we shall be exempting. That in turn means that there is inevitably a rather different relationship between the owner or manager of a general purpose hostel and those who stay there than in the case of a hostel providing care and support where we accept that the relationship may be particularly sensitive.
We therefore do not believe it would be right to provide a blanket exemption from the community charge based solely on the fact that a person stays in a general purpose hostel as opposed to a bed-sit, a flat or a house. We have therefore decided that to widen further the hostels' exemption to take in residents of general purpose hostels would not be justified.
However, we fully appreciate that many—and in some cases most—of the people who stay in general purpose hostels will require help in paying the community charge. Many of them would qualify for a maximum rebate under the provisions of Schedule 13. We are sympathetic to the concern rightly expressed by such bodies as the Salvation Army that residents of short-stay hostels may find it difficult to claim a rebate. This would put hostel managers in the position of having to demand the full unrebated charge from those who should have received help in paying.
Because of that—and particularly because of some of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, at Committee stage in col. 713 of the Official Report of 23rd May—we now propose an entirely new provision under which the residents of certain types of hostel, which have been designated for the purposes of the collective community charge, will be automatically liable to pay only 20 per cent. of the collective charge contribution for the area without having to apply for a rebate. The landlords of these properties will be required to collect contributions at only 20 per cent. of the full rate from all those who stay on the premises and so the landlords' liability will be reduced accordingly. The income support payments of the residents will also include an amount to help pay the 20 per cent. contribution.
This substantial concession will be restricted to hostels used mainly by people who would be eligible for community charge rebates. But we envisage that it would cover, for example, all Salvation Army general purpose hostels. We believe that this new provision, together with the proposed treatment of the homeless, and care hostels, meets the concerns expressed in Committee.
Obviously I have not gone far enough to satisfy the noble Baroness and at a later stage in the debate I shall, of course, be dealing with some of her further points which she raised earlier today. But perhaps I may deal with a matter which I know is dear to her heart, namely, Crisis at Christmas, and which indeed, is dear to the heart of my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve who has been associated with it since its inception.
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The noble Baroness referred in Committee to work carried out by Crisis at Christmas. I understand that it provides free accommodation to homeless people for seven days over the Christmas period. It goes without saying that I have the greatest respect for the people who run Crisis at Christmas and other free hostels. In devising our proposals that residents of certain hosels should pay only 20 per cent. of the usual collective charge contribution, we have hostels that provide free accommodation very much in mind. We have accepted that in such hostels a daily charge of perhaps just under £1 could have represented a substantial burden, either for the residents or for the organisation running the hostel, even if the residents were able to reclaim a rebate. I feel that reducing the residents' contribution to only 14p a day in the average area, or perhaps 19p a day in an area with a high charge, brings the problem down to a manageable proportion and represents a very real concession by the Government.
So far as Crisis at Christmas in particular is concerned, it does not seem particularly likely that a property used for one week of the year would be designated at all for the purpose of the collective community charge. But I can give this assurance to the noble Baroness: my officials will enter into discussions with representatives of local authorities to consider how such a very short-term hostel should be treated in practice.
But even if it were the case that a very short-term hostel were to be designated, its residents would certainly benefit from the special concession that I have announced, and would have to pay only a very small amount—less than 20p a day—in contributions. That means that the sum of all the contributions for Crisis at Christmas would be under £1,000—far less than the £4,000 mentioned by the noble Baroness. That is the measure of the Government's concession.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Morton of Shuna: My Lords, I should like to raise one point. The Government gave an undertaking during the proceedings on the Scottish Bill, which is repeated as regards this Bill, that any concession made in this Bill would be followed up and that the Scottish Bill would be amended to the same extent. I have looked in vain for these concessions in government amendments to Schedule 15, which I think is where they should be.
May I ask whether these amendments could be available fairly soon because, as the noble Earl will appreciate, they are fairly technical and we need advice? I am sure that those of us who are interested in the Scottish Bill will want to make sure, as I am sure will the Government, that we get it right. As I understand it, the last day of the Report stage is now planned for Tuesday of next week. We do not have very much time and it would be of very great help to the House if we could have these amendments as soon as possible.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, let me first thank the noble Earl for having met me on the point on bail hostels about which he wrote to me. This represents an improvement so far as this part of the Bill is concerned. But may I come back to the point about Crisis at Christmas? As I understand it, the noble Earl has suggested discussions with local authorities on the point, but I am bound to say,

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having listened to him carefully, that I find it extremely difficult to understand the logic of the Government's position.
As I understand it, the noble Earl's position is this. As a result of his amendments, the tax imposed on an establishment involved in Crisis at Christmas will now be far smaller. That is as a result of what he has put down on the Marshalled List. That obviously is welcome. But why should there be a tax at all? The proposition seems to me to be quite absurd. The noble Earl says it is highly desirable that people going to hostels even for a period of seven days, which is the period to which he referred, should pay this because, after all, they will have the right to vote. Quite apart from the question of how many people stay in hostels over a period of seven days at Christmas, how many are likely to be passionately knocking at the doors of the polling stations waiting for them to open? I do not know how much involvement the noble Earl has had with local government, but those of us who have been involved find it extremely difficult to persuade those who are normal ratepayers to vote in elections. The idea that there will be a march from these hostels to the polling stations seems to me a little unusual.
But let me come back to the central point. The people we are discussing go to these hostels at Christmas for seven days, but the register for the next local elections is not made up until the following September. So the people who are staying at a Crisis at Christmas hostel this Christmas could not possibly get on the electoral register until September next year, on a register which comes into operation in February of the following year. When the noble Earl comes forward with an argument of this sort, I really must ask him to look at the basis of his case.
It seems to be that the Government are really adopting an extraordinarily doctrinaire position. They could quite easily agree to make a concession on this point. It has nothing whatever to do with accountability so far as concerns the local authority. I very much hope that when his officials and his right honourable friend have read the report of our debate today, they will realise the threadbare character of their argument and agree on Third Reading to make this concession which they should have made today.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I hope I am right in assuming that the noble Earl was speaking also to his Amendment No. 19. I had to leave the Chamber—
Noble Lords: No.
Lord Hunt: In that case, I shall sit down.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: My Lords, the Minister referred correctly to Crisis at Christmas, which is a one-off charity looking after people who are homeless at Christmas-time and which was started 20 years ago this year. The idea that the people who come to us as free guests for seven days and seven nights are always those who have been sleeping rough is incorrect. Crisis at Christmas was started because many people were sleeping rough when the agencies where they would normally be looked after for the rest of the year closed because those running them wished to go to their own homes for Christmas. That was why Crisis at Christmas was started, and that is why it continues.
I would be right in saying, I think, that our guests have other accommodation to go to during the rest of
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the year and that very few would always be sleeping rough. If I am correct, Crisis at Christmas surely should not be required to collect any money. That would prove very difficult and, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, said, most people would think that the meanest thing that the Government had ever done was to collect money from people when everything else is free.
I make the plea to the Government that Crisis at Christmas should be treated as a one-off charity and that we should not be obliged to collect money from our guests, who have never had to pay for medical treatment, haircutting, sleeping or any of their three meals a day for the last 20 years. It would be a great pity if we were put into the position of having to collect money from them.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, anyone who has been a junior Minister must have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Earl. Junior Ministers—I have been one myself—are occasionally landed with some nonsense that their masters dream up, and have no choice but to read it with a straight face. I have every sympathy with the noble Earl. In some years' experience around the building, I have never encountered anything sillier than this measure. It is based on a doctrinaire nonsense. The assumption in the Bill as a whole that people will suddenly take a passionate interest in local government because the basis of their local taxation has changed is a nonsense. To suggest that the halls used over the Christmas period for the purpose of Crisis at Christmas would in future be alive with animated discussion about local government and which councillors they will vote for in the next round of elections is, I think, open to argument and some disbelief.
What worries me even more—and anyone involved in local government politics is immune to dealing with nonsenses because all governments have them from time to time—is that this will be a very expensive bureaucratic nonsense. The amounts involved are laughable. The machinery that will have to be devised to cope with it is amazing.
The noble Earl would do the House and himself a service if he were to go back to his Minister and say, "I've done my best with this; I have read it! I don't believe a word of it; I think it's rubbish. Please, for the reputation of the Government, give way in this area because it is indefensible on grounds of common sense, sympathy, logic or any other basis".
Baroness Ryder of Warsaw: My Lords, I have had to sleep rough in my life and have shared the conditions of being frozen by the cold and stiff from rain followed by the feeling of being unable to face the ordinary people of society and ashamed of being dishevelled. As a social worker and auxiliary nurse, I am never surprised in the work which I represent to see these homeless people resort to drinking from the tops of ordinary citizens' milk bottles on their doorsteps or trying to pinch sandwiches or fruit from a barrow. We cannot say that it is all their fault that these people are homeless because there are so many reasons for an individual to sink rapidly to this point. They are travellers of the road; the mentally deranged; the genuine persons who cannot cope without a job in areas of high unemployment and who misguidedly thinks that by reaching London he

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or she can find work easily; and they are the socially inadequate and those whose families have rejected them or those who have literally no one in the world. I could go on ad lib.
I am of course pleased, thankful and delighted by the Government's change of heart about the charging of people sleeping rough. To have no fixed abode is bad enough, but sleeping under a bridge or under a cardboard box if one is lucky imposes strains that few of us can imagine. It seems to me eminently sensible, necessary and humane to exempt these people from the community charge.
That said, however, the Government should think further about the position of homeless people who are lucky enough to find a roof over their head for a few days at a time in a short stay hostel. Short stay hostel accommodation provided by organisations like the Salvation Army is the only respite that many homeless people have from the continual wear and tear of their barren existence in parks or under bridges. We should remember that the consequences of being homeless are far wider than not having a home to call one's own. Employment may he difficult or impossible and health can and does suffer. The physical surroundings create stress and affect mental well being. The existing structure of public provision increases the social isolation caused by homelessness so that hostels can he a real lifeline for these people even if they can stay for only a few days. The proposals to charge homeless people when they stay in hostels threaten this very lifeline, and can only add to the plight and distress of rejected people.
The amendment makes clear that the force of the argument put forward in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, and others has been reconsidered. I appreciate that the decision to levy 20 per cent. of the local charge per resident in any hostel or short stay shelter home is a substantial improvement on the original plans to make the full charge. However, I am bound to say that what was originally an error has become a rather mean-minded exercise to squeeze a few pounds out of homeless people and, further, out of the very charities that provide for them. We should be under no illusions about what the prospect of 20 per cent. would do: it would deter people from taking up hostel provision and introduce an unnecessary and unsavoury fear factor in decisions about where people can afford to sleep, as mentioned by the noble Baroness.
I do not believe that we can afford to build these financial barriers against entry into civilised existence. A 20 per cent. charge represents a substantial amount of money for the severely disadvantaged. Indeed, many have nothing, and I know many reasons why they have nothing that are too long to tell. We should not take solace in the knowledge that many charities will refuse to levy the charge on their residents but will draw on their greatly needed and slender resources to save their clients from the charge.
The Government have gone some way to recognise the difficulties inherent in their plans for a collective community charge. I should like respectfully to suggest that logic should be combined with emotion in this instance. By adopting the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, the Government could exempt homeless people from the indignity of turning down a chance of sleeping in a bed for one night, and at the same time relieve charities of this
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extra and immoral burden. It seems to me a winning combination of arguments. I hope and pray that the Minister will regard the amendment sympathetically.
This work is not only vital hut is becoming daily more so as, sadly, the numbers increase. We are trying to cope on a one-to-one basis where possible. However, the work is exceptionally hard for reasons that I have outlined: the different emotions, and the different circumstances in which people find themselves on the streets. If a hurricane or an earthquake should hit this city one can imagine all the instant action groups. We should be swamped by help. But, because the homeless are there in the long term, they are not emotive nor even understood.
We call ourselves a civilised nation. We thank the Government for their concessions and—I truly mean that—but let us please go the whole way to tackle such an appalling contrast in our very midst.
5 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in introducing his amendments the Minister said that they constituted substantial concessions. I agree, and I thank him sincerely for the concessions that he has made. They are clearly made with the right spirit and in response to a very strong feeling which was made clear at the Committee stage.
From reading the amendments that he has put down perhaps I may say now that this will not be the first occasion during this Report stage when I shall thank him sincerely for the concessions that he has made. However, we still have very grave difficulties with the particular cases which are referred to in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and which were referred to with such knowledge, understanding and feeling by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ryder.
These short stay hostels are a particular case. I am not saying that Crisis at Christmas is a one-off case because that would raise many difficulties about a government Bill. However, short stay hostels of the kind described must be treated with a degree more consideration than others. If the Government have difficulty with the wording of the amendment, I beg them to maintain the impetus that they have given themselves towards humanity by saying that it is the wording that is at fault and that they will come back with something better at Third Reading. Under those circumstances, the position of these hostels under the Bill, even as amended, is nonsensical. Here we have people who come in to short stay hostels who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, said, are not paying for their lodging, food, or the services provided for them during this short time. These are not people who will claim back from income support the money that they are paying out for the 20 per cent. of the community charge. These are the people, almost by definition, who are not claiming their income support.
We know that a very high proportion of people throughout the country do not claim their income support because they are too proud, too apart from society, or that they do not understand what it means to claim income support. As has been said, they are clearly not voting. The idea of accountability, even reduced to the 20 per cent. Level—to 14p, 20p or 25p, or whatever it may be—is a bureaucratic nonsense and a complete misunderstanding of the nature of

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these people who are on the fringes of our society and whom we ought to be helping to come back into our society.
I beg the Government to recognise that, even if there were no element of rehabilitation—which would clearly be a nonsense in many cases—general purpose hostels of this kind do not deserve to be put in the position of taking away and then seeking to give back small amounts of money in response to this principle. I shall not argue it now. I believe that the principle has less validity than the Government argue. It is certainly not applicable in these cases. I should like to see the Government find some way out of the difficulty in which they find themselves by accepting the principle of the proposal even if they cannot accept the wording of the amendment. Let us make progress on this very important matter.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, the people who worked on the Scottish Bill have been considering this matter for a long time because it arose previously. We appreciate that the the crucial question is where one draws the borderline. That is what we are talking about. The noble Lord, Lord Marsh, touched upon the argument that the collecting of the community charge from the least well off people is nonsense. Although one can say that, noble Lords know that I do not think it is nonsense. We discussed that at Committee stage.
However, the question of the borderline is raised where none of the reasons for the community charge apply. I do not think that noble Lords have been over-emphasising the position on this occasion. They are not being sentimental. These are hard facts. The position becomes not only pointless but wrong. It is extremely difficult to know where one draws the line. I do not know enough about short-term hostels. I do not know whether there are people who live entirely in short-term hostels and who, by going from one to another, might be exempted from the community charge where others in a very similar position are not. That would be very unfair. The noble Baroness knows a great deal about this problem. Perhaps she is sure that she is drawing the line in the right place. When she replies to the debate perhaps she will tell us about that.
I hope that my noble friend will also justify his suggestion of where the line should be drawn. We can then understand and form our attitude on this issue. It is not the same debate as that on the community charge with regard to the least well off. We are discussing those on the fringe. It is a question of where we draw the line. I shall listen to my noble friend and to the noble Baroness with great attention.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may pick up the kind offer of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. Perhaps I may begin on a positive and, I hope, generally acceptable point. The noble Lord, Lord Morton of Shuna, asked when the Scottish amendments would be available. Of course we can oblige. They will be available shortly and in good time for the noble Lord—I hope today. However, as we know, some of the amendments—unfortunately from both sides—have not been tabled as early as we would have hoped.
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Perhaps I may deal with the one matter which is slightly different from the rest; namely, Crisis at Christmas. For the purpose of this debate I shall class it as a one-off. What my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve said surprised me. She said that Crisis at Christmas is used by people who have a home for the rest of the year. However, if people staying in Crisis at Christmas have other accommodation they will most likely have their sole or main residence at that other accommodation.
The consequence would mean that Crisis at Christmas could not be designated for the purposes of the collective community charge, because property can be designated only if it is used by people who have no other sole or main residence. That is provided in Clause 5(3)(b). If that is the case, Crisis at Christmas is in a class that will not be subject to the collective community charge. But I should like to take up and exemplify a point I made earlier—
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I have been listening with some anxiety. My understanding is that Crisis at Christmas will house certain guests; some will have homes that they have come from to spend time with Crisis at Christmas. But others will be homeless. If that is so, is it still true that Crisis at Christmas will not have this levy imposed upon it or upon any of its guests?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that was just the point I was coming to because it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marsh. The Bill gives the registration officer a discretionary power to designate properties for the purposes of the collective community charge. In general that power will be used to designate hostels which are used all the year round. Crisis at Christmas is, as the noble Lord knows and as we have been told, open for only seven days in the whole year. It seems to me to be most unlikely that a hostel that is used for only seven days in a whole year will be designated at all in practice. It is that practical matter of designation that we wish to discuss with local authorities. However, when we discuss it with local authorities I assure the House that we shall bear very much in mind what your Lordships have said today.
In moving her amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, suggested that the collective community charge would turn those who run some hostels into tax collectors. In fact any landlord who runs a hostel at present effectively acts as a tax collector if he collects any payment at all from the hostel residents because at present he pays non-domestic rates, even if only at a reduced rate of 50 per cent. In most cases he recovers the cost from the residents. I draw to the attention of the noble Baroness the new provision in the Bill which allows the collector of the charge to retain 5 per cent. of the charge for what he is already doing and will continue to do in future.
I move now to a matter raised by my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour. She took up the point of where one draws the boundary. We agreed to an exemption for those who sleep rough because of the arguments put forward in Committee, but we did so in the knowledge that any exemption creates a boundary problem. One of the disadvantages of an exemption is that it deters people from taking up

1625
permanent accommodation. If we were to exempt those who stay in some hostels, we should not avoid a disincentive but merely change the place at which it applied. An exemption for hostel dwellers would, I must point out to the House, inevitably create a deterrent for people who stayed a long time in accommodation which would not be exempt and where the individual might then be subject to the personal community charge.
As I have listened to the debate, I feel that we have missed some of the main arguments and perhaps the debate remains a little confused, as it was in Committee. The Government are saying that, first, there are hostels where there is care and rehabilitation. Those individuals are exempt, for very good reasons which your Lordships will appreciate. Then there are what we call the general purpose hostels. These cover a wide range of hostels. They cover the hostels where people are charged and make a contribution at the moment. I suggest to your Lordships that many of the Salvation Army hostels charge people something to stay the night at the moment, perhaps a few pounds for food and the ability to stay the night. What we are saying is that in those situations a person would have to pay 20 per cent. of the community charge.
If that is in an area of average community charge that would be 15p a night over and above what that person is probably paying now. It may not be, because, as I have said, included in the charge at the moment may be a contribution to the rates that exist. At the other end of the spectrum we move to the hostels that are free and provide facilities and food for people at no cost because they are run by charities. That covers quite a wide band.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving way. The noble Earl mentioned these very small amounts that would be levied; he mentioned, for example, a figure of 15p. Can he tell the House what the administrative costs of dealing with those kinds of sums would be, even as a proportion?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there will be an administrative cost to the local authority which I am afraid I do not know. There will be a slight cost to the person who runs the hostel. But there is a provision in the Bill that that person should retain 5 per cent. of the charge. That matter was debated at some length in Committee.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, while we are discussing this matter, perhaps the Minister can help the House a little more. If I have followed his arguments correctly, in many of these hostels some of these residents or guests will have a home and therefore will not be subject to the collective community charge. But others will be. The people running the hostel will not only be responsible for collecting the money and taking away 5 per cent. of 15p—a very grand sum—but they will also be responsible for deciding from whom they should be collecting.
5.15 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: No, my Lords. They will be responsible for collecting from everybody.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, the Minister just said in relation to Crisis at Christmas that people who had a home would not be forced to pay the community charge, but we also have people who do not have any other homes. The Minister stated that they would have to pay the community charge.
The Earl of Caithness: No, my Lords. What I said was that if those in Crisis at Christmas were the small number who had homes elsewhere, then it would not be designated for the purposes of the collective community charge. Perhaps that has clarified this fact for the noble Baroness.
To go back, even after the Government's generous concessions on the homeless—and we shall be coming shortly to community service volunteers—we are left with these general purpose hostels. They cover one extreme, namely, those who are already charged a few pounds a night at the moment right through to the those whose accommodation is provided totally free, where the food is also provided free and no charge is made. That is what one might describe as an overnight stay hostel.
Where a charge is already made, such as at a Salvation Army hostel, we have gone a long way towards meeting concerns about collection and reducing to the 20 per cent. contribution. I believe it is right that there should be a contribution. I take the point where meals and accommodation are provided free at the other end of the spectrum. I should like to discuss that point at another stage with my right honourable friends.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble Earl saying, as he has just indicated on this narrow point, that he will consider this matter and return to it at Third Reading?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I shall be discussing these matters with my right honourable friend. It is important on this narrow point of where accommodation and food are provided free.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, some years ago I used to be chairman of the Church Army. We have one of these hostels in Great Peter Street. I urge my noble friend in the course of these consultations just to visit that hostel, and possibly the Salvation Army hostel next door, and talk directly to the people who administer them. I am sure that if he does that he will not persist in this argument. He will agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, that it is totally untenable.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, with leave of the House as the noble Earl has not resumed his seat, will he point out to his right honourable friend that many of these hostels make a deliberate point of levying a small charge for accommodation. This is not true of housing and of Crisis at Christmas. But it is true of others because they want to instil a sense of responsibility in the people who are staying in their hostels. The very limited concession which the Minister has indicated that he might be willing to discuss with his right honourable friend does not cover that matter. Therefore I suggest that it does not go nearly far enough to meet the points made in the amendment moved by the noble Baroness.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, before I finally sit down, I shall bear in mind what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has just said and also what my noble friend Lord Sandford has said. I assure him that we have already had detailed discussions with those who run the Salvation Army and Church Army hostels, and we shall continue to do so.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I am sorry, but I did not hear the end of the Minister's answer.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we shall continue to do so.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I must admit that I was hoping for a much more forthcoming answer.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, there was a slight reassurance as regards Crisis at Christmas. However, that is a minute part of the whole problem, although the organisation provides a wonderful service.
Towards the end of his reply the Minister said that he would look at some of the hostels which provide free board, accommodation and food. That is a concession, subject to it coming to something when we reach Third Reading. But in my view it does not answer the question. The amendment provides for short stay hostels, and I believe that there is no difficulty in defining such a hostel. Most of the hostels have rules about how long people can stay. They look after people who have failed to find any other accommodation. I should like the Government to make the final concession on this matter but I do not consider that the assurances that I have been given are adequate. I intend to test the opinion of the House.
5.22 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 94; Not-Contents, 100.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Falkender, B.

Amherst, E.

Flowers, L.

Ardwick, L.

Gallacher, L.

Attlee, E.

Galpern, L.

Birk, B.

Glenamara, L.

Blease, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Blyth, L.

Greenway, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Grimond, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Hanworth, V.

Bottomley, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Hooson, L.

Carter, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Hughes, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Hunt, L.

David, B.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Jeger, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Ennals, L.

Lawrence, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Leatherland, L.

Ezra, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

1628

Longford, E.

Seear, B.

Lytton, E.

Seebohm, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Shepherd, L.

McNair, L.

Somers, L.

Marsh, L.

Stallard, L.

Milverton, L.

Stedman, B.

Mishcon, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Morton of Shuna, L.

Stoddard of Swindon, L.

Mulley, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Nicol, B.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Northfield, L.

Thurlow, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Oram, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Peston, L.

Underhill, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Walston, L.

Porritt, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Whaddon, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B. [Teller.]

White, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Rochester, L.

Winstanley, L.

Russell, E.

Winterbottom, L.

Sainsbury, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Hesketh, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Hives, L.

Ampthill, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Arran, E.

Hooper, B.

Ashbourne, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Astor, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Auckland, L.

Kimball, L.

Beaverbrook, L.

Layton, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Long, V.

Beloff, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belstead, L.

McFadzean, L.

Bessborough, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Blake, L.

Marley, L.

Blatch, B.

Merrivale, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Mersey, V.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Brookes, L.

Mottistone, L.

Broxhourne, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Butterworth, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Caccia, L.

Munster, E.

Caithness, E.

Nelson, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Norfolk, D.

Carnock, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Coleraine, L.

Orkney, E.

Colnbrook, L.

Pender, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Cox, B.

Portland, D.

Craigavon, V.

Pym, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Radnor, E.

Crathorne, L.

Renton, L.

Daventry, V.

Renwick, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Rochdale, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Romney, E.

Dulverton, L.

St. Davids, V.

Dundee, E.

Selkirk, E.

Eccles, V.

Skelmersdale, L.

Elibank, L.

Strange, B.

Ellenborough, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Elton, L.

Swansea, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Terrington, L.

Ferrers, E.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Forbes, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Fortescue, E.

Trafford, L.

Grantchester, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hanson, L.

Trumpington, B.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Havers, L.

Windlesham, L.

Henley, L.

Young of Graffham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
5.30 p.m.
Clause 2 [Persons subject to personal community charge]:
Lord Morton of Shuna Lord Morton of Shuna moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 7, at end insert—
("(3A) A person's sole or main residence shall be determined by the registration officer and shall be the premises occupied on the greatest number of occasions by the individual during the preceding twelve months within the area of the authority. Any such decision of the registration officer shall be subject to an appeal by the individual to the Valuation and Community Charge Tribunal in accordance with section 23 of this Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with this amendment we turn to a different issue; namely, the question of how one determines a person's sole or main residence. Your Lordships may recollect that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, initiated part of the discussion on this in Committee by taking his personal example of living somewhere in Huntingdonshire and somewhere in Camden and discussed which was to be his sole or main residence.
This is a very difficult Bill to construe for various reasons. One of those reasons is that we start with the basis of the Scottish Act passed last year by this Government and the general legal presumption that if a Bill dealing with the same subject or trying to deal with the same subject deliberately uses a different word, it means something different. A difference is meant to be there if a different approach is used. That is a fairly normal approach to statutory construction.
If one begins with the Scottish approach, Section 8 of the Scottish Act states:
"Any person who is solely or mainly resident in the area of a local authority in any financial year shall be liable to pay".
That is not the approach of this Bill. Clause 2 states that a person is subject to a charging authority's personal community charge on any day on which he has his sole or main residence in the area of the authority at any time on the day. Therefore one approach asks, "How many houses does this person have and which is his sole or main residence on Tuesday, and is it the same on Wednesday?", and so on.
The other approach should be to look at where he resides on the day. That approach is assisted if one goes to the amendment discussed in the last group; namely, government Amendment No. 22. Presumably the draftsman of that amendment had some connection with the drafting of the Bill. That states:
"A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if (a) throughout the day he has no fixed abode in England and Wales or elsewhere and (b) at the end of the day the place of his sole or main residence does not consist of a building, caravan or residential boat".
Therefore he is not excused if he goes into a Salvation Army hostel for the night and that then becomes his sole or his main residence.
You cannot have the words "sole or main residence" meaning different things in different parts of the Bill without saying what you are doing. If the Government are trying to say that each day should be looked at and it should be asked: "Where did you have your residence on that day?" I am sure that one or two of us who were here until fairly late this morning would like the Minister, who I believe had the night off, to tell us whether we were solely or mainly resident on these Benches. If not, where were
1630
we solely resident on that day? Perhaps I may speak personally. I came into this building at 10 o'clock yesterday and did not leave until about half-past seven this morning; and I left early. Where was I resident on that day?
It may be that that is not what the Bill means, and I suspect that that is not what it is intended to mean. However, it is an interpretation which could be argued for, especially bearing in mind the distinction in the approach of the Scottish and the English Bills. I have some difficulty in understanding why, when the Government fought so hard to get the Scottish Bill through and knew that it covered matters such as community charges, they did not take that section and adjust it for an English approach and use it as the basis instead of wandering off in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to be as different as possible, which makes matters difficult.
If the intention is what is achieved and we have to look at a person and say of a person who has a home in Huntingdonshire and a home in Camden, "Which is your sole or main residence'?" we must set some standard by which it is to be judged. Certainly over the past few months I have regarded myself as still having my home, which is not a word used in this Bill, in Edinburgh. However, I seem to spend two nights of the week there and therefore on a mathematical basis it is not my sole or main residence.
What is the basis of this approach'? Of course one can choose which is to be one's home for income tax purposes or for mortgage relief; and it perhaps does not really matter very much in view of the way house prices are at the moment because there is a limit on the amount of mortgage relief which one can claim. However, it matters immensely if one thinks about a situation of somebody living in an area having two homes, one in an area which has a very high poll tax rate and another in an area with a very low one. Perhaps I may take an example. If the personal level is £500 in the high area and £100 in the low area a single person will wish to be resident in the area with the high poll tax because he will pay his standard charge, which may go up to one and a half or two times in the low one. On the other hand, if he is the earner in a family of four people, all of them over 18, the reverse will be the case. If there is a difference between the two poll tax rates then there is a great deal of confusion; so that is very important.
I mentioned mortgages. The other element which comes in in considering what is one's home is capital gains tax, which will affect some people far more than others. However, it is very important for a person who pays capital gains tax to know which is their home and which is their second home. This Bill does not help us at all. There is no guidance given as to how valuers, the registration officers, are to decide where these people with two residences are to be looked at.
The amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord McIntosh attempts to do that. I appreciate that this may not be the logical answer. It is difficult to say that there is a logical answer because this is a very illogical Bill. Even assuming that a poll tax is a logical approach, the logical approach is to get away from the idea of residence on the day and get back to the idea of where one is usually resident for a period, as did the Scottish Bill.
In case the Minister has forgotten his title, the Scottish Bill was steered through by this Government. Therefore, I do not see why the approach of the Scots Bill is so inimical to the Minister's department. It is very difficult to work out how people with two homes in different areas will be dealt with, quite apart from the other difficulty we are talking about. I suspect there could be a very nice argument put forward that, by taking it as where you are resident on the day, especially on Amendment No. 22, you are talking about where you actually live that day, in which case people who move about will have an entertaining time comparing different areas and different poll taxes. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, how nice it is to continue the discussion with the noble Lord on the differences between Scotland and England. I can assure your Lordships that this is not the last discussion we shall be having on the matter. I know that the noble Lord will be teasing me gently throughout the rest of the Report stage and doubtless on Third Reading. He knows well that there are innumerable differences between any piece of Scottish legislation and an equivalent piece of legislation for England and Wales. The differences result from different legal—I am sorry, I cannot read the next word.
Lord Morton of Shuna: My Lords, if the noble Earl will forgive me while he is trying to read his notes, may I say that there is one similarity? We both use the same language and, unless they are technical legal terms, English words tend to mean the same. We both use the same dictionaries north and south of the Border.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, not all the time but I hope most of the time.
The differences reflect the different legal traditions, different legal systems, different histories, different local government practices and even different draftsmen. The noble Lord would be the first to complain if we swept away all these differences. Indeed, I remember in earlier discussions with him when I was dealing with the Scottish legislation how keen he was to keep the differences. The important point is that there is no difference in intention, nor, I am advised, in outcome, between this Bill and the Scottish Bill as far as the meaning of "solely or mainly resident" or "sole or main residence" is concerned.
The noble Lord is inconsistent in his approach. He wants consistency with the Scottish Act, yet he wants us to elaborate on what is meant by "sole or main residence". He will recall that there is no such elaboration in the Scottish Act.
These amendments attempt to provide a specific definition of "sole or main residence" for the purposes of the personal community charge. We have considered very carefully over a long period how liability for the charge should be determined and what is the best way of providing for that in the Bill. We do not believe that the test proposed would be satisfactory; indeed, it could produce some extremely odd results.
1632
It may be helpful if I begin by setting out the basis of the community charge liability. Each adult, other than those who are exempt, will be subject to the personal community charge in the area where they have their sole or main residence. In the vast majority of cases it will be obvious where that will be: most people will have only one home. They will be subject to the personal charge there; if they move house, they will become subject to the charge at their new address.
A few people have two or more homes. In their case it will be necessary to decide which is their main residence—the place at which they will pay the personal charge. That decision will be one for the registration officer, though obviously the individual concerned will have the right to express his view. There will also be a right of appeal. Registration officers will take account of the facts of the case.
The Government's policy on this has been clear for a considerable time. In December 1986, for example, the Department of the Environment published a booklet which said:
"The registration officer will look at the individual's particular circumstances and will be able to consider such evidence as where the person is employed and where children go to school, as well as the length of time spent at each address".
That brings me on to Amendment No. 4. In some ways that offers an enticing prospect: a simple test in the legislation based on the period spent at an address. I fear, however, that because it is so simple it inevitably fails to take account of other factors that will be relevant. I must emphasise that the individuals concerned will frequently want factors other than simply time spent in an area to be relevant.
Let me take an example which is relevant to your Lordships' House. Many of your Lordships necessarily keep two homes one in London for use when the House is sitting, and one elsewhere which we generally regard as home and which is likely to be where our families and most of our possessions are. It is possible that in a year we might spend more days in London than we do elsewhere. This amendment would mean that our London addresses became our main residences for these purposes. Many of your Lordships would not be happy with that outcome.
I have a number of other concerns about these amendments—fears, for example, that they would oblige everyone to keep a time sheet of where they were on every day of the year. But the only point I want to dwell on is the retrospective nature of the test proposed and the results that would produce.
Amendment No. 4 requires sole or main residence to be determined on the basis of the number of days spent at an address in the preceding 12 months. That would mean that after you had moved house you would continue to pay the personal community charge at your previous address for six months and a day after moving. That seems to me to be a nonsense and one that would be resented, especially by those moving from an area where the community charge was high to one where it was low.
I hope that what I have said has clarified the Government's intentions. We believe flexibility is needed to take account of factors other than length of time spent at each address. The noble Lord, Lord Morton of Shuna, said that we must set standards. Of course we shall be issuing guidance to local

1633
authorities to minimise variations in interpretation and the rights of appeal will obviously be important also in securing consistency. But the amendment proposed is simply too restrictive and would produce results that were undesirable and sometimes plain odd.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Morton of Shuna: My Lords, the noble Earl has read his brief very well and I congratulate him on it, but it does not answer the point. The words in Section 8 of the Scottish Act, with which I presume the noble Earl has been provided, are:
"any person … who is solely or mainly resident in the area of a local authority in any financial year".
That uses the verb "is resident". It is quite easy to find out: either you live solely in Glasgow, Edinburgh or wherever for the whole of the year or you are mainly resident there and go away for short periods.
In the Bill we are considering, a person is subject to the personal community charge in the area in which he has his "sole or main residence". There a noun is used—"residence". I should have thought that in normal use "residence" means a building, but it can mean anything, including a residential boat according to Amendment No. 22. As far as one can see from subsection (3), it could be a park bench. However, we are dealing with a different concept. The whole build-up of the Bill is that you are liable for the day because you are resident on that day. When it comes to the question of joint and several liability, it is taken to extend from the day after a person is married and not the day on which he gets married. That demonstrates the difficulty.
The noble Earl in answering did not seem to appreciate that some people with two houses had them in different registration areas. The example we were talking about of Huntingdon and Camden would involve different registration officers. The point we discussed in Committee, and to which the Government have not come up with an answer, is what would happen if the two registration officers both decide that the gentleman concerned is mainly resident in both Huntingdon and Camden. Where do they go? How do they prove it? On what standard do they work it out? Those questions are what our amendment seeks to address.
One of the difficulties I have is that the noble Earl seemed to suggest that if one of your Lordships had his home in, for example, Edinburgh and had a small flat here in London in which he spent three or four nights a week, he would not want to make the flat his main residence. He appeared to think that there was a financial advantage. In fact the financial advantage would come from making the small flat the residential home because in the centre of London the poll tax will be higher. One only pays for one person, but if one keeps it as a second home one may have to pay twice the poll tax under the standard community charge arrangements. The home where the wife and family are does not become a second home because there is someone normally resident in it.
It seems that on that issue the noble Earl has perhaps not understood the Bill very well. In the circumstances I do not wish to take this amendment to a vote but I assure him that there is a serious
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problem here. I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 16, leave out from ("than") to ("is") in line 17 and insert ("an individual for the time being exempt)").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, with this I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 128. These amendments give effect to a commitment which I gave to your Lordships at an earlier stage when I announced that the Government would exempt from the community charge all those individuals who were detained in legal custody, with the exception of those committed for non-payment of fines and of the community charge and residual domestic rates.
As currently drafted, paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 exempts convicted prisoners detained in penal institutions in pursuance of their sentences. An exemption for that group is clearly justified on the grounds that local accountability cannot be said to operate and they have no means of earning money with which to pay the charge. Initially the Government were not convinced that the same arguments applied to other people who were detained in custody such as remand prisoners. Their situation is rather different since they are typically held in custody for shorter periods than convicted prisoners. However, as your Lordships may recall, considerable concern was expressed in another place that anomalies might arise if this distinction were maintained, between convicted prisoners and non-convicted prisoners. In particular it was seen as unfair that a remand prisoner who was convicted and had his sentence backdated would be exempt, whereas a remand prisoner who was found to be innocent would not be exempt. Concern was also expressed about people detained under the Mental Health Act.
In the light of these concerns expressed both in another place and in your Lordships' House, the Government have reconsidered the position. We have concluded that an exemption is justified for all persons detained in legal custody with only these exceptions: those committed for non-payment of community charges, residual domestic rates or fines. An exemption for these individuals could not be justified because it would give a clear and most undesirable signal that non-payment of the community charge, residual domestic rates or a fine was a sure route to avoiding the community charge.
Your Lordships may wonder why it is necessary to produce such involved amendments in order to exempt persons held in legal custody. The answer is that there is no simple generic description of such people. It is necessary to refer to all of the statutory provisions under which a person may be detained as well as to the places in which he may be detained. This is the approach adopted in these amendments.
The people covered by the amendments include persons detained in a prison, a hospital or any other place by virtue of' an order made by a court in the United Kingdom or a standing civilian court established under the Armed Forces Act 1976. This applies to convicted and remand prisoners alike.
Exemption is also conferred upon those detained under the Immigration Act 1971, the Mental Health Act 1973 and the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984; and the exemption also applies to those who are released from prison for a few days on compassionate grounds, for example, to attend a funeral. However, as I have indicated, it does not apply to those detained under paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 for non-payment of the community charge, under paragraph 3 of Schedule 12 for non-payment of residual domestic rates or under the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 or the Criminal Justice Act 1982 for default in payment of a fine.
The amendments also empower the Secretary of State to provide by order that people detained under armed forces' legislation should also be exempt. This order-making power will be used to make parallel provision for service personnel to that made for civilian prisoners. I believe that these amendments are yet another example of the Government's willingness to listen to your Lordships and to respond positively to arguments put forward both here and in another place. I therefore commend these amendments to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this is the second occasion this afternoon—I promise that I shall keep a tally—on which I rise to thank the Minister for the concessions he has made which are in line with the undertaking he gave at an earlier stage and also in line with the discussions which we had at Committee stage. Amendments of this complexity we would find very difficult to draft and we are grateful that they have been so comprehensive and that they cover so fully the points made. The only caveat we enter concerns not exempting those imprisoned for non-payment of the community charge. As the noble Earl knows, we do not feel that anyone should be imprisoned for non-payment of the community charge. Having failed to convince the Committee of that, we shall be seeking tomorrow afternoon to convince the House that there should be as few cases as possible of people imprisoned, certainly by magistrates' courts and without consideration of alternatives to prison, for the non-payment of the community charge. With that very minor caveat we welcome the amendments and support them.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Personal community charge: exemption]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 92, leave out lines 4 to 7 and insert—
("Persons in detention.
1.—(1) A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if at any time on the day—

(a) he is detained in a prison, a hospital or any other place by virtue of an order of a court to which sub-paragraph (2) below applies,

(b) he is detained under paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 (deportation),

(c) he is detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (detention in place of safety), or

(d) he is detained under a warrant issued under the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984.

(2) This sub-paragraph applies to the following courts—

(a) a court in the United Kingdom, and

(b) a Standing Civilian Court established under the Armed Forces Act 1976.

(3) If a person is temporarily discharged under section 28 of the Prison Act 1952, or temporarily released under rules under section 47(5) of that Act, for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) above he shall be treated as detained.
(4) Sub-paragraph (1) above does not apply where the person is detained under regulations made under—

(a) paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 below, or

(b) paragraph 3 of Schedule 12 below.

(5) Sub-paragraph (1) above does not apply where the person is detained under section 76 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, or section 9 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, for default in payment of a fine.
(6) In sub-paragraph (1) above "order" includes a sentence, direction, warrant or other means of giving effect to the decision of the court concerned.
(7) The Secretary of State may by order provide that a person is an exempt individual on a particular day if—

(a) at any time on the day he is imprisoned, detained or in custody under the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 or the Naval Discipline Act 1957, and

(b) such conditions as may be prescribed are fulfilled.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 92, line 26, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 and insert—
("The severely mentally impaired.
4.—(1) A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if—

(a) as regards the day he fulfils one or more of the conditions mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) below,

(b) at any time on the day he is severely mentally impaired, and

(c) he is stated to be severely mentally impaired at that time in a certificate of a registered medical practitioner.

(2) The conditions are that—

(a) he is entitled for the day to an invalidity pension under section 15 of the Social Security Act 1975;

(b) he is entitled for the day to a severe disablement allowance under section 36 of that Act;

(c) he is on the day of pensionable age within the meaning given by section 27 of that Act.

(3) A person is severely mentally impaired if he is suffering from—

(a) a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind which involves severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning, or

(b) an injury to the brain causing severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning which appears to be permanent.

(4) The Secretary of State may by order amend sub-paragraph (2) above as it has effect for the time being (whether by adding, deleting or amending conditions, or by any combination of those methods).
(5) The Secretary of State may by order substitute another definition for the definition of severe mental impairment for the time being effective for the purposes of this paragraph.").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will allow me to listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, might have to say (unless I convince him otherwise) as regards Amendment No. 8 before responding to his amendment to my amendment. I am confident that this government amendment will also be welcomed by your Lordships since it gives effect to a commitment that I gave at an earlier stage and exempts from the community charge a further group of people who are severely mentally impaired and who were not exempt under the Bill as it stands.
The group of people in question are those who become severely mentally impaired as a result of an injury to the brain in adulthood. As your Lordships will appreciate, this is in addition to those already exempted; namely, those who are severely impaired as a result of congenital handicap or accidents in childhood.
It may be helpful to your Lordships if I run briefly through the terms of the amendment. Subparagraph (1) provides that a person is exempt from the community charge if he is severely mentally impaired, if he has a certificate from a doctor stating that he is severely mentally impaired and if he fulfils one or more of three conditions.
The three conditions are set out in subparagraph (2). They are designed to act as a filter, to ensure that before a person seeks to claim the exemption he must already have passed a preliminary test. Your Lordships will know that under the Bill as it stands there is a single preliminary test; namely, entitlement to a severe disablement allowance. That single test is no longer appropriate on its own in the light of the new, extended definition of severe mental impairment, because not all the people concerned will qualify for SDA. We have therefore added a second. alternative test; namely, entitlement to an invalidity pension. Many people who become mentally impaired in adulthood will be in receipt of this benefit rather than SDA.
The reason for the third condition is that there will be a relatively small group of people who, despite being severely mentally impaired, are not in receipt of SDA or of an invalidity pension. Since this group will all be above pensionable age, the third preliminary test is that a person must be of pensionable age.
Subparagraph (3) of the new provision gives the new, extended definition of severe mental impairment. It includes, as I have already said, those who suffer brain injury in adulthood as well as those impaired congenitally or in childhood.
Finally, subparagraphs (4) and (5) give the Secretary of State the power to vary the definition of severe mental impairment and the qualifying conditions. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that this is a sensible reserve power, since it will enable us to review the exemption in the light of changing circumstances without the need for primary legislation. It might, for example, become necessary to refer in subparagraph (2) to a new benefit because of changes in social security arrangements. This power would enable us to make that change. I am confident that the amendment will be welcomed on all sides of the House. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Renton): My Lords, I now call, as an amendment to Amendment No. 7, Amendment No. 8.
6 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale Lord Allen of Abbeydale moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 7, Amendment No. 8:
Leave out paragraph 4(1)(c) and insert ("(c) he is assessed as having severe mental impairment by a panel, the membership and functioning of which shall be specified by the Secretary of State by regulation.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, although, as I explained in Committee, I should have preferred the severely mentally impaired to have been dealt with in quite a different way, I am grateful for the changes that have been made in this paragraph, including in particular the decision no longer to limit its provisions to those who suffer from congenital handicap. However, the one point that disturbs me is the provision in paragraph 4(1)(c) which rests on a certificate from a doctor.
The word "certificate", of itself, conjures up undesirable memories of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. It is not like issuing a certificate of vaccination. Nor indeed in practice is it just about getting exemption from the poll tax. In effect, what is involved is a step marking out an individual as incapable and as someone to be set aside from the rest of society. It is bound to be a traumatic experience for the individual and for his family.
The noble Earl was good enough to write to me and explain that he thought that the procedure set out in his amendment had the merit of being straightforward and involving a minimum of formality even if the doctor concerned, who would normally be the individual's GP, was no expert in mental handicap. The fact is that assessment of severe mental impairment can be a complex and difficult task. For the most part, the ordinary GP—I attach no blame to him for this—does not have the necessary experience and qualification.
There are perhaps 175,000 severely mentally handicapped people in the country, something like three or four per 100,000 of the population, so that no one GP would have more than a tiny number on his list. We have had the experience at Mencap conferences of GPs explaining that they had little relevant training or education, that they had little experience of the special problems involved and that they even had little knowledge of how to communicate with these individuals. To leave this decision to the GP in isolation when all he has to guide him as a definition of severe mental impairment are the words of subparagraph (3)(a) is a prime recipe for inconsistent decisions up and down the country.
The Government's draft does not even specify that the doctor must have some relevant qualification, which I should have thought was the absolute minimum. The Government have not accepted the suggestion made in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that two doctors should be involved. As regards my suggestion at that stage that there should be a right of appeal, the Minister wrote to me to say that if one doctor turned down the individual he could always go to another, a suggestion which, to put it as kindly as I can, seems a somewhat informal approach towards what is such a momentous decision for the person concerned. I know that the department is extremely expert on matters such as waste disposal and the green belt, but I wonder whether it really understands the likely impact on individuals of what is being proposed here. So far as I know the department has not consulted those outside the Government who have some practical experience.
I suggest that we should get away from certification and go instead for assessment. I suggest that the assessment should be the responsibility of a multi-disciplinary panel, based perhaps on the existing community mental handicap teams which consist of experts from the various interested professions—consultants in mental handicap, clinical psychologists, and so on. My understanding is that there are 350 of these teams covering some 70 per cent. of the country. The precise way in which it would all be managed is best left to regulation but it is essential to do something about the provision in the amendment resting on the registered medical practitioner.
There are many things to be sorry about in regard to this legislation. One is that the Bill has brought us round to the need to identify in some way people who suffer severe mental impairment. I urge the Government to think again about the arrangements for decisions which will so profoundly affect the lives of thousands of unfortunate people and their families. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I hope that the Minister is in a receptive frame of mind. I begin, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, began, by acknowledging that the government amendment is sensible and is an improvement. We hear that those who will be deeply involved in the implementation of the nexus within the Bill are saying to the Government that it can be improved on the margin. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said in simple terms that there is an argument between certification and assessment in establishing the bona fides of those who can legitimately be exempt from the charge. It is miserable for the individual and for his family and friends to be involved at all in having to plead a case in this way.
Noble Lords may be wondering about the lapel badge I am wearing. We are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Health Service. The Royal College of Nursing has a small reception downstairs and the people down there very much hope that the Minister will say something helpful about the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
In this case there are people from outside 2 Marsham Street who seek advice from the department. They are better qualified than the advisers to the Minister on how to deal with an important point. The Minister can demonstrate his willingness to get it absolutely right by acknowledging these difficulties. The Bill will receive Royal Assent in the not too distant future. Once that is done many good people and many sad people will live with it for a long time to come. The Minister has had a good record this afternoon of acknowledging where, on the margin, people in special difficulties have had those difficulties taken into account. Of all the groups in our society which deserve not just fair treatment, but extraordinarily fair treatment, it is those who suffer from an impairment to their mental health. Therefore I very much hope that the Minister can be kind this afternoon.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I believe that what the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, is proposing seems most sensible, and I hope therefore that my noble friend will be able to give it the right kind of reception. I should like especially to thank my noble friend for the letters he wrote to me and the National Schizophrenia Fellowship recently covering this amendment and others.
I should also like to say that I have discussed the amendments with the NSF and how much we welcome this amendment, Amendment No. 6—which sadly I missed—and Amendments Nos. 14, 19 and 22. They all seem to be a great advance. Perhaps I may thank noble Lords who spoke in Committee, when I was not able to be here, on this subject. I think that my noble friend has gone a long way to achieve
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the kind of refinements that we want to see in this area, and I thank him for that.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I should like to speak strongly in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has said from a great depth of experience. However, I should like to approach this from the point of view of the Government's Amendment No. 7, paragraph 4(1)(c); and also from the point of view of the family. First, heading (c) in the amendment states:
"a certificate of a registered medical practitioner".
That can mean anyone who is medically qualified; he might be a surgeon, an anaesthetist, or a general practitioner. I think that against the background—which has been so eloquently described—of this tragedy in the family, every step must be taken to ensure that what is done is seen to be done. Therefore I hope that the Government will at least be prepared to amend heading (c) of the amendment to make it clear that it applies to a physchiatrically qualified medical practitioner. In common parlance, the words, "registered medical practitioner" mean either anyone or a general practitioner, and therefore the wording must be changed. I should have thought that in response to what has been said here, this could be the minimum we could hope for from the Government.
There is a great deal to support assessment by a panel which would then have a record of the views about this person, which is available if the circumstances change—which they might do, say, in six months time. Therefore when they want to review the situation again, they can look at the record and check the progress. So I think that there is a great deal to be said for this part of the amendment and I urge the government to be sympathetic in their response.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment moved with characteristic clarity and authority by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who, as the House knows, is the distinguished president of MENCAP. Therefore there is little that I as a very undistinguished vice president of that organisation can, or should, seek to add. In the circumstances I am in the happy position to which Metellus Cimber in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar could only aspire:
"Is there no voice more worthy than my own,
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear".
It is, I suppose, by a happy coincidence that the noble Lord sitting on the Woolsack is the distinguished chairman of MENCAP—
A Noble Lord: A previous president!
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, yes; a previous president. I take it that the noble Lord was not going to query my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, because I am sure he would warmly associate himself with it.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I associate myself with the tribute; but we always like to get things accurate in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, having served as chairman and then as president, is now a past president of the society.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Broxbourne: My Lords, I make my brief intervention only because I have in that capacity received representations and it is perhaps appropriate that I record my support for the amendment. I am not at all critical of Ministers in making these submissions. I fully acknowledge their good intentions and, as—I hope—a good friend, I seek only to help them avoid the proverbial dangers and destinations of good intentions.
The Bill recognises that severe mental impairment should be a ground for exemption from the collective community charge. That is obviously very proper and, in principle, would meet with general assent. The difficulty arises in terms of a definition. Amendment No. 7—tabled in the name of the Minister—makes the criterion at paragraph 4(1)(c) of Schedule 1 of:
"a certificate of a registered medical practitioner"
which, as has already been pointed out, really means a general practitioner in the ordinary usage of language.
Amendment No. 8 seeks to broaden the definition and increase the expertise in making the assessment. A single medical practitioner, unversed in the complexities of mental health and acting in isolation, may well not be equipped to make an informed and accurate assessment. That the complexities in these matters are great I well recall, as will the noble Lord sitting on the Woolsack who played such a distinguished part in the proceedings during the long days of the passage of the Mental Health Act 1959. The amendment would give a more expert assessment.
In an ideal world I think that the composition of the panels would be prescribed in the primary legislation; but in a practical world, it has to be left to regulations. Fortunately, however, that need present no difficulty. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, there are already existing community mental-handicap teams from which the necessary expertise can be drawn. Therefore I hope that Ministers will accept the principle and make provision for expert assessment leading to more reliable certification. If they do that and they accept the principle, they can be sure—the speeches made today have testified to this—that they will have goodwill and support in the carriage and implementation of those regulations.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, I do not know how the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, feels about being cast in the role of the great Caesar. However, from these Benches I hope that he will, so to speak, lend his ear to the arguments which have been proffered in support of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
It seems to me that the implications of the finding are much greater than are confined to the Bill. But looking at the original amendment, and the proposed amendment to it, I suppose ideally that there is something to be said for having a medical practitioner who is well-versed in the expertise required. Indeed I think that there is an overwhelming argument in favour of that. I should have thought that that was an unarguable point. However, what I think is arguable from the Government's point of view—if they accept Lord
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Allen's amendment in principle, they might then consider this—is whether the doctor concerned should be drawn from the panel. That depends on the actual implications of the certification. Is it to be wider than the Bill? If one has certification for the purposes of Clause 4(1), its implications are likely to apply in a wider sphere. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, may have had that in mind when he drafted this amendment to the amendment in wider terms than would appear to be necessary from the Government's drafting.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I am bothered about this matter. In our attempt to do what all in the House thought was right—to ensure that severely mentally handicapped people do not have to pay the charge—we are having to ask that something be said about someone which we would much prefer did not have to be said. On reflection, I do not think that it would have made any difference if the House had gone the way the noble Lord, Lord Allen, would have preferred which, if I recollect it correctly, would be to have a 100 per cent. rebate rather than exemption. However, there would be a problem defining who was to receive it.
Perhaps my noble friend can tell me whether there is any way of having a form which merely says that a person falls into one of several categories that are exempt. We should not then have the problem of saying to the family that all these matters apply to a person. I do not know whether my noble friend has considered that point. It is unfortunate to have to arrive at a provision which is wholly good by facing up to something which neither the noble Lord, Lord Allen, nor anyone else thinks is right. It may be unavoidable. I do not know whether the noble Lord has thought about that point. Perhaps we could have a simpler statement which covers a number of exemptions and not just the one we are discussing, with someone qualified to sign the form saying that a person is exempt because they meet one of the following categories, or something like that. That would be much more imaginative if it were possible.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I have listened carefully to what your Lordships have said about the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. He raised a subject to which we have given a good deal of thought and upon which I recently wrote to him, as he reminded your Lordships a moment ago. It may be helpful therefore if I explain precisely why we have adopted the approach to the issuing of certificates which is enshrined in the Government's amendment.
One of our principal concerns in devising the procedure for claiming the exemption was that the procedure should be straightforward, involving the minimum of formality and inconvenience to the applicant and his or her relatives.
We believe that an over-formal approach could cause distress and deter some people from applying for the exemption for which they are entitled. We took the view that we could best meet that concern by providing for certificates to be issued by a registered medical practitioner who, in the vast majority of cases, is the applicant's GP. I of course accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, which I should like to look at between

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now and another stage of the Bill. He raised the valid point about someone being qualified and putting the word "qualified" in front of "registered medical practitioner" in Clause 4(1)(c). Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to look at that point between now and another stage.
Our approach has the advantage that the applicant will be dealing with a doctor with whom he is familiar and with whom he feels comfortable. It also has the advantage that in most cases the doctor will be familiar with the applicant's condition and case history. He will, for example, have access to any expert opinion on the person's mental condition which has previously been obtained. In the minority of cases where the medical practitioner is not sufficiently familiar with the applicant—for example, where the applicant has recently changed GP—he will be able to make inquiries of professional colleagues who have more detailed knowledge of the applicant's condition and greater expertise in assessing mental conditions.
I also point out that in subsection (2) we have provided that before qualifying for the exemption a person must be in receipt of a severe disability allowance or an invalidity pension if he is below pensionable age. As your Lordships will be aware, the procedures for claiming those benefits already involve, where appropriate, examination by medical experts. We believe that much of the concern felt by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, is met by the sieve through which that procedure takes place.
The noble Lord said that the word "certificate" had undesirable connotations. I am not sure that I agree. The word "certified" is unfavourable, which is why the amendment removes that word which is used in the Bill as it stands. I am sure that the noble Lord has read Clause 28 where he will also find the word "certificate" used in relation to students. I cannot agree with him that there is any question of the mentally impaired being singled out or stigmatised by the use of the word.
The noble Lord also said that expertise was needed. He suggested that GPs would be unable to take the necessary decisions. I do not believe that that is necessarily so. Of course I am not the expert. I have naturally consulted the experts on this matter in the DHSS. I can assure your Lordships that they are satisfied with the proposed approach. I must emphasise that in using the individual's GP he is likely to be aware of the history. There may well have been a specialist view involved earlier about which the GP will know.
I can tell my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour that there is no existing category of severely mentally impaired people to which we can refer. That is why we have proposed a new definition and procedure which is rather long and perhaps complicated. I can assure her that it is the only suitable way to sort out the problem.
I am grateful for what my noble friend Lord Mottistone said. I am pleased that he realises that the Government have gone a long way towards meeting his concern and that of a number of other people.
On balance, we feel that our approach—certification by a medical practitioner—is fair and satisfactory. We do not believe that the approach
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advocated by the noble Lord would be an improvement because it would add an extra layer of formality, bureaucracy and cost. It might even deter some people from applying for an exemption to which they are entitled. I am sure that that is the last thing that the noble Lord or I want.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I must confess that I am disappointed by that reply given the support for my suggestion tendered from all sides of the House, including those Members of the House sitting behind the Minister. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, I should have preferred to go down the road of rebate, but I regarded that as a dead duck following our discussions in Committee. The Minister has, in effect, confirmed that there has been no consultation with experts outside the government machine, which I find disappointing.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with respect, I do not believe that I said that. I think that the noble Lord has misinterpreted what I said. I said that we have consulted the DHSS and I am sure that the DHSS, as experts in the matter, have consulted widely outside.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, it has not consulted MENCAP, which does know something about these matters. Of course, the reply does not go to the root of the matter. The Minister does not seem to understand, any more than his officials seem to understand, what an important decision this is in the life of the individuals concerned, not only for the individuals but for the family. They will need reassurance when they see their son or daughter subject to a certificate which marks him or her out as someone detached from the whole of the rest of the community.
I am sorry that my eloquence has been inadequate to put over that thought to the Government. What I am not very clear about is whether the Minister is prepared to consider doing anything about the use of the word "certificate". I gather not. Also, there is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, and I made about having some qualifying words to make sure that the medical practitioner has some qualifications. If the Minister is not prepared to meet that, I should certainly be prepared to try something on those lines at Third Reading. Perhaps the noble Earl could explain that point before I decide whether to test the feeling of the House.
6.30 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may repeat what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington: that that was a point which I wanted to discuss with my right honourable friend. It is a point which I certainly wanted to look into—putting "qualified" before "registered medical practitioner".
However, I am concerned about something which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has just said: that MENCAP had not been consulted on our proposals. If that is the case, I should certainly want to look into that as well.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, I am very reluctant to decide the fate of these poor people by

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calling a vote which is settled by people who have not heard the argument. On the basis of the assurances given by the Minister and the possibility of returning to some of these points on Third Reading, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment to Amendment No. 7, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment No. 7 agreed to.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 93, line 9, leave out ("religious").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 9. I understand that it is for the convenience of the House that I speak also to Amendments Nos. 10 and 11.
In Schedule 1 we have the treatment of religious communities; that is, the exemption from the financial obligations for members of religious communities. These three amendments are perfectly straightforward. We have no objection on this side of the House to looking at the nexus in which communities decide to operate as a community.
However, we fail to see the special significance of excluding religious communities. We are seeking here the deletion of the word "religious". Of course the exemption is aimed not just at religious communities hut, by further definition, religious communities which have no income or capital of their own and which depend on the communities concerned for their material needs.
The principal occupation of the religious community must be prayer, contemplation, the relief of suffering, education or any prescribed occupation. From the way in which these matters are defined, two of those criteria will be sufficient to warrant exemption. Communities which are not religious will not qualify for the exemption, even though their principal occupation may be contemplation, the relief of suffering or education. Their members may have no income or capital of their own and may be dependent on the community for their material needs. We find it difficult to understand how the Government could be precise and say that there are two kinds of communities, one which is religious and one which is not, which meet all the criteria, yet one would be relieved of financial responsibility and the other would have to pay. That is the purpose of these amendments. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, in the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, has just said and of the comments made in Committee, it may be helpful if I explain in a little detail the Government's thinking in providing the exemption for religious communities in the way that they have.
The exemption is deliberately intended to be narrow and it was introduced following representations from the Churches and representatives of other religions. Many of your Lordships have expressed concern that it might extend further than we intended. In fact, the tests we have established for the exemption are extremely difficult to meet. The purposes of the community are closely defined. The members have to divest themselves of all income and capital. They will not be eligible for any social
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security benefits. If they have a job—and there are of course monks and nuns who go into the community and receive a salary—then they will not be exempt, even if they covenant their salary to their order, as is almost universally done. The salary will have to be covenanted net of the community charge.
The Government take the view that it is unrealistic to suppose that large numbers of people will be prepared to give up everything and genuinely to engage in certain narrowly defined activities simply in order to avoid the community charge. The decision whether or not particular communities qualify for the exemption will be for community charge registration officers in the first place. There should be no difficulties for them in deciding that members of well-established monasteries and convents are entitled to the exemption. If they have any doubts about a particular group then it will be open to them to decide that its members are not exempt. Any such decision will be subject to appeal. If it is eventually decided that the group in question is genuinely engaged in the defined activities and that its members meet the income and capital tests then I would submit that it would be quite proper for them to benefit from the exemption.
The noble Lord's amendments, by removing the word "religious", would, however, introduce a good deal of uncertainty about the scope of the exemption. The Government make no apology for the fact that the exemption depends first and foremost on a community being a religious community. Other types of community may well be engaged in similar activities. But it was the particular effects of the community charge on Churches and religious orders, and the social security status of their members, which led the Government to accept that there should be special treatment for them. I believe that this is the right approach and that the noble Lord's amendments would leave considerable doubt about Parliament's intentions. This could lead to a much wider use of the exemption than I believe the majority of your Lordships would consider appropriate.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend in resisting these amendments. However, when I saw what is now paragraph 7 of the schedule at Committee stage, I and my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter both found ourselves moved to comment that the whole paragraph is probably too loosely worded already. I submit to my noble friend and to the House that any reasonably conscientious member of an ordinary congregation qualifies personally under paragraph 7(1)(a). His congregation meets the requirements of subparagraph (2)(a). Any congregation engaged in normal evangelistic and missionary activity easily meets that requirement. For those who are bent on abusing this paragraph, it would not be too difficult to find a financial adviser who could arrange for those forming themselves into a bogus community to meet paragraph 7(1)(b).
My anxiety is that in the course of trying to meet the very proper concern of genuine monks and nuns, my noble friend has introduced a paragraph which before very long—maybe a year or two—will be so open to abuse that we shall have another scandal to deal with as bad as that which is already associated with the Moonies, who have managed to get

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themselves registered as a charity. I ask my noble friend to look at this again and see whether he can tighten it up a little.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I failed to say in my opening remarks that of course we acknowledge that the Government took on board the anxieties that were expressed in another place and here that one needed to take account of making provisions for religious orders. The nexus of the nuns and the monks was taken into account. The Minister may think I am pursuing a bad abbot here! But I am not. I am trying to understand what is meant in Schedule 1(7)(2)(a), which contains a list of occupations the existence of which establish the existence of a relevant religious community.
The Minister said that the Government always considered that the first and foremost occupation of such a community was prayer. Yet if one looks at Schedule 1(7)(2)(b), one sees that the Government consider that the principal occupation of such a community,
"consists of two or more of the occupations mentioned in paragraph (a),"
one occupation of which is prayer or contemplation or the relief of suffering.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, is absolutely right. The more one looks at the drafting here, the more one fears it is possible for abuse to take place. I hope that the Minister will accept that we have not remotely sought to abuse the looseness of this provision in trying to extend the benefits of the schedule. I understand that the Minister and his colleagues have responded to a legitimate query. Having seen the wording, we are saying that we can see some other groups of people who might benefit from it. However, I am satisfied that the Minister will not go any further with this matter this evening. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 93, line 22, at end insert ("where such income falls below a figure set out in regulations issued by the Secretary of State").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we are still on the same subject of religious communities, but we are talking about one exemption to which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, did not refer when he criticised the looseness of the drafting of this part of the Bill. The criterion laid down for members of a community is that the people concerned have no income or capital of their own. We can all understand and agree on that. Those people sell all they have and give it to the poor or to the community, as the case may be.
But income by way of a pension from a former employment will be ignored. Nobody would wish to deter those who have retired on a pension from joining a community, religious or otherwise, or from devoting their life to good works in all kinds of ways. But it could be argued, and indeed I am arguing—one gets caught in circumlocutions of this kind—that those who have substantial pensions would not feel that their object in joining a religious community was significantly impaired by the fact that out of those
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pensions provision should be made for the community charge. None of this implies approval of the community charge as a whole. But exemption from community charges as opposed to the rebate system does progressively, as it extends, detract from the accountability argument which the Government use all the time.
The more exemptions there are, the more those who are left without exemptions have to pay for their personal community charges. Although we have argued for exemptions where they seem to be most appropriate and where the argument for accountability clearly diminishes to the point of nonexistence, we should prefer, generally speaking, the exceptions to the community charge to be in the form of rebates which take account of income. This is a very good case of that. Here we have people who, by regulation set by the Secretary of State, would be deemed to have substantial pension income. Those who do not choose to go into a religious community have to pay the charge. Those who do go into a religious community should, we suggest, have the community charge deducted from that which they are forgoing in order to enter the community.
It is a difficult case to argue. All of these cases are difficult to argue because they are always at the margin of accountability and at the margin of ability to pay. But I think that there is a sufficient case here for the Government to listen to, and for the Government to accept that it accords with the other principles they have of ensuring that as wide a group of people as possible recognise the obligations of the community charge and its effect on accountability. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, before I respond to the amendment in detail, this gives me an opportunity to say to my noble friend Lord Sandford, who raised a point after I had sat down after replying to the previous amendment, that I looked at the whole of the wording of this part of the Bill between the Committee stage, when concern was raised, and now. But I must say that we could not come up with tighter wording. We went back and discussed it with some of the members of the Churches Main Committee. It is sad that some of the right reverend Prelates involved on that committee are not here today to take part in what would be a helpful debate on this matter. We looked at the matter but found that the wording was sufficiently tight. Therefore my noble friend need not have quite the concerns that I know he has.
Returning to the amendment, as the noble Lord has explained, it would entail my right honourable friend setting a limit on the amount of a pension which is to be ignored for the purposes of determining whether or not a member of a religious community has an income. This would be an unnecessary piece of bureaucracy. Any member of a religious community who has a pension and who keeps that pension for himself or herself will not be exempt from the community charge because of the capital rule. By keeping a pension it becomes part of a person's capital, and anyone with capital will not be exempt. All pension income will therefore have to be given up and this will usually be done by covenanting it to the order.

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The Government decided that pension income should be disregarded because many monks and nuns would have a small pension in respect of previous employment which they gave up in order to take up their monastic life. It will often be insufficient to meet the community charge. In this respect pension income differs from earned income, which will usually be sufficient to cover the charge before the member has covenanted it to his or her order.
I accept that there will also be cases where the pension may be somewhat larger and may be sufficient to pay the charge. But a limit would inevitably be arbitrary. It would lead to income trap effects and it would add to the administrative burdens of registration officers. I do not believe that the small numbers of people involved warrant setting up the necessary machinery. In view of this and what I said about the capital rule which prevents members of religious communities from either keeping their pension or spending it on personal possessions, I hope that the House will not accept the amendment that the noble Lord has moved, should he desire to press it.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree with me—perhaps it is more accurate to say that he does agree with me—that this provision is loosely worded? He has looked at it again, but so far he has not found any way of making it any tighter. I do not think that he has convinced himself or me that it is satisfactory as it stands.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I see that the noble Earl has resumed his seat definitively, and he is not responding to that. I find some parts of the Minister's argument somewhat difficult to follow. If the argument of an income trap is valid, surely it is valid for a very much larger group of people than those who choose to enter religious communities. If the noble Earl had responded more positively to the amendments we put forward in Committee on the taper, perhaps he would not find himself in the difficulty of an income trap which he now appears to detect. However, I do not think that this is a matter on which it would be appropriate to divide the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendments Nos. 13 and 14:
Page 93, line 25, leave out from ("day") to end of line and insert ("one or more of the following paragraphs applies to him—

(a) he is a patient who has his sole or main residence in a hospital;

(b) he is detained under Part II of the Mental Health Act 1983 in a hospital;

(c) he is detained under section 46, 47 or 48 of that Act in a hospital.").

Page 93, line 33, leave out from ("day") to end of line 36 and insert ("one or each of the following paragraphs applies to him—

(a) he has his sole or main residence in a residential care home, nursing home, mental nursing home or hostel, and he is receiving care or treatment (or both) in the home or hostel;

(b) he is detained under Part 11 of the Mental Health Act 1983 in a mental nursing home.").

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 93, line 36, at end insert and ("(c) and he is in receipt of income of less than £15,000 per annum.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 15 relates to the paragraph in Schedule I which is entitled "Patients in homes". In order to set the scene, perhaps it will be helpful if I read a part of that paragraph. Paragraph 9(1) provides that:
"A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if at any time on that day—

(a) he has his sole or main residence in a residential care home, nursing home or hostel, and

(b) he is receiving care or treatment (or both) there".

We seek to add a further head which would read:
"(c) and he is in receipt of income of less than £15,000 per annum".
The reason for the amendment is patently clear. There are individuals whose incomes are miserable compared to the sum of £15,000 per annum. By and large, the Government have not been prepared to make exceptions other than for special groups. The intention is to bring accountability to our local government and local taxation nexus. As a consequence, people may well be pursued for very small sums of money.
In considering the situation we believe that there are a number of people—the Government have not been concerned with numbers up to now—who should be taken into account. At col. 827 of the Official Report of 24th May 1988, during our Committee stage on this Bill, the Minister said:
"The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, has seized on what he believes is an anomaly in the Bill, which is that a few relatively well-off people who are being cared for in nursing homes and similar institutions will nevertheless not he subject to the personal community charge".
We are not referring to actual numbers. We must confess, as the Minister does from time to time, to an absence of precise information as to numbers. Many people enter such homes for good medical reasons. However, others are there for quiet, comfort, convalescence and a range of other reasons. Nursing homes are not cheap. The Minister is entitled to say that much of the cost of a nursing home may be borne by the state either directly or indirectly. However, there are many private nursing homes where residents are not receiving state assistance and the charges are paid for by the individual.
I shall repeat an illustration which I used at Committee stage. It is possible to find in a place such as Enfield nursing homes where the cost of being looked after is anything from £200 to £300 a week. That is a modest cost for a nursing home these days. I define "private home" as one which is not run by the municipality or the council. I ask the Minister whether he is prepared to find a bureaucratic device in order to reach our objective. I believe that his argument will rest on the difficulty of finding, monitoring, recording and administering such a system. However, in equity and justice, I believe that someone who is in receipt of an income in excess of £15,000 should pay the personal community charge.
The Minister may raise the question of whether that sum should be gross or net. However, the principle is that there should be some measuring rod or bar below which a person is legitimately entitled to the protection of Schedule 1 and above which a person will be taken out of the protection of that

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schedule. The Government have not been averse to setting limits within which people may be caught. I believe that they should look at this matter as well. I beg to move.
Lord Monson: My Lords, as I said at Committee stage, I am sympathetic to the general thrust of what the noble Lords, Lord Graham and Lord McIntosh, are trying to achieve. It is obviously indefensible that a millionaire, a millionairess, or even someone who can be described simply as rich who is living in a nursing home or a residential care home and who is of sound mind and able to vote in general and local elections and benefit from at least some of the services provided by local government, should be completely exempt from the community charge.
The question is where the dividing line should be drawn. What constitutes being rich? I suggest that everything hinges on whether the noble Lord means £15,000 gross or £15,000 net. For a single person, £15,000 gross nets down to £11,901 per annum after tax. That works out at just under £229 per week. Unfortunately, a great many nursing homes and residential care facilities have charges which work out at more than £230 per week. Indeed, there are many doctors who warn their patients against going into homes costing less than, say, £210 per week on the ground that the standard of care probably will not be very good. I am speaking in this context of private homes.
If the noble Lord, Lord Graham, means £15,000 net of tax, which equates to £19,133 gross for a single person, that is another matter. Even in that case one notices that no provision has been made for indexation in the amendment. That being so, one wonders whether the noble Lord might consider it better to come back at the next stage with an income figure revised to, let us say, £20,000 gross, which represents a capital sum of about £½ million—that is the sum which is required to produce a gross income of £20,000—with, shall we say, built-in protection against inflation: in other words, with a further provision that that should be linked to the retail price index.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, will recall the reply that I gave to a precisely similar amendment that he moved at an earlier stage. The position has not changed. The principle behind granting an exemption for patients in a home is that accountability could not reasonably be said to operate for many of those individuals. The ability of people in homes to participate in the process of local accountability would in many cases be severely limited and perhaps more limited than the noble Lord, Lord Monson, believes.
I remind your Lordships that the exemption was granted in acknowledgement of strong representations made during debates on the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act in your Lordships' House. The result is that a relatively small number of comparatively well-off individuals will benefit from the exemption. That does not in the Government's view undermine in any way the good reasons for granting the exemption in the first place.
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Leaving aside the concerns of principle for a moment, I must draw attention to the practical consequences of the amendment. It would require registration officers to undertake detailed investigations into the incomes of every patient in every nursing home or residential care home simply with the aim of establishing that a small minority should be denied an exemption. That would not be a practical undertaking and as a result it is not one that the Government are prepared to ask registration officers to undertake.
I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, that he must choose between a general exemption for patients in homes or no exemption at all. His proposal at the moment is not acceptable to the Government for reasons of both principle and practicality.
7 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, the Minister has given the same reply. I take heart from the words of the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I shall think very carefully about what he has said and no doubt shall be in touch with him about a better amendment. However, I am disappointed because the Minister is arguing not just on the basis of the practicalities but on the principle.
It is very surprising. Amendments which were moved earlier concerned a community in which all the members have given up their worldly goods. They cannot be exempted from the charge, yet here we are considering the case of individuals who will hang on to their worldly goods—which may perhaps amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds—and will be exempted from the charge. That is not just an anomaly; it makes a nonsense of the application of the charge. I am disappointed with the Minister.
When one considers the impact of the provision, there will be many people who keep relatives at home in order to avoid a range of social disruptions. They will have to pay the poll tax and the individual himself will have to pay the poll tax; yet those who can afford to go into a residential home and are able to satisfy the very flimsy criteria about their status and condition will be able to avoid the charge by virtue of the provisions of the schedule. It is unfair and unjust. That is the epitaph of the whole of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Speaker: My Lords, I propose to call Amendments Nos. 16 to 18 en bloc if the House agrees because those amendments have been discussed with Amendment No. 5.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendments Nos. 16 to 18:
Page 93, line 47, leave out from second ("Act") to end of line 48.
Page 94, line 3, at end insert—
("(4A) A mental nursing home is anything which is a mental nursing home within the meaning of the Registered Homes Act 1984.").
Page 94, line 5, leave out ("or nursing home") and insert (", nursing home or mental nursing home").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I suggest that this would be a suitable moment to break for dinner and that we return at 8 o'clock. I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Building Societies (Limits on Commercial Assets) Order 1988
7.5 p.m.
Lord Beaverbrook Lord Beaverbrook rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th May be approved [27th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with leave, and for the convenience of the House, I shall also speak to the draft Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order 1988.
The purpose of these orders is to restructure Schedule 8 to the Building Societies Act 1986, and extend the powers which that schedule gives societies to offer financial and housing related services. This follows an extensive review of these powers which the Economic Secretary to the Treasury announced in October.
The Building Societies Act 1986 was intended to allow societies to extend the range of services they offer while remaining mutual institutions, predominantly engaged in their traditional business of mortgage lending financed from retail savings. The Act did not seek to induce societies to abandon their traditional business and structure, but the Government believed that societies should be free to undertake activities which complement their mainstream business, and to provide the wider range of personal financial services which customers now expect.
The Act took effect in January last year, but it was clear by the autumn that societies were having considerable difficulty operating within the powers in Schedule 8 as drafted. The schedule was intended to give a precise list of the new services which societies could undertake, but in practice most societies wanted to use the powers in slightly different ways from that envisaged in the schedule, and they were constantly frustrated by legal technicalities. Market conditions were also changing very rapidly, and societies had begun to make representations for extensions to their powers in a number of areas.
The review was undertaken by the Treasury and the Building Societies Commission, in close consultation with the Building Societies Association. The main policy conclusions were announced in February, and the orders before your Lordships have been the subject of further extensive consultation with the societies.
Two other orders are relevant and will be required to implement the conclusions of the review. These are the Building Societies (Designation of Qualifying Bodies) Order and the Building Societies (Limits on Lending) Order. These are negative orders and cannot be made until the orders we are debating tonight are approved. But provisional drafts were placed in the Library of the House last month, along with a summary note of the provisions of all four orders, so that the package could be seen as a whole.
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All four orders will take effect together if they are approved by your Lordships at the end of August.
The orders will do two things. First, they will turn Schedule 8 inside out, so that instead of banning everything except narrowly specified powers, as at present, it will set out several broadly defined powers and list only those activities which are specifically prohibited. That, in itself, will provide societies with a more sensible and flexible regulatory environment in which to operate.
The orders will also, however, provide a substantial widening of societies' powers to provide financial and housing-related services. The Act was intended to provide scope for a gradual extension of the range of powers available to societies. However, it is clear from societies' first year's experience with the Act that this gradual step-by-step process is not appropriate. Although each individual society will probably only want to diversify into a small number of new areas, different societies will want to exercise different powers, and societies need to know the broad scope of their powers for some years ahead in order to make sensible long-term commercial plans.
The Government have concluded, therefore, that the right approach is to provide for a substantial widening of powers now, while at the same time limiting the speed with which any individual society can diversify into new areas. This restraint will be exercised, first, through supervision of business plans by the Building Societies Commission, and, secondly, by only easing gradually, over five years, the overall limits on societies' holdings of non-traditional assets. Societies will only be able to exploit the new powers at a prudent pace. They will, however, have a clear basis for their forward planning.
Turning to the orders, the main one—the draft Commercial Assets and Services Order—will replace Schedule 8 to the Act with a completely new Schedule 8 which will provide the following six broad service powers: banking services; investment services; insurance services; trusteeship; executorship; and land services.
A society will be able to provide any service within those general areas unless it is specifically precluded, or restricted, by other parts of the schedule. The main limitation will be that societies will continue to provide services primarily to the personal sector, and not to companies. Societies with assets of less than £100 million will be prohibited from engaging directly in some of the more risky activities. But subject to that, and to certain other limited restrictions, societies will be able to provide the full range of personal banking services which customers now expect; to undertake fund management, including management of unit trusts generally, rather than just for the provision of pensions as at present; to own or take an equity stake in a life assurance company; to take a limited stake in a general insurance company; and to own or take an equity stake in a stockbroker.
In the course of providing these new services, a society may need to hold new forms of commercial assets or to invest in, or support, new subsidiaries and associated bodies. Provision for the new assets is included in the commercial assets and services order. The order will, among other things, allow societies to acquire mortgage backed securities and similar

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instruments and provide temporary bridging finance for house purchase far more easily than at present. The new subsidiaries and associates will be provided for in the proposed negative designation of qualifying bodies order, which will also consolidate several previous orders made by the Building Societies Commission, to ensure conformity with the new powers.
The draft limits on the commercial assets order, which is the first affirmative order before your Lordships tonight, will provide for a gradual relaxation in the limits on non-traditional assets which constrain the rate at which societies can diversify. Although the limits will remain at their present level until January 1990, the order provides for automatic increases thereafter to the full extent permissible within the primary legislation by 1993. Few societies are close to the limits at present. But the order will give societies a clear, firm basis for planning any expansion of their services for the future. Finally, the negative limits on the lending order will raise the limit on a society's unsecured lending to individuals from £5,000 to £10,000.
There is one further point which will be of interest to your Lordships. The orders will considerably widen the scope of building societies' activities, and it is therefore appropriate to review the scope of the building societies ombudsman scheme. The Building Societies Commission will be consulting interested parties on this shortly.
These proposals will create a more sensible framework for societies and provide them with a clear basis for their future planning. They will give societies the freedom to develop and to compete across a wide range of financial services. And, most important, they will enable societies to provide a better, more flexible service to their customers, which is all that most societies wish to be able to do. I therefore commend the orders to the House and beg to move that the first order standing in my name be approved.
Moved, that the draft order laid before the House on 19th May be approved [27th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Beaverbrook.)
7.15 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the House will be indebted to the noble Lord for having, as usual, presented the orders in a concise and extremely clear way. I am a little disappointed because it is necessary, as your Lordships will appreciate, for those who speak from these Benches to go through the orders with some thoroughness. This necessitates those of us who do not have a Civil Service machine behind us going through all the orders that are being amended and making detailed references to the Act itself. I am bound to say that it is a process that I found somewhat tortuous.
I am very glad that the present order has been laid. It finally clears up—at least I hope that it finally clears up—the construction of Schedule 8, because we had four orders in the course of last year dealing with the provision of services. We had one on 5th February, No. 172; we had another one on 19th October, No. 1848; we had a further one on 16th November, No. 1976, and a further one on 19th November, No. 2019. In addition to that, we
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had No. 1670 dealing with the banking institutions, and No. 1975 of 18th November dealing with limited credit facilities. All these have had to be traced right the way through to the Act itself. After a somewhat tortuous process, I am sorry to announce to the noble Lord that I cannot find very much to oppose in them, which for me sitting on this side of the House is rather unusual.
However, I have a few remarks to make upon the general purpose of the orders themselves. It is wise to give building societies broad, general parameters within which they can operate, making specific exceptions and prohibitions, rather than the other way round as in the original Act, approaching the matter from a negative standpoint. This, I agree, is a much better way of going about it.
Speaking generally on the extension of the provision of services which this order provides—and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us the assurance that we shall not have another one, at any rate after a short period of time, because we have now had enough and hope we have got it reasonably finalised, with the agreement of the building societies and the Building Societies Commission—we on this side of the House are in agreement with the extension of the provision of financial services. We approve that within the context of the banking situation as a whole.
Your Lordships will perhaps forgive me for reminding the House—and some of your Lordships may themselves remember it—of the time when one went along to a bank for an advance of money and, as long as one could prove conclusively that one did not need it, the bank would, in effect, grant a loan very willingly.
Times changed the moment the explosion of the OPEC countries happened, when masses of funds were made available to the banks, which thereupon found themselves with the embarrassing necessity, having accepted the deposits, of relending them. So we had a new picture where banks, which had hitherto been operating under the kind of restriction which I mentioned and the kind of attitude which I experienced personally, began to fall over themselves in competing to lend. This was a complete revolution in the banking industry. I do not want to stray too far from the orders, but your Lordships will be familiar with the way in which banks fell over themselves and competed with one another in South America and other places in order to lend money under the most dubious excuses so as to make a profit on the money that had already been deposited with them by the OPEC countries.
But I do not wish to open old wounds. Suffice it to say that the banks have taken advantage of this position, and we now have the situation where, for example, if one looks at a television set, one finds that one can get free holidays for a week or a weekend by undertaking to borrow money from a bank. One finds all kinds of television features in which the attractiveness of borrowing from banks is shown.
It is quite right that the banks should be subjected to a degree of competition by the building societies, which traditionally have a much closer contact with the people than some of the bankers operating within their old context. Indeed, on the basis of their reputation and their rather closer assocation

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individually with their investors and their borrowers, the building societies ought to be in a position to offer services.
Of course they suffered a minor setback. Your Lordships will be familiar with the privatisation of exremely large undertakings, when people withdrew their money from building societies in order to make investments, largely for stagging purposes, in the newly-privatised industries. I am very happy to observe that after the initial euphoria most ex-building society depositors decided to cash in and returned their deposits to the building societies. This is most agreeable and, as long as the Building Societies Commission fulfils adequately the functions that are given to it in the earlier part of the Building Societies Act 1986, there is an adequate safeguard for both the depositors and the borrowers.
In the existing provisions of service, I think that it is sensible that a power should be taken to provide bridging finance. There can be no doubt that hitherto one of the difficulties that has assailed people in the process of disposing of a house and buying another, or finding themselves as part of a chain of people who have to dispose of their houses before they are able to buy others, is the provision of bridging finance to cover the gap that inevitably takes place between the completion of both sets of contracts. I and my colleagues are all in favour of the building societies operating in that field. There seems to be no valid reason, if only in the sense of enlarging the competitive area, why building societies should not operate within the wider definition of services incorporated in the current order.
I am little troubled, as indeed your Lordships may be, about the provision of unsecured loans of up to £10,000 subject to suitable safeguards. Consumer credit at present is growing at an alarming pace. The extra billions that are being added to the current consumer credit bill sooner or later have to be repaid. I sincerely hope that circumstances will continue so that people are not subjected to undue stress in the repayment of their obligations. However, one remains a little anxious—particularly if one has been brought up in the tradition of neither a borrower nor a lender be—about the explosion of credit that has taken place in the country over the past few years on residential and commercial properties, with prices soaring as they are at present. I do not want to sound unduly pessimistic in this matter, but it seems to me that we have to prepare ourselves for some time when this inflated bubble may be burst. One hopes not; and one hopes that when that time comes, as in my view it will inevitably come, the building societies and indeed the banks will be able to deal adequately with that situation.
The only other anxiety that I have lies in the period that commences after five years when building societies will be able to undertake what is euphemistically termed "conversion", which means that they will be able to become plcs. I am not sure that the interest of the borrowers or the depositors will he served unless the Building Societies Commission, in accordance with its general powers, keeps a very close eye on this under Section 1 of the Building Societies Act to safeguard the interests of both the borrowers and the lenders.
I am well aware that on conversion to a plc it will be forbidden for any outside institution to take more
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than a 15 per cent. interest in the converted plc. This does not reassure me very much. With the new powers given to the building societies under the orders, which, if I may say so, are very detailed and have been very well drafted, I cannot see why it should be necessary for there to be conversion into a plc of any building society, which is based very largely historically and indeed at present upon a degree of mutuality and upon the individual interests of building societies. I am well aware that the Government take a completely neutral attitude in the matter: they apparently do not mind whether there is conversion or not.
Experience of flotation, of conversion into a plc, in these circumstances has not always been reassuring. One hopes that the Building Societies Commission will be very vigilant if it gives its consent—if indeed it is empowered to give its consent—to operations of this kind. At present the building societies as such are there for the joint interests of their depositors and their borrowers. The exertion of control by outside shareholders on flotation, comprising perhaps some of the big City institutions making a profit on top of that, may inhibit the operation of the building societies as we know them.
These are misgivings only. I voice them because I think it is proper they should be voiced. However, in general, and in view of the clear and lucid explanation given by the Minister in support of the Motion to adopt the orders, we on this side see no reason to oppose them; indeed, we agree with the purpose and texts in which they are couched.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. I am sorry that he was disappointed when he came to look through the provisions of the orders. All I can say is that I very much hope that I shall be able to disappoint him again in future. He asked for an assurance that this is the last stab at the matter. We do not expect further legislation on this scale for some long time, but the complexity of the orders is because they will operate within the enabling powers of the Act itself.
The noble Lord mentioned the risks by those involved in competitive lending, particularly in overseas loans that have not performed or that have been found to be virtually too risky and perhaps have not been repaid. The Building Societies Act places clear constraints on societies so that they themselves cannot get involved in such areas. Most of their funds must come from retail sources in the form of traditional share accounts, and at least 75 per cent. of the lending must be in first mortgages on owner occupied houses.
The noble Lord mentioned the dangers of sources of credit rising with particular regard to the increase of the unsecured lending limit to individuals from £5,000 to £10,000. The limit has to cover all unsecured lending to an individual, including loans for minor repairs and improvements, furnishings for a new house, loans for a new car and the limit on any credit card issued by the society to its customer. The present limit is felt to be too tight to make operational sense. The Government have therefore agreed that it should be raised. We do not believe that this will mean that societies will start making large unsecured personal loans. They are prevented from doing so.

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The Building Societies Commission will continue to ensure that societies have adequate credit assessment and control procedures firmly in place.
The noble Lord expressed some doubts about the prudence of converting from a building society to a plc. This is an area where the rules relating to the procedures that have to be gone through are very carefully set out, and include the number of members of the building society who have to vote, and the number of those who vote who have to be in favour. The Government have no views as to whether they should or should not convert. However, we believe that after they have converted there is no reason why any social purpose should just disappear. After all, social purposes exist in many businesses, not just in mutual funds. It is hoped of course that that would continue.
After conversion, and after a five-year period, the noble Lord asked: what will happen then? That is a matter for the new company's commercial judgment. But we cannot and should not presume that a company would necessarily enter into high-risk areas. Any society which converts will be subject to prudential control by the Bank of England. That does not disappear after five years; it is an ongoing means of control. I am grateful to the noble Lord. I commend the first order standing in my name.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order 1988
7.31 p.m.
Lord Beaverbrook: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th May be approved. [27th Report from the Joint Committee]—[Lord Beaverbrook.]
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.32 to 8 p.m.]

Local Government Finance Bill
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Schedule 1.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 94, line 6, at end insert—
("Care workers
9A.—(1) A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if—

(a) at any time on the day he is employed to provide care or support (or both) to another person or other persons, and

(b) such conditions as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State are fulfilled.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of sub-paragraph (1)(b) above the conditions may—

(a) require the person's employer to be a charity or fulfil some other description;

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(b) relate to the period for which he is employed or other factors concerning his employment;

(c) require his income for a prescribed period (which contains the day concerned) not to exceed a prescribed amount;

(d) require his capital not to exceed a prescribed amount;

(e) require him to be resident in prescribed premises;

(f) require him not to exceed a prescribed age;

(g) require the other person or persons to fulfil a prescribed description (whether relating to age, disablement or otherwise).").

The noble Earl said: I am sure, my Lords, that this amendment will be welcomed on all sides of your Lordships' House. It has been tabled following discussion at an earlier stage of an amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, to exempt community service volunteers.
In the light of that discussion, the Government have reconsidered the issue very carefully and have concluded that there is a case for exempting a tightly-defined group of people who provide a valuable service to the community as voluntary carers for the elderly and disabled, in return for a very small reward—typically about £16 a week. The case for exempting this group of people does not, I must stress, rest solely on the undeniable fact that these young people provide an invaluable community service. The same can of course be said of many people whom we do not propose to exempt from the community charge. As I have said before, on many occasions, widespread exemptions would undermine our principal objective of restoring local accountability by spreading much more widely the burden of paying for local services.
Community service volunteers are, however, a special case by virtue of the fact that they are paid at a level considerably below the level of income support. Yet, because they are not available for work, they are not eligible for income support and do not therefore qualify for the extra income support payment which will reflect 20 per cent. of the average community charge. For this reason the Government have concluded that an exemption would he appropriate.
Your Lordships will have noticed that, under the amendment, the precise definition of a voluntary care worker will be set out in regulations. There was some measure of agreement at an earlier stage that it was not easy to define this group of people precisely. I am sure that the House will agree that it is sensible therefore to consult with charitable organisations, such as CSV, and with representatives of local authorities, before finalising the definition. The terms of the amendment do of course point in the direction we intend to follow by setting out the conditions which the Secretary of State may stipulate. These include the condition that the person is employed by a church or charity; conditions relating to the length of employment and the level of income and capital; and conditions relating to age, the residential nature of the job and the kind of person who is receiving care and support.
I believe that this amendment represents, in the clearest possible way, our willingness to listen to and to act upon the views expressed in your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
Lord Hastings: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the Minister on producing this

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amendment after the long discussion we had at the Committee stage. It was originally proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. They are evidently so content with the achievement of the noble Earl that they do not consider it necessary to be here. I am delighted with the amendment. Whatever reasons the noble Earl has given for his department convincing itself that the amendment is so necessary for the community service volunteers—whether it is on a moral basis or on a more practical basis, as I argued previously—it is necessary and desirable. The Government ran a grave risk of undermining that voluntary service and therefore making it very difficult for a number of elderly and disabled people to continue their lives comfortably as a result.
I am delighted that the Government have quite definitely exempted all community service volunteers. When we come to the other category of people mentioned when I spoke about this at the Committee stage—the more permanent voluntary workers in the various communities—I believe that the qualifications provided by sub-paragraph (2) in the amendment will cover these matters very well. The great majority, especially those I am thinking about, will be looked after in this respect.
There are two questions that I wish to ask the noble Earl. I do not believe that subparagraph (2)(d), which concerns capital not exceeding a prescribed amount, will affect a large number of people. But at the same time it is possible that before taking up this work they might previously have owned and kept a little cottage or something of that nature. I hope that that kind of asset will not be treated as disqualifying capital, and that it will depend much more on the income they receive from any little savings that they have. I hope that these measures will not be too stringent and I welcome a little clarification from the noble Earl when he replies.
My second point is possibly more confusing, or perhaps only I am confused. It concerns heading (f) which states that the person is not to exceed a prescribed age. I am not quite sure why that is included, because our people who do this excellent voluntary work and who may have devoted their lives to a certain community or organisation, may be pensioners but are still doing this work. I should like clarification on that and to know whether after a certain age they are to be exempted from the community charge, and if so why.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend's reply, but at the same time I am delighted on behalf of these people and congratulate the noble Earl and his department and thank them very much indeed.
Viscount Rochdale: My Lords, I assume that my noble friend's Amendment No. 19 has been directed mainly to fulfil an undertaking that he gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, on her amendment moved in Committee. I am sure that many Members on both sides of the House will be very glad about the amendment in so far as it meets that undertaking. I should like to go a little further because during the Committee stage it may be remembered that I too moved an amendment dealing with care workers, I was hopeful that my noble friend would have been able to do something about that amendment when it came to the Report stage.
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The care workers that I had in mind are those who are resident in charitable organisations. They deal with disabled people. These disabled people come for short courses and the whole charity and its institution at the moment carries no rates at all. But the care workers about whom I am concerned are a slightly different class to the care workers dealt with in the amendment proposed in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs. In her amendment care workers, as my noble friend has said this evening, have been volunteers. They have received board and lodging and little more except what one might regard as pocket money. Therefore they were eligible to be exempted. It is right in my view that my noble friend has taken that line. But I remind him that in my amendment the care workers were rather different. They also were resident in charitable homes. They also received free board and lodgings. However, in view of the fact that the disabled people who came to the institution on short, energetic courses had to be given special treatment—with the instructors being armed with considerable expertise not least because of the degree of danger in some of the activities undertaken by some of the disabled people—the care workers were paid a salary. The salaries that they are now paid are substantially lower than what might be regarded in relevant terms as being the going rate for their expertise.
If they are not to be exempted then in the particular charity that I have in mind the trustees have decided that they must increase their salaries to meet the extra cost and the income tax that would be relevant in order to make good their loss. That means that the charity will have to find approximately £4,000 a year to meet that burden. Where will that money come from? It can come only from two possible sources. Either it can come out of charitable funds, which means that the excellent activities of the charity must he reduced by that amount, or it can be levied on the disabled visitors. They already pay a small fee and they will have to pay more.
When I saw my noble friend's amendment I was glad to see that he was proceeding by way of regulations. I believe that that will provide a degree of flexibility, subject to the conditions laid down in the amendment, to meet some of the cases that I had in mind. As yet my noble friend has not commented on the point that I made and I hope that in winding up he will do so. I realise that there is always the possibility for these instructors to be able to have a percentage of rebates, but that is an uncertainty and it may not meet the situation entirely, if at all. While I am grateful to my noble friend for having introduced the amendment as it stands, and while on first reading the amendment 1 was encouraged to hope that it would meet some of my cases, I am worried by the fact that he has not mentioned that matter. I hope that he will be able to say something helpful in winding up. If nothing is done even if there is a degree of rebate, the disabled will suffer and one cannot escape from that fact.
I am sure that my noble friend is anxious to do all that he can to help the disabled. I am sure that his right honourable friend will be equally as anxious. It would be a great pity if at the end of the day they had the reputation of having done something which will be damaging to the well-being and progress in life of those disabled people.
8.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in shorthand this is "Thank you" number three of today. I say that on behalf of my noble friend Lady Ewart-Biggs who has retired to bed after 32 hours for a well-deserved rest. I know that she is grateful for the Government's amendment, which, as the noble Earl stated in a letter to me, is intended to give better effect to her amendment.
She has one qualification which I should like to convey to the House and I seek to draw out the Minister a little on the point. It is the question of the age limit. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has already referred to the matter, but a little bird tells me that the age limit is likely to be 16 to 35 years. I do not know whether there is any truth in that. I should like to suggest to the Minister that it would be undesirable to have any age limit for the reasons suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.
Taking the example of people in retirement entering a religious community, is there a great deal of difference in principle between that and people in retirement, later in life, over the age of 35, or whatever age—it does not matter—sacrificing all but a small amount of income, merely pocket-money, in order to help in a home or by helping individual people in need? As the noble Earl said in introducing the amendment, they are earning on average £16 per week, which is really pocket-money. Is it desirable to discourage those who may be taking retirement, or early retirement, from undertaking such work by excluding them from the exemption?
I appreciate that that is a matter for the Secretary of State to decide in regulations. At this stage it is not a matter which I wish to table as an amendment to the Government's amendment. I hope that the Minister will take the matter away and recognise that there is nothing significant about young people being community service volunteers. It could be people of all ages, and their case is equally strong because of the conditions in which they choose to work.
I have less expertise in the matters which the noble Viscount, Lord Rochdale, has introduced. I am sure that the Minister has taken serious account of them. It appears to be inequitable that, where permanent staff in residental care homes have in the past been exempt from rates because of their charitable status, they should now become liable to pay the poll tax for the first time, even though they are permanent and paid. That must come either from the pockets of the people in residential care or more probably from the pockets of the charity. That is an arithmetical certainty. I hope that in replying to the debate the Minister will be able to give comfort to his noble friends in addition to giving comfort to me.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful for the welcome that has been given to this amendment. I should like to say to my noble friend Lord Hastings that we have not yet decided to employ a capital test. We shall consult the organisations concerned before deciding whether to set a test and, if so, where to set it. We shall bear in mind what my noble friend has said. Of course the same point applies to the question of age. We shall bear in mind what your Lordships have said in deciding whether to use age as one of the criteria. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said, that is a matter to be decided in the future. Your
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Lordships' comments are important in the decision taken by my right honourable friend.
I understand that my noble friend Lord Rochdale would have preferred me to have gone further and announced a general exemption for all residential charity workers. However, I am pleased that he has welcomed the substantial concession for community service volunteers. I must say that salaried charity employees are not in our view in the same position as the group we wished to exempt because their financial situation is very different. As I have already said, we could not justify an exemption for them, notwithstanding the very high regard in which we all naturally hold them, without seriously eroding the essential objective of restoring local accountability.
I hasten to remind my noble friend that assistance will be available through the rebate scheme for those whose incomes are low although it may well be that in many cases the incomes of charity workers are sufficiently high to enable them to pay the full charge. I believe that my noble friend was not quite sure whether rebates would be available but perhaps I may assure him that if the criteria are met rebates will be available. I know that he will be pleased to recall that the rebate taper is better now than it was when the Bill was at an earlier stage.
I note what my noble friend said about increased costs to charities but I believe it is essential to bear in mind that the community charge is a personal liability which is completely unrelated to the premises in which a person lives. Like all adults charity workers would have to pay the charge whether they live in their own homes or in tied accommodation. Therefore there is no sense in which the community charge discriminates against charity workers who are required to live on the premises where they are employed rather than in their own houses. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 20 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 94, line 41, at end insert ("and
(c) the day does not fall within a period in which a person is temporarily residing, as a result of actual or threatened violence, in a refuge established for that purpose, or in such other accommodation as prescribed by order made by the Secretary of State.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall move this amendment in the absence of my noble friend Lady Lockwood who is unable to be here, as I am sure the House will recognise, as her husband died at the week-end.
In the circumstances I do not believe that I can do much more than ask questions of the noble Earl and convey the answers he gives back to my noble friend. The purpose of the amendment is well known; it was discussed in Committee. The amendment is about women's refuges; those refuges which are provided for battered wives and those who are threatened by violence by their husbands. Indeed, the amendment is quite properly phrased without the gender implications which are implicit in what I have said—it could be a husband battered by a wife.
In an earlier debate this afternoon when we were discussing the release of information from the social services to the community charge registrar, the

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Minister indicated that those who are under threat of violence would he exempted from the disclosure requirements. That seemed to indicate, unless I misunderstood him, some degree of understanding of the problems which exist for those who are fleeing from marital violence.
I hope that he will feel able to recognise that the same problem exists not only in terms of disclosure of the address—which is clearly a very sensitive issue—but also in terms of the financial circumstances in which those people who are under threat of violence find themselves. If they have left the marital home under threat of violence it is clear that they have done so under huge provocation and almost certainly without proper financial preplanning. Indeed, I would venture to say that it would certainly be without proper financial pre-planning because, by definition, that is almost ruled out. They will be in very uncomfortable and dangerous circumstances, possibly personally in relation to children and in relation to the threats which exist from the spouse from whom they are fleeing.
It would not be an inhumane gesture on behalf of the Government to agree to the amendment of my noble friend. I am sure it would not cost a great deal and I do not believe that it would do any significant harm to the principle of accountability. However, it would show a recognition which the Government have already shown in relation to the disclosure of information as regards exemption from the community charge. I beg to move.
Lord Meston: My Lords, perhaps I may briefly support this amendment. Women—and it is usually women—who are in those refuges are not there by choice. They do not wish to stay there a moment longer than they have to but very often they are at the lowest ebb in their lives. It would be a humane gesture by the Government to accept the amendment.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, said, this amendment is identical to one moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, at an earlier stage. I am sure that all your Lordships would like to join me in sending our greatest condolences to the noble Baroness. Our thoughts are with her as indeed they are with the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, in these difficult times for both of them.
I should like to begin, as I did at an earlier stage, by underlining the Government's high estimation of the work done by women's organisations in providing places of refuge for women who suffer from or face the prospect of domestic violence. I think it is evidence of the high regard in which we hold these organisations, and also of our willingness to listen to their case, that we decided to allow battered wives, and other people who live under threat of violence, to register for the personal community charge without making public their names and addresses. That covers one concern raised by the noble Lord in moving the amendment.
We have also assured women's organisations that, in practice, women's refuges will not be designated for the purposes of the collective community charge—which was one of their original concerns.
We have, therefore, gone some considerable way to meet the difficulties foreseen by women's
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organisations. Indeed we have gone as far as we believe we can go without departing from the principles underlying our policies—most notably the objective of restoring local accountability by ensuring that almost every adult has a financial stake in the decisions of his or her local authority.
I can assure the noble Lord that I have listened with great care to everything he has said about the question of an exemption, which is the issue which divides us. But, even after further reflection, the Government remain of the view that it would be unjustifiable to grant an exemption to women in refuges. As I have said before, we believe that exceptions can generally be justified only for those groups for whom local accountability cannot be said to operate. Women in refuges cannot be said to fall into that category.
I must of course re-emphasise the Government's acceptance of the fact that many women in refuges will need help in paying the community charge. That help can and will be provided, where appropriate, by means of rebates of up to 80 per cent. and the uprating of income support to reflect the minimum 20 per cent. liability. Once a married woman leaves the marital home, and ceases to live in the same household as her husband, she will become eligible to apply both for a rebate and for income support on the basis of her own income—not on the basis of her and her husband's joint income. Similarly a person who has been living with a man will become eligible to apply for a rebate and income support in her own right, as soon as she and the man cease to live together as husband and wife.
I do understand that the concern is not just with the entitlement of battered women to benefits, but with the practical arrangements for claiming those benefits. I have done my best to demonstrate to your Lordships and to representatives of women's organisations, that any practical difficulties can be overcome. I explained at some length during an earlier stage how I believed the practical arrangements would operate smoothly and efficiently. I know that I may not have fully convinced the noble Lord of this. But I must say to him that the Government could not justify exempting a group of people on the grounds that those people would prefer not to have to claim a rebate.
I hope that the explanations which I have given will satisfy the noble Lord that most of the fears which he has announced this evening will be met.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in the circumstances I do not believe that I can do much more than convey the remarks of the noble Earl to my noble friend. However, I fear that she will be disappointed, as am I, with his response. It is not just a matter of what these people want. The whole argument which is being put is on the basis that they will or may become eligible for income support and for relief on that basis.
However, the point we are trying to make is that their position in these battered wives' refuges is inherently unstable. As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, they do not want to be there. They are there because it is the first point to which they can return. They do not intend to stay there and do not feel any particular affinity with or responsibility towards the local authority area in which the refuge

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is likely to be located. Therefore, the accountability argument does not apply at all. Presumably they want, as soon as they possibly can, to get out of the refuge and into a place where they can close the front door behind them and feel that they are on their own and are forming a stable household again.
This is very comparable in many ways to the short stay issue which we were debating earlier. I am sure there are very few people who stay in women's refuges of this kind for very long. If the Minister is not able to accede to the exemption argument put forward by my noble friend Lady Lockwood, will he at least consider between now and Third Reading whether there is a case for these refuges being considered comparable to short stay hostels and therefore subject to a 20 per cent. charge rather than the full charge? I invite him to respond to that before I finally make up my mind what to do about the amendment.
8.30 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I shall consider that in the cold light of day rather than immediately. My first reaction is that I do not think that women's refuges and short stay hostels are comparable. I see quite a major difference between the two systems. However, I should like to look at the matter in a little more detail.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, and with the leave of the House, not all married women who are abused find their way to hostels which are designated to provide special facilities for that type of person. I recall from my experiences in Manchester that there was a large women's hostel near the city centre which catered for a wide variety of ladies who were on their own. I am sure this experience is repeated in other cities, certainly in London. Some of these ladies were working and able to earn a living and support themselves entirely, but, because the hostel was in the city centre, people who had nowhere to go and were in distress, perhaps because of problems of violence at home, used to find their way there to live as a temporary relief. Can the Minister indicate whether such individuals will receive sympathetic consideration on the lines enunciated by my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey? I think there are a number of hostels throughout the country which have a percentage of that type of person in them, though they are not specifically for that purpose.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I think that the situation that the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, is describing is covered by earlier amendments relating to hostel accommodation rather than the women's refuges that we are talking about at the moment. The noble Lord can be assured that on general purpose hostels, where people are not receiving treatment or care, we have already made a major concession to come down to 20 per cent. of the community charge. The situation of battered wives is slightly different.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the situation may be different, but I suggest that in the cold light of day the Minister may feel that the case is even stronger for battered wives' hostels, and I
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hope that he will convey that view to his right honourable and honourable friends.
I do not think that my noble friend Lady Lockwood would wish me to do other than to thank the Minister for his response, to indicate my continuing concern on this matter, but beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 94, line 41, at end insert—
("Persons without fixed abodes
12.—(1) A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if—

(a) throughout the day he has no fixed abode in England and Wales or elsewhere, and

(b) at the end of the day the place of his sole or main residence does not consist of a building, caravan or residential boat.

(2) A residential boat is a boat which is designed or adapted for human habitation.").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 22 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 23 and 129.
During Committee stage, I said that I would consider whether homeless people should explicitly be exempt from the personal community charge. The result of that deliberation is this group of amendments. We have decided that it would be right to ensure that the community charge is not payable by those who sleep rough. These people, who may live in cardboard boxes in central London, or as tramps in country areas, are probably the most unfortunate members of society. This debate is perhaps not the time for discussion of why they are living in those conditions, or what can be done about it. But we have decided that we should not add to their troubles by making them subject to the personal community charge, even in theory. Nor would we wish community charges registration officers and local authorities to be faced—again, even in theory—with the duty to register these people for the community charge and collect it from them.
The amendments seek to add to the exemption schedule a new paragraph setting out the basis for an exemption for people with no fixed abode. The kernel of the proposed definition is based on a proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, at Committee stage. It applies to individuals whose sole or main residence, at the end of the day, does not consist of a building, caravan or residential boat. We have added the requirement that he should have no fixed abode—to prevent, for example, a person becoming exempt simply because he spends a week on holiday in a tent. I hope that this amendment will have the approval of the House. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this is "thank you" No. 4. The Minister is right in calling it a major concession. Indeed, I am tempted to call it a victory because of the strength of the argument which was put in favour of the case for not taxing the homeless. The media have already picked it up as being a major victory, and I believe they are right.
At least the Government have saved themselves from further cartoons showing the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for the Environment going round with torches and peering into cardboard boxes under Charing Cross arches. I am sorry, that is unnecessary levity for what is clearly a very serious

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problem with which, as the noble Earl says, we are not capable of dealing tonight. The causes of homelessness are a major matter which Parliament itself ought to consider with due seriousness on some more suitable occasion.
However, it is proper to say that the Government have recognised that the community charge would have been an unnecessary and extremely damaging extra burden on those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves homeless. We can only express our thanks to the Government for the amendment which has been proposed and indicate that we shall support it.
Lord Renton: My Lords, this amendment is a splendid concession, but of course a resourceful and determined person could drive a coach and horses through it. Indeed, anyone who had a motor vehicle of any kind might wish to have been included in it. I suppose that there is quite a number of vagrant people with old jalopies as their only residence who would claim that they have as good a case for consideration as other people. Therefore, one wonders whether the words:
"does not consist of a building, caravan or residential boat"
should not be increased by adding "or motor vehicle".
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I always listen with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, says, but I think that on this occasion he might himself be introducing a little levity. Having spoken at quite some length on this particular problem in the early stages of the Bill, I join with my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey in the appreciation he has expressed for this concession which shows recognition of the problems of homeless people. I think it would be extremely difficult to find anybody whom we would term "homeless" who would be in the ownership of even four wheels and chassis let alone a car capable of passing the necessary test to put it on the road.
Along with some of my colleagues, such as my noble friends Lord Graham and Lord Stallard, who is unable to be here tonight, I should like to record my appreciation of the way that the Government have looked at this problem. There is no question but that, by every known criterion, homelessness is increasing at a faster rate than has ever been known before. I have listened to the logic of the argument and I have accepted it. As I said before, I welcome what the Government are prepared to do in this case.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful for the welcome that has been given to this amendment. However, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, I believe that my noble friend Lord Renton has a point.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I know that he is a very busy man, as most of us are. If the Minister could take time off from his very busy life to travel around inner London with those of us who have already been there, to where these people have to live, if he finds anything resembling a motor car that any of them own, I shall be absolutely amazed. There is a possibility that somewhere one might find an odd
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one, but when the noble Lord, Lord Renton, used the term "resourceful" as regards someone driving a coach and horses through what the Government are suggesting for homeless people, I believe that to be a flight of fancy.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to ask a question of the Minister. In the light of what my noble friend Lord Renton said, as the amendment is worded, can I ask what is the status of people such as members of the peace convoy? I believe that these are people who would have the means to pay 20 per cent. or more of the community charge, but they would be living in a battered vehicle, a battered bus or whatever.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Blatch has put her finger right on the pulse of the matter. That is what I intended to say to my noble friend Lord Renton before the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, sprung to the rapid defence of his argument. We are not only talking about people in central London. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that to find a coach and horses and jalopies in central London might be a little tricky. However, if he comes with me to the country and dons his wellie boots, I believe that there is a fair chance that he might look at the problem from a slightly different point of view.
My noble friend hits the point because any addition to an exemption inevitably makes interpretation of who is to be subject to the charge much more difficult. I can assure the noble Lord that we shall be watching very carefully to see how the legislation is interpreted. If necessary, we shall make amendments to achieve the correct result. Generally, where people live in structures that are designed or adapted for habitation, whether or not they are mobile, we envisage that they will he subject to the personal charge. Such persons will generally have incomes from earnings or from social security benefits. That is the point of the so-called peace convoy or more likely a hippie convoy, which my noble friend Lady Blatch mentioned.
I cannot fail but take the opportunity to remind the House that if there were to be a local income tax, that would also require people with nomadic lifestyles to be assigned to a particular local authority area. There are some difficulties in that situation. I hate to become involved in matters of interpretation with such an eminent lawyer as my noble friend Lord Renton, but an old jalopy is neither a fixed abode, a building nor a caravan. Therefore a tramp with only an old jalopy would be exempt and I am sure that your Lordships will agree that he should be exempt. If the vehicle is designed or adapted for human habitation, it will be a caravan and in that case we hope that the person will not be exempt.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I ask him whether he is not stretching the words of his amendment a little far. It is only the residential boat which is specifically mentioned as something which is designed or adapted for human habitation. It seems to me that if someone has a motor vehicle of almost any kind and he has no fixed abode and that:
"his sole or main residence does not consist of a building, caravan or residential boat",

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but is a motor vehicle, he would claim exemption from the community charge. That is my point.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that only confirms how wary I am about taking on the noble Lord on a matter of interpretation. Perhaps I may look at the point between now and another stage.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Section 3: interpretation]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 3, line 40, leave out subsection (10).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 5 [Persons subject to collective community charge]:
Lord Hesketh Lord Hesketh moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 4, line 12, leave out ("Act") and insert ("Part").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 24, 35, 53, 154, 156, 170 and 192 are all simple drafting amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 4, line 23, leave out paragraph (c).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 25 I also speak to Amendments Nos. 26, 37, 38 and 40 which stand in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, and myself. In total the amendments are designed to raise the concept of what we call a family community charge. What we are trying to do in this series of amendments—I shall not weary the House by going into the details—is to ask noble Lords to recognise that, besides raising revenue or making families, homes, individuals and businesses accountable, there is something else that we should be trying to achieve in running our lives—namely, seeking to maintain the unity of the family.
We recognise that this is an additional veneer to the already complicated basis of the community charge. In essence we are saying that there is a group of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who can be very easily driven away from home because of the fact that they have to pay the community charge or a charge has to be borne by them, the parents or the family. In addition, we have in the nuclear family those who are very old and yet no age is taken into account as regards the burden of payment.
The concept that I am asking the Minister to accept in principle is that, in order to maintain the unity of the family as far as possible, one may be able to devise a means whereby the totality of the payment for the family in a household is not merely four or five times the charge, but that there are allowances built in because of the age of the young or old people who are on the margin. We are not putting forward this concept as being the saviour to the break-up of homes and social disruption. We are arguing that this could be a useful device which will enable families to stay together.
The argument we put forward is that those in the family who are not working or who are elderly should be able, with dignity, to remain as a family unit. Even if the Minister is not prepared to accept this suggestion because of other reasons, I hope that he will pay tribute to the basis of the amendment which has been promoted by a number of well-known organisations and individuals. It is not an attempt to evade or thwart what the Government are doing. In practice we believe that for people on the margin, if less money is paid to the community arising out of the community charge, there could be great cost-saving by the community if we have more well-integrated and loving family units living at home. The social cost of the full implementation of the community charge may well be high. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I see the point that the noble Lord is trying to make, but paragraph (c) in Amendment No. 26, which is the main amendment to which he is addressing his mind, leaves itself open to varied interpretations. The expression "wholly or mainly" can be quite easily interpreted by registration officers in different ways. There is also the expression "sole or main residence". "Sole residence" gives rise to no problem at all; but "main residence" can have different interpretations, according to different opinions. While I appreciate the point that the noble Lord is trying to make—in human terms it is worth making—I have some doubt whether the solution he proposes would be administratively workable.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, these amendments are revised versions of amendments tabled at an earlier stage. My noble friend Lord Brentford took the trouble to write to me about his proposals and I was therefore able to write back to him with a full explanation of why, even in their revised forms, the amendments do not find favour with the Government. Some of what I say repeats what I have said to him in writing, but I am sure that it will be helpful to all noble Lords if I set out the Government's case in full.
The central feature of the amendments is the collective assessment of families. That is, I am afraid, unacceptable to the Government because, despite what the noble Lord. Lord Graham of Edmonton, said, it runs directly counter to our policy of increasing local accountability. One of the great drawbacks of domestic rates, which is in effect a household or family tax, is that rate bills are sent only to householders, of whom there are about 18 million in England, out of an adult population of more than 35 million. The result is that about half the adult population has no direct and immediate stake in the spending decisions of the local councils. This in turn means that councils are not fully accountable to the people who pay for local services. We believe that local accountability can be restored only if almost every adult makes a direct contribution towards the cost of local services. This will be achieved under the community charge, because almost every adult will receive a bill for which he or she will be personally responsible. I think it is clear that any system of collective assessment would undermine these objectives.
It will of course be possible, under our proposals, for a family to opt for a collective method of

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payment; they could choose to pay all of their community charge bill together. But that, I believe, is as far as we can go without seriously detracting from what we regard as a vital principle: a separate bill for almost every adult.
The second main feature of the noble Lord's amendment is the proposal that young dependants, spouses and elderly relatives should pay only one-fifth of the full community charge. I can assure the House that on this issue there is really very little between us. The Government share the belief that assistance must be given to those who are unable to pay the full charge and, in particular, the needs of dependent relatives and young people on low incomes must be catered for. We are confident that we will achieve this through our proposed rebate system and through uprating income support. It is important to appreciate that, with the exception of married and unmarried couples, who will be assessed on the basis of their joint incomes, all adults will be separately assessed, both for income support and for rebates. This means, for example, that an elderly person living on the state retirement pension with his or her children will qualify for the maximum 80 per cent rebate, plus an extra amount of income support to reflect the 20 per cent. liability, regardless of the children's income.
Where I must disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham, is over his proposal that rebates should be paid to those who do not qualify for a rebate under the Government's scheme. We believe that our proposals—for the joint assessment of spouses and the individual assessment of all other adults, on the basis of their incomes—are fair and adequate and that there is no need for a supplementary rebate scheme. In any case, many if not most of the people about whom the noble Lord is particularly concerned will already benefit under our proposals. For example, any over-80 year-old who is dependent on another person—perhaps a son or daughter—would almost certainly qualify for the maximum rebate.
In conclusion, I should like to remind your Lordships of the major benefits which the community charge will bring to many of the most needy families in our community—the very people about whom all noble Lords are concerned. Eighty-four per cent. of single pensioners living alone will be better off than under the present system, as will 90 per cent. of one-parent families. On average, families with a net weekly income of less than £150 a week will also be better off with the community charge than with rates.
I felt it right to speak at a little length even at this hour of the night because I recognise the noble Lord's concerns. However, I am convinced that they are more than adequately dealt with in the Bill as it stands.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am a little disappointed. However, to be fair to the Minister, he and his colleagues have taken seriously the points that were put to them. He was also fair enough to point out that correspondence has been exchanged with the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, who I am pleased to see in his place. He may very well wish to say a few words.
What the noble Earl has said will be read with great interest by many outside the House. I do not dispute the fact that various measures are already available to
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individuals. The Minister has introduced exceptions for a range of deserving groups—religious communities, the homeless and those unfortunate people who have to stay in refuges. This amendment asked the Government to look at a unique and loving relationship—the family unit. The Minister has indicated that he is satisfied that the Bill as it stands takes account of all the points that were raised. Unless anyone else wishes to intervene, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]
9 p.m.
Clause 6 [Community charges register]:
Lord Flowers Lord Flowers moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 5, line 9, at end insert—
("except that a person falling within section 13(1) below who is not a United Kingdom national may request that his name and address shall be omitted from any public version of the charging authority's register, and the charging authority shall have regard to the circumstances of the request.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I begin with an apology. The amendment resembles one which I moved in Committee and later withdrew after the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, had kindly given me certain assurances. In fact, the present amendment differs significantly from the earlier one, as I shall briefly explain in a moment. However, in the meantime the matter has become much more urgent, which is why I feel justified in asking your Lordships to reconsider it even at this late stage.
My objective is to allow foreign persons—your Lordships will understand that I have a special concern for overseas students from countries in political turmoil—to have their names and addresses removed from any public version of the charge authority's register if they believe that they or their families back home are in danger of severe political harassment or physical harm, including terrorist attacks. It is in a sense a companion amendment to Amendment No. 21, in which violence also entered; and so I fear that I already know what the Government's reaction may be, although the question of being excused from taxation does not arise in this case.
Since I last spoke, it has come to my attention that a group of students in one of our universities, who were opposed to the Baha'ist regime in Iraq, were physically attacked by supporters of that regime. Those supporters are also believed to have delivered milk contaminated with a dangerous drug to the victims' homes. It has also come to light that several countries have attempted, through their embassies in this country, to obtain the names and current addresses of students who are their nationals. According to my information, they include: Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Libya, Morocco, Uganda and Zambia—a fairly formidable list.
Of course, in the universities we have always refused to give such information. However, sometimes it leaks out and someone gets hurt. Since I last spoke on the matter, an Iraqi student has been stabbed in Manchester. The position is becoming most dangerous and very unpleasant indeed. We are especially concerned that the children of any political

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leader—not excluding members of the United Kingdom Government—could also be at risk.
In Committee the noble Earl assured me that the charging authority's registration officer would have discretion to exclude from publication the names and addresses where he considered that that was warranted—and I accepted that. However, on reflection, I must say that I no longer consider that to be adequate in the present circumstances, as I have just described them. The registration officer is unlikely to be a person of standing and experience in the politics of terrorism. On the other hand, I may have gone too far when, in the original amendment, I proposed that any foreign national could "elect" to have his name and address removed from the register. Therefore I now propose that he may "request" to have reference to himself removed from the public version of the register and that the request should be made to the charging authority itself—to which the matter would presumably be referred by the registration officer—and that
"the charging authority shall have regard to the circumstances of the request".
I see no reason why the name and address of any person should appear on any public document, if the person concerned explicitly prefers it otherwise. Many of your Lordships will have had personal references removed from the telephone directory for reasons much less serious than fear of terrorism. Of course that does not mean that the telephone authorities are unaware of the missing numbers, or of the corresponding names and addresses—although I must confess that I sometimes wonder about that. However, perhaps that is another matter.
The present amendment tries to deal with a nasty problem affecting persons who are visitors to our country, who have come here for a serious purpose and to whom we have traditionally offered protection and welfare. It tries to deal with the problem in a manner requiring no complex or time-consuming procedures, no loss of taxation income or breach—so far as I can see—of any of the principles enuciated in Committee by the noble Earl. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as a layman in such matters, but having read the debate which took place in Committee, I wish to express my support for the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers. He has been merciful to the House in that he has been most sparing in his quotations from the long list of evidence of attempts to "get at" students from different countries which has been supplied to him by various universities. In fact the list goes on for three pages and if he had read it out in full, I think that noble Lords would have felt—even more strongly than they ought to feel now—that he had made a valid case for this modest element of further confidentiality and privacy.
I wish to emphasise that there is no attack in the amendment on the principle of the community charge and there is no question of anyone being exempt or rebated from the community charge. What is required is that those who come from countries which are unfortunately less liberal in their political approach than we are and which seek to pursue their vindictive attacks on opponents of their regimes—even on students who are studying in this
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country—should not be able in any way to do so by the requirements which might be placed on the certification officers in our universities and colleges.
I hope that the Government will see the force of this case, which is a humanitarian one, and will feel able to support the amendment or, at least, something like it.
Lord Trafford: My Lords, I should like to express my support for this amendment. It is of course a pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, on this occasion rather than to disagree with him—even if mildly—as has happened previously. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is aware that the number of overseas students, of all varieties, is steadily rising. The regimes from which they come, even if they are apparently fairly mild at the time when the students come here, can change quite dramatically while they are here. Therefore it seems to be that what is proposed is not unreasonable.
However, I am not 100 per cent. certain that this is the right drafting of the amendment. But the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, said that he felt that this amendment was better than the previous draft, and it certainly would appear to be so. I do not, however, wish to detain the House but I should like to say that from my own experience, and my own knowledge of such matters from the same kind of sources, I too hope that my noble friend will give the amendment all due consideration.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am grateful for the support expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Trafford. This is a most modest little amendment. As has been said, it does not attempt to exempt anyone from any charge. It does not, so far as I can see, challenge the principle of accountability. However, the amendment is concerned with what I think your Lordships may occasionally have observed—that is, if any of you are capable of deciphering the graffiti on the London underground—namely; the tendency of quarrels of other countries to overflow into our own. It is something which is not peculiar to our country. It has happened in Paris, and it has happened in the United States where not so many years ago there was a quite alarming murder of the leading Baha'i in Stamford, Connecticut, which caused intense fear in the Baha'i community in that city—and for good reasons.
There have been murders in this country conducted by nationals of a foreign country against their fellow nationals for the sake of political disputes which had been imported. Apart from the evidence put before the House by the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, there is reason to suppose that the danger here is a real one. We know about the gathering of names, the threats and the fear of physical injury. I am not exaggerating when I say that in passing the amendment the House could just possibly be responsible for the saving of life. That is not something that legislation can often do. It is a point which I hope the Minister will feel able to think about.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there is nothing between the Government and your Lordships—those who have spoken and those who have not—who are concerned about the matter. We agree entirely about

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the importance of ensuring that those at risk of violence are not put under any greater risk as a result of the community charge system. The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, admitted as much when withdrawing a similar amendment after debate in Committee. I hope that I can reconvince him of our good intentions.
The community charge register under Clause 6 will not be publicly available. It is only the extract, dealt with in paragraph 16 of Schedule 2, which will be available for public inspection.
We decided several months ago to provide the right for an individual who was under threat of violence to secure that his name should not appear on that extract it, by being included, he would be under an increased risk of being traced. As I understand it, the amendment is limited to overseas students. That is obviously but one category of individual we have much in mind. There may equally be others.
Lord Flowers: My Lords, the amendment refers to persons, not to students. I spoke about students, but the amendment relates to overseas persons.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord if I misread his amendment. That confirms the point I was about to make—that students form only one category of individual we have in mind. There will be others, besides overseas nationals, who should have the same protection. They will be people, from overseas or not, who are at risk or individuals who fear domestic violence. We have already debated the position of battered wives.
We intend, in regulations made under paragraph 16 of Schedule 2, to provide a right for all those people to have their names omitted from the published extract of the register if they are under threat of violence. We shall consult on the drafting of the relevant regulation. I appreciate that universities and other bodies have a legitimate interest in the matter.
I shall return quickly to the point about students. The amendment refers forward to Clause 13(1), which is only about students. I was right in my initial interpretation, but even so, I think that we have covered the point that we are concerned not only about students. Overseas nationals come here. Some of them will need and will rightly obtain protection and some will not.
The noble Lord, Lord Flowers, asked who would take the decision. We can look in detail at the guidance to registration officers with regard to taking decisions on this point. However, I am not sure that giving responsibility to the charging authority, as the amendment proposes, is the obvious answer. We should not want the matter debated publicly in the local authority committee. That might increase some of the hazards. The proper guidance to the registration officer keeps the net much tighter, because the fewer people who know about unfortunate people in these circumstances the better.
I emphasise that our aim is exactly the same as that of noble Lords: to protect those individuals. The regulation-making power gives flexibility in achieving that. I reaffirm to the noble Lord that we will consult closely on the details of the regulations.
Lord Flowers: My Lords, I must apologise for unwittingly attempting to mislead the House. The Minister has put us right on that point. It is clear that the Government's intentions, which have been even more clearly spelt out this time than in Committee, are entirely at one with what I and my noble colleagues have been suggesting. Everything will of course depend on the regulations and the instructions given to registration officers. I for one shall watch with great care what goes on in that respect. However, with the assurances that have been given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Meston Lord Meston moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 5, line 36, at end insert—
("( ) The registration officer shall at all times have regard to the provisions of the Data Protection Code of Practice which shall be issued by the Secretary of State in Regulations, in terms of the powers contained in Schedule 2.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am conscious of the fact that Amendments Nos. 28, 29 and 30 have been grouped together, and I shall therefore speak to them together although my view is that they deserve to be considered separately on their individual merits, as they differ. I hope that in replying to these amendments the noble Earl will feel able to deal in some way with the amendments individually.
Amendment No. 28 takes us back to the Committee stage where the Minister indicated that a data protection code of practice would be drawn up. The indication was that although such a code of practice would be drawn up, it would not be specifically referred to in the Bill itself. We thereupon had the very familiar discussion, which seems to arise in every Bill in which a code of practice is mentioned, as to whether it would be an advisory or a mandatory code of practice.
Amendment No. 28 tries to resolve that uncertainty. It requires the registration officer at all times to have regard to the code of practice as he carries out his functions and exercises his discretion. Therefore the status and enforceability of the code would be clear. It would still be the position that even then the code of practice would not be binding; the obligation on the registration officer would simply be to have regard to the code.
I think that the best argument in favour of this amendment is that if a code of practice properly drawn is to be of value, it should be referred to on the face of the Bill and should not be relegated to some form of guidance note for the registration officers. So much for Amendment No. 28.
Amendment No. 29, on the face of it, is self-evident in that it proposes that:
"The registration officer shall obtain the information which he requires, and process the data, fairly and lawfully".
What is not apparent from those words is that it introduces into the Bill the data protection Principle 1 taken from the Data Protection Act of 1984. In practical terms it removes registration officers from the exemption which otherwise exists under the 1984 Act which is applicable to information gathered under some enactment. In requiring registration officers to act fairly, the amendment will ensure that those who provide information for the register are made aware of the uses to which that information is to be put. It will also restrain the overzealous

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registration officers as they go about their task of seeking information. It will require those who may otherwise be tempted to use deceit or practise nondisclosure to state the reason behind the inquiries they are making, whether they be inquiries of neighbours, employers or any other third parties. That is Amendment No. 29.
Last but not least is Amendment No. 30. I regard this as the long stop, and it is an important long stop because it provides that there shall be some limit on the powers of registration officers. I suggest that the fewer specific limits there are in the Bill, the greater the need for a general limit in these terms.
At Committee stage an amendment along these lines was met by the argument from the Government that they felt that what is known as the Wednesbury principle would be a sufficient restraint. The Government indicated to the Minister that they had taken advice. Clearly I wished to consider the position and take a little learned advice for myself. My own researches, and perhaps more importantly, the advice which has been taken suggests that the Wednesbury principle of unreasonableness upon which the Government say we should rely is too limited. The Wednesbury principle enables a court to control executive acts and decisions, but the courts will only interfere if an executive body acts preposterously or in a way which verges on bad faith. The amendment will give some protection and guidance to cover the less extreme cases. If I am right and the two concepts of reasonableness are not the same, I suggest that what I propose in the amendment is to be preferred; that is, a broader, all-embracing requirement that the registration officer,
"shall seek only such information as he may reasonably require".
If I am wrong and the two concepts are the same, there is clearly no harm in having an expressed statement on the face of the Bill that the registration officer should act reasonably. That would still do some good. It would be a clear statement in the Bill that Parliament intends, for the benefit of registration officers and the courts, that there should be a general reasonableness limit on registration officers in the way they go about their job of obtaining information. It would still allow a discretion to the registration officer which the courts will, generally speaking, respect provided it is within the concept of reasonableness.
Amendment No. 30 is particularly important. The Government surely must realise that the success of the community charge depends upon public confidence, and the success in setting up the administration of the community charge will also depend on public confidence. But perhaps more important than those practical considerations are the considerations which underlie all these amendments—that the community charge and those who administer it should not intrude in people's lives any more than is absolutely necessary as a bare minimum. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, when the Data Protection Act came before us some years ago my recollection is that the kind of protection that it was intended to give was not the kind of protection which the noble Lord seeks in this case. When the Data Protection Act was
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before us nobody envisaged that this Bill, or indeed anything like it, would ever come before us.
The noble Lord, Lord Meston, is quite right to have tabled this amendment in order to draw the Government on the way in which the registration officer, those who will give him information and those who will be able to see the lists should behave in relation to these matters. That is perfectly fair. But my own feeling is that the provisions to which my noble friend Lord Caithness drew our attention on the previous amendment should provide the kind of protection which is needed. I do not think much more is needed. I am thinking particularly of the provisions of Schedule 2(2) which go into some detail as regards exactly how much is revealed.
The noble Lord, Lord Meston, may be much more concerned about the way in which the registration officer obtains his information. Again, without specifying the exact provisions, we know from the discussions we have already had on this Bill that there are limits to which he can go. Members on both sides of the House have very properly drawn attention to the fact that he should not have a roving commission which acts as a kind of detective finding out information from wherever the registration officer likes. However, I do not think that we need to go into the further restrictive provision or protective provision which the noble Lord envisages in his amendments. I doubt whether my noble friend would feel justified in accepting those amendments.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, perhaps the House will permit me to be pedantic for a moment. Amendment No. 29 requires the registration officer to act lawfully. It seems inappropriate to put that on the face, of any Bill.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Renton, because, like him, I recall the debates in your Lordships' House concerning the Data Protection Act 1984. He is right in saying that at that time we did not envisage that there would ever be legislation of this kind before the House. It must have been for that reason that we allowed the provision in Clause 1 of the Data Protection Act—principle 1 of the data protection principles—that none of the principles apply to any data the disclosure of which is authorised or required by any enactment. The Data Protection Act says that if data were authorised by or required by an enactment, it is assumed that they have been obtained fairly if they have been obtained by a person who is authorised or required by law to provide them. I believe that it is clear from the debates which we have had on this Bill that that is not the case here.
In Scotland the community charge registrar for Strathclyde has been in dispute with his local authority about the lengths to which he was prepared to go in carrying on what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has called detective work in order to complete the register. There has been a state of what might be called undeclared war between the registrar and the Strathclyde regional council which cannot be good for the name of local government or for the reputation and job of the community charge registrar. To that extent something more is required than the simple assumption that the registrars will behave reasonably and properly.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, questions whether it is right to speak on the face of the Bill of information being acquired fairly and lawfully. That is the phrase which is used in the first of the data protection principles. It applies to information which could be required by law or could be obtained for any other purpose. There is a perfectly good precedent for using the phrase "fairly and lawfully" and it has a specific meaning to which the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has referred. It means that a person who is required to give information should be told why the information is being collected and all the ways in which it will be used.
Those are not principles which the Government will resist. I am sure that they will argue that information collected for the community charge register is being collected from those who are being told why it is being collected and how it will be used. Perhaps we shall pursue that matter further when we consider Amendments Nos. 30A, 75 and 76. However, the principle has been raised with the Government. I believe that the issue is well understood and that it would not be out of keeping for that phrase to be used in the Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has told the House, the second condition in collecting data fairly and lawfully is that they should not be collected by deceit. Deceit is a very strong word. However, I suggest to the House that some of the indirect methods which some community charge registrars might be tempted to use—by that I mean using information collected for some other purpose for the purposes of the community charge register—could well border on deceit and would certainly border on a breach of the condition of being told why the information is being collected and how it will be used.
It is not only right that the words "fairly and lawfully" should be on the face of the Bill; it is also a precaution which is necessitated by the experience we have had in Scotland and by the powers which the community charge registrar is being given in other parts of the Bill. For those reasons I support Amendment No. 29 in particular but also the other two amendments.
I think that the amendment concerning data protection principles is particularly necessary because of the exchange that we had in Committee on 6th June. That was an occasion on which the Minister was less clear than he usually is or would honourably wish to be on the question of the legal status of the code of practice. I think that I am right in saying that at one stage he suggested that the code of practice would have legal status because that is what the law says. I am not sure that that is the case.
Without in any way imputing mischievous motives to the Minister, I should be grateful if he would spell out now, after due consideration, how he sees the legal status of the code of practice which will be adopted by the community charge registrar and how it will relate to the status of codes of practice under the Data Protection Act. That information would be very helpful to the House in considering how to proceed with these amendments.
As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, the amendments are not all the same. They cover related points but not the same point. They all have considerable value and very great importance for civil liberties. I believe that the House ought to take
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them seriously and that the Government ought to treat them sympathetically.
9.30 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, at an earlier stage we considered amendments similar to those we are debating now. It is appropriate therefore that I should repeat at least some of the remarks I made during discussions at that stage.
The first point that I must repeat is that the Government take concerns about civil liberties and about data protection very seriously indeed. It is evidence of our concern that my honourable friend the Minister for Local Government has met the data protection registrar and has agreed to co-operate with him in drawing up guidance for registration officers and for charging authorities on operating the community charge system against the background of the Data Protection Act.
The first of these amendments, Amendment No. 28, seeks to give this guidance the status of a statutory code of practice and to require registration officers to have regard to it. Although I understand the motives underlying this approach, I do not believe it would be appropriate in this context.
We are introducing an entirely new system of local government finance, and the Government have therefore decided to issue a series of practice notes to local authorities and registration officers to explain the legislation and to suggest how practices and procedures might develop. I must stress, however, that these will not be statutory codes. On the one hand, it is not the Government's wish to offer an authoritative interpetation of the law and, on the other hand, we wish to be able to offer guidance of a far more mundane, practical nature than would be appropriate in a statutory document.
For these reasons we intend that the many practice notes we shall issue in due course should be non-statutory notes by which registration officers and charging authorities may wish to be guided. They will not, however, be bound by any duty to have regard to them. Their duty will be to be bound by the terms of the statute as enacted by Parliament.
I would remind your Lordships that the Bill which became the Local Government Act 1986 originally contained a provision that local authorities should have regard to a code of practice on local authority publicity. In your Lordships' House the requirement for authorities to have regard to the code was deleted as inappropriate. Subsequently the Government produced guidance on codes of practice which underlined the fact that guidance may often be issued which is of considerable practical importance but where statutory provision is unnecessary.
It is our view that statutory provision is not necessary in this case. The guidance that we issue on data protection and the community charge will go beyond legal matters to which registration officers and local authorities must adhere. It will also contain advice on what I may refer to as "good data protection practice" and practical advice which the registration officer might wish to take on board but would not necessarily wish to be bound by.
I turn next to Amendment No. 29 which duplicates an amendment tabled at an earlier stage and which would require registration officers to obtain and

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process information "fairly and lawfully". Such a provision would simply be otiose. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that registration officers will in any case be bound, in the same way as all other individuals, to process information fairly and lawfully in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act.
Finally, I come to Amendment No. 30 which also duplicates an amendment at an earlier stage which would require the registration officer to seek only such information as he may reasonably require in connection with his functions. I think that I can do no better than to repeat what I said at an earlier stage. It is the Government's intention that registration officers should be subject at all times to a duty to act reasonably. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, has taken advice on this point. So, my Lords, have I. Doubtless your Lordships will have already realised that it has been confirmed to me that the registration officer's powers will—because of the Wednesbury principles—be read in precisely this way. We all realise that it is not unusual for legal advice to differ, but my advice is that the amendment is unnecessary because its effect is already achieved.
On a point of detail to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, I cannot accept that his Amendment No. 30 would not cast doubt on the drafting of the Bill. It is not clear what the addition of this amendment would do, given the clear principle of administrative law that an officer of a public authority must act reasonably in the discharge of his functions and duties. A lack of clarity means that there must be an element of doubt, which surely we all wish to avoid.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, does he recall during the earlier stages of this Bill that we had an extensive discussion on even-handed treatment across the different local authority areas concerned with this Bill? Is it not a fact—I believe it to be a fact—that, if the Bill goes through as the Minister suggests, there may be different behaviour and different applications by various registration officers in their interpretation?
It is only recently that there has been concern about different codes of practice by various magistrates' benches in various parts of the country and about how they deal with different types of crime. Because there is no strict code covering what ought to be done, there are variations even between communities alongside one another. In one area, magistrates may impose a custodial sentence, while in the next area they may see a crime completely differently and impose a fine.
I am not convinced that we may not end up with variations in the behaviour of different registration officers. Legislation is surely supposed to be evenhanded across the community. If it is not, there will be some very undesirable consequences and very aggrieved people if they are being dealt with differently from their neighbours in the next authority's area, because they have different registration officers. I do not think that what the Minister said removes that doubt in any way at all.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, before the Minister answers, can he confirm that I am right in
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saying that, except where subsequent legislation has exempted certain aspects, local government is subject to the Data Protection Act, so that when we are thinking about how information is obtained from local government, they will all be operating under that Act and there will be uniformity in that area?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way? Does the noble Baroness not understand that very often even Ministers of the Crown misinterpret what an Act means and are taken to court? I am not specifically referring to Ministers of any political party, but they have sometimes misread and misunderstood legislation and have been taken to court and told that they have been out of order. This type of legislation will create a minefield in that regard.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Earl has yet resumed his seat. I wonder whether, when he replies to the interventions that have been made in his speech, he will consider the position of his own Government and the officials in his box. I quite understand that he and his colleagues in the Government need to consult officials in the box, but I observe that his noble friend Lady Blatch has been consulting officials in the box. Does that mean that that freedom is available to those of us who are on the Opposition Benches as well?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, with regard to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, however tightly one draws a statute, with the very best will in the world human interpretation of it can be different. We obviously want to minimise that in respect of any part of this Bill when it becomes an Act, and I hope that your Lordships will wing it on its way with due speed. So the guidance notes will be sent to the registration officers and local authorities in order to minimise that. I understand the noble Lord's concern. It covers many points that occur in life. I assure him that on this occasion, as throughout the Bill, our guidance will be as clear as possible to avoid the very matters about which he is concerned.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, perhaps I may apologise unreservedly for approaching the officials' box. I was asking for some information that had nothing to do with what we are currently discussing. If that was out of order, I apologise.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I think that it is not a question of order. The noble Baroness has the same freedom as we have to question Ministers, not officials.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I wish to deal with a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. If a code of practice was not needed in some form or other, I doubt that the Government would have indicated in Committee that they were in the process of cooperating with the data protection registrar in preparing a code of practice for the purposes of registration officers. I understood the Government to be saying that in Committee.
The purpose of the amendments, particularly of Amendment No. 28, is to give some proper status to the code of practice and, as the noble Lord, Lord

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Dean of Beswick, indicated, to help give a measure of uniformity throughout the country. The greater the status of the code of practice, the greater respect it will have, the greater prominence it will have and the greater the uniformity that will be ensured. As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said, there are limits, we like to think, to what registration officers will do. If there are limits, they should be stated in the Bill which gives registration officers their powers. What the amendment proposes is not restrictive and it gives the Government and the registration officer nothing to be afraid of. However, I am conscious of the lateness of the hour. I take some consolation from what the Minister has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 not moved.]
9.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 30A:
Page 5, line 36, at end insert—
("( ) The register shall remain the property of the charging authority and no part of it shall he copied and supplied to any person for any purpose other than for the purpose of administering the collection of the community charge and related purposes specified in this Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I owe the House an apology for having submitted a manuscript amendment this morning. It is available, and has been available since this morning, at Brass Gates and in Princes Chamber. That does not excuse the discourtesy to the House in submitting a manuscript amendment, particularly on the first day of Report. In my defence I can only say that it was prepared with other amendments, it was intended that it should be submitted earlier and it slipped through the net.
In view of the grouping agreed, it will be best if I treat Amendment No. 30A as a paving amendment to Amendments Nos. 73 to 80. Although they are very different from each other, some are not too different from Amendment No. 30A.
The purpose of the amendment is to pursue the issue of the onward sale of the community charge register. The amendment says on the face of the Bill:
"The register shall remain the property of the charging authority and no part of it shall be copied and supplied to any person for any purpose other than for the purpose of administering the collection of the community charge and related purposes specified in this Act".
That refers hack in a sense to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. If we had been able to agree that information for the community charge register should be collected fairly and lawfully, the question would already have been resolved because those who are giving information would have been told why it was being collected and the ways in which it was to be used. Clearly if the register were going to be sold on for purposes unknown, it would not be possible to give that assurance to those from whom the information was being collected.
This amendment links backwards to the amendments that we have just debated, and forwards to Amendments Nos. 76 and 77 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, which come later in the Bill. My understanding is that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, to which I have added my name, achieve the same effect as my Amendment No.
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30A but do so by regulation rather than on the face of the Bill.
My amendment requires the provision to be on the face of the Bill. Although I would prefer that position, I shall be seeking leave to withdraw my amendment in favour of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I believe that if we can all agree on the principle that there should be no onward sale of the community charge register, we must have faith in the Government to introduce such provision in the legislation. We shall be content that the intention of those noble Lords who spoke in Committee on this matter will be achieved by those amendments.
However, although there may well he agreement on those later amendments, I felt that it was desirable to put the case for the matter to be on the face of the Bill openly in your Lordships' Chamber rather than let it rest by default. There is a peculiarity about this series of amendments. The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton on the whole tend to extend the ability of local authorities to sell the register onward—and my noble friend will speak on that matter in a moment. Although some appear to go in the opposite direction, they do not all do so.
Amendment No. 75 which inserts "shall" instead of "may" in page 101, line 7, strengthens the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. It leaves that subsection stating that the regulations shall include provision that the registration officer may not supply a copy of the extract and list to any person. That is the intention which many of us wished to achieve in Committee. It would be very desirable if the noble Earl, in responding to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, could also respond specifically to Amendment No. 75 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Graham. If he agrees that Amendments Nos. 76 and 77 have merit, he might also feel that Amendment No. 75 has merit.
This has been a matter of great concern to those interested in issues of civil liberties. They have been concerned about the general principle of information collected by statute and required for one purpose—the community charge—being available for other purposes. I quite see the point of my noble friend Lord Graham that if it is sold on in any way, it might as well be sold on on a fair and undiscriminating basis—but he can argue that point himself.
We prefer the information to be used only for the purpose for which it is collected, and the statutory powers which the community charge registrar must have in order to produce and maintain the register should be used only for that purpose. The Government indicated in Committee that they were willing to move in that direction. I hope that that is so. I hope that we shall reach a satisfactory and mutually agreed conclusion on this series of amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, because of the grouping I take this opportunity to speak to those amendments in my name: Amendments Nos. 73, 74, 75, 78 and 79. The Minister, who follows these things closely, will be well aware that on Second Reading I raised the concern of the credit granting

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organisations about the impact, not only on their business but on consumer credit, of accessibility to the register. The noble Lord may recall that his noble friend the Leader of the House, in reply to the debate on Second Reading, said that these were matters that had not been resolved. At Committee stage there was an exchange and the Minister said fairly that matters still had not been resolved but that by Report stage, which is now, he might be able to say something.
The background to my amendments is an appreciation of the real dilemma that exists not only for Ministers but also for a great many other people. We are all sensitive about the way in which individuals can have their lives made more miserable if their private and personal details are made open to anyone. The Minister and the House will reflect that my purpose is not remotely what I would have called cowboy accessibility to the registers (whereby the mere possession of the information could be sold for commercial gain) but I am very much concerned about the impact of credit.
Your Lordships will be aware that there has been a great growth of credit in the 1980s. Properly used and in the right hands, credit plays a valuable role in the modern economy. The Co-operative Bank, with which I bank (and thus I must declare an interest) has made many innovations with its Co-op Visa which is available to millions of Co-op shoppers as well as to customers of the bank and several building societies. I am sure the Minister will be aware that the Retail Consortium and the Building Societies Association—again by association I declare an interest in those two organisations—are also very concerned.
Credit enables people to spread their expenditure over time in such a way as to match their incomes, but at the same time the growth of credit poses problems. The vast majority of people have no difficulty whatsoever in exercising common sense and not taking on more credit than they can really strictly hope to repay. But there are others, well known to your Lordships and in general, who fall into difficulties, some deliberately and some through no fault of their own.
To date, the rapid growth of credit has not been matched by a corresponding increase of people getting into trouble. The reason for that is that the providers of credit, the banks, the retailers and their subsidiaries have become increasingly sophisticated in their system of vetting. In the high street shops, behind the customary signs encouraging one to apply for credit, lies a complex system of evaluation based on modern technology. One of two key inputs to any method of credit vetting is a method of checking that people are who they say they are. This is particularly significant in Britain, where we strongly resist any suggestion that we have identity cards.
Currently the major credit bureaux, which supply technological support to credit providers, have the electoral roll on their computers. If they were able to work on the basis of name and address information from the community charge register they could produce a 25 per cent. improvement in the quality of their information. That is because more people will appear on the register than on the roll. The register will be more frequently and assiduously updated.
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I ask your Lordships to reflect upon this fact: currently there are over 2 million judgments in the county courts, each on money plaints. If the community charge register were to be made commercially available the industry suggests that it would provide a much more satisfactory base for credit assessment in the 1990s. There would be a double benefit. First, it would save some people from themselves, and, secondly, it would benefit the majority who would save from the reduction in bad debt and write-off costs.
I raise these matters on behalf of those people outside who have asked me to draw them to the Minister's attention. I am well aware of the fine balance that needs to be taken. It is a matter of judgment as to the best interests. I do not want to lay open the personal and private details that may appear on the register in order that they can be hawked around.
The issue that I should like to put before the House is that, in the absence of accessibility to the registers in the way that I have suggested, there could be a great deal of distress, heartache and also social dissention. That is because more people will have access to more credit than they are able to handle and will consequently end up in the courts. I raise the points, I move the amendments and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I should like to speak to my Amendments Nos. 76, 77 and 80 and join with the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in suggesting that Amendment No. 76 would make better sense if it incorporated Amendment No. 75. Therefore it would read in the way that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, described; namely, that the regulations should provide that the registration officer may not supply a copy of the register to any person.
The arguments were well ventilated in Committee. I shall not repeat them or the examples that I gave. The point is a matter of balance as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, has said. The arguments that he put forward are entitled to respectful consideration. However, at the end of the day I suggest that people will be prepared to comply with the law and to provide their names and addresses for the purposes of the register. However, they will not expect the registration officer to use the register for any other extraneous purpose and they will not expect the registration officer to allow the register to be used for any other purpose. That may have nothing to do with the administration of the community charge.
I suggest that we have no business to expose members of the public to the risks which can arise if the register is made available to outside organisations. Some may be entirely respectable. The credit agencies can make sophisticated and possibly valuable use of the information provided, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham, said, by protecting people from entering into too much debt. The risks from less benevolent third-parties still exist and cannot be avoided if the register is made available to potential misuse by other people.
We have no business to allow that to happen. In the amendments I propose that we should remove from the Bill the power to sell the register in any way. Although I support the paving amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, I venture to suggest

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that my amendments, coupled with Amendment No. 75, may be preferable.
10 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I have listened with great care to what has been said in the debate. In the light of a debate at an earlier stage we have given the issue the closest consideration. Noble Lords will appreciate that there are arguments on both sides of the issue. On the one hand, there are arguments which can be broadly described as deriving from concerns about privacy, civil liberties and data protection. Those arguments were put most forcefully this evening and at an earlier stage by the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord McIntosh.
On the other side, there are the arguments that the extract from the register would be an important public document in which there would be considerable public interest and which would have considerable value to various groups of people, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, has pointed out, the credit industry. It has also been pointed out that there are parallels between the sale of the community charge extract and the sale of the electoral register. That was a point made at an earlier stage. I would not claim that it is easy to balance these competing arguments and to make a judgment between them. Therefore, before giving the Government's decision I should like to make one or two points by way of background.
First, I should stress that the parallels with the sale of the electoral register are not exact. The electoral register is different from the extract from the community charges register in that copies of the former must be made available to the political parties for electoral purposes and are therefore already in the public domain. Therefore, it would be pointless not to provide for the sale of the electoral register. I must make clear that the provisions governing the sale of the electoral register will remain in force whatever the decision on the sale of the extract from the community charges register.
Secondly, I accept that the extract would be of value to interested groups including the credit industry. I accept the importance of ensuring that reliable credit information is available to the providers of credit. However, I do not believe that the value of the extract to outside groups and interests is the crucial factor. What is of overriding importance is whether the sale of the extract is justified within the terms of the community charge policy itself.
Thirdly, I should point out that there is value in the Government's view in making the extract from the register and the list of designated dwellings available for public inspection. There is a legitimate public interest in the accuracy of the register, which is fulfilled by inspection of the extract list if not necessarily by its sale. However, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, that although the word "may" is used in subparagraphs (1) and (2) of paragraph 16, the Government intend that the extract should be compiled and should be available for inspection for members of the public.
Finally, I come to the Government's decision on the sale of the extract and list. The crucial factor in making this decision is whether the sale of the extract
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and the sale of the list serve a particularly useful purpose within the context of the community charge system.
The Government have come to the conclusion that the new system will function satisfactorily without the extract and list being sold. Therefore, we have concluded that it would be right to accept the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will use the power conferred by that amendment to provide that copies of the extract and list may not be supplied by any person.
I have indicated that this has not been an easy decision and that copies of' the extract and list may not be supplied by any person. I hope that this will find favour with your Lordships. Therefore, I commend to your Lordships the amendment to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I should add that if the amendment is carried, my noble friend Lord Sanderson of Bowden will bring forward a similar amendment to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, can he confirm that the list which will be available to the public will have on it only the names and addresses? Is that right?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am very happy to confirm that to my noble friend. The extract is very different from the register.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I believe that this is an opportunity to add to the tally of "Thank yous", which now numbers five. This is an important principle which the Government have conceded and I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and others who argued the case in Committee have a right to congratulate themselves on a very major change.
It is also important to recognise, as has been confirmed to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, that the extracts which will be available for inspection, although not for sale, will consist only of the names and addresses and no further information. In view of the uncertainty that there has been in Scotland, it is important that the Minister has been able to confirm that that will also apply in Scotland.
We believe that something major has been achieved in preventing the onward sale of the register. We do not believe that it replaces the need for the other data protection amendments which were moved earlier, but it removes one clear obstacle to the ability of the community charge registrar to act in accordance with the principles of the Data Protection Act. The fact that it is being done by regulation rather than on the face of the Bill is in the circumstances a minor consideration, but it is a consideration which enables me to beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 30A.
Lord Meston: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, withdraws the amendment, and since I shall probably not be here tomorrow formally to move the crucial amendments, Nos. 76, 77 and 80, perhaps I may add my thanks to the Minister and the Government.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, before the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, sits down, perhaps I may say that I appreciate very much the care and attention that the Minister and the Government have given to this matter.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, with the leave of the House, before we reach Amendment No. 76, will the Minister consider whether it would not be appropriate to agree also to Amendment No. 75? I am not suggesting that he should answer now, but I think he would agree that the subsection would be stronger with Amendment No. 75 and that it would not be out of keeping with what he has already said. In that hope, and in the light of what has been said, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 30A.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 not moved.]
Clause 8 [Registers: miscellaneous]:
Lord Hesketh Lord Hesketh moved Amendment No. 33.
Page 6, line 16, after ("after,") insert ("the occurrence of an event (such as").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 are uncontroversial drafting amendments which I hope are self-explanatory. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Hesketh Lord Hesketh moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 7, line 3, leave out ("a") and insert ("the same").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 9 [Liability to contribute]:
Lord Hesketh Lord Hesketh moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 7, line 22, leave out ("sub-paragraph") and insert ("paragraph").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 7, line 23, leave out ("The") and insert ("Subject to subsection (4A) below, the").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Brentford Viscount Brentford had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 37:
Page 7, line 24, leave out ("formula") and insert ("following formulae").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I wish to thank my noble friend the Minister for his courtesy in dealing with this group of amendments in the name of myself and the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I apologise for not having been here earlier, but that would not have changed anything. I shall not move this amendment.
[Amendment No. 37 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 7, line 26, at end insert—
("(4A) Where subsection (4B) below applies the amount to be paid by way of contribution for a day in the contribution period shall be calculated in accordance with the formula—
A/Bx1/5
(4B) This subsection applies where on the day concerned the designated dwelling is a special designated dwelling.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 40 not moved.]
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 7, line 30, at end insert—
("(5A) The Secretary of State may by order substitute such proportion as he sees fit for the proportion of one fifth mentioned in subsection (4A) above or for the proportion for the time being mentioned there by virtue of an order under this subsection.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 10 [Contributions: interpretation of formula]:
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 7, line 45, at end insert—
("(4A) A designated dwelling is a special designated dwelling on a particular day if on the day concerned it is specified as a special designated dwelling under regulations made by the Secretary of State.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of Caithness The Earl of Caithness moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 8, line 10, at end insert—
("(7) Regulations under subsection (4A) above may—

(a) provide that a prescribed charging authority may specify a designated dwelling as a special designated dwelling if prescribed conditions are fulfilled;

(b) include provision allowing or requiring a charging authority which has made a specification to revoke it.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 11 [Contributions: further provisions]:
Lord Hesketh Lord Hesketh moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 8, line 11, leave out from ("9") to end of line 13 and insert ("above—

(a) a day on which an individual becomes resident in a dwelling shall be treated as a day on which he is resident in it,

(b) a day on which an individual ceases to be resident in a dwelling shall not be treated as a day on which he is resident in it, and

(c) as regards a day on which an individual both becomes and ceases to be resident in the same dwelling, paragraph (b) above shall apply and paragraph (a) shall not.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I also speak to Amendment No. 239. Amendment No. 44 is an amendment to Clause 11 and a clarifying amendment which my noble friend undertook to bring forward at an earlier stage. I beg to move.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, in moving this amendment I believe that the Minister referred to it as being a clarifying amendment. Perhaps I am trying to over-simplify it. Paragraph (a) reads:
"a day on which an individual becomes resident in a dwelling shall be treated as a day on which which he is resident in it".

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Does that mean on the day of arrival? Paragraph (b) states:
"a day on which an individual ceases to be a resident in a dwelling shall not be treated as a day on which he is resident in it".
Does that mean on the day he departs? While this is an acceptable amendment, this is an unnecessary piece of gobbledygook. Paragraph (c) states:
"as regards a day on which an individual both becomes and ceases to be resident in the same dwelling, paragraph (b) above shall apply and paragraph (a) shall not."
The amendment could be simplified by the parliamentary draftsmen saying: "A day on which a person both arrives and leaves, the Act does not apply". I believe this to be unnecessary gobbledygook. Nevertheless, the provisions in it are welcomed by the organisations that were deeply concerned about this issue. In the main I am speaking about the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The Government have seen sense and realised that a charge on accommodation overnight is not acceptable. This amendment removes an anomaly which would have meant that people entering a hostel for lunch would have been charged a collective community charge. The amendment shows that people entering day centres for the social services are not charged a collective charge.
As I said, the amendment as tabled in the Marshalled List is a little too flamboyant. I believe it could have been simplified so that it would have been more easily understood by the people who will benefit from it. Even though the spirit of the amendment is welcome and accepted, the amendment should say that if the person arrives and leaves on the same day the Act shall not apply. I should like to hear the comments of the Minister on that point. I believe this is another plus mark that we have achieved and it is a substantial concession for which we are grateful to the Minister.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for so kindly having listed his questions. The answer to all three questions is: Yes, a person will be liable on the day of arrival; yes, he will not be liable on the day of departure, and yes, he will not be liable if he arrives and leaves on the same day.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 8, line 18, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I understand that Amendments Nos. 45 and 46 are being taken together. The intention behind the amendments is to clear us—what seems to us we may be wrong about the drafting—to be a possible confusion. At the moment it seems that individuals could be required to contribute to a collective community charge in one area even though they are subject to a personal community charge in another area. For example, if somebody followed the advice of the right honourable Norman Tebbit, got on his bike, came to find work in London and lived in a hostel, he could be susceptible to a collective community charge in
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that hostel (as the Government did not make the concessions for which we asked on general purpose hostels) but he could still be liable at his main place of residence to a personal community charge in the area from which he came. We appreciate that in certain kinds of hostels the Government will be charging only 20 per cent. of the community charge and that may make the double charging position perhaps less serious than we might otherwise anticipate. However, we cannot see why anybody should be put at risk of paying both the personal community charge and the collective community charge. If I have it wrong, I hope that the Minister will be able to clear up the position. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, has just said, the amendments would provide that an individual staying in a collective charge property should not have to pay a collective community charge contribution if he is paying the personal community charge somewhere else. There are three reasons why I do not believe that it would be sensible or practical to accept the amendments. I shall outline each of the reasons in turn.
The first is that no injustice will be done if a person who is paying the personal community charge at his home address stays for a day or two in a collective charge property and has to pay a collective charge contribution. This is no different from the position of a person who pays the personal community charge at his home address and stays for a few days in a hotel. The hotel proprietor will have to pay rates on the property and will pass the cost on to the guest. I am sure that the noble Lord would not argue that hotels should be exempt from rating.
The second reason is that in practice we do not expect people who are paying the personal community charge to spend much, if any, time in collective charge properties. This is because dwellings can be designated for the purposes of the collective community charge only if they are used wholly or mainly to accommodate people who have their sole or main residence on the premises. By definition, such people cannot be subject to the personal community charge elsewhere.
The third reason is that this amendment would require the landlord of a collective charge property to ascertain whether each person staying at his property was paying the personal community charge elsewhere. In practice it would be difficult for a landlord to make this judgment, particularly in the case, for example, of a night shelter where the people who stay in the shelter may turn up in the evening and may be unknown to the landlord until then. In those circumstances, the landlord would have no option but to insist on collecting a contribution because if the person turned out not to be paying the personal community charge elsewhere, the landlord would be responsible for paying over a contribution to the charging authority.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will recall that we touched on that point, which perhaps led to a little confusion earlier with the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington. For all the reasons I have just

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announced I am confident that the approach embodied in Clause 5 is fair and sensible. I hope that I have now convinced the noble Lord that that is so.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am far from convinced by the noble Earl's first argument about the hotels. All that he has shown is that the elaborate system which is being constructed by the Bill—with the three types of community charge and the national business tax—does not stand up to detailed examination. If we were dealing only with a business rate and a single community charge, there might be a better case. The analogy between hotels and hostels subject to collective community charge might be better than it really is, and it might be as the noble Earl has claimed. However, his other two arguments appear to have some force. Certainly the argument that there would be great administrative difficulties in hostels if they had to determine whether someone was subject to a personal community charge elsewhere has been sufficient to convince me that the right course would be to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 46 not moved.]
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments; it was ordered that the amendments be printed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes past ten o'clock.

  SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES
  SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES
  FRESHWATER FISHERIES LABORATORY: BUDGET
  FRESHWATER FISHERIES LABORATORY: BUDGET
  SALMON CONSERVATION
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  WASTE DISPOSAL REPORT
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