Sitting of 23 February 1989

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
DEATH OF A MEMBER
Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Sir Herbert Raymond Gower, Member for Vale of Glamorgan, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
ASSOCIATED BRITISH PORTS HULL BILL (By Order)
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL (No. 2) BILL (By Order)
BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)
HYTHE, KENT, MARINA BILL (By Order)
HYTHE MARINA VILLAGE (SOUTHAMPTON)
WAVESCREEN BILL (By Order)
INTERNATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK BILL (By Order)
ISLE OF WIGHT BILL (By Order)
LONDON UNDERGROUND (VICTORIA) BILL (By Order)
WENTWORTH ESTATE BILL (By Order)
BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE SOUTHBANK BILL (By Order)
BROMLEY LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL (CRYSTAL PALACE) BILL (By Order)
CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)
REDBRIDGE LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
Orders for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 2 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Inflation
    Mr. Home Robertson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the current rate of inflation.
    Mr. Illsley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the inflation rate to go down.
    Mr. Leadbitter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the inflation rate to go down.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): The retail price index increased by 7·5 per cent. in the year to January. I shall provide a forecast in the Budget in the usual way.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Will the Chancellor confirm that housing costs are, and must remain, an integral part of any assessment of the retail price index? With that in mind, what has he to say to the many thousands of home-owners in this country who are struggling, month after month, to cope with the effects of virtually monthly doses of Treasury-led inflation? As for the figure of 7·5 per cent., was it not the Chancellor himself who said that the retail price index and inflation would be the judge and jury of his economic policies? That being so, how does he plead—guilty or very guilty?
    Mr. Lawson: I am perfectly prepared to be judged by inflation. Inflation during the whole of the period in which I have been Chancellor of the Exchequer has averaged under 5 per cent. During the period of the Labour Government, which is almost as long as the period for which I have been Chancellor, inflation averaged over 15 per cent., so I am perfectly prepared to be judged by that.
    Mr. Illsley: Does the Chancellor agree that the nine increases in interest rates since last June have severely increased the cost of living and particularly the cost of mortgages? Does he also agree that any perceived advantages from the tax cuts in the last Budget have been wiped away for all but the very wealthy?
    Mr. Lawson: I do not accept that. Of course, mortgages have gone up because interest rates have gone up and that is essential in order to get inflation down. Labour Members, who all the time have been asking for lower interest rates, are asking for higher inflation. That is what it boils down to.
    Mr. Leadbitter: The Chancellor must be aware that not only the Opposition but the Confederation of British Industry is currently urging him to reduce high interest rates and has pointed out to him the adverse effects on manufacturing industry and home demand as well as on exports. As inflation is still rising, will the Chancellor review the one instrument that he has invoked to deal with it—his high interest rate policy—and use other methods to deal with inflation?
    Mr. Lawson: No, I will not, because that is the only effective way of controlling inflation and I will adduce as

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    a supporter on this, despite what the hon. Member said, Mr. John Banham the director general of the CBI, who said this on the one o'clock news on 17 February:
    "We think the Chancellor should carry on with high interest rates to combat inflation."
    That is the view of the CBI.
    Mr. Tim Smith: As inflation in the United States is now only one point below the underlying rate in the United Kingdom, does my right hon. Friend agree that interest rates will have to remain high on both sides of the Atlantic until inflation is firmly on a downward path? Will he therefore ignore the mutterings of the Opposition, whose approach when in power was based not on the economics of the one-armed bandit but on the economics of the highway robber?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend puts it extremely well and I agree with everything he has said. On the specific question of my policy towards interest rates, despite what the Opposition have been saying—and will, no doubt, continue to say today and subsequently—and despite, indeed, some of the curious things I read from some of the commentators, I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be no question of a premature let-up in interest rates.
    Sir William Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the lowest inflation rate achieved by the Labour Government was 7½ per cent.? Is it not hypocritical for Opposition Members to criticise this Government's economic policy when Britain is at the top of the economic league whereas in the 1960s and 1970s we were right at the bottom?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right to say that, whereas in the 1970s we had the slowest rate of growth of all the major economies in the European Community, during the 1980s we have had the highest rate of growth of all the major economies in the European Community. As for our inflation record compared with the Labour Government's inflation record, yes, again, my hon. Friend is right. If we take the underlying rate of inflation—that is to say, excluding mortgage interest payments, which only one of the other 11 members of the European Community has—if we take that into account, our current rate of 5·5 per cent.— the most recent rate of 5·5 per cent.—compares on the same basis—on precisely the same basis, excluding mortgage interest rates—with the lowest monthly rate that the Labour Government ever achieved of 7·7 per cent.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that high interest rates are very much a sympton of his success in managing the economy? Can he imagine the Labour party ever presiding over the economy as we have done, given that we have been able to reduce taxes and repay the enormous debt that the Labour party accumulated and that we now have one of the most rapidly growing economies in Europe?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. Labour's record was lamentable in every way. In so far as it is possible to discern any policies emerging from the Opposition Benches, they would produce precisely the same lamentable results if they were put into practice today. Fortunately, that will not be the case.
    Mr. John Smith: As the Chancellor accepts that inflation will be the judge and jury of his economic policy, is it not vital that the evidence should not be fixed by the
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    removal from the retail price index of significant price increases? Did not representatives both of business and of the trade unions tell the official committee on the RPI that both the community charge and mortgage interest payments had to be included if the RPI was to retain credibility? In the light of that, may we have an unequivocal assurance from the Chancellor that both the community charge and mortgage interest payments will remain part of the RPI?
    Mr. Lawson: I have to tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Treasury gave evidence to the RPI advisory committee in 1986—very cogent evidence, as he knows—arguing that mortgage interest payments, as in most other countries—almost all other countries—should not be in. It took a different view and we accepted its advice at the time. I have to say that the only major change that there has been in the RPI that I can recall in recent years—the only major change—was in 1975, when the Labour Government put mortgage interest payments in because they thought at that time it would advantage them.
    Mr. Watts: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, despite the claims of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter), the most recent survey of businesses in the Thames Valley shows that there is less complaining about high interest rates this year than at the same time last year, when interest rates were much lower? Should not businesses be taking advantage of the lower rates available in the long-term market, in which rates have benefited from my right hon. Friend's policy of repaying Government debt? In that way, it can obtain finance much more cheaply than by relying on overdrafts, which follow the base rate.
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. Compared with previous occasions when interest rates have had to go up—and, of course, there have been many occasions in the past when interest rates have had to go up; this is by no means the first such occasion and, no doubt, it will not be the last—the difference is that the financial position of business is so much stronger now that it is far less affected and this, therefore, bites far more on consumer spending. Given that there has to be a slowing down of the rate of growth of the economy, this is desirable. My hon. Friend is also right to say that we now have a yield curve which is downward sloping so that industry is able to borrow for a term at a considerably lower rate than the cost of a bank overdraft.

    Contingency Funds
    Mr. Robertson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what he expects to allocate resources from the contingency funds in 1989–90.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Major): Allocations from the reserve will be made as the need arises.
    Mr. Robertson: Has the Chief Secretary had a chance to read the Home Secretary's speech last month when he promised that more resources would be devoted to better street lighting? As the Chancellor of the Exchequer's home town has had brighter and more energy-efficient lighting installed, may we expect that the contingency reserve will

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    be used to provide better lighting throughout the streets of Britain so that our citizens will have some relief from the constant fear of crime in our streets?
    Mr. Major: I always read my right hon. Friend's speeches with great interest. There were substantial increases in the Home Office budget in the last public expenditure round, taking effect from 1 April. I have no further announcements to make about expenditure on street lighting today.
    Mr. Kennedy: Is the Minister aware that the Scottish Office has asked for reports from local authorities in the Highlands because of the severe hurricane and flood damage there in recent weeks, which could mean additional resources being required for relief work in the 1989–90 financial year? If such an application is made, will the Minister look upon it constructively and favourably?
    Mr. Major: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is an avid guardian of the interests of the Scots. If and when my right hon. and learned Friend approaches me on that or any other matter, I shall of course consider it carefully.
    Mr. Bill Walker: When my right hon. Friend is contemplating any raiding of the contingency reserve, will he bear in mind that the Europeans have £2,000 million of our money that we could well spend on some of the problems in Scotland, that are the direct result of the storms, as well as on some of our roads, which certainly need upgrading and improving? We would rather see European money used than our contingency reserve.
    Mr. Major: I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will read what my hon. Friend has said. I certainly endorse it.
    Mr. Nicholas Brown: As the Government have committed themselves to allocating resources next year towards providing tax relief for pensioners' private medical insurance, can the Minister tell us what is the estimated cost of this concession? What provision have the Government made from the contingency funds or from elsewhere to provide a similar financial contribution towards the health care costs of the two thirds of British pensioners who do not pay income tax and are thus unlikely to benefit from the scheme? Will the Minister explain why the Government give priority to the wealthier pensioners rather than to all pensioners?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman is less than wholly accurate. He confuses tax relief with expenditure. Even putting that aside, however, the hon. Gentleman has overlooked, first, the extra resources from the reserve next year to meet a great proportion of the pay review body awards for nurses and others, much of which will result in better nursing care for the elderly, and secondly, the significant package of extra help for poorer pensioners, which takes effect on 1 October and comes specifically out of the reserve.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Gerald Bowden: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total fall in long-term unemployment in the year to October 1988.
    Mr. Lawson: In the year to October 1988, long-term unemployment fell by 280,000.
    Mr. Bowden: I am encouraged by my right hon. Friend's reply. Is not that welcome news largely due to the strong growth in output and employment under this Government, with 2¼ million new jobs since 1983?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right to say that this successful performance on jobs is as a result of the British economy performing better than it has ever done before. Here a great tribute is owed to all those in business and in industry who have done so much better than they have in the past. As a result we have seen unemployment fall in the past 30 months in a row—the largest and longest fall ever recorded.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Chancellor accept that the Government's infliction of long-term unemployment on many of my constituents has actually destroyed their lives? They were left, in their late fifties, with no prospect of jobs and in poverty both in unemployment and in old age. The Government's excuse was that they were determined to tackle inflation and to restore the competitive edge to industry in this country. What can the Chancellor say to those people who are now pensioners, who have been caught by increasing inflation and who see absolutely no sign of the competitive edge being restored to British industry?
    Mr. Lawson: So far as the pensioners are concerned, we have fully price-protected the pensioners throughout our period in office, despite a rapid increase—a very large increase indeed—in the pensioner population. The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the problems of inflation. As I pointed out, inflation over the past five years or so has been less than a third of what it was during the period of the Labour Government. Indeed, long-term unemployment over the past year has fallen even more in percentage terms than unemployment as a whole. I really am astonished that Opposition Members sit there looking so glum whenever they learn about unemployment coming down.
    Mr. Redwood: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most welcome aspects of the fall in long-term unemployment is that it is happening right across the country? Does he further agree that that is a welcome sign that some of the overheating in the south-east can he eased by growth and development in regional economies?
    Mr. Lawson: It is true that unemployment, and in particular long-term unemployment, has been falling rapidly in every single region of the country—rather less so, I know, in Northern Ireland, but throughout the whole of the rest of the United Kingdom it has fallen very rapidly indeed. On average over the past year, there has been a fall of over 26 per cent. in long-term unemployment. This is something which I hope in time Opposition Members will come to welcome.
    Mr. Holland: Do the Government admit that the fall in unemployment of less than 2 million is a phoney figure, that they have changed the estimates for unemployment 25 times, and that only once has the figure gone up rather than down? The real unemployment figure is 2·7 million. The Government may fool some of the people some the time, but the long-term unemployed are not fooled at all by the Government's fantasies.
    Mr. Lawson: There really is no point in the hon. Gentleman weaving fantasies with figures. Everyone knows perfectly well that unemployment is coming down. It is not merely the official unemployment statistics. If he does not want to look at those, he can read the annual labour force survey which produces exactly the same picture. If he does not want to look at that, look at the number of people in work. There are now more people in work in this country—not counting people on training schemes—than ever before in our history.
    Mr. Holt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that unemployment in my constituency in the north-east of England has fallen by 40 per cent. from its peak in 1984? That figure could be improved even more if we had an adequate motorway to the north-east of England. Last weekend, it took me six hours and 40 minutes to drive from here, leaving at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. If industry is to be encouraged to take advantage of the European market and the Channel tunnel, it is no good the Treasury sitting on the money that the Department of Transport needs to build motorways.
    Mr. Lawson: I must tell my hon. Friend that the Treasury agreed—the Treasury has given them the money and agreed—I announced this in the Autumn Statement—an extra £220 million for spending on roads in the coming financial year. I am sure, too, that despite the difficulties, my hon. Friend will continue to provide an invaluable service to his constituents.

    Foreign Investment
    Mr. Allan Roberts: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on current foreign investment into the United Kingdom.
    The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary gave to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) on 23 January at column 374 of Hansard.
    Mr. Roberts: That is very illuminating. Does the Minister agree that the Chancellor has been sitting on a mountain of hot money which has been attracted into this country by high interest rates and is financing the £14 billion balance of payments deficit? What will the Chancellor do when the Government have no more assets to sell to overseas customers? That is also masking the extent of the balance of payments deficit. What will he do when the new green mantle which has descended on the Prime Minister stops the import of toxic waste, which is also masking the balance of payments deficit? Is that not why he cannot bring interest rates down?
    Mr. Brooke: It is impossible adequately to distinguish between short-term and long-term capital flows on account of the greater mobility of international capital and also because large balancing items confuse official figures. Inflows take many forms. Nevertheless, the underlying strength of total inflows and of sterling indicates overseas confidence in the United Kingdom economy and overseas confidence that the Government will pursue sound fiscal and monetary policies.
    Mr. John Townend: Are not many of these inward investments a major cause of our balance of payments deficit, and when they become productive will they not be a major reason for the future reduction of that deficit?
    Mr. Brooke: I am delighted to agree with my hon. Friend that foreign investment into this country continues to be strong, for both portfolio and direct investment.
    Mr. John Smith: Is the Paymaster General not concerned about narrowing interest rate differentials between the United Kingdom and, for example, West Germany, which have caused some downward movement in sterling in the past few days? Will that not make it more difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to attract and retain the short-term hot money which finances Britain's very large balance of payments deficit?
    Mr. Brooke: I infer from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question that he wishes us to increase interest rates further.
    Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government intend to take no measures to limit the free flow of foreign exchange and capital in and out of the country, which is the basis for keeping the City of London the leading financial market of the world?
    Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the immense gains that the economy has derived from the free movement of capital.

    Work Place Nurseries
    Mr. Clelland: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has from Inland Revenue as to how many children are cared for in work place nurseries in respect of which tax is payable.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Norman Lamont): I regret that this informaton is not available centrally.
    Mr. Clelland: The Minister will be aware, of course, that the tax exists. Is it not a further penalty on people with children? Will he confirm that the Government will abolish the tax on work place care, take a lesson from the Treasury and positively promote work place care among employers throughout the country?
    Mr. Lamont: The Treasury scheme is self-financing, which should not surprise the hon. Gentleman. No tax charge arises. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that if employers wish to recruit married women there is no reason why they should not pay them the necessary rate, including the costs of child care. The availability of child care facilities is a substantial benefit. It is a long-standing principle of the tax system that we do not give tax relief for what is necessary to enable people to get to work.
    Mr. Marlow: If we are to give tax benefits for creches, where will it all end? Are we to give tax allowances against nannies?
    Mr. Lamont: I take it that that was a Budget representation from my hon. Friend, and it is noted.
    Mr. Chris Smith: Is it not the case that the income derived by the Exchequer from the taxation of work place nursery provision is small, whereas the deterrent to women

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    with child care responsibilities is enormous? Should we not encourage women with children to seek employment rather than deter them? Can the Financial Secretary assure us that the Chancellor will consider two specific measures in his Budget—first, the removal of taxation from the receipt of work place nursery provision and, secondly, fiscal incentives to employers to provide nurseries?
    Mr. Lamont: As the hon. Gentleman knows, all aspects of the tax system are reviewed, especially at this time of year. I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is any evidence that tax treatment deters married women from going to work, given the tremendous growth in the number of married women at work and, indeed, the considerable and continuing growth in such facilities.

    Government Expenditure
    Mr. Arbuthnot: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the path of general Government expenditure over the period 1982–83 to the latest available date.
    Mr. Wells: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the path of general Government expenditure over the period 1982–83 to the latest available date.
    Mr. Major: Excluding privatisation proceeds, the ratio of general Government expenditure to GDP has declined from nearly 47 per cent. in 1982–83 to just under 40 per cent. in 1988–89, the lowest it has been for over 20 years.
    Mr. Arbuthnot: As the Government have increased public spending and at the same time reduced it as a proportion of gross domestic product, and reduced our rates of taxation as well the national debt, does my right hon. Friend share my hope that this Government will stay in power for a very long time?
    Mr. Major: I share not only my hon. Friend's hope but his expectation that that will be the case.
    Mr. Wells: Why is it that ever since my right hon. Friend took office in the Government there has been an annual decline in Government spending as a proportion of GDP? Why did that not happen earlier and when will my right hon. Friend be able to reduce that ratio to the 33 per cent. which obtains in Japan?
    Mr. Major: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. I hope that what he suggests will become a convention. We hope and expect to achieve further reductions.
    Mr. Beith: Will the Chief Secretary confirm that capital spending is declining consistently as a proportion of Government expenditure, and does he agree that that is bad news for any organisation? Will he recognise that one of the less inflationary things that the Chancellor could do in the Budget would be to invest more on the supply side of the economy on those things that will make our nation more capable of competing, rather than giving money away in tax cuts?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that capital expenditure in the public sector as a whole, and not the more selective measures sometimes quoted, increased
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    by £2¾ billion in the Autumn Statement, and that is the largest cash or real terms increase that we have seen for many years.
    Mr. Neil Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend accept that sensible people look forward to further reductions in the proportion of the GDP taken by public spending, and that one of the best ways to achieve that is to carry on repaying Government debt? Can he confirm that £10 billion or £11 billion of the £17 billion a year that we pay in debt interest is on the borrowings carried out by the previous Labour Government?
    Mr. Major: I can certainly confirm that. I can also confirm that if the Government were borrowing at the same ratio to GDP that we inherited from the previous Labour Government we could abolish income tax.

    Inflation
    Mr. Douglas: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest forecast for inflation for 1989–90.
    Ms. Walley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest forecast for inflation for 1989–90.
    Mr. Major: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be giving a forecast in his Budget statement next month.
    Mr. Douglas: Does the Chief Secretary admit that one of the difficulties in anticipating the rise in inflation arises because the Chancellor has left himself only one weapon of economic management—interest rates—which is rather like asking Mr. Bruno to fight Mr. Tyson with one hand tied behind his back? As the Prime Minister was so appalled when the rate of inflation was 3 per cent., halving the value of money in a period of about 25 years, will the right hon. Gentleman give us some idea of what No. 10 is saying about that? When will the value of money be halved at the present rate?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman may be under some misapprehensions, the first of which is about monetary policy, which has worked in the past and will work in the future. Neither is that the only aspect of my right hon. Friend's policy; it is buttressed at the moment by a firm fiscal policy and a huge debt repayment, which was not the position when the hon. Gentleman's party was in Government.
    Mr. Batiste: Does my right hon. Friend agree that art increase in personal savings at the expense of personal expenditure would produce a downward pressure on inflation and the balance of payments deficit? If so, how best can such a welcome increase in personal savings be accomplished?
    Mr. Major: I agree with my hon. Friend's opening, remarks. My right hon. Friend's high interest policy offers people a great incentive to save.
    Mr. James Lamond: Is the Minister aware that the monetary policy is not working as satisfactorily as he thinks, according to the Manchester chamber of commerce and industry, which, in its latest bulletin, complains that high interest rates and a high pound are preventing firms from expanding at the rate that they would wish? Is he

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    further aware that it feels that that policy may be all right for the overheated economy in the south-east of England, but is not acceptable in the north-west?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman may have heard what my right hon. Friend said a few moments ago about the remarks of Mr. John Banham. In case he does not recollect them, I remind him that Mr. Banham said:
    "We think the Chancellor should carry on with high interest rates to combat inflation."
    The hon. Gentleman neglected to say that the Manchester report was highly optimistic.
    Mr. Latham: Since the Government's interest rate policy is already having a dramatic effect in reducing overheating, and indeed output, in the private housing industry, is not the practical reality likely that market forces will soon force down building society borrowing rates?
    Mr. Major: I am certainly not in the business of making that forecast, but my hon. Friend is entirely right that there are already clear signs of a slowdown in consumer spending, and one trusts that inflation will follow it down in due course.
    Dr. Marek: Will the Chief Secretary accept that the Opposition are alarmed at the Paymaster General's complacency about the dominance of hot money over direct and portfolio investment on the capital account and its clear threat of inflation? What measures is the Chief Secretary going to take with regard to this matter, or is he just going to keep to an interest rate war with the United States of America? If he does not take further measures, the country, as judge and jury, will find the Government and their economic policy guilty as charged.
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman's remarks bear little or no relationship to the question. I find it very strange to hear lectures about inflation from the Labour party when every policy it recommends to us is inflationary in one aspect or another.

    Tax and Prices Index
    Mr. David Martin: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the increase in the tax and prices index in the 12 months to December 1988.
    Mr. Lawson: 4·8 per cent.
    Mr. Martin: In order to get these things into perspective, would my right hon. Friend care to estimate the likely consequences for the rate of inflation of the spending, taxing and borrowing policies of the Labour party in the unlikely event of it ever regaining office?
    Mr. Lawson: That is, as my hon. Friend says, an extremely unlikely eventuality. It is quite clear that, if the Labour party were ever to put into practice its policies of bringing interest rates down when it is not safe to do so, having a depreciated currency, spending more and pushing up borrowing again, we would see inflation go through the roof, just as it did when it was last in office. That is why, although I am very concerned about the current rate of inflation, I am certainly not going to take any lectures from the Labour party.
    Mr. Robert Sheldon: Since the tax and prices index was the creation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his
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    attempt to produce what he thought might be a fairer method of calculating price increases, will he now take some action to deal with soaring house prices, which are not reflected at all in the tax and prices index?
    Mr. Lawson: The right hon. Gentleman is not strictly correct, because mortgage interest payments—it is, of course, mortgage interest payments not mortgage interest rates that reflect house prices—are in the tax and prices index, just as they are in the RPI. Since the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that this is a useful index, I will make a comparison with the Government in which he was a Treasury Minister. In the five and a half years or so that I have been Chancellor of the Exchequer the tax and prices index has gone up at an average rate of 3·7 per cent. a year, whereas during the five and a quarter years of the Government of which he was a member it went up by 16·1 per cent. a year.
    Mr. Yeo: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if he is bold enough on 14 March to use a substantial part of his record budget surplus to cut income tax he could produce a fall in the tax and prices index?
    Mr. Lawson: I am interested in my hon. Friend's suggestion, but I have to tell him—I trust this will not be considered a leak—that the Budget that I shall introduce on 14 March will be prudent and cautious.

    Pensioners (Medical Insurance)
    Mr. Allen McKay: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the total cost to the Exchequer in a full year, of tax relief for private medical insurance for pensioners.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) on 21 February, at columns 542–43.
    Mr. McKay: Why should my pensioners who have worked and been taxed all their working life, and use the National Health Service, now have to subsidise those who wish to use private care?
    Mr. Lamont: The purpose of the relief is to give help to older pensioners when they face increasing health costs. That will relieve pressure on the National Health Service, and that is to the benefit of everybody who uses the state service.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that tax relief would be lower if the earnings rule for pensioners were abolished? Will he bear that in mind in preparing the Budget as one way of helping to increase pensioners' earning power at a stroke?
    Mr. Lamont: I note my hon. Friend's suggestion.

    Tax Cuts
    Mr. Madden: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the differential impact of his tax cuts in the last Budget on the median earner in (a) the south-east and (b) other regions.
    Mr. Maxton: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the differential impact of his tax cuts in the last Budget on the median earner in (a) the south-east and (b) other regions.
    Mr. Brooke: The impact of the income tax reductions in the 1988 Budget was broadly the same for the median earner in both the south-east and the rest of the country. In both cases the proportion of annual income paid in tax has fallen by two percentage points.
    Mr. Madden: Is it not true that people on average incomes in the south-east gained more than £40 from the income tax cuts compared with those on average incomes in the regions, including Yorkshire? In the "prudent and cautious" Budget that the Chancellor has just announced that he is to make next month, will he heed the views of public opinion polls which have shown solid majorities, including Conservative voters, wanting the available resources to be invested in the National Health Service, in public housing and public education and not on more tax cuts which primarily overheat the economy in the south-east?
    Mr. Brooke: The general statistics that the hon. Gentleman quoted at the beginning of his question were correct. However, he was relating them to the median earnings in the two regions. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will have heard everything that the hon. Gentleman said about public expenditure.
    Mr. Maxton: I apologise for just arriving in the Chamber—
    Hon. Members: What is the question number?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) heard the answer.
    Mr. Maxton: Unlike Conservative Members, I knew that this was a connected question.
    Will the Minister make every effort to ensure that the Budget provides proper investment in Scotland and the rest of England and not just another heating-up of the economy in the south-east?
    Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman had the disadvantage of not hearing my answer and of having forgotten his original question. This question has nothing to do with the Budget, but I heard the hon. Gentleman's question.
    Mr. Ian Taylor: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the tax cuts in the last Budget have benefited people right across the country and, because of the resultant bouyancy of the economy, have resulted in higher expenditure in exactly those areas where the Laboutr party has urged us to spend more money? We have been able to spend that money without increasing the national debt.
    Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is correct to draw attention to the way in which prosperity has fanned out across the country. As I said in my original answer, the effect of the 1988 Budget on those on median earnings was broadly the same in the south-east and elsewhere.
    Mr. Hind: My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that people living in the north-west will be glad to hear that they have benefited equally with the south-east from the tax cuts. In his deliberations with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will he consider that some of those tax cuts could benefit the community by improving the income-to-savings ratio, thereby providing us with further investment in the north-west to tackle our unemployment problems?
    Mr. Brooke: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said, but I cannot make any comment about his Budget representation.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: As the Chancellor has defended the tax cuts on the basis of having to protect pensioners against inflation, what does he say to my constituents and many others on income support who will find in April that pensions are going up, but transitional support is going down and they will be left with not a penny of an increase? Is that not robbery? Is he not ashamed of himself?
    Mr. Brooke: The relationship between that question and the original question is not precise. However, what happens from April onwards will be determined by what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor introduces in his Budget.
    Mr. Sumberg: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a feature of the north-south divide is that the north-west of England is booming, unemployment is being reduced there faster than in any other region and once again Labour Members appear to be walking around with their eyes closed and their ears blocked?
    Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to the greater incentives produced by the Chancellor's tax cuts and their highly beneficial effect on his region.

    Incomes
    Mr. Jack: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of real personal disposable income over the latest 12-month period for which figures are available.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: 3½per cent.
    Mr. Jack: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the increase in disposable incomes is the most tangible way in which people realise the success of the Government's economic policy, and that it has been reflected in increased home ownership, wider share ownership and an increase in the general standard of living of all people in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He may recall that real take-home pay for a married man, with two children, who is on average earnings has gone up by some 29 per cent. since the Government have been in power. The comparable figure when Labour was in power was a miserly, measly 0·7 per cent.
    Mr. Skinner: If real disposable income is increasing and if all the other answers that we have heard from Treasury Ministers are correct, why have they not told the voters in Richmond, Yorkshire, where half the Conservative vote is disappearing from view?
    Mr. Lamont: I am sure that by this time tomorrow the hon. Gentleman's question will have been proved wholly wrong.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Baldry: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and held meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Baldry: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that drinking water throughout Britain is of a high quality and that the problems experienced in Swindon and Oxfordshire this week are very rare and, in this instance, have been dealt with properly and fully by Thames Water, and that with new capital investment of £1·4 billion in the water industry next year, the Government are doing far more for water quality than the Opposition ever did when they were in power?
    The Prime Minister: I am happy to confirm that, generally, public water supplies in Britain are of a high quality. The incident in Oxfordshire is only the second such incident to have been identified in a public water supply in the United Kingdom. I agree that Thames Water has taken the necessary precautionary measures to safeguard public health and is investigating the cause of the incident as a matter of urgency. We are making heavier capital investments in the water supply than ever before, and the investment of some £1·4 billion next year will ensure a higher standard of water throughout the country.
    Mr. Kinnock: In regard to the Prime Minister's plans for the Health Service, whose judgment should patients trust—that of the doctors who work in it or that of the Prime Minister who never uses it?
    The Prime Minister: Perhaps they should judge the record of this Government compared with that of the Labour Government.
    Mr. Kinnock: The Prime Minister has been telling us about that record for some time—
    Hon. Members: It is true.
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Kinnock: The huge majority of patients are not reassured about it. Why should they be reassured about any of the Prime Minister's plans?
    The Prime Minister: The huge majority of patients are reassured by using the Health Service. Public opinion polls show that those who use the Health Service are highly satisfied with it, and so they should be. There are far more doctors and dentists and a greater proportion of GDP is invested in the Health Service. The right hon. Gentleman's problem is that the National Health Service is better than it has been at any time.
    Mr. Onslow: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the award of £100,000 in costs against a firm of developers that was flagrantly seeking to breach the Government's green belt policy will be particularly welcomed in south-east England and elsewhere? Does she agree that that decision should be taken as a warning by any other developers with similar ambitions?
    The Prime Minister: Some two years ago my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said that if developers went to appeal in flagrant breach of green belt land, they would risk paying high costs. That is what has happened and it is yet another example of my right hon. Friend's determination to safeguard the green belt.
    Mr. Parry: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Parry: Will the Prime Minister make urgent representations to the Prime Minister of South Africa on behalf of Mr. Oscar Mptha, a sick, 80-year-old man who has been in gaol for nine years?—[Interruption.] Will she ask Mr. Botha to use his discretion and mercy before he has on his hands another murder which will be condemned by the western world?
    The Prime Minister: I did not quite catch the whole of the hon. Gentleman's question, but I understand that it concerned South Africa and people who have been in prison for some time. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the Government are anxious for Nelson Mandela to be released and believe that anyone who has been on remand should be either charged or released. We are closely watching events in South Africa, but we do not believe in sanctions. I should also point out that Namibian independence could scarcely have been achieved without the great co-operation of South Africa.
    Dr. Twinn: Does my right hon. Friend agree that yesterday's vote by the Civil and Public Servants Association against having YTS trainees in the Civil Service was a disgrace and a slap in the face for young people genuinely seeking work and training?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that it was a disgrace that the CPSA voted against having YTS trainees in the Civil Service. It was very disappointing for us all and for many young people who would have liked that opportunity to train.
    Mr. Hume: In her discussions with Chancellor Kohl, did the Prime Minister discuss the possibility of moving towards a common European currency? Does she think it possible to have a genuine common market without a common currency?
    The Prime Minister: I did not discuss that with Chancellor Kohl. It is possible to have a genuine single market without a common currency, which is not in any way necessary to achieve a single market.
    Miss Emma Nicholson: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Miss Nicholson: In her busy day, has the Prime Minister had time to glance at the copy of The Meavy Times that I left at No. 10 Downing street this morning? It is the Meavy primary school's entry in The Daily Telegraph schools newspaper competition. Did she note the pupils' call for a cleaner world, including beaches and rivers? Has she a message for me to give to those caring children?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, thanks to my hon. Friend, she can tell those school pupils that I received a copy of The Meavy Times at No. 10 Downing street this morning. I congratulate them on its excellent content and production. Will my hon. Friend please tell the pupils that we must all play our part in improving the environment? I should be grateful if she would take back to them the Government's

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    leaflets and information on the environment and the British aid programme, overseas development and tropical forests, and the guide to protecting the environment.
    Mr. Morgan: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Morgan: As one of Sir Raymond Gower's constituents for the past 32 years, may I say on behalf of Welsh Members how much we shall miss his unfailing courtesy? May I also send that message to Conservative Members who were his friends, and to his family?
    Will the Prime Minister confirm that she will be giving a keynote speech on 5 March at the conference on the ozone layer and CFCs at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London? Will she also confirm that she refused to attend the international environment summit at The Hague on 11 March convened by her friend the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr. Lubbers? Will she accept from Opposition Members that if she wants to be taken seriously in international environmental scientific collaboration to solve the environmental problems affecting this planet, she should not attend only conferences at which Mr. Bernard Ingham can control the television cameras?
    The Prime Minister: May I say how much we appreciate the hon. Gentleman's message of sympathy on the loss of our hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Sir R. Gower)? He, like all of us, regarded it as a great privilege to serve his constituents in Westminster, and he will be greatly missed here and by them.
    With regard to the ozone layer, I shall be making a speech at the conference, as will many others. The purpose of the conference is to create new and higher standards so that we cut the CFC gases by 85 per cent. At the moment we have reached our target of 50 per cent. reduction. By the end of this year, we shall reach a 60 per cent. reduction. The conference is designed specifically to raise standards and improve the quality of the environment.
    The other conference to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which has been called by the French Prime Minister and is to be held in The Hague, is not on specific targets for the environment. It is to form a new organisation, and I respectfully submit that we do not need one, given that we have the United Nations, the European Economic Community, the World Climate Authority and the World Meteorological Authority. The conference is to set up yet another organisation, which is not necessary, and it proposes that compensation should be paid—without saying how—and that sanctions should be applied if rules are not complied with—again without saying how. We believe in calling conferences to do things about the environment.
    Mr. Higgins: Will my right hon. Friend today meet ministerial colleagues from the Department of Employment, the Department of Social Security and the Treasury to discuss the earnings rule for pensioners, which is an anachronism that is long overdue for abolition?
    The Prime Minister: I take note of what my right hon. Friend says. I know that he has long held this view and we shall, of course, consider the matter.
    Mr. Mans: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Mans: Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning the action of the Association of University Teachers which, in order to pursue its pay claim, is threatening not to set the examination papers of students, thus jeopardising their degrees and causing them a great deal of anxiety and worry?
    The Prime Minister: I agree. The action taken by some university lecturers to the effect described by my hon. Friend is deeply disappointing, very irresponsible, wholly unprofessional and careless of the interests of the students in their care. It also goes contrary to what they frequently tell us—that it is vital that we have graduates of high calibre. If we are to have more of those, teachers must carry out their duties of teaching and setting and marking exam papers.
    Mr. Healey: Does the Prime Minister recall instructing her spokesman to inform the Sunday Times last November that she would—I apologise for using his indelicate words—
    "help Kohl to screw Genscher"?
    Can she explain how it happened that when she visited Germany this week it was, in fact, Kohl who helped Genscher to conduct the same indelicate operation on her?
    The Prime Minister: Such indelicate language and thoughts do not come from any part of Downing street during the lifetime of this Government.
    Mr. Cormack: Will my right hon. Friend take a little time today—or over the weekend—to select appropriate thank-you cards to send to the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and all the others who played such a signal part in defeating devolution, which led to her return to power 10 years ago?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has saved me the expenditure involved in doing what he requires, but the feelings are precisely the same as they were then.
    Mr. Eastham: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Eastham: Noting the Government's fanfare about finally bringing unemployment down to fewer than 2 million after nearly 10 years of Conservative Government, may I ask the Prime Minister to tell the House how many more years it will be before they can bring unemployment back to what it was under the Labour Government?
    The Prime Minister: The employment we have now is not full of restrictive practices as it was at the time of the Labour Government. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the work force in employment is at a higher level than ever. There are more jobs now than ever before.
    Mr. Burns: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the British Government will not be bounced by the European Commission into a phased withdrawal of the mile and the pint? Is my right hon. Friend aware that it would cause widespread dismay?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is probably aware, there is a permanent derogation for the pub pint, for the bottle of milk on the doorstep, for the mile and for the acre. I hope that that reassures him.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hughes: How many more opinion polls will there have to be which show—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has only just started.
    Mr. Hughes: How many more opinion polls will there have to be which show that four fifths of general practitioners believe that the proposals in the White Paper will result in a poorer service for patients before the Government change in any substantial respect their proposals for the Health Service?
    The Prime Minister: The poll to which the hon. Gentleman refers was sent to 33,000 general practitioners. Some 631 replied before the White Paper was published; a further 262 replies were received before the working papers in detail went out this week; the rest did not reply at all. It seems strange to do a diagnosis before examining the patient.

Business of the House
3.32 pm
Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the Leader of the House tell us the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 27 FEBRUARY—Debate on a motion to take note of proposals for agricultural prices for 1989–90 and related issues. Details of the EC documents concerned and of those relevant to the debate will be given in the Official Report.
Motion to take note of EC document relating to Community strategy and action in the forestry sector. Details will be given in the Official Report.
TUESDAY 28 FEBRUARY—There will be a debate on the Royal Navy on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
WEDNESDAY 1 MARCH—There will be a debate on Welsh affairs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
THURSDAY 2 MARCH—Until seven o'clock, there will be a debate on housing on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Afterwards there will be a debate on a motion to take note of EC documents on the annual report from the European Court of Auditors for 1987 and related matters. Details of these and of the document relevant to the debate will be given in the Official Report.
FRIDAY 3 MARCH—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 6 MARCH—Second Reading of the Self-Governing Schools Etc. (Scotland) Bill.

[Monday 27 February

(1) Relevant European Community Documents:

(a) COM (89)40

Agricultural Price Proposals 1989–90

(b) 4536/89

Agricultural markets in 1988

(c) 8960/88

Sheepmeat regime

(d)10083/88

Imports of sheepmeat from New Zealand

(e):9629/88

Cereals: incorporation into animal feeding-stuffs

(f) 10140/87

Use of milk co-responsibility levy funds

(g) 10419/88

(h) 8502/88

Court of Auditors special report: management and control of special storage

(i) 8951/88

Pigmeat market

(j) 9658/88

Cereals: co-responsibility levy

(k) 9275/88

Aid for conversion of agricultural production

(l) 10416/88

Extensification of agriculture

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee:

(a) HC 15-xi (1988–89), para 3 and HC 15-xii (1988–89), para 3

(b) HC 15-xii (1988–89), para 5

(c) HC 15-ii (1988–89), para 3

(d) HC 15-v (1988–89), para 1

(e) HC 15-v (1988–89), para 3

(f) HC 43-xi (1987–88), para 9

(g) HC 15-vi (1988–89), para 10

(h) NC 15-i (1988–89), para 3

(i) HC 15-i (1988–89), para 13

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(j) HC 15-v (1988–89), para 8

(k) HC 15-v (1988–89), para 7

(l) TIC 15-iv (1988–89), para 9.

(2) Relevant European Community Document:
8415/88 Strategy and action programme: forestry sector
Relevant Report of European Legislation Committee:
HC 15-viii (1988-89), para 1

Thursday 2 March

Relevant European Community Documents:

(a) 9908/88

Annual Report of the Court of Auditors 1987

(b) 8502/88

Management and control of public storage of agricultural products

(c) 9945/88

European Coal and Steel Community Finances

(d) 4782/88

Community Budget 1987: Implementation

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee:

(a) HC 15-viii (1988–89), para 2

(b) HC 15-i (1988–89), para 3

(c) HC 15-xi (1988–89), para 4

(d) HC 43-xxvii (1987–88), para 5.]

Mr. Dobson: I thank the Leader of the House for that statement and, in particular, for providing Government time for a housing debate to make up for the time lost on a previous occasion.
Will the Lord President tell the House whether we may expect a debate on private Bill procedure in the reasonably near future? That is an important and complicated matter and right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House will find it helpful to know in advance when that debate will be, as that will assist them in their preparations and m consultations with people outside the House.
Can the right hon. Gentleman say when there will be the promised debate on student loans, and the debate—which has been promised even longer—on the Fennell report on the King's Cross fire? I understand that the Secretary of State for Transport made a brilliantly witty speech at the Press Gallery lunch yesterday. We should like the Secretary of State to come to the House, and—although we do not mind about the standard of his speech—we think that he ought to reply to the points we have to make.
Finally, I press the Leader of the House for an early debate on the Government's review of the National Health Service. The Secretary of State for Health spent more than £1 million initially trying to publicise the White Paper. By any standards of measurement, it is clear that its proposals have yet to prove popular, either with doctors or with the public. One expects the Secretary of State to be pressing the right hon. Gentleman for an early opportunity to provide better and more attractive explanations than hitherto. We wish to know whether there will be an early debate on that subject, and whether the Secretary of State for Health will explain then how on earth the proposals in the Griffiths report for care in the community can be reconciled with those in the National Health Service review.
Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions, and for his remarks concerning the housing

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debate that I have been able to arrange for next week. It is an important subject, and the Government have a good story to tell. We welcome the opportunity to tell it. As to private Bill procedure, I know of the keen interest in a debate on that subject. I am arranging for the precise timing to be discussed through the usual channels, but it is my intention that the debate will be shortly after Easter.
On student loans, the White Paper asked for responses on a number of points, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is considering them. Meanwhile, he is preparing for implementation of the Government's plans in the autumn. To that end, he is discussing with a variety of financial institutions and other potential agents administration of the top-up loans. It is clearly a matter that the House will want to discuss, but the timing of a debate is a matter for the usual channels.
As to the Fennell report, I cannot add anything useful to my remarks to the hon. Gentleman of last week. I agree that it will be appropriate to have a debate but, again, the precise timing is best left to the usual channels.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should have a debate on the Health Service and on the Griffiths report. We are giving the Griffiths report active consideration and hope to bring forward our proposals in the near future. We recognise the concern that our response should not be unduly delayed, but it is vital that we reach the right solution. The Government remain of the view that a debate will be most helpful when our proposals are available for discussion.
Mr. Robert Rhodes James: I welcome my right hon. Friend's remarks in response to the question of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) on student loans. I emphasise to my right hon. Friend that, before any decision is made, the House should have an opportunity to debate the matter, and that that debate should be as soon as possible.
Mr. Wakeham: I acknowledge my hon. Friend's knowledge of and interest in the subject, but I cannot usefully add to my earlier remarks.
Mr. Robert Parry: The Leader of the House may have had an opportunity to note early-day motion 395, signed by 110 hon. and right hon. Members, concerning Mr. Oscar Mpetha, a sick man aged 80, who has been imprisoned in South Africa for the past nine years.
[That this House calls upon the South African Government to release Mr. Oscar Mpetha a 79 year old trade union leader imprisoned since 1980; notes that he had his leg amputated in 1983, that he is a diabetic with complications and was refused permission to leave prison in 1986 to attend his wife's funeral; believes that his imprisonment is solely due to his struggle on behalf of black workers and as a member of the South African Congress of Trades Unions and as President of the African National Congress in the Cape; welcomes Her Majesty's Government's representations to the South African Government on his behalf; and calls upon the South African authorities to release Mr. Mpetha as as matter of urgency.] Will the Leader of the House ask his right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to make urgent representations to South Africa's Foreign Secretary, Mr. Botha, before it is too late?
Mr. Wakeham: The Government have certainly noted the early-day motion, and we have made representations to the South African Government on behalf of Mr. Mpetha on at least five occasions. I note the hon. Gentleman's request.
Sir William Clark: May I draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the practice, indulged in by some hon. Members, of complaining about the shortage of time resulting from the use of the guillotine and then wasting time by raising point of order after point of order? Should not this practice be roundly condemned?
Mr. Wakeham: I agree with my hon. Friend. I find it very difficult to understand why those matters were pursued yesterday, especially as it had been made clear that everything was in order, and especially since those right hon. and hon. Members who had been most vociferous about the time provided for the debate were most prominent in taking up over an hour of that time by raising bogus points of order.
Mr. James Wallace: Can the Leader of the House tell us how discussions in the usual channels are going with regard to the question of our having a debate on the matter of displaying petrol prices in gallons? This is something for which the Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee has been asking for a long time. If it is not possible to have a debate specifically on that matter, could it be brought up in the context of a debate on the question of metrication generally?
Secondly, is it likely that there will be an announcement next week about the British-Irish parliamentary tier? If so, will it be possible to give a guarantee that the composition of that body will include representation of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, which has representation in another place?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman raised two points about metrication. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has had discussions with the Chairman of the Trade and Industry Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren). about the display of petrol prices, and he has now asked that Committee for any further suggestions it might like to make. My right hon. Friend awaits those suggestions with interest.
With regard to metrication generally, no doubt the House will have an opportunity to debate these matters in the near future.
As to the British-Irish parliamentary tier, the details have not yet been settled fully, but the intention is that this should be a matter primarily for the Dublin and Westminster Parliaments.
Mr. Michael Marshall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he hopes shortly to find time for a debate on the report of the Council on Tribunals, which was laid before this House on 16 January, particularly in view of the significance of its recommendations in respect of ministerial accountability for the actions of the general commissioners of taxation?
Mr. Wakeham: I know of my hon. Friend's interest in these matters. The Government are at present studying this very important report, and an announcement will be

1151
made in due course. I cannot promise an early debate in Government time, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will be able to find another way of raising the matter.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: Will the Leader of the House recognise that many people in receipt of protected transitional payments, following the change from supplementary benefit to income support, are suffering very severely as a result of the current level of inflation? Will he try to ensure that time is provided for a debate at the earliest opportunity—before those people suffer a further erosion of their standard of living when the new benefits come into effect in April?
Mr. Wakeham: I am sure the hon. Gentleman recognises that this Government have at least kept pace on behalf of people in receipt of pensions and other social security payments, and that they have not done so by fiddling the figures. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman would like to raise the matter, but I cannot promise a debate in Government time in the near future.
Mr. John Carlisle: In the light of the slight hiccup in another place this week, when their Lordships decided to try to phase in the Football Spectators Bill [Lords], will my right hon. Friend give the House an absolute assurance that the Government will not be deflected from this admirable legislation and that it will be brought before this House unamended as quickly as possible?
Mr. Wakeham: Of course, I cannot comment in detail on a Bill that is before another place. However, I can say that I understand that the effect of the amendment was perhaps not what its proposers intended. I believe that the matter will be resolved happily before the Bill comes to this House.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: In view of the number of informed leaks that have occurred recently with regard to the inviting of tenders for the construction of private remand prisons. will the Leader of the House undertake to bring the issue of private prisons to the Floor of this House before the Government take any definitive action? There is a fundamental principle at stake here.
Mr. Wakeham: I do not know about informed leaks, and I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman does either. I therefore cannot accept that part of his question. I cannot imagine, however, that development of policy in that regard would go very far before an announcement was made in the House.
Sir Richard Body: Further to what my right hon. Friend said recently about the House being given an opportunity to debate metrication, may I ask whether there would be any point in our having such a debate if the Government have already agreed to what is now known as the Cockfield directive—the last proposed directive that Lord Cockfield signed before giving up office—in which he said clearly that imperial measurements would be phased out over a period of years, with only a few exceptions?
Mr. Wakeham: I think that my hon. Friend emphasised in making his point that it might be desirable to debate the matter in the House. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out a few minutes ago, permanent
1152
derogations have been included for the pub pint, the pint milk bottle on the doorstep and the mile—for both distance and speed measurement.
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: In view of the growing concern in Europe at the Prime Minister's intransigence in insisting on the modernisation of short-range nuclear weapons, is it not right that she should make a statement in the House about her meetings with the German Chancellor Herr Kohl in Frankfurt this week so that we can have a full view of that intransigence and the fact that she is out of step with nearly every world leader at present?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman has got it completely wrong. What my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was doing in Frankfurt was discussing and supporting unanimous decisions by NATO. The interesting question is whether the Opposition support NATO.
Sir Anthony Grant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a very simple solution to the problem of the display of petrol prices in gallons and litres which can be achieved without any lengthy discussion—namely for the Government to withdraw the order that they laid just before we rose for the Christmas recess?
Mr. Wakeham: I know my hon. Friend well enough to be aware that when he says that there is a simple solution there is usually a catch in it. I think that I will leave it at that.
Mr. Harry Barnes: You are aware, Mr. Speaker, of the disruption of last Thursday's Adjournment debate, and condemn it. Nine points of order were raised. I know that, the Leader of the House did not like the points of order that were raised yesterday—and I do not think that you were too pleased with some of them either, Mr. Speaker.
On Thursday, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin) spied Strangers and then did not bother to vote in the Division, and there was continuous caterwauling from some Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). Will the Leader of the House ensure that nothing like that takes place in future Adjournment debates?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is right to disapprove of disorder, wherever it comes from, but I hope that he is also big enough to recognise that it does not always come from one side of the House. His hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) can dish it out, and I think that he can take it as well.
I do not approve of disorderly conduct. I believe that the House does itself credit when it conducts itself in accordance with order. The question of order at any particular time, however, is a matter for the occupant of the Chair and not for me.
Sir Peter Emery: My right hon. Friend would not expect me to discourage him from arranging a debate on procedure, particularly when it concerns a report that has been before the House for nearly two years and on which I have urged him many times to arrange a debate. May I point out, however, that because of certain happenings during the present Session a paper is currently before the Procedure Committee about private Members' time. It might well be useful to ensure that that was placed

1153
before the House, as I think that it may assist the House in coming to decisions that go further than those in our original report.
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon. Friend knows, on all such questions—but particularly questions of procedure—I seek to make progress through as much consent and agreement as possible from both sides of the House. Relatively simple changes often have complications which are not necessarily readily understood at the time.
I think that my hon. Friend will agree that he and I have discussed these matters; and I have discussed them with many other Members of the House. We are slowly making progress in finding ways of dealing with some of the issues, but I do not wish to rush to quick and simple solutions, because they are not there—and I know that my hon. Friend does not believe that they are there either.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Can I begin by saying that I agreed with the Leader of the House when he referred to the fact that we must be prepared to take the rough with the smooth in this place. The only point I quarrelled with was that the way in which hon. Members dealt with the matter was a little bit inept. I actually got to know about the so-called ambush before it started, which spoilt the adventure that could have occurred. It got a bit boring really.
The Secretary of State for Energy gave a reply during last Energy Questions about miners who have been called to go on restart schemes and who may lose their benefits from British Coal or the state. Attempts are being made by various Departments, including Energy, to try to remedy the matter. Will the Leader of the House talk to the respective Departments—Employment and Energy—with a view to ensuring that by next Monday, when the Department of Energy reports again to the House, the matter will be resolved, so that those miners who have been made redundant are not called on to go through this procedure and will be treated in the same way as those who are given the golden handshake and go on to the professional and executive register? We should treat everyone alike.
Mr. Wakeham: I certainly give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking that I shall have a word with my right hon. Friend. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would do a favour for me some time and have a word with some of his hon. Friends to teach them how to proceed in the House with the same skill as he has.
Mr. Skinner: I do it all the time.
Sir John Stokes: Will my right hon. Friend find time for us to debate the implications of the second Astra satellite, which will soon become available to all homes in England prepared to pay? Its programmes consist mainly of indecent foreign films. Can we not stop this debauchery of our morals before it starts?
Mr. Wakeham: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. We have recently had a debate on broadcasting, so I cannot find an early debate in Government time. It is a matter to which we shall come back and I know that my hon. Friend will be in the forefront in expressing his views.
Mr. Greville Janner: Can we have an early debate on road safety? Is the Leader of the House aware that the Government have reduced by £4,300,000 the money available to Leicestershire county council for roads, including road safety, this year? That means that 17 pedestrian crossings that are needed in dangerous places cannot conceivably be installed. There has already been the death of one child, Kelly Allen, aged eight, in my constituency. It is a scandal, increased by the fact that there is £600,000 unused in the gritting fund and the Government will not permit it to be employed for road safety because it is in the wrong account.
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that these matters are a bit more complicated than he implied by his question. It seems primarily a matter for Leicestershire county council and not for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, although I shall certainly refer the matter to him. I hope that the next time the hon. and learned Gentleman asks a question on roads and road safety he will recognise the substantial increase of about 40 per cent. in real terms that the Government have funded for road improvements.
Mr. Michael Latham: Regarding my Adjournment debate next Friday, can my right hon. Friend say which junior Minister has drawn the short straw of replying? Will he ensure that that junior Minister, whoever he is, co-ordinates with the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Defence so that he can answer all the questions relating to the death of Petty Officer John Black, as this is the second time that I have had to seek an Adjournment debate on this distressing subject?
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon. Friend knows, it is not customary on these occasions to say which Minister will be replying to a particular debate, but my hon. Friend makes his point clearly and I shall see to it that the Minister responsible is aware of my hon. Friend's points before he comes to reply to the debate.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: Can the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Defence to come to the House to make a statement explaining exactly what the Ministry has been doing since last April when I raised in the House the case of the massacre of the Royal Warwickshire prisoners of war and the allegations regarding Wilhelm Mohnke? Bearing in mind and notwithstanding its contacts with the West German Government, I was informed yesterday by the United States Department of Justice on behalf of the director of special investigations that the United States Government have no fewer than 70 cases of documents regarding massacres that occurred in Normandy, many of which refer to Wilhelm Mohnke. The department stands ready to help any Government who request information. It is clear that the British Goverment have never once asked to see those files. Can we have an explanation from the Ministry of Defence next week about exactly what it has been doing since last April?
Mr. Wakeham: Obviously, I cannot give an answer to that question off the cuff, but I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the matter, which he has raised a number of times. I shall see to it that he gets an answer from the Ministry of Defence.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: In view of the ill-informed intervention by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) yesterday evening, will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is up to the House authorities to decide whether amendments should lead to the costly reprinting of a Bill, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Government?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend is right. There are long established customs in this matter. Once a Bill is introduced, it becomes the property of the House, not the Government, and the decision whether to reprint a Bill following amendments in Committee is a matter for the House authorities. The practice is that if an amendment relates to a very few words, no further reprint is necessary for Report and Third Reading. I should have thought that that was a perfectly practical and sensible way in which to proceed.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: May we have a statement next week on the provision of classified material to Select Committees? To whom must I go if I want to challenge the provision of classified documents, stamped "secret" by the Ministry of Defence or another Department, to Select Committees and members of those Committees? Will the Leader of the House tell me to whom I must go? Someone must answer the question that I ask.
Mr. Wakeham: I am afraid that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not prepared to answer questions on security.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Budgen.
Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Would not 1 March be a suitable occasion to allow the Government to remember in a debate that 10 years ago the legislative proposals for devolution in Scotland and Wales were defeated, and to allow a spokesman from the Conservative and Unionist party to explain why devolution is so wrong in Scotland and Wales but so right in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend would not seriously want to pursue that issue. Wednesday 1 March is St. David's day, and I cannot think of a more appropriate subject for debate on that day than Welsh affairs. I remember that when I arranged last year's debate for 2 March I got into considerable trouble with the Opposition for not getting the right day.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Does the Leader of the House realise that many Scottish Labour Members would welcome a debate on devolution and the Government's record in Scotland?
More particularly, I want to ask about Energy Questions next Monday and the serious matter of the contract between the South of Scotland Electricity Board and British Coal, which is still to be resolved. My constituents, and those of many of my colleagues, have been very patient, considering that the contract runs out on 31 March. We have heard good noises from the Secretary of State for Scotland to the effect that the matter will be resolved, but may we expect that the Secretary of
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State for Energy will tell us, on Monday or very soon after, that it is to be resolved and that deep-mined coal will continue to be produced in Scotland for power stations?
Mr. Wakeham: What I can confirm is that my right hon. Friend will be in the House on Monday to answer questions on energy matters. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will be able to pursue the matter with him
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Opposition would like to take part in a debate on Scottish matters. I am sure that he is right and that, if we had such a debate, he would make one of his usual trenchant contributions, although whether it would be acceptable to those on the Opposition Front Bench is another matter.
Mr. Graham Riddick: As we are to debate a wide range of issues next week, does my right hon. Friend think it appropriate that we should debate the wool textile industry, following the announcement last week of record export figures for 1988? Would he like to comment on those figures, and does he not think that they are a tribute to the industry's increasing investment over the years and to its identification and exploitation of the market opportunities that are present now?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The wool textile industry has produced some very good figures. I would love to be able to arrange a debate next week, but my hon. Friend would be the first to recognise that quite a number of subjects are down for debate and I do not think I can add to them.
Mr. Max Madden: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is mounting concern among elderly people living alone, women fleeing violence and those granted political asylum about their names and addresses being published on the poll tax register? Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for the Secretary of State for the Environment to make urgent inquiries and to make a statement to the House making clear that those responsible for drawing up the public poll tax registers will have complete discretion to delete from the public extracts the names and addresses of those who are fearful for their well-being, and in some cases their lives, if their names and addresses are published?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman has not chosen an especially good topic this week. He should perhaps compare the position with that of the register of electors. I do not believe that he is justified in saying what he said. He has grossly overstated the case.
Mr. Harry Greenway: I remind my right hon. Friend of his opposition to debates on opinion polls, in which I support him. I invite him, however, to have a debate on a real poll which took place in my constituency last Thursday in the Hobbayne ward, in which the Conservatives gained an Ealing council seat from the Labour party, with a swing from Labour of 23·6 per cent. Will he include in any motion relating to that the fact that that is the third gain by the Conservative party of a seat on Ealing council in five months?
Mr. Wakeham: If I arrange debates every time that the Conservatives win a by-election, we would do nothing else but have debates on that subject.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the majority of the legal profession welcomes

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the Lord Chancellor's important and far-reaching proposals in the Green Paper? Will he organise, as early as possible, a debate on this subject to demonstrate both the important need for urgent action and the relative isolation of the few objectors?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend has expressed his opinion, which I value. My view is that the Green Paper is a detailed and complicated document and, before considering the possibility of a debate, it would perhaps be better if we waited until right hon. and hon. Members and those outside the House have had time to consider it properly. I am sure that that is a matter to which we shall want to return.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Will my right hon. Friend explain why no Minister from the Ministry of Defence has made a statement to the House about the recent IRA bombing of the Tern Hill barracks? Were there not serious questions to be asked about security, rules of engagement and liaison with the police? Was not grave damage done to property? If such an eventuality were to occur in the future, will my right hon. Friend ensure that, instead of Ministers giving interviews to the media, they come first to the House?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend will remember that I answered questions for the Prime Minister on this matter earlier in the week. It is a matter of judgment whether it is right to make statements in the House. That is something which the Government consider carefully on each occasion. On this occasion, it was not thought that it was appropriate or helpful, but that did not in any way diminish our horror of and concern about that terrible event.
Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend give serious consideration to the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West
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(Mr. Budgen) for a debate on 1 March on devolution? Does my right hon. Friend realise that in the running of this unitary Parliament proposals for the forms and structures of government and voting patterns are reflected and impinge on all the areas covered by the unitary Parliament? In particular, there is no way that Scotland can ignore developments in Ulster, any more than Ulster can ignore developments in Scotland. That has been frequently shown by the number of arms caches recovered in Scotland, which has a direct link with the hostilities in Ulster.
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend has made his point. Of course it is an appropriate matter for the House to discuss, but it is not something that I can see my way to finding a place for next week.
Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Is my right hon. Friend interested to learn that, after I raised the subject of the need for a necessary knick-knack kiosk in this place, I was approached by a score or more hon. Members with their own hard luck stories, including one hon. Member who said that his marriage was threatened because of his inability to buy a birthday card for his wife? Is my right hon. Friend interested to know, further, that the Doormen and the Badge Messengers have brought to my attention the fact that they used to be allowed to run such a store in Westminster Hall and that it has been a long tradition in the House to use that area for commercial purposes? Will my right hon. Friend reconsider reinstating that tradition?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend wants to be careful of hard luck stories inside or outside the House from men—hon. Gentlemen or not—whom she does not know too well. I know that she is well capable of looking after herself on those occasions. I am glad that her story ended happily. If my hon. Friend believes that there are any changes that we should make to our arrangements, I suggest that she contact the Chairman of the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee, which is responsible for such matters.

Points of Order
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will know how I have persisted with you over these weeks—indeed, I courteously left the Chamber last week at your request—on the question of six Conservative Members of Parliament. You will have noted once again the reply of the Leader of the House when I asked a question about the provision of classified information to Select Committees. He immediately hid—as indeed, you did, Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago—behind the concept of security being so important that these matters cannot be discussed. Where do I go from here, Mr. Speaker, because this matter remains? I do not intend to give up, and I may have to persist in ways that the House might not like. [Interruption.] I am just saying what will happen.
I believe that there is a serious consideration that hon. Members must examine, which is the question whether classified information should be given to Select Committees without us knowing whether the members of those Committees—or even members of the Committee of Selection—are fit to handle classified material. The matter cannot go away. I wonder whether you will go away and examine this matter and give me further advice, because I intend to persist in asking for it, and taking other routes if necessary.
Mr. Michael Latham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it not solve all the problems if the hon. Gentleman were to have a chat with my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) and then we could perhaps know who those six Conservative Members are? I would like to know, for example. whether I am one of them.
Mr. Speaker: Me too.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Might I add to that, because it would be helpful to the House? I have done precisely that. The hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) is a Member of honour, and he has refused to give me that list.
Mr. Speaker: I cannot help the hon. Member. As he well knows, I have given the matter great consideration. He will have to pursue it in the way in which he thinks is right.
Mr. Tony Benn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can I ask you to consider another aspect of this matter? I do not share my hon. Friend's view that Members of Parliament should be vetted—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am not saying that at all.
Mr. Benn: My understanding is that—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am not suggesting that at all.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The point of order is to me and not to the hon. Member.
Mr. Benn: My concern is that there should be vetting of Members of Parliament by the security services, which is a threat to the rights of the House. I am not concerned about whether Members are able to pass the MI5 test or not, because that of itself is a threat to the independence of the House. I would only ask you, therefore, to consider whether it is in order and whether you, Mr. Speaker, would ascertain whether it has occurred and that security services personnel have come to conclusions about the reliability of hon. Members. If that were to prevail, it would not be long before candidates standing for Parliament would have to prove not only that they were not disqualified according to the statute, but that they were not disqualified according to a secret vetting procedure. I hope that, by putting it this way, I can help you to make inquiries on behalf of the House to find out whether it is true that the security services vet Members of Parliament. If that were to occur, that would be the ultimate capitulation of the legislature to the Executive.
Mr. Speaker: I share the right hon. Member's views. I hope that hon. Members would not be vetted. We are all right hon. or hon. Members, whichever side of the House we sit on.

Points of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    ABOLITION OF DOMESTIC RATES ETC.(SCOTLAND) ACT (AMENDMENT)
    Mr.James Wallace, supported by Mr. Menzies Campbell, Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mrs. Ray Michie, Mr. Charles Kennedy, Mr. Malcolm Bruce and Sir Russell Johnston, presented a Bill to amend section 29 of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 to provide for the hearing of evidence in relation to appeals under the Act: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3 March and to be printed. [Bill 83].

European Community
Mr. Speaker: I must announce to the House that I have not been able to select the amendment on the Order Paper.
4.10 pm
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the White Paper "Developments in the European Community January-June 1988" (Cm.467).
I know that the House wishes to be fully informed about proposals and discussions in the European Community. The House deserves both individual and general debate. I join the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) in regretting that this debate could not have been held earlier. We would have preferred it, but it did not prove to be possible.
I accept that there is genuine concern in the House about the need to make the process of parliamentary scrutiny more timely and effective. I have noted the amendment that was tabled by some of my hon. Friends. I assure them that, although we are not debating the amendment, as the issue was raised in section 15 of the White Paper, we are noting carefully the views of all right hon. and hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Lord President will look carefully at what is said in the debate.
We must ensure that the recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee on European Community legislation are acted on in good time. Of course there are difficulties in arranging the timing of debates, but I am determined to do all possible to improve the situation. Our record in 1988 shows a welcome increase: 39 scrutiny debates on 109 documents. Last year, we debated the largest number of documents for many years. We shall aim for further improvement. We shall try to make the mechanics of the scrutiny system work better, for the benefit of good discussion in the House. We look forward to the comments and suggestions that will be made in the coming weeks to my right hon. Friend the Lord President.
Sir Russell Johnston: Did any of the debates and reports that the right hon. Lady listed result in any change of any kind?
Mrs. Chalker: Off hand, I would be foolish to give the hon. Gentleman an exact answer. My memory—it is only my memory, and it is fallible from time to time—tells me that suggestions were made and were later taken up, but I rather doubt whether the actual wording was changed. If I have erred, I shall tell the hon. Gentleman so that he knows the correct answer and can make it available to other hon. Members.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Not only the Leader of the House but my right hon. Friend's Department needs to note some of these suggestions. I refer my right hon. Friend to the debate on 14 November on tobacco products. The most gentle of amendments suggested that the Government should be sensitive to not trying to make article 100A, as Mr. Speaker's counsel has said, do more work than it was ever intended to do. According to revelations that were made by the recently ministerially deceased Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), that amendment was voted down on the instructions of the Foreign Office. That
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point appeared in correspondence in The Guardian. It is not good enough for the Foreign Office to take such a strong line on a sensible House of Commons suggestion.
Mrs. Chalker: I remember reading something in The Guardian. I am surprised that my hon. Friend believes everything that he reads in it. I remember that the facts were not quite as described in The Guardian. I do not have the relevant papers with me, so I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I refer to the White Paper.
Mr. Tony Marlow: I am sure that my right hon. Friend would be happy to agree with me that if there is to be a debate in the House on many of these instruments—there are many important ones and many are coming through at the moment—if democracy is to mean anything at all, it should take place before the common position has been agreed within the Community.
Mrs. Chalker: It is quite difficult to know the best time to have a debate. My hon. Friend is aware that the Commission will put forward a proposal, and comments will be made on it. It may be changed, and it may then go forward again. If the time of the House is not to be concentrated solely on these matters, which would not be in the best interests of the House, we must investigate the best possible times, which may differ according to the matter under consideration, to look at the details. My right hon. Friend the Lord President is concerned with these very measures, as are all Ministers who are engaged on European business, not solely the Foreign Office.
Mr. Marlow rose—
Mrs. Chalker: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I should like to refer to the White Paper.
Mr. Marlow: Just briefly.
Mrs. Chalker: I shall give way for the last time.
Mr. Marlow: Is there a lot of point in having a debate after the common position has been reached?
Mrs. Chalker: I should not think so, either. My hon. Friend made a reasonable point. My only caution is that I have known an occasion on which we thought that a common position had been agreed, and a further common position was subsequently arrived at. If such an event is possible, we must look at the best possible time to discuss every subject. In this matter, we are concerned to get a better system not only to notify hon. Members when things will come forward but to try to arrange the business of the House in a better fashion to get proper scrutiny. My hon. Friend has my full assurance that nobody will be happier than I if we can get scrutiny debates better organised than they have been for a long while.
In commending to the House this White Paper on 1988 events in the first half of the year, I shall single out three main developments: first, the February 1988 agreements on reforming the common agricultural policy and controlling Economic Community expenditure; secondly, the dramatic progress on the single market which this unlocked; and, thirdly, the consequent developments in the Community's relations with the wider world.
The White Paper covers the period of the German presidency. It was a significant six months for the Community. It included the special European Council in Brussels, on 13 February, and the Hanover European Council, held on 27–28 June. It was at the 1988 February

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Heads of Government Council that final agreement was reached on the key issues of future financing and agriculture.
That agreement was an excellent one, both for Britain and for the Community. It was a threefold triumph to ensure, first, that future increases in Community resources go hand in hand with effective and legally binding controls on expenditure; secondly, that measures to reduce agricultural surpluses would be effective; and, thirdly, that the Fontainebleau abatement mechanism for the United Kingdom was maintained in full. That is how, in 1989, we will receive an abatement of £1,179 million.
Some of my hon. Friends have argued that we could have painlessly achieved all that if we had adopted a more accommodating negotiating style. With every respect, they were wrong. I know of no one who was involved in the negotiation leading up to February 1988, in any Community capital, who agrees with them. Some argued that the achievements were illusory and that, in particular, time would tell that we have not succeeded in limiting the CAP. I should like to show some of my hon. Friends who still think that why they are wrong.
The February 1988 texts were given legally binding form in June, and the impact was immediate. The 1989 budget was adopted with CAP spending well within the legal guideline. During the 1989 budget process, the Commission proposed, and the Council and Parliament agreed, extra savings worth some £2,500 million. They came from improvements in managements and the change in the dollar-ecu relationship and changes in world prices and, indeed, production due to drought.
The agricultural "stabilisers", that 1988 innovation, were triggered for a wide range of arable crops. This produced 1988 price cuts of up to 20 per cent. For the key cereals crop there will be a 1989 price cut of 3 per cent. The intervention stocks dropped sharply. The milk powder mountain has gone, with quantities in store amounting to only about two days' supply for the Community. The butter mountain shrank by 88 per cent. in 1988.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Will the Minister give way?
Mrs. Chalker: If my hon. Friend will allow me to complete this section, I shall give way.
Even the once stubbornly high stocks of beef are falling significantly. They are now 38 per cent. down on last year. In short, financial control is now biting, and biting hard.
Mr. Taylor: How can the Minister, who is speaking to a half-empty House of Commons, talk about the butter mountain being reduced because of reforms? Do not the figures which I have sent to my right hon. Friend and which have been published in Hansard show that we had a thorough clearance sale whereby 877,000 tonnes of butter were sold at prices as low as 2·75p a pound instead of the usual 400,000 tonnes per year? How on earth can the Minister call this the outcome of reform when the figures published by the Ministry of Agriculture show that we had a thorough clearance sale of the existing mountain at a ludicrously low price? How can that be a reform?
Mrs. Chalker: The fact that the stocks have moved from that figure to a current level of 102,000 tonnes does not belie the fact that they have gone down. When they are
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reduced, it saves storage costs. By saving storage costs, we are not putting good money into a non-productive sector. That was the importance of these reforms.
Clearly, there is much more to be done. The fact that financial control is now biting is one of the most important aspects of the decisions made last year. Obviously, riot everything can be put right overnight. In particular, we need to ensure that value for money in European Community expenditure is pursued with equal rigour. That means effective and continuing action to detect and deter fraud.
The United Kingdom has consistently argued for this. In 1987, I urged the late Mr. Aigner, who was then chairman of the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament, to stimulate an increase in his efforts. I am pressing Mr. Schön, his successor, to give extra attention to this.
Last week, it was alleged in another place that in 1987 the United Kingdom vetoed action on fraud by the Commission. I have to tell the House that that was not so. On the contrary, the United Kingdom has been the leading advocate of the anti-fraud unit which has been set up inside the Commission. Fraud must be tackled by the Commission, and by member states working together, and we shall see that it is. The decision taken in March 1987 at the ECOFIN Council was unanimously to reject the Commission's proposal because it was not thought right to have a Commission-led investigative mission. It is thought right that both the Commission, and the member states working together, should tackle the problem and get it right.
The House may be interested to know that I spent part of Tuesday of this week with Commissioner Schmidhuber on this very subject. We shall indeed make sure that this is high on all the agendas. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be raising the matter in March at the ECOFIN Council.
Mr. Marlow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mrs. Chalker: Very well—for the last time.
Mr. Marlow: Let us be realistic. Is it likely that the Italian Government will prevent the Mafia from fraudulently applying Community funds? It is very difficult for the Italian Government to deal with the Mafia. If they get the money, more Community money goes to Italy, and so Italy will benefit anyway. As the Italian Government will not do it, perhaps it is time that we had an extra-national body that could sort out the problem.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Euro-police?
Mrs. Chalker: I am slightly surprised at my hon. Friend's suggestion for an extra-national body. I believe that a combination of Commission and national Government action is right. Whatever may be the problems of the Italian Government in dealing with criminality in their own society, I cannot answer for them this afternoon. I will say, however, that we have made this a British priority, and it has now become a Community priority. We shall consistently support the work of the Court of Auditors. I agree with my hon. Friends that its report for 1987 makes several disturbing criticisms. It is clear that more action is needed.
It is totally wrong if large amounts of Community money are being wasted, because Community money is

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taxpayers' money and we certainly do not need gamekeepers turned poachers at taxpayers' expense. We must remember that.
At last week's Agriculture Council, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food strongly supported the Commission's determination.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend give way, on the point of fraud?
Mrs. Chalker: I am still dealing with fraud, if my hon. Friend will just allow me to complete it first.
My right hon. Friend strongly supported the Commission's determination to follow up the Court of Auditors' findings. Community controls over intervention stocks and export refunds must be strengthened. That is why my right hon. Friend pressed a strong case for a change to the control procedures. Those adopted up to now have clearly failed to deter fraud effectively, and new proposals are needed.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Would my right hon. Friend consider, as there has been a lot of fraud in olive oil, linking receipts of EEC money with tax returns in Italy? If one applied for a tax return, one could get olive oil money only on the amount that had been declared.
Mrs. Chalker: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. It is worth investigating measures to get a more accurate figure. Jokes about tax returns have come from various Community countries for a long time. I am not sure that it would be the absolute safety line that my hon. Friend suggests, but we shall consider my hon. Friend's suggestion most carefully because we wish to investigate thoroughly any suggestion to detect and deter fraud.
I mentioned that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will raise the matter on 13 March at the ECOFIN Council. Let there be no mistaking our determination to pursue the matter. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear that she will, if necessary, raise the question of fraud at the European Council in Madrid in June. That is a measure of how seriously we view the problem. We want thorough and effective action, not words.
We have made important strides in 1988 towards the completion of the European single market. That has been, and remains, the major United Kingdom priority. To do this, the Community needs policies which encourage enterprise. It is remarkable how that message of liberalisation has been taken up throughout Europe, including by the Commission. The Hanover European Council endorsed it and called, specifically, for further work on financial services, public purchasing, standards and intellectual property, which are all areas in which we want early progress.
In the six months to June 1988, we secured agreement on a string of 56 liberalising, enabling or market-opening measures, all of them to encourage enterprise. We agreed to abolish quotas for international road haulage. Permits for lorry journeys will be increased each year, so that by the end of 1992 there will be no further restrictions on choice of road transport for businesses throughout the Community. That must bring down costs, and the United Kingdom transport industry stands to benefit greatly.
Secondly, after more than a decade of negotiation, we finally liberalised non-life insurance. That will leave
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companies free to choose their insurers anywhere in Europe. Choice is the hallmark of a free market, an efficient market and a low-cost market. We intend to press ahead now with liberalising other areas of insurance. We are determined to provide tangible evidence to the consumer of the value of EC liberalisation. The United Kingdom insurance industry, which has such special skills, is well placed to benefit from that. At last it can now market EC-wide. Progress on insurance is a major United Kingdom interest and advance for us.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: In declaring my interest as a director of a large insurance company, may I appeal to my right hon. Friend to look at that directive, which does not bring about liberality but rather allows only a measure of liberality for what are loosely called large risks, but does nothing for the mass risk market? That is particularly true since there is something stuck in it called the "Kumul" rule which says that, if others can provide the same service, they can keep us out. It is a load of rubbish. If my right hon. Friend talks to a few insurance companies, they will tell her themselves.
Mrs. Chalker: I note what my hon. Friend says and I shall look into it. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) laughs. I do not know whether he thinks that I am supposed to be an expert on insurance matters. I am paid by the Government, not by an insurance company, and I need to look into what my hon. Friend has said in order to give him an answer. I am happy to give him an answer, but when I have had a chance to look into the matter.
We agreed that professionals should be free to work anywhere in the Community without requalifying in their profession. At the moment, it would take an accountant or an insurance man up to 50 years to qualify to practise throughout the Community. Under the new rules that have been agreed and are being introduced bit by bit up to 1990, one qualification will be enough.
Public purchasing is another protected citadel of the Community where our current onslaught is penetrating some major regulatory defences. The House will probably know that public purchasing accounts for about 15 per cent. of total Community GDP. Last year we agreed far-reaching changes to the rules governing access to that market. Those changes are opening up opportunities for business throughout the Community. They will bring down costs and produce better value for money for taxpayers, consumers and businesses. This year we are continuing our efforts to extend Community liberalisation to cover formerly excluded sectors, such as transport and telecommunications. That is an important advance.
Last but not least, most member states have agreed to abolish exchange controls by next year. The United Kingdom did that in 1979. Now, the Community has accepted that that makes sense. The last two countries to do that will be Greece and Portugal, by the end of 1992.
There has been good steady progress and it is right that all eyes should be focused on the single market. Those eyes are not just within the Community but outside too, and some third countries have expressed concern. They want to ensure that the removal of internal barriers benefits not only the twelve EC member states, but them as well. More importantly, as internal barriers come down in the Community, they are concerned that no new outer walls should go up.

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Let me make that quite clear. We are totally opposed to proposals that would create a fortress Europe. That is why we cannot accept proposals that the liberalisation of financial services should involve protectionist provisions on reciprocity. Such proposals rightly concern our other partners across the world. The Commission's proposals for automatic reciprocity clauses in the second banking directive and in the investment services directive have met with considerable opposition from member states. I am glad to say that the Commission is now thinking again. We shall continue to ensure that liberalisation of financial services does not lead to protectionism. A liberalised economy within Europe is no excuse for a protectionist wall around Europe. That would defeat the whole object of the single market. It is in that context that I shall look carefully at what my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) has said.
Mr. John Butterfill: Will that extend to banking, where we have taken certain powers in recent legislation?
Mrs. Chalker: I believe that it will extend to banking in due time, but I would want to know the precise aspect to which my hon. Friend refers. He may care to ask my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to respond on that issue when he replies.
Fortress Europe would make no sense for the Community. The Community has recognised, partly as a result of strong pressure by the United Kingdom, that the single market must be open to third countries. The European Councils in Hanover and Rhodes made that clear. One could quote from the conclusions of Hanover and Rhodes, both of which show clearly that the internal market will be a decisive factor in contributing to the greater liberalisation in international trade. I can assure the House that the Government will continue to work for a liberal approach towards our trading partners.
Mr. Edward Leigh: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mrs. Chalker: I have given way many times and I do not wish to take up too much of the time of the House. Therefore, if my hon. Friend will allow me, I should like to continue.
Progress in completing the single market has greatly increased interest in the Community among third countries. Let me mention our closest partners—our six European Free Trade Association friends. They are collectively the Community's largest trading partner, and they are anxious to preserve the benefits of their free trade agreements with the Community. They are determined to share in the greater prosperity of the single market, and we believe that they should. Therefore, they are negotiating for even closer links to the Community, and we welcome that. We are also seeing considerable new investment by them, and others, in the Community. That is a sure sign of our success in revitalising the European economy.
Another important development in recent years in the Community has been the strengthening of European political co-operation. The depth of day-to-day consultation and the continuity of policy, despite changes in the nationality and political complexion of the presidency, are perhaps surprising to outsiders. Both are helped by the
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efficient functioning of the EPC secretariat in Brussels. That was a British initiative, taken during our presidency in 1986.
The Twelve's close co-ordination in EPC made a substantial contribution on two particular occasions. One was to the successful conclusion of the Vienna conference on security and co-operation in Europe meeting. But dealing with much more recent events, we were extremely heartened by the solidarity of the Twelve on Monday last on our problems with Iran. That gave us precisely the timely and substantive support that we sought, and demonstrated the ability of the Twelve to take effective, speedy and united action on a key political issue. European political co-operation is now a vital part of the Community's business, and one that we welcome very much.
Mr. Quentin Davies: My right hon. Friend puts those points extremely modestly. Will she accept the most heartfelt congratulations of many hon. Members and most people outside the House on her and her right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary's diplomatic triumph the other day in securing the support and solidarity of the rest of the Community behind Members over this difficult Iranian issue?
Mrs. Chalker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his most generous remarks. We shall always seek to work in such a way to support one another in the important area of political co-operation.
I have spoken of the Community's internal work and of our external negotiations. The two come together very much on the international trade front. I am convinced that the Community must use its own internal liberalisation constructively as a lever to bring about wider international liberalisation. Nowhere is this truer than in services, a new area for the general agreement on tariffs and trade. We now have an important opportunity. Economic liberalisation has been the hallmark of this Government's success domestically. We are achieving that now in Europe too. Hon. Members can be certain that we shall fight for it globally in the GATT Uruguay round.
One key to progress in GATT at present is agriculture. That well illustrates the inter-relationship of what we are doing within the Community and our negotiations with the outside world. Reduction in agricultural support will benefit everyone. The consumer is helped by lowering prices; the taxpayer by providing value for money; the Third world by allowing developing countries to compete fairly on world markets; and on top of that the international trading system as a whole by encouraging liberalisation world wide.
That is why we fought last year to reform the CAP and why our success in February last year was so important a step. But the Community must be prepared to go further. We cannot afford to let the Uruguay round fail.
The United States needs to move from its utopian demand for commitment to the complete long-term abolition of agricultural support. Real progress can and will be made only provided there is no politically unrealistic target of total elimination. Once this is recognised, negotiaions can begin on further short-term reductions.
The next step is the senior officials' meeting in April. For our part, the United Kingdom must live up to its commitment to sustained reductions in CAP support. The

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Commission proposals for the 1989 CAP price fixing—a price freeze in most sectors and a reduction in some—are good. They could have been better, but if we do not fulfil the expectations of continuing progress on CAP reform the Community will be rightly isolated and rightly blamed. That would be in no one's interest.
The Community has a heavy and important agenda ahead. I recognise the value of the major work done under the German presidency. This afternoon I have touched on three main strands. On all of them the results of last year are directly relevant to our current negotiating tasks in the Community: first, expenditure control and CAP reform; secondly, our main priority—the single market; and, thirdly, our relations world wide.
Mr. Leigh: May I bring those three strands together by asking a question? Will my right hon. Friend agree that there are two scenarios in the future of the Community? One scenario, which I call the nightmare scenario, is that in which standards are laid down by Brussels. These often result in the lowest common denominator. The other, which I call the dream scenario, is one in which countries, currencies and Governments compete for the highest common denominator. Would she favour the dream or the nightmare?
Mrs. Chalker: I have always tried to keep my feet firmly on the ground and make sure that my head is not in the clouds. I suppose that every human being likes sometimes to dream dreams, but progress is made only when one's feet are firmly on the ground.
Our internal reforms must be used as market-opening measures. We intend to use the Uruguay round to achieve a more open international trading system. The Government are playing their full part in working for open trading and that momentum must be maintained.
Changes that bring direct benefit to United Kingdom consumers and taxpayers are our overriding goal. The White Paper demonstrates some of the major steps which our European Community policy has made towards achieving it. We have made progress. We intend to make more progress in the area I have described.
4. 44 pm
Mr. George Robertson: This debate is taking place a year beyond the period that we arc supposed to be discussing. Notwithstanding the apologies of the Minister on behalf of those in the Government who arrange the business, it is an outrage and an affront to Parliament when these debates are designed for the review of the multiplicity of issues dealt with by the European Community in the period January to June 1988. That may have a lot to do with the fact that attendance at these debates is as limited as it is. It is hardly an inspiring prospect for hon. Members to come here on a Thursday afternoon and debate events so far away.
Sir Russell Johnston: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are excellent short-break holiday opportunities in Richmond at the moment?
Mr. Robertson: I can only assume that that suggestion has already been taken up. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) must be the only member of the SLD, the SDP and who knows
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what else not actually campaigning in that part of the world—and a fat lot of good it seems it will do them—despite the fact that at the end of the day the Government will win the seat, having lost the vote.
The Minister confirmed the intention of this debate in her own speech, in which she sought to look at what happened during the period under consideration, which is now so much history. What concerns the British people is here and now and the future. These debates have degenerated into a farce in which we catalogue events of a year ago but are given no opportunity to influence events that Ministers will decide this week, next week and in the coming year. The Minister conceded that, even with her well-known and established encyclopaedic memory, she could not recall one incident in which a debate on the hundreds of documents that are considered, usually after midnight, by the House of Commons had led to any change in any of the words.
This brings to mind a story I was told by a Conservative Member last week. He recalled an elderly Tory Member telling him that he had heard many brilliant speeches in the House in many debates. The first Conservative Member asked him if they had ever changed his mind. He said, "Of course; some of them were very persuasive. They never changed my vote, but they often changed my mind. " Here we have that incident being repeated. The Minister tells us that despite these great and important debates not a single one of the documents referred to in the report before us today—in section XV: "Parliamentary scrutiny of EC legislation", which runs to two paragraphs and simply lists a number of documents—has been changed. That is the brutal truth.
Sir Anthony Meyer: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not give up so easily. I am quite sure that, with the power of his oratory, he might tempt me into his Division Lobby tonight, if there is a Division and if he is sufficiently persuasive.
Mr. Robertson: Who can tell? I am sure that the looks that the hon. Gentleman is getting from the Whips on this occasion more than make up for the smiles of welcome he might get from me. If he will wait until I am finished, I am sure that, as ever, he will be persuaded.
Even before the Single European Act, the way in which Parliament dealt with the European Community was lamentably less thorough than it should have been. We had, of course, our admirable but circumscribed Select Committee on European Legislation. We had regular reports from key Councils of Ministers and we had these twice-yearly review debates. We also had that long succession of late-night debates on specific issues which had been recommended by the Scrutiny Committee for debate in the House. That was little enough, given the scale of the legislation powering its way through Councils of Ministers, but that little turned into sheer farce when the Single European Act came into existence.
We know that the Prime Minister does not feel any affection for the child to which she gave life in the Single European Act. She now pretends that she did not really authorise the Minister's signature to it or agree to its parts. Her Bruges speech was the repudiation of Mount Ararat and the denunciation of the tablets of stone which the right hon. Lady the Minister of State brought back. The Act included majority voting, harmonisation at a high level, European political co-operation and European monetary

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union. All that was thrown out as ideological baggage thrust on the Prime Minister in a moment of incomprehending weakness. That fools no one. It does not fool the Minister of State, it does not fool the House and it does not even fool the Prime Minister. However, the Prime Minister will not admit, because it conflicts with her blustering nationalism, that the Single European Act has had a dramatic impact on decision-making in all the European Community countries.
In 1986 the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities was blunt about this. In paragraph 28 it stated:
"The powers of the United Kingdom Parliament will be weakened by the Single European Act … Since the United Kingdom Parliament exercises no control over Community legislation other than through the voice and vote of UK Ministers in the Council of Ministers, weakening of the powers of UK Ministers is felt equally by the UK Parliament. "
The report concluded on that theme:
"The power of UK Ministers will therefore be circumscribed in five ways. "
With those new processes in place and with those new weaknesses imposed on our Ministers—and through them on this House—what has been the Government's response?
We now have fewer oral statements after European Community Councils of Ministers than ever before. We have the same limits on the remit of the Scrutiny Committee in this House and the same lack of opportunity to discuss key issues, often vital to the interests of Britain, before they emerge from the Commission or are dealt with by the European Parliament, or decided upon by the Council of Ministers sitting behind closed doors. To call that satisfactory is grossly to understate the position today.
It is time that the House took a grip on its own future and brought Ministers, who seem increasingly careless of any responsibilities to inform and consult Parliament, to account. We must radically alter the procedures of this House properly to reflect the new circumstances placed upon us by the Single European Act.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern and the concern felt throughout the country about the number of laws which are introduced into our legal system and which have nothing to do with the will of this House or our people? We have draft directives which direct the Government on what laws they will introduce and which the Government pass through the House by virtue of their enormous majority, despite the wishes of most of us that they should not be passed. There are also regulations whereby laws are introduced into our legal system without any consultation with our Government or people except on a vote of the majority of European Ministers. Those regulations cover such things as driving minibuses and the use of lead shot in shotguns. They are minutiae in the legal system of this country which should have nothing to do with the European Commission. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must reform the way in which those laws are introduced into this country through the House?
Mr. Robertson: Those views come ill, even from individual Tory Members. We remember only too well the way in which decisions have been taken in this Parliament by means of the silent majority who troop through the Division Lobby every night. We also recall that the Single
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European Act was passed through this House on a guillotine against a vote by the Opposition. Precious few Conservative Members voted then.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: How many Labour Members voted against the Act?
Mr. Robertson: If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish answering the hon. Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), we can get on. The hon. Member for Upminster made a similar point to mine. Several decisions at least deserve the scrutiny and consideration of the House. We have made that point repeatedly in debates with precious little support from the vast majority of Conservative Members.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Although not many hon. Members listen to these debates, I am told that people in Europe read the reports of these debates. To clarify the position, how many Labour Members voted against the appalling Single European Act? Was the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) one of them?
Mr. Robertson: Yes, is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's final question, and the Labour party voted against Third Reading and the guillotine motion. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) came to the House with a compromise proposal during the truncated debate on the guillotine motion on the proceedings on the Single European Act. He is responsible for the deal that was struck in order to give an extra handful of hours' consideration to something which he now calls a constitutional travesty. He came back with a deal which the Leader of the House accepted. I sat through hours of debates and was willing to argue for even longer so I will not tolerate arguments from Conservative Members about the way in which the procedure was carried out.
Decisions on important bread-and-butter issues affecting our constituents are determined by Ministers usually sitting in private in Brussels and it is time that we had a tight, disciplined procedure to ensure that those Ministers are acting with the knowledge and political authority of the United Kingdom Parliament when those decisions are taken.
The European Community has other political implications for the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) and I represent Scottish constituencies. We are aware that in Scotland today a dangerous fantasy is being peddled by people who want to make separatism more palatable. The salesmen of an independent Scotland in Europe are using justified discontent at the Government's careless big-business-orientated Europolicy to sell secession to the Scottish electorate.
The independent Scotland in Europe notion is a sham and a pretence that Scotland would have an effortless, automatic entry into the European Community, if the Scottish people were to go it alone. Such a move would involve what even the Scottish National party admit would be lengthy negotiations and the near certainty of a veto from member states with their own separatist splinter groups.
The sham scenario is immediately dangerous because by threatening a decade of constitutional turmoil in Scotland's future the effect will repel investment and jobs from outside and inside Scotland's borders. To inflict that

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new agony on the damage already done to Scotland by 10 years of the Tories would be a tragic folly of historic proportions.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I waited until the hon. Gentleman had reached an appropriate point in his diatribe, which he has obviously carefully rehearsed. Is the Labour party now saying that if the people of Scotland vote in democratic elections to achieve the ultimate goal of independence in Europe, he and the Labour party will oppose it? If there should be a Labour Government, will he try to apply a veto?
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Lady and I both represent Scottish constituencies and we both became Members at roughly the same time. I remember that she voted to bring down the last Labour Government and offered the key to No. 10 to the present Prime Minister. If the Scottish people, in some moment of madness, voted for the Scottish National party and for separatism, they would have to face the fact that they would have to apply to the European Community. I cannot say what the rump of the United Kingdom Government would do in the Council of Ministers. I make a perfectly valid point, although we are only considering a hypothetical situation. Other countries in the Community have separatist movements and they have made their position crystal clear. There is not the slightest chance of those countries voting for the entry of a seceded Scotland in the United Kingdom. That veto would be exercised by them no matter what anyone in the rump of the United Kingdom did.
Mrs. Ewing rose—
Mr. Robertson: I have answered the hon. Lady's point and I should like to move on to the major subject on which the Minister of State chose to address the House—the drive to complete the internal market by 1992.
In no other sphere does the clash of vision on Europe appear so marked and the differences between the parties seem so clear as their attitude towards completing the internal market. There are alternative visions and clashing ideologies even within the Conservative party and deep divisions have emerged. Those divisions are openly displayed in the European Democratic group, which is what the Conservative party calls itself in the European Parliament where the war between the nationalists and the federalists is open and I am sure there is no quarter given.
The argument is also taking place within the Government. The Prime Minister took to the stage at Bruges last September to repudiate her acceptance of the centralising Single European Act and simultaneously to re-invent British nationalism. She said:
"We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at a European level, with the European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels. "
That was trumpeted by a Prime Minister who used the guillotine to ram through the House of Commons the Single European Act, a measure described by the House of Lords Select Committee as
"the gradual replacement of national competence by Community competence, sometimes even without any parliamentary approval of that replacement."
That contradicts the Prime Minister's speech.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robertson: No.
Last month, on 25 January at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid into the social dimensions of 1992. He said:
"Grandiose attempts to reduce regional disparities by ever-greater resource transfer is likely to be no more successful at Community level than it has been within individual countries."
But he had not checked notes with the Foreign Secretary, because speaking only three weeks after the Chancellor made that speech the Foreign Secretary attacked the Labour party's report on 1992 saying that:
"It forecasts the exploitation of poor regions by the rich—although we have agreed to double the structural funds and put 52 million ECU into them before 1992, half as big again in real terms as the Marshall Plan after the war."
But the Chancellor said at the Royal Institute of International Affairs:
"Another area where the rival visions of the Community are seen is the so-called 'social dimensions' of 1992."
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker), made a speech at the Management Centre Europe—[Interruption.]— last November saying:
"Britain is sometimes charged with having no interest in the social development of Europe. This is simply not true; of course there has to be a social dimension to the single market."
But the Chancellor said:
"The attempt to level up all sorts of so-called 'worker protection' provisions is a sure way not of protecting jobs but of destroying them."
The Minister of State said:
"We need progress on the agreed programme of action on health and safety at work."
But the Chancellor said:
"Subsidising industries and subsidising regions destroys their will to compete and thus their ability to compete."
The Minister of State said:
"The Community structural funds are helping the Community's less developed areas to move towards the prosperity of its richest areas."
Mrs. Chalker: Since the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) is having such fun taking a sentence out of one speech and seeking to match it with a sentence from another speech, let us examine the entire situation. The social dimension has a role, but in our view that role is limited to ensuring that we do not burden industry in ways which would destroy what we have achieved so successfully in the United Kingdom. Through minimum regulation and maximum freedom we have created in Britain more jobs than the rest of the Community put together between 1983 and 1987. We have also said that we need labour mobility, free access to training and retraining and sensible health and safety at work provisions. That was all part of the 1986 agreement of the Social Affairs Council when we held the presidency. We have not moved from that. That is the social dimension on which we shall press for the advancement of jobs and opportunities in Europe and the diminution of unemployment as we have diminished it in Britain.
Mr. Robertson: I know that the right hon. Lady has to find an alibi, since at the moment the Chancellor's ideology is triumphant over hers. Before the Chancellor makes high-profile speeches at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the right hon. Lady should tell him

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about those priorities and about what has been agreed by the Government. It comes a bit thin from the right hon. Lady, who comes from Merseyside, to boast about the Government's record on employment. I should have thought that Merseyside would be the last region in Britain to make that boast.
There are massive contradictions, not just in single elements of individual speeches. When I mentioned the right hon. Lady's speech at the Management Centre Europe the hon. Member for Southend, East shouted out that it was a disgraceful speech. We do not know where the Government stand. We do not know whether they favour the enlightened view of the Minister of State or the blinkered, dogmatic prejudice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is small wonder that a Government who are so confused, divided and incoherent can find unity only in attacking the Labour party's policy towards Europe.
Two weekends ago, the Foreign Secretary and the chairman of the Tory party, who still moonlights as a Treasury Minister, although clearly he is away campaigning in Pontypridd this evening, set up the Tory European election stall, and the goods on display look mighty tatty, even by the barrow-boy standards that we have come to expect. The Paymaster General gave the key theme of the Tory assault. He said:
"Britain under Margaret Thatcher is not falling behind the rest of Europe—our policies of privatisation, freedom of choice and low taxes are envied and copied across Europe because they have made Britain the best performing major economy in Europe in the 1980s."
The so-called
"best performing major economy in Europe"
now boasts inflation at 7·5 per cent. and rising, against the European Community average of only 4·6 per cent.
Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robertson: No.
In Germany the rate of inflation is 1·6 per cent. Britain's inflation has been above the European Community average for more than four years. Only yesterday Mr. Christopherson, the European Commissioner responsible for economic affairs, said that the European Commission expressed "growing concern" about the failure of the British Government to reverse the worsening inflation rate and balance of trade deficit.
Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Mr. Robertson: No, I shall not give way.
Mr. Butterfill rose—
Mr. Robertson: No. I am not providing opportunities for Conservative Members to make a brief appearance in Hansard before they disapper for the evening. I have given way enough. [Interruption.] The best performing major economy in Europe now has—
Mr. Butterfill rose—
Mr. Robertson: No. I shall not give way—is that clear? The hon. Gentleman should read my lips when I say that am not giving way.
The best performing major economy in Europe now has another record manufacturing trade deficit with the rest of the European Community that amounts to almost £12
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billion. No wonder Mr. Christopherson is getting uptight, because that reverses the £1 billion surplus that the Government inherited from the last Labour Government.
On the very day this week that the Prime Minister was badgering Chancellor Kohl into supporting her lonely, wrong-headed isolated position on the modernisation and expansion of short-range nuclear arsenals in Europe, the British trade deficit figure with West Germany was published and showed a record £6·9 billion. That is the mark of this so-called best performing major economy in Europe, which has almost been overtaken by the Italian economy. Indeed, economists cannot agree which country has the bigger deficit, so close are the figures.
The so-called best performing major economy in Europe has an investment record, expressed in gross fixed capital formation at 1986 prices, that puts us behind all our community partners except Belgium—behind Turkey, New Zealand, Finland, Canada, Austria and others.
This so-called best performing major economy in Europe paraded by the Paymaster General is one in which skill training—on which, more than anything else, our ability to compete will be based—lags behind all our major competitors.
A recent publication by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research which compared Britain and France showed that, in France, 55 per cent. of skilled engineering workers and more than 20 per cent. of unskilled engineers had a formal craft qualification. That is light years away from Britain. Three times as many French engineering workers as British obtain vocational qualifications.
In the vital civil research and development area of this so-called best performing major economy in Europe, public expenditure is at a virtual standstill. Between 1983 and 1986 civil research and development rose by only 2 per cent. , compared with 15 per cent. in Germany, 33 per cent. in France, 43 per cent. in Italy and 20 per cent. in Belgium. On this subject, the influential Henley Centre said:
"Fundamental economic factors such as profitability and spending on investment and R and D will continue to play a major role in determining competitiveness and the ability to gain market share."
Mr. Graham Riddick: I was under the impression that this was a debate about the European Community, not a comparison of various countries. Will the hon. Gentleman answer this simple question: What is the Labour party's policy on the EC?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I have allowed a wide debate so far, but the intervention of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) will take us even further beyond the terms of the White Paper that we are supposed to be debating.
Mr. Robertson: I am extremely glad to have your endorsement, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are talking about the Government's report and the European Community document. The Minister rightly directed the attention of the House to the progress made on the drive towards completing the European single market. After all, the Government have spent £9 million of taxpayers' cash in hyping up the promotion of 1992. It is the centrepiece of their report on the position a year ago and of the report on the past six months. Presumably, the latter relates to last year—goodness knows when we shall see it, never mind debate it. The single European market will be the centrepiece of the three reports that will follow.

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I merely make the point that this country's future in a completed internal market—either post or pre-1992—will crucially depend on the condition of its economy. It is my contention and that of the Labour party that the Government have brought the British economy to a parlous condition. We shall find our competitiveness in that single market so poor that the regions and jobs will be in severe danger.
Mr. Ian Taylor rose—
Mr. Robertson: I shall not give way. The debate is being delayed, other hon. Members wish to participate in it and I have given way generously so far.
This so-called best performing major economy in Europe has reached the point at which one in three of our beaches does not come up even to the minimum cleanliness standard laid down by the Community. We are bending sensible Community rules by delaying for six years our compliance with its purity standards for drinking water.
In this so-called best performing major economy in Europe, the Government have had to fiddle the figures to bring the jobless rate down to near the Community average. They have to include an army of part-time jobs to bolster their suspect job creation figures and ignore the disastrous years of 1979 and 1980 to do tricks with the figures for rates of growth.
The Foreign Secretary claims that the Labour party preaches doom about 1992, but he chooses to ignore the real danger signals to British industry, represented by the deregulated, big business free-for-all that the Government champion out of ideology.
It was not the Labour party but the influential Henley Centre which said:
"There is a real danger that it will be Japanese companies who have the most to gain from completing the Internal Market",
and:
"If the UK is to substantially gain from the proposals, it will be the South East rather than any other region that benefits",
and:
"However the stress laid by the UK Government on competition as the prime determinant of the public interest is probably unique in Europe and increases the possibility of UK firms being the ones most susceptible to takeovers from inside and outside the European Community."
When he spoke a couple of week ago the Foreign Secretary made light of the Leader of the Opposition's forecast of the impact of 1992 on British regions, especially the midlands. However, has he read the Henley Centre report, or the Ceccini report, which forecasts significant short-term job losses—"rationalisations" it calls them—in the, only hopeful, interests of long-term growth in the Community?
The industrialists are being sold this pipedream and bought off by £9 million worth of advertising hype. Do they realise how inadequate is the Government's planning compared to other nations' industrialists that they will meet in the market place before and after 1992?
Mr. Quentin Davies: Has the hon. Gentleman read the reports?
Mr. Robertson: Yes, I have read the Ceccini and Henley Centre reports, and many others. If the hon. Gentleman disagrees with me, I advise him to read the Henley Centre's report.
Alone among our competitors, Britain has no detailed studies into the impact of the single market on industrial sectors. Alone in Europe, our Government are making no serious assessment of the impact that a barrier-free Europe will have on some of our fragile regions. All that we and business men receive are vacuous, cliched exhortations such as those that the Foreign Secretary gave the patrons of Harborough Conservative association—it sounds like the Mafia—on 4 February. He said:
"There is a new spirit and dynamism here"—
that is, the midlands—
"of which the forecasts of doom, based on old trends and models take no account. The Midlands will have opportunities for growth and prosperity and jobs they have not seen for years."
Prospects for jobs and growth in the midlands have certainly not been seen for years. Where is the evidence for what the Foreign Secretary says? All that the patrons receive are words from a passing wordsmith.
In France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, industrialists get real backing from their Governments. There is still no real effort at Government level to establish which technical and professional standards adopted at European level might assist our industry. Instead, while the Prime Minister parades the European theatre as the demonic irritant so graphically described by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead in his memoirs in the Sunday newspapers in the last few weeks, the Germans, French and Italians are capturing the real prizes—the standards which will apply in the new single market.
Nor do the Government have any real clue about how Sir Leon Brittan will apply competition policy and how that will impact on British industry. Given the warnings of the likes of the Henley Centre about the vulnerability of British industry, what precisely is the Government's position on the takeover of British companies, or does the French takeover of our water industry mirror what will happen in many other cases? Are we in favour of giant Euro-companies competing with the Japanese and the Americans, risking monopoly along the way, or do we subscribe to trust-busting, anti-monopoly policies, which might give some protection to European consumers and to small and medium companies in this country? Do the Government know?
How can we hope to gain from the single market when, as a direct result of Government mismanagement of the economy, we have such an undertrained labour force, such underfunding of research and development, an assaulted industrial consensus and a fatal north-south divide, with no coherent idea of where we are strong or vulnerable?
The Prime Minister makes much of diversity in Europe. That is admirable, and we share her antipathy to the implausibility of the concept of a united states of Europe. But uncontained diversity spells anarchy. Diversity which is unrestrained, uncontrolled and unmanaged will produce only a random, arbitrary outcome. Where market dominates Community, the people, the companies, the regions and the cities which are not at the centre will go to the wall. Japan manages her market ruthlessly and successfully. If Europe does not do the same, with the same determination and dedication, we will not compete at all, still less triumph over the forces ranged against us.

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The Government are like a rabbit caught in car headlights. They are mesmerised by the unrestrained, liberalised, uncontrolled power of the market, believing against all experience and common sense that standards will automatically be maintained, that regions will get their fair share, and that small companies will survive the onslaught of the Euro megacompany. They are peddling a deadly mixture of complacency and dogma.
The European market of today and of the 1990s, like Japan and the United States of America at the same point in history, is no place for the incurable romantics who place supreme faith in the invisible forces of the market place. The prudent can benefit from and thrive in the European single market, but that will only happen when we have a Government with the vision and the will to prepare our country for the challenges that it faces.
5. 23 pm
Mr. Ian Taylor: The speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) was the most vacuous that I have ever heard from the Opposition Front Bench. It was words, words, words, and most of them were emotional claptrap. If that is the current state of Labour party policy on the European Community, you have real troubles ahead of you internally in the next few months before the European election.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not anticipate any internal troubles in the next few months.
Mr. Taylor: You are quite right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to call my attention to what I said. Of course, my remarks were not directed at you. It will probably save the hon. Member for Hamilton embarrassment if I get to the subject of my speech. I wish that he had done the same when he had the chance.
The debate is about a year too late. We are considering events which happened early in 1988, so in a sense we are reviewing history. I share the view of many hon. Members that the House must organise itself better in this respect. It is crazy to have before us a paper about events when we already know not only their effects but their consequential developments. The Commission's own report on the period up to October 1988 was issued this week and would be a far more interesting document for us to discuss and a better focus for the debate. In addition, major initiatives are being taken at the moment by the Spanish presidency which are also of more interest to the House than the subject for the current debate.
The European Parliament, too, is taking various initiatives which the House should discuss in more detail. The latest figures show that 45 per cent. of amendments tabled in the European Parliament are translated into European legislation, which means that they become part of our legislation. That is a significant proportion, and it shows that the House needs to pay more attention to the proceedings of the European Parliament.
It is also worth remembering that it is all too easy to assume that any Euro-level regulation is bad for Britain. That negative approach, which is shared by some hon. Members on both sides of the House, is dangerous—given that the Single European Act has been passed, albeit reluctantly. In many critical areas there will be majority voting. We must therefore be more positive about
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leadership within the Community and about the way in which we try to influence our 11 partners to ensure that our interests are protected.
It is difficult to argue that there should be no regulation at European level. When we are busy making regulations in the United Kingdom about food, toys, fire protection and other essential concerns we should consider the implications throughout the Community. The issue is whether there will be less bureaucracy and more consumer protection if common EC standards are agreed for such matters. That must surely be the case for food, which is a very topical concern. The only way in which one country can protect itself against less strict regulations in another is to destroy the goods at the frontier, which is hardly the most sensible way to proceed.
In the dreaded area of social policy, too, we must not assume that we do not have social policies in this country and that it is therefore inappropriate for the European Community to wish to discuss social policy. Instead of carping, we should take the message to our partners that there are better ways of proceeding than those currently proposed. There was a report this week about worker participation. This country does not want a form of rigid worker participation—it does not want Mitbestimmung. The German businesses that I know do not want it either, but they do not know how to get rid of it.
Mr. Robertson: Rubbish.
Mr. Taylor: From a sedentary position, your observations are even less impressive than when you are on your feet.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman could not possibly have meant that.
Mr. Taylor: When we had a drink the other night, I paid tribute to your Office, Mr. Deputy Speaker—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Taylor: It was a slip of the tongue, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
One way in which the House could take the initiative in social policy is to propose to the Council of Ministers a solution which would be very British. A European report which has just come out shows the lead that we have taken in the development of employee share ownership schemes. It is interesting that more and more firms in the rest of the Community are looking to us for advice on such schemes.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I often hear Conservative Members saying that there should not be worker participation in industry. I do not know what they mean.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Not on the German model—that is what we mean.
Mr. Heffer: Workers do participate. If they did not, no work would be done and no profits would be made. This country's wealth comes from the participation of workers in industry. The trouble is that they do not share in the profits. I came from the shop floor and know something about those matters. What is wanted is not so-called participation but a society in which workers enjoy a share of the profits made from the work they do.
Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman mistakenly interprets my meaning, perhaps because I used the German word

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"Mitbestimmung". We do not want a rigid system of worker participation. I proposed employee share ownership plans which, had they been in place at the time when the hon. Gentleman was working in industry, would have given him capital interest—making him a much wealthier man than he probably is.
Mr. Tim Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that a start has been made? Personal shareholders in Britain now number 9 million. That is substantially more than the number of trade unionists, some of whom are among those shareholders. Will my hon. Friend seek to build on that with his new proposals which I warmly welcome?
Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. But we should deepen and widen share ownership to bring capital sharing to the workshop floor. That is the motive behind employee share ownership plans.
Legislation on employees' rights and interests within the European Community must be decided unanimously, but we must watch out for clauses slipped into health and safety regulations—many of which are adopted by majority vote. That is one of the reasons why I said earlier that the House should give more scrutiny to what is happening on the Floor of the European Parliament and in the Council.
Some regulation of the Community's economy is necessary to ensure that the free market is not distorted and that the consumer is protected. Recently, when the House debated the draft second banking directive, right hon. and hon. Members acknowledged that the Commission had made welcome progress in realising that the regulations need only represent the minimum provision required. The mutual recognition criteria and the selection of home country controls enshrined in the directive are extremely welcome. Mr. Jacques Delors, with whom I do not always agree, said:
"I don't know of any historical example of a liberal market without a minimum of regulation and, frankly, it is possible to discuss quietly this question. The question is when can a regulation at the European level work more efficiently than at the national level. Believe me, I repeat each week to my top civil servants: 'Please, avoid all directives, all initiatives, which are not indispensable to an efficient single market'."
I praise Mr. Delors for this insight. The pity is that he did not express it earlier and more often. I encourage him to make it clear that minimum regulation at a European level is desirable. We are really talking about competition in goods, services and regulations between companies and between member states. One must therefore question what role Brussels should have in enforcing the openness of the market and ensuring compliance by national authorities.
A major future incentive and development will be the removal of restrictions on the movement of capital. If capital can be moved freely, no member state could afford to impose tax levels which drive away capital, create unemployment or erode the tax base. Competition through the movement of capital is much better than harmonisation, but there remains a need for common guidelines.
The hon. Member for Hamilton mentioned the key area of takeovers, mergers and acquisitions. There is a role for the Commission, particularly in respect of consumer protection, but it should not extend to protecting companies or monopolistic practices, nor to imposing
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some form of Community-wide industrial policy. Without competition policy, 1992 will not be viable. It is no use allowing free movement of goods if nation states subsidise their industries. In 1986, EC states spent 93 billion ecu on subsidies, which is three times the Community's whole budget. Neither will competition by possible if takeovers are impeded by different regulatory hurdles, nor if price cartels undermine enterprise. It is interesting to note that this week's judgment by the European Court, on an action taken against a German firm, upheld the Commission's powers to prevent a cartel.
Current takeover and merger activities are covered by articles 85 and 86 of the treaty of Rome, but these create considerable uncertainty and must be replaced by some other regulation. One issue at stake is the level at which the Commission should intervene. The original proposal that it should do so in respect of companies having more than 1 billion ecu per year combined turnover was recently revised, the qualifying figure now being 2 billion ecu. At that figure, at least 100 deals a year will be referred to the Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, who will become in effect a one-man mergers and acquisitions department. He has about 120 staff in the relevant group, DG4, but even that does not make for a viable team when we need a firm hand at the tiller to ensure that no competitive activities leading to oligopoly or monopoly are overlooked. A more favourable cut-off point would be 10 billion ecu combined turnover, resulting in the more reasonable and practical figure of about 10 to 20 referrals per year.
Mr. William Cash: When the Select Committee on European Legislation took evidence from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry it emerged that when one has dealt with the thresholds, and so on, a critical factor is the procedures that are followed and the way in which the Community handles merger and takeover procedures, which at present is wholly inadequate. The Community would do well to study carefully the way in which such matters are dealt with in this country to ensure that European practice is fair and deals with the problems properly.
Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The regulations must be carefully considered in the light of who will make the final decision—the Commissioner alone or the whole Commission. We do not want such matters to become a political football. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that such safeguards do not invalidate the need for some form of regulation at European Community level. It is essential that we do not fall into the trap of double jeopardy, with companies having to refer both to the Community and to their own national authorities.
As to the clearance procedure and the speed at which decisions are taken, I entirely endorse the Confederation of British Industry's proposal that takeovers clearly not infringing competition rules should not be suspended but allowed to pass very quickly, but that those which affect competition criteria should lapse and be dealt with speedily. A period of three months has been suggested.
In defending British interests we should not try to erect artificial barriers to investment in this country. Britain has a very good reputation for investing world wide. The flow of investment from this country for the purpose of acquiring companies in America and in Europe is distinctly ahead of investment the other way. We should be

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foolish to provoke other countries susceptible to such provocation into erecting barriers against our own desire to acquire. I therefore regard the CBI's proposals—I am uncertain about their status, but they have certainly been discussed this week—either to tinker with the takeover code or to introduce a form of reciprocity preventing the bid if the bidder itself is bid-proof as a very dangerous move. The CBI should think again very seriously about what it is proposing, which I do not believe to be in the interests of its members.
In a sense, the level playing field argument will resolve itself through the market. There will be difficult periods, but the change within Germany that we are beginning to see, and the change in France, with the increased role of equities and the increased power of institutional investment in pension funds, will force those institutional investors to look for a proper return. I believe that that will enable them to follow the more open pattern of the London stock exchange. That is a particular reason for my not wishing to see the London stock exchange, at this very difficult stage, turn its back on open market practices.
I wish to make a final point about the Commission's judgment on takeovers in terms of whether European Community directives are legally binding. We have a voluntary code, which has worked extremely well and is much tougher in effect than those in other countries. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury considers this matter, he will consider how we reconcile our voluntary code with what I should nevertheless like to see, which is some defined European responsibility for takeovers.
The major issues that we face in the European Community in economic policy, in takeovers and mergers and in competition will be difficult to reconcile with national interests. This goes to the heart of what we regard the Community as being. The Community should not be a socialising, centralising force, but there is no way that we can avoid regulation at the central level. We must go forward positively urging the European Commission to realise that the setting of minimum standards, acting as a referee, the breaking up of cartels and oligopoly positions, is the role that it should take upon itself and the role most likely to gain support and enthusiasm in this country for the Commission's work. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office will then find that she can come to the House and receive the enthusiastic support for her personal efforts which she fully deserves.
5. 43 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: As I listen to the debate, my first thoughts are of the fact that some hon. Members are only just beginning to realise that we in this Parliament are totally powerless in respect of what we are discussing. When the Minister goes to Brussels she does not exercise statutory powers; she exercises prerogative powers. When we signed the treaty of Rome, all our negotiations about takeovers, and everything else, became treaty-making negotiations, and under our constitution all treaties are signed under the prerogative. The implementation of the decisions reached under the prerogative are then made under an enabling Act known as the European Communities Act 1972, and whatever may be said—whether we have the debates early or late, whether the
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Scrutiny Committee meets in full or does not—we have no role whatever in deciding anything. We are back to the position of the Parliament that used to petition the King.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Would my right hon. Friend care to make some comparison with the situation in Denmark, into whose parliamentary system is built provision for proper scrutiny of the legislation?
Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. Whether the Danish system would stand up to examination by the European Court I am not sure, because under the treaty of accession any nation becoming a member of the EEC has to agree to abide by Community law. But that does not alter my point. This House capitulated, gave all its powers up, and the slightly frustrated and irritable note that enters into some of the discussions seems to me to arise from the fact that people are beginning to realise that they have no role whatsoever.
Sir Richard Body: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that under article 100A, as it now is following the Single European Act, the powers of the Danish Parliament are now much diminished in this respect and almost negligible?
Mr. Benn: My argument is that it never really had any powers but it tried. We did not even try. Any Member of this House who voted for the legislative provisions that led us to this position will have a lot to answer for at the bar of history.
However, I do not want to go over the past; my purpose is to look ahead to the future of the continent of Europe because the time has come when the House should think afresh, taking account of experiences, some of which I have touched on, and of the enormous new opportunities that exist. It is astonishing to me that up to now—I hope I am right—nobody has mentioned Mr. Gorbachev. The changes in eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union are fundamental, yet here we are going on with our little discussions about agriculture and takeovers. Nobody has discussed, to the best of my knowledge, the impact on our continent of the changes in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I am arguing—and I do not want to take too long because other Members want to speak—that we should discuss the alternatives openly and try to develop a practical vision of how the people across the whole of Europe might live together in peace, co-operating with each other free from the structures that now divide us.
This is a very timely debate. We have had these rather formal, ritual debates, sometimes rather late, about developments in the Community in six-month periods under various presidencies, but this time we are having a debate on the eve of the European elections. Many people—not just hon. Members—will want to know what alternatives there are for the future of Europe when they come to vote in June. Of course, there are many different views. They are not necesarily the same on either side of the House.
There is, of course, the simple nationalist view—one that I have never shared—that foreigners start at Dover, though some have already got to Wolverhampton, and that we should pull up the drawbridge. As I have said, I have never held that view but there are certainly some people who do. At the other extreme there is a view, which probably has more support than we have ever been allowed to know about in Britain, of western Europe as a

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nuclear superpower, federal in character with a European Bank, and with modernised nuclear weapons as a rival to the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union and China. That idea of a superpower with its own weapons is one much discussed on the continent but hardly ever mentioned here, apart from some vague indications that the Western European Union might perhaps fit in and merge with the Economic Community and provide us with a little bit more muscle.
Then there is the Government's view, which has come across quite clearly in the course of the debate so far. The Prime Minister signed the Single European Act using prerogative powers but, in her view, what we want in Europe—and this emerged from the speech of the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor)—is that market forces should be supreme. The Government do not want the Commission to intervene with any of this European dirigisme. They do not want a Social Europe, or any co-determination on the German model with the trade union movement, thus evoking a nationalist response. But the Prime Minister is utterly powerless to stop a process of which she has already approved.
Mr. Ian Taylor rose—
Mr. Benn: I will give way to the hon. Member in a moment because I know that he is expert in some fields.
Having been on the Council of Ministers for some years, and having been president of the Energy Council for six months during our presidency in 1977, I must tell the House that, once a law is passed, neither the Prime Minister nor any other Minister has power to stop the Commission applying the law—not just in Brussels but through the British courts. As the British Energy Minister, I was threatened with court action by Guido Brunner and by one of the other commissioners on two grounds: they objected to a British interest relief scheme to provide employment in Scotland, and they claimed that the treaty of Rome gave them authority over the continental shelf where our North sea oil was situated. They took me to court on what, from their point of view, was a very useful day, polling day in 1979, the day on which, I was removed from Government by the British electorate. But let us not think that the Prime Minister has power to stop all this dirigisme. She has not, because she gave away even more powers when she signed the Single European Act.
Mr. Ian Taylor: When the right hon. Gentleman reads Hansard he will see that what I was saying was that the British Government should take the lead in formulating the type of social policy that the European Community wishes to endorse. In fact, I propose employee share ownership rather than the worker participation espoused by the Germans.
Mr. Benn: I understood the hon. Gentleman perfectly. I am telling him that he has no power to act in that way. The strange thing about the EEC, which those who have not been on the Council of Ministers may not realise, is that there is no provision for repealing laws without unanimity. EEC regulations and directives are like a lobster pot: it is easy to get in but impossible to get out. Once there is unanimity on going in there must be unanimity on coming out, and not even the Prime
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Minister, with all her rhetoric in Bruges, can do anything about the mass of bureaucratic excrescences that surround the European process.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Benn: I want next to set out some alternative views so that hon. Gentlemen can declare to which they attach themselves.
Another view of the future of Europe associated with the Social Democratic parties in Europe is that of a social Europe, linked to federalism and a European union. That view emerges in the Euro-manifesto, which was adhered to very recently—with reservations—by the Labour delegation. A reading of the manifesto leaves us in no doubt that the Labour delegation wants a federal union in Europe. Although I do not share that feeling, I understand the reason for it. The Social Democrats suffered terribly under Hitler and Mussolini, and for them a European Union is a guarantee that there will not be another war in Europe, and some guarantee that the trade unions will have a better deal than before. They want a Social Europe. They want the European Union. They would really like Britain—a Labour Britain—to go into the European monetary system. It should be understood that that manifesto is on offer, although not from me, and will be on offer in the European elections in the summer.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) is not present, because I wish now to talk about—I was going to say the Europe of regions, but Scotland is not a region, so I shall say a Europe of nations and regions. I remember saying and believing—at a time when the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), who has just been re-elected to the House, was still a Labour Member—that joining the Common Market meant disintegrating the United Kingdom, and that process has just begun. My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) was right to point out that an independent Scotland might find it hard to get in if he were the Minister there, and perhaps the Spaniards would be worried about the Basques, but we should not imagine that the process of disintegration has not already begun.
This is a superficial argument, but no doubt the SNP is putting it forward to the Scots with some feeling. Now they think they have found the answer—two Scottish Commissioners in Europe, Scottish Members at the European Assembly—and no one can argue that it means a frontier post with England, because England is in the Common Market as well.
Then there is the Labour party's view. It is difficult for anyone to identify that view correctly, but I shall be as honest as I can. The Labour party conference has always been hostile to the Common Market. It fought for the referendum. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) signed the treaty of accession without it even being published, and we did not know what he had signed until he had signed it. He signed it under the prerogative; we said that we would have a referendum, and the vote went against us.
At various times the party of which I am proud to be a member has favoured the repeal of section 2 of the European Communities Act. as the House must know very well. Whatever may be the result of our present policy reviews there is a total lack of enthusiasm for the sort of Europe spoken of by some in my party and the Conservative party. I suspect that, as the election

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approaches, that European Social Democratic manifesto will not feature very much in our campaign. [Interruption.] That speculation is based on a certain amount of inside knowledge which I will not quote. I cannot believe that that will be the basis on which Labour candidates will be presenting themselves, because we still have our own manifesto, which we shall be preparing in the national executive committee.
Mr. Robertson: May I put the record straight? Unlike my right hon. Friend, I am not a member of the national executive committee of the Labour party, but am I not correct in saying that this week the NEC endorsed the manifesto to which my right hon. Friend has referred?
Mr. Benn: It did endorse it—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman recalls that earlier in the debate I said that there was nothing in the White Paper about the Labour party's policy on membership of the EEC.
Mr. Benn: Perhaps that is wise. But, in a discussion on the future of Europe, it is reasonable for different views to be—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair is taking a relaxed view and allowing very wide debate, but we cannot ignore the fact that the debate is concerned with the White Paper on developments in the European Community between January and June 1988.
Mr. Benn: I understand that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and it is not my purpose to run into difficulties with the Chair. I was tempted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton. who asked me a factual question. The endorsement of that manifesto was carried by 20 votes to four—I was one of the four. For further details I must refer the House to diaries that will be published later.
You worried me rather, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you set a time limit on the scope of the debate, for, in the course of the century, there have been four of five different Europes. Before the first world war Queen Victoria had a grandson on every major throne. George V was her grandson; Kaiser Wilhelm II was her grandson; the Czar Nicolas II was also her grandson. We did nothing about human rights in Russia when Queen Victoria's grandson was on the throne. That was the Europe that people took for granted at that time. Then Edward VII went to Paris and consolidated the entente cordiale—in ways that I will not go into. Imperialism was what pre-war Europe was about.
Next came quite a different Europe, the Europe that followed the Russian revolution, when we sent an army into Russia to destroy the revolution. Schoolchildren are never told that: they are probably told that the Russians sent an army here. Hitler and Mussolini built their whole position on an anti-Soviet stance. When Lord Halifax went to visit Hitler in 1937—I shall not weary the House with an exact quotation from the German archives—Halifax congratulated Hitler on crushing Communism in Germany and on being a bulwark against Bolshevism in Europe. That was the Europe between the wars.
Then we had the wartime alliance, which in fact followed the opposite policy. The Germans attacked the Soviet Union; Hess came and tried to get Winston Churchill—then Prime Minister—to join him. To his credit, Churchill refused. He was no friend of Communism
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and once described Lenin as a grinning monster sitting on a throne of skulls, so he was not exactly a member of Militant Tendency. Churchill would have nothing to do with it. Some of the most powerful speeches in support of the Soviet Union came from Winston Churchill, and even Eden.
During that war, we signed a treaty of friendship with Russia—I have a copy—saying that we would pledge ourselves not only to eliminate fascism but to co-operate after the war. That was a third Europe. I have lived through two of them, although I did not experience the one before the first world war.
The wartime alliance looked to the Security Council, and the idea of a united Europe. When the United Nations held its first assembly in Central hall, Westminster—I remember it well: Gladwyn Jebb was acting Secretary-General in 1945—we really believed that we would have a Europe based on co-operation between the Allies.
Finally, we have had the cold-war Europe—the one in which we still live. That Europe was quite different again. NATO was there to keep the R ed Army out. I do not know how many people ever believed that the Red Army would land in Britain, but according to the latest polls only 2 per cent. now hold the cherished view that Gorbachev is about to land it here and make us listen to a lecture on perestroika whether we want it or not.
The Europe of the last 40 years was therefore quite different from the expectation during the war. It was a Europe that we had deliberately divided. No one should think that we did not do that; we played a large part in the division of Europe, based on the Soviet threat and the fear of Socialism and, on the other side, the Warsaw pact, the Brezhnev doctrine and the militarisation of Europe. Hitler's greatest and most tragic legacy was that he left our continent divided.
Sir Anthony Meyer: I was a little disturbed when the right hon. Gentleman talked of a Europe based on the fear of Socialism. He must recall that at various points in that long catalogue Socialist Governments in western Europe were as resolute in standing up to what was then Soviet expansionism as any Conservative Government in this country.
Mr. Benn: I can only give my honest opinion to the hon. Gentleman. I believe that nobody in western Europe ever believed that the Red Army would attack, but they were afraid that Socialist ideas would spread in western Europe. I shall not argue that any more.
We then come to British membership of the Community. I do not wish to go over that because I want to look forward, but when we joined the Community we were told that it would give us endless prosperity. I remember making a speech in which I said that joining the Community would cause unemployment and I was denounced by Roy Jenkins, who was then the Labour Home Secretary. He said that he "could not take me seriously as an economic Minister." Yet looking back, we had a £4 billion surplus in manufactured trade with the EEC in 1970, whereas the deficit is now £14 billion. We have not done very well, yet we are getting the same arguments again now. People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.

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I finish by looking at the alternative open to us. I mentioned a moment ago that the Gorbachev reforms had transformed the prospects for the continent. They are as great a change as the Russian revolution, the advent of Hitler or the end of the war. Gorbachev's reforms are very popular and I think that he might have won the American election if he had been a candidate. He would certainly have been an improvement on the other two candidates. His disarmament proposals are credible for the simple reason that they are not presented as part of the long exchange of politically motivated disarmament proposals. Gorbachev says that he wants to cut weapons expenditure to improve the standard of living of the Russian people. Of course, people here say, "We want that too", so Gorbachev is much more popular in Britain than any other Soviet leader.
I want a wholly non-nuclear Europe. I would like to see all trade restrictions with eastern Europe lifted. When I signed technological agreements in the 1960s, as the responsible Minister, the Americans held us back all the time. They did so allegedly on strategic grounds, but actually because they were waiting for the moment to go in and do the trade themselves. We want closer cultural and political links. I feel strongly that the moment is coming when there will be reunification of the trade union movement and when the division between the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Federation of Trade Unions will be ended. I would like to see the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, set up after the war and allowed to wither on the bough, revived instead of the bureaucracies of Brussels and the Comecon countries.
I want to see—and I have said this in trips to eastern Europe—a restoration of the treaty of friendship between Britain and the Soviet Union and its extension to others on a bilateral basis. I want to see a European security pact, which is now a serious possibility, and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Europe—the Russians from eastern Europe, all American soldiers and bases from Britain and the removal of British troops from Germany. I might add, for good measure, that I want to see the removal of British troops from Ireland. If we are going to build a world at peace in Europe, we cannot have occupying forces, even if they purport to be allies—as the Hungarians and Czechs learned to their cost in 1956 and 1968. I want to see the closure of foreign bases and a massive switch of resources from war to peace. The money saved might go towards the cancellation of the Third world debt.
Those ideas, put in the present mood and atmosphere, may seem somewhat outlandish, but I ask the House to go back to 1945. If anybody had said then, "Let us re-arm the Germans and put two German commissioners in charge who can make laws for Britain", he would have been laughed out of court. Yet 40 years later, because of the cold war, structures have been built up which have changed our view of Europe. I argue that we have come to the time when we must look again. We must move towards a different idea of Europe. I shall pluck one word out of our experience to describe it. We want a Commonwealth of Europe—a commonwealth being a free association of fully self-governing states. We may talk about harmonisation, but only by agreement. We want to look at a way of
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repatriating the powers from Brussels, in the way that the Canadian Government repatriated their powers from Britain. When I look at the changes over the past 80 years, I can see great support—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have allowed a very wide debate, but I find it difficult to see how the events of the past 80 years can be reconciled with the White Paper that we are debating, which covers the events of January to June 1988.
Mr. Benn: Somebody once said that history is hunk, but I am sure that is not your view, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not believe that we can understand where we are or where we are going unless we look back at where we have come from, and that is true of nowhere more than Europe. But I shall not tempt you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by trying to abuse your kindness.
I believe that the Common Market, NATO, the Warsaw pact and Comecon are out of date. They are dinosaurs, overtaken by events, and we should look beyond them to the future. There is an urgent need for new thinking. As there is no vote, I am not asking any hon. Member to come into the Lobby with me in support of my views, but we need more imagination than has been shown by—dare I say it—all parties in the House. There are people with a vested interest in the division of Europe, not least the Commission in Brussels, including the generals in NATO and the Warsaw pact and not least the arms manufacturers, who make billions of pounds out of keeping us at a high level of military expenditure that we do not need. I believe that the time has come to think about ending the division of Europe because it is no longer relevant, necessary or desirable. Above all, if we could replace the fear that lies behind the division of Europe with hope, then we would release the energies of our continent and allow it to contribute more effectively to the peace of the world.
6. 7 pm
Mr. John Butterfill: Before commencing my remarks, I must say that I am sure that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) did not wish to mislead the House when he stated that inflation on a directly comparable basis was 7·5 per cent. in the United Kingdom and 4·9 per cent. in the rest of the Community. I am also not sure that 4·9 per cent. is correct, but it may be. But I do know that it is not true to say that 7·5 per cent. is directly comparable with 4·9 per cent. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us this afternoon, we are the only country in western Europe that includes the mortgage interest rate in that calculation. The hon. Gentleman also told us that, on a directly comparable basis, our inflation rate would be 5·5 per cent. , which would mean that we have by no means the highest inflation in western Europe. That is an important point to have on record, and I do not see the hon. Member for Hamilton seeking to contradict me.
I welcome this opportunity to debate recent events in Europe, although I, like many other hon. Members, also regret the fact that we are debating them so retrospectively and are not having the opportunity—which I hope we shall have in future—to look forward to where we are going in Europe, rather than always looking back at where we have been. If we look forward in Europe, we can see many encouraging events taking place, not least the solidarity

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this week over the Salman Rushdie affair and the helpful foreign policy posture that our partners in Europe have taken.
I shall now turn, as some other hon. Members have tended not to do, to the contents of the White Paper, and I shall look at some of the developments that are outlined therein. It may be helpful to see where we may be going.
One of the most important areas of co-operation that is outlined is co-operation on the environment. That is a topical issue in this country and, I believe, an issue on which we should be concentrating our energies in partnership with our European colleagues to build a better environment than our present one. There have been important agreements on sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions and on diesel emissions. Those of us who travel through London's traffic know how irritating the latter can be.
It was very important that we ratified the Montreal protocol. I hope that we shall be able to go much further in tackling Europewide environmental problems that we must undoubtedly share if we are going to overcome them. If Chernobyl taught us anything, it is that we cannot be an island, and nor can any other country in Europe. Major environmental disasters can overtake all of us, unless we take care to ensure that they do not happen.
I am equally concerned about the trend towards protectionism. The White Paper refers to the trade problems that we have had with the United States and Japan. We should be careful that we do not develop a protectionist policy of our own in Europe and put up barriers around us so that we can no longer look outwards. In that respect, the agreement that we have reached with Hungary, and the important agreements that we have reached with our friends in the Gulf States, are encouraging. We should pursue that example.
There is one rare respect in which I agree with the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), which is that we need to look beyond the immediate frontiers of Europe. We need an outgoing Europe. Britain depends more on external trade than any other country in the world. We export a greater proportion of our GNP than any other country—almost double the proportion that Japan, for example, exports. We would therefore be the first to be hurt in any trade war or by European protectionism, which I am sure no Conservative Member would wish to happen.
The White Paper refers to deregulation and gives some important examples of what we have achieved. I should like to express my pleasure that in June we managed to end steel quotas once and for all. All such arrangements are totally undesirable in the view of those of us who believe in free trade, and the completion of the internal market should he a major priority for all of us in future.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) that we have failed to tackle adequately the terrible problem of agriculture. It is totally unacceptable that such a high proportion of the Community's budget should continue to be devoted to agriculture. It is essential that we build on the limited successes that we have had so far—with stabilisers, milk quotas and ceilings on agricultural spending—to try to ensure that the Community's attention is turned to matters far more important than agriculture. Agriculture is significant, but in global terms—in terms of the economy of the Community as a whole—it is only a minor part of the matters to which we should be addressing ourselves.
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The White Paper goes on to deal with the budget, and pleasure is taken in the fact that we have managed to maintain the Fontainebleau agreement, so vital to British interests. It was interesting to discover that the Council agreed that we needed to tighten the budgetary management of the Community. That is a great understatement. The budgetary management of the European Community to date has been lamentable. If the member states are to be asked to agree to increase the budget of the Community—no doubt there are respects in which that might conceivably be desirable—the Commission will have to show that its budgetary management is a good deal superior to that which it has achieved to date.
The White Paper discusses the single market and instances what it claims to have been significant successes in promoting the single market. Undoubtedly, there have been successes, and I would not wish to decry what progress we have made. We have had limited successes in banking and financial services. We have had limited successes with insurance—my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East was right to point out just how limited those successes have been. In general insurance, our success has been very limited indeed, and as yet we have made no progress on life assurance. It is vital that we make progress in these matters and that we in Britain take the lead in ensuring that we make progress. We have a great deal to contribute to the Community, and we also have a great deal to gain from the Community if we can make that progress.
Hon. Members have referred to monetary union—with which the White Paper also deals—and to the directive on free capital movement. I have one or two things to say about that. This country gave the lead on free capital movements some time ago by abolishing exchange controls. The Opposition predicted that that would have dire consequences and that it would be an appalling thing for our economy. Quite the reverse has happened, and we have been able to show our fellow member states what a good thing free capital movement would be.
I am nevertheless concerned that the price being asked for free capital movement is the imposition of a 15 per cent. withholding tax throughout the Community. What an absurd suggestion. I put it to the Minister that it may also be ultra vires in terms of the treaty, as such a tax would achieve no Community purpose. While it can be argued that VAT should be harmonised and even that VAT should be imposed because it is the base tax for the Community's own finances, there is no justification in any Community purpose for the existence of a withholding tax, which would be raising revenue from non-resident members, not for the Community but for the member states. That is an extraordinary suggestion.
I know that the suggestion comes from the French and that it comes from them because, with the retention of their Socialist philosophies, they cannot believe that, given free capital movements, their citizens would not remove all their money from France and make fraudulent returns to their tax authorities. The French must give up the shibboleths of state authoritarianism and move with the rest of us into the latter part of the 20th century and have a good deal more confidence in the integrity of their own citizens.
Mr. Ian Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that the French would be better off if they imposed a 15 per cent.

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withholding tax on suitcases, in recognition of the most common way in which the French transfer money across borders and frontiers?
Mr. Butterfill: That is true, although it would probably cause problems for the travel industry in France, which makes a lot of money out of those who travel back and forth carrying the suitcases to which my right hon. Friend rightly referred.
The other great plank in the argument about monetary union is that Britain should join the European monetary system. No doubt as a long-term objective, monetary union and membership of the European monetary system could be a good thing, as it might facilitate internal trade within the Community, but we should not under-estimate the problems that would arise not only for us but for the Community if we joined now.
No other European country has a reserve currency such as the pound. The currencies of most European countries are traded in only to the extent that they need to have trade within their borders. Trade in the pound is very much greater because so many countries external to the Community use sterling as a reserve currency. If hon. Members do not believe what I am saying, they need only consider the recent enormous movements in the pound's parity against the deutschmark and the United States dollar. Not all that long ago, we were discussing the possibility of having a pound parity with the dollar. Now, the value of the pound is close to $1·80.
There is no way that the EMS, as presently constituted, could have survived swings and changes of that nature, nor do I believe that we should have been able to take the measures necessary for the correction of the great stimulus that we have give to the British economy if we had been members of that system. Therefore, I believe that, both for our own internal purposes and for the benefit of the EMS as a whole, it has been right that our Chancellor and our Government have decided not to join the EMS at this time.
Much has been said about the social market, and there has been some concern that we should be giving any support to the concept of a social market. I do not have any problem with the concept of a social market, but I have a problem with the concept of a Socialist market. I do not want to see a Common Market or a European Community that imposes upon us the sort of Socialist measures that we have so successfully removed from our own economy, and that would bring back our previous problems.
If we look, for example, at the fifth directive on company law, the Mitbestimmung or the proposals made by Mr. Vredeling, we see that we are being asked to accept worker directors, two-tier boards and trade union participation. Make no mistake about the fact that the worker participation would be through the trade unions. We would be back to the days of beer and sandwiches at No. 10.
Mr. Win Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman referred to the co-operation of workers and the introduction of boards, but does he acknowledge that Germany already has a similar system to that which was proposed? Can the hon. Gentleman explain why, if that system works in Germany, it cannot work anywhere else in the European Community?
Mr. Butterfill: I am happy to explain that to the hon. Gentleman. The system of trade unions in Germany is different from the system here, as are German traditions. In fact, a large number of companies in Germany and in Denmark—where similar systems exist—would like to get rid of those systems. I have no objection if they wish to keep them, or if some British companies wish to adopt them, but I object to them being imposed upon this country and all other countries of the European Community whether they are wanted or not. It is that dimension of the social market to which I most profoundly object.
If we are to have company law directives, it would be far more profitable for Brussels to look at the restrictions in company law and in the articles of association of companies in the European Community and, indeed, the governmental restrictions which frustrate takeovers of companies on the continent, in contrast to the freedom which exists for countries to come here and take over British companies. That appears completely unacceptable, and it is an area of company law that the Commission would do well to look at.
I believe that it is vital that we have an agreement on that, and that we remove all those areas of covert and actual restrictions that exist within companies—for example, in Germany, where it is almost impossible for a major German public company to be the subject of a hostile takeover bid. That cannot be acceptable while the reverse is not true in this country. Those are the areas to which I would like the Commission to devote its attention.
If we consider, for example, the interference which the Commission is proposing in the employment of part-time workers, we see that it is telling us that, if we want to have part-time workers, they must have exactly the same conditions of employment and rates of pay as full-time workers. That is absolute nonsense. It is saying that there should be limitations on the hours that part-time workers can and will be permitted to work. That is an awful piece of authoritarian jargon. How damaging that would be to the economy of this country and the economies of the other European countries. Such authoritarian Socialism plays no part in the sort of Community that I wish to see; nor does paternity leave.
If the Belgians and the French would like to have a 35-hour week and believe that that would benefit their economies, let them have it. Let it not be imposed, however, on all the other countries of the European Community.
Mr. George Foulkes: When the hon. Gentleman is speaking against worker participation and the provisions which would protect and give rights to the worker, is he speaking as the Member of Parliament for Bournemouth, West, as the president of European Property Associates, as a director of John Lelliot Developments, or on behalf of any of his other declared interests? Is it not clear that the hon. Gentleman is looking after those interests—as representing the employers—rather than representing the interests of his constituents?
Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman does himself rather a disservice by that intervention. He knows that I am speaking not only for my constituents in Bournemouth, West, but for the benefit of the great majority of British, and indeed European, people. I believe, for example, that

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a 35-hour working week which was imposed upon the whole of Europe would lead not to benefits for workers or for any of my constituents, but to higher inflation, lower output and loss of productivity. I cannot see any benefit to my or the hon. Gentleman's constituents in adopting all this Socialist claptrap.
I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to agree with me, because the Labour party never agreed. It was the burden that the hon. Gentleman's party imposed upon this country under successive Governments after the war that brought us almost to our knees. It is only this Government's subsequent actions to divest ourselves of those burdens that have enabled us to become as successful as we are today.
Mr. Foulkes: The hon. Gentleman mentioned my constituents in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. Whenever I speak in the House, there is no doubt that I am speaking on behalf of my constituents. I have no other outside interests. I have no consultancies or directorships. It is incumbent upon Conservative Members to reveal from time to time that they are speaking not necessarily on behalf of their constituents, but on behalf of their outside interests. The hon. Gentleman has outside interests, and what he is saying is directed much more to defending those interests than those of the people of Bournemouth.
Mr. Butterfill: I believe that the hon. Gentleman's allegation is disgraceful, and unworthy of him. He will know that I have made a full declaration of my interests, which are well known to the House. I have not taken directorships of any companies of which I was not already a director before I became a Member of this House. Nor have I taken any consultancies since I became a Member of this House. Indeed, I have refused all consultancies since I became a Member of this House, quite deliberately, because I believed that I should represent my constituents and that I should not use my position as a Member of this House to further my personal career. Therefore, my business career has been damaged and not enhanced by being a Member of this House.
I do not speak on behalf of any of the companies mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. In fact, I am no longer a director of John Lelliot Developments. If the hon. Gentleman looks in the Register of Members' Interests, he will see that I resigned from that company some time ago. I am now a director of fewer companies than I was when I came into the House. His allegations are really quite beneath contempt. I do not propose to deal with them any further.
Mr. Boswell: Is it not the case that my hon. Friend's constituents contain an unusually high number of retirement pensioners? Are not their interests quite as important as those of people who are in employment, both in this country and throughout Europe? Do they not all have an overriding interest in economic efficiency and a reduction in inflation?
Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend is right. I am grateful to him for that helpful intervention. It is, however, dignifying the hon. Gentleman's comments far more than they deserve to proceed to consider them any further.
I would like to turn to some of the other areas in the European Community where I believe that we are being damaged by the sort of claptrap that the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes)
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believes in. The Commission is, for example, seeking to promote new funds. It is not content with its existing empire, but wishes to move into new areas of activity. The latest proposal is a draft directive for a medium term transport infrastructure fund. With this fund, the Commission proposes to tell us how we can best build roads in the individual countries of Europe so as to better create a road infrastructure for Europe. Certain people, including representatives of the CBI in the south-west region—my region—say that that is a good thing. They think that they might get the A350 rebuilt more quickly if they latch on to the idea of a European infrastructure fund.
As I told them, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If we were to contribute to such a fund, the vast majority of it would go to building new roads in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and other parts of the Community. They would be rather less likely to get their road than if they left the process to our national Government. It is far more appropriate for national Governments, being more responsive to their citizens' wishes, to decide what roads are needed, and where. I object to the concept that some gentleman in Brussels will decide where my constituents will need a new road. That is another case of empire building.
Sir Russell Johnston: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's argument, but does it not apply with equal logic to Scotland, which is within the United Kingdom?
Mr. Butterfill: That may be the case. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity later in the debate to propound that view.
There are matters within the European Community in which we should make further progress, and there are other matters in which it is quite inappropriate for a supranational body to make such decisions. It is much more appropriate for them to be left to local decision.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Butterfill: I shall not give way. I am winding up my remarks—I have been very generous in giving way—and many other Members wish to speak.
We did not defeat the slush fund philosophy of public expenditure in this country to accede to it again in Europe. That is why we are being so vigorous and why the Prime Minister was so vigorous in Bruges in opposing that philosophy, and why it is—unexpectedly, perhaps, for those who were so opposed to Europe gaining so much currency among Opposition Members.
6. 32 pm
Sir Russell Johnston: Perhaps the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) will forgive me if I do not directly follow him. I agree with his remarks about environmental co-operation and the avoidance of the development of a protectionist attitude within the European Community. However, as will become evident. I do not go along with some other things that he said.
Sadly, the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has abandoned us after a robust, vigorous and entertaining contribution. When I stand at the bar of history—I am not terribly keen to do so all that quickly—I shall stand with my head high and be proud of what I did in respect of the European Community. I shall not be

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at all apologetic for my position and the critical Liberal vote in 1972. I reject the right hon. Member's argument. However amiably it was presented, he was wrong. The Community is in time and has imagination. It is not about division. In many respects, it is the most stable and encouraging element in world politics.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), who led for the Opposition, said that we are supposed to be debating something that happened a year ago. As has been observed, that is ridiculous, and it is reflected in the turn-out of hon. Members. It is not entirely due to winter breaks in Richmond and Pontypridd. What is the point of talking about something that is a year old?
The page in the White Paper dealing with parliamentary scrutiny is the only page which is about three quarters blank. It has two sentences which state that lots of things were discussed, lots of reports were looked at, and lots of debates took place. In response to an intervention by me, the Minister said that, as a consequence, nothing happened. Therefore, why do right hon. and hon. Members spend so much time in committees? Why did the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—a chap with a lot of things to do—trot along to give evidence? What effect will his evidence have, on whom, and when? I doubt whether it will have any. The Minister said that we must examine the way in which we are doing things.
However, there is a simple answer. We must give greater powers to the only body that is in a position to do anything, and that is the European Parliament. We should recognise that fact. It is simply not good enough for opponents of the Community to whine on about a lack of accountability when there is a realistic solution. Hon. Members would not expect me to say anything other than that, from a British point of view, this means changing the way in which we elect Members to the European Parliament. It is the last debate before direct elections. I shall take two or three minutes—no more—to say, not for the first time, that this matter is important.
We must examine the matter from a philosophical point of view. I must admit that the Conservatives are increasingly ideological in their approach to life. They were not ideological in the past. They used to be perfect empiricists, but now they are ideologues—much more ideological than the Leader of the Opposition, who is the master pragmatist of the day.
It is contradictory for a Government to advocate the virtues of free competition versus monopolies and the right of each invidual to have the option of share ownership and a stake in what were once state industries and, at the same time, not champion the idea that each individual should have a stake in Parliament. In the 1984 election—the last election—19·5 per cent. of the votes were cast for Liberal and Social Democratic candidates. About 2·5 million people voted for them, and we got no representation of any kind. That is wrong. It had a considerable impact on the balance within the European Parliament, in which all other member states have proportional systems. The European Liberal and Democratic group polled 10 million votes throughout the Community and got 32 seats in the European Parliament. The British Conservatives, who, in a remarkable euphemistic jump, described themselves as democrats, polled 6 million votes and got 50 seats. That is wrong.
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If one is prating about accountability without taking account of that flagrant and peculiarly British injustice, one is approaching matters in a superficial way, and it is small wonder that the turn-out at the election was so low.
The hon. Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor) talked about "the will of the House and the will of the country". In those terms, such concepts are nonsense. In 1979, when I stood for the European Parliament, Angus Maude, as he then was—he is Lord Maude now—speaking about the 13 per cent. Liberal vote, said that it was not fair and that something should be done. The man who is now the Home Secretary said and wrote similar things, but nothing has been done. The time has come for something to be done.
The Minister said that we are debating the period of the German presidency. I welcome the opportunity to pay tribute to Hans-Dietrich Genscher who was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers at the time. A former leader of the Free Democrats—the German Liberal party—his sane and enlightened influence has contributed much to the more effective operation of the Community, as, for that matter, it has in other matters, not least defence. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield referred to that point.
The period that we are referring to, as the Minister rightly said, was dominated by the Brussels agreement. That reasonable settlement tackled many of the problems that had beset the Community. Those of us who appreciate the importance of the Community to the United Kingdom were especially grateful that, on this occasion at least, the Prime Minister was for turning and was prepared to accept a deal that she had rejected in Copenhagen two months previously. Therefore, the European single market was on track.
I should like to commend in particular the increasing support for the European social fund which resulted from the agreement, and which supports job creation and training throughout the Community. I also commend the regional funds and measures to control the cost of the common agricultural policy. The regional fund is to double between 1987 and 1992. There is a risk, confirmed by the Padoa-Schiotta report, that the single market will draw even more money and economic activity into the central golden triangle about which so much has been said. It is necessary to counter-balance this trend.
I am very alarmed by the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has been referred to by the hon. Member for Hamilton, quite properly, and I want to put a direct question to the Minister about it. The Chancellor said in his Chatham house speech that the growth of regional policy within the Community would be positively damaging. That is a very alarming statement. Secondly, and related to that, when will the Government face up to the issue of additionality in respect of the regional fund? Unless one has the money as an addition rather than a substitute, it makes a mockery of the whole business.
The Chancellor's appalling view is certainly contrary to what the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Secretary of State for Wales continually tells us, as no doubt do the Ministers who claim that they are working for the betterment of the north and west of England.
In my part of Scotland we have a state development authority called the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It was established in 1965 by the Labour Government following, incidentally, three Liberal wins in the Highlands. We had advocated the idea since 1929. Little plugs like that can do no harm. The board has certainly been effective and works very well with the

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regional fund of the European Community. Is the Chancellor attacking that as well? That is the logic of it. The Chancellor said—and I repeat it—that the growth of regional policy within the Community would be positively damaging. That means that he is against the Highlands and Islands Development Board.
Presumably also he believes that the approach of the Federal Republic of Germany, that of decentralised economic planning, is wrong. I do not believe it to be wrong. I hope that the Minister will clarify this. If the Chancellor's words represent Government policy, they suggest that the Government are moving back from the Brussels agreement.
The same consideration applies to the European social fund. The United Kingdom is the largest beneficiary of the fund within the Community. I think it forms a large part of the funding of employment training and the youth training scheme projects, although I am not sure how much money is involved; perhaps the Minister will tell us. But it is certainly something that the United Kingdom desperately requires, as the hon. Member for Hamilton says.
The director general of the National Economic Development Council has pointed out:
"60 per cent. of the German work force have attained apprenticeships or similar qualifications, compared to only 30 per cent. in the United Kingdom."
Additionality applies here as well, whether the money through the social fund is used to make better provision or simply as a substitute within the budget. The Government must not treat help from the European Community as an excuse to save money. Rather, they should take full advantage of it to ensure that our work force is well trained. It is very welcome to the Social and Liberal Democrats that we are making progress towards the single market. One is always ready to welcome converts to this cause. As a Liberal who has been involved in European matters for a long time, I believe that we have sustained and been consistent in our position, but I am worried that many within the Government and certainly within the Conservative party regard the Community as some kind of "EFTA" writ large, rather than a community of peoples working towards a supranational cohesion.
The Prime Minister held up a vision of Europe open for business. I support that fair view, but I cannot support the idea that Europe can have a genuinely common internal market without the necessary economic means. I must say to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West that that means a European monetary system. I shall not argue with him about the moment of its introduction, which has been discussed for so long. Many people disagree with the hon. Gentleman's stance. I believe that we should also move towards the creation of a central bank. There must also be the necessary environmental and regional policies to complement the market.
Over the past months, those whose view of Europe is contrary to mine have been organising more effectively in this country. A new brand of Right-wing antiEuropeanism has grown up in the Conservative party. It has not articulated itself perhaps so long as the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor). The hon. Gentleman's record in the matter is so blemished as to be unblemished, if I may put it that way. There can be no doubt that the hon. Gentleman is most consistent.
I am referring not just to the Chancellor but to the so-called "Bruges group" which has just been established.
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One has the impression that some members of the Conservative party want to have their cake and eat it too. They are happy enough when European Community action cuts Government intervention across Europe. But as soon as it involves arty increase in the role of Government, for whatever good or bad reason—of course there may be bad reasons for Government intervention—they take refuge in this great notion of sovereignty.
Mr. John Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Russell Johnston: I shall give way in a moment. If we are referring to jargon, as some hon. Members have done, the concept of sovereignty is the acme of casuistic jargon.
Mr. Redwood: I should like to point out that, as I understand it, the "Bruges group" has been established by a Cross-Bench peer in the Upper House and is a group of academics that has not stated its party political disposition.
Sir Russell Johnston: I shall titillate the hon. Gentleman with some quotations from the statement of the Bruges group later on. If that is a Cross Bencher, I am a cross—well, I do not know what; but that was not my impression.
The Bruges group claims to favour a Europe of sovereign states competing and co-operating. The whole idea of the single internal market is that there should be fair competition between business and individuals within Europe. Once sovereign states try to compete within the market, real competition is stifled.
The Bruges group's prospectus has come into my hand. I understand that it is freely available. The gentleman concerned may be a Cross-Bench Peer, but the basis of the document seems to be in a pretty narrow conservative ideological brace. Let me give three short quotations. The document says:
"The Bruges Group not only denies politicians the right to pronounce on issues relating to national sovereignty, but it also strongly feels that political integration of the European States is a negative step that will severely damage the security at present enjoyed by Europe. It will also heighten existing tensions and differences in Europe."
That is gobbledegook, but never mind.
Secondly, the document says:
"In principle, therefore, increasing the powers of Euro-MPs, even to act strictly within the limited context of an economically-integrated Europe, would be quite undesirable".
Lastly—this might interest the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes)—the document says:
"We have to ensure that social measures do not extend into the domain of worker participation, social security, pensions, etc. because this would represent a massive interference into the workings of the Free Market".
If the free market were left to work by itself, without the state doing anything about pensions, social security and such matters, we know perfectly well that the free market would pay remarkably little attention to them.
Now that the Prime Minister claims to have seen, as it were, the "green light", it is to be hoped that we shall see increased environmental protection at European level. As the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West said, pollution knows no boundaries. But that too means ceding a degree of national sovereignty, which may be for very good reasons.

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To say, as the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) so blandly said, that the Bruges group was led by this Cross-Bench chap, which presumably implies a moderate, reasonable, fair-minded objective fellow who could not in a way be described as a Conservative, is a lot of poppycock.
Mr. Butterfill: The facts just did not happen to suit the hon. Gentleman's argument. The person concerned did not happen to be a Conservative. The hon. Gentleman was seeking to say that the Bruges group is a Conservative group, when it is not.
Sir Russell Johnston: Let me give the hon. Gentleman another quotation. The document says:
"This vision of Europe runs against the free market economic philosophy of the present Conservative Government that has set such a good example to the rest of the world".
If that is the view of a Cross-Bench peer, he is not all that objective.
This debate has occurred at an historic time. There has already been a reference to the co-operation in foreign affairs which led to concerted action on the appalling conduct of the Iranian Government over the Rushdie book. It must have been a good experience for the Foreign Secretary to find that all the Community countries meeting in Brussels were rallying to support the British position. There was no question of him pressing them to do anything; he was perhaps taking the softest line of all. There is great scope for the EC to make considerable advances in foreign affairs, and it is something of a criticism of us that the Soviet Foreign Minister is moving positively into the middle east at the moment when the EC, against the background of the Venice declaration, should have done much more.
The Prime Minister has condemned the visionaries of European unity. It is always easy to condemn people who dream dreams and hope hopes, but without vision the Community would never have been created. The Prime Minister warns of a centralised federal Europe, showing that she does not really understand the word "federal". It means co-operating on the broad issues of economy and environment within the federation while giving self-recognising communities the institutional right to run their own affairs. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is making squeaking noises. Does he wish to intervene?
Mr. Nigel Spearing: I was not going to intervene because I have not been present throughout the hon. Gentleman's speech, but does he agree that the definition of "federal" is essentially that of a legal constitution, not necessarily of a modus operandi, and to mix the two is constitutionally imprecise and misleading?
Sir Russell Johnston: I admit that the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. It is a constitutional institutional legal arrrangement. Nevertheless, the modus operandi of federations, as we have seen them, is to achieve the balance of powers to which I referred. That is true in the Federal Republic of Germany, Canada, the United States and so on. That is certainly what I would wish to see in the EC. It involves a balanced and democratic approach which
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could provide not only effective co-operation on a wider scale, but new freedoms for old nations such as Scotland and Wales and Bavaria and Catalonia as well.
That is the only sane future for the EC and for us within it. Such a concept of a federal Europe, focusing on the rights and social situation of the citizen, is that for which the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform group, of which we are a part, will work, I hope successfully, in the European elections to come.
6. 55 pm
Mr. Teddy Taylor: The wild enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) for the Common Market and all it stands for has never been in doubt, but he has been a bit unfair to the Bruges group. I happened to go along to its first conference, not because I was part of a conspiracy, but because I was curious, and I can assure him that far from being some kind of promoted arm of the Conservative party, it is pretty representative of what he will find in the Labour and Conservative parties and throughout the country—a rising tide of concern over what is going on in the Common Market.
Mr. Foulkes: It is important to be clear about what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Is he saying that Labour party Members are actively involved in the Bruges group? I hope that he will clarify that, because that is not the case.
Mr. Taylor: I have not the slightest idea about the parties of the people involved in the Bruges group. All I can say is that there seem to be some genuine academics who are putting forward what seems to be a genuine point of view.
The attendance in the House today tells us what is happening in British politics today. The Labour Benches have almost been deserted, not because Labour Members are lazy or do not want to come, but because they are too embarrassed to talk about the Common Market because they are changing their policy, although there are one or two exceptions, such as the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) whose views are clear. The Conservative Benches are more crowded than used to be the case because there is no doubt that there is a rising tide of concern in the Conservative party about what is going on.
I want to make three brief points because I realise that other hon. Members wish to speak. First, I appeal to the Government to consider seriously that there might be a case for stating things as they are in the Common Market, not simply living in a dream world and trying to pretend that things are what they are not.
I could give a mountain of examples, but the best one occurred again today when my right hon. Friend the Minister kindly talked about the great reform of the Common Market, initiated by the United Kingdom, which had led to a reduction in the butter mountain. The facts are there for all to see. Hon. Members know exactly what has happened. We simply agreed to a fire clearance sale, more than doubling our sales of butter at a ludicrous price. There was no reform or great mystery; there was simply a fire clearance sale. It is rather like Harrods saying that it had improved its sale by reducing the price of its fur coats to 28p each. If only the Government would stop trying to

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pretend that miracles are happening when they are not, they could make more progress and we would have a far more satisfactory debate.
We all know that our trade with Europe is bad. In fact it is worsening. The position is serious. There has been a deficit in our trade in manufactured goods with Europe of £12·75 billion over the past 12 months compared with only £2 billion for the rest of the world. I am not saying that that is the fault of the Common Market. I do not know what the reason is. But it is a serious problem.
The same applies to budget control. After Fontainebleau Ministers were saying what they are saying now after the February Council meeting about budget control. They say that matters have been resolved and they have made decisions which are binding on the Council. We all know that budget control was a sick joke. Sadly, the same is true of the CAP. We repeatedly hear all the pledges about what Ministers think will happen and the spending cuts that they hope will happen. In every previous instance they have been totally and completely wrong.
Sadly, it is the same now about 1992. I am sure that the Minister is well aware that we are not seeing moves towards free trade. We are seeing a move towards massive harmonisation. On insurance, in which I am involved, a measure has been proposed for a very limited form of flexibility, which certainly might not happen in Germany because of the special rules which they have there. I would love to see free trade within the EEC, but I think we are kidding ourselves if we believe that great progress has been made.
It is the same with fraud and, in particular, protectionism. The Minister said that she was very pleased with the measures being taken to try to undermine protectionism. I must ask her if she knows of any measure at all that has been taken within these six months that has reduced the amount of protectionism in the EC. We all know that it is increasing.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): Is my hon. Friend aware of the liberalisation of road haulage?
Mr. Taylor: I was not aware that that was a measure dealing with protectionism. I asked the Minister if she knew of a measure to do with protectionism—in other words, Europe against the rest of the world.
I appeal to the Minister to look at the issue of the use of anti-dumping procedures. The Commission is now using, not dumping procedures, but what it regards as a normal price as a means of increasing substantially the price of imported goods, or else forcing domestic producers to increase their prices.
I am not trying to say that everything is bad. I do not want to preach against membership of the EEC, because that is a battle of a long time ago. I simply appeal to the Minister and to the Government to make a positive decision not to try and sell the Common Market but just to try and say how things are. On that basis we could make more progress.
Secondly, on the question of documents and our debates, I hope that we shall not go through the whole nonsense of saying that somehow things will improve dramatically if we have our debates at 7 o'clock instead of at 10 o'clock, if we have more time, and so on. Other hon. Members have rightly said that—sadly or happily for the country, we do not know which—massive amounts of
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sovereignty have been surrendered. Many of the laws which we used to make in the House of Commons are now being made by the Council of Ministers on the recommendation of the Commission. Although the views of the House of Commons are interesting, we know that, as far as decisions are concerned they do not affect things at all.
It would help enormously if, instead of trying to pretend—as the right hon. M ember for Chesterfield rightly said—that we are influencing decisions in Europe and that our views are terribly important, we simply accepted the fact that most of the big decision-making has gone to another place. What should worry us is that it has gone to a new form of democracy where there is no elected assembly controlling Ministers and policies, but—
Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman, being a realist in his present manifestation, says that we should accept it, but of course it is our electors who put us here. I wonder if he would comment on the possibility that I see ahead one day that people would vote for a party expecting something to be done and discover, after that Government, if they were able to form one, were in office, that they had no power to do what they had been elected to do. That is the real issue. It is the rights of the electors, not the rights of individual Members of Parliament, that seem to me to matter. That is when the threat to democracy will become apparent.
Mr. Taylor: I am sorry if I was confusing the right hon. Gentleman. I listened to his speech with infinite care and I thought it was a masterful speech about what had happened in the past. When he came to looking to the future I am afraid I got rather confused, because the idea of Britain signing some kind of treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union as a means of solving the practical problems of the EC did not seem to me to be very practical.
What I am saying is that we in the United Kingdom—I do not care whether it is the Government, the Opposition, the press, television or anyone at all—should surely accept the fact that this has happened, reluctantly in my case, not so reluctantly in the case of others. We should say what has happened and then ask ourselves what we should do about it.
Thirdly, we should accept—I hope the right horn. Member for Chesterfield, who I know has a terrific interest in the time of Oliver Cromwell and King Charles and a great historical interest generally, will agree—that there is a case for the Government and the House of Commons saying: "This has happened, power has gone, the Common Market is not working well; it is not an efficient body; it is a body with a lot of fraud and overspending. When and how can we influence this?"
There is, in my view, apart from the endeavours of our Ministers who go to the Council of Ministers and try their best but often get outvoted, only one time when we can do anything. That is when the Common Market runs out of money and has to ask for more resources. At that point, of course, we have a veto. That is the situation that arose in February 1988, and then the Prime Minister sought an assurance, as she did at the time of Fontainebleau, that there would be strict budgetary controls. Sadly, we shall not get them, for the reasons we know, but at that stage we could make a number of important demands.
I suggest that we should not go through all the nonsense of saying how we are going to improve our discussions of European affairs, but instead draw up a realistic agenda.

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We know what agenda would be generally acceptable to the House of Commons. We all surely know that the CAP is not working well and is not being reformed. It cannot be reformed so long as it is controlled by the Council of Ministers. It will not happen and we are kidding ourselves if we think that it can. Is there not a case, without affecting the integrity of the Common Market, for repatriating agriculture to member states and having each of them carry out its own agricultural policy, subject to Commission approval if need be? In that way we could make some progress.
Is there some way in which we could have a better way of saying which article of the treaty is relevant to which Euro-document? The Foreign Office, if its officials are the very clever people we think they are, should be starting to look carefully at how the Commission is seeking to use article 100A for majority voting when it should not be so used. Surely this is another case in which we could ask for a change.
I believe that we have to accept that decisions have been made. I regret them, but we shall never know what would have happened if they had not been made. Now we have to do some realistic work on the Common Market. There are a lot of interesting things in the White Paper. We are told that moves towards 1992 are making great strides. If we look at all these major supermarket issues that have been agreed we see that one has been to extend the non-noise directive and cover what are called sit-in lawnmowers. I do not know what they are, but I do not think they are terribly important.
There is an important job to be done and when we next come to the point of bankruptcy—when the Common Market has no more cash at all, when it has to appeal to us for more cash—we shall be in exactly the same position as earlier Parliaments here were with King Charles. He used to come to the Parliament when he ran out of money and ask for more. And we told him that he could not have it unless he agreed to a, b and c. If we really want to reform the Common Market, stop the nonsense and move in a better direction, we should start preparing our agenda for change.
So, first, accept things as they are and tell the whole truth; secondly, do not fiddle around trying to pretend that things have not happened that have happened; and, thirdly, let us use the one opportunity we have for achieving real changes in the Common Market to make it better, more workable and more sensible.
7. 8 pm
Mr. Win Griffiths: I intend to do something that has so far been rare in this debate—to dip at some length into the report that we are debating. It may seem a little unorthodox, but there are some useful things to be said, not just about what is written in the report but also about what has been left unwritten.
I notice, for example, that at one point the Government referred to the fact that they had achieved a major victory when the Commission agreed to provide an impact assessment of any move in the open market saga on specific industries. But when, on the first page of the report, they referred to the fact that the structural fund would double by 1993, they forgot to mention that the Prime Minister was on record as having said in the House
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that that would not happen. Nevertheless, in the end she agreed to it, and I am glad that she did, because although those structural funds suffer from a lack of additionality they eventually find their way to regions with high unemployment.
There is another omission from the White Paper. The Government are happy to refer in paragraph 1. 16 to the fact that the Commission endorsed:
"policies on deregulation, including support for the 'fiche d'impact' system (whereby each Commission proposal for legislation is accompanied by an assessment of its likely impact on business".
When I have requested in this House and in the European Parliament that all the moves towards a single market should be assessed in terms of their impact on the regions, my requests have been turned down. I still believe that it would be useful if the Government attempted to assess the impact of the moves towards a single internal market on jobs in the regions. I believe that most economists agree that it will place further strains on regional economies, particularly if the Government are not prepared to develop the necessary communications to ensure that the regions have close links with population centres in the Community.
To that end, projects such as the building of a second bridge across the River Severn, the electrification of lines from London to south Wales and the need throughout the United Kingdom for direct rail links with EC capitals must be brought to fruition if the regions are not to be left behind in the move towards the single market which, according to the Government, has progressed better under the German presidency than under the British presidency.
There is a titillating sentence about economic and monetary union:
"The Council also decided to establish a committee of central bank governors and others to study and propose practical steps towards the progressive realisation of economic and monetary union."
Did the Prime Minister agree with that? From the tone of her Bruges speech, one could swear that she was on another planet when that agreement was made. For good or ill, however, that agreement has been made and the Prime Minister has made a commitment on behalf of the British Government to move towards the realisation of economic and monetary union. Perhaps the Government can tell us what progress might be made on that, or will it be like the fight against inflation—something that the Prime Minister says is proceeding albeit, as we are all aware, proceeding very unsuccessfully?
The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) asked about true inflation rates and much play was made about the fact that mortgage rates are included in our inflation rate but not in the inflation rates of other Community countries. It is also true, however, that fewer householders have mortgages in other Community countries and the rental element does enter their inflation indices.
I will cite some figures, although I accept that they are not the latest figures. Indeed, they may flatter the Government because they are the OECD main economic indicators for November 1988. Of the G7 countries, the figures show that British inflation was 6·4 per cent., in France it was 3 per cent. , in Germany it was 1·4 per cent., in Italy 5 per cent., the United States 4·2 per cent., Canada 4·1 per cent., and Japan 0·5 per cent. According to the OECD figures, there is no doubt that the British economy is performing very badly with regard to inflation—and the position has become worse since last November.

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The Government should also tell us what they think will happen about economic and monetary union. Time and again we have been told that in principle the Government want to join the European monetary system, but that the time is not yet right. Perhaps the Government can tell us today what will happen to the pound in relation to the deutschmark, the dollar or any other European currency. Will they want to take into account comparative unemployment rates before they do that? Under what conditions would the Government be prepared to join the EMS? I am sure that the whole House would like to know that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) referred to the appearance of Mr. Gorbachev on the scene. A very short paragraph in the White Paper gives us some hope that the Commission and several European Governments might be prepared to respond more positively than the British Government to Mr. Gorbachev. We might see the spectacle, as has happened in relation to several issues relating to foreign affairs, in which the British Government are dragged along to a more positive and progressive position than they really wanted. Paragraph 10·12, headed "EC/Hungary" states:
"Following several further rounds of negotiations, the EC and Hungary initialled in Brussels on 30 June an agreement on trade and commercial and economic co-operation."
If we link that with the fact that the Russians under Mr. Gorbachev have also allowed Comecon to recognise the European Community to make trade and commercial agreements, there is every hope that other such agreements might be made in future. If we take that in tandem with Mr. Gorbachev's obvious desire to see reductions in nuclear and conventional forces, Britain, which at the moment is being dragged unwillingly by countries such as Germany, might achieve developments which go way beyond the competence of the Community.
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: The hon. Gentleman continues to say that this country is being dragged unwillingly towards trade or discussions with the Soviet Union. He will recall that the Prime Minister very early on said that we can work with Mr. Gorbachev. Does he also agree that it would be necessary for the Soviet Union to devalue the rouble very considerably if we are to trade effectively with them?
Mr. Griffiths: I do not dispute the fact that the Prime Minister said that Mr. Gorbachev is a man she can deal with. However, in the context of the move to remove nuclear weapons and the agreements which have already been made between the United States and Russia, the Prime Minister still seems to be determined to modernise NATO nuclear weapons while countries like Germany are counselling otherwise. I hope that their counsel will hold sway. With regard to the exchange rate between the rouble and the pound, I leave it to the trading experts to find the most effective way of developing our trade relations.
Two matters affecting the environment are specifically mentioned in the White Paper. The first relates to an agreement
"covering the phased reduction up to 2003 of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from large combustion plants."
An organisation called EURISOL, the United Kingdom mineral wool producers, published a report yesterday. It shows that if the proposals currently under discussion for building regulations as they affect insulation standards were to be introduced by the Government, they would stop
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39·4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from polluting the atmosphere over a 50-year period. That is a significant reduction. In regard to the energy objectives of the European Community, on the basis of current use we would need two fewer average-sized power stations to produce the electricity that we need.
I wish to refer to a matter which is not mentioned in the report but has been aired recently—the water quality directives. The hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) opposed any concept of European standards because we would always use the lowest common denominator. If we have the lowest common denominator for bathing water and drinking water quality standards, why have the Government taken some 13 years so far to fail to bring more than one third of our beaches up to the standard of the so-called lowest common denominator? Why are the Government still seeking derogation on the drinking water quality directive which they affirmed in 1980 and why, unless there is a vast reappraisal of the programme, will we not achieve the standards of that directive until after the year 2000? Have the Government received any response from Brussels on their proposals on the bathing water and drinking water quality directives?
Earlier this month the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Minister of Trade and Industry had discussions in Brussels on the regional fund as to which areas of the United Kingdom, such as areas of declining traditional industry, would be eligible under the second objective. Has a definitive list now been introduced? Although most of south Wales is likely to be included, there are still some doubts about south Glamorgan which should be cleared up.
Finally, one issue relating to the development of a single market has aroused no official response—the ability of all citizens holding British passports to travel unimpeded throughout the European Community whether they are on holiday or looking for work, as that is supposed to be one of the great advantages of the single market. At present, there are several types of British passport, not all of which give their holders all the rights of normal British citizenship. Will the Government clarify whether anyone holding any British passport would be able to mow freely throughout the European Community looking for work when the single market has been completed?
On a constitutional issue, the Minister of State suggested that the Government might take advice as to the best time for the House to discuss proposals from the Commission. I suggest that the best time would be fairly soon after any proposals are announced. Whether or not the Commission makes major amendments to those proposals later on, if the Government have any intention of listening to advice from the House, the sooner we are able to give that advice the better it will be for everyone.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield mentioned, the Danish Parliament which has a system of scrutiny which, before the Single European Act was passed, led to the Danish Minister laying a veto on the table while he went back to Copenhagen to discuss the issues with the Danish Parliament's European Community committee and attempt to reach some agreement before returning to Brussels and explaining the position. That system works in Denmark probably because the Government always have a knife-edge majority, and the public at large perceive that the European Community can have an enormous impact on people's lives. It has

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therefore become an important part of the constitutional process in Denmark. By extending majority voting, the Single European Act will reduce the effectiveness of that committee, but the Danish Parliament will still be able to play an important role on matters in which Governments have a veto.
If the Government are to listen to the advice of the House, there is no reason why an informed debate should not be held one month after a proposal has been published, giving hon. Members the opportunity to examine it and seek advice from other interested bodies. It would be nice to think of the Government going to Council meetings and putting forward the view of the British Parliament.
Mrs. Chalker: We do.
Mr. Griffiths: The Minister whispers "We do", but more often than not we discuss European matters after a common position has been reached and after the Council has made a decision, so our debates in the House are almost post-mortem discussions.
Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman should know that we frequently use a scrutiny reserve—the term used in the Council of Ministers when a Minister listens to a debate but keeps a scrutiny reserve until the issue is discussed in his national Parliament. That procedure is frequently used by United Kingdom Ministers, and we shall continue to use it. Nevertheless, I understand what the hon. Gentleman said about early deliberations on Commission proposals, although that might not be the best time in every single instance.
Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to the Minister for that advice. I should be interested to know how often the use of the scrutiny reserve has led to the Government listening to advice from the House and changing their position in the Council of Ministers.
Mr. Benn: Before my hon. Friend is seduced by the Minister's language, I should explain that the scrutiny reserve is used as an instrument by the Executive to give themselves more time to think. It is not at the discretion of the House of Commons, so it is in no sense a legislative safeguard. It is a technique for a Minister who does not want to say, "yes", probably because he has not consulted his colleagues at home, but it is no guarantee for the House of Commons.
Mr. Griffiths: That is why I asked whether the House had ever had any impact on a decision after a scrutiny reserve had been made by a Minister in the Council.
Mr. Spearing: While I concur entirely with the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Berm), a resolution of the House on 30 October 1980 requires a Minister to debate an issue in the House prior to assent in Brussels unless that is impossible. While the right hon. Lady's words were seductive, does he agree that any debate, whether or not it is held under a scrutiny reserve, unless it involves a constitutional change which is required by the treaty, is merely advisory, so all the debates to which my hon. Friend refers are advisory and consultative debates only, unless we adopt a similar system to that which applies in Denmark?
Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says, which serves to emphasise the need for this House to play a more positive role in these affairs.
I conclude by saying that the White Paper, while telling us what happened under the German presidency, does not tell us what will happen in the future, particularly with regard to economic and monetary union. I hope that we shall receive a detailed response on those matters because they are vital to the future of the British economy, especially in the regions.
7. 29
Sir Richard Body: As a Welshman I am sure that the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) appreciates the perils of the single market. He will realise that if there is to be an integrated market which embraces more than 300 million people over such a vast area, there must be a limited number of growth points. Broadly speaking, they will be in what we have come to call the golden triangle. Wales is unlikely to be in that triangle and so is Lincolnshire—if I may say so in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies).
I hope that the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) will not mind me saying that he made a powerful and entertaining speech. I wonder whether he realises how close he came to the views expressed by no less a man than M. Monnet just before he died. I saw a paper written by one of Monnet's colleagues in which he described a conversation in which M. Monnet, reviewing his life, said that he had a regret about the European Community—he wished that it had been founded not on economics but rather on the sort of cultural links to which the right hon. Member for Chesterfield alluded.
Comparing this White Paper with its predecessors, I am struck by the way in which the European Commission is now nibbling away at a range of issues far wider than that with which it used to deal only a few years ago. To some extent, that can be explained by the magic year, 1992. I hope that the House appreciates why that date was selected. It was designed to coincide with the end of Lord Cockfield's second term of office, the vice-president who was responsible for the internal market. As we know, he launched a programme of 300 changes that were to be made before his term of office came to an end. I hope that now that he has departed we may look upon 1992 as no more than one—albeit very important—year in this century.
This does not altogether explain quite a large number of items in the White Paper, which refers to environmental matters, health, education and youth training. Very soon, we must make up our minds whether we want a deeper Europe that deals with such issues, or a wider Europe. We cannot have both.
As I have said so often, I am totally in favour of more international co-operation. I do not understand how one can speak of many of the environmental issues unless one talks in European terms. We cannot deal with many of them by ourselves, and the question is with whom, and how, we should try to overcome our problems.
I should particularly like to discuss the paragraph in the White Paper that deals with copyright, and a number of allied matters that are of enormous importance if we are to achieve the expansion of trade to which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State referred. I wonder whether

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she reads that excellent journal called the "New European". A recent issue of that quarterly contained an article by Mr. Anthony Walton, a leading member of the English patent bar. He spoke of the enormous success of the European Patent Office, which goes back a number of years and includes all the EC countries. It goes far beyond that—it means that an inventor in Stockholm, Geneva or any other European capital can go to the local office, register a patent and immediately it takes effect throughout all the countries that are adherents to the European Patent Office.
The system works extremely well—it is efficient and cheap. However, outside the profession of patent lawyers and patent agents, very few people know about the European Patent Office because there are no rows or disputes. It works. Yet in the White Paper, the EC Commission is nibbling away and trying to undermine the Patent Office by arrogating its role to itself.
I wonder if my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will consider this matter carefully, because there is at hand an institution that can extend the work of the European Patent Office very effectively. That institution is the Economic Commission for Europe, based in Geneva. That city is as European as any other, although I fear that some of my hon. Friends rather quixotically deny that it is in Europe. Every European country in the United Nations is entitled to take part in the proceedings of the commission, and many of them actively do so. Many of them, particularly EFTA countries, wish to take a more vigorous role in co-ordinating the economic activities of the European continent.
I am told, and perhaps my right hon. Friend will put me right if I am wrong, that sadly our Foreign Office is not at all enthusiastic about the Economic Commission of Europe, which it fears may be a competitor with the EC. However, if we are to have a wider, rather than a deeper, Community, surely it is an institution not to be overlooked—especially when we seek to expand trade throughout the whole of Europe in the way that my right hon. Friend suggested.
Whether or not one approves of the Economic Commission for Europe turns largely, I suppose, on whether one believes in the deeper Europe or the wider Europe. If the deeper Europe is our objective, I hope that we realise the consequences when we seek to have over 300 million people governed by the same laws and the same system of taxation. It will mean that we will evolve into a unitary state, which will have grave implications for the future of the House, making it primarily a consultative rather than a legislative body in due course.
That was not the vision that the Prime Minister saw at Bruges. The first half of her speech was passionately pro-European, but did she not make the point that Europe would work more harmoniously if there were opportunities for countries to act in a sovereign way, making their own laws fit in with Europe's interests? If Europe is indeed a number of circles of interest, European law should be limited to where those interests converge rather than beyond the circles. Once the law goes beyond the circles, there is bound to be conflict and disharmony.
Does my right hon. Friend the Minister of State wish the European Patent Office to be strengthened and enlarged, with its role extended still further into eastern Europe, so that it embraces all the 38 countries of Europe, or would she rather that its role were taken over by the Commission of the EEC? If the latter course is taken, it
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will not advance the argument that my right hon. Friend made earlier about wanting more trade. Indeed, it would be a step towards a fortress Europe. Surely it must be obvious that if we want trade opened throughout Europe the position on the patent and copyright system must be settled amicably and the 12 items listed under that heading in the White Paper must be dealt with properly. If they are to be arrogated to just 12 countries, with those countries imposing their ideas on the remainder, that will do nothing to liberalise trade throughout the whole of Europe.
Copyright and patent law, prosaic though it may be, may present a little test of whether the Foreign Office will be moved by the principles of Bruges or whether it would rather dabble with a fortress Europe. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider the matter carefully because those of us who wish to see a wider Europe and the barriers to trade broken down throughout the continent think that there is only one route for us to take, and that route is not mapped out in the White Paper.
7. 44 pm
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Earlier in the debate the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) referred to the widespread concerns of the British public about developments within the European Community. Without wishing to sound facetious, may I tell him that I encountered widespread concern in my part of the world about the activities of the Government? That concern is referred to more often than what is happening within the European Community.
I accept that there are concerns. Perhaps part of the problem has been that the coverage given to the European Community, including its Parliament and the Commission, is not so wide as the coverage given to this place. It is only recently that the media and the press have started to move towards adequate coverage of activities within the European Community. The European institutions must be given greater coverage so that people can understand and switch into what is happening within the Community.
Much of the debate has centred on the apparent inability of the House to scrutinise proposed legislation from the European Community. Reference has already been made to page 35 of the White Paper and to the fact that the House has had the opportunity to have 13 debates, on 49 documents, in the six months covered by the White Paper. Such debates tend to be held late in the evening, usually after the main vote al. 10 o'clock, they last for one and a half hours and they may not be the best way of dealing with that aspect of our responsibilities.
We need to consider how we deal with European legislation. Particularly as 1992 approaches, it would be remiss of the House if we did not have an opportunity to extend our powers and facilities to scrutinise European legislation. Perhaps one of the first things that we need is someone to translate the gobbledegook of European documents and to spell out their implications in a comprehensible way to hon. Members and to the public. The point was drawn to my attention by an industrialist in my constituency last weekend. He said that he found it difficult to understand the implications of some of the directives. Perhaps that facility in itself would do a great deal to assist public comprehension of the workings of the Community.
Mr. Spearing: May I draw the attention of the hon. Lady and her industrialist constituent—indeed, of all industrialists and all citizens of the United Kingdom—to the weekly reports of the Select Committee on European Legislation which has that very duty to perform? In the last Session those reports were HC43—i-xxxvii; in this Parliament the reference is HC15 and so far we have published nine reports. I am not saying that our English is pellucid, but it is the clearest interpretation that we can achieve of some of the convoluted documents to which the hon. Lady has referred.
Mrs. Ewing: I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I will draw my constituent's attention to his comments. I know that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the point that I was making.
I share many of the concerns of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) about the implications of the White Paper for transport policy. One issue affecting transport is the development of the Channel tunnel. While that may not be covered by the 1992 legislation, it is touched by it. It is interesting to note that the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs is considering in detail the implications of the Channel tunnel for industry and development in Wales. We do not have such a facility for Scotland because the House has been unable to establish a Scottish Affairs Select Committee, so we are in difficulty in terms of the communication system.
It is important for industry, particularly in an area such as I represent, to have easy access to the market. We already suffer severe disadvantages. I therefore very much welcome the establishment of an organisation called CREATE, which is the Campaign for Rail Electrification from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. That would be a step in the right direction which would assist Grampian region and the Highlands and Islands to compete more effectively. Many of the goods produced there are high quality products for which there is a great demand in the European Community. I shall not detail all the wonderful assets of my part of the world, but they include food and fish processing, textiles and whisky—a major export from my own constituency. It is important that as we move towards 1992 the Government should consider transport issues as they affect peripheral regions of the United Kingdom.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) spoke about the regional fund. We feel strongly that the Government, by their failure to give additionality to what has been made available by the Community, fail to recognise its importance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer insists that the growth of regional policy would be positively damaging, but we regard that as insulting to those areas which have benefited extensively from the work of the European Community and from the funds that it has directed to us. The Government must consider more carefully their handling of regional policy and its operation within the context of the European fund.
Last year, the Highlands and Islands faced a major problem when they were suddenly informed by the Commission that they were regarded as being better off than areas of Kent. It was only because of a major campaign by the local MEP, the Highlands and Islands Development Board, Highlands regional council and certain hon. Members that the situation was improved. We did not achieve a return to the original position, but we
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moved further up the scale so that the Highlands and Islands were not left high and dry without the major assistance that is so important to them.
I refer also to the antagonism of Conservative MEPs to any suggestion that there should be an agricultural development plan for the Highlands and for Grampian. They have consistently voted against an ADP in the European Parliament. As agriculture is a fundamental part of the Scottish economy, can the Minister explain the reason for that antagonism?
With regard to proportional representation in the European Community, it is ludicrous that the United Kingdom is the only country to be left without proportional representation and has ended up as the odd man out. I share the view of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber that people are discouraged from casting their votes because they feel disfranchised. If proportional representation operated, people would be encouraged to take more interest in the Community and the European Parliament. If Scotland were a self-governing nation, it would be entitled to 16 MEPs instead of eight. With proportional representation, there would also be a better spread of Scotland's political viewpoints, and as MEPs link together in political groupings Scotland would have greater influence in the European Parliament.
The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) deliberately set out to attack my party's policy. It is important to set the record straight, for the benefit of right hon. and hon. Members and for the wider audience outside the House. My party has believed in the independence of Scotland within the European Community since 1983, and that policy was re-endorsed last year at our party conference in Inverness—by a majority of eight to one, which any politician would accept as being an overwhelming majority. Given the absence of any Scottish right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches, the hon. Member for Hamilton may have felt compelled to do his best to fill the gap—and I congratulate him on making the best Tory speech that I have yet heard from this side of the House. The hon. Gentleman is attempting to be a hatchet man and to
bolster up the Tory establishment, with which he seems happy to be in cahoots. Perhaps that is because, since Govan, the Labour party has been scared witless and is losing its grip, so the hon. Gentleman is happy to become involved in the conspiracy of establishment politics.
The basic principle underpinning Scotland's right to be an independent country within the European Community is the legal principle clearly spelt out by the Secretary of State for Scotland—or the governor general, as we prefer to call him—in his capacity as Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on 31 October 1984. Referring to the situation which obtained as a result of negotiations between Denmark and Greenland, he said:
"As the treaties contain no provision for the withdrawal of a member state, or a part of one, the precise terms of Greenland's change in status had to be negotiated within the Community to provide appropriate amendments to the treaties."— [Official Report, 30 October 1984; Vol. 65, c. 1319.]
If Scotland votes to become an independent nation, it will clearly remain within the Community and negotiations will follow about the terms of that continuing membership. My party has never sought to deny that, and it is disingenuous—to put it mildly—for hon. Members to

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suggest otherwise. The hon. Member for Hamilton failed to point out that other parts of the United Kingdom would be in the same position as Scotland.
Mr. Robertson: The United Kingdom is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Is the hon. Lady saying that, in the event of Scotland becoming independent, she expects it to have a sixth seat?
Mrs. Ewing: I do not take the same imperialistic view as the hon. Member for Hamilton. My understanding of international law is that Scotland has been included in treaties as a result of international agreements reached by the British Government, and that those treaties stand until such time as Scotland negotiates out of them. The hon. Gentleman has again produced a red herring in respect of a specific situation.
The political principle underpinning the concept that I described is a nation's right to self-determination, which the House, or anyone else, would be foolish to deny. The final adjustment of Scotland's status will require the unanimous agreement of member states, but so would expulsion from the EEC. The arguments made by the hon. Member for Hamilton are wrong, and I hope that he will desist from making them again until such time as he has researched the subject more thoroughly and is informed of the legal principles which obtain in international law.
The White Paper also raises the question of representation on the Council of Ministers. Annex A on pages 36 to 39 of the White Paper presents a list of the 56 meetings held in the six months between January and June 1988. On only one occasion, on 29 February 1988, did a representative of the Scottish Office attend when Lord Sanderson of Bowden played second fiddle to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Right hon. and hon. Members may ask why Scotland seeks separate representation and requests that Scottish Ministers attend the Council of Ministers. I remind the House that Scotland has a separate legal system, which means that the implications of some directives must be treated differently.
Scotland also has a different education system. Mention has been made of the interchangeability of professional qualifications, so that lawyers and vets can already work anywhere in the European Community without obtaining additional qualifications. Soon teachers will be able to do the same. Because Scotland has a different education system, and a different way of registering teachers— through the General Teaching Council for Scotland—it needs separate representation when such matters are discussed.
Scotland's fishing industry represents 60 per cent. of the Community's fisheries. That industry is vital to Scotland. Many jobs all around our coast depend on fishing. Despite that, in a six-month period on only one occasion did anyone try to represent Scotland's interests at the Council of Ministers. I understand that the position has not improved and that Scotland now faces massive cuts in its haddock and whiting quotas.
With regard to agriculture, Scotland's crofting communities are very different from those of other agricultural areas—with different traditions, different attitudes, different crops and a different way of life. A great deal of the marginal farmland in the United Kingdom lies within Scotland, and there should be representation for that.
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Transport has also been mentioned. The whisky industry merits special representation because, while we may not be unique in the European Community in producing whisky, we are certainly the major producer and it is vitally important that those interests be looked after.
It is not appropriate that Scotland should continue to be deprived of full representation in the Council of Ministers. Such representation can be achieved only through full self-government for the people of Scotland. That is something that they have the right to choose or to reject by democratic process. It is my firm belief that words such as those that we have heard from the Opposition Front Bench today are intended to demean the aspirations of the Scottish people. Perhaps we should remind ourselves that after the 1983 election the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) said that we needed to play down the aspirations of the people of Scotland. It is certainly not my intention to play down the aspirations of the people of Scotland. I see an interesting future for them within the European Community.
I do not think that the Community is perfect—many of us are only too well aware of the problems that exist and of the difficulties that have to be overcome—but the members of any organisation have to go forward in trust, with self-respect and mutual respect. That is how l should like to see Scotland participating in the Community, and I hope that the day will come sooner rather than later.
8. 2 pm
Mr. Bowen Wells: May I start with a quotation:
"Our future must lie in willing and active co-operation between independent sovereign Governments, each answering to their national parliaments."
I emphasise the words
"each answering to their national parliaments".
That statement was part of a speech made by my right hon.
Friend the Prime Minister at Bruges.
It is the implications of answering to their national Parliaments that I should like to go through with he House tonight. In case, Madam Deputy Speaker, you should think that I am not speaking to the White Paper that is under discussion, may I say that the principal reason is set out in paragraph 1.4 of that document:
"The European Council met again in Hanover on 27–28 June, when it reached agreement on priorities for the next phase of work on the single market—the opening up of public purchasing, the further liberalisation of banking and other financial services, the achievement of common standards for manufactured products, and the registration of intellectual property, (patents/trade marks) throughout the Community. The Council also decided to establish a committee of central bank governors and others to study and propose practical steps towards the progressive realisation of economic and monetary union."
Included in those things that the central banks are considering are a common currency and a central bank. I have not heard in this Chamber any discussion about any of those essential matters since that statement was made a year ago.
Are not you, Madam Deputy Speaker, like me, humiliated by the fact that those matters have not been discussed in this Chamber? Is it not time we began to discuss them seriously and properly, particularly when we have been advised by those who know—the lawyers—that under article 100A, by majority vote, European competence can be extended, without further treaty

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obligations, without any further treaty signatures, into all areas of our life? We have been told that it can be extended to all areas of decision-making in this country, including education, health, welfare and other such matters.
I think we have to find out how we should be trying to influence those decisions. If my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) are right, this Chamber has no further part to play in them. I do not believe that to be true, nor that it should be the case. I believe that we can influence decisions if we bother to understand this decision-making process within Europe. We need, therefore, to locate where the decisions are made. We need to find out how policy is arrived at and attempt to influence it.
Under the procedures in this House, in the European Legislation Committee and in the Standing Committees whose purpose is to consider various parts of European legislation we are failing in our duty to do that. I realise that many hon. Members know the European decision-making process—particularly those taking part in this debate—but I should like to examine it very quickly. Our former Commissioner, Mr. Stanley Clinton Davis, appeared at the European Legislation Committee the other day. He said that the ignorance of the procedures and of the way in which Europe works that was displayed by a Select Committee of this House, at which he had given evidence, was mind-boggling.
Mr. Foulkes: The hon. Member is talking about this House influencing decisions made by the Community—the Commission and the Council of Ministers. Will he address his mind also to the question of this House influencing decisions that are the prerogative of this Parliament? Does he really believe that decisions are made by this House? Does he not accept that, increasingly, they are made by the Executive, particularly by one person in that Executive? Is it not a fact that this House is becoming a mere rubber-stamp for domestic decisions that are not influenced in any way by the European Community?
Mr. Wells: If the hon. Member truly believed that, he would not have bothered to stand for election as the representative of his constituency. I do not think that any of us believe that what he has said is true. By very hard work and by locating the places of influence in the Executive, Members can make an impact. This House is sovereign and Ministers have to answer to it.
That provides the link to what I wanted to say about the way in which Ministers have to be influenced when they are taking decisions on our behalf or trying to influence the Council of Ministers in Europe—and it is the Council of Ministers that takes the final decisions. At present, Ministers are not made to be accountable to this House before or after making their decisions. Indeed, outside the Council of Ministers we have the European Council, made up of the Heads of Government. We do not even get the dates of meetings in advance. So far as I know, the agenda is not made known to this House. Enormously important decisions are taken.
The decision on the Single European Act was never discussed before the Prime Minister agreed to introduce it in this House. It was then gone through in a poorly attended debate, and we agreed, amongst other things, to
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the famous article 100A, which extends, or could extend, European competence into many areas of our domestic legislation.
Mr. Foulkes: Will the hon. Gentleman be fair and admit that he does not see the agenda of the Cabinet, or Cabinet Committees, on domestic matters? He probably does not even know what Cabinet Committees exist: we are not allowed to know. Even when Ministers come to the Dispatch Box and purport to be accountable to the House, there is still a lot to be desired in terms of real accountability. I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman has not got a very good argument, but does not some of it apply as much to domestic decisions and legislation as to European decisions and legislation?
Mr. Wells: Like the hon. Gentleman, I am a parliamentarian, and Parliament vies constantly with the Executive for power. If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to agree that the Executive has too much power and is not sufficiently accountable to Parliament, I entirely agree, and we may join together as parliamentary companions. But we as a Parliament are sovereign, and it is our fault if we do not make our Executive more accountable to us. That is our job. The Chamber has that power domestically, but we do not have it in Europe, which is what many hon. Members have been complaining about. It is not possible to have such power in an international organisation, but we must seek to influence it none the less.
First, let us consider how we can ensure that proper account is taken of British interests before decisions are made and brought to the Council of Ministers. We must also make certain that our Ministers know what our Parliament thinks and what it wants them to do when they make decisions at the European Council. At present this Parliament receives no documents or intimations about what is to take place until a document is issued by the European Commission, and that happens after a common position has been established—a political agreement between member states.
That document then goes to the Council of Ministers and gives rise to an explanatory memorandum to the Select Committee on European Legislation, chaired so fairly and well by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). That is the first time that we see the document, and it is not the time at which we can exert our influence. Although, as the hon. Member for Newham, South pointed out to the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), the documents are issued with excellent explanatory memoranda, they often reach us after the adoption of the instrument concerned, and certainly after policy has been agreed in Europe. Thus anything that we say in debate, at however late an hour, will not influence the actual decision.
Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman has illustrated something of the overall problem. Does he not agree, however, that although on occasion—alas—we see documents after the decision has been made, fortunately the majority of documents and explanatory memoranda come before our eyes before the establishment of a common position and the Council's decision, when it need not go to the Parliament? I admit that the position is not perfect.
Mr. Wells: I am grateful for that correction. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I was about to add that

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the vast majority of documents come before our Committee before decisions have been adopted and are debated in the House before the Minister has made his decision.
The hon. Gentleman should recognise, however, that there has been an acceleration in the number of documents, and also in the number that have been adopted without being considered by the House. Let me give him the figures. In the 1987–88 Session, 24 documents of political and legal importance which the Committee recommended for debate in the House were adopted before the House ever saw them, while 100 documents not of political and legal importance were adopted in the same circumstances.
Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that that is where one of the greatest problems lies? The documents that it is claimed should be adopted before we have an opportunity to see them are the very documents that are agreed because they are considered important. The position is the reverse of what it should be: in a sense, the more urgent the document, the greater the reason for this Parliament to know something about it.
Mr. Wells: I could not agree more. We must consider a different method, particularly as we approach 1992. According to the most recent assessment, we must agree 279 measures of major importance—not in 1992; they must implemented before that. If we do not alter our procedures, the House will consider those measures in the defective way in which, as I have illustrated, we consider such measures now.
Several suggestions have been made about what we should do. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) has written an excellent article in The Times, and no doubt hon. Members have seen another excellent article—also in The Times—by the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen). I am sure that my right hon. Friend would give credit to the European Legislation Committee's second report of the 1986–87 Session, in which we suggested that the Committee's powers should be extended, but I feel that we should go even further.
We must ask where are the decisions made? How are we to influence the Commission? The Commission is at present discussing questions such as a unitary monetary union, a universal unit of account and a central bank, and Ministers are well aware that they are being discussed, but we have no document on which to consider such matters. Surely it is not beyond the capabilities of a Minister and his civil servants to present such a document to the European Legislation Committee, telling us that, say, a central bank is being considered and listing the arguments and the options being canvassed. It could be presented to another Committee, of course: there are other ways of doing this.
The Committee would immediately recognise the document as a matter of considerable policy importance, and would, perhaps, take evidence on it before issuing its report to the House. The European Legislation Committee is the only Select Committee in our lexicon, apart from the Public Accounts Committee, with the power to recommend debate, and its recommendations are then fulfilled. These important policy matters could therefore be considered on the Floor of the House, and the Minister would then know what Parliament was thinking.
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That would be at an early stage. We could influence policy at another stage. When the documents have been formulated by the Commission they go to the European Parliament, whose Members could then amend them in the light of debates proceeding both inside and outside Parliament—for it is through this House that, traditionally, those outside have been alerted to this type of discussion.
Hon. Members know perfectly well that if they want to influence a Civil Service decision—a law—they do not influence its formation and what is in it simply in debate in the House; they make certain that they ask the Minister what is happening, they ask to see the civil servants and they put in letters and representations. Such representations often result in a change in the law. In exactly the same way, that is how we should be operating in Europe. My first suggestion is that we try to influence and have debates on policy issues. I suggest that if we had debates on such specific issues the House would be full. Many hon. Members would want to discuss whether we should have, for example, a central bank because that raises many policy implications and problems which people would want to discuss and which would result in lively debate.
There are other matters that the House must consider and I refer briefly to them. Policy issues are considered by the European Council. I believe, again, that the Cabinet Office must bring those matters to the attention of the House before my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and her senior Ministers go to European Councils and that debates should be held. Holding a debate before every European Council meeting would mean holding debates twice a year. Those debates would be much better attended than debates on documents that are a year old, as is the case with our debate now. The present procedure, therefore, of having two debates a year on year-old documents would be superseded by debates on immediate issues on which we would have the power to influence and act. That is my second suggested reform.
Thirdly, we must reform the European Legislation Committee and also think about how we deal properly with lesser documents. At present, we recommend that they are debated in Standing Committee. We know what that means. It means that a group of hon. Members, who may have a lot to do but who, by chance, are not on a Committee at the particular time when the Selection Committee sits, are drawn together and told that they must consider a legislative question at 11 o'clock one morning. They are given about five days' notice of the meeting. They may have no competence, no interest and no knowledge of the document and we know that those debates take the form of a ministerial statement and some replies by the Opposition spokesmen, and then a desultory debate, which the Whip wants to get finished as quickly as possible because he has other things to do. He shuts up Government Members and there are few contributions from Opposition Members. That is the completion of debate in the House of Commons.
Sir Richard Body: I agree with what my hon. Friend says, but would he not agree that our existing departmental Select Committees have the power to do much of that, if not all? They are in a position to go to Brussels to find out what the Commission may have in mind, they have a unique relationship with the Minister

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and, as we know, the power to call for persons and papers, so they could, therefore, exercise the role that my hon. Friend has described.
Mr. Wells: Yes, that is one of the ways in which we might attempt to deal with the flood of European legislation more effectively. There should be no arguments on turf on this matter. There is so much legislation coming through that all the departmental Select Committees could play that role. They could play it now, but they have not chosen to do so. However, it is conceivable that they may agree to take on some of the European legislative load and that they could act sufficiently quickly to take evidence. One would, therefore, have an all-party group that would have some competence and knowledge of the subject matter under discussion and that would be able to advise the House more closely and better than we can at present.
However, at present the Select Committees—and this is one of the defects—do not have the power of the European Legislation Committee to recommend debate. I am a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and we have often recommended a debate after our reports, over which we have laboured long and hard, but rarely has the House debated them. So we would have to change either our modus operandi or, alternatively, we might have to alter the Standing Orders of the House. However, that is certainly an alternative.
Another alternative is to have Standing Committees in the true sense, in that we would have Committees of people who had some competence and interest in trade and industry or agriculture and who would agree to sit to debate the documents, possibly joining some members of the European Legislation Committee. The European Legislation Committee can form an infinite number of Sub-Committees under its present constitution. It can call for Members of Parliament to join these Sub-Committees which can travel and take evidence and have all the powers of a Select Committee. They can then recommend, through the main Committee, that the matter be debated and give the arguments for and against.
If we took that course, the European Legislation Committee would have to be greatly expanded. At present, it has only 16 members and, although larger than most of the departmental Committees, that number is insufficient to deal with the vast flood of European legislation in the way that we would expect. If it did, the 16 members would be in permanent session and could do nothing else in the House, which would be wrong to ask of hon. Members. It would, therefore, have to expand considerably.
We must consider urgently the way in which we conduct ourselves on European legislation. We need to take a decision now. To summarise, we need to debate matters at an earlier stage, before the Commission has made its proposals to the European Parliament. We need to see the European Parliament regularly. I am glad that the House has agreed that Members of the European Parliament may have passes and come here, but we must now extend that and see them on a regular, formal basis to concert our action on European legislation. We must ensure that all debates take place in good time on the basis of reports issued as a result of interviewing Ministers and other people when the legislation is being formed—and certainly before it comes to the Council of Ministers—so that no Minister can go to the Council of Ministers
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without knowing what Parliament thinks. We must reform our own European Legislation Committee and, possibly, our other Select Committee, to ensure that they can deal with legislation in the traditional sense and also with the European Council and other more general matters under consideration. I hope that the House will make this decision soon and quickly so that we can, once more, hold up our heads with pride, knowing that we are dealing properly with Europe, that we are influencing it properly and that we are getting the right decisions for Europe as well as for Britain.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): There is still a number of hon. Members who want to get into the debate. I would like to be able to call them all, so may I ask for brevity of speech in the last few minutes.
8. 28 pm
Mr. Nigel Spearing: I shall endeavour to comply with your request, Madam Deputy Speaker, but these matters are not as simple as some of the matters that we address in our own legislation.
I must say how pleased I am to follow the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells). I agree with much of what he said, but I commend to him the fact that Standing Committees, provided they are properly chosen and that hon. Members have sufficient notice, can sometimes be very effective in debates because they have two and a half hours of debate rather than the one and a half hours after 10 pm that we often have here.
I think that his idea of a debate two days before Council meetings is a good one, but I do not agree about the effectiveness of all the hon. Member's remedies, welcome though they are. I disagree with one particular and important reason which he and other hon. Members, I believe, have not yet grasped. The reason is that, however effective the scrutiny and however long and effective the debates, they are constitutionally only advisory. Ministers can hear the debate, but can then go to the Council of Ministers and do what they please at their own peril—to use the ancient phrase. That is not good enough. It creates a democratic deficit, which I shall discuss in a few moments.
I want to refer briefly to paragraph 3.5 of the White Paper, Cm 467, which is the topic of our debate. It deals with the elimination levy for sugar, introduced in the last six-month period. Since then, events have moved on and we heard last week that there is a proposal for a 5 per cent. cut in sugar prices this year.
This matter is important, for two reasons. First, such a cut may not be very helpful to our own producers. Secondly, and more important, it runs counter to the resolution passed by this House on 11 November 1974, when we refused an EEC regulation on sugar because it did not take into account sufficiently—if it took them into account at all—the needs of our Caribbean and Commonwealth partners, now called the ACP, or the interests of cane refining in Britain, then based in London, Liverpool and Greenock. I do not believe that the present proposals take those matters into account either. Instead, they reduce the sums available to our ACP partners by up to £23 million a year. That may not seem much to some hon. Members, but in Third world terms it is a very substantial amount.

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The Mauritius representative, Mr. Paul Eynaud, said yesterday:
"The purpose of the sugar protocol is to provide a permanent and reliable trade instrument between 12 industrialised countries and 15 developing countries. The introduction by the Commission of a policy of price reductions would defeat the purpose. Moreover the Commission have themselves recognised by their acknowledgement that compensation would be necessary, that the price reductions under consideration would cause undue hardship to the ACP."
It is not merely a question of compensation. How can mere handouts of money compensate people for loss of occupation or the loss of the industrial independence that the export of their raw materials affords them?
The evidence that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food gave the Select Committee this afternoon suggests that he has taken that on board, but it is to the discredit of the Commission that it has produced a proposal without sufficient field work in the Third world. It is reneging on the moral responsibility of the Common Market, which it has espoused through the convention of Lomé and its sugar protocol. It was a bad day when the present proposal was made, and I hope that it will be stopped.
I turn hastily to the whole question of scrutiny and the democratic deficit. The House seems to forget that scrutiny is not enough. Scrutiny is important, and the shortening time scale that we have makes it much more difficult than it was, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford explained. But there is a great deal more to it than that.
I have one suggestion that might improve the scrutiny process. The excellent—and sometimes not so excellent—explanatory memorandum produced and signed by Ministers and available in the Vote Office in typescript form could be published weekly and printed. Why should they not? They are proposals for legislation. They are, in effect, super-White Papers that express the intention of the Commission and the Government's reaction to what will, in many cases, become legislation. If they were issued weekly and printed, not only Parliament but the nation would be the gainers.
We have changed gear since the passing of the Single European Act, which amends the treaty of Rome. In particular, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford pointed out, that Act creates a much wider area of competence. The consequence of the combination of new article 8A and new article 100A, which provides for majority voting, is as yet undefined. Not long ago I tabled a question asking which areas of legislation were not open to the competence of the Community under article 100A. As I recall, the answer given by the Attorney-General was "family and criminal law". There may be others, but I shall not consider this theme further because the Select Committee is at the moment examining the very question of the treaty base.
When hon. Members—including some Conservative Members, who are now calling for greater scrutiny—voted for the Single European Act in 1986, they did not know what the implications were. I am sorry that the Minister of State is not with us; she has been here for much of the time and no doubt she will return. It was her signature that appeared on the Single European Act. It was unfair of the Government to ask her to sign the document when she was not even a Privy Councillor, so that if something went wrong they could blame her. Either the Foreign Office did
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not know what it was signing or it did not say. It must be one way or the other. I have said that before, and have not been contradicted on it.
Mr. Wells: The hon. Gentleman also contributed to the third report on the Single European Act of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. That report made available to the House the sort of information to which he refers, but I do not think that articles 8A and 100A were dealt with.
Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman will recall that that report emerged only after the Second Reading of the Bill, and a week or even less before the commencement of the Committee stage. The Select Committee's conclusions hinted that there was a purpose behind the Act which it could not fathom—a thought that some people dared not express. I leave that thought with the hon. Gentleman.
Bearing in mind what you said, Madame Deputy Speaker, I shall hasten on. The Act has created what might be called the "Bruges phenomenon". There has been much talk of the Bruges group and what the Prime Minister said in a famous speech in that ancient and lovely city.
I am rather surprised that the Prime Minister, as a lawyer, should have got her constitutional wires twisted. Understandably, she is against federalism; so are a lot of hon. Members on both sides of the House. She is also against the bureaucracy of the Commission. There is one important point that she has failed to apprehend, and which the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) did not recognise in his speech—that the European Economic Comunity is a new political and constitutional animal. It is unique. It takes power in a federal manner, as we vote power away. but it exercises power in a unitary manner.
I know of nothing in the treaty of Rome that gives power to the House. It refers only in code to the respective constitutional processes. That is all there is, so we are not talking about a federation. The Prime Minister is wrong to think that there is a threat of a united states of Europe. There is no provision in the treaty of Rome for progress towards that, but there is plenty of provision for the creation of what is, in effect, a unitary state of Europe. Economic and monetary union is referred to in the preface to the treaty. The idea of a two-way constitution is so novel that some people have not grasped the reality, although it is there for all to see.
There has been much talk today about the Commission. Only yesterday, the Select Committee received evidence from former Commissioner Clinton Davis, who said, "We go around listening to what people have to say. We listen to the Governments of member states, to pan-European consumer and industrial interests and to people in the 12 member states. Then we write the proposal." Every proposal for legislation must come by, with or from the Commission; I cannot remember whether it is couched in the dative or the ablative. Legislation must come through that gateway and through that gateway alone. We in this House and the Prime Minister herself are but petitioners in respect of the powers of the Commission.
In historic constitutional terms, we are in the same position as those who send us here with petitions to place in the bag behind the Chair. That is what the constitution and the law are. We start with a request. We in Britain, even the Government, make requests to the Commission and the Commission disposes of them by producing the documents of the kind to which the hon. Member for

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Hertford and Stortford referred. It has wide discretion collectively if all Ministers get together in a collegiate college. It is that and only that that the Council of Ministers can consider.
Strictly speaking, the Council of Ministers cannot amend what it produces. It can send a document back and then produce another one, perhaps instantaneously or perhaps after three months. Any Minister in the Council of Ministers can do less than any hon. Member can in respect of our legislation. Ask George Cunningham—one man, one amendment: "delete 30, insert 40". No one can do that in respect of anything placed before the Council of Ministers.
Mr. Foulkes: A majority can.
Mr. Spearing: My hon. Friend says that a majority can, but there is no opportunity for that in this House.
I shall now describe what I understand the Minister must do. First, the Council of Ministers is a revolving body. The Minister has other responsibilities. I recall the great television commercial which some hon. Members will have seen. The Minister is coming over on the morning flight from London. He has had an Adjournment debate the night before. He has been in front of the Prime Minister that afternoon. The chairman of his constituency party has been on the phone. He has had a deputation of doctors and nurses. His sister-in-law tells me that his wife says that he is not spending enough time with his children and family. Then he gets there. He is briefed by COREPER on a whole series of negotiations which have probably been going on for weeks or months beforehand. Great detail is entered into. He has to go into a great big room, with a group of people behind him suggesting what he might do. Perhaps he will stay there over cups of coffee through the night. He comes away the next day to pick up his red case in Whitehall.
I have never been a Minister, but I have been in the Charlemagne building and spoken to people who have been. I ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) to tell the House whether what I have said is an exaggeration or something near the truth.
Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend has it about right. The brief for Ministers going to Europe is a brief imposed by Departments here, but when one gets to Europe one finds that it has all been stitched up by package deals which have nothing to do with the subject one is discussing. The COREPER will have negotiated a deal with the Commission. I was President of the Council of Ministers for six months and it was the only committee upon which I sat where I was constitutionally unable even to submit a document, because the role of Ministers is like that of a collective sovereign body which, like the Crown, can say, "La Reyne le veult" or, "La Reyne s'avisera". One can say yes or no to what the Commission proposes, but one cannot change its proposals, or submit a paper. Negotiations are conducted on a multiple packaging basis which have practically nothing to do with the House of Commons, and the House has no role to play.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for confirming my suspicions. It is not just the House of Commons, but, from what my right hon. Friend has said,
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the Minister does not appear to be able to do very much, especially when, as we all know, it is package bargaining across the political scene or, perhaps, across part of it.
Mr. Foulkes: There is in the Cabinet.
Mr. Spearing: Yes, there is in the Cabinet, but the Cabinet can come to this House and what it proposes can be voted out—for example, Sunday trading. Nothing need be produced by the Government which they think does not stand a chance of getting through. Very rarely does it not get through, because no sensible Cabinet would bring to the House something that it did not think would get through.
Sir Russell Johnston: Sunday trading is a terribly bad example of normally non-governmental business. If the hon. Gentleman is complaining that the Commission has these powers, yet, as he agreed, it consults everyone in sight, why does he find it offensive that within the domestic situation we have a highly centralised Government who by and large do not consult?
Mr. Spearing: I am confining my remarks to the powers of the House because the powers of the House cannot even control the Minister, when he goes—my right hon. Friend was, untypically, wrong when he mentioned Europe—to the European Economic Community. If it wishes, the House has some control over the Executive in Whitehall. At the moment it has no control even over the Minister who goes there as a representative. There is not a connection on the Floor of this House and, therefore, the Minister is footloose in Brussels. The House cannot control him unless it chooses, as it could do, to take power over certain decisions. I am not saying all decisions nor am I advocating a Danish system, but it has certain power over what the Minister does in Brussels on any specific proposal for legislation. So far, the House has not chosen to take those powers. I believe that it could take them within the treaty of Rome as at present constituted.
There is a lot of talk about the democratic deficit. I believe that nowhere is that democratic deficit more apparent than across the Chamber of this House. Indeed, that deficit can be said to be 301 years old this month. The House must address itself to the means by which, even within the terms of the present treaty of Rome—or as it can be changed—that deficit can be reduced or perhaps eliminated altogether. It is on the degree to which the Government now press towards that mark that the public will judge them and this House.
8. 47 pm
Sir Anthony Meyer: Much of the debate has revolved around the Prime Minister's Bruges speech although, strictly speaking, it did not fall within the period that we are considering. That speech is sometimes presented as the great anti-European cry, but of course it was nothing of the kind, as this passage shows:
"Britain does not dream of some cosy isolated existence on the fringe of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community."
None the less, there is no mistaking the tone of assertive nationalism in the speech—the determination to arrest and, indeed, to reverse the process of increasing the power and authority of the central institutions of the Community.
There is some confusion of thought, at any rate in the commentaries surrounding that speech. It is not

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necessarily true that a centralised Europe would be a Socialist Europe. The original Community of six, which had very strong centralised institutions—that was in the days before the Luxembourg compromise—was firmly free market in its philosophy. That was one of the reasons why the Labour party was so hesitant about it. It is possible to be a supporter of strong central institutions and of a leading role for the Commission but at the same time to argue strongly against the encroachment of Socialist ideas.
There is no doubt that in asserting the right of the British to stay British the Prime Minister touched a deep chord in every heart. The point which should concern us is whether the true Britishness of the British people can best be preserved by a doctrinaire refusal to yield one inch to the central institutions of the Community. Sovereignty is a priceless possession but
"national sovereignty is not inviolable, and…may be resolutely diminished for the sake of all the men in all the lands finding their way home together."—[Official Report, 27 June 1950; Vol. 476, c. 2159.]
As the House will have guessed, those are not my words, but the words of Winston Churchill speaking in this House—very aptly for our present debates—on the subject of Britain's failure, under a Labour Government, to join the European Coal and Steel Community. For the European Coal and Steel Community, hon. Members should read in 1989 the European monetary system—or rather the exchange rate mechanism.
The issue then was exactly the same issue as today. Because we refused to accept any limitations on our sovereignty, we were unable to join the Coal and Steel Community. That Community came into existence without us and despite us. That led inexorably onwards to the creation of the European Economic Community, which we likewise refused to join—this time under a Conservative Government, but not Churchill's. The end result in the 1970s was that we eventually joined all the Communities, but on terms which infringed our national sovereignty more extensively than if we had joined back in 1950 and had been able to shape the rules. What is more, the reason why we decided to join in the end was that the power and influence being exerted by the European Community was increasingly affecting our freedom of action and limiting our real if not our theoretical sovereignty.
We run exactly the same risk today—of finding ourselves excluded from the increasingly close and effective co-operation upon which most of the other EEC members are now embarked. We can stand on our veto and block many European Community projects that are unwelcome to us—such as worker participation on boards of directors—but any other country can block measures or changes that we badly need, at any rate in areas where the veto still applies.
The situation is not exactly as I have described. In signing the Single European Act we have drastically limited our sovereignty. For all practical purposes we are already in a quasi-federal—I apologise for that word—situation. That being so, is it wise to talk so stridently about resisting encroachments on our national sovereignty? Would it not be more effective and more in accordance with our national talent to seek to use the instruments at hand as effectively as possible to achieve our ends? And what, indeed, are those ends?
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That brings me to the passage in the Bruges speech which I most warmly welcome. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:
"I want to see us work more closely on the things we can do better together than alone."
I cannot think of a better definition of the proper aims of the European Community. By that definition, some of the Community's present activity is misdirected and, by definition, much of the strategy and most of the tactics of the British Government in their European policies are likewise misdirected.
To refer to the Community's shortcomings, the most obvious one is the ludicrous overemphasis on the common agricultural policy. Endless regulations and directives pour out of Brussels and offer an easy target for jibes about bureaucracy run riot, but none of those jibes is well directed—unless it be about the failure of the House to devise effective methods of scrutinising such directives. Almost all of them are designed to produce the level playing field that the Government are always going on about.
The main area in which the Community's efforts are misdirected is that in which its activities are almost universally applauded—the regional development fund, which has been seen by the Prime Minister as the most effective way of getting our money back. It is true that we get money back under it, and I should make it plain that I am a strong supporter of regional policy. If it is right for the British Government to use taxpayers' money to promote development in outlying or less prosperous parts of the country, it is equally right for the Community to use Community resources to assist: development in such areas.
I rejoice in the fact that, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Wales has been notably successful in attracting EC support for development. I also rejoice in the fact that Miss Brookes, the energetic north Wales Member of the European Parliament, has had striking success in attracting European funds to ther own Euro-constituency. She can and does fairly argue that no other Member of the European Parliament, and certainly no other Member from any other party, could possibly hope for equal success in attracting European Community support. But what is good for north Wales, as undoubtedly it is, may not be the best thing for the country or the Community as a whole. Is it right that it should be left to the EC in Brussels to decide which of two local bypasses, factories or rural development schemes should have EEC backing? Is there not scope for the use of Community funds for the promotion of one party rather than another, or one candidate rather than another? How does such a use of Community funds square with the Prime Minster's admirable dictum that Europe should work more closely on things that we can do better together than alone?
In what ways do we do things better together than alone? There are two. The first is when the countries of the EEC act together as one in their relations with the outside world. No case is more conspicuous than their response to the ayatollah's threats. It may have looked easy to get agreement, but the different reaction of the New Zealand Government shows how easily commercial considerations can work against unity of purpose. The other important matter is scientific or research projects or industrial enterprises that are too large to be commercially viable on a purely national scale. This is a huge subject and it justifies an entire debate.

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The Government have put all their efforts into advancing towards the single open market, but even on that, their chosen ground, their record is mixed. They seem to think that they can get everything that they want in free movement of capital, removal of restrictions, and so on, without making any concessions on matters such as open frontiers or some approximation of indirect taxes. They cannot expect to be believed when they say that widely different rates of VAT constitute no distortion of trade, that there is no advantage to free movement of goods in the removal of frontier controls or Customs examinations at frontiers, or that there is never a right moment to join the exchange rate mechanism.
In scientific research, in which co-operation on a larger than national scale is indispensable, to say the least, the Government's record is mixed to say the least. With bad grace, we have decided to stay in the CERN project, but our record in the European Space Agency is so abysmal that we are losing more and more key posts that we originally had in the agency. I know that it is not an EEC operation, but it is a European operation and the EEC plays a dominating role. We are getting a reputation throughout Europe of being uninterested in European scientific co-operation.
What worries me even more is the consequence of the Government's refusal to admit that they have such a thing as an industrial strategy. The entirely predictable consequence, particularly when combined with a rigidly non-interventionist approach, goes hand in hand with a financial climate which positively encourages massive takeovers motivated by accountancy considerations rather than industrial logic. More and more of British and European industry passes out of Europe's control. In the end, we land up with multinational corporations which go some way to fulfilling the Prime Minister's condition—that we should do together the things that we can do best together. We Europeans are no longer doing the things that we can do best together—others are doing it. God forbid that we Europeans should build high walls around our industry, services or technology. There is a case for a European car industry, aircraft industry and electronics industry, but there appears to be no one—except possibly my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine)—to make that case.
8. 56 pm
Mr. William Cash: It is not possible to deal with this subject in a few minutes, when so many other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall come straight to the point. We are already moving hard and fast towards a federal system. We have moved so far down that line by our debate about scrutiny and the activities of the European Scrutiny Committee that it is only by using the procedures that are available to us that we will be able to contain the thrust towards a federal system. The other day, an article in The Times, quoting an MEP, stated that there is no such thing as British sovereignty any more, only a myth that Mrs. Thatcher puts out when she wants to make a dramatic speech. That is the type of thing that we have to put up with. I shall soon be glad to have the opportunity to reply in the columns of The Times.
At the heart of the federal matter, there are questions relating not only to our economy and self-regulation but to
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matters that are intimately connected with those questions—foreign policy and defence. For example, I must raise the question of the reunification of Germany because that sort of question is at the heart of any study of the relations of the European Community with the USSR. In other words, at the same time as centrifugal activities are appearing within the USSR, with greater independence in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, in the United States there are increasing doubts about the extent to which they are tied in by legal order, with a ring fence around them, which prevents them from exercising certain options as they wish. We are now moving into a similar position. I argue that we must resist the federalism for the simple reason that it will close our options and contain us within more legal order when the other great power blocs in the world are moving in exactly the opposite way.
We must also remember that there are some disturbing signs in West Germany. I hope and believe that we shall continue on the best possible terms with them. But there is, for example, the sudden re-emergence of a tendency that is expressed in the significant number of seats recently won by the republicans in Berlin. Admiral Schaling was recently dismissed from his important position in charge of a military think tank because he called for the withdrawal of western troops from German soil. I do not have time now to go into all these questions in detail, but we must pay attention to them.
At the same time we must realise that the Japanese power bloc is moving towards another centre of gravity with the United States. The other day Prime Minister Takeshita said that Japan must assume a major share of responsibility for managing the world economy. We know the extent to which they are invading the American economy. There are now fears of a fortress Europe. Centrism is creating, as well as reacting to, concern throughout the world. The fact that we tend to concentrate this power rather than retain it on a mutual basis within sovereign States creates and even exacerbates these problems.
It is certainly possible to argue that all we are doing is reacting to what is going on in the rest of the world, especially when we are dealing with a contracting global village. But if we over-react to it by setting up a fortress Europe, diminishing free trade and opting for protectionism in military or economic spheres, it is a snare and an illusion to imagine that we shall do other than make the position worse.
Therefore, although I should like to have discussed many other matters relating to the economy, I simply make the point that we must beware of a federal Europe. It takes power from the House of Commons. That effect has been examined by other hon. Members this evening. It also implies danger for our foreign policy and the defence of the nation.
9. 2 pm
Mr. Quentin Davies: One of the most intriguing and potentially momentous developments in the European Community at the present time is the consideration currently being given to making progress towards European monetary integration. Last year the Government together with our Community partners set up the Delors committee. When that committee's report has been published and digested, one of three possible situations will arise. First, it may be concluded that a

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common currency is not technically feasible or is undesirable and the notion will be laid aside for the time being, or indefinitely. Secondly, it may be decided collectively that we should proceed towards the creation and introduction of a common currency in the Community. Thirdly, a majority of our partners may decide to move in that direction and we shall have the choice of joining them or remaining on the sidelines. However, in that event, so long as the Community remains our major trading partner, in practice we would need to align sterling increasingly with that new common European currency.
In the light of the important decisions that must be made, it might be useful to take this opportunity to air some of the arguments on either side. I thought I might do that most conveniently by examining the position in turn from the viewpoint of each of the fundamental categories of economic agent: the Government; the personal or household sector; and the corporate sector.
From the point of view of the Government, the creation of a common currency would remove at the same time both the opportunity and the necessity for the Government to combine monetary with fiscal and other forms of economic management. Whether that would be good or had would presumably depend on one's judgment of whether the opportunity was more valuable or the necessity more burdensome in our present situation.
Let me set out briefly some of the benefits and costs associated with that opportunity and that necessity. The freedom that we have to manage our monetary affairs has been regarded differently depending on which side of the House one sits. Conservative Members have always regarded the prime task of monetary policy as being to ensure that we maintain the value of the currency and all the confidence for our economic system and industrial activity that go with it.
The Labour party, on the other hand, has traditionally set a great deal of store by its ability to manage the currency because that has enabled it to devalue it and thereby to pursue a policy throughout the 1960s and 1970s when it was in power which has the effect of nurturing the relative decline of our competitiveness and productivity. Under the slogan of monetary adjustment we were insulating ourselves from the competitive pressures of the wider world. Moreover, inflation flowing from lax monetary management was the only means by which the then Labour Government could see some ultimate way of amortising over time the enormous national debt that was being accumulated by their irresponsible fiscal management.
But I take it for granted that Conservative Members would not accept any new successor form of monetary policy, or a common currency on a community basis, unless we could be assured of at least the same degree of monetary rigour being adopted as we have at the present time, and at least the same confidence that we would preserve the value of that new common currency in the future.
What about the costs on Governments of the present system of separate currencies? We know those costs all too well from our experience of the currency difficulties and the crises over the past 40 years. Although we have not had crises in the past few years, we continually have uncertainties and difficulties on the foreign exchange markets.
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Those costs are of two kinds. They are of the longer term and of the shorter term kind. The longer term costs arise when it is considered that, for example, sterling is appreciating too much and so it is necessary to adopt a laxer monetary policy and to run the economy at a higher level of demand, although that carries with it the terrible danger of inflation increasing in the medium term. Alternatively, when we consider that our currency is depreciating unduly, the Government may feel obliged to run the economy at a lower level of demand than we would otherwise choose, and a cruel cost is paid in jobs and output forgone.
The short-term costs are palpable and well known to every Treasury Minister, and they will be well known to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary. When it is considered that sterling is appreciating unduly, the authorities may decide that they need to intervene to sell sterling on the foreign exchanges. That sterling has to be borrowed, either from the banking system, which would be appallingly inflationary, or, as is the general practice here, thank heaven, by borrowing from the non-banking private sector by the issue of gilts and other instruments. That pushes up interest rates. It also adds to the national debt, and it has the perverse consequence that it attracts capital into this country, thereby exacerbating the appreciating tendency that we are trying to combat.
The reverse situation arises if sterling is depreciating. The authorities, in intervening, will need to purchase sterling on the foreign exchanges, and so to borrow foreign currencies, adding to our foreign currency debt, or reducing our net foreign assets, and exposing us further to any subsequent fall in sterling. So if we could remove this incubus of invidious and highly expensive constraints which operate on us, while not losing any of the monetary stability to which we aspire, that would obviously be a very attractive and desirable package for the Government to achieve.
Let me take the second category, the household or personal sector—in other words, ordinary people. 1 think the case here was best illustrated by the journalist on a national newspaper who recently went on a tour of the 12 member states of the Community. He took with him £100 and did not spend any of it, but changed it at each airport on his way into the local currency. When he came back to Heathrow he had £51 in his pocket.
The fragmentation of currencies within the European
Community constitutes a tax on travel and mobility. It also represents a gratuitous transfer of resources from individuals to the commercial banks which sell foreign currency to individuals and for which, it must be admitted, this must be a very attractive business.
I come now to the corporate sector and will illustrate that by taking an example from my own constituency. I have a constituent, a small business man, in the north of my constituency, in Lincolnshire, who trades with Germany. His typical order is for about £2, 000, which, for reasons with which I will not bore the House, is generally delivered in two tranches. The only problem is that his margin is only about 10 per cent. and, in order to avoid the costs of documentary credits, he trades in the cheapest way possible. He trusts his German customer, who sends him a cheque in the mail. Can you guess, Madam Deputy Speaker, what that costs him? Every time he clears a deutshmark cheque it costs him £35 and on top of that his bank takes a margin of 1·5 per cent. or 2 per cent. on the currency transaction. So out of his £200 anticipated profit

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he loses £100. Once again, the fragmentation of currencies is a tax on trade and again in this instance involves a gratuitous transfer of resources from the general corporate to the commercial banking sector.
In this case, however, the costs must be considered in an even wider context; they would need to be calculated in terms of the trade that would take place if we had a common currency but which is now inhibited, and therefore in terms of the output forgone, and the competition in the Community as a whole that is thereby diminished.
I anticipate that someone will say, although no one has yet, that the larger corporate sector, the ICIs and BPs—unlike my poor constituent—do not pay 1·5 per cent. or 2 per cent. margin every time they do a foreign exchange deal. Anybody who knows those companies knows that they have a whole apparatus of departments and even subsidiaries involved in nothing other than the management of their foreign exchange exposure. Those highly paid specialists spend all day doing spot and forward currency transactions, hedging their purchases and receivables, buying and writing options and organising swaps.
If we could remove the necessity for all this activity, which has as its counterpart in a transfer of resources the payment of a tax which is paid directly, again, to the banking sector—if we could remove in respect of the 50 per cent. or more of our trade that we do with the Community, this particular cost—that could only give a further boost to trade and output.
In conclusion, I wish to make two points. It is often said that we cannot have a common currency unless and until we have a unitary state to administer it. I am not among those hon. Members who would like to see the European Community transform itself into a highly centralised unitary state. But there are many precedents for monetary control being exercised by a monetary authority which is not associated at all with any political authority. I would go further and say that, with the sole exception of this country, in the last few years since my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and, above all, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister came to power, quite the most outstanding examples of successful monetary management in the western world were in countries in which the monetary authority was quite separate from the political power. I refer of course to the Swiss national bank, to the Federal Reserve system in the United States and to the Bundesbank in the Federal Republic of Germany. If we believe that a balance of advantage lies in pursuing the idea of a common currency, we should not be inhibited by the stage that any discussions elsewhere in relation to the future of political integration may have reached, or by the difficulties which those discussions may have encountered.
I have a final plea and I believe that I will carry all hon. Members with me in this. If it is decided that there should be a common European currency with a European central bank or monetary authority—and I repeat that I do not wish to prejudice that decision tonight—we should decide now, in advance, that it is vital that that institution should be located in London. If it is, we shall secure all the advantages in terms of the prospects of real monetary
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stability, the avoidance of currency crises and their costs, an increase in trade and the removal of artificial costs which currently weigh down our trade. At the same time, we shall reinforce this country's position as the financial centre of Europe.
9. 16 pm
Mr. John Redwood: My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) seems to have made the case that the pound in one's pocket will no longer be devalued, but might be swapped for an ecu instead.
I do not have time now to praise all the measures in the White Paper which represent signal progress towards the creation of a genuinely unified Common Market. In the time that remains to me, I will raise a few quick questions with the Minister.
Does the Minister believe that the British Government will have adequate contingency plans if the controls on budget outgoings prove to be inadequate? In the past there have been miscarriages in European Community budgeting where new resources were used up rapidly. The Government should have good contingency plans prepared in advance to deal with that eventuality.
I hope that the Government are serious about using the powers which remain to retain control of domestic taxation levels. I hope that the Government will also consider using the Luxembourg compromise, if necessary, if the Commission proceeds with plans to impose VAT on children's shoes, food and other items. The Government made an important pledge to the British people at elections, and they should use every means in their power to ensure that their pledge is duly honoured.
It appears that, in the first half of 1988, the period that is reviewed in the White Paper, the Government tried to keep the pound stable against the deutschmark for several months. The graph shows that around the DM3 level there was a concerted effort to keep the pound within a narrow band of the deutschmark. For a time we were surrogate and surreptitious members of the EMS.
Interest rates had to be cut dramatically to keep the pound down. Many new pounds had to be created and sold across the exchanges to keep the pound down. A credit explosion caused a massive increase in credit and inflationary pressures in the economy with the results that are evident today.
I hope that we will not be in any hurry to repeat that experiment. It appears that all the European countries which are members of the EMS are experiencing problems at the moment. A recent analysis by a neutral firm of City stockbrokers has shown that 10 of the 11 member states—apart from Germany—are running, and have been running for some time, substantial deficits with Germany. The stockbrokers sum up the position by saying that EMS is a device to keep the deutschmark at a relatively low level in comparison with satellite currencies in Europe to ensure that German industry prospers at the expense of everyone else.
There are periodic revaluations of the deutschmark but they are always too little and too late, so the surpluses for Germany continue to mount at alarming rates. Britain currently has a large deficit with Germany because it was a surrogate member of the EMS and is now having to

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undergo the penance of a very high interest rate to correct the monetary excesses caused by that currency intervention.
I hope that the Minister will respond to those three points. I am only sad that time did not permit me to praise the dozens of measures in the White Paper and elsewhere which represent genuine progress towards a free, unified, liberalised European market, which is what I thought was what we entered originally.
9. 20 pm
Mr. George Foulkes: The increasingly irregular debate on the six-monthly progress report of the European Community tends to induce a sense of deja vu. I may have said that about the last debate. The debates tend to be ritual, sterile and repetitive. To be fair, today's debate has been rather more positive. However, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) rightly said, it would be better if the valuable time debating these issues on the Floor of the House were spent debating the real issues at the right time to influence, as far as possible, what Ministers are doing within the Community.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that no one would be happier than she if scrutiny were better organised. With respect, the right hon. Lady said that last year and the year before and her right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), now the Secretary of State for Scotland, said it previously. As the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) said, we do not want more words, we want action. We want suggestions such as those made by the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford—I do not agree with them all and I would add some more—and my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), who suggested a European Grand Committee. Those suggestions were positive and constructive and it is about time that the Government found some mechanism by which to consider them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton said today and on previous occasions, but that is only one major problem with the organisation and logistics of the Community.
I had some sympathy for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he was taken ill. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office also spends a great deal of time flying backwards and forwards between long, tedious meetings. We sympathise with them, but that should not prevent them from producing reports, making statements and increasing their accountability to the House. That was a clear message from both sides of the House today.
I was disappointed that the right hon. Lady did not mention a number of important issues involving the Community. It is astonishing that, in a debate on the European Community at this time, the Minister made no mention of enlargement. There have been signs of requests from several countries and I had hoped that the Minister would mention the subject, at least in passing.
Although the right hon. Lady mentioned political co-operation, as usual her approach and the examples she cited were somewhat selective. We agree with what she said about Iran. I wish that the same positive action and collective involvement were applied to central America, where the European Community would have a significant
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and positive counter-influence to that of the United States. We certainly support European co-operation in that sphere.
I should also like to welcome the Economic Secretary, who is a ministerial newcomer to these regular arid somewhat repetitive debates. It is nice to have him here instead of the Paymaster General, who I understand is vainly assisting the Conservative party to retain Richmond. I am afraid that the vibes that we are receiving from that part of the world seem to indicate that he faces an increasingly difficult task.
Mrs. Chalker: Would the hon. Gentleman like to take a bet?
Mr. Foulkes: I shall take bets with the right hon. Lady later.
Madam Deputy Speaker: And I shall hold the bets.
Mr. Foulkes: I can think of no one better to look after our money, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The Economic Secretary has an opportunity tonight to make a name for himself by making some dramatic announcement—he does not look too keen to do that. I hope that, as a Treasury Minister, he will be aware of the concern felt in this House that the British Government should use their veto to maintain zero-rate VAT on food, children's clothes, domestic gas and electricity, and books, periodicals and newspapers.
I hope that the Economic Secretary will assure us that the Government will continue to use the veto to ensure that zero rating stays. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will ignore the encouragement from his hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) for tax rates to be harmonised. In the United States, which is a federation with a common currency, there are different tax rates. There is no reason why that should not obtain in the much looser federation of the European Community.
My main theme this evening is to continue what my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton did in his excellent introduction—to point out the double-talk and contradictions of the Government. The hon. Member for Clwyd., North-West illustrated that, and I shall underline the contradictions between the utterances of one Minister and another. The hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West quoted from the Prime Minister's Bruges speech as though it were a pro-Community speech, thereby showing that there are major internal contradictions even within that one speech. It has been pointed out that, if one reads alternate sentences of the speech, one obtains a totally different view of what it meant—no doubt that might have been the right hon. Lady's intention.
There has been double-talk on the environment. For example, the Minister of State said:
"We favour, too, concerted, sensible action to deal with the problems of the environment."—[Official Report, 26 May 1988; Vol. 134, c. 539.]
Yet we receive reports that tap water in some areas of the United Kingdom fails to meet European standards.
The former Commissioner, Mr. Stanley Clinton Davis, who was an excellent contributor to the work of the European Community, pointed out that, again and again, the British Government attempted to avoid the implementation of positive EC directives on water and other aspects of the environment such as beaches.
The Financial Times of 8 February reported:

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"Britain is seeking permission to delay implementing tough EC standards on the grounds that early compliance will require a 'multi-billion pound' investment programme."
We have heard words from the right hon. Lady but have seen no real action. In fact, the Government's action has been to stop any real progress on the environment.
I think that the right hon. Lady will recall that, even more recently, the British Government vetoed the decision to take real action on sulphur dioxide control. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady seems to be losing her temper and is throwing books around.
Mrs. Chalker: I dropped it.
Mr. Foulkes: Fortunately, there is no VAT on it yet. How can the right hon. Lady reconcile her words of 28 May with the Government's actions?
Then there is the double-talk. A number of hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), who is a frequent contributor to the debate, although he has not yet joined us—
Mr. Boswell: It is his wife's birthday.
Mr. Foulkes: It is his wife's birthday. I am very pleased. The whole House will offer her our deepest congratulations. I offered her our deepest sympathy on another occasion, soon after the wedding.
The hon. Member for Southend, East rightly raised the question of fraud. On 19 February The Independent said:
"The British Agriculture Minister, John MacGregor, called yesterday for urgent action in the European Community to combat fraud".
The same report says:
"Mr. MacGregor also implied that reports from the Court of Auditors, especially those devoted to particular problems such as intervention, had hitherto not been given proper attention by ministers."
Those were strong words. Let us look at the action.
In the other place last Tuesday, a former Commissioner, a great servant of the country, and previously of the Government, Lord Cockfield, challenged the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I must not quote him, but he said that it was the British Government which had vetoed more effective fraud investigation in 1986.
Mrs. Chalker indicated dissent
Mr. Foulkes: The right hon. Lady shakes her head, but that is what the noble Lord said. When the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was challenged by Lord Elwyn-Jones, he was severely embarrassed. He could not answer the questions that were put to him. Parliament is rightly concerned about fraud, but we want action, not words. Again, the contradiction—I must not say hypocrisy—the double standards, the double dealing and the double-talk of the Government have been shown up.
Perhaps I should let the Government relax for a few moments. [Interruption.] I know that the Whip has been relaxing; that is obvious from his demeanour. I want to deal for a moment with a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton in his introductory speech and by the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing)—the false prospectus described by the Scottish National party as independence in Europe. Although the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) is supposed to be the international, European, world, universal, inter-planetary
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spokesman of the SNP, I note that he has not managed, yet again, to get here this evening. After his victory at Govan he said that, unlike me and the hon. Member for Hamilton—inadequate as we are—he would make
"Mrs. Thatcher sit on the thistle."
I think she is still comfortable.
Recently, in The Scotsman, the hon. Member for Govan stated that an independent Scotland would remain a member of the European Community. That is manifest nonsense. The United Kingdom is presently the Community Member. If Scotland were somehow to gain independence, which I would greatly regret, it would be the remainder of the United Kingdom—England, Wales and Northern Ireland—that would inherit membership. There is no doubt about that. An independent Scotland could apply for membership, if it wished, but that would be fraught with problems and uncertainty.
Mr. Redwood: And a veto.
Mr. Foulkes: I will come to that.
Such an application would create tremendous difficulties for other member countries. Some, like Italy, are states that are far more recent than the United Kingdom, and others have independence movements that are as strong or even stronger than the movement in Scotland. It is by no means certain that even nationalists within a newly independent Scotland would wish to submerge its newly acquired sovereignty in the Community.
Indeed, the SNP chairman, Mr. Gordon Wilson, said on the BBC Radio Scotland programme "Corridors of Power" a few weeks ago that the SNP would only want to seek membership "all things being equal" and "if the terms were right". That is a very different matter. The concept of independence in Europe was dreamed up to try to allay the concerns about the undoubted economic and political problems which would arise if Scotland were to break away from the United Kingdom.
The Scottish people are beginning to see through that camouflage. The rupture would have to take place first. Only yesterday, the Greenland case mentioned by the hon. Member for Moray was dismissed as a precedent by a legal expert from the Europa institute at Edinburgh university, because Greenland remains part of Denmark. It moved to get out of the EEC, whereas my understanding of the SNP position is that they want entirely the opposite—Scotland separated from the rest of the United Kingdom while remaining within the EEC. For them to cite Greenland as a precedent is manifest nonsense.
Mrs. Ewing: First, I may tell the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) offered his apologies for his absence because he is in Dundee this evening, undertaking an engagement to which he committed himself a considerable time ago.
On what does the hon. Gentleman base his arguments? I have yet to hear from the Labour Front Bench any clear statement indicating the legal principles on which they make their assertions. It seems clear to us that, under international law, Scotland would be an integral part of the European Community, unless it chose to negotiate its way out. As to other movements within other Community states, can the hon. Gentleman say which Governments have clearly defined any policy indicating that they will reject the democratic processes of the Scottish people taking a particular political option?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady makes an enormously lengthy intervention. I remind the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) that he was referring to developments between January and June 1988.
Mr. Foulkes: No one is saying that the wishes of the Scottish people in respect of independence would not be recognised. The argument is about whether or not, if Gordon Wilson's conditions were satisfied, Scotland would be accepted as a member of the European Community. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for reminding me that the hon. Member for Govan is making a television appearance tonight. We all know that he puts appearances on the media ahead of appearances in the House. The SNP's policy is increasingly being seen for what it is—a venture into the unknown, with guides who disagree on where they want to go, and who are uncertain how to get there.
I return to the Government, and to one aspect of social Europe on which I should have liked to speak at much greater length, but which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton dealt with extremely well. I refer to health and safety. On 23 November 1988, at that famous Management Centre Europe conference, the right hon. Lady said:
"We need progress on the agreed programme of action on health and safety at work."
My hon. Friend pointed out that her statement clashed with the comments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Lady's wish for progress with health and safety at work is also entirely inconsistent with the actions of the junior Minister at the Department of Employment in the European Community. On 17 December 1988, The Guardian reported:
"Britain was dragging its feet yesterday over moves by the European Community to improve standards of health and safety at the workplace…The junior Minister for Employment, Mr. John Cope, was isolated at a meeting of social affairs ministers".
That happens again and again. The right hon. Lady is the nice front for the Government. She presents a cosy image and says the right things at conferences of nice Europeans. However, the reality of what is being done by Ministers in the European Community is something else.
I want to touch on other areas of social Europe, but I must give the Minister as much time as possible to reply. However, I shall conclude by saying a few words about Labour party policy.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Which one?
Mr. Foulkes: We are concerned about the negative attitude of the Government towards a social Europe. We accept—I think that even the hon. Member for Southend, East, who is an ardent anti-marketeer, accepts—that withdrawal is no longer an option. We look towards the future in the European Community.
But Europe must be a real community as well as a market. It must be a community of co-operation and diversity. The two concepts of economic efficiency and social justice are complementary. The Government try to achieve economic efficiency, but they are not trying to introduce the complementary social justice that is necessary to balance that economic efficiency. We want a community in which the market works to the advantage of the people, not one in which the people serve the convenience of the market.
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The Labour party and our Socialist colleagues in Europe have a common manifesto for the European election—unlike the miscellaneous people with whom the Tory party joins. We look forward to substantial victories in this country in the European elections in June. We look forward to a Labour Government in this country. We look forward to Labour giving the United Kingdom a fresh start in Europe.
9. 42 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): I thank the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) for his kind welcome to this debate, not the least enjoyable aspect of which was h is own contribution. Having read through previous debates of this kind, I have to say that today's debate has shown both a wider and higher standard of contribution than we have seen for many a long year and shows the growing importance of the issues that we are discussing.
One of the central points raised by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) and by many other hon. Members is the issue of scrutiny—how this House considers European legislation. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council has established a review of this and I understand that a Committee of the House is also considering it. My right hon. Friend the Lord President has already urged Departments to ensure timely and speedy progress on scrutiny of measures from the Commission for which those Departments are responsible here. I personally attach great importance to this, not just because of the importance that I attach to the role of this House but because I have found our debates on European measures to be of great value, both for the opinions expressed by hon. Members and for the support that is so often forthcoming from both sides of the House for the British Government's position when negotiating in Europe.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford made a detailed set of proposals on improving scrutiny in this House. Unfortunately, I heard only part of what he said, but I shall read with interest all of his remarks, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Lord President will find it a valuable contribution for the purposes of his review of these matters. The hon. Member for Newham, South also pursued this aspect. He said that we were often mistaken in believing that we might be in danger of being sucked into a federal institution when the real danger was that Europe was, if anything, an embryonic unitary state. In this respect the hon. Gentleman is, of course, constitutionally correct, but he is wrong to suggest that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did not recognise this. In her speech—I have had it checked—she referred not to a federal Europe but to the dangers of a supranational Europe and the importance of retaining a Europe of co-operating sovereign states.
The hon. Gentleman was also right to recognise that Ministers within the Council of Ministers cannot themselves propose anything with any prospect of its being accepted unless it has first been proposed and adopted by the Commission. Of course, that does not prevent Ministers from putting up ideas. For instance, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made proposals for achieving a single market without approximating VAT

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rates. That has received considerable study and attention on the continent, and I think that it has influenced the course of the debate.
Mr. Spearing: It is of course true that the Chancellor issued a discussion document, which I believe was debated at Rhodes, but that makes him a petitioner, does it not? Has not the Prime Minister, or any Minister of the Crown, less ability to introduce legislation formally through the Council of Ministers than any Member of Parliament has to introduce legislation in the United Kingdom?
Mr. Lilley: That is true, although a Minister has in many respects far greater powers to prevent the adoption of legislation proposed by the Commission than has any ordinary Member of Parliament in respect of legislation proposed to the House. The very fact that, according to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), deals are often struck between officials of the different Governments suggests that Governments have power based on their voting power. That the right hon. Gentleman in his previous role was unable to influence the deals into which his officials entered on his behalf reflects more on the Government concerned than on the practices of the European Community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) made an extremely balanced speech about the role of the European Community. I entirely agreed with him when he prayed in aid my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's statement that Europe should work together on the things that we are best at doing together. My hon. Friend cast doubt on the need for the Community to disburse money. I agree that it is better disbursed at local level by Governments and institutions closer to the point at which the money is needed—if it is needed at all.
The debate has been largely dominated by the development of the single market, as that issue is central to the document that we are ostensibly discussing—although at times I had doubts about the role that that document played in the debate. The British Government's position is clear. We believe wholeheartedly in the philosophy underlyng the single market, and particularly in the White Paper that initiated it. It involves applying, at European level, principles and policies that we have applied successfully at national level and that have regenerated the British economy—the principles of deregulation, increased competition and, of course, strict control of public expenditure.
The record of progress on the single market during the six months that we are considering is extremely favourable. Some 56 measures—a record number—were adopted, and they were significant as much for their quality as for their quantity. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) challenged me on whether any of the items in the document were of significant value in liberalising and overcoming protectionism, and I mentioned the road haulage directive under which road hauliers travelling across Europe will not be prevented from picking up loads en route. There was also the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. By any standard, that is a measure of liberalisation of great importance to individuals living and working in the Community.
I suspect, however, that the most significant measure
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—although it involves no change for us—is the capital liberalisation directive. Just as we benefited enormously from scrapping exchange controls, I believe that Europe will also benefit from their abolition. It is, of course, fundamental to the establishment of a free market in financial services and therefore of great importance to the United Kingdom.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: By protectionism I meant protectionism in Europe against the Third world. I asked whether there was any sign of measures having been taken during those six months to reduce such protectionism. I cited, for instance, the use of anti-dumping powers, which has created more protectionism.
Mr. Lilley: Capital liberalisation is one such measure—incorporating, as it does, the principle of erga omnes which, as I need hardly explain to the classically literate, means "towards all". Such a measure removes not just the barriers on capital between ourselves, but those between the Community and the rest of the world. I do not doubt that the document contains many others.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) adopted a novel approach by actually considering the document before the House, item by item, and giving a cogent and concise response to it. He raised one especially important matter which arises from the directive on capital liberalisation. He mentioned the withholding tax which was proposed by the Commission in fulfilment of its obligation to consider whether such a tax was necessary. There is, of course, no obligation on member states to accept that proposal. The British Government disagree with the principle that taxing power should be taken away from the House. Incidentally, I do not think that there is any foundation for my hon. Friend's belief that the very proposal is ultra vires because it falls within article 100 of the treaty.
We also believe that there are sound practical reasons for objecting to a withholding tax. It is unnecessary. We can understand that the French Government may feel apprehensive that the abolition of exchange controls will be followed by a flood of tax evasion money out of their country, but the British experience when we abolished exchange controls in 1979 provides no evidence that those fears have any basis. The experience of the German Government, who have imposed a withholding tax after having long had complete freedom from exchange controls, was that it was the imposition of the withholding tax that caused the outflow of money.
Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend will appreciate that the difference between us and the French is that when we abolished exchange controls we had a sound Conservative Government, whereas they still have a Socialist Government.
Mr. Lilley: That is true, but the French Government have that fear. Some believe that there is something intrinsic in the French approach to tax which makes the problem greater, but I believe that those who are willing to evade tax are also willing to get round exchange controls so there will be little change.
The second reason for not supporting a withholding tax is that it will not work. Instead of the money going from one European country to another, it will leave the Community entirely. New York has no withholding tax, Swiss fiduciary accounts have no withholding tax and the

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Bahamas have no withholding tax. A chain of tax havens would doubtless spring up—I know that some hon. Members are experts on this—all around the Community to provide a home for such funds.
Thirdly, the proposal is potentially damaging not just because it would drive Community money abroad but because foreign money, although itself exempt from the tax, would resent coming here because much Japanese, American and middle eastern money would object to having to identify and go through the bureaucratic procedures of proving residence to reclaim or escape the tax. Most damaging of all is the effect that a withholding tax would have on the commercial markets and the wholesale markets. In such markets, one cannot identify money that is constantly changing hands or decide who owns it and who is, therefore, liable for tax. Many legitimate commercial transactions would be driven offshore. The German experience shows that the effect of that would be to raise interest rates in the Community relative to outside.
The Swedish Government already find that they can borrow in deutschmarks at a lower interest rate than the German Government can since the introduction of the German withholding tax. We do not want to see a similar burden inflicted on European Governments and industry as a whole. I am happy to say that we are not alone in opposing the measure—which requires unanimity, as does any change in value added tax. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) can therefore rest assured, as can the hon. Member whose tripartite constituency I can only get right once in the course of debate, the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley—
Mr. Foulkes: Say it again.
Mr. Lilley: Not twice. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that we are able to uphold the pledges that we gave the electorate in respect of zero rates of VAT. We have given a further assurance that we will not abandon our right to retain zero rates.
Mr. Robertson: That was a very interesting reply, proving that the Minister can count up to three twice. It must have been a written answer. The election commitment was that there would be no end to zero-rating on the commodities to which he referred. Why is there no similar guarantee that the Government will not abandon zero-rating on books, periodicals and newspapers?
Mr. Lilley: Except in the exceptional context of a general election campaign, it has never been the practice of this Government or previous Governments to give pledges restricting their rights in respect of taxation—certainly not at this season of the year.
Mr. Spearing: There is a very important point at stake. The Minister asserts that the Government have a right, under the respective treaties, to retain zero-rating. I wish that I was as confident as the Minister about that right. If it could be tested in the European court, has he any reason to suppose that that court would find in the direction that he suggests?
Mr. Lilley: I have every reason to suppose that. Had there been even the slightest grounds for testing the right of the British Government to retain zero rates, the Commission would have included them when it brought its
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case on our rights before the court. It did not because it knows that there is no conceivable reason for testing that right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) raised a matter related to capital movements—the issue of a common currency in Europe—and gave an extremely lucid account of the monetary arrangements now, and those required for it. Much of his analysis—and the problems that he identified—would apply just as strongly if we linked our currency closely in the ERM as is done at present. As for my hon. Friend's business man, I advise him on my own experience to suggest that his constituent tries another bank where he will get a much better and lower-cost exchange rate. I agree with him that business men in general would like greater currency stability in addition to lower cost of currency exchange. To some extent, currency movements reflect underlying economic changes and we cannot get stability in currency unless we have stability in the underlying economic relationships—above all, the elimination of inflation in all countries concerned. That is why we want convergence in economic performance—not towards the lowest common denominator or towards the average, but towards the best in Europe.
In the few seconds that remain, I wish to refer to the extraordinary intellectual confusion that reigns on the Opposition Front Bench. We know where the Opposition used to stand on the European Community. They were opposed to it in constitutional principle because they believed that membership of the EEC overrode the power of this democratic Parliament. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and others still believe that, but the hon. Members for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley are tentatively and partially in favour of certain aspects of the Common Market. It is interesting that they are in favour only in respect of social policies, by which they mean the very policies that this Parliament and the British electorate will not endorse. They look to the continent for allies in trying to secure the implementation of policies that the British people have three times rejected through this Parliament. By contrast, the Government seek to pursue in Europe the same policies that we have applied with such great success—electoral as well as economic—in this country.
The British Government's position on Europe is very clear. We believe that a Europe with less government is good, a Europe with more freedom for its citizens to trade, travel, meet and compete with each other is better and a Europe that is open to the world is best. By and large, that is the philosophy behind the measures incorporated in the document, which are being pursued with the development of the single market. There are, of course, always difficulties and tendencies in the other direction. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sounded the alarm at Bruges and warned against moving away from that path. We believe that a Europe with more government would be bad, a Europe with more government and more centralised government would be worse, and a Europe with more centralised and protectionist government would be worst of all. We can win in warding off those dangers, and most of the battles against regulation and supranational edifices, and against a fortress Europe.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the White Paper 'Developments in the European Community January-June 1988' (Cm 467).

Air Pollution
10 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley): I beg to move:
That this House takes note of European Community Documents No. 5142/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of the Environment on 20th February 1989 on air pollution from municipal waste incineration plants; and calls upon the Government to support the introduction of appropriately stringent controls on air pollution from such plants.
The motion concerns two pieces of draft European Community environmental protection legislation—the two draft directives on the control of atmospheric pollution from new and existing incinerators burning municipal waste. Negotiations have so far centred on the first directive, on new plant, on which the presidency hopes to be able to reach agreement at the next Environment Council, on 2 March. There is a possibility that the second draft directive, on existing plant, could in its turn be agreed at the June or November Council. Tonight's debate allows hon. Members to consider the legal and political implications of these two draft directives. Parliamentary scrutiny procedures have now been concluded in the other place and a report is expected next month. Tonight's motion leads the way to formal agreement to these directives when negotiations with other member states are concluded.
Hon. Members will want to know at the outset that the deposited document cited in the motion has been significantly modified in relation to the new plant directive during the course of negotiations. The draft directive for existing plant is expected to be amended in line with these changes when it, in its turn, comes up for detailed discussion.
I would like now to set out the main features of the new plant directive and then to explain how the text has changed from the initial draft set out in the deposited document and then go on to outline remaining issues to be decided before agreement can be reached.
The new plant directive, as a daughter directive of the air pollution framework directive, would require all new incinerators to use the best available technology not entailing excessive cost to minimise air pollution. It would require them to meet prescribed emission limits and combustion conditions, and to comply with proposed requirements as to their equipment and operation. Emission limits are proposed for dust, heavy metals and acid gases. Less stringent emission standards would apply to incinerators with a nominal capacity of less than 3 tonnes of waste per hour. Continuous measurement of dust, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide and oxygen is proposed for plants of over 1 tonne an hour, and periodic measurement in the case of all other controlled substances.
Until cost-effective dioxin measurement techniques have been developed, the directive requires surrogate or indicative measures to ensure the prevention of dioxin formation, prescribed combustion conditions requiring a temperature of at least 850 deg C and a minimum residence time of two seconds. Member states would be able to authorise exemptions to permit innovative combustion or gas treatment technologies, provided that higher levels of polychlorinated dibenzopara-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans would not result. Plants would be required

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to have auxiliary burners to prevent the temperature of the combustion gases falling below 850 deg C and for use during start-up and shut-down operations.
Emergency measures to ensure compliance would have to be taken in the event of limit values being exceeded. Plants which continued to fail to comply after remedial action had been taken would be closed down. In the event of breakdowns or stoppages of purification devices, plants could be authorised to continue operation in breach of the limit values—although still subject to a temporarily relaxed limit in the case of dust emissions—for no more than eight hours' continuous operation and no more than 96 hours' cumulatively over a year. During such periods, all other operating requirements would have to be observed. The directive permits a further derogation by the competent authorities for the smallest plants, of less than 1 tonne per hour, where further special conditions apply, provided that the Commission is firstly consulted about such proposals and then informed of them. The dust limits with which such plants must comply are then relaxed.
The draft directive on existing plants lays down a timetable under which existing plants would have to meet interim standards for dust emissions within five years and full new plant standards within 10 years.
Hon. Members may find it helpful if I set out the main changes that have been made from the original text of the directive relating to new plants. First, the scope of the directive has been reduced to clarify the intention that industrial waste should be caught only if it is similar in composition to domestic refuse. The directive specifically excludes a number of other waste streams such as chemical, clinical and sewage sludge, which are expected to form the basis of further directives in due course. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) will be pleased to know that plants burning specified "refined waste derived fuel" may now be excluded by the competent authorities from the provisions of the directive if compliance would entail excessive costs or be inappropriate technically, provided they comply with the requirements of the air pollution framework directive and do not burn other waste materials.
Secondly, the size categories have been changed from two sizes above or below five tonnes to three sizes—that is up to one tonne per hour, between one and three tonnes per hour, and over three tonnes. The derogation for small plants in tourist areas has been replaced by slacker emission limits, for dust and hydrochloric acid only, for all plants under 1 tonne an hour, with a further exemption possible subject only to an even slacker dust limit where the competent authority thinks it necessary. The last exemption is still under discussion.
Thirdly, in line with United Kingdom practice, all discharges must be through a stack of adequate height, and there must be control over the whole process.
Fourthly, monitoring conditions have been changed. Following our pressure, the generous averaging periods have been significantly tightened. Instead of a daily limit, the largest plants must meet an hourly carbon monoxide limit. That of course, indicates the effectiveness of the combustion.
Mr. Peter Rost: In the modification to which my hon. Friend is referring, has any further consideration been given to higher temperature combustion as a solution
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to dioxins? Many experts believe that that is not a solution and is not necessarily the right way for the Community directive to proceed.
Mrs. Bottomley: Consideration has been given to dioxins. The proposal is that combusion should take place at 850 deg C for at least two seconds, but it is still subject to further discussion and refinement. The monitoring conditions have been changed. Following our pressure, the generous averaging periods have been significantly tightened. Instead of a daily limit, the largest plants must meet their hourly limit.
The other substances to be continuously monitored have to comply on a rolling weekly rather than monthy basis and keep within a 30 per cent. tolerance each day. It has now been agreed that it is only cost-effective to require the smallest plant to monitor most emissions periodically. The United Kingdom, however, believes that all plants should continuously monitor carbon dioxide.
Fifthly, and again in response to United Kingdom pressure, the maximum permitted breakdown periods for the purification devices have been significantly reduced, although, in our view, not yet sufficiently.
Sixthly, there is no longer a requirement for a mandatory environmental impact assessment. The Commission has accepted that it is too early to extend that directive, which lists municipal incinerators as a category of industry for which an assessment may rather than must be required. But, of course, local authorities will be able to require an environmental impact assessment for a major new municipal waste incinerator should it believe that it would be helpful when determining the planning application.
There remain, however, a few points at issue. Recently., there has been increased pressure to reduce the dust limit: for the largest plants—that is those over 3 tonnes an hour—from 50 to 30 mg per cubic metre. We consider that excessively costly, since it would restrict the choice of abatement technology by forcing all incinerators to use bag filters; the 50 mg per cubic metre limit would also allow electrostatic precipitators, which is the more normal technology in the United Kingdom. We see no reason to go below the 50 mg limit, which was agreed for large combustion plant.
This is not, of course, to imply complacency. We are indeed actively encouraging the development of new technology which would allow more restrictive emission standards to be achieved at an acceptable cost. Only last week I announced the award of the first grant under the environmental protection technology scheme. It was for research into a new type of polymer-based filter suitable for the control of dust from municipal incinerators. If the research is successful we would aim to promote the adoption of this technology widely through the Community.
The United Kingdom sees some illogicality in the stance of those member states which favour very strict emission limits, but then prefer to monitor over long averaging periods. Although we have been successful in persuading our partners to agree to a certain amount of strengthening here, we do not believe that the directive is yet tight enough. Good carbon monoxide control is essential for effective combustion control, so we consider that all plant, regardless of size, should be subject to hourly rather than daily averaging. We are still pressing our European colleagues on this point.

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The Department of the Environment, in the light of those directives generally, and the implications for those involved has set up an informal working group, including representatives from local authority associations and other interested professional organisations to consider the draft directives. It is particularly concerned to try to evaluate the implications of the existing plant directive, and so has conducted a simple survey of the views of those local authorities which are currently operating municipal waste incinerators.
Most of the incinerators currently operating in the United Kingdom were built in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Some have been the subject of significant complaint that the emissions cause nuisance, and recently there has been concern about possible emissions of dioxins to which my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) referred. The number of United Kingdom plants in operation has fallen steadily over the past 10 years so that now there are only 35. One of them is under 10 years old, 21 are between 10–15 years old and 13 are 15–20 years old.
Most United Kingdom plants fall within the upper size range proposed in the draft directive for existing plants, having a nominal capacity of six tonnes per hour or more. Only three have a capacity of between 1 and 6 tonnes per hour, and we are not aware of any below this limit.
Most United Kingdom incinerators are therefore over 10 years old and, without modifications, would be expected to reach the end of their useful working lives over the next few years. From the information that we have gathered in the survey, it appears that almost 50 per cent. of existing United Kingdom municipal waste incinerators are likely to close by the mid 1990s. In only a small number of cases was the prospect of the draft directives stated to be a prime reason for their impending closure.
Of those incinerators likely to remain in operation, all would require some modification or the retrofitting of equipment to meet the draft directive's interim standards and, ultimately, the full standards for new plant. The most commonly quoted needs would be for the fitting of auxiliary burners, the provision of additional monitoring and recording equipment and the addition of new or improved abatement equipment such as electrostatic precipitators or gas scrubbers. Unless the directive as finally agreed provides flexibility in the requirements for temperature and residence time for existing plant there may be a need for even more extensive adaptations.
Many operators have pointed out that a significant increase in costs will be inevitable in implementing the draft directives. However, with the possible exception of the tighter dust limit that some member states are seeking, it is clear that the provisions of the directives are broadly in line with those that will result anyway from the higher standards that Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution will be requiring for domestic environmental reasons.
We estimate that the cost of building a new plant to meet the directive standards would be between £35 million and £40 million, including heat recovery, which we expect most of them will wish to include. As for existing plant, the informal working group further estimated that it would cost around £300,000 to convert each unit to the expected interim standards of the existing directive, and on average
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a further £1, 200,000 to upgrade each unit to the full standards of the new directive. Most of our incinerators consist of between two and four units.
Although, as I have explained, we do not believe that they go far enough yet in certain particulars, the Government broadly welcome the efforts by the Community to tighten up standards for waste incineration, and I commend the motion to the House.
10. 15 pm
Ms. Joan Walley: I have listened with great interest to the Minister because waste management and the control of pollution are high on the Opposition's agenda. We welcome any proposals, and these in particular, which will prevent or reduce air pollution.
We welcome what the Minister has had to say about research under the environmental protection technology scheme and about the informal working group which has been set up with local authority representatives, as well as her comments on dioxins and the urgent need for research on the many problems that we know exist. They are all matters that we would like to see strengthened and incorporated in the final proposals.
Having said that, it is important to say that the United Kingdom's waste disposal policy is inadequate. Despite their stated commitment to the environment, the Government have failed in the past 10 years to clean up the waste disposal industry. The waste and recycling industry is not properly geared up and we need real policy and real action. Welcome as the proposals are for existing and new municipal incineration plants, they cannot be isolated and treated separately from an integrated approach.
I urge the Minister to take that into account both in the Government's policy making and in discussions in the EEC. How does the hon. Lady intend to link action on municipal incineration plants with action on landfill sites, stricter enforcement and monitoring of all waste disposal and the provision of capital and revenue money to finance the investment that is urgently needed throughout the industry, particularly that provided by the public sector?
Let us be clear that Britain has no overall waste management strategy. At present, waste disposal is managed on the basis of the cheapest possible option. There needs to be a stringent regime of licensing and monitoring of waste disposal and recycling to ensure high standards of operation. Proper investment in incineration would make it preferable to landfill as a means of waste disposal both in terms of environmental protection and energy recovery—a point that I was pleased to hear the Minister make.
It is clear that incineration should be allowed only where the most advanced technology is used to ensure that the incinerator is environmentally safe and does not emit any harmful gases or substances into the atmosphere. Without assurances from the Minister about money, we could end up with existing plants closing down, no new investment for new plants and a complete dependence on landfill sites where costs at present are kept artificially low because of the lack of investment in their infrastructure.
The Government have presided over a deterioration in waste management, largely due to financial constraints imposed on local authorities. I read with great interest the report of yesterday's debate in the House on rate capping. We should be aware that if the Government reduce local

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authority expenditure, local authorities will find it difficult to find the necessary resources to carry out some of the proposals in the EEC directive.
How are local authorities to finance the improvements which both Opposition and Governments Members agree are important? Investments financed by loans already have to be sanctioned by the DOE, so there will be difficulties there. Certainly, changes in the whole aspect of local authority finance after 1990 will result in pressure to finance capital expenditure out of revenue, but councils will also he squeezed by the poll tax on the revenue side. New plants, which would have a capital cost of £15 million to £20 million, could not be built under present Government controls over local authority spending. What proposals are there to ensure that public money is available to finance these new plants, which will be more essential as the costs of landfill sites and transportation of rubbish to these sites rise?
Estimates vary as to the likely impact of the EC directive, but even by the most generous, as the Minister explained earlier, only 10 to 14 of the 38 incinerators still operating in the United Kingdom would remain in service once the directive on existing plants was adopted as it stands.
I agree that there would need to be an average of £2 million or thereabouts spent per incinerator to upgrade them to the new standards set by the Minister, with knock-on investments on extending plant life being necessary to justify installing the new control equipment. Operating costs would also rise and throughputs in some plants would have to be reduced to comply with the minimum residence times proposed.
We believe that this is all vital expenditure. Will the Minister give an assurance that this money will be given the same kind of priority by the Government as that which they are now giving to financing the public relations aspect of the sell-off of the water and electricity industries?
This alarming picture of the amount of investment that is needed in waste incineration plants is a direct result of Government failure to recognise the importance of waste management. Designed in the late 1960s, the majority of incinerators are 10 to 15 years old and of a very basic design, which, as the Minister explained, does not provide for a modernising capability. If a plant is to be economic it needs to recover energy and we certainly believe that the waste recycling aspects of this kind of activity are most important. To fit an old plant with pollution abatement devices, auxiliary burners and waste heat recovery systems would mean completely rebuilding, at present-day costs of £20 million to £40 million plus. In fact, a minimum throughput of a quarter of a million tonnes per annum at £12–14 per tonne would need a plant of £30 million.
The Greater London council, in its wisdom, was prepared to budget for the long-term needs of Londoners in respect of municipal waste incinerators, but will this Government, when it comes to it, prevent equally caring councils from doing likewise? Will there be a commitment by the Government that local authorities will be able to have the means to invest in this kind of expenditure?
Sheffield is an example of an authority which runs its own incinerator in the middle of the city and runs district heating from this. Sheffield would wish to comply with the EC regulation and is constantly pressing for capital allocation from the DOE. If there is no specific allocation for the changes, I believe that the city would be in extreme difficulties in meeting the proposed incineration changes.
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The mechanism is there to retrofit the incinerators, so will the Minister undertake that there will be sufficient allocation of grants to local authorities and waste disposal authorities, and will local authorities be allowed to carry the debt charges if that is indeed the only way of financing the most important changes needed?
If local authorities will not meet these costs, is it the intention of the Government to make the private sector meet the costs through higher charges to the consumer? In Newcastle, in Tyne and Wear, the private sector was approached because the local authority could not meet the costs. The plant at Newcastle was not considered economical, but it has a throughput of 350,000 tonnes per annum while most other plants are smaller at around 100,000 tonnes.
The issue of public health lies at the heart of this discussion. It is not necessarily the case that "Where there's muck there's brass." We are talking about a cost which is as much about the cost to our health as it is about pure economics. It is vital that the Government should explain their policies about municipal waste incinerators in the context of recent consultation documents. We have received many of these from the Department of the Environment and it is important that we link this discussion with the need for an entirely integrated approach to waste management.
The Government's Green Paper on the role and functions of waste disposal authorities intends to put at arm's length the local authority-owned companies which will deal with waste disposal. The direct implication of the paper is that the arm's length companies will have to raise money from the private sector. The private sector may be willing to ensure the continued full productive life of plants, but based on the assumption of waste continuing to go to a plant for the foreseeable future. With incineration costs at £12 a tonne and landfill disposal costs at only £2·25 a tonne, that is open to question.
In my area in Staffordshire, the Stoke-on-Trent incinerator is the principal long-term waste disposal facility for the north of the county. The waste disposal authorities will understandably be reluctant to allocate capital now when they could face losing facilities in competitive tendering. The preliminary estimate to adapt the Stoke plant for the five-year interim period is £2 million out of a total department budget of £4 million revenue and just £1 million capital. A plant with a 15-year life ahead of it might be closed down, with grave implications for landfill and unregulated tipping in the area. Tomorrow we shall be debating the problems resulting from unregulated tipping in the inner cities.
What account has the Minister taken of the implications of the directive for landfill waste disposal? There is great concern about the neglect of landfill sites and severe question marks over that method of disposal. Costs are rising. The greater the demand for landfill, the greater is the need for regulation. Methane gas must be reckoned with. The 80 million tonnes of rubbish dumped in British landfill sites each year produces build-ups of methane gas. In my constituency today two houses had to be evacuated because of a build-up of methane gas. Fortunately the borough council in Newcastle-under-Lyme was able to deal with the problem effectively. However, such incidents highlight the need to consider the long-term effects of the build-up of methane gas.

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More than half the landfill sites are located within 270 yards of housing or industrial developments. Although landfill will continue, it is not necessarily a cheaper or a less environmentally costly alternative to incineration. As landfill standards are raised and are properly enforced, the differential with incineration is lessened by comparable rigorous enforcement.
In their official memorandum the Government state:
"The implications for landfill disposal of stricter standards for waste incineration will have to be considered."
Such vague references to landfill waste disposal reveal the Government's lack of understanding about the need for a co-ordinated waste management strategy. Tighter controls and regulation inspection should be implemented right away. I do not see why we have had to wait 10 years or more for the integrated "Green" Bill about which we have heard so much.
The Oppostion believe that waste management strategy should be based on waste avoidance, waste minimisation, reclamation and recycling. A recent report from Leeds recorded that 70 per cent. of domestic waste consists of packaging and newsprint. It also stated that 15 million drink cans, 35 million food cans, 14 million glass containers, and 5, 500 tonnes of newsprint are discarded every day.
The technology is available to recover cans from waste at municipal incinerator plants. Greater Manchester waste disposal authority saves £1,000 a week on disposal costs by removing tin plate cans by magnetic extraction from part of the incineration process. The magnets, which remove ferrous materials from the ashes, cost £8,000 in 1987.
I have been surprised to discover from replies to parliamentary questions that the Government do not have centrally full details of recycling activities of that type. Due to poor planning and problems, often of investment, magnets such as those used in Manchester are in disrepair. Under the Government's policies, municipal incinerators are unable to make a significant contribution to recycling.
A further benefit that can be derived from incineration as an option for waste disposal is that of refuse-derived fuels, and I listened with interest to the Minister's comments on that subject. The Government said in their memorandum:
"the proposals might also catch the use of refuse-derived fuels, for which the Government does not consider the same standards as appropriate, and might indeed rule out further development of these fuels."
Britain's refuse-derived fuel industry was set back in September when Birmingham city council was unable to make a refuse-derived fuel plant at Castle Bromwich pay its way. A major factor there was that, while the Department of Energy was encouraging such programmes, the Department of the Environment declined to issue an exemption certificate under the Clean Air Act for the fuel pellets. Birmingham is covered by a smoke control order which prohibits the burning of smoke-generating fuel. Clearly, this lack of co-ordination between the Department of Energy and the Department of the Environment demonstrates that there is no overall Government policy on waste disposal and recycling. I hope that when the informal working groups are set up there will be discussion with the local authorities on achieving an integrated and comprehensive programme for recycling and incineration.
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If waste is to be incinerated or put to landfill under stringent controls and conditions, as it should be, we must consider the monitoring proposals in the EC directive. In this connection, the Government must give assurances that an adequately staffed professional inspectorate will be available to undertake those duties.
In accordance with the Green Paper, authorities must hand the incinerator to an arm's length company and finance must be found for the resulting regulatory enforcement of air quality emission standards, to be under the inspection and control of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. We have heard much about the low morale within HMIP. Present restructuring activities do not seem to be successful and I gather that there are still recruitment problems.
The Government's aim appears to be to replace the system of regulating air pollution by the best practical means with a system based on emission limits and self-regulation. This may cut administrative costs, but it will have the effect of destroying the effectiveness of air pollution control in the United Kingdom. So much for the Government's declared commitment to the environment.
Mr. Conal Gregory: Is the hon. Lady putting the onus totally on the state, or does she consider that the local authority should have responsibility? If elected local authorities are to be responsible, they should take initiatives in this area and, from the examples she has given, they have the capacity to do so. Or does she think the whole responsibility should return to the state? She is not giving a clear message from the Opposition.
Ms. Walley: The Opposition are clearly saying that we believe that there should be locally determined policies to deal with municipal waste, refuse collection and disposal. If, because of the poll tax and rate capping, local authorities lack the necessary finance to do that, they will be unable to find the investment needed to meet the fine objectives set out in the proposals we are discussing. This is the same as the argument we have been conducting on the privatisation of water. Of course we want the necessary pollution controls on bathing and drinking water and refuse and waste disposal, but the money must be found. If local authorities want to find the money to implement these provisions—as the GLC certainly did—they should not be prevented from doing so by financial restrictions placed on locally, democratically elected councillors by Government.
We need publicly owned, democratically controlled local and regional waste disposal authorities, with efficient and adequately resourced licensing, controlling and monitoring of these activities. Incineration is a viable means of reduction; and proper regulation of, and investment in, the entire process is long overdue. So is the need for Government initiatives to deal with pollution from clinical and commercial waste. There has been no substantial investment on the scale needed during the past 10 years. We shall pay dearly in money and health for that lack of commitment to the basic infrastructure of public services.
As the last phase of municipal incinerator building took place in the mid-1970s, the units are all coming up for re-boilering and updating. The Government must tell us how they intend to finance that programme.
Environmentally sensitive incineration is to be welcomed, but regulations should be extended to

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incinerators that are not municipal plants, and to other forms of waste disposal. Pollution control needs to be part of a comprehensive waste policy linked to recycling, energy efficiency and conservation. The initiative in waste disposal has been lost by the Government. If the United Kingdom is to incinerate more on its present terms, we shall have to increase imports of technology, because of our poor record—although I welcome what the Minister said about research into this area.
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The directive should provide the basis of a comprehensive, properly financed waste management strategy. As long as the Government continue to respond to the threat to the environment through the laws of market forces alone, the problems will not go away. Environmental protection has a price. We need to introduce environmental values now in the interests of long-term pollution control.
10. 38 pm
Mr. Peter Rost: It would be discourteous not to acknowledge the formidable contribution from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), who has obviously done her homework. Although I agreed with much of her speech, I emphatically reject her unjustified criticisms of the Government.
I declare an interest as a consultant to Associated Heat Services plc, an energy management company which operates plants that convert waste into electricity and hot water for district heating. During my long years of special interest in energy efficiency, I have had the chance to inspect incineration plants with the best technology in this country and in Europe. The best plants are those which convert waste into electricity and hot water instead of just burning it. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of them in this country.
Incineration has a bad name in this country, mainly because we use outdated technology. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, most of our incineration plants—only 35 of them are in operation—are old, and their design specifications make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet today's pollution standards, let alone the new ones proposed.
In recent years, we have built only two or three modern plants which have the latest technology and which run commercially because they sell electricity and/or hot water.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend was able to inform us earlier that modifications have been proposed to the original directive. It certainly needed amendment. I whole-heartedly support the efforts of my hon. Friend and her officials to achieve sensible amendments.
I am still concerned that we may miss a great opportunity to catch up with the rest of Europe by converting more of our waste into useful energy. The United Kingdom incinerates only 10 per cent. of its industrial and municipal waste. In Europe, the figure is 25 per cent. Some countries in the Community, such as Denmark, Germany and France, convert up to 40 per cent. of their municipal waste into electricity and hot water.
The potential in this country is enormous. The waste that we use for landfill is equivalent to about 30 million tonnes of coal a year. Some of the landfill is used for methane production. Hopefully more will be, but it is unacceptable that we should be virtually bottom of the European league in converting municipal refuse into energy, particularly when the economics of modern technology makes it cost-effective.
We have three major incineration plants which convert waste into energy. Edmonton burns about 10 per cent. of London's refuse and produces electricity from it. There are proposals to modernise and to expand that plant through private enterprise consortia which will make money out of it. It will also save ratepayers' money because it will be less expensive than transporting the refuse to be dumped in holes in other parts of the country.
In Nottingham, municipal waste is converted into hot water for district heating and also produces electricity. There is a similar scheme in Sheffield which it is proposed to expand. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), who apologises for not being available for the debate, and I had a briefing from Sheffield officials earlier
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this week. Sheffield has problems because it is expanding its district heating schemes. My hon. Friend is aware of the problems, and I hope that they will be considered.
Meanwhile, new projects are going ahead and are proposed. There is to be a major expansion in south London, involving a private consortium. Using the latest technology, the plant will burn refuse and convert it into electricity and, hopefully, hot water for district heating. The fuel that we are talking about—municipal and industrial waste—is a renewable energy resource. It is a non-fossil fuel. It adds to the diversity of energy resources in the same way as nuclear power, and it should not be neglected.
Landfill is becoming scarcer and more costly because, rightly, we have to tighten up on the environmental pollution and damage which much landfill is creating. Therefore, the arguments in favour of using waste more efficiently to produce energy by incineration are powerful and should be noted more vigorously not just by the Department of the Environment but by the Department of Energy. There are more than 500 incineration plants in the Community as a whole, and a high proportion of them convert waste into either electricity or hot water for district heating—but that is done on only a limited scale in Britain.
In recent years, technology has moved ahead. Some of that technology comes from the United States and from Europe, which is well ahead of the game—but our country also has much of the best that is available. Unfortunately, we are not using it as we should. We ought seriously to consider greater use of pollution-free waste to add to our energy supplies and improve energy efficiency.
There are available now pre-screening processes that can extract from waste non-combustible, environmentally damaging materials such as metal. There is also refuse-derived fuel in pelleted or floc form that is easier to burn, has a higher calorific value, and produces less pollution. The EEC directive, which I welcome, will stimulate investment—in this country as well—in up-to-date technology.
It would be no bad thing if many of our out-of-date incineration plants closed. It is about time they did and that investment was made in new technology, so that the old plants, which merely waste energy, can be replaced by modern technology that makes use of the energy generated by waste material.
I suggest one or two ways ahead, as constructively as I can. We must make the public more aware of the case that I am trying to argue, not only on environmental grounds but because waste incineration as a means of producing energy is cost-effective. We must also make local authorities more aware of the technology that exists, to get away from the bad name that waste incineration has because of the old techniques, whose use remains too widespread. We must make waste disposal authorities aware that there are cheaper options than landfill and basic incineration. Use of the latest technology can make more money, by converting waste into electricity and hot water.
During the crucial five-to-10 year transitional period that my hon. Friend mentioned, the Government should give greater encouragement by allowing local authorities to invest as partners in private enterprise consortia. That will require some relaxation of loan sanctions. As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North said, some local authorities are happy to enter into partnerships with private consortia but cannot contribute financially because

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of the existing restrictive loan sanctions regime. Where schemes can be cost-effective and are capable of producing cheaper electricity and heating than other methods, it is a nonsense to hold up investment for bureaucratic reasons.
The Department of Energy could do more to promote waste incineration as a form of renewable energy, particularly in view of the need to diversify sources of energy supply and to provide competition for cheaper electricity and heating. Waste energy production can make a major contribution in that respect; I hope that my hon. Friend will pass that message to the Department.
Unless a more positive strategy is developed, we shall miss the opportunity that the directive thrusts upon us. We will miss the opportunity of exploiting the new technology—other coutries are exploiting it much faster—to produce energy and to reduce wasteful and environmentally undesirable landfill. But, even worse, there is a danger, if we do not develop a positive strategy, that, instead of increasing the percentage of waste that we incinerate and convert into energy—that is the way to catch up with the rest of Europe—we might actually see a reduction. The reason is that many of the existing incineration plants will have to close if they are not suitable for refurbishment, and the new investment that ought to be going into their replacement will not go ahead. As a result, we will drop even further down the league table of European countries that use their waste effectively, efficiently and without causing pollution.
I welcome this EEC directive. My hon. Friend has reassured us that it is being sensibly modified and applied, but there is still a great deal to be done. I hope that she will take note that there is great potential that we should not lose sight of.
10. 51 pm
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: First of all, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I must apologise to you and to the Minister for not having been in the House at the beginning of this debate. I did set out to be here in good time, but unfortunately somebody turned off the electricity in the tube. Perhaps the hon. Lady will put a word in with her husband about it. If I raise issues that she has dealt with already, I apologise.
The debate is welcome, and the issues that the EEC directive raises are important. When I read the briefing material, it concerned me, although it did not surprise me, that the Commission had specifically identified the United Kingdom as excluded from the five countries with detailed plans for the disposal of waste—particularly by incineration. The Minister has said that the Government have every intention of responding to the directive. I hope that, in doing so, they will not be restrained by the Commission; I hope they will feel that this is an issue they can take up themselves with a view to moving forward and starting to formulate a more detailed and coherent objective.
I want to pick up some points that were made by the hon. Member for Stoke on Trent, North (Ms. Walley) and to add my own comments. Municipal authorities will always have an important role to play in the safe and efficient disposal of rubbish. I certainly do not object in principle to the private sector's being involved. I am quite sure that in a whole variety of ways it needs to be involved. Apart from anything else, it has to dispose of its own rubbish. However, I think that there is a slight concern
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that companies that get involved in waste disposal as an enterprise in itself for profit may occasionally be motivated to attract more profitable business.
For example, when the Karin B was cruising round the North Sea the Minister said that if we had had the best facilities we should have been very glad to take its cargo and dispose of it. In a pure free-market economic sense, and possibly even in an environmental sense, there might be some plausible merit in that argument, but I do not think that it is politically or publicly acceptable. The Government should simply acknowledge that fact.
The public feel that, certainly until such time as we have the whole issue of waste management fully under control, we should not be taking waste from other sources. I think the Minister will find that, if things do not change rapidly over the next five years, more incidents of that kind will simply create greater and greater public resentment, and she will find her job becoming somewhat unacceptable. That is obviously a matter for her to judge, but I Feel that she should accept what I am saying.
The hon. Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) has said that we in the United Kingdom are fairly low in the pecking order of countries that burn their waste. The amount burnt in the United Kingdom is 10 per cent., compared with 31 per cent. in Germany, 32 per cent. in the Netherlands, and 37 per cent. in France. So we have very considerable room for improvement. On the whole, provided that it can be done efficiently and safely and with minimal pollution, and that the appropriate action is taken to ensure the right standards, incineration is preferable to landfill, for many of the reasons that the hon. Member for Erewash gave. I do not think that he will be surprised to know that I endorse his commitment to perhaps replacing existing plants, not only to ensure that they are more efficient but to link them with electricity generation and possible district heating schemes.
I know that the hon. Gentleman suffered from what might, from his point of view, have been embarrassing publicity because of his declared interest. I would say that he is at least one Member who—even if he is making money out of it—has a consistent and long-held interest, and is respected on both sides of the House for the depth of his commitment and for his particular expertise. In some ways he has been rather more unfairly attacked on that score than other hon. Members on other occasions. This is, in my view, a legitimate area of concern. I know of local authorities that would like to expand district heating associated with the disposal of rubbish in their area, and I hope that the Government will give a positive lead to encouraging such a move.
That raises a point already touched on by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North: the ability of local authorities to provide the finance to upgrade or improve their provision. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory), who has now left, intervened to suggest that there was no clear message. I thought that there was a fairly clear message: if local authorities are to become involved—both sides of the House seemed to acknowledge that they should, and should continue to be involved—they need some indication that they will be able to fund any investment that they propose to make, particularly if they are being constrained by either European Commission directives or directives imposed by the United Kingdom Government.
Authorities have, I think, become considerably resentful of finding themselves required by laws, whether

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European Community or United Kingdom Government laws, to take actions that cost money on either the capital or the current account, and then being accused by the Government of overspending and profligacy and faced with what is in many cases unfair criticism. The Government must be prepared to play the game, and—particularly if they want to follow through their own claimed commitment to give environmental issues a high priority—to recognise that such issues should be properly accounted for when local authorities are framing their capital and current spending budgets.
One or two cases have been highlighted of significant pollution and possibly even illness related to existing plants. The briefing material for the debate suggests that the country is in a fairly poor state in this regard. I am glad to say that a plant that caused considerable concern in Scotland, the Rechem plant at Bonnybridge, has closed, although it was closed not because of environmental or public concern but for economic reasons.
That plant had become a cause celebre illustrating the problems of living near a not fully controlled plant that was disposing of toxic waste. There was an upsurge of twinning in the area among both cattle and humans, as well as illnesses and irritations and the suggestion of a significant incidence of abortion among cattle. That seemed statistically to be directly attributable to the plant, and appears to have stopped since it closed. Such problems cause genuine public anxiety, and demonstrate the need for increasingly raised standards.
I notice also that there is considerable concern about the quality of disposal and incineration by hospitals. I have a list of the "dirty dozen" hospitals that fall well below standard: Canterbury, Greenwich, Camden, Norwich, Cardiff, Welwyn, Sheffield, Dundee, Hemel Hempstead, Kettering, Bradford and Gateshead. I do not know whether the Government acknowledge those examples as problems; if they do, do they feel that something should be done about them? What will the Minister's Department do—or does she consider it a matter for the Department of Health?
Another interesting aspect of—in my view—the lack of a co-ordinated environmental approach, and the reason why I think a different ministerial structure may be necessary, is that a series of questions that I tabled recently asking each Government Department what it was doing to advance its concerns and involvement in environmental matters were all referred to the Department of the Environment, which rather defeated the purpose of my questions. It is, of course, fairly standard ministerial practice to pass the buck, but the Government must do a little better than that when such questions are tabled.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North also mentioned—correctly, within this debate—recycling. Recycling and air pollution are connected issues. In my view, where there are no other sources, rubbish should be burned, rather than used for infill, and should be burned in an efficient and non-polluting way, preferably with useful by-products, but we must raise our performance on recycling.
I want to quote a specific example, which is of great concern to my own area and to people employed in my own constituency. Together with the hon. Members for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) and for Aberdeen, South
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(Mr. Doran), I was recently lobbied by Davidson's paper company in Aberdeen. The company is very concerned about the shortage of waste paper, which is its prime raw material and which can crucially affect its business. The Government, through the Scottish Development Agency, may be sponsoring a new development—which is not confirmed yet—that will use recycled waste paper as its raw material. Given that the Davidson's plant is funamentally dependent on waste paper, the consequence will be to mop up all Britain's surplus of current recycled waste paper. That will create a shortage that will force up the price of waste paper, unless action is taken, and could threaten the existence of the Davidson's plant in Aberdeen.
Davidson's employs 650 people directly and is now trading at full capacity and extremely profitably, manufacturing lining papers for plasterboard as its prime product. I am sure that the Minister can appreciate that there is a serious cause for concern and that it would be a blow if such a plant closed. According to the management of Davidson's, Britain's record of recycling waste paper is almost the worst in the European Community—only Ireland's record is worse—so we should be doing more. Our performance in this respect is 29 per cent., whereas in Sweden, which is a major competitor in paper, the figure is 70 per cent. The Minister will recognise that there is considerable room for closing the gap. That would be economically beneficial, as well as environmentally and ecologically sound.
Having just returned from the European Commission and having heard comments from Members of all parties, I believe that these take note debates on European Commission directives are an unsatisfactory way for the development of policy to proceed. I believe that the House should have more input in the production of such directives. We have late-night, poorly attended debates simply to take note of a directive, in which the House has had no input, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis—in fact it is a take-it basis, because we are not allowed to leave it in practical terms under the treaty, rather than under the powers of the House.
These issues need to be brought up properly and I hope that the Minister will fight for more time in the House to give hon. Members an opportunity to debate directives before they are finalised. There are hon. Members who have useful contributions to make and, although the Minister may be proud that she has amended the directive, it would be helpful if hon. Members of all parties had some input in the process. That might even strengthen the Minister's hand as well.
Having said that, I am glad that we have a debate, although it is unfortunate that it is in circumstances in which important issues are swept under the carpet. We shall have to return to them. However, I hope that our comments have been of some help.
11. 4 pm
Mr. Tony Speller: This debate takes note. The truth is that we should all take note of the fact that when we speak of energy efficiency, savings or waste, the House is empty, whatever the hour. It is important, when we discuss directives such as this, that we make some attempt at input, albeit after the paper is written. Each

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hon. Member who has spoken so far has found me nodding in agreement, but—alas—we are, as always, too few to make this the stimulating debate it should be.
The word "waste" is, in itself, the wrong word to use. The opposite of waste can be "saving", just as it can be all sorts of things. But the one thing about waste in the world of energy is that it is truly wasteful. It is truly wasteful to take stuff and churn it up a chimney and destroy it, even if it is cleaned en route. There is so much that could be saved. Ask anyone who has worked on the bins when an undergraduate. It is amazing how much there is to be picked up among what the rest of us throw away. We live in a rich society. We are more wasteful than would have been imaginable a century or so back. We are rich beyond the dreams of those in the Third world, yet we waste and waste.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) promotes the sensible cause of combined heat and power. If we must incinerate, for goodness' sake let us use the heat for something useful. Many years ago in the county of Devon, we built a refuse incinerator to burn waste. We could and should have used it to heat the adjacent factory sites which cost too much to heat but the heat went up the chimney and all the factories used fossil fuel, oil or gas. They used none of the waste, which still rises to the sky.
I am sorry to use the word "waste" so often, but it is worth mentioning it because the great problem with the directive is that it will achieve precisely what it sets out to avoid. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) about the market, although we disagree on how the market should work. Most of the refuse incineration plants that I know, if not elderly, have had some jolly hard wear and over a five-year period the money will be used but it will not be used logically. It would be far better to be generous and use the new, clean forms of incineration rather than saying, "Here is a loan sanction. Here are a few hundred thousand pounds to bring up to date the technology of the last decade and even further back." The money could be used, but what would happen?
I suspect that the outcome will be simple and straightforward. It will not be worth while—market forces again—to incinerate waste, so it will literally be driven underground. There will be more landfill sites. Again, I mention the humble totter, or the student who picks up the odd thing from a dustbin. Anyone who has seen the countryside around our great towns knows how wasteful we are—how we dump bedspreads, mattresses and anything else that we can get rid of because it might cost us too much to dispose of it in any other way. I fear that this directive, which is excellent in principle—it tells us to be more careful and to be cleaner—will simply drive people to find cheaper and more awful forms of disposal. The vessel that plied the seas trying to find somewhere to dump the rubbish of the world, was only one example. It was the one that was noticed. I wonder how many are not noticed. I give a word of strange and almost sorrowful warning.
The directive refers to domestic rubbish. In the large village of Yelland, quite near Barnstaple, our excellent South West water authority has obtained permission to burn the bits and pieces left over from the sewage works. The residents are up in arms because the chimney is 30ft tall, but it is a good sensible authority and it has obtained planning permission. Such schemes will not be covered by
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the directive, which clearly excludes municipal waste. Article 1 tells us that we are talking exclusively of waste which
"by its composition, can be considered to be equivalent to domestic waste to the exclusion of chemical, toxic and special waste and sewage sludge."
I must be honest: these are far more horrible things than any domestic waste, even though our plastic bins, bottles and cartons may be a mess and a nuisance. The directive will make it impossible ever to build an economic incineration plant in the future. We shall need such plants, but we shall not get them because, as someone once said, "You can't buck the market." Within the advisory papers, it is mentioned that the directive may catch those refuse-derived fuels. There are, for example, the fuel pellets—an incredibly sensible way of using waste—which are compacted and burnt. If by accident those fuels are caught in the directive, there is something very wrong with the drafting, which we, of course, cannot amend.
Three years ago, I suppose, the world was full of energy-efficient breakfasts. The intention was that we would save a fortune by energy efficiency, but the sad problem for breakfast time—and, I am sure, for the energy-efficient bacon and eggs—was that we came towards the witching hour and we began to talk about how to dispose by burning.
We are a truly wasteful economy. Incineration is not a logical answer unless everything else has been redeemed, reused and recycled. Waste is wasteful unless we do something sensible and useful with the waste products.
11. 10 pm
Mr. Frank Haynes: I shall be as brief as possible so as to give other hon. Members the opportunity to speak because those present are interested in this problem. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) and the Minister on their contributions. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North, to this debate because she is a member of the National Society for Clean Air, as I have been for many years, so we have a particular interest in pollution.
I welcome the directive from the EEC on what we should be doing about pollution, but I disagree with some of the points that have been made and especially with the hon. Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) when he said that we should have more landfill and less incineration.
Mr. Rost: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Haynes: No, I will not give way. To save time, I will clarify the position. The hon. Gentleman was obviously saying that if we have incineration we must do it properly and efficiently and not waste the heat produced. I believe, however, that we should do away with landfill altogether.
Mr. Rost: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Haynes: No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman has made his contribution.
Mr. Rost rose—
Mr. Haynes: No, I am sorry—it would not be lair to other hon. Members.
I disagree entirely with landfill because I have had years of experience on local authorities with responsibility for collecting refuse and dumping it. We have had experience of landfill in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Crooked

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contractors have been using the same areas as the local authority and dumping toxic waste. That practice is not confined to Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire—it is nation-wide. Apart from possible toxicity, what is dumped is also filth. Often the dumps are near domestic properties, which is not pleasant for residents and there are usually complaints. I visited my local authority to look at the list of residents who had complained about nuisances such as rats all over the place. That is not good for health, it is not good for pollution control and the sooner we do away with landfill disposal of waste the better off we shall be.
I agree with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Erewash about incineration. We need to improve our system of incineration. It needs to be used efficiently. We need all the new equipment available to enable us to deal with it efficiently and at the same time to contribute towards the heating of domestic properties and to help industry as well. In so doing, we would also be helping the economy.
One of the problems that I fear is that the Government will slowly but surely destroy local authorities. If the Conservatives continue in office after the next General Election, which God forbid, they will destroy the local authorities. They are taking away the services one by one. The local authorities will have nothing to do and their responsibilities will be shoved into the hands of the private sector. Then we shall have problems with incineration.
One matter which concerns me but which has not been mentioned so far is the massive reduction in the number of Her Majesty's inspectors in all Departments, especially in relation to energy. There has also been a massive reduction in the number of inspectors of mines and quarries. If we are not careful, it will happen again—we need Her Majesty's inspectors to keep everybody on their toes, in the interests of people who need the service.
In north Derbyshire, property was blown to smithereens because of the combustion of methane. Luckily, nobody was killed. That type of thing can happen with landfill. That is why I am against it.
The Minister does a lot of travelling in the course of her job, and she is interested in it. The Minister for Roads and Traffic, the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), probably travels in a different direction in his job relating to roads, road safety, and so on. Obviously, they do not get together very often, but they must do sometimes, if only when they get to bed. When they have a little discussion at bedtime, I hope that they will discuss motor vehicle pollution. I am concerned about lorries, buses and deregulation. There are some real spivs on the roads. We must do something about the problem. I hope that the Minister will have a word with the hon. Gentleman about it one of these nights when they go to bed.
11. 15 pm
Mr. Barry Field: My hon. Friend the Minister and I have taken a little bit of stick from the parliamentary sketch writers in the past few days. Although her loss was certainly my gain, I am certain that I speak for everybody who was on the delegation from the Isle of Wight who went to see my hon. Friend. Such was the charming way in which she received us and listened to our problems about waste-derived fuel, that, on that occasion, her gain was the Isle of Wight's loss.
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I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) participating in the debate. It is the first occasion on which she has led a debate for the Opposition. I took part with her in the first World Service debate about the Tory green initiative.
I want to throw not a pebble but a pellet into the pool. I have been something of a financial agnostic in terms of waste-derived fuel. I have no argument with anything that has been said tonight about incineration, but I have serious doubts about the economy of first pelletising rubbish before it is burned.
Although I can appreciate the desire to find some use for the contents of our rubbish bins, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mr. Rost) mentioned, there is considerable concern about the problem of dioxins. I direct the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister to the Department of Energy's energy technology support unit, which views refuse-derived fuel primarily as an energy source rather than a method of waste disposal. It has written to the Department of the Environment and said that there should be a temporary exemption from the conditions of this EEC directive on emissions from combustion of waste to allow appropriate control measures to be assessed.
It has stated that refuse-derived fuel will be burned in industrial scale combusters, designed or modified for its properties, and set up to minimise emissions to levels equivalent to those generated by combustion of oil, gas or coal when conforming with existing pollution control requirements of member states for those fuels.
We have had to take considerable advice from the Warren Springs laboratory, and we have had to install some tall chimneys to allow waste-derived fuel pellets to be consumed in boilers, because of the problem of dioxins. It is extraordinary that we have an environmental initiative for the conversion of the contents of our rubbish bins to pellets for combustion purposes, but, at the same time, we are saying that we need some relaxation of emission controls to allow those pellets to be burned.
Surely that is an extraordinary state of affairs. Because of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from power stations, we are spending £170 million cleaning up the emissions from 12 of our major coal-fired power stations, but, to start on this method of converting rubbish, we are considering relaxing emission controls. That is contrary to our policy of cleaning up the environment. We ought to address that matter seriously before adopting the EC directive.
11. 20 pm
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: This has been a constructive, useful and wide-ranging debate. I hope that hon. Members will bear with me if I return to the subject of the draft directive before spreading more widely.
In her remarks, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), whom I too welcome to her position, suggested that the Government had not taken many steps on pollution, especially air pollution. But we are bringing forward a coherent and integrated series of measures to deal with waste. With regard to air pollution, many plans were in hand well before the draft directive was produced.
For some time we have been aware of the need to strengthen controls on incineration. We had already proposed domestic changes before the directives appeared. In December 1986, in the first major review of air pollution

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control policy for 30 years, we produced a consultation paper that proposed that municipal waste incinerators should be included with new processes to be brought under the control of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. This would involve their becoming subject to a system of prior authorisation and being required to use the best practical means to prevent or render harmless any noxious or offensive emissions.
The responses to this 1986 consultation paper generally welcome the proposal and are very much in line with these measures. We aim to lay regulations before the House shortly to implement the change. The requirements of the new plant directive are generally in line with those standards that Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution would have imposed on new plants in any case, through its well-established system of national consultation with industry on the best practical means of minimising air pollution from each category of scheduled plant.
Ms. Walley: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on this point about air pollution.
In the light of her remarks about air pollution measures, is the Minister concerned about the letter that I have here from the National Society for Clean Air, which suggests that the reorganisation inside Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution might well lead to a further reduction in morale, and resignations? Can the Minister assure me that those concerned in Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution with air pollution will continue at the same strength?
Mrs. Bottomley: Indeed I can, most robustly. The pollution inspectorate has been mentioned often during the debate. I want to make two things clear. First, when we are dealing with pollution that goes into the air, into the land or the water, it is essential to have an integrated approach. The purpose of the proposals planned for our green Bill is that we should have legislative backing for an integrated system of pollution control.
Secondly, there have recently been a further 13 appointments to the pollution inspectorate, many of which are to deal with wastes. I am convinced that I can reassure the hon. Lady robustly on those fronts.
There has been some discussion about the relative merits of landfill and incineration as means of waste disposal. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash and many others have referred to that. Properly controlled and conducted, landfill is a safe and dependable means of disposal for most of our domestic waste, about 88 per cent. of which is disposed of in that manner. Some 10 per cent. of domestic waste is incinerated, but, as I have explained, all the municipal plants were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s and now need updating or replacing.
We expect to see landfill continue as the main disposal method, but we want improved operating standards, which means a concentration on larger sites and the disappearance of the small bad-neighbour sites. Unit costs for landfill are bound to rise, but that is a price that local authorities must be prepared to pay in the interests of the environment.
In some regions where there appears to be a prospective shortfall of landfill sites towards the end of the century, there are already suggestions that a new wave of municipal incinerators may come on stream, as well as those which will be required to replace plants in some areas as the new standards have to be met.
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There is no doubt—I appreciate the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash who is particularly knowledgeable and experienced in this area—that the new plants will need to be planned on a large scale and developed to highly sophisticated standards to be economically and technically viable, which will require co-operation and planning between local authorities. There are many interesting and important prospects there for co-operation with the private sector.
One feature of the new plant is bound to he the inclusion of suitable methods of recovery of heat or the generation of power. At present that is a feature of only five of our municipal incinerators. In the rest of Europe 80 per cent. of domestic refuse incinerators have some form of heat recovery. We need to catch up on such possibilities for turning our refuse to good use when the opportunity arises, and I know that that will be greatly welcomed.
Many hon. Members have had a rather sterile debate about whether waste disposal should be undertaken by the private or the public sector. It is essential that, wherever waste is disposed of, and whichever sector is responsible, it must be regulated properly and the regulations must be properly enforced. Often, after a particular incident, proper steps are not taken and enforced.
The Government's proposed new legislation for waste generally proposes the establishment of waste regulation authorities to take over from the waste disposal authorities. We are not removing that duty from local authorities. Those who suggest that the Government want to see the end of local government should take heart from the fact that, as a result our consultation on which was the most appropriate authority to deal with waste regulation, we have decided that the local authority is the right and proper one.
It is essential that the site dealing with the waste, whether it is an incinerator, a landfill site or anything else, should be properly regulated. There is no question of turning a blind eye on the private sector any more than on the public sector. That is what the public expect, and that is what the Government will make sure they receive.
The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) spoke about hospital incinerators, on which some hon. Members have questioned our intentions. They are, along with other specified waste schemes, specifically excluded from the remit of the directive, but we expect further proposals on that from Brussels. As part of the changes that we are making for domestic reasons, we intend to bring large clinical waste incinerators, those capable of burning more than 1 tonne of waste an hour, under HMIP control immediately. We further propose to strengthen control on all smaller clinical waste incinerators. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to paper recycling. His remarks will be noted by many. We are particularly interested in paper recycling and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), is currently organising a series of initiatives to draw attention to the increased prospects of that business and to develop it further.
The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) made a series of remarks with not all of which I agree, although I hope that he will take confidence from the increased staffing at HMIP. With regard to his questions about emissions of motor vehicles, this is one of the few subjects about which I speak from time to time to the

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Under-Secretary of State for Transport. Indeed, I hope he will feel some hope that the campaign for unleaded petrol is now taking off and meeting with a great measure of success.
These two draft directives extend the useful work achieved by the Community through the air pollution framework directive in encouraging harmonisation of environmental controls on key sectors of industry. They offer significant benefits to the environment of Britain and to the Community and I have pleasure in commending them to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Community Documents No. 5142/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of the Environment on 20th February 1989 on air pollution from municipal waste incineration plants; and calls upon the Government to support the introduction of appropriately stringent controls on air pollution from such plants.

Air Pollution
  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c. )
  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
    INDUSTRIAL TRAINING
    That the draft Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1989, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.
    INDUSTRIAL TRAINING
      ECCLESIASTICAL LAW
      That the draft Grants to the Redundant Churches Fund Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 7th November 1988, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
      ECCLESIASTICAL LAW

        NORTHERN IRELAND
        That the draft Matrimonial and Family Proceedings (Northern Ireland Consequential Amendment) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.
        That the draft Matrimonial and Family Proceedings (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved. —[Mr. Darrell.]
        Question agreed to.

        NORTHERN IRELAND

          HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)
          Ordered,
          That Mr. Barry Porter be discharged from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) and Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones be added to the Committee. —[Mr. David Hunt.]

Electrical Appliances (Plugs)
Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Dorrell.]
11. 31 pm
Mr. David Sumberg: Most Adjournment debates are very specific—specific to a constituency, specific perhaps to an individual situation. Many of them involve complex issues where the hon. Member speaking requires a great deal of time, probably more than he gets, to marshal his case and advance his arguments. But my debate tonight raises a matter that vitally affects every household, every person, in the country and yet is a matter of the utmost simplicity. It concerns safety in the home.
The common myth is that, when we have shut our doors to the outside world, we have immediately entered a safe and secure environment. Nothing, I am afraid, could be further from the truth. Putting aside for one moment the dangers that come from criminality—the burglar, the housebreaker or perhaps even worse—the true position is that in terms of personal safety the home is one of the most dangerous places to be.
One of the most common forms of accident is that which occurs in the home itself. These home-based accidents arise from many causes, but a small though significant proportion involve electrically powered products. Some arise from the goods themselves, because of faulty manufacture. Others, though, are the result of faulty wiring of the appliance to the plug that connects the machine to the electricity circuit.
Every year in this country there are approximately 2,000 non-fatal accidents involving electric plugs, which necessitate medical treatment. The June 1988 edition of "Care in the Home", published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, illustrates some of the more tragic cases. A 55-year-old woman died when she touched a live washing machine because there was a loose wire in the plug. A boy of 14 died using an electric iron because the earth wire in the plug touched the live pin, making the iron live. These are tragedies that could possibly have been avoided, particularly where the cause was the faulty wiring of the plug to the electrical appliance.
Frankly, I am surprised that there are not more such accidents, because an estimated 75 million domestic household appliances are sold in the United Kingdom every year. I say this because some of the evidence of ignorance in these matters is a little startling.
A random survey of 45 homes carried out by the Consumers Association found that 43 had at least one that was incorrectly wired and 25 per cent. of those plugs also had wrongly fitted fuses. A larger and more independent survey involving 1,000 people found that 198 of those questioned—nearly 20 per cent. —did not know how to fit a plug to an electrical machine. It also showed that 761 of those people did not have a clue about the correct fuse rating required for the electrical appliance concerned.
To their credit, the Government have not stood idly by. They have recognised that they have a role to play and have acted to deal with part of the problem. The Plugs and Sockets Etc. (Safety) Regulations 1987—not exactly bedtime reading, but very important none the less-now require all 13 amp plugs supplied in Britain to be approved by an authorised body. That is a major advance. They deal

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with potentially lethal plugs which were previously allowed into this country from abroad. I welcome those regulations.
However, while those regulations are designed to ensure that plugs that are sold are safe, they do absolutely nothing to overcome the problems inherent in the faulty wiring of a plug by a consumer. No matter how good or safe the plug, it is of little use if the person who wires the plug to an electrical appliance does it badly or incorrectly.
I can do no better than quote the consumer safety unit at the Department of Trade and Industry, which noted in a report in 1984:
"The connection of a flexible cord to a mains plug by an unskilled user is fraught with danger."
Mr. Deputy Speaker, you may welcome the arrival of a new domestic appliance at home with the confidence that you can respond to your wife's request that the plug should be fitted with ease and safety. If that is so, you have my admiration. I am not in that happy position. The question of who is to fit the plug in my home is a matter of spirited debate, which I inevitably lose. I certainly fall into the category and the description of the "unskilled user" in the report from the Department of Trade and Industry.
The answer to the problem in my house and in thousands of houses around the country is very simple and there to be taken. We do not simply need safe plugs; we must have safe plugs and safe wiring of plugs to the appliances. That can be achieved very easily, quickly and simply by compelling the provision of moulded-on plugs by manufacturers of household electrical equipment. That would ensure that plugs are fitted correctly and safely, and are equipped with the correct fuse rating and that the purchaser is saved the time, effort and most importantly the potential danger, of having to fit the plug to the equipment himself.
Moulded on plugs are undoubtedly safer because all the internal wire connections are crimped. There are no internal terminal screws which can be worked lose and no cord grip screws to pull away. The only working part accessible to the consumer is the fuse, which is mounted externally and which can be changed in seconds in the event of a fault.
Faced with what I believe are those compelling facts, what are the arguments that have persuaded my hon. Friend the Minister, and in fairness his predecessor, to take no action to force manufacturers to fit moulded plugs to electrical equipment along the lines that I have suggested? The first argument which I know will have great appeal to my hon. Friend the Minister is that all this smacks of the nanny state and that we would be imposing a burden on the manufacturers to compensate for the sins of the purchasers who should be able to fit plugs properly to electrical appliances. Is it not such a simple job, runs that view, that it is no part of Government's function to ensure what people should, or more properly should not, leave off their products?
Such an argument, which has its place in certain circumstances and with which in some cases I would have sympathy, ignores the fact that the Government determined the standards that should apply to plugs. It ignores, too, the simple fact that those who purchase electrical products may not have the understanding, skill or competence to fit plugs to the appliances. They may be elderly, blind or physically or mentally disabled. They may have arthritis or similar diseases in their hands. What are
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they to do? They can rely on a friend, go to the expense of engaging an electrician or, worse, try to do the job themselves, perhaps inadequately or unsafely.
All that is unnecessary. The potential dangers are unnecessary when the requirement for the plug to be fitted before purchase could easily be done on the production line in the factory at no additional expense, for the plug would be paid for when the machine or appliance was purchased, rather than at a later stage.
The second argument against my proposal is similar to the first. It is that it imposes compulsion rather than encouragement on manufacturers to fit moulded plugs. The problem with merely encouraging them, rather than effectively telling them, to do so—leaving it to their discretion—is that manufacturers are unlikely to feel that they should do it if other manufacturers will offer a marginally cheaper product by not fitting the moulded plug.
By requiring all manufacturers to fit moulded plugs to their products, we would ensure a common cost base line, giving no advantage to any manufacturer and, above all, providing a service to all purchasers.
The argument which the Minister has already used against my proposal—he used it when replying to questions in the House in December—is that between 5 and 10 per cent. of households still use the old 15 amp round pin plug and socket. For those households, he said, there could be a problem of expense and inconvenience.
I understand that official statistics were last collected by the Electricity Council about 10 years ago, when figures similar to those mentioned by the Minister were found; 92 per cent. of homes, the council said, had 13 amp square pin plugs and 8 per cent. had round plugs. But those are old figures on which to base a view. Figures released in 1984, only five years ago, by the Electrical Installation Equipment Manufacturers' Association showed that only 3.6 per cent. of its sales were for the old 15 amp system, and that figure is likely to be considerably less five years on, in 1989.
I am sorry if my proposal would cause some inconvenience to a tiny proportion of households, but the Government have rightly acted in other areas of policy when it has been right to do so for the majority. And even for the small minority who would be adversely affected, the safety argument is overriding.
A number of manufacturers in this country on a voluntary basis now fit moulded plugs to their products, but they are a small proportion and, generally, we are at variance with the practice overseas. Moulded-on or pre-wired plugs are standard in most other parts of the world—in the United States, in Australasia and in the Common Market—but here in Britain we stick to the same old obstacle course for any consumer who buys an electrical product.
It is ironic that the Minister's Department is rightly proclaiming the need to get with it for 1992, to have common European standards and to follow EC directives, sometimes at considerable inconvenience to our people, yet here is a proposal which would be of tremendous advantage and where we should be following our European friends.
If I had suggested to the Minister before he bought his last motor car that it would come without tyres and that before he could use it he would have to buy the tyres in another shop, take them home and fit them himself, he would have regarded such a proposal as absolutely barmy.

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That is how I and the majority of people, particularly housewives—this affects them greatly—regard the present situation with electrical appliances and the need to fit plugs to them.
Tonight, my hon. Friend has a chance to act. He may recall a programme from years ago, when we were all much younger, called "Housewives' Choice". My hon. Friend has had a distinguished parliamentary and European parliamentary career. He has been given many names by the Press Gallery, some favourable, others less so. If he is determined to act positively tonight in the way that I have asked him to, he will for ever more be known in this place as the "Housewives' Choice".
11. 47 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Eric Forth): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Sumberg) on obtaining this Adjournment debate, and pay tribute to his commitment, and persistence in pursuing this matter. In view of his sincere interest and involvement in it, I hazard that he will continue to do so in future.
My hon. Friend has conceded that any proposal of the sort he has made would result in the introduction of new legislative burdens on industry and would fly in the face of one of the Government's prime vehicles for the creation of wealth—that is, deregulation. My hon. Friend recognised that difficulty. The objective is to stimulate enterprise and individual initiative to meet the demands of the market place by removing, when necessary, controls on the trading environment and in doing so giving the consumer the widest choice at the price he is prepared to pay.
It is only in exceptional circumstances that there can be any departure from this approach. Considerations of safety could be such a case, but only when the market does not provide sufficient protection for the consumer. The safety issue in this instance is that the provision of electrical appliances without plugs attached could lead to consumers placing themselves at risk from the wrong connection of the plug—a point that my hon. Friend covered in some detail.
The results of surveys of domestic households have not shown up any significant number of poor or incorrectly wired plugs. The important point is that, despite such instances, the evidence shows that a very small number of accidents which involve plugs occur. In the latest year for which home accident surveillance system figures are available—1986—of the total of about 100,000 accidents reported by the twenty participating hospitals, only about 82 are identified in which plugs or adaptors were specifically involved.
The general injury record has to be seen in the light of the growing number of electrical appliances used in domestic households over the past ten years and the consequent demand for plugs. The plug manufacturing industry acknowledges some growth in output over the period and estimates that, in the past year alone, approximately 50 million to 60 million plugs were manufactured. In addition, there is a large net import of a further 10 million to 15 million plugs. Twelve million of
1274
those were fitted to appliances before sale, leaving a balance of nearly 60 million plugs of the re-wirable type coming new on to the market.
A proportion of the total would be for industrial use, but there is no escaping the fact that of this large number of plugs, a substantial number must be connected to their appliances by domestic customers—and that only represents the plugs added in the year. I would hesitate to estimate the number actually in use and the number that have been switched from one appliance to another in the year, but given these vast numbers compared to the number of related injuries, it is difficult to conclude that the process of connecting a plug needs a code of practice to ensure its safety—in spite of my hon. Friend's figures. None the less, we are not complacent and want to continue to strive to improve the situation. But I must stress that the intrinsic safety of electrical products and particularly the aspects concerned with wiring the plugs are not a major source of concern compared with other hazards to users.
My hon. Friend asserted that this matter was a cause of major concern among housewives, but produced no evidence to support his assertion. It is not unreasonable to say that, in a matter as important as this, assertion is not enough—evidence is required.
This leads on to the issue of whether other factors may already be beginning to contribute to an overall improvement in safety in this area. My hon. Friend generously acknowledged the introduction of the Plugs and Sockets Etc. (Safety) Regulations 1987. We would claim that they effectively cleared the market of unsafe and poorly constructed plugs, certainly those of new purchase, which in the past have been considered to be a contributory factor in a number of accidents.
In addition, harmonisation of product safety in Europe has also led to technical developments which do not rely on the earth connection to provide protection against electric shock. Inadvertent contact between the earth and the live connection in the plug has featured frequently in accidents of this type. The most notable feature is that the flexible cord that connects the appliance to the supply has only two cores instead of three, so there is less potential for miswiring the plug. The use of non-metallic or plastic enclosures has has also provided more protection.
Finally, a substantial and growing number of consumer products is available on the market place with plugs fitted, if consumers wish to make that choice of product. It is true that most of these products tend to be at the higher cost end of the market, but the impetus is there to encourage this development towards the lower end. I shall return to that in a moment.
Apart from the safety aspects, the universal adoption of fitted or moulded on plugs for electrical appliances and goods would have adverse economic implications for some consumers. My hon. Friend touched on this. The most significantly disadvantaged group would be consumers whose mains electrical system is still on the old round pin standard. Here there is slight dissent between myself and my hon. Friend. I stick to the estimate of 5 to 10 per cent. of households. My hon. Friend produced new figures which we will want to consider in order to check which are more reliable.
My hon. Friend might concede that, even if the figure were as low as 3·5 per cent., that would still leave a large number of households with round pin plugs. Those would tend to be older houses, probably with occupiers in lower income groups. Therefore, we must give special

1275
consideration to the hardship which might be caused by the arbitrary introduction of fixed plugs which would not be suitable for round pin sockets. Although we may disagree slightly about the numbers, I still believe that we should pay close attention to the needs of these people, because they might be the most vulnerable if there were to be an arbitrary change.
Other arguments revolve around the inflexibility of the length of lead which might be introduced by my hon. Friend's proposals. It is noticeable that we are talking about the more expensive products, where the cost represents a smaller proportion of the total cost. That may be accompanied by a marketing promotion effort. The relative cost burden of my hon. Friend's proposal on the less expensive appliances would be even greater. Again, we must take that very much into consideration. The fact that consumers are perhaps more conscious of cost than convenience in that segment of the market and that the manufacturers' response to market behaviour is to provide what the consumer wants—a cheaper product with no attached plug—should also be borne in mind.
As I mentioned earlier, there are signs that manufacturing industry is moving in the direction of
1276
attaching plugs where it feels that there is a consumer demand that it can meet. That is very much in tune with what my Department and the Government feel should take place. I recognise that some sectors of the appliance industry will believe that they would be at a competitive disadvantage without the support of some kind of mandatory prescription. I do not consider that a mandatory approach would be justified at this stage, bat this does not exclude the possibility of exploring other methods by which industry might, in collaboration with the distribution or retail sector, provide such a service to meet public demand. I am sure that the industry will take note of the points my hon. Friend has made in the debate.
I hope that the debate will allow further consideration to be given not just by the House but by the industry to the points which my hon. Friend has made and to the points which I have made in reply in the hope that there will be a voluntary move, not involving compulsion, towards a solution which will help consumers and the industry alike.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at six minutes before Twelve o'clock.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Macdonald-Wheeler Fund Management
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Attorney-General for how long investigations into Macdonald-Wheeler Fund Management Ltd. have been proceeding.

  The Attorney-General
  An inquiry under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985 was commenced by the Department of Trade and Industry on 28 July 1986 and concluded on 6 August 1986 when upon the Secretary of State's petition to the court the Official Receiver was appointed provisional liquidator. Police inquiries into the management of Macdonald-Wheeler Fund Management Ltd. commenced in August 1986, one month after the company ceased trading. In April 1988 the newly formed serious fraud office adopted the inquiry and continued the investigation in conjunction with the police. Criminal proceedings were commenced against one person in June 1988.

PRIME MINISTER

  Merchant Shipping
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Prime Minister if Her Majesty's Government have any proposals to amend the Merchant Shipping Act 1988.

  The Prime Minister
  No.

  Kenilworth
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has any plans to make an official visit to Kenilworth.

  The Prime Minister
  I have at present no plans to do so.

  Wales
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Prime Minister when she next expects to visit Wales.

  The Prime Minister
  I make official visits to Wales from time to time.

  "Death on the Rock"
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations she has had about the tone of Her Majesty's Government's response to the Windlesham report on the "Death on the Rock" programme.

  The Prime Minister
  None, as far as I am aware.

  Mr. Yitzhak Shamir
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Prime Minister whether she is now in a position to announce a date for the forthcoming visit to Britain by Mr. Yitzhak Shamir, Prime Minister of the state of Israel.

  The Prime Minister
  Professor Arens told me on 15 February that Mr. Shamir hopes to visit soon. No dates have yet been fixed.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 'Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Favell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Holt
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 February.

  The Prime Minister
  This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.

  Abortion
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Prime Minister whether she has any plans to establish a Royal Commission on the operation of the Abortion Law Reform Act 1967.

  The Prime Minister
  We have no plans to do so.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Set-Aside
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish a table in the Official Report showing in each of the three counties of Yorkshire, how many applications and registrations he has received under the set-aside scheme (a) within and (b) outside less favoured areas; and within each category how many applications he has received for (i) permanent fallow, (ii) rotational fallow, (iii) farm woodland and (iv) non-agricultural use.

  Mr. Ryder
  The available information is as follows:
  707

  Applications: less favoured areas

  Applications: other areas

  Registrations: all areas1

  North Yorkshire

  Permanent Fallow

  7

  42

  Rotational Fallow

  3

  20

  Woodland

  1

  8

  Non-agricultural Use

  1

  12

  Totals2

  8

  62

  1,039

  West Yorkshire

  Permanent Fallow

  Nil

  3

  Rotational Fallow

  Nil

  Nil

  Woodland

  Nil

  1

  Non-agricultural Use

  Nil

  2

  Totals2

  Nil

  5

  118

  South Yorkshire

  Permanent Fallow

  Nil

  11

  Rotational Fallow

  Nil

  3

  Woodland

  Nil

  Nil

  Non-agricultural Use

  Nil

  1

  Totals2

  Nil

  12

  178

  Notes:

  1 Breakdown between less favoured and other areas not available.

  2 Some applications are for more than one land use.

  Food Surveillance
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 13 February,Official Report, column 94, what factors were taken into consideration by the Government in taking the decision not to publish details of individual brands sampled under the food surveillance programme.

  Mr. Ryder
  The purpose of the sampling undertaken under the programme of the steering group of food surveillance is to carry out scientific surveys of particular issues; it is not an enforcement programme. Sampling programmes are necessarily selective and do not cover every item on the market. It would therefore be inequitable to report data on those brands included when others of equal quality are excluded.

  Woodland
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 16 February,Official Report, column 357, under which grant scheme the regeneration of older woodland is taking place; and if he will provide figures to illustrate the extent to which this has happened over the past five years.

  Mr. Macgregor
  Regeneration of older woodland is taking place under all the Forestry Commission grant schemes, including the woodland grant scheme.

  The area of woodland regenerated in England over the last five years, both by the Forestry Commission and the private sector, is given in the table.

  Year ended 31 March

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  Area restocked (hectares)

  with conifers

  3,375

  2,966

  3,060

  3,532

  3,259

  with broadleaves

  1,127

  972

  1,442

  1,896

  2,068

  Area of broadleaves as percentage of total area

  25%

  25%

  32%

  35%

  39%

  Wool
  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is able to announce the guaranteed price for wool for the 1989 clip; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  Together with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, I have reviewed the state of the wool market and prospects for the 1989 clip.

  The British Wool Marketing board has achieved good prices for United Kingdom wool in 1988. Average market prices for the 1988 clip rose above the prevailing guarantee, enabling the board to make further repayments to the stabilisation fund. Stocks are low and demand continues to be good; the wool board is confident of market prospects for 1989.

  We have given careful consideration to an appropriate guarantee level for 1989 in the light of these market circumstances. We have also noted the deficit on the stabilisation fund, currently around £14·5 million and my announcement in October last year of our plans to abolish the wool guarantee. We have decided in the light of these considerations to set the price guarantee for the 1989 clip at an unchanged level, 129p/kg.

  Following the sale of the 1989 clip any remaining deficit falls to be written off under the terms of the financial agreement with the board, During the following period leading up to the termination of the guarantees for wool we would not expect to raise the price guarantee above its present level.

  Milk
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will issue the consultation paper dealing with the proposed ban on the sale of untreated milk.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The consultation paper is being issued today and seeks views on the proposal to prohibit the sale
  709
  of untreated milk for liquid consumption in England and Wales. It also seeks views on untreated cream (which poses risks similar to those arising from untreated milk) and on cheese made from unpasteurised milk. There is no proposal to introduce any prohibition on the use of unpasteurised milk in the manufacture of cheese. I am placing a copy in the Library of the House. Copies will also he made available in the Vote Office.

  White Mineral Oil
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what were the reported effects on animals of white mineral oil in the report to his Department by Shell.

  Mr. Ryder
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]The major effect in rats at all dose levels was a moderate to severe granulomatous inflammation associated with oil droplets in the mesenteric lymph nodes in both sexes and in the livers of females only.

  Listeria
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what notifications have been issued to the National Farmers Union over the past 12 months concerning the possible incidence of listeria infection in United Kingdom cheese production; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  Action over individual instances of listeria in cheese has been taken with the individual producers concerned. The NFU has been made aware of the general problem through the series of meetings of all the organisations concerned that led to the production of the code of practice for cheese producers that was issued in August 1988.

  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has received from the Food and Drink Federation concerning possible listeria infection in United Kingdom produced cheese; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  I have received no such representations from the Food and Drink Federation.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what research his Department is currently funding into the causes and incidence of listeria contamination in dairy products other than liquid milk;

  (2) what research his Department is currently funding into the causes and incidence of listeria contamination in fresh milk.

  Mr. MacGregor
  A considerable programme of research into the micrological safety of food is being undertaken and funded by my Department. This programme includes work on factors which cause the listeria organisms to multiply and methods of inhibiting such growth.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what evidence he has that milk infected with listeria became infected(a) from listeria endemic or internal to the cow or (b) through contamination from listeria in the environment.

  Mr. Ryder
  Listeria infections in cattle udders are unusual. If contamination of milk occurs, it is more likely 710
  to be due to environmental contamination. The presence of listeria in milk is minimised by ensuring that mill: is produced and processed under hygienic conditions—and the Milk and Dairies Regulations aim to achieve this.

  Cheese
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will estimate the current number of United Kingdom producers of soft cheese who use unpasteurised milk.

  Mr. Ryder
  Precise figures are not available but it is estimated that there are about 50 United Kingdom producers of soft cheese who use unpasteurised milk.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will estimate the volume of United Kingdom production for each of the last three years of soft cheese using unpasteurised milk.

  Mr. Ryder
  The latest information available to me indicates that soft cheese production during the last three years was as follows:

  Year

  Tonnes1

  1985

  900

  1986

  600

  1987

  700

  1 To the nearest 100 tonnes.

  I have no information as to the volume of this cheese that was produced from unpasteurised milk.

  Food Quality
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list those measures he has enacted in each of the last three years to improve the quality and wholesomeness of(a) home produced and (b) imported food.

  Mr. Ryder
  One of the major objectives of my Department is to maintain the quality and wholesomeness of the food supply and this is taken into account in all measures which we enact most of which apply to imported as well as home-produced food. In 1986, 20 measures were enacted including The Milk and Dairies (Heat Treatment of Cream) (Amendment) Regulations 1986, The Milk-Based Drinks (Hygiene and Heat Treatment) (Amendment) Regulations 1986 and The Horticultural Produce Act. In 1987, 15 measues were enacted including The Coffee and Coffee Products (Amendment) Regulations 1987, The Colouring Matter in Food (Amendment) Regulations 1987, The Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1987. In 1988, 14 measures were enacted including The Animals and Fresh Meat (Examination for Residues) Regulations 1988, The Animals and Fresh Meat (Hormonal Substances) Regulations 1988, The Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Food) Regulations, The Importation of Milk Regulations 1988, The Sweeteners in Food (Amendment) Regulations 1988, The Milk (Special Designation) Regulations 1988, The Milk and Dairies (Semi-skimmed and Skimmed Milk) (Heat Treatment and Labelling) Regulations 1988.

  Proposals have been issued for consultation on the following draft regulations:—

  711

  Tetrachloroethylene in Olive Oil Regulations

  Caseins and Caseinates (Amendment) Regulations

  Preserved Milk (Amendment) Regulations

  Soft Drinks Regulations

  Fish Product Regulations

  Fat Spread Products Regulations

  Amendments to Food Labelling Regulations to introduce alcoholic strength marking and restrictions on the use of the term "low alcohol"

  Regulations to ban the use of mineral hydrocarbons in food and food processing

  Preservatives in Food Regulations

  In addition I am considering proposals to limit the quantities of colouring matter in food; a number of important reviews, affecting the quality and wholesomeness of our food, are currently being undertaken by the Food Advisory Committee and, as part of the single market programme, nine Community directives were adopted, or a common position agreed, last year and these will all be implemented into United Kingdom legislation. They cover jams, fruit juices, quick-frozen food, additives, labelling, materials and articles in contact with food, foods for particular nutritional uses, batch marking and the official inspection of foodstuffs.

ENERGY

  Conservation Systems
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what steps his Department has taken to promote British-produced energy conservation systems outside the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  We continue to promote energy efficiency both at home and abroad.

  Research and Development Investment
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will publish a table of comparable annual research and development investment in renewables by Organisation of Economic, Co-operation and Development countries and a table showing the number of renewable energy research projects undertaken annually in each EEC member state since 1979.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  The table gives the expenditure on renewable energy research projects by OECD countries in 1987.

  Country

  £ million

  Canada

  6·94

  United States

  77·33

  Australia

  0·49

  Japan

  57·33

  New Zealand

  0·22

  Austria

  2·11

  Belgium

  2·56

  Denmark

  2·44

  Germany

  38·89

  Greece

  4·22

  Ireland

  0·27

  Italy

  18·06

  Netherlands

  11·33

  Norway

  1·39

  Portugal

  0·89

  Spain

  7·80

  Sweden

  8·39

  Switzerland

  6·33

  Turkey

  0·27

  United Kingdom

  15·05

  712
  Notes:

  1. This information was derived from the IEA 1987 Review, Energy Policies and Programmes of IEA Countries, published in 1988.

  2. For the United Kingdom the table includes expenditure on renewable energy R and D by Department of Energy, Department of Trade and Industry, Natural Environmental Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Council.

  No information is available on the number of renewable energy research projects undertaken annually in each EEC member state since 1979. This information has not been collected in the past by the Commission but it is currently considering setting up a database of information on member states R and D programmes. In the case of the Department's programme, over 250 projects are currently underway with 70 to 80 new projects being initiated each year.

  Nuclear Power
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list all occasions over the past year when he has discussed with Government representatives or industrialists from abroad the prospects of their purchasing United Kingdom-designed nuclear power plants or nuclear fuel services.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  The Government fully support the efforts of British industry in pursuing suitable export opportunities which would comply with our international non-proliferation obligations.

EMPLOYMENT

  Tourism
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps his Department is taking to promote British tourism abroad; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lee
  My Department promotes British tourism abroad through its sponsorship of the British Tourist Authority which undertakes a wide range of promotional and marketing activities to encourage visits to Britain from abroad.

  Prosecutions (Social Security)
  Mr. Clay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many companies have been(a) prosecuted and (b) successfully prosecuted for offences under section 55 of the Social Security Act 1986 and its predecessors, region by region, each year since 1979.

  Mr. Lee
  This information is not collated centrally and is not available for any years between 1979 and 1987. Since 1988, two companies, in Wales and Kent, have been prosecuted, both successfully, for offences under section 55 of the Social Security Act 1986.

  Labour Force Survey
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when he expects to publish the next labour force survey.
  713
  Mr. Lee
  The preliminary results of the 1988 labour force survey, together with revised employment estimates incorporating those results, will be published in the next month.

  A copy of the information being published will be placed in the Library.

  Employment Training
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the number of people who have so far registered for an ET course; what are the number and proportion which have ceased attending; and what are the main reasons for withdrawal.

  Mr. Nicholls
  By 10 February 1989, 174,500 people had started on employment training. By the end of December, the latest date for which information is available, it is estimated that about 20,000 of these people had left the programme. People leave the programme for a number of reasons such as completing their training or getting a job. Information on the numbers leaving for particular reasons is not yet available.

  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the cost of each ET placement; if this sum has changed since(a) the announcement and (b) commencement of the scheme; and if he will give his reasons for any change.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The Government expect to spend about £2,300 on average on each trainee on employment training. There has been no change in the grants and allowances for ET since the announcement and start of the programme.

  Horseracing (Safety)
  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many horseracing and equestrian establishments have been prosecuted for breaches of health and safety regulations in each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Nicholls
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]During the period 1 April 1978 to 31 March 1988 two prosecutions under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act were brought against horseracing and equestrian establishments—one in 1986 and one in 1987.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Trading Standards Officers
  Mr. Gordon Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what information he has on the number of trading standards officers in post in each year from 1978.

  Mr. Forth
  Trading standards officers (TSOs) are employed by local weights and measures authorities. Records indicate that some 1,323 TSOs were in post in 1978. Information from 1979 is held in the House of Commons Library and contained in "Trading Standards Statistics' published jointly by the Societies of County Trading Standards Officers and County Treasurers until 1987 and subsequently by CIPFA.

  Import Penetration
  Mr. Gordon Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will publish a table showing(a) the
  714
  current degree of import penetration and (b) that in December 1978 for (1) radios, (2) black and white televisions, (3) video recorders, (4) colour televisions, (5) telephone receivers, (6) refrigerators, (7) passenger motor vehicles, (8) microwave ovens, (9) calculators, (10) desk top computers, (11) computer printers, (12) word processors, (13) microchips, (14) irons, (15) commercial vehicles, (16) x-ray machines, (17) dental instruments and appliances, (18) shoes, (19) sewing machines, (20) excavators, (21) lawn mowers, (22) public transport type passenger motor vehicles, (23) burglar alarms, (24) built-in ovens, (25) hovercraft, (26) lasers, (27) vending machines, (28) dishwashers, (29) medical instruments and appliances, (30) paper, (31) wallpaper, (32) printed matter and (33) furniture, respectively.

  Mr. Forth
  The information available is shown in the table.

  Import penetration by product

  Import penetration1 per cent.

  Product

  1978

  January to September 1988

  Black and white televisions

  248

  104

  Video recorders

  n/a

  81

  Colour televisions

  18

  40

  Telephone receivers

  2

  641

  Refrigerators

  46

  51

  Cars3

  49

  456

  Microwave ovens

  n/a

  60

  Irons

  15

  65

  Commercial vehicles3

  22

  440

  X-ray machinery

  n/a

  33

  Dental instruments and appliances

  n/a

  30

  Footwear

  30

  547

  Domestic sewing machines

  37

  n/a

  Excavators

  102

  64

  Lawn mowers

  10

  n/a

  Buses and coaches3

  3

  438

  Burglar alarms (including fire alarms)

  6

  33

  Vending machines and parts

  44

  54

  Dishwashers

  n/a

  78

  Medical instruments and appliances

  47

  57

  Pulp, paper and board

  53

  563

  Wallcoverings

  6

  511

  Printed matter

  10

  511

  Wooden furniture and upholstery

  11

  20

  1 Unless otherwise stated, import penetration is defined as imports divided by home demand where home demand is estimated as United Kingdom manufacturers' sales plus imports minus exports. The figures are evaluated in value terms and may exceed 100 per cent, in products subject to a substantial degree of entrepot trading.

  2 Fourth quarter only.

  3 Based on vehicle registration data. Import penetration is defined as numbers of imported vehicles registered divided by total registrations.

  4 1988 data

  5 1987 data.

  6 Subscribers' telephone apparatus.

  Chemicals (Manufacture)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) if he will publish in the Official Report, the site locations in the United Kingdom where trichloroethylene is produced;

  (2) if he will publish in the Official Report the site location of the five plants in the United Kingdom producing ethylene dichloride;
  715
  (3) if he will publish in the Official Report the site locations in the United Kingdom where perchloroethylene is produced.

  Mr. Maude
  Within the United Kingdom, both trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene are produced at one site in Runcorn. I am aware of only four United Kingdom plants for the production of ethylene dichloride; these are at Runcorn, Wilton (Teeside), Fleetwood and Ellesmere port.

  Barlow Clowes
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will make a statement on the implications for his Department's investigation of the Barlow Clowes affair of the refusal of Singer and Friedlander to hand over the proceeds of the sale of shares in Buckleys to Harp to the liquidators of Barlow Clowes.

  Mr. Maude
  It has no implications for my Department's investigation. It is a matter for the liquidator.

  Ozone Layer
  Mr. David Young
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will indicate what action his Department is taking to encourage British industry to stop emissions that affect the ozone layer; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 21 February 1989]Officials from my Department are in regular contact with producers and users of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to consider what measures industry can take to meet the targets for CFC reductions set by the Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. Before emissions can be stopped completely, practicable and safe alternative substances, products and processes need to be developed. It is open to companies to make full use of the assistance available under schemes operated by my Department, against the relevant criteria.

WALES

  Empty Properties
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has as to the number of empty properties owned by each Welsh district council and the average time they have been empty.

  Mr. Grist
  The number of local authority dwellings vacant on 1 April 1988 is given in the following table. Data

  Name

  Place of residence

  Appointing authority

  Asby, Mrs. J. (Chairman)

  Narbeth, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Douglas W. R. (Vice-Chairman)

  Tenby, Dyfed

  South Pembrokeshire District Council

  Barton, Mrs. C. P.

  Lampeter, Dyfed

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Cawood, J. G.

  Berea, Haverfordwest

  Dyfed County Council

  Evans, M.

  Ammanford, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Evans, W. G.

  Haverfordwest, Dyfed

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Evans, W. L.

  Fishguard, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Herbert Prof. D. T.

  Swansea, West Glamorgan

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Jones, H.

  St. Dogmaels, Cardigan

  Dyfed County Council

  Luke, A. C.

  Goodwick, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Martin, T. R. L.

  Broad Haven, Haverford west

  Dyfed County Council

  Mould, P.

  Pentane, Fish guard

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Parry, C.

  Frey strop, Haverford west, Dyfed

  Secretary of State for Wales

  Parry, N. R.

  Manor bier, Tenby, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Pratt, R. C.

  Fish guard, Pembrokeshire, Dyfed

  Secretary of State for Wales

  716
  are not held centrally on the average length of time that properties have been empty but the number of these local authority dwellings that had been vacant for more than six months is given.

  Local authority vacant dwellings

  Welsh districts

  At 1 April 1988

  Vacant for more than 6 months

  Aberconwy

  30

  0

  Alyn and Deeside

  49

  4

  Arfon

  43

  0

  Blaenau Gwent

  96

  5

  Breakneck

  0

  0

  Cardiff

  399

  27

  Carmarthen

  11

  0

  Erudition

  46

  0

  Colwyn

  20

  0

  Cynon Valley

  159

  76

  Daly

  50

  7

  Infer

  0

  0

  Dwyfor

  14

  1

  Glyndwr

  154

  0

  Islwyn

  146

  22

  Llanelli

  100

  5

  Lliw Valley

  42

  22

  Meirionnydd

  19

  13

  Merthyr Tydfil

  166

  0

  Monmouth

  64

  1

  Montgomery shire

  46

  4

  Neath

  58

  0

  Newport

  178

  41

  Ogwr

  166

  0

  Port Talbot/Afan

  199

  0

  Preseli

  56

  6

  Radnor

  1

  1

  Rhondda

  59

  1

  Rhuddlan

  15

  0

  Rhymney Valley

  146

  0

  South Pembrokeshire

  11

  2

  Swansea

  118

  0

  Taff-Ely

  70

  7

  Torfaen

  211

  40

  Vale of Glamorgan

  20

  1

  Wrexham Maelor

  328

  96

  Ynys Mon

  75

  7

  Wales Total (LA)

  3,365

  389

  Source: WHO4 Relts Enquiry.

  Pembrokeshire National Park Committee
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names and main place of residence of each member of the Pembrokeshire national park committee together with the nominating authority for each member.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The information is as follows:
  717

  Name

  Place of residence

  Appointing authority

  Pullin, Rev J

  Tenby, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  Thomas, D. J.

  Llandissilio, Clynderwen

  Dyfed County Council

  Woodruff, B. R.

  Milford Haven, Dyfed

  Dyfed County Council

  School Buildings
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list by Welsh county the total capital allocation for improvements to and the construction of school buildings in each of the last 15 years.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  This information is not available. Prior to 1981–82 formal capital allocations were not issued, and since 1985–86 capital allocations have not been hypothecated to particular services. In the intervening years capital allocations for education did not differentiate between expenditure on schools and on other educational provision.

  Hospitals
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the hospitals in each district health authority.

  Mr. Grist
  The position at 30 September 1988 is given in the following table:

  Clwyd District Health Authority

  Abergele

  Broughton

  Catherine Gladstone

  Coed Du

  Colwyn Bay Community

  Denbighshire Infirmary

  Dobshill

  Flint

  Gwynfa

  HM Stanley

  Holywell

  Llangollen

  Lluesty

  Meadowslea

  Mold

  North Wales

  Penley

  Pool Park

  Prestatyn Community

  Royal Alexandra

  Ruthin

  Trevalyn

  Ysbyty Glan Clwyd

  Ysbyty Maelor

  East Dyfed District Health Authority

  Aberaeron

  Amman Valley

  Bronglais

  Bryntirion

  Cardigan

  Cartrefle Unit

  Llandovery

  Llanelli

  Mynydd Mawr

  St. Davids

  Tregaron

  West Wales General

  Gwent District Health Authority

  Abertillery

  Allt-yr-Yn

  Blaenavon Health Care Unit

  Blaina

  County, Griffithstown

  Ebbw Vale

  718

  Llanfrechfa Grange

  Monmouth

  Mount Pleasant

  Nevill Hall

  Oakdale

  Pen-y-Fal

  Pontypool

  Royal Gwent

  St. Cadoc's

  St. Lawrence

  St. Woolos

  Tredegar

  Gwynedd Distict Health Authority

  Bronygarth

  Bryn Beryl

  Brynseiont

  Bryn-y-Neuadd

  Caernarvonshire Eye and Cottage

  Cefni

  Conway

  Dolgellau and Barmouth

  Druid

  Eryri

  Ffestiniog memorial

  Garth Angharad

  Groesynyd

  Llandudno

  Llwyn View

  Madoc Memorial

  Minffordd

  Stanley Sailors

  St. David's

  Towyn

  Valley

  Ysbyty Gwynedd

  Mid Glamorgan District Health Authority

  Aberbargoed

  Aberdare

  Bridgend General

  Caerphilly District Miners

  Dewi Sant

  East Glamorgan

  Energlyn

  Fedw Hir

  Glanrhyd

  Hensol

  Llwynypia

  Llynfi

  Maesgwyn

  Maesteg

  Mardy

  Merthyr

  Mountain Ash

  Parc

  Pentwyn

  Penyfai

  Pontypridd

  Porth

  Prince Charles

  Princess of Wales

  Redwood

  Rhiwfelin

  St. Tydfils

  Talygarn

  Tonteg

  Treherbert

  Tyntyla

  Ystrad Mynach

  Pembrokeshire District Health Authority

  South Pembrokeshire

  Tenby

  719

  Withybush

  Powys District Health Authority

  Breconshire War Memorial

  Bronllys

  Brynhyfryd

  Builth

  Knighton

  Llandrindod Wells

  Llanidloes

  Llys Maldwyn

  Machynlleth and district

  Machynlleth Chest

  Mid Wales

  Montgomery County Infirmary

  St. David's

  Victoria Memorial

  Ystradgynlais Community

  South Glamorgan District Health Authority

  Barry Community

  Cardiff Royal Infirmary

  Children's ENT

  Ely

  Glan Ely

  Lansdowne

  Llandough

  Neale Kent

  Prince of Wales

  Rookwood

  Royal Hamadryad

  St. David'

  Sully

  University Hospital of Wales

  Velindre

  Whitchurch

  West Glamorgan District Health Authority

  Cefn Coed

  Clydach

  Cymla

  Fairwood

  Garngoch

  Gellinudd

  Gorseinon

  Groswen

  Hill House

  Llwyneryr

  Morriston

  Mount Pleasant

  Neath General

  Port Talbot

  Singleton

  Tonna

  CADW
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will set out in table form(a) the total expenditure on CADW maintained sites, (b) the total income from sales and admissions at CADW maintained sites, (c) the total expenditure on non-CADW maintained sites by CADW, (d) other income to CADW and (e) other expenditure by CADW in each of the past four years.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  [holding answer 16 February 1989]The total direct expenditure by CADW on each of the categories identified by my hon. Friend is shown in the following table:
  720

  £'000

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  A. Total expenditure on CADW maintained sites

  2,187

  1,940

  1,893

  2,575

  B. Total income from sales and admissions at CADW maintained sites

  1937

  1,158

  1,182

  1,415

  C. Total expenditure on non-CADW sites

  1,517

  2,215

  2,084

  2,202

  D. Other income

  1n/a

  107

  35

  382

  E. Other expenditure

  1,003

  1,669

  1,614

  2,018

  1 No breakdown of income sources B and D is available for 1984–85.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Field Workers (Exchange)
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will take steps to create an exchange of technical field workers employed in the health field between the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Under the overseas aid programme we actively encourage and support the exchange of information and experience between health workers in this country and in developing countries and between developing country workers. The exchanges take many forms. In 1987, 907 person years of training were funded in health and health-related subjects in Britain. Staff are exchanged under link arrangements which many United Kingdom institutions have with counterpart organisations in the developing world. Study tours are also arranged to enable individuals and groups from developing countries to visit this country and third countries.

  Calorie Supply
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list, for each of those countries that are actual or potential recipients of British overseas aid, the latest estimate available to his Department of(a) daily per capita calorie supply and (b) the percentage it represents of daily calorie requirements.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Information on food supply (calories per capita per day) is included in the FAO production yearbook 1987. Information on daily per capita calorie supply as a percentage of the requirement needed to maintain health is based on figures from FAO and World Bank sources. The estimates for all developing countries taken from those sources are given in the following table.

  Country

  Calories per caput supply per day 1984–86

  Daily per capita calorie supply as percentage of requirements: 1985

  Europe

  Cyprus

  —

  —

  Gibraltar

  —

  —

  Greece

  3,688

  145

  Malta

  2,878

  —

  Portugal

  3,134

  124

  Turkey

  3,146

  125

  721

  Country

  Calories per caput supply per day 1984–86

  Daily per capita calorie supply as percentage of requirements: 1985

  Yugoslavia

  3,542

  134

  Africa—North of the Sahara

  Algeria

  —

  121

  Egypt

  —

  127

  Liberia

  —

  103

  Morocco

  —

  108

  Tunisia

  —

  119

  Africa—South of the Sahara

  Angola

  —

  86

  Benin

  2,188

  94

  Botswana

  2,231

  95

  Burkina Faso

  2,047

  87

  Burundi

  2,268

  99

  Cameroon

  2,040

  89

  Cape Verde

  2,729

  —

  Central African Republic

  1,940

  92

  Chad

  —

  79

  Comoros

  2,110

  —

  Congo

  2,598

  108

  Djibouti

  —

  —

  Equatorial Guinea

  —

  —

  Ethiopia

  —

  94

  Gabon

  —

  124

  Gambia

  2,365

  —

  Ghana

  1,733

  78

  Guinea

  1,782

  85

  Guinea-Bissau

  —

  105

  Ivory Coast

  —

  102

  Kenya

  2,140

  87

  Lesotho

  2,296

  100

  Liberia

  2,357

  103

  Madagascar

  2,413

  111

  Malawi

  2,373

  95

  Mali

  2,020

  69

  Mauretania

  2,283

  97

  Mauritius

  2,736

  —

  Mayotte

  —

  —

  Mozambique

  1,608

  68

  Namibia

  —

  —

  Niger

  2,347

  97

  Nigeria

  2,114

  92

  Reunion

  3,010

  —

  Rwanda

  1,881

  87

  St. Helena

  —

  —

  Sao Tome and Principe

  2,386

  —

  Senegal

  2,336

  109

  Seychelles

  2,261

  —

  Sierra Leone

  1,868

  85

  Somalia

  2,088

  91

  Sudan

  2,074

  93

  Swaziland

  2,550

  —

  Tanzania

  2,214

  99

  Togo

  2,224

  97

  Uganda

  2,221

  109

  Zaire

  2,159

  96

  Zambia

  2,126

  85

  Zimbabwe

  2,119

  84

  America North and Central

  Anguilla

  —

  —

  Antigua

  2,089

  —

  Bahamas

  2,699

  —

  Barbados

  3,181

  —

  Belize

  2,585

  —

  Bermuda

  2,545

  —

  Cayman Islands

  —

  —

  Costa Rica

  —

  118

  Cuba

  3,107

  127

  Dominica

  2,649

  —

  Dominican Republic

  2,464

  110

  E1 Salvador

  —

  91

  Grenada

  2,408

  —

  Guadeloupe

  2,674

  —

  722

  Country

  Calories per caput supply per day 1984–86

  Daily per capita calorie supply as percentage of requirements: 1985

  Guatemala

  2,296

  99

  Haiti

  1,902

  79

  Honduras

  2,078

  95

  Jamaica

  2,581

  112

  Martinique

  2,780

  —

  Mexico

  3,148

  126

  Montserrat

  —

  —

  Netherlands Antilles

  2,925

  —

  Nicaragua

  —

  105

  Panama

  2,439

  98

  St. Kitts—Nevis

  2,349

  —

  St. Lucia

  2,499

  —

  St. Pierre et Miquelon

  2,776

  —

  St. Vincent

  —

  —

  Trinidad and Tobago

  3,058

  126

  Turks and Caicos Islands

  —

  —

  Virgin Islands

  —

  —

  America South

  Argentina

  3,191

  122

  Bolivia

  —

  88

  Brazil

  2,643

  107

  Chile

  2,574

  102

  Colombia

  2,550

  111

  Ecuador

  2,058

  88

  Falkland Islands

  —

  —

  French Guyana

  2,747

  —

  Guyana

  2,455

  —

  Paraguay

  2,843

  127

  Peru

  2,192

  34

  Surinam

  2,713

  —

  Uruguay

  2,676

  103

  Venezuela

  2,532

  95

  Asia-Middle East

  Bahrain

  —

  —

  Iran

  —

  118

  Iraq

  —

  118

  Israel

  3,038

  119

  Jordan

  —

  117

  Kuwait

  3,078

  —

  Lebanon

  —

  101

  Oman

  —

  —

  Qatar

  —

  —

  Saudi Arabia

  3,032

  132

  Syria

  3,259

  129

  United Arab Emirates

  3,713

  —

  Yemen

  2,274

  93

  Yemen (Democratic)

  2,331

  93

  Asia-South

  Afghanistan

  —

  92

  Bangladesh

  1,922

  78

  Bhutan

  —

  —

  Burma

  —

  117

  India

  2,204

  94

  Maldives

  —

  —

  Nepal

  2,050

  88

  Pakistan

  2,244

  93

  Sri Lanka

  2,436

  114

  Asia—Far East

  Brunei

  2,850

  —

  China

  2,628

  111

  Hong Kong

  2,778

  119

  Indonesia

  2,513

  109

  Kampuchea

  —

  85

  Korea (DPR)

  3,199

  126

  Korea Republic

  2,875

  117

  Laos

  —

  96

  Macao

  2,205

  —

  Malaysia

  2,723

  110

  Mongolia

  2,829

  117

  Philippines

  2,353

  101

  Singapore

  2,854

  114

  723

  Country

  Calories per caput supply per day 1984–86

  Daily per capita calorie supply as percentage of requirements: 1985

  Taiwan

  —

  —

  Thailand

  2,328

  102

  Timor

  —

  —

  Vietnam

  —

  97

  Oceania

  Cook Islands

  —

  —

  Fiji

  2,901

  —

  Kiribati

  2,939

  —

  Nauru

  —

  —

  New Caledonia

  2,984

  —

  Niue Islands

  —

  —

  Pacific Islands (United States)

  —

  —

  Papua New Guinea

  —

  79

  Pitcairn Islands

  —

  —

  Polynesia French

  —

  —

  Soloman Islands

  2,163

  —

  Tokelau Islands

  —

  —

  Tonga

  2,942

  —

  Tuvalu

  —

  —

  Vanuatu

  2,344

  —

  Wallis and Futuna

  —

  —

  Western Samoa

  —

  —

  Notes:

  Data not available is shown as '—'.

  The countries in the list are those classified as developing countries by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD.

TRANSPORT

  Lockerbie Air Disaster
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he yet has any knowledge of the type and country of origin of the explosive that brought down the Boeing 747 aircraft, flight 103 over Lockerbie; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  At the moment nothing can be added to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his statement to the House on 10 January at column 696.

  Surface Transport (Europe)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the post, ranks and responsibilities of the United Kingdom representatives due to attend the meeting of the Northern Europe Sub-Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Planning Board for European Inland Surface Transport at the Civil Defence College in the spring.

  Mr. Portillo
  One officer at grade 7 level from the Department of Transport and a major from the Ministry of Defence. Further details are confidential.

  London Airports
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has considered the Civil Aviation Authority consultative paper (CAP548); and if he will respond by initiating plans for the construction of an extra runway in the London area as soon as possible.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  CAP 548 canvasses views on what advice the CAA should offer my right hon. Friend in July 724
  on United Kingdom airport capacity and traffic distribution policy for airports serving the London area. It would be inappropriate for him to respond before the authority makes formal recommendations, in the summer.

  Talking Pelican Crossings
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many talking pelican crossings for the blind have been installed in Britain; if he will name the local authorities where they exist; and how many more are planned.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend has not approved the installation of any crossings of this type, nor has he plans to approve any, in England.

  We understand that one such crossing has been installed by Oxfordshire county council without approval.

  Information about crossings in Wales and Scotland is a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland, respectively.

  Blind People (Fares)
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many local authorities in Britain provide concessionary fares for blind people; and if he will name them.

  Mr. Portillo
  Voluntary surveys carried out in 1986 by the Department of Transport, the Scottish Office and the Welsh Office showed that in November that year there were concessionary fares schemes for the blind in 326 English and Welsh districts, some run by the districts themselves and some by the county council or passenger transport authority; and that schemes were also operated by nine regional councils and two island councils in Scotland. Further details of the schemes are given in Transport and Road Research Laboratory research report 165 on "Concessionary Fares Schemes in Great Britain 1986", a copy of which has been deposited in the library of the House. The London boroughs also operate a joint scheme for the blind covering the London area.

  Settle-Carlisle Railway
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to make a statement on the application by British Rail to withdraw services from the Settle-Carlisle section of British Railways.

  Mr. Portillo
  My right hon. Friend will make a statement when he has fully considered all the evidence before him.

  Second Severn Crossing
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will outline the envisaged timetable for(a) completion of planning and (b) length of construction of a second Severn crossing.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We hope to be in a position to select the successful tenderer by the end of the year. The shortlist of tenderers for the second Severn crossing project will be announced very soon. The length of construction will depend in part on the bids received. We expect that construction might take between three and four years.
  725
  We remain on course to provide the crossing by the mid-1990s, if traffic levels show it was needed by then.

  River Thames
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has to encourage public transport on the River Thames in London.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Government believe that riverbus services in London can contribute to the relief of road congestion and encourage the development of riverside areas in need of regeneration, particularly docklands. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has accordingly joined with me in offering to make a grant of up to £500,000 as part of a £2·5 million public/private sector initiative to promote and improve the service provided by Thamesline. The grant will be paid under section 17 of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919.

  Concrete Bridges
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will publish the report of the study carried out by G. Maunsell and Partners to determine the state of the concrete bridges for which his Department is responsible.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Yes. The report will be published by HMSO in March. The report provides valuable information on the performance of concrete bridges in service and how greater durability and better performance in the future may be achieved. The report has not revealed new problems. It has indicated that the known problems are more widespread than anticipated.

  Some provision for extra spending on the maintenance of concrete bridges has already been allowed for in the 15-year bridge rehabilitation programme announced in November 1987. This programme will be modified to take account of the extra work revealed by the study. The report confirms that our trunk road bridges are safe, despite the signs of deterioration.

  The Department's structures are regularly inspected and priority given to repairs where structural integrity or the safety of the public is in question. An increased effort is needed over the next 15 years to ensure that our bridges will continue to give useful service for their intended lives.

ENVIRONMENT

  Green Belt
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has any proposals to release land from the green belt around Doncaster; and what was the last application to do so.

  Mr Chope
  My right hon. Friend has no such proposals before him at present. A proposal to site a mobile home in the green belt at Bentley was rejected by my right hon. Friend, on appeal, in August 1988.

  Toxic Discharges
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will take steps to control or modify such processes in the paper industry that create toxic discharge, in the light of scientific evidence about environmental damage.
  726
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Major processes in the paper making industry would be subject to integrated pollution control. Proposals were made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 28 July 1988.

  Cambridge
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has considered the implications for planning policy of the study made by the department of land economy of Cambridge university of dispersal opportunities arising from the recent growth of the Cambridge sub-region; and if it is his policy to seek to relieve the pressures on the City of Cambridge by dispersing Government offices away from Cambridge to Newmarket.

  Mr. Chope
  The Department is aware of the study in question but it is too soon for the Secretary of State to consider any implications for planning policy. The study is only at draft stage and its preliminary findings have still to be accepted by the local authorities concerned. It will then be for the standing conference of East Anglian local authorities (SCEALA) to consider incorporating the report recommendations in its draft regional strategy document before submitting it to the Secretary of State for his consideration.

  There is no present policy to relocate Government offices from Cambridge to Newmarket.

  Nuclear Waste
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many litres equivalent of(a) intermediate and (b) low-level nuclear waste is currently awaiting permanent disposal in the United Kingdom.

  Mrs.Virginia Bottomley
  The latest estimates of waste accumulations in terms of volumes to be disposed are:

  Litres

  Intermediate-level waste

  59,400,000

  Low-level waste

  2,340,000

  Chloroflurocarbons
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information his Department has on the level of the release of chloroflurocarbons from landfill sites in landfill gas.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Trace quantities of chloroflurocarbons have been detected in landfill gas. They are one of many substances to be found in low concentrations in landfill gas.

  Greenhouse Gases
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what information his Department has on the level of the release of methane from landfill sites; and what assessment he has made of the impact of this release as a greenhouse gas;

  (2) what assessment his Department has made of the overall level of release of greenhouse gases from landfill sites in England.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Department is currently developing an assessment of the release from landfill sites
  727
  of methane and of carbon dioxide, the other major greenhouse gas from this source. Although the figures will not be available in time for this year's digest of environmental and water statistics, due to be published later this week, we hope to include them in next year's issue.

  Insulation Materials
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out the procedure for approving the thermal conductivity of insulation materials as satisfying the requirements of the building regulations, and the respective roles of CIBSE, the BBA and the BSI in such a procedure.

  Mr. Trippier
  Part L of the Building Regulations 1984 (in its current form) requires the calculated rate of heat loss from various parts of the exposed fabric of a new building to be within certain prescribed limits. The enforcement of these requirements is a matter for the building control authority. Practical guidance is provided in approved document L "Conservation of Fuel and Power", but the advice given in this document is not mandatory.

  The approved document advises that information about the thermal conductivity of a product should be obtained from the supplier or manufacturer, or that a value should be obtained from table A3–22 of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers guide. In the case of certain products, the approved document also advises that a test certificate should be obtained. The use of materials which comply with an appropriate British Standard or which are certified by the British Board of Agrement is another way of demonstrating that the requirements of the regulations have been met.

  Clinical Waste
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he proposes to improve the monitoring and usage of landfill sites receiving clinical waste.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Waste disposal authorities are responsible for licensing and monitoring disposal facilities.

  Guidance on best practice for the treatment and disposal of clinical waste is contained in waste management paper No. 25 published in 1983.

  A review of current practice is planned for 1989–90 and waste management paper No. 25 will be revised if necessary.

  Bats
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if his Department will analyse the study by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology on the effect of Lindane and PCP on bats.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Department of the Environment is represented on a working group on bats organised by the advisory committee on pesticides which is a group of independent experts who advise Government on pesticides. The working group will consider the report of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology on lindane and bats amongst other evidence and report its findings to the advisory committee.

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) whether he will introduce regulations that prevent personal data contained within the community charge registers being used or disclosed for purposes not connected with the community charge by the community charge registration officer or charging authority; and whether he will make a statement;

  (2) whether he will introduce regulations that prevent personal data being disclosed from community charge registers by the community charge registration officer or charging authority (a) to any Departments of State under the conditions specified in section 34(5)(a) of the Data Protection Act, if the disclosure is not for purposes connected with the community charge, (b) to the police, immigration and tax officials for the purposes specified in section 28 of the Data Protection Act, and (c) to the security services for the purposes specified in section 27 of the Data Protection Act, 1984; and whether he will make a statement;

  (3) whether he will introduce regulations that prevent personal data being disclosed from community charge registers by the community charge registration officer or charging authority to public utilities; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  No. There is no need for such regulations. Community charges registration officers and charging authorities have no power to disclose data contained in registers to any third party other than those specified in the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and regulations to be made under it.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has made any estimate of the average change in the disposable income of equestrian and agricultural workers which will result from the implementation of the poll tax in England and Wales.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]There are no plans for the introduction of a poll tax. In respect of the community charge, no such estimates can usefully be made because of the widely differing circumstances of individuals.

  Mr. Simon Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimates have been made to calculate how much it will cost Chelmsford borough council to introduce the community charge.

  Mr. Gummer
  The Government have made no estimates of the cost of introducing the community charge in Chelmsford borough council area. We commissioned Price Waterhouse to undertake an independent study of the total costs of preparation and collection for England and Wales and have allocated resources to authorities on the basis of those national forecasts.

  Common Land
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he proposes to introduce legislation on common land, on the lines recommended by the Common land forum; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We intend to introduce legislation based broadly on the report of the Common land forum at a suitable opportunity when parliamentary time permits.

  Nitrogenous Fertilisers
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with representatives of the farming industry concerning the use of nitrogenous fertilisers and their effect on water supplies.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Officials from my Department met representatives of the National Farmers Union, the Fertiliser Manufacturers Association and the Country Landowners Association on 15 December 1988 prior to the publication on 16 December of the report "The Nitrate Issue". Officials from MAFF and DTI were also present.

  Rates
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the average unrebated domestic rates bill in England in each year since 1985–86

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The figures for average unrebated domestic rates bills in England are:

  £

  1985–86

  351

  1986–87

  400

  1987–88

  429

  1988–89

  468

  Water Charges
  Mr. Madel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the chairmen of the private water companies whom he has called in to see him as a result of them announcing increases in water charges of more than 10 per cent. for the year 1989–90; what response they gave to him; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  I asked the chairmen of any company which was proposing an increase of more than 10 per cent. to come and see me. As of today I have seen 18 chairmen. One company has so far indicated to me that it proposes an increase of under 10 per cent. Discussions with a number of other companies are continuing.

  Sports Council
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he will take regarding the financial management and control of the Sports Council following the publication of the report of the National Audit Office.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The Public Accounts Committee is to take evidence on the National Audit Office's report on the Sports Council (HC 196) on 1 March. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the report before then.

  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if any staff from his Department were seconded to the Sports Council during the period covered by the National Audit Office report into the Sports Council.

  Mr. Moynihan
  A grade 5 and his personal secretary from this Department were on secondment to the Sports Council between January 1987 to February 1988.

  Cowes National Sailing Centre
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied that full consultation took place before the Cowes national sailing centre was sold.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The National Audit Office has reported on the sale of the national sailing centre at Cowes in its recent publication, HC 196. The Public Accounts Committee will be taking evidence on this report on 1 March. It would not be appropriate for me to comment in advance of the hearing.

  Hospital Waste
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of hospital waste is incinerated; what controls exist to ensure its proper disposal, together with the disposal of non high-risk waste matter; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  There are no centrally collected figures for hospital waste. Disposal outside hospital premises including mixture with other wastes must be to sites suitably licensed under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Incineration is subject to appropriate controls over emissions from combustion processes. For disposal within hospital premises the Government expect health authorities to seek to confirm with the same controls despite the existence of Crown immunity.

  Engagements
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all his official engagements for 4 January.

  Mr. Ridley
  I had no official engagements that day.

  Derbyshire and Staffordshire County Councils
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people were employed in total, both full-time and part-time(a) by Derbyshire county council and (b) by Staffordshire county council in 1981.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Derbyshire county council employed 38,408 people and Staffordshire county council employed 42,023 people in all services in June 1981.

  This compares with 47,650 for Derbyshire and 43,337 for Staffordshire in June 1988.

  Rent Levels
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has about the growth of private sector rent levels in the London boroughs over the last 18 months; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]Information on rents in London boroughs regulated under the Rent Act 1977, as amended by the 1980 Housing Act, is published in Housing and Construction Statistics 1977–1987, table 11·6, and in notes supplied to rent officers; both of these are available in the Library.

  Local Authority Services
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will give in tabular form(a)

  731
  Carrick, (b) Adur, (c) Alnwick, (d) Berwick-upon-Tweed and (e) Cheltenham district councils (i) which councils have declared themselves nuclear-free zones (ii) what is the estimated number of homeless people in the district for the most recent month for which figures are available, (iii) what is the number of empty council homes at the end of the most recent month for which figures are available and (iv) whether they have a declared policy of providing the funding for law centres;

  (2) if he will give in tabular form for (a) Southend-on-Sea, (b) Three Rivers, (c) West Lindsey, (d) Wyre Forest, (e) South Somerset and (f) Chelmsford district councils (i) which councils have declared themselves nuclear-free zones, (ii) what is the estimated number of homeless people in the district for the most recent month for which figures are available, (iii) what is the number of empty council homes at the end of the most recent month for which figures are available and (iv) whether they have a declared policy of providing the funding for law centres;

  (3) if he will give in tabular form for (a) Eastleigh, (b) Hastings, (c) Hereford, (d) Kerrier, (e) Maidstone, (f) Mendip, (g) Milton Keynes, (h) Pendle, and (i) Peterborough district councils (i) which councils have declared themselves nuclear-free zones, (ii) what is the estimated number of homeless people in the district for the most recent month for which figures are available, (iii) what is the number of empty council homes at the end of the most recent month for which figures are available and (iv) whether they have a declared policy of providing the funding for law centres.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]The information is as follows:

  The information available on homelessness relates to the number of households for which authorities have accepted responsibility to secure accommodation under the homelessness provision of the 1985 Housing Act. This information is as follows:

  Number of households accepted

  In quarter ending

  Carrick

  21

  September 1988

  Adur

  52

  March 1988

  Alnwick

  3

  June 1988

  Berwick-upon-Tweed

  3

  September 1988

  Cheltenham

  18

  September 1988

  Southend-on-Sea

  65

  September 1988

  Three Rivers

  34

  June 1988

  West Lindsey

  40

  September 1988

  Wyre Forest

  92

  September 1988

  South Somerset

  31

  September 1988

  Chelmsford

  63

  September 1988

  Eastleigh

  35

  September 1988

  Hastings

  60

  September 1988

  Hereford

  32

  September 1988

  Kerrier

  43

  September 1988

  Maidstone

  63

  September 1988

  Mendip

  37

  September 1988

  Milton Keynes

  103

  September 1988

  Pendle

  64

  September 1988

  Peterborough

  110

  September 1988

  The numbers of empty council dwellings (wherever situated) at 1 April 1988 are as follows:
  732

  Number of dwellings

  Carrick

  19

  Adur

  44

  Alnwick

  2

  Berwick-upon-Tweed

  9

  Cheltenham

  98

  Southend-on-Sea

  153

  Three Rivers

  90

  West Lindsey

  49

  Wyre Forest

  151

  South Somerset

  64

  Chelmsford

  139

  Eastleigh

  99

  Hastings

  30

  Hereford

  71

  Kerrier

  35

  Maidstone

  84

  Mendip

  52

  Milton Keynes

  57

  Pendle

  83

  Peterborough

  159

  Information is not held centrally on authorities which have declared themselves to be nuclear free zones or which have a declared policy of providing funding for law centres.

  Local Authority Expenditure
  Mr. Douglas French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will give in tabular form for(a) Carrick, (b) Adur, (c) Alnwick, (d) Berwick-upon-Tweed and (e) Cheltenham district councils (i) which political party or groups of parties control the councils, (ii) what has been the percentage change in spending by the councils in each financial year since 1986–87, (iii) what has been the change in staffing levels, in whole-time equivalents, for each year since 1985, and (iv) what has been the change in the rate poundage expressed as a percentage for each financial year since 1986 and 1987;

  (2) if he will give in tabular form for (a) Southend-on-Sea, (b) Three Rivers, (c) West Lindsey, (d) Wyre Forest, (e) South Somerset and (f) Chelmsford district councils (i) which political party or groups of parties control the councils, (ii) what has been the percentage change in spending by the council in each financial year since 1986 and 1987, (iii) what has been the change in staffing levels, in whole-time equivalent, for each year since 1985 and (iv) what has been the change in the rate poundage expressed as a percentage for each financial year since 1986 and 1987;

  (3) if he will give in tabular form for (a) Eastleigh, (b) Hastings, (c) Hereford, (d) Kerrier, (e) Maidstone, (f) Mendip, (g) Milton Keynes, (h) Pendle and (i) Peterborough district councils (i) which political party or groups of parties control the councils, (ii) what has been the percentage change in spending by the council in each financial year since 1986–87 (iii) what has been the change in staffing levels, in whole-time equivalents, for each year since 1985, and (iv) what has been the change in the rate poundage expressed as a percentage for each financial year since 1986 and 1988.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]The information for the authorities listed is as follows:
  733

  Table A

  Percentage change in net current expenditure and local rate poundage

  Percentage change in net current expenditure

  Percentage change in local rate poundages

  1986–87 to 1987–88

  1987–88 to 1988–891

  1986–87 to 1987–88

  1987–88 to 1988–89

  Adur

  4·9

  11·8

  34·0

  7·6

  Alnwick

  14·9

  23·0

  -5·9

  22·0

  Berwick-upon-Tweed

  6·3

  11·6

  0·0

  16·9

  Carrick

  17·3

  9·4

  5·0

  14·7

  Chelmsford

  32·5

  16·3

  -11·7

  35·9

  Cheltenham

  12·0

  5·4

  15·2

  5·0

  Eastleigh

  6·4

  53·0

  0·1

  5·9

  Hastings

  17·4

  16·6

  7·4

  4·8

  Hereford

  11·4

  4·2

  0·0

  -33·6

  Kerrier

  11·5

  24·0

  2·6

  17·2

  Maidstone

  27·6

  3·5

  6·4

  1·3

  Mendip

  20·8

  10·5

  4·0

  11·5

  Milton Keynes

  20·7

  47·7

  0·0

  3·9

  Pendle

  10·6

  14·7

  9·3

  9·6

  Peterborough

  19·7

  10·6

  0·0

  8·8

  South Somerset

  11·7

  22·6

  3·6

  31·2

  Southend-on-Sea

  9·0

  12·1

  -4·5

  0·0

  Three Rivers

  5·2

  17·4

  6·5

  0·8

  West Lindsey

  60·6

  13·9

  4·4

  7·1

  Wyre Forest

  3·8

  23·5

  -0·6

  13·6

  1 Using local authority budgets.

  Table B

  Changes in staffing levels1 since 1985

  Authority

  Total staff (FT plus PT)2

  Changes at June, compared with a year earlier

  at June 1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  Adur

  431

  +3

  -4

  3—

  Alnwick

  203

  +1

  +10

  -6

  Berwick-upon-Tweed

  193

  -8

  -6

  -1

  Carrick

  504

  +12

  +11

  +41

  Chelmsford

  876

  +13

  +20

  +29

  Cheltenham

  813

  +19

  +36

  3—

  Eastleigh

  554

  -9

  -1

  +20

  Hastings

  831

  +17

  +33

  +39

  Hereford

  514

  +6

  +15

  +26

  Kerrier

  545

  -14

  +25

  +24

  Maidstone

  1,027

  -18

  -95

  +15

  Mendip

  317

  +11

  +5

  -2

  Milton Keynes

  869

  +20

  -10

  +1

  Pendle

  814

  +47

  3—

  3—

  Peterborough

  3—

  3—

  3—

  3—

  South Somerset

  725

  +4

  +26

  +3

  Southend-on-Sea

  1,737

  +45

  -350

  +23

  Three Rivers

  500

  -17

  +10

  +10

  West Lindsey

  412

  +2

  +2

  +8

  Wyre Forest

  906

  +60

  +66

  +2

  1 Figures are for general services (i.e. excluding law and order services).

  2 Full-time equivalent figures are not available at individual authority level.

  3 Data not available.

  Seven authorities of those listed, namely adur, Carrick, Chelmsford, Eastleigh, Hereford, South Somerset and Three Rivers, are currently controlled by a single party. In each case SLD has overall control.

  Local Authorities (Expenditure Assessments)
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will list those local authorities which in the financial years 1987–88, and 1988–89, have used their financial reserves to support spending levels above their grant-related expenditure assessments.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 20 February 1989]: The authorities which have used their financial reserves (1) to
  734
  support spending levels (2) above their grant related expenditure assessments in 1987–88 are given in list A and in 1988–89 are given in list B.

  Note:

  (1) Defined as use of balances and/or unallocated contributions from special and capital funds.

  (2) Defined as the latest available "total expenditure" returned by authorities.

  1987–88—List A

  Avon

  Buckinghamshire

  Cheshire

  Cleveland

  Derbyshire

  Durham

  Gloucestershire

  Humberside

  Isle of Wight

  Lancashire

  Leicestershire

  Northamptonshire

  Northumberland

  Somerset

  Bury

  Manchester

  Oldham

  Salford

  Tameside

  Wigan

  Liverpool

  Sheffield

  Gateshead

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  North Tyneside

  South Tyneside

  Sunderland

  Walsall

  Wolverhampton

  Bradford

  Calderdale

  Kirklees

  Wakefield

  I.L.E.A.

  735

  Camden

  Greenwich

  Hackney

  Lewisham

  Southwark

  Tower Hamlets

  Wandsworth

  Barnet

  Bexley

  Brent

  Haringey

  Hounslow

  Newham

  Richmond-upon-Thames

  Bristol

  Northhavon

  Luton

  Reading

  Chiltern

  Crewe and Nantwich

  Ellesmere and Neston

  Warrington

  Hartlepool

  Middlesbrough

  Stockton on Tees

  Kerrier

  South Lakeland

  Erewash

  Exeter

  Torbay

  Torridge

  Weymouth and Portland

  Darlington

  Derwentside

  Durham

  Teesdale

  Brighton

  Eastbourne

  Basildon

  Castle Point

  Rochford

  Thurrock

  Gloucester

  Stroud

  East Hampshire

  Southampton

  Dacorum

  East Hertfordshire

  Hertsmere

  North Hertfordshire

  Stevenage

  Holderness

  East Yorkshire

  Medina

  South Wight

  Canterbury

  Tunbridge Wells

  736

  Lancaster

  Preston

  West Lancashire

  Leicester

  North West Leicester

  Boston

  Norwich

  Corby

  Daventry

  Kettering

  Northampton

  Blyth Valley

  Wansbeck

  Harrogate

  Scarborough

  Ashfield

  Bassetlaw

  Gedling

  Newark and Sherwood

  Nottingham

  Oxford

  Oswestry

  Shrewsbury and Atcham

  Ipswich

  Elmbridge

  Epsom and Ewell

  North Warwickshire

  North Wiltshire

  Metropolitan Police Authority

  Greater Manchester Police Authority

  West Midlands Police Authority

  Merseyside Fire Authority

  West Midlands Fire Authority

  West Yorkshire Fire Authority

  Greater Manchester Transport Authority

  Merseyside Transport Authority

  1988–89—List B

  Avon

  Bedfordshire

  Buckinghamshire

  Cambridgeshire

  Cheshire

  Cleveland

  Cumbria

  Essex

  Gloucestershire

  Hertfordshire

  Lancashire

  Leicestershire

  Northamptonshire

  Northumberland

  North Yorkshire

  Nottinghamshire

  Oxfordshire

  Somerset

  Staffordshire

  Surrey

  Warwickshire

  Wiltshire

  Bolton

  Bury

  Manchester

  737

  Rochdale

  Salford

  Stockport

  Tameside

  Wigan

  Knowsley

  Liverpool

  St. Helens

  Sefton

  Wirral

  Doncaster

  Rotherham

  Gateshead

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  North Tyneside

  South Tyneside

  Sunderland

  Birmingham

  Coventry

  Dudley

  Sandwell

  Walsall

  Wolverhampton

  Bradford

  Calderdale

  Kirklees

  Leeds

  Wakefield

  I.L.E.A.

  Camden

  Greenwich

  Islington

  Lambeth

  Lewisham

  Southwark

  Barking and Dagenham

  Ealing

  Harrow

  Hillingdon

  Kingston-upon-Thames

  Newham

  Richmond-upon-Thames

  Sutton

  Waltham Forest

  Northavon

  Woodspring

  North Bedfordshire

  Mid Bedfordshire

  South Bedfordshire

  Reading

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  Wokingham

  South Bucks

  Chiltern

  Milton Keynes

  Wycombe

  Peterborough

  Chester

  Congleton

  Crewe and Nantwich

  Halton

  Macclesfield

  Vale Royal

  Warrington

  Hartlepool

  Langbaurgh

  738

  Middlesbrough

  Stockton on Tees

  Caradon

  Carrick

  Kerrier

  Allerdale

  Carlisle

  Copeland

  South Lakeland

  Amber Valley

  Bolsover

  Chesterfield

  Derby

  Erewash

  High Peak

  North East Derbyshire

  South Derbyshire

  Derbyshire Dales

  Mid Devon

  Torbay

  Bournemouth

  Chester le Street

  Darlington

  Derwentside

  Durham

  Easington

  Sedgefield

  Teesdale

  Wear Valley

  Eastbourne

  Hastings

  Lewes

  Rother

  Basildon

  Brentwood

  Castle Point

  Chelmsford

  Epping Forest

  Harlow

  Maldon

  Rochford

  Southend on Sea

  Tendring

  Uttlesford

  Gloucester

  Stroud

  East Hampshire

  Eastleigh

  Hart

  New Forest

  Portsmouth

  Rushmoor

  Southampton

  Winchester

  Leominster

  Malvern Hills

  Redditch

  Worcester

  Wychavon

  Wyre Forest

  Dacorum

  East Hertfordshire

  North Hertfordshire

  St. Albans

  Stevenage

  Three Rivers

  Watford

  739

  Beverley

  Boothferry

  Cleethorpes

  Glanford

  Great Grimsby

  Holderness

  Scunthorpe

  Medina

  South Wight

  Ashford

  Canterbury

  Dover

  Gravesham

  Maidstone

  Sevenoaks

  Shepway

  Swale

  Thanet

  Tonbridge and Mailing

  Tunbridge Wells

  Blackburn

  Blackpool

  Burnley

  Chorley

  Fylde

  Hyndburn

  Lancaster

  Pendle

  Preston

  Ribble Valley

  Rossendale

  South Ribble

  West Lancashire

  Wyre

  Harborough

  Leicester

  Melton

  North West Leicester

  Oadby and Wigston

  Boston

  East Lindsey

  Lincoln

  North Kesteven

  South Kesteven

  West Lindsey

  Great Yarmouth

  Norwich

  Corby

  Daventry

  Northampton

  Alnwick

  Blyth Valley

  Tynedale

  Wansbeck

  Craven

  Hambleton

  Harrogate

  Richmondshire

  Scarborough

  Selby

  Ashfield

  Bassetlaw

  Broxtowe

  Gedling

  Mansfield

  Newark and Sherwood

  Nottingham

  Rushcliffe

  Oxford

  740

  North Shropshire

  Shrewsbury and Atcham

  The Wrekin

  Sedgemoor

  Cannock Chase

  Newcastle Under Lyme

  Stafford

  Staffs. Moorlands

  Stoke-on-Trent

  Babergh

  Forest Heath

  Ipswich

  Mid Suffolk

  Suffolk coastal

  Epsom and Ewell

  Guildford

  Reigate and Banstead

  Spelthorne

  Tandridge

  Waverley

  North Warwickshire

  Rugby

  Stratford-on-Avon

  Warwick

  Adur

  Arun

  Crawley

  Worthing

  North Wiltshire

  Thamesdown

  West Wiltshire

  Greater Manchester Police Authority

  South Yorkshire Police Authority

  West Midlands Police Authority

  West Yorkshire Police Authority

  Greater Manchester Fire Authority

  Merseyside Fire Authority

  South Yorkshire Fire Authority

  Tyne and Wear Fire Authority

  West Midlands Fire Authority

  West Yorkshire Fire Authority

  Greater Manchester Transport Authority

  Tyne and Wear Transport Authority

  Local Councils (Statistics)
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give in tabular form for(a) the London borough of Tower Hamlets, (b) the London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, (c) the London borough of Sutton, (d) Calderdale Metropolitan district council and (e) Stockport Metropolitan district council (i) which councils are nuclear-free zones, (ii) which councils, acting as a local education authority, employ staff to teach peace studies as part of the curriculum, (iii) what is the estimated number of homeless people in the district for the most recent month for which figures are available, (iv) what is the number of empty council homes at the end of the most recent month for which figures are available and (vi) whether they have a declared policy of providing the funding for law centres.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 13 February 1989]The information available on homelessness relates to the number of households for which authorities have accepted
  741
  responsibility to secure accommodation under the homelessness provision of the 1985 Housing Act. This information is as follows:

  Number of households accepted

  in quarter ending

  Tower Hamlets

  332

  March 1988

  Richmond

  89

  September 1988

  Sutton

  105

  September 1988

  Calderdale

  56

  September 1988

  Stockport

  120

  September 1988

  The numbers of empty council dwellings at the first of April 1988 are as follows:

  Number of dwellings

  Tower Hamlets

  2,526

  Richmond

  154

  Sutton

  110

  Calderdale

  448

  Stockport

  452

  Information is not held centrally on authorities which have declared themselves to be nuclear free zones, or which employ staff to teach peace studies as part of the curriculum, or which have a declared policy of providing funding for law centres.

  Homeless Families
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest estimate of the comparative public sector revenue costs of housing homeless families in(a) Greater London and (b) in English non-metropolitan areas by (i) providing them with newly built council dwellings, (ii) providing them with council dwellings newly acquired from the private sector and improved for letting, and (iii) providing them with bed and breakfast accommodation; and if he will publish these figures on a comparable basis with those published in his replies to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) on 16 January, Official Report, columns 331–32 and on 4 March 1987,Official Report, column 639.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 16 February 1989]: Estimates for 1987–88 are as follows:

  Greater London £

  English metropolitan areas £

  New build

  8,200

  5,000

  Acquisition and renovation

  8,200

  5,500

  Bed and breakfast

  40

  15

  Notes:

  1 . The estimates for new build and for acquisition and renovation show the total first year costs to local authorities of the accommodation shown;

  2. Estimates of average new build and renovation costs were derived from information provided by local authorities in housing subsidy and can show significant variation from authority to authority and year to year reflecting differences in the mix of work undertaken,

  3. The bed and breakfast figures are gross costs per household day and are based on returns to CIPFA from those local authorities providing information on both gross expenditure on bed and breakfast and the number of household days of bed and breakfast provided.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Schools (Surplus Places)
  Mr. Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what he estimates to be the number of surplus places in Oxfordshire for (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools; and the cost of such places.

  Mr. Butcher
  Information about the number of surplus places in individual local education authorities is not held centrally.

  Parental Rights
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a further statement detailing existing parental rights with regard to out of catchment area exceptional admissions to primary and secondary schools.

  Mr. Butcher
  Under section 6 of the Education Act 1980, parents have the right to express a preference as to the school at which they want their child to be educated, and that preference has to be met if the child is eligible and there is a place available at the school of the parents' choice. These rights exist irrespective of whether the parents live in a defined area, although pupils living near the school are sometimes given priority if there are more applicants than available places.

  Special Boarding Schools
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what advice he has received from the working party considering the future of Inner London education authority special boarding schools; and what steps he proposes to take to consult the parents concerned before reaching a final decision.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 22 February 1989 to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey).

  GCSE
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what appeal procedure exists for teachers whose school-based examination syllabus is rejected by the GCSE board; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  It is entirely a matter for individual Examining Groups to determine which syllabuses they offer. All GCSE syllabuses must conform to national criteria. Syllabuses in subjects for which there are specific criteria must also be approved by the School Examinations and Assessment Council. SEAC will always indicate necessary modifications in cases where it withholds approval.

  ILEA Dwellings
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has about the total number of dwellings in Greater London owned by the Inner London education authority which are unlawfully occupied.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Information on this subject is not held by my Department.

SCOTLAND

  Rural Areas (Jobs)
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many public sector jobs there were in rural areas in Scotland at the latest date for which figures are available; and how many there were in 1979.

  Mr. Rifkind
  The information requested is not available.

  Job Creation
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many jobs have been created in Scotland since 1983, how many of them are self-employed, how many are part-time; and how many he estimates are in rural areas.

  Mr. Rifkind
  It is estimated that between September 1983 and September 1988 the civilian work force in employment in Scotland increased by 41,000. In this period the number of self-employed increased by 22,000 and the number of female part-time employees in employment increased by 52,000. These estimates may be revised when the results of the 1987 census of employment and the 1988 labour force survey become available. Comparable figures are not available for the self-employed working part-time and for male part-time employees in employment. It is not possible to provide comparable information for rural areas in Scotland.

  Constituency Registers
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the Official Report the total number of people in each parliamentary constituency in Scotland listed on (a) the electoral registers for 1988–89, (b) the electoral registers for 1989–90 and (c) the poll tax registers for 1989–90

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The following table compares the numbers on the electoral registers published in February 1988 and February 1989. Information about the numbers on the community charges register in each constituency is not held centrally.

  Constituency

  Number of electors

  1988 electoral register

  1989 electoral register

  Aberdeen North

  62,075

  60,604

  Aberdeen South

  60,323

  58,947

  Angus East

  61,643

  61,899

  Argyll and Bute

  48,912

  48,695

  Ayr

  67,063

  66,545

  Banff and Buchan

  63,054

  62,830

  Caithness and Sutherland

  30,978

  31,031

  Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley

  56,708

  56,338

  Central Fife

  56,440

  56,183

  Clackmannan

  49,127

  48,757

  Clydebank and Milngavie

  50,128

  49,075

  Clydesdale

  62,602

  62,456

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth

  46,392

  46,345

  Cunninghame North

  55,566

  55,262

  Cunninghame South

  50,414

  49,931

  Dumbarton

  59,369

  58,328

  Dumfries

  59,972

  59,962

  Dundee East

  61,221

  60,394

  744

  Constituency

  Number of electors

  1988 electoral register

  1989 electoral register

  Dundee West

  61,445

  60,246

  Dunfermline East

  51,008

  50,894

  Dunfermline West

  51,384

  51,413

  East Kilbride

  63,956

  63,715

  East Lothian

  65,542

  66,108

  Eastwood

  62,839

  63,483

  Edinburgh Central

  58,975

  57,069

  Edinburgh East

  48,745

  47,802

  Edinburgh Leith

  60,031

  58,984

  Edinburgh Pentlands

  58,884

  58,538

  Edinburgh South

  64,026

  62,452

  Edinburgh West

  62,652

  61,172

  Falkirk East

  52,737

  52,679

  Falkirk West

  50,606

  50,506

  Galloway and Upper Nithsdale

  53,621

  53,481

  Glasgow Cathcart

  48,767

  47,702

  Glasgow Central

  50,867

  50,535

  Glasgow Garscadden

  46,916

  44,931

  Glasgow Govan

  50,190

  48,908

  Glasgow Hillhead

  57,704

  56,718

  Glasgow Maryhill

  52,039

  50,589

  Glasgow Pollok

  50,829

  49,497

  Glasgow Provan

  42,908

  41,086

  Glasgow Rutherglen

  56,929

  55,695

  Glasgow Shettleston

  53,883

  53,254

  Glasgow Springburn

  50,489

  48,785

  Gordon

  75,228

  75,537

  Greenock and Port Glasgow

  57,339

  55,612

  Hamilton

  63,167

  62,688

  Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber

  66,695

  67,262

  Kilmarnock and Loudoun

  63,325

  62,834

  Kincardine and Deeside

  64,398

  64,432

  Kirkcaldy

  53,823

  53,626

  Linlithgow

  60,584

  61,135

  Livingston

  58,008

  59,533

  Midlothian

  61,139

  61,089

  Monklands East

  50,271

  49,533

  Monklands West

  51,300

  50,450

  Moray

  63,206

  62,840

  Motherwell North

  58,331

  57,971

  Motherwell South

  52,599

  51,704

  North East Fife

  52,442

  52,313

  North Tayside

  54,582

  54,367

  Orkney and Shetland

  31,180

  31,115

  Paisley North

  48,973

  48,213

  Paisley South

  50,403

  49,595

  Perth and Kinross

  63,957

  64,505

  Renfrew West and Inverclyde

  57,025

  57,234

  Ross, Cromarty and Skye

  52,278

  53,062

  Roxburgh and Berwickshire

  43,631

  43,484

  Stirling

  58,715

  58,387

  Strathkelvin and Bearsden

  63,296

  62,706

  Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale

  38,438

  38,773

  Western Isles

  23,085

  23,097

  Total

  3,967,377

  3,932,921

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will introduce regulations to restrict the sale, copying or inspection of the electoral register when the electoral registrar obtains information from the poll tax registers.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  No. The considerations governing the sale, copying and inspection of the electoral register have not altered since the present policy was reviewed in 1985–86. The Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 1986 already forbid the supply of data which is not required to be published in the register itself.

  Local Government and Housing Bill
  Mr. McTaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any information on the number of people who will be affected by the provisions of the Local Government and Housing Bill relating to political officers who are currently serving councillors.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  This information is not held centrally.

  New Towns
  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, pursuant to his answer of 1 February,Official Report, column 317, to the hon. Member for East Kilbride, he will give the updated list of bodies and organisations which have responded To Whom It May Concern: the consultation document "The Scottish New Towns—Maintaining the Momentum."

  Mr. Lang
  I am pleased to note that over 100 bodies and organisations have responded to the consultation document. The comprehensive list requested by the hon. Member for East Kilbride is as follows:

  Abronhill Community Council (Cumbernauld)

  Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston Enterprise Trust

  Ayrshire and Arran Health Board

  Ayrshire. Chamber of Industries

  Barclay and Cameron Way Residents Association (Livingston)

  Bathgate Area Support for Enterprise Ltd (BASE)

  Beckman Industrial Ltd

  Bellsquarry Community Council (Livingston)

  Broomlands and Bourtreehill Residents Association

  Busby East Church

  Calderwood Community Council

  Church of Scotland Department of Ministry and Mission

  City of Glasgow

  Coleman Ballantine Architects, Glasgow

  Collydean Residents/Tenants Association (Glenrothes)

  Condorrat Community Council (Cumbernauld)

  Craigshill Initiative (Livingston)

  Crofthead Farm Community Centre

  Cumbernauld Business Associations

  Cumbernauld Citizens Advice Bureau

  Cumbernauld Development Corporation

  Cumbernauld and District Trades Council

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Constituency Association Scottish National Party

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Constituency Labour Party

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth District Council

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Enterprise Trust

  Cumbernauld Ministers' Fraternal

  Cumbernauld Theatre Trust Ltd

  Cunninghame District Council

  Deans Community High School (Livingston)

  Deans and District Labour Party (Livingston)

  746

  Deans Senior Citizens' Club (Livingston)

  Dedridge Community Council (Livingston)

  Donaldsons

  Dundee and Tayside Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Fife Branch

  East Kilbride Central Branch, Scottish National Party

  East Kilbride Chamber of Commerce

  East Kilbride Christian Council

  East Kilbride Citizens Advice Bureau

  East Kilbride Development Corporation

  East Kilbride District Council

  East Kilbride Fabian Society

  East Kilbride Old Parish Church

  East Kilbride Residents Federation

  East Kilbride Voluntary Organisation's Council

  Fife Regional Council

  Fraser and Partner, Business Managers, Glenrothes

  Girdle Toll and Bourtreehill Community Council (Cumbernauld)

  Glenrothes Development Corporation

  Glenrothes Enterprise Trust Ltd.

  Glenrothes Residents Council

  Hamilton District Council

  Housing Architects Group Irvine Development Corporation

  Institute of Housing in Scotland

  Irvine Development Corporation

  Kildrum Parish Church

  King and Co.

  Kirkcaldy District Council

  Knightsridge Community Council (Livingston)

  Knightsridge West Residents Association (Livingston)

  Labour Party Scottish Council

  Landscape Institute Scotland

  Livingston Constituency Labour Party

  Livingston Development Corporation

  Livingston East Branch, Scottish National Party

  Livingston Ecumenical Parish

  Livingston Federation of Residents and Tenants Association

  Livingston Industrial and Commercial Association

  Livingston Justice and Peace Group

  Livingston Voluntary Organisations Council

  Lothian Regional Council

  Motherwell District Council

  Murieston Residents' Association (Livingston)

  National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO)

  Neighbourhood Care Networks (Livingston)

  Scottish Building Employers' Federation

  Scottish Church's Industrial Mission

  Scottish Community Woods Campaign

  Scottish Consumer Council

  Scottish Council for Single Homeless

  Scottish Democrats

  Scottish Development Agency

  Scottish Engineering Employers' Association

  Scottish Federation of Housing Associations

  Scottish Homes

  Scottish Local Authorities with New Towns (SLANT)

  Scottish National Party

  Scottish New Towns Housing Association

  Scottish Old Age Pensions Association

  Scottish Society of Directors of Planning

  Scottish Special Housing Association

  Scottish Wildlife Trust

  Sealand Industries PLC Cumbernauld

  Sixth Year Cumbernauld High School

  Strathclyde Regional Council

  The Building Societies Association

  The Royal Town Planning Institute

  Town and Country Planning Association

  West Lothian College of Further Education

  West Lothian District Council

  Whinneyknowe and Balgeddie Meadows Residents Association (Glenrothes)

  Rates
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the level of domestic rates relief in each year since 1985–86.
  747
  Mr. Lang
  The information requested is set out in the table.

  Total domestic element £ million

  1985–86

  102·9

  1986–87

  91·3

  1987–88

  90·8

  1988–89

  91·9

  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the average unrebated domestic rates bill in each year since 1985–86.

  Mr. Lang
  The information requested is set out in the table.

  Scotland average unrebated domestic rate bill £

  1985–86

  392

  1986–87

  417

  1987–88

  474

  1988–89

  495

  Rating Valuation and Practice
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made in the talks between the rating assessors in Scotland and the Inland Revenue with regard to harmonisation of rating valuation and practice north and south of the border; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lang
  The talks between the Scottish Assessors' Association and the Inland Revenue valuation office have made significant progress. The major areas of cross-border difference have been identified and the underlying causes analysed. The discussions have concentrated on identifying areas where progress could be made in the 1990 revaluation, broadly within the present statutory and case law framework, and on identifying where subsequent changes in the law will be necessary. Powers to allow the Secretary of State to prescribe methods of valuation for particular subjects were taken in the Local Government Finance Act 1988 specifically to promote harmonisation.

  In the case of the majority of subjects valued on the basis of rental evidence, the outcome of the harmonisation discussions will be to ensure that the handling and interpretation of the evidence north and south of the border is in line.

  The discussions have identified certain classes of subjects where there have been more fundamental differences of practice north and south of the border. There will now be moves towards a more common approach, within the constraints of statute and case law, and the result of this is expected to be the closing of many of the major gaps which have existed between valuations under the two systems. We are giving serious consideration along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to the use of powers taken in the 1988 Act to allow prescription of common decapitalisation rates north and south of the border for properties valued on the
  748
  contractor's basis. One area of difficulty relates to the valuation of plant and machinery, which is carried out in accordance with different statutory rules in Scotland and in England and Wales. Analysis of the differences in terms of the effect on valuation is complex. The harmonisation discussions have concluded that it would be impracticable to seek to make changes before the 1990 revaluation but, as we have already announced, we are to set up a committee to advise on this matter with a view to achieving harmonisation as soon as possible thereafter.

  Mr. Manouchehr Tehrani
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent representations he has received regarding the dismissal of Mr. Manouchehr Tehrani from his employment as a consultant surgeon at the Inverclyde royal hospital, by the Argyll and Clyde Health Board; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  My right hon. and learned Friend has received a number of representations. Solicitors acting for Mr. Tehrani have lodged notices of appeal to the Secretary of State against his summary dismissal by the Argyll and Clyde health board in accordance with NHS terms and conditions of service. On Mr. Tehrani's application the health board's decision to dismiss him summarily is subject to proceedings for judicial review, and my right hon. and learned Friend has deferred consideration of the applications for appeal meantime.

  Hospitals
  Mr. Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the hospitals in each health board.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  This information is included in the annual publication "Scottish Health Service Costs", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Assisted Places Scheme
  Mr. Allan Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has decided the amount of fee remission grant to allocate to schools participating in the assisted places scheme in respect of session 1989–90.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The allocations of fee remission grant for 1988–89 are shown in the table. I have decided to admit two additional schools to the scheme, Hamilton college, and Oxenfoord Castle school, Midlothian, which are included in the table and I am also currently looking at an extension of the scheme to cover pupils in the later stages of preparatory schools in the 1989–90 session. Overall, these allocations and the extension of the scheme to the preparatory sector should result in a significant increase in the number of pupils being assisted from the current level of about 2,670 to about 2,830 and there will be further expansion to bring the total benefiting to about 3,000 by the 1991–92 academic session. The scheme will continue to concentrate assistance on less well-off families, increasing their opportunities to exercise real choice in the education of their children.

  School

  £

  Albyn School for Girls, Aberdeen

  34,00

  Belmont House School, Newton Mearns

  38,000

  Craigholme School for Girls, Glasgow

  56,000

  749

  School

  £

  Dollar Academy

  126,000

  Edinburgh Academy

  122,000

  Fernhill School, Glasgow

  75,000

  Fettes College, Edinburgh

  115,000

  Fort Augustus Abbey School

  120,000

  George Heriot's School, Edinburgh

  465,000

  Glasgow Academy

  85,000

  Glenalmond College, Perthshire

  162,00

  Gordonstoun School, Morayshire

  100,000

  Hamilton College

  16,000

  The High School of Dundee

  364,000

  The High School of Glasgow

  119,000

  Hutchesons' Grammar School, Glasgow

  247,000

  Keil School, Dumbarton

  143,000

  Kelvinside Academy, Glasgow

  136,000

  Kilgraston (Convent of the Sacred Heart), Perthshire

  116,000

  Kilquhanity House School, Castle Douglas

  35,000

  Lomond School, Helensburgh

  113,00

  Loretto School, Musselburgh

  100,000

  Merchant Company Schools, Edinburgh

  1,250,000

  Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh

  199,000

  Morrison's Academy, Crieff

  320,000

  Oxenfoord Castle School, Midlothian

  12,000

  Rannoch School, Perthshire

  88,000

  Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen

  100,000

  Rudolf Steiner School of Edinburgh

  120,000

  St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow

  260,000

  St. Denis and Cranley School, Edinburgh

  57,000

  St. George's School for Girls, Edinburgh

  41,000

  St. Leonard's School, St. Andrews

  71,000

  St. Margaret's School for Girls, Aberdeen

  29,000

  St. Margret's School for Girls, Edinburgh

  131,000

  Strathallan School, Forgandenny, Perthshire

  151,000

  Wellington School, Ayr

  93,000

  West of Scotland School Company

  571,000

  Total

  6,380,000

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will announce the statistics for the assisted places scheme in Scotland in the 1988–89 school session and the income scale which will apply to the scheme in school session 1989–90.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  At the beginning of the current school session there were 2,543 pupils receiving assistance under the assisted places scheme. Additional pupils will be admitted to assisted places throughout the 1988–89 school session and I expect that the final total will be broadly in line with that for the 1987–88 session, when 2,670 pupils benefited.

  The scheme continues to concentrate assistance on lower income families. In 1988–89 1,108 pupils (44 per cent. of those in the scheme) will be receiving full fee remission because they have a family income of £7,258 per annum or less. A further 121 pupils (4 per cent.) have family incomes between £7,259 and £8,000 per annum and 86 (3 per cent.) between £8,001 and £8,500.

  For school session 1989–90 I propose to lay regulations before the House in due course providing for progressive parental contributions for one assisted pupil in relation to family income as follows:

  Part of relevant income to which the specified percentage applies

  Parental contribution (percentage)

  That part (if any) which exceeds £7,418 but does not exceed £8,066

  9

  That part (if any) which exceeds £8,066 but does not exceed £8,725

  12

  That part (if any) which exceeds £8,725 but does not exceed £10,032

  15

  750

  Part of relevant income to which the specified percentage applies

  Parental contribution (percentage)

  That part (if any) which exceeds £10,032 but does not exceed £12,043

  21

  That part (if any) which exceeds £12,043 but does not exceed £14,668

  24

  That part (if any) which exceeds £14,668

  33

  The relevant income scale is open ended, but the remission can of course be given only where the parental contribution is less than the school tuition fee.

  Forestry
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many applications for forestry grants in Scotland were made in the year to March 1988; how many were referred to regional advisory committees; how many were completely rejected; and how many were accepted in modified form.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Forestry Commission received 1,530 applications for grant in Scotland in the year to 31 March 1988. Of these, 34 were referred to regional advisory committees, of which six were refused and 20 were approved after modifications.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Palestinian Uprising
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's consul general in Jerusalem has conveyed to local Palestinian leaders the views of Her Majesty's Government on call number 34, issued by the unified national leadership of the uprising, describing 23 and 25 February as days of Palestinian Molotovs.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  We share the hon. Member's concern over the use of violence in the occupied territories. The membership of the "unified national leadership of the uprising" is anonymous, but Her Majesty's consul general in Jerusalem has repeated our concern in his contacts with leading Palestinians.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has communicated to the Palestine Liberation Organisation its views on the proposal contained in call number 34 that 23 and 25 February should be days of Palestinian Molotovs.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  We share the hon. Member's concern over the use of violence in the occupied territories, and have made our views clear to representatives of the PLO.

  Mr. Charles Bester
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will specify the criteria on which his decisions to make representations to the South African Government on behalf of the Sharpeville Six and Nelson Mandela, but not in the case of Mr. Charles Bester, were based.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Each case is considered on its individual merits.

  Prisoners of Conscience
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make a statement of the criteria he applies when deciding whether or not to intervene with national governments on behalf of prisoners of conscience.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Each case is considered on its individual merits.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the countries to which he has made representations on behalf of prisoners of conscience during the past 10 years.

  Mrs. Chalker
  This information is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  South Africa (Prisoners)
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the names of those in custody in the Republic of South Africa on whose behalf representations have been made by Her Majesty's Government to the Government of South Africa, together with the offence under which the prisoners were charged, and the number of occasions on which representations have been made since 1979 to the present.

  Mrs. Chalker
  This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  Vietnamese Refugees
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if in the light of the agreement by the United States of America, Canada and Australia to admit more Vietnamese refugees, he will now confirm the agreement to increase the United Kingdom quota announced on 22 December 1988; what the arrangements will be for the increased numbers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  Pursuant to the answer my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State gave to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) on 21 February at column 539, we announced on 22 December 1988 that we were prepared in principle to contribute to a major international effort to tackle the problem of Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong by taking a further 1,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong over two to three years, provided that others were prepared to contribute commensurately. We have conducted a vigorous diplomatic campaign to urge other resettlement countries to match what we intend to do by accepting substantial additional numbers of Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong. The response to our call has been very good and amounts to a significantly increased international effort.

  Accordingly, we have decided to proceed with our new resettlement plans. The refugees will be resettled in ways which minimise the pressure on housing resources in certain urban areas of the country.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Housing Executive
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many homes the Housing Executive has constructed in each of the past 10 years.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, who has advised that the information requested is as follows:

  Number

  1978–79

  5,134

  1979–80

  2,962

  1980–81

  2,710

  1981–82

  2,342

  1982–83

  3,628

  1983–84

  3,872

  1984–85

  3,386

  1985–86

  3,158

  1986–87

  2,216

  1987–88

  1,810

  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many homes have been sold by the Housing Executive in each of the past 10 years.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive who has advised that the information requested is as follows:

  Number

  1978–79

  485

  1979–80

  517

  1980–81

  2,039

  1981–82

  7,042

  1982–83

  5,583

  1983–84

  5,471

  1984–85

  5,469

  1985–86

  4,213

  1986–87

  3,261

  1987–88

  2,915

  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many homes have been owned by the Housing Executive in each of the past 10 years.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, who has advised that the information requested is as follows:

  Number

  31 March 1978

  186,388

  31 March 1979

  192,000

  31 March 1980

  196,787

  31 March 1981

  196,435

  31 March 1982

  189,640

  31 March 1983

  189,257

  31 March 1984

  183,761

  31 March 1985

  183,439

  31 March 1986

  181,717

  31 March 1987

  179,910

  31 March 1988

  176,832

  RUC and Army Raids
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how much has been paid out in compensation, and in how many cases, in respect of damage resulting from raids on homes by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Army during the last 12 months;
  753
  (2) how many claims for compensation have been received from people claiming damage in respect of Royal Ulster Constabulary and Army raids on their homes during the last 12 months.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  The information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Gerard Hanratty
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on Gerard Hanratty, currently in custody in the Federal Republic of Germany.

  Mr. Tom King
  I understand that a police investigation with a view to possible charges in respect of Hanratty in the Federal Republic of Germany is continuing.

  Her Majesty's Government have submitted a request for the return of Hanratty to face charges for firearms offences arising from an incident in Northern Ireland in 1984 once German proceedings have been completed.

  Income Support
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many applicants for income support have not had a final decision made because of delays caused by waiting lists for sight examinations.

  Mr. Needham
  Decisions on claims for income support are made on the basis of the circumstances at the date the claim is received. Information is not available about the number of claimants awaiting sight examinations.

  Water Pollution
  Dr. John Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will give details of recorded water pollution incidents in the Omagh district between September and November 1988.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]Water pollution incidents in the Omagh district for the period in question were as follows:

  Number

  September

  32

  October

  23

  November

  19

  Total

  74

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Social Fund
  Mr. Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to ensure that the sums allocated for the social fund budget, both grants and loans, will be fully spent in 1988–89.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I refer the hon. Member to my replies to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on 20 February at column 474.

  Claimants (Waiting Time)
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the average waiting time for claimants calling personally at social security offices at Crown Dale, Stockwell road and Camberwell New road in Lambeth.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The average waiting times for callers to two of the offices in question are set out as follows:

  Income support (Minutes)

  Contributory benefits (Minutes)

  Camberwell New road (Oval office)

  55

  5

  Crown Dale (Crystal Palace office)

  39·5

  11·5

  This information was obtained as a result of sampling at the end of 1988.

  The information for Stockwell road (Brixton office) will not be available until the beginning of April.

  Old Age Pension
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security at what level the basic old age pension would now stand if it had been uprated in line with earnings since 1979.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Based on annual upratings in line with earnings since 1979, the current weekly value of basic retirement pension would be £49·10 for a single pensioner, and £78·65 for a pensioner couple.

DEFENCE

  Low-level Flights (East Linton)
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the speed, height and purpose of the low-level flight by a jet aircraft over East Linton, East Lothian, at 1 pm on Monday 23 January.

  Mr. Neubert
  Two Tornado aircraft from RAF Cottesmore flying out of RAF Leuchars were authorised to carry out a terrain following low-level training sortie in the area at a height of 700 ft. and under the normal speed restrictions for the aircraft and type of sortie.

  United States Forces
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when Menwith hill was first made available for use by United States forces.

  Mr. Neubert
  The Menwith hill site was first made available to United States forces in June 1955.

  Research Agreements
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many contracts or agreements for research and development have currently been placed with United Kingdom universities and other institutions of higher education by the atomic weapons research establishment; what is their total value; and with which United Kingdom and other institutions of higher education they were placed.
  755
  Mr. Sainsbury
  The atomic weapons establishment has currently 39 contracts or agreements placed with United Kingdom universities or institutions of higher education; their total value is £2·2 million. It is not our policy to give further details of these arrangements.

  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many research contracts or agreements the scientific research and development branch has currently placed with United Kingdom universities and other institutions of higher education; what is their total value; and if he will list them.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Ministry of Defence has currently 757 research agreements and 96 contracts with United Kingdom universities and other institutions of higher education; the total value is £55 million. It is not our policy to give details of these arrangements; it is for the universities themselves to confirm their involvement.

  Pension Scheme
  Mr. Conway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the opportunities available to members of the armed forces for making additional voluntary contributions in order to enhance the benefits payable under the armed forces pension scheme.

  Mr. Neubert
  The armed forces pension scheme (AFPS) provides an excellent range of benefits which are already mainly at the limits allowed by the Inland Revenue for occupational pension schemes. Nevertheless where scope does exist for additional voluntary contributions (AVCs), in-scheme facilities have been introduced so that service men can, so far as is possible, bring their benefits up to Inland Revenue limits. Under these arrangements all service men can enhance the widow's/widower's pension and the death in service lump sum; service men with military salaries in excess of those upon which pension rates are based can enhance all their AFPS benefits; and late entrants to the services can buy added years. MOD is prepared to issue certificates where appropriate to those wishing to make free standing AVCs (FSAVCs) for the same range of benefits.

  I am pleased to say that it is now also possible for some service men to make FSAVCs in respect of additional pay which they might be receiving.

  Additional pay in the armed forces does not readily lend itself to AVC purposes because most of it is unpredictable in incidence and discontinuous or short term. There are also wide variations in the amount of money involved. Provided certain criteria are fulfilled, however, some service men could benefit and in these circumstances MOD is now prepared to certify applications for FSAVCs.

  I believe that these facilities provide opportunities for members of the AFPS which are as far as possible in line with those envisaged for other occupational pension schemes in keeping with the spirit of this Government's recent legislation.

  Service Personnel (Shootings)
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when was the last time that service personnel fired shots on the British mainland in the course of their duty when they were not involved in training exercises.
  756
  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, a sentry on duty at Clive barracks, Tern hill, fired three shots at terrorist intruders shortly after 3 am on Monday, 20 February.

  Police
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to reduce the complement of the Ministry of Defence police.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Like all other forms of MOD manpower, the requirements for MOD police are reviewed regularly, in the light of current policing and security requirements. It is not MOD policy to reveal details of future manning levels in the force.

  Security Firms
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to increase the use of private security firms in guarding establishments of his Department.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The use of private security firms in guarding establishments is an option open to MOD in those cases where their use can satisfy certain security criteria. Any change in the present scale of such arrangements will result from the assessment of the level of security protection required at specific establishments and an appraisal of the performance of those private security firms currently employed.

  Defence Police Federation
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what consultations have been held with the Defence Police Federation regarding the complementing criteria exercise.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Defence Police Federation has been regularly consulted, both orally and in writing, about each stage of the complementing criteria since its inception in 1986.

  Security Arrangements
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the annual expenditure on fencing and other physical security arrangements for establishments of his Department in 1988.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It would require disproportionate cost and effort to establish a comprehensive figure for all MOD and service establishments.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes to security arrangements for his Department's establishments on the British mainland have been initiated in the light of evidence of terrorist access to Semtex and similar explosives.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Our security arrangements are constantly reviewed in the light of our assessment of the terrorist threat.

  Low Flying
  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to let the right hon. Member for
  757
  Swansea, West have a full reply about the low-flying incidents which he reported to his Department a month ago; and why the reply has taken so long to prepare.

  Mr. Neubert
  As I explained in my letter of 1 February to the right hon. Member, investigations by the RAF police into low-flying incidents are always very thorough and may take some months to complete. I shall, however, write to the right hon. Member with a full response as soon as possible.

  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will extend the very low-flying prohibition zone further from the built-up areas of the city of Swansea; if he will include upper Trillay within that area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neubert
  As the right hon. Member is aware, pilots are already instructed to avoid overflying the centres of major conurbations and built-up areas such as Swansea at low level, although we cannot guarantee to avoid overflying the outskirts of major towns and smaller communities. Pilots will however make every effort to avoid populated areas wherever possible.

  Tern Hill Barracks
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the explosives used in the attack on Tern hill barracks on Monday 20 February were planted; and when the challenge was issued by security personnel to two suspected intruders.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The soldiers challenged the terrorists on seeing them inside the barrack area at just after 0300 hrs. When the explosives were planted is a matter for the police investigation to establish.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the exact period of time between the issuing of a challenge to the intruders at the Tern hill barracks on Monday 20 February and the detonation of explosives inside the barracks.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The first explosion occurred some 20 minutes after the soldiers first challenged the terrorists on seeing them inside the barrack area. There were two subsequent explosions. The precise timing and sequence of events is a matter for the police investigation.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when were security personnel at Tern hill barracks informed about the theft of the car suspected of being used in connection with the attack.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Austin Montego car hijacked from the Simpsons. Information was received at Clive barracks that the terrorists had made off in a hijacked car at about 0415 hrs on Monday, 20 February.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many complaints have been received from local residents near the Tern hill barracks about unauthorised access to the site of the barracks in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There is no record of any complaints having been received from local residents about unauthorised access to Clive barracks, Tern hill during the last three years.
  758
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when was the last time security at the Tern hill barracks was(a) tested and (b) evaluated.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Within the United Kingdom land forces command, all units are required to carry out regular security exercises. A co-ordinated test and evaluation of security at Tern hill barracks was last carried out on 18 December 1988.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the expenditure on perimeter fencing at the Tern hill barracks in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Tern hill barracks was rebuilt in 1981 as an open-plan barracks. During the past year, a number of improvements to the fencing at the barracks have been carried out. However, the cost of these improvements is not readily identifiable.

  Royal Ordnance, Bishopton
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of raw materials for use by Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in(a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region;

  (2) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of general administrative goods and services for use by Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in (a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region;

  (3) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of the services of contractors and sub-contractors for use by Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in (a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region.;

  (4) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of plant for use by Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in (a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region;

  (5) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of goods and services for the purpose of maintenance and general upkeep of plant and premises at Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in (a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region;

  (6) if he will provide details of expenditure incurred by his Department in the procurement of non-product raw materials for use by Royal Ordnance, Bishopton for the financial year 1986–87 expended in (a) Scotland and (b) Strathclyde region.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  None. Royal Ordnance was an incorporated company in 1986–87, which was the financial year immediately preceding privatisation. The Department made no purchases on behalf of Royal Ordnance, Bishopton, and the purchasing of raw materials and plant, and the cost of sub-contractors, maintenance, administration and services in order to carry out its operations, were all matters for the company.

  A90
  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the contractual problems with the A90 complex at AWE Aldermaston have been
  759
  overcome; and what assessment has been made of whether the ventilation and ducting system will fully meet the health and saftey requirements of the contract.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The contract in question is the responsibility of the Property Services Agency which, I understand is currently investigating the claims made in the programme. Assessments of the installation of certain elements of the A90 ducting system against contractual requirements and in relation to safety are being conducted.

  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the A90 complex at AWE Aldermaston is on schedule to meet the heads of the Trident programme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  I refer the hon. Member to the report on Trident produced for the Select Committee on Defence, a copy of which was placed in the Library of the House on 17 January. The Trident project remains on programme to enter service as planned in the mid-1990s.

  Ordnance Depot, Donnington
  Mr. Conway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the findings of the board of inquiry into the fire at Central Ordnance depot, Donnington, on 25 April 1988 and the action which he is taking on them.

  Mr. Neubert
  I have now considered the findings of the Army board of inquiry which was set up to investigate the major fire at the central ordanance depot, Donnington on 25 April 1988 and to make recommendations on the action to be taken to prevent a recurrence. I have placed in the Library of the House a summary of the board of inquiry's report, with its findings and recommendations set out in full.

  The board of inquiry concluded that the fire must have been caused deliberately, but was unable to establish who was responsible. The fire destroyed two-thirds of one large storage building (B1) and its contents. Those stocks were due to be transferred in September 1988 to a new fully fire-protected building at Donnington which it was decided to build following the fire at the depot in 1983. The board found that the recommendations of the board of inquiry into that fire had, with minor exceptions, been implemented. It observed, however, that stocks in the B1 building lacked effective fire-protection during the period when the new building to which they were to be transferred was being built.

  The board found no evidence of a significant pollution hazard during or after the fire, although the contents and fabric of the B1 building represented a potential hazard. It took the view that insufficient information was given to the public to allay concern about possible health hazards. It also found some weaknesses in emergency procedures and occupational health arrangements for those employed at the depot and considered that, while the arrangements for ensuring its security were generally satisfactory, they did not cater sufficiently for the high risk of building B1.

  Subject to two qualifications, the Ministry of Defence accepts the board's findings. The Ministry considers that the board's observation on the lack of protection for the stocks in building B1, pending their transfer to the new building, does not take sufficient account of the steps which were taken after the 1983 fire to reduce the level of stocks in the building and to improve the fire protection
  760
  arrangements. The Ministry also considers that the board's view that insufficient information was given to allay public concern about possible health hazards disregards both the assurances given in public statements at the time of the fire and its aftermath and the steps taken to keep the local authorities informed.

  The board of inquiry made 25 recommendations to deal with these aspects. They cover changes in policy and practice for the control of hazardous stores, handling of emergencies, public information, health and safety responsibilities, security and training. Its main recommendation is that funds should be made available as a matter of urgency to provide storage buildings with the proper level of fire-protection appropriate to the risk and that there should be an examination of the most practical way of protecting stocks while this work is being carried out.

  In general the Ministry of Defence accepts the board's recommendations and is taking the necessary follow-up action. Some of the recommendations have already been or are being put into effect. Others require further consideration before final conclusions can be reached about how they should be implemented and this is proceeding as quickly as possible. As regards the board's main recommendation, all storage buildings need to be surveyed in order to assess what fire-protection measures are needed and to determine priorities. In view of the large number of buildings and the scale of work involved, the whole programme will need to be phased over several years, but the aim will be to complete it as soon as practical. Ways of providing protection against fire during this period are being considered.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Forensic Science Service
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many research contracts or agreements the forensic science service has currently placed with United Kingdom universities and other institutions of higher education; what is their total worth; and if he will list them.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The forensic science service has nine research contracts outstanding with United Kingdom universities and institutions of higher education, as follows:

  Research Organisation

  Nature of Research

  Contract (£)

  Loughborough University

  High performance liquid chromatography

  23,300

  Hull University

  High sensitivity detection of drugs by chemiluminescence

  10,710

  Manchester University

  ABO grouping of bloodstains by an automated process

  19,785

  Aston University

  Expert systems to assess forensic evidence

  14,025

  Swansea University

  Flake powders for fingerprint applications

  74,650

  Scottish College of Textiles

  Colour coding of individual textile fibres

  20,122

  Keele University

  Motor vehicle paint sample collections

  13,986

  Queen's University Belfast

  Improved reagents for detecting fingerprints

  45,522

  St. George's Hospital Medical School

  Tablet and capsule identification system

  12,000

  761

  Research Organisation

  Nature of Research

  Contract (£)

  234,100

  Naturalisation Applications
  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the approximate date of application of the naturalisation applications which are currently being processed;

  (2) how long it will take to process the naturalisation applications which have been outstanding for more than one year.

  Mr. Renton
  Applications for naturalisation currently being processed span a wide spread of dates but the average time taken to complete such applications in January 1989 was 21 months. It is not possible to give a reliable forecast of how long naturalisation applications which have been outstanding for more than one year will take to complete.

  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of his staff are engaged on processing naturalisation applications.

  Mr. Renton
  On 31 January 1989 171 staff in the nationality division were engaged on processing naturalisation applications.

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce regulations to restrict the sale, copying or inspection of the electoral register when the electoral registrar obtains information from the poll tax registers.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. The considerations governing the sale, copying and inspection of the electoral register have not changed since the present policy was comprehensively reviewed in 1985–86. The Representation of the People Regulations 1986 already forbid the supply of data which is not required to be published in the register itself.

  Police Cells
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new measures he is taking to reduce the number of prisoners held in police cells.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The measures initiated last year, which are continuing to deliver more prison accommodation, are being supplemented by a programme of vigorous management action to obtain the maximum capacity from the accommodation currently available.

  Pornography (Imports)
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ensure that following 1992 there will remain sufficient safeguards to prevent the import of pornographic material into the United Kingdom from Europe.

  Mr. Renton
  We intend to maintain tough controls on such material. The scope for exercising control at the point 762
  of importation is among the matters we shall be discussing with our European Community partners in general context of 1992.

  Airport Security
  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much is spent by his Department on private security firms performing services at immigration detention centres at Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester airports, for each year since 1985; and how many firms are involved.

  Mr. Renton
  Group 4 Total Security Ltd. holds the sole contract for the provision of orderly and escort services for persons detained under the Immigration Act 1971 in the immigration detention centres at Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester. There is no longer a detention centre at Birmingham airport.

  The contract was let to Group 4 Total Security Ltd. with effect from 31 December 1988 following competitive tenders. Between 1 July 1970 and 30 December 1988 the contract was held by Securicor Ltd. The cost of the services is a matter of commercial and contractual confidentiality which it would not be right to disclose.

  Carriers Liability
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the receipts to date under the Carriers Liability Act; and what are the arrears.

  Mr. Renton
  Payments totalling £3·888 million had been received up to 31 January 1989, and £4·349 million was outstanding.

  Special Constables
  Mr. Sumberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many special constables there are at present in England and Wales; and what plans he has to encourage further recruitment.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The strength of the special constabulary in England and Wales at the end of 1987 (the latest available figure) was 16,209.

  Recruitment is a matter for individual chief constables. My right hon. Friend convened a conference in December 1987 in order to enable chief officers to discuss all aspects of the special constabulary, particularly how to increase its strength and improve its deployment. A report has been circulated to all forces.

  The Government are also reviewing the allowances paid to special constables, in consultation with the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales.

  Confiscation Orders
  Mr. David Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to seek to extend the power of courts to issue confiscation orders.

  Mr. John Patten
  We have no present plans to extend the powers of courts to make confiscation orders, but the Prevention of Terrorism Bill would give courts additional powers to order forfeiture of funds destined for use in connection with terrorism.

  "Broadcasting in the '90s"
  Mr. Adley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further representations he has received from the British Broadcasting Corporation on the implications for its existing levels of service of the proposals in his White Paper; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  The British Broadcasting Corporation's response to the White Paper was published on Monday 6 February. We keep in close touch with the BBC about broadcasting policy issues.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many responses he has received to his White Paper on broadcasting.

  Mr. McTaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has now received on the broadcasting White Paper.

  Mr. Renton
  Just over 1,200 written responses so far. We would welcome any further representations before the consultation period ends on 28 February.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how he defines night hours in his White Paper on broadcasting.

  Mr. Renton
  The White Paper refers to the definition given by the Peacock committee, namely the period between 1 am and 6 am (paragraph 3.12). It will be for the ITC to determine the boundaries between the different licence periods on Channels 3 and 5.

  Penal System (Privatisation)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what representations he has received from private companies about privatisation within the penal system; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will list those companies which have tendered for private remand prisons; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No such tenders have been either invited or received. A number of private companies have submitted comments in response to the Green Paper "Private Sector Involvement in the Remand System" (Cm. 434, July 1988), and expressed interest in becoming involved in the areas of work which the Green Paper considers. My right hon. Friend expects to make an announcement shortly on the results of the Green Paper consultation and of the associated management consultancy study into the practicality of the options described in the Green Paper.

  Prisoners (Transfers)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many special category A Irish prisoners have been transferred from a jail in England and Wales to a jail in Northern Ireland during the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  None, but one is awaiting transfer.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many requests for transfers to jails 764
  in Northern Ireland are currently outstanding from prisoners who are serving their sentences in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Nineteen requests for permanent transfer and nine for temporary transfer to Northern Ireland are awaiting a final decision.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average length of time taken to process a request for transfer to a jail in Northern Ireland from a prisoner who is currently serving his or her sentence in England or Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Approximately 13 weeks.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a decision has yet been made about the application for transfer to a jail in Northern Ireland from prisoner 463799 (McCartney); and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. A decision will be reached as soon as possible.

  Broadcasting
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what information he has on the number of broadcasting transmitter faults reported and repaired in 1988;

  (2) what information he has on the cost in each of the last five years of maintenance on the broadcasting transmitter networks.

  Mr. Renton
  We do not have the information requested. Broadcasting transmission is the responsibility of the IBA and the BBC.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has on the number of broadcast hours on(a) BBC-1, (b) BBC-2, (c) independent television and (d) Channel 4 made by United Kingdom independent producers in 1988; and at what cost.

  Mr. Renton
  The information requested is not currently available. I will write to the hon. Gentleman when it is.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will publish a table showing the cost of transmission for each independent television company and for Channel 4(a) in cash terms and (b) per capita in catchment areas.

  Mr. Renton
  No. Broadcasting transmission costs are the responsibility of the BBC and the IBA.

  Broadcasting Companies (Training)
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of training presently conducted by(a) the British Broadcasting Corporation, (b) the Independent Broadcasting Authority, (c) the Independent Television companies and (d) Channel 4, independent producers will be required to undertake.

  Mr. Renton
  The White Paper "Broadcasting in the '90s" does not propose any requirement for independent producers to undertake training.
  765
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Independent Television Commission will be required to undertake the training for transmission presently conducted by the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

  Mr. Renton
  We shall not make detailed decisions on the responsibilities of the ITC in relation to transmission until we have received and considered the study which we have commissioned from Price Waterhouse. In a fully privatised transmission system the presumption is that any training necessary would he carried out by the private transmission operators.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what information he has on the investment by(a) the Independent Broadcasting Authority, (b) each independent television company and (c) Channel 4 in training in each of the past five years;

  (2) what information he has on the investment by the BBC in training in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Renton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to questions from him on 14 February 1989 at column 115.

  Broadcasting Companies (Disabled Employees)
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he will publish a table showing what proportion of the total work force(a) the British Broadcasting Corporation, (b) each Independent Television company and (c) Channel 4 were registered disabled in each of the past five years;

  (2) whether he will publish a table showing how many registered disabled persons were employed by (a) the BBC, (b) ITV companies and (c) Channel 4 in each of the past five years.

  Mr. Renton
  The information requested is not held centrally.

  Police Expenditure
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any guidelines are issued to police forces regarding the cost of pursuing prosecutions so as to place a limit on expenditure in relation to petty offences; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. The decision whether to initiate a prosecution in a particular case is an operational matter for the chief officer of the police force concerned.

  Police Searches
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance he issues on the conduct of inquiries carried out by a police force on behalf of another force as to whether officers may be authorised to carry out searches without being accompanied by officers from the originating force; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr Hogg
  None. Police constables in England and Wales have full constabulary powers throughout England and Wales. It is not therefore necessary for a police officer carrying out a search to be accompanied by an officer from the force that initiated the inquiry. Guidance to the police on the conduct of searching persons and premises 766
  generally is contained in the codes of practice issued in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

  Rape
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to ensure a specific minimum sentence for those convicted of rape; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  Our criminal justice system does not provide for minimum sentences, except for the offence of murder. It is for the courts to consider the circumstances of each case and decide on a sentence which reflects the gravity of the individual offence, within the maximum penalties determined by Parliament. Following guidance given by the Court of Appeal, the proportion of convicted rapists receiving sentences of five years' imprisonment or longer increased from 42 per cent. in 1985 to 79 per cent. in 1987.

  Police Cars
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his policy on the use of unmarked police cars; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The use of unmarked police vehicles is an operational matter for individual chief officers of police.

  Mr. Charles Pitts
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the letters to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State from the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey dated 12 December, 1988, 28 December 1988 and 6 January, on a matter relating to his constituent, Mr. Charles Pitts, who is a prisoner at Her Majesty's Prison Wandsworth will be answered; and if he will give the reasons why the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey has not received replies to these letters before now.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I have written to the hon. Member. The correspondence raised a number of issues on which detailed inquiries needed to be made.

  Metropolitan police (Properties)
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many properties owned by the Metropolitan police are unlawfully occupied.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that none of these properties is unlawfully occupied.

  Police (Assaults)
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement outlining any plans which he has to introduce legislation to increase penalties available for assaults upon police officers.

  Mr. John Patten
  [holding answer 21 February 1989]We have no plans to increase the present maximum
  767
  penalties (six months' imprisonment or a fine of £2,000 or both), which are the maxima for offences tried in magistrates courts. More serious assaults would normally be dealt with as offences against the person, with higher maximum penalties, including life imprisonment for wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and attempted murder.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Inflation
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast for inflation for 1989–90.

  Mr. Major
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be giving a forecast in his Budget statement next month.

  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many members of the European Community have inflation rates lower than that in Britain.

  Mr. Lilley
  Nine.

  Mr. Jack Thompson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest target for inflation.

  Mr. Lilley
  The ultimate objective of this Government is price stability.

  Interest (Taxation)
  Mr. Sedgemore
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has any plans to change the arrangements for taxing interest on building society and bank deposits.

  Mr. Brooke
  I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.

  Scotch Whisky
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the revenue obtained from excise duty and value-added tax from the sales of Scotch whisky in the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Brooke
  Figures are not directly available for Scotch whisky. The revenue yield for excise duty and value added tax on Scotch whisky was about 95 per cent. of that from those taxes on all whiskies.

  Employee Shareholders
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the number of employee shareholders in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the number of employee shareholders in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the number of employee shareholders in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  About 1¾ million employees have received shares, or options over shares, through the approved share schemes, open to all employees.

  Indirect Taxation
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of total tax revenue arose from indirect taxes in 1988; and what figures he has for the United States of American, Japan and West Germany.

  Mr. Major
  The latest directly comparable OECD figures are for 1986. They show that the share of indirect taxes in the total was 43 per cent. for the United Kingdom, 29 per cent. for the United States of America, 27 per cent. for Japan and 30 per cent. for West Germany.

  Self-employment
  Mr. Norris
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total growth in self-employment since 1979.

  Mr. Lord
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total growth in self-employment since 1979.

  Mr. Kirkhope
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total growth in self-employment since 1979.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total growth in self-employment since 1979.

  Mr. Major
  Between June 1979 and September 1988 the number of self-employed people in Great Britain rose by 60 per cent. to nearly 3 million.

  Bank of England (Governor)
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the Governor of the Bank of England; and what was discussed.

  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will next be meeting the Governor of the Bank of England; and what matters will be raised.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the Governor of the Bank of England; and what was discussed.

  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent meetings he has had with the Governor of the Bank of England; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  My right hon. Friend meets the governor from time to time to discuss a variety of matters.

  Public Sector Price Increases
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the effect of public sector price increases on the inflation rate.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  A change of 1 per cent. in the nationalised industries component of the retail prices index will at present lead to a change of approximately 0·054 per cent. in the RPI. The Autumn Statement (table 2·7) forecast an increase of 64¼per cent. in the nationalised industries component of the RPI in the year to the fourth quarter of 1989.

  New Businesses
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest official figures on the number of business start-ups over the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Patrick Thompson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the number of business start-ups over the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest official figures on the number of business start-ups over the latest year for which figures are available.

  Sir Michael Shaw
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest official figures on the number of business start-ups over the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Major
  In 1987, the latest year for which figures have been published by the Department of Employment, the net increase in the number of businesses registered for VAT was 45,000, comprising 205,000 registrations and 160,000 deregistrations. Department of Employment figures for 1988 will be available in the summer.

  Economic Growth
  Mr. Andrew MacKay
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of economic growth in the most recent one-year period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of economic growth in the most recent one-year period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current rate of economic growth.

  Mr. Major
  The output measure of gross domestic product grew by 4¾ per cent. in real terms in 1988. This has been the fourth consecutive year of growth in excess of 3 per cent., a performance unmatched since the war.

  Group of Seven
  Mr. Andy Stewart
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on his last meeting with his counterparts in the Group of Seven.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on his last meeting with his counterparts in the Group of Seven.

  Mr. Patnick
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on his last meeting with his counterparts in the Group of Seven.

  Mrs. Roe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on his last meeting with his counterparts in the Group of Seven.

  Mr. Lilley
  I refer my hon. Friends to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) on 15 February 1989 at column 204.

  Retail Sales and Credit
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement regarding the December and January figures for retail sales and consumer credit.

  Mr. Lilley
  Between December and January the volume of retail sales fell 1½ per cent. in real terms.

  The amount of consumer credit outstanding to finance houses and other specialist credit grantors, building societies, retailers and on bank credit cards increased by about £0·3 billion in December. The amount outstanding on all consumer credit agreements (published quarterly) increased by £1·3 billion in the fourth quarter of 1988, the lowest rise since the fourth quarter of 1987. Figures for January are not published yet.

  These figures provide further evidence that growth of consumer spending and borrowing has slowed significantly since last summer, and that tighter monetary policy is proving effective.

  Manufactured Goods
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has on the value of exports of manufactured goods for the United Kingdom for each of the last two years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Major
  United Kingdom exports of manufactured goods rose in value from £60,656 million in 1987 to £65,454 million in 1988. This is another indicator reflecting the strong performance of our manufacturing sector.

  Investment and Consumption
  Mr. Redwood
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth of(a) total investment and (b.) total consumption in 1988.

  Mrs. Gorman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth of(a) total investment and (b) total consumption in 1988.

  Mr. Carrington
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth of(a) total investment and (b) total consumption in 1988.

  Mr. Wood
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth of(a) total investment and (b) total consumption in 1988.

  Mr. Major
  Figures for total investment and total consumption for the whole of 1988 are not yet available. In the first three quarters of 1988 total investment and total consumtion were 9·1 per cent. and 5 per cent. higher respectively than in the same period a year earlier.

  Balance of Payments
  Mr. Radice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast for the balance of payments in 1989 and 1990.

  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the balance of payments deficit in 1988–89 and 1989–90.

  Mr. Major
  The Autumn Statement provided forecasts of the current account for calendar years 1988 and 1989 only. A new forecast will be published on Budget day.

  Tax Cuts
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the different impact of his tax cuts in the last Budget on the median earner in(a) the south-east and (b) other regions.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the differential impact of his tax cuts in the last Budget on the median earner in(a) the south-east and (b) other regions.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General gave to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) earlier today.

  Employment
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of total employment since 1983.

  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of total employment since 1983.

  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of total employment since 1983.

  Dr. Twinn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of total employment since 1983.

  Mr. Major
  The work force in employment has increased by over 2¼ million since March 1983 to over 25¼ million, its highest ever level.

  Companies (Rate of Return)
  Mr. Evennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an estimate of the net real rate of return on non-North sea industrial and commercial companies in 1987.

  Mr. Ian Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an estimate of the net real rate of return on non-North sea industrial and commercial companies in 1987.

  Mr. Mans

  : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an estimate of the net real rate of return of non-North sea industrial and commercial companies in 1987.

  Mr. Major
  The net rate of return for non-North sea industrial and commercial companies rose for the sixth successive year to reach 10·2 per cent. in 1987. For 1988 it was forecast to be about 12 per cent. in the Autumn Statement, its highest level for 24 years.

  Overseas Assets
  Mr. Jacques Arnold
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets at the end of 1987; and what earnings were generated by these assets in 1987.

  Mr. Watts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets at the end of 1987; and what earnings were generated by these assets in 1987.
  772
  Mr. Hayward
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets at the end of 1987; and what earnings were generated by those assets in 1987.

  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets at the end of 1987; and what earnings were generated by these assets in 1987.

  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the stock of United Kingdom net overseas assets at the end of 1987; and what earnings were generated by these assets in 1987.

  Mr. Major
  The stock of net overseas assets is estimated to have been £89·5 billion at the end of 1987. The net earnings on the United Kingdom's net assets in 1987 are estimated to have been £5,463 million.

  Incomes
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of real personal disposable income over the latest 12-month period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of real personal disposable income over the latest 12-month period for which figures are available.

  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of real personal disposable income over the latest 12-month period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of real disposable personal income over the latest 12-month period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Major
  I refer my hon. Friends to the answer my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack).

  Pensioners (Medical Insurance)
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many pensioners do not receive tax relief for private medical insurance.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many pensioners do not receive tax relief for private medical insurance.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  At present no pensioners receive tax relief for private medical insurance. From April 1990, anyone paying eligible premiums for a person over 60—including themselves—will benefit from basic rate tax relief given at source, and higher rate relief if appropriate.

  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the total cost to the Exchequer in a full year of tax relief for private medical insurance for pensioners.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) on 21 February at columns 542–43.

  Exchange Rate
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent outcome of the Government's policy of achieving a firm exchange rate.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent outcome of the Government's policy of achieving a firm exchange rate.

  Mr. Lilley
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply given to the Members for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) on 26 January at column 677.

  Interest Rates
  Mr. Knox
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assumptions on future rises in interest rates he is making in drawing up his Budget proposals.

  Mr. Lilley
  The Government never publish assumptions about future levels of interest rates.

  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what effect current interest rates are having on(a) business investment and (b) mortgage payers.

  Mr. Lilley
  Surveys from the CBI and from the Department of Trade and Industry show that strong investment growth is expected to continue. Higher mortgage interest rates mean that mortgage payers have, for a period, to curb expenditure on other things. This is one of the ways in which they reduce inflationary

  Growth of whole economy productivity (percentage change on a year earlier)

  USA

  Japan

  France

  Germany

  Canada

  Italy

  United Kingdom

  1G7

  1981

  1·2

  3·0

  1·8

  0·9

  -5·8

  0·9

  2·2

  1·3

  1982

  -1·7

  1·8

  2·4

  1·1

  6·7

  0·6

  4·3

  0·6

  1983

  2·6

  1·4

  1·0

  3·1

  5·5

  0·8

  4·2

  2·4

  1984

  2·9

  4·4

  2·2

  2·6

  2·0

  2·8

  1·0

  2·9

  1985

  1·7

  4·0

  2·0

  1·3

  0·3

  2·4

  2·0

  2·1

  1986

  0·7

  1·6

  1·9

  1·3

  1·1

  2·4

  2·4

  1·3

  1987

  0·9

  3·3

  2·0

  1·2

  0·9

  3·3

  2·9

  1·8

  2 1988

  1·7

  4·2

  3·0

  2·9

  -2·6

  2·4

  2·6

  2·4

  Period average

  1·2

  3·0

  2·0

  1·8

  1·0

  2·0

  2·7

  1·8

  1 Weighted average.

  2 The estimates for 1988 compare with the average level of productivity in the first three quarters (except for France, for which data for the first half of 1988 only are available) with the average level in 1987 as a whole.

  Source: OECD, CSO.

  Child Care (Taxation)
  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what arrangements he has made with regard to the tax liability of employees in his Department for the proposed child care provision.

  Mr. Brooke
  My Department is participating in one of two multi-departmental holiday play schemes being run in London during school holidays by the Westminster Play Association. The scheme will be treated in the same way as any other scheme would, where tax liability arises only on the net cost to the employer. Taking account of parental contributions, the scheme is broadly self-financing.
  774
  pressures. Both businesses and mortgage payers have far more to fear from a resurgence of inflation than from a period of higher interest rates.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on the level of interest rates.

  Mr. Lilley
  Bank base rates are 13 per cent.

  Productivity
  Mr. Hanley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in tabular form the growth of productivity each year for the whole economy since 1980 in the United Kingdom and in each of the other major industrialised countries.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in tabular form the growth of productivity each year for the whole economy since 1980 in the United Kingdom and in each of the other major industrialised countries.

  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth of productivity each year for the whole economy since 1980 in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) each of the other major industrialised countries.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in tabular form the growth of productivity each year for the whole economy since 1980 in the United Kingdom and in each of the other major industrialised countries.

  Mr. Major
  The information requested is as follows:

  Tax and Prices Index
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the increase in the tax and prices index in the 12 months to December 1988.

  Mr. Lilley
  In the 12 months to December 1988 the tax and prices index rose by 4·8 per cent.

  Business Expansion and Share Option Schemes
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost in revenue of the business expansion and share option schemes.
  775
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I refer the hon. Member to table 21.1.25 of Cm. 621, "The Government's Expenditure Plans" chapter 21—supplementary analyses and index.

  Privatisation
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the state-owned commercial sector in 1979 has now been transferred to the private sector.

  Mr. Batiste
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the state-owned commercial sector in 1979 has now been transferred to the private sector.

  Mr. Hind
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the state owned commercial sector in 1979 has now been transferred to the private sector.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on 20 February 1989, at column 478.

  Personal Equity Plans
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest estimate of the number of PEPs taken out in 1988.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Over 100,000 PEPs were taken out in 1988.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Mr. Burt
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the investment intention of British manufacturing industry.

  Mr. Irvine
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the investment intentions of British manufacturing industry.

  Mr. Key
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the investment intentions of British manufacturing industry.

  Mr. Major
  The latest survey of investment intentions carried out by the Department of Trade and Industry and published in December showed that manufacturing investment was expected to increase by 11 per cent. in real terms in 1989.

  Mortgage Interest Rates
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the impact on first-time house buyers of the increase in mortgage interest rates since September 1988.

  Mr. Lilley
  Increases in mortgage rates mean that all mortgage payers, including first-time house buyers, will for a period need to cut back on other expenditure. But the resurgence of inflation which would have followed if the Government had failed to take action would have been far more damaging.

  European Monetary System
  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a further statement on his policy towards membership of the European monetary system.
  776
  Mr. Lawson
  I refer the right hon. Member to the reply my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary gave on 17 February to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), at column 402.

  World Bank and IMF
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when next he will meet the directors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; and what matters will be discussed.

  Mr. Lilley
  My right hon. Friend expects to see the managing director of the IMF and the president of the World Bank at the interim and development committee meetings in Washington in April, when a wide range of matters will be discussed.

  Government Expenditure
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the path of general Government expenditure over the period 1982–83 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the path of general Government expenditure over the period 1982–83 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Major
  I refer my hon. Friends to the reply I gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot).

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total fall in long-term unemployment in the year to October 1988.

  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total fall in long-term unemployment in the year to October 1988.

  Mr. Goodlad
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total fall in long-term unemployment in the year to October 1988.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total fall in long-term unemployment in the year to October 1988.

  Mr. Major
  In the year to October 1988, long-term unemployment fell by 280,000.

  CBI
  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the director general of the Confederation of British Industry; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the director general of the Confederation of British Industry; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. Couchman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the director general of the Confederation of British Industry; and what matters were discussed.
  777
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the director general of the Confederation of British Industry; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. Major
  My right hon. Friend meets the director general of the CBI from time to time and a wide range of subjects are discussed.

  Inflation and Unemployment
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the total number of months in which inflation and unemployment fell simultaneously in the 117 months between May 1979 and January 1989.

  Mr. Major
  The annual rate of change in the retail prices index has fallen in about half of the months between May 1979 and January 1989 and has averaged less than 5 per cent. over the last five years, compared with an average of about 15 per cent. between 1974 and 1979. Unemployment has fallen for the last 30 months in succession to under 2 million. Inflation and unemployment have fallen simultaneously in five months.

  Debt Repayment
  Mr. Sumberg
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much debt repayment has been made in each of the past two years.

  Mr. Major
  The public sector debt repayment (PSDR) in 1987–88 was £3·5 billion. In 1988–89, the PSDR now looks likely to be somewhat higher than the £10 billion forecast in the Autumn Statement. This will be the first time that we have seen two successive years of public sector debt repayment since the beginning of the 1950s.

  Banking Flows
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the amount of banking flows into the United Kingdom in 1987 and 1988.

  Mr. Major
  Banking flows into the United Kingdom are estimated to have been £54·7 billion in 1987 and £35·3 billion in the first three quarters of 1988.

  Mortgage Interest (Tax Relief)
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many individuals are currently receiving mortgage interest tax relief; what were the comparable figures five, 10, 15 and 30 years ago; what is the current cost to the Exchequer; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Estimates of the number of tax units—single persons and married couples—benefiting from mortgage interest tax relief are given in the table. Estimates for years prior to 1983–84 are derived from the survey of personal incomes and exclude option mortgagors and other non-taxpayers with mortgages. As there was no survey for 1958–59, a figure for 1959–60 has been given. Following the introduction of MIRAS in April 1983, option mortgages were subsumed within the MIRAS scheme and the estimates for 1983–84 onwards cover all tax units, including non-taxpayers, with mortgages.
  778

  Number of tax units benefiting from mortgage interest tax relief

  Thousands

  1959–60

  11,000

  1973–74

  14,400

  1978–79

  5,600

  1983–84

  7,500

  1988–89

  29,100

  1 Building Society mortgage interest only

  2 Provisional.

  In 1988–89, the total cost of mortgage interest relief is estimated to be about £5,500 million.

  Exports and Imports
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish figures on the growth in visible exports and imports for 1988 and provide his latest forecast for 1989.

  Mr. Major
  Between 1987 and 1988 the volume of visible exports grew by ¼per cent. and the volume of visible imports grew by 13 per cent. The latest forecast for 1989 was published in the Autumn Statement.

  VAT
  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current annual income from value added tax; and what was the comparable figure for the financial year 1978–79.

  Mr. Lilley
  The information at current prices, is as follows:

  £ million

  1978–79

  4,837·5

  1987–88

  24,129·0

  Hospital Radio
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received on zero rating value added tax on hospital radio broadcasting equipment.

  Mr. Lilley
  I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) on 20 February at column 479.

  Aviation Gasoline
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will set out the rates of duty on aviation gasoline used by piston engined light aircraft in each of the EEC member states.

  Mr. Lilley
  The United Kingdom is the only member state to levy a lower rate of duty on aviation gasoline than on motor gasoline. The latest available figures for the rates of duty on aviation gasoline in the EEC are:—

  State

  Duty (excluding VAT) Pence per gallon

  Total tax (including VAT) As a percentage of RSP

  Belgium

  79

  66

  Denmark

  132

  74

  France

  125

  77

  779

  State

  Duty (excluding VAT) Pence per gallon

  Total tax (including VAT) As a percentage of RSP

  Germany

  79

  65

  Greece

  85

  70

  Ireland

  113

  71

  Italy

  161

  78

  Luxembourg

  66

  58

  Netherlands

  106

  70

  Portugal

  124

  69

  Spain

  90

  60

  United Kingdom

  46

  33

  Banking Services Law
  Mr. Allan Stewart (Eastwood)
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to publish the report of the review committee on banking services law; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lilley
  The report of the review committee on banking services law under the chairmanship of Professor Robert Jack is being published as a command paper today. I am very grateful to Professor Jack and his colleagues for taking on the challenging task of examining the law and practice relating to banking services. Their report is the result of two years of consultation and study covering the evolution of banking law over more than 100 years.

  The terms of reference of the review committee were to examine the statute and common law relating to the provision of banking services within the United Kingdom to personal and business customers, including payment and remittance services; but excluding taxation, company law and parts of the law whose relevance is to trading or to the provision of services in general, rather than particularly to banking. The objectives of the review were to examine the law and its practical implications from the points of view of banker, customer and the general public interest in the availability, reliability, security and efficient and effective operation of payment, remittance and other banking services. The committe was to have regard to:

  (a) current and prospective developments in banking
  and payment systems, including developments in electronic data processing and electronic funds
  transfer technology;

  (b) areas of particular difficulty in, or confusion about, existing law and practice and the rights and obligations of banks and their customers respectively;

  (c) differences in the law and practice of different parts of the United Kingdom and, where relevant, other studies and reviews of United Kingdom law;

  (d) developments in the law of the European Community and in other relevant international laws and conventions;

  1979

  Per cent. of total

  1988

  Per cent. of total

  London and South East

  54,304

  52·5

  53,585

  46·8

  Other regions

  49,038

  47·5

  60,896

  53·2

  Total

  103,342

  114,481

  The home Civil Service does not include Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff for whom equivalent information is not available.
  780
  (e) developments and trends in international payment systems and reviews by international bodies.

  The committee has made a number of recommendations to banks and building societies providing banking services. These are mostly aimed at improving standards of banking practice. There are also numerous recommendations for changes in legislation addressed to the Government. Many of these are very technical in nature.

  The Government welcome the committee's report. In considering their response to the recommendations, they will wish to take account of the views of those who will be affected by the proposals, and will consider carefully the implications for bankers, their customers and the general public interest. The Government will set out their detailed response in due course.

  Blind People (Aids)
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much value added tax is collected by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise off aids and adaptations for blind people.

  Mr. Lilley
  There are already extensive reliefs for aids and adaptations for blind people. Estimates for those that bear tax are unavailable.

  Fuel Duty
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has as to how much was raised, in each of the last three financial years, by the duty payable on fuel used during research and testing of engines by motor manufacturers; and how much these amounts represent of the industry's total tax bill and turnover.

  Mr. Lilley
  I regret that official figures are unavailable.

  Civil Service (Dispersal)
  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the number and location of Civil Service posts above executive officer level which have been dispersed from London and the south-east of England to other areas of the United Kingdom since 1979 and the percentage this represents of the total number of posts above executive officer level.

  Mr. Brooke
  [holding answer 20 February 1989]The information is not held centrally in the form requested. The overall numbers for the grades above executive officer level in the home Civil Service at 1 January 1979 and April 1988 were as follows:

HEALTH

  Pharmacists Review Panel
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on when the pharmacists review panel last met; and what was discussed.
  781
  Mr. Freeman
  The most recent matter considered by the pharmacists review panel was the way in which the profit payable to retail pharmacists for their NHS work should be determined, on which the panel reported in February 1988.

  Food Poisoning
  Mrs. Gorman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give the location of preparation of the eggs involved in the 49 cases of salmonella food poisoning this year; if he will state whether the eggs involved were cooked, eaten raw, or mixed with other foods; what evidence led the Chief Medical Officer to decide that the food poisoning in the 49 cases was due to eggs rather than inadequate kitchen hygiene; what was the source of the eggs in the 49 cases; what was the age of the eggs before they were eaten; and how long the eggs had been prepared before they were eaten.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Detailed information on the 46 outbreaks of salmonellosis associated with the consumption of eggs reported to the public health laboratory service to the end of October 1988 is given in the public health laboratory service's memorandum submitted to the Agriculture Select Committee. I will arrange to send a copy to my hon. Friend. Information suggests that while inadequate kitchen hygiene may have been a contributory factor in some outbreaks we have no reason to believe that hygiene practices have shown any significant deterioration in 1988. Inadequate hygiene cannot account for the very marked increase in the total outbreaks of egg-associated salmonellosis reported in 1988.

  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to increase expenditure on measures that would help to limit food poisoning.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  The hon. Member will be aware of many measures to help reduce food poisoning which have recently been announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my Department. We will continue to take any necessary action.

  Sir Geoffrey Finsberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of salmonellosis and of campylobacter have been recorded in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Laboratory reports of cases of salmonellosis and campylobacter infection submitted to the Public Health Laboratory Service for the years 1983 to 1987 are given in the tables. The number of cases for 1988 are not yet available.

  Year

  Number

  Cases of salmonellosis

  1983

  13,250

  1984

  13,093

  1985

  11,172

  1986

  14,177

  1987

  16,991

  Cases of campylobacter infection

  1983

  17,001

  1984

  20,861

  1985

  23,463

  1986

  24,757

  1987

  27,229

  782
  In most instances there is no evidence which links individual reported cases of campylobacter infection with a food vehicle.

  Basingstoke and North Hampshire Health Authority
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the real term increase or decrease in expenditure by the Basingstoke and North Hampshire health authority in each year since the formation of that health authority.

  Mr. Mellor
  Following is information derived from the annual accounts of the Basingstoke and North Hampshire health authority since its establishment on 1 April 1982.

  Per annual accounts

  At 1987–88 prices

  Percentage increase/ (decrease ) at 1987–88 prices

  £000

  £000

  On preceding year

  On 1982–83

  Total revenue expenditure

  1982–83

  31,464

  39,630

  —

  —

  1983–84

  33,587

  40,464

  2·1

  2·1

  1984–85

  35,435

  40,634

  0·4

  2·5

  1985–86

  37,284

  40,564

  (0·2)

  2·4

  1986–87

  39,945

  42,054

  3·7

  6·1

  1987–88

  43,301

  43,301

  3·0

  9·3

  Total capital expenditure

  1982–83

  2,427

  3,024

  —

  —

  1983–84

  2,356

  2,805

  (7·2)

  (7·2)

  1984–85

  3,081

  3,511

  25·2

  16·1

  1985–86

  3,314

  3,564

  1·5

  17·9

  1986–87

  3,682

  3,838

  7·7

  26·9

  1987–88

  2,476

  2,476

  (35·5)

  (18·1)

  Notes:

  1. The figures for the earlier years have been expressed at 1987–88 prices by the use of the gross domestic product deflator.

  2. The figures for capital expenditure include sums in respect of capital schemes within the district recorded in the annual accounts of the Wessex regional health authority (RHA) and they reflect changes in the pattern of investment at sub-regional levels over the period.

  3. All expenditure incurred by the Wessex RHA for the region as a whole is excluded.

  Royal Hallantshire Hospital
  Mr. Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds currently exist within the Royal Hallamshire hospital, Sheffield; how many have been withdrawn from service over the past five years as a result of a lack of funds; and what will be the estimated effect on the utilisation of beds were the hospital to be designated a National Health Service hospital trust.

  Mr. Freeman
  The total number of beds that currently exist within the Royal Hallamshire hospital, Sheffield is 728.

  As regards the number of beds in use in the hospital, it is for local health authorities to determine the best use of resources to meet local needs.

  It is too early to assess the effect of the Government's plans for National Health Service hospital trusts.

  Hepatitis B
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on the incidence of infection of patients by surgeons infected with hepatitis B.

  Mr. Mellor
  The average annual risk of a patient developing acute hepatitis B as a result of infection by staff
  783
  during surgical procedures has been estimated as one in a million operations (Polakoff, British Medical Journal 1986 volume 293 pages 33–36).

  Waiting Lists
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give for each district health authority the waiting time for non-urgent ear, nose and throat consultations in November 1987 and November 1988.

  Mr. Mellor
  We do not collect information centrally about out-patient waiting times.

  Child Abuse
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has received a proposal for research into the sexual abuse of children from the Northhope Hall trust; and will he make a statement.

  Hospital Medical and Dental Consultants1 analysis by specialty at 30 September each year Trent Regional Health Authority

  1977

  1982

  1987

  Total Number

  Whole time Number

  Part time Number

  Total Number

  Whole time Number

  Part time Number

  Total Number

  Whole time Number

  Part time Number

  All Specialties

  906

  455

  451

  1,078

  594

  484

  1,269

  672

  597

  All Medical Specialties

  872

  439

  433

  1,042

  576

  466

  1,226

  653

  573

  General Medicine

  69

  17

  52

  80

  27

  53

  92

  41

  51

  Cardiology

  5

  1

  4

  5

  2

  3

  6

  2

  4

  Diabetes and Endocrinology 2

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Gastroenterology

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Nephrology

  5

  3

  2

  6

  4

  2

  6

  5

  1

  Thoracic Medicine

  20

  17

  3

  12

  8

  4

  7

  3

  4

  Geriatric Medicine

  28

  27

  1

  39

  35

  4

  46

  40

  6

  Audiological Medicine

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  2

  0

  2

  Clinical Genetics 3

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1

  2

  3

  1

  2

  Clinical Neuro Physiology

  2

  1

  1

  3

  2

  1

  4

  2

  2

  Clinical Pharmacy and Therapy

  5

  1

  4

  5

  1

  4

  5

  1

  4

  Clinical Physiology

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  2

  0

  2

  Dermatology

  14

  4

  10

  15

  7

  8

  20

  7

  13

  Genito-Urinary Medicine

  10

  10

  0

  11

  10

  1

  16

  16

  0

  Medical Oncology

  3

  3

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Infectious Diseases

  1

  1

  0

  1

  1

  0

  3

  2

  1

  Neurology

  7

  3

  4

  9

  5

  4

  11

  6

  5

  Occupation Health4

  —

  —

  —

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  0

  Rheumatology

  14

  12

  2

  17

  11

  6

  19

  7

  12

  Other

  3

  3

  0

  2

  0

  2

  1

  0

  1

  Paediatrics

  34

  25

  9

  43

  31

  12

  60

  45

  15

  Paediatric Neurology5

  —

  —

  —

  3

  3

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Accident and Emergency

  11

  10

  1

  14

  12

  2

  16

  13

  3

  General Surgery

  70

  5

  65

  73

  13

  60

  81

  21

  60

  Cardio-Thoracic Surgery

  8

  7

  1

  8

  6

  2

  10

  6

  4

  Otolaryngology6

  26

  7

  19

  31

  10

  21

  34

  7

  27

  Neurosurgery

  6

  1

  5

  6

  5

  1

  6

  3

  3

  Ophthalmology

  26

  4

  22

  27

  6

  21

  34

  2

  32

  Paediatric Surgery

  4

  4

  0

  4

  4

  0

  5

  5

  0

  Plastic Surgery

  8

  3

  5

  7

  3

  4

  8

  2

  6

  Traumatic and Orthopaedic Surgery

  48

  5

  43

  57

  5

  52

  62

  8

  54

  Urology

  7

  4

  3

  11

  6

  5

  16

  6

  10

  Obstetrics and Gynaecology

  52

  8

  44

  63

  19

  44

  67

  14

  53

  Anaesthetics

  108

  61

  47

  152

  104

  48

  187

  108

  79

  Radiology

  57

  36

  21

  71

  49

  22

  86

  56

  30

  Nuclear Medicine

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Radiotherapy

  11

  8

  3

  15

  14

  1

  17

  14

  3

  General Pathology

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Blood Transfusion

  3

  3

  0

  3

  3

  0

  4

  4

  0

  Chemical Pathology

  15

  12

  3

  15

  13

  2

  18

  14

  4

  Haematology

  21

  17

  4

  25

  19

  6

  28

  20

  8

  Histopathology

  42

  24

  18

  46

  24

  22

  52

  29

  23

  Immuno-Pathology

  3

  0

  3

  4

  0

  4

  5

  1

  4

  Medical Microbiology

  22

  9

  13

  23

  9

  14

  27

  13

  14

  784
  Mr. Mellor
  The Department has received from the Northorpe Hall trust details of a proposal to establish a therapeutic centre for sexually abused children and their families which would also include an element of monitoring and research in relation to those treated. The proposal will be considered along with others of a similar nature which have been received.

  Consultants (Trent RHA)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many consultants are employed by the Trent regional health authority; if he will give a breakdown by hospital and specialty; if he will show how many of the consultants by specialty are employed on a full-time or part-time basis; and if he will give comparable figures for five years and 10 years ago.

  Mr. Mellor
  The informatin for the Trent region is set out in the table. We do not have information centrally for individual hospitals.
  785

  1977

  1982

  1987

  Total

  Whole time

  Part time

  Total

  Whole time

  Part time

  Total

  Whole time

  Part time

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Number

  Neuropathology

  2

  2

  0

  2

  2

  0

  2

  1

  1

  Mental Illness

  72

  53

  19

  87

  65

  22

  104

  84

  20

  Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

  16

  14

  2

  21

  19

  2

  26

  22

  4

  Forensic Psychiatry

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  0

  2

  1

  1

  Mental Handicap

  13

  13

  0

  14

  13

  1

  15

  13

  2

  Psychotherapy

  1

  1

  0

  3

  3

  0

  5

  5

  0

  All Dental Specialties

  34

  16

  18

  36

  18

  18

  43

  19

  24

  Oral Surgery7

  18

  7

  1

  19

  9

  10

  21

  6

  15

  Orthodontics

  10

  6

  4

  11

  7

  4

  14

  10

  4

  Restorative Dentistry

  6

  3

  3

  6

  2

  4

  8

  3

  5

  Paediatric Dentistry8

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1 Includes Permanent Paid and Honorary Staff. Prior to 1987 SHMOs and SHDOs with allowance are included.

  2 Prior to 1987 this specialty was called Endocrinology.

  3 New specialty introduced in 1979. Figures included with "Other" prior to 1979.

  4 New specialty introduced in 1983. Figures included with "Other" prior to 1983.

  5 Prior to 1981 figures included with "Paediatrics".

  6 Prior to 1985 this specialty was called Ear, Nose and Throat.

  7 Prior to 1982 this specialty was called Dental Surgery.

  8 New specialty introduced in 1983.

  Locum Doctors
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Don Valley of 12 December 1988,Official Report, column 449, on locum doctors, if he is now able to give an answer.

  Mr. Mellor
  I replied to the hon. Member today.

  AIDS
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the numbers of HIV/AIDS centres in Britain which he has visited; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  I have visited the Kobler centre, at St. Stephen's hospital, and London Lighthouse—the two facilities in London purpose-built for people with HIV disease. I have visited some and intend to visit other hospitals and voluntary organisations which are developing treatment and support facilities; not all of these will be dedicated to people with HIV.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people died as a result of AIDS, from 1980 to 1988; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  There have been 1,059 known deaths from AIDS from 1980 up to the end of December 1988. Data on the numbers of deaths from AIDS and numbers of AIDS cases are published early each month by our Department.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his Department's support for AIDS education campaigns organised by groups representing homosexual men and women.

  Mr. Mellor
  We provide financial support to the National AIDS Trust which gives funding to voluntary organisations, and to the Terrence Higgins Trust whose work includes the provision of information and advice to homosexuals. In addition the Health Education Authority has been provided with funds to develop campaigns aimed at the general public and at particular sections of the population, including homosexual and bisexual men. Planning guidelines issued to health authorities in July 786
  1988 asked them to encourage preventive initiatives for people in selected target groups, including homosexuals, to encourage them to avoid behaviour that might place them at risk of HIV infection.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the provision within the National Health Service of aerosolised pentamidine and associated nebolisers for people with AIDS or who are HIV positive.

  Mr. Mellor
  Pentamidine is available under the NHS in aerosolised form for the treatment of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia—the opportunistic infection to which people with HIV disease are particularly susceptible. Nebulisers are available for the administration of the drug in hospital settings, but are not available under the NHS for use by patients at home.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of(a) current figures and (b) future figures for (i) people who are HIV anti-body positive and (ii) people who have developed AIDS in the United Kingdom for each year from 1989 to 1992; and on what basis such estimates have been made.

  Mr. Mellor
  There have been 2,049 reported AIDS cases up to the end of January 1989. The report of the working group on short-term prediction of HIV infection and AIDS in England and Wales, chaired by Sir David Cox (the Cox report), estimated that there were between 20,000 and 50,000 persons infected with HIV by the end of 1987.

  The Cox report also contained estimates of future diagnoses of new AIDS cases up to 1992. The figures in the table are those recommended as a basis for planning, and accepted by the Government as such, for the years 1989 to 1992.

  AIDS cases diagnosed (estimates)

  Number

  1989

  1,800

  1990

  2,350

  1991

  2,950

  1992

  3,600

  787
  The group did not make forecasts of the level of HIV infection because no satisfactory historical data exists upon which to base any, and because such forecasts would depend on individuals' behaviour patterns which cannot be predicted.

  The basis on which the estimates were made, and the possible impact of underreporting, are set out in appendices to the Cox report, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Sight Tests
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on whether the use of an auto-refractor and an auto-optitester provides a suitable and accurate sight test for people with less than perfect vision.

  Mr. Mellor
  Auto-refractors and auto-optitesters provide reasonably accurate information on the lenses patients may require to correct their sight. These instruments cannot, however, carry out examinations for injury or disease which form an important part of every sight test.

  Manpower Supply Strategies
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if all regional health authorities have been asked to prepare manpower supply strategies and supply measures and training strategies.

  Mr. Mellor
  Regional health authorities have been asked through the issue of HC(88)43 "Health Services Development—Resource Assumptions and Planning Guidelines" issued July 1988, to prepare for all staff groups manpower supply strategies assessing demand and supply measures necessary to meet assessed demand together with proposed steps to deal with any shortfalls. Also where necessary that supply strategies be linked to training strategies.

  A copy of HC(88)43 has been placed in the Library (refer to paragraphs 32–38).

  Residential Homes
  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he has any plans to review the scope of the Registered Homes Act 1984, so as to encompass homes caring for three occupants or fewer;

  (2) when his Department last evaluated and reassessed the effectiveness of criteria for minimum statutory requirements for residential and nursing homes for the elderly.

  Mr. Mellor
  The Department's social services inspectorate reviewed the implementation of the Registered Homes Act 1984 in relation to residential care homes for elderly people and other dependent groups of people. The report on this review, "Certain Standards", was published last year. The Wagner report, "Residential Care: A Positive Choice", which was also published last year, contained recommendations on the regulation of these homes including those with fewer than four residents. Both reports are in the Library.

  We are considering carefully the findings of these reports before deciding whether any change is desirable in the current arrangements. In January 1985 the National Association of Health Authorities issued guidance, endorsed by the Department, in its handbook on registration and inspection of nursing homes. A supplement giving advice on quality of life in nursing homes was issued in September 1988.

  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how district health authority and local authority inspectors are selected and trained for residential and nursing homes for the elderly; and who draws up the criteria by which these inspectors measure a home's standards.

  Mr. Mellor
  The statutory duty to register and inspect residential care homes and nursing homes is placed by the Registered Homes Act 1984 upon local social service authorities and district health authorities respectively. It is for each authority to recruit and train the necessary staff and to deaw up the criteria for the registration of homes in their area within the legislative requirements, the recommendations in the code of practice for residential care "Home Life", and the "Handbook for Health Authorities: Registration and Inspection of Nursing Homes", and the general guidance that has been issued by the Secretaries of State for Health and for Wales.
  790
  The Departments have commissioned distance-learning training material for registration and inspection staff of authorities from the centre for environmental and social studies in aging at the Polytechnic of North London. This material should be available later this year.

  Mr. Roy Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any plans to ensure tighter public oversight and controls over public and private residential homes.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 17 February 1989]: The Registered Homes Act 1984 and associated regulations place the responsibility on local authorities as registering authorities to register private and voluntary residential care homes and inspect them at least twice a year. In addition general guidance on the running of these homes is available in "Home Life", a code of practice for residential care, and in circulars issued by the Department. Authorities are also responsible for ensuring adequate standards in their own homes. The Department's social services inspectorate monitors and advises authorities on the discharge of these duties.

  Lady Wagner's report "Residential Care—A Positive Choice" included recommendations on the regulation of homes in all sectors. We are giving them careful consideration before deciding whether any change is desirable in the current arrangements.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which private residential and nursing homes have had their registrations cancelled since the Registered Homes Act came into force; who were the proprietors concerned; and what were the reasons for the cancellation.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: This information is held by the Department for the purpose of the Registered Homes Act 1984 and is received from and passed to registration authorities in confidence for that purpose only. It would not be right to make the information more widely available.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the full cost of public funds of action taken by local authorities or health authorities to protect the welfare of residents following the de-regulation of private residential or nursing homes since the Registered Homes Act came into force.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: We do not hold this information centrally.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he is taking following the publication of the National Consumer Council report proposing an independent national inspectorate for residential homes, a copy of which has been sent to him.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: The report of the committee chaired by Lady Wagner, "Residential Care—A Positive Choice", included recommendations on the regulation of homes. We are giving careful consideration to the recommendations in the report and to responses to it such as the National Consumer Council's report before deciding whether any change is desirable in the current arrangements.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what action he is taking following the recent
  791
  publication of the joint report from the social services inspectorate and the health advisory service in respect of the concern expressed about the number of social service staff employed by Northamptonshire county council who also own or manage private residential homes;

  (2) if he will take steps to ensure that local authority social services staff are not permitted also to own, manage, or have interests in private residential or nursing homes.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: The duty to register a person running a residential care home or nursing home is placed by the Registered Homes Act 1984 upon local social service authorities and district health authorities respectively. It is for them to decide, subject to appeal, whether a person is not fit to run a home. Similarly it is for authorities as employers to determine the terms and conditions of service of their staff. I look to authorities to ensure that potentially undesirable conflicts of interest do not arise.

  In the case of the report by the National Health Services health advisory service and the Department's social services inspectorate on "Services for Elderly People provided by Kettering Health Authority and the Social Services Department of Northamptonshire County Council," the report states that the health authority and the social services department have asked staff to declare any interest they may have in private homes.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if registered homes tribunals have the right to impose conditions of registration.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: Yes.

  Elderly People
  Mr. Anthony Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department is monitoring the growth of the private sector in relation to National Health Service facilities in the field of elderly care.

  Mr. Mellor
  It is for the individual health authorities to decide what level of service to provide for the elderly people in the populations they serve. The Government give guidance on the range of services which should be available to elderly people; but health authorities may take into account the level of private sector health care in determining the level of services that they will provide themselves.

  The Government welcome the growth in the private health care sector, because it adds to the total resources available, offers greater choice to the patient and provides flexibility to health authorities in service delivery.

  Touche Ross Inquiry
  Mr. Madel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what conclusions were reached by the ToucheRoss inquiry into the supply of generic pharmaceuticals; if he will publish those parts of the evidence which are not commercially confidential, along with the consultants' recommendations; if he will place a copy of the report in the Library; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  We are considering the report prepared by Touche Ross. When announcing the study on 11 March 1988 the then Secretary of State for Social Services, made it clear that the contents of the report would contain 792
  commercially sensitive information and would remain confidential. To publish the report would breach this commitment to those who contributed to the study.

  Organisations (Recognition)
  Dr. Goodson-Wickes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list the organisations recognised by his Department under circular HM(54)32;

  (2) what applications for recognition under circular HM(54)32 he has received from organisations seeking to offer indemnity to medical and dental practitioners; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  The organisations listed in circular HM(54)32 (Legal Proceedings) are the Medical Defence Union, the Medical Protection Society, and the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland. Any enquiries from other organisations seeking to offer indemnity to medical and dental practitioners would be treated in confidence. I am considering what arrangements should be made in future to provide indemnity cover for doctors and dentists employed in the Health Service.

  Dental and Eye Health
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much he expects to receive from charges for(a) dental check-ups and (b) eye tests in 1989–90; and by how much he estimates expenditure on dental and eye health will change as a result of the introduction of such tests.

  Mr. Mellor
  The estimated income from dental examination charges in England in 1989–90 is £35 million. It is not anticipated that the introduction of dental examination charges will have any direct effect on the forecast level of gross NHS expenditure on the general dental services.

  There are no charges for sight tests. The effect of the Health and Medicines Act, 1988, is that from 1 April 1989 the NHS sight test will no longer be universally available; it will be restricted to certain priority groups of people, including children, the registered blind and partially sighted, people on low incomes and diabetics. Savings on family practitioner service spending from the restriction of the NHS sight test to certain priority groups are expected to be £70 million in a full year in England. The new arrangements are not expected to affect demand for eye care.

  Charges
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish a table showing prescription, dental and optical charges in April 1979 and the latest date available in current and constant prices showing both the cash and real increase for each charge.

  Mr. Mellor
  The table sets out the latest available information in relation to prescription and average dental charges. No comparable figures for optical charges are available because the supply of NHS spectacles ceased in July 1986. Information relates to financial years.

  Prescription charges

  £

  1979–80

  0·20

  1988–89 (current prices)

  2·60

  1988–89 (1979–80 prices)

  1·39

  793

  Prescription charges

  £

  Average dental charge

  1979–80

  6·83

  1987–88 (current prices)

  18·43

  1987–88 (1979–80 prices)

  10·50

  Family Practitioner Committees
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the criteria used when exercising the right of choice between different nominations from local authorities for a family practitioner committee.

  Mr. Mellor
  In appointing members of family practitioner committees our overriding aim is to find suitable candidates for the job. We also seek to achieve a balanced representation among members of age, sex, geographical spread, professional and other experience. In the case of the local authority vacancies arising on 1 April 1989, neither St. Helens metropolitan borough council nor Knowsley metropolitan borough council offered, at first, a choice of candidates. I am glad to say that St. Helens MBC has this week offered a choice and I hope to make an appointment very shortly.

  Cook-chill Food
  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will issue instructions that no further hospitals should switch to cooked-chilled food, and that no further hospital plans should make provisions for utilising it, until further research has been carried out to establish its safety or risk.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  No. In 1980 my Department issued guidelines on cook-chill catering in the NHS and elsewhere. We remain quite satisfied that, provided these guidelines are followed, food produced by this sytem is safe.

  Mental Health Act Commission
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many of the 92 members of the Mental Health Act Commission are members of ethnic minority communities; what are their ethnic origins; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  At the moment the Mental Health Act Commission has 84 members of whom six are from ethnic minority communities, either Asian or Afro-Caribbean. It is Ministers' intention to increase ethnic minority representation on the commission and this is being actively pursued in the current round of appointments.

  Child Sexual Abuse
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what co-ordination of research into child sexual abuse takes place between his Department and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

  Hospital

  Area/District

  Type

  Year

  Croft Baker Maternity

  Humberside

  T

  1979

  Immingham

  Humberside

  T

  1979

  Townend Maternity1

  Humberside

  T

  1979

  Nightingale

  Derbyshire

  T

  1979

  Davenham

  Cheshire

  T

  1979

  Skegness and District1

  Lincolnshire

  P

  1981

  Urmston Cottage

  Trafford

  T

  1981

  Harpenden Memorial

  North West Hertfordshire

  P

  1982

  794
  Mr. Mellor
  We have no specific arrangements for co-ordinating research into child sexual abuse with the NSPCC, but officials are in touch regularly to discuss subjects of mutual concern, including research.

  Health Service Review
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he anticipates making available to hon. Members the working papers further to his Health Service review document.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Copies of the eight working papers were placed in the Vote Office on Monday 20 February, the date of publication.

  Leicestershire DHA and CHC
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will seek from the Trent regional health authority, for publication in the Official Report, the names and addresses of the members of (a) the Leicestershire district health authority and (b) the Leicestershire community health council, indicating the date when each person commenced their service and when the expiry of their term is due.

  Mr. Mellor
  This is a local matter. The information is available on request from Trent regional health authority.

  GP Maternity Units
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether he will set out in tabular form, identifying the unit in each case(a) how many isolated general practitioner maternity units have been closed in each year sice 1979 and (b) how many integrated general practitioner maternity units have been closed over each period;

  (2) whether he will set out in tabular form, identifying the unit in each case, the number of (a) isolated and (b) integrated general practitioner maternity units where a formal decision has been taken and published to close the unit, indicating where appropriate when the decision by Ministers is awaited following a formal objection by the community health council.

  Mr. Freeman
  The table lists GP maternity units which we are aware have been approved for partial or total closure following public consultation. The period covered is from 1979 to end 1987, the latest date for which details are available, although there were no cases in 1987.

  Cases currently awaiting ministerial decision are lifted at the end.

  "Isolated" is taken to mean not part of a district general hospital. All cases are isolated unless stated.
  795

  Hospital

  Area/District

  Type

  Year

  Ashgate Maternity Home

  North Derbyshire

  T

  1983

  Chase Hospital

  Mid Staffordshire

  P

  1983

  Wendover Maternity Unit

  Southmead

  T

  1983

  Alexandra Maternity Hospital

  Plymouth

  T

  1983

  Woodgages Maternity Home1

  East Yorkshire

  T

  1984

  Darley Hall Maternity

  North Derbyshire

  T

  1984

  Corbar Hall Maternity

  North Derbyshire

  T

  1984

  Westbury Maternity

  Milton Keynes

  T

  1984

  Westminster Memorial1

  Wiltshire

  P

  1984

  Wellington Maternity Home

  Somerset

  T

  1984

  Leek Memorial

  North Staffordshire

  T

  1984

  Queen Mary Maternity House

  South Derbyshire

  T

  1986

  Phyllis Memorial Home

  East Suffolk

  T

  1986

  Market Harborough

  Leicestershire

  P

  1986

  Rutland Memorial

  Leicestershire

  P

  1986

  St. Mary's Melton Mowbray

  Leicestershire

  P

  1986

  Ashby de la Zouch

  Leicestershire

  P

  1986

  Isebrook

  Kettering

  P

  1986

  Ashcombe House

  Bristol and Weston

  T

  1986

  Rossendale General2

  Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale

  P

  1986

  1 Ministerial decision.

  2 Integrated unit.

  Note: The Leek Memorial hospital is, in fact, still open but is scheduled to close this year.

  Cases currently with Ministers

  Partial closures at Sandleford, Wokingham and Townlands hospitals—all West Berkshire.

  St. Paul's maternity unit, Hemel Hempstead hospital, North-West Hertfordshire.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will set out in tabular form, identifying the unit in each case, the number of(a) isolated and (b) integrated general practitioner maternity units which are currently the subject of public consultation on closure.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will list by name and date since 1979(a) the isolated and (b) the integrated general practitioner rural maternity units where Ministers have rejected a closure proposal, following an adverse report from the community health council; and which of these units remain open.

  Mr. Freeman
  We are aware of two such cases.

  In 1984 proposals to close GP maternity beds at Amersham general hospital (integrated unit) and Crowborough war memorial hospital (isolated unit) were rejected by Ministers. The beds at Amersham are currently closed for redecoration; those at Crowborough remain open.

  London Ambulance Service
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has assessed the quality and adequacy of the installed communication links between local ambulance stations of the London ambulance service and local police, fire brigade and other emergency services.

  Mr. Freeman
  Questions relating to the detailed management of the London ambulance service are matters for the South West Thames regional health authority.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member of Newham, South,Official Report, 7 February, columns 635–7, what are the annual rental costs of the private wire circuits between the central control room of the London ambulance service and ambulance stations; and what is budgeted for the next financial year, for this purpose.
  796
  Mr. Freeman
  I understand from South West Thames RHA, which is responsible for the management of the London ambulance service (LAS) that the annual rental cost of the private wire circuits between the LAS central control room and ambulance stations is £60,615 for the current financial year. When the circuits are integrated into the new computer system, the wires will be connected to equipment owned by the LAS rather than by British Telecom. This will reduce rental costs to an estimated £53,115 in 1989–90. The same number of lines will be available, but they will be of higher quality.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will set out in tabular form in the Official Report the principal items of income and expenditure of the London ambulance service for each of the financial years since he has been responsible for its direct funding, showing for each year the expenditure related to (a) administration, (b) communication, (c) equipment, (d) personnel, (e) premises, and (f) vehicles, etc., with an indication of the sums allocated or ascribable to emergency and non-emergency services, respectively, together with a statement of the method he uses to ensure that the resources available to the emergency services enable them to reach as near the national ORCON standards as are practicable in London traffic conditions.

  Mr. Freeman
  The table sets out, in the form held by the South West Thames RHA, London ambulance service (LAS) expenditure for the year 1987–88, the first year in which the allocation of funds was made direct to the managing authority. An estimate of expenditure for the current financial year is not yet available. It is not possible to separate out the personnel component of each of the items listed except at disproportionate cost. The revenue budgets available to the LAS for the years 1987–88 and 1988–89 were £43·099 million and £46·060 million respectively.

  Management of the LAS, including questions of resource requirements and attainment of standards, is a matter for South West Thames RHA. Officials of the

  797
  Department are in regular touch with officials of the RHA on these matters and a management review of the LAS is conducted annually.

  Department

  Net expenditure 1987–88 £

  A. Operational Services

  General Manager

  0

  Headquarters Administration

  824,165

  Control Services—Emergency

  2,428,204

  Control Services—Non-Emergency

  2,251,230

  Ambulance Stations—Emergency

  23,967,237

  Ambulance Stations—Non-Emergency

  7,977,645

  Other Ambulance Services—Emergency

  38,029

  Other Ambulance Services—Non-Emergency

  904,143

  Total Operational Services

  38,390,653

  B. General Services

  Administration Office

  1,638,330

  Training and Education

  1,228,124

  Catering

  38,908

  Domestic Cleaning

  203,622

  Portering

  24,040

  Laundry

  37,316

  Linen Services

  0

  Transport

  123,075

  Engineering Maintenance

  95,298

  Energy

  358,607

  Water and Sewerage

  57,374

  Building Maintenance

  540,903

  Grounds and Gardens

  21,006

  General Estate Expenses

  780,347

  Miscellaneous Services and Expenses

  0

  General Services Direct Credits

  0

  Total General Services

  5,140,850

  Grand Total

  43,531,508

  Secure Units (Juveniles)
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many juvenile offenders can be accommodated in secure units in the United Kingdom as a whole; and if there are any plans to increase the number of units.

  Mr. Freeman
  Secure accommodation in England is provided by local authorities and directly by the Department of Health in youth treatment centres. Such accommodation is available for children in care generally, some of whom will he juvenile offenders. Young people who have been convicted of grave crimes, and sentenced to be detained under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, may also be placed in such accommodation.

  The number of places available in approved secure units in England on 31 December 1988 was 294. A number of secure units, providing a further 46 places, were temporarily closed on that date because of rebuilding/refurbishment work. In addition, there were 60 secure places in the youth treatment centres.

  A number of local authorities have brought forward proposals to expand provision which are being actively considered.

  Information relating to Wales and Northern Ireland is a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Northern Ireland and for Scotland for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

  Artificial Limb Service
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what have been the costs to his Department of the changes in the artificial limb service in 1986, 1987 and 1988; and what are the budgets for this service in 1989 and 1990.

  Mr. Mellor
  The cost of supplying and maintaining artificial limbs for 1985–86 and 1986–87 was £36·068 million and £38·689 million respectively. The cost for the period April to June 1987 was £9·642 million. Expenditure on the artificial limbs in England from 1 July 1987 is a matter for the Disablement Services Authority, to which the hon. Member should address this part of the question.

  Hospital Waste
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he has estimated the cost to hospitals in England of ensuring that their incinerators meet the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act following the ending of Crown immunity later in the current year; and what major defects in hospital incinerators will need to be corrected.

  Mr. Mellor
  Regulations under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act which will bring large incinerators within the control of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution will not affect most hospital incinerators. Controls on smaller incinerators, which will be introduced as soon as possible and from which it is not intended that the National Health service should have Crown immunity, will create the need for a major programe of upgrading and replacement. The main requirements are likely to be an increase in the height of chimneys, improved combustion and monitoring and sampling of emissions. If these improvements were made immediately we estimate the cost to the National Health Service would be in the region of £50 million, but it is anticipated that there will be a transitional period allowed for the replacement of existing installations. Many incinerators will therefore be upgraded or replaced at the end of their useful lives as part of the normal cycle of planned equipment renewal. Authorities will also be expected to review their waste disposal services taking account of the scope for rationalising and reducing the number of incinerator facilities and the contribution which the private sector can make to the disposal of "clinical waste".

  London Teaching Hospitals
  Mr. Boateng
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing the funds now held which are completely at their own disposal for each of the London teaching hospitals.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  Details of the funds currently available to individual hospitals are not held centrally. Section 10 of the health services costing returns provides expenditure figures for all major acute and mainly acute hospitals in teaching districts in London and elsewhere. A copy is held in the Library.

  Hospitals (Opting Out)
  Mr. Boateng
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any plans to enable a hospital which elects to opt out of National Health Service management under the recent proposals to charge patients for special or any other services needed for effective treatment.
  799
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  I assume that the hon. Member is referring to self-governing hospitals. As they will remain within the NHS, they will continue to provide all necessary treatment to NHS patients without charge at point of delivery.

  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether he will insist on the provision of emergency services in his core services in opted-out hospitals;

  (2) why he has excluded gynaecology, maternity and preventive medicines for women from his core services for the opted-out hospitals.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  I assume that the hon. Member is referring to self-governing NHS hospitals. I have not excluded gynaecology, maternity and preventative medicines from being regarded as core services to be provided by such hospitals. Examples of core services are identified in broad terms in the White Paper "Working for Patients" but I have not prescribed and I have no intention of prescribing a definitive list. The first and second of the working papers published on 20 February make it clear that it will be for each district to consider in the light of local circumstances what its core services should be. The district will then decide whether these services can best be provided by a self-governing hospital, or by other NHS hospitals and make arrangements accordingly. fuller details are given in the working papers.

  Hospitals
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the hospitals in each district health authority.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested is contained in the "Hospitals and Health Services Year Book", a copy of which is held in the Library.

  Patients (No Fixed Abode)
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on the number of patients of hospitals in Greater London who state they are of no fixed abode.

  Mr. Freeman
  This information is not collected centrally.

  "Promoting Better Health"
  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how the discussions with the British Medical Association's General medical services committee about the White Paper "Promoting Better Health" are progressing.

  Mr Kenneth Clarke
  A Green Paper "Primary Health Care—an agenda for discussion" was published in April 1986. Following public consultation, the primary care White Paper "Promoting Better Health" was published in November 1987. Detailed proposals for implementing the reforms to the family doctor services as set out in the White Paper, were sent in March 1988 to the negotiators of the general medical services committee (GMSC), the GPs' representative body. Since then the reforms have been the subject of full consultation for almost a year with the GMSC negotiators.
  800
  Consultations are now nearing completion and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I have decided to send to all general practitioners a report setting out in full the changes to the GPs' remuneration system and terms of service that the Government wish to introduce. This report will form the basis of final discussions with GMSC negotiators early in March. Copies of this report have been lodged in the Libraries of both Houses.

  A number of themes run through our proposals. In the first place we want to make it much easier for the patient to find the GP that best suits that individual's needs. More information about the services that GPs provide will therefore be made available. The bureaucracy involved in changing doctors will be removed and the patients' complaints procedure simplified. Family practitioner committees will be conducting consumer surveys to ensure that patients' views are being taken into account in the development of health care services.

  Secondly, health promotion and disease prevention will become a central feature of general practice in future. GPs will be expected to provide regular check-ups for their patients—this means giving good advice on keeping well and avoiding future health problems. There will be particular emphasis on the assessment of childhood development for the under-fives and on mobility and well-being of the over-75s. New target payments are to be introduced to encourage GPs to provide improved cover for childhood immunisation and screening for cancer of the cervix. Increasingly, GPs will be running clinics for a range of health promotion activities such as anti-smoking, alcohol control, well-person, dieting, exercise and stress management.

  Thirdly, important changes are to be made to the GPs' terms of service and remuneration system. The terms of service will in future set out in more specific terms what is expected of a family doctor who is in contract with the National Health Service. Aspects such as health promotion and disease prevention—not previously stated in specific terms—will be made a clear requirement of the GPs contract.

  Changes to the remuneration system are designed to make general practice more responsive to patient needs and to ensure that the taxpayer gets better value for money. As proposed in "Working for Patients", capitation fees will form a much greater proportion of the GPs' income from fees and allowances. This means that capitation fees for each patient will be much higher and, as a consequence, greater recognition will be given to the importance of the individual patient to the practice and to the importance of providing all of the services that that patient needs. New incentive payments will be introduced to encourage the health promotion and disease prevention measures already mentioned. In addition, the importance of medical education will be given greater prominence in the remuneration system. Continuing education—keeping up to date with the latest techniques, therapies and disease management methods—will be encouraged through a new postgraduate education allowance payable to GPs who regularly attend approved courses. GPs who teach medical students will receive a new allowance.

  Lastly, we are preparing family practitioner committees (FPCs) to play a greater management role in the provision of local services. In particular they will manage service development budgets aimed at improving surgery premises and extending practice teams. The Government believe

  801
  that GPs working with other health care professionals will provide a better service to patients. FPCs will have service development plans aimed at encouraging greater use of practice nurses, counsellors, chiropodists and other health professionals.

  The package of changes that we plan to introduce will provide a better range and quality of services for patients. Many GPs already run first-class practices and under the new arrangements these GPs will be better rewarded. Others may need to consider extending their services to ensure that they too benefit from the reforms that the Government are planning.

  Abortions
  Mr. Stevens
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the total number of abortions so far performed under the Abortion Act 1967; and how many of these were performed on non-United Kingdom resident women.

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer 24 January 1989]: The total number of notifications of legal abortions, to resident and non-resident women, carried out under the Abortion Act 1967 from 27 April 1968 to 30 June 1988 in England and Wales, is 2,899,4051. Of these 921,6081 (31·8 per cent.) were performed on non-United Kingdom resident women.

  1 The total number of abortions is based on notifications received (1968 to 1980) and on occurrences (1981 to 1988). Data for 1988 are provisional.

  Listeria
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement about the possibility of monitoring for listeria in milk and cheese.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  [holding answer 20 February 1989]: Microbiological control of foods such as milk and cheese is primarily achieved by adherence to good manufacturing and retail practice based on the hazard analysis and critical control point approach. The Department's advice to manufacturers, retailers, and enforcement officers is to concentrate on these aspects rather than to undertake enhanced routine final product testing.

  NHS (Expenditure)
  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the spending on the National Health Service in 1979 and in the latest available year, in real terms.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 21 February 1989]: Gross spending on the NHS in England totalled £6·5 billion in 1978–79 and in the current financial year amounts to over £19·4 billion. This represents a real terms increase of some 37 per cent. Additional expenditure planned for next year is expected to bring this increase to over 41 per cent. which includes the additional £163 million announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 16 February. This is before taking account of the extra cash that will be released in 1989–90 by the reduction in employers' superannuation contributions and from health authorities' cost improvement and income generation schemes. Taken together with the cash increase these will amount to the equivalent of a 5·5 per cent. real terms increase in the resource available to the NHS in 1989–90 alone.

  Retired People
  Mr. Roy Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will consider creating a standing committee of representatives of the pensioners' movement together with the Minister and senior civil servants dealing with the areas mainly affecting the retired in health matters.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 21 February 1989]: I have not plans to do so. We do, of course, regularly meet groups representing elderly people to discuss health matters.

  Zidovudine
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will receive copies of all reports given by the independent data and safety monitoring committee to the chairmen of the MRC/INSERM co-ordinating committee of the trial on the benefits of zidovudine for healthy people who are HIV positive; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 22 February 1989]: The Medical Research Council will keep the Department of Health up to date with the trial's findings as appropriate. However, I do not expect to receive copies of reports given by the independent data and safety monitoring committee to the chairman of the MRC/INSERM co-ordinating committee; the conduct of the trial is strictly a matter for the MRC and INSERM.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.): The LORD CHANCELLOR 011 the Woolsack.
Baroness Dacre Baroness Dacre—Took the Oath.

Package Holidays: Complaints
Baroness Burton of Coventry Baroness Burton of Coventry asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many complaints they have received about package holidays during the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available, and how this compares with the previous 12-month period.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, in 1988 the Departments of Trade and Industry, Employment, and Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority and Office of Fair Trading recorded in total 598 written complaints about package holidays. This compares with 489 recorded in 1987.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, that means an increase of some 20 per cent. in the number reported to government departments alone. Last year some 13 million people went on package holidays. As a recent ABTA survey revealed 6 per cent. of dissatisfied customers, does the Minister agree that if that figure were applied to the 13 million who went on package holidays, there would be approximately 750,000 dissatisfied holidaymakers? That is nothing to do with the ABTA report. Can the Minister say whether the Government are still against accepting Article 5 of the EC directive on package holidays? If that is so, are they prepared to accept the recommendation of our own Select Committee: that liability for each element of the package should be separately examined? If not, what are the Government doing about that?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not wish to comment definitively on the recommendation at this stage because it is too early to predict how negotiations in Brussels may develop. The Government's starting point is that tour operators should be contractually liable to provide their customers with precisely the holiday that they book, and that beyond that a formula must be found for limiting liability in a sensible way. Many European Community partners share our general concern but wish to tackle the offending article in different ways. It remains to be seen what kind of formula may be mutually acceptable.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, I thank the Minister, but he did not answer my question. I asked whether the Government are in favour of accepting the recommendation of our Select Committee? It was that liability for each element of the package should be separately examined.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sorry if I did not satisfy the noble Baroness. At the beginning of my answer I said that I did not wish to comment definitively on the recommendation because we are still negotiating in Brussels.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, with the leave of the House, does the Minister recall that in a debate on 15th December he told the House that the Commission had been told to go away and think of a better proposal after consultations with experts? Does he not believe that it would have been a useful idea to include consumers in those consultations? Is the Minister aware that consumers believe that the acceptance of Article 5 is essential to the package?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the Government's position was reached after careful consideration of the various submissions put to them on consultation. They take account of the views expressed by consumer bodies. However, the consumer movement, the travel industry and others with expertise in the field should also consider whether they wish to make appropriate representations on the issue to the Commission.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the persistent reports that this year conditions for package holidaymakers regarding airport delays, hotel problems and health hazards will be worse than last year? Do the Government agree with such reports? If so, what action will they take?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the answer to that question must be taken in the context of the past 10 years. Package holidays have increased from 4 million to 13 million today. Therefore it appears that the vast majority of people who take such holidays obviously enjoy themselves and continue to go.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, has the air travel component of a package holiday been an increasing source of complaint, or is it decreasing?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the main increased area of complaint has been in respect of consumer surcharges. ABTA has introduced a new code which should greatly improve the situation.
Lord Morris: My Lords, arising from an earlier answer, perhaps I may ask this question. Is my noble friend aware that he should draw great comfort from the fact that he is not the only member of the Government Front Bench who fails to satisfy the noble Baroness?
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, can the Minister explain why the Government will not support the draft directive which seeks to establish the principle of strict liability of the travel company to the consumer when that principle applies to the manufacturers of goods?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the question of strict liability in the context of holidays is different from that in the context of food. For instance, we are not

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entirely certain that it would be fair for a tour operator to be strictly liable for a holidaymaker who had a stomach upset while on holiday in Turkey.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, I am sorry to rise again, but I have been trying to sort out the Minister's reply. Did the Minister tell the House that the Government were not considering Article 5 at the moment? Did he include in that answer the fact that they were not considering the resolution from the Select Committee of your Lordships' House?
Lord Strathclyde: No, my Lords, we are still considering both.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, can the noble Lord say when those considerations will end and we shall have a result?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the consideration will be complete in due course.

Water Charges
3.8 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps will be taken to stop private water companies from increasing prices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, the Government have made clear to the statutory water companies that until they are brought into the regulatory regime proposed under the Water Bill, they continue to be bound by the limits on charges in their existing statutes.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, that is not a very comforting Answer to my Question which was: will the Government stop any price increases for water? It is that which is frightening people. Is the Minister aware that specialists on the subject—both those who support privatisation and those who are opposed to it—are agreed on one issue? It is that the Government are not taking serious steps adequately to protect the consumers. For example, Ernst and Whinney, chartered accountants, is reported to have told the Water Companies Association to ignore any government protest and insist on big price increases this year. Does the Minister intend to do anything about that? Is it not the Government's policy to phase in charges, and that the water companies are expected to effect significant increases in their prices in a few months' time?
Therefore, will the Minister say whether it is the intention of the Government strictly to abide by what they have previously said? It was that there will be no overwhelming increases in the price of water and that more stringent rules will be laid down before another increase is permitted.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister for Water and Planning has made it clear that he sees no justification for water
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companies increasing their charges by anything like the percentages some have proposed. He has asked the chairman of any water company planning to increase its charges by more than 10 per cent. to explain the reasons behind the increase.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, given the Government's philosophy in this sphere, why is the Minister seeking to interfere with a private company's judgment on this matter?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, because he feels, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, pointed out, that we should be looking at phased increases.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that yesterday his right honourable friend the Secretary of State told another place that it would cost over £2 billion to put our water and beaches into a state which would satisfy EC regulations? Will he answer the Question which I asked yesterday and which he said he would postpone answering until today regarding the Government's attitude to the statement by Mr. Swallow, the director or the Water Companies Association, that under Government policy shareholders' profits must take precedence over consumer interests?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, with regard to the future pricing of water by the statutory water companies, of course there will be factor K. It is clear that the value of K will be drawn up on the basis of the financial standing of the company and its future financial profile. Where that shows surplus funds built up through charges increases not related to needs but purely for the purpose of swelling reserves, the value of K will be lower than it otherwise would have been. Therefore, the reduction of the charges will increase in future years allowing customers the benefit of those surpluses. That means that there will be no advantage to the statutory water companies if they do that for other than good reasons.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the consumer is not worried but will be worried about algebra equations in relation to the water industry and the price he will have to pay? Before the water industry is denationalised and privatised, would it not be better if the Government used some of the enormous funds accruing to the Treasury this year and in subsequent years in order to put right the water industry and the environment of our beaches? At least we should then know that we have decent, potable, pure water and clean beaches which we shall certainly not know if there is privatisation.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am always slightly confused by the attempt to relate privatisation to environmental demand. I and the Government believe that the consumer is willing to pay for quality and that cost has nothing to do with privatisation.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, will the noble Lord answer the Question which I asked him yesterday and which I asked him again this afternoon? Do the Government agree with Mr.

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Swallow that their policy for privatising water and setting up private water companies indicates that the shareholders will be put before the consumer?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the shareholders will depend upon a satisfied consumer.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as the water companies claim that the increase in prices is occasioned by the impending privatisation proposals and as at the same time the Government are apparently saying that they have no power over the water companies to do anything other than to urge them to phase their increases, will not the public draw the justified conclusion that those increases are the direct responsibility of the Government?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it is too early to comment on individual cases. A number of companies may face increased costs in making a start towards meeting the drinking water directive and in drawing up their asset management plans in preparation for the new regulatory regime. Both those areas will benefit the consumer. Some may have thought that large increases this year will give them a higher charging base when the new charging regime starts. People—individuals and groups—probably find it easier to blame the Government than anything else.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, as regards the Minister's reply that the water companies depend on a satisfied consumer, does he not agree that it would be very difficult for the consumer to boycott the water companies?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, when I referred to the consumer earlier I was referring to the fact that the consumer demands quality. We were discussing the implication whereby privatisation is confused with the demands of the consumer for environmental benefit.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is it not the case that the letter from the accountants Ernst and Whinney said specifically that the Government had initially approved the increased water charges and had also said that the Government approved a proposal that the charges were justified because privatisation was to take place? Will he be good enough to say whether or not that is accurate?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the Government have made clear to the advisers of the Water Companies Association that while the present statutory controls remain in force, water companies must continue to abide by them. That guidance did not invite the water companies to exploit those limits to the full in advance of the regulation under the Water Bill, nor did it indicate that failure to do so would put them at a disadvantage under the new regime.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, if this were simply a political issue many of us would wish the Government to continue, because 90 per cent. of the members of the public who participate in the polls and radio'phone-ins are against this entire measure.
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However, we are talking about rather more than a political issue and the freeing of water. Is the Minister aware that the water of this nation is just as important as any other part of a fundamental line of defence, and that the defence of this country should not be messed about by this Conservative Government?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, as a result of privatisation, standards will improve. I should remind your Lordships' House that this is not the first time that there have been high increases in water costs. Water authority rates rose by more than 40 per cent. in 1975–76 and by 26 per cent. in the following year.

BR Property: Listed Buildings
3.17 p.m.
Baroness Strange Baroness Strange asked Her Majesty's Government:
How far listed building legislation is applicable to property owned by British Rail.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, I understand that property owned by British Rail is fully covered by the listed building legislation.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his courteous and brief reply. Is he aware that at Errol station in Scotland, British Rail propose to demolish the station platforms and the footbridge, which had been listed since 1971? Is he further aware that that will destroy the whole charming character of Errol station, which is currently being made into a railway museum by a group of railway enthusiasts, and will leave it looking like a stranded dolphin on a tip?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for having informed me of the particular station which she had in mind. It is a listed building and any question of alteration to it will be at first for British Rail to sort out with the local planning authority.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is the Minster able to give information to the House as to the number of listed buildings affected belonging to British Rail? Can he also indicate whether there is a possibility of any major or important projects of British Rail that will be affected in this way?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I can answer the first part of the noble Lord's question in that British Rail currently have around 900 listed buildings, which I believe makes them one of the largest single owners of listed buildings in the country. I cannot say whether there are any particularly large projects in hand which affect any other listed buildings at the moment, but if there were, they would have to go through the normal procedure applicable to listed building legislation.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, what is the purpose of listing a building if British Rail can demolish it?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I have said that British Rail have to go through the proper planning procedures if they want to demolish the building. That involves going to the local planning authority, in the same way as any other owner of a listed building would have to do for such proposals.
Lord St.John of Fawsley: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many noble Lords, including myself, whose connections with Scotland are tenuous, strongly support the crusade of my noble friend Lady Strange in her efforts to secure this delightful station? Since my noble friend has stated that British Rail are one of the biggest owners of listed buildings in the country, is he prepared to use his good offices to ensure that when British Rail dispose of a listed building they make sure that it is incorporated into a development which is worthy and appropriate for the building concerned?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, that is a matter for British Rail. In this case I understand that the station itself is being sold to the people whom my noble friend Lady Strange and others support. It is the platform and the footbridge which are in question at the moment. British Rail want to make the alterations because there is a drainage problem between the tracks. British Rail have a genuine reason for wanting to carry out that work, and not just for the sake of it. As I said, the question is one for the planning authority.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a Private Bill, not yet introduced but which has been printed, called the Kings Cross Railways Bill? If that Bill goes through, under Clause 19 British Rail will be able to override all the existing listed building legislation. That would affect, in particular, the Great Northern Hotel, which is listed grade II. The station itself is listed grade I. One objective is, I understand, that one of the terminals should provide a link for the Channel Tunnel. Can the Minister give an assurance that the Government will oppose Clause 19 of the Bill and insist that British Rail should go through the usual processes of listed building legislation so that development can be appealed against? Such legislation should not be passed.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I certainly cannot give the noble Baroness the assurance she seeks. If there is a Bill before Parliament it is for Parliament to decide how to deal with it.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, is the Minister aware that Liverpool Street Station is a listed building? Some beautiful arches there are being knocked down, which seems a shame.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am sorry, I did not catch the name of the station.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, it is Liverpool Street Station, which is fairly well known.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, without notice I am afraid 1 cannot give details for all the many stations which British Rail own.
Lord Borthwick: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the bridge is being taken down because it is considered to be unsafe? On the other hand I believe it is being removed and is likely to be put up somewhere else, as it is in quite good condition.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I was not aware of that but it is an interesting point.

Official Secrets Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Elected Authorities (Northern Ireland) Bill
3.24 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Lyell): My Lords, 1 beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Lyell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Breach of terms of declaration]:
Lord Prys-Davies Lord Prys-Davies moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 3, line II, after ("he") insert ("wilfully").
The noble Lord said: We now discuss the affairs of Northern Ireland and one-third of the Members in the Chamber departs. I offer no comment but the citizens of Northern Ireland may care to ponder, because we do not often burden the Chamber with the affairs of Northern Ireland at 3.25 in the afternoon.
The object of Amendment No. 1 is to provide councillors with a defence where a defence ought to be appropriate. We say that a councillor in Northern Ireland should not be in breach of the declaration against terrorism and excluded from office for five years unless he was "wilfully" in breach of the terms of his declaration.
In this Bill we are encroaching upon electoral law. It appears to us that to deprive the electorate of a freely elected representative of the people is a grave step to take, with the gravest consequences. If we are to retain confidence in Northern Ireland for the democratic system that step should not lightly be taken.
A councillor in any council chamber does not always use language with precision. He may speak in the heat of the moment or in an inflammatory situation. He may be responding quickly to a statement which he regards as being provocative. In our view it is not fair or reasonable that a councillor should be disqualified from office if he is merely in technical breach of the declaration.
I recall that on Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, felt that if we were to allow this defence the effectiveness of the Bill would be in issue. The noble Lord overlooked the political damage which could be caused by interfering with the electoral process without just cause. There is an ancient saying familiar to lawyers that a deed does not make a man guilty unless his mind is guilty. In criminal law mens rea or a guilty mind has to be established. It seems to us very odd indeed that we should have a lower standard of evidence in electoral law than in criminal law. I hope that the Minister will accept this reasonable amendment. I realise that it has not been canvassed in another place. If the Minister is unable to accept it I hope he will tell the Committee that he is prepared to reflect further before he rejects it.
3.30 p.m.
Viscount Brookeborough: In supporting this amendment I cannot say a great deal more than the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has said. I feel that the word "wilfully" should be inserted to protect those who may have made a slip of the tongue or whose words may be taken out of context. That is a danger, especially as those who support violence will miss no opportunity of taking honest, law-abiding councillors or Assembly Members to court for any minor indiscretion. We should remember that their aim is to destroy democratic government by whatever means, which includes wasting the time of the judicial system. Therefore for a court to determine that a breach was made wilfully and not accidentally would be an important point. I commend this amendment to the Committee.
Lord Dunleath: I have added my name to this amendment though I confess that I was in two minds about it. I believe that elected representatives should think before they speak and they should be held responsible for what they say. At the same time, having given it careful consideration, I believe that this is a proper amendment because errors can be made. I do not know whether any Member of the Committee apart from myself has actually sat in the Northern Ireland Assembly. If privileged so to do, Members of the Committee will have witnessed the way in which our fundamentalist friends have been carried away by their own oratory. It is possible for a slip of the tongue to be made.
I support this measure in general. For political reasons and to make it less draconian, I support the amendment as it has been tabled. I trust that the Committee will take the same view though the question of proof, whether it is wilful or not, is a more difficult one. Perhaps we can look at that later during the Committee stage.
Lord Monson: I support this amendment. I do not believe that people should be branded as terrorists for something which they may have said in a moment of anger and which they may regret later.
Lord Lyell: I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, who outlined the gist of his amendment at Second Reading. He presented his amendment in a very lucid and traditional way. I support him and
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I have much sympathy for his opening comment that whenever any of us rise to speak on Northern Irish matters we tend to have a quiet pause while the Chamber settles itself. I concur with what he said in presenting his amendment.
As the Committee would expect, the noble Lord and other Members of the Committee who have spoken, including my noble friend Lord Brookeborough, have presented the case lucidly. I sympathise very much with the concern of those who have spoken about ensuring that the words and the actions of councillors are not deliberately twisted in any way that wrongly exposes them to action under the Bill. I was taken by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, stressing a technical breach of the declaration. I hope that I shall not go too far down the technical breach path in my opening remarks. Perhaps he will note whether I cover a technical breach or a graver one in the course of what I have to say.
I ask the noble Lord and others who have spoken to look at the protection that is already afforded to councillors in situations that are envisaged in the Bill by the noble Lord. Clause 6(2) states quite clearly:
"a person shall be taken to express support for, or approval of, any matter if his words or actions could reasonably be understood as expressing support for, or approval of, it."
I stress the words "could reasonably be understood". Their effect is to ensure that a court in looking at any words or actions which allegedly would constitute a breach of the declaration will ask itself whether a reasonable man would have understood the words or actions as expressions of support or approval.
For better or worse that is an objective test of meaning. I believe that it provides protection against words that are being maliciously twisted, distorted or taken out of context. That goes some way to cover the point raised by the noble Lord in what he called a technical breach of the declaration. It is perfectly true that it is not necessary for the applicant to show that the words or actions were intended or as the noble Lord might suggest, willed—to express support, let alone approval.
The effect of the word "wilfully" in the amendment is in addition to showing how the reasonable man would understand the words or actions of the person who is alleged to have breached the declaration. The applicant must show that the person uttering those words intended them or the actions to have that meaning. I believe that these two tests are significant hurdles for any words or actions in this context to pass. To require both would be to tip the balance of advantage more in favour of the respondent than is desirable, and it would make the declaration difficult to enforce.
We touched on this at Second Reading. Councillors should—in the context of Northern Ireland I believe that they do—foresee the likely and the natural interpretation that will be placed upon words or actions. In Northern Ireland whether wilful, as the noble Lord would have it, or perhaps in a fit of temper (the noble Lord might have suggested a technical breach), ill-considered statements can be and are inflammatory as well as being dangerous. I do not believe that the Committee, or a court, would find

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it difficult in those circumstances to ask councillors to think carefully before they speak or act.
When councillors are in council chambers in Northern Ireland they tend to behave just as councillors do anywhere else in the United Kingdom. But we believe that the protection given in Clause 6(2) covers the point and meets the question of the technical breach of a declaration with, as the noble Lord rightly points out, grave consequences upon the councillor.
I hope that that explanation will show to those Members of the Committee who have spoken and indeed those who have taken an interest in the amendment that the protection for councillors is more than adequate. We believe that the court will find no difficulty in assessing whether a councillor had or had not breached the declaration which he had solemnly signed and which would bite when he was successfully elected to serve as a councillor. The protection in subsection (2) of Clause 6 will meet the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and by those Members of the Committee who spoke in support of the amendment. I hope that the noble Lord will accept the points I have set out and will not feel it necessary to press the amendment.
Lord Prys-Davies: I thank the noble Lord for his response and in particular for drawing our attention to Clause 6 and the appropriate subsection. The subsection deals with an objective test of intention. There can be a subjective test of intention. We believe that in electoral law we should refer to a subjective test rather than an objective test of intention.
The Minister referred to enforcement of the declaration. I am gratified that he referred to enforcement proceedings because we shall come to that matter later in our discussions in Committee. This is where we believe the Bill is defective. Throughout our discussion I have referred, as have other Members of the Committee, to a technical breach, because we are concerned about a councillor speaking in the council chamber being moved impulsively to express a view which may be thought to be in breach of the declaration. I should like to impress upon the Government that councillors do not live in a perfect world. Councillors are often imperfect. They do not use language with great precision. A councillor in Northern Ireland who is provoked into expressing a view which may be considered to be technically in breach of the declaration should not be dragged before the courts.
We believe that the matter comes down to drawing a distinction between an objective test and a subjective test. I hope that the Government will bear in mind what has been said in our discussion on the clause. It is a matter to which we shall wish to return at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 13, after ("say") insert ("organised and potentially lethal").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. I had always understood that it was considered generally undesirable to be excessively precise in a statute. If one is excessively precise one runs the risk of including something which ought to be excluded or excluding something which ought to be included. I am fairly confident that if the noble Lord, Lord Renton, whom I always consider to be the guru of immaculate drafting, were in his place today he would assent to this. That is why I gladly support the deletion of the words,
"that is to say violence for political ends",
in Amendment No. 5, to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
I would gladly have done the same if the noble Lord and the other noble Lords whose names are attached to the amendment had also sought the deletion of the identical words where they appear in Clause 6 and where they appear elsewhere in Schedule 2. Whether by accident or design they have not done so. Therefore at this stage of the Bill it is too late to do anything about it. If, contrary to our usual practice, we must have such a precise definition of what after all is a straightforward and obvious crime—we all know what terrorism means—for heaven's sake let it be a better definition than the one presently in the Bill.
As the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said at Second Reading, we do not want people who are effectively not doing much more than taking part in a glorified industrial dispute being stigmatised as terrorists. While there may be different views on the precise merits of the words employed in the amendment, the word "organised" does not imply that more than one person need be involved. The filofax, that brilliant creation of the marketing man's skill, will be known to the Committee. In its other guise it is known as a personal organiser. There is never a suggestion that one needs more than one person to do the organising.
"Organised" implies a certain degree of preparation and premeditation, although it goes slightly beyond premeditation, which is why I used the word "organised" instead. The words "potentially lethal" are self-explanatory. Violence involving firearms, explosives, knives, axes, and heavy blunt instruments would be caught if the amendment were agreed to, as would violence involving petrol bombs, a most lethal weapon. In fact all forms of arson would be caught, because even if a building is empty arson is a potential danger to the lives of the firemen seeking to put out the fire. Violence involving merely fists for example, a punch-up at an election meeting however undesirable such behaviour might be, would not be caught if the amendment were agreed to; nor would stone throwing in itself unless stones were thrown at the window of a house behind which a baby was sleeping in a cot. That is something to be heavily discouraged.
While I stand by my original contention that we ought not to have a definition because 'we all know precisely what terrorism means, if we are to have a definition, this wording strikes a reasonable balance

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between ordinary political violence, which ought not to be branded as terrorism, however unwelcome it may be, and terrorist violence. I beg to move.
Lord Prys-Davies: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to Amendment No. 5. The noble Lord's amendment and Amendment No. 5 are addressed to the definition in the Bill of the word "terrorism"; but the definition of the word in the context of this Bill. During the Second Reading debate it emerged that this Chamber was simply not satisfied with the definition. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, told Members of this place that the definition had been used in two other Acts of Parliament and it had not led to any difficulties. I do not challenge the judgment of the noble Lord, Lord Lye11; I am sure that it is correct. However, it does not follow that the definition is appropriate in the context of this Bill which deals with electoral law.
There are doubts and difficulties about the definition in the Bill. Indeed, they were referred to during the Second Reading debate and were touched upon today by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. It seems to me that if we are to have regard to the ordinary use of words, the definition is both too narrow and, at the same time, too wide. If that is correct, then the definition is unsatisfactory and there is something wrong with it.
In our view the definition is too wide because, for example, it would catch the marginal scene of the individual councillor in Northern Ireland who happens to speak in support of, say, force on the picket line on an industrial day of action, either against or for the Anglo-Irish Agreement. That, by any definition notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said on Second Reading—would be an action in pursuit of political ends.
Is it fair and reasonable that a councillor who spoke in the council chamber in support of such action should be stripped of his office and disqualified from holding such office for five years? I ask again: is that fair? Indeed, would not such disqualification in such circumstances be perceived by some people in Northern Ireland as a form of censorship—that is, if he is to be punished for expressing his view, even though the majority of the electorate would be fully in support of that view?
I am attracted by the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, although I only saw it a couple of hours ago. It would certainly ensure that such expressions of support— that is, support of a picket line, or force on a picket line would not be caught by the provisions of the Bill. However, I should like to reflect further on that amendment because it seems to me that it may also lead to further questions.
I am not sure that the amendment cures all the ills. For example, it may well be that the amendment —although I accept it as far as it goes—is also too narrow. Perhaps it is too narrow, if I may be permitted to say so, because it would not catch a bigoted councillor who expressly or impliedly advocates or supports the use of violence against Protestants or Catholics in the Province. I do not wish to dwell too much on that possible scenario.
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However, it seems to me that the definition may not catch the bigoted councillor who would speak in such vein.
From these Benches, we are sure that the definition in the Bill is unsatisfactory. I accept that it would be difficult to draft a definition in the context of the Bill which would be entirely acceptable and which would not be too wide or too narrow. However, if the Minister is not prepared at this stage to accept the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, there is the amendment which we will subsequently be moving. The purpose of that amendment is really to leave it to the court to decide whether the words or conduct complained of amount to support for terrorism.
I have a feeling—I am speaking now in relation to the subsequent amendment—that a judge of the High Court would be a very shrewd and reflective man who would quickly recognise a declaration in support of terrorism if he saw one. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, on behalf of the Government, can see his way clear to accept the need for redefinition of the word "terrorism", even though neither the noble Lord, Lord Monson, nor other Members of the Committee in a subsequent amendment have produced an ideal definition. We invite the noble Lord to say, "Yes, we will go back to the drawing board on the issue".
Lord Dunleath: As usual we are greatly appreciative of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, for his thoughtfulness in having tabled the amendment. Indeed, I understand the reason behind it and I can understand his thinking. However, my concern is that the more we define the more the problems will be compounded for the courts. That is an issue upon which I should be interested to hear the qualified opinion of noble and learned Lords who sit on the judicial Benches, because I am no lawyer. However, 1 should be afraid that the more precise the definition, the more difficult the job of the courts would be. What we are aiming for is something which is not in dispute at all; it is just a question of how to make it work as effectively as possible.
Lord Fitt: It will be recognised by Members of the Committee that in Northern Ireland at present those who are opposed to this legislation have already predicted that it will not work and that it will be counter-productive. They have produced scores of reasons why the legislation should not be enacted. I take the view that it is doubtful whether this legislation will be as effective as I would like it to be. But, recognising the campaign of violence, and those who have been perpetrating that violence, I certainly will support any measures in the hope that they will prove to be effective.
As regards the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, at which I have just glanced, it contains the words "organised and potentially lethal". I take the view that all acts of terrorism are potentially lethal. It is not just the person who pulls the trigger on a handgun or a rifle, or the person who throws a petrol bomb or the person who sets off an explosion by way of Semtex: one of the most lethal components of terrorism is intimidation.

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Without intimidation in Northern Ireland there would be no campaign of violence; it is intimidation which forces people to hide terrorists, to give succour to terrorists and not to inform on them. I have looked through the Bill and I wonder if the Minister can say whether the Bill can be designed to include intimidation because, as I say, it is intimidation which has prolonged the whole course of the campaign of violence for 20 years now. I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, but I should like to hear the Minister say that intimidation will be included in "potentially lethal"violence.
4 p.m.
Viscount Brookeborough: I support the idea that there should be some amendment to the definition of terrorism. I too should like to see the qualifying words removed. We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, that he wishes to have another aspect included in the definition. There may be many other cases which have terrorist implications.
I and those noble Lords who live in Northern Ireland find it difficult to understand why the word "terrorism" does not stand on its own two feet. From the terrorism that we have come across, we do not find that there is any ambiguity in the word. From the moment we start to qualify the word, we shall end with a book of qualifications. Even then, they will not be complete. We shall have to keep on bringing the definition back to the drawing board. I support the deletion of the words in the paragraph after the word "terrorism".
Lord Lyell: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, for introducing the amendment. It may be for the convenience of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and his colleagues if I spoke just once. I am sure that the Committee will be grateful for that. I shall take the arguments in the order in which they were presented. I shall try first to cover the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I am grateful for the attention that he has paid to the Bill and for the attractive way in which he moved the amendment. I can understand why he moved it. Everyone in this place, everyone in government and everyone else will support the brave people of Northern Ireland in their fight against violence. We deplore especially violence used for political ends, whether potentially lethal or not.
It does not take a High Court judge or a magistrate to understand what violence is. We all have a good idea of what it means. However, it is also set out in the Bill. I shall attempt to give our reasons for having the definition of "violence" as it is in the Bill.
Expressions of support for violence by elected representatives in Northern Ireland, which is at the nub of the Bill, need to be curtailed. Against that background, it is not possible to pick, choose or define different types of violence for political ends, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Monson, proposes in the amendment. The first of the amendments refers to potentially lethal" violence. I believe that I understand what he means by that, but I wonder whether it will be helpful if we accept the words "potentially lethal", let alone "organised".
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The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said on Second Reading, and he has also said today, that all violence—from the picket line to that exercised by paramilitary bodies—is potentially lethal. We know that different people have different physical weaknesses of which they may be unaware. Someone may have a weak heart which will not stand up to the pushing and shoving that sometimes occurs on picket lines or the other types of dispute which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
As the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and my noble friend Lord Brookeborough will be aware, a fairly common and disgusting occurrence in Northern Ireland is what is popularly known as "knee-capping". We all too frequently read and hear of occasions where persons have been knee-capped. I shall give a broad definition of what takes place usually at night in Northern Ireland. It may take place in the country or in a quiet lower room of a house. As we understand it, someone is shot in the leg as punishment for some real or imagined wrong. As the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, put it, it is almost always done as an example of intimidation or as a threat. It is almost always carried out by paramilitary organisations.
Knee-capping, as it is technically known, is hardly likely to be fatal. I do not know whether there has been a death as a result of that type of injury alone. It must be accepted that it is a brutal form of intimidation, punishment and terrorism. Does the noble Lord believe that his amendment would be effective if a court were to take the view that kneecapping was not potentially lethal? Does he intend by his amendment that a bomb placed in an unfrequented spot, or one that may have been abandoned, with due warning, should be understood to be potentially lethal? Those are two occurrences which would give a court great difficultly. It would be extremely difficult to define whether they would be covered by the words "organised and potentially lethal".
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, will recognise the difficultires that we believe would occur in cases of generalised support for acts of terrorism. In the Bill we are dealing with local government. One or two clauses cover a putative Assembly for Northern Ireland. We do not want local government in Northern Ireland to have to put up with the kind of comments that we all know can be made and about which we spoke on Second Reading, without giving those affected the means and recourse to do something about such comments addressed to them.
Praiseworthy though his amendments are, I hope that the noble Lord will see that they would present considerable difficulty to a court. We believe that the definition of violence contained in the Bill is sufficient to catch the offences which we believe should be placed before a court, if that is the will of any person who may be affected.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, and other noble Lords spoke in support of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. As always, I was impressed by his eloquence. He has one major advantage over many of us in that he is a lawyer from Wales, which adds a distinct lustre and polish to his legal thoughts in the Committee. This

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afternoon he was especially eloquent, and I believe that there appeared a touch of similarity with his previous argument.
I come back to the point that the court would have to decide on the merits of any case brought before it. Regarding the noble Lord's amendment, we believe that the purpose of the definition of "terrorism" in the Bill is to help candidates, and above all to ensure that the terms of the declaration in Schedule 2 to the Bill remain aligned with the enforcement provision in Clause 6(1)(a)(ii). That sounds complicated, but I think that Members of the Committee will be able to find the paragraph since it is the subject of the amendment. In it there is the phrase, "violence for political ends". There are similar but not identical definitions of "terrorism" in both the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1984 and the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978, Section 31 of the latter contains the definition:
"terrorism means the use of violence for political ends and includes any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public or any section of the public in fear".
I propose to the Committee that that definition cannot be read straight into the Bill before us. We cannot, as I might suggest in my non-legal mind, take it like a suitcase from one measure to another. The Bill today is different in context. The main difference between the Bill before us and the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act is that we believe that action should be taken in the civil court. The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act is dealing almost entirely with criminal proceedings.
The definition in the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act is similar. It has been on the statute book for nearly 11 years. To the best of our knowledge, this interpretation has never given rise to any difficulty. If the court has been asked to decide, it seems that it has been perfectly happy with that definition. In the light of experience with the 1978 Act in the courts, and the difficulty of the definition of "terrorism", I do not think that candidates, let alone the courts, will find it difficult to interpret the phrase in Clause 6(1)(a)(ii), "violence for political ends". The noble Lord and Members of the Committee will accept that there will be borderline cases, as there will be no matter how one attempts to define "terrorism". That would be a matter for the court, having regard to the circumstances in which utterances have been made or actions performed.
The noble Lord also drew attention recently and at Second Reading to borderline examples like the case of picket line violence. He had one other thought in mind, the disturbances such as we saw throughout the Province in late 1985 and early 1986, which happily have considerably diminished. But in such instances we believe that the court will exercise a degree of judgment which is well within its capabilities and capacity. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that councillors, let alone Assembly members, should exercise judgment. They will know how far they can go and what they can say. They will also know that they have solemnly signed the declaration which is designed to help them exercise their judgment.
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I have tried to spell out to the Committee the definition of "terrorism" which we want in the Bill and the use to which this definition would be put in court. I do not believe that in practice the definition will be found wanting, let alone unworkable. It is as clear as it reasonably could be in the Bill for the purposes for which we seek it, I hope that that explanation will show that measures in the Bill will meet the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, as well as those of the noble Lords, Lord Prys-Davies, Lord Fitt and Lord Dunleath, together with my noble friend Lord Brookeborough.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether the definition of "terrorism" has a different meaning in English legislation from that in Northern Ireland? Today the bomb at Bristol University was described in the press as "terrorism", but it was not political. It seemed to be something to do with animal rights. Does "terrorism" have a different definition according to the country in which it is perpetrated?
Lord Lyell: I think that the noble Baroness makes her own case. If she looks at the definition which I described in a rather complicated comment on Clause 6(1)(a)(ii), we describe acts of terrorism. We define the word as we do in the Act, so that when the court takes action under the Bill in the circumstances in which we see it taking action to preclude people, it will decide whether there has been a breach of the declaration signed by the councillor or the Assembly member. What has been either said or done would be caught or not caught by the definition we have given. I do not wish to go into what happened at Bristol, I am not sure what did happen. I understand that there was an explosion, but quite what the damage was and whether it might be described as "terrorism", I do not know. I hope not for the purposes of the Bill before us, which, as I am sure the noble Baroness accepts, is applicable to Northern Ireland and the Northern Irish circumstances. If there were a problem of this nature in councils in England and Wales, let alone Scotland, I am sure that measures would be brought before your Lordships' House to attempt to deal with it.
Lord Fitt: I understand the difficulty of the Minister and wish to accept the assurances which he has given. I hope I am wrong, but he seemed to be saying that knee-capping was not a particularly heinous offence and that it should not be alluded to in the same category as other terrorist offences.
When we look at the term "lethal", does that mean that the victim has to be dead? I wish to put on record during this debate that I know of a number of cases—many of them in my own constituency in Belfast—where the knee-capping went wrong. Knee-capping is not carried out by doctors or people with medical experience; it is carried out by thugs—some of the most vicious thugs that ever walked the earth of Ireland. I know of a number of cases where kneecapping went wrong and subsequently the victim had to have his leg amputated. For the victim that was lethal. I am trying to recall the names, I know of some people who died because the bullets went through a main artery during the course of knee-capping.

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Therefore I think that knee-capping is a very serious part of the campaign of violence in Northern Ireland.
Lord Lyell: We all respect and accept everything which the noble Lord has said on a subject of which I do not say he has personal experience as regards his knees. However, his personal experience on the subject is far greater than mine or that of any other Members of the Committee. I hope that nothing I said in reply to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, when proposing the amendment, suggested that knee-capping was anything other than a disgusting and foul offence, crippling people.
The noble Lord and the Committee will be aware that this punishment is hardly ever used against persons of my age or older—that is the most polite way I can think of to express it. It tends to be practised against young men. For all I know it may be practised against young women and girls too. It is practised against people who have for some reason offended the paramilitary organisations or who have stepped out of line in the code of conduct of those organisations.
Knee-capping is a disgusting and foul method of intimidation and punishment. I was not attempting to make the point that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, made. The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, may have an example of a knee-capping that led to death. But I tried to explain that in our understanding and in our conception of the understanding of a court, knee-capping would not be caught by the amendment.
Lord Prys-Davies: The Minister may have missed the point of the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. We could introduce into the amendment the words "organised and physically damaging". Kneecapping is physically damaging. Would that be acceptable to the Government?
Lord Lyell: This situation is rather like Pandora's box. We now come to the word "organised". We should not take up more of the Committee's time in considering how one decides whether violence is organised and whether the violence in the minds of those who carried out an offence was subjective or objective. Certainly as regards terrorism we are about to prove why the definition in Clause 6(1)(a)(ii) is the best and correct one as we consider the definition will be needed in Northern Ireland, above all when it concerns councillors or members of the Assembly.
Lord Prys-Davies: But knee-capping surely implies a measure of organisation. It requires, first, that one identifies the candidate for knee-capping, and, secondly, that one assembles the forces necessary to knee-cap that person. That requires organisation and it comes within the definition of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, if the noble Lord is prepared to extend that definition to include the words "physically damaging conduct".
Lord Lyell: I do not want to go further on the word "organisation". The noble Lord is tempting me to go further down that road.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Lyell: I must finish this point. The noble Lord is tempting me. No doubt he will tempt me again, but I must resist. I suggest to him that even if the words "physical violence" were appended to the amendment, that may present more difficulties as regards a court deciding whether violence was involved. We could cover intimidation which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. But I shall take on board the point mentioned by the noble Lord.
Lord Monson: I am extremely grateful to all Members of the Committee who have spoken. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, for his second intervention. He was absolutely right to point out that arteries run through each knee. If an artery is hit by a bullet or one of the larger sized shotgun pellets, it is certainly potentially lethal. It is an absolute miracle that more people have not been killed by knee-capping, and I cannot believe that any court would not hold knee-capping to be a potentially lethal crime.
Furthermore, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, that the placing of a bomb in deserted premises is also potentially lethal. However deserted the premises may be, no terrorist can guarantee that someone may not be cycling or walking past that deserted building when the bomb goes off. Therefore, if I may say so, I do not think the objections that have been made are terribly sound.
I concede, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, pointed out, that my words may not be wholly perfect. But I still maintain that they are a great deal better than the present wording. It is the greatest pity that neither the noble Lord, Lord Renton, nor the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, nor any of the noble and learned Lords who normally sit on these Benches, is here today because it would have been very interesting to hear their views. The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lords, Lord Dunleath and Lord Fitt, all reinforced the point I made at the beginning of my introduction, which was that the best course of all is to leave out a definition altogether. The more one tries to define terrorism, the more loopholes there will be and the more things will be embraced in that definition that really should not be embraced in it.
If the wording is left unaltered, the breaking of a single windowpane in the front door of someone who is a known supporter of the INLA or the UVF would be counted as terrorism, even if the house were empty. A councillor who said that the person inside the house jolly well deserved his fate would be caught by the Bill as it stands, although that is the spontaneous kind of remark that people often make in the heat of the moment.
There is often a certain amount of violence at election meetings: for example, people are pushed, shoved or punched in the chest. Sometimes the proverbial tomato is thrown or the proverbial salmonella-free egg. Such things happen at election meetings, even on the mainland. If, by leaving the

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wording exactly as it stands, a councillor were to say that the people who did such things could not be blamed in the circumstances as they had been provoked, he would also be caught by the wording. I do not think that any of the actions I have enumerated would be thought of by the ordinary man in the street as terrorism. Juries of course are comprised of men and women in the street, but in Northern Ireland juries do not decide these matters.
My preference would be for a Division on Amendment No. 5. I always have thought that that amendment proposed the best course of all. If it is agreed to, we can then at the next stage of the Bill extend the principle to the other part of Schedule 2 where the same phrase appears and to Clause 60, which were accidentally overlooked by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. As many Members of the Committee have said from all sides of the Chamber, we all know what terrorism is and judges know what terrorism is. If we tried to define it, we could easily get something wrong somewhere. Therefore, let us leave out the definition altogether. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
4.30 p.m.
Clause 7 [Application to the High Court]:
Lord Prys-Davies Lord Prys-Davies moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 4, line 4, leave out subsections (1) and (2) and insert—
("( ) The Attorney-General may apply to the High Court for a determination that a person has acted in breach of the terms of a declaration against terrorism made by him.").
The noble Lord said: The point was made by every speaker in the Second Reading debate that the declaration against terrorism is unlikely to be effective because the burden of initiating the proceedings is left to the individual. It is left to the individual councillor, the individual local elector or the council. The individual is unlikely to accept this heavy burden of initiating the proceedings because it carries a high risk of being exposed to the risk of violence or of death. He himself will become a victim of violence.
We say, and the Members of the Committee who live and work in Northern Ireland will say, that the responsibility for instituting those proceedings should be in the hands of a law officer. Theoretically that could mean in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General. They are the people who are best fitted to bring the action.
We understand from what Ministers have said in the other place that proceedings cannot be brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions because he is concerned only with criminal cases. That is their judgment. That is why we are left with the office of the Attorney-General. That is why we say in the amendment that the responsibility should lie with the Attorney-General.
However, one cannot win with the Government. They say that it would be inappropriate for the Attorney-General to be involved. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, told the House in the Second Reading debate that if the Attorney-General were to
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be involved in such proceedings that would be perceived as the British Government taking an overbearing attitude in relation to the internal affairs of the local councils in Northern Ireland and would lead to misunderstanding and false propaganda.
If the Government have a legitimate interest in putting an end to open declarations of support for terrorism in a council chamber they have a legitimate interest in enforcing the law. We should have thought that the enforcement of the provision is a valid objective.
Perhaps I may borrow the words of the Minister in the Second Reading debate. He said:
"We believe enforcement must come first".—f Official Report, 9/2/89;col. 1741.]
The "we" are the Government. We would say that "we"—the Government—must take enforcement proceedings through one of the law officers. They should not pass the buck to the ordinary people of Northern Ireland. They should not abdicate their responsibility.
I accept that providing for the action to be brought by the Attorney-General does not solve all the problems. However, it will help tremendously in resolving many problems—I shall come to the difficulties that may arise. At least it will ensure that an action is instituted and proceedings are commenced.
Do the Government not see that there is a considerable difference between a councillor himself having to institute private proceedings and the council merely being summoned as a witness in an action instituted by a third party? The Ministers in the other place seemed to concentrate on who brings the action. Of course that is important, but it is equally important to consider what happens to the action after if has been commenced in the High Court in Northern Ireland.
I have indicated that there will be great difficulties in finding an applicant. However, assuming that one finds a private individual who is prepared to initiate the proceedings, what then? An applicant must be prepared not only to bring the action but also to proceed with it. I accept that if the applicant is to be a private individual he will be vulnerable to intimidation, as any witness would be. He would probably be more vulnerable than the witness. He would be more vulnerable because he is the one person who can decide to abandon the action.
We can anticipate that there will be incessant pressures on the individual who has been brave enough to start the action to abandon it. If a potential applicant can be encouraged, by intimidation, not to seek a determination then the case will not get off the ground. If intimidation can persuade the applicant not to proceed with the application which he has instituted then the application will get no further.
We think that there are difficulties with the enforcement proceedings because it will be difficult to find an applicant who will take the proceedings and who will be prepared to proceed with the action in the face of intimidation.
The Minister did not draw that distinction in the Second Reading debate. If an individual is brave

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enough to face intimidation and the threat of violence and institutes proceedings, can the Minister tell the Committee what will happen to that action if, in the face of continuing and incessant pressure, the individual decides to abandon it? What happens then? Who will pay the costs he incurred in instituting those proceedings and the costs of any respondents?
In our view only a law officer will be beyond the reach of intimidation. It is only a law officer of the Crown who can ensure that if the evidence justifies proceedings, such proceedings are brought and continue to a hearing. I mention that second point because the Minister did not deal with that part of the proceedings in the Second Reading debate; nor did Ministers in another place.
We believe that the Bill is flawed because it leaves the burden on the individual. It passes the buck to the individual. We think that there is only one person who can take proceedings and that is a law officer of the Crown.
Lord Blease: I rise to support my noble friend. He has argued the case for the amendment very forcefully and logically, as he did with the previous amendments. I get the impression, and I am sure that other Members of the Committee also have the impression, that the Minister is labouring under great difficulty in relation not only to the principles of the Bill but also to how it will be implemented. He said that Clause 6 is very complicated. The Bill itself is complicated and flawed as my noble friend has already mentioned.
We come to what, in my view, is the nub of the proposed legislation; namely, the initiation of proceedings and the difficulties that will be experienced by working men, who are normally the people who stand in local government elections in Northern Ireland. There is not only the fact of intimidation and the cost of standing for election, but the individual's family and others would be involved in the related issues. There would be tremendous pressures from intimidation, family matters and particularly the cost of proceeding with the case in the way that would be expected.
The only point that I wish to add to what my noble friend has stated is that we think it completely wrong that the onus should be borne by councils, electors or councillors, not only because the intimidation risks are high but because we believe that the duty of the Attorney-General is to represent the public interest. It is not merely a question of the criminality that may be involved. The Attorney-General has acted and does act in connection with labour law by taking injunctions and he acts in contempt of court issues. My view—and I think that many people will agree with me—is that it is the role of the Attorney-General to represent the public interest. The public interest can be required in no more important matter than the issue of democracy and local representation.
My view is therefore that the responsiblity for enforcing the Government's legislation in this matter should be placed on the Attorney-General.
Lord Dunleath: I am afraid that this brings us to the crunch amendment. The arguments were well
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developed on Second Reading and again this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, so I shall not go over them again. However, I must say that quite frankly I am surprised that Her Majesty's Government, having taken cognisance of the fact that we have courts without juries in Northern Ireland because of the risk of intimidation, which is a matter about which many of us are unhappy (we should like to see juries returned again, but we must be realistic about this), would put the onus to bring a civil case to the High Court on an individual, who is vulnerable to intimidation, violence and risk. Without repeating what has already been said, and speaking merely for myself, I must say that unless the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, can pull something pretty surprising out of the hat, I shall not be prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Perhaps I may speak for the first time during this Committee stage to say that I agree with everything that has been said during this short debate on this amendment.
I am bound to say that I find the first two subsections of this clause quite the most extraordinary that I have read in any major government Bill while I have been a Member of this Chamber. As has been pointed out, they restrict those who can make the application to the High Court. The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, has made the point that the reason we have Diplock courts in Northern Ireland is the risk of intimidation. But what does the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, think will happen to the first man who makes a complaint to the courts under this legislation? Does he think that there is no risk of intimidation? I should be extremely interested to hear him on this subject. It seems to me that the Government are involved in a massive inconsistency on this question.
We see from the Bill that the only people who can make the application to the court are the district council itself—which I think will be done in very much a minority of cases—a voter in that council area or a member of the council. Let us follow through some of the implications of that restriction. First, let us put ourselves in the position of the voter who is perhaps sitting in a meeting of the district council and hears a clear public expression of support for the IRA. He does not have adequate resources to go to the courts himself so he makes an applicaton for legal aid, which, as I understand from the comments of the junior Minister in the House of Commons, he can do. What does the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, think that the IRA will do while we have this amiable discussion as to whether the complainant can or cannot obtain legal aid? What does he think will happen?
The IRA will of course discover this state of affairs. The individual might be told that, unless he desists forthwith, he will be killed. The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, asked the correct question: what happens if the first of these cases is discontinued for that reason? What are the implications for the other occasions when other people might be minded to make an application to the court? It will be cited by the IRA as a massive victory for it because it has intimidated a voter out of going to the courts. If the

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individual persists, the risk is that he may be assassinated. That is not totally without precedent in the affairs of Northern Ireland; as we know, in the last 10 years three councillors have been assassinated and another has been seriously injured.
Let us then take the position of a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He has no place in this legislation at all unless he is an elector of the district council concerned, which again seems a quite extraordinary restriction. Let us say that he hears Councillor X make a firm, unequivocal statement of support for the terrorist outrages of the IRA. He goes back to his police station and tells the duty sergeant that he has heard Councillor X make that statement. What is the first question that the sergeant will ask him? The sergeant will ask: "Are you an elector for the district council concerned? If not, you can take no action yourself, nor can anyone else". That seems to me to be astonishing. I should be grateful if the Minister would answer that question directly. What happens in such a case?
I believe that there is an urgent need to demonstrate that this piece of legislation is not just an exercise in public relations but is intended seriously. I can say that because my friends in the House of Commons voted with the Government on Second Reading. We believe that this is important. It is highly desirable. But we are not prepared to be associated with something which is merely a public relations exercise.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Coleraine: Before I say anything about the amendment, I should like to attempt to put the record straight in one respect. It seemed to me as I was coming into the Chamber that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, complaining moderately but complaining nonetheless—that a third of the Members in the Chamber were leaving and that this was what Northern Ireland business had to suffer from. As an English Member of this place, there are two things that I should say. First, it has always seemed to me normal that about a third of the Members in the Chamber leave after Question Time. Secondly, we have been discussing this business for an hour and a quarter and during most of that time it has seemed to me that we have had a reasonable attendance by Members from this side of the sea who have been listening attentively.
In saying that, I do not wish to suggest that the business of the Six Counties receives the attention at Westminster that it should, but I believe that the record should at least be put straight with regard to the point made by the noble Lord, to which my noble friend referred in replying to the first amendment.
I listened carefully to the Second Reading debate and to what noble Lords said this afternoon. I feel considerable sympathy with the amendment that the noble Lord put forward today. It seems to me that to do things in the way for which the Bill provides has certain disadvantages. It can hardly be conducive to harmony between the communities if applications must be made in the way that the clause provides.
My noble friend referred to this point when replying at the Second Reading debate. He said that
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one of the reasons why the proceedings could not be dealt with by the DPP orthe Attorney-General was that this was a matter of electoral law; and that in matters of electoral law civil proceedings were normal. That may be so, but it seems to me that this is not a normal matter of electoral law. It is very much a question of public order and public administration. It seems very clear to me that this is a matter where one should certainly consider that it was for the Government to deal with and not for local citizens.
When one considers the Bill, in many ways it seems to be rigorously drafted. I can see the provisions of the Bill being manipulated by malign persons so that an application is made that inexorably could finish up before the Court of Human Rights. I do not wish to dwell upon that point, but it seems a potential disadvantage in the way that the Bill is framed.
I know that my noble friend has set his face against dealing with it in any other way than the Bill provides, and I understand the reason he does so. I certainly understand that in one sense these are good reasons. However, I ask him to think again about this matter even to the extent of saying that if he cannot allow the Attorney-General or the DPP to bring proceedings, could not provision be made so that proceedings could not be brought without the fiat or approval of the Attorney-General?
Viscount Brookeborough: In supporting this amendment, I hope that I shall not repeat what has already been said. However, I believe that this amendment deals with and would solve the problem of whether or not this Bill would be effective when passed.
It is a primary duty of government to protect and maintain the electoral process and also our democratic system of government in Northern Ireland. Her Majesty's Government must not abdicate responsibility for that by putting the onus on the law abiding citizens of Northern Ireland to carry out their function for them. The Government should put this right by bringing the Attorney-General into it, as in this amendment.
If the Minister believes that the Attorney-General cannot carry out this function, then what chance have the average citizens in Northern Ireland? It may sound all right in theory to the people of Great Britain; but please listen to those of us who know Northern Ireland, who live there, and under the present wording will have to help to enforce this declaration. We are not trying to wreck this Bill. We are only trying to make it more workable in practice.
There is one other point on which the success or otherwise of this Bill may have an effect. It is not only in the short term. One of the major problems that we have in Northern Ireland is to encourage talented, able young men and women to go into local government to gain political experience and thereby create a useful base for future democratic government in the Province. One cannot but sympathise with these people if they do not wish to become involved with, in some cases, people who have been convicted of terrorist offences and continue openly to support terrorism. This Bill not

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only concerns itself with today's problem we are discussing in the Chamber, but if its aims are achieved it will have a great bearing on the quality of our politicians in the future. After all, the Government have included the Northern Ireland Assembly in the Bill. I support the amendment.
Lord Fitt: Without the provisions of Clause 7 in this Bill, it will not be worth the paper it is written on. Clause 7 is what this Bill is about. Without Clause 7, one may forget about the effectiveness of this Bill.
Underlying each and every one of these amendments is the problem of intimidation. We have spoken of it before on another amendment. Many Members of the Committee will be aware of reports in the press here over the past fortnight about the IRA taking a particular dislike to a family. That family was not informing on the IRA. It was not in direct confrontation with the IRA. It was not trying to bring the IRA before the courts. The family just did not like the IRA, and the IRA did not like the family. The IRA told 50 members of that family to get out of the country. At least 20 of them have arrived in Camden Town. They are being put up at the expense of local government in bed and breakfast places at the cost of £1,500 per week. That is only 20 of the family. The other 30 have still be included, and there may be more.
It is not the one person who lays a complaint against any member of Sinn Fein or any terrorist but his whole family which is involved. When the IRA intimidated this particular family by the name of Valliday, the Member of Parliament for that area quite rightly protested that the local authority in Camden should not be saddled with the enormous expense of housing people who were the victims of intimidation by the IRA.
Even in this case of intimidation what is the attitude of the present Government? That was a victory for the IRA—intimidating 50 people out of their homes and telling them to go to England, where the host country, the host local authority, would have to accept the responsibility. That is a family that has not laid any claim against any member of Sinn Fein or attempted to bring it before the courts. How much more serious it would be if the IRA were against someone whom it regarded as a potential enemy. First there would be the threat of assassination against the person concerned. There would be the threat of intimidation by knee-capping against other members of the family—all because the Government are proving cowardly.
I do not think that cowardice is a word that the Government should allow themselves to be labelled with in this attempt to make this Bill serious and to make this legislation effective. The people of Northern Ireland have suffered intimidation and threats over these past 20 years. If they are to be asked to accept the terms of this Bill, and to try to drive such people out of the local authority—indeed off the face of the earth in Northern Ireland—if they are to be asked to accept this responsibility, then the Government should help them. If the Government do not accept their responsibility under Clause 7, then I cannot see this Bill in any way being effective.
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A noble Lord on the opposite Benches said that my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies had complained that there was not a great number of noble Lords in the Chamber. I know that this amendment may be forced to a Division. It would be a shame and a disgrace if people who have not listened to the terms of the debate in this Chamber were to go into the Lobbies and support the Government. The people in Northern Ireland will feel exactly as I do. I ask the Government to think very seriously about making the law officers of the Crown responsible for Clause 7 of this Bill.
Lord Monson: Perhaps I may briefly endorse everything that has been said so far about Clause 7. For the Government to put private citizens in danger in this way is positively immoral. Brave though most citizens of Northern Ireland are, very few have the death wish. Unless this clause is amended the Bill will not work.
5 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: I should just like to endorse what the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, have said. The point was raised on Second Reading by several noble Lords. It seems quite unreasonable of the Government not to give this potential legislation the kind of teeth which will make it work, rather than stirring up possible problems which will involve lots of people, as has been graphically described by the noble Lord, Lord Fitt. I am sure that all noble Lords who have listened will have taken that on board. I am also concerned about those who have not heard the arguments in the debate voting if this amendment is pressed to a Division, and am worried about the effect that that will have on opinion in Northern Ireland.
Lord Colnbrook: I did not think I would have to speak in this debate and perhaps I do not. I hope that I do not, because I so much agree with what has been said. I shall not repeat it and will ask my noble friend on the Front Bench to consider two points. First, he knows Northern Ireland very well but I do not think even he would claim to know it as well as those who live there, several of whom have spoken and have personal experience over many years, and perhaps all their lives, of what it is like. They know even better than he does and when they speak as they do their words carry much greater weight than mine or anybody else's. I hope that he will pay heed to them.
Secondly, if this Bill goes through as it is, it seems to me that there will be an open invitation to the IRA to say "Here is the British Parliament passing a Bill at the request of the Government of the day, making it an Act of Parliament, and we can destroy it. We can make sure that the Act does not work". All they have to do the first time anybody makes an application to the court is to shoot that chap and then there will not be any more. I do not think the Government ought to invite Parliament to pass a Bill which they know can be destroyed by the very people whom the Bill seeks to control. This does not seem to me to make any sense at all. So I very much hope that my noble friend will have listened to everything that has been said in

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the debate and will, at the very least, say that he will look at it again and come back later in the proceedings of the Bill to say whether he can come to meet us.
Lord Lyell: Perhaps I should not follow on the lines of a beauty competition and start in reverse order. But nobody could have made a more eloquent contribution than my noble friend who, after all, has a great deal of knowledge of Northern Ireland—a good bit more than I have. I have listened with great interest to what he said as well as to what has been said by everybody else who has spoken.
In moving the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, took me back to the comments that he and I made on Second Reading. He then went on to raise the question of intimidation, which was a common thread throughout the debate in every speech that was made. Of course intimidation is a subject which arouses great interest in your Lordships' House as well as in Northern Ireland. But I would at the outset ask noble Lords to consider subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 7 dealing with applicants, which are subject to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies.
I believe that I said on Second Reading—and I am not a lawyer—that the question of intimidation does not merely apply to applicants; it also applies to witnesses. I hope noble Lords will always bear in mind that intimidation will possibly be directed at applicants but it will certainly be directed at witnesses. This is germane to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in his contribution. We see Clause 7 and indeed the Bill as reflecting on statements by elected councillors and possible Assemblymen in Northern Ireland. I hope that that will at least clear up some of the thoughts in the minds of Members of the Committee.
I should like to cover the main thread of the arguments raised on this amendment. The principle of Clause 7 and of this part of the Bill deals with the question of who should bring an action for a breach of the declaration signed by a councillor. The subject has provoked very lively discussion in Committee here this afternoon as well as in another place. But the principle that we have employed throughout, both here and elsewhere, is that those who have a direct interest in the elected office concerned are the persons who should bring actions.
I hope that I can set at rest the mind of my noble friend Lord Brookeborough who raised the question of the electoral process. The Bill deals not with the electoral process but with the behaviour of those who have been successfully elected to councils or to an Assembly. Those who have a direct interest in the elected office concerned are the persons eligible to bring actions. This is a measure designed to help prevent abuses of elected office in local government that have been taking place in Northern Ireland. Such abuses have not always been widespread, but unfortunately when they take place they gain a great deal of unpleasant publicity and indeed can cause serious disorder in the councils.
I shall not go through all the arguments that I raised at Second Reading, which have been
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mentioned again in part by those who have spoken, against involving the Attorney-General in actions for breach of the declaration. I beg my noble friend Lord Colnbrook to bear with me when I say that to give my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General the responsibility would not solve the problems that have arisen or that would exist. In fact, we believe that that would create a new problem.
As regards the Attorney-General taking responsibility for action against one particular party or group who we know are carrying out intimidation, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, will accept that intimidation is not confined to one particular side of the fence or of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland. We believe in the circumstances that have been spelt out this afternoon that this step would, for better or worse, be seen, as my noble friend Lord Colnbrook put it, as a victory for the IRA. It certainly would be perceived as a parallel victory for them, in that they would sell it as interference by the Government in the internal affairs of councils.
The position of the Attorney-General in this context is very complex and I do not want to go along that avenue this afternoon. But certainly I stress that the Attorney-General has no means of monitoring expressions of support for terrorism made by councillors in Northern Ireland. That is a particularly germane issue, since all Members of the Committee said that the Attorney-General should take action. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, disagrees with me but I ask him to bear with me. Neither of us is a lawyer. The Attorney-General will not be present when these alleged breaches of the declaration are made.
The noble Lord shakes his head. I do not believe that the Attorney-General will be present at each and every council meeting. Therefore, the Attorney-General would have no locus standi in bringing the application. The question of intimidation, which has been quite fairly raised in this Committee, will apply to each and every witness.
Lord Dunleath: I beg the noble Lord's pardon, but surely the Attorney-General takes many actions without having been present in person to witness the offence taking place.
Lord Lyell: He may if he wishes, but for the reasons that I have spelled out we do not believe that it is the correct course of action as regards this particular aspect for councillors who breach their declaration in the council chamber. I spelled that out at Second Reading; it has been spelled out by your Lordships' and I have spelled it out again today.
Apart from that, the point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about what might be said by an aggrieved person attending a council meeting in Northern Ireland, and I think that this was also alluded to by my noble friend Lord Coleraine. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would accept that this breach is a civil matter. Therefore it is not a matter for the desk sergeant of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as the noble Lord suggested. To my mind—and I think possibly to the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Harris—the only advice that the desk sergeant could give would be to say to an aggrieved person, "This is a breach of the civil law. You had best take this to a lawyer."
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord a question on that. As the noble Lord and the Committee will recall, the question I asked was this: a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary hears an elected district councillor make a statement which is inconsistent with the statutory declaration that he has made. He makes a positive statement of enthusiastic backing for terrorist outrages committed by the IRA.
I asked the noble Lord what would happen if he then reported that to his sergeant and the sergeant's first question was, "Are you a resident of the district council concerned?" The noble Lord now appears to be suggesting that a police officer should in fact be quite unable to take any action within the police service itself to deal with what would be a scandalous situation.
Lord Lyell: My attention to the noble Lord's excellent remarks wandered slightly in that I did not appreciate that the person who had been at the council was another member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. What I understood was that some person would go to the sergeant and say that there had been a breach. No, if a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary fitted the categories in Clause 7(2) then he would have the right to take action, but it is not a matter for the criminal law; it is a matter for civil law. That is what is set out in the Bill before us. No criminal offence is involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, suggested that the Government were in some way immoral. I suggest that we are certainly very far from that. With this Bill we are seeking to provide a remedy whereby persons who are aggrieved—and feel that they have been aggrieved—in the council chamber by another elected councillor have a remedy. Whether somebody feels that they wish to take that remedy is entirely up to them. The second stage is that an applicant may take a case to the court, but in the end it is for the court to decide whether or not the breach has occurred. We must be careful not to place ourselves in the position of the court.
I hope that I have dealt with intimidation. Of course we recognise the special position of Northern Ireland and how intimidation is perceived and indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, pointed out, occurs. But perhaps I may conclude with what we believe are safeguards in the Bill for persons who would be aggrieved, and that is the persons we see categorised in Clause 7(2). We recognise that some potential applicants under the Bill will be concerned about the risk of intimidation. We have introduced the two safeguards.
The safeguards should alleviate—and I only say that because they cannot remove—the risk of intimidation. First, Clause 7 creates a large category of people empowered to bring actions. In the smallest district council in Northern Ireland over 10,400 electors are empowered to bring actions, as we lay out in the Bill. In Belfast over 200,000 electors would be empowered to do so. There is no upper limit to the number of persons whose names could be attached to an application under the Bill. If noble Lords believe that it is easy for one applicant to be a target for intimidation, it will be rather difficult for a putative
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intimidator to intimidate thousands of people if they could take action, as they are entitled to, under the Bill.
Secondly, one public authority collectively—and that is the council itself—is empowered to bring actions. We believe that this is right, given that the council has an interest in the orderly conduct of its own business. But it has an interest in the orderly conduct of its own business. But it also means that if individuals are worried about intimidation, if there is a good case the council would be able to take action under this particular clause to seek a remedy for outrageous behaviour that all of us agree constitutes a serious breach of the declaration.
I have listened to the debate this afternoon. I have listened to those noble Lords who live in Northern Ireland and I have listened to the words of my noble friend Lord Colnbrook. In conclusion let me say that I shall undertake to reflect on what has been said, but I cannot give an undertaking that I can bring something forward at the next stage. 1 understand that there will be other avenues that I could discuss with those of your Lordships who are interested in anything that we could do, but I could not undertake to bring forward an amendment at the next stage.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I do not think that any of us are expecting the noble Lord to give an absolute commitment this afternoon. He will have to consult his right honourable friend. However I very much hope that he will, as a result of those discussions and particularly in the light of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Colnbrook, with his substantial experience of dealing with the terrorist situation in Northern Ireland, come forward with a far more satisfactory form of words at the next stage. If we can have any informal discussions in the meantime, I for one would certainly welcome them.
I do not want to go over yet again the speech that I made, but I must briefly point out that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, is still not getting the point; the point of why the role of the police is so central. I understand that this is a civil matter, but of course the police are often involved in civil matters both in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland.
One could have a situation where, let us say, an elected Belfast councillor makes a statement in Londonderry which is heard only by the police and they are the only potential complainants, because as the Bill is drafted at the moment the only complainant can be either a councillor in Belfast or an elector in Belfast. However, the speech is made in Londonderry and is heard by a police officer. His only role in the matter, his only locus, is if he is himself an elector in Belfast, otherwise he cannot himself take any action to deal with the statement made by that elected councillor in warm support of the terrorist activities of the IRA.
I do not propose to go over the ground yet again, but it is essential that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, takes this point. Without it, as the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Colnbrook, said, there is the danger that this Bill, once passed, will never be successfully operated, and it is our desire to ensure that it is.
Lord Lyell: I take the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. Even if the amendment to which he has spoken were accepted, does he believe—does anyone here believe?—that it would make the Bill any more workable in Northern Ireland?
Noble Lords: Yes!
Lord Lyell: We have listened carefully to everything that has been said by noble Lords who live in Northern Ireland. I have listened carefully to my noble friend Lord Colnbrook. He did not dissent widely from my view that the amendment, if accepted, would not make the Bill workable. We certainly do not believe that it would.
I shall reflect on everything that has been said. If I can find some method of discussing anything further or of communicating with noble Lords at a later stage, I shall certainly do so. I think that Members of the Committee have been kind enough to accept that I cannot this afternoon undertake to bring anything forward at a later stage, but I shall certainly reflect.
Lord Prys-Davies: What worries me about the Minister's response is that this kind of amendment has been around the place for two or three months so the Government have had time to reflect. I am not convinced that further reflection will persuade the Government to support the amendment. Indeed, the Minister said at the end of his speech that he did not believe that the introduction of the office of the Attorney-General would make any difference at all. I am depressed when the Minister says, "Look, the Attorney-General cannot bring these proceedings because he was not in the council chamber when the councillor said this or that". The police are never present at the scene of the crime when the crime is committed. Someone has to go along to the police with a complaint, and the police act on that complaint.
The Government have introduced a novel obligation upon all councillors in Northern Ireland to sign a declaration that they will not support the use of violence for political ends; if they do, they will be stripped of office and denied office for the next five years. That is why—to take up a point made by my noble friend Lord Fitt—I thought the debate was very important. That is why I was a little saddened at the beginning that so many of your Lordships left the Chamber.
It is simply not good enough for the Government to introduce in abstract terms a declaration against terrorism, which we fully support and, it seems to me, all Members of the Committee support. The Government accept no responsibility whatsoever for enforcing that declaration. That is left to the poor individual at the bottom of the heap. People throughout the Province have no confidence that the declaration will be enforced although they want it to be enforced. That is the message from all the Northern Ireland peers present this afternoon and from the noble Lord, Lord Colnbrook, with all his experience as a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
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It is simply not good enough for the Minister to say, "Look, how far can one get with the proceedings because the witnesses will be intimidated?" The Minister has not answered our point. If an applicant can be encouraged by intimidation not to seek a declaration, or if he can be intimidated by the threats of violence and possibly death not to proceed with his proceedings, then effectively those proceedings are dead. That is why I think that the Minister is misleading when he tells the Committee that it is witnesses who will be most vulnerable to intimidation. The person who will be most vulnerable is the private individual. There is only one individual who can be protected from intimidation: that is the Attorney-General of Great Britain.
The Government have had months to reflect upon the contents of the amendment. They have not listened. The message has been delivered this afternoon by the peers from Northern Ireland supported by Lord Colnbrook. I believe that noble Lords have a duty to Northern Ireland, and we have to discharge that duty. That is why I would ask that this matter be put to a vote.
Lord Elton: I should like to ask the noble Lord the Minister for clarification. I apologise for coming late to the debate. As I did so, I thought that I heard him say that he would take this away for consideration without any undertaking to make a change at the next stage, those being the normal words in such a circumstance. I should like clarification of whether that is the case.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Perhaps I may follow up what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said. The Minister has made an offer that he will reflect on the matter between now and Report, discuss it with the Secretary of State and have informal discussions. I very much hope that there will not be a vote this afternoon.
Lord Prys-Davies: There was no undertaking by the Minister to have discussions with peers from Northern Ireland on these Benches. The undertaking, for what it is worth, is merely to reflect. All I say is that the Government have been reflecting for three or four months.
Lord Lyell: The noble Lord referred to "misleading" not in respect of the last point that I made but in regard to witnesses. Everything that I said about witnesses compared to applicants under Clause 7(2) I think stands. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, heard what I said. I gave an undertaking that I would reflect, but I did not, and I do not, give an undertaking that I shall bring forward an amendment at the next stage.
That is the view that I take. I leave the question of the amendment entirely to the noble Lord.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: When the Minister said that he will reflect and we understand that he is giving no undertaking at the moment—he appeared to us to pre-empt the possibility of bringing forward an amendment of his own or of any amendment being proposed in the light of

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discussions. As my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies says, all that we have is an offer of a further period of reflection and a statement that what has been said from every Bench will be listened to but not acted upon. The Minister has invited these Benches to accept a pig in a poke.
What we want is not an undertaking—of course the Minister cannot do that—but a statement that he will enter into discussions with those peers who have shown that they have a genuine interest with the possibility, and no more than that, that an amendment will be proposed either collectively or by the Minister to meet the point of view that has been expressed. That is all that we ask of the Minister.
Lord Lyell: I gave an undertaking before. I repeat it. I shall not amplify anything that I said.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I apologise for saying this a second time. In my view it would be quite impossible for the Committee to expect the Minister to give the undertaking for which we are pressing him. He would have to consult the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, said about the amendment having been hanging around for two or three months.
We want the Minister to report to the Secretary of State the strength of feeling on this question in all parts of the Chamber. As I understand it, the Minister has offered informal discussions. We can come back to this Report. I beg the Committee not to vote on the question now, given the Minister's undertaking.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: Can we persuade the Minister to give a further undertaking, to have discussions with Members of the Committee from Northern Ireland? I say only "discussions".
I have listened to the message which they have delivered to the Committee. I should be grateful if the Minister will give the assurance that there will be an opportunity for discussion with the peers from Northern Ireland before the department comes to a final view.
Lord Lyell: I gave an undertaking. I reiterate the fact that I shall respect and abide by that undertaking. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, grasped what I said. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, did so, and I believe so did the noble Lord, Lord Graham. I shall abide by the undertaking but I leave the Question to the Committee.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Does the undertaking include discussions? I want to hear the Minister say it.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I should like to help the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, refresh his memory about what he said. I understood him to say that he would agree to informal discussions between now and
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Report. On the basis of that agreement I do not believe that we should test the amendment.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Will the Minister confirm that that is what he said?
Lord Prys-Davies: That those discussions will take place with peers from Northern Ireland?
Lord Lyell: For the fourth time. I gave the undertaking and I have nothing more to add.
Lord Prys-Davies: We are asking only for the Minister to clarify the undertaking and say whether it is as wide as that recalled by the noble Lord. Lord Harris.
Lord Lyell: For the fifth time, no.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I hope that the Minister will now be good enough to say that my recollection is correct. If he is prepared to say that I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, will withdraw his amendment. It is very much in the interests of everyone. There is no advantage in partisan voting on Northern Ireland issues. We hope that the Minister will rise and say that my recollection is correct and the matter can be disposed of.
Lord Elton: Before my noble friend does so and the Committee rushes into a decision which may be precipitous, I should like to leave in Members' minds the fact that if no decision is taken now there will be time for reflection and possibly discussion. On the other hand, if a decision is taken now the matter is ended. The Committee is not accustomed to reversing its decisions at a later stage. Therefore, I advise the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, that it may be precipitious to divide the Committee at this stage.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Can the Minister be helpful, for the sixth time?
Lord Prys-Davies: As my noble friend says, it may well be the sixth time but I should like to have the assurance that the department will have discussions with Members from Northern Ireland. They will deliver the message from Northern Ireland. I am content to accept his undertaking if it is as wide as that.
Viscount Whitelaw: I wonder whether the House is becoming involved in a ridiculous tack, because my noble friend has said that he will take back the matter for further discussion with his Secretary of State.
In any form of life that I have lived in politics over many years I know that if there is time for discussion then there is time for discussion with a great many people and, of course, with people from Northern Ireland. The matter can be discussed with everyone. It makes no sense to suggest that one takes back an issue for discussion and then limits the number of people with whom one will discuss it. I do not understand what that means.
Lord Prys-Davies: We should accept an undertaking in the terms expressed by the noble

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Viscount: that there will be discussions not only with the Secretary of State but with many other people.
Lord Fitt: My name is attached to the amendment. I came to the Committee this afternoon determined to go into the Lobby. I suspect that two of the most unhappy Members of the Committee are the two former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland. They know exactly the problem of intimidation. Their presence in the Committee will indicate their concern and they have seen what has happened over the past five or 10 minutes.
I do not wish to go into the Lobby unnecessarily. If the Minister will give an indication, we can look at the issue again on Report if the matter is not to our satisfaction.
I leave the Minister with these words and I should like him to reflect seriously on the symbolism of the debate. For the past 18 years the IRA and other organisations have said that they are fighting a war for the freedom of Ireland. They have allocated to themselves the responsibility for freeing Ireland of British rule. We have said, as have this Government and a succession of Labour and Conservative Governments, "You are not fighting a war, you are criminals. You are carrying out criminal acts against the people of Northern Ireland in particular and against people in the United Kingdom as a whole". We are now saying that we shall ask the people in Northern Ireland to accept the responsibility of fighting off those criminals without the support of the Government. That is what the proposal means. We are asking the people of Northern Ireland to initiate proceedings which will put them at risk. At least one can say that the security forces acting on behalf of the Government are armed. They are armed in defence of the state. However, the person who may lay a complaint against the person who has breached the undertaking has no arms—at least we hope that he has none. Do not ask any person in Northern Ireland to accept a responsibility which you are unable to undertake.
Lord Prys-Davies: In the light of the wise words of the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, and his interpretation of the Minister's undertaking and the way in which it will work in practice, I am content to rely on the undertaking. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Disqualification in consequence of breach of declaration]:
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
Clause 8 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Declaration against terrorism]:
[Amendments Nos. 5 to 7 not moved.]
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Remaining Schedule agreed to.
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House resumed: Bill reported without amendments.

Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill [H.L.]
5.39 p.m.
Lord Brooks of Tremorfa: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The joint promoters of the Bill are the South Glamorgan County Council and the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. I have a twin interest in that I am the leader of the South Glamorgan County Council and deputy chairman of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation.
When the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, then Secretary of State for Wales, announced his ambitious plans for the redevelopment of South Cardiff, he described the development as being a rare opportunity to develop a superb environmental setting which will have few, if any, competitors in Britain. At the same time he announced that one of the first tasks of the new development corporation to be set up for this purpose would be to begin work immediately on studies into the proposed Cardiff Bay barrage scheme. It is the barrage which will create the opportunity to develop a superb environmental setting; it is the barrage which will increase the interest of investors in the development as a whole; it is the barrage which will provide the opportunity to make Cardiff a major maritime city in Europe.
Without it, the development of Cardiff Bay will still take place but the 600 acres of prime waterfront space which would attract the quality waterside development which will make the area unique will be lost and with it the revival of a once great industrial heartland, a revival of life, housing, jobs and leisure facilities and a revival of the natural beauty of an area blighted for over a century by coal dust and smoke from Cardiff's industrial heyday.
The barrage is essential to the future of Cardiff Bay. It has a vital role to play in the redevelopment scheme. That view is supported by all the local authorities in the area which are committed to the redevelopment of Cardiff's waterfront area and realise that the construction of the barrage is fundamental to our future prosperity.
It is fitting that the capital of Wales should take its place as a major city of Europe, and, indeed, it is deserving of that status. Its phenomenal rise to the metropolis of Wales was achieved in an incredibly short space of time. Its decline was possibly more gradual but in its way devastating, leaving a legacy of high unemployment in the inner city areas, crumbling buildings and acres of derelict wasteland. It is a travesty that the area responsible for the prosperity enjoyed in Cardiff and south Wales should have suffered most from the results of its decline.
We are determined to reverse that trend and in doing so to bring about a second golden age for Cardiff's docklands, the city of Cardiff and indeed the whole of south Wales. Cardiff as we know it is a product of the industrialisation of Britain. Its prosperity and growth really depended on one industry; that is, coal. Mined in the south Wales

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coalfield, it was brought down from the valleys by the Glamorganshire Canal to the Bute East Dock, and with it the city's population, employment and prosperity embarked on an upward spiral.
Little more than a sleepy market town by the end of the 18th century with a population of less then 2,000, Cardiff grew to have a population well over 11,000 by 1841, causing its whole character to change in the process. Within 30 years the population had grown fivefold to over 57,000. By 1913 Cardiff had become the world's leading exporter of coal as well as developing rapidly as a heavy industrial and railway centre.
The spin-off of that new prosperity was the development of the city as a major business and shopping centre with a prestigious new civic centre in Cathays Park. The First World War marked the beginning of the end of the first golden age when there was a general slump in maritime trade. The coal export trade began a steady decline and almost unbelievably coal exports from Cardiff Docks ceased altogether in the early 1960s. The old Bute East Dock on which Cardiff's prosperity was based fell into disuse and has long been filled in. In fact, South Glamorgan County Council's new county hall, which my noble friend Lord Callaghan of Cardiff officially opened in October last, is built on the site of the old Bute East Dock.
With the closure of East Moors steelworks in 1977 and the decline of the railways, Cardiff's old industrial base has disappeared. Despite the notable efforts of the old Cardiff City Council to retain or revive the flagging heavy industries such as the Rover works, the manufacturing base has disappeared with the sterling exception of Allied Steel and Wire.
Cardiff's revival has been realised in other sectors with its emergence as one of the most highly developed shopping centres in the United Kingdom and the increasing number of white collar jobs, particularly in the financial services sector. The revival of Cardiff has been the result of the faith of the people of Cardiff, South Glamorgan and their elected representatives. I do not know what there is about the city of London which has in the past prevented investors from realising the opportunities that lie beyond the Severn river. Therefore, it is to the credit of the Heron Corporation and more recently Brent Walker and Tarmac among others, that they have done so. However, it took public money and collective action by the local authorities to make that possible. That is particularly so in the case of South Glamorgan County Council, which has made economic regeneration its number one priority, in particular regeneration of the county's waterfront strip.
All the recent major developments in Cardiff have been realised as a result of the commitment of local authorities, demonstrated by providing either land or finance and in many cases both. Because of that Cardiff can now boast one of the most prestigious shopping centres in the United Kingdom in the St. David's centre. In that centre there is the magnificent St. David's concert hall. There is a new Holiday Inn in the city centre, the Welsh National ice rink, a brand new central library which is the newest and
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most modern in the United Kingdom, the World Trade Centre and, last but not least, a spectacular new county hall in the heart of the docklands.
The new county hall is a vital part of the Atlantic Wharf scheme which is transforming 133 acres of derelict land around and including the old Bute East Dock. It is being jointly developed by the South Glamorgan County Council and Tarmac and is the first physical evidence of the commitment and confidence in the Cardiff Bay scheme.
County hall provides the catalyst for future investment in Cardiff Bay. It was a bold act of faith on the part of the South Glamorgan County Council. The commitment to the future of Cardiff Bay is tremendous, and with such strenuous efforts being made by both the public and the private sectors the renaissance of the city will be achieved.
However, that renaissance can be enhanced and complemented by the construction of the barrage across Cardiff Bay and by the Cardiff Bay strategy which hinges on its construction. Each new development means disruption of some sort. The more ambitious and imaginative the development, the more changes are needed. The Cardiff Bay proposals are ambitious and imaginative. The unique and ambitious nature of the development will attract the private investment so vital to the future of Cardiff Bay.
It is perfectly understandable that people will be concerned about major change. It is right that fears and concerns are aired and taken into account in planning for the future of the area. In considering those doubts and fears, it is important to take stock of what Cardiff Bay really is. It is an area which has been neglected for many years and an area of dereliction and decay, of waste tips and mudflats, all of which are man-made creations. It is a designated site of special scientific interest but, it must be stressed, not of natural creation. The original coastline lay over half a mile back from its present position. The area which could be covered by the lake formed by building the barrage is reclaimed marshland, tipland and land taken from the sea. I stress that we are not talking about an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The people who live in the surrounding area have suffered the miseries of unemployment, poor housing and social deprivation. They have lived for years among the decayed buildings surrounded by derelict wastelands. Through the barrage and the development of Cardiff Bay they can look forward to real job opportunities, a vastly improved living environment and leisure opportunities in the area that have never before existed.
Those objectives can only be realised through economic regeneration and, through that, a better quality of life for the people of south Cardiff can be assured. If we succeed in bringing a new vitality to the area we shall ensure that future generations will not suffer the miseries of unemployment and deprivation that their forbears have lived with for so long. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Brooks of Tremorfa.)
5.50 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, has given the House a clear and helpful explanation of what the promoters of this Bill have in mind in bringing it forward. I warmly welcome the development of Cardiff docklands and harbour. Long ago I knew Cardiff docks as a sailor but, as we know, in recent years the whole area has become derelict and it is very good news that it is being restored to life.
I visited the area last year at the invitation of the chairman of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, Mr. Geoffrey Inkin. I went round the area with him and also saw a panorama of the whole area from the roof of his office. I was greatly impressed by what was being done and by the quality of much of the development. It is without doubt a tremendous and exciting project.
However, as I told Mr. Inkin then, I am concerned about the proposed tidal exclusion barrage. I am not persuaded that such a barrage is an indispensible part of the development of Cardiff Bay. The chairman of the development company, Grosvenor Square Properties—a subsidiary of Associated British Ports—is reported as saying:
"Without the barrage, development will be piecemeal, localised and not a scheme with verve".
That hardly seems to me adequate justification for a barrage that will inevitably do a great deal of environmental damage. Much of the area being redeveloped is not around the estuary at all but is to the east of it. Happily, investment is already coming into south Wales on a substantial scale.
The Economist last June published an article about barrages which stated:
"The big question about all these schemes is whether they could make money. The economics of the smaller, amenity schemes depend essentially on the rise in land values that they could generate—and who would benefit from it. In Cardiff, for instance, the big winners would be existing landowners such as Associated British Ports, British Rail and the city council."
The article concluded:
"But at least the present Government will not give much weight to one popular objection: that their main promoters are people who would make money out of them".
I do not personally object to that, but I think that we should not agree to their making money at the expense of the quality of life of other people.
Now it has become clear that the proposed inland lake cannot be, as perhaps the planners once imagined, a great recreational centre because of the level of pathogens. On the contrary, there may be serious amenity problems for those living on or near the lake. The barrage appears to have been planned before there was a full understanding of the environmental problems.
I have just seen the very comprehensive environmental assessment placed in the Library on 17th February. I only learnt of this at 4.30 this afternoon so I have not had time to study it, but at first blush it looks a very thorough and useful assessment which I am sure will be of great value to the Committee when it studies the Bill.
Barrages are very much in vogue at present. Every local council on a river mouth seems to want one Ten
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are proposed in Wales. The river Usk may have two—one at Newport and the Severn barrage below it. One of our national poets wrote in a famous line that,
"Even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea".
But not any more. Many rivers in Wales may wind not to the sea but to exclusion barrages blocking their way.
It also seems wrong that there is no co-ordinated policy in Wales for all these barrages. In a sensible world we would build one, see how it worked and apply the lessons elsewhere. However, as far as I can see, the Welsh Office has adopted no such enlightened policy. Yet most of these projected barrages have profound environmental implications; certainly this one does. If they damage the environment, as this proposed barrage would, it seems that it is important that the promoters should put matters right at their expense on the same principle as that of "the polluter pays" and that we in this House should not approve their projects unless they shoulder that responsibility.
My particular concerns on this Bill are four in number. First, a question of principle, the proposed destruction of the Taff/Ely estuary SSSI. If that should happen I believe that it would be the first time that what is, in effect, a Government-promoted scheme was responsible for the destruction of the whole of an SSSI. We should, I believe, think long and carefully before we agree to that and to the setting aside, in Clause 60 of the Bill, of the provisions of two sections of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
The Nature Conservancy Council—the Government's own adviser —has petitioned against the Bill. It points out Her Majesty's Government's commitment under the RAMSAR Convention to stemming the progressive loss of wetlands, to promoting the conservation of particular sites and to the wise use of wetlands.
I am a member of your Lordships' sub-committee of the European Communities Committee concerned with the environment. We are now conducting an inquiry into habitat and species protection within the Community. We have been made fully aware of the wisespread anxiety about these matters in this country and in Brussels. For this House to agree to the destruction of a very important SSSI on grounds other than overriding national necessity would, I believe, be bad in itself and an extremely unfortunate precedent. I am sure that it would arouse widespread and justified public criticism. On those grounds alone we should ask the promoters to consider alternative arrangements.
Secondly, there is the question of birds, on which many people from the Prime Minister down are focusing in this centenary year for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We are in a unique position in these islands as the focus of a flyway from Greenland, in the west, and from Scandinavia and the Soviet Union, in the east, where birds in the autumn fly down through this country. They stop on our estuaries because they are ice-free and provide valuable feeding grounds. The birds are primarily waders and wildfowl. Of them, some 8,000 to 10,000 winter on the Taff/Ely SSSI.

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I discussed that aspect with Mr. Inkin when I visited Cardiff. He told me of the planned alternative at the mouth of the Rhymney. I said that if it satisfied the NCC and the RSPB that would be fine. Sadly, as their petitions make plain, it does not. Only 23 hectares have been offered as against 190 hectares of the mud flats—the remains of a much larger area. It would also require maintenance and annual dredging. The RSPB was told that,
"this was the largest area that CBDC could provide within the budget constraints."
However, it is manifestly inadequate. It would not cater at all for turnstone, redshank or shelduck; only for some dunlin. If there is to be an alternative feeding ground it should be of approximately the same area as the area to be flooded, fully maintained and acceptable to the NCC.
The Committee should, on all this, see the report of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, commissioned by the Welsh Office, which sets out the probable effect on birds comprehensively, impartially and scientifically. It makes clear that if the feeding grounds go the birds will not be able to move elsewhere. There will simply be fewer birds. If the SSSI is destroyed it is also conceivable that the Government might be found to be in breach of their obligations under the European Community birds directive. It would be sad if the Government were to be taken to court on this.
Thirdly, there is the question of water quality. Here I come to my proposed Instruction and perhaps I could explain to the House the reasons for this. It is simple. I was advised that the Committee can normally only consider matters that are contained in petitions or in Instructions from this House. There is no petition against the present Bill relating to water quality or to the movements of migratory fish. I believe that it is very important that the Committee should look at both those matters and that is the reason for my Instruction.
Water quality in the proposed inland lake is clearly of fundamental importance, especially to those who live alongside the estuary. Welsh Water petitioned to another place against the previous Bill. I believe that the Committee should look at that original petition carefully, especially paragraphs 10 to 17. 1 shall quote two short passages from that original petition. The first says:
"In the absence of knowledge or experience of the means by which these problems"—
that is water quality problems—
"can be resolved in a scheme of this sort the Authority feels bound to express its doubts as to the feasibility of the scheme.".
The second passage says:
"If, as the Authority fears may be the case, the Council or the Development Corporation, … are unable to achieve and maintain a satisfactory minimum standard of water quality throughout the inland freshwater lake … it is to be expected that there will be, not only unsightly algal growths, unpleasant smells, unsatisfactory water colour and turbidity, but also seriously deleterious effects on fish and other aquatic life and detriment to the recreational use of waters which it is the Authority's function to safeguard and encourage.".
Welsh Water has decided not to petition to our House against this Bill but it has put out a long and detailed statement which I believe the Committee
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should look at carefully. Right at the beginning of that statement it says:
"there are still a number of outstanding issues we have to resolve, in particular we cannot agree to the Bill's twenty-year limitation on CBDC liability for the cost of any extra work needed to maintain adequate water quality.".
From its statement Welsh Water appears to be satisfied on some issues, on the basis of tests that have been conducted, but not on others. Therefore it reserves its position and may petition to another place against the Bill if not satisfied.
The issues posed by Welsh Water are several. First, there is the question of water quality objectives. These are quite modest. They have presented a level of 5 milligrammes of dissolved oxygen per litre, which they say is adequate for aquatic life and to prevent bad smell, but not adequate for swimming, water skiing, sailboarding, canoeing and so forth. There is a health hazard if you fall in. It is not easy even to ensure this standard given the poor bacteriological quality of the Rivers Taff and Ely. To judge from its statement the problem is simply being handed over to environmental health officers.
Then there is the problem of how to meet any future higher Community or national water quality objectives and how these should be financed. We have seen recently with the question of nitrates where the Government were satisfied with the standards in this country but were overruled by Brussels. They had to agree to higher standards than they thought necessary. Conceivably, this might happen with inland waters. Who is going to pay if we are required to have higher standards than those laid down by Welsh Water?
There is also the question of oxygen. That seems to have been taken care of by the promoters in providing Vitox jets and mobile injection unit. But we need to know how many there will be and whether these will be enough. It sounds reasonably satisfactory, but I believe that it should be checked by the committee. There is the important question of algae. The lake is shallow (only about three metres deep) with sunshine pouring into it and with a great many nutrients coming down the rivers. Unfortunately, the conditions are almost ideal for all forms of algae. It will be substantially entrophic. According to Welsh Water, in summer there will be blooms of green and brown algae that will give the waters a highly-coloured, turbid appearance. They say that there are no easy remedial measures in existence. There is no solution proposed to this except possibly a partition barrage or the removal of nutrients if algae turn out to be an intractable problem. I understand that is technically possible but it will be enormously expensive. To remove the nutrients might cost £40 to £50 million. If it ultimately turns out to be necessary, will the citizens of Cardiff be prepared to pay this? Has anyone asked them?
Then there is a question of rubbish and debris. These rivers are coming from industrial areas such as Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd. This matter is to be dealt with by Water Witch devices. We need to know how many there will be and whether there will be enough. The problem will also be dealt with by a floating boom at Blackweir on the River Taff.

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There is too the very serious problem of blue-green algae which, according to Welsh Water, may appear one year in three. They are not only unsightly but produce toxins. I believe it is thought that the inland lake may provide a recreational fishery for coarse fish. It is an enormous area and I am told that you may have up to 1 million fish in an area like that. But if the blue-green algae produce toxins that may kill the fish. The promoters say in that case they will restock. But it is impossible to find up to a million coarse fish in this country. There is nowhere that you can get them. It would be impossible. I am therefore quite sceptical about the future of a recreational coarse fishery. Moreover, a million dead fish—if that were to happen—would be exceedingly unpleasant for those living near the lake.
There is the problem of fixed algae—that is blanket weed or scum. I gather that it is to be harvested mechanically. I believe that the committee shall want to see if the measures are adequate to deal with that. The statement by Welsh Water says:
"Field trials to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 'Water Witch' and Onshore Marine Services vessels could not be arranged because of difficulties in finding sites with suitable access and algal growth.".
Clearly, the methods should be thoroughly tested before we agree to them. According to Welsh Water there are no arrangements specified for the disposal of the algal material and rubbish. That is also something that should be looked into.
Welsh Water also says that there is a problem with midges because there are suitable conditions for large populations of non-biting midges. There are ways in which these can be controlled, but according to Welsh Water the midges might cause aesthetic nuisance and create health problems with respiratory allergies. Again it is left to environmental health officers to assess the risks. The statement concludes:
"If, notwithstanding these provisions, the public perception is that the quality of water in the inland lake is unsatisfactory, then the Authority, if faced with such criticism, can justifiably point to the Promoters and absolve itself from responsibility.".
That is not very reassuring.
There is also the specific question of public health. I saw an article in the Press about statements made by the director of Cardiff's administrative and legal services, Mr. Moseley. He said:
"The corporation must give adequate consideration to the public health issue. Nevertheless the sewer diversion estimate does not appear to take account of the fact that the Taff and Ely rivers are heavily polluted—or that the lake will be fed not only by those polluted rivers but also by storm water, sewer outfalls which discharge foul sewerage. If Cardiff City Council is to be responsible for the management of the lake, it does not wish to inherit a liability.".
I believe that should be looked at by the committee because it is an important aspect of the project.
It seems to me that the planners may have had a vision of waterfront flats, houses and offices looking out onto sparkling blue water. Welsh Water's statement makes it sadly clear that if a tidal-exclusion barrage is built it will not be like that, but will be a large expanse of greeny-brown water, often covered with algal scum, to fall into which will be a danger to health. When all is said and done, is it really more agreeable to look out onto a concrete dam and stagnant dirty water or to watch the ebb and flow of
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the tides and, in winter—something that really is unique a tremendous concentration of waders and wildfowl in the middle of a major European city.
If it is a question of raising land values, what about house prices in Chiswick Mall or Strand-on-the-Green where houses look out on to mudflats at low tide? I believe that the committee should look very carefully at all these water quality aspects, in the interests above all of the people of Cardiff. It should make sure that the water quality problems can and will be solved and the necessary finance provided now and in the years to come when the CBDC may no longer exist and local people and their councils may be left to pay the bill.
I have said nothing about the risks of flooding of homes from groundwater, highlighted in a recent technical study by Dr. Stuart Noake, because I have no special knowledge of that problem; and it is, I think, covered in the petitions. But it clearly needs to be considered carefully by the Select Committee since 12,000 homes are reported to be at risk.
My last question is covered in the second part of the Instruction and concerns migratory fish—salmon and sea trout, or sewin, as we call them in Wales. Welsh Water has put in substantial resources and has done notable work in restoring the runs of migratory fish in rivers previously ruined by 19th century pollution. There was a triumph the other day when the first salmon for 150 years was caught in the Afan. Welsh Water has done a great deal on the Taff and it now has a sizeable and increasing run of salmon and sewin. It is indeed now among the top ten salmon rivers of Wales. I understand that 250 salmon were caught there last year.
There is a question mark about the arrangements to enable fish to pass through the barrage. Welsh Water's recent statement says only that,
"considerable progress has been made",
and not that the problems have been solved. The Select Committee should see the petition made to another place against the previous Bill by the Welsh Salmon and Trout Angling Association, South-East Wales Region. The fish pass proposed is a unique one. Will it work? Has MAFF approved the design? Will there still be a "signal" of Taff Water in the estuary to guide fish in when they home to their native river? Will they be able to make the sudden transition from salt to fresh water, and vice versa! Will fish congregating near the barrage be protected? If runs are diminished, we should require developers to take steps to restore stocks; or, if that should be impossible, fully to compensate those affected. What will happen if the fish pass does not work and all the runs are destroyed? That would be a tragedy for which nothing could compensate. We must do all we can to avoid that.
I hope that the Select Committee will be able to look carefully at all these important aspects and take evidence from the experts in each field and from those who may be affected. I hope too that it will report to the House in detail so that we and the people of Cardiff can see precisely what is involved both environmentally and financially. I hope too that the promoters will be flexible and imaginative. A tidal exclusion barrage is not the only solution.

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Alternatives should be carefully considered. Just before the debate started I had a very swift glance at the environmental study. On page 73 it mentions alternatives to the proposed barrage. The advisory unit did not conduct full environmental studies of them and says that these alternatives have not therefore,
"been subject to a full environmental assessment, although it appears that some alternatives would offer fewer environmental costs and more environmental benefits than the proposed scheme".
The Committee should take note of that. For example, it has been put to me that there could be a salt water lake in summer, which might be much more pleasant, would do away with the algal and midge problems, and be far more useful for recreation; and in winter a reversion to a tidal regime with the mud flats available, as now, for the birds.
6.13 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of the Bill but I should like to express the hope that the House will give it a Second Reading. As I have explained on many occasions in the past, the Second Reading of a Private Bill, unlike that of a Public Bill, does not imply necessarily approval of the aims of the Bill, but it allows the Bill to be referred to a Select Committee which can conduct a full and thorough investigation.
If your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading it will automatically be referred to an Opposed Select Committee of the House, since there are now no fewer than 15 petitions against the Bill. These cover a wide spectrum of objection and all these matters will be closely investigated by the Select Committee. In fact, I think I can predict, with some apprehension, that the Select Committee is likely to sit for several weeks and certainly longer than similar committees have sat for a very long time.
If the Bill is given a Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Moran, will move his Instruction. Again, I have no comments to make on the merits of it but I can say that it is an appropriate one in procedural terms. As the noble Lord has explained, it deals with some matters—principally water quality and the migration of fish—which are not directly covered by any of the petitions against the Bill and therefore would best be considered by a Select Committee. The Instruction will require the Select Committee to make a special report to the House on its consideration both of the Bill and of the Instruction. This report will be debatable by your Lordships when it returns to the House on Third Reading.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Craigton: My Lords, one major question is this: how important is the barrage to the development of the area? Perhaps I may tell the House what Barry Lane, Chief Executive of Cardiff Development Corporation, has to say on pages 10 and 11 of his article in Comment 89 produced by Frank Knight & Rutley. He says:
"Today, a visitor to Cardiff docklands will sense once again that there is change and increasing vitality: fine old buildings are being cleaned and reoccupied; there is a bustle in the streets and a need for new car parks; restaurants are opening where a table has to be booked
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for lunch; the frequency of local trains and buses is being increased; families visit the area to look at new developments or to try their hands in a new and innovative science centre. Look beyond these obvious signals of new life—to real proof of confidence—and you find new jobs in docklands, led with conviction by the County Council's move into the heart of the area, and to new housing in areas where there was before only dereliction. South Cardiff and Cardiff Bay are moving surely into a new age of confidence and opportunity".
The article goes on to say:
"Underlying the Corporation's strategy for regeneration is the development of a superb maritime environment by the creation, behind a barrage, of a freshwater lake of some 200 hectares, with the possibility of some twelve kilometres of waterfront for development and pleasure".
The article continues:
"Because the lake will cover a feeding ground for wading birds—one of many along the Severn Estuary—the Corporation is to pioneer the construction nearby of a lagoon suitable for such birds".
Mr. Barry Lane does not say that the proposed Wentlog lagoon is one-eighth of the size of the area to be taken. I was told that it is one-quarter. But if it is to be acceptable as a compromise we should insist that it is finished and has the natural feeding required before the present water is destroyed.
Two further steps must be taken before approval. Liverpool University is preparing an impact assessment. We should like the Committee to report on that. I do not know whether it is in the Library; if it is, nobody has told me. Secondly, I ask the Minister to assure us that he will provide the development corporation with funds to pay for a cost benefit analysis, which we must also see. Furthermore, we must ask that both these studies—certainly the cost benefit analysis—should include not only comments on the grave dangers of flooding, which have been well written up in many publications, but also a forecast of the result of the greenhouse effect and the consequent permanent rise in sea level, now projected to be between one-third of a metre and one-and-a-half metres during the life of the project.
Should we be embarking on this project in these uncertain times? As the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, we shall be in breach of our international obligations under the European Commission directive on birds. We shall have destroyed yet another SSSI; and Cardiff, as the chief executive of the development corporation says, is doing very nicely without it.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, perhaps I should start by declaring an interest in that I have the honour to be chairman of an organisation known as Wildlife Link. It is a small umbrella organisation the membership of which includes almost all the large and small bodies involved in environmental issues; for example, the RSPB, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, CPRE, the National Trust, and many others including the Zoological Society. I must say that I happen to be a very poor successor to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who has moved on to greater things with Greenpeace.
On this occasion I do not claim to speak for all those organisations. However, I know that I speak for many of them when I say that we regard the construction of the barrage with much concern. Indeed, that has already been expressed by the two

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previous speakers. But that does not for one minute mean that we are in any way opposed to the further development of Cardiff, although I confess to being pretty envious of the magnificent facilities which are already possessed by the city and which were outlined to us so clearly by the mover of the Motion. I must say, what a marvellous position to be in to be the leader of one's own county council and able to move such a Motion here in your Lordships' House. As a former leader of a very small county council, I must say that I wish I had had that opportunity.
I share the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in a virtual tour de force. Indeed, I congratulate him upon it. What concerns those of us who are epecially interested in bird life is that the barrage across the mouth of the Taff/Ely estuary will surely adversely affect the feeding ground of some 8,000 to 10,000 waders, such as, shelduck, redshank, knot and dunlin which regularly feed in the bay during the winter months.
I am informed that currently out of about 130 estuaries in the United Kingdom there are no less than 48 which are the subject of some sort of development proposals, mostly involving marinas. That is a staggering figure. Indeed, I know that in my own part of the world—where goodness knows if Cowes is supposed to be the Mecca of yachting, improvement in our facilities is desperately needed—we have at least five marina schemes around the Isle of Wight alone. However, just where all the people who will occupy and use these marinas are coming from and how they will be able to afford the boats that will go into them, or live in the houses which will surround them, is beyond me. I just do not know. But I suspect that many such schemes are too elaborate and may well prove too costly in the end to succeed. However, that remains to be seen and, of course, it is up to the developers to decide where they put their money.
I suggest that Clause 39 of the Bill, which briefly refers to some consultation with the NCC as to the future well-being of bird life, flora and fauna, is totally inadequate; it makes absolutely no commitments. Nor is Clause 54, which refers to "undertakers" endeavouring,
"to develop 'the' lagoon as a natural habitat for wading birds".
in any way reassuring.
I gather that one of the requests which I proposed to put to the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, has already been met in that the environment impact assessment is now available for public inspection. I congratulate and thank him for that fact. However, I must also request that the Minister—and I hope that someone will be reporting to the Department of the Environment as this matter has already been raised—ensures that the department's attention is drawn to the Bill at this stage and that we receive a confirmation from the Government that they will uphold their obligations under the European Community wild birds directive; namely, to protect the estuary from any developments which could damage the inter-tidal feeding area. If we can at least achieve that, then God bless the Bill and perhaps we can make some progress. I sincerely seek those assurances and hope that the committee will take
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them very much into account when it sits and listens to the petitions.
6.24 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, I think it falls to me to continue the debate. I should like first to pay a warm tribute to my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa. He and his colleagues, especially those on the South Glamorgan County Council, have put a tremendous amount of personal time and effort into the Cardiff Bay development scheme as a whole. They are endeavouring to do the best possible for the future of our capital city and in most respects I think they have so far been marvellously successful. Indeed, one can certainly wish them even greater success in the future. We are very much indebted to them.
I think it is only fair to pay tribute also to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, for the strong support which he gave to the redevelopment of Cardiff when he held the office of Secretary of State for Wales. Indeed, I shall be most interested to hear his contribution to the debate. Having said that, I should declare a modest interest in so far as I am a ratepayer in the Riverside district of Cardiff, where I have a small flat, which is situated five minutes away from the station!
As a resident of Cardiff I may have a direct concern with the disputed problem of the level of the water table, which has been very much in the local press over the past few days. I do not have the technical knowledge to judge between the conflicting opinions of the experts concerned, but I have been in touch with those who have expertise, who tell me that the analysis by the private consultant is undoubtedly more sophisticated than that of the consulting engineers engaged by the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. However, whether that opinion in itself is conclusive, I am in no position to judge and I am content to leave the matter for further discussion by the experts.
My main reason for briefly intervening this afternoon is to support in particular the first part of the Motion so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. I think that we can all agree that he gave a very fine exposition of his case. I shall not repeat the arguments which he has already used. In any case, so far as concerns the migratory fish, I am in no position to speak with any authority, whereas I know that the noble Lord is extremely knowledgeable on the subject.
My concern is, and has been all along, with the problem of the water quality of the inland lake. If that were no problem I could support the scheme. I could not do so unreservedly, because I should certainly be concerned about the potential damage to bird life and I would also be concerned by what might prove to be the necessity of doing away with, or completely devaluing, a site of scientific interest. Nevertheless, I would certainly support the scheme.
However, I cannot overcome my strong doubts about the likely physical state of the inland lake. If one takes that aspect, together with the very high degree of expenditure involved in first securing, and even more, in maintaining for perpetuity an

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acceptable water standard at all times and in all seasons, then one's doubts require some reassurance.
A few weeks ago, at a special meeting of Cardiff City Council, Councillor Ron Watkins, for whom I have a sincere regard as a civic leader—in spite of his Conservative politics—said that,
"Without the barrage Cardiff would have Fourth instead of First Division redevelopment"—
I think he was talking about the wrong type of football, but we can overlook that.
I could not possibly subscribe to the proposal. The docklands development as a whole is most acceptable and desirable; there is nothing Fourth Division about it. Moreover, I was delighted for the first time to visit the new South Glamorgan county hall last week and was greatly impressed by the excellent facilities provided there. However, the barrage is another matter. I know the marketing arguments and I do not propose to deploy them here today.
I ask myself whether the expanse of water behind that extremely expensive barrage will ever be first-class. I find it hard to believe that it will be, at any rate within the proposed life span of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. I cannot speak for the more distant future because, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, a few years ago no one would have thought that a single salmon could have survived in the River Taff. That they can now do so is nothing short of a miracle.
It is only too true to say that in the developers' imagination, and perhaps that of some other people, it will be a picturesque lake of blue water, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Moran; but all the scientific evidence appears to be against that. I have not had a chance to study the environmental impact assessment studies but I have seen the notes from the Welsh Water Authority which became available only within the past few days. As far as one can judge, it is likely that the water in most summers will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, described, turbid and discoloured with masses of assorted algal growth, which will need constantly to be cleared. During the occasional very dry season—the 1976 and 1984 seasons, for example, which may well be repeated—it could have an unpleasant smell.
At a great cost in cash and effort the water can be oxygenated; the algal growth can be mechanically harvested, some of it with the kind of equipment that one uses to clear oil spills; the swarms of midges may be diverted to special lighthouse lamps, and so on. However, one must ask oneself whether it will be the kind of fresh water lake that people want. Is it truly the best investment, as it no doubt at first seemed, for such a large sum of money?
I give credit to the promoters for their pertinacity, but when thinking of this proposal I was reminded of a remark I heard in my younger days, when I did some modest climbing in the Swiss Alps, "You can pull a cow up the Matterhorn if you are prepared to pay enough guides, but is it worth it?" There is no doubt that one can clear the algae, divert the midges and do all those other things if one is prepared to spend vast sums of money; but one must ask oneself whether it is worth it.
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There are also the potential health hazards referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and in the proposed Instruction to the Select Committee. Everyone has known for some time that people will not be allowed to swim in the lake. It is also clear to most of us that one would be ill-advised to fall into it. I shall say no more except to endorse the view of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that it is most desirable that the issue of water quality should be considered by the appropriate committee of the House.
6.34 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I have been in Cardiff only twice in my life, and so I cannot speak authoritatively about Cardiff. However, I can speak a little about the wildlife, especially the waders. That is my only reason for speaking on this subject. I cannot see why this cannot be a salt water lake, in which case one would not have the algae or the danger of filth and stagnation. Provided there were not too many human beings around one would keep a large number of waders. If one has a fresh water lake, which appears to be the plan I do not know how deep it will be—presumably it will be far too deep for waders. Even if it were shallow, they would not obtain the food that they would get from salt water.
The majority of waders are small birds. There are duck, chiefly shelduck. Even if there were a small artifical preserve for waders I do not believe that they would make use of it. They would try to find some other part of the country not too far away, but they would have to compete with the waders already there. The plan could be disastrous for the wildlife. So far as I am aware, this will be the first time that Her Majesty's Government have overriden an SSSI.
Presumably Cardiff needs a great deal of redevelopment, but must they destroy the bird life in order to have that development? It is a large price to pay, but apparently money is everything today. We have given up our old ideas. Money is almost akin to God. The scheme is for a large fresh water lake; but it will not be fresh water for long. It will be filthy water. I hope that the various firms and investors who are to construct all the new buildings will find some other way to develop the area; but if they are going to redevelop Cardiff presumably there will not be another way.
The Select Committee will obviously consider the matter extremely carefully. It will have all the experts speaking on the various petitions. I hope that it is successful and that the bird life will not be destroyed. We have heard that there are 10,000 birds there. As I said, I have no knowledge of what the development will be. It may not be as profitable as some people believe it will be.
6.38 p.m.
Lord Davies of Penrhys: My Lords, in support of the Bill I wish to speak on the single issue of its likely impact on the valley communities to the North. It is a well known fact that there has always been a kind of jealousy in the valleys because the historical prosperity of Cardiff was created largely by the export of coal mined in those valleys. There is still

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some coal left, but unfortunately there are few miners left to mine it.
It has long been recognised that what is good for Cardiff is in turn good for the valleys. As the regional centre, Cardiff's job opportunities far exceed its population. Every day thousands of people from the valleys travel to work in Cardiff. One only has to travel by train from Cardiff in the evening, from about half past four until half past six or seven, to see the hordes of people on Cardiff Central station and Queen Street station, waiting for the trains to take them home.
For every four new jobs created in Cardiff, one job goes now to a resident of the valleys. His or her pay packet is taken home and spent in the valleys. The building of the barrage will create further exciting job opportunities which will lead to a growth in the prosperity of the whole region. We should be foolish to think that those employers who will be attracted to the waterside setting in Cardiff Bay would ever think of coming to the valleys instead, if the barrage were not built. I want the valley communities to share in whatever developments are proposed for the region. It is for that reason that I support the Bill.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard said that he hoped experts would appear before the committee. I am sure it is right that it is in the committee that many of the points which have been raised in this debate should be answered in detail. However, on behalf of the promoters, I shall attempt to respond to at least some of the points raised by noble Lords.
At the outset I must declare a double interest—both as an originator of the scheme and now as a director of Associated British Ports, the major private landowner in the area and the operator of Cardiff docks. My involvement with ABP arose directly from my wish to play a part in the private sector in carrying forward this project which I launched as Secretary of State for Wales.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa, spoke with knowledge and love of the city which he has served for so long. He knows with particular intimacy the effect that well over half a century of industrial decline has had upon the people whom he represents and upon the people of the valleys of South Wales as a whole. If I dare to speak of those matters, it is because I was Secretary of State for Wales at a particularly difficult moment of industrial change. It is also because—and this is a matter of some pride and pleasure—as a result of a series of measures of which this is one, Wales began to emerge into a new era of hope and growing prosperity before I left office. Perhaps I might say to my noble friend Lord Craigton that if today we can paint an optimistic picture of what is going on in the city, it is because a great deal of action of this kind has been taken and not least because of the expectation that has been aroused by the announcement of the great scheme.
The story of the Bill begins one day when Michael Roberts, a Cardiff MP himself who was soon after tragically to die beside me at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons, accompanied me on a visit to
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the vast industrial wasteland of South Cardiff, lying between the railway and the sea, to the still active and very important docks and to the communities that live and work in the area. We came away from that visit determined on action. In the Welsh Office we used the instrument of urban development grant to make possible the Holiday Inn project just north of the railway, to which the noble Lord, Lord Brooks, referred and the redevelopment by Tarmac now taking place alongside the Bute East Dock.
That first great cooperative effort between a private developer, the South Glamorgan County Council, the Cardiff City Council and the Government was not achieved without a great deal of difficulty. The scheme itself has its shortcomings, but it was important for three reasons. It was the first demonstration of that shared sense of purpose that united people and institutions of very different character and political beliefs, to achieve a great objective. It is not a very usual event in modern British politics but noble Lords should note that all the local authorities, despite their political differences, are united behind the scheme.
That first project proved also that it was possible by partnership between the public and private sectors successfully to launch a major development project in the area. It showed quite clearly that if we were to make progress on the scale and with the speed that was necessary, we needed new tools. The traditional techniques would not be enough. At that point, two modest but very imaginative civil servants seeking to respond to my demand for suggestions for a major initiative, made a proposal that was to lead us down the road to this Bill. Their names deserve to be recorded. Freddy Watson and Geoff Hoad made the suggestion that as a way to clear this desert of industrial dereliction and to make effective use of Cardiff's position by the sea, a barrage might be the answer.
We did not jump to conclusions, we did not enter on the project inadvisedly or lightly. We decided first to ask Jones, Lang, Wootton to carry out a major study. During the course of the year that followed, they, and my team and I at the Welsh Office, consulted a very wide range of expert opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. I went to inspect some of the best examples of maritime development in the United States—places like Baltimore and Boston. The response of those whom we consulted was very positive. It was only then that we decided to set up the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and to proceed with the detailed studies for the construction of the barrage. I announced the decision in Cardiff on 5th December 1986.
With the corporation established, there then began a further period of immensely painstaking research and preparation by the development corporation. I emphasise the thoroughness of these preliminaries because some people have suggested, and it was implicit in some of the remarks made in the House this evening, that the whole thing is the outcome of a fashionable whim to build barrages. Incidentally, we are not taking a decision about all the other barrages that are proposed but considering a particular barrage and a particular proposal at Cardiff.

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It has also been suggested that perhaps it was the desire of a few relatively fortunate people to live in a waterside environment that influenced us. None of these suggestions is true. We received overwhelming evidence that although it would be possible to get significant redevelopment under way in South Cardiff, as we had already proved with the Bute dock project, the construction of a barrage would make possible something on a altogether greater scale. I quote from the Jones, Lang, Wootton report which says that,
"the building of the barrage is crucial, to unlock major development possibilities".
The report makes it clear that the positive response that they received,
"would not have been given without the proposal for the barrage".
Following that study, the development corporation itself carried out an economic appraisal, asked for by my noble friend Lord Craigton. I am sure that it will be supplied to the Committee. Since leaving the Government and becoming involved in private sector development I find that all the evidence I have received confirms the conclusion reached by Jones, Lang, Wootton. I see a very great deal of the development planning that has been undertaken in the past year and all of it is based on the assumption that the barrage will be built. If it is not, then much more modest plans will have to be prepared.
We have a choice. We can proceed with relatively modest, bit by bit development, or we can do something altogether more important. We can build in South Cardiff something of the highest quality which will not only be worthy of the splendid city built by our forebears around the castle and Cathays Park in the period of prosperity and confidence but will attract investment from around the world and make an immense contribution to the whole economy of South Wales and to the social condition of its people.
This is not just a project for Cardiff. How I welcomed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Penrhys. He really knows what this is all about. The modern city came into being as an outlet for the coal from the industrial valleys. It remains dependent on those valleys today for its health and vigour, and they depend on the city. The railways that once brought coal now take people backwards and forwards. There is a fast improving network of roads. A very high proportion of those who shop and work within Cardiff come from the Vale of Glamorgan and the valleys.
The new industries that come to areas much further west, to Bridgend and beyond and to the heads of the valleys, all take account of the facilities and resources that are available in the capital city. All the experience around the world tells the same story. If a city prospers, so does its hinterland. Perhaps an even more relevant example than that provided by London and the South-East of England is the remarkable transformation of the economy of Massachusetts and the neighbouring areas which has taken place over the past 30 years because of the influence of the universities and financial institutions of Boston.
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Cardiff has a population of around 300,000, but it depends on and helps to feed a population of closer to 1-75 million. It was because of this vital interdependence that I took such care to launch the Cardiff scheme as just one part of a range of initiatives for the whole area, and to announce it at a seminar on urban renewal organised by the Welsh Development Agency. At about the same time 1 took the decision that Ebbw Vale would host the National Garden Festival as a spur for the improvement to the whole South Wales valleys area.
Earlier in March 1986 I launched the first stage of the valleys initiative which aimed to bring about a substantial and visible improvement in the valley communities. That initiative has been subsequently built on and enlarged by my successor. The results that are beginning to emerge today are the outcome not just of a year's efforts but of an initiative that goes back three whole years. This Bill is part of a concerted package of measures. When therefore supporters of the Bill talk of economic and social benefits they do so convinced that those benefits will flow to the whole region. They are acutely conscious that no region in Britain has suffered more from the decline of old industries or has a greater need for measures to mend and heal.
Criticisms of the proposal have been almost entirely based on environmental arguments. That has been the case in this House tonight. Before I deal with them, I shall take the opportunity to tell the House that the petition from Associated British Ports has not been lodged because the company is opposed to the principle of the scheme. On the contrary, it is committed to the regeneration of Cardiff Bay. It warmly welcomes the creation of the development corporation and enthusiastically supports the construction of the barrage. ABP is prepared to back with enthusiasm an active participation on a large scale.
The petition was lodged solely to protect the company's position on important matters of detail concerning ownership of the wetlands that lie beneath the surface of the bay and its jurisdiction as a statutory harbour authority. Discussions are continuing to see whether solutions can be arrived at which will mean that your Lordships need not be troubled in Committee with these matters. It is certainly the company's hope and expectation that a mutually acceptable solution can be found so that the petition can be withdrawn before the Committee stage begins.
I turn now to the environmental objections. From the start those of us involved with the project have taken them very seriously. Before announcing our decision to proceed I consulted the Nature Conservancy Council. I had a study carried out, which has been referred to by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. In my speech in December 1986 I announced that there would be an examination of ways in which the loss of feeding grounds might be minimised. I do not think anyone has ever suggested that one could wholly compensate for the loss of those grounds.
The outcome of the studies that resulted from that commitment is the section of the Bill which provides

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for the construction of a lagoon and its management in order to develop a natural habitat for wading birds as a feeding ground and as a nature reserve. The Bill also provides for ongoing consultation with the Nature Conservancy Council.
I met the chairman of the council a week or so ago. He confirmed that at my meeting with him in 1986 when I first discussed the scheme, he naturally expressed concern about the impact on the existing SSSI and on the waders that feed on the mud flats. But he also recognised that there could be substantial offsetting environmental benefits and that the nature conservancy issues had to be considered in the context of the very great benefits for the people of the area. He told me at our recent meeting that he particularly recognised and took account of the employment considerations. That seems to me to be a constructive and responsible approach.
It is right and proper that due weight should be given to the consequences for those wading birds in the Severn Estuary that feed on the Cardiff mud flats. But it is also right and proper that due weight should be given to the potential benefits to the human beings who will be affected. Given the choice between the possible loss of some waders and the huge gains in terms of living conditions, employment prospects and economic health of hundreds of thousands of people in a region that has suffered for too long, I come down on the side of the human beings.
However, 1 am by no means clear that the choice is as stark as that. I hope that the proposed lagoon will provide some alternative feeding grounds for the small proportion of wading birds in the Severn Estuary which at present feed in Cardiff Bay. But in any case we can be absolutely certain that there will be considerable scope for creating extensive habitats for other birdlife, and that to bring back into use the vast derelict area of South Cardiff, apart from itself providing an enormously improved environment with varying habitats, will very much ease the pressure which exists to develop land in the Vale of Glamorgan and the green belt around Cardiff.
I must tell noble Lords that in purely environmental terms the arguments are by no means one-sided. That point has been clearly understood by organisations such as Cardiff 2000, the local civic society, which has welcomed the project. The society said the project would:
"vastly increase the amenity of South Cardiff".
There is no question of the developers making money at the expense of the quality of life of others, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, suggested. This project is concerned with greatly improving the quality of life of many thousands of people. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, also referred to the RAMSAR Convention and to the EC birds directive. I have no doubt that those matters will be thoroughly pursued in Committee.
Special protection areas under the birds directive are designated by the Secretary of State for the Environment on the advice of the Nature Conservancy Council. Member states may take account of economic and recreational requirements in deciding whether an SPA may be created. Whether a particular development within an SPA may be
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permitted is dependent upon the judgment of whether such a development would have a significant effect on the prospects for the survival and reproduction of a species. That is one question for detailed examination in Committee.
I have checked my facts by looking at the records of meetings and when I was a Member of Her Majesty's Government it was the Government's view that the interests of the birds had also to be weighed against the economic and social case for the development. I imagine that that is still the Government's view. That does not seem to me to be very far removed from the responsible opinion of Sir William Wilkinson, to which I referred, that unemployment was a factor that the NCC and the Government were bound to take into account.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, expressed concern about water quality in the bay. That again is a matter which should very properly be examined thoroughly in Committee. I should be the first to insist on the highest possible standards. The Bill has been drafted to meet the requirements of the Welsh Water Authority which has, with Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, carried out intensive studies. As the noble Lord, Lord Moran, quoted from the Welsh Water Authority's previous petition, one might have been tempted to forget that it has not petitioned on this occasion following those studies and following the changes that have been made in this version of the Bill. It is right that such matters should be looked at. The noble Lord's Instruction is perfectly reasonable and the promoters of the Bill accept it.
There are perhaps some guides that may incline some of us to be sceptical about some of the more alarming visions that were conjured up for the House tonight. We were asked to imagine a million dead fish lying at the water's edge, and other horrible events. It is worth recording that the Bute Dock, which is at present filled from exactly the same source and which is rather more stagnant than the water in the bay is likely to be because the flows through it are less than the flows through the bay will be, does not present the horrific picture that was suggested in the House tonight. I am told that last week from the offices of South Glamorgan County Council two cormorants could be observed fishing in the waters of the dock. That may not be conclusive evidence. However, it is an interesting thought that that is a large sheet of water, charged from exactly the same river sources and, I imagine, in much the same condition as the water within the bay will be.
It was suggested that it would have been preferable to create a salt water lake. That was a matter which was considered by the development corporation. It was attracted by the idea. It has been encouraged tonight to take expert opinion. It has took advice from those with probably the greatest experience in such matters of anyone in the world, the Dutch. The advice it received from Holland was very firm indeed: it should reject the option of a salt water lake. No doubt that is also a matter which can be explored in Committee.
We were told that the water would not be suitable for swimming. No one has suggested that it would

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be. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, expressed alarm that people might fall into it. Later in his speech he referred to the attractions of Chiswick Mall. It so happens that for a large part of my life I lived in Chiswick Mall. I spent a great deal of my youth falling into the River Thames from rowing boats and sailing boats. If the noble Lord imagines that the condition of the Thames in the 1940s and 1950s was any worse than the condition of the bay is likely to be, I ask him to take my word for it that that is an improbable scenario.
I have only one other point to make concerning the condition of the bay. Anxiety was expressed about future funding. I do not believe—and this is also the view of very responsible and experienced people in the development field—that it will be beyond the wit of man for the development corporation to come to an agreement with landowners and developers around the bay which will make possible the funding of the future management of the bay. One has only to think of many property developments in which ongoing funding arrangements are made to realise that such funding is perfectly practicable.
Concern has also been expressed about the effect of the barrage on the water-table and on low-lying property. It is that rather than the anxieties of the RSPB that primarily concerns those local people who have doubts or real fears about the scheme. Again, that is a matter which should properly be examined in Committee and which has already been the subject of detailed inquiry.
The county councillor who perhaps has the greatest interest in getting at the truth, being a member of the development corporation living in the area and seeing and having to answer to the people who will be most affected every day of his life, told me only last week that he had been satisfied by the studies. He felt that he could stand up and meet his constituents with absolute confidence. However, it is right that such matters should be examined.
Clause 12 is a lengthy clause designed to provide safeguards. Noble Lords should understand that, as is so often the case with environmental matters, the choices are not absolutely straightforward. At present it would appear that unless remedial action is taken the building of the barrage may cause some problems for properties in the waterside area. Provision is made for that.
My noble friend Lord Craigton raised an interesting question. He asked about the effect of the ozone layer. It so happens that in my role of chairman of the National Rivers Authority Advisory Committee I recently received a detailed brief prepared by engineering consultants on the possible effects of the depletion of the ozone layer and the tilting continental shelf on flood defence schemes around the country. In the course of that general report the engineers commented that the Cardiff barrage might well save many millions of pounds of expenditure that would otherwise be required over the next 20 or 30 years in order to prevent flooding. Far from increasing the flood risk it may well be that the construction of the Cardiff barrage will safeguard Cardiff in the years ahead.
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Reference has also been made to a recent study suggesting that as many as 12,000 properties may be at risk. I think that the implication of some of the press reports is that flooding—free water above the land surface—may occur and affect all the houses in the waterside areas. The model that was used by the development corporation was that recommended by the British Geological Survey which is used to assess the general behaviour of the water-bearing strata. Anyone who knows anything about such matters will know that modelling techniques are uncertain and that all kinds of qualifications must be made about them. In fact, despite the press conference, there is very little difference between the Noake report and the studies already carried out by the development corporation. There is a need to review the conclusions of the studies following completion of a full year's monitoring of ground water records. That point was made both by Dr. Noake and by Wallace Evans and Partners in their stage II report in May 1988.
It is also worth noting that the somewhat alarmist scenario is based on an assumption made in the Noake report that, if a tolerance of one metre on top of the predicted water level, coupled with a further estimated one metre rise as a result of intense rainfall were considered, the results could be quite different from those predicted. I suspect that if we had rainfall of that order at the present time we might get some pretty unexpected results. But the important point is that the rise predicted in the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation study also includes an allowance for both average and intense rainfall and a tolerance is already included within the assessment of the properties that might be affected by a rise in ground water. Over many years I have learnt to be wary when rival experts start to provide their expertise and we shall have an interesting time in Committee. But I do not think that we should send this Bill to Committee on the assumption that these matters have been treated lightly by the development corporation to date.
We live in a complex world. There are seldom straightforward answers to man's problems. It is Parliament's job to weigh carefully all the competing considerations and to provide protection so far as is possible against the adverse consequences of any proposed action. But Parliament must also try to identify the greatest good and the wider benefits both for man and for the environment in which he lives. We all want to make a contribution of that kind. However, I do not believe there is anything that I have been able to do, or am likely to be able to do in my future public life, that will make a greater contribution to that wider public good than my part in this Bill, unless it might be with colleagues in the National Rivers Authority to remove pollution from our rivers. At least that would please the noble Lord, Lord Moran!
I urge the House to recognise the huge benefits that the Bill provides and the great contribution that it can make to the economic, social and environmental regeneration of Cardiff, Penarth and the whole of South Wales.
7.12 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, at the outset I must make it clear that, although I speak from the Dispatch Box, I do so in a personal capacity. This is a Private Bill and it would not be appropriate for me to voice or attempt to voice an official Opposition assessment of its merits.
The House is grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooks of Tremorfa for his clear explanation of the main purpose of the Bill. We have been told that the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, with the support of South Glamorgan County Council, is engaged in the regeneration of the rundown dockland area which once helped to create the modern city of Cardiff. The project was inspired by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, when he was Secretary of State for Wales. We are grateful to the noble Lord for the history of the idea of the regeneration of the dockland in Cardiff and for the insight that he has given into the translation of the idea into a plan.
The corporation has developed an imaginative strategy which, as I understand it, could create some 30,000 additional jobs in modern industry within its designated area over a period of 10 years or more and the construction of about 6,000 new houses. It has described its plan as being potentially the single most important economic opportunity for South Wales in this century, benefiting the economy of South Wales as a whole. That aim would be endorsed by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones and all the Members who sit behind me on these Benches.
The corporation sees the barrage from Alexandra Dock to Penarth Road—a distance of 1,200 metres and enclosing a lake—-as the centrepiece of the Cardiff Bay development because the lake will create an attractive setting which will attract development of quality and scale into the bay. The barrage across the mouth of the Taff-Ely estuary will create that setting. That is the corporation's judgment.
Although the idea of the barrage has many supporters in South Wales, there are nevertheless 15 petitions against the Bill or its provisions. No public authority has lodged a petition, but I note that two authorities—Cardiff City Council and Welsh Water—have reserved, in reliance on undertakings, the right to submit a petition. I understand that Mid-Glamorgan County Council has made no policy stand on the barrage issue itself, but holds a view on the Cardiff Bay strategy. The corporation will have received an encouraging message from my noble friend Lord Davies of Penrhys this evening because he lives in the Rhondda Valley; his roots are in the Rhondda Valley and he welcomes this development believing that it will have a spin-off for the whole of Mid-Glamorgan.
I believe that I can best help the committee, which I trust your Lordships' House will set up, by summarising the objections to the Bill. I believe that they can be brought under four main headings. But, as normally happens, you have a main heading, then you examine the main heading and that leads to a range of other questions. First, many of the people living in the area adjoining the bay are deeply concerned that the raising of the local water table
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which will be caused by the permanent high water of the lake will result in dampness penetrating the foundations and basements of their homes. A house is only as good as its foundations. My noble friend Lady White has drawn attention to the problem.
The promoters of the Bill accept that some 1,375 houses will be affected—that is not an insignificant figure—while some objectors claim that 11,000 houses will be affected. That conflict of evidence suggests to me, as a layman, that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the barrage on groundwater behaviour. In my view, that may well prove to be one of the critical issues that the committee will have to examine carefully.
If the committee recommends that the barrage is to be authorised, then it will be necessary for the committee to probe and test the adequacy and fairness of Clause 12 of the Bill. That is the clause which sets out the obligation of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation to carry out remedial works to damaged properties. I note that it is claimed by objectors that the clause is inadequate in at least seven respects. Clearly Clause 12 has to be tested.
I move now to the second objection. Residents in the Cardiff inner city area are highly conscious of the floods of 1960 and 1979 which caused great damage to homes and businesses in the inner city area. They are understandably worried that heavy rain in combination with a barrage and the raising of the local water level will increase the flooding risks. If it is established by the committee that the flooding risk will be increased, then it will be necessary to consider whether the preventive measures built into the scheme are adequate or whether additional preventive measures must be built into the design of the barrage.
Thirdly, objectors are concerned that the pounded back freshwater lake will suffer from stagnation, pollution and oxygenation problems. The fear must be that unless there is constant oxygenatic activity of the lake during the warm weather of spring, summer and autumn, this impounded lake which is to be a great attraction in Cardiff Bay—will become a brown or blue-green algae drenched pond of pollution with "unpleasant smell and damaging to fish and other acquatic life". I quote from one of the petitions. The people from Cardiff can draw some consolation on this objection because the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation itself sees the solution of the water quality problem as being essential for the barrage scheme to go ahead. After all, it does not want a polluted lake on its doorstep.
Fourthly, the barrage will change the face of the estuary. I am not sure for how long the present scene has been part of the Cardiff landscape. I do not know whether it goes back to the days of the Romans. However, the mud flats—and they cover about 165 hectares—which are seen at low tides are described by the corporation as being unsightly and therefore unattractive to a developer. So far as I know it has not been claimed that they are also foul smelling. The mud flats—and this is the real objective of the scheme—are to disappear under the waters of the lake. It will be their cartre' gwaelod The mud flats have been, and are, the intertidal feeding grounds for

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wild fowl and for wintering and wading birds. I am told that this affects some 8,000 to 10,000 birds which are feeding on these grounds. In particular we find the dunlin and the redshank. I am not sure whether they were there in the days of the Romans. That is why the mud flats were designated in 1980 as a site of special scientific interest.
How will the corporation compensate for the loss of the SSSI and of the feeding grounds? Of course the corporation has taken note of this objection. It proposes to create a new but smaller feeding ground. Will the smaller feeding ground be a suitable alternative feeding ground? Will the corporation wholly compensate for the loss of the feeding ground? If it is necessary that a barrage be constructed across the mouth of the Taff and the Ely, would not a smaller barrage meet the need of the developers for an attractive water environment for modern industry and at the same time meet the need to protect the mud flats as a site of special scientific interest? It is an idea canvassed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
I have asked some of the more important questions that come to mind after perusing the objections to the Bill, but I accept that those questions can lead to a range of other specific questions.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, has moved an Instruction. In the light of the advice that has been tendered to the House by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I hope that the House will support the noble Lord, Lord Moran, as the question of possible risk to public health by poor water quality in the inland lake and the impact of the barrage on the migration of fish are not directly canvassed in the petitions. The committee would then be in a position to make a full investigation of the merits of the Bill, and of the petitions.
7.26 p.m.
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, it may be helpful if I give the House a brief summary of the Government's attitude to this Bill. I should declare at the outset that the Government have a substantial interest in its objectives.
The joint promoters of the Bill are South Glamorgan County Council and the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. It is the intention that the cost of building the barrage will be met by the development corporation with the assistance of a grant in aid provided by the Welsh Office. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales is therefore directly interested in the proposal.
Initial studies into the proposal for a barrage across Cardiff Bay were put in train, as your Lordships have heard, by the Welsh Office in 1985. It was of course the time when my noble friend Lord Crickhowell was the Secretary of State for Wales. As he has told noble Lords, he took a particular and personal interest in this matter. Since that time wide-ranging and detailed expert studies of the economic, technical and environmental issues involved have been undertaken.
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Perhaps I may intervene in response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Craigton. The points that he raises are for the promotors and for the noble Lord, Lord Brooks. However, I can assure my noble friend that all the necessary studies have been undertaken to enable a decision to be made. Copies of all the reports, including the Liverpool University environmental impact assessment and the barrage economic appraisal, have been made available by the promoters and copies are, I am told, in your Lordships' Library.
The Government have considered this matter in great detail before coming to their own conclusion. The environmental issues involved are extremely important, as your Lordships have already indicated. The area is a site of special scientific interest and a potential special protection area. The likely consequences for migratory wildfowl and wading birds have been carefully assessed by experts, as have the possibility of providing some alternative feeding grounds. We believe that all information necessary to enable decisions to be made is now available. The Government have weighed these environmental costs—and we certainly accept that they are costs in respect of lost feeding habitats for the birds—against the paramount importance of realising economic, recreational and other benefits that can be expected to arise from a barrage.
The Bill raises important issues for the people of South Glamorgan. The barrage is the key component of a comprehensive strategy. The objective of this is to completely transform a hitherto derelict area close to the city centre of Cardiff. It is an area still paying heavily for the decline in the coal industry and hence port activity, and the loss of steel-making. The benefits of the redevelopment will spread throughout the economy of south Wales and help transform the image of Wales in the eyes of investors. The redevelopment will complement the work being undertaken by my right honourable friend to regenerate the south Wales valleys. The two areas have been interdependent since the early 1800s at least and the two initiatives will cement that relationship for the future.
We have studied the results of the economic studies of the barrage proposal and accept that it is only a barrage-related redevelopment of the kind proposed in the Bill which will provide a sound basis for the creation of a superb new environment in the area. This will act as a catalyst for new private sector activity and will also dramatically improve the lot of those people who live and work in and around the area. We believe, therefore, that the economic case for the barrage is very strong. We have weighed these benefits against the cost in terms of the effect of the barrage on birds, and the public expenditure costs. We have also considered the water quality aspects.
We have thus concluded that the economic benefits of this scheme heavily outweigh the identified costs. On the basis that current estimates of cost would be adhered to, the Government have decided to make the necessary money available to the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation to enable the barrage to be built if Parliament so agrees. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will agree to commit the Bill to a Select Committee for its consideration.

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Perhaps I may refer briefly to the Instruction tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. As the noble Lord has explained, this deals with the questions of water quality and fish migration. Let me say at once that the Government see no difficulty with this Instruction and would not wish to stand in your Lordships' way in this matter.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Brooks of Tremorfa: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to those noble Lords who have contributed to what has been an excellent debate. I confined myself almost exclusively to the economic regeneration aspects of this proposal, but I was aware that a number of noble Lords would be raising matters which I did not cover during my speech. The questions of flooding, ground water levels and water pollution are matters best studied by the Select Committee and I agree that the Instruction that the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has tabled is perfectly appropriate.
There are 15 petitioners against the Bill and the questions that caused concern here this evening will be matters for the Select Committee to make judgment on. The part about which the noble Lord, Lord Moran, is concerned, as he quite rightly said, is not mentioned in any of the petitions so it is perfectly proper that he should move that Instruction. I ask your Lordships' House to give a Second Reading to this Bill.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
Lord Moran Lord Moran rose to move, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is committed that they should pay particular attention to the need to ensure; (a) that an acceptable water quality standard can be achieved and maintained in the proposed inland bay at all times, and that public health will be fully safeguarded; and (b) that the proposed barrage will not adveresely affect the migration of fish between the rivers flowing into the inland bay and the sea; and that they should also consider whether, if there should be any reductions in the runs of fish, these should be made good or, failing that, compensation paid to those affected.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already spoken to the Instruction and I therefore beg to move it formally.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Goats
7.34 p.m.
The Earl of Dundee The Earl of Dundee rose to move, That the code laid before the House on 23rd January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, with your Lordships' leave, I will speak to all three codes together; that is, two entirely new codes, one for goats and one for farmed deer, and the proposed alterations to the existing code for sheep. The complete texts of the three codes are now in the
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Library. Their purpose is to provide farmers and stockkeepers with the best available guidance on the way in which the welfare of farmed animals can be protected. Regarding legal status, breach of a code is not in itself an offence but may however be quoted in any prosecution as helping to establish the guilt of the accused. Welfare codes for the main species of farm livestock have existed since 1971 and have been used in cases brought under the 1968 Act in this way. On the system for monitoring, officers of the State Veterinary Service are able to assess compliance with the codes when visiting farms to check on the welfare of the stock.
First, the three codes are based largely on recommendations from the Farm Animal Welfare Council, the Government's independent advisory body. However, consistent with the 1968. Act, next they took account of comments from interested parties and this led to the Ministry making a few changes. The code before us on deer relates only to deer on agricultural land, but of course deer often have to be moved from one site to another. Equally, they may not always be slaughtered on site but are slaughtered instead in abattoirs. Therefore, we have also issued two separate voluntary codes, one for welfare practice on abattoir slaughter and another on the transport of farmed deer.
The main code regarding deer on agricultural land emphasises the nervous nature of these animals and how this aspect of them should be taken into account in their proper handling. Specific recommendations are made on taking deer from the wild, on the use of dart guns and on field slaughter. The reason why we now have a new code for deer and a new one for goats is because of the expansion of both of these farming industries in recent years.
One practice addressed in the code for goats is that of tethering and advice is given on the best way of carrying this out, consistent with the comfort of the animal. The code also acknowledges the gregarious nature of the animal which clearly gives rise to a different kind of welfare management.
The sheep code was first issued in 1977 and its revision here simply takes account of new technology and changes in sheep husbandry. Therefore this code contains new guidelines on the management of milk sheep, on pregnancy and lambing and on housing, especially where welfare is dependent on electrical or mechanical equipment. The most important common denominator of all three codes is the message that stockkeepers should be aware of the behavioural needs of their animals and that good stockmanship is essential if the welfare of the animals is to be protected.
This brings me back to my opening remarks about the purpose of the codes; that is, to provide guidance to those who need to know about the best way to safeguard the welfare of their stock. That is why, subject to Parliament's approval, all three codes will be distributed free of charge to all known farmers who keep these animals. We will also ensure that bodies such as the agricultural colleges and the Agricultural Training Board receive copies for use in their training of young or inexperienced stockkeepers. We will also seek publicity for the

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codes, so that any people whom we may miss in our distribution will be aware of them and know how to get copies.
Finally, may I say that the documents before us reflect the valuable work undertaken by the Farm Animal Welfare Council in preparing the basis for the codes. I am sure that your Lordships will wish to join me in recording thanks to members, both past and present, who have given so much of their time to this task. We will, I think, agree that these draft codes represent the best advice that can be given in the light of our current knowledge and the views presented to the Ministry. I commend them to the House and beg to move.
Moved, That the code laid before the House on 23rd January he approved.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
7.39 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for the very clear explanation that he gave of these codes. those of us who have worked with animals will regard them as codified common sense.
There are a few points that arise. The codes of course are underpinned by the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968, and as such are more flexible than the statutory regulations which I believe were favoured by the Farm Animal Welfare Council. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why the Government rejected the suggestion by the Farm Animal Welfare Council to put the codes into a statutory form. As the Minister said, there is a welcome development in that the Agricultural Training Board is now making courses available to farmers and employers to train people in implementing the codes.
Let me mention briefly the code dealing with goats. I wonder whether paragraph 3 should be brought to the attention of the Chief Whips of all parties in both Houses:
"Goats, being gregarious animals, prefer to live in social groups and appear to enjoy human contact. If kept singly, they require more frequent contact with, and supervision by, the stockman. They should always be treated as individuals, even when kept in large herds … Goats prefer to be led but can be driven if care is taken".
In the codes there is no reference to embryo transplants. I should declare an interest here. I have an interest in a New Zealand company. We have been importing angora embryos for implantation into surrogate mothers. This is a rapid way of importing and increasing the number of high quality animals. There are no recommendations in the codes regarding this, and I wonder whether the transplantation of embryos is covered by some other code or regulation involving, as it does, a form of major surgery.
As regards deer, I was puzzled by paragraph 47, which refers to the continuous housing of deer. Is the continuous housing of deer considered to be a real possibility by the Government? Some form of venison veal, or something similar? I was in New Zealand in January. There is a lucrative trade there in the removal of antlers for the sale of velvet to the Far East. This is not in fact as an aphrodisiac, as is commonly thought. It appears that the velvet is an
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essential part of medicinal formulations which go back 1,000 years or more.
Something that is not mentioned in the code, and it is not surprising, is the possibility of the poaching of deer by dropping nets from helicopters and hauling them away, which has been a problem in New Zealand. Of course the fully grown animal is valuable. I am also puzzled by paragraphs 56 and 57. It is only a small point. Paragraph 56 refers to "see reference 7" and in paragraph 57 it says "see reference 8". I am not clear to what the references refer. Perhaps the Minister can tell us.
In the code dealing with sheep there is a surprising omission. There is no mention of the fostering of lambs. When I was a shepherd many years ago I often skinned a dead lamb and had to foster the orphaned lamb on to the new mother. I should like to know whether this is a practice which will be encouraged or frowned upon by the code.
New paragraph 29 refers to feeding and the problem of "unsuitable additives" in the compound feed for sheep. I should like to know how the farmer is supposed to know what the additives are and whether in fact they are unsuitable., when we remember all the recent fuss about the additives in poultry feed. In New Zealand there is a practice of removing skin from the sheep's rump to prevent fly strike, which seems an awful thing to do. I presume that that would be frowned upon by the code, although of course it is not mentioned.
I conclude with some general points. The Minister mentioned enforcement. What are the penalties for breaching the code? Also the code emphasises the importance of the veterinary surgeon but, as we know, the UGC has recommended the closure of excellent schools in veterinary science, including those at Cambridge and in Scotland. I am not sure whether the Minister would care to comment on that proposal, but it is something that we should have in mind when we read the codes, which place great importance on the role of the veterinary surgeon. I finish as I started by thanking the Minister for explaining the codes so clearly, and perhaps also congratulating the people who drafted the codes for setting them out so clearly.
7.45 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl the Minister for explaining these three codes of recommendation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for the welfare of goats, farmed deer and livestock sheep. I wish to speak particularly about goats. Here I must declare an interest. My elder daughter breeds goats in our stables and supports us with butter, milk and cream (which, I may say, are delicious). It is not a commercial enterprise. She is a member of the British Goat Society, and during the last season won numerous rosettes and a silver cup with her goats, so she knows how goats should be looked after, and she is very concerned about the conditions of some goats.
I wish to invite the Minister's attention to the Year Book 1988, which has been recently published by the British Goat Society. The society was founded in 1897 and has Her Majesty the Queen as patron. Pages

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28, 29 and 31, of which I have given the noble Earl photocopies, tell the appalling story, as a result of neglect, of a herd of 40 goats.
The ministry animal health officer, following the application of the Durham and Cleveland Goat Welfare Committee, visited the herd. The report of the British Goat Society says that he did not go into the buildings, but having seen some goats grazing simply went away without further investigation. This was two days before the Durham and Cleveland Goat Welfare Committee found that 37 goats of the 38 that it was buying as the owner was going on holiday were too weak to stand and the 38th was found in a shed all skin and bones, with a bad case of foot rot which prevented her from walking or grazing. She had very little hair, was covered in lice and had an abscess on her head the size of a grapefruit. She was in a shed, and one of the herd that the officer from the Ministry has been asked to check. If he had looked in the shed he would have realised why he had been asked to come.
Both the Ministry and the RSPCA were consulted but neither did anything whatsoever about it. Actually the RSPCA did go back but the dead goats had been removed and the owner was not there, so it decided not to proceed further. There has also been a case of neglect in our village, here a goat was left in all weathers without shelter or water. The RSPCA was asked to look at it. It said that it was not in a bad enough condition for it to do anything
Surely an officer of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or any animal welfare organisation such as the RSPCA should be trained to know what to look for in the animal that he is visiting. I hope that in the two years since these cases have occurred the situation has improved. If this is the first time that there have been such recommendations, I hope the Minister will draw the attention of the ministry to possible abuses of them. I should have thought that Nos. 6, 7 and 11 of the recommendations were common sense proposals if one wished to keep a goat, but I am glad that they are in the recommendations.
Could the Minister consider having a notice displayed, perhaps in post offices, to the effect that Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food advisory leaflets are available free from local offices of the ministry, or post free? Many people keep perhaps two goats and do not realise that pamphlets of advice can be obtained free. This might encourage the proper welfare of goats, which the Minister so clearly has in mind.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, perhaps I may speak for a moment as I have long experience of deer forests and since as a boy I have studied these animals and stalked them hundreds and thousands of times. I have also shot them stone dead at the right age, and I have stalked for other people. I have written on the subject, and with due respect I know a lot about it.
I do not have great faith in the Farm Welfare Council regarding the farming of deer. It is made up chiefly of farmers and you cannot compare the wild red deer in the Highlands of Scotland, 99 per cent.of
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the red deer in this country, with sheep or cattle. Sheep have been domesticated in this country, or certainly in the world. for at least 3,000 years, and cattle for far longer if you take the ancient Egyptians and other parts of the world.
The Farming Welfare Council, if that is its name, does not understand that the wild red deer of Britain have been here since the ice age. I have studied these animals carefully, as I said. Their sight is very acute: they see anything that moves a mile away. Provided there is good camouflage, their sight is not so acute in relation to still objects. They will see up to a quarter of a mile or even half a mile. Their sense of smell is tremendous. These animals hate human smell, which they can detect over a mile away. They are highly nervous and highly strung.
The farm deer were originally taken from the wild stock. In the deer parks many have come from Germany and are a slightly different type. The West Highlands and Islands Board has given up its deer farm, which it found highly unsatisfactory. It was a very large deer farm on hill ground, which is the right ground, but the veterinary bills were enormous. That was the main reason for giving up the deer farm, so I understand.
These wild animals do not like being enclosed even in a large area. It is different with park deer in an English park because they do not come from the vast wastes in the Highlands; many came from abroad originally.
In the code the hind's calving is mentioned. In parks the deer intrinsically are still wild in their reaction. If a human being handles a calf, the hind, certainly the wild hind, will desert it. The hind has the calf and feeds it twice to three times in the 24 hours. If any human being touches the calf, the hind will desert it. That shows how in deer farms one must have highly trained people who understand the nervous reaction of these deer.
I am appalled at the transport of deer to abattoirs. I have always fought against this. I understand that it is now covered by law. I think that it is extremely cruel. Dart guns are used. That in itself will anaesthetise the deerstag or hind—going to the abattoir. I have never been to an abattoir where deer are slaughtered, but I imagine that the deer cannot stay anaesthetised the whole time until it is slaughtered. However, I do not know about that.
Then there is the question of the housing of red deer. This is very unnatural for such a wild animal. Even if it has been domesticated for two or three generations, it has the same wild instincts. Genetically it does not thrive in captivity. Tuberculosis has started in deer farms, which of course does not exist in the wild. There are other similar problems.
There is an organisation near Shrewsbury where experiments are taking place with the factory farming of deer. This is like hen batteries. The amount of space allowed for every deer is similar in comparison to that allowed to a hen in a battery. I am not sure of the area, but it is about three by five yards. I hope to heavens that the Government prevent this and that the Farming Welfare Council
will see reason.

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As I have said, the West Highlands and Islands Board has stopped deer farming, which it found unsatisfactory. Tuberculosis is going through the deer farms. I do not see a great future for deer farms. A stag in the night can travel 30 to 40 miles. When I think of him being in an enclosed space, I still say that it is very cruel.
The taking of the velvet is very painful to deer. Sawing off the antlers is also painful. It has been banned for bullocks but not for stags, which, as I have said, are more sensitive.
I do not wish to detain the House longer. I hope that the Farming Welfare Council will become more educated about the red deer.
7.57 p.m.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I read the draft codes with great pleasure, first, for the content, which I find very interesting, particularly as I have been a town dweller for some years now; and second—I hope that this is an encouraging trend—because they are written in very good English. Paragraph 7 of the revised sheep code substitutes "Sheep with poor teeth" for "Sheep with inadequate dentification" in the existing code. That is an improvement by anyone's standards. I suppose that for sheep farmers the code is much the same as those old driving manuals that told one to be sure to turn on the ignition before trying to move the car. Nevertheless, the content is valuable and interesting. It is probably a combination of my deteriorating sight and my long period as a town dweller that, in the section giving guidance to stockmen to ensure that sheep are in good condition, I read "absence of cudding" as "absence of cuddling". I came back to this after a short time and thought that it was high time that I visited the country again.
We should all welcome the codes. The sheep code is an improvement on that which existed previously. It is interesting for anyone to read. I am sure that it will be valuable to students in agricultural colleges and to everyone who takes an interest in farming.
The other codes are interesting but more alarming and my questions will be directed towards those. It appears that the change in human eating habits—the health fads—have been partly responsible for the increased farming of goats and deer. I have some knowledge of goats. They are extremely affectionate animals if treated correctly. They need careful handling. They are gregarious and need to be watched carefully for certain illnesses. If not checked, their horns can become a danger not only to themselves but to other animals.
I assume that the increase in goat farming is connected with the demand for milk. I see goats' milk and cheese widely advertised as being beneficial for health, particularly for those who find cows' milk unsuitable. I do not know whether there has been an increased use for their meat and whether the immigrant communities have a taste for it.
Lord Carter: My Lords, if the noble Viscount will give way, I can inform him that goats' meat is the most widely eaten meat in the world.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I did not know that. I am grateful to the noble Lord and I thank him for his interjection. However, I wonder whether the meat is widely eaten in this country. 1 can understand that it is in third world countries and that demand is growing in this country. If it is an increasing business one can expect more people to engage in the farming of those animals. They will probably be novices in the main, so the codes will be extremely valuable. However, I understand that the code has much the same effect as does the Highway Code on road users. It lays down the framework and is helpful in the event of court cases being brought against people who treat animals cruelly.
In speaking of deer, I follow an expert in the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard. I know that he has wide experience of deer. Many of us are worried about the fact that there is an increase in the farming of deer. It is an extremely beautiful and sensitive animal, in the imagination of the public it is not suited to factory farming. Can the noble Earl exlain paragraphs 47 and 48 of the deer code, which lay down guidance for the housing of deer? I am concerned about the phrase "continuously housed". What are the circumstances in which a deer would be continuously housed? Clearly it is envisaged because stipulations are made with regard to floor space, trough space and feeding.
1 know that noble Lords and the public at large will be concerned about the killing of deer. The noble Viscount mentioned abattoirs, experience in which can cause distress to any animal. I believe that to be so particularly in the case of deer which have a history in the wild. Is it intended to encourage those who slaughter deer to do so in a way which causes the least suffering?
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. The real way to kill deer on a deer farm is to shoot them in the neck with a high-velocity bullet. They drop stone dead and can know nothing about it, though it is extraordinary that the other deer which are not shot and are standing around do not seem to worry much. That is the only humane way of killing them.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that interesting interjection. I am sure that if deer farming becomes profitable inexperienced people will enter the trade. Again, the code will be extremely useful. I hope it will be widely read so that those who do not understand the animals but intend to farm and slaughter them will understand the problems.
If the recommendations in the codes are adopted veterinary surgeons will have a great deal of work to carry out. I do not know whether the number of veterinary students is increasing. However, I know that the University Grants Committee, over which the Government have supervision, will be involved in the amount of resources available for the training of vets. I should welcome the noble Earl's guidance on that matter. Will there be fewer facilities for the training of vets; will they remain the same; or will they increase?

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I reiterate that the codes are most welcome. They are pleasing documents and I hope that they are widely read.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, is present. I hold with affection our exchanges during the three attempts to have passed my reform of the Deer Act. The process took some years. I hope that he will share my pleasure that the work carried out at the beginning of the decade has not proved to be deficient. The reform of the Deer Act is working well and it is controlling cruelty in England on a considerable scale. The Bill relating to Scotland was passed later.
The farming of deer raises a great deal of controversy and I shall not stoke up that controversy tonight. However, many people believe that the attraction of the undoubtedly beautiful animals is their wildness and that they should not be brought into agricultural units. On the other hand, some people are beginning to regard them merely as agricultural products and we must restrain that instinct. Whatever one's point of view, we must do our best to safeguard their welfare to the greatest extent possible.
The deer farming industry is in its infancy and a great deal of trial and error is involved, despite what is said by some farmers. For that reason the code is timely and I cannot object to it in principle. Deer are highly strung, nervous animals and they can easily be excited or frightened. That view is clearly set out in the third paragraph. It ought to be the main impression given by the code and should be repeated on more than one page.
I should like to turn to a few points in the draft code to which I take exception. Paragraph 2 on page 2 recommends:
"All stockmen should be familiar with the behaviour of deer and must be competent in their handling and management".
I remind noble Lords that farm stock—cattle, sheep and pigs—have been domesticated over several thousand years. However, deer have been farmed as they are today for only a few years. There is no tradition or background to the farming of deer.
How can it be that all stockmen must be familiar with the behaviour of deer? There is no pool of stockmen from which they can be obtained. There are no stockmen practised in looking after deer. They do not feature in Yellow Pages. One cannot place an advertisement in Farmers Weekly asking for applications from those stockmen familiar with farm deer. In this respect the code is not good enough because there should be an indication of the way in which stockmen can learn and training can be provided. Why was the Deer Society not consulted? Why did the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture not find a way of suggesting how stockmen can become familiar instead of that silly pious hope on the first page?
Page 5 paragraph 19 highlights the gulf between free living deer and those confined in the unnatural environment of a deer farm. It is advised that newly captured deer should be allowed to find cover while becoming familiar with human presence. However,
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very few deer farms have any cover. They mainly consist of open fields so that wild deer are bound to suffer trauma on being brought into the confines of a deer farm. How did that paragraph pass scrutiny?
Similarly, prior to calving in the wild, hinds seek cover and solitude but those conditions simply do not exist on many deer farms so that the advice in paragraph 30 will frequently be wishful thinking. As deer farming develops—and there is far from universal agreement that it will—thought will have to be given as to how those gulfs may best be bridged in the interests of the deer which I hope will always be primary in our minds.
Paragraphs 60 and 61 also call for comment. While the intention of paragraph 61 is clear, the good regular stockman may never have handled a firearm in his life. That concerns the killing of deer. First and foremost, he must be a stockman and not a rifleshot to obtain the job. For that reason the paragraph could have been drawn in much more pragmatic terms; and again there should have been a clear link with the British Deer Society in seeking their help in training stockmen in the use of a rifle for slaughter.
Regarding the actual shooting, in my opinion shooting at over 40 metres on a deer farm is not acceptable and there should have been no exceptional circumstances as suggested in the code. That really is not acceptable and should not be in the code. "A frontal headshot" at up to 20 metres is advocated in paragraph 60. Perhaps some of your Lordships read the article in last week's Shooting Times by Lea MacNally who is in an acknowledged expert on deer with a lifetime's experience of deer stalking. He points out that if one takes a red deer, only the rear three inches or so of the skull between the ear and the eye is a sure killing shot. I am sure that the noble Viscount agrees with that. The other long 10 inches of the head forward of that is made up of nasal passages and upper and lower jaw. He goes on to say:
'A hit there results in the most distressing wound. Have you ever seen a deer standing alone, bloody and shattered fragments of jaw dangling obscenely where its lower jaw had been? Believe me, it is absolutely unforgettable".
Therefore, I do not agree that that paragraph in the code is properly drawn. There should have been greater warning about the dangers of farming and the alternative, as advocated by the noble Viscount, of shooting in the back of the neck is what should have been mentioned.
Needless to say, wild deer in Scotland are shot at ranges well in excess of 20 metres. Nevertheless, Lea MacNally's warning should be heeded and I should have preferred a more cautious and reasoned approach to the advice given in paragraph 60.
There is one serious gap in the code. There is no mention, let along advice, on deer leaps and special systems for catching up deer up from the wild; for example, automatically operating gates. Those pose difficult questions—questions of ethics. I believe that they should have been touched on in the code.
So many matters considered in the code about deer and certainly the problems of disease and tuberculosis in particular which I have featured in Parliamentary Questions, could have been dealt with far more easily and effectively if the Government had

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not rejected out of hand the licensing of deer farms. It would have been much better to license deer farms instead of hoping that a statutory instrument of this sort will make it acceptable. However, as I understand it, it seems that some form of registration of deer farms may be the result of proposed legislation on tuberculosis of farm deer and the movement of deer from one place to another. I await the Government's proposals on tuberculosis of farm deer, and we shall see whether it leads to registration of deer farms, as I hope it will.
None of those criticisms lessens my welcome for the code, but I have two final questions to put to the noble Earl. He said that this code will be enforced. However, how many veterinary inspectors are there in MAFF who will be enforcing this sort of code? Will it be pie in the sky? Will it be a pious hope that everybody will obey a code of this sort? I also ask not only how many such inspectors are there, but are they up to complement? So many of MAFF's advisory and similar staff have been slaughtered—a good word to use in this context—in the past few years by the Government and reduced to such small numbers that one wonders whether this code will be adequately enforced.
Finally, I come back to a point which I have made on previous occasions. This is an unsatisfactory way in which to deal with a matter of this sort. Very soon we shall have a directive from the European Community on game meat. It may well be in similar terms to this in some respects. What will happen to that? It will go to a Committee upstairs. The Committee will consider it, will hear evidence on it and will look for loopholes of the sort which I have highlighted this evening. It will make recommendations to improve it. However, when it comes to purely domestic legislation we are faced with codes like this which Parliament cannot amend.
I have made distinct charges this evening about weak points in this code, but it will pass. However, this Chamber and the other place has no opportunity to amend and to put right these loopholes. That is a ridiculous way for Parliament to proceed. We should be sending matters like this to a Committee in the same way as we send similar legislation from Europe so that the deficiencies can be highlighted and put right. I have made this point before and have almost given up making it because the House does not like to listen to reforms of procedure of that sort. However, I am bound to say that the matter ends, as it does tonight, with codes of this sort being deficient when they are issued, which is not good for Parliament.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I cannot be left out of a debate on animal welfare. However, I promise my noble friend Lord McCarthy that 1 shall occupy the least possible time. I know that he is waiting to deal with an Unstarred Question.
I deplore the reference to deer in this code for the welfare of animals. I think quite candidly that all this stuff about the welfare of deer farming is a lot of rubbish. I believe that the deer species is quite
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different from the normal conventional food animal such as sheep, cattle and, of course, goats. There are probably more deer running free than there are in deer farms. A large section of public opinion is not yet reconciled to bringing deer within the ambit of farm animals. I believe that we have to be careful that we shall not be taken along the road of the creeping entrenchment of deer farming in the ethos of agricultural animal husbandry. Before we know where we are, deer will be lined with sheep, pigs, cattle and the rest behind which species there are generations of culture, breeding, practice and experience.
This code of welfare for farm deer is a sort of code for bringing wild animals within the stockyard. My noble friend Lord Northfield was right to be scathing. However, he is too kind a man to deal with this subject. He ought to be condemning this action in the strongest possible terms. He has probably done more for deer than has any other Member of your Lordships' House.
Animals which are held in very high affection by members of the public are being absorbed into animal husbandry. I read in the magazine of the RSPCA only this month that an experiment is being started in an agricultural college in Shropshire on the intensive keeping of deer. We are soon to have deer in the same vile conditions as the veal calf; in pens, fed on liquids, stuffed with vitamins, hormones and the rest of it, just as they do for calves and other food animals. One must become indignant about it. The farming community must be warned that deer are still held in special regard and that we are not prepared to see them bracketed with other farm animals; at least not yet.
Another point must be raised. Why is it that in this memorandum on deer welfare reference is made to field slaughter of deer and to no other form of slaughter? Why is that? It is because deer are still roaming free and although they may be farm deer the shooting method of slaughter for them is still not only permissible but, in the opinion of many people, desirable. It is an indication of the distinction between deer and other farm animals that slaughter is dealt with in the welfare code for deer but is not dealt with in connection with sheep, pigs or any other food animals species. It is yet another indication that deer are in a special class.
I am not aware—I may not be up to date that conditions for the slaughter of sheep and cattle apply to deer. There are grounds for concern as to whether deer slaughtered other than by field slaughter are being killed in tolerable conditions. We have dithered about the method of deer slaughter. We have had reports on the need to have deer slaughtered in abattoirs, or by some other means. I understand that from a statutory point of view that subject is still open. Another point is that the Farm Animal Welfare Council is itself presently engaged in a study of the slaughter of deer.
I conclude by saying that the dish of venison is on the menu of the restaurant in your Lordships' House. My friends, with whom I have been spending the whole day on animal welfare, asked, "Will you find out how your venison is slaughtered?" I give fair warning that I want to know where our venison

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comes from. If it is shot in the field according to the guidance given, we will take it; but if it is slaughtered in any other way we must put a petition round the House to get venison taken off the menu in the dining room.
The venison could not only come from ill-slaughtered deer but could be polluted meat. We are all conscious of having our food clean, hygenically handled and produced, but our record in this House on freedom from food poisoning is not all that good. We must make sure that after a period of being poisoned (by whatever it was) we are not poisoned by venison.
This a serious matter and I sincerely hope that it will be taken to heart. I heard that our venison came from the Royal Park, but then I heard that it came from a farm. It is obvious that the authorities of the House do not know where it comes from. We want to know.
I regard all this on the welfare of deer as being irreconcilable with the present attitude of the public towards this animal. Why do we need to be slaughtering deer for food when there is an excess production of meat all over Europe? We have had meat mountains, we have had difficulty in disposing of our surplus calves, and so on.
I end on this note. Surely we are not going to see deer put in the same vile conditions as the veal calf for the sake of keeping the meat looking and tasting good. All through the Education Bill we referred to this as a Christian country. For heaven's sake let us behave like one in respects other than the behaviour of the young. That will do for the time being.
8.25 p.m.
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, the subject of animal welfare always inspires a good debate and today has certainly been no exception. There is often no right or wrong answer to the questions asked, particularly when we move into the realm of ethical matters, and that has been particularly brought out by the noble Lords, Lord Northfield and Lord Houghton of Sowerby. Even the advice of experts will often differ.
Several points were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, wondered whether the codes should not be made statutory. He referred to the attitude to this of the Farm Animal Welfare Council. I can tell the noble Lord that the FAWC did not recommend making these codes statutory. It made separate recommendations for legislation which we are implementing.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, also made certain interesting analogies with goats which he asked me to pass on to my noble friend Lord Denham, which I will do. However, he did not see eye-to-eye with the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, on the edibility of goats. Perhaps it would be better if I did not pass on the comments of the two noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill; though perhaps I should pass on to the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, had to say about the edibility—or the non-edibility, in his view—of deer.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to the increase in goat production. This has been due to the
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interest in milk and the interest in diversification, including fibre; but it is not necessarily due to the eating of goat meat.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked what was the attitude inferred from the codes on embryo transplant. There are no current codes on this, but our officials are looking at the whole picture of embryo transplant in agricultural terms. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to continuous housing. The code does not recommend it but we think that the practice is not likely to increase.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to references and to paragraph 56 which he found confusing. The text before us is just the code which Parliament has to approve and references are separate. As I mentioned earlier, they are in the Library. The noble Lord also referred to the removal of antlers, as did my noble friend Lord Massereene. I can assure my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that the removal of antlers in velvet is prohibited by law. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, also referred to veterinary schools. There is only a recommendation to the University Grants Committee which is in the process of consultation. No decision has yet been made.
The noble Lord also referred to such penalties as there may be for a breach of the codes. I believe I referred to that in my opening remarks. But the codes are not statutory and therefore there is no penalty for breach. I said that misconduct can be quoted in any prosecution under welfare legislation.
The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, made the point that MAFF inspectors should be trained and I concur wholeheartedly with that. I can assure her that all inspectors are fully trained vets.
I was interested in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard. I know how much experience he has with wildlife in Scotland. He referred to the experiences of the Highlands and Islands Development Board with red deer farming. He said that it might appear on the surface that the FAWC do not understand deer, who are highly nervous creatures. I assure him that the FAWC took account of the nervous temperament of deer. He will find this strongly emphasised in the code on deer, as I said earlier. Under farm conditions deer become very tame. The FAWC saw no reason not to farm them.
My noble friend also mentioned the worry of TB and wondered how the Government will prevent the spread of that disease to cattle and wild deer. Movement restrictions are imposed under existing legislation as regards infected or suspected animals and their contacts. New legislation will relate specifically to deer. He also referred to the arrangements for the transport of deer to the abattoir. There is no obligation to slaughter deer at an abattoir but we have published transport and slaughter guidelines. Deer are covered by transport legislation. There is no evidence that transport harms deer.
My noble friend referred in general to the intensive farming of deer. His remarks were taken up later on by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. This is an agricultural college trial with deer housed at

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present. The decision is still to be made whether they stay indoors or go to graze in the summer.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, wondered whether deer would be housed continuously. Calves are housed mainly during the winter to reduce losses, but there is no intention to encourage continuous housing.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to the number of veterinary students. The number is reviewed periodically. The Riley Committee has recently reported to the University Grants Committee and its recommendations are the subject of consultation.
The noble Lord, Lord Northfield, referred correctly to the need to have experienced deer stockmen. The Agricultural Training Board and the agricultural colleges are running courses on deer farming. He also referred to cover on deer farms. Farms have cover for recently captured deer.
The noble Lord also mentioned the need to have proper training to shoot deer. Training is available from the British Deer Society. I hope that those people in need of it will take advantage of that. He also referred to poor shooting standards, which worried him. I can refer him to the code that recommends close shooting, but any deer not killed outright will be immediately shot again and killed.
The noble Lord also referred to licensed deer farms. That is not necessary for welfare purposes. I believe that licensing would become rather bureaucratic. He also took up the point of the Game Meat Directive. That will require domestic legislation but all interests will be consulted.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, made the general point that in his view deer farming is wrong. That is a very personal point of view and we all respect his attitude. Experience shows that deer farming can be done without causing any welfare problem at all. When government inspectors visit deer farms they find that welfare standards are good on the whole. The noble Lord said that the code refers only to field slaughter; separate guidelines are produced for deer in abattoirs. That is because the present slaughter legislation does not cover them.
I shall make sure that the Government carefully note the views that have been expressed this evening. I believe that the codes before us provide the best advice that is currently available. They all make a positive contribution to the welfare of these animals, and that is why I recommend them to your Lordships now.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Farmed Deer
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the code laid before the House on 23rd January be approved (9th Report from the Joint Committee).—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to

Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock—Sheep
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the code laid before the House on 23rd January be approved. (7th Report from the Joint Committee).—(The Earl of Dundee.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Industrial Balloting
8.37 p.m.
Lord McCarthy Lord McCarthy rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the proposals in the draft code of practice on industrial balloting are likely to improve industrial relations, given the failure to separate legal summaries from good practice.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is clearly the night of the codes. We have had codes on goats, deer and sheep. Now we have a code on trade unionists. One noble Lord mentioned earlier unsuitable additives in these codes. We have some unsuitable additives that we are going to argue about tonight in the draft statutory code of practice on trade union industrial action and balloting. In fact this code treats trade unionists as a kind of combination of goats, deer and sheep. They are as awkward as goats, as simple as sheep and as vulnerable as deer.
The Question I ask is whether the proposals are likely to improve industrial relations given their failure to separate law and summaries of law and good practice. I shall be arguing that this code has three main defects. First, it is true that it is a mixture of law and opinion. The summaries of the 1984 and 1987 Acts are alongside advice that is said to be good practice. If you examine it, this advice is contentious and biased; it is a series of alleged good practice that most responsible people in industrial relations such as the Institute of Personnel Management, the Confederation of British Industry and the ACAS Council believe is not helpful at all. They believe that it is far more restrictive than the law and almost impossible to separate from it. For that reason it is more likely to make industrial relations confused than to clarify the situation.
Secondly, it creates a position that lawyers call double jeopardy. It is double jeopardy because, if something is in the code, that does not mean that the judges will decide that if you observe the legal parts of the code you are necessarily free from liability. They can decide that, though you have obeyed the legal summaries in the code, you are outside the law because only they will decide whether the law has been observed. The judges will not quote the code if they feel that you are outside the law. You are also liable because this code, unlike codes on goats, sheep, deer and so on, is highly contentious. It extends restrictions on trade union freedom far beyond those in the law itself.
The code, like all codes, is something which the courts can take into account. They can take it into account, and if the trade unions are not within the non-legal parts of the code it is possible that they may argue that in some senses the trade unions are outside the law. Can a court take into account those parts of

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the code, which I intend to specify, which impose restrictions far more severe than the law itself? Can they take them into account and grant an injunctive remedy against the trade union which may not have broken the law but has broken the code? If it has broken the code, has it in some sense, as it has been taken into account, broken the law? We do not know, but we hope that the Minister will tell us.
Thirdly, the proposals are counterproductive in terms of good industrial relations because they do not derive from general agreement. Everyone who spoke in the debate on goats, deer and sheep seemed to think that the codes arose out of general agreement on the provisions of this code. In order to establish this I must go through the code. I must reconstruct the code, and in particular the non-legal parts of it, in a series of logical steps. Those logical steps will not be found in the code. Nevertheless, we could begin, first, with contemplating a ballot; secondly, deciding the date for a ballot; thirdly, undertaking a ballot; fourthly, acting on an affirmative result in a ballot; and fifthly, action during a strike.
On contemplating a ballot, dozens of recommendations splutter the code. I wish to concentrate on four of the silliest. First, when an established procedure has been exhausted, before taking a ballot invent another procedure. That is what is suggested in paragraph 11. It says that consideration should be given to any other practical means to avoid a failure to agree. Secondly, before having a real ballot, have a phantom ballot. That is what is suggested in paragraph 14. See whether there is sufficient demand among the members to justify a ballot. Do that before you have a ballot. That has been done only once in my experience. It was done by the EEPTU. The answer it received on the phantom ballot was different from the one it received on the ballot. Nevertheless, that is what is recommended.
Thirdly, ask the employer whether he thinks a ballot is a good idea. That is what is suggested in paragraph 16. Before a union holds a ballot it should get in contact with all employers likely to be affected by the ballot, give them sufficient time to respond and give their opinions due consideration. Before a union decides to ballot its members on a strike, it must go to the employer and ask, "Do you think it is a good time for us to have a ballot?" Presumably, if the employer says no, the union does not have a ballot at all.
Fourthly, do not ballot if you are likely to get the wrong result. That is the clear implication of paragraph 42. It says: do not ballot if the result will be harmful to good industrial relations. As good industrial relations are described throughout the code as avoiding strikes, and as good industrial relations are broken whenever there is a strike, one comes to the inevitable conclusion, "Do not ballot unless you are likely to get a result for peace". If you are likely to get a vote for war, then it is a harmful time to have a ballot so you should not have a ballot at all.
This nonsense is criticised not only by the TUC and the opposition. It is criticised in the CBI's submissions to the Government. What is the Government's reply likely to be? The CBI dislikes the
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notion of the strategic ballot. It believes that the strategic timing of the ballot, in order to get the right answer to a ballot, is the wrong way forward. ACAS agrees. It specifically frowns on the notion of the phantom ballot. It thinks that often the only way to dispel minority demands for a ballot and minority demands for a strike is to allow a union freedom to have a quick, authoritative, formal ballot. It believes that any pre-consultation process, as specified in paragraph 7, is counterproductive. The Institute of Personnel Management says that all this is "gratuitous advice" based on industrial ignorance. That is what these authoritative—centre of the road, one might say—organisations say about the ballot.
I should like to pass on to the second step: deciding the date for the ballot. Three particularly foolish proposals are advanced at this point. First, do not ballot until you have a perfect roll—a perfect roll which exactly fits the constituency you are going to ballot. That is what is suggested in paragraph 73. It says that one should allow time for any membership roll to be brought up to date. It should be remembered that the code does not allow, as the 1984 Act allows, for a union to have a roll which is,
"so far as is reasonably practical, accurate".
It does not mention that. Does that mean that unless there were a perfect ballot is would not be a lawful ballot? That is what is suggested.
I come to the second foolish proposal. In deciding when to have a ballot, wait until you can agree with management—this is probably the single most fantastic suggestion in the document—on a joint statement of the background to the dispute and the reasons for the dispute. Paragraph 59 says that the union should formulate with the employers joint statements on the dispute. If that is not possible management should be allowed to use the union facilities to express its own case in the union's own ballot communications, as though management had no ability to communicate to its own workers its point of view. In their communications on ballots we are putting on unions a general duty to tell the workers what the employers' case is.
The third proposal is that the union should wait for the formalities of a full postal ballot in almost all circumstances. Not in all circumstances, because it is particularly important and consistent with the promotion of good industrial relations,
"to obtain views sooner than this if this method would not allow it".
In other words, if it is good for good industrial relations to get a quick answer because one will get the answer "Do not strike", do not bother with the full postal ballot but have a workplace ballot. Damn the democracy, feel the output. So long as one can get a quick answer for peace, one can ditch the formal postal ballot because to do so is in the interests of good industrial relations.
Once again the CBI is sceptical. It does not like the idea of abandoning the postal ballot to get the right result. ACAS ridicules the idea that one should ask employers for agreed statements. It suggests that employers will not want to get involved with questions of this kind. The Institute of Personnel Management says that considerable problems will be involved. It doubts whether one can have a perfect

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electoral roll. It points to the fact that some unions experience a turnover in membership of one-third to 40 per cent. each year. How could they possibly have perfect ballot rolls? It believes that this is an impractical provision to place on unions. All three of these organisations want to see not just injunctions placed on unions but responsibilities placed on employers as well. One can read this code through from cover to cover and not find a single important responsibility in terms of ballot facilities placed upon employers. All the responsibilities in this ballot are placed upon trade unions.
We move on to the actual conduct of a ballot. Here the mixture of law and opinion is at its most marked. This mixture of law and opinion at this stage in the code is what most bothers the serious and considered employer. I make three points at random. First, the injection of a race of outsiders into the calculation of to ballot. Paragraphs 67 to 69 say that we must have independent scrutineers to help count the ballots. A person known to be neutral has to be available at every point in the count. There must also be designated returning officers at every point in the count. ACAS, in its submission to the Government on the code, said:
"The Council is not persuaded that trade unions do not themselves usually conduct and supervise ballots in ways which provide for full confidence. It follows that the Council knows of no reason which would justify the requirements for trade, unions invariably to have arrangements for independent scrutiny at every location at which voting in a workplace ballot might take place"
It doubts whether this would be practical
"Paragraph 67 states that the issue of ballot papers in workplace ballots should be entrusted to someone known to be neutral. The Council is very uncertain that this can reasonably be held to be necessary. As framed it is not easy to see what is envisaged as a test for neutrality—someone who is known beyond doubt to have no view whatsoever on the issue. It is also unclear whether employers would need to be satisfied on this point and also perhaps doubtful that they would readily accept people of this description on their premises and afford them such facilities".
The fact is that this is a lunatic notion; that trade unions in their balloting processes should be allied with independent scrutineers or persons known to be neutral and designated returning officers. Such people are not available in parliamentary elections. No one insists that the dear old town mayor who participates as the chief returning officer is a neutral; he is simply carrying out his normal duties. However, unions must have neutrals. They must have independent scrutineers and people who apparently have no vote whatsoever.
I turn now to the second lunatic idea. The role for these outsiders is not just to supervise the ballot and it is not just to avoid fiddles on the part of the union; it is to ensure an absence of constraint upon voters. You can read the code through from cover to cover, but you will not find the point at which the Government believe that it is appropriate and right for the union executive to campaign in favour of a strike. I ask the Minister: when is that executive allowed to campaign either for a strike or against the strike, or even for an overtime ban or some selective form of industrial action? All we are told is that the independents, the neutrals and the designated reporting officers, and everyone else, will ensure, so far as I can see, that at no stage in the ballot process
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will the members be constrained by being influenced by the executive in which way they are to vote. That is a negation of trade union leadership. Once the ballot is in being, and once it starts to roll, the executive must be silent, because if it is not it is constraining the members and influencing the outcome. In other words, there is to be no role at all for trade union leadership. Of course that is absolute nonsense.
Thirdly, the standards throughout the ballot process are much more severe and much more restricted than anything required in company law, in local elections, in parliamentary elections or indeed in any elections known to me. I have already said that the neutrals must be disfranchised and the returning and counting officers must have no interest in the outcome of the election. Further, there must be sealable envelopes. However, there are no sealable envelopes in parliamentay elections. But in trade union ballots there have to be sealable envelopes which then go into secure locked ballot boxes. They do not use that procedure in Finchley in the general election, so why must trade unions do so in a vote about a strike? There is no reason at all. Moreover, similar complaints about such matters are made by the CBI, by ACAS, by the IPM and by all the other authoritative employers' organisations which have given evidence to the Government.
I turn now to the last two areas that I wish to mention; namely, further action if for some reason there is a vote in favour of a strike and what we are to do in the middle of a strike. You will not be surprised to learn that if you get a pro-strike vote under the terms of the code, you invent another procedure. You go to ACAS, you go to the employer and you try anything rather than carry out the mandate of your members.
Secondly, if you actually get into the strike if the strike begins—you keep an eye on the size of the majority throughout the strike; that is the size of the majority which you achieved for the strike in the first place. If you have any reason to suppose that that majority has declined, you have another ballot and even if you do not have another ballot you settle anyway. Those two provisions are not surprising.
However, what is surprising, what is most critical and what has been most commented upon by the authorities which I have quoted so far is the suggestion which comes at the end of the code. Indeed, it is significant that it should come at the end of the code. The suggestion is this. If you achieve an absolute majority in favour of a strike, you raise the requirements for affirmative action. That is the clear implication of that part of the code. In other words, if you find that you have a majority in favour of a strike, you sit down and think of the kind of majority you require. You then say, "Maybe we don't just need 51 per cent.", and two suggestions are put forward at the end of the code. First, you might say to yourself, "What about requiring a substantial majority, or a very much more substantial majority, rather than the 50 per cent., 55 per cent., or 60 per cent. which we have got." No figure is put on that requirement; the assumption is that it will be a larger majority than the majority you have actually achieved.
Secondly, you say. "What about the size of the turnout?". Let us suppose that the turnout was 30 per cent., 40 per cent. or 45 per cent. You say. "Should we not have a 70 per cent. turnout?" Therefore at that stage, when you have an affirmative majority in favour of a strike, when you have tried to invent another procedure and whenever every other alternative has failed, you change the rules of the game. You say. "What we really need is a substantial majority for action a 70 per cent. turnout".
Finally, I quote from the ACAS evidence to the Department of Employment. The council said:
"As for paragraphs 97-98, in the Council's experience industrial action is rarely if ever taken when a ballot shows the membership very closely divided, particularly on a low vote"
these are not just trade unionists; they are employers on the ACAS council
'it is reasonable to assume that trade unions will always consider carefully the strength or otherwise of support for action before authorising or endorsing it. The Council believes that it would be wholly unreasonable and without useful effect to seek to prescribe in the Code any detail for the tests which a trade union might apply. Consequently, it does not favour the reference to 'a very much more substantial majority' (paragraph 97); very much opposes the arithmetical formulation proposed (paragraph 98); and sees as unnecessary the footnote to paragraph 97".
That seems to me to be a pretty serious criticism of the code and a serious criticism not made by myself or by the TUC; it was made by ACAS.
I should like to finish by asking the Minister a number of questions. The first is: why do we have such a contentious set of recommendations? In all the other codes of which I am aware—apart from the Government's picketing and closed shop codes, which may be exceptions the aim is to produce a series of recommendations of good practices which good men and women on both sides of industry will agree are the appropriate things to do. Here we have employers, as well as trade unionists, telling the Government that they believe that their recommendations are not good practice but are highly controversial, contentious and counterproductive. Why must we have this kind of recommendation, above all in this code?
Secondly, will the Government listen to the advice which they have been receiving and revise the code, basing it on genuine agreement?—for example, on the specific proposals of the Institute of Personnel Management, or those of ACAS for improving the code and taking the contentious parts out of it.
Thirdly—a general point—why are the recommendations in the code so much more prescriptive than the law? How can the Government justify the present state of the law and the present state of the code in the light of the answer of that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, gave to the supplementaty question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, to a Question asked by my noble friend Lady Turner? He asked about the prescriptive nature of the code, and the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said:
"My Lords, the answer to the second supplementary question put by the noble Lord is: yes, he may certainly take it that the contents of the code will be no more prescriptive than the Act".
Does that mean that the Government will take away the code and change it? Was that a
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commitment, so that nothing in the code will be more prescriptive than the Act; so that, for example, we will see the end of the 70 per cent. rule, because that is more prescriptive than the Act; so that we see them getting rid of the phantom ballot, or does it mean nothing? If it does, why did the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, say what he did?
Will the Government—whatever they do with the code—agree with the unanimous opinion, I would say of every employers' association that I know, that the two parts of the code should be separated? That is something different from everything else. The Institute of Personnel Management—and I cannot remember whether it is the CBI or ACAS suggested that the Government should model the code on the health and safety code, where different colours are used so that the law is in one colour and the non-law is in another. Another suggestion was that the Government should put all the law on the left and all the non-law on the right. Even if the Government are not prepared to change the recommendations and practices why should not they separate the practice from the law?
9.2 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has so convincingly questioned whether the code of practice in its present form, by failing adequately to distinguish legal requirements from good practice, will improve industrial relations, that I am in danger of being repetitious. It is surely significant however that the four bodies which are best qualified to express an opinion; namely, ACAS, the CBI, the TUC and the Institute of Personnel Management, are unanimously critical of draft code on that point.
In debate in your Lordships' House on legislation affecting employee relations during the past 10 years, and over the lifetime of the previous Labour Government, I have on a number of occasions advocated the use of codes of practice. I accept in principle the desirability of having one on ballots concerning industrial action. I suggest that the draft code should be judged by the standard set by the noble Lord, Lord Young, in 1987 when, as Secretary of State for Employment, he sensibly told ACAS that codes should be brief, written in what he called accessible language and should distinguish clearly beween statutory obligations and the encouragement of good practice.
The code, as the IPM would put it, is too long, with too much gratuitous advice and general guidance mixed with a restatement of the law. ACAS considers, and I am sure that it is right, that the essential distinction between statutory requirements and other matters would be clearer and more certain if the former were set out, as in the 1983 code on the closed shop, in a distinct section at the beginning of the code. In that way, the confusion and inconsistency which arise, for example, in Section D of the code on holding a ballot, where a description of the law is followed by guidance arbitrarily offered about what trade unions should do, could be avoided.
As one who has strongly supported the use of postal ballots in elections for the principal executive

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committees of trade unions, I believe that in dealing with ballots on industrial action the draft code goes much too far in seeking to restrict the discretion given to unions by statute to choose between workplace and postal ballots in determining the voting method.
That failing seems to stem from concentrating excessively on situations where there is a possibility of a national strike involving all union members, whereas in reality most strike ballots are likely to be of a much smaller scale, demanding a more flexible approach. The great danger here of course is that unions might he discouraged from conducting lawful ballots by the additional burdens and uncertainty imposed upon them by the code.
It is significant that that view is shared by the Engineering Employers' Federation, which must have more experience of local unofficial action than almost any other body. Paragraphs 10 and 11 of the draft code properly advocate that disputes should, wherever possible, be avoided through negotiations and the observance of agreed procedures. I have before now gone so far as to express the hope to your Lordships that there might one day be a code of practice which would provide for model negotiating agreements and lead eventually to a situation where action taken in breach of such agreements, whether by employers or trade unions, would no longer enjoy legal immunity. But that time has not yet come, and along with ACAS I fear that as the paragraphs are now drafted they could provide a basis for tribunals and the courts to determine whether procedure agreements had been followed and exhausted or whether, for some reason, they were unavailable.
In the absence of procedure agreements that are legally binding on employers and trade unions, it would surely be an extraordinary development if a code were now to provide a basis for judicial decisions on their observance.
There are other areas where in my view the code is weighted much too heavily against trade unions. I speak here as one who for a good many years negotiated on behalf of a large employer. These burdens on unions even extend to what appear to be drafting devices in the code involving the use of words in inverted commas. For example, do words like "neutral" and "official", when placed within inverted commas, mean in the one case "less than truly neutral" and in the other "not quite official"? Are the asterisks which appear before certain subheadings intended to emphasise their importance in the subjective judgment of the Government alone? Otherwise, what is the point of them?
I reaffirm my strong belief that any legislation designed to improve industrial relations must strike a fair balance between the interests of employers and those of employees and their representatives. If there is not that balance, then the legislation will simply become inoperable.
Paragraphs 39 to 41 of the draft code call for adequate arrangements for the independent scrutiny of ballots. Given that the law says nothing about the need for such scrutiny these paragraphs as they stand appear contrary to the assurance I was given in the Answer to a Question which I asked in the House on
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30th January last, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has already said. The Question was to the effect that the code would not be more prescriptive than the law itself.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, also mentioned that ACAS clearly considers that since unions usually conduct and supervise ballots satisfactorily, there is no justification for the pronouncement in paragraph 66 of the code that arrangements for independent scrutiny should be made at every location where a workplace ballot might be held. In any case ACAS doubts whether that would be practicable. Similarly, the advice at the end of paragraph 48, that it would be good practice to present the boxes for the recording of votes in the same horizontal line on the ballot paper and subsequently that the "no" box should precede the "yes" box, is both unjustified and contrary to normal speech and practice, which provide for assent to take precedence over dissent.
However, perhaps the most flagrant instance of standards being set in the draft code which are in no way derived from the law on which they are based occurs in paragraphs 97 and 98. It is suggested there that a majority in favour of industrial action of at least 70 per cent. of those voting, rather than a simple majority, constitutes good practice. As the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has said in quoting the view of ACAS, the fact is that industrial action is rarely if ever taken when a ballot shows that union members are closely divided on a question, particularly where there is a low vote. These paragraphs are therefore both lacking in legal validity and pointless in themselves.
There is much more that can be said in the same vein. In the last 10 years of Conservative government I cannot recall another instance where the views of industrial relations practitioners have been so much at variance with the proposals of the Government. The procedural position—and the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, had something to say about this when we were discussing an earlier draft code—is that when eventually the draft code is formally placed before Parliament, it must be accepted or rejected as a whole. It will not then be open to us to approve certain parts and to reject others. In the interests of building on the now widespread practice of trade unions properly balloting their members on questions concerning industrial action, I therefore urge the Government to have the good sense to withdraw the present draft code altogether so that in due course they can bring before us another which takes adequate account of the adverse response to this one which they have received from all quarters.
9.12 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity even at this late hour to debate in your Lordships' House the draft code on industrial action balloting introduced by the Unstarred Question put down by my noble friend Lord McCarthy. As has already been said, on 30th January I myself put down a Question. The Minister said, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that it was not intended that the contents of the code should be more prescriptive than the legislation itself.

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However, as we have heard this evening, that is not how a number of other bodies with specialist knowledge see it.
It is not the view of the TUC nor that of ACAS, which clearly thinks that the Government have gone too far. The views of ACAS have been very fully explained to your Lordships by my noble friend Lord McCarthy. The TUC has identified about 26 steps which a union would have to take under the code to be sure of retaining its immunity from legal action, should it call a dispute. I understand it has been claimed that the code is necessary because—I quote from the press handout issued at the time
"British trade unions have all too often seen industrial action as a weapon of first resort."
That is a wildly inaccurate statement, as I can attest from my own experience. In the code unions are advised to exhaust all procedures first. However, it is customary to do that any way. In my union, if I wanted authority from my executive to run a dispute, the first question I asked was whether all procedures had been exhausted. The second question concerned the likely level of support among the members. Those steps are a normal part of industrial relations practice. I question why it is necessary to write this into a lengthy and confusing code.
On the other hand, I have known employers break procedures, but there is nothing about that in the code. There is no obligation upon employers to play by the rules, but the rules are written into the code for unions. Then we are told that a ballot should not be organised on industrial action if its real purpose is something different; for example, to obtain members' views about their union's negotiating position, or about an offer made by an employer. I fail to understand what that is about. That again is extremely confusing. It is quite normal to ballot members, indicating what the latest offer is and what the union's negotiating stance has been, and to state that, as no further progress can be made, members are being balloted on industrial action. Again, that is normal.
Furthermore, it is stated that where a ballot is contemplated the union should inform any employer whose employees may be given an entitlement to vote, of its intention to hold the ballot. Sufficient time is to be allowed for any response which the employer may wish to make. Again, this normally happens anyway. The employer would be well aware of the intention to ballot, following a breakdown in negotiations.
Then procedures are set out as regards preparing for a ballot. These have been referred to already by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy. It is stated that entitlement to vote must be given to all members who are required by law to be given that entitlement. The balloting constituency is to be reviewed to decide whether and to what extent separate places of work ballots are needed. An appropriate voting method is to be adopted and voting papers produced in a prescribed form.
Furthermore, as we have already heard, a union is expected to take into account good industrial relations practice in the timing of the ballot and make appropriate arrangements for independent scrutiny
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of the ballot. Again an employer is not advised to take account of good industrial relations practice or good industrial relations feelings in his negotiations with the union. Surely the timing of the ballot is a matter for the union. As for independent scrutineers, that is simply adding to the expense. It has already been said that there is little evidence that elected scrutineers within unions have failed in their duties in the past. There really is no reason to believe that they cannot be relied upon.
Moreover, if there is no real feeling for dispute action, it would be a very foolish official who attempted to fake the result. The dispute would in all probability soon collapse, with much graver problems for the union than if it had carried out the ballot properly in the first place and abided by the result. A Government who are so keen on deregulation in other spheres seem very keen indeed to deny that right to unions on very little evidence.
Then there are the provisions about those who must have a vote and those who should not. It is perfectly proper to say that democratic principles must be followed in balloting. No one would disagree with that; indeed, the rules of most unions would insist upon that anyway. But it is also as well to remember that union memberships often consist of shifting populations. A new member may not yet be on the register. Others may have left the employer concerned and thus the balloting constituency.
Moreover, a number of unions organised around workplaces have had great difficulty in obtaining home addresses from some members. Surely in such circumstances all that a union can be expected to do is its honest best to ensure that those entitled to ballot get the opportunity to do so. As written, the code would appear to give individuals a basis for challenging the ballot, even though all reasonable steps have been taken.
Then there is the provision about balloting members at different places of work. The main point apparently concerns whether or not the employees concerned have a "common distinguishing factor". Section 17 of the Act is difficult and complex. We said that when that legislation was before your Lordships' House last year. Presumably the code is an attempt at clarification. However, all it seems to be saying is that unions and employers should consult about it. But although it is suggested that employers might consider providing facilities for a ballot, that is simply a suggestion. There is to be no compulsion upon employers to do anything of the kind. Then, of course, there is the clear government preference for postal voting, although a much bigger degree of participation is found, in my experience, where workplace balloting occurs. That also produces a much speedier result.
Reference has already been made to the very strange stricture than unions should not commence a ballot at a time when the ballot itself could be harmful to industrial relations. What on earth is all that about? The union is expected to be sensitive to the chance of resolving the issue through negotiation again the whole onus is put on the union. The code appears to have been written on the assumption that unions do not really want negotiated

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settlements; but as I indicated earlier, that is what union officials are normally employed to obtain.
Do the Government envisage situations in which employers may act unreasonably? That provision in the code will give employers a chance to prevaricate, to indicate that there may be a possibility of a settlement when there is none. There is also the requirement in the Act that members must be told that taking part in a strike or other industrial action could breach contracts of employment.
During the passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House we on this side of the House constantly told the Government that this did not have to be an immutable law; it could be changed.
The contract would simply be regarded as suspended during the period of an official dispute. However, we did not succeed in persuading the Government to change their mind, and so this requirement is contained in the code. It is of course intended to put off people who might otherwise be keen to join a collective fight for their rights.
It is further suggested that the union might agree a description of the reasons for the ballot—to be issued to members—with the relevant employer, or if a description cannot be agreed, give the employer an opportunity to supply employees entitled to vote with his own description of the background along with any such information issued by the union. Like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, I find that quite extraordinary.
Is it really believed that an employer would not have had access to his own employees and made full use of that access during the events leading up to the ballot? That has not been my experience. In my experience, during the course of negotiations it was quite common for employees to find pieces of paper on their desks every other day, and perhaps more frequently, from the employer setting out the management's point of view. It is now suggested that the employer should have a union channel as well. That strikes me as ludicrous. Why not give the union facilities to circularise the shareholders, such facilities to be provided by the management?
Then there is the proviso that the union should ensure that all its members, officials, and others who might even by accident interfere with or constrain those entitled to vote in an industrial action ballot are aware of the potential consequences of their behaviour. However, for many years it has been customary for unions to hold meetings of members to discuss the progress of negotiations, including offers by employers and the like. Officials may attend and say that in their opinion, procedures having been exhausted, there is no alternative but to take industrial action. Such meetings will often precede a ballot. Is that putting a constraint upon members?
Again, members must be able to vote at no cost to themselves. If there is a workplace ballot, arrangements must be made for voters to pick up their ballot papers and vote outside working hours so that they do not risk losing pay. Why should the employer not make facilities available, at no cost to the employee?
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After the ballot the union is expected again to consider the situation. All options must be considered, as if they had not been considered before. Changes in circumstances, the possibility of consulting ACAS again, the possible consequences for members and so on, must be considered. All that does is to build in further delays, and generally that will assist employers rather than the union and its members.
While the code states that statutory requirements will be satisfied if a simple majority of those voting are in favour, it is felt that that may not be fully representative. Unions must consider whether they would be justified in authorising action unless the number of those voting represented at least 70 per cent. of those entitled to vote. Both the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, and the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, have poured scorn on that provision. In my opinion it is absurd.
Compare that with the rules for opting-out ballots under the Housing Act under which those not voting are deemed to support the proposal and housing estates can be transferred to private landlords on the basis of the support of a minority. Clearly unions are wise to take account of the turnout in a ballot. That was one of the questions which my national executive council would consider in advance of authorising dispute action when I was an official. But why should there be different standards for unions set out in a code—a code, moreover, of which courts can take account? It is noticeable that the code refers to ACAS and conciliation, but the Government do not appear to like arbitration very much. The role of the Central Arbitration Committee has been constantly eroded. It has been written out of successive pieces of legislation. Perhaps that is because unions can sometimes win before a panel of independent assessors and basically the Government would prefer that employers were able to exploit employees without let or hindrance except that provided by the market.
I believe that the real intention of this code is to erect so many hurdles in the way of unions that it will become increasingly difficult for unions to retain immunity when calling industrial action. One result is bound to be that there may be more unofficial disputes than we have had of late. If there are grievances and dissatisfactions and if employees are unhappy about salaries and conditions, it is not possible to keep the lid screwed down for an indefinite period. The code attempts to do that and it will not succeed. The Government should heed the advice of ACAS and their other specialist advisers and think again. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord McCarthy and Lord Rochester, that the Government should take away this code, rethink it and then present something entirely different.
9.26 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to what has been said tonight by the noble Lords and the noble Baroness.
We should now refer to the published draft code in the past tense. The three-month period of consultation on the draft code ended earlier this

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month. My right honourable friend is now considering whether to seek approval of a further draft. Such a draft may very possibly be revised in the light of representations made on the published version.
I should emphasise the Government have been engaged in a very genuine consultation exercise. Some 50 representations on the published draft code have been received. I know that my right honourable friend welcomes the constructive criticisms and helpful suggestions for its revision that have been made.
The Question of the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, refers to
"the proposals in the draft code of practice"
and asks whether they
"are likely to improve industrial relations".
The Government accept completely that ballots on industrial action can have profound implications for industrial relations. That is one reason employers have a proper interest in both the relevant primary legislation and the terms of any statutory code.
Nonetheless, it is ultimately up to a union to decide whether to hold such ballot. It is, accordingly, up to a union to see that any such ballot is properly conducted and satisfies the relevant statutory requirements. I venture to suggest to your Lordships, therefore, that it is at least equally important, and perhaps even more important, to ask whether the content of the draft code—or any particular part of it would or would not tend to promote desirable practices in relation to the conduct of the ballots with which it is concerned.
It seems to me that there are relevant questions to ask about any particular recommendations about good practice in such a code. First, would this principle or procedure be a good practice which, if followed, would tend to ensure that union members could be better assured of their right to a proper ballot? Secondly, would this principle or procedure be helpful to good industrial relations, which I take to be the avoidance so far as practicable of the breakdown in those relations which a strike or industrial action represents? By these tests I am not wholly convinced that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has shown that the draft code was fundamentally on the wrong lines.
It has been argued that the aim of the draft code was to encourage legal proceedings against trade unions. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, put it in exactly those terms, but I have a feeling that that was in the back of his mind. I can assure your Lordships that it was not the intention of the draft code to produce a greater volume of legal action against trade unions than might otherwise occur.
I want to emphasis e that the draft code would not—and such a statutory code could not add a single ground for legal action to what the law already contains. No one is or will be able to bring legal proceedings against a union solely on the basis that it has failed to observe good practice as recommended in such a code.
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The Government have confidence that the courts would see off any attempt to seek an injunction against a union if that was sought without a sufficient basis in terms of a perceived failure to meet one or more of the requirements already in primary legislation.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, if that is the case, will the noble Lord tell me the point of saying that the code will "be taken into account by the courts"? If it cannot give rise to liability, why take it into account?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have made it clear that quite a lot of the code represents the statute. The noble Lord has criticised the fact that the code contains a mixture of statute and recommendations that are not derived directly from the statute. Clearly in those terms the document is of interest to the courts.
The judges will continue, as they do at present, to weigh the balance of convenience carefully before granting any application for an injunction on an ex parte basis.
Some of your Lordships have suggested and I have certainly heard it said elsewhere that the aim of the draft code was to prevent votes in favour of industrial action. However, industrial action, or even the threat of industrial action, can cause great damage to business and employment. It should always be the last resort, and avoided wherever possible.
I was reassured by what the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, had to say about that. I am sure that that was the case with regard to the trade union with which she was concerned. However, I am afraid that it has not always been the case in the history of industrial relations in the past.
That said, I reject entirely the claim that the purpose of the draft code was to prevent votes in favour of industrial action. If industrial action is in prospect, however, it is much better for union members to have the opportunity to vote on the matter in a properly conducted secret ballot. The aim of such a code is therefore to help ensure that balloting is carried out properly and meets sufficient democratic standards.
It has been argued that the draft code would increase unofficial or unballoted industrial action. That argument is, however, an unfounded presumption, I would suggest. The same criticism was directed at various legislative steps the Government have previously taken. It certainly has not been the case as the result of them.
A union which is not prepared to follow the requirements of the law will put itself at risk of legal proceedings being brought against it by an employer or a member. It is right and proper that it should be at risk in those circumstances.
Unofficial action is not a significant problem at the moment. Nor do I believe that the recommendations on good practice in the draft code would have provoked it.
Again it has been said that the main effect of the draft code would be to add significantly to what has been called "the burdens" on trade unions.

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"Burdens" is not a term I myself would choose to describe statutory requirements ensuring that proper democratic procedures are followed. But there are no new requirements in the draft code. A statutory code of practice cannot, as I have already said, add a single ground for legal action to what the law already contains. No one will be able to bring proceedings against a union solely on the basis that it has failed to observe good practice as recommended in a code.
It is misleading to imply that to follow the relevant recommendations on good practice in the draft code a union would have had to take account of all those recommendations in every ballot. Those applicable to workplace balloting, for example, would clearly be irrelevant if postal balloting was chosen.
Nor would many unions in practice have to do something different from what they would otherwise do. Descriptions of good practice in the draft code are usually little more than the application of common sense. Often—and this could often he very helpful to unions they remove doubt about what practices and procedures will help ensure that the requirements of the law are satisfied.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, criticises the lack of distinction in the draft code between what he calls "legal summonses" and good practice and suggests that the code should make clear exactly which passages relate to which aspect.
The essential purpose of the draft code, as I have already said, is to promote good practice. The published draft attempted to make a distinction between its passages restating the current law and others by expressing the former in terms of what a union must or must not do. I accept, however, that there may be scope for making the distinction rather clearer and I noted the suggestions that the noble Lord made to achieve that.
I am sure that my right honourable friend will note what the noble Lord and others have said about this. It will remain important, however, that presentational changes which might be made to the published draft code cannot be taken to imply that some of its recommendations on good practice are more significant or important than others. This would, I believe, be a false distinction in this instance. Again, it has been argued that the draft code should
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not be expressed in terms of what a union should or should not do and it has been suggested that the language used in the draft code was too prescriptive when it was describing good practice.
Passages in the draft code expressed in terms of what a union should or should not provide guidance on steps to be taken if the union wants to be sure that it stays within the law where there might otherwise be doubt or describe what is for other reasons desirable good practice. Bearing in mind that the aim of the code is to "promote desirable practices" an element of prescription in suggesting what such practices might be is, I believe, entirely consistent with that aim.
Your Lordships will recall that at various points the draft code recommended that a union "should consider" certain procedures or aspects of the balloting process. The Government did not consider that recommendations expressed in such terms are unduly prescriptive. Again, it has been argued that the code should construct its recommendations on good practice to make clear that different procedures could amount to such practice in different circumstances. The draft code recognised this fact. I am sure, however, that my right honourable friend will be giving careful consideration to suggestions for improving the draft code in this respect in so far as this can be done in a way which is consistent with its aim and intention.
The points about the draft code which your Lordships have made have been very helpful, and I am sure that my right honourable friend will want to take account of them in deciding what further steps he may take. While I cannot of course make any firm prediction, I would be surprised if there is not some revision of the published draft before any re-issued version is put to your Lordships.
I am conscious that I have only touched on many of the points that have been raised during the course of the discussion this evening. I promise faithfully to study the lines in Hansard very carefully and to write to any noble Lord or to the noble Baroness with any clarification I can give on the points they have raised this evening.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before ten o'clock.

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