Sitting of 4 March 1988

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

  Enterprise Initiative
  9.35 am
  Mr. Nigel Forman: I beg to move,
  That this House recognises the importance of design, quality, marketing and manufacturing systems among the key issues which influence the competitiveness of British industry, and welcomes the policies of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Enterprise, to promote greater attention to these factors in businesses both through the Enterprise Initiative and other measures.
  It is my purpose to give hon. Members an opportunity to debate the enterprise initiative of this Government, especially those aspects of it that are intended to encourage better design, quality, marketing and manufacturing systems. The imperative for doing that is to be found in the need for our firms to compete in increasingly competitive national and international markets. Happily, the best firms in this country know that and have made great strides in recent years, which have been demonstrated by what has been achieved so far in improved performance, productivity and competitiveness.
  However, there is still some way to go, by international standards, before all our firms, large and small, join these welcome improvements. For example, I am sure that the House is pleased to hear that manufacturing productivity in the fourth quarter of 1987 was more than 6 per cent. up on a year before, and up by more than 40 per cent. since 1979. Manufacturing profitability has risen every year since 1981, and in 1986 was at its highest level since 1973. Manufacturing output per head has grown faster in the United Kingdom since 1980 than in all other major countries, and even unit labour costs, which for so long were one of our principal problems in maintaining our international competitiveness, are now thought to be rising at a lower rate than those of our competitors.
  All this is satisfactory evidence of movement in the right direction. In the future, we shall be able to maintain and improve our competitive edge only if we continue to improve our competitiveness in both price and non-price factors. A recent Design Council publication reported two pieces of interesting evidence in support of that assertion. The first was that an analysis of the different factors affecting the export of West German goods to the United States revealed that 47 per cent. were design-related, as compared with 28 per cent. that were price-related. So the design factor was by far the most important.
  Another study of the reasons why British manufacturers bought foreign machine tools rather than British ones attributed 51 per cent. of the cause to design-related factors and only 5 per cent. to price-related ones. I therefore want to turn my attention to the crucial area of design.
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  The Design Council states in one of its excellent documents, entitled "Profit by Design":
  "Good design is not an optional extra — it is a vital ingredient in the success of any firm. To grow or even to survive British industry must offer products which can compete in quality, performance, cost and appearance in increasingly competitive world markets."
  Our foreign competitors have known and practised that gospel for some time. For example, the Danish electronics firm Bang and Olufsen manufactures and sells beautiful hi-fi equipment in this country and other parts of the world. The German motor manufacturers Porsche, BMW and Audi in their various ways have made their products into quality, even cult, items through their excellent design. We have all heard the famous advertising slogan "Vorsprung durch Technik". That slogan brings a wry smile to people's lips, but it also makes a statement about the product and the way it is perceived. Such statements can be convincing in the eyes of the public only if they arc based on good design and sound performance.
  We should also consider the Japanese camera and optical equipment firm Canon which happens to have its United Kingdom headquarters in my constituency. Canon has led the world with its SLR and compact cameras and now leads the world with its small tabletop photocopiers and other business equipment. Those are a few examples of firms whose success in the international market has been based on good design, among other vital factors.
  Fortunately, the need for better design in British products has been recognised at the highest level in this country. Long before the latest enterprise initiative which my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was so right to launch earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, doubtless as a result of the tireless efforts of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs, gave the lead by chairing a seminar on design at 10 Downing street in January 1982. Many hon. Members will be aware that it was followed by another seminar in January 1987 to monitor the progress and give further impetus.
  The Design Council, first as the Council of Industrial Design from 1944 to 1972, and latterly in its present role, has played a valuable part in keeping the flag flying for the improvement of British design in all its forms. I submit that we need to do still more in every way to spread the best design practices throughout our industrial sector and especially among small firms which, if we define them as companies with 500 or fewer employees, constitute roughly 95 per cent. of firms in this country.
  Mr. Paddy Ashdown: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the definition of a small firm should be one with 500 or fewer employees? Is he aware that many people regard even the Bolton definition of 200 employees as being vastly in excess of what it ought to be?
  Mr. Forman: I am aware of that. I thought that my comments might take the hon. Gentleman by surprise. However, a cut-off point of 500 employees is used in relation to enterprise counselling and other services available from the Department of Trade and Industry. That is why I used that figure. However, I accept the hon. Gentleman's point that a layman's definition of a small firm may be considerably smaller than one employing:500 employees.
  Much that is happening in this area is being stimulated by the Government. I welcome the assistance available

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  from the DTI for consultancy arrangements on the design and development of new products and the redesigning of existing products to meet market, financial or production needs. It is important that firms should constantly assess and renew the quality of design, even when they believe that they have a market lead. These things do not remain static. I particularly welcome the fact that, since its inception in 1982, the support for design scheme has attracted nearly 7,000 applications for assistance, and 3,000 projects have been completed. I suggest that we need to generalise the best practice to ensure that it is taken on board throughout British industry among both large and small firms.
  Perhaps one simple example will do more than anything else to illustrate my case. It is all too easy for arguments to become a little too abstract. As I recently bought a new jug kettle, I speak from experience in this matter. Indeed, I am well aware that my example illustrates the benefits of good design and I can vouch for the aesthetic appeal and effectiveness of the design. My example concerns a jug kettle, which, Mr. Speaker, you may have in your home or in your Apartment in the Palace of Westminster. The kettle is manufactured by GEC Redring. Approximately 65 per cent. of British households own a plastic jug kettle yet 15 years ago they did not exist. That shows the importance of innovation and design. According to a Design Council document "Profit by Design",
  "Redring supplied elements to kettle manufacturers and did not manufacture complete kettles. But the company decided to buy a conventionally shaped kettle made out of plastics and developed it to a satisfactory level of reliability. Being non-automatic, the profits were small and it was stopped after a year in which much valuable experience of plastic kettles had been gained. However, a London industrial designer"—
  and here comes the element of design—
  "David Harris, was working independently on a design for a plastic jug kettle and had approached all the potential manufacturers to try to interest them in producing the new kettle design.
  Redring Managing Director, Mike Johnson and Max Byrd, Development Manager, saw the advantages—a jug kettle can be filled with less than half an inch of water which can save up to £40 a year in electricity bills; it handles and pours better; plastic is much lighter and does not burn the user; perhaps most importantly, in the long run, the plastic jug kettle costs less to produce.
  So Redring bought the rights to the design. Said Byrd, 'it was frightening and exciting at the same time—we had to start from scratch because there was no other kettle like it.' Development took about a year no—complete prototypes were able to be made so tooling took place straight off the drawing board.
  The Redring kettle was launched in 1980. Within two years the company had 15 per cent. of the kettle market."
  I quote that example at some length to show what can be done through a combination of imagination and determination with a simple product. Often the simple products most need the benefits of good modern design.
  However, if we are to succeed in changing attitudes towards design throughout British industry, we will need to ensure that more managers understand that good design must be an integral part of the whole manufacturing process and that well-designed products sell better and can also be cheaper to produce.
  That underlines the need to educate existing managers about the importance and value of good design and to ensure that design forms an important part of school and business management education. We must ensure that design is included in the national curriculum being
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  developed by the Department of Education and Science and that it is more widely accepted as a subject for A-level examinations.
  The educational aspect of the problem poses a triple challenge. First, more design studies should be incorporated into business management courses, beyond the six schemes now funded by the DTI at five polytechnics and one college of further education. Secondly, we must increase business awareness among design students at degree level. Finally, we must plug the most serious gap in our educational provision in this area—the shortage of multidisciplinary product designers and design managers of the kind now being produced in only woefully small numbers in this country by Imperial College and the Royal College of Art in their pioneering course on industrial design engineering.
  Happily, I believe that I am pushing at an open door. I take great comfort from the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he opened a recent exhibition at the Design Centre in London. He made clear the direction in which the Government intend to raise the awareness of design in education still further. He drew attention to a £1.5 million initiative for pilot courses in engineering design in polytechnics and colleges and referred to the preparation of a consultative document on design in schools and mentioned action to improve the supply of craft design and technology teachers in schools. He said that recruitment to CDT teacher training courses—for which a new Government bursary is available—increased, I am glad to say, by 65 per cent. last year and 382 students enrolled on courses in the autumn of 1986, compared with only 231 in 1985. Clearly, we are making good progress in that direction, but we need to move further and faster, because it is vital to our competitive success.
  It is a most welcome development that British industry is now putting much greater emphasis on quality. That is an increasingly important factor in maintaining and improving our international competitiveness and it should be an integral part of all manufacturing. As a chapter of the White Paper on the enterprise initiative points out, it is vital to encourage and improve quality and ensure that this is done through British standards and, increasingly, through international standards institutions as well. The fundamental insistence on quality must become part of the ethos of all firms. It must be built into their design and components and into the attitudes of their work force, from top to bottom. For many German and Japanese firms it is a corporate philosophy—almost a way of life. It would be good to see British firms following that lead.
  I welcome the fact that the Government are playing their part with the national quality campaign, which has been going since 1983. I entirely agree with the Secretary of State's remarks in a recent document entitled "The Case for Quality":
  "The inescapable message from all this is that if you want your customers to come back, you need to ensure that your products don't."
  Once again, we can learn from the Japanese and the Germans, who often achieve companywide commitment to quality and manage to involve all their employees in their quality campaigns.
  An excellent example of what can be achieved by the application of quality cost management is provided by Mullard, part of the Philips group, which has factories in Blackburn and, incidentally, in my constituency. Mullard

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  has concentrated effectively on the application of quality cost management and applied it in producing tungsten filaments, picture tube cathodes and video discs. For the expenditure of small sums—the timely investment of not more than tens of thousands of pounds in each case—Mullard has managed to achieve terrific results, which prove absolutely that attention to quality and the upgrading of quality in existing products is the right answer for modern firms in a competitive environment. It pays off handsomely in terms of reduced costs, extra business and improved job satisfaction for employees, which also should not be underestimated. If one involves all employees in the upgrading of quality, they will become more fully committed to the standard of the product that they produce.
  In better marketing, too, there are great opportunities for British industry to increase its competitiveness and market share both at home and in the export markets. Indeed, improved marketing is the next logical stage in the improvement of company performance, now that the necessary manning reductions, efficiency improvements and better industrial relations have been achieved in many cases. I therefore warmly welcome the marketing initiative, which is managed for the Department of Trade and Industry by the Institute of Marketing and which provides expert consultants to help firms to develop a more effective marketing strategy especially in export markets.
  I understand that so far the financial support for the marketing initiative has trebled over the space of a few years to £6.25 million a year and that 1,400 companies have already taken advantage of the scheme. That is good news and my hon. Friend the Minister and his Department are to be commended for their contribution to our commercial success.
  Schemes such as the marketing initiative can help companies with better presentation of their products, bring home to them the advantages of greater product differentiation and emphasise to management and all who work in British companies that, ultimately, the customer must be king. The success stories of companies that have adopted that approach—without any need for external stimulus — include some examples well known to the House, such as Amstrad computers and Clark's shoes, and we must encourage more of the same. One of the most important common denominators in all marketing success is firms' ability to look ahead and make full use of well-informed market projections such as those produced by the Henley Centre for Forecasting.
  In the modern world in which the customer is king, it is vital for companies to have a clearer idea of new processes as well as new products and to spot the fact that consumer markets are increasingly defined in terms of community of interest rather than community in the geographical or class sense. Examples include the hi-fi community, the water sports community and the personal computer community. How many firms fully realise the potential for financial services and financial counselling now that as many as 75 per cent. of the population have a bank account? It is estimated by the Henley Centre that over the next 10 years real personal disposable incomes may increase by a further 20 per cent. The opportunities for the management of those new income flows will be considerable.
  In such a rapidly changing commercial environment the firms that look ahead will stay ahead, while those that fail to do so will decline and may even go under. Let me give
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  a few examples to illustrate that. McCarthy and Stone saw the opportunities to provide for the aging population much more effectively and has benefited accordingly. Securicor saw opportunities to provide better security in times, alas, of increasing crime. Black and Decker saw the enormous opportunities provided by the DIY revolution and Beechams saw the possibility of turning Lucozade and Ribena—with the help of Daley Thompson—into drinks for the rapidly expanding health market.
  Those examples show the importance of identifying and taking market opportunities and also how much can be done even without Government help, let alone with the backing of the schemes about which I am sure the Minister will tell the House later.
  Finally, we need new manufacturing systems such as computer-aided design, robotics and other new methods of production management, which can all help to produce significant improvements in the competitive performance of British industry. As computers become relatively cheaper and better understood, it should be possible to encourage their wider application, especially in smaller companies. That will not only enhance the efficiency of production processes, but will encourage management to think through the challenges of businesses in a more systematic way. It should also have a beneficial effect on the suppliers and components manufacturers for large firms that have already computerised and automated their processes. The White Paper makes it clear that the adoption of such techniques is not simply a matter of buying in the technology; it is at least as much about changing management systems to integrate production, marketing and design and to improve quality.
  In a sense, I have come full circle. Since the central message of the White Paper and all the Government's excellent efforts to foster enterprise and competitiveness in British industry is that we have now entered an era in which quality and the skills of management, acting in fruitful co-operation with fellow employees, will, more than anything else, determine the economic success of firms in this country. I commend my hon. Friend the Minister and his Department for all that they are doing, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that, in the end, it is up to British industry to do more of what must be done.
  9.58 am
  Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I apologise to the House and to the Labour and Government Front Benches for the fact that I may have to leave rather earlier than I had hoped and therefore may not hear the winding-up speeches.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: Is the new party coming apart already?
  Mr. Ashdown: The hon. Gentleman will know that we all have constituency duties outside the House and have to drag ourselves away from time to time, much as we might prefer to be here.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) on having secured the debate and chosen an extremely important subject. In the early part of his speech, he gave the official Government view and painted a rosy picture of the British economy. He talked about increasing competitiveness and unit labour costs. He failed — I understand why — to ascribe those,

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  developments in large measure to their real cause, which is the enormous exercise in the removal of manpower and growing unemployment in Britain. Nevertheless, I admit that efficiency in unit output has improved, but not enough to make Britain more competitive compared with our key European competitors, who have improved even faster. That is shown too clearly in the falling level of our share of world trade and, more than that, in our enormous and burgeoning trade deficits. I shall certainly touch on those matters, although the hon. Gentleman did not, because they are the underlying problems of the British economy. Many external commentators agree with me that those problems will come home to roost in short order.
  To start on an optimistic note, the Government have done one or two things that needed to be done. I am not prepared to say that they have done nothing useful for Britain. That would be ludicrous. Their greatest achievement has been the democratisation of the trade union movement, ensuring that the government of Britain is returned to the democratically elected Parliament. That should not be reversed. Their second greatest achievement has been to set Britain on the road towards a much more enterprise-oriented economy, which will depend more on small business men, the self-employed, initiative and enterprise. Indeed, they have not been radical enough in pursuit of that aim.
  One of the Government's great faults was apparent in the hon. Gentleman's speech when he defined small businesses as those with 500 employees or fewer. That is ludicrous. The Government have too readily understood the problems of large businesses and have been too ignorant of the genuine problems of extremely small businesses of one, two or three people, where assistance has always been provided to help with the initial set-up — that is commendable in itself — but where real assistance is required at the point of expansion when a business decides to double the number of its employees. That is the point when the prosperity that the business can generate and the jobs that it can provide receive a quantum leap, and at that point there is nothing except the business expansion scheme, welcome though it is. Far too much emphasis is put elsewhere.
  The move towards an enterprise economy is to be welcomed, although it has not gone far enough, and for that reason this document, so far as it addresses that problem, is welcome. The rhetoric and hype are unexceptionable, but one must ask whether it is all that Britain needs now. One comes ineluctably to the conclusion that it is much more about public relations and hype than about tackling the underlying problems of the United Kingdom economy. Except for the stimulation of enterprise, the improvement in design, and new technologies, the underlying problems are not addressed.
  What are those problems? We look at the rosy picture of the British economy of the hon. Gentleman and of the Government and we begin to see a picture of a wholly different hue. Since 1979 one fifth of our industrial base has been wiped away. It will not come back; it has been destroyed from the face of the map. Obviously, the world economy has passed through a period of restructuring, and no one would doubt that. I do not lay all the blame on the Government. But a Government with any kind of industrial strategy for the future have a medium-term
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  financial strategy, so why not an industrial strategy? I am suggesting not an indicative plan, such as the Labour party would have put forward in the 1970s and may even put forward now, but one that will point the way to the future and help us to overcome that period of restructuring as other western European industrial democracies have. In the free market system with its hands-off, know-nothing and do-not-care-less approach we have lost one fifth of the industrial base on which our industry will always depend. However great the growth in the service sector, the service industries depend in large measure on an industrial base and feed off it, as United States' experience shows clearly. Whatever shift in growth there may be, the decline of our industrial base is deeply damaging.
  Mr. Forman: To put his case in perspective, will the hon. Gentleman concede that the problems of industrial adjustment and restructuring, which involve the decline of some parts of the traditional manufacturing sector and the arrival of other new manufacturing processes, has been going on in all western industrial countries?
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: Not at this pace.
  Mr. Ashdown: Indeed so, but, as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) says, not at this pace. The regrowth of a new industrial base has not been assisted, and I am thinking of the new technologies. The hon. Gentleman and I will agree that we must move to a low resource use and high value added economic base. That means using new technologies. But we have seen the deficit in new technology trade grow to astronomical proportions in the past eight years. It is now running at about £3 billion a year. There is no evidence that those key strategic new technologies which we shall need to make the shift that the hon. Gentleman suggests are growing. The deficit shows that only too clearly. One of the brave statements in the document is:
  "The starting point of our strategy—one which I have called our enterprise strategy in the White Paper—is the need for business to succeed against world competition."
  We are doing appallingly badly. Our trade deficit must cause serious anxiety, even to the Government whose predilection is these matters is to close their eyes and pretend that problems are not there. In 1980, we had a £1,361 billion surplus in trade; last year we were heading towards a £9.5 billion deficit. That is a shift of £11 billion in the past six years. Even in the new technologies, where we must do well to succeed, that deficit is as bad, if not worse.
  Mr. Hugo Summerson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, nevertheless, our official reserves are at their highest level ever?
  Mr. Ashdown: Of course, I am not saying that. Indeed, Britain has invested huge sums overseas. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I that that has much more to do with the happenstance and luck of North sea oil and its effect on the British economy than any other underlying strength of our industrial and economic base outside the oil sector.
  We should be seeing some action from the Government which will stimulate the long-term investment, which Britain lacks so badly, of patient money, such as occurs in Japan. Of course, it does not produce a return inside the year that the City operates, nor does it unhinge stocks and shares because it causes a temporary downturn in accounts

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  produced at the end of the year. We need to think about the strategic new technologies and about producing some stability in our exchange rate by joining the EMS.
  The second major problem not addressed in the document is the terrible imbalance between the prosperous and pampered south-east, which is undoubtedly doing extremely well, and the other areas, which have largely been left out in the cold. The Government have unstitched and unpicked any concept of a regional policy. These factors come out clearly. Yesterday from the Library I got the figures for investment in venture capital to see what the regional disparities were. They are startling. I discovered that on the latest figures available 63.7 per cent. of all venture capital is now invested in the south-east. There is not a region, save only the north, which even gets into double figures. Actually, the north is just over double figures. About 11 per cent. of all venture capital is invested in the north. Obviously, that is welcome. However, in Wales the figure is 2.6 per cent.; in the south-west it is 4.9 per cent.; and only 5 per cent. of all venture capital has been invested in the midlands—an area that has been more devastated than any other by the economic and industrial restructuring to which the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred.
  There is nothing in the document to begin to redress that. One cannot see signs of any effort by the Government to begin to have a programme to encourage industry and to give economic strength to other areas of Britain. The south-east of our nation is doing very well, but the rest of our nation is not. That imbalance cannot be continued without serious damage to our economy and perhaps to our social cohesion as well.
  I turn next to what the Government say is their underlying strategy—their rhetoric about competition. I agree with that rhetoric and believe strongly that competition in the market place is absolutely vital. I believe that market forces should run the economy rather than the Government control it in minute detail. Indeed, the general view could be, "The market where possible, the state where necessary."
  However, do we see that rhetoric of competition in the Government's actions? One can find it in the words in the document, but what actually happens? Let us take, for example, a public sector corporation such as British Telecom. Did the Government privatise that in a way that would encourage competition? Of course not. They converted a public monopoly into a private monopoly to assist their friends. When we consider what the Government have been doing about British Airways and British Caledonian, do we see that they have opted for a competitive approach? Of course not. We see a conglomeration of large elements in the market place, and that is anti-competitive. One finds the same with the privatisation of British Gas and in the Government's approach to the British Petroleum-Britoil affair.
  Time and again, when the Government are given the opportunity to encourage competition, they opt for the larger semi-monopolistic forces in the market place, instead of generating real competition. Even in the case of the larger corporations—
  Mr. Graham Riddick rose—
  Mr. Ashdown: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
  Even in the case of the larger corporations, where one can see that in the interests of the consumers, the setting
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  up of watchdog bodies might be able to control the huge insensitive corporations, such as the privatised BT, the watchdog bodies are created in a manner which makes them almost totally toothless. However I agree with the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington that the consumer is a vital element and I should like the market place to be run by the individual choice of the consumer rather than by the power of the monopoly producer, of the mass producer and supplier.
  Mr. Riddick: Can I assume, from what the hon. Gentleman has said, that he wholeheartedly welcomes the way in which the Government propose to privatise electricity in this country?
  Mr. Ashdown: The hon. Gentleman asks a question, so I shall give him a straight answer. No, I do not wholeheartedly welcome it. Just because I expound a principle, that does not mean that I therefore ascribe to the total detail of what the Government do in any particular case. The hon. Gentleman might have asked me the same question about BT, and my answer to him would have been no, because the privatisation was not competitive. However, if one intended to privatise the electricity industry, there could be a case for keeping the grid in national hands and then having privatisation of suppliers feeding into the grid. If we are to achieve competition, I believe that that is the way we shall do so. Creating a situation where one body has 70 per cent. of the market, and the rest 30 per cent., is not competitive. Indeed, that is creating sharks and minnows in the market place, which is exactly the opposite to what I believe should happen, and to what it seemed to me that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington might have been proposing.
  I move on to a subject on which I have already touched briefly—
  Mr. David Wilshire: The House should not allow the hon. Gentleman to get away with his comments about toothless watchdogs, because we recently had a prime example of Oftel drawing the attention of British Telecom to its chat lines and abuses of them. If being bitten by a toothless dog results in one taking pretty prompt action, I think that such watchdogs are effective.
  Mr. Ashdown: The hon. Gentleman has chosen the one area in which they have been effective. I shall be more generous to Oftel because it has tried hard to do a good job within the constraints. Over the issues of Talkabout programmes and telephone boxes, on which it has recently done a good job, that watchdog has been effective. However, there are many other areas. I suggest that we would not have got into this powerless situation with regard to the inefficiencies and inadequacies of BT if Oftel had had the power to operate much earlier. The fact that it has now been able to operate does not mean that the organisation is perfect. Indeed, in different circumstances that situation may not have occurred. Anybody, including those inside Oftel, would agree that some of its powers are inadequate to the task of controlling what is a huge private monopoly.
  I move on to another besetting problem on which I have touched previously. I refer to the short-termism which runs the British economy and which certainly runs the investment sector. One sees, hears and reads about that time and again in the City of London—a place where young men earn £120,000 or £130,000 per year when they

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  are not yet 30, on the basis of a turnaround and profits shown in the portfolio of their stocks, measured over a week. In that situation, Britain is manifestly not making what I have already described as those patient money investments to bring on the new technologies in a manner that would return investment to the nation in the years to come. Instead there is a candyfloss, hamburger-style economy in which, if one cannot make a profit inside a year, one had better not continue the operation. In such a situation, the stocks and shares of any given company will fall according to what the published accounts say because people are making snapshot decisions instead of looking underneath to discover whether the company is making long-term investments. Indeed, all too frequently, a company that makes a long-term investment in technology becomes prey to a raider because the price of its stocks falls and it gets snapped up. There is a degree of technology buy-out in the same way as there was asset and property acquisition in the 1960s and 1970s.
  It is not surprising that the City of London behaves in that fashion because it is set that model by the Government who also behave in that fashion. The short-termism that runs through the Government at present is deeply unpleasant, unwelcome and unhealthy for our future economy.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. John Butcher)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Ashdown: The Minister is shaking his head, so I shall give him an example. When the Government privatised British Telecom or British Gas — I do not doubt for a second that there was a case for privatisation, and although I believe that British Gas should not have been privatised, I saw no reason why Rolls-Royce should not have been privatised and put in the market place if it was done in a reasonable fashion — if they had been taking a long-term view, they would have used that money to invest in the British economy, and not to pay off that year's bills or to balance the books. No sensible business man would dispose of assets in that fashion. The Government use money in a short-term way, and that affects others who make investment decisions.
  None of those problems are addressed in the document although they should be, because they are the besetting, underlying difficulties and problems of the British economy. Instead we have what I can only describe as a degree of public relations hype. One need only consider the advertising budget for the initiative, which is now bigger than the budget for the small firms unit, as I think the Minister knows, in Lord Young's previous Department, the Department of Employment. The advertising budget is huge, and in some ways it is a waste. If the document seeks to give a profile to enterprise, that is useful, but why not tackle the real problems of the British economy? Sam Brittan in the Financial Times said that he thought it was a
  "sender up of Thatcherism by a hostile satirist."
  Perhaps one can understand those comments because the way in which this matter has been handled is ludicrous to the point of being farcical. Chapter 7, for instance, states:
  "In all our work we will take account of the differing circumstances of the regions and of the Inner Cities to enable those who live there to help themselves."
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  The document tells us that we are about to become aware of the problems of Britain's regions. However, if one picks up the popular version of the document, one finds that there is not much evidence that the DTI knows about the regions outside London. Having looked at it the other day, I noticed that, on the map, Cardiff has been put where Swansea is, Poole where Weymouth is, Reading where Oxford is and Coventry where Worcester is. There is not much evidence that the Department knows its way around anywhere outside the City of London.
  Is that the kind of efficiency that we would expect the Department of Trade and Industry to set as an example for others? I am told that the calendar that it has produced had one week that contained three Tuesdays. The Department does not seem to know its way round Britain, or even what time it is. That is not a good example to set for industry. If that is what the Department of Trade and Industry means by showing concern for efficiency and a knowledge of the regions of Britain, I am not impressed. I do not suppose that other people will be impressed either, except those who are impressed by the candy floss of the PR man.
  I accept the need for the move towards an enterprise economy. There is a need to go faster, to be more radical and to encourage small businesses and enterprise, but the document is a triumph of public relations over hard policy. There is nothing in it that will tackle the balance of payments problems which are inexorably approaching Britain. There is nothing in it to tackle the growing trade chasm which is opening up. There is nothing in it to end the tragic divisions between the pampered, prosperous and, in many ways, profligate south-east and the dog-eared dereliction that one finds all too frequently elsewhere in the old industrial bases of the nation.
  There is nothing in the document to remedy the devastated industrial base of Britian. There is nothing for that consuming short-termism which is mortgaging the future for a quick buck today, stimulated by a Government who have set the pace by flogging off public assets, not for investment, but to squander on this year's bills. There is nothing to solve the deep-seated, underlying problems which have caused Britain to fall behind her industrial competitors, both in their effectiveness and in their share of world trade. If the Government turned their attention to those problems, we should sit up and listen, but this is, frankly, fiddling while Britain's industrial base is in severe danger of decaying in a way which will damage our future economy and perhaps the social cohesion of our nation.
  10.21 am
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: The Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), made an interesting speech and I agree with many of his arguments. Everyone who listened to his speech will regard it as a balanced contribution to the debate.
  There is a surprised expression on the face of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household. It is sometimes possible to refer to a speech by a member of another party and to say that there are some points worthy of attention or agreement, without it being regarded as heretical. The notion that one must never agree with anyone in another party strikes me as very strange, but perhaps I am being unfair to my hon. Friend, because he

  1271
  cannot speak in the House. Nevertheless, he can speak outside the House where he no doubt makes robust speeches on the policies that we are debating today.
  I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) on his personal enterprise initiative in selecting this subject for debate. He will not misunderstand me when I say that the acceptability and blandness of his motion means that everybody can agree with it, but that is good sense in itself and a traditional Conservative approach to policy matters. It contains some good points which need wholehearted support.
  I apologise for having missed my hon. Friend's initial remarks, but he is right in saying that, whatever ideas come from other parties, the Government and the Conservative party have a strong monopoly of ideas in this area. I also add my support and commendation for what the Government have achieved, very remarkably, since 1979 in respect of some aspects of the long-term transformation of the economy.
  However, there are considerable problems that still need tackling. The fact that they have not yet been tackled reflects, to some extent, the excessive divisiveness of our political system which has become more pronounced in recent years and has prevented us from reaching the consensus solutions which are required urgently by Parliament and by any Government to overcome those problems.
  The old curate's egg description of the Government's achievements would be right. When I say that, I do not wish to alarm my hon. Friend the Member for Watford by seeming to be churlish, as I am most enthusiastic about some key elements of the Government's achievements. Although it is an intangible and ethereal factor and, to some extent, an emotional and psychological point, one of the most important factors has been the change of attitudes. A great friend of mine, who is a peer in the other place, has a reputation for getting up at 11 o'clock in the morning in the traditional style of peers. I was rather amused when he said that one of the most marvellous things that the Government have done is to bring in a new work ethic. I shall not name him, as it was an accidental remark, although, if he reads Hansard, he will know that I am referring to him. He was correct about all the other citizens of this country, but not about himself, as he still gets up at 11 o'clock.
  There has been a great change in attitude and a reinculcation of the work ethic. I am a City person and admit that the City is often justly criticised. However, people in the City come into work early, not just the ordinary employees in any organisation, but the people who run that organisation. We also see that in industry. The attitude to work, for those who are fortunate to have it, has improved enormously from top to bottom. For example, directors and employees in factories are now on first name terms, but, in some traditional establishments, that used to be regarded as wicked only a few years ago. Such points may he considered trivial, but they are important factors in that change.
  When the hon. Member for Yeovil referred to the Government's achievements in respect of trade unions, he was supporting an aspect of Government policy. Those are definite, unshakeable achievements which are admitted by all trade unionists, not simply Right-wing trade unionists. They will represent a tangible, monumental achievement for this country if their effects are lasting.
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  I pay tribute to the Government Departments, particularly the Department of Trade and Industry. I do not believe that the recent changes are superficial and merely PR hype. They are real and deep expressions of the change of attitude and behaviour within those Departments. I pay tribute to the Departments because I hear so many business men speak of the way in which Department officials assist them and put forward ideas.
  I reject the old-fashioned notion — it might be supported by Professor Patrick Minford, for example, although I must not misquote him as he has never said this to me—that a civil servant cannot be as heroic as a private business man. Civil servants are just as good as private business men. The fact that they work in the public sector does not matter. There are many entrepreneurial officials in the Department of Trade and Industry, and I warmly congratulate the Secretary of State on creating a Department that works positively for industry, rather than a bureaucracy that holds industry back. Perhaps that encapsulates the best of all the subtle changes of the past few years.
  Unfortunately, the picture is not entirely rosy. The balance of payment figures represent a severe problem. I am very much concerned about our problem of low output. I chide the Government with reluctance and with my customary sadness for allowing their propaganda to skate over the awkward truth, I used to enjoy reading The Economist, which I regarded as essential reading, but I now regard it as an increasingly silly magazine, partly because it has started to pursue a particular line. That is a great mistake. The Financial Times is an excellent newspaper because it does not pursue a particular line.
  Recently, The Economist contained an article whose theme was the comparison between the West German and British motor car industries. It referred to the doldrums in the German motor industry and the triumph of the British motor industry. I am delighted that the British motor industry is now experiencing an upswing and is going through a better phase. It has done much to improve itself, although it has some problems at present. The article stated that the total German output of private motor cars was 4.4 million, about two thirds of which were for export. But it conveniently left out the British output figure, which was about 1.7 million following the recent increase—it used to be about 1.4 million. Those figures may not be entirely accurate, but 1 hope that they are a near approximation.
  To leave out that was absurd. Although Germany is, as we know, a high-cost, high-quality, high-reliability economy, it is manifestly the most successful, the premier capitalist economy of Europe. The hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned all the depredations that we have suffered, paricularly since 1980 and 1981. We were the only country that became recessionary in physical manufacturing output — the only one of the OECD-classified list of economies of our size of 50 million or 60 million—to suffer a backwardation in real manufactured output. The German economy is much bigger than ours. It is absurd to say that it is not as successful, and for the Government to concentrate on productivity increase figures that come from units of output per employee. That is misleading, unless the total output figures are also included.
  Mr. Ashdown: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has noticed, as I have, that the Government go a stage

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  further in massaging the figures by always producing those that measure the position from the lowest point of the depression in 1981, rather than those from when they came to power in 1979, which would look entirely different. I understand that the total manufacturing output in Britain today is only a blip above its 1979 level.
  Mr. Dykes: I think that it is more than a blip above. In the past six months, it has started to rise significantly. As the hon. Gentleman says, however, it is up for the first time.
  I think that the Government would pursue a better line if they stopped avoiding the total output figures. Some people support the idea of the cathartic policy for the British economy; they feel that a rude shock was necessary. I do not agree. I believe that an advanced economy needs a blend of industrial manufacturing activities, as well as services and so forth. It is a great mistake for aspects of manufacturing industry to be wilfully neglected or allowed to be eliminated, just because of a decision to concentrate on such matters as computers and financial services. Be that as it may, development ought to come out of the many millions of decisions made in the open market. Obviously, some manufacturers went out of business against their will, and might have survived had they received the necessary support, which would have been forthcoming in other countries.
  I do not wish to go on for too long, and I acknowledge the presence of my hon. Friends who are trying to contribute—
  Mr. David Nicholson: Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) have said things which, if the debate had taken place about three years ago, would have received my strong support and assent. In my previous guise, before I came to the House, I helped to publish papers that were very critical of the decline in British manufacturing industry, and the contribution that it made to our national strength and balance of payments.
  I would like to draw my hon. Friend out a little. He has touched only slightly on the dramatic improvement in our manufacturing output in the past three years, and I feel that he should pay tribute to that. The hon. Member for Yeovil, I fear, also ignored that point.
  Mr. Dykes: Unfortunately, I do not have the index on me, but I think that it is only a couple of index points above the 1979 level, which was, I believe, 109.
  I was making a comparative point. Other countries have had their recessions—a bit later, indeed—and, as their output was higher in any case, the effects were severe. But the effects were proportionately much more severe in this country, whose economy was already limited in its output. Perhaps my censure was not as severe as my hon. Friend imagines.
  Germany, then, is the premier capitalist economy, with no fixation with ideological nostrums so abstruse as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. There is an idea here that everything in the private sector is wonderful and everything in the public sector is wrong. In Germany, some regard the public sector as something that should be limited and kept small; nevertheless, there is an attitude of co-operation between the two sectors that we seem to have lost in recent years. I feel that an excess of ideology—
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  rather than common sense, wisdom and a pragmatic observation of the scene—is guiding our business and economic practice.
  Another problem is the complacency that still affects British management, despite the success that we have achieved. I pay tribute to the Government's attempts to overcome that, and, indeed, to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the enormously important work that he personally has done.
  I must declare an interest in retailing: I am involved as a non-executive director in a large retailing group. I do not exaggerate when I say—as I did in a debate last year―that we have frequently been on our knees pleading with British manufacturers to supply the products that we so urgently need for our customers. Sadly, however, we have ended up again and again having to obtain them from overseas suppliers. We are now encouraging the latter to invest here more and more, thank goodness.
  The attitude of certain large corporations in this country — I shall mention no names — has often been very complacent. They have refused to supply the products that we need. I do not refer to the odd one-off example; it has happened far too frequently. We now have no large British-owned television set manufacturers. I suppose that Ferguson is an exception: it is owned by Thomson Brand, and perhaps a change of ownership does not matter. Incidentally, Thomson Brand is a nationalised company.
  Mr. John Marshall: And it is European.
  Mr. Dykes: Indeed it is. But, whatever the ownership, television sets, electronic products and so on have a history of decline. Government action is not the sole cause of that, although it may have been partly responsible. Manufacturing complacency, giving up and not bothering mean losing the market and any productive capacity.
  After that cathartic period has been achieved, we need a much more open and pragmatic attitude. We need to get away from the ideology, and take common sense as a basis for our actions. We should accept the mixture of public and private sector, the need for them to work harmoniously together.
  I do not wish to anticipate Monday's debate, which would be out of order. However, electricity privatisation is a case in point. I am not at all enthusiastic about the Government's plans; I state that quite openly. Parts of them are good, but has the proposal really been triggered by a genuine problem that needs tackling, or did the ideological motor start it off somewhere in the recesses of the Centre for Policy Studies—which itself should be privatised? [HON. MEMBERS: "It is."] I mean that it should be nationalised.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: It should be closed down.
  Mr. Dykes: That would be a bit unfair. The Centre for Policy Studies has done some excellent work.
  Did it all start with someone sitting in a cupboard, having food pushed through twice a day and being asked, "Are you ready with that memo on privatising the Army yet, George? You are late." Or did it begin in the Department of Energy, as a genuine modernising policy? I am simple-minded, and I cannot understand the idea of increasing electricity charges now so that they can be lowered later. I would not, therefore, have tackled the CEGB in the way that is proposed in the White Paper. The

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  problems of the electricity industry are hugely complex, and to comment so briefly on them will inevitably appear superficial. Surely, however, the main problem is at the distribution end, which the Government are leaving more or less intact; indeed, they are increasing its scope of activity.
  Of the three segments of the industry, distribution surely provides the main problem of geographical monopoly. There is enormous complacency in its operations, including — I say this with heartfelt enthusiasm, as a retailer—the use of showrooms, which is monumentally inefficient in many respects. No wonder all the area boards are, according to the Government, so enthusiastic about electricity privatisation. Their geographical monopoly will remain intact and they will be able to secure generational activity at the margin and increase their work. As I understand it, those boards will collectively own the middle segment of the proposed privatised industry—the transmission company.
  I believe that the problems of the electricity industry lie with distribution rather than generation. To tamper with an enormously successful, carefully built up, huge entity, the CEGB, so lightly — the White Paper is a short document for such a complex matter—is a pity.
  If I were involved in deciding Government policy—obviously they would be acting much more wisely as a result — I should agree that they have done a lot of extremely successful privatisation. We are all aware that the main reason for privatisation has been to make the people shareholders and, as a member of the London stock exchange, how can I say that that is a bad idea? However, all Governments must discontinue certain policies after they have been a success—they cannot go on and on. I believe that, after the last privatisation, that should have been it. I hope that that attitude may be shown vis-à-vis the water companies. The problems of that industry will not be solved by the fairly simple approach that has been adopted by the Government to such a complex matter.
  Enterprise is vital and I wholeheartedly commend the Government for having been the enterprise Government and the DTI for being, par excellence, the enterprise Department. However, such work must be tempered with social restraint and a sense of responsibility. Every sound business man would surely agree that there is no contradiction between the maximisation of profits and an acute social conscience and responsibility. They should plough back resources into the community not only through taxation, but as a result of autonomous action by companies and individuals — company directors and shareholders.
  My contribution to the debate is somewhat paradoxical because I am talking against my own interests in the Bill that is second in the list for consideration later, the Planning Permission (Demolition of Houses) Bill. That Bill is an excellent representation of the ideas that I have sought to put forward. As a Conservative I naturally support property development and the beneficial positive aspects of such development. However, in the outer London suburbs we are witnessing rampant, excessive property development. Therefore, I am glad that many of my colleagues are present to support my Bill when it comes up for Second Reading.
  Property developers must also recognise the need for restraint and recognise their social obligations not to overdo development. I would be out of order if I described my Bill in detail, but it provides that property developers
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  must apply for permission to demolish dwellings at the same time as they apply for planning permission to build a new block of houses or flats. The merits of such an approach would be obvious. The size of the file that I have with me demonstrates the number of letters of support that I have received. There is also tremendous support for the measure within the House.
  My approach to my Bill is somewhat paradoxical because I have spoken in this debate and there are two other private Members' motions after this one. However, I have acted thus because it is rumoured that the Department of the Environment will, once again, object to my Bill. Recently I had a meeting with the Minister for Housing and Planning and he was as helpful as he could be. However, I would describe the Department's attitude as sympathetic, but unclear how to proceed. I believe that the Department of the Environment always prefers to change planning laws as a result of Government instruments rather than through Private Bills.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The hon. Gentleman has been extremely ingenious, but I am sure he would recognise that he has gone far enough on that line.
  Mr. Dykes: I thank you for your great patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and if the House gives me time to debate the Bill today I shall then go into more detail.
  10.43 am
  Mr. David Shaw: May I apologise to the House because, owing to a long-standing constituency engagement, I may be unable to stay to hear the concluding speeches in the debate?
  I believe that it is appropriate, given that today is the parliamentary eve of Monday's debate and certain journalists outside may be busy scribbling away, to say that there are some on the Conservative Benches who see opportunities and benefits to the nation as the result of the privatisation of electricity. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) was correct to consider that privatisation in this debate. From other privatisations that have taken place, it is clear that quality control, design of the product and the financial control, management and discipline in those businesses have improved as a result. My hon. Friend has discussed whether the pursuit of privatisation is a good policy. It is clear that it has been successful and that current business practices contrast totally with the attitudes that prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s. During that time Britain's international position was falling rapidly.
  I believe that the White Paper on enterprise is extremely important because it is a further step away from the attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s. Today things are completely different. An important contrast is that the White Paper is not about putting vast sums of money on the table, and it is not about vast grants to British industry. It is about encouraging support and improving skills within industry and business.
  Reference has been made to manufacturing output and the fact that it is only just above the level reached in 1979. However, those people who say that forget that the service sector has expanded enormously. We now have a larger manufacturing industry than in 1979 plus a much larger service sector.
  When one compares the current position to the 1970s, it is important to recognise that putting money on the table

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  was not the answer. In the 1970s money was grabbed by unsuccessful businesses and, as a result, those businesses were made more unsuccessful. They became less competitive as a result of receiving too much money to produce out-of-date and badly designed products.
  The Government recognised that failure. Certainly, the famous "British disease" known throughout the world is now recognised as having been cured. Foreign competitors stand up when a British business man walks into the room because they recognise him as a true competitor. We had to change our attitudes and improve our skills in marketing, design and finance. If we had not done that, we would have lost out in competition to Japanese, German and American business men.
  One of the best business lessons that I ever received occurred when I was flying back to this country across the Atlantic—I hasten to add on a British Airways plane—with a Japanese business man sitting next to me. Every time the conversation turned towards business, that business man discussed market share and how to increase it, the competitive position and how to compete more effectively and efficiently. I often contrast that conversation with the lessons that I had to learn when I visited various sectors of British industry in the 1970s. At that time I saw much old-fashioned industry and old-fashioned attitudes. In the 1960s and 1970s there was little understanding among middle management about international competition and increasing the market share.
  The evidence of changed attitudes is demonstrated by a new sector that has developed, the British venture capital industry. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) mentioned that industry and I share his concern that it is not as regional as we would like. It has been too concentrated on the south and the south-east. However, the business venture in which I was involved attempted to set up some operations in the north and the north-west. In a small and modest way, we managed to achieve one or two successes, but they were not as plentiful as we would have liked because we were trying to overcome in a matter of months attitudes that had been built up over many years. The regions lacked skills, training, investment and business knowledge, and there had been a loss of capital markets to London. Even the local professionals, the solicitors and the accountants were uncertain as to what venture capital was all about.
  I am pleased to say that the British venture capital industry is admired by the United States for being competitive with their own industry. It is also admired by the Germans, the French and the Italians, all of whom want to copy our industry and develop their own venture capital industries. Certainly we have the opportunity for many new companies to start as a result of venture capital initiatives in Britain. I pay tribute to the work of the British Venture Capital Association.
  One important aspect of the debate which I touched upon at the beginning of my speech is the British approach to business. In the 1960s and 1970s our attitude was totally wrong and we lost markets. In the Commonwealth countries and throughout Africa the British car industry has been in retreat and many foreign competitors' cars are now sold in those countries. We lost products, and we lost a television industry that is down to only about one company manufacturing in Britain apart from some Japanese companies now assembling over here.
  Mr. Eric S. Heifer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we lost all those industries at the time when they were all privatised? The managements refused to get off their bottoms and get around the world and fight for markets, and allowed the television industry, the motor cycle industry—indeed industry after industry —to go to the wall. The Government tried to stop them going to the wall. The private enterprise people could have done what they wanted to do, but they did not and they failed the country.
  Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman did not listen to the point that I made earlier. My key point was that all those industries that failed during the late 1960s and the 1970s received vast amounts of Government money. The Government subsidised businesses that had failure within them. However much money one puts on the table, one cannot turn a business round when the work force does not want success. [Interruption.] Management—and I criticise British management—in the 1960s and 1970s did not understand the requirements of success. That was a very significant point. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) please contain himself? He has only just walked into the Chamber and has taken no part in the debate.
  Mr. Shaw: Nevertheless, it is welcome that a few Opposition Members have turned up. During the debate on the coal industry the other day they were notable by their absence.
  Not only did Britain lose products and opportunities; it lost new products. It lost the opportunity to develop the video equipment industry, and many new areas of business. There were problems with both the management and the work force. In some British companies there were five or six canteens. I used to go round some of those companies and compare them with the American subsidiaries operating in Britain which had only one canteen and in which the management were on the shop floor. The management were interested in what was going on. There was a complete contrast in attitudes between British companies and American subsidiaries operating over here. Fortunately, however, much of that is changing.
  We now do not have management and work force problems to the same degree, except when they are raised by Opposition Members. We have staff and personnel problems because management is beginning to recognise, and has recognised for some time, that management and work force in Britain have the same objective — to produce more goods.
  It is important that in this interesting debate we recognise that throughout Britain there is a lack of training. The Government have done quite a lot to encourage training in business. However, we still have problems which are highlighted by Mr. Robb Wilmot, former chief executive of ICL, who pointed out that one Korean company has more management graduates in it than there are in the whole of the United Kingdom. That means that we do not have the management skills or the background of management training that we need. I know that the Government will do much to develop that.
  I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs who has advocated the cause of British industry, and improvements in design and quality control. I am

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  pleased that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has joined us. It is only appropriate that I should say that one of my friends recently attended a conference where my hon. Friend the Minister was speaking. He said to me, "Who is this man Butcher? The Government should wheel him out more often as he is a really good speaker."
  In clothing design and other industries, Britain excels. At one time I acted as financial adviser to one business lady in the design sector. She constantly said to me that she had never been trained at design school to understand business, but she built up a business that employs some 50 people. We can imagine how large that business could have been if she had been trained in business skills.
  I conclude by drawing attention to the fact that the Government are encouraging the improvement of design manufacturing skills. Productivity has increased rapidly. The Government, through the enterprise initiative White Paper, will help further to develop the quality and marketing skills of British industry. We have come a long way since the problems of the 1970s. We have proved that it is not vast sums of money being put on the table in investment grants that improve British industry. We have proved that it is improved by the right economy, by reducing taxation, by encouraging our business men to succeed and by being more competitive against foreign competitors.
  All those skills that we are encouraging and all the improvements that we are trying to achieve in British industry are no good unless British industry earns profits. Opposition Members fail to understand the importance of profits. Profits are important because today's profits, this year's profits, provide the cash for next year's investment, and investment in plant and machinery is extremely important for the country. Without more investment in plant and machinery, we cannot succeed and we cannot compete against overseas companies.
  I hope that the Government will continue doing what they have done to date so that there will be more improvement and investment in the people who are important in British industry and in new plant and equipment. I know that we will continue to achieve new production records as a result of the Government's initiatives.
  10.59 am
  Mr. David Evans: This morning, I have been under a misapprehension. We have heard about the electricity authority and about national and multinational companies. I should like to bring the debate back to the enterprise initiative.
  I welcome the regional grant system being taken over by the Government's initiative. I hope that the initiative will be developed by the regions. Design is important. British Aerospace, which is in my constituency, is well-equipped in respect of design. That is why I hope that the proposed negotiations between the Rover Group and British Aerospace are successful. Design is important in business.
  I should like to bring the debate back to the small business man. The country's future depends on him. The small business man needs the help that the initiative will provide.
  It being Eleven o'clock, MR. SPEAKER interrupted proceedings, pursuant to Standing Order No. 11 (Friday sittings).

  NATO Summit (Brussels)
  The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about the meeting of Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us get off to a good start with the statement.
  The Prime Minister: With permission I shall make a statement about the meeting of Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, held in Brussels on 2 and 3 March, which I attended with my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary.
  The summit agreed a main declaration and a statement entitled "Conventional Arms Control: The Way Ahead". Copies of both documents have been placed in the Library of the House.
  Since NATO's last summit in 1982, there have been important changes affecting the Alliance. First, we have seen developments in the arms control field, above all the successful INF agreement, achieved as a result of NATO's resolve.
  Secondly, we look forward to President Reagan's forthcoming visit to Moscow and hope that — then or later — we shall see agreement to reduce the strategic nuclear weapons of the United States and the Soviet Union by 50 per cent.
  Thirdly, we have seen bold reforms introduced by Mr. Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. These hold out the prospect of more responsibility and more choice for the Soviet people.
  Fourthly, we have begun to see some signs of change in the Soviet Union's external policies, above all the very welcome decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.
  At the same time, there has been no let-up in the Soviet Union's extensive military modernisation programmes. Indeed, they are going ahead as fast as ever. For example, first, by the mid-1990s, virtually the entire Soviet strategic force in place in the mid-1980s will have been replaced by new or modernised systems, including the world's only rail-mobile ICBM system. Secondly, one new submarine is deployed every 37 days. Thirdly, they are actively modernising their shorter-range missiles, where they already enjoy a major advantage, with more accurate longer-range SS2Is. Fourthly, the Soviet Union made over 90 space launches last year for military purposes.
  As a result, the Soviet Union has the world's largest nuclear and chemical arsenals, and the Warsaw pact enjoys substantial superiority over NATO in conventional forces.
  Against this background, it was important for the leaders of the NATO countries to come together, take stock and to set guidelines for future action. The United Kingdom approached the meeting with a number of clear objectives. First, to underline the continuing importance of the NATO Alliance to the defence of the West. It is as vital now for protecting our freedom as when it was formed in 1949. Second, to confirm the unity and the resolve of NATO in the face of Soviet attempts to separate Europe from the United States and to denuclearise Europe. Third, to reaffirm the validity of NATO's strategy of flexible response and the consequent need to keep all NATO's weapons—nuclear as well as conventional—up

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  to date. Fourth to discuss President Reagan's forthcoming visit to Moscow for a United States-Soviet summit, and to confirm NATO's priorities in arms control.
  These objectives were very fully and satisfactorily achieved, as will be clear from the texts of the declaration and the statement to which I have referred. They contain: first, a strong reaffirmation of the vital link between the security of Europe and that of North America. It is particularly important to remind people of this in a presidential election year in the United States. President Reagan assured the summit that NATO enjoyed a bipartisan support in the United States and that American troops would remain in Europe as long as the common defence of the democratic way of life required. We are all, of course, very grateful to the United States and Canada for the susbtantial forces which they keep in Europe.
  Second, in the two documents we reaffirmed our determination that NATO's defences should remain strong, recognising the crucial role of the nuclear deterrence provided not just by the United States strategic deterrent but also by the presence of effective and up-to-date nuclear weapons in Europe. I am particularly pleased that all Heads of Government agreed on
  "a strategy of deterrence based on an appropriate mix of adequate and effective nuclear and conventional forces which will continue to be kept up to date where necessary".
  Third, based on confidence in our sure defence, a willingness to seek dialogue with the countries of the Warsaw pact and a desire for further arms control agreements, particularly on chemical and conventional weapons. Any further reductions in nuclear weapons after START would come about only in conjunction with the establishment of conventional balance and the global elimination of chemical weapons. It is quite clear that NATO is determined to avoid a third nuclear zero.
  Heads of Government also took the opportunity to thank Lord Carrington, who retires in June, for his outstanding work as Secretary-General of NATO.
  This summit meeting, which was convened as a result of a British initiative, successfully reinforced NATO's basic message of defence, deterrence and dialogue. It reaffirmed the strategy that has kept the peace in Europe for over 40 years. It underlined NATO's commitment to keep all our weapons, both conventional and nuclear, up-to-date in order to ensure that deterrence remains effective and that our defences are strong enough to convince any aggressor that he could not prevail. It is on the basis of such a sure defence that we are able to welcome the reforms that are taking place in the Soviet Union and to enter into further negotiations to reduce the level of weaponry on both sides.
  Taken with the recent successful European summit, we have created a platform from which Europe can look with confidence to the future.
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: I am grateful to the Prime Minister for her statement.
  Is it not a fact that the statement that we heard this Friday morning is evidence of the Prime Minister's success in having the summit and of her failure to get what she wanted out of it? Is it not also clear that, in the week before she met allies in Brussels, Chancellor Helmut Kohl had already concluded the summit during his visit to Washington by agreeing not to press for the third zero on tactical weapons in return for the United States'
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  reassurance that nuclear modernisation would receive no priority? Therefore, is it not obvious that the Prime Minister was effectively sidelined by the manoeuvre before she even got to Brussels?
  Yesterday the Prime Minister said that the conclusion of the summit was that conventional weapons had to be brought down to parity and chemical weapons eliminated before any further negotiations on nuclear weapons took place. Was the Prime Minister reflecting the position of our allies? The communiqué states that the NATO disarmament goal includes,
  "in conjunction with the establishment of a conventional balance, the global elimination of chemical weapons, tangible and verifiable reductions of American and Soviet land-based nuclear missile systems of shorter range, leading to equal ceilings".
  Therefore, was not Lord Carrington more accurate than the Prime Minister? He said:
  "nobody is saying that you cannot start one set of negotiations before another has ended."
  Is it not the case that the West German Government take the view that negotiations to reduce battlefield and short-range nuclear weapons on their soil should be commenced as soon as possible and that separate and simultaneous negotiations can proceed without waiting for the completion of one agreement before others are pursued?
  There has been a certain amount of semantic anarchy between our various allies since the summit ended. As words are actions in communiqués like that — [Interruption.] I suppose I made the mistake of quoting The Wall Street Journal on that issue. As words are actions in communiqués such as those coming out of Brussels, are the Parliaments and forces of allied nations to act upon the objective of keeping forces maintained in proper condition where that is desirable, which is the German version, kept up-to-date where necessary, which is the English version, or, as the Prime Minister says that that version is a euphemism for modernisation, should modernisation, as she interprets it, be the objective? Could she tell us whether, in her view, the act of modernisation should include the installation of new weapons systems, whether sea, air or ground launched, and whether they are regarded as being tactical, intermediate or strategic in range?
  The Prime Minister says that she strongly favours the bold changes in the Soviet Union, both for the sake of the Soviet people and to increase international stability, and one cannot but concur with her there. But does she not realise that the pressures that she wishes to impose by the rearmament that would come from the form of modernisation that she wants would insert the greatest possible impediment to the changes that we all want to see in the Soviet Union?
  The Prime Minister has previously spoken of the continual renovation and innovation in Soviet arms, and she did so again this morning. Is she aware that she can stop and reverse such a build up by fostering agreements which secure arms build down? However, is it not clear that she wants to pursue the contrary course and, under the guise of modernisation, bring about a multiplication of armaments? Therefore, does she not appreciate that, to put it at its most polite, there is a significant inconsistency in her approach?
  There is much justifiable concern about the numerical superiority of Warsaw pact forces in Europe, and a clear need rigorously to pursue the asymmetrical reductions in conventional forces offered by the Soviets and considered

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  by our allies. However, does the Prime Minister share the view of many experts, including the United States chiefs of staff report to Congress last year, that the imbalance of forces, if considered in terms of quality as well as in terms of quantity, is less in reality than is sometimes argued by many, including the Prime Minister? If she does, will she be pursuing force reductions on that basis rather than on the basis of what is sometimes called the "bean count" view of force disparities between the Soviet Union and the Western allies?
  The Prime Minister: I sat for nearly two days in the NATO summit listening to many speeches, including many from Socialist Heads of Government, and I never heard such claptrap as I have heard from the Opposition Front Bench today. This country's Socialist party is out of step with every other one in Europe. That is no wonder, because it is virtually a CND Socialist party.
  The Government got precisely what we wanted out of the summit in modernising nuclear forces, and that was endorsed by 16 nations, including the United States. Many of those countries supported us, and others agreed with the communiqué — [Interruption.] Yes, because some countries neither make nor deploy nuclear weapons, but they support the rest of us in doing so, unlike the Labour party.
  There was a clear declaration in the conventional statement that we have to continue to keep conventional weapons up to date, and we thought it absolutely right that we should put it also in the bigger declaration, which says:
  "This is a strategy of deterrence based upon an appropriate mix of adequate and effective nuclear and conventional forces which will continue to be kept up to date where necessary."
  The right hon. Gentleman has difficulty with that sentence, he might try the next one for size. The first sentence of paragraph 6 says:
  "While seeking security and stability at lower levels of armaments, we are determined to sustain the requisite efforts to ensure the continued viablity, credibility and effectiveness of our conventional and nuclear forces, including the nuclear forces in Europe, which together provide the guarantee of our common security."
  How does the right hon. Gentleman think that one can possibily do that without keeping nuclear forces in Europe up to date? That is precisely what this NATO summit agreed. The right hon. Gentleman is out of step with each and every country in NATO.
  The Soviet Union is, as I said, and as we all know, continuing to modernise all its weapons, whether conventional or nuclear. I set out some of the changes this morning, and there are many more. It is absolutely vital that we negotiate from a basis of strength because that tactic got the intermediate nuclear weapons treaty. It is because of that continued strength that we are able to deter. One does not deter with obsolete weapons, whether conventional or nuclear, and one has to keep them up to date.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the American chiefs of staff. General Galvin needed the decision which we were instrumental in getting. America was prominent in supporting us all the way in securing this form of wording. The actual text was negotiated in English, so it is English which is the clear version.
  Sir Antony Buck: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are two most encouraging features about this summit? The first is the total
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  reaffirmation of the American position, and its commitment to NATO as the sheet anchor of NATO. The second important feature that is emerging is the improved relationship between France and NATO. Many of us would like France to return to being a fully integrated member of NATO but realise that that is not likely. Nevertheless, it is good that there has been a closing of relationships and so much interservice co-operation.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, the total reaffirmation of American forces to Europe was welcome, particularly during an election year in the United States. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that another encouraging factor was the presence of President Mitterrand and the way in which France is, voluntarily because it does not belong to the integrated military structure of NATO, exercising its forces, bearing in mind the NATO exercises. I put several proposals to President Mitterrand regarding, for example, being able to practise reinforcements through French Channel ports and airfields of any forces that would be needed, should there ever be an alert. So far, we have not been able to practise through those Channel ports, and I hope that we should be able to. Again, that is evidence of further close co-operation between French forces and the NATO structure.
  Mr. Paddy Ashdown: Will the Prime Minister recognise how welcome it is that wiser heads in NATO have forced her away from unilateralism in seeking to raise the number of nuclear weapons? Since both the Warsaw pact and NATO have the capacity to destroy each other 50 times over, why does she want more? Is not enough enough?
  The Prime Minister: As vie know from the last election, only one party in this country is willing to keep a sure defence and to deter an aggressor. The Soviet Union is modernising her nuclear weapons. She has, for example, the only strategic ballistic missile which can be moved around by rail, and, as we know, can be brought into areas that are being vacated by the SS20s. We do not expect the hon. Gentleman and his party to be strong — they do not have a policy.
  We are determined to keep defence and deterrent sure. That means modernising nuclear weapons. Ministers when they meet in their next nuclear planning group meeting, which takes place in April, will have to make decisions. They have on their agenda a proposal to make deployments in connection with the pulling out of Europe of the intermediate nuclear weapons.
  Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Marshals Yazov and Akhromeyev are already saying that they will have to take this matter into account and compensating moves will have to be made? Marshal Akhromeyev said that in the ratification hearings for the intermediate treaty. We have the guts to keep this country properly defended, and so does NATO.
  Mr. David Howell: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the outcome of the Brussels meeting is sensible, realistic and greatly reassuring to the future peace of Europe? However, is she satisfied about the verification regime which will be needed for the proposed strategic missile negotiations? Will it be the same regime as the one that is in place for the INF treaty, or does she think that a much deeper and more comprehensive verification regime will be needed for the START negotiations?
  The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is correct. A much deeper and more detailed regime is necessary for the START proposals than for the intermediate nuclear forces. The intermediate nuclear forces regime became easier when the Soviet Union agreed to a global ban, whereas my right hon. Friend is aware that at first it was proposed that the Soviet Union and the United States should each keep 100. That would have been almost impossible to verify. It will be much more difficult with START than with a global ban because there will be a mix of weapons. The establishment of a proper verification procedure is one of the reasons why it is taking a considerable time to get a START agreement. We think that it is more important to get the right and sure agreement than it is to get one quickly.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Does not the Prime Minister appreciate that many other countries apart from those represented in NATO are greatly interested in nuclear and other forms of disarmament? Does she not understand that her perpetual, indeed paranoid, insistence on building up nuclear weapons is a barefaced breach of Britain's commitments under the non-proliferation treaty? How does she imagine that we will get other countries to abide by that treaty? Dos she propose to tear it up? If she continues to say that we must have nuclear weapons, many other countries will say the same.
  The Prime Minister: First, the Soviet Union probably has more nuclear warheads than any other country. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman went to the root of the communiqué because he does not believe that nuclear weapons are necessary for deterrence. The communiqué clearly says that nuclear weapons alone give the requisite degree of deterrence to the enemy. The right hon. Gentleman does not agree. Thirdly, this was agreed by the whole of NATO. Fourthly, the first nuclear arms control agreement that reduced the number of nuclear weapons was achieved under a Conservative Government through firm resolve and strength and by deploying cruise missiles. We played a big part in that. We were the first to deploy the cruise missiles and the Labour party would never have done that. We would never have had an agreement and the Russians would still have all their SS20s up. Had a Labour Government been in power there would have been no similar weapons on the Western side. We had a great influence over that agreement, and the Opposition do not like the fact that it was strength that achieved proper and balanced arms reductions.
  Mr. Michael Mates: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her robust leadership of the NATO nations. It has been confirmed within NATO that the twin-track policy that we have been following is the correct one—a policy of firm deterrence while seeking reductions. Will she now take every step that she and her Ministers can to explain to the people of Britain, who do not understand some of the nuances and who will be concerned at the thought of upgrading nuclear weapons, that modernisation and bringing up to date is not rearmament or escalation but simply the maintenance of that deterrent shield without which we would not have obtained any of the concessions that we have got from the Soviet Union?
  The Prime Minister: I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We have to make certain that we have a sure
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  defence and that the deterrence deters. To do that, weapons must be up to date. Then we must have dialogue on arms control agreements. That is what we are doing, and in those arms control agreements we are making certain that at no stage do they unbalance our defence effort or call it into question.
  The Opposition policy of no nuclear weapons was defeated very surely in a phone-in during the general election campaign—(Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister must be given a chance to answer.
  The Prime Minister: During that phone-in, Lance Corporal Ragman questioned the Labour spokesman on defence about Labour's non-nuclear policy. He said:
  "Now you're telling me to go into this battle knowing that if we do succeed in pushing them back"—
  that is the enemy—
  "we're gonna get nuked and if we don't succeed in pushing them back we're gonna get invaded."
  Dr. David Owen: The Prime Minister knows that the SDP has consistently supported the updating of Britain's nuclear deterrent and NATO's nuclear deterrent. What is more, it will continue to do so. Does the Prime Minister agree that there are many in NATO who think that some categories of battlefield nuclear weapons could be completely removed with advantage to both sides? I am speaking especially of very short-range battlefield nuclear weapons such as nuclear artillery. However, aircraft will continue to need to be nuclear armed. Can the Prime Minister say whether she would consider a battlefield nuclear-free corridor as a confidence building measure while at the same time going ahead with a stand-off air-launched missile for the Tornado aircraft?
  The Prime Minister: I know that the right hon. Gentleman has consistently supported the updating of nuclear weapons, except for Polaris, which he did not seem to agree should be updated. I know that he is not associated with the new party, and I notice that it does not have a policy. In its document that party says:
  "The new party will, therefore, need to decide how to reconcile these changing realities with the manifesto commitment to 'maintain our capability in the sense of freezing our capacity at a level no greater than that of the Polaris system'."
  If the party has a policy, it seems to be not to modernise in order to deter but to freeze in order to be obsolete compared with the threat that faces us.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked about battlefield nuclear weapons. He will be aware that since the Montebello decision the number taken out of the field in Europe has been considerable. He will also be aware that the artillery shells are being updated. That decision was taken and is in process of being implemented.
  Mr. Harry Cohen: Is the Prime Minister aware that the last opinion poll on this matter showed that 75 per cent. of the British people think that further increases and improvements in nuclear weapons would not bring any real advantage or benefit to the United States or the Soviet Union? Why is the Prime Minister pursuing such a hard line in this costly and unproductive nuclear rearmament? Is it not the case that her policy of rearmament, of wanting to turn Britain into a nuclear battle station, was not put to the electorate at the last election?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman forgets that we have an arms control agreement that reduces intermediate land-based nuclear weapons to zero, and that we are going for a START agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce the strategic ballistic missiles of the two nations to 50 per cent. Such a reduction of weapons was never achieved under the defence policy of the Labour party when it was in power and certainly would not be achieved now if it was in power.
  In an article in The Daily Telegraph of 3 November the Labour Chief Whip was reported as saying:
  "We have over 100 members of the Parliamentary CND in the Parliamentary Labour Party, including of course the Leader of the Party, Neil Kinnock."
  Therefore, Labour party policy is to have no nuclear weapons at all. That is no deterrent.
  Mr. John Wilkinson: May I express my appreciation to my right hon. Friend for the fact that this communiqué presents starkly to the peoples of the Alliance the fact that under Gorbachev, as under his predecessors, the steady modernisation and enhancement of Soviet military power has proceeded apace? In the face of that reality, is it not completely irresponsible for the Labour party to advocate modernisation and improvement of neither our conventional forces nor our nuclear forces?
  The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. Most people in this country expect us to have a sure defence and know that that requires a nuclear deterrent. That was reaffirmed by NATO this week, which said in the communiqué:
  "Only the nuclear element can confront a potential aggressor with an unacceptable risk. Therefore, for the foreseeable future deterrence will continue to require an adequate mix of nuclear as well as conventional forces."
  Governments of all sorts in Europe, including Socialist Governments, fully endorsed that communiqué. The Labour party is totally out of step with every other Government in Europe, including Socialist Governments, as well as with the United States.
  Mr. Michael Alison: Does my right hon. Friend recall St. Augustine's observation that memory is the stomach of the mind? The fact that the Labour party has no stomach for maintaining a proper balance in our
  effective defence, including a nuclear balance, is merely a reflection of the fact that it has no memory of the holocaust that followed pre-war appeasement and one-sided military weakness.
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: no memory, no stomach, no spine, no guts.
  Mr. Peter Shore: Although I welcome the progress made towards multilateral nuclear disarmament through the INF treaty and the START talks, and although I accept that the emphasis must now be on rectifying the conventional imbalance in Western Europe, does the Prime Minister believe that it is possible to make much progress towards reductions of conventional weapons in Europe without embarking upon parallel negotiations to limit and reduce the number of battlefield nuclear weapons in the European theatre?
  The Prime Minister stated her strong objection to the third zero, as she called it. What can be the objection to
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  the achievement of such a goal if—but only if—we have reached agreement with the Soviet Union to reduce its overwhelming supremacy in conventional weapons?
  The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, a third nuclear zero in Europe would unbalance the forces, which is why we do not wish to enter that sort of negotiation now. That is why the communiqué talks about doing this "in conjunction with" a conventional balance and the elimination of chemical weapons. Most of us believe that it can be done only when that is complete. Chancellor Kohl accepts that there should be no third nuclear zero in Europe, so he is absolutely with us.
  The phrase in the communiqué,
  "in conjunction with … a conventional balance and the global elimination of chemical weapons",
  came from the ministerial communiqué at Reykjavik, and has come forward into this communiqué. Most, indeed, all of us agree that the next priority is an asymmetrical reduction in conventional weapons because the Soviet union has such a great superiority and, if possible, a global ban on chemical weapons, although the verification problems would be enormous.
  Sir Anthony Meyer: My right hon. Friend must be warmly congratulated on the major role that she played in securing an agreement in which no one got exactly what he wanted and everyone got much more than he expected. Does she accept that the presence of President Mitterrand at the meeting suggested the possibility of closer Franco-British co-operation, which might lead to closer co-operation in defence equipment procurement and manufacture and, in due course, to closer consultation about the use of our independent nuclear deterrent?
  The Prime Minister: I agree that it was very good that President Mitterrand was present at the nuclear summit. He is a staunch believer in nuclear deterrence, and France is updating its nuclear weapons. We have had a good deal of bilateral discussion with France, trying all the time to get greater practical co-operation between the military forces of France and the military forces of NATO. That seems to be forthcoming. Although France will not rejoin NATO, it will, nevertheless, co-operate closely with its conventional and possibly its nuclear forces, although the latter would be much more difficult.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Why does the Prime Minister suppose that she was unable to persuade even the Americans to support us on Exercise Fire Focus? Secondly, did she have any discussions with Chancellor Kohl or Secretary Shultz about the case of Christina Endrigkeit, which undermines the whole basis on which the Libyan bombing took place? Why is it that the evidence of Major Ruth La Fontaine, the acting officer in charge in Berlin, contradicts what the British and the American Governments said?
  The Prime Minister: I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that Libya was not discussed at this NATO summit, not even in bilateral talks between the United States and ourselves. I note that the hon. Gentleman has no complaint about the NATO communiqué, for which I am grateful.
  Mr. John Browne: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, unlike the Labour party, many millions—if not hundreds of millions—of people throughout the free world thank her for rejuvenating NATO and urging

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  our NATO allies to concentrate upon not merely the words of the Soviet Union but the actions of the Soviet Union projected into the long term? Does she accept that arms control must be balanced, integrated in terms of nuclear, chemical and conventional and, above all, prudent? As for the funding of NATO, does she accept that vast alternative sources of funds are available if only NATO would co-ordinate its procurement programme effectively?
  The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. It was a vigorous communiqué by a vigorous NATO carrying into the future the strategy that has kept the peace in Europe for 40 years. Next year, NATO will celebrate 40 years of existence. The communiqué stands for everything that the Labour party rejects.
  Ms. Joan Ruddock: What precisely does the Prime Minister mean by "necessary modernisation"? Does it include replacing free-fall bombs on Tornado with cruise missiles? Does it include extending the range of the Lance missile? Does it include the so-called updating of the field artillery? How does she think the latter will be received in West Germany, where the people bitterly resent being told that they should be the firebreak for Europe? If she believes that the modernisation of Soviet short-range missiles is undesirable, how does she think all this updating and modernisation will help? It is substitution, it goes against the spirit of the present disarmament agreements and it cannot be in the interests of our people.
  The Prime Minister: The communiqué recognised that we cannot deter with outdated weapons, whether conventional or nuclear. The Soviet Union knows that, which is why it is already updating its short-range as well as its longer-range weapons. Indeed, it is ahead of us in updating some long-range weapons
  Since the INF agreement was signed, the Soviet Defence Minister, Mr. Yazov, has said:
  "We shall exert all efforts to make the military alliance of Socialist countries, the Warsaw Pact organisation, even more powerful,"
  In the ratification hearings before the Supreme Soviet, Marshal Akhromeyev has said that the Soviet Union
  "has other nuclear weapons in the European area which to a certain extent compensate for these"
  INF
  "missiles."
  That is the threat which we have to deter. I think that peace is extremely important. We shall continue to have peace only if we continue the strategy of NATO, which is to have nuclear weapons and to update them. If our free-fall nuclear bombs are absolutely incapable of delivery, there is no point in thinking that they would deter. Yes, in due course it will be necessary to update them.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: Will my right hon. Friend dismiss with total derision the shambling defence policy strictures of the Opposition, which are pure Mickey Mouse with a couple of bullets in the pocket? In accepting the congratulations of the House on her successful participation in the summit, will my right hon. Friend say a little more about the interesting partial French return to NATO, despite what she said about them not being members of it, and that, with British encouragement, they can overcome their inhibitions about the United States
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  aspect of the policy? Will my right hon. Friend particularly say whether the French have now begun to reconcile themselves on the shorter-range missiles with the German inhibitions about the presence and location of the French missiles?
  The Prime Minister: I think that there is no possibility of our French friends returning to the military structure of NATO. They were present as part of the political structure of the Western Alliance. I think that there is no possibility at present of their returning to the military structure. They are always extremely helpful in their approach to nuclear weapons. They know full well that there is no deterrence without them. They know full well that one must keep them modern and up to date. They are doing that with their own long range weapons, and they are in fact modernising their own short range. I believe that the fact that a Socialist President of France is taking such a strong view has had a very strong effect on Socialists also in West Germany, and has been helpful to the NATO Alliance as a whole.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: While, at times, fear and deterrence are necessary, in this case through NATO, does not the Prime Minister agree that sure defence—the phrase that she used—and abiding security and stability are obtained only through knowledge that leads to that elusive political commodity, justified confidence?
  In that respect, has not the United Kingdom two incomparable assets? First, we are the cultural and institutional centre of a language that is now a major world language — English. Secondly, we have through history, endowment and performance a major world news agency, the BBC World Service, which serves the ends that I have just described. Cannot the £3 million that is now necessary for a world television service be made available, particularly bearing in mind the fact that it is the cost of about 20 modern war planes? Does not that make only good sense in our contribution to confidence, which alone separates us from nuclear holocaust and, from the Prime Minister's point of view, is very good value for money? Should not the government therefore invest in that news service that we all want to see?
  The Prime Minister: Sometimes it seems to me that we need to aim more knowledge and more facts towards the Opposition to achieve their agreement to a NATO comuniqué. So far, the BBC does not seem to have been able to do that. Yes, the BBC external services are broadcast in many countries. The hon. Gentleman is aware that the Independent Television News already has an international television service, which does not cost the taxpayer a penny.
  Mr. Alistair Burt: Has my right hon. Friend considered that her sadly realistic view that conventional warfare will be deterred only by nuclear weapons will strike a chord not only in our own constituencies, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe in working men's clubs, and particularly in the Soviet Union, where the Soviets' experience of invasion by conventional warfare was so horrific during the second world war? Does not my right hon. Friend feel that opinions engendered by such an experience and such a memory are likely to be worth a few more beans than the vacuous opinions expressed by Opposition Members?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I have always found that in this country people understand, because memories are still vivid, that one must have a strong defence. They understand that one needs nuclear weapons for defence. The Army—all our armed forces—understands that this Government at least would never put our young men in the field inadequately equipped and with equipment that was not sufficient to deter the threat. That was their worry in the piece that I read out. Therefore, they support the policy, and the people generally support the policy. They would prefer us to have a sound defence. They know that it is necessary and they have a certain amount of pride in the part that this country plays as a staunch ally in NATO, and also more worldwide even than NATO.
  Mr. Eric S. Heifer: In view of the statement that the Prime Minister has just made about the BBC, is she aware that many of us are absolutely delighted that she has come back from the NATO summit without getting entirely her own way? It is about time that the nations of the world decided that Mrs. Thatcher does not run everything. If she did, we should be involved in a nuclear war in no time.
  Is the right hon. Lady further aware that she speaks with two voices? On the one hand, she says how delighted she is to work with Mr. Gorbachev and, on the other hand, she does everything possible to strengthen the military forces in the Soviet Union that want to undermine Mr. Gorbachev and are in fact undermining Mr. Gorbachev. Is it not clear that the Russians want to get rid of nuclear weapons over a period, to carry out the reforms that Mr. Gorbachev wants, and she more than anyone else in the Western world, even more than Reagan, is undermining those efforts?
  The Prime Minister: It will come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman to hear that I disagree with him. Perhaps he can say where one did not get the British way in NATO. One did. It was our job. We fought to get the modernisation in. There was no debate about whether or not nuclear forces needed to be modernised. Everyone accepted that they did. In the ministerial groups and the high-level groups, everyone accepts that they do. They make provision for future action. The only question was whether we said that in the communiqué. I believed in being open in the communiqué and, supported and backed by many others, we agreed that not only should we modernise our nuclear forces, but that we should say so in the communiqué. That is clear. There is no doubt about it. Everyone knows that we have to do it. It was what we said in the communiqué. I hope that the hon. Gentleman thinks that it was right to be open-minded.
  We welcome the reforms in the Soviet Union. I have said many times that it is only on the basis of a sure defence and a sure deterrence that we can encourage openly the reforms that are taking place. We know that it is not easy. If they fell apart, if trouble is caused in the satellite countries, or if the Soviets return to a much more Stalinist figure, we know that, whatever happens, our defence continues to be sure because we take the necessary decisions in time. The hon. Gentleman will know that the lead times for modern equipment are very long, and one mistake now in refusing to make decisions could undermine the defence of the whole country. That is our fully consistent position.
  Mr. William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we speak with one voice, and that that voice is for unity and security in Europe and the rest of the world? Does she agree also that the Opposition speak with one voice in matters relating to disarmament, and that that is a voice of surrender and sellout? Does she further agree that the results of this summit will do an enormous amount to enhance respect for this country in the world as a result of her efforts in initiating it and carrying it through?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I agree. Conservative Members speak with one voice: that we should have a sure defence and deterrence. We are always ready to enter dialogue on effective arms control agreements. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Opposition speak with one voice. The Leader of the Opposition used that voice clearly when he spoke, during the election campaign, of using all the resources that one has to make any occupation completely untenable.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I must have regard for the fact that this is private Members' time. I shall allow questions to continue until noon and then we must move on.
  Mr. Paul Boateng: The Prime Minister was free with her advice to Mr. Gorbachev as to how he might deal with dissidents in his Politburo — and she should know. Was she so free with her advice to her protagonist, Chancellor Kohl, as to how to deal with elements in his Cabinet and country who, under no circumstances, will accept one of her modernised Lance missiles, or any other missiles, on West German territory?
  The Prime Minister: Chancellor Kohl has been one of the staunchest members of NATO. It was he who agreed to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles. We deployed cruise first; West Germany was second. Those were new nuclear weapons that were necessary to deter the Soviet Union. It was necessary to demonstrate our strength, and Chancellor Kohl was the second to deploy. West Germany has also taken modernised nuclear artillery shells, so the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong.
  How do I give Chancellor Kohl advice? I say that I do not believe in coalition Governments — Liberals are weak everywhere.
  Mr. Richard Holt: Despite the mental meanderings of the Opposition, there is overwhelming evidence to show that the people of this country have not forgotten the lessons of the inter-war years. The memory has not been dulled that war came about because of weakness, not strength. My right hon. Friend's statement today will be welcomed throughout the country, particularly in the north of England, because we can now look forward to the modernisation of our defence programme. I hope that this will not be the last time that my right hon. Friend comes to the Dispatch Box to say that we shall remain strong in this country.
  Bearing in mind all the work that my right hon. Friend must do, may I ask her to reflect for a few moments on the BBC before doling out more money to it, and look at the play that it put on this week, which was a travesty of justice for NATO and the defence of the western world?
  The Prime Minister: It is six years since we have had this sort of NATO summit of Heads of State and Government taking stock and considering guidelines for future action. It was therefore vital that we secured the agreement

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  publicly that nuclear forces must be modernised as necessary. The detailed decisions, as my hon. Friend knows, are taken in the ministerial nuclear planning group, which meets in April. It will first have to consider any dispositions consequent upon the intermediate nuclear forces agreement, and, later, which weapons should be updated as necessary. My hon. Friend is aware that the lead times are long, which is why we had to get the guidelines clear for Ministers who take these detailed decisions. However, it is clear from the NATO communiqué that our defence will continue to be sure; so will our deterrence, and all members of NATO agree with that conclusion.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Prime Minister accept that anyone looking objectively at what she has done this week would conclude that she has gone completely mad? The world is racked by debt, hunger and poverty. The National Health Service is collapsing in her own country for lack of funding, and she goes to a NATO Council of Ministers with the deliberate intention of scuppering the possibility of a future disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union by agreeing to upgrade and spend a great deal of money on nuclear weapons. Does she not think it is time to stop increasing expenditure on nuclear weapons and to start spending money on the vital social needs of this country and the rest of the world? Is it not time seriously to promote disarmament, on which the Soviet Union is clearly keen, even if she and her friends in Europe are not?
  The Prime Minister: Sixteen NATO Heads of Government and Heads of State agreed this effective statement. Of course, I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to like it. He does not agree with NATO or nuclear deterrence. He does not, therefore, agree with deterrence. One gets disarmament agreements only by negotiating from strength, in detail and toughly. One can then be very certain that there is verification. Those agreements will stick. When one agreement is completed, we move to another knowing that defence is sure and that the treaties that have been signed will stick and be honoured meticulously. Therefore, the intermediate nuclear agreement was reached and the United States and the Soviet Union move on to the START agreement, which I believe will be made. The hon. Gentleman wants arms control agreements and they are happening under this Government and other NATO Governments because we have acted from strength.
  Mr. David Wilshire: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition, in trying to destroy our defences, overlooked one key political fact — that, despite being willing to give up some nuclear weapons, the Warsaw pact countries still show no sign of giving up their Communist creed or their desire to spread their revolution wherever they can?
  The Prime Minister: Of course, it is part of the Communist creed that it should be extended by one means or another the world over. That has been part of the Communist creed from the beginning. That is why we watch their actions throughout the world very carefully. The Communist creed is spread by military might, by subversion or by proxy. At the moment there are hopeful
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  signs, and we welcome the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. We have been demanding that withdrawal for a long time. That withdrawal is welcome and we will watch its implementation carefully. We also note that more world aid is provided by NATO countries than by Communist countries.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Is not the Prime Minister's obsession with nuclear weapons undermining the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed by 133 nations stating that they will not have nuclear weapons manufactured or deployed on their territory? Is not her obsession also undermining the INF agreement, which she claims that she had something to do with—and that is not true—because many nations will believe that she is cheating on that agreement because of the increase in nuclear weapons? Will she consider an alternative other than the threat of mass extermination if she thinks that the Russsians are coming? Why will she not commit suicide if she is frightened of the Russians and allow the rest of us to continue to negotiate with Mr. Gorbachev, who she called "that boldly courageous leader"?
  The Prime Minister: No. Disarmament was hoped for after the last world war and the West began to disarm. Shortly afterwards, the Berlin airlift occurred, and we will all remember that. As was said at the NATO summit, we did not choose to make the Soviet Union an enemy; the Soviet Union chose to be one. NATO was formed after the Berlin airlift and after the Soviet Union chose to embark on a heavy programme of rearmament. That NATO agreement and the action following it have kept the peace in Europe for 40 years and enabled us to continue to produce this kind of statement and debate in the House. The hon. Gentleman is the first to take advantage of that but the last to defend the means that achieved it.
  Mr. John Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we did not reach today's negotiating table by dangling obsolete weaponry before the Soviet policy makers? Does she also agree that the people in this country who seek genuine peace and security will be more reassured by this Government's policies than by the Labour party's policies which at best will leave our defence capabilities rusting in the cupboard, and at worst will abolish them tomorrow, and, according to the Leader of the Opposition, will involve us "taking to the hills"?
  The Prime Minister: Obsolete weapons do not deter. Conventional weapons alone do not deter, and two world wars in Europe have already proved that. We want a war-free Europe, and we need to keep nuclear weapons to achieve that.
  Mr. John Fraser: Was the Prime Minister implying in her earlier replies that Chancellor Kohl is enthusiastic about the immediate deployment of modernised Lance missiles on German soil?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I said modernised artillery weapons. They have already been modernised. A decision has yet to be made about Lance. That will be one of the decisions. It is a United States weapon; it will have to be designed. The point about making the present decision is that we will be prepared as necessary to make decisions to deploy modernised nuclear weapons.
  Mr. Graham Riddick: Can my right hon. Friend give the House more details of how NATO is to

  1295
  persuade the Soviet Union to eliminate its massive stockpile of chemical weapons? Does she not agree that the process has been made much more difficult by Britain's decision in the 1950s unilaterally to get rid of its chemical weapons? Does she not think that there is a lesson to be learnt from that in relation to nuclear weapons?
  The Prime Minister: Yes; my hon. Friend is right. I have frequently said that Opposition Members should really criticise the Soviet Union for not following our example in unilaterally getting rid of chemical weapons. It proves that unilateral disarmament is useless. One's opponent merely increases his stockpile and modernises and updates his weapons. I think that a change of view came about in the Soviet Union when the United States, which has only a very small stockpile of older chemical weapons, decided to go ahead with work that would update that stockpile if necessary. It was following that decision that the Soviet Union changed its mind about wanting to negotiate a global plan for the reduction of chemical weapons. Again, we have to watch verification because these weapons are very easy to make and therefore very difficult to verify.
  Mr. Speaker: We now return to the debate on the enterprise initiative.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman please resume his seat?

  Enterprise Initiative
  Question again proposed.
  12.1 pm
  Mr. David Evans: I take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on her success in the NATO discussions and to say how much I agree with everything that she said.
  The enterprise initiative is about small businesses. The small business man has an idea, and he knows perfectly well what he wants to do with that idea but unfortunately it sometimes takes a long time to develop the idea successfully. The initiative will help the small business man in that respect. I like to think that, through his ingenuity and entrepreneurialism, the small business man will find ways to develop his business—even when bureaucracy, local authorities and property owners seem to stand in his way at every turn. Bankers need security. They need all sorts of assurances if they are to help the very small business to develop. Nevertheless, in my experience the small business man usually manages to get the business off the ground one way or another.
  I was glad to see from the White Paper that there will be more regional offices to help the small business man whose business has become a reasonable success. To begin with, small business men do not understand what a business plan is or even what cash flow is. They find that out by overtrading and suddenly finding that they need the bank manager's help yet again. That is why I welcome the regional offices. There comes a time, after the business has eventually got itself off the ground, when it needs to take on further responsibilities — in terms of management, expertise, new premises, products, capital investment or banking facilities. Enterprise counselling could greatly benefit the business that is just about to expand beyond all that its owners originally dreamt of. Most business men start by wanting to run a small business, and only in the development of that business do they begin to realise their potential and ability.
  I welcome the consultancy process, but, contrary to what has been said, I have not met many civil servants or Government officers with entrepreneurial flair. My experience is the reverse. Unless they are carefully chosen and are prepared to be trained, we may find that we have a typical bank manager type who will deter the entrepreneur from developing his business if it is not copper bottomed, instead of helping him. Can those counsellors who are supposed to direct up and coming entrepreneurs be trained, monitored and reported on yearly or two-yearly?
  When a civil servant decides that an entrepreneur can attract capital and the proper quality of staff, it is time for consultancy. Consultants are not what one expects them to be. Indeed, the first consultant I met I quickly headhunted into my business, and I am not the only one to have done that. If one goes through the boards of multinational companies one finds that their members often start as a consultant to the business. Will the Government reconsider carefully the most important step of helping a small business to become an international company which contributes to employment?
  When a small business grows into a big business the business man has to decide whether to attract outside capital into it. That can be a frightening process. Again, a counsellor or consultant could help the business to

  1297
  become a public company. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said that yuppies were earning £120,000 a year. I am not worried about that. I hope that they earn £120,000 a year, not £20,000. I hope that some of those whom I am talking about become yuppies. I am keen that we should have many millionaires and I do not believe that the public are fooled by yuppies earning £120,000. The public who have invested in BP and so on are sound and intelligent. They have made a long-term investment. They are not worried whether the shares go up and down; they are interested in the dividend, whether the company is making profits and providing employment, and whether they can leave their shares to their grandchildren. I refute what was said about the public being gullible; they are not.
  The enterprise initiative will help enormously businesses which need capital and need to plug into the opportunities of the EEC, the European Investment Bank and merchant banks. Businesses do not know how to become public companies. They need independent advice, not from bankers and solicitors but from an independent consultant whom they can trust. That is important for their growth.
  The next important stage concerns design. Products need to be designed attractively. In the past some of the goods produced in this kingdom have not attracted people, but now there is a tremendous improvement in the design of all the products on the shelf. If we do not design products and fix prices properly, Japan and other countries will continue to attract our buying public. After all, it is up to the public to decide what they want and do not want. Therefore, I welcome this initiative on design because design, manufacturing and selling are at one.
  I like to believe that we are now a nation of house owners and of shareholders. I should like us to be known not as a nation of shopkeepers but as a nation of small and medium-sized businesses, because they underlie the prosperity of this kingdom.
  12.10 pm
  Mr. Chris Butler: I very much welcome the enterprise initiative and its thrust towards further deregulation of our economy. It is an excellent move. However, I wonder whether it will affect the book trade. I have had several complaints from constituents about the possible imposition of VAT on books. The kind of thing that they say to me is, "Isn't that a tax on something special? Wouldn't it penalise schools and libraries and be a tax on knowledge?" To a large extent, I agree with them.
  However, behind those criticisms, I believe that there is an impulse from the book trade itself, which is being rather hypocritical because of the existence of the net book agreement. Through the procedures of that agreement, which is probably the sole remaining instance of resale price maintenance, books have a price greater than the market would bear. Schools, libraries and ordinary people suffer because they are paying higher prices for books than they should. I hope that the Government will consider that distortion of the free market in their enterprise initiative.
  I welcome the proposals that teachers should have experience of business world. In the House, we try to achieve the same objective—at least some of us do—through the Industry and Parliament Trust. We go out
  1298
  from these green Benches into the real world outside. I am not asking somebody else to do what I would not be prepared to do myself.
  I regret that in the election not all teachers voted Conservative. When I was canvassing, some who were against us harangued me on the doorstep. It was rather like being back in school and being told off for being naughty. It struck me that that may be something to do with the fact that teachers go to school, then to teacher training college or perhaps to university, and then back to school, so they are thoroughly imbued in the school culture, rather than in the culture of the world outside schools and universities. I hope that through the enterprise initiative teachers will gain greater experience of the wider world, just as we do through the Industry and Parliament Trust.
  I noted the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) on the qualifications of counsellors and whether they would have had enough experience of the real world. I should be surprised if they were civil servants. They should be people who have been in business or marketing. Interestingly, although when I was special adviser to the Minister for the Civil Service I was very much in favour of increasing the secondment of civil servants to the world outside, I nevertheless believe that counsellors should come from the business world.
  I am glad to report the success of enterprise in the north-west. As one local paper put it:
  "The march toward Warrington/Runcorn by North American companies goes on … There are now some 75 North American companies in Warrington/Runcorn".
  That is an example of the confidence that the United States has in our economy and in our continuing membership of the European Community.
  In October last year the Warrington Guardian reported the intention of Enterprize North West to:
  "build upon the area's booming business success".
  Mr. Andre Winter of 3i said
  "Warrington really does seem to be thriving and we are giving new and established companies the opportunity to grow further … People in the area certainly seem special".
  I certainly agree with that. He said:
  "They have entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to start up new businesses."
  In January, the Warrington Midweek Guardian reported that
  "Booming Warrington New Town continues to break records for attracting new companies … Half year statistics show that 120 companies signed leases to move into Warrington sites, bringing 1,042 jobs."
  I have never met Eileen Bilton who is very much associated with the advertising for Warrington new town, but she certainly weaves some magic for the area. The general manager of the new town commented that Warrington-Runcorn was meeting
  "greater success than ever before. We are particularly pleased at the number of jobs created and the high percentage of expansions."
  In February, the Warrington Guardian reported an investment of £43 million in the town, bringing a further 1,500 jobs. The president of the Manchester chamber of commerce and industry, Mr. Lester George, said that the
  "North-West had talked itself into despair and it was only recently that the region had recognised its economic strength … The North-West is poised for expansion and nothing will stop it … The only question is whether business will be permitted to grow to its maximum capability."
  I draw great inspiration from that new-found confidence in the north-west. The north-west has realised

  1299
  that retailing stories of doom and gloom will not increase takings. It has also realised that the difference between north and south is not a handicap, but an advantage. After all, in the past, it was enterprise that threw up the great cities of Liverpool and Manchester and beat the south-east into a cocked hat. I am sure that it could do so again. We even have some yuppies in Altrincham.
  I think that Mr. George's question whether the northwest would be permitted to go up to its maximum capacity was a sage question. We are already meeting problems of the availability and mobility of skills. In Manchester, surveys show that a quarter of all manufacturers and those in service industries lack skilled labour and find it hard to recruit. That shows the importance of training for jobs and of the enterprise initiative.
  I hope that the enterprise initiative will push hard against bureaucracy, as it promises. I know that we have abolished 500 quangos and reduced the number of Government forms to the height of Big Ben, but, small business men, repeatedly tell me that there are still too many chiefs and not enough Indians in our bureaucracy, and that there is still too much red tape.
  I have been contacted by a company called Econoloft, which is the largest loft installation company in the United Kingdom. Sadly, it has met the kind of obstructionism about which I am complaining. Its success has been built upon its product of space-saver stairs, which provide access to lofts that would not be possible through the use of traditional stairs. The company has gone through a lengthy process of obtaining 40 determinations from the Department of the Environment on its safety and specifications and has had personal ratification from the Secretary of State for the Environment. However, because of some quirk of the law, individual building control officers can still take objection to that product and say that, in their opinion — only their opinion appears to count—the specifications conflict with the 1985 building regulations.
  Some local authorities now have the bit between their teeth and have engaged in criminal prosecutions of that company with all the bad publicity that attaches to such a criminal prosecution. For example, there was a prosecution in Chippenham. I am glad to say that it was dismissed, but, undeterred after the case was heard, the local authority in Saffron Walden has now given notice to the company that it intends to prosecute it for its product. That is expensive, vexatious, time-consuming and harassing for a company that is ambitious to do its best for itself, its region and the United Kingdom. If given its head, it could install its own manufacturing capability for the space-saver stairs, and bring extra employment to the region.
  It is precisely that kind of nonsense that the enterprise initiative should snuff out, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider the matter with despatch.
  Whether the north-west will be permitted to develop to its full capacity will also depend to some extent on what happens in the run-up to, and after the winding-up of Warrington-Runcorn new town. I hope that the Government will take a flexible approach to the receipts of the new town prior to its wind-up, and that those receipts will not simply disappear into the maw of the Exchequer. Those assets are considerable, and are being realised with some despatch. I hope that some of them will be reinvested, so that the industrial parks in the north-west
  1300
  can be completed. That would chime in well with the Government's general policy of building in incentives for all.
  12.20 pm
  Mr. James Cran: I am bound to say that it is extremely difficult to refocus the mind on the subject that we are supposed to be debating—not only because this has been an unusually exciting morning, but because an hon. Member's spirits do not exactly lift when he rises to speak surrounded by serried ranks of empty Benches. Nevertheless, I am not deterred.
  Mr. Butler: Labour Members made a big fuss earlier this week about an article in The Guardian by Andrew Rawnsley, which accused them of being either drunk, incompetent or lazy. Yet only one of them is here today.
  Mr. Cran: My hon. Friend has made an eloquent point, to which I do not think I need add. The facts speak for themselves.
  I am an enthusiast for the enterprise initiative. I say that having had considerable dealings with the Department of Trade and Industry for some years. In the years before this Government and the White Paper of which the enterprise initiative is part, all that we had from the DTI was interventionism of one sort or another. We looked at certain sectors and decided how they could be improved. We spent £20 billion for 20 years on regional policy, and in the end I do not believe that any of us received the value for money that we wanted.
  That is why I consider the White Paper quite revolutionary. This is the first time that I can remember that the DTI has been so strongly associated with the word that was used by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans)—entrepreneurship. I am delighted at that, because I well remember trying to tell the CBI a few years ago that it should sponsor a crusade for entrepreneurship. I believe that this was the way to strengthen the regions of the United Kingdom, make more successful the businesses that were already there, and, indeed, to encourage more new businesses.
  I could not interest the CBI in that proposition, for reasons that I need not go into here. In addition, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who is no longer in his place, spent a long time telling us that the practice of past Governments was right, and that we needed a formalised industrial strategy. What he did not tell us was that it is clear from consulting the business community, the CBI and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce that not a man jack of them wants that sort of industrial strategy.
  What the business community wants and what it has got from the Government are the conditions in which it can take the marketing and strategic and other decisions necessary to decide the future of its businesses. I was disappointed that the hon. Member for Yeovil did not give a balanced picture and admit chat there are many people who do not want his concept of an industrial strategy. What we want—it is on offer in the White Paper—is the encouragement of enterprise.
  Before the Government were elected to office one began to wonder whether the spark of enterprise had been extinguished from the British public. I almost believed that it had, but, my goodness, look at what has happened in the past 10 years. One can hardly believe that such a transformation was possible.

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  In the 1950s and 1960s many talented youngsters were not prepared to go into industry and business. I well remember conducting a survey with some sixth formers at the beginning of my career in industry. I asked them whether they would go into business and industry and whether, in due course, they would form their own businesses. I will never forget that 80 per cent. of them said that they were not prepared to go into business and industry, but wanted a nice, easy, cushy number in the Civil Service, the professions or whatever. The reasons for their choice were simple. They regarded employment in industry as dirty, not well paid and, more important, uncertain.
  Against this background I congratulate the Government because they have wrought a cultural revolution in the outlook of youngsters and others in this country. The hon. Member for Yeovil did not mention that this revolution is reflected in the fact that since 1980 some 180,000 net new businesses have been established. That is an enormous achievement in comparison to the past.
  No doubt some hon. Members would argue that such new businesses are all in the south-east, but that is seen not to be the case if one checks the record. Between 1984 and 1986, 20,000 new businesses were set up in the north of England. Therefore it is clear that this Government's approach is the correct way to proceed because we will not solve the problems of the regions by drafting in unwilling companies by way of regional policy. We will rejuvenate the regions by the "bottom up" approach, by encouraging existing businesses and encouraging people to establish new businesses.
  I am aware that the Minister is not complacent about encouraging business. However, when one makes international comparisons—he and I appreciate that there are difficulties with such comparisons—it is clear that the Netherlands has four times our number of small businesses, France and Japan twice that number, and the United States and Germany one and a half times that number. Therefore, we have a fair way to go to make up the leeway, but that is not the Government's fault—it is the fault of previous Governments. I believe that the philosophy contained in the enterprise initiative will go a long way to enable us to catch up with those countries.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn, Hatfield asked how the Government can encourage business. I believe that few previous Governments have known how to encourage business. Let us consider the problem of deregulation. We are all aware that business men resent having to comply with the onerous requirements that the Government and others place upon them. We are aware that the Government are unable to abolish all such requirements completely, but they must reduce them. Therefore, I was delighted to learn from the White Paper—tucked away in one or two lines—that we will receive a deregulation White Paper some time in the summer. That is first-class news, but, for goodness sake, let it not be a recitation of what the Government have already done.
  I pay tribute to the Government for what they have done, but I want to see a radical approach in that White Paper. I wish that I had time to outline my proposals, but I must press on
  The White Paper on deregulation states:
  1302
  "All new proposals for requirements on business are examined".
  Obviously, that is to ensure that compliance requirements are minimised. That seems to be first-class. The document continues:
  "Gradually,"—
  that is a word that always worries me—
  "all existing requirements are being examined in the same way."
  Full marks to the Government for starting the process of gradually examining existing requirements. The problem is that all the difficulties stem from those existing requirements. Therefore, can the Minister tell us how gradually is "gradually" and whether he has a time frame within which the Government expect to go through existing legislation. We are all waiting with bated breath.
  The White Paper also states:
  "The system of assessing the compliance costs … is being further developed and departments are being encouraged"—
  another word which worries me—
  "to identify more targets for regulatory reform."
  That approach is absolutely right. There is no doubt about that. However, that is passive language. Will the Minister and the Government tell us what it means? The Government's heart is in the right place, but will they move quickly enough? That is what the small business community wants to know.
  Another aspect of the White Paper which appends to the initiative is the transfer of technology and co-operative research. We all agree that that is vital. When I represented the CBI — to make it clear to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) that I am not ashamed of that — I was always amazed at the unwillingness of many companies — not all companies fall into that category — to innovate. That seems extraordinary because the future of industry is that it should innovate.
  I was also worried about the unwillingness of many companies to spend on research and development. Many companies preferred to go to the Government cap in hand, saying that they would spend on research and development if the Government would pay part of the cost. That was excusable when industrial profits were at low levels, but that could not be said now when industrial profits are at the highest levels for many years.
  Therefore, this atrocious situation, whereby United Kingdom industrially-funded research and development is lower than that of most of our competitors, should be reversed. That really has to be rectified. The onus is not on the Government; it is on the industrial community to be rather more aggressive. I welcome the innovation proposals. The mere stating of a solution — and it is stated most eloquently in the White Paper — is one thing; it is quite another to implement it.
  In this regard I remember spending a lot of time trying to get industry and industrialists to go to universities so that the latter could tell the former what they had to offer. I can assure the very few hon. Members who are present that it was an uphill business. I could get them along only if I could say that there was money on the table. I could not simply say that they should go along and see how much they could get out of universities in terms of technological developments that occur in universities and elsewhere. At some point I should like to hear from the Minister what details he has to catalyse industry to make use of the enormous residue of facilities in universities and polytechnics. We must not forget polytechnics. In the

  1303
  country at large there are a number of first-class polytechnics that companies should also look to for advice and guidance.
  Moving on to the core of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), I should like to talk about the enterprise initiative itself. I have enormous respect for small business men. Even though politicians stand for election every five years, we do not take the same risks. Small business men mortgage everything. Some even second mortgage their homes. The companies that they establish do not, however, have strength and depth. That is why the approach that is set out in the White Paper is correct. If a company has no spare resources, it is the Government's role to ask, "How can we help a small and, in some cases, weak business to transform itself into a stronger business that, in 20 or 30 years, may employ many people?" That is why the White Paper is correct.
  We should recognise that many companies worry about consultants. They always consider that they are too costly and that, in any case, once they are let in through the front door, one cannot get them out through the back door. The approach of the White Paper will assuage such fears. The Government have generously contributed £50 million to fund the scheme. Some may say that they are not generous, but it should be noted that the Government are prepared to make more funds available in the following two years. Such funds will be welcomed and used by business men who recognise that, these days, the market place is extremely complex and is becoming more complex.
  I was slightly worried when I read the section relating to design, marketing, and so on, because I did not see the word "communications". That surprised me. I have no doubt that that does not mean that it is not the Government's intention to encourage communications but rather that the document was written by somebody with a more academic approach than we have. Design is not academic or abstract. It means communicating with customers to ascertain what the customers want. That was not clear in the document. The same applies to marketing. Marketing is not just a sales force; it is a whole company, from top to bottom, being orientated towards selling what it produces. That means upward and downward communication. I hope that, when the initiative gets off the ground, this point will be understood.
  In the past few years, my hon. Friend the Minister has played a great part in encouraging industry's awareness of the need for better quality. He knows more about quality than I do, but he and I know that it is not just a matter of computer-aided design and manufacturing but of management communicating with the work force. If one is building a car, one does not just shove on an ill-fitting component so that one can get another unit out of one's factory. Therefore, there is a tremendous need for communication at all levels within British industry.
  The enterprise initiative is a solid, revolutionary concept, but many other things are needed to make it work. For example, it is much easier than it was, but it is still difficult for a small or growing business to get finance, particularly loan and equity finance between £50,000 and £100,000. The hon. Member for Yeovil correctly said that there is a shortage of patient money—that is, having to wait five years for one's return. The trouble is, however, that the hon. Gentleman was long on analyses of and short on solutions to the problems. That was fairly typical of the approach that we had from the Opposition Benches. One
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  solution is the formation of local investment companies, which would take in equity and make long-term loans. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not listening today, and may not even read on Monday what I am saying. Therefore, I might have to write to him about this. That said, I am reminded that my hon. Friend the member for Carshalton and Wallington is parliamentary private secretary to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so perhaps I can rely on him to tell my right hon. Friend what is required. In fact, what is needed to make the idea possible are fiscal incentives for investors in local investment companies.
  Taxation is always an irritantߞeven to Members of Parliament—but it will always be with us. However, an increase in the threshold of corporation tax to £250,000 would be welcomed by the small and middle-sized business community.
  Another great problem is inheritance tax. If there were more than one Opposition Member present, there would no doubt be a great hue and cry about my suggestion that there should be 100 per cent. relief for business assets. Far too many business men who build up a business over many years then find that it is taxed from under them, and that is quite wrong.
  I congratulate the Government on a first-class document.
  12.41 pm
  Mr. Hugo Summerson: I begin by apologising to the House and to my hon. Friend the Minister because I shall not be able to stay for the winding-up speeches, as I have a constituency engagement this afternoon.
  Property is the basic raw material for trade, commerce and industry. In Victorian times and during the industrial revolution, no obstacles were put in people's way by, for example, planning laws. When that great man, Brunel, was laying out the Great Western Railway, he did not have to trot off to his local council offices and apply for planning permission to build Paddington station. He did not have to deal with inspectors and all the majestic panoply of Government interference. He got on his horse—not on his bike; I do not think they were around then—and went out and surveyed the line of the Great Western Railway himself. Those were the days of great enterprise and initiative.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: And slums.
  Mr. Summerson: I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was Conservatives who brought in the Factories Acts.
  Our people have not lost enterprise and initiative. We remain an innovative, resourceful and inventive people but, to a great extent, that is being stifled by red tape. Today, we have to labour under the town and country planning legislation. The first such Act passed in 1948, and since that date, those responsible for administering the legislation have worked out a jargon all their own, as I know from my experience. They give such reasons for refusing applications as, "There is a certain rhythm about the roof scale along this stretch of London road and this should not be disturbed" or, "Such an item would not be a welcome addition to the street scene." I do not know where they get this jargon from—perhaps they learn it at planning school—but it is of no help to the small business man who is trying to expand his factory.

  1305
  I congratulate the Government on revising the use classes order. This is excellent, but I urge them to go further. They have not really started. I can give another example of obstructionism — that by local authorities. To this day, 43 years after the second world war ended, there are still empty bomb sites in our cities. There is such an empty site only 100 yd from where I live, and such sites can be found in many parts of our great cities. The one near my home was owned by the Greater London council.
  Those of us who take an interest in property matters are keeping a careful eye on property auction catalogues. In those we see properties that were formerly owned by the GLC being sold at auction. In many instances the leases on those properties expired years ago. The rents being paid today are at levels that obtained 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Many properties owned by local authorities should be given over for use by business. However, many local authorities do not even know what properties they own. They have no idea and are not interested.
  In my area, the London borough of Waltham Forest is controlled by Labour and the council imposed a 62 per cent. rate increase last year and decided to set up an economic development unit. How very helpful to local businesses to know that they can go and discuss that 62 per cent. rate increase with friendly officials at the town hall!
  Page 31 of the White Paper says under the heading "Inner Cities":
  "The identification of Urban Programme Areas for particular help is a new policy for DTI and recognises the particular difficulties of such areas. A number of inner cities will similarly benefit from the new measures for Development Areas as well as Regional Selective Assistance. DTI is also responsible for coordinating the work of the City Action Teams in major cities and running 16 Inner City Task Forces."
  That is greatly welcomed. I urge my hon. Friends in the Department of Trade and Industry to confer with the Department of the Environment so that we may have some co-operation between those two Departments. It is fine for the DTI to bring forward this sort of programme. However, obstruction by the local authorities that rule in inner city areas will tend to cancel the benefits of such programmes. We must make full use of all the resources in our inner cities.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: What about people?
  Mr. Summerson: We must also make full use of people, but, as I have said, people need places in which to work. If some local authorities deny businesses the right to use certain areas and buildings, those people have nowhere to work and will go elsewhere. In its turn, that will put more pressure on rural areas.
  I urge the DTI and the D o E to get together and overhaul the planning system. I am sure that hon. Members will have seen the report from the Audit Commission. That sets out local authority property holdings and what little use is made of them. That matter needs to be looked at urgently. Enterprise initiative cannot flourish if it is denied the premises that it needs. It is all very well to talk about trade and industry and about initiative and enterprise, but people need places in which to work and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to look at that.
  12.49 pm
  Mr. David Nicholson: My first pleasant task is to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) on his success in the ballot, his choice of subject and the vigorous way in which he put his case. This is the second time in three weeks that I have attended a debate on a motion introduced by a Conservative Member during which the Opposition Benches have been almost empty, save for the token presence of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). We all sympathise with him in his lonely vigil.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman probably realises that, on Fridays, Labour Members go to their constituents and attend to the disastrous consequences of the Government's economic policies.
  Mr. Nicholson: Conservative Members, too, have constituents to look after.
  I was interested to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) and his reflections on the planning system, although I do not necessarily follow him to all his logical conclusions. I have just returned from a parliamentary delegation visit to Saudi Arabia, where planning regulations are somewhat in their infancy. What impressed me, especially in the capital city of Riyadh, which is not in the most delightful of spots—it is in the middle of a desert plateau—was the dignity and splendour of modern buildings that have been put up during the past five years.
  It is relevant to our debate on enterprise that we should not consider such matters simply in terms of utilitarian financial incentives. Especially in the inner cities, an immense amount depends on environmental considerations and the type of buildings, public or private, that are erected. Indeed, for the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia has been working on a new industrial city on the shores of the Gulf at Dubai. It is a most impressive achievement.
  I contrast those achievements with Britain where we have planning laws to an excess, the Department of the Environment building at No. 2 Marsham street — that great tribute to architectural splendour.
  It is a pleasure to take part in a debate with my next door neighbour, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown). My sorrow at his flitting from the scene must be counterbalanced by the fact that I shall have to leave in three quarters of an hour and will be unable to hear the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and my hon. Friend the Minister.
  The hon. Member for Yeovil made an interesting point about venture capital in the regions, and I hope that it will be picked up, if not in this debate, in the Government's approach to such matters. I do not question the statistics that he mentioned, but my impression is that we are beginning to get substantial new life in the regions, especially in the west midlands and my native north-west, which suffered greatly in the recession. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley (Mr. Cran) said, new businesses are being created in the north-east at a rate of 6,000 a year and the number of businesses setting up under the enterprise allowance scheme has increased by an average of 30 per cent. each year since 1983.
  Manchester is now the second biggest financial centre outside London, with more than 50 banks located in the city. Last year, Japanese, German and Australian banks

  1307
  set up in Manchester. In the west midlands, which has suffered greatly from the industrial recession, tourism contributes more than £500 million to the economy. Since 1976, employment in that industry has increased threefold to 70,000. One might not think of the west midlands as a typical tourist area, so that is an achievement.
  I had some sympathy with the hon. Member for Yeovil when he warned about the new publicity mechanism and the semi-change of name of the Department diverting attention away from its essential tasks. We should not dwell too much on enterprise and lose our essential concern with the rather more mundane matters of trade and industry. The Department of Trade and Industry, or whatever it is called, will be judged by how it assists, encourages and facilitates British industry to export and to regenerate our domestic market.
  I inject a note of soberness into our discussion. The latest balance of payments figures from the DTI show, in 1986, a deficit on visible manufactures of £5,307 million, rising in 1987 to £6,542 million. The non-oil visible trade deficit rose from £12,519 million in 1986 to £13,809 million in 1987. Those are large, disturbing figures. The trend, while not savagely upwards, is still upwards. Those are deficits. We must be concerned with those figures.
  I mentioned that I have recently returned from Saudi Arabia. Many of the conclusions that I reached on that visit would be the subject of a foreign affairs debate. We visited British expatriates and the embassy's trade offices there. We got the message from those who live, trade and work out there that not enough British companies were showing an interest in that extremely rich market, despite the fall of oil revenue. Saudi Arabia is trying, understandably, to diversify its economy. It is looking for partners in the industrialised world to help in that.
  British companies are doing a certain amount, but we were told that more could be done. They wished that more companies would come out—that more smaller and medium-sized businesses would show an interest. They contrasted that with the success of French companies, for example. The point was also made that British companies and perhaps some British expatriates needed to improve their ability to deal with the Arab market. That is an important task for the DTI.
  Everyone, including Opposition Members, took them view that Britain has an immense opportunity in a country such as Saudi Arabia at the moment. Last September an offset programme to the substantial Tornado sales from Britain to Saudi Arabia was concluded. That gives British firms a considerable opportunity for joint ventures.
  There is another reason why Britain has an immense opportunity in Saudi Arabia. We took on board the impatience of many Saudis with the United States. For many decades, Saudi Arabia has had a close political and economic partnership with the United States, but the people were considerably affronted by the restriction that the United States placed some years ago on the sales of spare parts to aircraft that it had supplied. There was concern in the United States that those planes could be used in Israel. That affront was felt by all the people whom we visited. They are frustrated with the United States' policy on the west bank and the Israeli conflict. They look to what Britain can achieve. That is a matter for a foreign affairs debate, but be not surprised, it gives considerable export opportunities, which can benefit us.
  One way in which the DTI can help is mentioned in the White Paper, which states in paragraph 9:
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  "One possibility is to make more use of Chambers of Commerce and other regional bodies to deliver services to exporters where they can offer a network of contacts which is close to small and medium-sized businesses with the potential to export."
  Perhaps I should declare an interest because I am a parliamentary consultant to the British chambers of commerce. They are discussing with the DTI the use of chambers of commerce to identify firms in the £1 million to £10 million turnover bracket, which could export more but do not, and to help to lead them to the point of entry in export markets.
  Moving away from the export side of the discussion, that paragraph in the White Paper went on:
  "One other possibility is to use outside agencies such as Local Enterprise Agencies, Chambers of Commerce and firms of management consultants to provide an information and signposting service for the business development initiatives. The advantage of operating in this way would be to extend the range of DTI contacts with industry at a relatively small cost and to use wider networks of contacts with small and medium-sized businesses than is possible even through the extended Regional Office network."
  My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) welcomed the extension of DTI offices but said that it was important that there should be an entrepreneurial flavour to them. I hope that by using the premises and personnel of chambers of commerce and local enterprise agencies the entrepreneurial element will come in. I am happy to say that a number of chambers of commerce are involved in housing DTI personnel. They include Norwich, south-east Hampshire, Coventry—the Minister will be pleased to hear that; I am sure he played a major part in achieving it — north Staffordshire, Sheffield, central and west Lancashire, Chesterfield, Derby and Nottinghamshire. We hope that there will be more.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) referred to the opportunities for enterprise resulting from the privatisation of major industries. I do not want to enter a great argument now about the rights and wrongs of privatisation and what it achieves. But constituents have told me that merely transferring a major enterprise or utility from the public to the private sector does not, on the whole, change the people who work— as managers, or whatever—in that organisation. Many of them, it is said, still maintain the attitudes of the nationalised industry in which they worked before and in which their careers developed. I put that point to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy at a meeting last night. I know that, in the privatisation of electricity, he intends to encourage the input of entrepreneurs from outside. It is important not to lose sight of that opportunity in the discussions and developments that ensue from the White Paper.
  In view of the time of year I want to give the House one or two reflections on the Budget of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. It should help to encourage certain activities that are relevant to enterprise—for example, increasing companies' training and R and D activities, and providing incentives to smaller and medium-sized firms to contribute to collaborative research through research associations. The possibility of contributions by local industry to specific non-profit making bodies charged with undertaking activity beneficial to the local community would also be helpful.
  There is a consensus among Conservative Members that the high rates of personal taxation need to come

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  down. The figure generally mentioned is 50 per cent. and I go along with that. The coming Budget is a good opportunity to achieve it. Last week I read in The Times—the Treasury sometimes allows these options to emerge in the public domain to test reaction—that the higher rates might come down to 35 or 40 per cent. We should approach that with care. We are not Saudi Arabia, and cannot afford no income tax or a return to 1939 rates of tax. We still have considerable difficulties and we must consider the political and social realities and pressures in society. I have substantial reservations about that course of action. I urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to try to do much more to make it worthwhile to work at the lowest end of the income scale.
  We have done a certain amount about the poverty or unemployment trap through benefits and we got into some trouble over that with regard to housing benefit and other matters. We are approaching the end of that road. We can significantly help and give incentives to those on lower incomes by expanding an idea initiated by my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry three or four years ago — a lower employee national insurance deduction for those on low incomes. We should do that rather than assist through a reduced rate tax band. The advantage is that that national insurance reduction would not need to be transferred right up the line. It is a relatively cheap way to help a specific group of people. Employers and chambers of commerce have made that point over many years and I reiterate it today.
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor should also consider giving more incentives to middle management and younger professionals — and I am referring not to the yuppies in the City, but to the professionals in the private and public sectors who pay very high marginal rates of tax. The rise from the present 27 per cent. basic rate to 40 per cent. is extremely steep. I hope that the Chancellor will make that an objective when he presents his Budget.
  I hope that the Budget will reinforce and encourage the enterprise initiative that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington has so fortunately brought to our attention. That enterprise initiative must be related to the important tasks performed by the Department of Trade and Industry, dating back many decades to the days when it was the Board of Trade, to help Britain's trade and industry.
  1.6 pm
  Mr. Graham Riddick: As a Member representing a northern constituency, I often hear it said that there is an appalling gap between the north of England and the south of England—the so-called north-south divide. I have always regarded that idea as somewhat simplistic and misleading. It is wrong to imagine that there is nothing north of Watford, but whippets and welfare scroungers, Labour Members, dark satanic mills, Arthur Scargill and squabbling cricketers and brass bands.
  Some of Britain's most beautiful countryside is north of Watford. Some of Britain's most inventive and wealthiest people are to be found north of Watford. Indeed, some of Britain's most thriving industries are in the north. It is too simplistic by half to say that there is a
  1310
  north-south divide. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) made that mistake earlier. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not in the Chamber now. This is the second debate this week in which I have taken part when the hon. Member for Yeovil, having spoken earlier, disappeared to further his leadership ambitions in other areas.
  Mr. Wilshire: The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has gone to look for a party.
  Mr. Riddick: That is most interesting.
  I believe that the real divide is not so much between the regions, but within the regions. There exists an enormous divide of attitude in the regions. I cannot agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) that everyone has undergone a change of attitude. I fear that that is not yet the case. The real divide exists between the people in the regions who understand the enterprise economy and those who do not understand it. It exists between those who have grasped the opportunities provided by this country's increasing emphasis on enterprise and those who have not grasped those opportunities or are even aware that they exist.
  The social divide is between those who have taken the opportunity to buy their council houses and those who have not or, indeed, those who have taken the opportunity to buy shares in the industries that we have privatised and those who have not. The great divide is between those who have started their own businesses and are playing their part in Britain's flourishing private enterprise and those who do not understand or recognise the opportunities and rewards available from that enterprise.
  Since the Government came to power in 1979 they have enormously improved the conditions in which private enterprise has to work, as we all know. I see that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is laughing. He should remember that we have reduced direct taxation and reformed the capital taxation system to provide proper incentives for individuals to work hard to produce the wealth that is so vital to this country's well-being. We have reduced the tax burden on small and large companies alike to encourage them to make decent profits. We have reduced the amount of red tape to free more time for the entrepreneur and manager to do what he is best at doing — designing, producing, marketing and selling. We have designed various schemes to help the budding entrepreneur to get off the ground, and the enterprise initiative is probably the best of these. In short, we have improved the overall economic climate so that enterprise can flourish and hard work and talent are rewarded.
  As we all know, there is more work to be done; there are more battles to be won and more individuals to be convinced. I return to the question of attitude. Private enterprise, and Britain, will never flourish or achieve its maximum potential until all the people of this country believe in the enterprise culture—until they understand that competition is much healthier than corporatism, and that the ambition to improve the lot of oneself and one's family is nothing to be ashamed of and is much more laudable than relying on someone or something else. It is the age-old battle between those who believe in independence and those who believe in reliance. The real divide is between those who believe in freedom, choice, responsibility, and enterprise, which are the values that

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  Conservative Members hold dear, and those who believe in dependence and servility to the state—the values in which Opposition Members believe.
  It is depressing that no Labour Members are present apart from the hon. Member for Great Grimsby. The hon Gentleman said that that they were all in their constituencies. However, if we were discussing a motion about state support for, or investment in, industry, many Opposition Members would he present — and many Conservative Members would be here to argue against the idea. Conservative Members have won the battle of ideas in many parts of the country, particularly in the south of England but also in the west midlands and in many parts of the north. Many thousands of people in my constituency of Colne Valley understand that success and wealth creation come as a result of hard work and enterprise and not Socialism or what Lord Young called the nanny state. That is perhaps why the good folk of Colne Valley elected me — their first Conservative Member in 102 years. However, the battle of ideas has not been won completely and that is why we have no choice but to continue to give more power back to the people and allow them to run their own lives without for ever having to look over their shoulders to see whether the state, in whatever guise, approves.
  The Government must address themselves to several areas to ensure that the enterprise initiative and private enterprise fully succeed. Education is the most important aspect of the whole process and the Government clearly agree. The DTI's excellent White Paper states:
  "The competitiveness of industry and commerce depends on our ability to harness the energy, develop the intelligence and promote the enterprise of our people, especially amongst the young."
  I could not have put that better myself and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on those excellent words.
  I applaud wholeheartedly the Government's objectives to provide teachers and pupils with a greater exposure to the world of commerce, business and industry, but, most important, we must ensure that each individual has a first-class education. That is why the Education Reform Bill, which is now in Committee, is so vital to our well-being. What is so depressing is the way in which the battalions of education producers line up one after another and effectively say to the Government, "How dare you interfere with our God-given right to, and knowledge of how to, educate the children of this country." It grieves me to say this, but often it seems to be opposition for the sake of it. It is indeed a battle between the producers and the consumers of education.
  Before I came to the House I worked in industry and spent a great deal of time interviewing people for jobs. When I interviewed for jobs that required O or A-levels, I was horrified regularly at the low level of general literacy and numeracy of many young people. It is not their fault. How unfair it is for them that they did not receive a proper basic education and for the 25 per cent. of Britain's long-term unemployed that they are either innumerate, illiterate or both. How can we expect them to play their part in Britain's ship, HMS Enterprise, if their education has not developed their intelligence, innate skills and ambitions? Our education reforms are a key factor in the Government's enterprise initiative.
  I am lucky to have an American student working for me as a part-time research assistant. Earlier this week I told her that I was hoping to speak in this debate and she
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  did a bit of work for me. Most of all, she put across to me strongly that in America enterprise and business are stressed at all levels of the education system, that in the universities and colleges tremendous stress is put on business and economics, and that people want to study those subjects. In no way is a career in industry frowned on.
  My assistant pointed out that the Olympics in Los Angeles were wholly financed by private money and made a healthy profit. It was the first time that it had been done, yet the American people thought it was an admirable idea. If we were to host the Olympic games there would be no question of private enterprise; it would be down to the local councils. There need to be changes in education and attitudes.
  One of the bees in my bonnet—as with education this one is not the responsibility of the DTI, although perhaps it should be — which is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson), is that one of the greatest obstacles to economic progress in inner city areas, towns and industrial areas, such as Colne Valley and Huddersfield, is the planning restrictions which can do so much to stifle enterprise, small businesses and entrepreneurs. I want the green belt protected, which is why it is important that we provide land for industrial and commercial development, for use by entrepreneurs in our towns and cities because that is the way in which we create new jobs.
  I know of several developments in my own area of west Yorkshire which have been delayed, frustrated or even stopped because of the planning refusals, or the unnecessary planning restrictions and conditions that make the enterprise barely viable or, in some cases, impossible. There are a whole host of reasons for that. Sometimes it is because the plans are contrary to the local plan or because the highway department or the water authority objects. Sometimes the fire regulations make it difficult to proceed; and it is sometimes because of the Government. In my constituency for example, 128 buildings were listed as of historic importance in 1980. By 1987 that figure had increased to1,455—it had been multiplied by 12. When such buildings are listed, we restrict their use for industrial development. Of course, we must protect our architectural heritage, but I believe that that has gone too far.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs will not he too disappointed that I have not referred to many of the proposals in his White Paper. There are not many proposals in it with which I disagree. It is a very good document and I welcome the increased business development help and consultancy that it outlines. I am pleased that it recognises that red tape and bureaucracy equal time-wasting and enterprise-blunting.
  The real secret of the success of enterprise in this country lies outside the remit of the DTI. The downward spiral of income tax must continue, as must the reform of capital taxation. I have not touched on trade because I have not had the time. Clearly, the Government's emphasis on high-quality training is excellent. I hope that as British firms continue to prosper they will start to do more and more of their own training. Furthermore, the consistency and stability with which the Government have provided economic policy during the past eight years is of

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  equal importance to enterprise. However, most importantly, we must get the education system right. We must change attitudes and we must get the planners off the backs of the entrepreneurs.
  Free enterprise is at the heart of Britain's economic renaissance. The spirit of invention and enterprise is working in Britain once again as it did 150 years ago. If Government create the right conditions, free enterprise will do the job of reducing unemployment and creating wealth and happiness for the British people.
  1.22 pm
  Mr. John Bowis: One of the prerequisites of these Friday debates appears to be to say where we were before coming here. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) has been to the sunny sands of Saudi Arabia. The Opposition spokesman the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is from the sunny sands of Grimsby. I have come from the dentist and, for that reason, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), who opened the debate, for being absent. While he launched eruditely into the subject of enterprise, I had my feet up and was flat on my back, being capped—no doubt an experience more often felt by Opposition Members.
  I very much enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) and the other speeches that I was present to hear, but unfortunately I did not hear the opening speech. I am sorry that my hon. Friends have been so adamant about the green Benches of the Opposition. It is quite restful on the eye, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby is worth the rest of them put together, with his wit and the entertaining speech that is about to come. Linked to the wit and musical talents of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs it should be a fine summing-up for a Friday afternoon. We look forward to it.
  I refer first to the changes in our society and the need for enterprise initiatives of all kinds to adapt our society to those changes. We must take into account the fact that we are moving from a world in which we spend two thirds of our life at work to a world in which we spend one third of our life at work. That is partly because of shorter hours, the shorter working week, longer holidays and earlier retirement.
  We are also moving towards a world where, increasingly, people have more than one job at a time and more than one career during their working lives. We are also moving towards a world where employment in itself is no longer the norm, as more and more people are becoming self-employed. That is where such initiatives are particularly important.
  About 700,000 new businesses have been created in the past eight years and the number of self-employed has increased from 1.9 million to about 2.6 million between 1979 and 1986, although the Minister may have more up-to-date figures. It is welcome to note that almost 250,000 people have taken up the enterprise allowance scheme. That is a new way forward, but we have a long way to go to catch up with some of our competitors abroad in encouraging smaller firms.
  In Japan, for example, almost 50 per cent. of people work for firms which employ fewer than 20 people and
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  only 8 per cent. work for firms which employ over 500. The same pattern is apparent in France and Italy. However, in Britain, some 26 per cent. of people work in big firms and only 25 per cent. in small firms.
  There is much scope for greater expansion of our small firms sector and of the self-employed sector. The rewards are there to grasp. The recent report from the university of Newcastle, compiled by Doyle and Gallagher, showed that, from 1982 to 1984, only firms which employed fewer than 20 employees were the net creators of jobs. That is significant. The birth and expansion of firms is occurring in those sectors. They are creating the jobs on which the British economy so desperately depends.
  Small firms have many benefits. Obviously, managerial control is much simpler, industrial relations problems are fewer and quality is more responsive to customer needs. However, small firms also have to contend with many problems. Their ability to innovate after the first idea is more restricted. They are more likely to have cash flow problems and less likely to have cash for investment and research. They are also less likely to understand marketing and export aspects and the technology that we need to encourage them to tackle. That is not surprising because most small firms start with an individual who has an idea. He does not start as an expert on marketing or man management.
  We can give much more support to small firms. I welcome the initiative, particularly the marketing aspect, not only in terms of expanding horizons for the marketing of small firms, but of encouraging small firms to consider the nitty-gritty of advertising. Too often, in small firms' advertisements, one sees the small ad mentality of trying to fit as many words as possible into a confined space, hoping to get the message across. Advice on that matter could go a long way to assist such firms.
  I also welcome the changes which will make access to the various schemes easier. For example, under the loan guarantee scheme, since 1981, £600 million has gone to 18,000 small firms. Very few of those grants have been in amounts of less than £15,000, yet the small grants are often the most needed. Grants under the scheme have been most difficult to obtain because of the complicated procedure involved. It is good that the Government and the banks have worked together to ease that problem.
  I also welcome a move that is occuring in the EEC. I do not recall that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby has ever welcomed anything from the EEC, except perhaps the fish which, of their own free will, swim into the Grimsby docks—
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: The other way.
  Mr. Bowis: Into the Grimsby nets, and then they go the other way.
  The hon. Gentleman might force himself to welcome the movement in the EEC in respect of the fiche d'impact. It is difficult to translate, but it has nothing to do with fish. It does not translate exactly as the enterprise and deregulation unit but it requires all legislation and amending legislation to go to a committee for its impact on small firms. Until it has been through that process, legislation cannot be enacted. There is a lesson for my hon. Friend to preach to his colleagues in some of the other Departments—not least the Treasury and the DHSS—to ensure that their legislation has no unfortunate impact on small firms, as, sadly, it too often has.

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  I welcome the shift in DTI spending away from the broad regional grants to more selective spending on technology, research and development and advisory services. That is the right way to encourage businesses to start and to grow. In the latter context, it is good to see that spending has increased from about £142 million to £147 million, approaching three or four times as much, over the period of this Government.
  Hon. Members have raised the problems of labour shortage and uncertainty over the housing market, among others. Again, I hope that my hon. Friend will speak to his colleagues in other Departments about the effect of the cost of local government on small firms. Progress is being made in many parts of the country, not least my own area in Wandsworth, where the partnership between local and national Government has brought in more new firms—including manufacturing firms. In Battersea, we have reduced unemployment by 19 per cent. in the last year, and in Wandsworth it is down to 9·2 per cent. Wandsworth is the only inner London borough, apart from the City of London, where unemployment is below 10 per cent.
  Much of that improvement is due to the policy of keeping rates low so that jobs can be created in the inner cities, and there is a fear that the new uniform business rate will have an unfortunate impact on some small firms. The National Federation of Self Employed and Small Businesses did a survey of its own members, and found, for example, that a new engineering workshop in Norfolk would be paying 219 per cent. more in UBR, a hairdresser in Lincoln 300 per cent. more, a pub in Broadstairs 362 per cent. more and a railway arch workshop in Slough 440 per cent. more. Although the Government are rightly trying to help the north, as opposed to the south, in some of their rate reform policies, when they say
  "The more prosperous businesses in the South East will be paying more rates",
  they must be using a transferred epithet, because businesses in the south-east will pay more business rates whether they are prosperous or not.
  I do not wish to cut into the happy duet that we are about to enjoy, but 1 briefly ask my hon. Friend the Minister to pass on to his right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State my welcome for his use of 25 employees as the definition of a small firm. In the past, figures of anything from 100 to 250, or even 500, have been used. In fact, about 78 per cent. of firms employ five or fewer people, and the enterprise initiative package will assist those very small firms to grow.
  I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say, and I am grateful for the opportunity given to us by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington to debate the matter.
  1.33 pm
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: I shall begin the basso profundo part of the duet, leaving the tremolo to the Minister, who has brought the skills of rock opera to the Department of Trade and Industry.
  Let me first congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) on winning the ballot. I must congratulate him rather less on the motion, which, had it come from anyone else, would have been regarded as pure sycophancy — a desperate attempt to escalate an hon. Member's career from the higher reaches of Parliamentary Private Secretary. In the hon. Gentleman's case, however, I accept that it is not
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  sycophancy, but is meant sincerely. I have heard him on this subject before, and I know that he speaks from a genuine concern.
  I hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will admit that the motion has brought an incredible amount of economic illiteracy into the Chamber. Perhaps it is just because it is Friday. It is amazing, when we pick up stones on Fridays, what crawls out from under them. A bigger collection of political twerps and economic illiterates have spoken today than I have ever heard before. Apart from the hon. Members for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) and for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), whose speech I enjoyed, the economic illiteracy has been tremendous.
  I hope that the Minister can distance himself from some of the nonsense that has been mentioned by Conservative Members. It has been my pleasure to hear all that nonsense because I am Leader of the Opposition (Friday). Warhol said:
  "everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes"—
  and indeed, everyone will be Leader of the Opposition for a morning—today it is my turn. In that capacity I wish to comment on the essence of the debate, the enterprise initiative document.
  Gladstone used to entertain parties of visiting Liberals on his estate of Hawarden, where the great man relaxed by chopping down trees. Lord Randolph Churchill said that all that Gladstone's visitors went away with were chips from the trees that he had chopped down and that that was all he had provided for the people of the country. Churchill said:
  "He told them that he would give them and all other subjects of the Queen much legislation, great prosperity and universal peace, and he has given them nothing but chips. Chips to the faithful allies in Afghanistan, chips to the trusting native races of South Africa, chips to the Egyptian fellah, chips to the British farmer, chips to the manufacturer and the artisan, chips to the agricultural labourer chips to the House of Commons itself."
  Gladstone was a big man, but the man whose initiative we are debating today is certainly not big. Gladstone was a hairy man, but mine brother Young is a smooth man, a more emollient presence than Mr. Gladstone. Certainly, Lord Young of Graffham did not chop down the trees himself—if we consider those trees to be the great oaks of British industry — they were brought down by the economic insanity that the Government pursued from 1979 to 1982. During that period one fifth of the British manufacturing capacity was closed down and 28 per cent. of manufacturing jobs went. Indeed, 1·8 million manufacturing employees lost their jobs and, for the first time, we became a net importer of manufactured goods.
  Lord Young has been sent in to clear up the resulting disastrous landscape created during that period. He has been sent in to pick up the chips and to redecorate the stumps. It is similar to the joke that Adlai Stevenson made of Richard Nixon, namely that he was such a good politician that if he chopped down a great redwood he would stand on the stump and give a speech in favour of conservation. That is not Lord Young's job, he would get an advertising agency to do it for him. Indeed, the budget for the enterprise document and its promotion on television is £6·3 million. That money will be spent lo pull the wool over the eyes of the people.
  Lord Young would tell us that the trees have been chopped down for the best possible reasons. Some £6·3 million is being spent on telling us that the DTI is doing more when, in fact, it is doing less. The Conservative party

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  often claims that the Labour party throws money at problems. It appears that Lord Young throws advertising agencies at problems and expects them to provide some kind of solution. The maxim is, "When in doubt advertise", and the DTI's advertising budget is expanding pari passu with the deficit in manufactured trade.
  Lord Young has an advertising budget to tell us that the stump is still flourishing. All that it needs is good advice about its appearance and perhaps a consultative agreement with a painter to redecorate what is left of the stump of British industry.
  Lord Young's job as a Minister is not to solve problems, but to conceal them. The Prime Minister has said, "David is not like other Ministers." That may be a compliment, but I am not sure, given the calibre of other Ministers. The Prime Minister has said, "Other Ministers bring me problems, David brings me solutions." Some might wish that that solution was a dilute mixture of tranquillisers or hemlock. That is not my wish. The solution that is brought to the Prime Minister in the initiative we are debating today is smarm—derived from Lord Young's repeated words, "Yes, ma'am." Smarm as the answer to Britain's problems is oozing out of the DTI.
  Mr. Forman: As the hon. Gentleman is talking about the direction of the DTI under its present leadership, does he not at least pay tribute to the fact that since 1979 the balance of spending within the DTI has shifted dramatically away from propping up the industries of the past towards greater support of innovation and research and development? Is that not exactly what the Labour party would wish?
  Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is still working for that promotion. Of course we welcome that shift. However, it is shift within a reduced and misapplied budget. There is no strategy for the regeneration and encouragement of British industry.
  Returning to Randolph Churchill and Lord Gladstone, what does Lord Young say to a nation which now has a higher level of import penetration than any other advanced industrial country? What does he say to a nation in which the imports of foreign manufacturers as a proportion of British output was 9 per cent. in 1966 and is now 48 per cent. — double the proportion in west Germany and in France? What does he say? He advertises. What does he say to an economy which has just had its worst ever monthly trading deficit? He advertises. What does he say to a manufacturing industry that has gone from a £5 billion surplus in 1978 to a £7 billion deficit? He advertises. What does he say to his ministerial colleagues who are now seriously embarrassed at the failure of the DTI to stop that trade gap widening remorselessly this year? He advertises.
  The White Paper and its associated documents that have been pouring out from the DTI are an advertising compendium with no substance. They are irrelevant to the real problems.
  The problem is that industry was so badly battered by what the Government did between 1979 and 1983 that the industries that survived the economic holocaust caused by high interest rates, an overvalued pound and a depressed and deflated domestic economy because of cuts in Government spending, had to throw overboard research,
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  design, development and training — indeed, everything that makes for non-price competitiveness. They had to do that simply to survive.
  Investment is still down. As a nation, we spend three times less on each individual training system than is spent in Sweden. We produce three times fewer trained engineers than France. Research, design and development have all gone.
  Now, in this motion, we are asked to praise the DTI's belated efforts in that direction. Praise is due to them, but it is about time they saw some light. They cannot simply graft on those measures and expect them to take. They cannot expect business to become competitive by grafting on research and design through consultancy arrangements. Research and design spring from competitiveness, they do not produce it. They are a reflection of competitiveness and the dynamic of British industry which begins with price competitiveness and generates profit.
  Profits have always been too low in Britain. If we had higher profits we would have invested more, there would have been improved productivity, output and quality. We would have been able to spread research, design, development and model changes in the automobile industry over a larger output, thus pressing less heavily on each unit cost. If we had been able to do that, we would now be more competitive. We cannot graft on competitiveness at this late stage after the prelude of 1979 to 1983.
  Competitiveness is a syndrome; it cannot be created by consultancy arrangements. It is a driving desire for change, growth and expansion, a desire to compete and to win in the world market which does not exist because industry has been cowed and battered by what has been done to British industry in the name of monetarism. The danger is that we are now locked into a lower level of output and production. It is difficult to expand beyond it without sucking in imports and worsening the balance of payments.
  It is true that there was an improvement between 1986–87. The pound and oil prices came down. Therefore, our exports became slightly more competitive. Productivity went up and unit labour costs went down. The Government were beginning to learn some economic sense—if we run the economy for competitiveness, we can increase productivity and bring down unit labour costs by the expansion that that generates. But we must run the economy to be competitive. The Government were prepared to do that only because an election was in the offing in 1987. It is certainly not the start of an economic miracle.
  We shall face serious difficulties in manufactured trade—difficulties to which the enterprise initiative is largely irrelevant. With the dollar coming down, we face the fact that two thirds of the increase in manufactured exports that has occurred since 1979—it is a small increase—has gone to the American market. That two thirds is now threatened by the fall in the dollar. Also, American exports have become more competitive. They are already considerably more competitive in volume terms. Trade that is diverted from the American market competes more bitterly and intensely with our other traditional markets. We are still in the syndrome that the NEDC diagnosed in the 1970s, when Britain turned out products of a lower unit value than France or West Germany but imported high-value goods. That is still true.

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  Imports are taking an increasing share of the British market. That sounds incredible, after all the praise of the regeneration of British manufacturing that has come from Conservative Members. If British manufacturing has been so powerfully regenerated by the new spirit that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) wanted to make compulsory in schools—he scolded the unemployed for not feeling the new spirit of enterprise—why is it that, between 1979 and September 1987, the percentage of the domestic chemicals market taken by imports increased from 30 per cent. to 40 per cent.? That was in less than 10 years.
  The proportion of imports in mechanical engineering increased from 29 to 38 per cent., in electronics from 31 to 48 per cent., in motor vehicles from 38 to 48 per cent., in textiles from 33 to 46 per cent., in clothing from 29 to 38 per cent., in washing machines from 28 to 35 per cent. in 1987, and in televisions from 22 to 37 per cent. If we are so good, why has that happened? It is because industry has been so badly treated by the Government that it has not been able to compete. We cannot make it compete by grafting on the new elements that have suddenly been thought of by Lord Young.
  All the basic weaknesses of the British economy still exist. They have to be dealt with—not the peripheral matters with which the enterprise initiative deals. I shall quote various reports that have been produced over the past few months about the state of British manufacturing. I hope that the Minister will give us his assessment of their accuracy. Investment is almost the life-blood of competitiveness — the one thing on which we have to fight back against the world — yet investment in manufacturing is 9 per cent. lower than it was in 1979. Indeed, in large sectors there has been a net disinvestment. We have been living on the seedcorn. The annual industrial survey of the Financial Times in January 1988 stated:
  "In many areas … it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the rising sales of British goods derive less from investment in new products than from competitive prices, stemming from relatively low wages, and a currency level which, until recently at least, has been competitively priced."
  On productivity, a summary of recent academic research by Warwick university states that Britain is still part of a
  "vicious and self-perpetuating spiral of low wages, low morale and low productivity."
  A CBI memorandum to the NEDC last October states:
  "Britain remains a relatively low-pay, productivity, low profit economy".
  How will we improve all the things that we are supposed to improve in design if we have a low-pay, low-profit economy, if we do not involve workers, and do not generate investment? The Cranfield-British Institute of Management study, entitled "Managing Manufacturing Operations in the UK, 1975–1985" stated:
  "The regrettable but overwhelming conclusion must be that very little has happened in manufacturing operations in the UK over the last ten years. This is particularly true in the key areas of 'competitive' edge — delivery reliability, lead times and use of new technology."
  That is the background.
  We welcome the provision of help and these consultancy arrangements in design and marketing. There should be a bonanza for the consultancies. They will produce a lot of advice, some of which will be practicable for British industry. It is just not enough. If the Department of Trade and Industry is prepared to
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  recognise that the state has a role to play in offering these consultancy arrangements, and encouraging manufacturing in this direction, why does it not extend it in other sectors? In our competitor countries, Governments and Government Departments offer help to their manufacturing industry. They offer support, investment, finance and a closer working relationship with Government Departments than British industry has ever enjoyed. Why is assistance offered for sectors such as design but not for all the other problem areas faced by industry, and, in particular, why not for research and development?
  Research and development must be the key to new processes and new competitiveness. The DTI has spent £30,000 on a report from Coopers and Lybrand on innovation centres, which I think are necessary for Britain. Coopers and Lybrand found, no doubt because that is what the Department wanted it to find, that innovation centres were not necessary. But Japan has 190 of them, all state funded.
  The Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology produced one of the most damning reports on British investment in research and development that I have ever seen. It paints a depressing picture which is contrary to that created by the advertising monstrosity that the DTI is putting out. Lord Young told that Committee that recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures for industry-funded research and development in the United Kingdom and competitor countries gave cause for "considerable concern". He was half right. It should have been "overwhelming concern". He also said that he saw it as
  "central to the Government's philosophy that the motivation for spending more on R and D must come from industry itself."
  The problem is that it has not done so. It does not seem likely to do so and the Government are doing far less than they should. If we cut out defence-oriented research and development, the proportions of Government-funded research and development in EEC countries is: Germany 34 per cent., France 26 per cent., and United Kingdom 16 per cent. In other words, we are spending about half per head of what Germany is spending, about 60 per cent. of what France is spending and just a little over what is spent by those industrial powers, Italy and Belgium.
  The conclusions drawn by the Committee, which looked in detail and heard evidence from all interested parties on the state of research and development, were:
  "the overwhelming weight of opinion from almost every sector of the research community and from the private sector is that R&D in many fields is underfunded, and in some cases seriously underfunded … These two views should not be taken together to mean that the underfunding is wholly the responsibility of the Government. This is not true. A large share of the responsibility rests with industry, who have failed to invest enough in R&D and to appreciate its importance. Other sections of society, particularly the City and institutional shareholders, have to accept some responsibility. The Committee are concerned at the comparative failure of British industry to undertake and to finance R&D, and its disposition to rely on publicly funded work."
  That is a crashing indictment of British industry and the Department of Trade and Industry, which has not been encouraging it to spend more on British research and development.
  In the light of that failure and of the realities—not the public relations realities projected by the Department through its advertising budget and by Conservative Members reading Central Office briefs — the initiative

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  that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington asks us to commend is silly, smarmy and irrelevant to the real problems facing manufacturing. It is not a case, as the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said, of fiddling while Rome burns, because the motion commends the increase in the output of firelighter manufacturers and offers them design consultancies on the shape of the briquettes that they manufacture. That is worse than fiddling while Rome burns.
  The real problem is the industrial decline that must be reversed. We have wasted the oil opportunity that should have been used to expand the British economy to a new industrial strength. That opportunity was largely thrown away. Let me declare my overseas visits. In November 1987 I visited the United States and not Saudi Arabia. While I was in the United States, Senator Moynihan said that President Reagan's economic policy consisted of borrowing $3 trillion from the Japanese and throwing a party. The Government have taken the wealth from the North sea and thrown a party and, being mean, they have invited only their friends and not the mass of the British people in the way that Reagan invited the mass of the American people.
  The Government have destroyed jobs and will be the only Government to go out with fewer jobs than they came in with. Over the same period America has created 10 million jobs by expanding the economy. What will happen in the 1990s when the oil contribution finishes? We will move into deficit in oil trade in 1991. The Government have used the opportunity of oil to destroy much of our manufacturing industry and we have moved into a horrendous and growing deficit on manufactured trade. I ask the Government to tell us what will happen when the oil goes in the 1990s. How will we survive and provide the jobs, preserve our standard of living, and generate growth unless we rebuild manufacturing industry? That cannot be done by the tinkering that is contained in the White Paper.
  It is not a question, as the White Paper says, of a hands-off approach to industry. We have to run the economy for manufacturing, and that is what a Labour Government will do. We shall run the economy for growth, for expansion, for manufacturing and for jobs. We will not run it for finance or for the interests of money and those who have it or for high interest rates. We shall put money to work for the people and for industry. That is what any responsible Government ought to do. The tinkering in the White Paper is not reality.
  British industry is now in a war, an international struggle for survival, and it is not surviving very well. Survival does not depend on small firms, 94 per cent. of which do not export. Survival depends on the big battalions and on the Government's co-operation with them to rebuild the country's economic fortunes. We send British industry into that international struggle burdened with heavier costs than its competitors. It has heavier rail transport costs and heavier electricity charges, just wilfully increased to fatten up the electricity industry for privatisation. British industry also has heavier interest rate charges than its competitors, and all those burdens are influenced by Government.
  We are asking industry to fight that international war with that ball and chain round its leg. It has gone into battle not with protection and help from the Government, because it has been stabbed in the back. Any firm that
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  invests substantially in research and development and in new products and modernisation, and diverts money from immediate profits to investment is promptly the object of a takeover bid because its share price is depressed by the very techniques of investment that are necessary to survive the international struggle. We send it into battle and we stab it in the back, and Pilkingtons is an example of that. The company then has to spend millions in fighting off the threat of the takeover bid. Lastly, we send it into battle not with Government help and co-operation, but with a Government running the economy for finance. The Government are now killing the goose, the fall in the pound from 1986, that has laid the Government's golden and electoral eggs. The real value of the pound sterling has appreciated by 13 per cent. since the last quarter of 1986. The Government complain about the increase in wages, but there has been a 13 per cent. increase in the real price of the pound. That is a bigger burden on industry than any increase in wages, and it is a direct consequence of the Government's policy of tying sterling to a deutschmark whose value must increase.
  The terms of trade for manufacturers are worse than they were in 1981, and disastrous consequences will follow, just as they did in 1981. As the hosannas about success from the grovelling chorus of sycophants from whom we heard today ring loudest, matters are turning sour. We have returned to the stop phase in the stop-go cycle, and all that the Government have to offer to counter it is fatter consultancies. They are an irrelevancy.
  The prospects are bleak and becoming bleaker. The balance of payments is widening, and the Government's only answer will be deflation. Exports will suffer and imports will become more competitive. None of that reality emerges from this half-baked, inadequate White Paper which fudges every issue and gives solutions to none of the problems. Essentially, it is the bland leading the blind stumblingly downhill.
  2 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. John Butcher): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) for the timeliness of the subject that he chose for the debate. He has done the House a great service in providing us with an opportunity, for the first time in this Chamber, to consider the White Paper and the enterprise initiative and to discuss — fortuitously, only a few days before the Budget—many issues which hon. Members on both sides of the House believe should be aired.
  I was interested to hear the latter comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). When, during his peroration on exchange rates, he launched into an analysis of competitiveness, he illustrated clearly the chasm between his approach and the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington to what precisely is required in the British economy to make us more competitive. My hon. Friend focused on non-price factors, just as the nations with appreciating currencies, such as Japan and West Germany, focus on non-price factors. If anything gives the lie to the contention of the regressive, unconstructed, backward-looking Labour party, it is this: if it was all about exchange rates, the German economy would be on its knees because it has had to cope with constantly increasing values in its currency, as have the Japanese. But they have insured

  1323
  themselves against the currency-based erosion of their competitiveness by becoming involved in the issues which my hon. Friend highlighted.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: Does not the Minister realise that it is precisely because those countries built their industrial power that they can sustain an appreciation in their currency? We cannot, because we are weaker. If a country's output of motor cars is 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, 6 million or, in the Japanese case, 7 to 8 million, it can spread the costs of research and design over the larger output. British Leyland produces just over 400,000 cars, which is probably about the same figure as in the late 1940s. We cannot afford the appreciation because we have not grown as much as those countries have.
  Mr. Butcher: The hon. Gentleman is a perceptive man and a well-thought-of member of the Labour Front Bench. If he was giving a lecture on the economic history of the United Kingdom away from the House, he would acknowledge, rightly, the role of leads, lags and trends in an economy. Much of his speech reflected the worst sort of short-termism. He attributed to this Government faults that have been building up in our economy for a long time, especially as the world recession hit our manufacturers harder than it hit most, for reasons that I shall give in a moment. But the Germans have coped fairly easily with an increasing value of their currency because they set the framework of their economic miracle against clear principles back in the period from 1949 to 1953. As I said in a previous speech, their policies bear a strong resemblance to the policies that we put in place, in macroeconomic terms, particularly from 1982 to 1985.
  Therefore, when the hon. Gentleman does his United Kingdom tour as part of the listening role of the Labour party, I hope that, when he launches into his lectures in Great Grimsby, Scotland or wherever, he will regale some of his colleagues in the Labour party with the lessons of the German economic miracle and that he will look at the period of German economic history between 1949 and 1953 when Euchen, an excellent economist, and Ehrhardt, an excellent Chancellor, laid the foundations for that German economic miracle, which are similar to the foundations that we laid in this Administration, in the teeth, at the beginning, of a world recession.
  I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington on non-price factors. He is absolutely right to focus on quality, design and marketing as just three of those non-price factors. They represent the effort, the three enabling skills in a company, that must be deployed to best possible effect. I shall come back to some of my hon. Friend's comments later.
  The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who gave his apologies to the House for leaving early, demonstrated yet again that he is the master of the mixed metaphor and that he can give a speech on any subject at any time with the minimum of consideration. Therefore, he is ideally equipped to be the next leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats, or whatever name they will be trading under at the next general election.
  Let me look at the meat of the hon. Gentleman's argument. He said that we were not doing enough for small firms. He said that we had policies in place for setting up small firms, but with the exception of the business expansion scheme we were not doing enough to see them through the initial period of consolidation into further
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  expansion. The hon. Gentleman has therefore completely misread the White Paper; he has completely misread the Department's latest initiative, because there is a whole raft of measures inside the enterprise initiative designed to help small and medium-sized companies to grow and to fill in the missing capabilities that they often find are exposed when they expand from a small company into a medium-sized company and, we hope, with many of them, eventually into a large company.
  The hon. Gentleman seems to be stuck somewhere around 1968 in his appreciation of measures required to revitalise Britain's economy. I shall not hazard a guess at where the hon. Member for Great Grimsby is, but I think that he is somewhere between 1951 and about 1975½. I do not think that he is a root-and-branch clause IV man, but he is pretty much into the motherhood statements of the mid-1970s when he puts forward his recipes for recovery in Britain.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) talked about change of attitudes. That is remarked on by those who have the advantage of coming back to this country having spent a period abroad. If one talks to a business man who has been away for four or five years and who has returned to the United Kingdom in the past two or three years, such people remark on the demonstrable and sometimes spectacular change in attitudes in the board room where our managers are much more professional and ambitious, and on the shop floor where trade unionists and the work force are rediscovering some of the basic virtues that are the key generators of employment.
  I should like to mention the names of some fairly typical people to whom we in the DTI talk, who are not members of the chattering classes but who in many past conversations have influenced the formation of our policy. One, whose observations I have noted over a period, is the trade unionist, Bill Jordan. When the Labour party listens, I hope that it will listen to trade unionists such as him. I assume that when the Labour party and trade unionists meet, their conversations are about getting money for the Labour party. I do not want to damn Mr. Jordan's career by flattering him too much, but he is an expert on the quality campaign and on quality as a means of preserving and creating jobs. I doubt whether that has been on the agenda of meetings held between him and the Labour party research department.
  British management skills, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East pointed out, are key. My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) pointed out that things now are different from the 1960s and 1970s—we are becoming more professional. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, returned to the issue of market share, which must be our national obsession. I am delighted to report that, at long last, the remorseless erosion of Britain's share of world trade in exports between 1964 and 1980 has been halted. We have stopped the rot. When future economic historians write about that period they will observe that a seminal event took place in about 1981–82, when that erosion of our share of world trade was halted.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover remarked, management skills are desperately important and today's profits, as he rightly said, are tomorrow's investments.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) confirmed one aspect of the White Paper, which is that we are determined to get closer to the customer and to take DTI's services out to those who are best equipped

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  to take advantage of them. We shall use chambers of commerce when necessary; we shall open more offices; we shall listen to and pick up as many tips as we can on the best way of implementing the enterprise initiative. In the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield, a soccer metaphor is perhaps appropriate. In the past five years Britain has started to move up the league table of economic performance in the OECD. It is our intention as a nation to more even further up it. Having decided that we should not be relegated in 1979–80, we have now moved up to a mid-table position and we must now decide whether to go for the championship. It is a long time since we have had the base that we now have from which to work. If we can make that decision, we must not throw the opportunity away—
  Mr. Dykes: Does that mean that Britain is in the position of Queens Park Rangers, Luton Town or Arsenal?
  Mr. Butcher: I have learnt on previous occasions in the House never to take sides about soccer. However, my hon. Friend will know that I took just a minuscule amount of pride in the performance of Coventry City in the last cup final. We are today in the position in which, say, Kenny Dalglish was two years ago when he was considering the sort of side to build for the championship—but enough of soccer metaphors. I am now competing with the hon. Member for Yeovil in the mixed metaphor stakes.
  We shall pick up the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) about a freer market in books. He was correct to identify the great need in the United Kingdom to provide our teachers with valuable experience in commerce and industry. For the most part, they would welcome that, and I am encouraged by the reaction of commerce and industry to the White Paper. Representatives of the various sectors, such as the Institute of Directors, the chambers of commerce and the CBI, have welcomed our objective of getting 10 per cent. of teachers a year into companies to take a look at the things that will be required of the students in their care when they enter the job market. Warrington and Runcorn has shown that it provides a welcome home for inward investment by providing skilled workers and the right enterprise ethic in the local community. As we have been invited by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South to do so, we shall take a look at the inpediments to trade.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley (Mr. Cran), with his great experience as a regional director in Birmingham and as a keen observer of the national scene, made an excellent speech. There is a growing appreciation that we have to encourage our brightest and best younsters to opt for a career in industry and commerce. We need them. There is almost a form of economic warfare in the international market and we need the best people to fight in that battle on behalf of British industry and commerce. I believe that our national culture is changing and that we no longer suffer from the 19th century attitude that our top schools should produce only young people fit to become district commissioners in Africa or colonial leaders in far-flung parts of the world. We want people to lead British industry and commerce in the struggle for world markets.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley referred to deregulation. I will communicate to my ministerial colleagues his clearly stated wish that we should take a radical approach to deregulation. My hon. Friend is currently decoding some of the terminology in our documentation and he believes that it sounds rather cautious. If necessary, I will try to persuade my colleagues in the DTI to tune that up and enhance the committment level a little.
  Reference was made to the links that must be established between the universities and industry and commerce. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley will be aware from our recent documentation that a £36 million link programme, the teaching company scheme, has been created. As far as I am aware, that scheme has no enemies. It is universally acclaimed as an excellent way to firm up links between the higher education sector and industry and commerce. Bright young men and women are entering companies on postgraduate projects. They are given specific targets and often surprise the companies by the level of sophistication that they bring to a project.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) referred to planning constraints. He brought an interesting nugget of information to the House when he explained that there had been a 62 per cent. increase in rates in his authority coinciding with the authority's marketing efforts in an economic development unit. That often happens in Labour-controlled local authorities. Such authorities seem to produce policies that make their municipalities hostile territory for the private sector and small business men. They indulge in PR massaging. They set up a project which they often call an economic development unit to make a passing statement about their desire to bring employment into the area. For the most part, I am afraid that such action is a somewhat cynical exercise.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) asked me to consider the trading and export services. I will read the Official Report carefully and respond to him regarding the British Overseas Trade Board.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) reasserted his argument that we should do all that we can to make education more relevant to the needs of our economy. Almost in passing he made an observation that could have dominated the debate. This side of the Budget it is probably right that it should not have done so. We have rediscovered over the past four or five years that supply-side economics work. As taxation rates come down, the take increases.
  I recall an excellent article in The Sunday Times entitled
  "Who is selling the snake oil?"
  In that article the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was portrayed as the cowboy who came to town waving a bottle of elixir purporting to be a cure-all for everything from hair loss to digestive complaints. His cure-all was increased taxation for everything. We have discovered that the converse is true. Reducing taxation at corporate and personal levels increases income for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The country can then decide how to spend the increased revenue.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) who, as far as I can understand, was fresh from a rectification job on his peripheral caries, brought some interesting comments to the debate, especially about job

  1327
  creation and the role of small firms. We shall continue to examine what small firms pay to local government. That is a matter not for me but for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, but it is a key factor. Wandsworth is to be congratulated. Some London boroughs introduced nuclear-free zones, whereas Wandsworth is a de facto enterprise zone. Wandsworth is concerned about enterprise because it knows what enterprise does for jobs. I congratulate that brave and imaginative borough.
  That takes me to the comments made by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby. He said that he would speak as a basso profundo. He will know that the basso profundo often takes the part of the jester and sometimes the ogre. I suspect that the captains of industry and some trade unionists who read his speech may see him as an ogre because he made a number of suggestions that would turn the clock back to a time when competition in world markets was not as great as it is now, and seriously weaken our resolve to fight for competitiveness. Many of the policies that the hon. Gentleman would advance would undermine and erode the competitive ethic both in the board room and on the shop floor.
  The world recession hit us very hard. The weaknesses in our economy had been building up over a long period. If we can put right in one decade what went wrong gradually over about two decades, we shall have done very well indeed.
  I do not know any longer where the Labour party gets its information from. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby is a great researcher and I am sure that in the listening campaign he will be a great listener. Let me take this opportunity—unusually in a debate such as this—to mention some people who, in my view, typify the industrial renaissance in this country. They are not necessarily members of the chattering classes and they are unlikely ever to appear on the Robin Day programme. However, they are certainly worthy of a visit from the hon. Members for Great Grimsby, for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) and for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). Those people, and hundreds like them, have influenced Government policy, perhaps without knowing it. I see that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) is in the Chamber, and our first port of call should be the midlands. Opposition Members should go to Lucas, an excellent company, and talk to John Parnaby, who is probably an expert—probably a world expert — on manufacturing systems engineering. He would probably enlighten the Labour party as to current trends in manufacturing sciences and intellectual investment on the shop floor. They could then go to Rugby to see Brian Small at Ingersoll.
  Mr. Denis Howell: Will the hon. Member give way?
  Mr. Butcher: I have already given way once.
  Mr. Howell: As the Minister has referred to me, should he not give way?
  Mr. Butcher: Very well.
  Mr. Howell: When the Minister calls at Joseph Lucas on his great tour of the midlands, he will not be able to call at its head office in Great King street in my constituency unless he hurries: it is about to be demolished and hundreds of people are about to be made redundant.
  Mr. Butcher: Yes, and the Lucas company is getting into higher and higher added value. It is becoming more and more successful in its aerospace efforts. It is running a very successful Girling subsidiary. There have been redundancies, but those who observe that market would agree that the company could not have pursued its strategic objectives without some redundancies. It is always difficult for a company faced with strong markets in which it does not have an appropriate investment to decide whether to continue to fight in those markets or whether to fight where they can win. I believe that Lucas has made the correct decision.
  Hon. Gentlemen should then move on and talk to Malcolm Fraser at the Council for National Academic Awards. He has some excellent ideas on management development and how to produce a modular system of qualifications for managers which builds bridges from the shop floor to academia and out again. It is a flexible system of management training. Clark Brundin, at Warwick university, together with Khumar Battacharya, has shown that universities can open their doors wide to the private sector and gain immense advantage from it. They, too, have a great deal to say on how to build Britain's industrial and commercial renaissance.
  Hon. Members may like to talk to John Kerridge at Fisons. He has taken an agro-chemical company into new areas, higher added value, pharmaceuticals and science-based products. James Pilditch has produced excellent work on best management practice in books and journals of his own authorship. If hon. Members are worried about textiles and the so-called older industries— I have never liked that term—they may care to talk to Louis Van Praag who runs a company called Sabre Textiles.
  I know that it is unorthodox to mention names, but they are typical of people who learnt from experience and brought a new dimension to management and a new vigour to their companies.
  Design is not an extra and it is not about making products pretty; it is about the concept of a product or a service from its beginning—from the core outwards, It is about design for manufacture or maintenance. It is about fitness for purpose and, ultimately, a product's aesthetic appearance in the past four years British companies have at long last woken up to this and many are starting to reap the benefits.
  Quality is not a bureaucratic obsession within a company. To repeat a phrase that I have used previously, quality is about selling products that do not come back to customers who do. It is one of the key job creators, as Bill Jordan in the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers would confirm. Quality management is now a well-rehearsed science. It does not cost money. Zero defects are now entering company cultures throughout the country.
  We in our enterprise initiative support quality, design and marketing. I pay tribute to the Design Council which has run the consultancy programmes for design, the Institute of Marketing and Tony McBurnie, who is administering that side of the programme, and to the Production Engineering Research Association which has helped us to pursue our objectives in improved manufacturing practice.
  During the debate we heard a great deal about management and I have a little more to say about]t. In the past we have learnt, as disseminators and distributors of grants, that it is no good whatever to invest large sums to

  1329
  reduce the investment costs of a company if the people at the heart of that company are not professional and of the highest capability. Company performance is determined more than anything else by the calibre of the people at the centre of its decision-making process. We as a nation must make a major investment in management skills and those of our work force. When John Egan competes with Mercedes it is not Jaguar v Mercedes, but the skills of the people of Coventry in his work force competing with the skills of the people of Stuttgart. If his people are better trained and educated, he can win that battle. If they are not, he will lose it. John Egan and many other chief executives have pursued their objectives in enhancing the quality of their work forces. That is something about which the whole House should be united and which progressive trade unionists have endorsed over a long time. In my view, the best managers and the more enlightened trade unionists are now coming together and are unanimous on that proposition. Another change that has taken place in the United Kingdom during the past six or seven years is that the "us and them" mentality is at long last disappearing.
  As far as the initiative itself is concerned, and the current progress, I can happily report to the House that there has been a major response to the marketing campaign—
  It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

  ACCESS TO MEDICAL REPORTS BILL
  Ordered,
  That Standing Committee C be discharged from considering the Access to Medical Reports Bill, and that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—
  [Mr. Simon Hughes.]
  Committee upon Friday 29 April.

Orders of the Day

  PLANNING PERMISSION (DEMOLITION OF HOUSES) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 29 April.

  SUNDAY SPORTS BILL [LORDS]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 22 April.

  UNBORN CHILDREN (PROTECTION) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Second Reading what day? No day named.

  HOUSING (HOUSES IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day? No day named.

  OVERSEAS AID (ASSISTANCE TO THE POOREST) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Second Reading what day? No day named.

  OPTICAL APPLIANCES (BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED PERSONS) BILL
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [12 February].
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Debate to be resumed what day? No day named.
  Sir John Biggs-Davison: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order for me, without detaining the House, formally to move the motion standing in my name on the Order Paper?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am afraid that it would not be possible for the hon. Gentleman to do that. It would have been possible only if it had been reached before 2.30 pm.

  M20 (Motorway Service Area)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Dorrell.]
  2.31 pm
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: Nothing generates more heat than a planning proposal, and few roles can be more ungrateful than that of the Minister who has to decide between local outrage and what he perceives as the national interest. Therefore, I enter this debate acutely conscious that my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for roads and traffic is under enormous pressure from all sides and that, as the proposal to site a motorway service area at Hollingbourne is currently subject to appeal, he may feel inhibited from making any statement on the issues today in the House.
  Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to put on record, in the Parliament to which all Ministers are ultimately responsible, a number of considerations that I believe my hon. Friend will have to take into account when he comes to take his decision. I also believe, as I shall later show, that there is one decision that he can announce today without trespassing on an area which is properly sub judice and for his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
  I believe in motorways. They are much more efficient than other types of road. They are much less dangerous and they are now the lifeblood of a modern economy. However, if there are motorways there must also be motorway service areas—suprisingly frequently, it would appear. In 1979, the then Secretary of State accepted recommendations that argued for flexibility in spacing motorway service areas, but still expected a frequency of roughly 30 miles. In the 10 years since those recommendations were made, petrol consumption has improved by about 30 per cent., but I suppose that against that the Minister could argue that motorway service areas are much less to do with the motorist's need for putting fluid in than for letting it out. Nevertheless, on roads where a mile takes less than a minute, variations in spacing of 10 to 15 miles are hardly significant.
  The idea is to have, in the Maidstone area, a motorway service area on the M20, which is shortly to be completed after many years of mutual frustration, by the insertion of the missing link between Hollingbourne and Ashford. The Department makes much of the need to open the service area at the same time as the motorway. If it were to be the only one, I might be tempted to ignore the precedent of 25 years of unserviced motorway hitherto or the unserviced years of the M25, but it will not be the only one. There will almost certainly be motorway service areas at junctions 3, 4 and 6 on the M25 and at Ashford and Cheriton on the M20.
  In that embarrassment of riches, some people might wonder whether we need another service area at all. Many motorists have managed a great number of miles perfectly well without one, but, if we have to have one, where should it be? Since as long ago as 1975, it is clear that voices in the Department of Transport have been arguing to place it at Hollingbourne, and therein lies the major problem, both for those who oppose the plan and for the Minister.
  Over the past 13 years, files will have grown fat with letters, memos and minutes of meetings between officials, the sum total of which has been to turn a proposal into a de facto decision. It will need more than sympathy and
  1332
  vision and more, even, than argument alone to overturn that decision now. It will require ministerial courage of the kind that says to respected senior advisers, "I am the Minister. I believe that that is the wrong decision and I am going to change it." That sort of courage is always in short supply, although less so in this Administration than in most. I believe that my hon. Friend the Minister has that sort of courage in ample measure. All that is needed is to demonstrate to him that since he made the choice of Hollingbourne public in 1986, and certainly since 1975, enough has changed to render a new approach as logical as it is desirable.
  I wish to deal, first, with the position of Kent county council. My hon. Friend has every excuse if he feels puzzled by the apparent behaviour of Kent county council. During the recent appeal hearing, an official of that council stated that members of Kent county council supported the choice of Hollingbourne as the preferred site for a motorway service area as far back as 1976. The then vice chairman of the county planning sub-committee, who is now the borough councillor for Hollingbourne has no recollection of any debate on the subject at that time and believes that if the decision were taken at all, it must have slipped into the minutes inadvertently.
  Since then the council's officers have been assiduous in promoting Hollingbourne, even to the point of virtually ignoring a recent very firm instruction from the planning sub-committee to carry out a full appraisal of an alternative site. In those circumstances, it would not be surprising if successive Ministers believed that county members approved the choice of Hollingbourne. Indeed, my hon. Friend made their approval an important ground of difficulty in meeting the objections to the site put to him by a delegation from Hollingbourne, which he met on 8 December 1986. When, after many attempts to arrange a meeting between Maidstone borough council and Kent county council had strangely foundered, a site meeting eventually took place on:5 January this year. County council members instantly resolved that the potential of the Allington site should be explored. In response to that, the county officers failed to do any such thing, but simply put another paper to a meeting of the county planning subcommittee on 23 February, reiterating their choice of Hollingbourne, Members rejected that for the second time and demanded a proper study of the Allington site.
  The Minister cannot possibly be expected to make a distinction between the opinions of officers and members of a county council, unless the disagreement is brought to his notice, but I should like to assure him that Kent county council, like Maidstone borough council and all the parish councils concerned, wants him to undertake a Full appraisal of Allington quarry as an alternative site for the motorway service area.
  A second change since 1975 has been in the growth of traffic. Since 1977, on the B2136, which passes through Leeds village, there has been an increase of 443 per cent. in vehicles with three or more axles, including articulated lorries. In 1986, the Minister's Department admitted that the rate of growth in traffic using that narrow country road was more than twice the national average, and forecast a rise in traffic levels on the road to between 6,500 and 8,000 vehicles per 24 hours by the year 2005.
  It will, I am sure, come as no surprise that a traffic survey made in December 1987 showed a 24-hour figure of 8,167 vehicles. I say that it will come as no surprise because it is, after all, the Department that gave us the

  1333
  traffic forecasts for the M25. I do not know how that Department dares now, in its summary of evidence to the current inquiry, to suggest that we can ignore the claims that traffic is increasing on the B2163, or that the motorway service area would affect it. The M20 interchange will add hugely to the attractions of this wholly unsuitable informal bypass to Maidstone for assorted heavy lorries. If added to that were the lure of a 24-hour service area, Leeds village would be almost destroyed by the burden of traffic.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), in whose constituency Leeds village lies, endorses those trends entirely, and she is very sorry that a constituency engagement prevents her from saying so in person. Severe damage to Leeds village would mean a desperate loss. Both halves of the village are conservation areas, and 41 of its buildings are grade 2 listed. They are an important ingredient in what many of the half million visitors to Leeds castle come to enjoy.
  The third change is that work has now begun on the Channel tunnel. That will substantially accelerate the already dramatic switch of Britain's trade from other markets to mainland Europe, and will bring many tens of thousands more vehicles and millions more visitors to Kent. With the lively and much-appreciated assistance of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Kent is working hard to protect itself from the disadvantages of this great innovation, while trying to ensure that it benefits from it also. That is why the council has declared that development will not normally be permitted
  "if it is likely to cause loss of, or material damage to, landscape areas and features which are: —

  (1) representative of the Kent countryside by reason of their physiographic character or vegetation cover, with particular regard being paid to those areas of rare or possibly unique scenic quality: or

  (2) of historic interest: or

  (3) of an unspoilt quality free from urban intrusion."

  I wonder whether my hon. Friend could easily find another area in Kent in which all those criteria come so fully together.
  The proposed site is in the North Downs special landscape area. It is within 500 m of the conservation area of Eyhorne street, 1,400 m from the Broad street conservation area to the north and within only 900 m of the park of historic Leeds castle, the third most popular tourist attraction in Britain. The site shares a border with an area of outstanding natural beauty, a designation so special that everyone recognises the names involved: the Lake district, the mountains of Mourne and the Cotswolds. Perhaps all of them are eagerly awaiting the chance to have a motorway service area as well.
  A fourth change has been the dazzling success of exquisite Leeds castle as a tourist attraction. Host to half a million visitors a year, its special events attract between 10,000 and 20,000 visitors or more. On a fine summer evening, how many of them would park their cars in the motorway service area for a ready getaway after the concert, and how useful would a motorway service area, so blocked, be to the road user?
  I shall not pretend that Leeds castle's success depends entirely on leaving its neighbours, Leeds village and Hollingbourne, undisturbed. However, I share the managing director's view that a lorry park, a caravan park and a possible motel in a motorway service area would
  1334
  make a change so fundamental in the castle's environment that no amount of landscaping would do more than garnish the wound.
  In the old days, the rich used their influence to keep modern developments, such as the railways, at a distance from their estates, and there must always have been a temptation for Ministers to tease them when they could by defeating their endeavours and lumbering them with a line beneath the fences of their estates. In this case, the rich man is replaced by the half million ordinary citizens who come to Hollingbourne and Leeds village to see ancient England at its best. It would be a sorry memorial to be remembered as the Minister who gave them the inescapable view of a lorry park.
  A fifth change relates to the position, in planning terms, of Allington quarry at the Coldharbour interchange. Until recently it was the subject of a major planning appeal. When we went to see the Minister on my birthday last year he told us that he would be unable to accept a motorway service area as part of a site where alcohol was on sale. Indeed, he also believed that the proposed development would not leave room for a motorway service area. Both of those difficulties have disappeared with the refusal of planning permission. However, two other difficulties remain. One is the nature of the refusal. The Department of Transport seems to believe that its terms preclude the use of the site for a motorway service area or anything else. The second difficulty is cost.
  The valuer retained by the Department placed a value of £285,000 per acre on the Allington site. That value depends entirely upon "hope value." No developer would pay £285,000 as "hope value" for land subject to ministerial restriction of the nature described. At most, the developer would buy an option. It is important to note that an equally qualified valuer put a value of only £2,000 per acre on the site. That presupposes that the land carries only agricultural value.
  The only things that are clear in this difference of opinion are, first, that the Department of Transport cannot simultaneously argue that the green wedge considerations are so overriding that they rule out the use of the quarry as a site for a motorway service area and, at the same time, value the land as if the green wedge considerations were of no importance. Secondly, unless and until there is a properly worked out consideration of the Allington site, none of us will know what the sums involved are likely to be. However, we are aware that the Allington site would be much more heavily used than the Hollingbourne site.
  I find it extremely encouraging that the Tonbridge and Mailing council, which does not want the green wedge damaged, argued against siting the motorway service area in the quarry, where, with great care, it will scarcely affect the visual wedge. It said:
  "Tonbridge and Mailing is unwilling to support the construction of a motorway service area at Allington Quarry unless and until a developer demonstrates an overwhelming case of need. An essential element of such a case would be evidence of the Secretary of State's rejection of all other alternative sites."
  Therefore, the issue stays with the Minister. He has it in his power to reverse the bureaucratic mud slide that threatens to engulf the most environmentally-sensitive area of my lovely constituency.
  When Lord Jenkin, then Secretary of State for the Environment, did us the honour of inspecting the site, he

  1335
  told us that although we would have to accept either the interchange or the service area, it would be intolerable to have to suffer both.
  In this debate I speak as the hon. Member for Mid-Kent. However, I also speak for my hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and for Faversham (Mr. Moate) who is president of the North Downs Society. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham would have been present if it were possible. However, I believe that I do not speak just for my hon. Friends and our constituents. I speak for the millions who, between now and the end of the century, will come to Kent looking for the essential England — the historic, small-scale, solid, ungarish England of Led the Saxon whose castle stands at Leeds and of the Canterbury pilgrims who knew, when they got to Hollingbourne, that they did not have much further to go.
  If we have to explain to those visitors that the garish motorway service area — even before its inevitable expansion it will dwarf the conservation areas around it and it will till the night sky all the year round with reflective light — could have been sited in a disused quarry where nobody lives, where nobody could see it and where no part of it would intrude on the environment, they will look at us as we would on the residents of some Third world country who turn a unique temple into a lorry assembly plant.
  As I said at the beginning of my speech, I do not seek to press the Minister for a decision today. Even if I could, it would be improper for me to do so. I ask only whether he will produce a fully worked-out proposal for the Allington quarry site, which was the first choice of his own Department's consultant in years gone by, before he makes his final choice. I believe that so much has changed since his original decision was taken that it would be prudent and generous of the Minister to accede to my request.
  2.50 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): No decision will be taken on the proposal for a motorway service area at Hollingbourne until my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Transport and for the Environment have received the inspector's report of the inquiry and have carefully considered that report. I hope that that is a partial assurance to my hon. Friend. He has drawn this matter to the attention of the House and has spoken about our hon. Friends who would have liked to express concern. It is of passing interest that not a single hon. Member of another party is involved in that environmental or transport issue.
  My hon. Friend is keen to see good road communications in Kent, whether for pilgrims or for others. I noted with interest the views he put forward on television last week on procedures to help establish such roads. I thought that that was sensible and brave, but I cannot guarantee to accept those proposals, either.
  We regard the provision of motorway service areas—MSAs — as an essential part of the motorway system and have carefully formulated a strategy for their provision. No doubt many former pilgrims would have been grateful if our medieval ancestors had done the same, because pilgrims experienced problems in getting refreshment on route.
  1336
  My hon. Friend knows that our specific proposals for an MSA at Hollingbourne have been the subject of a public inquiry. I will take the opportunity to explain why we regard MSAs as being essential, why we selected a site at Hollingbourne, and that we propose to minimise environmental intrusion there.
  Unless services are available beside the motorway, vehicles will leave the motorway to find them on local roads. Such detours defeat the heavy investment in motorways and the important public benefits they provide of faster, cheaper and safer journeys reducing traffic congestion; and improving safety in the communities bypassed.
  My hon. Friend sensibly made the point about people taking rat runs, even in the country, to avoid congestion. An additional advantage of MSAs is that they enable drivers to take a rest, thus increasing their alertness when continuing their journeys and contributing further to road safety. About one motorist in six tends to come off the motorway to go to a service area. If there are no motorway service areas obviously they cannot do that. They are a significant advantage and convenience to many motorists who would otherwise have to pass by.
  Organisations and individuals have stressed the need for MSAs to be provided. MSAs have always been an important feature of motorways in England. In deciding on the number to be provided, the advantages to the motorist of frequent services have to be weighed against the financial and environmental costs, the likely commercial viability and the general policy of severely restricting accesses to motorways. We don't expect motorway users to have to travel more than about 30 miles or half an hour's driving between service areas.
  Following consultation with local authorities and other interested parties in 1983, we established in 1984 a strategy of providing four MSAs at the cardinal compass points of the M25, together with MSAs about 15 to 20 miles outside the orbital motorway, where they do not already exist, on major feeder motorways, including the M20. Consultants were appointed to assist the Secretary of State in deciding the provision of MSAs on the M20 in the Maidstone area and in the Folkestone area. Two were short-listed out of nine potential sites in an 11-mile corridor centred on Maidstone. Those were Hollingbourne and Allington quarry, which is also known as Coldharbour. There is no strategic need for services between Westenhanger and Maidstone.
  We considered carefully the consultants' findings on the two Maidstone options. In particular we noted the conclusion that Allington quarry was preferable on environmental grounds and would serve more travellers. There were major problems about Allington quarry site. The government believed that it was desirable for the MSA in the Maidstone area to be built so as to be open by the time the M20 extension from Maidstone to Ashford was opened. My hon. Friend talked about Kent county council's view. We understood that the county council shared our view. The Allington quarry site could not be developed without the concurrent improvement of junction 5.
  Mr. Rowe: My understanding is that Kent county council has said that it would prefer to see environmental considerations given precedence over the need to have the site opened concurrently with the link.
  Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend knows that I cannot get into what was before the inquiry. I am stating the view that we understood Kent county council to hold.
  It was thought that the widening of the M20 and the improvement of junction 5 were unlikely to occur until 1993 at the earliest, and perhaps later. It was thought that Hollingbourne could be developed in time to open with the M20 extension in 1990. A major problem with Allington was the prospect that an MSA would not be open until at least three years after the completion of the M20 Maidstone to Ashford extension. That remains the position. The second major problem about Allington was a financial one. I shall not go into the details of that. I would cover ground that has been covered elsewhere.
  It may be said that we have a policy of going for MSA sites in the open country, simply because they will tend to be cheaper than sites in urban or near urban areas. I assure the House that that is not our policy, as any review of our current MSAs will show. We try to choose sites that are the best in the light of all relevant factors. But we cannot ignore cost.
  At my hon. Friend's request, I met representatives of the local planning authority, the parish council and the Hollingbourne society to hear their concern at first hand. I remain convinced that Hollingbourne represents the best balance of all relevant factors. Great care has been taken in preparing the site layout that will minimise environmental intrusion. Fear of environmental intrusion causes most local concern.
  My hon. Friend expressed particular concern about the possible impact on views from the North Downs, from Pilgrim's way and from Leeds castle, as well as from Eyhorne street and from Hollingbourne itself. I shall explain briefly how we propose to minimise the intrusion. We do not intend to have pedestrian access to motorway service areas. The fear of having a car park for Leeds castle will not be borne out in practice.
  The overall aim is to integrate the development into its surroundings, as far as possible, to mitigate any visual intrusion, and to create an attractive setting for users of the facilities.
  In the design of the site layout and the landscape proposals, particular attention has been paid to views into the site from nearby properties and from the North Downs, to develop measures for minimising visual impact. Use is made of the existing landform and vegetation, as well as the proposed motorway embankment and the landscape proposals for the M20. Specific measures to reduce visual impact include the use of surplus soil to form mounds along the most sensitive boundaries. They will be beneficial upon completion of the works and before full establishment of the planting.
  The lorry and coach parks—intrusive and difficult to screen—have been sited in the lowest part of the site, where it is screened from the north by Cottage and Snarkhurst woods.
  1338
  The Department is seeking to acquire a 40 m strip parallel to and to the north of the London-Ashford railway line, that is, part of Snarkhurst and Cottage woods, to ensure that an adequate height of tree cover is retained to effect screening of the MSA, particularly in views from the north, those from the Broad street area on the Pilgrim's way and the important long-distance footpath, the North Downs way. The Department considers it essential that the 40 m width of Snarkhurst and Cottage woods be acquired as part of the MSA and that it be managed under departmental control. A management scheme would be prepared with the aim to achieve and maintain a healthy tall screen of vegetation, while preserving the character and ecology of the woodland.
  In view of the landscape quality of the area, it has been agreed that the lighting sources for the various areas be kept lower than would normally be adopted. I cite one example. The height of column for the integral perimeter road would normally be 12 m. In this instance a 10 m height is proposed. By adopting a lower light source height for the required illumination of the site, it will be well below the top of Snarkhurst and Cottage woods as viewed from the north and seen against the background of Snarkhurst wood as viewed from the south.
  That is a brief explanation of our general strategy for motorway service area provision and the particular care that we would take at Hollingbourne. I hope that, to some extent, that assures my hon. Friend of our commitment to a well-balanced and caring development of the proposed MSA on the M20. He asked me to refer to other aspects of work. It is a sensible convention that decision on such issues are taken after the benefit of the independent, impartial inspector's advice, following the conclusion of the public inquiry.
  Through my hon. Friend, I say to our colleagues who cannot be here and to my hon. Friend's constituents that there has not been a more effective demonstration of local concern than that which was put forward by my hon. Friend and his constituents. They put their views forward in a firm but courteous way. In reading the newspapers, listening to them, face to face, and going round the area, I have reached an appreciation of the concerns, and of some of the issues which would have been put forward firmly by my hon. Friend if he had had time to raise them. If the MSA goes ahead, some of those concerns may turn out to be less of a problem than people imagine. However, to pursue that would take me into sectors in which I do not want to trespass.
  All in all, motorway service areas, together with our roads programme, are designed to bring economic benefit, environmental relief and road safety advantages. MSAs are an important part of this, although I appreciate the concern about where they go and where they might have to go.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Three o'clock.

WALES

  Reception Classes
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many four-year-old children in each local education authority in Wales attend reception classes in primary schools; what percentage of the estimated four-year-old population in each local education authority area this represents; and what is the average pupil-to-teacher ratio in local education authority for these classes, for the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  Information is not collected centrally in the form requested. However, the number of four-year-olds attending primary schools as at January 1987 is as follows:

  Number of pupils

  Pupils as a percentage of the estimated 4-year-old population

  Clywd

  4,828

  100·0

  Dyfed

  4,039

  100·0

  Gwent

  5,418

  98·5

  Gwynedd

  2,708

  100·0

  Mid Glamorgan

  6,887

  97·0

  Powys

  1,324

  100·0

  South Glamorgan

  4,802

  94·2

  West Glamorgan

  4,495

  99·9

  Primary and secondary schools

  Special schools1

  Number of statemented pupils

  Proportion of pupils

  Number of statemented pupils

  Proportion of pupils

  Clwyd

  316

  0·5

  788

  98·5

  Dyfed

  147

  0·3

  290

  93·5

  Gwent

  597

  0·9

  476

  100·0

  Gwynedd

  450

  1·2

  282

  100·0

  Mid Glamorgan

  2,392

  2·6

  655

  99·4

  Powys

  54

  0·3

  138

  87·9

  South Glamorgan

  551

  0·9

  645

  97·3

  West Glamorgan

  1,533

  2·8

  333

  100·0

  1 Includes pupils in the process of assessment for statements. Pupils who were in special schools at the time of implementation of the Education Act 1981 were subject to transitional arrangements and not, in all cases, included by local education authorities in their statistical returns as fully statemented.

  The number of statemented pupils include only those who are the responsibility of a given local education authority and are receiving education in that authority's area.

ENERGY

  Coal Imports
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy from which countries Britain has imported coal in the last 12 months; and how many tonnes have been imported from each respective country at the latest available date.

  Education Statistics
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table showing the number of children whose education is governed by statements under the provision of the Education Act 1981 as a proportion of the total school population of each local education authority in Wales.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The information as at January 1987 is as follows:

  Number of statemented pupils

  Proportion al total school population

  Clwyd

  1,208

  1·8

  Dyfed

  478

  0·9

  Gwent

  1,210

  1·7

  Gwynedd

  765

  2·0

  Mid Glamorgan

  3,244

  3·4

  Powys

  206

  1·1

  South Glamorgan

  1,219

  1·9

  West Glamorgan

  1,884

  3·3

  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table showing the number and proportion of children whose education is governed by statements under the provision of the Education Act 1981 in maintained primary and secondary schools, in special schools, in each local education authority in Wales.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The information as at January 1987 is as follows:

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  Coal imports into the United Kingdom during 1987 were as shown in the following table:

  Country of origin

  '000 tonnes

  Australia

  3,441

  USA

  2,898

  Poland

  1,083

  Netherlands

  664

  Canada

  362

  Colombia

  297

  FR of Germany

  256

  South Africa

  221

  Belgium/Luxembourg

  192

  713

  Country of origin

  '000 tonnes

  China

  146

  Others1

  220

  Total

  9,780

  1 10 countries, each of which supplied less than 100,000 tonnes of coal to the United Kingdom in 1987.

  Source: Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

  Coal Mining Subsidence
  Mr. Heddle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what steps he is taking to make his Department's leaflet entitled "Coal Mining Subsidence Damage—A Guide to Claimants Rights" widely known.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  Since the leaflet was published in May 1986 over 100,000 have been issued to prospective claimants through agencies such as the citizens' advice bureaux, libraries and local authorities, as well as the professional bodies and British Coal. My Department also deals direct with regular requests for replacements. I believe that the leaflet is well known in coal mining areas.

  Electricity Supply Industry (Sale)
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when his Department will be appointing outside consultants to advise on the sale of the electricity supply industry; if he will list the areas where he will be seeking outside advice and the names of the consultants who have applied to advise his Department; and when these appointments are likely to be made.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  The consultants listed were appointed last year to provide advice on electricity privatisation:Kleinwort Benson —preliminary financial advice
  Touche Ross —regulatory and accounting advice
  Slaughter and May —legal advice
  Merz and McLellan—technical advice

  The Department is considering the appointment of financial advisers for the next phase of electricity privatisation. Other appointments will be made in due course.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Family Law Reform Act 1987
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Attorney-General if Her Majesty's Government have decided upon the commencement date for the Family Law Reform Act 1987; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  The Lord Chancellor will bring the Family Law Reform Act 1987 (which reforms the law relating to the consequences of birth outside marriage) into force on 4 April 1988 except for part II, sections 24 and 25, which are directly dependent on part II, and section 23 which deals with scientific tests. Before section 23 can be brought into force, detailed arrangements for the purpose of facilitating the introduction of testing by DNA 714
  profiling will need to be devised. The Lord Chancellor is considering with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary how this might best be done.

THE ARTS

  Items in Lieu of Tax
  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Minister for the Arts whether the credits made available to the Inland Revenue by his Department which were specified in his answer to the hon. Member for Warley, East on 16 February,Official Report, columns 571–2, represent bookkeeping entries within central Government accounting not involving any payment of money.

  Mr. Luce
  These cases, and other acceptance in lieu transactions, involve payments to the Inland Revenue, not bookkeeping entries.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Manufactured Goods and Services
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has a revised figure for the anticipated balance of trade in(a) manufactured goods and (b) services for the United Kingdom for the current year; and what was the figure for 1979.

  Mr. Major
  My right hon. Friend will be making a forecast for the current year at Budget time. In 1979 the balance of trade in manufactured goods showed a surplus of £2,698 million and services a surplus of £3,815 million.

  Balance of Payments
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the balance of payments for the United Kingdom in 1988–89.

  Mr. Major
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making a new forecast at Budget time.

  Cash Limits
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give revised cash limits for 1987–88 which take account of the decision by some Departments not to seek supplementary provision to cover the carry forward allowed under the end-year flexibility scheme.

  Mr. Major
  Under the end-year flexibility scheme, announced in 1983, some 33 1987–88 cash limits were increased to allow for the carry forward of capital underspend in 1986–87—Official Report, 23 July 1987, columns 434–38. In the case of five voted cash limits, the relevant Departments have not sought parliamentary approval for the extra provision in a Supplementary Estimate. To keep the control figures in line with provision, the cash limits are accordingly being reduced; a list is shown in the following table.
  715

  Revisions to 1987–88 voted cash limits resulting from the carry forward of capital underspends in 1986–87 not being required

  Class

  Vote

  Accounting department

  Description of expenditure

  Current cash limit

  Decrease

  Revised cash limit

  £000

  £000

  £000

  V

  51

  Department of Trade and Industry

  International trade: export credit services, insurance of investment overseas (central services)

  39,325

  1,250

  38,075

  XI

  5

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  Administration of justice: England and Wales

  129,529

  2,000

  127,529

  XII

  3

  Department of Education and Science

  Universities, etc

  1,714,201

  95

  1,714,106

  XIX

  13

  Her Majesty's Treasury

  Central management of the Civil Service: computers and telecommunications

  18,084

  293

  17,791

  XX

  92

  Land Registry

  Records, registrations and surveys

  3

  1

  2

  —

  3,639

  —

  1 Capital expenditure on this vote is not classified as public expenditure.

  2 This was a token cash limit change to cover carryover of £97,000 taken in the form of increased appropriations-in-aid.

  National Savings
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will make a statement on the implications of a negative public sector borrowing requirement for the role of the national savings movement;

  (2) if he will make a statement on the current role and objectives of the national savings movement.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 3 March 1988]: There is no longer a voluntary national savings movement. The work is undertaken by the Department for National Savings. The Department's tasks are to contribute towards both the funding of Government borrowing and the refinancing of maturing stock through sales of a range of products to personal investors, and to continue to offer customers who have invested in national savings the best possible service within the resources available.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Altnaheglish Reservoir
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of the works recently completed at Altnaheglish reservoir.

  Mr. Needham
  The cost of the work was some £2·1 million, including professional fees.

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will detail the principal works carried out to the Altnaheglish reservoir; by how much the height of the dam was increased; and by how much the storage capacity of the reservoir was increased in(a) gallons and (b) days supply.

  Mr. Needham
  The work at Altnaheglish included the strengthening of the dam by the construction of a series of terraces on the downstream side, the provision of a new spillway and the installation of new monitoring equipment.

  The height of the dam has not been increased but the works have allowed the maximum water level to be raised some 5 m. This has increased the effective capacity of the reservoir by about 113 million gallons, which is equivalent to 23 days' consumption.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many members of staff within his Department are located within each region outside of London; what percentage this constitutes of staff within his Department; and what were the comparable figures in absolute and percentage terms in 1979.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  A total of 609 (24 per cent.) of the Department's 2,541 staff are employed at its Darlington office and a further 577 (23 per cent.) regionally based HMI and support staff are located at divisional and local offices throughout the country. Comparable detailed figures for the location of the 2,635 staff employed in 1979 are not available, but the proportions would be broadly similar.

  Departmental Buildings
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the location and status of all buildings within his Department located in London and the annual cost of rents, rates and maintenance of each.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 2 March at column 584. My Department occupies accommodation in eight buildings in the Greater London area ranging from its main HQ building at Elizabeth house to local offices for Her Majesty's inspectorate of schools.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many subject access requests under the terms of the Data Protection Act his Department has received; what was his estimate of this number; whether he is reconsidering the subject access fee charged by his Department as a result; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Up to the end of February 1988 my Department had received a total of eight requests. This figure was in line with our expectations. The fee charged by the Department, currently £8, will be reviewed towards the end of this year.

  School Meals
  Mr. Ashdown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list, by local education authority(a) the amount of subsidy per child made by each local education authority in England and Wales for each school meal provided at the full price charged by the authority and (b) the charges made for school meals by local education authorities in England and Wales.

  Mr. Dunn
  Data relating to level of subsidy on school meals made by local education authorities are not collected centrally. The charges made for fixed-price school meals in LEAs in England are included in the Department's annual report on the school meals census, which is available in the Library of the House.

  Matters relating to Wales are for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

  Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981
  Mr. Straw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated cost to local authorities of meeting, by 1 September 1991, the standards laid down in the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981; whether he is making any special arrangements to meet those costs; and if he will make a statement on progress in meeting the provisional arrangements required by the regulations.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  Table 16 of the survey of school buildings, published last November, presented the following national estimates of the cost of meeting statutory accommodation requirements and the main structural requirements most directly attributable to the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981. Costs were shown in ranges because of the sampling error in grossing up from the survey data. The estimates must be treated with caution.

  Primary cost range

  Secondary cost range

  £ million

  £ million

  Statutory accommodation requirements (recreation area, playing fields teaching area, staff accommodation and other requirements)

  240–450

  150–300

  Main structural requirements related to regulations (structure, roofs, walls, windows, heating and other essential services)

  360–490

  270–370

  Notes:

  1. The estimates relate to schools expected to remain on the same site, ie more than 80 per cent. of the sample.

  2. Estimates were prepared by grossing up the sample to the total population of county and voluntary controlled schools. While the sample of 392 primary and 403 secondary schools is considered reasonably representative, the relative smallness of the sample means that the sampling error is considerable for many categories of cost.

  3. The estimates are at November 1985 prices.

  Since the survey was carried out in the early part of 1986, local authorities have undertaken a substantial number of projects to improve school buildings. The programme of capital expenditure which I announced in November last year should enable local education authorities and voluntary bodies to spend more than £750 million over the next three years on projects to improve school buildings, and authorities will no doubt make use of the flexibilities open to them—for example, through the use of capital receipts — to increase spending on improvements still
  718
  further where they consider it appropriate to do so. Within the increased provision, I have allocated £55 million in 1988–89 specifically to help LEAs to tackle the accumulated deficiencies identified by the survey and to allow voluntary school governors to continue the programme of replacement and improvement begun last year. I have also increased provision for local authority spending on repairs and maintenance by about £120 million in 1988–89, some 40 per cent. above spending in 1985–86.

PRIME MINISTER

  United States Aircraft and Nuclear Weaponry
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Prime Minister what information she has given to (i) American senators who have recently visited Britain and (ii) representatives of the United States Administration about Her Majesty's Government's policy on accepting more United States aircraft and nuclear weaponry in Britain.

  The Prime Minister
  No decisions about NATO force adjustments have yet been taken. The United Kingdom, like its NATO allies, remains committed to preserving NATO's ability to respond effectively to aggression at whatever level it may occur, as was confirmed by the recent NATO summit.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Prime Minister how many subject access requests under the terms of the Data Protection Act her office has received; what was her estimate of this number; whether she is reconsidering the subject access fee charged by her Department as a result; and whether she will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  The Cabinet Office has received 22 subject access requests. Most of these have been from employees of the office who are not charged a fee. For other requests the standard fee of £10 is charged. The office did not expect a large number of requests and is not reconsidering the fee.

  Royal College of Midwives
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will publish in the Official Report the text of the letter dated 4 February sent to her by the Newham branch of the Royal College of Midwives, together with any reply she has sent.

  The Prime Minister
  It is not my usual practice to give information on correspondence from third parties. I can, however, confirm that I have received such a letter and a reply will be sent in due course.

  Official Inquiries
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list all official inquiries initiated by Her Majesty's Government which were chaired by members of the House of Lords since 1981; and if she will give in each case the subject of the inquiry and its total cost to public funds.

  The Prime Minister
  The information requested by the hon. Gentleman is not held centrally and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Northern Development Company
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what quantifiable evidence he has of the performance of the Northern Development Company.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Northern Development Company, to which my Department gives financial support, has recently published its corporate programme and budget for 1988–89. This document includes information on a number of output measures. More information will be available when the company publishes the annual report of its activities for the financial year 1987–88, which will be no later than September 1988.

  Building Societies
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will introduce legislation amending the Financial Services Act to prohibit building societies from operating their own unit trusts.

  Mr. Maude
  No. The powers of building societies are defined under the Building Societies Act and not the Financial Services Act. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury announced on 2 February, at columns 537–39, certain extensions to these powers, including the power to manage unit trust schemes.

  Departmental Advertising
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) how much the Department of Trade and Industry will spend in the current financial year 1987–88 on advertising and promotion of the Department and its schemes;

  (2) how much his Department spent in advertising and promotion in each financial year for 1978–79 to 1986–87;

  (3) how much it is projected his Department will spend on advertising and promotion over the next three years.

  Mr. Butcher
  [holding answer 3 March 1988]: Information is not readily available for expenditure, other than centrally, nor for 1978–79, on advertising and promotion of my Department.

  The figures which are available are as follows:

  £ million

  1979–80

  0·85

  1980–81

  1·46

  1981–82

  2·20

  1982–83

  3·24

  1983–84

  2·72

  1984–85

  3·56

  1985–86

  2·09

  1986–87

  2·00

  11987–88

  13·31

  1Estimated.

  Expenditure for the next three years has not yet been agreed. Its level will depend very much on the impact of present activities, which are being carefully and continuously monitored.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Gambling (Children)
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he now proposes to seek to amend the legislation relating to local authorities powers to control slot machine gambling by children;

  (2) what representation he has received regarding the law on local authorities' powers to control slot machine gambling by children;

  (3) what surveys on slot machine gambling by children he has received since 1 July 1987, other than the recently published survey by the Spectrum Children's Trust of Taunton.

  Mr. John Patten
  We have received the results of a number of surveys or inquiries of that nature in this field. Some are based on the direct questioning of young people about their use of amusement machines. Others have taken the views and experience of persons and interests concerned, such as local authorities, licensing justices, the police and probation services, teachers and education authorities, those who provide the machines and other traders, individuals and organisations concerned with people with problems of gambling addiction, and research bodies. The sources of the surveys include:The Association of Chief Officers of Probation; the Amusement Arcade Action Group: the Gordon House Association; the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Parents of Young Gamblers; HJM Caterers Ltd.; Thomas Organisation Ltd; Birmid Leisure Ltd.; Wilson Leisure Ltd.; Starclust Leisure Ltd.; Countgrade Ltd.; Kendor Entertainments Ltd.; Showboat Holdings Ltd.; JCM Holdings (Yorkshire) Ltd.; Shipley and Sons; the Magistrates' Association; the Centre for Leisure Research; the National Council on Gambling; Mr. Neil Farmer; the Devon Branch of the Magistrates' Association; the National Housing and Town Planning Council; and the British Amusement Catering Trades Association.

  In addition, we have received the results of research which the Home Office research unit commissioned of Carrick James Market Research Ltd. and the Susie Fisher Group, and the report of a programme of visits to amusement arcades by the inspectors of the Gaming Board. Other material sent in response to our review of the law on amusement arcades may take account of surveys which are not explicitly referred to.

  In the course of the review we have received a range of representations about the powers of local authorities to grant or refuse permits for premises having amusement-with-prizes machines, or otherwise to control such premises. Some of these representations are to the effect that the current law is adequate, and that additional controls would limit unnecessarily the provision and use of the machines and premises where they are found. The focus of representations that the law should be amended concern the suggestion that young people may become addicted to playing the machines, and that this may lead to anti-social or criminal behaviour. The suggestion most frequently made in these representations is that access to places providing the machines or use of the machines themselves should be restricted to people aged over 16 or 18 years. It has been variously suggested that such a restriction should be imposed nationally, or be within the power of local authorities, or that of the licensing Justices.

  We hope to be able to reach conclusions on our review of these issues in due course.

  Motorways (Vehicle Removal)
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria are used by the Metropolitan police when approving businesses for the removal of vehicles from motorways.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I am informed by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that garages are selected for removal work on the basis of proximity to the motorway. Garages are approved only if they provide a 24-hour service, can deal with vehicles of any age or condition, and have secure storage facilities.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria are used by the

  Location

  Vehicle type

  Approved garage

  Date of approval

  M3, junction 1

  Westbound, junction 1 to river and eastbound, junction 2 to junction 1

  Heavy goods vehicles

  1. National Rescue Group, Rescue House, Unit T151, Brooklands Industrial Park, Oyster Lane, Byfleet, Surrey

  June 1984

  2. Radley Autos, Central Garage, High Street, Harmondsworth, Middlesex

  July 1976

  3. Commercial Recovery and Repairs, 10 Ascot Road, Clockhouse Lane Estate, Bedfont, Middlesex

  December 1969

  Westbound, junction 1 to river, and eastbound, junction 2 to junction 1

  Cars, motorcycles, etc.

  1. Grimshaw and Wake Ltd., Oldfield Road, Hampton, Middlesex

  February 1984

  2. Ashford Coachworks, Ashford Road, Ashford, Middlesex

  September 1985

  M25, junctions 13, 14 and 15

  Northbound, junctions 13–15 and southbound, junctions 15–13

  Heavy goods vehicles

  1. National Rescue Group (see above)

  2. Radley Autos (see above)

  Northbound, junctions 13–15

  Cars, motorcycles, etc

  1. Ashford Coachworks, Bell Weir Garage, Wraysbury, Middlesex

  April 1987

  2. National Rescue Group (see above)

  Southbound, junctions 15–13

  1. Radley Autos (see above)

  2. Hounslow West Motors, 343 Staines Road, Hounslow, Middlesex

  November 1970

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how often during(a) 1986 and (b) 1987 each approved business was called by the Metropolitan police to remove vehicles from the M3 motorway via junction 1, and from the M25 motorway via junctions 13, 14 and 15.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information requested is not available centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Prisons (Night Sanitation)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison places it is anticipated will lack access to night sanitation by the end of 1999.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  It is anticipated that 14,500 places will lack access to night sanitation by the end of 1999. By then 12 establishments now without night sanitation should have facilities for all inmates, and a further nine establishments for some inmates.
  722
  Metropolitan police when deciding which approved business to call when arranging the removal of vehicles from motorways.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The police select the garage nearest to the motorway junction which will give quickest access to the incident. Where that garage cannot provide immediate service the next nearest will be selected.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the businesses approved, with date of approval, by the Metropolitan police for removal of vehicles from the M3 via junction 1 and from the M25 via junctions 13, 14 and 15.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has provided the following information:

  Semi-automatic Rifles
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what he estimates will be the cost of the semi-automatic rifle compensation — buy back programme.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I refer the hon. Member to the debate on the money resolution in connection with the Firearms (Amendment) Bill on 1 March at columns 939–47.

  Home Defence
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will name the home defence exercise which is planned to take place in March or April to train Government staff in north-east England home defence region No. 2; what number and grades of officials from each Department will participate in the exercise; and which local government staff, public and private utility staff and staff from other agencies with designated war appointments will take part in the exercise.

  Mr. John Patten
  A limited exercise, called REGEX, is due to take place within home defence region No. 2 in April 1988. Its aim is to test the procedures for the
  723
  operation of regional government headquarters in wartime. About 50 designated staff of various grades will be taking part, drawn from a number of Departments and public services, including the police and fire services and the armed forces.

  Parole
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for each of the past five years, how many life sentence prisoners convicted of murder held in British gaols have received parole in(a) the third, (b) the fourth, and (c) the fifth year of their sentence, indicating what minimum sentences had been recommended by courts.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information is given in the table. All these prisoners were released on licence following a favourable recommendation by the parole board and after consultation with the judiciary as required by section 61 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. None had been the subject of a formal minimum recommendation under section 1(2) of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965.

  More detailed information about all life sentence prisoners is given annually in "Prison Statistics — England and Wales" table 1(f) of the latest issue, for 1986 (Cm. 210), a copy of which is in the Library.

  Persons serving sentences for murder released on licence between 1983 and 1987 from prison department establishments in England and Wales having served five years or less under sentence in such establishments.

  Time under sentence1

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  Up to 2 years

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Over 2, up to 3 years

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Over 3, up to 4 years

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Over 4, up to 5 years

  —

  3

  1

  1

  1

  1 Excluding any time spent on remand in custody, in non-prison department establishments or following any subsequent recall.

  Downing Street (Access)
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what authority the Metropolitan police have established a permanent road block to prohibit free access to Downing street.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Commissioner has advised me that his officers restrict access to Downing street in pursuance of their common law duty to prevent crime and disorder.

  Licensing Bill
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from English vineyard owners about the Licensing Bill.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Since the report stage of the Licensing Bill, I have met representatives from the English Vineyard Association and we have received three letters from hon. Members representing vineyard owners in their constituencies, including one from my hon. Friend.

  Local and Community Radio (Northern Ireland)
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many new local and community radio stations are planned for Northern Ireland;
  724
  (2) what regulations will be introduced to cover the expansion of local and community radio in Northern Ireland so as to ensure (a) diversity, (b) balance of news and (c) balance of opinion.

  Mr. Renton
  It will be for the radio authority to decide how many licences should be awarded in Northern Ireland, having regard to the spectrum available and to criteria reflecting those in paragraph 7.23 of the Green Paper "Radio: Choices and Opportunities". It will be a condition of all licences that news is presented with accuracy and impartiality.

  IPEC '87
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he had as to the nations which would be represented at the IPEC '87 police and internal security equipment sales exhibition when he authorised participation by his Department; and what representations he intends to make to the exhibition organisers regarding the invitation list for the current year.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The exhibition, which was organised by a private company, was open to the general public. I understand that IPEC 1988 is also being organised by a private company; the arrangements are a matter for them.

  Police National Computer
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give details of(a) current cases and (b) cases in the past year involving allegations of abuse of the police national computer or any other police computer; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  It is for the chief officer of the force concerned to investigate any reports of abuse of the police national computer or any other police computer. No reports on any such investigations have been received by the Home Office in the past year.

  Electoral Registration Officers
  Mrs. Rosie Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what clarification and guidance he issues to electoral registration officers in pursuance of their statutory obligation under section 53 of the Representation of the People Act 1986.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Advice on the exercise of their responsibilities under the Representation of the People Acts and regulations is currently given to electoral registration officers in the Home Office RPA circular No. 296 of 20 November 1985, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Firearms
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now list the other recent incidents referred to in his answer to the hon. Member for Londonderry, East of 10 December 1987,Official Report, column 235, relating to firearms control.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The incidents referred to are as follows:

  Plumstead on 9 July 1987

  Wolverhampton on 6 October 1987

  Bristol on 14 October 1987

  Gunthorpe on 3 November 1987

  725

  Southall on 11 November 1987

  Chard on 21 November 1987

  Woolwich on 23 November 1987

  Stowmarket on 26 November 1987

  Independent Broadcasting Authority
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to make an announcement regarding a new chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

  Mr. Renton
  An announcement will be made in due course.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy that no past or present member of the Conservative party will be appointed as the new chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

  Mr. Renton
  No. The appointment will be made on the basis of personal distinction, experience and ability, not of political affiliation.

  Panama
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what anti-drug training has been given to Panamanian personnel in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Five Panamanian anti-drugs officers completed a course in narcotics detection at the Lancashire constabulary dog training school at Preston between April and June 1987.

  TV-am
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what evidence he has about the extent of foreign shareholding in TV-am over the past three years;

  (2) whether he has conducted an inquiry into the extent of foreign shareholding in TV-am over the past three years;

  (3) what steps he has taken to monitor whether TV-am has been in breach of its responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act 1981 during the past three months with regard to the quality and extent of its news coverage.

  Mr. Renton
  It is for the IBA to secure that disqualified persons, including companies based or controlled from outside the European Community, do not become or continue as ITV contractors, and to judge contractors' adherence to their contracts in regard to programming. I understand that three shareholdings above 5 per cent. in TV-am may themselves have been controlled from outside the Community.

  Microwave Video Distribution
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his Department has conducted an inquiry into the feasibility and development of a microwave video distribution system.

  Mr. Renton
  A feasibility study into the technical and financial prospects for MVDS (Multipoint Video Distribution Systems) was commissioned by the Home Department and the Department of Trade and Industry as announced on 14 October 1987.

  Television Franchises
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received any evidence from(a) the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and (b) the Independent Television Association about the feasibility of auctioning independent television franchises in 1992.

  Mr. Renton
  The comments of the authority and the association on the report of the Peacock committee both express views about the recommendation that ITV contracts should be awarded by competitive tender.

  Missing Cats
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will issue guidance to chief constables to the effect that records should be kept of cases of missing cats; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No.

  Cats and Dogs (Experiments)
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what safeguards are applied by universities to ensure that cats and dogs used for the purpose of experiments are owned by, or have been legally obtained by those who supply them: and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Controls on the source of commonly used laboratory animals, including the specific provision that cats and dogs are obtained only from the designated breeding establishments at which they were bred, are contained in the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. They will be brought into force in January 1990, as part of the phased programme of implementation of the provisions of the Act.

  It has long been the practice of Home Office inspectors to encourage laboratories to obtain supplies of animals only from reputable and legal sources and to take particular care where cats and dogs are involved. This advice was reinforced recently in additional guidance issued to laboratories including those at universities.

  Young Offenders (Custody)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many 14-year-old males and 15-year-old females were sentenced to a period of custody by the courts in England and Wales during each year since 1982.

  Mr. John Patten
  [holding answer 1 March 1988]: The information held centrally, which may be incomplete, is given in the following table.

  Males aged 14 and females aged 15 given custodial sentences1 England and Wales

  Sex and age

  Number

  Males aged 14

  1982

  1,034

  1983

  919

  1984

  863

  1985

  830

  1986

  578

  Females aged 15

  727

  Sex and age

  Number

  1982

  16

  1983

  33

  1984

  32

  1985

  34

  1986

  15

  1 Detention centre order, borstal training (up to May 1983), youth custody (from May 1983) and detention under section 53 of Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Light Dues
  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has as to which European Economic Community countries levy light dues on fishing vessels.

  Mr. Gummer
  Comparison with practices elsewhere in the European Community is not appropriate. Following the transfer of the cost of the Racal Decca navigator system to the general lighthouse fund, the Government decided that larger fishing vessels should make a contribution to the fund. Under these arrangements, fishing vessel owners are better off because the fishing vessel light dues are generally less than the hire charge made under the previous system.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many subject access requests under the terms of the Data Protection Act his Department has received; what was his estimate of this number; whether he is reconsidering the subject access fee charged by his Department as a result; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  During the period 11 November 1987 to 29 February 1988, my Department has received 114 requests for subject access under the terms of the Data Protection Act. It had been estimated that during this period, in the order of 400 requests might be received. This estimate has been calculated from an assumed annual access rate of 0·1 per cent. of the estimated populations covered by the 40 registrations made by my Department. I am not at present reconsidering the subject access fee charged by my Department.

  Sheep (Radioactivity)
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to the answer of 29 December 1987, why in the light of the fact that his Department first became aware on 30 June 1986 of the high level of rainfall over west Yorkshire following the Chernobyl accident, no intensive monitoring of sheep for radioactivity was undertaken in the Skipton area until November 1987; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  As I said in my replies to the hon. Member on 29 January 1988,Official Report, column 421, and 10 February, Official Report, column 240, the significance of receipt of rainfall data from the Meteorological Office was superseded by the use of results of surveys of actual deposition and of monitoring. These did not indicate any need for intensive activity in
  728
  Yorkshire. The activity that was undertaken in November 1987 was in response to local public concern following local newspaper reports. Although that exercise did result in the detection of marginally elevated levels in two sheep at one location on the moorland near Skipton, it also confirmed the earlier conclusion that there was no unacceptable risks to food supplies in west Yorkshire as a result of the Chernobyl fall-out.

  Quarantine
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) for each year since 1980, how many prosecutions have been brought against(a) United Kingdom residents and (b) United Kingdom visitors for attempting to evade United Kingdom quarantine laws.

  (2) if he will publish in the Official Report for each month over the last three years the number of animals in quarantine in the United Kingdom;

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  [holding answer 2 March 1988]: The information provided relates to the rabies quarantine controls. The details of prosecutions brought by the local authorities and notified to my Department are:

  Number of prosecutions

  of which:

  British citizens

  Foreign citizens

  Airlines etc.

  1980

  75

  13

  45

  17

  1981

  74

  21

  42

  11

  1982

  52

  10

  32

  10

  1983

  73

  20

  40

  13

  1984

  29

  5

  23

  1

  1985

  77

  21

  49

  13

  1986

  75

  20

  51

  4

  1987

  42

  9

  26

  7

  Information about the number of animals in quarantine in the United Kingdom each month over the last three years cannot be provided without disproportionate cost. However, during the last three years the following import licences have been issued for animals subject to the rabies quarantine requirements:

  Number of import licences issued

  1985

  1986

  1987

  dogs

  4,630

  4,738

  5,249

  cats

  2,527

  2,329

  2,927

  other mammals

  28,195

  39,193

  95,999

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what special measures have been proposed to ensure that animals cannot enter the United Kingdom either illegally or accidentally(a) while the Channel tunnel is being constructed and (b) when the Channel tunnel has been opened.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  [holding answer 2 March 1988]: Eurotunnel has agreed to take measures to prevent animals gaining access to this country through the Channel tunnel during the period of construction and also when it is in use. These include the use of sealed trains, the installation of physical barriers and grids at entry and exit points, regular inspections, rigorous cleaning programmes, the continuous deployment of baited traps in both tunnel and terminal areas and facilities to detain and inspect animals. Discussions on the details and

  729
  specifications are still in progress. The Government will insist on diligent application of these safeguards to ensure that they are fully effective.

  Customs and Excise officials will carry out checks, as they do at other ports of entry, to prevent the illegal importation of animals through the tunnel.

DEFENCE

  Redundant Nuclear Submarines
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether his Department has considered scuttling redundant nuclear submarines in order to dispose of them; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  A number of options for the disposal of reactors from decommissioned nuclear submarines are under consideration. Disposal at sea is one of these.

  HMS Dreadnought
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to announce a decision on his Department's plans for disposing of the submarine HMS Dreadnought.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  No decisions have yet been taken on the preferred disposal route for reactors from decommissioned nuclear submarines.

  Valiant Class Submarines
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects the Royal Navy's Valiant class submarines to be phased out of service.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The planned decommissioning dates of Royal Navy vessels are classified.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his Department's progress on proposals for disposing of the Valiant class of submarines once they become redundant.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  No decisions have yet been taken on the preferred disposal route for reactors from decommissioned nuclear submarines.

  Airships
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretry of State for Defence whether his Department has commissioned any studies into the performance of airships as airborne early warning systems for the protection of the naval fleet; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  This proposition has been evaluated.

  RAF Greenham Common
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he proposes to take, following the recent judgment at Reading Crown court relating to RAF Greenham Common; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  The implications of the judgment will be considered in the light of the legal advice that I have requested. I will write to my hon. Friend as soon as conclusions are reached.

  Shackleton Aircraft (Crashes)
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the nature of all crashes involving Royal Air Force Shackleton aircraft since 1968; if he will indicate in each case if the aircraft was on anti-submarine patrol; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  Since 1968, there have been only two major accidents to Royal Air Force Shackleton aircraft. On 1 April 1968, an aircraft crashed on landing at RAF Ballykelly after a routine training sortie. On 19 April 1968, another Shackleton from RAF Ballykelly flew into the ground in Northern Ireland during an anti-submarine exercise.

  Nuclear Weapons (Safety Devices)
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what use Her Majesty's Government make of electronic safety lock devices to deter the unathorised use of nuclear weapons; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  It has been the practice of successive Governments not to comment on the details of the arrangements which exist to prevent any unauthorised use of nuclear weapons.

  Buccaneer Aircraft
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all accidents involving Buccaneer aircraft since 1977, together with the route being flown in each case; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  Between 1 January 1977 and 31 December 1979 there were six accidents to Royal Air Force Buccaneer aircraft, classified as major (category 4 or 5) accidents:

  Date

  Location

  3 February 1977

  Vokel, FRG

  4 April 1977

  Claerwen Reservoir, Wales

  8 August 1977

  Laarbruch, FRG

  31 October 1977

  Glomfjorden, Norway

  21 June 1978

  Nordholz, FRG

  12 July 1979

  Furstenau, FRG

  Since 1 January 1977, there have also been 23 accidents classified as category 3 (repairable locally). It would not be possible to list these without disproportionate cost and effort. Nor would it be possible to identify the routes flown by all these aircraft before the accidents without disproportionate cost and effort. However, since 1980, there have been placed in the Library of the House summaries of the findings of RAF boards of inquiry into all major Buccaneer accidents.

  Tornado Aircraft
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will give details of all accidents to nuclear-capable Tornado aircraft since 1983; and what was the risk to the public from each accident.

  Mr. Freeman
  Since 1 January 1983,40 Royal Air Force Tornados have been involved in serious accidents. Of these, 25 were classified as category 3 (repairable locally). A further 15 Tornados suffered major or irreparable damage. All major accidents are listed in the appropriate
  731
  Statement on Defence Estimates. In addition, since 1980, there have been placed in the Library of the House summaries of the findings of RAF boards of inquiry into all major RAF Tornado accidents. No civilians have ever been killed or injured as a result of an RAF Tornado accident.

  Jaguar Aircraft
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the nature of the 135 accidents to Royal Air Force Jaguar nuclear-capable aircraft between June 1975 and June 1987; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  The detailed information requested by the hon. Member could not be produced in the time available without disproportionate cost and effort. Most of the Royal Air Force Jaguars involved in serious accidents during this period were repaired at local RAF stations, but 49 such aircraft suffered irreparable damage or were lost. Since 1980 summaries of the findings of RAF boards of inquiry into all major Jaguar accidents have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Military Equipment
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of United Kingdom military production is exported.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 26 February 1988]: No precise figures are available but it is estimated that 20 to 25 per cent. of United Kingdom production of identifiable military equipment in the years 1984 to 1986 was exported.

EMPLOYMENT

  Deaf People
  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps are taken to ensure that communicators provided under the communication services for the deaf scheme are competent in communication skills with deaf people.

  Mr. Cope
  The Manpower Services Commission requires that all communicators working with trainees

  Table 1

  Establishments covered by wages councils on register—December 1987

  Wages Councils

  London

  South Eastern

  Eastern

  South Western

  Midlands

  North Western

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  Northern

  Scotland

  Great Britain

  Aerated Waters

  7

  14

  57

  16

  110

  25

  24

  23

  66

  342

  Clothing Manufacture

  3,006

  160

  306

  301

  1,281

  937

  452

  214

  307

  6,964

  Boot and Shoe Repairing

  764

  257

  258

  345

  371

  406

  277

  70

  130

  2,878

  Button Manufacturing

  18

  4

  4

  4

  18

  4

  3

  1

  1

  57

  Coffin Furniture and Cerement Making

  1

  —

  —

  2

  8

  2

  5

  —

  2

  20

  Cotton Waste Reclamation

  11

  —

  —

  1

  1

  28

  1

  —

  —

  42

  Flax and Hemp

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1

  6

  8

  Fur

  147

  8

  8

  7

  14

  28

  11

  3

  36

  262

  General Waste Materials Reclamation

  124

  74

  107

  151

  291

  308

  240

  99

  137

  1,531

  Hairdressing Undertakings

  4,482

  3,184

  3,302

  4,104

  5,361

  5,171

  3,029

  1,968

  2,840

  33,441

  Hat, Cap and Millinery

  25

  2

  44

  5

  12

  14

  8

  11

  2

  123

  Lace Finishing

  —

  —

  —

  1

  73

  —

  —

  —

  —

  74

  Laundry

  215

  283

  79

  114

  103

  68

  67

  35

  122

  1,086

  Linen and Cotton Handkerchief

  2

  1

  3

  3

  10

  80

  9

  1

  5

  114

  Made-up Textile

  34

  13

  36

  31

  51

  34

  42

  18

  33

  292

  Ostrich and Fancy Feather

  12

  1

  6

  4

  —

  —

  —

  4

  3

  30

  Perambulator and Invalid Carriage

  3

  2

  5

  3

  11

  4

  6

  1

  1

  36

  Retail Bespoke Tailoring

  180

  56

  52

  38

  41

  52

  39

  14

  37

  509

  Rope, Twine and Net

  —

  1

  5

  12

  5

  20

  18

  5

  19

  85

  Sack and Bag

  20

  —

  7

  5

  14

  20

  12

  2

  6

  86

  732
  meet the appropriate level of competence established by the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People and the Scottish Association of Interpreters for the Deaf.

  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the average cost per trainee of providing communication support under the communication service for the deaf.

  Mr. Cope
  Information about the average cost of providing communication support is not readily available. However, communication support is provided for a maximum of 500 hours per trainee over a two-year YTS scheme. Managing agents are reimbursed for communicators at rates of £6·50, £8 or £12 per hour, according to their level of skill in communicating. Since the communication service for the deaf was introduced in April 1986, a total of 172 trainees have received communication support, at a total cost of £234,472 to date.

  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what measures he is taking to publicise the communication service for the deaf.

  Mr. Cope
  The communication service for the deaf (CSD) is publicised to all YTS managing agents and referral agencies and to other interested parties by means of MSC codes of practice on special training needs and equal opportunities and also by articles in a number of periodicals. MSC and employment service staff also take every opportunity to promote CSD to training providers and deaf people. MSC officials are currently considering the need for any further publicity.

  Wages Councils
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report the statistics on wages councils' employment and compliance with wages council rates in 1987, in the same format used in the reply on 5 May 1987, Official Report, columns 334 to 340.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The information requested is given in the tables.
  733

  Wages Councils

  London

  South Eastern

  Eastern

  South Western

  Midlands

  North Western

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  Northern

  Scotland

  Great Britain

  Toy Manufacturing

  17

  16

  45

  30

  35

  40

  32

  15

  9

  239

  Retail Non-Food Trades

  20,069

  12,050

  9,840

  12,085

  19,383

  13,350

  8,712

  4,495

  8,854

  108,838

  Retail Food and Allied Trades

  11,770

  13,142

  10,066

  12,853

  13,297

  15,891

  10,018

  7,199

  10,881

  105,117

  Licensed Non-Residential

  6,263

  5,980

  6,363

  9,323

  12,388

  9,540

  6,452

  4,001

  5,429

  65,702

  Licensed Residential and Restaurant

  5,023

  3,911

  3,595

  6,842

  3,581

  3,355

  2,013

  1,418

  3,890

  33,628

  Unlicensed Place of Refreshment

  4,143

  2,062

  1,540

  2,585

  1,733

  1,977

  1,324

  851

  1,497

  17,712

  Total

  56,336

  41,221

  35,728

  48,866

  58,192

  51,354

  32,794

  20,449

  34,313

  379,253

  Table 2

  Establishments checked and underpayments found in wages council trades—1987

  Wages councils

  Establishments checked by methods

  Percentage of register checked

  Establishments checked by visit

  Percentage of register checked by visit

  Establishments underpaying

  Percentage of all establishments checked underpaying

  Percentage of establishments visited underpaying

  Aerated Waters

  26

  7·08

  24

  6·54

  2

  7·69

  8·33

  Clothing Manufacture

  967

  13·36

  883

  12·20

  191

  19·75

  21·63

  Boot and Shoe Repairing

  224

  8·46

  103

  3·89

  7

  3·12

  6·79

  Button Manufacturing

  3

  5·35

  3

  5·35

  —

  —

  —

  Coffin Furniture and Cerement Making

  2

  10·52

  2

  10·52

  —

  —

  —

  Cotton Waste Reclamation

  5

  9·43

  5

  9·43

  2

  40·00

  40·00

  Flax and Hemp

  2

  20·00

  2

  20·00

  —

  —

  —

  Fur

  21

  6·42

  19

  5·81

  —

  —

  —

  General Waste Materials Reclamation

  116

  7·33

  96

  6·06

  5

  4·31

  5·20

  Hairdressing Undertakings

  2,200

  6·59

  1,132

  3·39

  290

  13·18

  25·61

  Hat, Cap and Millinery

  8

  4·82

  8

  4·82

  3

  37·50

  37·50

  Lace Finishing

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Laundry

  107

  11·18

  84

  8·77

  10

  9·34

  11·90

  Linen and Cotton Handkerchief

  17

  10·89

  15

  9·61

  2

  11·76

  13·33

  Made-up Textile

  27

  9·12

  23

  7·77

  1

  3·70

  4·34

  Ostrich and Fancy Feather

  3

  9·37

  3

  9·37

  —

  —

  —

  Perambulator and Invalid Carriage

  3

  10·34

  3

  10·34

  —

  —

  —

  Retail Bespoke Tailoring

  37

  7·18

  33

  6·40

  3

  8·10

  9·09

  Rope, Twine and Net

  7

  7·00

  7

  7·00

  —

  —

  —

  Sack and Bag

  7

  8·86

  7

  8·86

  1

  14·28

  14·28

  Toy Manufacturing

  20

  7·29

  17

  6·20

  1

  5·00

  5·88

  Retail Non-Food Trades

  8,354

  7·85

  3,704

  3·48

  854

  10·22

  23·05

  Retail Food and Allied Trades

  8,171

  7·45

  4,520

  4·12

  1,399

  17·12

  30·95

  Licensed Non-Residential

  6,475

  9·18

  4,277

  6·06

  843

  13·02

  19·71

  Licensed Residential and Restaurant

  3,213

  9·51

  2,620

  7·75

  516

  16·06

  19·69

  Unlicensed Place of Refreshment

  1,509

  9·58

  1,346

  8·55

  313

  20·74

  23·25

  Total

  31,524

  8·24

  18,936

  4·95

  4,443

  14·09

  23·46

  Table 3

  Workers covered by wages councils and results of checks—1987

  Wages councils

  Estimated numbers of workers covered by Wages Council Orders (1982)

  Workers whose pay was checked by all methods

  Workers whose pay was checked by visit

  Workers underpaid

  Percentage underpaid of all workers checked

  Percentage underpaid of all workers checked by visit

  Arrears paid

  Arrears not pursued at workers' request

  Arrears not pursued for other reasons

  Total arrears assessed

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Aerated waters

  15,000

  915

  900

  4

  2·05

  0·44

  897

  —

  —

  897

  Clothing manufacture

  252,800

  27,879

  19,778

  630

  2·25

  3·18

  42,599

  4,623

  34,058

  81,280

  Boot and shoe repairing

  7,100

  535

  257

  9

  1·68

  3·50

  1,676

  1,137

  955

  3,768

  Button manufacturing

  2,100

  19

  19

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Coffin furniture and cerement making

  300

  13

  13

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Cotton waste reclamation

  500

  88

  88

  9

  10·22

  10·22

  1,467

  1,940

  453

  3,860

  Flax and hemp

  1,400

  137

  137

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Fur

  4,500

  138

  123

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  General waste materials reclamation

  19,300

  890

  795

  10

  11·23

  1·25

  1,139

  110

  595

  1,844

  Hairdressing undertakings

  135,600

  7,350

  3,584

  341

  4·64

  9·51

  39,233

  4,188

  8,313

  51,734

  Hat, cap and millinery

  6,800

  54

  54

  5

  9·26

  9·25

  727

  —

  —

  727

  Lace finishing

  800

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Laundry

  33,700

  2,937

  1,995

  28

  0·95

  1·40

  6,012

  —

  —

  6,012

  Linen and cotton handkerchief

  5,200

  261

  257

  9

  3·44

  3·50

  1,283

  296

  —

  1,579

  Made-up textile

  4,800

  260

  222

  1

  0·38

  0·45

  5

  —

  —

  5

  Ostrich and fancy feather

  1,400

  105

  105

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Perambulator and invalid carriage

  1,500

  379

  379

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Retail bespoke tailoring

  5,200

  149

  142

  4

  2·68

  2·81

  174

  —

  765

  939

  Rope, twine and net

  4,000

  422

  422

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Sack and bag

  1,400

  149

  149

  10

  6·71

  6·71

  1,202

  —

  —

  1,202

  Toy manufacturing

  18,900

  399

  380

  1

  0·25

  0·26

  63

  —

  —

  63

  Retail non-food trades

  512,800

  105,932

  14,101

  1,394

  1·31

  9·88

  172,445

  74,451

  22,943

  269,839

  734 735

  Wages councils

  Estimated numbers of workers covered by Wages Council Orders (1982)

  Workers whose pay was checked by all methods

  Workers whose pay was checked by visit

  Workers underpaid

  Percentage underpaid of all workers checked

  Percentage underpaid of all workers checked by visit

  Arrears paid

  Arrears not pursued al workers' request

  Arrears not pursued for other reasons

  Total arrears assessed

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Retail food and allied trades

  519,300

  49,999

  17,510

  2,698

  5·39

  15·40

  257,444

  89,972

  52,580

  399,996

  Licensed non-residential

  508,700

  47,409

  26,017

  2,295

  4·84

  8·82

  149,636

  20,014

  35,241

  204,891

  Licensed residential and restaurant

  555,300

  37,572

  26,590

  981

  2·61

  3·68

  85,405

  6,070

  26,088

  117,563

  Unlicensed place of refreshment

  116,400

  7,585

  6,235

  699

  9·21

  11·20

  64,521

  20,660

  11,144

  96,325

  Total

  12,734,800

  291,576

  120,252

  9,129

  3·13

  7·59

  825,928

  223,461

  193,135

  1,242,524

  1 From 26 July 1986, wages orders no longer applied to workers under 21 years of age. It is estimated that there are about 500,000 in this category.

  Table 4

  Checks carried out and underpayments found in wages inspectorate divisions—1987

  Division

  Establishments checked by all methods

  Percentage of register checked

  Establishments checked by visit

  Percentage of register checked by visit

  Establishments underpaying

  Percentage of all establishments checked underpaying

  Percentage of establishments visited underpaying

  London

  3,765

  6·5

  1,737

  3·0

  270

  7·2

  15·5

  South East

  3,305

  7·9

  2,350

  5·6

  503

  15·2

  21·4

  Eastern

  3,244

  8·5

  2,394

  6·3

  405

  12·5

  16·9

  South West

  4,073

  9·2

  2,410

  5·4

  961

  23·6

  39·8

  Midlands

  5,524

  8·4

  2,486

  3·8

  525

  9·5

  21·1

  North West

  3,950

  8·3

  2,707

  5·7

  541

  13·7

  19·9

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  2,906

  9·0

  1,917

  6·0

  511

  17·5

  26·6

  Northern

  1,678

  7·9

  1,069

  5·1

  404

  24·1

  37·7

  Scotland

  3,079

  8·6

  1,866

  5·2

  323

  10·5

  17·3

  Great Britain

  31,524

  8·2

  18,936

  4·9

  4,443

  14·1

  23·5

  All branches of multiple firms are recorded under the division in which the head office is located. Account has to be taken of this when comparing divisional figures.

  Table 5

  Workers whose pay was checked in wages inspectorate divisions—1987

  Workers whose pay was checked by all methods

  Workers whose pay was checked by visit

  Workers underpaid

  Percentage underpaid of all workers checked

  Percentage underpaid of workers checked by visit

  Arrears paid

  Arrears not pursued at workers request

  Arrears not pursued for other reasons

  Total arrears assessed

  Division

  £

  £

  £

  £

  London

  81,043

  11,424

  398

  ·49

  3·48

  59,140

  10,094

  10,242

  79,476

  South East

  20,687

  12,994

  1,048

  5·06

  8·06

  94,934

  23,349

  31,010

  149,293

  Eastern

  20,646

  13,928

  756

  3·66

  5·42

  62,424

  33,184

  11,170

  106,778

  South West

  26,378

  13,390

  1,763

  6·68

  13·16

  124,171

  26,293

  21,068

  171,532

  Midlands

  48,888

  22,122

  984

  2·01

  4·44

  131,851

  34,715

  33,018

  199,584

  North West

  32,400

  15,659

  1,484

  4·58

  9·47

  116,107

  37,703

  28,606

  182,416

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  28,401

  12,275

  1,255

  4·41

  10·22

  92,944

  41,248

  27,033

  161,225

  Northern

  11,622

  6,203

  871

  7·49

  14·04

  85,049

  5,233

  15,066

  105,348

  Scotland

  21,511

  12,257

  570

  2·64

  4·65

  59,308

  11,642

  15,922

  86,872

  Great Britain

  291,576

  120,252

  9,129

  3·13

  7·59

  825,928

  223,461

  193,135

  1,242,524

  The numbers of workers in branches of multiple firms are recorded under the division in which the head office is located. Account has to be taken of this when comparing divisional figures.

  Adult Training
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether unemployed adults will still be entitled to choose to study under the 21-hour rule after the adult training scheme is launched; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Cope
  The introduction of the new adult training programme from September 1988 will not affect the position of people who choose to study under the DHSS's 21-hour rule.
  736
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) whether a decision to undertake to study under the 21-hour rule is treated as a positive outcome after a restart interview; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) whether he will include the option of studying under the 21-hour rule as one of the means of opportunities offered in the course of restart interviews.

  Mr. Cope
  So long as they remain available for work the option to pursue a course of study within the terms of the "21-hour rule" may be considered an appropriate way of helping unemployed people back into work. In such circumstances it would be regarded as a positive outcome of a restart interview.
  737
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many unemployed people are currently studying under the 21-hour rule.

  Mr. Cope
  I regret that the information requested is not available.

  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether individuals who join a job club are counted as unemployed in the unemployment figures.

  Mr. Nicholls
  Those people who are registered as unemployed when they join a job club remain on the register and are included in the unemployment figures.

  Training
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, under the Government's proposals for training for the unemployed, how many(a) single persons and (b) married men are expected to receive (i) more and (ii) less than the present £67 per week average paid under the existing community programme; what percentages these are of the total; and if he will give a breakdown according to whether persons will gain or lose by multiples of £5 a week.

  Mr. Cope
  [holding answer 1 March 1988]: I regret the information requested is not available as it has not been possible to estimate the numbers of trainees who will receive particular amounts in the new programme.

  Participants in the new programme will be paid an allowance at the rates recommended by the Manpower Services Commission. These payments will not be subject to income tax or national insurance contributions. All participants will be better off than they would be if they remain unemployed. Many will also be better off than they would have been on the £67 average wage paid on the community programme; such wages are of course subject to deductions for income tax and national insurance contributions.

  The new training programme will replace not only the community programme but all the Government's training programmes for unemployed adults. In the large majority of cases, payments to trainees on the new programme will be at least as high as those on the existing programmes.

TRANSPORT

  Trunk Roads (Pedestrian Safety)
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action is being taken to improve the safety of pedestrians intending to cross trunk roads; whether he has consulted the Ramblers Association on such matters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The most appropriate means of securing pedestrians' safety will depend on the characteristics of the road concerned and the needs of all who use it. We are always happy to have the views of the Ramblers Association on any particular problem spots and on safety generally.

  Manchester Airport
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, further to his meeting on 17 February with the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe, and in 738
  the light of the proposal given by the United States Government to the British embassy in Washington on 19 February, when formal negotiations are to commence on the prospects for increased United States carrier access to Manchester airport; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We have requested an early meeting with the United States Government. We await their reply.

  Aircraft Safety
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will call for a report from the Civil Aviation Authority as to whether the definition of time zero in the "Net Safety Benefit Analysis" (Civil Aviation Authority Paper 87017) equations refer to the time of ignition, the time the aircraft contacted the ground or the time the evacuation could have started;

  (2) if he will call for a report from the Civil Aviation Authority as to the way in which it obtained an accurate indication of the time at which the first and last survivors evacuated the aircraft in each of the 20 accidents examined in detail in the "Net Safety Benefit Analysis" (Civil Aviation Authority Paper 87017);

  (3) if he will call for a report from the Civil Aviation Authority as to why the only improvement which is allowed to extend the time available for successful evacuation in the "Net Safety Benefit Analysis" (Civil Aviation Authority Paper 87017) equation is the installation of fire-blocking layers;

  (4) if he will call for a report from the Civil Aviation Authority as to why the "Net Safety Benefit Analysis" (Civil Aviation Authority Paper 87017) does not take into account the presence before flashover of hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and cyanide toxic fumes in the equations;

  (5) if he will call for a report from the Civil Aviation Authority as to the basis on which it aligned the time at which the last survivor exited the cabin to the time the cabin environment became non-survivable in the equations for the "Net Safety Benefit Analysis" (Civil Aviation Authority Paper 87017).

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Civil Aviation Authority is wholly responsible for aviation safety regulation. I will ask the chairman of the authority to write to the hon. Member.

  Panama Canal
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has about the number of British-owned ships using the Panama canal in each of the past five years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Mitchell
  The number of United Kingdom flag vessels using the Panama canal over the five-year period from September 1981 to September 1986 is in the table below. British-owned vessels that do not fly the United Kingdom flag cannot be identified separately and are not included in the figures given below. The source of the information is the Panama Canal Commission's annual reports.

  Number

  September 1981-September 1982

  844

  September 1982-September 1983

  718

  739

  Number

  September 1983-September 1984

  623

  September 1984-September 1985

  503

  September 1985-September 1986

  484

  We continue to keep the situation concerning the canal under review in close consultation with British shipping interests.

  Motorways
  Mr. David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made with constructing and improving motorways in the current year.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Motorway developments continue to form a key element of the national road programme. They are large discrete projects and the progress of starts and completions is not necessarily a regular flow.

  The connection of the M42 to the M5 for southbound traffic, opened in March 1987, was the most recent new section of motorway to be completed.

  Extensive work is in progress. This includes widening six miles of the M25 between Chertsey and Staines to four lanes, and five miles of the M5 between Warndon and Rashwood to three lanes, as well as construction of the five-mile Portwood-Denton section of the Manchester motorway box and the systematic improvement of its older sections, including the installation of modern signalling. The Warwick section of the 59-mile extension of the M40 was started last summer and the first contract for the Banbury bypass section was let last month. We expect to start the Gaydon section, between the other two, in the summer.

  Work will start shortly on new climbing lanes for slow heavy vehicles which will help to ease congestion on the M62, eastbound between junctions 21 and 22, and westbound between junctions 24 and 25.

  We plan to start construction during the next 12 months of schemes to extend the M3 from Compton, south of Winchester to the M27, and to fill the 14-mile gap in the M20 between Maidstone and Ashford which will be the principal route to and from the Channel tunnel.

  Motor Cycle Noise
  Mr. Adley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made towards the introduction of regulations under the Motor Cycle Noise Act 1987; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Department is circulating for comment draft regulations to be made under this Act, for which my hon. Friend deserves much credit. The regulations will require all replacement motorcycle exhausts and silencers offered for sale to be marked to show that they are identical to the original equipment or that they conform to British Standard AU 193 or that they are not for use on public roads.

  In view of the European Commission's recent proposals for a Community directive on replacement silencers for motorcycles we have made it clear that we shall amend the regulations to implement this directive as soon as it is adopted by the Council.

  Those regulations will enable us to curb an important source of excessive motorcycle noise.

  Dual Speed Invalid Carriage
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he proposes to consult on draft regulations to introduce a dual speed invalid carriage.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The Department of Transport has today issued a consultation document. The vehicle we hope to introduce is an additional class of "invalid carriage" that would be able to travel at a speed of up to 8 mph on the carriageway, with the restriction remaining at 4 mph on the footway. Copies of the consultation document are available from:

  The Disability Unit

  Department of Transport

  Room S10/21

  2 Marsham Street

  LONDON

  SW1P 3EB

  Lorry Weighings
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy that the records of lorry weighings which it is proposed to undertake under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Bill[Lords] also be used as a basis upon which the law relating to the overloading of lorries on the highway is enforced.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  [holding answer 3 March 1988]: The Department's consultative document No. 7, issued on 23 December 1987, proposed the individual weighing of all lorries before loading on to class II and II(A) ro-ro passenger ferries. This will be for the purpose of ferry loading and safety and will apply only to lorries joining outbound ferries. To enforce the lorry weight limits using this information it would be necessary to prove retrospectively in a court of law that a vehicle which had entered a port to join a ferry had travelled on the highway in an overloaded condition. Inbound vehicles checked at ferry ports and found to be overweight are prohibited from leaving until the overload is adjusted.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Central America
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the San Jose IV conference on Central America in Hamburg.

  Mr. Eggar
  The successful outcome of the San Jose conference is recorded in the economic and political declarations, copies of which I will place in the Library of the House as soon as possible. The conference was a valuable opportunity for the Twelve to discuss the peace process with the Central American and Contadora countries. The Community's support for peace is clearly shown by the commitment to take additional measures to assist the region.

  European Foundation Treaty
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the aims of the European Foundation treaty; and what information he has on the Dutch refusal to ratify it.

  Mr. Eggar
  The aims of the European Foundation, which the 10 then members of the European Community
  741
  agreed to establish in 1982, were to promote European consciousness by various means including cultural activity. The Dutch Government have recently announced that they have been unable to ratify the agreement because of opposition in their Upper House. Without ratification by all the signatories, the foundation cannot come into existence.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many subject access requests under the terms of the Data Protection Act his Department has received; what was his estimate of this number; whether he is reconsidering the subject access fee charged by his Department as a result; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  The diplomatic and aid wings together have so far received 26 requests for subject access, all from present or former members of staff: this figure is in line with forecasts of likely numbers of applications. There is no proposal to change the arrangements for charges set out in my reply to the hon. Member on 30 October 1987 at column 478.

  Royal Navy Submarines (Scuttling)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have received any representations from the Irish Government concerning proposals for the scuttling of Royal Navy submarines in the Irish sea; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Irish Government have made representations about the disposal of HMS Dreadnought. No decisions have yet been taken on the preferred disposal route for reactors from decommissioned nuclear sub-marines. A number of options are being considered, including disposal at sea. But there is no question of disposal in the Irish sea.

  Panama
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government in respect of loan applications from Panama to international banking agencies upon which the United Kingdom is represented; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  It is for the management of the multilateral development banks in the first instance to consider and appraise such applications. It is our policy to consider loan proposals on their technical and economic merits in accordance with the articles of the organisations concerned.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what requests have been received from the Panamanian authorities for antiterrorist training in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Eggar
  As a matter of standard practice, any such request from a foreign Government would be treated as confidential.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects that 742
  Her Majesty's Government will acknowledge acting President Palma as the new head of state of Panama; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  We recognise states, not Governments, in accordance with common international doctrine. The question of acknowledgement does not therefore arise. The European Community issued a statement on 2 March expressing deep concern at recent developments in Panama and appealing to the present rulers of Panama to open the way for internal peace and democracy.

  E1 Salvador
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if Her Majesty's Government will be sending observers to the forthcoming legislative and municipal elections in E1 Salvador.

  Mr. Eggar
  We have accepted an invitation from the Salvadorean Government to observe the legislative and municipal elections in E1 Salvador on 20 March. Dr. David Browning, lecturer in geography at the university of Oxford has been appointed as the official Government observer. He will report his findings to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

SCOTLAND

  Skoal Bandits
  Mr. Harry Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what consultations took place on the decision to ban the sale and export of Skoal Bandits.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Government have announced that they are proposing to prohibit the supply of certain types of oral tobacco product, but in accordance with the requirements of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, under which the regulations would be made, are first consulting those whose interests would appear to be substantially affected by the proposal. Those consulted have been given to 26 May to make representations. Only after those representations have been received and considered will the Government decide their course of action.

  Cancer Screening
  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what screening facilities are available in each health board area for the early detection of ovarian cancer.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  There is no proven screening test for ovarian cancer which can be applied to a particular population.

ENVIRONMENT

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many subject access requests under the terms of the Data Protection Act his Department has received; what was his estimate of this number; whether he is reconsidering the subject access fee charged by his Department as a result; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ridley
  By 1 March 1988 my Department — including PSA — had received 381 subject access
  743
  requests. No prior estimate of this number had been made and I have no plans to reconsider the level of the fee charged.

  Water Bills
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington,Official Report, 9 February, columns 127–8, on what basis the national average figures for household bills for water supply for 1982–83 to 1987–88 have been calculated to produce a figure lower than both the English average and the Welsh figure.

  Mr. Moynihan
  I refer the hon. Member to my answer of Wednesday 2 March at columns 583–6.

  Crown Suppliers
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the progress of the leak inquiry in relation to the Crown Suppliers.

  Mr. Chope
  It is not the practice to comment on such matters.

  Nuclear Waste
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has of how much of the material for which Nirex is currently seeking a repository(a) has originated or (b) will originate (i) in the United Kingdom, (ii) in Scotland and (iii) outside the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 25 February 1988]: UK Nirex Ltd is responsible for identifying a suitable location for a deep underground repository for the disposal of low-level (LLW) and intermediate-level (ILW) radioactive wastes. I understand from UK Nirex that there are at present 41,800 cu m of ILW stored in the United Kingdom pending disposal of Nirex's repository. Ten per cent. of this ILW originated in Scotland and less than 3 per cent. from outside the United Kingdom. Some of the latter is returnable. Nirex expect to dispose of about 1 million cu m of LLW and about 0.3 million cu m of ILW in their repository by 2030. Eleven per cent. of the LLW and 10 per cent. of the ILW is expected to come from Scotland, and 1.4 per cent. of the ILW from outside the United Kingdom.

SOCIAL SERVICES

  Trent RHA
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people were employed by Trent regional health authority on adminstrative duties in each year since 1982.

  Mr. Currie
  The table sets out the information requested. It excludes staff employed by district health authorities. I understand that the sharp changes in numbers of staff in 1983, 1985 and 1986 are due to transfers of functions (and staff) between the region and its districts and vice versa. The NHS in the Trent region employs more than 75,000 people (whole-time equivalents).
  744

  NHS Administrative and clerical staff in post Trent regional health authority at 30 September

  Year

  1Whole-time equivalents

  1982

  660

  1983

  930

  1984

  950

  1985

  880

  1986

  940

  Source:

  DHSS Annual census of NHS non-medical manpower.

  1 Figures are rounded to the nearest ten (10 whole-time equivalents).

  Crewe DHA
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will tabulate in cost terms the expenditure of the Crewe district health authority for each year since 1979.

  Mrs. Currie
  Following is information derived from the annual accounts of the Crewe district health authority since its establishment on 1 April 1982:

  Revenue Expenditure

  Capital Expenditure

  £000

  £000

  1982–83

  30,337

  2,436

  1983–84

  32,185

  2,425

  1984–85

  34,193

  3,063

  1985–86

  36,011

  1,264

  1986–87

  38,619

  922

  Notes:

  1. The figures for capital expenditure include sums in respect of schemes within the district recorded in the annual accounts of the Mersey regional health authority. Revenue and capital expenditure incurred by the latter authority for the region as a whole is excluded.

  2. Prior to 1 April 1982 the authority's predecessor health district formed part of the Cheshire area health authority and district based figures were not collected centrally.

  Pensioners
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services when he last met representatives of pensioners' organisations; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. Scott
  I last met representatives of pensioners' organisations on 22 February at a conference, "Winter of Action on Cold Homes", when the discussion covered state provision for the elderly and other groups.

  I expect to accompany my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when she meets a delegation from the National Pensioners' Convention on 10 March.

  Social Fund
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his reply on 1 February,Official Report, column 488, showing planned social fund expenditure for 1989–90 and 1990–91, what is the planned gross outlay on loans, the amount set aside for contingencies, the total planned expenditure from the social fund and the cost of administration for each of those years, and for 1988–89.

  Mr. Scott
  The gross national budget for payments from the discretionary part of the social fund for 1988–89 was given in my reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) on 23 November
  745
  1987 at column 84. The salary costs (including employer's national insurance contributions) of the administration of the discretionary part of the social fund will be £37 million in 1988–89. Details of the gross budget, the level of the contingency reserve and staffing levels for future years will be considered in the light of experience.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what help will be given to claimants if, despite the best endeavours of the social fund offices, a local office budget becomes fully spent before the end of the year.

  Mr. Portillo
  Social fund officers will be expected to manage their budgets flexibly over the course of the year to meet the highest priority needs whenever they occur. A model profile of expected expenditure on a month by month basis has been drawn up at national level to assist in planning expenditure. Local office managers may adjust the national profile to reflect particular local factors. Monthly profiles are indicative only and will not be operated as fixed monthly budgets. A central contingency reserve of £2 million has been set aside to make provision for unforeseen and unforeseeable demands.

  RPI (Error)
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the total amount of payments now made following the error in the calculation of the retail prices index.

  Mr. Scott
  Special payments should by now have been made to around 12 million people, some of whom will have received more than one payment. We estimate the amount disbursed to be about £98 million.

  In-patients

  Out-patients

  A and E patients

  Cost per in-patient day

  Cost per case

  Cost per attendance

  Cost per new case

  Cost per attendance

  Cost per new case

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Acute hospitals (over 300 beds): London teaching districts

  133·91

  1,138·93

  37·86

  174·32

  22·80

  27·82

  Mainly acute hospitals: London teaching districts

  129·91

  1,227·58

  46·53

  187·14

  30·53

  38·65

  Acute hospitals (over 300 beds): Provincial teaching districts

  114·97

  855·45

  28·38

  128·75

  23·25

  27·94

  Mainly acute hospitals: Provincial teaching districts

  90·43

  813·13

  29·36

  137·46

  19·69

  25·28

  Acute hospitals (over 300 beds): England

  107·32

  767·53

  29·37

  127·00

  20·89

  25·55

  Mainly acute hospitals: England

  85·92

  763·79

  26·05

  111·20

  19·76

  24·84

  Notes:

  1. Costs for hospitals in London teaching districts will include London weighting staff costs.

  2. Costs are not adjusted for variations in case-mix between hospitals. Teaching hospitals will tend to attract a different case-mix from non-teaching hospitals so that direct comparison may be misleading.

  Free Milk
  Mr. Heddle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the eligibility of playgroups, child-minders and nurseries to receive free milk.

  Mrs. Currie
  Children under five attending approved nursery schools and playgroups, or a registered childminder, are entitled to receive one third of a pint of free milk, or, in the case of children less than one year old, dried baby milk made up to provide one third of a pint, on each day of attendance. These arrangements will not be affected by the changes in social security provisions coming into effect in April.

  In-patients
  Dr. Owen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will list for each year since 1979 the average length of in-patient stay in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland;

  (2) what was the average length of stay in acute hospitals for each year since 1979 in England, Wales and Scotland.

  Mrs. Currie
  The available information for England is given in the table. Statistics for the rest of the United Kingdom are a matter for my right hon and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland.

  Teaching Hospitals
  Dr. Owen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services by how much costs per patient in London teaching hospitals and provincial teaching hospitals exceed average costs per patient in non-teaching hospitals.

  Mrs. Currie
  Costing returns submitted to the Department for major hospitals in teaching disricts show average costs per patient for 1986–87 as in the table, which includes national averages for these types of hospitals. Costs of hospitals administered by the special health authorities for the London postgraduate teaching hospitals are not included.

  Census Forms
  Mr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will arrange for the 1991 census forms to include a question asking if the respondent speaks a Celtic language; and asking him to identify that language.

  Mrs. Currie
  A question which would ascertain the number of people speaking a Celtic language is being considered, as are many other suggestions. However, no decisions have yet been taken on the content of the 1991 census; proposals will be published as a White Paper later this year.

  Breast Cancer (Deaths)
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the numbers of women who have died of breast cancer in the Central Nottinghamshire health authority area for the years 1979 to 1987.

  Mrs. Currie
  The information is shown in the table. Data for 1987 are not yet available.

  Numbers of registrations of deaths with breast cancer (ICD 9 174) as underlying cause to women usually resident in Central Nottingham district health authority1, 1979–86

  Year

  Number

  1979

  57

  1980

  60

  1981

  63

  1982

  68

  1983

  58

  1984

  64

  1985

  85

  21986

  73

  1 1979–81 = Central Nottingham Health District.

  2 Provisional.

  Operating Theatre Sessions (Wakefield)
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what information he has about the number of operating theatre sessions cancelled between March and June 1986 owing to the unavailability of consultants in the Wakefield district health authority; which consultants were involved; what reasons were given for their unavailability; what action has been taken to prevent a recurrence; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Currie
  Management of operating theatres is a matter for individual health authorities and the information requested is not collected centrally. The hon. Member may therefore wish to approach the chairman of Wakefield health authority for the information he seeks.

  Wakefield was one of the authorities mentioned in the recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the use of operating theatres which was the subject of a Public Accounts Committee hearing on 29 February. A copy of the report is in the Library; the minutes of evidence will be published in due course. I understand that since the NAO study the health authority has taken action designed to increase utilisation rates.

  Brighton Health Authority
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide details of the number of beds provided by Brighton health authority for each year since 1979, and the number of projected beds to be offered through Brighton health authority for each year until 1994.

  Mrs. Currie
  The information available is given in the table.

  Information on projected bed levels in district health authorities is not held centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact the chairman of Brighton health authority who may be able to provide this information.
  748

  The average daily number of available beds in Brighton health authority1 each year since 31 December 1979 to 31 December 1986

  Year

  Average daily number of available beds

  1979

  1,896·2

  1980

  1,850·7

  1981

  1,769·5

  1982

  1,793·7

  1983

  1,802·8

  1984

  1,796·1

  1985

  1,704·2

  1986

  1,653·8

  1 Prior to 1982 the figures relate to Brighton health district which was part of the East Sussex area health authority.

  During this period the throughput of patients treated per available bed rose from 16·7 to 25·8 and the total number of in-patients and day-patients treated rose from 33,806 to 46,023.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many staff were employed by the Brighton health authority in each of the following categories(a) medical, (b) nursing, (c) ancillary and (d) other support staffs.

  Mrs. Currie
  The figures shown in the table are the most recent available.

  NHS staff in post Brighton health authority

  At 30 September 1986

  Whole time equivalents1

  Medical and dental2

  130

  Nursing and midwifery3

  2,340

  Ancillary

  760

  Other support staff4

  1,450

  Total employed2 3

  4,680

  Source: DHSS. Annual Censuses of NHS Medical and Non-Medical Manpower.

  1 Figures are independently rounded to nearest ten (10) whole-time Equivalents.

  2 Includes permanent paid, honorary and locum staff. Excludes Consultants and senior registrars—these staff have their contracts with the regional health authority.

  3 Includes agency staff.

  4 Includes: professional and technical, works, maintenance, administrative and clerical, and ambulance staff.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide actual or projected figures of the level of revenue and capital expenditure by Brighton health authority, in each year from 1979 to 1994.

  Mrs. Currie
  The finance of Brighton health authority is a matter for the South East Thames regional health authority. However, I understand that the table provides the latest information derived from the annual accounts of the Brighton health authority since its establishment on 1 April 1982.

  Revenue expenditure

  Capital expenditure

  £000

  £000

  1982–83

  45,102

  1,598

  1983–84

  49,133

  3,283

  1984–85

  52,162

  2,113

  1985–86

  55,475

  2,139

  1986–87

  59,102

  3,030

  Notes:

  1. The figures for capital expenditure include sums in respect of

  749
  schemes within the district recorded in the annual accounts of the South East Thames regional health authority. Revenue and capital expenditure incurred by the latter authority for the region as a whole is excluded.

  2. Prior to 1 April 1982 the authority's predecessor health district formed part of the East Sussex area health authority and district based figures were not collected centrally.

  3. Prior to 1 April 1985 Brighton health authority had an associated family practitioner committee (FPC) and the authority's expenditure for the years before that date includes elements relating to the FPC's administrative expenses which are not separately identifiable.

  Information on future expenditure by Brighton health authority is not available.

  Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate on a regional basis the number of myalgic encephalomyelitis sufferers; and how many of these are(a) women and (b) men.

  Mrs. Currie
  Information on the incidence of myalgic encephalomyelitis is not available in the form requested.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he has taken to ensure that myalgic encephalomyelitis is a recognised viral disease for National Health Service treatment.

  Mrs. Currie
  The National Health Service does recognise myalgic encephalomyelitis which can be a distressing and debilitating condition. However, there is not yet any generally agreed method of treatment, apart from rest.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make further resources available for medical research into the myalgic encephalomyelitis syndrome; and if he will list the current research activities being undertaken in medical establishments in both the private and public sector in this field, showing for how long research has been conducted.

  Mrs. Currie
  The main Government agency for the promotion of medical and related biological research is the Medical Research Council, which receives its grant-in-aid from the Department of Education and Science. I understand that although the council is not funding any research directly on myalgic encephalomyelitis, some of the work it is supporting on immune responses to muscle, nerve cells and related structures may be relevant to the understanding and treatment of the condition. The council is always willing to consider soundly-based scientific proposals for research in competition with other demands on its research funds.

  Information on research not directly funded by Government agencies is not held centrally. However, I understand that since 1984 research on myalgic encephalomyelitis and related conditions has been carried out at St. Mary's medical school, London, and the regional virus laboratory, Ruchill hospital, Glasgow.

  21-hour Rule
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will provide full details of the instructions given to local offices about how to interpret the 21-hour rule in individual cases.
  750
  Mr. Portillo
  Guidance to adjudication officers on interpretation of the 21-hour rule is given in paragraphs 1287 to 1307 of the S manual, a copy of which is in the Library.

  "Resourcing the National Health Service"
  Sir Barney Hayhoe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will detail the alleged inaccuracies he has detected in the First Report of the Social Services Committee (H.C. 264–1) on "Resourcing the National Health Service"; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moore
  I do not think it would be appropriate to anticipate the Government's formal response to the Select Committee, which we will of course be making in the usual way, by making a further statement at this stage. On a question of fact, however, I have already expressed my concern that the Committee's recommendation for an extra £95 million in respect of pay and price inflation in 1987–88 failed to take account of the additional £75 million announced by the Government on 16 December.

  Benefit Disqualification
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will place in the Library a copy of the survey carried out by his Department entitled "Monitoring the Voluntary Unemployment Changes and the Extensions of the Period of Disqualification."

  Mr. Portillo
  I shall be placing a copy in the Library today.

  Sickle Cell Anaemia
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the level of information and counselling provided by district health authorities to sufferers from sickle cell anaemia.

  Mrs. Currie
  Although we know of 12 NHS counselling centres in England, we cannot be sure we know of all screening and counselling services provided by DHAs.

  The level of information and counselling provided by district health authorities is a matter for them to decide in the light of local needs and priorities.

  Mental Nurses (Northumberland)
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many registered mental nurses are employed in Northumberland health authority; what was the number in 1979; and what has been the percentage change.

  Mrs. Currie
  [pursuant to her reply, 19 February 1988 c. 778]: I regret that there was an error in my previous reply. The figures given referred to all nurses employed in the mental illness area of work.

  The figures shown in the following table relate to all registered nurses employed in the mental illness area of work.

  Registered nurses in mental illness area of work Northumberland District Health Authority at 30 September

  Number

  Whole-time equivalents1

  1982

  153

  751

  Number

  1986

  177

  Percentage change2

  1982 to 1986

  +15·7

  1 Figures independently rounded to nearest whole-time equivalent.

  2 Percentage change calculated on unrounded figures.

  Source: DHSS annual census of NHS non-medical manpower.

  Remploy
  Mr. Temple-Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give for the last three years for which figures are available the amount of public subsidy given to Remploy; how this is calculated and structured; and whether any separate or designated subsidy is given to the Remploy surgical appliance division.

  Mr. Lee
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Government subsidy to Remploy for each of the last three years was as follows:

  £ million

  Revenue subsidy

  Capital loans

  Total

  1985–86

  48·5

  10·8

  59·3

  1986–87

  47·9

  9·2

  57·1

  1987–88

  49·7

  8·3

  58·0

  The level of subvention is agreed annually in negotiations between my Department and the company. The underlying principle is that the Government should meet that portion of the company's costs which cannot be
  752
  covered by income generated through its trading activities. The company has been very successful in meeting the stringent financial targets agreed with the Government, and the level of Government revenue subsidy has declined by around £2 million in real terms over the last three years, while numbers of disabled workers employed have increased slightly.

  There is no separate or designated subsidy for Remploy's surgical appliance division.

  Single Payments
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the date of the commissioner's hearing in the case referred to in his answers of 16 November 1987,Official Report, column 445, and 1 February, Official Report, column 487, regarding payments for furniture where the claimant became the tenant or owner of an unfurnished home on the date of claim; when he expects to receive the decision; and what is the reason for the delay.

  The Attorney-General
  I have been asked to reply.

  The hearing of the appeal in the case referred to took place before a commissioner on 15 October 1987. His decision was issued and sent to both parties on 26 February 1988. Decisions in these cases are matters for the commissioners in the exercise of their independent judicial function, and in 1987, 80 per cent. of decisions in oral hearings were issued within six weeks of the hearing date. My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has asked for further information about the case referred to and will write to the hon. Member in due course.

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

AIDS Report: Publication
Lord Bonham-Carter Lord Bonham-Carter asked Her Majesty's Government:
When the report on AIDS and drug misuse of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will be published.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced on 25th February that we intend to publish the report shortly.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that Answer. Bearing in mind that this report has been on his right honourable friend's desk for some two months, can he let us know when it will be published? It is, after all, a matter of considerable public interest.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I understand that it is likely to be published within the next few weeks.

Sheltered Housing: Needs of Elderly
11.7 a.m.
Lord Rippon of Hexham Lord Rippon of Hexham asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy towards the future provision of sheltered accommodation for the elderly by local housing authorities.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, our policy is to encourage local authorities to take an informed and sympathetic approach to the needs of the elderly, having due regard to the resources available. Sheltered housing is just one of many ways in which local authorities can help. Most elderly people want to go on living in their own homes for as long as possible and can be helped to do so through, for example, home improvements, adaptations and repairs.
Lord Rippon of Hexham: My Lords, I welcome that encouraging Answer from my noble friend. Will he agree that as this is National Housing Week it is appropriate that we should pay tribute to the outstanding work done by local housing authorities? May I say how glad I am that he has confirmed that local housing authorities will still have an important role to play in an activity that I hope will be extended to the handicapped and mentally disabled who also need sheltered accommodation?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the Government are happy to acknowledge the contribution made by local authorities in providing sheltered accommodation for the elderly. We believe that councils should identify the best way of meeting the needs and that they should work also with the voluntary and private sector. We have urged them to concentrate resources on those in greatest need, including elderly people on low incomes. We give assistance also with home improvement grants and insulation grants.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his Answer is not correct? Is it not the case that the number of properties built for this purpose has diminished despite an increasing demand for them? Is this not due to the fact that the housing investment programme has been seriously cut this year once again? Why is the Minister so optimistic that there will be an increased building programme when it is smaller—and that includes sheltered housing accommodation—than last year?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, in 1979 there were some 271,000 units. There are now some 413,000. That represents an increase of some 50 per cent. if my mathematics are correct.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Lord acknowledge a growing increase in the number of people who are retired and who can be called old age pensioners? Does he agree that many of them have difficulty finding accommodation? That fact ought to be taken on board, particularly as over the next 10 years the figure will increase dramatically. Secondly, will the Minister be prepared to consult with the housing section of the Royal British Legion which does fantastic work in providing accommodation for older people? It could use a little help now and then. The combination of the ministries and the Royal British Legion could make a massive contribution to the problem.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, on the first part of the noble Lord's question, the figure I mentioned in my previous answer shows that we are all aware that there will be an increase and that the figure will keep increasing. I should like to draw to his attention the fact that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State introduced yesterday increased grant rates for a pilot mixed funding programme which is a vital area. We have lifted that grant from 30 per cent. to 50 per cent. in lower cost areas such as the North and Midlands, and from 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. in higher cost areas such as the South-East. I shall certainly bring the noble Lord's remarks concerning the Royal British Legion to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, does the noble Lord's Answer mean that the Government have abandoned any attempt to force the right-to-buy provisions on sheltered housing for the elderly? As I recall, that has been a matter of great controversy in this House and in another place. The Government seem determined to reduce the stock of sheltered housing for the elderly held by local authorities.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, we have protected councils' ability to go on meeting special housing needs by excluding sheltered housing for elderly or disabled people from tenants' choice, just as we excluded it from right to buy. There is no need for them to lose their existing specialised stock.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is it not the case that that happened because the Government were voted down in this House? I asked whether the Government recognise the justice of the decision of the House. Are they going to abandon any further attempts to reduce the housing stock for the elderly?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is repeating back to me what I first gave him as my answer.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a complex interrelationship between sheltered housing, the social services and health services for the elderly? Is it not time that we started to co-ordinate these matters so that each authority or each body responsible for funding is not busily trying to move the expense on to the next body?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the department has gone to some lengths to try to provide local authorities with specialist packs of advice and a video in order that that can happen.
Lord Morris: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Her Majesty's Government's emphasis on adapting people's own homes should be greatly welcomed? Does he further agree that the act of moving elderly and infirm people can in itself be the cause of death?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the Government have always taken the view that we should encourage all elderly people to stay in their own homes if they wish to do so.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, if the Government are truly anxious for people to stay in their own homes, will they please bear in mind, when it comes to the funding of alarms to enable them to do so, that such homes are not always particularly suitable for the elderly but that they, nevertheless, wish to remain in them?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I have taken note of the noble Lady's question. I am afraid I shall have to write to her in that regard.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, the Question on the Order Paper refers to the elderly. Can the Minister say at what age people are officially regarded, for this purpose, as being elderly?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I think that the answer to the noble Lord's question is that it is very much up to the individual concerned.

SDI Conference: Dr. Orman's Invitation
11.15 a.m.
Lord Kennet Lord Kennet asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why Dr. Stanley Orman of the Ministry of Defence and Mr. Aron Moss, an attache of the Israeli embassy in Washington, are together taking a leading role at a conference on SDI to be held there on March 13th-16th.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, Dr. Stanley Orman is the director general of the SDI Participation Office in the Ministry of Defence and it is appropriate that he should have accepted an invitation to speak at this conference as part of his duties. It is not for Her Majesty's Government to explain why anyone who is not their representative has been invited to address the conference.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, does the appearance of the chief British SDI official and a principal Israeli SDI official at the same conference in Washington symbolise an undesirable and growing high-tech military alliance between this country and Israel which, whatever it is to the United States, is no ally of ours?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, no; it is not. The appearance of Dr. Orman at the conference does not symbolise any such thing.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, can Her Majesty's Government say anything about the value of contracts that have so far been won by British firms? I am sure the Minister will recall that in 1985, when the agreements were reached, we were told that anything up to 1·5 billion dollars-worth of contracts would be given to this country under SDI. My information is that the figure is fewer than 100 million dollars at present. Can the Minister tell the House anything arising from the recent statement made by General Abrahamson about the delays that are likely to be experienced in the fulfilment of SDI? So far as concerns SDI, can we not say that such a project would be better lost in space?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the SDI programme is a research programme to investigate the feasibility of some of the concepts which have been proposed; it is no more than that. As regards the value of contracts so far won by British organisations, they amount to some 60 million dollars spread over some 65 contracts. As I understand it, there are one or two significant contracts to be announced in the not too distant future.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, is it now the policy of Her Majesty's Government to assist in the arming of Israel? If not, why are they jointly engaged in military research programmes with Israel?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, we maintain tight restrictions on the export of military equipment to Israel because of the residual Israeli presence in

363
Lebanese territory—a fact which the noble Lord will no doubt be aware of. We are not, however, involved in the type of programme with Israel that the noble Lord has suggested.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the Minister say what form of arms are being used by the Israelis to murder, slay and maim Arabs in Palestine and on the Gaza Strip?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not sure whether I followed the implications of the noble Lord's question with regard to the British Government. However, our views on what is happening in that part of the world have been made very clear.

Immigration Bill
11.18 a.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
My Lords, at the outset, I should like to say that it is a great pleasure to find that the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, has chosen this particular Bill as the occasion upon which to make his maiden speech.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, many of us have found making a maiden speech in your Lordships' House a rather daunting experience; some of us still feel daunted when making speeches. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, will not find it such a daunting experience today and we look forward to hearing what he has to say. He will always find a warm welcome here, not only for what he says but also for his presence.
Over the past 30 years or so, Britain has experienced a level of immigration which has been unprecedented in our history. During the 'fifties, 'sixties and 'seventies, Britain became a multi-racial society. And now, in many of our towns and cities, a substantial proportion of the residents are of Asian, African or Caribbean origin. They regard themselves as British. Very many of them are British in law, and they are entitled to all the privileges and bear all the responsibilities of any other citizen of Britain.
It is the Government's intention to ensure that every one of our citizens is treated fairly, and that no one is discriminated against on grounds of race or colour. The maintenance of good community relations is and remains among our highest priorities. At the same time, for many years now, successive governments have also recognised that the maintenance of good community relations depends upon and demands firm immigration control.
It is a simple but undeniable fact that there is a limit to the number of newcomers which any society can absorb and we in Britain could not possibly accept all those who want to come. We could not provide the houses, the schools, the hospitals, and the rest of the structure, which would be required let alone the jobs.
364
So, with that in mind, a previous Government in 1971 drew up the first comprehensive immigration statute. The Immigration Act 1971 established a system of immigration control, which applied to both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth citizens alike. It reflected the reality of the continuing need to limit the level of primary immigration by heads of household. The 1971 Act remains the principal statute for the regulation of immigration into this country. It has provided a legal framework which successive governments have found to be satisfactory and sound.
Since coming into office in 1979, the Government have used the 1971 Act as the basis for an immigration policy which is both firm and fair. It is a fair control. The rules apply to all, regardless of race, and immigration officers are required to carry out the mechanics of the control without regard to race. It is certainly not an ungenerous control for those who are settled here and who want to be joined by their families. Since 1971, over half a million wives and children have come to settle in this country, the substantial majority of them from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan.
But that is a control which also recognises that the time is past when we could afford to have young men coming here to work, unless they had very special skills, and that there is great pressure to get into this country from poorer parts of the world. Careful checking at the ports in necessary, therefore, to prevent people masquerading as visitors and from getting into the country with the intention of staying permanently.
In the Government's view all that is common sense. The debate about immigration policy has not always been so muted, and in the past bitter emotions have been stirred up by the issue. It is, therefore, all the more important that it should be dealt with sensitively and constructively. It is in that spirit that the proposals which are contained in this Bill have been brought before your Lordships for consideration. Over the past few months the Bill has been the subject of some unfair and misleading publicity. The proposals which it contains make up modest but necessary changes. They are intended primarily to reinforce the existing framework of immigration control which is contained in the Immigration Act 1971, and to make it possible to maintain a fair, but firm, immigration system for the future. Important though these changes are, the Bill does not make radical alterations to the present system of immigration controls.
It may be helpful if I were to summarise the main provisions of the Bill, and their effect. This is a short Bill, of 11 clauses and 1 schedule. Clause 1 repeals Section 1(5) to the 1971 Act. That subsection sought to preserve the position of Commonwealth citizen men, who were settled here at the time of the 1971 Act, and their wives and children, in order that they could not be adversely affected by subsequent rule changes. And, in particular, in order that such men, who wished to have their families join them here, would be exempt from any requirement to show that they could provide adequate financial support and

365
accommodation for them without recourse to public funds.
That remains the main effect of Section 1(5), but its terms are very wide. Some 15 years ago after it originally came into effect, we believe that there are sound reasons for considering that the time has come to repeal it, and to place those who currently benefit from it on the same footing as everyone else who wishes to have their family settle with them in this country.
Section 1(5) applies, not only to those who were themselves adults when the 1971 Act came into force, but to any Commonwealth citizen of whatever age who was settled here at that time. If it continues in force, it will have an effect which will last well into the next century, as those who were settled here as small boys before 1973 themselves marry and have children.
Since Section 1(5) benefits only the wives of Commonwealth citizen men, and not the husbands of Commonwealth citizen women, the prospect would be of the continuation of what is in fact a sexually discriminatory provision for possibly decades to come. The Government do not believe that it is right that that element of sexual discrimination should remain. It gave a commitment to the European Court of Human Rights following the case of Abdulaziz that it would be removed. That we are seeking to do.
Section 1(5) is also difficult to administer. It gives rise to some wholly unacceptable outcomes in some cases, as, for example, in the case of Huseyin towards the end of last year. In that case, the Court of Appeal found that a woman, who is liable to deportation for whatever reason, can render herself wholly immune from deportation action by marrying a Commonwealth citizen man who was settled here on 1st January 1973. Any such marriage need exist in name only to afford that protection. In delivering his judgment, the Master of the Rolls said:
"the marriage need only be an 'immigration marriage' i.e. the parties need have no intention of living together permanently as man and wife, and indeed may never even have met before the wedding, the sole object of the ceremony being to secure a right to remain in this country."
I do not believe that any of your Lordships could reasonably think that it would be right to perpetuate such a position, so, I believe that it is right to repeal Section 1(5).
That does not mean that those who are settled here before 1973 will be unable to bring their wives and children to join them. It merely means that they will have to satisfy the same requirements in the immigration rules as those who do not at present benefit from Section 1(5).
It is entirely fair and reasonable that people should riot come here without having somewhere to live and some means of support, without recourse to public funds. It really is no service to community relations for families to come here if they are then either homeless or destitute.
There will, of course, be some applications which have already been made by the wives and children of Section 1(5) men, and there will be more by the time that Clause 1 comes into effect. We recognise that it
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would be unfair, in effect, to penalise those who apply to come here from parts of the world where there are queues for entry clearance. Our intention is, therefore, to frame the commencement order so that applications from Section 1(5) beneficiaries, which are outstanding when Clause 1 comes into effect, are dealt with in accordance with the law as it stood at the time of the application. We propose to adopt the same approach in dealing with applications from polygamous wives under Clause 2.
Clause 2 of the Bill is concerned with polygamy. At present it is possible for a second or a subsequent wife, who has no other connection with this country, to acquire the right of abode here through her polygamous marriage. This clause seeks to prevent the entry of more than one wife of a polygamous marriage in such circumstances. The number of polygamous wives coming here is, in fact, very small. We estimate that perhaps 25 or so polygamous households are set up here every year.
So the formation of polygamous households here is not a serious problem in immigration terms, but we take the view that polygamy is not an acceptable social custom in the United Kingdom, and that it is contrary to the traditions of this country. We, therefore, propose to take steps to ensure that only one wife of a polygamous marriage can come here for settlement. In order to do so, we need to repeal subsection (5) of Section 1 because of the protection which, as I have already explained, it gives to certain wives, and to amend Section 2 of the 1971 Act, as Clause 2 does. When Clause 2 is brought into effect, we intend at the same time to make new immigration rules which will prevent the admission of second polygamous wives who do not have the right of abode.
Clause 3 deals with a loophole which emerged just over two years ago. Between November 1985 and October 1986 some 1,500 women and children arrived here claiming to have the right of abode but without having first established their claim abroad. When they were refused leave to enter, they claimed a right of appeal in this country, and the appellate authorities ruled that under the existing provisions of the law they did have such a right. This represents a loophole which we need to close. We cannot expect immigration officers at the ports to be able to decide on someone's claim to citizenship when this may depend on the production of documentation which is not available at all, or, if it is available, which can be much more readily obtained in the claimant's home country.
These claims ought to be established before coming here. It is not sensible to try to settle them either on or after arrival. The number of arrivals in the last year or so has been small, but we need to close the loophole. Clause 3, therefore, extends to the people whom it covers a requirement which already applies to other people who claim citizenship—namely, that they should establish their claims before coming here, by obtaining a British passport or a certificate of entitlement in advance of their coming. If they arrive here without the necessary documents, they will be able to be removed and they will not have a right of appeal in this country. This will reassert, so

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far as this limited group of people is concerned, the principle that people who seek to come here for settlement should first confirm that they qualify to do so before travelling.
Clauses 4 and 5 both strengthen the enforcement arrangements in the 1971 Act in order to make it possible for us to take quicker and more effective action against those who flout our immigration control. Clause 4 restricts the scope of the rights of appeal against administrative deportation which is available against those people who overstay the period of their leave to enter this country, or who breach a condition of leave. In future, where such people are to be deported, the right of appeal which is available to them will be confined to the facts of the case. That is to say whether they did overstay or not, or whether or not they breached the conditions of their leave. It will not be possible to plead compassionate reasons for failing to comply with the law. The person concerned will still be able to argue that the Home Office has got the facts wrong, but if that fails he will not be able to go on to argue that he should nonetheless not be deported because of some compassionate ground.
We accept that a person who has been here for more than seven years should be able to make an appeal both on the facts and on the merits. Those who have been here for more than that time will retain the present full rights of appeal. There is an exception from the general rule for those who claim asylum before a deportation order is made. We have undertaken to the European Court of Human Rights that an overstayer who claims political asylum should be able, in certain circumstances, to appeal against deportation to the appellate authorities in such a way that they can consider the asylum claim as well as the question of overstaying.
We shall give effect to this by means of the order-making power in Clause 4(2). That order will also cover the position of those who may have been here for more than seven years in total, but who will be entitled only to a restricted right of appeal because their stay has been interrupted by a trip or trips abroad. We accept that such people should be regarded as not having broken their leave, so that if it subsequently becomes necessary to take deportation action against them, they will be entitled to a full appeal on the merits of the case.
Clause 5 does not seek the introduction of new powers, but it makes it possible to exercise the existing provisions of the 1971 Act more effectively. As the law stands at present, following the findings of the divisional court in the 1973 case of Gurde v. Singh and of your Lordships' House in the case of Grant v. Borg in 1982, the position is that overstaying is not a continuing offence. It is only committed on the first day after someone's leave to be here expires. This means that, however deliberate the overstaying subsequently becomes, it is not criminal if on that one day the person concerned does not know that he is committing the offence. These judgments seriously restricted the ability to prosecute for overstaying. Although there are other means of dealing with overstayers, it is necessary to restore the current
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offence to an effective and workable means of prosecuting such people where that is the right course. Clause 5 seeks to do this.
Clause 6 is concerned with Europe. The 1971 Act was drawn up before we joined the European Community, and it is, in some respects, inconsistent with European Community law. The present Bill gives us an opportunity to bring the underlying legal framework in the 1971 Act into line with Community law. Clause 6 therefore makes it clear that nationals of European Community states and their family members who come here in exercise of free movement rights do not require leave to enter. It is our intention to make an Order in Council under the European Communities Act 1972, setting out the position of people claiming free movement rights. We expect to bring forward the Order in Council, which will be subject to affirmative resolution procedure, after the Bill has received Royal Assent.
Clause 7 is related to Clause 8, which makes it possible for additional services to be provided against payment at the request of port operators or carriers. One of the most important of the services which is likely to be provided on this basis is the process known as pre-clearance. This involves immigration officers in travelling abroad in order that United Kingdom immigration control procedures can be completed either at the port of embarkation abroad or during the journey to this country.
Arrangements of this kind have featured for many years at certain cross-Channel ports and at Southampton for generations of liners, although recently they have been restricted to the QE2. But as Clause 8 of the Bill permits the extension of such arrangements into wholly new areas we think it right that we should now formalise the position, and that is what Clause 7 will do. The last of the main provisions of the Bill is Clause 8, which enables the Secretary of State to charge for providing special immigration services and for granting settlement in this country.
The first of these will make it possible to respond favourably if a commercial operator asks for the attendance of additional immigration officers at a specific time or place for special reasons. In future, it will be possible to agree on charges which can be made for such services, assuming that the necessary immigration officers can be made available. As I have just indicated, one of the services in which we think it is likely that carriers may be interested is that of pre-clearance.
In a pilot scheme which we ran last year, pre-clearance, particularly for traffic arriving at Heathrow and Gatwick in the early mornings, has been found to be a good way of mitigating some of the difficulties and delay which is experienced in passing through the immigration control.
As regards charging for settlement, the imposition of a charge in these circumstances would bring the position into line with what is already the case with applications for visas, entry clearance and citizenship. We think it right that we should be able to charge for the grant of settlement, in view of the significant benefits in immigration terms which settled status confers upon its holder.

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I hope that the explanation which I have given to your Lordships will have reassured your Lordships that this is not a major new piece of legislation. It is a small Bill. The changes which it makes, although important in themselves and necessary in the interests of good community relations, make no fundamental alterations to our immigration law.
The Bill will ensure that the Immigration Act of 1971 can continue, as it has done for over 15 years now, to provide us with the framework for a sensible, flexible and humane system of immigration control, and I commend it to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Earl Ferrers.)
11.40 a.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the Minister knows that he has the respect and affection of all parts of your Lordships' House. However, the only tribute that I can pay him on this occasion is that of mental ability and intellectual clarity in moving the Second Reading of a Bill which is without a heart and without a soul. I say that advisedly. I hope that all sections of your Lordships' House at the later stages of this Bill will see that it is at least suitably amended.
We from these Benches will be appealing to all sections of your Lordships' House to do so. We know that we shall be met by the hoards who sometimes visit your Lordships' House when a matter of importance to the Government by way of legislation comes before us. Perhaps I may be forgiven in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth, and indeed in the presence of the right reverend Prelate if I adapt the words of the psalmist in describing those who descend upon this House on these occasions. They have eyes that do not see this Chamber except to go into the Division Lobbies and they have ears that do not hear the debate before they do so.
The reason I use these words in connection with this Bill is that I should have thought that in regard to immigration control, the basic principles of which are accepted by all parties of your Lordships' House and I am sure on the Cross-Benches too, we have reached a certain stage. I shall quote in a moment the words of the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he spoke to the Second Reading of this Bill in another place.
I should have thought that we had reached the stage where we say, "Yes, we have achieved the control. What about concentrating on the social measures that we ought to be taking in order to see that those who are here and who have entered our shores with an amount of welcome and encouragement and who have become part of this glorious country as its citizens should have the benefits of those social backgrounds and fundamental bases that we know make up for a good citizenship?"
I am referring quite obviously to the benefit of family life upon which as I know many speakers in the Conservative Party have rightly concentrated. But they must show a little bit of sincerity when they
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talk about the values of family life. That is an aspect which certainly has a relevance to this Immigration Bill.
I said that I wished to quote the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he introduced this Bill in the House of Commons. At col. 785 of the Official Report of the House of Commons on 16th November 1987 he said:
"Since the 1971 Act, mass primary immigration has, indeed, ended".
At col. 786 the Secretary of State quoted some figures:
"Between 1979 and 1985, the number of people coming here for settlement fell from 70,000 to 55,000. The figure for 1986 was even lower at 47,000, but there were special factors in that year following the rule changes in 1985 and a change of practice in right-of-abode cases."
The Secretary of State was obviously not able in November 1987 to quote the figures for 1987. But I hope that when the Minister replies he will be good enough to give us the figures for 1987. I have reason to believe that they are comparatively low.
So this Bill comes before your Lordships' House not in any sense of crisis because figures are rising to a worrying extent. As the Secretary of State said mass primary immigration has ended. So, as I said, one would hope that an Immigration Bill brought before Parliament at this time would have concentrated on the fact that mass immigration was ending. What do we do to see that our immigration has this sense of success about it?
We have encouraged integration. We have encouraged a sense of justice. We have stopped prejudice. No one black or white in our country can say that there is any lack of encouragement for good citizenship to prevail and for the family to be a well knit family despite the fact that that family may be undergoing pecuniary privation. What do we find at the very beginning of this Bill? The Minister talked in terms of Section 1(5) of the 1971 Act. As one would expect, he told your Lordships with complete accuracy what that provision meant.
It meant in one sentence—but there is a history to it—that looking at the date of the enactment of 1st January 1973 all Commonwealth citizens who had come to this country and were settled here were entitled to have all their rights as they existed at that date. They would be entitled to have their wives and their children under 16 brought here without examination by way of means tests or otherwise. There is a history to this. There is a question of conscience attached to this because of the speeches made at that time in another place by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and indeed in your Lordships' House where the noble Lord, Lord Wade, who many of us remember with great respect, moved an amendment. That amendment was carried in your Lordships' House with certain results in the other place when the Immigration Bill 1971 was returned there for consideration.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of what happened at that time. In order to put into statutory form the undertaking that the Secretary of State had solemnly given that those rights incorporated in Section 1(5) meant what I and the Minister have said, Mr. Maudling, the then Secretary of State for the

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Home Department, said, when the Bill returned to another place on 19th October 1971:
"I said on Second Reading—and I was very anxious that this should be made known—that Commonwealth citizens already here free of condition, which means, broadly speaking, all working immigrants, will not be affected. There will be a right to work where they wish, as at present, and a right of automatic citizenship, as at present. There will be no new papers to be carried, and they will be allowed to bring in dependents. That was the undertaking I gave, and I have not departed from it in any way.
"It has been suggested more than once that that undertaking should be embodied in the text of the Bill. That was not an easy thing to do. Amendments were moved in another place"—
a reference to your Lordships' House—
"with that purpose in mind, but they were not satisfactory. However, we now have from another place the Amendments before us, with that purpose in view".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/11/71; col. 551.]
With your Lordships permission, I shall skip several paragraphs which are not material. Mr. Maudling then said:
"By these Amendments we are giving statutory form to the undertaking I gave on Second Reading that people already accepted for settlement in this country would not be prejudiced by the Bill."—[col. 552.]
Fourteen-and-a-half years after that speech was made, the Government are breaching their undertaking. They do so in a way which I cannot imagine would ever commend itself to this House. They say that the reason for that is a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. Can one imagine that that Court in its judgment was thinking that a British government, of all governments, would remedy in this way a situation in which the court complained that they were not giving benefits to husbands which were being given to wives or vice versa?
Perhaps I may put this analogy to your Lordships. There is a storm outside. One of your Lordships decides to open the door and bring somebody in from the storm. That person then says, "Please, there is somebody else outside. It is my friend". Is the answer that you then push out the person to whom you gave shelter? Is that a way of improving human rights as a result of a court judgment which asks why the benefits which were given to one sex were not given to the other? Is the answer to deprive both sexes of the right? What an answer, from a British government of all governments.
I would not be arguing in this way over a technicality. What is now going to happen to such people? When they try to bring over a wife who may have been waiting patiently, or to bring over children under 16 who have been longing to be with their families in this country, where there has been a settlement for many years, the answer will be: "No, you cannot come in now without passing various tests. We in Great Britain now have a means test for family unity". The question will be: has that person got a job and can he afford to bring his family over? Another question will be whether accommodation is available. Your Lordships, of all people, know that local authorities often say that you cannot get family accommodation unless you have your family here. The answer might therefore be, "I do not have accommodation". Such accommodation will not be available unless the family is here.
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What other tests will be imposed? I suppose that one of the tests will be the primary purpose test. That is known to be one of the harshest tests for the intellectually inferior, if I may put it that way without being offensive. What response will be made when questions are put concerning the primary purpose of immigration?
I could go on to talk about the other clauses of the Bill. I have concentrated on this clause on purpose. Perhaps I may also speak about Clause 2. The Minister, with his usual frankness, says that very little was involved. He says that we do not like polygamy in this country. He says that we have time to put in a Bill affecting the average of 25 households which he mentioned. We wish that the Government could find time for legislation of greater social benefit than that. However, they have found time for the clause affecting the 25 households.
We look at this clause with great morality in a country where one-parent family figures have grown to a proportion of which many of us are ashamed and where there are social and family conditions of which we are not proud. Then we say that from our point of view polygamous marriages are beyond the pale—and possibly the phrase "beyond the pale" is the correct expression in this context. We find time in this Parliament to deal with a clause concerning polygamous marrage.
I have exercised your Lordships' patience long enough. There are other clauses upon which I should wish to concentrate, such as those concerning the right of appeal against administrative actions. In this Parliament we have been appealing for more rights against administrative decisions. Now Parliament is asked to say that there will be no right of appeal under Clauses 3 and 4. Those rights exist now and they will be removed. To hardship cases we shall be saying, "Oh no, you can't do that. You arrive in this country; you may have lost your papers and there may be a very good excuse for you not having them. But there is no question of appeal against the administrative decision of some civil servant or other. You can't come in. Out you go. There is no right of appeal now; there was before". When such people come before the courts we shall say to them: "You can come before the courts but you can't talk about hardship cases—that's all wrong".
Another part of this wretched Bill says: "You have overstayed your leave; you have broken a condition". The Minister says: "Of course, we have the right to act upon that and to deport. But we are now going to make it very definitely a matter which is brought before the criminal courts". Are your Lordships aware of the fact that the very people who have objected to that clause are the police? The Minister is. The police have objected to it on the grounds that they are trying their hardest to improve their relationships with the immigrant minority in this country and they regard this provision as not helping in that cause.
In order to show no discrimination, to show justice, mercy and everything else, we incorporate in this Bill a clause which says that the British citizen may have grave difficulties in bringing a foreign spouse into this country as from now. But we put into

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this clause and announce to the world that if you are a member of the European Community you can bring your family and no questions will be asked. This is how we have evolved our right of citizenship and entry into this country.
I said that this was a Bill without a heart and without a soul. I hope that when it has been through the various stages in your Lordships' House it will emerge without a body.
12.1 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I join the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in saying how much I look forward to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits. I congratulate him on choosing such an appropriate occasion on which to make his maiden speech, but in my view he will have difficulty in making a maiden speech on this topic which is not controversial.
I have great pleasure in following the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the devastating critique which he has just deployed against this Bill. I shall do my best not to repeat some of the words which he has used. The noble Earl has not succeeded in reassuring me that this is not a major piece of legislation, if by major legislation one means legislation which raises matters of major principle. Nor has he reassured me that it does not represent a change in our immigration legislation. It represents a change and it represents a change for the worse.
Let me say straightaway that neither I nor my colleagues deny that governments have a right and duty to control immigration into their country and that the population to whom they are responsible can reasonably expect to be protected from immigration by undesirable persons, be they spies, criminals or drug racketeers. However, such considerations are not the primary purpose of immigration law in this country, least of all of this mean little Bill.
If we look back at immigration law, disregarding the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 and the Bill introduced during the Napoleonic wars, which was repealed in 1826, the first immigration Act was the Aliens Act 1905. As noble Lords will know, that Bill was designed to check the Jewish immigration of 1870 from Eastern Europe. It was backed by a proto-fascist movement called the Band of British Brothers. The primary purpose of laws of that nature is not to keep out undesirable people in the sense to which I have referred to them—in the criminal sense—but nearly always to exclude members of certain racial or religious groups. In 1905 it was Jews from Eastern Europe, more recently it has been people from the Caribbean or the sub-continent of India.
In my view this kind of legislation is objectionable both in principle and in practice. The people who are excluded are judged not on their merits, they are judged because they are Jews, or blacks, or Asians. The difficulty with that in this country is that we also have on the statute book race relations legislation under which unlawful discrimination is defined as treating people unequally. That legislation demands that people should be treated equally irrespective of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin. So at
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the very start we encounter a stark contradiction between our domestic law and our immigration law.
In my view this kind of immigration legislation is not only bad in principle, as I have tried to demonstrate, but also bad in practice. It is arguable that the effect of such immigration legislation since 1962 has been in fact to increase the numbers settled in this country of those groups against whom it was directed. That argument rests on two legs. First, patterns of immigration up to 1962 conformed very closely with job opportunities. When employment was full immigration rose and when employment dropped immigration also dropped. The conformity was very close indeed. When there was the prospect of legislation there was a surge of immigration in order to beat the ban. The effect of legislation was actually to increase the numbers coming into this country at any one moment.
The second effect of immigration legislation was that it led people to bring in their families because they thought that there might be further legislation which would prevent it or make it more difficult for them to do so, as indeed there has been. Directly wives and children are brought in people put down roots and they will not return home.
The legislation of 1962, 1964, 1968, 1971, 1981 and 1988 is in my view stupid in another way as well as dangerous. It has damaged the quality of life and degraded the standard of administration in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, pointed out, the effect of those laws and the way in which they are administered is to keep families divided. Those consequences are recorded in devastating detail in the CRE report, Immigration Control Procedures. Report of a Formal Investigation. That formal investigation showed beyond any doubt whatsoever that administrative delay was used as a means of reducing immigration numbers, particularly from Bangladesh. Until 1982 applicants from Bangladesh were waiting one and a half to two years before their first interview. To take one case, it took one Talal Jabbar 12 years to persuade the immigration authorities to allow his wife and two sons to join him here. After a small improvement things have once more slipped back, both in Bangladesh and in Lunar House (known throughout the world as Lunatic House), where there are now scenes approaching chaos.
An American publisher who is working for a very distinguished firm over here went to Lunar House in January to get his visa extended. He had to wait eight hours before he had any interview. He asked whether he should leave his passport there so that they could send it on to him with a visa. He was told that if he left it it might remain there for months. He took it away with him and they promised to give him a visitor's visa. That was in January but he has still not received it and he is probably over-staying.
The cases of Talal Jabbar and of my American publisher are very different. But they have one thing in common. They reveal a standard of administration that is a disgrace to the Home Office and to this country. In fact the whole business is very stupid. Almost everyone agrees, I believe, that it is undesirable to have in a community large groups of single men. They are a source of crime and a health

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hazard. On grounds of pure self-interest, it is to the advantage of the community to have families over here as soon as possible—and by that I mean not only wives but also children. When wives join their husbands, crime and health hazards are reduced.
Moreover, if the children are to join their parents it must be right to let them do so as early as possible. If a boy comes to this country at the age of 14, like Talal Jabbar's boy, he will not learn English as well as if he had come over at four; nor will he acquire the qualifications that he would have obtained if he had had a wholly English education. This system of administration piles up problems for the future.
When the House was debating Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has remarked, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. I am sorry that the noble Lord is not present today. The noble Lord said a great deal in defence of the clause on the grounds of the importance of parents, children and their families. I hope that today we shall hear from the opposite Benches some reference to the importance of families, to the sanctity of family life and of some measures which will make it easier for families who happen to come here from the sub-continent of India to enjoy those advantages about which so much has been said in recent debates. It is hypocritical in the extreme to call yourself a party of the family and then to allow legislation of this kind to be put on the statute book.
The right policy is to facilitate the entry of families as quickly as possible and the entry of children who are as young as possible. Administrative procrastination is simply piling up problems for the future. The Bill before your Lordships' House today does not deal with any of the problems to which immigration gives rise. I believe that it will simply add to those problems.
When he introduced the Bill the Home Secretary said that it would deal with overstaying (which it does, in Clause 4), with polygamous settlement (which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, admirably dismissed), the position of those claiming British citizenship (dealt with in Clause 3), and the disgraceful repeal of Section 1 of the 1971 Act.
What all those changes have in common is that they level down and restrict rights rather than establish them. Needless to say, we have had no reference made to any change in the rules, in particular that awful rule about the primary purpose of marriage. In each and every case the measures are more restrictive than those which preceded them. And, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said, this is being done at a time when primary immigration is declining, when the number of dependants entering the country is declining, and when DNA could speed up the processing of applications.
The Bill goes back on a pledge made 14 years ago. A pledge is meant to last for ever, not for only 14 years. The legislation endows the Home Secretary with additional discretionary powers; it overturns decisions of the courts; and it does nothing about the rules. The claim so often is that the Bill is firm but fair. I would describe it as profoundly prejudiced, profoundly inhumane, and profoundly unfair.
12.15 p.m.
Lord Jakobovits: My Lords, several reasons prompt me to ask for your Lordships' indulgence today. I am deeply touched by the warm and gracious welcome extended to me by the noble Earl, which has been supported by the other speakers. Notwithstanding the reassuring words that I heard from the noble Earl about maiden speeches, I can assure him and other noble Lords that I share with every new Peer, whatever his or her past experience in public life, some trepidation in speaking for the first time within earshot of these venerable walls that have listened and still often listen to some of Britain's finest minds and most eloquent orators. In fact, I feel somewhat like my ancestor and namesake the Patriarch Jacob who slept on a stone which, by legend, is not unconnected with the early history of this House. He awoke in the morning and exclaimed, "How full of awe is this place. This is none other than the House of the Lord".
My awe is all the greater because, unlike most other noble Lords who have been elevated to this upper House from the ground floor of common citizenship, I was lifted from the basement of refugeedom—indeed, from the even lower sewers of Nazi oppression and humiliation. I am ever conscious that but for the grace of God and the compassionate haven of this great country, I should today be an anonymous speck among the ashes of millions defiling the soil of Europe.
A third factor daunts me. As the only rabbi ever to take a seat in this House, I am, as it were, a Peer without peers, and I feared that I should be a little lonely. However, that fear was dispelled at my introduction by my most distinguished supporters—and I should like to say how privileged I feel at seeing both in the Chamber at the present time—as well as by the extraordinary warmth with which I have been received by so many noble Lords and illustrious friends, most notable among them being the most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York. Perhaps I may say at this point that I join countless other citizens in wishing to see their primacy preserved among the nation's religious and moral leaders.
Moments before my introduction I began to feel at home when I was robed in the Moses Room with its painting of Moses, the law giver, holding the Decalogue—presumably as the foundation of laws enacted in this Mother of Parliaments. And since Jews traditionally regard Moses as the first rabbi, I am clearly here as the second rabbi, still upholding the same Ten Commandments.
My experiences as both a refugee and as a rabbi have a bearing on immigration policies. The conventions attaching to maiden speeches prevent my saying anything provocative or controversial on this occasion. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, that my temptation is great to break those conventions. But I am occupationally committed to overcoming temptation. Nevertheless, I hope that I am qualified to draw a lesson on the philsophy of life applicable to both hosts and immigrants.

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An ancient saying in the Talmud has it that,
"according to the hardship is the reward."
When one climbs from below the ground floor one has to work harder. What one gets for nothing is worth nothing. People who have everything usually enjoy nothing. Having too much can be as debilitating as having too little. Too many of our children no longer know what it means to struggle, nor have they ever tasted the thrill of triumph over adversity through some special effort. The experience of treasuring freedom is often alien to them.
Our youth might learn from minorities who are fighting for equality that one should never take anything for granted. And the newer arrivals might feel encouraged that by rising the hard way they are making a special contribution to the moral dynamic as well as the cultural richness of the nation. Hosts and immigrants alike, I am convinced, are bound to be beneficiaries of benevolent policies.
However, there is also an obverse side. Even more important than liberal immigration laws is the prevention of oppression which causes the dislocation of refugees in the first place. All involuntary migrations from one country to another testify to some human failure and every political refugee dramatically epitomises some violation of human rights in his native land. Welcoming strangers is not enough. The supreme effort must be to ensure that no one will need to leave his country, fleeing from intolerable conditions of discrimination, persecution or alien conquest.
I am acutely aware that the most poignant contrast on the fate of refugees is today provided in the state of Israel. There are jewish refugees who arrived from lands under oppression by the hundreds of thousands in a miracle of absorption and integration; and there are about the same number of Arab refugees who have suffered under different regimes and who still languish in wretched refugee camps—an unspeakable tragedy of rejection and human indignity. What started as a conflict between two rights—between two peoples claiming the same land—has now become a conflict between two wrongs with Israel still being denied the right to exist under the threat of war and terror and with Palestinians still widely denied their national aspirations and subject to conditions that they are not prepared to accept without hope of amelioration.
In the context of our debate on immigrants and refugees, what are the lessons, individually, nationally and internationally? Perhaps I may suggest that they include the following: to accommodate opposing rights before they become opposing wrongs; to befriend newcomers before they become hostile aliens; to secure decent conditions for citizens in the lands in which they live before they become frustrated minorities in places to which they are driven; and, above all, to remember that we are all, each one of us, temporary residents on this planet where we have to learn the art of living together in harmony before our visa expires and we are called to migrate to another world.
12.25 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, in this debate and to have the opportunity to offer, on behalf of your Lordships' House, our congratulations to him on a notable maiden speech. He has been for over 20 years the Chief Rabbi of the Hebrew congregations of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. During that time he has been an outstanding religious leader of moral conviction and high principle.
I have had the privilege of working with the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, on a number of matters of common concern. I have long admired his integrity, his moral fervour, his compassion and his deep concern for good community relations. Those qualities and others will be an enrichment to your Lordships' House. He has already demonstrated them in this, his maiden speech, and we look forward with eagerness to the contributions that he will be making in the future. I am sure that I speak on behalf of all noble Lords when I say how glad we are that he is among us to enrich our deliberations and to offer him our warm congratulations upon a moving and eloquent maiden speech.
I should like to thank the Minister for his gracious and measured introduction to the Bill which is now before us. Nevertheless, I have to say that his commendation has not persuaded me that this is a Bill which should be welcomed. The Church's opposition to the Bill is well known. It is regarded as a piece of legislation which will unsettle and disturb many members of the ethnic minorities in this country. The Government represent the Bill as a modest measure concerned to ensure the removal of discrimination and to encourage good community relations. That is not the way it is perceived among the Churches, nor, I venture to suggest, among many of the ethnic minority communities. The Churches have been accused by the Government of,
"exaggerated and inaccurate statements … which arouse needless fears among our ethnic minorities".
I quote from a Home Office press release of 13th January 1988.
It is not the Churches who are arousing such fears. They are already present and the Churches are voicing the anxieties that are already being felt. The Churches are uniquely placed to hear those anxieties. Our networks of congregations, parishes, clergy and ministers are in close touch with the ethnic minorities. Indeed, some members of our congregations and of our ordained ministries are themselves from the ethnic minorities. We are doing what it is part of our tradition to do; namely, speaking on behalf of those who are relatively powerless in our society.
It is one of the tasks of government to act not only on behalf of majorities but also on behalf of minorities in our country. A weak government may find it difficult to do this but our present Government are not weak. They are strong. Therefore, they have the responsibility and the capacity to protect minorities in our midst. The Churches are urging that they also exercise the will to do so.
Our country has a great record of welcoming immigrants. The city of Leeds, in my diocese, has in

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the past 130 years welcomed Irish, Jewish, east European, Caribbean and Asian peoples and has enabled them to take their part in community and civic affairs. We are asking that the Government do not unsettle the most recent of these immigrants by the legislation now being considered in your Lordships' House.
Why should the Bill be regarded as unsettling and arouse anxiety? I draw attention to two clauses which I believe to be of particular concern. Both have already been mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Mishcon, and Lord Bonham-Carter. The first is Clause 1. The need for such a clause springs from a decision of the European Court of Human Rights that immigration law and rules should not be sexually discriminatory. Section 1(5) of the 1971 Immigration Act promised Commonwealth citizens who were settled here that when the Act first came into force in January 1973 that they and their wives and children would retain the immigration rights that they then had. Its abolition in the Bill means that no British or Commonwealth citizen settled here has an automatic right to live here with a foreign spouse. That right will be qualified by whatever tests are considered to be appropriate by the government of the day.
Noble Lords have already spoken—and I am sure that other noble Lords will wish to speak—about the manifest injustice of withdrawing a right which was promised to a group of people and was written into the statute book. It would have been possible for the Government to have taken care of the matter of sexual discrimination by way of an equally brief Clause 1. They might have stated that the word "wives" in Section 1(5) of the 1971 Act should be replaced by the word "spouses". Wives would then have been able to bring in their husbands, as husbands had the right under that section to bring in their wives. However, the Government have chosen to take care of the discrimination not by extending the right to wives but by withdrawing it from the husbands.
I should like to draw attention to one effect of the clause and to which attention has already been drawn; namely, the damage that it does to family life. It is a common pattern to find that an Asian man may have come to this country before 1973, returned to his own country, married, and then returned to this country leaving his wife and perhaps a child in his country of origin. He may have been saving to bring his family to join him, secure in the right afforded by Section 1(5). He now finds that he must pass the tests imposed by the Government. If he fails to pass those tests, his family cannot join him. Another possibility is that he has become a British citizen after the birth of the child who has remained with the mother in the country of origin. He is now able to bring his wife, but not his child, to join him. In either of those cases, the damage done to family life is clear. The feeling of someone deprived of the right, touching himself and his family in such a close way, will be strong. It is not surprising that anxieties and fears are aroused in his community.
The tests imposed by the present immigration rules include the housing and maintenance tests. They require that the housing and maintenance of the
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family shall not be a charge upon public funds. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has already pointed out the Catch-22 situation which exists for some men. They are unable to obtain a council house large enough for a family because they are treated by the local authority as being single men. Until their family joins them, they cannot be considered for a house of suitable size. However, their family will not be permitted to join them under the immigration rules. They are trapped by a set of regulations which leaves them no way through.
The Government have made clear the fact that they wish this to be a mutual and fair Bill. I have argued that Clause 1 makes it a biased Bill. If Clause 1 remains in the Bill, I believe that the Government should make some other gesture to the ethnic minorities to show their concern and goodwill. Such a gesture might be made by the reforming of the immigration rules which set out the tests to be passed if a husband wishes to bring in his wife to live with him. At the moment, the tests include the primary purpose test to which noble Lords have already referred. It is that the primary purpose of the marriage should not be to gain entry to this country. I believe that such a test is almost impossible to pass. How does one prove that one is marrying someone for love when one is accused of doing so in order to gain that person entry into the United Kingdom? It is a difficult proposition to justify. If one is told that one is wrong, one can repeat one's affirmation. If it is not believed then there is little more that one can do. The rules on bringing elderly parents into this country, and children of single parents, are also in need of reform. Such a gesture would at least reassure those in ethnic minorities that the Government are recognising some of their difficulties, and that, instead of being increasingly restrictive in legislation and regulation, they are allowing them some liberty.
The other clause of which I speak is Clause 4 which removes the right to appeal on compassionate grounds against a deportation decision, unless the person facing deportation was last given leave to enter the United Kingdom more than seven years ago. I am no lawyer and I hope that other noble Lords with more knowledge than I will be able to speak about the legal aspects of the removal of appeal. I shall point out only what is in my view a lack of humanitarian concern. This clause will prevent people who have overstayed, but have humanitarian reasons for wishing to remain in the UK, from challenging the decision to deport them. They may wish to stay because they have families here, because they have been here for some years or because they may be in some danger upon their arrival in their country of origin. They will have no way of putting forward compassionate grounds on which the deportation order might be reversed.
It is true that appeal rights to the higher courts will not be affected where a person is recommended for deportation following criminal conviction. However, the right of appeal to the immigration appellate authorities against a decision of the Minister to deport is withdrawn. Ministers have made much of the possibility of compassionate circumstances being aired at a previous stage in the application or at a

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previous appeal against refusal to vary leave. However, an adjudicator hearing an appeal against refusal to vary leave can consider only whether the Home Office has acted correctly according to the immigration rules. He or she has no power to decide a case on compassionate grounds.
Under the Bill the Home Secretary will have power to make an order against some people, or groups of people, from the effect of this clause. The Minister has said that included in the order will be those seeking asylum under some circumstances. However, we do not know precisely what those circumstances will be. We should be in a much better position to judge if the exemptions were made by statute and not by order. For instance, will it be possible to exempt a Tamil who comes to study in this country from Sri Lanka, who overstays and then finds that the situation in his own country has altered and he may be at risk from extremist groups? If he is refused exemption he has no right of appeal. Clause 4 is designed to prevent delay in removing someone whom the Home Office has decided to deport. It is a clause for the convenience of those who administer the enforcement of immigration control. Yet it removes an essential safeguard for those threatened with deportation.
During the past five years approximately 17 per cent. of those threatened with deportation appealed against that decision. As a result, 11 per cent. of those appealing—that is 184 people—were successful. Under the Bill now being considered those 184 people would not have had the opportunity to make their case. The numbers may be small but for those people appeal is a vital safeguard. If the possibility of appeal is not available, it may be that the power to make deportation orders will be used more often and with less careful consideration, knowing that it will not be subject to independent challenge.
On humanitarian grounds, the removal of the right of appeal is a disturbing feature of the Bill. One consequence may be increasing pressure on the consciences of those responsible for religious buildings to allow those buildings to be used as sanctuary. Of course, there is no legal right of sanctuary in this country and those who feel that the case of an "overstayer", with compassionate grounds for remaining, must at least be heard will be placed in a very difficult position. They will not wish to break the law but will feel in conscience that opportunity must be provided for justice to be done. The pressure on such people to offer sanctuary will be very considerable.
A declaration of opposition to the Immigration Bill has been sponsored by major Church and race relations bodies including responsible bodies from the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Union and the Roman Catholic Church. It has been signed by 130 organisations representing an estimated 100,000 people. Many of these organisations represent members of the ethnic minorities.
The Government have said that this is a modest Bill and that their concern is to foster good community relations. If that be the case then the Church's argument is that they should listen to the
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voices of those affected by this Bill and modify the Bill to meet their fears. The number of people affected may be small but each is an individual and some of those individuals may find themselves being treated by our immigration law in a way which should not be possible in a humane society.
12.41 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, although I disagree with much of what the right reverend Prelate has said and will be interested to deal with some of the points in Committee, I should like to join him in the tribute he paid to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, which was not only moving, but charming and witty. It was restrained to a remarkable degree in the context of this debate and we should congratulate him upon that also.
Perhaps I may make one comment upon something on which I agree with him. He said that we must secure decent conditions for immigrants, whether they are refugees or other immigrants. I agree with that but I ask him and all noble Lords on both sides of your Lordships' House to bear in mind that the more immigrants we have, the more difficult it becomes to secure those conditions; and I should like to say more about that later.
Although I am a Gentile I have many Jewish friends—some very close friends—and I am deeply grateful, as I think perhaps the noble Lord the Chief Rabbi, may remember, to the Jewish community because I have a severely handicapped daughter who is looked after at Ravenswood which is a Jewish foundation. I felt it a great honour when I was asked to be a patron of that foundation.
At one time as part of my constituency I had the ancient borough of Huntingdon which Oliver Cromwell represented in another place. When he was Lord Protector—but by no means protector of Lords—he allowed the Jews to come into this country for the first time for 300 years after they had been excluded. I hope that I am not being frivolous or irrelevant if I say that his motives were not quite those with which the noble Lord the Chief Rabbi would have agreed. He wanted them in partly in the hope of converting them to Christianity, a matter in which there was no great success, but also because he thought it would be good for business. It was and has been ever since. I am happy to say that many Jews have emigrated to this country, many from oppression in other parts of the world, and they and their descendants have made a notable contribution to the commercial, professional and religious life of this country. There are now several hundred thousand Jews in England, some very distinguished Jews in Scotland and there are also some Jews in Wales. With regard to all of that, I for one rejoice.
I now come to a point which I consider has been overlooked by speeches from the Opposition Front Bench especially; namely, the background to the Bill. The background is that England as a separate territory—and apart from the small island and city states—is, according to the official information which I have been able to discover, the fifth most densely populated territory in the world—England taken as a separate territory. Only Bangladesh, Taiwan, the

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Republic of Korea and Puerto Rico have a higher density of population than England. Those figures relate to 1984. England then had a density of 361 people per square mile. It is true that we have our great open spaces but so have all countries, except the small island and city states.
The truth is that we are a very heavily populated country and to the extent that we become more populated, our problems of unemployment, housing and education become more acute. There is no doubt about it. Although a few more skilled people may possibly be needed, we have to acknowledge that immigrants and their families add to our unemployment problems and add to our problems of housing and of education.
I had a letter the other day from an experienced school teacher in London whom I have never met and whom I did not know. However, it was obviously a sincere and well composed letter written, I must confess, in another context. He was protesting about the running down of ILEA. He was pointing out the difficulties that ILEA has. Some of those difficulties are these: 16 per cent. of primary school pupils in ILEA are not fluent in English; 25 per cent. of inner London children—that is over the whole of ILEA—speak a language other than English at home. He then gave me a fact which I find hard to believe but I have no reason to think that he has it wrong. He pointed out that 160 different languages and dialects are spoken. I see the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who knows London so well nodding his head. There are 160 different languages and dialects spoken in the homes of ILEA pupils; that is a solemn thought.
That is the background to this Bill. It is known that in some of the other large towns and cities in the North and the Midlands there are similarly acute teaching and unemployment problems. One must acknowledge, because it is a fact, that with regard to those problems many of the children of immigrants still have their speaking and language problems and when they grow up they grow into unemployment problems.
I hope I may be allowed to draw on my rather distant experience. I was Minister of State at the Home Office when the late Lord Butler of Saffron Walden was Home Secretary. With him I had the responsibility of preparing and piloting the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962. At that time we were desperately worried because there were 100,000 immigrants who came into this country in one year.
We were very surprised at the Labour and Liberal oppositions who in those days voted against us 43 times, including on the Second and Third Readings. I feel bound to say, having heard the noble Lords, Lord Mishcon and Lord Bonham-Carter—although this applies especially to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon—that when they are in opposition they do not hesitate to criticise the Government. They now say, although they used not to, "Yes, we have to have immigration control and everyone accepts that." However, when it comes to considering whether that control is effective, whether it is being abused and
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whether there are matters that should be dealt with in order to adjust the control and make it right and more efficient, we are told, "Oh, no. That is without soul. We cannot have it." That seems to be the noble Lords' attitude to this Bill.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the noble Lord is always gracious in giving way. I thought I made it abundantly clear (so that political points of that kind could not be made) that, of course, we realise that immigration control was necessary. I dealt specifically with the social issues involved in the provisions of this Bill. No example was given by the Minister of where things were going wrong and therefore had to be put right.
Lord Renton: My Lords, with deep respect to the noble Lord—I hope I have as great an appreciation of his parliamentary attitudes as he was so kind as to say he has of mine—that is not an answer to that point I am endeavouring to make. My point is that if we are all anxious about the ever-growing numbers in this country, this heavily populated country, and if we are all agreed that there should be effective immigration control, then we should not cavil at genuine sincere attempts by the government of the day to try to put it right. We did not cavil when the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, was Home Secretary and had to strengthen our Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 because unforeseen large numbers of East African Asians came here. We supported him. However, there it is. We are accused of having no soul. That is an unfair comment and I am sorry to have to say so.
As to the way in which this legislation has worked over the years, I understand that although the 1962 Act was intended to stem mass immigration—to use the expression used today—as were later Acts, no fewer than nearly one-and-a-quarter million people have been admitted for settlement in this country. I make no point of colour because the figure includes people from all over the Commonwealth. It includes people from countries not in the Commonwealth; namely, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Those one-and-a-quarter million people and their descendants now number about three million people in this country. Although the number has been reduced a little in recent years, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, pointed out, quoting the Home Secretary, nevertheless in 1986 there were still 47,000 people admitted for settlement.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, will the noble Lord be kind enough to give also the figures of outflow from this country, having made such a big point about the inflow?
Lord Renton: My Lords, yes. We have a large number of Commonwealth people, and people from all over the world, entering and leaving this country all the time. Of course there is an outflow figure but most of the people who come to this country for settlement remain to settle here. Their children born here are, rightly, British subjects and they stay here, as do their children; and their grandchildren and great grandchildren will be here. We cannot get away from the fact that there is still a large degree of immigration.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords—
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am reluctant to give way yet again. I will have given way three times altogether if I do. I have spoken for 14 minutes though I had hoped to speak for only 12. I still have a little more to say and I hope that the noble Lord will reserve his further controversy for the Committee stage.
As I said, 47,000 people came here in 1986. That is more than half the average size of a parliamentary constituency of another place. It is too many. Therefore, it is not a question of whether this Bill goes too far. The question is whether it goes far enough to stem this still very considerable flow.
I have said that in 1962 we were worried about 100,000 people entering this country in one year; and they were not all going to stay. I feel that we should be just as worried about 100,000 people coming here over a period of two-and-a-half years. There is still the same build-up. In that respect, I should like to make this comment on several of the speeches made today. It is a most interesting and well-known fact in the administration of immigration control which I experienced myself when I was responsible for alien control before the Commonwealth Immigrants Act came in, that as soon as one person obtains a foothold in this country, however he got here, a build-up follows. It is a family build-up, sometimes spurious, mostly genuine, but it is a build-up that gives rise to constant pressure.
The British people already here, whatever their colour or creed, are at the receiving end of that process. It affects the whole of our social services and, as has been said by the right reverend Prelate, it affects the lives of all our people. Surely, we have a duty, first and foremost, to the people already in this country. We should also bear in mind that the world now has five billion people. That number doubles at shorter intervals as time goes on; and it will double fairly early in the next century. The increasing pressure on people to come to this country cannot be ignored.
This is a modest, small Bill. For goodness sake, do not let us say that because there are abuses which are not widespread and offences which are not frequently committed, we should let people get away with it.
12.58 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will permit me to break the rules and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, on his excellent maiden speech. I was very impressed and touched by much of what I heard and I am looking forward, as I know will many Lords, to hearing him on many future occasions.
I should like also to thank my noble friend Lord Mishcon, the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon for their speeches. I want particularly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, for explaining—though he obviously failed to convince the noble Lord, Lord Renton—what, in fact are the consequencies of the immigration laws. I do not intend to say any more on that because I think that the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said it as well as it could be said, but
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I suggest that noble Lords study his remarks in Hansard. The figures are there and they speak for themselves.
I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, again and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon for dealing with the question of family life and the consequences to family life of this Bill. I am always saddened—and I use the word advisedly—at the way in which Members of the party opposite talk about family life but, when there is any need to show that they care about it, there is no way you can get them to do it. I have always found that quite shocking.
I am speaking today more in sadness than in sorrow, because in 1971 we accepted the word of the Home Secretary and I went round the country presuading the black community that it had nothing to worry about. Not only did the Home Secretary give his word but it was in statute. I now have to face such people again because I have been persuading them about other things as well—I take the view that if people are living in a country they should take out citizenship. I have been persuading most of my friends to take out British citizenship and I have been persuading people who come from places like Trinidad, which do not give dual citizenship, to revoke Trinidadian citizenship and to take up British citizenship. I have got to face them now. They tell me—and at first I pooh-poohed it—that if we can take away the rights of people who were living here before 1973 there is nothing to prevent us taking away not necessarily their citizenship but their right of abode.
Then I looked at the clause, and I thought that they were right. Just as you come here with a clause to say that Clause 1 repeals Clause 1(5) of the 1971 Act, you can have a Bill which says, "This clause amends Section 2(1) of the 1971 Act by removing all words after 'birth'." That would mean that only people who are citizens by birth can have the right of abode. Therefore I recognise that what some of my friends had been telling me since the Bill came out has some bearing. I know the Minister will assure the House that no government will do this, but his reassurances have no meaning. Reginald Maudling did just that, and actually put it in statute. Then a subsequent government just says, "Oh, it doesn't really matter: we will repudiate it." That is what we are being invited to do in this Bill in Clause 1: to repudiate the undertaking that was given in 1971.
Of course no Parliament can bind its successors—we know that—but successors hesitate to change obligations undertaken by previous Parliaments unless there are exceptional circumstances. There is no exceptional circumstance. There is nothing that is known that in effect was not known in 1971—except of course that none of us thought 15 years later that people who had families would still be having difficulties getting those families in here. That is probably the only development that was not foreseen in 1971. Of course it was sexist, but so was the Nationality Act, up to then anyway. Therefore if a court says that the clause is sexist, as was pointed out by the right reverend Prelate, the solution is quite simple: change the word "wives" to "spouses" and it will no longer be sexist.

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So there is no exceptional circumstance which would justify a Parliament completely repudiating the obligations undertaken by a previous Parliament. I am afraid the noble Lord the Minister needs to convince the House that there is some exceptional circumstance which would warrant the House being asked to take such a drastic step; and he has not done so. I read all the debates in the other place, and nobody has done so. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, spoke earlier about people coming in here and there being a build-up. That is not enough to justify a complete breach of faith. If you are going to renege on an obligation, there must be exceptional circumstances. Nobody has pointed out any exceptional circumstance and therefore Parliament is being asked to do something which is completely wrong and for which there can be no proper grounds.
Therefore, as the other place does not seem to understand that Parliament's obligations should be respected, I hope that your Lordships' House will do so. There is only one way of dealing with Clause 1 and that is to reject it and to omit it from the Bill. We must do that. The Government talk about community relations. My God!—we cannot do more harm to community relations than by making people fearful of their future. And that is what we are doing because we are saying, "It does not matter what we say to you today, a government can come tomorrow and change it." Nobody can feel safe. It does not matter what a government say or do. I really wish there were more of us who could see that. There is not a sufficient gain to warrant taking that sort of action.
The consequences to people that would flow from the removal of that have already been dealt with by other speakers, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the right reverend Prelate, and so I shall not go into that. I merely want to point out that as the Nationality Act made all British citizens Commonwealth citizens, by removing Clause 1(5) we are saying to all British citizens, be they white or black, that before they can get spouses here from abroad, before they can bring in any foreign wives, they will have to pass whatever tests the Home Office is willing to put forward. I hope that is very clear not only to members of the Government—because they ought to have known what they were doing—but to members of the parties who will in fact be supporting them in doing it.
That is the effect of those provisions and it is in that context that the question of reaffirmation of the rights of EC citizens is so pointed. What we are saying is that people from other EC countries will have more rights, in family terms, than people of this country. That is really what it amounts to. We are saying that if British citizens—because all British citizens are Commonwealth citizens according to this Act—can bring in their wives and children only on conditions that are laid down by the Home Secretary while citizens of other EC countries do not have such rules laid down but have an absolute right to bring here not just their wives but their grandchildren and their grandparents, that is all right. We are saying that the Bill downgrades the British citizen in comparison with other EC citizens in the British
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citizen's own country. I hope that the Home Office has thought this one through.
The other point I want to address has been dealt with very well by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon. I refer to the abolition of the right of appeal. Of course it is convenient for civil servants and Ministers to be able to take decisions to deport and of course it is more difficult if the people can appeal. I had a hand in the establishment of the appeals procedure. I was then chairing an organisation which was trying to fight against racial discrimination in this country. We advocated the appeals procedure very strongly and the government of the day accepted it, acted upon it and we were very pleased.
The committee that was appointed to investigate whether we should have the appeals procedure recommended that it should be available not only for immigration appeals but even more importantly that it should be in existence for people who were threatened with deportation, because deportation could have much more serious consequences. Therefore I hope that your Lordships will look at that one again too. We must refuse to accept Clause 1. There is no other way. The clause which deals with the right of appeal can be amended.
I was glad to hear the Minister say that the seven years' provision means seven years living here and that during those seven years people can go abroad for a visit and come back. I think I understood the Minister to say that and I should be glad if he will reaffirm it when he comes to reply. This issue has been raised with me by many people. I give as an example the case of someone who is living here and six years later his mother dies. He goes off because there are family matters to settle and therefore he is abroad for a while. When he comes back a problem arises because he did not look at the application at the right time and overstayed. There is a worry that he could be deported without even an appeal. From what the Minister said I think that that would not be true because he would then have been here for seven years anyway. I hope the Minister will reaffirm it when he replies. It is important to satisfy people that they will not be dealt with in too summary a fashion.
Finally, there is the whole question of making overstaying a continuing criminal offence. This can have serious consequences for police and community relations. It is another area in which I have been involved for years. I am still involved. The police still ask me to chair their meetings and to take part in their discussions. To encourage policemen to ask people, when they stop them, how long they have been here is going down a silly road. As the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, said, the chief police officers are worried about it. I wish that the Home Office would think more deeply and more thoroughly about the consequences of the steps it is taking.
This is not just a simple little Bill. I agree that it is not a long Bill but its consequences could be serious for a great many people. It could have serious consequences for the social cohesion of this society. I again beg the Government to think a little more before they act.
1.15 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, this is the first Immigration Bill we have been asked to consider since the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Bill to which we devoted what time we were allowed in April and May of last year. During the passage of that Bill several of your Lordships drew attention to the dangers which it posed, unintentionally I am sure, to the genuine refugee or asylum seeker who might find himself swept up the in the net and deported amid the generality of illegal immigrants against whom that Bill was aimed.
We also pointed out the deterrent effect that the Bill might have on carriers whose humaner instincts might well be deadened by the threat of not inconsiderable fines, so that the refugee without the right documentation would not even be allowed to board a ship or an aeroplane travelling to this country. In this way it might well happen that a man fleeing for his life would never even start on his flight to safety, never have a chance to put his case to our officials or to appeal to our surely honourable tradition of hospitality for the oppressed.
We moved amendments. We argued. On more than one occasion, it seemed to me, we won the argument. But there was an extraneous, fortuitous circumstance about that Bill which was extremely unfortunate—not for us, for we had nothing to lose, but for the refugees whose cause we were trying to espouse. It just happened that at that time the mind of the Government was obsessed, as must happen from time to time in a democracy, with considerations of electoral chronology. The edict had clearly gone forth that no amendments were to be allowed. To have to take the Bill back to another place would upset the timetable for the impending general election. Against such a paramount imperative what chance did we have with our irritating, pettyfogging arguments about such trivia as basic human rights? None whatsoever. The Bill eased its way through the House with all the delicacy and finesse of a runaway bulldozer.
Therefore, now, when the Government have four clear years ahead of them, one might have hoped that they would be taking this opportunity to look again at some of the points we raised last summer and to remove some of the dangers inherent in last year's Bill. One might have hoped, I said. Well, if one had been optimistic almost to the point of imbecility, I suppose one might have entertained such hopes, but they would not have survived even the most cursory examination of the Bill before us today. It is another mean-minded, screw-tightening, loophole-closing concoction imbued with the implicit assumption that almost everybody who seeks to enter this demiparadise of ours has some ulterior, sinister and very probably criminal motive and the sooner we get rid of him the better. That is the kind of Bill it is.
Nevertheless, it is our duty as this is a Second Reacting debate, to examine it and not to confine ourselves to regretting the absence from it of things which might have been in it but are not. We shall, I hope, at later stages be trying to remedy some of what we regard as its sins of omission. There is nothing to prevent your Lordships putting new things—even
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whole new clauses—into any Bill that comes before you. Indeed, the Government show an increasing tendency to do so with almost every Bill that rolls off the assembly line. However, it is also our duty to scrutinise the contents of the Bill in the hope that we can either increase its effectiveness, if we approve of it, or mitigate its defects if we do not.
The first example of the latter process to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention is Clause 4. That clause severely restricts the rights of appeal of people subject to a deportation order under Section 3(5)(a) of the 1971 Act. At present, the adjudicator and the Immigration Appeals Tribunal can take a number of factors into consideration, including "compassionate circumstances". A submission can be made, and heard, that even if an asylum seeker is held not to qualify under the strict terms of the 1951 convention, he may nevertheless, in all the circumstances of his case, be given what is called "exceptional leave to remain". All those provisions disappear under Clause 4 of the Bill. The appeal is limited to the purely factual question of whether the appellant entered the United Kingdom fewer than seven years before the decision to deport. In my view that is arbitrary, bureaucratic and objectionable.
Clause 5, which amends Section 24 of the 1971 Act, raises several questions which can perhaps be better dealt with in Committee. There is a letter from the Home Office to UKIAS which gives certain assurances, but we need to find out what legislative form those assurances will be given.
In conclusion, I revert to a matter not mentioned in the Bill but the inclusion of which would greatly improve it, and indeed make it something of which we could all be proud. If our oft repeated claim to be a land in which the oppressed and persecuted can find sanctuary—a claim which our ancestors could justly make with conviction—is to mean anything other than hypocrisy, we urgently need a general right of appeal for all asylum seekers against hasty administrative deportation. That is the basic policy of the United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees: the clear doctrine of non-refoulement, to which we have added our signature. It is also backed by the British Refugee Council, Amnesty International and Charter 87 to which many of your Lordships have given your support.
We should ask ourselves what we have at present in grim almost unbelievable reality. The answer is that we have legislation under which an asylum seeker who reaches our shores—from no matter what human hell-hole—can unless he has managed to obtain the right pieces of paper, the right rubber stamp or the right passport, be sent back from whence he came; and only then, after his deportation, can he appeal against such a decision. One might think that such a rule could only be the product of some supernatural collaboration between Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller (who gave us Catch-22), with perhaps a little help from Lewis Carroll. But, no, that policy was thought up by some warped genius in the Home Office, That is the law of this land; but we in this House can put it right.
1.25 p.m.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, as the only other speaker from the Cross-Benches in the debate, I hope that I may be permitted to say how much we appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, not least for what he said on the subject of refugees in Palestine. He also mentioned the importance of accommodating opposing rights. I feel that that gives great light to the present situation, for instance, in Northern Ireland.
There are many questions that still need to be asked about the Bill. For example, does it take account of the situation that will emerge within the European Community in 1992, when we expect to have a unified market? Many of us hope to see at any rate the beginnings of a situation similar to that which pertains at present in the United States of America where a visitor, or a citizen, can travel freely from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or from the borders of Canada down to the frontier with Mexico.
We already know that steps are being taken to initiate common European passports as a first move towards some sort of common citizenship; the introduction of which I very much look forward to and desire. I hope it will be achieved within my lifetime. However, I think it will demand consideration of a harmonised European immigration policy. Therefore, I ask: is the Bill just a little interim measure, or are Her Majesty's Government at least beginning to give some long-term thought to the future? Voluntary bodies have already come together in the European Consultation on Refugees and Exiles and have published an important report A Refugee Policy for Europe which came out in September last year. The report was warmly received and welcomed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and by several European governments. Surely it is becoming clear that there will have to be harmonisation of the various widely differing regimes that apply to refugees in the various European countries. Visa and airline questions will require careful thought. I think there is a need to understand refugees as people who need our care and assistance, in line with many international conventions which we helped to draft and have signed and ratified.
It is important to understand the background to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. It is, alas, all too well known that there are some 12 million to 15 million refugees throughout the world. But, very few of them come to this country. For example, between 1980 and 1986, the applications for asylum varied between 2,000 and 4,800; averaging probably some 3,500 per year. That figure is tiny, minute, in comparison with all the refugees of the world. It is even small in comparison with the annual inflow and outflow of persons to and from the United Kingdom—the point I was endeavouring to make with the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
It is also true that more than 70 per cent. of those who apply for asylum are afforded either full refugee status or exceptional leave to remain. Another fact we ought to take into account is that when violence and repression end in particular countries, or
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dictators fall, many refugees then return to their country of origin. We found that situation arose in relation to Uruguay, Argentina, and Zimbabwe.
I therefore follow the noble Lord, Lord McNair, in pointing to the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987, which was passed in the face of strong criticism in your Lordships' House, and indeed in the country. That Act flies in the face of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. The effect of that Act is that asylum seekers may be removed to third countries, which are not signatories to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol. That can put them at severe risk. First, we need—and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, touched upon this point—just and humane entry procedures. Secondly, we need a right of appeal, and here we should take note of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which again we helped to draft and which is binding upon us. Thirdly, we need the minimum possible use of detention for asylum seekers. Finally, we need protection for all, most especially for young people and children.
I now come to and will quote from an important statement made during the Report stage of the Immigration Bill 1971 on 11th October 1971, when the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, replied to an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wade. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, said:
"noble Lords who have spoken … can be assured that the present Administration, and no doubt succeeding Governments, have every intention of honouring and observing to the full this country's obligations under international instruments … notwithstanding that they are not contained in an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament".
He went on to say:
"These obligations have been written into the immigration rules … and these paragraphs set out the long-accepted ambit of political asylum in this country, and do so in words whch are drawn from the wording of an actual Convention. They make it clear that a person is not to be refused entry or expelled where the effect would be his going to a country where he would be at risk of persecution."
A little later the noble Lord said:
"I have said enough to show the noble Lord"—
that is, the noble Lord, Lord Wade—
"that we should adhere in this respect to the traditional practice in this country."—[Official Report. 11/10/71; cols. 218–219.]
I therefore have to ask whether the suspicion is founded that the Government are whittling away the safety net for asylum seekers. That is the implication of the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act and of this Bill. Will the noble Earl confirm that Her Majesty's Government stand four square behind the assurances given in 1971?
I follow previous speakers, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon, in deploring Clause 1. Surely, most of those people who were entitled to protection previously, by being resident before January 1973, have already taken advantage of their rights. The Government say that many who are still protected by it would qualify under other criteria. If so, why deprive the few who do not qualify of the right that they now have?
Again, following the right reverend Prelate, why not widen the scope of the protection because of the alleged sexual discrimination rather than abolish it? I think that I am right in saying that a widening process was followed in the matter of fiancés.

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As to Clause 2, I hold no brief for polygamous marriage. But I fear that the clause, as drafted, which the noble Earl admitted would probably affect about 25 persons a year, will mean that those persons will be put into a worse position than, for example, the wives of certain diplomats or visiting Arab notables who may well have two or more wives, in accordance with Koranic law.
If there is to be any discrimination against polygamous marriage it should surely be exercised so that it discriminates against persons not at present married; that is to say, against new wives and not against existing ones. I hope that the Bill will be considerably amended in Committee.
1.35 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, today's debate on immigration has been a notable one. The subject has been of concern to this island since my forebears, the Celts, welcomed the first Angles and Saxons. I do not know that they came here exactly as invitees, or even as refugees. They came as conquerors, but we soon put them in their place. The debate has been of great human and legal interest. If I may say so, it has been highlighted by a series of distinguished speeches; and of course brilliantly enlightened by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, whose moving and entertaining speech impressed us all greatly. How privileged we are, sir, to have you with us.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, I was about to say that we look forward—using the noble Lord's expression—to a time when he is no longer occupationally committed to overcoming temptation. I mean that entirely of course in the context that he used the phrase. We are indebted to him and thank him for his contribution.
One cannot win debates by counting heads, but it is of interest that one noble Lord, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, whom I respect—an old friend—has supported the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers; otherwise he stands, or sits, alone in this debate, which has received powerful condemnation, on many grounds, from all parts of the House.
It is the first immigration legislation to be passed since 1971. It is deeply regrettable that, apart from the provisions for citizens of EC countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said, it is wholly restrictive in its terms. None of its provisions seeks to extend basic human rights. On the contrary, they almost all tend to diminish them: in immigration law, in the right to family life, in regard to a right of appeal, and other matters which have been highlighted.
It is a small Bill, as the noble Earl described it, but I am afraid that in the extent of its potential damage it is a big Bill and one which I believe and fear we shall have cause to regret. Fortunately there is before us a Committee stage, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has indicated. We hope greatly that we can alter the Bill at that stage sufficiently to make it worthy of Parliament and of this country. As it stands at the moment, it is not.
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Clause 1 of the Bill has been examined by a number of noble Lords and if it comes into law it will have the effect of removing from Commonwealth citizens settled here before 1st January 1973 the absolute and unqualified right to bring their families, their wives and children into this country. That right, as we have been reminded, was conferred upon them by Section 1(5) of the Immigration Act 1971. My noble friend Lord Mishcon, in a devastating speech, I venture to suggest, cited the commitment of the Government at that time to preserving the current statutory right to bring in wives and children under the age of 16, as expressed in the eloquent speech of Reginald Maudling. That is not the only commitment that has been made by the Government, nor the only promise. Indeed, one was made very recently by the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, on 28th June 1982, when he said in the course of a debate in another place:
"The right honourable Member for Sparkbrook rightly referred to the danger of breaking up families. I remind him, however, that the Government have remained firmly committed, as they said they would, to allowing in the wives and dependent children of men settled here. The new rules did not in any way affect the continued acceptance of wives and children. Nor have the Government any intention of going back on that commitment".—[Official Report, Commons, 28/6/82; col. 644.]
That was said in sincerity, I am quite certain, by the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw.
What has been lacking in this debate from the Government side is any explanation of why this Bill is suddenly cast upon us. Clause 1 will have the effect of throwing the main weight of the Bill—as do other clauses—particularly on Commonwealth citizens from Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis are the most recent of the communities which have arrived in large numbers in Britain and it is among them that the problem of divided families is already most serious and acute. So we shall be aggravating situations of difficulty by removing the undertakings given so solemnly in 1971 and repeated since then by the Government.
As the Joint Council For The Welfare of Immigrants has stressed, the Bill in its content confirms the greatest anomaly of all in British immigration law—namely, that EC nationals living in Britain have more rights than any British citizen living here. A German, French or Irish man or woman has an absolute right to bring in his or her spouse without any tests at all. After the Bill has passed, no British citizen will have that right. It is a remarkable situation that the Bill is creating.
Clause 2 is something of an oddity. It deals with the somewhat rare problem and phenomenon of polygamous wives. The noble Earl, introducing the Bill in characteristic honesty, indicated that it relates to a problem which produced a mere 25 cases last year, I think, 75 cases in previous years. Surely it would have been much better to deal with this problem, so far as it exists, by considering each case on its merits as the problem arises.
Noble Lords have referred, particularly in the notable speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNair, to the wickedness of Clause 3 of the Bill. It prevents British citizens from entering the United Kingdom unless they can present documents proving their status. In my submission—and other noble Lords

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have spoken on the same lines—it is wrong that a person with a well-founded claim to be British should be excluded from entering the United Kingdom solely because he or she does not have one of the two necessary documents: a passport or a certificate of entitlement to prove the claim. To restrict the ability of British citizens to arrive here and to make their claim when they are here is, we submit, unprecedented in legal history. Both at common law and under statute that right has hitherto been respected. If I may say so, the noble Earl glossed too lightly over that deplorable change.
Then Clause 4 has been generally condemned because it restricts the right of appeal against deportation of anyone who is accused of overstaying and has been in Britain for less than seven years. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon made a most clear denunciation of this and reminded us in his speech that the whole weight of opinion of Churches of all denominations has been registered against that and other parts of the Bill.
At present a person who is accused of overstaying can appeal to an independent tribunal. That tribunal has the right to decide whether compassionate circumstances outweigh the public interest in a deportation case. That right disappears if Clause 4 becomes law.
It is a draconian step that the Government propose to take. In future the person involved will have to show that he or she has remained in the United Kingdom for seven years before he will be entitled to appeal. The right of appeal now enables the merits of an individual case to be considered by the tribunal. But that is to be removed and the power given to the Secretary of State is one which is not limited as it should be. At present, overstaying is a summary offence which attracts moderate penalties under our law. Usually the maximum penalty is six months or a relatively small fine. But the penalty here is deportation, which is a ferocious penalty. It means breaking up families, losing a job, depriving the children of their parent and, for refugees from an oppressive regime seeking asylum within our shores, it can mean imprisonment, torture or even death.
The refusal to grant a right of appeal which the Bill perpetrates is in itself sufficient to condemn it as an outrage. In my submission Clause 4(2) of the Bill has serious constitutional implications in that it enables the Home Secretary to decide who may and who may not appeal against his decision to make a deportation order. We shall have to examine that and indeed almost all these provisions with most careful attention when the Bill goes to Committee.
Clause 4 will remove for the citizen a valuable check—indeed not only for the citizen but for those properly seeking to enter our shores—against the abuse of power. We submit that if it becomes the law it will achieve a serious erosion of appeal rights and civil liberties.
I have wondered to what extent there has been consultation by the law officers on some of the provisions of the Bill in regard to their standing in international law. It seems to us that many of the provisions are in flagrant breach of our international commitments in the human rights field and we shall
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expose those with great care when it comes to debating them.
We meet at the end of an arduous week. Therefore, I feel that I should be encroaching on the goodwill of the House if I dwell at any further length on this subject. But I do submit that while we concede that immigration control is of course a regrettable necessity, it must be even-handed and fair and be seen to be even-handed and fair. On that test this Bill fails. Several noble Lords have spoken admirably in this debate. But the Bill in our submission will do great damage to family life, to community relations here and to Britain's reputation abroad as a country which values justice and humanity.
1.53 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, whatever else this debate has produced it has been remarkable for one thing, and that is the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits. I said in my opening remarks that I for one, and I know a great many other noble Lords, look forward to his future speeches.
If I may say so and it is an impertinence to say so, his speech was one of enormous humanity, great wisdom and great personal experience and one which showed a philosophy of life which I found peculiarly attractive. He said that those who have not experienced hardship have not experienced true values. Those were not his exact words but that was their implication.
I remember my father used to say to me that whenever I thought that the whole world was against me and that everything was going wrong for me and when I was wondering why everything was going wrong for me and for nobody else I must remember that there would always be somebody who would consider that I was a lucky man and that that person would wish he was me.
I do not say that many people would have said that about the experience which the Chief Rabbi has had, but without doubt his experience has enabled him to contribute a speech today which has been remarkable in its content and a delight to listen to. It is no platitude when I say to him that we shall all look forward to hearing him on many occasions giving forth his views with I hope the equal restraint with which he was able to give them today. Whatever his views may be we shall look forward greatly to hearing them.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, quoted for him a psalm. I should have thought that the noble Lord would have quoted psalm 122 which states:
"I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of the Lord."
However, I daresay, had the noble Lord done so, that might have inferred an even greater and more expeditious elevation to the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, than has been conferred on him at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, started his speech in the courteous and felicitous way which is remarkable of him. That needless to say quietly sent me purring. Then, if I may say so, the noble Lord behaved like a bull charging through the door into a china shop. He said that the Bill had no heart, that it

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had no soul, and that he hoped that it would have no body. The noble Lord then went on to say that the Government had done the most terrible things and that now there would be no appeal against this provision. He said that people who were already here would be prejudiced against and made other such terrifying remarks.
As the noble Lord spoke, I was reminded of the words of the late Lord Fisher of Lambeth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he said that there was no unreasonable argument that could not be proved reasonable by reason. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, might have been adopting that philosophy.
This is not, I respectfully suggest, an unreasonable Bill, although I can see that it has been interpreted as such in some places. I have taken note and I shall take note of the very detailed points which have been made by your Lordships this afternoon. But if I may I should like to rest on two or three of the main points of concern. To have heard the noble Lords, Lord Mishcon and Lord Bonham-Carter, one would have thought that it was almost reasonable to allow no forms of control on entry.
Noble Lords: No, my Lords.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I meant to say that one might have been forgiven for thinking that. I know perfectly well that the noble Lord knows that there must be control over immigration. I know that everyone knows that if only for the very reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, put forward; namely, that we have to look after those who are here, and that we cannot allow limitless immigration. Therefore, the argument is not over whether there should be a control but on how that control should be exercised. Inevitably, there will have to be criteria connected with that control.
Most noble Lords complained, including the noble Lords, Lord Mishcon, Lord Bonham-Carter, Lord Hylton and the right reverend Prelate—in fact almost everyone I regret to say except for my noble friend Lord Renton. I am enormously grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton whose wisdom outshone everyone elses. But, nevertheless, everyone including the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, complained about Clause 1 of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, asked what figures there were for immigration. We do not have the figures for 1987, but I can tell the noble Lord that in the first nine months of the year the total number accepted for settlement was 35,200. But Clause 1 does not prevent people from bringing in their children or their wives. I wish to make that perfectly clear. It simply means that they would have to be able to show that they had reasonable accommodation for their family and that they could support their family in this country without recourse to public funds. If they can do so the family can still come here.
Some noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, said that an Act was passed in 1971 which granted certain conditions and that now it was being repealed. There is nothing new in
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repealing any Act. There is nothing new about changing any Act. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, admitted that. What was expected in 1971 was that we could give to those people who were already here in 1973—that was the operative date—the right to bring in members of their family without any consideration of whether or not those members would be an imposition on the state. They had that right.
What was not expected was that that right should be a continuing one and that it should continue to such an extent that those children born before 1973 could get married 20, 30, 40 or 50 years later to someone in another country and bring that wife and any child up to the age of 16 into this country without any consideration as to whether or not that would be an imposition on public funds, housing or anything else. Therefore, it could well be that those born in 1972 would have that right up to the year 2020. I do not believe that is a "right" right.
We say that the right of those people to enter before 1973 was fine then. Now all that they have to do is to be able to qualify in the same way as anyone entering after 1973 must qualify. Those people have had 15 years in which to bring their families to this country. They will now be subject to the same rules as everyone else. Many families who are not protected by Section 1(5) succeed perfectly well in meeting the requirements of the immigration rules every year. There is no reason to believe that most of those previously protected by Section 1(5) will not also succeed in meeting the tests. I know how concerned are noble Lords opposite and how genuinely they feel in these matters. However, it is not the case to say that we are breaking up families with this legislation. It merely gives us reasonable control on those coming here.
Perhaps I may give an example of the way the Act bites at the moment. Let us take the example of a Bangladeshi family who settled here with three children; a girl born in 1970, a boy born in 1972 and another boy born in 1974. The girl would now be 18 years of age, the older boy would be 16 and the younger boy would be 14. If they return to Bangladesh and apply to bring their spouses to the United Kingdom, as the law stands their applications will fall to be considered in three different ways. The boy who was born in 1972 will be able to bring his wife in without any consideration. But his elder sister will have to meet the full requirements of the immigration rules, including the requirement of showing that her husband can be supported and accommodated without recourse to public funds. However, the younger brother, who was born after the Act came into force in 1973, if he wishes to bring in a wife, comes under the conditions which now prevail. We therefore have a family with children born around that time who are all subject to totally different forms of immigration controls. I do not believe that that is reasonable.
Several noble Lords, including the right reverend Prelate, asked why we do not change the word "wives" to "spouses", saying that that would solve everything. It may solve some things. But I tell the right reverent Prelate with the greatest respect that it creates other anomalies. It would have been possible

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to remove the sexually discriminatory aspect of Section 1(5) but the provision would still have discriminated in favour of Commonwealth citizens as against non-Commonwealth citizens, and in favour of those who settled here before 1st January 1973 as against those coming afterwards. The only way to remove such discrimination is to repeal it.
It is right and in no way unreasonable to expect people who wish to bring their families here to be able to accommodate and support them. That is all that we are saying. The repeal of Section 1(5) does not discriminate against people. It says that those who were here before 1973 have had 15 years in which to exercise their right; for reasons best known to themselves, they have not done so. Now they can still do so, provided they show that they are not creating a drain on public funds.
The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, said that there was enormous administrative delay in dealing with incoming immigrants and that Lunar House was—I do not know whether he used the word "disgraceful", but he certainly implied it. I am sure that the noble Lord knows that an enormous number of applications are dealt with by Lunar House. He and other noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, made a mistake. If I may have the attention of the noble and learned Lord, although I do not wish to interrupt his conversation—
Lord Mishcon: We were reflecting on the last statements which were made.
Earl Ferrers: Do not let him reflect too hard, then. He said that we were doing away with the right of appeal. There is no question of doing away with the right of appeal. Perhaps your Lordships are not aware of the sorts of problems which are encountered. Clause 4 has been complained of as being too draconian. That was a phrase which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, used. The clause is designed to get to people who are already breaking the law. Perhaps I may give the House an indication of what may happen.
If a passenger arrives at Heathrow, he can claim to have come for a family visit. He can be given leave to enter for six months. Towards the end of that period, it may be that he will apply to Lunar House to be permitted to remain as a resident. That is perfectly fair. Following inquiries, he may be given leave to remain for 12 months. Towards the end of the new period of leave, the passenger may apply for a further extension. Inquiries may reveal that he has failed to attend the course for which he said he had applied and to which he intended to go, and so the application is refused. He still has a right of appeal and the passenger appeals. The appeal is heard by an adjudicator and is determined formally on the basis of the rules. It is dismissed because the adjudicator accepts that the passenger is not a genuine student. The appellant then seeks leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal and that appeal is dismissed because the case does not raise a point of law and the facts are not in dispute. All those are appeals. The passenger is informed that he has no
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basis for staying in the United Kingdom and is advised to leave. During all that time the passenger can say he has a wife and child and his mother is dying; he can bring all those compassionate grounds to bear. He still fails to depart.
A decision is then taken to deport the passenger and notice of intention to deport is served on him. He still has the right to appeal against the facts behind the decision to deport, the merits of the decision and the destination to which he is to be deported. The passenger appeals and the appeal against the deportation order is heard by an adjudicator and dismissed. Only then is the deportation order submitted for the personal signature of the Secretary of State.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says that we are doing away with appeals and there is no appeal; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, says that we are removing the right of appeal. That is not so. All those appeal processes must be gone through. All that this Bill does is to state that the last appeal against deportation which is to be heard by an adjudicator is to be judged on the facts alone and not on compassionate grounds. Should that man be here or should he not? That is based on a fact of law and it is only at that point that that substantial change is being made. At that stage the passenger cannot say that he has his wife and children here and everything else—by that time he might have been here for seven years when he had permission to come for only six months.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, will the noble Earl give way for one moment? He was fair enough to quote a possible example of a mother dying. Is he really saying that in these circumstances there would be no appeal against a deportation order on the grounds of mercy when a civil servant had issued the deportation order after the last appeal?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord is always careful and clever. If he will be kind enough to read what I say he will see that all the way through there is the possibility of appeal when compassionate grounds can be taken into account. Only at the final stage when it is a matter of deportation, and every other hoop has been gone through is the question: Is that man here legally or not? If it is decided that he is here illegally then perhaps he has been here illegally for up to seven years.
I am bound to tell your Lordships that being new in this organisation I made a great mistake for when I read the Bill and spoke to those who were kind enough to advise me I thought that the whole thing seemed so reasonable that I could not believe that there could be any complaint whatever. Therefore it was with some slight astonishment that I found that there was a certain degree of complaint this afternoon.
When I heard the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, speak of all the terrible things that will happen because there is no appeal I inquired to find out how many cases were involved. During 1986 some 13,000 appeals were considered by adjudicators. The noble and learned Lord, Lord

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Elwyn-Jones, cannot say that we are doing away with appeals—there were 13,000 of them. A further 1,000 cases were subseqently considered by the next tier of the appeals system, the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. My right honourable friend the Minister of State has dealt personally with some 13,000 cases. I think that I am right in saying that in addition about a quarter of a million cases were dealt with by officials in Lunar House. In view of the number of cases dealt with it is not surprising that the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, might find that on occasion there is some delay. The reason why those cases are dealt with so thoroughly is to try to ensure that there is no inhumanity.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that there are some 100,000 letters waiting to be dealt with at Lunar House?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it does not surprise me. Well, it does surprise me in one respect because that is a lot; but it does not surprise me in another because I have seen the volumes of letters and the amount and procession of appeals that can be gone through in order to obtain a just and fair answer.
The noble Lord, Lord McNair, described this Bill as "mean minded", "loophole closing", and "screw tightening". I do not think that it is mean minded; it tries to be fair. I agree that it is loophole closing; but I do not think that there is anything wrong with trying to close a loophole.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, asked about the period of seven years. I repeat what I said, that we accept that a person who has been in this country for more than seven years should be able to make an appeal both on the facts and on the merits and those who have been here for more than that length of time will retain the present full rights of appeal. We intend to make an order under Clause 4(2) to ensure that short trips abroad will not disqualify a person who would otherwise have been in this country for seven years and consequently would have the full right of appeal under Clause 4.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was concerned about our commitment to refugees. We remain committed to fulfilling our obligations under the 1951 United Nations convention and preserving our tradition of offering hospitality to the genuine refugee. We shall not allow the procedures by which that tradition has been achieved to be misused to the detriment of those whom they are intended to serve.
I am aware that many of your Lordships have produced a number of points of detail. Of course I shall study them, and after your Lordships have been kind enough to study what I have said I think they will find that the host of amendments which noble Lords were considering putting down will be unnecessary.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Mr. Michael Flynn: Treatment in Custody
2.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they propose to institute an inquiry into the treatment while in custody of the late Mr. Michael Flynn and the remand prisoner whose case came before Mr. Justice Simon Brown on 26th February 1988; to which prisons and police stations they were moved and on which dates; whether they have replied to the Southwark coroner following his observations at the inquest on Mr. Flynn; and whether they propose to issue new instructions concerning remand prisoners with psychiatric problems.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, a few moments ago the noble Earl told us that when he was briefed by officials before the last debate he came to the conclusion that the action of the Government was so inherently reasonable and satisfactory that no one could possibly oppose the proposed legislation. I think that it is probably true—and I suspect that on this matter at least I shall carry the noble Earl with me that when he was briefed by officials on the present matter the idea that he would secure unanimous support from all quarters of the House for the position of the Government would have been far-fetched indeed. In fact, we are discussing—
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but he baited me just a trifle. Of course I was only saying that that was my own first reaction; it was not my advice.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, on this occasion at least perhaps the noble Earl and I can agree that his first reaction to this matter would have been in accordance with what I have put before the House; because we are discussing now one of the most extraordinary series of events certainly that I have seen in dealing with prisoners who are in Home Office custody.
As my Question indicates, I propose to raise two particular cases—and, indeed, there is a third of which I have given the noble Earl's private office warning. Both the cases referred to on the Order Paper relate to remand prisoners with serious psychiatric problems, the first of whom—Mr. Flynn—eventually committed suicide in Brixton prison, having been shuttled round the country from prison to police stations and back again to prison. He was of course sent to police stations because of the current gross overcrowding in the prison system. The second prisoner, whose name I do not propose to give as he is still awaiting trial, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He experienced the same treatment as Mr. Flynn—indeed, arguably even worse treatment.
Perhaps I may mention just one or two matters by way of introduction. First, when the case of Mr. Flynn was raised in the House last week by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, the noble Earl, Lord Arran, replying for the Government, replied that the Government were,
"seeking to improve the unsatisfactory conditions in many local prisons and remand centres through the biggest building and refurbishment programme this century."—[Official Report, 24/2/88 col. 1200.]

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I accept that statement without any qualification whatever. The Government's programme of prison building and refurbishment is substantially bigger than the one which was under way when I was Home Office Minister. Indeed, it is larger than that of our Conservative predecessors.
The question of prison building has been debated in this House on a very large number of occasions, and I certainly do not propose to go again over all that ground this afternoon. However, I have made it clear that, speaking for myself, I think that the Government are entirely right to proceed with that programme, although I am well aware that a number of colleagues on both sides of the House take the contrary view. Unhappily, the truth, as we are all well aware, is that the increase in the number of prisoners, particularly remand prisoners, is far outstripping our capacity to provide new prison places. Indeed, as we read only a few days ago, given the present rate of increase, we would need a new prison the size of Wormwood Scrubs every three weeks. Also, I do not propose to discuss in any detail again the problem raised by the noble Earl, Lord Arran, at col. 1202 of the Official Report when he said:
"The situation is exacerbated by industrial action in some London prisons".
As I have made clear on a number of occasions, I deplore the actions of a small number of branches of the Prison Officers' Association who consistently and irresponsibly take industrial action. I do not believe that any government can allow such a situation to be perpetuated year after year.
However, as we all know, we have had 700 or more prisoners being detained in small cells at police stations in London and many hundreds of miles from London, and in cells in magistrates' courts, even when there has been no industrial action taking place in London prisons. Industrial action in prisons intensifies an already intolerable situation. It is not its sole cause.
As my Question today makes clear, I am raising a far narrower issue; namely, the treatment of remand prisoners, men and women, who have been convicted of no criminal offence and who have at the same time severe psychiatric problems. I believe that the crisis in the prisons has been worsened by the policy of the DHSS in discharging large numbers of mentally ill patients into what it is pleased to describe as care in the community. I believe that the man who thought up that phrase deserves a rather good career in public relations although not perhaps as a health service administrator.
As a number of noble Lords said in this House earlier this week and on a number of other occasions, we know perfectly well that the services in the community responsible for the welfare of these mentally ill people have been grossly underfunded for many years. We know that the number of supporting social workers in the community is pitiably inadequate. It is a sad fact of life that if these mentally ill people are alleged to have committed criminal offences, they are liable to be remanded in custody by the courts, thus making an already alarming situation in our prisons even worse.
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So much for the background of the problem. I come now to the circumstances of these two cases. The first is that of Mr. Michael Flynn. He was arrested on 7th October last year and charged with arson to a derelict building. There can be little doubt that he committed the offence. Indeed, he told his solicitors that he had done it because he wanted to be readmitted to hospital. Mr. Flynn had a background of committing such offences. On 22nd July 1983 at the Central Criminal Court, convicted of three offences of arson with four cases being taken into consideration, he was sentenced to a hospital order under the Mental Health Act and remained at Banstead Hospital thereafter until 24th May 1984 when he was discharged.
After being arrested last year, he first appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on 8th October when he was remanded for pre-trial psychiatric and medical reports. When he appeared a week later, considerable concern was expressed about his welfare because the court was told that the night before he had attempted to commit suicide in the cells at Marylebone Magistrates' Court. The conditions in which he had been kept there in police custody were graphically described last Wednesday by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. He described the intolerably small cell in which Mr. Flynn was kept, the lack of exercise and the absence of a bed. All that for a mentally ill prisoner.
Mr. Breen, the stipendary magistrate, made it clear that he wished to remand Mr. Flynn to a mental hospital under Section 35 of the Mental Health Act 1983. However, despite the efforts of counsel, a psychiatrist was not available to come to court to examine Mr. Flynn. Thus, on that occasion no such order could be made. Once again he was remanded in custody—this time until 22nd October—in the hope that before that date the necessary reports could be made.
I am advised that, unfortunately, the report which was available on his next appearance in court had not been prepared in a satisfactory manner. I hope that the noble Earl will have already looked into that matter, or, if not, that he will do so. Although, on 22nd October, a report which had been prepared by the prison doctor was before the court, I am advised that it was not in a form that could have enabled the magistrate to remand Mr. Flynn to a hospital under Section 35 of the Mental Health Act. Once again, efforts were made to get a psychiatrist to attend the court. Once again, they were unsuccessful.
His lawyers then told Mr. Flynn that they were extremely sorry but that it was inevitable that he would be remanded yet again. However, the matter should be cleared up a week later after he had returned from Brixton Prison where he would be examined by a psychiatrist. That is what they told Mr. Flynn. But he was not sent back to Brixton Prison and he was not seen by a psychiatrist.
What happened to him? Due to the overcrowding in Brixton Prison, this depressed, sick man was sent to Walsall police station and kept there in the cells. Obviously no reports could be prepared while he was in police custody, a substantial distance away—
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, the noble Lord is building up the tension most trenchantly. I should like to know who would make a decision of that kind. It seems to me to be beyond belief.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl, having identified that problem, will join me in expecting an answer from the Minister as to who made that decision.
On 29th October Mr. Flynn journeyed back from Walsall to the magistrates' court in London. Again, there was no report, as I have made clear, and again he was remanded in custody. It was assumed that, after complaints had been made in court as to what had happened, he would immediately be sent to Brixton Prison but he was not. He first went to Camberwell court cells. The following day he was taken to police cells in Croydon, as we know from the letter sent by the noble Earl and received last evening by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and myself. Then, on 4th November, this sad, sick, depressed man put a sheet around his neck and committed suicide.
It is a sad judgment on our system of criminal justice that this man, considered by a psychiatrist to be suffering from schizophrenia, could be treated in such an abominable fashion. Despite repeated indications by the magistrate that he required psychiatric reports in order to enable him to make a Section 35 order, how could it be that he was denied them? Why was it that this man, with a known record of mental illness which showed up on his pre-conviction sheets, was dispatched to a police station in the Midlands when it must have been known that that would make it impossible for the authorities to provide the court with the reports which it was so insistently demanding?
At the inquest on Mr. Flynn, the Southwark coroner said that the conditions in which Mr. Flynn had been held were barbaric. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in the Question of which he gave the Government advance notice, because it appeared on the Order Paper, asked the Government whether they accepted that view of the Southwark coroner. As we all recall, the noble Earl, Lord Arran, did not answer that point in the Question at all. We all know the present Home Secretary to be a decent and civilised man. I would find it extremely surprising if he did not privately agree with every word of the Southwark coroner.
I turn now to the second case adjudicated on by Mr. Justice Simon Brown only a week ago. As I have indicated, I do not propose to go into detail on this case because this man is still awaiting trial on serious charges. Counsel for this man told the judge that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. As far as I am aware there is no dispute about that. That being so, it is interesting to look at a surprising document which we were helpfully given by the Minister yesterday evening. This is what happened to a paranoid schizophrenic while in custody.
He was remanded for medical reports by Marylebone Magistrates' Court on 14th November last year. I omit the various calls in at Brixton Prison but I shall list the various police stations in which he was kept: Lambeth, Windsor, Lambeth again,
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Tottenham Court Road, Snow Hill, and police cells at Wimbledon, West End Central, West Hampstead and Wallington. This sick man was then despatched to police cells in Grimsby. There he was made to share a cell with two other remand prisoners. He was also not given the medication needed to keep him stable. In that situation he was clearly a danger to himself, a danger to the man occupying the cell with him, and a danger to the police officers responsible for their custody.
The judge expressed his deep concern about this case in the clearest manner, as the noble Earl will be aware. I should be grateful to know what action has been taken in this case to deal with the problems identified on that occasion and to prevent similar situations from arising in the future.
Another deeply disturbing case has been brought to my attention in the last 48 hours of a prisoner named Luis Garcia. This is a case of which I gave notice to the Minister's private office. Mr. Garcia is a Spanish citizen who speaks little or no English and, as far as I am aware, has no previous convictions. He was charged with the theft of two articles of below the value of £16 and with assault on the police. He appeared to those representing him to be mentally unstable. He was unable to communicate intelligibly with his solicitor, both because of his lack of English and because of what appeared to be significant mental problems.
In the many appearances he made before the Horseferry Road magistrates, the court asked for psychiatric reports. They were not made available. It eventually became clear that this was because he was not at Brixton. He had been sent to King's Lynn police station. After three months in custody—for two articles worth below £16—the stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Crowther, said this:
"People wonder why our prisons are so full. This is another case which demonstrates the frustrations which those who are trying to administer justice in the magistrates' courts encounter more and more nowadays".
He then set Mr. Garcia free because he had no hope at all that he would have reports that would enable him to order the treatment that was necessary. Mr. Crowther concluded:
"It is an absolute scandal."
I would find it astonishing, given the recitation of these particular events, if many people disagreed with that expression of view by Mr. Crowther. I very much hope that the noble Earl will ensure that this particular case is examined carefully and that he will write to me with the details as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon.
In conclusion, may I ask the Government what action they now propose to take following these cases? First, what inquiries are they instituting into these cases? Are they asking the chief inspector of prisons to look into what happened at Brixton? Are they asking the chief inspector of constabulary what are the facilities in some of the police stations in which these remand prisoners are being held? What precisely do they propose to do about it?
Secondly, what new instructions do the Government propose to give regarding those remanded in custody for psychiatric reports? Thirdly,

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are the Government now prepared to assure the House that in no circumstances—I repeat, in no circumstances—where such reports are requested by a court will the prisoner be sent off to police cells in distant parts of Great Britain where clearly such reports cannot be made?
Finally, can the Government undertake that where such reports are requested, and particularly where a magistrate expresses his desire to make a Section 35 order, they will be submitted in a form that makes it possible for the magistrate to make the order if he considers the circumstances justify it?
I very much hope that the noble Earl will be able to answer these questions this afternoon. I also hope that he will be able to offer some message of hope to the police service, which is becoming increasingly alarmed about the responsibilities which it is being asked to shoulder. Not only are hundreds of police officers now being taken off the streets to act as gaolers; they are now being asked to care for prisoners who belong either in a prison hospital or in a mental hospital.
Michael Flynn killed himself in prison only a few weeks ago. He died a friendless man, unmourned by anyone. Unhappily, there are scores of Michael Flynns in prison and in police cells as we speak. Let it be hoped that one consequence of today's debate will be that in future they will be treated in a more decent and humane fashion than was Mr. Flynn.
2.38 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, who has spoken out with compassion and conviction. I am absolutely certain that what he wants to achieve is not to castigate anyone but to find solutions and ways in which the circumstances outlined will never happen again.
I pick up immediately almost the final words of the noble Lord's speech. He said so rightly from his experience that there are hundreds of people in our prison system—not merely remand prisoners but others—who are in urgent need of special treatment in a hospital or a mental institution. However, when those of us who go round our prisons—the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has visited far more than I shall ever do, but I visited a number this year—speak to the governors and staffs of the prisons, we are told factually and with a great deal of distress that there are many men and women in the system who ought not to be there. I do not mean that they ought not to be convicted, but that they should be in a place where they can receive special treatment.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has done a service to the Minister, to the Government, and of course to a great many other people in the penal system, by seizing this debate to provide the Government with the opportunity of a dialogue. There will be no answers. What we want is the satisfaction of knowing that the Minister appreciates the deep concern of many people both inside and outside this House.
I wish to take up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who fairly pointed out that the overwhelming reason why remand prisoners are kept in police cells is as a result of the overcrowding in
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prisons, and in some instances as a direct result of industrial action taken in certain prison establishments. That of course is absolutely right.
What we need to understand is that when we try to put in context what has happened to poor Mr. Flynn and other "Mr. Flynns", we have to look backwards a step or two down the train. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, and I have visited Pentonville; the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and I have visited Wormwood Scrubbs, Holloway, Wandsworth and other prisons. When visiting, we were constantly advised that the prisons were overcrowded. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, quite fairly, points to the major programme of building and refurbishment; but we cannot simply accept that that of itself is the solution.
Let me illustrate the points that I want to make by citing three prisons: Brixton, Bedford and Broadmoor. I have an interest to declare, in that I have a close association with the Prison Officers Association. The secretary of the POA at Brixton, Mr. Dubois, has written three times to the governor in the month of February. Incidentally, he has also written more than once to the Home Secretary and he tells me he has not had either an acknowledgement or a reply to the letters he has written to the Home Secretary. The Minister might care to have that matter looked into.
Brixton is one of our great remand prisons, and undoubtedly some of the circumstances in the case we are talking about could well flow back to the nexus of conditions there. Brixton Prison has a certified normal accommodation figure of 770. Last week the prison held 1,150 prisoners. Last Friday (a week ago today) the figure was 1,182, and another five prisoners were expected on the Sunday. That situation is quite appalling. At the same time, there were 20 prisoners having to sleep on mattresses in cells. They had no sheets, pillowcases or towels. There were 50 inmates who had to wear their own clothing. The reception staff had run out of prison clothing and towels. There were no bath or shower facilities. When my noble friend Lord Mishcon raised the issue last week I had to point out that in Brixton and other prisons there were times when prisoners were unable to have a shower or a change of clothing for a week.
When we are considering who may be responsible for that situation, I am unable to give an answer. But the prison officers at Brixton are quite clear. In the view of that branch, the situation arises because of gross negligence on the part of the staff of the south regional office and at the Home Office who are responsible for transferring inmates from Brixton Prison to other prisons. It is not the first time that the POA at Brixton has pleaded and begged the powers-that-be to realise that the "Michael Flynn incidents" of this world will flow from this situation.
The earlier debate we had today was about the balance between looking after the interests of those who are in this country and those who are outside it, wanting to get in. If the answer is given that no prisoner ought to be refused admission to any prison, then what we are saying, in conditions of the kind I have described, is that if the powers-that-be continue to send the prisoners, then there is nothing one can

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do. One simply accommodates not 20 prisoners on the floor, but 120. That is absolutely disgraceful.
I should like to draw attention to other situations in Brixton. That is one prison: admittedly, those who know the prison estate know that it is a very big and significant one in the context of remand prisoners. I have a letter of 8th February relating to staffing levels for social visits. It says:
"The authorised staffing level is 23 officers, at certain times during the day the level was down to five. The Property Room had been closed … The Branch Committee are going to be put into the position of informing relatives of staff who have been injured, or even killed."
An earlier letter in February states:
"On Saturday last the food room had one auxiliary officer for the afternoon visiting session. The Brixton staff as usual pulled together and the food room was manned. On Sunday the SO in charge of reception had two staff to cover the following day's drafts and 11 receptions were due but they were still expected to cover Church service. Today the coach group was 60 short."
These facts will come as no surprise to the Minister or his advisers. They know them. Those who know the prison estate know them well. They are part of the terrible story which we are debating. The Minister will need to take them into account.
Perhaps I may tell the House what the general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, Mr. David Evans, told me late last night when he visited Bedford Gaol. As the Minister and his advisers will recall, Bedford has been described by a previous inspector of prisons as the most consistently overcrowded prison, not in Britain but in Europe. The CNA at Bedford is 155. This week the inmates numbered 363. Two, three and sometimes even four prisoners are locked up in cells built for one. An incident occurred this week which was given publicity. There was a riot by prisoners—there is no other word to describe it—and 37 prison officers had to be sent in to deal with it. The officers were booted, visored and had their sticks, and they put down that riot. It was a riot by remand prisoners. According to the papers the issue was the change in the rules and regulations in respect of food. We have this volatile situation at Bedford Prison.
What happened after the riot took place? The overcrowding was going on but overnight 76 prisoners were transferred from Bedford to other overcrowded prisons in the South-East region. When there is a scandal, a tragedy or a riot, decisions are taken. Why do not the Minister and his advisers look more carefully at the context of these situations?
My final point relates to the position at Broadmoor. I spoke this morning to the national vice-chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, Mr. George Elliot, who had been down to Broadmoor on Wednesday and on Thursday. Broadmoor is a special hospital and deals in the main with the criminally insane. The officers in this special place are angry. They are officers of a particular kind. Prison officers at Broadmoor are nurses. They are specially trained and are skilled people. In other contexts, prison officers may be substituted for by policemen or by the army but the officers at Broadmoor are unique.
There is a shortage of qualified staff at Broadmoor. I have been given figures which I do not want to
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bandy about, but the Minister should know the position. Let me say in passing that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, had discussed some of the problems with the prison officers because the Department of Health and Social Security has a deep interest in Broadmoor. The prison officers are grateful for those discussions. However, the Minister should understand that, in seeking answers to the questions that have been asked of him this afternoon, he has an even greater responsibility, which I very much hope he can discharge; that is, to take away from this House the deep concern not only of its Members but also of the prison officers on whose behalf I speak. Prison officers are not concerned only with their own interest, they are even more concerned with the interest of the prisoners and of the community in the state of the prisons. I hope that the Minister can say something that will give them some comfort and solace. For instance, they want to feel that they have the confidence of the Minister and the Government in doing a dirty and dangerous job on behalf of the community.
2.50 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I intervene briefly with the leave of the House. I did not put my name down to speak in the debate because I was not sure whether I would be able to attend due to previous arrangements this morning. I shall address my remarks to the clinical implications, although I was for four years the Secretary of State for Scotland responsible for courts, prisons and Carstairs—the equivalent of Broadmoor in Scotland. From what I have heard I should just like to add a few words to supplement what has been said.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, should be congratulated on raising this very important subject. Both the very worrying cases he cited were associated with schizophrenia. My wife and I were involved in the founding of the Schizophrenia Fellowship some 20 years ago. As many of your Lordships will know, I have been involved in both Houses for many years in issues concerning disability, including mental illness. Unfortunately, schizophrenia is still thought of as a type of split-personality illness, a Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon, which it rarely is. It is a serious mental illness, and one of the two which are most common among mental illnesses in this country.
When we heard that Mr. Flynn committed the arson offence—on which there is apparently no argument—in order to attract attention to his plight, that is the normal situation of a schizophrenic who finds himself incapable of coping with ordinary life. That situation arises either when he first develops the unfortunate illness or perhaps when he has been institutionalised and later comes out into the community but cannot get the care and help that he needs.
That brings me to the question of medication. I am glad to say that over the past 20 years or so advances in medical science, and in medicine generally, have meant that many people suffering from this illness are able to circulate in the community instead of being locked up in institutions as they would have been more than 20 years ago. However, that arrangement

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is only possible provided there is enough community care available to look after them. They usually have to be on a regime of tablets, injections or other medical disciplines, and they must have supervision. For example, they often have a telephone number to use if they suddenly feel like committing suicide. Those arrangements have meant that instead of being incarcerated, and becoming much worse, many of these people can circulate within the community.
There are some questions I should like to add to those that have already been asked of the Minister. I do of course realise that they are not so much the concern of the Home Office as the DHSS and the Scottish Office—which of course is responsible for health in Scotland. First, are we really happy with the present situation where community care is unable to look after a person like Mr. Flynn? Has such a person a way of making contact with those who can then take him in again, perhaps into an institution, or who can in some other way look after him even if it is only for a certain period of time?
Secondly, have we briefed the police and other authorities sufficiently about mental illness, especially schizophrenia? From what I heard of this particular case—and I only know what I heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich—if it meant that this medication or his normal regime of tablets or injections was disrupted and not carried on, that situation could be dangerous to everyone. I am worried today to think that the authorities do not know enough to realise that there must be a supervising medical authority to ensure that the district nurse, or someone else, gives the sufferer the right kind of medication. I should like to add these points to the others made about courts, remand, and so on in these worrying cases.
2.55 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, because of our respective duties, I think that I am right to say that the noble Earl and I are still fasting, and, therefore, as a matter of mutual consideration, I propose to be extremely brief. I can be brief, because the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has outlined the facts of three dreadful cases, the first of which I brought to the attention of the House last week, immediately I had heard of certain facts.
Those facts, which I believe horrified all sides of the House, have not been disputed. I then said—I do not apologise for the remark—that I thought that the state had committed a far greater crime against the late Mr. Flynn than Mr. Flynn ever committed against the state. If that be the position, the noble Earl, has now heard of two more cases, which are depressing to say the least, with regard to remand prisoners with psychiatric problems. I therefore call upon him to consider, as a matter of urgency, setting up a departmental inquiry into those three cases and the general problem of remand prisoners with psychiatric problems, and the way that they should be dealt with, including of course the useful comments, expressed with his experience, by the noble Lord who has just spoken.
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I do not think that I can usefully add anything to those comments, except to say that it is the first time that I have ever heard anyone with judicial powers, in this case a coroner, describe activities carried out on behalf of the state as barbaric. I hope that it will be the last time your Lordships will hear that, and that that will be secured by the action that the Home Office will now take.
2.57 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, brevity is always a great virtue. I admire, respect and thank the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, for his example. I wish that I were able to emulate it but, were I to do so, your Lordships may think that I am treating the matter with truculence, and so I shall be marginally longer than the noble Lord. The noble Lord said that both he and I, because of our respective duties, were fasting. He is right. I fancy that it is doing me more good than him.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris—it may seem a curious thing to say—for tabling this Question. He raises a matter of intense importance. All noble Lords have spoken out of a feeling of great concern and were kind enough not to try to apportion blame; I do not think that blame is the right thing to apportion on this occasion. One has to try to acknowledge the problem to see how best to alleviate it.
The Earl of Longford: There is plenty of blame.
Earl Ferrers: Did the noble Earl wish to say something?
The Earl of Longford: My Lords, I am sorry if I said something that I should not have done. I could not help remarking that there was quite a lot of blame to be attributed. The question is where to place the blame.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, in that case, there is a marginal difference between the noble Earl and myself. I shall come on to explain why. We should not get involved in a remark which was not as sotto voce as he intended.
The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, referred quite rightly and more generally to the position of Broadmoor, and the concern of the Prison Officers' Association. I understand their concern and the difficulty and, in a way, the loneliness of the job which they carry out. Of course, the noble Lord will realise that Broadmoor is not a prison as such; it is a special hospital and that is the reason why it is administered by the Department of Health and Social Security.
As far as the Prison Officers' Association is concerned, I can tell the noble Lord that I have the greatest respect for those peope who carry out the unenviable and very often quite dangerous task of looking after those people who are in their care. It is a task which society values and one which is not always appreciated in speeches quite as much as it might be. I shall see that the remarks of the noble Lord are drawn to the attention of my right honourable friend.
I well understand the concern which the noble Lord and others have expressed today and on other

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occasions about the circumstances of those prisoners who are presently held, not in prison where they should be, but in police and other cells. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Graham, was good enough to say that he did not necessarily expect answers to all the questions. What he wanted to do was to ensure that the problems were aired and then for us to take note of them. I can tell your Lordships that everything said today will be considered with great care because we all want to try and find the best possible solution to a very difficult problem. I do not seek at all to pretend to the House that there is no problem. Nobody would believe that, particularly after what we have heard this afternoon. Nor do I. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, is quite right to raise this matter and quite justified in doing so. There is a problem.
However, before I come to the specific cases to which the noble Lord refers, perhaps I may start by putting the picture into perspective. We—by which I mean all of us who are involved in any way with the criminal justice process—are confronted with a major and underlying difficulty for which there are no easy solutions. That difficulty is that we are having to deal with a prison population which is increasing at a quite unprecedented rate. I do not propose to go into the various reasons for that, I just state it as a fact. In responding to the noble Lord I shall simply say that we are faced with the need to find accommodation for a prison population that is growing at the rate of 3,000 or 4,000 additional people a year. That is a frightening size. We intend to tackle this problem as best we can and we are doing so. The prison building programme, to which the noble Lord very fairly referred, is designed to provide 22,000 new places by 1995. More than 2,000 of those new places will be provided this year alone. I do not say this with any degree of complacency, no one can be complacent. I merely state it as a fact.
However, building prisons is not all that we are doing. We are encouraging the courts to use alternatives to custody and we have provided them with a wide range of non-custodial options. We have been tackling the delays in the courts. We have been looking at methods of improving the provision of information to magistrates in order to help them make bail decisions. We are increasing bail hostel places. Our proposal in the Criminal Justice Bill to extend the period of remand to 28 days will reduce the pressures on local prisons. We are introducing time limits in criminal proceedings, to limit the time which is spent on remand in custody and so reduce the remand population.
In the end—and I must make this quite clear—the Government accept responsibility for accommodating those who are sentenced to imprisonment by the courts. That is implicit as a duty of government and it is explicit as a duty which we have in our policy towards criminal justice. It therefore gives me no comfort to find that we are having to hold so many prisoners in police cells. That is not what they were designed for. The reason why prisoners are in police cells—and I must again make this clear—is that the prison system has been temporarily overwhelmed by the high levels of population growth in recent years.
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Still on the difficulty of the overcrowding of prisons, perhaps I could explain how it is that many prisoners, who have been dealt with by the courts, and remanded in custody or sentenced to imprisonment, find themselves not in prison cells but in police cells. That is a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, referred.
In London, prisoners leave magistrates' courts in the custody of police officers. Until fairly recently, the police would deliver their prisoners to whichever of the London prisons catered for that type of inmate. For example, a prisoner who has been remanded in custody by the court for the purpose of obtaining medical reports on his condition, would be taken to Brixton Prison and held in the prison's medical wing.
At present, though, the London prisons are grossly overcrowded. Brixton Prison, for example, is operating at 60 per cent. above its designed capacity. For some time, therefore, the London prisons have been unable to cope with the daily outflow of some 250 prisoners from the courts.
In response to this situation, the Metropolitan Police have established a kind of "central clearing house" at Lambeth through which all prisoners pass on their way from the courts to their places of custody. This centre—which was previously known as B11 but is now known as TO11—is responsible for finding accommodation for the incoming prisoners and for transporting them there. The police team at the centre is assisted by a prison governor, and each day it receives details of what vacancies are available at the London prisons.
The demand for vacancies at prisons considerably exceeds the supply of places, and the team at Lambeth therefore has to decide which prisoners have the most pressing need for those prison places, and it arranges for their admission. The remainder have to be found places in police cells in London or—when numbers are as high as they are at present—further afield. Sometimes they have to go very much further afield. The problem is further exacerbated as prisoners who are on remand have to make a court appearance every eight days in order to have their remand renewed. That is something which we intend to change, as I have mentioned. The same procedure is invoked. After having been given a further remand, the prisoner returns again to Lambeth. A cell, possibly in a new location, is allocated to him. A prisoner, therefore, may find himself moved around the country. That is a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, quite reasonably objects. That is a situation which noble Lords all around the House—including myself—find both acutely unsatisfactory and distasteful. This is a disquieting picture, but I thought it important to describe it to your Lordships, as it is an essential part of the picture in which prisoners—and often their subsequent actions—become enfolded.
Perhaps I could now address my remarks to the first specific case to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, draws attention. That is the case of Mr. Michael Flynn. Mr. Flynn was arrested in the Kentish Town area on 7th October last year. On the following day he appeared before Highbury Corner Magistrates on charges of arson and of criminal

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damage. Mr. Flynn was remanded for medical reports. As I have explained, he would normally have been taken to Brixton Prison but the prison was full and it could not accept him. He was therefore transferred—via the allocation centre at Lambeth in the way in which I have described—to a police holding cell at Marylebone Magistrates' Court. He remained there from 8th to 15th October.
Mr. Flynn again appeared before the Highbury Corner Magistrates on 15th October. He was then further remanded in custody. He was held in the cells at the court complex until 19th October. He was then moved to Brixton Prison where he remained until his third court appearance on 22nd October. After that, he was transferred to the cells at Walsall Police Station.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, asked who was responsible for that. I have tried to explain how that came about.
On 27th October he returned to the holding cells at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court. He remained there until his fourth court appearance on 29th October. On that date he was moved to Camberwell Police Station. On the following day, 30th October, he was taken from Camberwell to Croydon Police Station. On 31st October Mr. Flynn returned to Brixton Prison where he remained until his death four days later. Those are the historical, chronological facts.
I, like all other noble Lords, deeply regret Mr. Flynn's death. Any death is a sad occasion; a suicide is a terrible occasion. Where a suicide occurs in a prison, that is an occurrence which at the same time both stuns and alerts those who bear the responsibility for the care of people in their charge. Great importance is placed on efforts to prevent suicide in prison.
The fact is that the police and prison officers who came into contact with Mr. Flynn during this period found no hint of his intended suicide. He was examined by four different doctors while he was in police custody in October. He was examined on 8th October, 9th October, 15th October and 23rd October. Those doctors detected signs of mental illness and depression. But not one recorded that he thought that Mr. Flynn was at risk of suicide. If such a diagnosis had been made, Mr. Flynn could have been transferred to Brixton as a priority case. The doctors requested no such transfer.
Having been seen by four doctors while in police custody, Mr. Flynn was also examined by medical officers at Brixton Prison and by a consultant psychiatrist, who interviewed him two days before his death. Neither of those doctors considered him to be at risk of suicide. That does not mean that he was not at risk. It is not always possible to tell whether a person is at risk of suicide. Sometimes the indication is there; sometimes it is not. In this case, there was no indication.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the coroner referred to the conditions at Marylebone Magistrates' Court as "barbaric". We agree that the conditions there are less than satisfactory for anything other than a very temporary stay. However,
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the coroner made no criticism of the treatment which Mr. Flynn received in Brixton Prison. Indeed, he is reported as saying that there can be no criticism of the way in which the prison officers at Brixton exercised their supervision of and watch over Mr. Flynn.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, the noble Lord is being extremely helpful in going into detail. He referred to the statement made by the coroner that the conditions in which the late Mr. Flynn was kept at Marylebone were barbaric. Perhaps I may ask the Government whether, given the criticism of the coroner, they propose to continue to send prisoners in future to the police cells which were so described?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I have tried to explain to the noble Lord the difficulty that is presented with the actual number of places to which prisoners can be sent. It would be wrong for me to tell him that on no occasion would those cells be used. What I have said is that we agree that they are unsatisfactory for any long-term use. It is clearly in the interests of those who are responsible for prisoners to put them in places which are most suitable for them. On occasion, those which are not suitable have to be used.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, before the Minister leaves that point, which is obviously a poignant one and one which is central to the whole matter, perhaps I may say that the cell was described as being 4 feet by 8 feet; it did not allow the prisoner to stretch his arms; there was no room for a bed; and there was no bed. When the noble Earl, speaking on behalf of the Home Office, says "temporary", what does he mean? Does he mean that it is suitable for anyone in these conditions to remain there for more than a matter of a few hours?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, it is necessary, on occasion, to use places which are unsuitable. If we do not use such places, we overcrowd other places. The difficulty that presents itself to us is whether or not those cells should be used at all when not to use them may thereby overcrowd other places, and whether it is better to use such cells for short-term uses. I take the point which the noble Lord has made and I shall see that the matter is looked into.
The fact that someone takes his own life in prison custody is a matter of great concern to prison officers and indeed to Ministers. It is a tragic occurrence; it is one which we deeply regret. But I think that all reasonable steps were taken, such as might be expected for any prisoner who is in custody, under the circumstances which prevailed. That does not mean to say that those circumstances were satisfactory. However, they were the ones that prevailed.
My noble friend Lord Campbell mentioned schizophrenia. I shall see that the points which he has mentioned are drawn to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services. Last year we introduced new measures which were designed to identify those inmates who are most at risk of suicide and to give such inmates the support which they need in order to

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overcome their suicidal feelings. Those include improved arrangements for screening inmates on reception; clearer definition of responsibilities; and the introduction of new training programmes for staff.
In the case of the other remand prisoner to which the noble Lord. Lord Harris, referred, the prisoner was remanded by Marylebone Magistrates' Court for medical reports on 14th November last year. Because of overcrowding at Brixton he was placed in police cells at Lambeth until 16th November when he was moved to Brixton. I understand that he was subsequently held in police cells at some nine different locations between his remand hearings. He was held at Brixton Prison from 16th to 20th November, from 7th to 11th December, 14th December to 13th January (except for one night), and from 22nd January to 10th February (except for two nights). I shall not describe the list of his movements but I have supplied the noble Lord, Lord Harris, with a copy and I shall also provide the noble Lord, Lord Mischon, with a copy.
When the prisoner appeared in court on 10th February the prison had completed a medical report. The court then remanded him in custody again until his committal hearing on 17th February. During that period he was held in police cells at Wallington. Following his committal for trial he was held in police cells at Grimsby. Your Lordships will be aware that, when numbers are as high as they are now, the Metropolitan Police have to look as far afield as that and sometimes further for available accommodation. The prisoner is today being moved to Brixton Prison.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to Mr. Garcia. He gave me notice, quite fairly, only yesterday of his intention to raise this question. I have had some inquiries made but it has not yet been possible to obtain a full account from all of those involved. The account which I have received indicates that the issues in this case were somewhat complex. I shall continue those inquiries into the case and when I have come to some conclusions I shall write to the noble Lord.
I apologise for taking up your Lordships' time, but the noble Lord has asked some specific questions and I must try to deal fairly with them. He asked whether we proposed to institute an inquiry. I hope that your Lordships will agree that what I have said today indicates that Ministers—and when I say Ministers I mean several of us, not just me—have gone into these cases very thoroughly. I do not believe that there are circumstances which require a further inquiry at present.
The noble Lord asked whether we had replied to the Southwark coroner following his observations at the inquest. The coroner wrote to the Prison Department on 4th February recording two recommendations which he had announced to the
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court. He recommended that arrangements for obtaining medical reports on inmates of no fixed abode should be improved, and that remand prisoners who are taken to court should return after their appearance to the establishment where they were previously held. We are considering these proposals, and we shall reply to the coroner as soon as possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked whether we proposed to issue new instructions concerning remand prisoners with psychiatric problems.
We consider it a matter of prime importance that adequate facilities are provided for the psychiatric assessment, the observation and the treatment of prisoners who are diagnosed as requiring such facilities. All remand establishments have some facilities of this kind. About one-third of full-time prison medical officers have a psychiatric qualification. We make extensive use of visiting psychiatrists, many of whom are of consultant status. One in every 12 prison hospital officers has a psychiatric qualification.
Our current recruitment policies are directed at increasing the number of medical and nursing staff with psychiatric qualifications and experience. A working group was established by the Royal College of Physicians. It is looking into the training and qualifications for prison medical officers. A nursing advisory council has been set up in order to assist in developing the professional competence of hospital officers.
As my noble friend Lord Caithness announced to your Lordships last November, the Government have accepted all the recommendations which were made by a joint Home Office-DHSS working group on mentally disordered offenders in the prison system in England and Wales. We are considering how to take these recommendations forward.
I apologise for having taken up so much of your Lordships' time. I have tried to give a detailed description of the events which have occurred in both of those unfortunate cases. I have tried to tell your Lordships of the problems which beset the care of prisoners. I have tried to tell your Lordships what the Government propose to do to meet their obligations to the courts and to those who are sentenced or remanded in custody.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, is right to draw attention to these cases. We must recognise that we can never discount the possibility of suicide, however remote it may be. We can never guarantee that it will not happen. All we can do to try to prevent it is to do our best to ensure that the likelihood of suicide is as small as possible by making the ability to detect it as large as possible. That we intend to do.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past three o'clock.

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