Sitting of 4 July 1989

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

    Student Loans
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he now has any proposals to amend the payment deferment arrangements for student top-up loans to include suitable categories of disablement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson): Under the arrangements we propose, deferment of repayment will depend on graduates' incomes. Disabled graduates will benefit from those arrangements in the same way as other graduates.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my hon. Friend confirm that disabled students will have full access to social security benefit? Will he re-examine the scheme to see whether he can provide disabled students with larger top-up loans and longer terms for repayment?
    Mr. Jackson: I certainly confirm that, as the White Paper makes clear, disabled students will continue to be able to claim social security benefits and disability allowance, where appropriate. When we set the level of grants that will operate from September 1990, the question will have to be resolved of what to do about the existing allowances in the grant for disabled students. The Government will certainly consider the position sympathetically.
    Mr. Ashley: Does the Minister recognise that additional costs for disabled students are very high and that the jobs that they will take up will not pay enough to allow them to repay loans? Therefore, instead of minor adjustments to student top-up loans, is not a complete reappraisal of the grants for disabled students required?
    Mr. Jackson: Support for disabled people in general is a matter for the Secretary of State for Social Security. I know that he has considered the matter sympathetically and that there have been considerable improvements in recent years. I do not believe, however, that there is a case for substantial additions beyond the deferment of the obligation to repay that we propose for disabled people who have had the benefit of higher education. One has to think in terms of a category of disablement which is taken care of, dealing in general with people who are disabled
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    and then the concessions that will be available to disabled students in terms of access to social security and additional allowances.
    Mr. Gerald Bowden: I was slightly reassured by what my hon. Friend said about reconsidering grants to disabled students. In view of the representations that I and many hon. Members have received from deaf and blind students, we appreciate the excessive obstacles that they must overcome to take advantage of higher education in the same way as sighted and hearing students. Is there not a case for considering an entire reappraisal of the grant allocation to such students rather than the top-up loan scheme?
    Mr. Jackson: There are already allowances for disabled students in the grant. We shall consider their future in the context of the overall review of the grant that will have to be made before the new regulations come into operation in September 1990. We shall certainly be looking at that sympathetically.
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received since his recent statement on student top-up loans.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): Since my statement on 19 June, I have received 63 representations.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Secretary of State recognise that this policy is absolute folly and that it will reduce educational opportunities? Does he recognise, too, that it will go counter to the intention of the Secretary of State for Health to increase degree opportunities for nurses and that it will force more nurses out of higher education and back into traditional training, which will be worse for both the National Health Service and for nurses?
    Mr. Baker: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. As I have said on many occasions, we are the only developed country that does not have a system of top-up loans alongside grants. In all those other countries a higher proportion of the relevant age band goes into higher education. It has not acted as a disincentive in other countries, and I do not believe that it will here.
    Mr. Pawsey: When my right hon. Friend responds to those representations, will he make a particular point of stressing that the top-up loan scheme will enable substantial additional numbers of students to go into higher education? Will he further make the point that there must be a limit to the amount of taxpayers' support available to students and that, therefore, we are finding a new form of funding? Will my right hon. Friend refer to the three access funds and, if it is at all possible, will he consider increasing them to more than the proposed £5 million each, totalling £15 million?
    Mr. Baker: On the latter point, I note what my hon. Friend has said and I am sure that he appreciates that that will be a matter for discussion later in the year in the public expenditure survey round. I also note what my hon. Friend said about the level of access funds. On the other point that my hon. Friend made, I remind the House that the disentitlement to benefit next year for students will amount to about £65 million, but the extra resources available

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    through top-up loans will amount to £167 million. That is a substantial increase and it means more money for more students.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Why was the Secretary of State economical with the truth when he answered questions on his statement of 17 June about the cost of top-up loans? Why did he talk about the start-up and administrative costs only and not include inflation, the cost to the Department of Education and Science and the ongoing running costs? Surely the reality is that with every additional student there will be additional costs far in excess of what he estimated. If the right hon. Gentleman does not come clean he will be shuffling off the coils of his office with the words of Sir Walter Scott ringing in his ears:
    "O what a tangled web we weave,
    When first we practise to deceive!"
    Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman's contribution makes one thankful that the leadership of his party is in the hands that it is—and that is saying a great deal.
    The hon. Gentleman's facts are wrong. I made my statement on 19 June, not on 17 June; that was the first fact that he got wrong. The costs of the scheme are set out clearly in the White Paper, under the heading "Costs and Savings". Inflation is allowed for and the costs that I gave to the House are contained in the Price Waterhouse report on the recurrent and running costs. If the hon. Gentleman wants to engage in a serious debate on the matter he must first educate himself in the facts.
    Mr. Marlow: I think I am right—my right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong—that higher education does not come free. Somebody must pay for it. As it is inappropriate that parents should be responsible for their adult children and also totally inappropriate that the vast majority of taxpayers, who do not enjoy and are unlikely to enjoy the benefits and privileges of higher education, should pay more than a certain amount for higher education, is it not right that those who are to receive the benefits and privileges of higher education should find some of the money for their own benefit and education?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point. The White Paper said that in 1984 student support for living costs per year was about £700 a student in Britain, £70 in Germany and £30 in Japan. We have a generous system of support for students. We believe that it is reasonable for the costs of the living expenses of students to be borne by three parties: the state—the grants will continue—their parents, whom we assess for contributions, and the students themselves through what will be a generous top-up loan scheme.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Minister recognise that there is concern in education circles about the scheme, which was notably expressed yesterday by the chancellor of the university of Ulster? Last week two leading academics said that they would welcome the interest-free loan for themselves because it was tax free, but were worried that poorer families would not wish to put themselves into debt.
    Mr. Baker: Protections are built into the scheme, one of which is that the obligation to repay the top-up loan will not start for nine months until after a student has left university. There will be no obligation to repay until the salary of the graduate is at least 85 per cent. of the average national wage. At the moment there is almost no graduate
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    unemployment and those graduates who are unemployed are so by choice. Most graduates have salaries a third to a half higher than the national average wage.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many taxpayers who have not had the benefit of further education and, as a consequence, are unlikely to have the same salary expectations as graduates, would see the top-up loan as a useful personal investment for students? They would resent paying the entire bill, as at present, for further education.
    Mr. Baker: That is a very fair point. The Opposition want more generous and higher grants, but they must come out of taxable income, which is paid by many people who, as my hon. Friend said, have never been or are never likely to go to university or polytechnic. It is also unlikely that their families will do so. It is reasonable to say that people who attend higher education institutions should make a substantial investment in their own future. The Economist estimates that that investment has a pay off of about 24 per cent. It is entirely reasonable that students should be expected to make some contribution on terms that are the most generous of any top-up loan scheme that I have seen in the western world. I believe that our scheme will be very popular.
    Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State is deliberately confusing his Back-Bench Members—[Interruption.] Perhaps they are confused already. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the taxpayer will pay more for the new scheme than he currently pays for the student grant scheme, but the student will get less. It is another example of the shambles of the scheme.
    If the right hon. Gentleman is so confident about the costings of the scheme, why does he not publish the Price Waterhouse report? Why does he not publish the detailed costings done by his Department, including debt collecting, set-up, depreciation, central Government and college costs? He knows that the costings in the White Paper are both selective and defective. Why does he not publish the costs of the indemnity which, according to last Saturday's Financial Times, is being demanded by the banks not only against a change of Government, but against a change of Government policy? What is the premium on that indemnity, or is the risk so great that no one will take it?
    Mr. Baker: The risk of this Government changing and giving way to a Government who would be damaging to the country is not very substantial and would be an insurable risk.
    The Price Waterhouse report was commissioned by the Committee of London and Scottish Bankers. I shall be having a word with the committee's chairman later. My preference is to publish the report and I hope to place copies of it in the Library later this week.
    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the statistics in the White Paper which set out the costings of the scheme. He must realise that the scheme will be welcomed by many hundreds of thousands of students, such as the 120,000 students who currently do not receive any grant because they are means-tested out of it; the 160,000 students whose grants are reduced by the means test; and the 50,000 students who do not receive mandatory awards. All those people will benefit substantially from the top-up loan scheme.

    Licensed Teachers
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what will be the minimum and maximum qualifications required to enable individuals to qualify for licensed teacher status; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John Butcher): Candidates for licensed teacher status must have successfully completed at least two years full-time higher education or the part-time equivalent; have attained a standard in English and mathematics equivalent to GCSE grade C; and have reached the age of 26 before they take up their post as a licensed teacher.
    Mr. Greenway: How many teachers does my hon. Friend expect to recruit into the classrooms through the device of licensed teachers? Will he expand upon his answer and give the House and the country an assurance that those taken into the scheme will be thoroughly and satisfactorily qualified to teach at the level to which they are assigned?
    Mr. Butcher: I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. The beauty of the licensed teachers scheme is that there will be two years of training which will be assessed and, if satisfactorily completed, will permit that teacher to go into the classroom on a qualified and professional basis. That contrasts with the current position of no requirement for formal training. Indeed, a number of teachers who do not have formal training are already in the classrooms, although that is not to suggest that they are not very good teachers. Our objective is to broaden the catchment without eroding professional standards in the classroom.
    Mr. Madel: What will be the compulsory age for retirement for licensed teachers, and will it be the same for men as for women?
    Mr. Butcher: The retirement conditions that pertain for those who qualify through the traditional route will also pertain for those who come through the licensed teachers scheme. Our whole objective is that once licensed teachers are in the classroom, they should have equal opportunities, terms and conditions across the board.

    Schools (Ancillary Workers)
    Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has received any representations concerning the pay of school secretaries and ancillary workers in schools; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Butcher: My right hon. Friend receives occasional letters on this subject.
    Mr. Vaz: Does the Minister agree that the current salary scale for school secretaries is lamentably low? Does he further agree that the role of school secretaries has changed enormously during the past few years, both in their administrative and in their financial responsibilities? A constituent of mine, Mrs. Jenny Mould, who lives in Thurnby Lodge, is a school secretary and has to perform no fewer than 53 separate functions every day. Will the
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    Minister consider setting up a national review of the pay and conditions of school secretaries in the light of the great changes that have recently occurred?
    Mr. Butcher: I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the work of school secretaries. Head teachers and staff rely on them and the vast majority discharge their duties very well indeed. We have no plans to change the way in which their pay is negotiated. As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is done with the local authority associations and most local education authorities tend to go along with the pay and conditions so negotiated. As with many of those who supply education to our young people, their job is changing and that is why about £6 million of the £100 million training and equipment programme, which is part of local management for schools, will be for non-teaching staff, I hope that the secretaries will benefit from that.
    Mr. Paice: As we move towards grant-maintained schools and more devolved management responsibility in schools, will not each school be able to make the necessary changes to its pay structure for ancillary staff to meet local circumstances and to match salaries to the job that is done?
    Mr. Butcher: My hon. Friend is right. We wish to push responsibility upstream to where it is most required—the chief executive, the head and the governing body. They can make decisions on salaries across a range of activities in the best interests and given the particular needs of their school. That is a major improvement and one of the major advantages of local management for schools.

    Teachers (Negotiating Rights)
    Mr. Geraint Howells: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to establish a new negotiating body for teachers' pay.
    Mr. Flannery: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any plans to restore negotiating rights to the teaching profession; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: I am inviting the employers and the teacher unions to further meetings this month to discuss new pay determination arrangements.
    Mr. Howells: The Secretary of State will be aware that there is an acute shortage of Welsh language teachers. What advice will he be giving the Secretary of State for Wales on pay, status and the low morale within the profession?
    Mr. Baker: I visited a Welsh-language school only a fortnight ago and there was no low morale there. I was impressed with the calibre of its teaching. All its teachers spoke Welsh and the language of instruction was Welsh. They did not tell me that there was any shortage of Welsh teachers in that part of Wales.
    Mr. Flannery: The Secretary of State will know that the Select Committee on Education, Arts and Science—not because it wants to but because it has to—is preparing a report on the growing shortage of teachers generally, not merely in the Welsh language. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the removal of the teaching profession's free negotiating rights contributed to the profession's low morale? Yet only now does he tell us that

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    he will discuss it with the employers. Does he realise that the free trade unionism in a country such as Britain demands that negotiating rights be restored forthwith, which will in turn bring more teachers into the profession?
    Mr. Baker: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman remembers, but I had a drink with him on the Terrace last night along with the new general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Mr. Doug McAvoy. I told Mr. McAvoy that this month we would meet him and other union leaders to try to find a new machinery. There has not been much agreement, but I shall be putting proposals, as no doubt will he, and I hope that a way forward can be found.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we do not need a national negotiating body but rather regional pay, which will end the unfair treatment of many teachers in the south-east, particularly those who are beyond the reach of London weighting and the like? Should we not have regional pay and the regional funding to go with it?
    Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend makes an important point which I shall discuss with the unions. Many local education authorities have already introduced incentives or inducements of one sort or another to help to recruit teachers, particularly in the south-east and in London. That recognises the regional and local differences in pay levels—which, as I said, is something that I shall discuss with the unions.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: Given the enormous variations in demand and supply in the country and the move away from national pay negotiations throughout the economy, is there not a strong argument for saying that national wage negotiations are a failed anachronism which should be replaced by school-based bargaining, founded on local knowledge of the demand for, and availability of, teachers?
    Mr. Baker: There is some advantage in having a national allowances structure—an important change which we secured in 1987—whereby there is a main professional grade and five allowances over it. I do not want any future machinery to endanger that arrangement, as it is seen as the way forward for the profession. As I said when replying to the previous question, the need for a new negotiating body is raised again and again, and I am clear that whatever may emerge, any machinery must have considerable flexibility to allow for variations as between local education authorities, and as between different parts of the country.
    Mr. Fatchett: When the Secretary of State enters into negotiations on the new pay machinery, will he acknowledge that taking away from teachers the right to bargain had a greater impact on their morale than any other decision made by the Government and led to its collapse? Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake not to drag out those negotiations, and will he confirm that next year's pay settlement will come not from the interim advisory committee but will be settled across the negotiating table, between the employers and the teachers' representatives?
    Mr. Baker: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I shall discuss all those matters with the unions and the employers in the next two or three weeks. I reject completely any
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    suggestion that the teaching profession is suffering from low morale, on the evidence that each year 25,000 people enter the profession.
    Mr. Fatchett: But how many leave it?
    Mr. Baker: About the same number. If 25,000 people annually believe that teaching is an interesting and valuable profession, morale within it cannot be low. Since March 1986, teachers have enjoyed a 40 per cent. increase in pay, which is a major adjustment upwards. Many head teachers, for example, received a £2,000 per annum increase this year. That implies that the profession is better rewarded under this Government than it ever was under Labour.
    Mr. Holt: When considering whether there should be regional negotiations, perhaps my right hon. Friend will take on board the remarks of the Nalgo official who has just negotiated a deal for his members with Northumbrian Water which he says is amicable, excellent and bodes well for the future?
    Mr. Baker: That is very interesting, and I shall draw my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of the trade union leaders whom I meet during the next few weeks. I am sure that the way forward for teachers' pay is a large number of incentive allowances to reward good teaching in the classroom and those teachers who give of their best—which is the great proportion of them—coupled with the flexibility that not only my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) but other of my hon. Friends want to see.

    Teacher Shortages
    Ms. Gordon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions he has had with the Inner London education authority about teacher shortages.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): My right hon. Friend met a delegation from the ILEA, led by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), on 13 June. I held a meeting with leaders of the inner London councils on 19 June. On both occasions, practical solutions to the shortages of teachers in London were discussed.
    Ms. Gordon: Does the Minister realise that qualified teachers are leaving the profession in droves; that former colleagues who are devoted teachers repeatedly tell me that they feel that they are used as scapegoats and are under intolerable pressures; that in Tower Hamlets, where my constituency is located, 30 per cent. of the teaching staff —[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading".]—have handed in their resignations; that there are at least 300 children without school places that we know of, and many more that we do not know of; that the birth rate is increasing by 20 per cent.; that there are about 1,000 children who will not have school teachers when the next term comes; and that parents who are lucky enough to know that their children will have teachers are receiving letters from headteachers saying that they cannot guarantee—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Lady make it brief, please?
    Ms. Gordon: I shall make it as brief as I can, Mr. Speaker.
    Their teachers say that they cannot guarantee to operate the national curriculum, and are telling parents that there are a series of unacceptable measures such as sending children home on a rota basis.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that that is enough. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down."] I think that the hon. Lady should do so, in fairness to others.
    Mrs. Rumbold: I know that the hon. Lady feels very strongly about these matters. I should tell her that the interim advisory committee, which studied teacher recruitment most recently, came up with exactly the same figures as it produced last year, and the evidence suggests that only 1 per cent. of the total teaching force leaves the profession.
    When we discussed the matter with both ILEA and individual leaders of the inner London authorities that are taking over responsibility, we talked about methods of recruitment and retention. I remind the hon. Lady that recruiting teachers is a long-term planning matter, and I therefore rather regret that ILEA did not take it up earlier.
    Mr. Tracey: Has my hon. Friend suggested to teachers—and, indeed, parents—that life will be much better under the new education authorities, especially when they are Conservative controlled?
    Mrs. Rumbold: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no doubt that the new education authorities, which are working hard in planning both for teacher recruitment and for the delivery of education to children in their boroughs, will provide much better education, especially in the Conservative-controlled boroughs.
    Mr. Straw: Is the Minister aware that last Thursday, when I asked the Secretary of State how many teachers had submitted their resignations by 31 May 1989, the right hon. Gentleman replied in a written answer that the information was not available, and that the latest data on teacher resignations related to the year ending March 1987? How can the Secretary of State and the Minister dare to evade blame for the major and growing teacher crisis in inner London and elsewhere when, on the Secretary of State's admission, the information that he and the Minister have obtained on resignations is more than two years old?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The information to which we referred was collected by ILEA. It is wrong to say that responsibility for the planning and recruitment of teacher numbers lies with the Government; the local education authorities are the managers of the education service within their areas, and they know perfectly well that it takes at least a term to plan recruitment. ILEA, along with every other local authority, should have looked at the problem much earlier.

    LEAs (Training Grants)
    Mr. Morley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to increase the financial support available to local education authorities through the local education authority training grants scheme.
    Mrs. Rumbold: I announced our plans on 16 May, in a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot). We propose to increase the expenditure which attracts the higher rate of grant by £36 million, or 43 per cent., and to reduce the expediture which attracts the lower rate of grant by £35 million, or 27 per cent.
    Mr. Morley: Is the Minister aware that the total expenditure of the LEA training grant scheme between this year and next will be increased by only 1·4 per cent? That is a substantial cut in real terms. On top of that, the grant to LEAs for training schemes will be cut from 70 to 65 per cent., at a time when LEAs and teachers are being asked to do more and more training because of the national curriculum, local management systems and various schemes introduced by the Government. How will it help to expect them to do more and more with fewer and fewer resources, and how will that help teachers' morale?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The training grant scheme needs to be looked at together with the other main specific grant programme—education support grants. Many of the ESG programmes also support training, and in 1990–91 training grants and education support grants will together support the largest ever specific education grant programme, costing £355 million.
    Mr. Dunn: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about time that we had a review of all aspects of training and training grants? Does she agree that it is strange that we should have four great Departments of state all involved with training, when we should really have one Department for training, which should be called the Department of Education and Training?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I note my hon. Friend's views on the way in which departmental responsibilities for training should be organised. Bearing in mind the great sum that is spent on teacher training, it is vital that the money is well directed. It is a simple-minded illusion to suggest that more input means greater vaue. What really matters is the way in which the money is spent. We must ensure that training, including in-service training, is prepared and managed in such a way that it achieves the best possible results for teachers.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Does the Minister recognise that the question is about specific grants to local authorities for the training of teachers in service? Is he aware that at a time when local authorities are being asked to expand training for teachers—in view of the national curriculum, the new local financial management and other initiatives being taken by the Government for training teachers—rather than reducing expenditure in real terms, as is happening, and at the same time reducing the amount of money available to local authorities by way of direct support for other national priority areas, the Government should be massively increasing spending on teacher training, irrespective of Government spending in other areas?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The hon. Gentleman sadly misunderstands the situation. There has been a huge increase in the amount of money for in-service training. It is vital for local authorities to study the way in which that money is managed to ensure that the best possible value is given to the teachers who receive the training. If that is not done,

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    there will be no point in adding further resources in this sphere, for the management of the money governs the way in which the teachers benefit.

    Higher Education (Students)
    Mr. Irvine: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the increase in the number of students enrolled in universities and polytechnics since 1979.
    Mr. Jackson: Compared with 1979, provisional figures for 1988 show an increase of around 130,000 higher education students at universities in Great Britain and at English and Welsh polytechnics. The increase is over 200,000 across all higher education in Great Britain.
    Mr. Irvine: I thank my hon. Friend for those encouraging figures. Does he agree that they contrast favourably with the situation when Labour was last in power? [Interruption.] Will he confirm that despite all the fine words we hear about the devotion of Labour Members to higher education, when they were in power between 1974 and 1979 the number of students in higher education fell?
    Mr. Jackson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are moving towards having 1 million students. Not only are the absolute numbers increasing—which could be explicable because of demographic change—but participation rates have increased. I refer to participation rates of students overall—of mature students, part-time students, women students—of every category of students one cares to name.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: If, as the Minister says, participation rates have increased, may I ask him to give the participation rate in 1979, and the present rate, of those who are qualified to participate? Is he aware that the tragedy behind the figures that he has given is that the number of working-class youngsters going into higher education has not increased and that the real problem is that not enough working-class youngsters stay on after 16 years of age? What are the Government doing to encourage them to stay on? Is the Minister aware that the loan scheme will discourage working-class youngsters from staying on beyond 16?
    Mr. Jackson: Although there has been a slight increase in the participation rates from social classes 4 and 5 since 1979, the overall performance is extremely disappointing, in spite of 30 years of the most generous grants system in the world. That is one reason that leads the Government to believe that there is a case for the introduction of student loans.
    Sir Peter Emery: Will my hon. Friend discuss with the Secretary of State and the authorities the ever-popular view that every polytechnic must become a university? It is very much better to be a leading polytechnic, such as Rolle college and other colleges of that nature, than to be one of the lesser universities. Encouragement should be given to maximising the benefits of polytechnic education which can relieve the pressure on universities.
    Mr. Jackson: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Government and Parliament took the view in the
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    Education Reform Act 1988 that there is a distinctive mission for the polytechnics, of which they are entitled to be very proud.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: Can the Minister confirm that almost all the expansion to which he refers occurred in local authority polytechnics and colleges before the public expenditure cuts began to bite and before he became a Minister? If his Government's record is so good, why were there 5,000 fewer first degree students in universities in 1987 than there were in 1981, and why has the proportion of admissions from private schools over the last five years gone up while the proportion of admissions from comprehensives has gone down? Does he accept that the Government's shambles of a loans scheme makes these inequalities very much worse?
    Mr. Jackson: I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the polytechnics for the excellent work that they have done in expanding the number of their students. The Government do not determine how many students enter the universities. I have often referred to the fact that the unit cost of students at universities has increased since 1979.

    National Curriculum
    Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what weight he gives to the educational needs of children of those serving in the armed forces in making detailed arrangements for the national curriculum.
    Mrs. Rumbold: My right hon. Friend affords equal treatment to the educational needs of children who attend maintained schools, whatever the occupation of their parents.
    Mr. Key: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. Is she aware that about 30,000 children attend schools that are run by the Service Children education authority? Will she do her very best to ensure that they do not suffer from having access to fewer facilities and opportunities than are available to children in this country? Will she look in particular at the very difficult question of work experience and at the potential for learning foreign languages that is made available to those many children who live abroad, particularly in West Germany?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. He will be interested to know that I had a discussion last week with some people from schools in Germany. I was able to reassure them that the national curriculum will go a long way towards ensuring continuity of education for those children. We also discussed the teaching of foreign languages, especially German to children who are living in Germany, and work experience. All those matters are being examined.
    Mr. Dalyell: What does the hon. Lady mean by "continuity" in that context?
    Mrs. Rumbold: Continuity means studying according to the national curriculum, whether in a maintained school in this country or in a school that is maintained in Germany or in another foreign country by the British forces. It will ensure that children who live abroad study roughly the same curriculum as is studied by children in this country.

    Teachers (Resignations)
    Mr. Livsey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many teachers in the primary school sector have resigned in the last 12 months.
    Mr. Butcher: The latest available data are for the year ending March 1987, when 12,730 teachers left full-time service in the maintained nursery and primary sector in England. Of these, 1,320 transferred to full-time service elsewhere in the maintained sector in England and Wales and 1,300 to part-time service in the maintained sector. A further 4,300 retired and 200 died.
    Mr. Livsey: Even allowing for the fact that those figures are two years out of date, do they not suggest that there is a crisis in the primary school sector and that, even according to the Minister's own figures, 15,000 teachers a year will be leaving the profession by 1995? What does he intend to do about preventing primary school teachers from leaving their profession in droves?
    Mr. Butcher: The hon. Gentleman is utterly wrong. A substantial proportion of those who leave the profession do so for maternity or retirement reasons. That is evidence of a remarkably stable teaching force. As the interim advisory committee has reported, those who leave teaching to go into other professions represent about 1 per cent. of the teaching force. That cannot be described in any way in the terms that the hon. Gentleman used.
    Mr. Soames: Will my hon. Friend commend to other local authorities the excellent scheme run by West Sussex county council to stay in touch with teachers who have left the profession, so that when they have finished whatever duties they may have had away from teaching they can be brought back in at an early stage?
    Mr. Butcher: That is an excellent scheme. Through appropriate and imaginative measures, a large number of teachers can he persuaded to re-enter the profession. Their expertise will be greatly welcomed. I am sure that other local authorities are observing that experiment with great interest.
    Ms. Armstrong: The Minister's answer confirms that the Government simply do not know what is going on in primary schools. Our evidence from local education authorities throughout the country is that the number of resignations this year is unprecedented. Britain has some of the best primary teaching in the world but the Government's policies are undermining it. What are the Government going to do to support and encourage primary teachers?
    Mr. Butcher: One of the great strengths of the British system is the primary sector. Having visited Germany recently I am confirmed in that belief and I pay tribute to our primary school teachers. The Opposition's assertions have more to do with propaganda than with fact. In the primary sector we have a stable work force and the teaching force is behaving professionally. The facts on recruitment into teacher training colleges and loss to other professions confirm that we have a well-motivated and stable primary work force.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. James Lamond: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Lamond: Is the right hon. Lady aware of the divided families campaign which is concerned with the plight of a very large number of immigrant families who for nearly two decades now have been refused permission for their spouses and families to join them in Britain? Now, through the new DNA fingerprint tests, they can prove without a shadow of a doubt that those people are their families, yet they are still being refused permission to join their families in Britain. Should not something be done by the right hon. Lady to right that injustice, or will she have a nasty taste in her mouth every time she speaks of her concern for family life in Britain?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is aware that immigration into this country, including some of those people who have been waiting for a considerable time, is of the order of 40,000 to 50,000 a year. That is as many as we can possibly cope with.
    Mr. Sumberg: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Sumberg: Will my right hon. Friend send a message of sympathy to the hard-pressed rail and tube travellers who will undergo yet another strike tomorrow? Will she join me in condemning the union leadership that has inflicted this inconvenience on the public? Does she agree that as in previous public sector disputes, the total and complete silence of the Leader of the Opposition makes him the strikers' friend?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. The unions have given no thought to the general public. My hon. Friend is aware that the Government are taking practical steps to help the public get to work tomorrow. Of course the dispute is for the management and unions to resolve, but I believe that three points should be absolutely clear. First, the National Union of Railwaymen and not British Rail has broken the 1956 agreement by refusing to use the established negotiating machinery to settle the question of basic pay. I note that at least one other union has honoured that agreement. Secondly, the British Railways board has offered to meet the NUR at any time and any place to resolve the other outstanding issue—the negotiating machinery. Thirdly, despite the NUR's advertising, the small print makes it absolutely clear that it will not negotiate without pre-conditions.
    Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister constructively and immediately assist in efforts to resolve the rail dispute—first, by strongly encouraging both sides to go hack to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to

    149
    discuss all the matters in dispute and, secondly, by stopping those of her interventions that are intended, for obvious partisan reasons, to inflame conflict?
    The Prime Minister: I note that the right hon. Gentleman has no thought whatsoever for the travelling public. [Interruption.] Had he listened to my previous reply, he might have found most of the answers to his question. This is a dispute for the management of British Rail and the unions to resolve. With regard to pay, there is a 1956 agreement under which, before industrial action is taken, there should be recourse to the railway staff national tribunal. The NUR has broken that agreement on pay. That tribunal will sit tomorrow and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association is going to it. With regard to negotiating machinery, British Rail has offered to meet the NUR at any time and any place, including ACAS, to try to resolve the other outstanding issues. The NUR is setting pre-conditions to meeting British Rail, which is totally contrary to the 1956 agreement. It should go to ACAS without pre-conditions.
    Mr. Kinnock: If the Prime Minister really wants to help rail users, will she come back to the real world of the present and deal with the issue in hand? It must be clear, even to the Prime Minister, that this dispute can be urgently resolved if both parties go to ACAS to discuss all the issues. I urge both parties to do just that. Will she urge them to do that, in the national interest?
    The Prime Minister: The National Union of Railwaymen—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister must be given a chance to answer.
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, there is a 1956 agreement—[Interruption.] Yes. Clearly, Labour does not believe in keeping its agreements. There is a 1956 agreement under which, before there is any—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must be able to hear the Prime Minister.
    The Prime Minister: Before there is any industrial dispute, there is a 1956 agreement under which pay should be resolved by using the established negotiating machinery to settle the question of basic pay. The National Union of Railwaymen has broken that agreement. Another union has accepted it and is going to the tribunal to use its services. British Rail has said that it will meet the NUR at any time and any place to try to resolve the outstanding issues on negotiating machinery, but not with preconditions such as that which the NUR has set.
    Mr. Kinnock: If the Prime Minister will not act responsibly and do her duty as she should—[Interruption.]—will she at least stop being irresponsible and accept the common-sense argument put by The Daily Telegraph this morning that to "outlaw strikes" in public services
    "would be an indefensible attack on the employee's liberty to withhold … labour and would be 'unBritish' and could have no place in a polity founded upon freedom"?
    Or does the Prime Minister think that the civil right of free trade unionism should stop the other side of the Polish border?
    The Prime Minister: Why does the right hon. Gentleman not have a flash of responsibility for once, and condemn the strike? Why does he not ask the National Union of Railwaymen to go to arbitration, which is where they should go and to settle their claim that way, and support the travelling public for once?

    Yorkshire and Humberside
    Mr. Kirkhope: To ask the Prime Minister when she next expects to visit Yorkshire and Humberside.
    The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.
    Mr. Kirkhope: Will my right hon. Friend soon be able to visit the Yorkshire and Humberside region? She will see that the gross domestic product has doubled since 1979 and that 17,500 more companies have been established there since 1983. All of that was enhanced by the tremendous success of the urban development corporations of Leeds and Sheffield, which are presently celebrating their first anniversary. Does that not give the lie to the so-called north-south divide?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. The creation of jobs, enterprise and a higher standard of living are spreading throughout the country because of the policies that we have pursued. As my hon. Friend knows, I was in Leeds last December, visiting Asda and seeing for myself the tremendous prosperity that exists there and also seeing that the many successful companies are not only creating jobs and raising the standard of living but have a very great community spirit. They presented a large cheque for about £650,000 to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Altogether an excellent record.
    Mr. Rees: Yorkshire and Humberside are doing very well on the commercial front—we are all very proud of them—aided by Labour-controlled local authorities. However, manufacturing is in decline, and it has declined mainly since the right hon. Lady's Government came to office. Will she do anything about manufacturing, or is she concerned only about commerce?
    The Prime Minister: The north is doing very well indeed because of the economic policies of this Government and because the people have the wit to take up opportunities and do well for themselves by their own efforts, because the enterprise and tax systems urge and encourage them to do so. That is the record of this Government, and may it long continue. The right hon. Gentleman will know that investment in manufacturing is at an all-time record, which augurs very well for the future.
    Mr. Dickens: Does my right hon. Friend remember the winter of 1978–79, when people were stranded on railway stations, could not bury their dead, and their children could not have a schools—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question should be about Yorkshire and Humberside.
    Mr. Dickens: In Yorkshire and in Humberside. Does she recall what the people did after the so-called strikers' friends did nothing about that? They voted in a Conservative Government.
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I recall that the then Government were practically run by the unions. The people voted out the Labour Government, reversed the decline, and we have had unrivalled prosperity ever since.

    Engagements
    Mr. Cartwright: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Cartwright: In view of the Prime Minister's well-publicised role as a leader of the campaign against the dangers of the greenhouse effect, why do her Government not accept the amendment to the Electricity Bill, which was carried with all-party support in the other place? It would require electricity suppliers to prove that they are conducting energy efficient activities. Which is most important to the Prime Minister, making the electricity industry attractive to investors, or ensuring that it is genuinely energy efficient?
    The Prime Minister: There is, of course, a duty of energy efficiency. If the hon. Gentleman had followed the figures he would know that we are now producing about 25 per cent. more goods than we were producing in 1973, but in 1973 we were using up more energy than we are now. That has been the very great achievement of energy efficiency. Naturally, people will go on trying to get better and better value for money.
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Mitchell: I welcome the recently announced 6 per cent. decrease in the crime figures, unprecedented in the past 25 years, but does my right hon. Friend agree that in making progress in this important matter, it is extremely important to ensure that parents are held more responsible for the actions of their children?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Like my hon. Friend, I welcome the recent figures showing a reduction in recorded crime, although, like him, we are still very concerned about the amount of violent crime. I agree that, if parents do not teach children right and wrong and to abide by the law, no other substitute organisation can do so. It is best that children should know those things before they go to school so that teachers can reinforce what they have learnt at home.
    Mr. John Fraser: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Fraser: Following her recent conversations on the subject, what prospect does the Prime Minister hold out for the early release of Nelson Mandela and the commutation of the mass death sentence on 14 people from the town of Upington in South Africa?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, we have constantly raised the question of the release of Nelson Mandela. I do not believe that any negotiations about the future of South Africa could start between all the peoples who make up that country until his release and the release of two other people there with him are brought about. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman when that will come about. I believe that there is a change in South Africa, and that the most important thing is to get the Namibian agreement well under way. I hope that after the next election there will be a movement towards genuine negotiations on the part of all peoples in South Africa, but they would have to be preceded by the release of Mr. Mandela.

  BILL PRESENTED
    DANGEROUS DOGS
    Dame Janet Fookes, supported by Mr. Greg Knight, Mr. John Cartwright and Mr. Matthew Taylor, presented a Bill to extend the powers available to a court on a complaint under section 2 of the Dogs Act 1981 together with additional rights of appeal and enhanced penalties: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 7 July and to be printed. [Bill 175.]

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c
    Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put together the five motions relating to statutory instruments.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).
    Resolved,
    That the draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Modification) Order 1989 to referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
    That the draft Recovery Vehicles (Number of Vehicles Recovered) Order (Northern Ireland) 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
    That the draft Recovery Vehicles (Number of Vehicles Recovered) Order 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
    That the draft Hovercraft (Application of Enactments) Order 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
    That the draft Visiting Forces and International Headquarters (Application of Law) (Amendment) Order 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Fallon.]
    Question agreed to.

Points of Order
3.32 pm
Mr. Barry Field: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) named me without observing the usual convention and courtesy of the House by notifying me of his intention to do so, although we had been going through the Division Lobbies only four or five minutes before. In column 45 of Hansard the hon. Gentleman is reported as saying that I had intervened in a vitriolic and trivial way but was not present to explain that to my constituents. Hansard does not make it clear that I did not intervene in yesterday's debate. As my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Water and Planning pointed out later, the debate was entirely about the privatisation of water and not about the metering of water under the Public Utility Transfers and Water Charges Act 1988, which we debated last year.
I refer this matter to you, Mr. Speaker, because, while I realise that among your many duties you cannot be responsible for the actions of the BBC, that body unfortunately broadcast the incident to my constituents on Radio Solent. Every indication was given that I was not present in the House yesterday, which I was. Furthermore, as you know, Mr. Speaker, you kindly granted me an Adjournment debate in which I discussed the whole question of water metering and in which my hon. and learned Friend the Minister gave a number of undertakings for me to take back to my constituents. In the water metering trial on the Isle of Wight, no one has yet received a bill. There has been no dispute about the concept of metering, my constituents' concern is about the tariff.
Mr. Speaker: I have seen the report of the intervention yesterday by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr.
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Mullin). The hon. Gentleman said nothing that was out of order, but I remind hon. Members that if they propose to refer to each other in a critical fashion, they should give notice of that intention to allow a rebuttal to be made at the time.
Mr. Chris Mullin:rose—
Mr. Speaker: I shall call the hon. Gentleman, but we cannot debate the matter further now.
Mr. Mullin: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is a perfectly simple explanation. I was referring to the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter), who had intervened earlier in the debate. I apologise to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field). It was a simple slip of the tongue. However, the constituents of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight would be glad to hear from him in the course of our discussions on the Water Bill, because they are suffering bills of two, three or four times the normal amount.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot pursue that matter now.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that tomorrow the railway service of this country will be disrupted by a strike, which will also include Underground services. It will cause great difficulty for our staff in the House of Commons and especially catering and other associated staff. Have you received any representations from the local branch of the Transport and General Workers Union, which represents most of the staff here, and in particular have you received any representation from its most prominent member, the Leader of the Opposition?
Mr. Speaker: Members of unions do not normally make representations to me.

Representation on National Parks
3.35 pm
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to confer the right of greater local representation on national park planning committees.
The role of national parks has been debated in the House many times. The Bill that created the role of the national parks was introduced in the House 40 years ago and was given its Second Reading on 31 March 1949. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Bill defined a national park as:
"an extensive area of outstanding beauty, suitable for open air recreation by the general public, but where the normal life of the existing community goes on."
Such an area may run to hundreds of square miles. The largest of the proposed national parks, the Lake District national park, is more than 800 square miles.
There are 10 national parks in England and Wales and none in Scotland. The 10 are the Peak district, the Lake district, Snowdonia, Dartmoor, the Pembrokeshire coast, the North Yorkshire, the Yorkshire dales, Exmoor, Northumberland and the Brecon Beacons, which represent an overall area of 5,251 sq. miles and a population, in 1981, of approximately 238,000.
When the Minister of Town and Country Planning, Mr. Silkin introduced the Bill he said, when dealing with representation on the national parks:
"The Bill provides that at least a quarter of the board or of the committee shall be appointed by the local planning authority on the nomination of the Minister, after consultation with the National Parks Commission. This will enable the Minister to ensure that persons are appointed to the parks committee without local interest or prejudices, who are able to put before the committee the so-called 'national' point of view".
Mr. Silkin went on to say:
"There are considerable safeguards in the Bill as well. There is the presence of not less than 25 per cent. of members on the park committees who will put forward national considerations."—[Official Report, 31 March 1949; Vol. 463, c. 1471—83.]
My argument is that there is insufficient local representation on those national parks. The Opposition spokesman at that time was Mr. W. S. Morrison, who was the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury. I am glad to see his successor, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, on the Front Bench today. He has a similar role to that of his predecessor.
Not all of the Dower report, which was the forerunner to the national parks, was accepted by the Government, although the setting up of the national parks had a broad welcome from Members of all parties. There was no Division on Second Reading. When the Dower report and the later Hobhouse report were commissioned, they came out not with the idea of a national parks committee, but with the idea of appointing a small, select group of people to administer the whole role of the national parks. However, neither the Government nor the Opposition of the time thought that acceptable. It was felt that a wider range of people should serve on the national parks.
It is difficult to bring forward specific guidelines for the national parks as a whole in this country because, although there are 10, they are not administered in the same manner. The Peak park board, which covers part of my constituency, is a joint board to which seven county or
156
metropolitan councils appoint. The Lake district has a separate board and is distinct from Cumbria county council. Dartmoor, Northumberland, the Pembrokeshire coast and Snowdonia have single county committees, which is a slightly different way of administering those national parks. The Brecon Beacons, Exmoor, North Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales national parks have multi-county committees. Therefore, it is difficult to bring forward a set of proposals that could be applied to all our national parks.
However, I hope that what I am proposing will go some way to achieving balance in the administration of our national parks. I know that that view is shared by the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), who agrees that we should have more local representation from the local county councils and district councils. I argue strongly that it is the job and within the power of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to appoint people with national expertise in this area and that the local element should come from the councils.
It is the purpose of my Bill to ensure that two thirds of the appointments made by local authorities should have a residential qualification—gained by living in the area of the national park—or should be an elected member of a local authority serving the area of the national park. If a county council seat or division is part of a national park, those serving in that capacity should serve on the national park authority. That would mean that, of the total of 168 local authority appointees, 112 would fall in those categories. That is by no means a majority, because I recognise that the idea behind the "national park" is to give national significance to those parks.
There are 258 appointees in all—168 coming from the local authorities, as I have said, and 84 who are appointed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Therefore, while the Bill would not mean a predominance of local people, it would enable a national point of view to be expressed.
The local element in this is important because there is no other planning authority in the country where one can serve on a planning committee without meeting the requirements of the Local Government Act 1972, which states that a member of a planning board should be a local government elector for the area of the authority; or have occupied as owner or tenant, land or premises in the area for the whole of the preceding 12 months; or have worked in the area during the preceding 12 months, or have lived in the area during the whole of the preceding 12 months.
The Bill is meant as a way forward and as a way of bringing about some elected responsibility in the national parks administration without having to have full elections. I have doubts about full elections to the national parks committees, because it is not right to have an elected body to consider just one issue. I hope that, by striking the two thirds balance and by not saying that all county council nominees should come from the national parks, I have gone some way towards meeting some of the concerns about the establishment of the board.
I hope that I shall have the honour of bringing in my Bill, and I am glad that it will have cross-party support. The Bill aims to ensure locally elected representation on the national parks committees. It does not necessarily mean that locally elected representatives would be given a majority; it simply seeks to ensure that the 238,000 people who live in the national parks have access to elected

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representatives, because planning law for most of the rest of the country is dealt with through local representation. They, too, will have the accountability to the people who elect them to those bodies, thus bringing a more representative form of accountability to the national parks.
I know that the chances of the Bill reaching the statute book are somewhat remote at this stage in the parliamentary year. However, I hope that this important issue will eventually be considered by the Select Committee on the Environment. It is an important issue. Everyone wants to see the national parks continue and thrive in their present form. I am concerned to see some form of local accountability, as I believe that is vital.
3.45 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes rose—
Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Member seeking to oppose the Bill?
Mr. Barnes: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
I have listened carefully to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin). He obviously made some serious points about extending the provision to local representation, but he said that the Bill was intended to arrange for two thirds of the appointees to a planning board to be resident in the area or to be elected representatives serving in that particular area.
I believe that the hon. Member presented the Bill because of his experiences with the Peak park joint planning board, in which he has a considerable interest because of his constituency connections. The problem is that it is over the top to suggest two thirds of the appointees for the Peak park joint planning board. That provision is merely part of the hon. Gentleman's general vendetta against Derbyshire county council.
The situation in Derbyshire is that the Peak park joint planning board has 34 members. Eleven are appointed by the Secretary of State, and I accept that those can be people who have national considerations to bring to bear, as well as important local ones, and 23 members are appointed from various councils, including eight from Derbyshire county council. The problem is that many of those, although not from within the specific area, have a considerable interest in the provisions of the Peak park joint planning board and are willing to devote resources and to assist in the building up of the provisions, which are important not just for the area itself but for the whole of
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Derbyshire and many wider areas, because those areas are represented by members of the board. There may be a need for some rationalisation of membership and there is obviously a case for greater democratisation so that the area is reasonably represented.
However, the proposals of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West would lead to a situation where those members with outside but legitimate interests in the Peak park joint planning board would be eliminated. On those grounds, I oppose the Bill.
Mr. Speaker: The question is, That the hon. Member have leave to bring in his Bill. As many as are of that opinion say, "Aye".
Hon. Members: Aye.
Mr. Speaker: To the contrary, "No."
Hon. Members: Aye.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-West (Mr. Barnes) must sustain his opposition by saying "No".
Mr. Barnes: No.
Mr. Speaker: I think the Ayes have it. The Ayes have it.
Question agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Patrick McLoughlin, Mr. Michael Jopling, Sir Michael Shaw, Mr. A. J. Beith, Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours, Mr. Cecil Franks, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Richard Livsey, Mr. David Davis, Mr. William Hague and Mr. David Curry.

Representation on National Parks

  REPRESENTATION ON NATIONAL PARKS
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin accordingly presented a Bill to confer the right of greater local representation on national park planning committees: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 7 July and to be printed. [Bill 176.]
  Mr. Edward Leigh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a convention of this place that if one speaks against a Ten-minute Bill, one is normally expected to vote against it? Do I take it that we are now allowed to speak against it, but are not required to vote against it?
  Mr. Speaker: The rule is plain. If an hon. Member objects to a Ten-minute Bill he must carry his objection to the extent of shouting, "No." it is not necessary to divide if the Ayes have it, and that is what happened today.

Orders of the Day
  Water Bill
    2ND ALLOTTED DAY
    Lords amendments further considered.
    Clause 146

      ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AUTHORITY
      Lords amendment: No. 155, in page 146, line 10, at end insert—
      "() Every such report shall set out any directions under section 142 above which have been given to the Authority during the year to which the report relates."
      3.50 pm
      Mr. Allan Roberts: I beg to move, amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 4, at end, add
      'with particular reference to any directions concerning the condition of each classification of controlled waters, including the quality of water.'
      Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 156.
      Mr. Roberts: This is the last parliamentary debate on the Government's water suicide Bill. Even before its implementation and the creation of 10 private monopolies, the Bill is unpopular.
      The Government's proposals for water privatisation are unpopular before compulsory metering or a flat rate water poll tax have been introduced. They are unpopular even before the spectacle of a flotation fiasco doomed to partial or total failure despite the hidden write-off of £5·5 billion debt. They are unpopular even before the massive water price increases and the health-threatening increase in disconnections, which will be an inevitable consequence of a doctrinaire obsession with privatisation for its own sake.
      The final arrogance of the Government and the Secretary of State for the Environment was revealed in the Lobby last night when they voted to destroy any pretence they had to being concerned about cleaning up our water environment. Never mind the polls that have revealed the general public's and the informed public's opinion of water privatisation and their opposition to it. Never mind the by-election and Euro-election results. The Government have dealt with the green vote—an expression of concern about the environment—by ridiculing the Green party and its policies. The Government are making a great mistake by pushing the Bill through and by disregarding public opinion and our water environment.
      The creation of 10 private water monopolies will never be acceptable to the British people. Last night, the Government rejected implementing European Community standards of drinking water by 1993. Proper public consultation on land disposal was also rejected by the Government. In Committee and elsewhere they have rejected proposals for land to pass to the National Rivers Authority. They have also rejected our proposals for guarantees of access to the land owned by the water authorities.
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      The Government have agreed to the disposal of land, especially that of natural beauty and in sensitive areas. They have put a moratorium on sewage discharge prose—cutions and they have rejected proposals for the adequate sampling and controlling of river quality. They have rejected our opposition to sub-contracting and the contracting out of NRA functions. The gamekeeper-poacher relationship will therefore remain. They have also rejected our proposals for information on pollution and the integrated water cycle to be made available. They have also rejected amendments that we have tabled for access to other information.
      It is outrageous for the Government to pretend that the Bill is an environmental step forward. They do so in total disregard of the facts. To justify that claim, they hold up the creation of the NRA. Today let us test how sincere the Government are in wanting the NRA to be able to do an effective and worthwhile job and in wanting to give it the staff, resources and powers necessary to do so. Once again, the Bill, the Government—and, I am afraid, the National Rivers Authority—will be found wanting. If the Government are serious about the NRA, they will accept amendment (a), which would strengthen its reporting duties.
      Lords amendment No. 155 requires the NRA's annual report, which is an obligation under clause 146, to contain details of directions given to the NRA by the Secretary of State under clause 142. The position needs clarifying because of the somewhat clouded statement in the Bill that the Secretary of State will make directions. The amendments highlight the need for an open and accountable NRA with sufficient resources to carry out its work and a clear statutory framework in which to ensure the reduction of pollution and the improvement of the environment. The Government gave only limited ground on the accountability of the NRA during discussions on the Bill in another place. They gave more ground, we admit, on the NRA's advisory committees, but they do not have any power. What will the environmental programme consist of during the next five to 10 years? How will it prevent a go-slow in the improvement of sewage treatment works and other pollutants?
      The Government have given no ground on securing a broad representation of interests to serve on the NRA, or on making its proceedings publicly accountable. It is clear that the NRA advisory committee, headed by Lord Crickhowell, is not entirely happy with the Government's proposals for the NRA, especially on staffing and on the amendment, slipped into the Bill during its last stage in another place, relating to a moratorium on prosecutions for pollution from sewage. Indeed, Lord Crickhowell has made it clear that the proposed staffing and resources will be inadequate for the NRA's functions.
      It was interesting to note two advertisements in the same edition of the New Scientist on 24 June 1989. The first said:
      "Influence the Environment; Enjoy the Rewards. Tales of the River Bank. National Rivers Authority. Pollution Officers £9,500 rising to £13,000."
      On the next page another advertisement stated:
      "Scientists/Engineers. Senior Investigations Scientist/ Engineer. Thames Water. £16,000 to £18,000, plus car allowance."
      Someone can earn £9,500 rising to £13,000 as a controller of pollution, but £16,000 to £18,000 as an avoider of the controllers of pollution. The NRA is allowed only to offer

      161
      that salary scale, so it will not recruit staff of the quality and scientific experience needed. The water companies are offering a great deal more money and many more perks.
      Why was the NRA established? The Government wanted a successful flotation and they needed to take away as many of the non-profit-making functions of the water authorities as possible, despite destroying the concept of river management. They are giving those functions, through an act of nationalisation—which it is—to the National Rivers Authority. Water resource planning and licensing of abstraction, monitoring of licences, environmental quality and pollution control, land drainage and flood protection, the maintenance, improvement and development of fisheries in inland waters, conservation and recreation and the navigation responsibilities of three water authorities are all to be given to the NRA so that, on privatisation, people will not be deterred from buying into the water companies.
      Having given all those environmental functions to the NRA, with its inadequate resources and staffing, there remains a list of environmental problems for which anyone buying into the privatised water companies will be responsible, and that will be the Government's downfall. Such people will be buying responsibility for the breakdown of the sewage storm overflows, recently reported in the press, which is polluting our rivers and water courses, and for the 20 per cent. of sewage works which have failed consent levels.
      Those people will be buying responsibility for the 300 beaches that the Government have designated as bathing beaches. The royal commission on environmental pollution identified 600 beaches in Britain as bathing beaches, but 33 per cent. of the 300 beaches, let alone the 600, breached EEC standards. They are buying responsibility for declining river quality. In the 1980s, river quality has declined alarmingly, and after 10 years of a Tory Government, it has worsened. The 1985 river quality survey showed a net deterioration of 803 km, or 2·5 per cent. of total river length in England and Wales. That decline has continued with the net deterioriation of 514 km in 1985. The people buying the private water companies will be buying responsibility for cleaning up our rivers.
      4 pm
      The Government herald the Mersey clean-up as the great feather in their environmentalist cap. During questions on the environment, Conservative Back Benchers plant questions about how much the Rhine pollutes the North sea, because it pollutes it more than the Thames does. But such questions ignore the fact that the River Mersey pollutes the Irish sea, one of the most polluted seas in the world, with sewage sludge dumping and the rest, for which the Government are directly responsible.
      Mr. Robert Adley: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that this is not a planted intervention, and that I am simply trying to follow what he says. If, over the past 10 years under the existing structure, the Government have failed in their responsibility to ensure the environmental purity and supply of water in the way that he has described, may there not be a case for changing the system?
      Mr. Roberts: I suggest a change in the Government. We have had 10 years of Tory Government and 10 years of neglect and pollution, and now their answer to the problem is doctrinaire privatisation, to which the majority of the British public are opposed. It would be good to have a change in Government, in attitude and in the financial regime under which public sector water authorities function, leading to their democratisation.
      Mr. Adley: The hon. Gentleman is not helping his own case. During the early stages of the Bill, I voted against the Government on the powers of the NRA. Cannot the hon. Gentleman comprehend that his doctrinaire comments do not add to an intelligent discussion of some of the important points at issue?
      Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman started this by his provocative intervention, which needed a provocative answer. We require a Government who are not committed to privatising our water industry for doctrinaire reasons, but who are committed to the public expenditure and borrowing necessary to put our water environment in order. That is a reasonable point to make in a political chamber of this nature.
      I was describing the responsibilities that the people to whom the Government are trying to sell the water industry will be buying, and I was talking about the so-called Mersey clean-up.
      A new definition of river quality is needed, for we must be able not only to measure dissolved oxygen as an indicator of sewage pollution, but to use other techniques agreed throughout Europe and in this country to measure chemical pollution. That would alter the whole picture in terms of what is considered to be a clean or dirty river.
      The proposal to take raw sewage from the Mersey and pipe it to Sanden dock in my constituency, and there turn it into sewage sludge after only primary treatment, before dumping it back whence it came, in the Irish sea, in the form of polluted, poisonous sludge, leaves much to be desired—especially in the light of claims that the Mersey will be cleaned up, when in fact it is full of heavy metals, printed circuit boards and many other pollutants.
      Sewage sludge dumping is a major environmental problem and one that the North sea convention, to which the Secretary of State for the Environment is a signatory, intends to end, yet the people buying into privatised water will be buying the dumping of sewage sludge in the North sea. If the Government force the implementation of the North sea convention, as they should, shareholders will also be buying the responsibility for finding alternative ways of disposing of sewage sludge, other than by dumping it in the Irish sea and the North sea.
      Responsibility for doing something about the water industry's aging infrastructure will also be purchased by those buying into water authorities. There is massive underground dereliction. Of the 150,000 miles of sewers, 10 per cent. are more than 100 years old. In 1986, there were 3,500 collapses and 15,000 blockages requiring excavation. In addition, 20 to 30 per cent. of the water leaving reservoirs is, to use the industry's euphemism, unaccounted for. In other words, it leaks out of an aging system. All those problems will be the responsibility of the private sector.
      The Government try to convince the House and the public that the private sector—and the free market, with its profit motive—will deal with all the problems that exist,

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      and that the National Rivers Authority will ensure that they will be dealt with. If the Government are serious about caring for our water environment they will leave the NRA to determine its own pay and staffing levels, which it is not free to do under the current proposals. We should explore the N RA's scope to undertake capital works and the right to borrow both in providing flood defences and making environmental improvements—a power which the Government constantly rejected in Committee.
      The Government argue fallaciously that the Bill is an environmental measure because it will release the water industry from the controls of the public sector borrowing requirement, and that the private sector will be able to borrow all the money that it needs to deal with the problems I have outlined. That is nonsense. How can there be any return on money borrowed in the private sector to undertake environmental improvements on which there will be no profit?
      The truth is that, as the Government admitted, privatisation will cost the consumer. Nothing will come from the Exchequer, and there will be no cushion for the poor, who will face massive increases in water charges. The Government could at a stroke release water authorities from PSBR restrictions that have been imposed for many years, to allow them to borrow the same money from the same source as under privatisation, to be spent on the same environmental projects. It is economic nonsense to say that it is wrong for the public sector to do that, but right for the private sector.
      It may be argued that no public sector operation would be allowed by any Treasury to breach the public sector borrowing requirement. Why, then, does BNFL suffer from no such restrictions? It is set up in such a way that it does not have to suffer from them, despite being in the public sector; so the Government must not tell us that the same cannot apply to the water industry.
      On Second Reading in the other place Lord Crickhowell, whom the Government have just appointed so-called independent chairman of the National Rivers Authority and who used to be a Tory Cabinet Minister, said that he hoped that the Government would, in the financial arrangements made with the National Rivers Authority outside the terms of the Bill, allow the maximum freedom in management terms. There is no likelihood of that happening.
      Various Government statements about the likely contents of the financial memorandum between the Government and the NRA fell somewhat short of the advisory committee's demands, although one concession was made: the control by the Secretary of State and the Treasury over staffing numbers was removed, although detailed control remains over the terms and conditions of staff, once appointed. That is ludicrous. Overall control of the budget has clearly been ceded to the NRA, leaving central Government with a right of veto over comparatively detailed matters only. Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 190 would have given the NRA some opportunity to take the initiative in setting out a likely management structure for its staff, once appointed, with the overall package rather than the individual elements then being effectively subject to the decision of the Secretary of State and the Treasury.
      In regard to borrowing, it quickly became clear in the other place that the Government's real view of the NRA was very different from that which it is trying to portray in public debates. The NRA will have, in the Government's
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      view, only a very limited need for capital resources: that is what they said. Such capital spending as it undertakes will generally be financed from its income through fees and charges. The water undertakers, private landowners and industrial concerns, rather than the NRA, will carry the main responsibility for reducing pollution and cleaning up the country's waterways. Some hope. The myth of the release from the public sector borrowing requirement is clearly illustrated here: all the essential environmental functions of the NRA remain in the public sector, and have not been released from PSBR control.
      The NRA will be placed essentially in a monitoring and sampling role, providing evidence of breaches of discharge consents for the purposes of prosecutions. It will not have much joy under the present Government, because they will not allow the prosecutions. It will also issue licences relating to levels of consents. Breaches of those will be allowed in any event. Apart from flood defence, in which respect the NRA will inherit a substantial responsibility to be exercised with the input of the regional flood defence committees—with the majority of local authority members—the direct impact of the N RA's capital works for environmental improvement will be very small.
      Several questions remain to be answered by the Government. To what degree can the NRA be considered an environmental agency, when it can do so little itself? The Government say that the existing position, whereby the water authorities police themselves for pollution, is wrong, and then go on to say that the Bill will separate the poacher from the gamekeeper. They neglect to emphasise that the NRA can—the Government admit that it will, and that they will encourage it to do so—contract back many of its functions, including regulatory functions, to the private water companies. Thus gamekeeper and poacher will again be one and the same—this time in the private sector, where profit is the motive rather than the environment and the provision of service to the consumer.
      How will the Government guarantee, contrary to all the evidence of recent years, that the private sector will clean up its act? The private sector, the profit motive, has created pollution. It has never willingly cleaned it up, not without Government intervention and strong regulation. The National Rivers Authority will not have the staff, resources or powers to perform that task.
      4.15 pm
      Writing in The Guardian last week, Michael Carney of the Water Authorities Association said, in effect, that money spent on improving the quality of drinking water diverted money away from the improvement of the environment. What does the Secretary of State consider the environmental programme to consist of over the next five to 10 years? How can it help the environment to go slow on improving sewage treatment works and other pollutants which affect the quality of drinking water as well as river water?
      It is interesting to note the way in which the Water Authorities Association comes to the aid of the Government. That organisation is quoted in support of privatisation and in support of the Government's decision not to accept the Lords amendments. We have statements signed by the chair of the association. Such statements are issued as though they were independent and non-political.
      We are talking of 10 water authorities, the 10 chairs of which are appointed by a Tory Secretary of State for the Environment. Indeed, some of them are card-carrying

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      members of the Conservative party and all of them are likely to receive a fourfold increase in salaries when their authorities are privatised. It is hardly surprising that this so-called independent source is in favour of the Government's proposals. It represents about the only set of people—apart from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State—who are in favour of them.
      What claim can the National Rivers Authority have to be a vigorous environmental agency, when its meetings are closed to the public and its members consist of appointees of the Secretary of State, of the same ilk as the 10 chairs of the existing water authorities?
      We have just witnessed the appointment of Julian Taylor and Wyndham Rogers Coltman to the National Rivers Authority. I accept that Mr. Taylor is famous—famous as the former chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company which, it may be recalled, began to initiate the import of waste from America, to be dumped on Manchester Ship Canal Company land and disposed of as a profit-making venture. The ship canal company is not famous for its record in cleaning up pollution. It is famous for contributing significantly to the pollution of the Mersey and the Irish sea. Those are the sort of political appointments that the Government have been making to the National Rivers Authority.
      There was considerable disquiet in the National Rivers Authority about the implications of the transitional measure introduced by the Government on Report in the other place, whereby samples of river water taken by the transfer date were inapplicable to prosecutions mounted after that date. The Government thereby announced, in effect, a one-year moratorium for water undertakers and their sewage treatment works, since non-compliance over a year in 95 per cent. of cases must be demonstrated in relation to each parameter before a case can be founded. It has been obvious to public observers that the Government have cut the ground from under the feet of the National Rivers Authority at the beginning of its activities.
      It will be recalled that Opposition Members argued at the outset of the Committee stage, and again in the other place, that the authority should be established for a year to enable it to commence its work, before the handover to the private sector took place. The Government attacked that proposal, describing it as a delaying measure. The wisdom of our proposal is now clear to see.
      If the Government will not concede that dirty water remains dirty irrespective of the transfer date, they should at least concede that giving the National Rivers Authority a year in which to establish itself—before facing it with privatised organisations which have the prime motivation of circumventing its findings and making a profit—would be the better course.
      The truth is that the Government do not want to allow the National Rivers Authority to establish itself as a real policing and monitoring power in the land, for that would be another deterrent to those whom the Government hope might wish to buy into the privatised water industry.
      We need a body similar to the National Rivers Authority that is provided with the resources, staff and powers to deal not just with the water environment but with the environment generally—air, land and water. They are all related. A strong environmental protection agency
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      must be established in this country. That is Labour party policy. That agency will be established by the next Labour Government and the National Rivers Authority will be part of it.
      Strong regional environmental protection agencies are also needed to look after the water environment as well as the environment generally, and strong staffing at regional level must be provided. Social ownership of the water industry is needed, controlled and run by elected tiers of regional government. Employees and consumers must play a part in its management. That smacks of democracy and causes the Secretary of State for the Environment to groan.
      The British public do not want privatised water companies. They are not expected to be successful. The British public fear the worst. All the evidence is that their fears are well founded. The National Rivers Authority will be inadequate, because it is to be provided with inadequate powers, inadequate resources and insufficient staff. The success of the privatisation of the water industry depends upon there being an inadequate National Rivers Authority. Nobody in his right mind would buy shares in a privatised water industry if he knew that he would have to take on responsibility for cleaning up our water. All he wants to do is make a profit out of his investment.
      Mr. Robert Adley: One might have supposed that the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, would be seeking support from other quarters of the House, apart from his own party, but he has made a pretty poor fist of it.
      Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Adley: The hon. Gentleman should take a leson from the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), who recognises from time to time that if he wants to draw support from beyond the ranks of his own party there are ways of going about it.
      Mr. Roberts rose—
      Mr. Adley: The hon. Gentleman wants to intervene before I have even started.
      Mr. Roberts: I rise just to make the point that so far support for our policies by Conservative Members has not changed the Bill one little bit.
      Mr. Adley: With respect, this is a parliamentary democracy. If it were the policy of the hon. Gentleman's party to change the electoral system, that might be an opportunity for a different debate on a different day—[Interruption.] It is no use the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) waving his arms around. I propose to make a short speech, but the hon. Member for Bootle and his hon. Friends are doing their utmost to prevent some of us from trying to support these amendments.
      I want to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, during this brief debate, he can reassure me that I should go into the Lobby with him later this evening. Having been a Member of Parliament for a few years and having seen the state into which the Labour party managed to drag our economy, I have very little confidence that all the grandiose plans that the hon. Member for Bootle described a few moments ago will ever come to fruition. The three initials that live in the

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      memory from the years of Labour Government are not NRA but IMF. Before contemplating the future of the water industry or any other industry, we should contemplate the way in which any Government can influence the economic progress of the country.
      I am sure that my right hon. Friend recognises that there is a conflict between the environmental disciplines placed in the hands of the National Rivers Authority and the effect that those disciplines may have on the sale price of the water companies. I hope that he can convince me that the Government have got the balance right. I certainly look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend has to say.
      I was happy to vote for the Bill on Second Reading because I believe that the National Rivers Authority represents an important step forward, as I said in my first intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Bootle. The separation of functions is important. It is only a pity that the hon. Gentleman was so churlish as not to be prepared to recognise the advantages that that proposal could mean for water supply and environmental pollution improvements in Britain.
      I do not go along with the proposition that privatisation is a panacea for all the industry's ills or that it is a diabolical plot to poison our constituents. However, the number of public telephone boxes now in operation that were formerly out of action and vandalised when British Telecom was in the public sector does not lead me to the same conclusion as the hon. Member for Bootle —that there is a dichotomy between private sector operation and good public service. There are plenty of examples in the privatisations of the past few years to show that good private sector management can provide as good, if not better, service to the consumer at just as acceptable a cost as it was provided in the public sector.
      Finally, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can convince me that the Government have got the right balance between sales price and environmental discipline.
      Mr. Richard Livsey: The debate about the ability of the NRA to publish more facts than is provided for in the Bill is essential. The problem is that when the NRA was mooted and debated thoroughly in Committee, it was widely welcomed by hon. Members on both sides as an essential body for environmental protection in the water industry. It was felt that the NRA would be effective. When we examined the record of our rivers and water policy of the past 15 years, we all welcomed the introduction of the NRA. During the passage of the Bill through the House, the NRA appears to have become less effective. We know that it will not be adequately funded to carry out its duties in the way that we would wish. That is regrettable as apparently the NRA will not be able to publish sufficient information by which we can judge its effectiveness.
      We should support the amendment which would enable the NRA to report on water quality and the status of our rivers and to run from one year to the next in saying what progress it is making in cleaning up the water environment. But it looks as though that will not happen. If the amendment is not accepted, the Secretary of State will have a free hand, and the NRA will be able to publish the minimum amount of information by which to judge its
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      effectiveness. I hope that the Secretary of State will correct me if that is not the case, but it appears that that will happen under the Bill.
      The amendment highlights the need for an open and accountable National Rivers Authority and will ensure that sufficient resources are available to enable it to function properly. The problem is that the Treasury will have to fund the NRA in part. As has already been mentioned, given the salaries of staff in the NRA, it will be unable adequately to compete with the powerful water plcs. It is wrong that the water plcs should have everything loaded in their favour while the environmental protection agency—the NRA—will be unable to protect the environment adequately. Any pretensions that the Government have to protecting the environment are being thrown away by diluting the effectiveness of the NRA. The fact that Lord Crickhowell is unhappy about the NRA does not augur well for the future.
      The Government would be wise to listen to the arguments that the NRA should be more effective and better financed and have the high-quality staff that are necessary to monitor water effectively. The danger is that, in the first years of operation, the water plcs will have all the resources necessary to test water quality yet the NRA will be scraping around looking for laboratory facilities to do that testing.
      4.30pm
      There was considerable debate on these matters in the other place. There is a case for freeing the NRA in terms of pay and staff structure. There is a case, too, for giving it more freedom to undertake capital works and extending its right to borrow for flood protection schemes and so on. That information should be published annually, as the Lords amendment requires. The NRA should have maximum freedom to manage.
      The Government's view is very different. They wish to limit the NRA's capital resources. They cannot say that they are producing an effective gamekeeper and then proceed to neuter its effectiveness. I fear for the future unless the NRA can publish the requisite information by which the public can judge its effectiveness and unless the Government are prepared to provide it with the staff and facilities to ensure that it is a proper environmental agency. I hope that the Secretary of State can reassure me, but I fear that he faces an uphill task.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows, I am one of those Conservative Members who, since Second Reading, have consistently opposed the Bill as being unwanted and unnecessary. I associate myself, however, with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley). If the Opposition were seeking to maintain cross-party support in these debates, I regret to say that the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) did their cause no good.
      Mr. Allan Roberts: There has been cross-party support. There have been a few "rebels", as the Conservative party likes to portray them in the press. Conservative Members have made no significant attempt to alter or defeat any part of the Bill.
      Mr. Winterton: That is hardly an appropriate intervention. I should have thought that voting in this place showed an intention to defeat a particular measure,

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      and perhaps that is the only truly democratic way of going about it. If the hon. Member for Bootle looks at the political position of those who oppose the measure, he will see that there was support across the spectrum of the broad church of the Tory party. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is traditionally put on the Left of the Tory party whereas I am traditionally put on its Right. There are others in between. There was a broad church of people—[Interruption] Indeed, it did not, but that has not prevented us from showing our feelings vocally and participating, when appropriate, in debates.
      Because the NRA is perhaps the only true safeguard in the Bill for the consumer, the amendments are relevant. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can make some concessions. If the National Rivers Authority has inadequate funds and powers to do its job, the Bill will be a fraud. There will be no protection for the consumer or the environment.
      One reason why I have consistently opposed the Bill in recent times is that I do not believe that a private monopoly is more efficient or beneficial to the country than a public monopoly. A monopoly exists. Therefore, the National Rivers Authority is the one and only safeguard. If it cannot match the remuneration that will be offered to the staff of the new private water undertakers and if it has inadequate resources for capital expenditure, it cannot fulfil the role that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends for it in the provision of water and sewerage facilities.
      If matters are to improve after the Bill, will the National Rivers Authority be able to assist my constituents in the Wildboarclough valley, who were recently devastated by a flash flood? I am ready to be persuaded to the contrary by my right hon. Friend, but the North West water authority is not prepared to take any responsibility for what happened. It will undertake no remedial works—not even restore the Clough brook, which flows into the Dane, to its original course. It will be the responsibility of the county council, as the highway authority, and local farmers and riparian owners.
      Will the Bill improve matters? Will the National Rivers Authority be prepared to spend some money on flood protection in the Wildboarclough valley and the surrounding areas and try to ensure that another flood such as the one that affected my constituency on 24 May will not occur again and that the devastation will be reduced?
      It is extraordinary how the river authorities and, I suppose, the new private undertakings will ensure that people who extract water in any place throughout the United Kingdom will have to pay a fee. They currently pay a fee to the North West water authority and other water authorities. The North West water authority currently takes no responsibility for, and is not even prepared to assist in repairing, the dreadful damage that occurred.
      Mr. Edward Leigh: My hon. Friend is clearly approaching his peroration. He said that the only protection for the consumer will be through the National Rivers Authority, though that ignores the role of the Director General of Water Services. First, will he explain how, but for privatisation, the NRA would ever have been set up by any Government?
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      Secondly, what protection is given to the consumer under present arrangements by which water authorities set standards and also police themselves?
      Mr. Winterton: Those matters have been covered extremely adequately. The tragedy is that they could have been dealt with without privatising the water undertakings.
      Mr. David Alton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's case, which he is making most persuasively. To aid his argument, may I point out that the North West water authority has given deemed consent under the existing arrangements to 200 companies to pollute the River Mersey. Is that not an example of irresponsibility—the very point that the hon. Gentleman is making? There have been paltry fines of £600 or so on average in the past few years when massive pollution has been taking place. Will the position be made worse by the new regulations?
      Mr. Winterton: I am tempted to go back over the many hours of debate that have taken place in the House and elsewhere, but that would be inappropriate because we are considering specific amendments that have been passed in another place. We should be directing our remarks to the role and responsibility of the National Rivers Authority and the resources that it will have available to fulfil its vital duties on behalf of the consumer.
      Unless my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can meet some of the opinions and concerns expressed in this short debate and articulated clearly here and in another place, I shall have no alternative but to support the Opposition's amendments. Having said that, I point out to the hon. Member for Bootle that any Government would use all the powers of the establishment that they could muster in such circumstances. A Labour Government would do precisely the same: they would muster their votes to ensure that any opposition—even from their own supporters—was crushed and brushed out of the way. That does not stop hon. Members who sincerely believe what they are saying standing up and telling their Government, "I think that you should think again."
      I am addressing my remarks to the amendments, but I should love to crush the Bill altogether. Even at this late stage I emphasise to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that it would be beneficial to the party and the country if the Bill were dropped. I have not met a single Tory who wants it. It is an electoral disaster and it will not achieve any of the objectives that the Government have set for it.
      The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I shall pass over the speech of the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts)—
      Mr. Allan Roberts: Why? It had some questions in it.
      Mr. Ridley: —until the end of my brief remarks.
      Mr. Roberts: Does that mean that the Secretary of State will answer the questions?
      Mr. Ridley: I shall answer my two hon. Friends, the Members for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who even expressed a tiny bit of reservation about some aspects of the Bill, surprising though that is. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said that he has never met a Tory who was in

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      favour of the Bill; I should love to have a cup of tea with him. He asked about flood protection. I can tell him that that will become a responsibility of the National Rivers Authority, which will have the full powers and finance to deal with it. I hope that that reassures him.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch sees a conflict in theory between the environmental duties of the water companies, as they will become, and the need of investors to invest viably and not at a loss. The Conservative party has always resolved that conflict through regulation—whether for health and safety matters, for fire precautions or to prevent child labour. That was so in the 19th century; it has been so for pollution control in recent years and it is so in this Bill, which vests the power to regulate in the NRA. The Bill also provides for account to be taken of the economic consequences of the standards that have to be met—first, in the setting of the K factor, which is the amount that the companies can charge their customers in the pricing formula, and secondly by allowing unforeseen investment arising from an unforeseen development, such as, for example, a higher European Community standard, to be met by the companies through the cost pass-through mechanism.
      The Bill thus squares the dilemma in a way that it has not been squared under public ownership. As we have learnt from the Labour party—and as has been the experience of this Government—the only way of squaring it under public ownership was to bargain behind the closed doors of the Treasury for as much cash as one could get and then to adjust the standards to suit the cash. That is the wrong way round, and that point is crucial to the Bill.
      I do not believe that the Lords amendment is a touchstone of the virility of the NRA, as the hon. Members for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) and for Bootle seem to think. Amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 155 would require directions under clause 102 on the classification of controlled waters to be set out in the NRA's annual report. There is no need for that, as the clause makes quite clear the respective responsibilities of the Secretary of State and the NRA. I shall have responsibility to publish a great deal of information and it is to be hoped that the NRA will add to the matters that it is already required to publish. It will be free to supplement that information as it wishes in its annual report. Only where the role of Ministers is less specifically defined is there a case for requiring the NRA's annual report to spell out the fact that the authority has received a ministerial direction. In respect of water quality objectives, the Bill makes Ministers' role absolutely explicit. The House will not therefore wish to accept the Opposition's amendment.
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Elliot Morley: Does the Secretary of State agree that there is a problem of over-abstraction in chalk streams, rivers and waterways throughout the country? Many feel that the Lords amendment is missing a requirement on the NRA to report on abstraction licences and the control of water abstraction. Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that that should be dealt with? Can he give us assurances that that question will be considered in relation to the NRA's report?
      Mr. Ridley: I am sure that that is an important matter, and I agree that it should be made public. I see no reason why the NRA would not want to make it public. If hon. Members wrote to the NRA, no doubt the body would give them a full explanation of the situation in their area. There is no secrecy involved; we are talking not about the freedom and flexibility that we give the NRA but about the duties we place upon it.
      Hon. Members may know that we have included in the Bill a power for the NRA to borrow in cases of emergency—for example, when serious flooding or erosion of the sea wall requires extra special work in a short period and extra special cost beyond what it is reasonable to precept on the local authorities in one year. The NRA's finance will be from Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food grant and precepts on the local authority for flood protection and sea defence. To the extent that the NRA might be involved in capital works, the necessary powers already exist in the Bill. In the normal course of replacing flood defences and sea walls, however, the NRA will have a programme for which it can precept annually and will not, therefore, need to borrow. I do not believe that there is a problem.
      The gross error of thinking revealed by the hon. Member for Bootle was that the NRA would become an environmental investor. After listening for 200 hours to our debates on the Bill, the hon. Gentleman made a classic mistake. He said that we were removing from the water companies the non-commercial operations so that the companies would become more profitable. We are not doing that at all. We are removing the regulatory function from the water companies, so that the NRA can discharge its responsibilities to the House and the public, and control standards. The investment in environmental improvements—in drinking water, treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, new pipes and so on—which are the major investments, will be undertaken by the companies. The NRA will set the standards that the companies must reach by a certain period, monitor their activities and enforce standards if the companies do not reach them of their own accord. Nowhere in that model system of regulation is there a need for the NRA to invest in works of environmental improvement—except in flood defences and sea protection. So the hon. Member for Bootle has it wrong.
      The more that the Opposition and the hon. Member for Bootle continue to damn, inaccurately and misleadingly, the present water environment—I admit that there are blemishes, although nothing like to the extent that the hon. Gentleman says—the more they make the case for the Bill and the case for separating the functions of regulation and investment to achieve the required standards. The hon. Gentleman has never been able to get it right whether he is opposing the Bill because the water industry is in a fine state under public ownership, or whether he is speaking in favour of the Bill because the water environment is in a mess.
      The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor asked whether the National Rivers Authority would have the necessary funding to carry out its operations. I have given the answer many times before, as is true of all the arguments on the Bill. The sources of the NRA's funding for flood defence are local authority precepts and grants from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. That is separate from any other of its activities and in no

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      sense will the Government influence what it decides it wants to do on precepts. It will have borrowing powers in relation to that.
      The authority's water resources functions, which are the important river basin management functions, will be funded entirely from charges on abstractions including the new water plcs, and there will be a new charge in accordance with the principle, to which I think that the hon. Member for Bootle subscribes, that the polluter pays. The dischargers—the water plcs in relation to sewage and the industrialists in relation to industrial waste—will contribute towards the cost of pollution control through a charge for discharge consents.
      Mr. Alton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Ridley: No, because I have nearly finished.
      The remaining quarter of NRA expenditure, which on present figures will be about £70 million, will be met by Exchequer grant. There is no question of starving the authority. The Government accept the argument of the House that it is necessary to fund the NRA properly so that it can discharge its important functions fully and properly.
      If we are to fund it in that way, as we must, the House, especially through the Select Committee on Public Accounts, will rightly insist that we ensure that the £70 million is spent properly on the functions for which the NRA is designed. As is the case with all public servants, we must ensure that the funds are not used for profligate over-spending on the salaries and expenses of members of staff. There must be proper accountability to the House, just as there is for the staff of the House of Commons, for the staff of my own Department and for the staff of all nationalised industries. There must be proper accountability for public money.
      I repeat that the worry the Opposition have tried to instill in the public—although they concede that the NRA is highly necessary and long overdue—that we are trying to muck the NRA for a ha'porth of tar is typical of the hon. Member for Bootle and his hon. Friends. So deep is their ignorance and antipathy that they can never bring themselves to admit for once that the Government have got it right. On this occasion, they have.
      Mr. Peter L. Pike: If the Secretary of State believes for one moment that the Government have got it right on the functions of the NRA he shows, once again, how mistaken he is. The Opposition have repeatedly made it clear that we support the establishment of the NRA. However, we are most concerned that it should have the necessary funding and powers to carry out its duties satifactorily. I am sure that at least the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) agree with that point, as do those whose concerns they were expressing.
      We believe that the regulatory function should be separate from investment. The Secretary of State said earlier that we did not agree with that principle, but he was wrong. We agree that the gamekeeper and poacher aspects should be separate and, therefore, that the regulatory and investment functions should be separate. But there is no reason why that cannot be done with the industry left in the public sector and with investment made by the public sector to deal with the problems facing the water industry.
      174
      The problems, whether river pollution, sewage treatment works, water quality or river quality, could and should be solved in the public sector.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) referred in an intervention to a problem that we are unable to discuss today—overabstraction. He will recognise that, because of the very nature of our debates yesterday and today, and the imposition of a guillotine, there are many important issues that we shall be unable to debate at all, including the most important aspect of the Bill—the regulatory authority—to which this House and the public look to ensure a proper quality of supplies and sewage treatment in future. We are unable to debate that sufficiently because the Government have seen fit to impose a guillotine and have provided insufficient time for that aspect of the Bill to be debated properly. The Secretary of State—
      Mr. Kenneth Hind: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Pike: No, because I have only four minutes in which to speak.
      The Secretary of State is well aware that, in its third report, the Select Committee on the Environment, when proposing that the gamekeeper and poacher functions should be separate, said:
      "It would give us cause for very real alarm if the present water pollution inspectorate (or a new unified and independent regulatory body)—
      that is, the National Rivers Authority—
      "were not given adequate staffing, resources and the necessary powers to oversee the activities of a privatised water industry."
      That is the position that we have now reached. We are establishing an independent body, the National Rivers Authority, but we are not giving it the powers, the functions or the ability to be seen openly to carry out its functions to the satisfaction of the public. I stress the word "public". It is not only the Government and the House but the public who have a right to be satisfied that these matters are being dealt with properly.
      I received today a letter from the Prime Minister's office, which said:
      "An independent regulator is being given legislative teeth to impose high standards in the public interest."
      Clearly, the Prime Minister herself does not know that the Government are removing the teeth from the National Rivers Authority and ensuring that it cannot carry out its functions.
      The hon. Member for Macclesfield said that if the National Rivers Authority is unable to offer the salaries to attract the right staff, that will weaken its basis from the start. In addition, the concession that the authority cannot take action against the water companies as a result of what has happened in the interim period is an outrage and shows the direction in which the Government intend to go.
      There is a danger that, once the industry is in the private sector, profit will become more important than dealing with pollution and ensuring that we have a satisfactory quality of supply. The Government are dedicated above all to profit and pay only lip-service to green issues. They have put a veneer on the Bill and pretend that it is a green Bill. They will allow relaxation after relaxation to ensure that the privatised industry can make the profits they want it to make to attract people to invest in it.
      I have a letter from North West Water which says:

      175
      "The input of these pollutional loads to the River Brun and hence to Rowley Lake is now considered unacceptable".
      The discharge of treated sewage effluent from Worsthorne sewage treatment works does not comply with the conditions of consent. However, action cannot be taken against those polluters because of the power to exclude the present one-year moratorium. The letter continues:
      "There is also a storm sewage overflow upstream of the sewage works which does and is designed to release the flow of sewage arriving at the works in extreme weather conditions."
      Those are the problems facing the industry. Hon. Member after hon. Member could itemise the different sewage works which do not meet the consent levels but which will be allowed to get away with it.
      The Government are not really in favour of ensuring that the National Rivers Authority can carry out its functions. Although the principle may be right, the Government are not giving the N RA the teeth, the staffing or the resources to carry out its functions properly. However, they are not prepared to be seen to be doing that in the open. Once again, the Government will fail to ensure that our water quality is brought up to standard, even though the public are entitled to that. I hope that the amendment will be carried.
      Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 197, Noes 302.

      Division No. 276]

      [5.00 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Cryer, Bob

      Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

      Cunningham, Dr John

      Adley, Robert

      Dalyell, Tam

      Allen, Graham

      Darling, Alistair

      Alton, David

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      Anderson, Donald

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

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

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Dewar, Donald

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Dixon, Don

      Ashton, Joe

      Dobson, Frank

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      Douglas, Dick

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

      Battle, John

      Eastham, Ken

      Beckett, Margaret

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Beith, A. J.

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Bell, Stuart

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

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Flannery, Martin

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

      Flynn, Paul

      Blair, Tony

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Blunkett, David

      Foster, Derek

      Boateng, Paul

      Foulkes, George

      Bradley, Keith

      Fraser, John

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Galbraith, Sam

      Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

      Galloway, George

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Garrett, John (Norwich South)

      Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Buckley, George J.

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Caborn, Richard

      Gordon, Mildred

      Callaghan, Jim

      Gould, Bryan

      Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

      Graham, Thomas

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Cartwright, John

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      Grocott, Bruce

      Clay, Bob

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Clelland, David

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

      Henderson, Doug

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Hinchliffe, David

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

      Cousins, Jim

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Crowther, Stan

      Hood, Jimmy

      176

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Howells, Geraint

      Pendry, Tom

      Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

      Pike, Peter L.

      Hoyle, Doug

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Prescott, John

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Radice, Giles

      Ingram, Adam

      Randall, Stuart

      Janner, Greville

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Richardson, Jo

      Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Robertson, George

      Kennedy, Charles

      Rooker, Jeff

      Kilfedder, James

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

      Rowlands, Ted

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Ruddock, Joan

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Lewis, Terry

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Livsey, Richard

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

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

      Loyden, Eddie

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

      McAllion, John

      Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

      McCartney, Ian

      Snape, Peter

      McFall, John

      Soley, Clive

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Spearing, Nigel

      McKelvey, William

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      McLeish, Henry

      Steinberg, Gerry

      McWilliam, John

      Stott, Roger

      Madden, Max

      Strang, Gavin

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Straw, Jack

      Marek, Dr John

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Turner, Dennis

      Martlew, Eric

      Vaz, Keith

      Maxton, John

      Wall, Pat

      Meacher, Michael

      Wallace, James

      Meale, Alan

      Walley, Joan

      Michael, Alun

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Wareing, Robert N.

      Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

      Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Wilson, Brian

      Morgan, Rhodri

      Winnick, David

      Morley, Elliott

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Worthington, Tony

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Mullin, Chris

      Murphy, Paul

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Nellist, Dave

      Mr. Frank Haynes and

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Mr. Martyn Jones.

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Body, Sir Richard

      Amess, David

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Amos, Alan

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Arbuthnot, James

      Boswell, Tim

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Bottomley, Peter

      Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Ashby, David

      Bowis, John

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Baldry, Tony

      Brazier, Julian

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Bright, Graham

      Batiste, Spencer

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Bellingham, Henry

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

      Bendall, Vivian

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Benyon, W.

      Buck, Sir Antony

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Burns, Simon

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Burt, Alistair

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Butler, Chris

      Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      177

      Carrington, Matthew

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Carttiss, Michael

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Cash, William

      Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

      Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Hind, Kenneth

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Churchill, Mr

      Holt, Richard

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Howard, Michael

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

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

      Colvin, Michael

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Conway, Derek

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

      Cope, Rt Hon John

      Hunt, David (Wirral W)

      Cormack, Patrick

      Hunter, Andrew

      Couchman, James

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Cran, James

      Irvine, Michael

      Critchley, Julian

      Irving, Charles

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Jack, Michael

      Curry, David

      Jackson, Robert

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

      Janman, Tim

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Day, Stephen

      Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

      Devlin, Tim

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Key, Robert

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Dover, Den

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Dunn, Bob

      Knapman, Roger

      Dykes, Hugh

      Knight, Greg (Derby North)

      Eggar, Tim

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      Knowles, Michael

      Evennett, David

      Knox, David

      Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Fallon, Michael

      Lang, Ian

      Favell, Tony

      Latham, Michael

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Fishburn, John Dudley

      Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

      Forman, Nigel

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Forth, Eric

      Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Lilley, Peter

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

      Franks, Cecil

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Freeman, Roger

      Luce, Rt Hon Richard

      French, Douglas

      Lyell, Sir Nicholas

      Fry, Peter

      McCrindle, Robert

      Gardiner, George

      Macfarlane, Sir Neil

      Gill, Christopher

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Maclean, David

      Goodlad, Alastair

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      Madel, David

      Gorst, John

      Malins, Humfrey

      Gow, Ian

      Mans, Keith

      Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

      Maples, John

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Marland, Paul

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Marlow, Tony

      Gregory, Conal

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Grist, Ian

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Ground, Patrick

      Mates, Michael

      Grylls, Michael

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Hague, William

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

      Miller, Sir Hal

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Mills, Iain

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Hannam, John

      Mitchell, Sir David

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

      Moate, Roger

      Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Hayes, Jerry

      Moore, Rt Hon John

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Morrison, Sir Charles

      Hayward, Robert

      Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Moss, Malcolm

      Heddle, John

      Moynihan, Hon Colin

      178

      Mudd, David

      Stevens, Lewis

      Neale, Gerrard

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Neubert, Michael

      Stokes, Sir John

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Sumberg, David

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

      Summerson, Hugo

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Norris, Steve

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Page, Richard

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Paice, James

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

      Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

      Patnick, Irvine

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Patten, John (Oxford W)

      Thome, Neil

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Pawsey, James

      Thurnham, Peter

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Tracey, Richard

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Tredinnick, David

      Price, Sir David

      Trippier, David

      Raffan, Keith

      Trotter, Neville

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Redwood, John

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Riddick, Graham

      Waddington, Rt Hon David

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Ridsdale, Sir Julian

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Walden, George

      Rossi, Sir Hugh

      Walker, Bill (T'side North)

      Rost, Peter

      Waller, Gary

      Rowe, Andrew

      Walters, Sir Dennis

      Ryder, Richard

      Ward, John

      Sackville, Hon Tom

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Sainsbury, Hon Tim

      Warren, Kenneth

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Watts, John

      Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Wells, Bowen

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Wheeler, John

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Whitney, Ray

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Wilkinson, John

      Shersby, Michael

      Wilshire, David

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Wolfson, Mark

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Wood, Timothy

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Woodcock, Dr. Mike

      Speller, Tony

      Yeo, Tim

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Squire, Robin

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Steen, Anthony

      Mr. Tony Durant and

      Stern, Michael

      Mr. David Lightbown.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Lords amendment No. 155 agreed to.
      It being after Five o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to order [3 July], to put .forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.
      Lords amendments Nos. 117 to 154, 156 to 237, 267 and 277 agreed to.—[Some with Special Entry.]

  Schedule 18

    POWERS WITH RESPECT TO THE LAYING AND MAINTENANCE OF PIPES ETC.
    Lords amendment: No. 238, in page 267, line 13, leave out from "description;" to end of line 15 and insert—
    "(ii) the power conferred by virtue of sub-paragraph (1)(bb) above; and
    (iii) each of the powers conferred in relation to the powers mentioned in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) above by virtue of sub-paragraph (1)(c) above,"
    The Minister for Water and Planning (Mr. Michael Howard): I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendment No. 239 and the Government motion to disagree, together with Government amendments (a), (b) and (c) in lieu thereof, Lords amendment No. 240 and the Government motion to disagree with the amendment.
    Mr. Howard: Schedule 18 sets out the powers under which the authority and water and sewerage undertakers are able to lay and repair pipes and carry out associated works. They are generally able to exercise their pipe-laying powers after serving reasonable notice on the owner and occupier of the land.
    The purpose of amendments Nos. 239 and 240 is to require the authority and undertakers generally to seek the consent of the owner and occupier of the land before exercising the powers. The power to lay pipes after serving reasonable notice would be limited to cases of emergency, cases where the undertaker is complying with a requisition to provide a main or sewer and cases where the Secretary of State determines that it would be exceptionally difficult to obtain the consent of every owner and occupier concerned.
    The overall effect of those amendments would be severely to inhibit the ability of undertakers to meet effectively the requirements placed on them to provide the water and sewerage services that are essential to public health.
    While there may seem to be a superficial reasonableness about the amendments, in practice they would impose extremely cumbersome arrangements on the Secretary of State and undertakers, which would to a large extent defeat the whole object of the pipe-laying powers. Far from merely limiting those powers in a sensible way, the amendments would in fact undermine them.
    It is self-evident that imposing a requirement to obtain the consent of every landowner and every occupier will cause delay. Whether it is a case involving many landowners and occupiers along the route or only a few, negotiations can be protracted as each person affected attempts to persuade the undertaker to go elsewhere, to delay entry or to give greater compensation or some other advantage over everyone else. Where negotiations break down, the amendments provide for the Secretary of State to determine whether consent is being unreasonably withheld. That would be a quasi-judicial process which is bound to take some months to determine, particularly if the person withholding the consent does not co-operate with the process or if local inquiries are involved.
    The amendments provide for some exceptions. They provide for the Secretary of State to be able to determine whether it would be exceptionally difficult to obtain within a reasonable time the consent of every owner and occupier concerned. But that would be a very difficult jurisdiction for the Secretary of State to exercise. There would have to be strong evidence that an attempt to use the normal consent procedure would involve exceptional difficulty beyond the normal length of those protracted processes. The Secretary of State would need to consider representations from the parties involved, perhaps to take independent advice or even to hold a local inquiry. There
    180
    would then of course be the possibility of further delay by dissatisfied parties seeking to challenge the Secretary of State's decision by way of judicial review.
    5.15 pm
    The amendments are particularly unreasonable when considered in the context of our European Community obligations. On the one hand, Opposition Members urge us to comply with those obligations, in particular the drinking water directive, to an impracticable time scale, while on the other they support moves to remove from the Bill the very powers that water and sewerage undertakers will need to meet those commitments. If the operational capabilities of water and sewerage undertakers are constrained in the way proposed by the amendments, there is certain to be a considerable deterioration in the pace at which we can expect to see the improvements that we all want in the quality of our drinking water and standards of our bathing beaches.
    I know that in retaining the existing powers of water authorities to lay pipes on notice, we would be preserving the unique position of the water industry as the only public utility with such powers. The water industry can, however, properly be regarded in a different context from other utilities. Satisfactory water supply and sewerage arrangements are essential to public health. The undertakers need those powers to be able to carry out the major improvement programmes necessary to meet the European Community requirements on public water supplies and to ensure the improvement in the cleanliness of our beaches—matters which we are constantly told should be taken forward more rapidly. The water industry does not generally have the operational advantages of other utilities. The route of water and sewer pipes is often determined by the need for gravitational flows, which is a restriction that does not apply elsewhere.
    I appreciate that some landowners are dissatisfied with the levels of compensation paid in those cases. The Bill provides for full and fair compensation to be paid in cases where the value of the land is depreciated or loss or damage is caused as a result of the exercise of pipe-laying powers. The grounds on which compensation is paid following the exercise of those powers are being brought into line with the compensation provisions which apply to other utilities. Landowners affected by the exercise of those powers by the water industry will therefore be able to claim compensation on the same grounds as those affected by similar operations of other utilities. The Bill also provides for disputes over the amount of compensation to be referred to the Lands Tribunal.
    I am well aware of the scope that those powers offer for arbitrary behaviour on the part of undertakers. I know that there have been occasions in the past when landowners have suffered from unreasonable actions. It is for those reasons that we have taken significant steps to protect the interests of landowners.
    First, the Bill provides for the powers to be subject to a statutory code of practice to be submitted by the undertakers to the Secretary of State for approval. Unlike the voluntary codes which exist in some water authorities, the codes will be mandatory and the powers will be subject to the oversight of the director general. The Department has produced a model code, on which the statutory codes will be based, in consultation with the water industry and landowning interests. The code will cover all aspects of the pipe-laying process. In particular, it will contain

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    provisions requiring undertakers to provide information to owners and occupiers about the works, to plan the works to cause the minimum inconvenience to landowners and to restore the land, once the work is complete, to its original condition. Undertakers will be required to act in a reasonable way at all times. I believe the model code strikes the right balance between the need to ensure that landowning interests are protected and the reasonable needs of undertakers.
    Mr. Roger Knapman: Does the model code cover interest on outstanding loans in compensation claims?
    Mr. Howard: In the Bill we do not propose any change to the existing arrangements relating to interest. My hon. Friend will be aware that we have separately issued a consultation document that deals with the payment of interest on compensation in compulsory purchase cases. We shall be announcing the results of that compensation exercise in due course.
    The second step we have taken is to provide in clause 156 for the director general to direct an undertaker to make a payment to the complainant, up to a maximum of £1,000—which we propose should be increased to £5,000 —if he is satisfied that an undertaker has failed to consult the owner and occupier before or during pipe-laying, or by acting unreasonably has caused them to suffer loss or damage or to be inconvenienced. This provision will help to ensure that undertakers act reasonably when exercising their powers.
    Finally, my noble Friend the Minister for Housing, Environment and Countryside introduced in the other place a new requirement on undertakers. Lords amendment No. 161 requires undertakers to alter or remove a pipe in response to a reasonable request from a person with an interest in the land where the pipe is installed, or on adjacent land. There will be recourse to the director general in cases where a person considers that an undertaker has refused to comply with a reasonable request to move a pipe. An undertaker will be able to recover from the person the expenses it reasonably incurs in carrying out the works. That will go a long way to ensuring that the presence of undertakers' pipes on private land does not unreasonably hinder any subsequent development of that land.
    I know that, in accepting amendments Nos. 238 and 240, the other place was greatly concerned about the powers that will be available to the water industry and the scope they offer for inconsiderate behaviour. The powers are, however, essential for operational, and more importantly public health, reasons. Knowing the strength of feeling on this issue, I have given very serious consideration to the views expressed in both Houses when the issue has been debated. With the leave of the House, I propose to move the amendments on the marshalled list in lieu of Lords amendment No. 239, which will improve still further the protection of the interest of landowners provided in the Bill, while at the same time preserving those essential powers.
    The amendments provide that, when exercising their powers in order to lay new pipes, undertakers will be required to give a minimum of three months' notice. A minimum of 42 days notice would be required in the case
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    of replacement or repair of existing pipes. The only exceptions to those arrangements would be cases of emergency and the exercise of the powers in response to a requisition to provide a main or sewer or a request to provide a service pipe when the undertaker is required to comply within a statutory time limit. Those notice periods are intended to ensure that the examples of the exercise of the powers following an unreasonably short period of notice that have concerned Members of both Houses are not repeated.
    The amendments also contain a further measure designed to ensure reasonable behaviour by undertakers. It provides for the maximum payment which the director general can direct an undertaker to make to a complainant under clause 156 to be increased from £1,000 to £5,000.
    Finally, the amendments provide for the Secretary of State to make regulations to provide for advance payment of compensation in respect of the exercise of the powers. I can give the House an undertaking that the regulations will be made in time to come into force on transfer date. They will follow the precedent of section 52 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 and provide for advance payments of 90 per cent. of the agreed amount of compensation or 90 per cent. of the compensation as estimated by the undertaker. The advance payment will be made not later than three months after such a payment is requested.
    The provisions contained in these amendments, together with those in the code of practice, will fully meet the concerns of the other place. The Bill will specify the periods of notice that an undertaker must give before entering land, and the undertaker will be required by the code of practice to provide information to the owner and occupier about the purpose of the works, including the nature, route and timing of works. Those requirements, combined with the provisions in clause 156 for the director general to direct an undertaker to make a payment, now up to £5,000, in cases where the undertaker has failed to consult a complainant or has acted unreasonably in exercising the powers will, I believe, deal extremely effectively with the legitimate concerns of landowners.
    The provisions brought forward in these amendments have the agreement of the movers of Lords amendments Nos. 239 and 240 in the other place. I therefore urge hon. Members to disagree with the Lords in amendments 239 and 240. They would not only impose a severe constraint on the ability of undertakers to perform their statutory duties, including those to meet EC obligations, but in putting pressure on undertakers to agree, in effect, ransom payments to landowners would be to the detriment of consumers generally. The House should also disagree with amendment No. 238 since, as a consequence of the amendments we are now moving, it is unnecessary.
    I recommend to the House amendments on the marshalled list in lieu of Lords amendment No. 239, which will improve the protection afforded to landowners while preserving the powers of undertakers to meet their statutory obligations. I commend them to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 238 disagreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 239 disagreed to.

  Clause 156

    COMPLAINTS WITH RESPECT TO THE EXERCISE OF WORKS POWERS ON PRIVATE LAND
    Amendment made in lieu of Lords amendment No. 239:
    (a), in page 156, line 26, leave out '£1,000' and insert `£5,000'.

  Schedule 18

    POWERS WITH RESPECT TO THE LAYING AND MAINTENANCE OF PIPES ETC
    Amendment made in lieu of Lords amendment No. 239:
    (b), in page 267, leave out lines 11 to 20 and insert
    'only after reasonable notice of the proposed exercise of the power has been given to the owner and to the occupier of the land where the power is to be exercised.
    (5) Subject to sub-paragraph (6) below, in relation to any exercise of the powers conferred by this paragraph for the purpose of laying or altering a relevant pipe, the minimum period that is capable of constituting reasonable notice for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) above shall be deemed—

    (a) where the power is exercised for the purpose of laying a relevant pipe otherwise than in substitution for an existing pipe of the same description, to be three months; and

    (b) where the power is exercised for the purpose of altering an existing pipe, to be forty-two days.

    (6) Sub-paragraph (5) above shall not apply in the case of any notice given within the period of one year beginning with the transfer date or in the case of any notice given with respect to the exercise of any power in an emergency or for the purpose of—

    (a) laying or altering a service pipe; or

    (b) complying with a duty imposed under section 40 or 70 of this Act.'.

    Amendment made in lieu of Lords amendment No. 239:
    (c), in page 268, line 38, at end insert—
    `( ) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring the Authority or any water undertaker or sewerage undertaker, where it is proposing or has begun to exercise any power conferred by virtue of paragraph 4 or 5 above in a prescribed case, to make advance payments on account of compensation that will become payable in respect of the exercise of that power.'.
    Lords amendment No. 240 disagreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 241 to 266, 268 to 276 and 278 to 311 agreed to. [Some with Special Entry.]

  Schedule 25

    TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS AND SAVINGS
    Lords amendment: No. 312, in page 351, line 13, leave out sub-paragraph (6).
    Mr. Howard: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Lords amendments Nos. 317 to 319.
    Lords amendment No. 320, in page 356, line 48, at end insert—
    "(4) Where the rights and liabilities in respect of any such consent are transferred to a water authority's successor company in accordance with a scheme under Schedule 2 to this Act and the conditions of that consent include one or more of the following, that is to say—

    (a) a condition that requires that authority to take samples of any matter discharged;

    (b) a condition that requires that authority to furnish any person with information about samples taken by that authority; or

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    (c) a condition that is contravened where there is a failure by more than a specified number of samples taken by that authority to satisfy specified requirements,

    then any such condition as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) above shall cease to have effect on the transfer date and any such condition as is mentioned in paragraph (c) above shall have effect on and after that date as if any samples taken on behalf of the Authority in exercise, at any time on or after that date, of a power conferred by this Act, but no other samples, were the samples falling to be taken into account for the purposes of that condition."
    Amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 320, in line 13, leave out from 'in' to end of line 19 and insert
    `those paragraphs shall have effect on and after the transfer date in the same manner as before that date, except that any reference to samples taken by that authority shall be taken to mean samples taken by the National Rivers Authority insofar as it refers to samples taken after the transfer date.'.
    Lords amendment No. 323.
    Mr. Howard: In speaking to Lords amendment No. 320, I shall also deal with the Opposition amendment to it, amendment (a), which we believe should be rejected, for the reasons I shall give in support of Lords amendment No. 320.
    Schedule 25 provides the transitional provisions in respect of control of pollution from the current arrangements based on water authority functions and Control of Pollution Act powers to the new arrangements involving the NRA and the new powers in part III, chapter 1 of the Bill.
    I shall deal first with Lords amendments Nos. 317 and 318, which provide more flexible arrangements for transfer of consent applications submitted by the water authorities to the Secretary of State from the Secretary of State to the NRA at an appropriate stage.
    The general principle of the pollution control transitional arrangements is that discretion should be left with the Secretary of State to decide whether any actions, cases or other matters which if begun after vesting would be for the NRA should, if uncompleted on transfer date, be transferred to that authority.
    The basic purpose of the technical amendments is to extend to sewage treatment applications the principles operating elsewhere in the pollution control part of the schedule. The effect will be to allow Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution to complete work on particular cases in those circumstances where this seems sensible, particularly where the processing of cases is well advanced.
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    In that regard, the Government are particularly anxious that the inspectorate should carry through to completion its determination of the applications for time limited consents to regulate the current position of those works included in the £1 billion improvement programme for the period while the improvements are carried out. If that investment programme is to be completed as soon as practicable, as the Government intend, it is essential to avoid the delay and unnecessary duplication of work that could arise from transferring to the NRA consent applications on which the inspectorate had nearly completed consideration.
    The amendment also makes provision for two consequential changes. In the first case, a sub-paragraph provides for the Secretary of State to direct the companies as to the advertising of any applications. The Secretary of State in fact intends that all applications under the programme for dealing with non-compliant works should

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    be advertised in view of the public interest they have aroused. However, the inspectorate also has to deal—and will be dealing at transfer date—with large numbers of minor applications, for which advertising in the London Gazette might not be appropriate. In exercising the discretion given to him by this amendment, the Secretary of State would expect to follow generally the established guidelines in the annex to the current circular 17/84.
    The second feature of the amendment is that the Secretary of State is enabled to direct the authority to provide temporary consent for discharges that are the subject of pending applications both in cases where the Secretary of State passes action to the NRA and in those where it is retained with him. The reason for that is that many of the cases in question will be discovery cases, where the water authority discovers, for instance, a sewage overflow that may not previously have been known, or at least identified as requiring consent.
    For those circumstances, under paragraph 5 of schedule 12, the NRA will have power to give consents without application for discharges that cannot realistically be interrupted while applications are being advertised and considered. The provision for directions for temporary consents pending such action is a transitional equivalent of this provision. The provision is doubly necessary because the inspectorate expects to have large numbers of consent applications in respect of minor discharges outstanding at the end of August as a result of the rigorous reviews that the water authorities have been undertaking of their operations, in preparation for privatisation, to ensure that any minor discharges of any sort that could require consent are, in fact, duly covered, so that both the new companies and the NRA can begin their lives on a basis of good order and proper regulation.
    Amendments Nos. 319 and 320, taken with amendments Nos. 312 and 323, do two things. First, they amend the terms of existing consents for sewage treatment works discharges to eliminate references to water authorities taking samples of the effluent discharged. It would obviously be inappropriate to apply those to the private sewerage undertakers. After the transfer date, it will be for the NRA to take such samples. Secondly, they put it beyond doubt that, where a works compliance is judged by a programme of samples taken over a relevant period, on and after the transfer date only samples taken by the NRA are to count as a basis for prosecutions of the new companies. In other words, the new bodies and their staff shall not be liable for acts and omissions of their predecessor body.
    I need not long delay the House on the first two provisions of the amendments, which simply disapply from consents provisions concerning monitoring and reporting by the water authorities. It is surely self-evident that, with the establishment of the NRA, it would not be appropriate for the undertakers to take their own samples and to report on their performance to the Secretary of State. Consequently, those provisions should go.
    The remaining provision deals with circumstances in which compliance with discharge consent standards is assessed over a series of samples taken over a 12-month period, that is, the look-up table system used for control of sewage treatment works discharges for the past four years. Compliance is to be assessed only on the basis of samples
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    taken by the NRA, and therefore the relevant period for assessment of such compliance will begin with the establishment of the NRA and the companies.
    Amendments Nos. 312 and 323 establish in the Bill the principle that the new undertakings should not be criminally liable for offences committed by the present water authorities. They simply reflect the principle of criminal case law, established in 1976 in a case heard by the House of Lords, that in the absence of express provision criminal liability does not transfer from one corporate body to another. The amendment changes nothing. In view of the particular concern currently being expressed over criminal liabilities of water authorities, we believe it right, however, that the principle should be clear on the face of the Bill.
    However, what we are doing in amendment 323 is nothing new and nothing special. That principle is no more than ordinary justice, securing that the new companies shall not be liable for the actions of a different corporate body going back some 12 months to before legislation to establish the companies was even published.
    Mr. Pike: The Minister is dealing with an important point, and it is a considerable variation of what has been said on previous occasions. Can he give us examples from other privatisations, such as gas supply and transport undertakings, where the new bodies have been liable for offences committed by the previous bodies?
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is not entirely correct. If he had listened to my point about the case decided in the House of Lords, he would have realised that it established that criminal liability does not transfer from one corporate entity to another. All that we are doing is putting that principle into the Bill.
    Mr. Pike: Is the Minister therefore suggesting that any takeover of one corporate body by another in the City will absolve that body of criminal liability for any offence committed prior to the takeover?
    Mr. Howard: Of course not. In such cases, the corporate entity usually remains. It may be owned by different shareholders and it may be part of a new group of companies, but it usually remains. In those circumstances, criminal liability will equally remain. That is entirely different from the position that we are contemplating, which is the creation of an entirely new and different corporate entity.
    Mr. Alastair Burt: Opposition Members are missing the point. We are discussing the liability of new companies. It has been suggested that they are immune from prosecution for a year and will not be responsible for their actions. Is it not true that, from day one, any breach of the discharge regulations will be counted against the new company? There will be no incentive to breach the regulations, because ultimately the companies can be prosecuted. We should be concerned about the ability to prosecute the new companies that is retained through the clause and improved by the general benefits that flow from the Bill.
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is right and I shall shortly explain how the Bill's provisions will have precisely the effect that he identified.
    Dr. Kim Howells: If it is proved that the water supplied to a certain area has very high aluminium

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    levels, and if in future there are moves to prosecute the purveyor of water to a community because a causal link is established between aluminum levels and Alzheimer's disease, will there be a let-out for a new company if it claimed that those aluminium levels were the responsibility of the previous water company?
    Mr. Howard: Nothing of the sort will happen. The hon. Gentleman will know that the offence of supplying drinking water that is unfit for human consumption is a new offence created by the Bill. We are discussing criminal liability. It will not be possible for the new companies to escape liability on the ground that the cause of any criminal liability should somehow be ascribed to their predecessors.
    The only provision made by the clauses and amendments that are now under discussion is the requirement that samples to establish the deficiency of the water concerned must be taken after the new companies exist if they are to find criminal liability in the new companies. The existing companies remain responsible for any samples that are taken which establish any liability on their part. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be assured by that answer to the points that he has raised.
    The suggestion that the amendments involve an amnesty is wrong and without foundation. Samples of sewage discharges up to the day of transfer will, as I told the hon. Gentleman, be actionable against the water authority and against the residual water authority maintained in being after transfer. Samples of discharges from the day of transfer will be actionable at the due time against the new company. Not a single sample will be subject to an amnesty. Every one will be actionable against the residual authority or the new company. The so-called amnesty, of which the Opposition make so much, is a figment of their collective imagination.
    But what of the variation on that theme—that the principle will, in practice, produce unacceptable results, that the NRA will be crippled at birth, and so on? That argument is also an absurdity, bearing no relationship to the facts, for four reasons.
    First, and most important, there will, as I have said, be no immunity in the early stages of the companies' lives. It is quite wrong to suggest that the companies will be able to discharge what they like and get away with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) has just said, companies will have to comply with the terms of their present conditions from the outset, and failures will go on the public registers. Non-complying samples will clock up against them. They will not be discounted. If the record reveals non-compliance over the sampling period, the NRA will be able to bring prosecutions in respect of breaches of the discharge consents for that period.
    Secondly, discharge consents for all works now non-compliant, or at a high risk of non-complying, which are varied for the period during which improvement works are in progress, will in any case include so-called "upper tier" limits, a single breach of which will open the company immediately to the risk of prosecution. As well as being an important environmental safeguard, that will provide the NRA with a new enforcement mechanism for those works.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: The Minister says that the upper tier limit will be another safeguard, but he must be aware of reports that have already come in from people who are to work in the NRA regional offices that they are
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    extremely worried about the level of the upper tier limits which, in some cases, could lead to water of the strength of raw sewage being pumped into our rivers.
    Mr. Howard: The levels of the upper tier consents have not yet been determined. We shall take all representations into account in determining them. But that is a far cry from the Opposition's charge in relation to those matters, that there will be a year's so-called amnesty. The hon. Lady is now suggesting that there will not be an amnesty. She is accepting that prosecutions can be brought immediately against the new companies, but she is complaining, in advance of any standards being assessed, about the levels of those upper tier discharge consents.
    Mrs. Taylor: I am not suggesting that there will not be an amnesty. I stick by the points that Opposition Members made earlier, on which we shall have time to elaborate shortly. However, the Minister mentioned a specific problem with regard to upper tier limits. Will he confirm that people working in the shadow NRA tell us that limits could be so relaxed that raw sewage could be pumped into our rivers?
    Mr. Howard: The limits have not yet been fixed. Anybody can speculate on what might happen if they were at some hypothetical value, but the fact is that they have not been determined. Let me continue to deal with why the Opposition's charge is completely bogus.
    Thirdly, in the case of all the other works with no history of non-compliance, it is unlikely that samples taken by the water authority before the transfer date would have any significance for prosecution purposes. It is true that the NRA would need to take samples over a 12-month period before bringing a prosecution, but it is the position now that compliance for sewage treatment works is assessed retrospectively over a 12-month period. That is not new. As hon. Members may know, it was introduced in 1985, following research by the water research centre, and reflects the volatility of sewage effluents and the 95 per cent. basis on which standards are set.
    In practical terms, we must remember that prosecution is a tool of last resort. While this will be a matter for the NRA, early evidence of possible non-compliance is likely to be a trigger for investigations and discussions with the discharger. The NRA, under its normal enforcement policy, would want to go through a number of stages, including warnings, before contemplating prosecution.
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    Finally, the Secretary of State is enabled under paragraph 6 of schedule 12 to direct the NRA at any time to revoke or vary consents where it appears to him appropriate to do so for the protection of public health or flora or fauna. In the event that the NRA is seriously concerned about a particular discharge and about constraints within the consent on its ability to take enforcement action, it could draw the case to the attention of the Secretary of State. It would be open to him to direct the authority to revoke or vary the consent, perhaps by imposition of an upper tier limit whose breach made possible immediate enforcement action.
    For those four reasons, any argument that the NRA will be significantly impeded in its enforcement role by the terms of these amendments is wholly without foundation. The amendments ensure that we follow a fair and proper

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    course. It is a course that holds no risks for the NRA, for pollution control or for its effective enforcement. Above all, the amendments ensure that the new companies—the result of a massive reorganisation and restructuring of the water industry—are criminally liable only for those actions for which they were actually responsible. The House should surely accept that as the fair and relevant principle on which to approach those matters.
    I apologise for delaying the House so long with explanations, but it is clearly right that I should dispel the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of recent days.
    Ms. Joan Walley: River water quality has been declining in recent years. In addition to industrial discharges, the main cause of that deterioration is the direct discharge of untreated sewage effluent. It is that with which the amendments deal and about which we are concerned.
    Sewage degrades more rivers than any other pollutants. To what extent, if at all, will the Government succeed in their stated intention of cleaning up the rivers? The Opposition do not believe that they will. They cannot. Despite what the Minister has just said, the Lords amendment to schedule 25 would protect the plcs from the consequences of criminal actions, based on the quality of sewage effluence, before flotation. The fines that people are having to pay are worth almost nothing. The Opposition would much rather concentrate on a preventive approach in the cleaning up of sewage treatment works.
    Where is the even-handedness in the Government's approach? Why do the Government argue that water plcs are different from other privatised industries? Why are the arrangements different from those that were made when the old Greater London council's responsibilities and liabilities were transferred to the residuary bodies? Why is water different?
    Even the Minister must accept that the amendment is hurried. It has been introduced at the last stage when the going is getting even tougher for the Government. If, as the Minister says, the legal position is clear, why did he have to table the amendment in the first place? Is not that a further reason against privatisation? This hurried amendment will make look-up tables and consent standards start from scratch on day one after vesting. Compliance with sewage discharge consents will be assessed over a 12-month period by reference to a look-up table of specific parameters. Sewage works will have to comply with the consent conditions in the look-up table for 95 per cent. of the time. Therefore, a prosecution can be based only on post-vesting samples. No prosecutions will be possible until at least 12 months after privatisation.
    It is no answer for the hon. and learned Gentleman to argue that the amendment is of a transitional nature and that the staff and the plcs should not be liable for the acts and omissions of their predecessors. If the Lords amendments relate simply to a transitional measure, why was it not in the Bill all along? If the samples clocked up over the past year are to have no legal backing after privatisation, what will be the implications for the National Rivers Authority and for private prosecutions? How can the Minister justify the NRA being powerless to prosecute for a whole year while rivers continue to be
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    polluted? How does the Minister propose to deal with pending cases? Why have the Government not found a fairer way of introducing transitional provisions?
    The Government are compromising on the environment, as they did through all the stages of the Bill. Why are the Government compromising on public health and the basis of the NRA? The amendments are aimed at achieving those compromises.
    What does the Minister have to say about the comments of one of his noble Friends, who is a member of the NRA committee, to the effect that the water companies were being given a 12-month, prosecution-free holiday, and that the Government are ditching environmentalists to save the sell-off? How will the NRA and its future staff feel about that? How will it be able to fulfil its role as the much-acclaimed preventer of pollution? We do not believe that it can fulfil that role effectively.
    It would be bad enough if the undertakers were not at risk of prosecution only for the first 12 months after the sell-off, but when amendment No. 312 is placed in the context of all the other changes made to sewage discharge consents, there is a case for real public concern.
    The Government invited applications for interim consents. The Minister defends one year of immunity by introducing an upper tier value for the first time. Why, at the start of the debate, was the Minister unable to tell the House what that upper limit will be? Why, in the final stages of the debate, have we not been given any idea of that upper limit? Will it be five times as high as the average effluent level, as we understand the plcs want it to be, or twice as high, as the NRA wants? Will it be three times as high, as the Government have suggested that it could be? Rather than trying to defend immunity from prosecution, the Minister should reveal what the upper limit will be.
    Why are the Government rushing through applications for the relaxation of consents standards for sewage treatment works? That is happening in the Severn-Trent area and in others throughout the country. Is it true that, although approximately 842 applications have been received for interim time-limited relaxations, a proportion of the remainder are for long-term relaxations of numerical consents standards that will not be time-limited? What about the third category of applications for changing from numerical to descriptive consents standards? If the Secretary of State and the Minister for Water and Planning are as concerned about controlling pollution as they would have us believe, why have they waived the advertising requirement for descriptive consents? We believe that that is at the heart of the matter, and at the centre of the deception inherent in all of the amendments.
    In a letter to Friends of the Earth dated 2 June, the Department of the Environment stated that there will be no relaxation of pollution control standards, yet applications for such relaxations have been invited, submitted and rushed through. The chance of improving river quality becomes even more remote, particularly when one considers the further damaging effects of the Government's reponse to applications to relax consents standards. The Government claim that such relaxations will merely regularise the position, to ensure that they are consistent with the current quality of effluent. The Government's definition of "current" is so shabby that there is no real hope of improving standards, which makes the Bill doubly iniquitous.
    Even more dangerous is the Government's attitude to the general duty in section 1 of the Water Act 1973 which

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    requires Ministers jointly to promote a national water policy involving the maintenance and restoration—I stress the word "restoration"—of the wholesomeness of water. How can the hon. and learned Gentleman think of relaxing standards when there is a general duty on Ministers to maintain and to restore them? What has happened to that duty? Clearly the Government will be challenged, and my right hon. and hon. Friends will work with the general public and with environmental groups throughout the country to ensure that every consent application is challenged.
    We do not believe that the equivalent of raw sewage should be discharged into Britain's rivers. The Government will face challenges in the courts as soon as standards are relaxed. If the Government care so much about improving standards, why did they repeal section 1 of the Water Act 1973—the very legislation that made a general commitment to improve water quality? Why is there no general duty to restore and maintain the quality of controlled water? What happened to the commitment entered into in July 1987 to set statutory quality objectives for rivers? Why will they not be set until 1992, as was stated in a letter to the water authorities that was sent out last year?
    The United Kingdom is a signatory to directives aimed at setting legally binding standards of river quality. Will the Minister give an assurance that, when determining the 1,070 or more applications, he will in every case discharge the United Kingdom's obligation to prevent pollution by dangerous substances and to achieve compliance with the relevant environmental quality objectives that the directives specify?
    Here we are, in the final throes of the debate about water privatisation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Conservative Members may shout, "Hear, hear", but whatever we may be told about improving standards and dealing with pollution, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I know that the Lords amendments are designed only to deal with the legacy of the Government's failure to invest public money in the infrastructure.
    Why should we believe that the group of amendments before the House will achieve improved standards, as the Minister says? The general public cannot be fooled. In a recent poll commissioned by The Observer, only 2 per cent. of the sample rated the Government's record of pollution control as very good. Until the Lords amendments are on the statute book, and if our amendment is not carried, not even 2 per cent. of the population will rate the Government's record on pollution control as very good. Far from coming to an end—I say this for the benefit of those hon. Members who shouted "Hear, hear"—the pollution debate and others concerning our water supplies, sewage discharge consents and the totally unacceptable 12-month immunity from prosecution have only just begun.
    Mr. Nicholas Baker: Provided that the right of action against the authorities in respect of pollution does not disappear, surely the bodies that will replace the authorities, and all their employees, should be liable in respect of the pollution that the new bodies cause? Is that not fair?
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    Ms. Walley: The hon. Gentleman fails to understand that this is not a realistic way of viewing the problem, and that what he suggests is merely a token method of dealing with it.
    Mr. Chris Mullin: If the Government's proposal is such an obviously good idea as they now claim, why did no one think of it in Committee? Why did not the Minister suggest it during those 200 hours of debate?
    Ms. Walley: As always, my hon. Friend has made a very apt point. The Government did not see fit to present the measure during the many hours of debate in Committee; they have had to introduce it in the final stages as a bribe to enable the sell-off to go ahead, because they know—as the public know—that they are in serious difficulties with their water privatisation programme.
    Opposition Members know that the debate is only just beginning. Men, women and children—I do not think that the Government understand how important this is to women and children, who are as informed as ever about the state of the environment—know and care enough to ensure that the debate continues. The Opposition, together with environmental and conservation groups, will make certain that the issue stays at the heart of the continuing controversy about this immoral water privatisation legislation.
    Mr. Livsey: The Lords amendments are a national scandal. The new water undertakers will be exempted from criminal liability for their discharges, and liability will not be transferred to another corporate body. Freedom of prosecution is to be extended for at least 12 months, and, according to some people's reckoning, for 18 months. Water authorities are now polluting and getting away with it, a state of affairs that will continue under a private monopoly. That breaches what is surely one of the prime environmental principles—that the polluters must pay.
    The amendments will cripple the pollution inspectorate. In exposing the callousness of the Government's attitude to the environment and, indeed, to public health, they rumble the Government's privatisation programme. Their aim, however, is to rescue the Government from the hole into which they have dug themselves. If the plcs are to go free from prosecution, the flotation will not be jeopardised. That is what it is all about.
    In the past year, 1,000 sewage works in England and Wales broke consent standards. The water authorities cannot sign flotation prospectuses while they are persistently committing criminal offences, so the transfer will be impossible until they are free from prosecution. So many sewage works are breaking the law-20 per cent. at present—that the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office will not be able to get through all the paperwork by November, when the arrangements must be tied up.
    On 12 June I asked the Secretary of State for Wales to list the number of sewage works in Wales that were failing established effluent pollution standards. The Under-Secretary provided a list of 102 treatment works that had failed to meet consent standards during 1988, from Presteigne in my constituency to Weston Beggard on the Herefordshire border, and including many other instances throughout the Welsh water authority area.

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    This is a huge problem, and it is no wonder that the Government are trying to get themselves off the hook. According to yesteday's Western Mail, they are asking for immunity for 124 Welsh sewage works, só the position has deteriorated since 1988. In 1987–88 there were 20,000 breaches of pollution standards in rivers in England and Wales. Only 1 per cent. of offenders were prosecuted, and in only one instance was the maximum fine of £2,000 imposed. That is, in any event, a trivial fine; we should not forget that pollution also affects drinking water quality.
    Any pretensions to commitment on green issues on the part of the Government are a sham, and the Lords amendment proves it. On Monday morning, I stood on the banks of the River Tawe in the Swansea valley with members of the Tawe angling society, discussing the Welsh water authority's application—as shown in the Western Mail on 22 June—to increase discharges from the Ystradgynlais sewage works. We tried to calculate the number of cubic metres of effluent that would be discharged into the river, and the likely effect on the fishery. If we were to stand there in 12 months' time, we decided, there would probably be no fishery, and no fish in the river for the angling society's members.
    Mr. Howard: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not trying deliberately to mislead his constituents or anyone else. He must appreciate that the effect of the water authority's application in respect of its sewage treatment works at Ystradgynlais—as with other treatment works elsewhere—will be to regularise the existing position, not to allow more sewage to be discharged into the river. The works does not comply with the consent standard at present. Works will be put in hand to enable it to meet that standard, and during the interim period the authority should be allowed not to discharge more sewage than it does now, but to continue the discharge at the present level. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that? Will he stop misleading his constituents and the House?
    Mr. Livsey: The Minister knows perfectly well that the discharges into the River Tawe are unacceptable, and the position will not be improved by the transfer of the discharge to a private monopoly which will go scot-free for the next 12 months. That is scandalous. Surely it would be far better if the treatment works, and a thousand like it, were put right before privatisation.
    Mr. Howard: How does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the sewage works at Ystradgynlais can be put magically into a condition that complies with its existing discharge content? Will he wave a magic wand? He must appreciate that it will take time for the work to be carried out, and that while it is being carried out, it makes sense for the authority not to be prosecuted if the improvements that he and I want are to be put into place.
    Mr. Livsey: The Minister clearly accepts that there is no reason to privatise the industry. I rest my case.
    Mr. Burt: I rise to support this series of amendments and to express surprise at the extraordinary amount of sanctimonious humbug that has come from Opposition Members. One might have got the impression from their remarks that they had been friends of the environment from day one—that when Labour Members were in sole office, or when they held power during the Lib-Lab pact,
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    their record on investment and the control of pollution had been so good that they could lecture us all about what they had achieved. In fact, an enormous burden of guilt rests on Labour Members, and that has coloured the way in which they approach the amendments that we are discussing, but I will come to that shortly.
    I accept what has been said about basic natural justice in this case—[Interruption.] While that point has merit, it is more important for Opposition Members, who I see grinning, to accept that the greatest sanction against the new companies does not lie simply in the fact of prosecution. It lies in the fact that the threat of prosecution begins on day one. If there had been a suggestion that prosecution procedures could not start on day one—because of some delay relating sampling to the process of law—hon. Members in all parts of the House would have expressed concern, for we are all concerned about pollution and the environment and feel strongly about the need for the problems to be tackled.
    The important points are that the prosecution process can begin on day one and that the new companies will have no immunity. I cannot believe that the new companies will have any vested interest in fooling about with the discharges that they make right from the start simply because prosecution may be some way off. The threat, the sanction, against the new companies is clear and straightforward.
    Opposition Members have overdone the immunity point by trying to suggest that the control of pollution will be drastically affected for the worse. Again, they have failed to stress that prosecution of existing authorities goes right up to the last possible day and that the process of prosecution of the new companies can start the day after. They have also failed to concentrate sufficiently on the importance of the upper tier of protection, which is new and which the Government have introduced. That can allow the new rivers authority to act immediately there has been a breach. That protection does not exist at present. It did not exist when Labour Members were in office and had control of the extent of river pollution. It is an additional, significant new power and it will work.
    I return to the principal question of guilt which has coloured the action of Opposition Members in this House and in the other place. When the Conservatives came to office, we were faced with the task of clearing out the Augean stables of effluent left by years of neglect by Labour Members. They failed to implement the Control of Pollution Act 1974, although they now claim to have a good record on its implementation. Their failure to implement that Act prevented the public from bringing prosecutions.
    Mr. Morley: I do not want to prolong the debate by delaying the hon. Gentleman's remarks because I am anxious that we concentrate on the main issue. If matters have been so wonderful under the Conservatives, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to explain why—when river and water quality standards generally improved under the last Labour Government and before then—for the first time almost since the second world war, in the last 10 years, under Conservative rule, river water quality has been deteriorating? In my area, the local river has deteriorated for the fourth successive year, after progressive improvements.
    6.15 pm
    Mr. Burt: I gave way to the hon. Gentleman hoping that he would admit some burden of guilt of his party for the failures of the past. He failed to point out that 95 per cent. of our rivers are in good or fair condition, which places us equal top of the European Community league. The failure in the past to invest has undoubtedly caused distress to his constituents now, but as he bears no shame or repentance for that, I must move on.
    The economic failure in the past which caused the lack of investment is inherently part of the Opposition's case today. In the other place, Lady Platt said that failure to invest had been a boost for the polluter. I agree, and only as a result of the Bill are we really tackling that legacy of pollution.
    Secrecy clouded our perception in the past of the efficiency of sewage treatment works. We have cast that secrecy aside, knowing that it is more important to be open about the way in which treatment plants work so that the public may know exactly what is happening. Public pressure to improve—that is very much part of the Bill —will lead to better standards in future.
    There is a marked contrast between the two sides of the House about the way in which pollution has been and is being tackled. Our implementation of the Control of Pollution Act, the return of investment to deal with sewage treatment and getting rid of secrecy has resulted in considerable improvements being achieved in recent years, and those improvements will continue. About 80 per cent. of Britain's sewage works are meeting the control of pollution standards. Although that is a good record, we must do better.
    The new provisions have been misinterpreted by Opposition Members as immunity from prosecution, which they are not. They have been misinterpreted largely because Labour Members bear such a burden of guilt for the way in which pollution was handled when they were in government, compared with the length of time it has taken us, with the improving economy, to tackle the issue. The Bill will help further improvements to be made.
    The amendments represent a further example of how we will be tackling pollution in future and how the new companies will be under pressure from the start. The upper tier provisions will represent a guarantee against pollution. Such a guarantee has not existed previously. I congratulate the Government on introducing this series of amendments.
    Dr. Kim Howells: We on the Labour Benches have been hoping for too much. We hoped that the new green shawl which the Government have pulled over their shoulders would be an improvement on the usual threadbare variety that they have worn in the past.
    Let us be clear that this series of amendments is designed solely to facilitate the birth of the new plcs. As has been made clear, they cannot be born without amendments such as these because they will not be able to operate sewage works until they have signed the flotation prospectus. They cannot do that if they are persistently committing criminal offences.
    We are not conducting an abstract political debate. I am willing to admit that river quality has improved. The problem is that the improvements usually occur in the upper rivers. The rivers flow through open countryside before reaching towns and sewage treatment works. I cite the most famous of all Welsh rivers—the one after which
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    we are named—the Taff. It flows right in front of my front door. The Taff is a beautiful river until it reaches the first of the Welsh water authority's sewage treatment plants. From there on down the valley it is a disgrace. The river banks are festooned with the most unsightly rubbish, most of which has come from discharges from sewage plants during periods of high rainfall.
    I do not know whether other hon. Members live near such rivers. Everybody living in the valleys of south Wales cannot ignore the rivers, because they live so close by them. We see them every day. It may be possible in other areas to ignore the filth that is put into the rivers. That cannot easily be done in south Wales.
    I take up the Minister's challenge to talk about the existing position because what I have described is the existing position. Walking anywhere along the lower Taff one sees small islands of sewage drifting down the river. They threaten to turn the wonderful new Cardiff Bay development corporation barrage into the smelliest dockside development anywhere in western Europe. It is a disgrace and we should not have to live with it.
    As the Minister for Water and Planning said, the new plcs will not be equipped with magic wands that will clean up the rivers on vesting day. They will inherit the present appalling sewage discharges into our rivers. The amendments do not address the immediate problem, which is to spend capital on sewage treatment plants so that we comply as quickly as possible with the European Community's minimum standards. That is not the central purpose of the amendments. They provide for a honeymoon period during which the new companies will be able to make investment decisions which may or may not boost their profits. Hard decisions will not have to be made during that period about cleaning up their act. The decisions that the new companies make will be designed primarily to improve profits as soon as possible.
    My claim, and that of many others in my constituency and of people throughout Wales who live close to rivers and who have witnessed the deterioration of our rivers as a result of sewage discharges every single day, is that the amendments will do nothing to improve the position.
    Mr. Leigh: I wish that all 55 million members of the public could have witnessed the Committee proceedings and also these proceedings. Then they could have compared the logic of the Minister of Water and Planning's case with the anecdotal prejudice of Opposition Members, which has been revealed very clearly in this debate.
    There are four very good reasons why the Opposition amendment should not be agreed to. These reasons would stand up in any court of law or in front of any objective assembly. First, from day one the private water companies will be responsible for any breaches of discharge consents. Secondly, we are establishing upper tier limits that have never been established before. Thirdly, under paragraph 6 of schedule 12 the National Rivers Authority will be empowered to take immediate enforcement action against any company that breaches the discharge consents. Fourthly, it will be a breach of natural justice, as is well understood under our legal system, for a new company to be made responsible for the faults of its predecessors. Those are four good reasons why the amendment is incomprehensible. What a pity that the public could not have heard my hon. and learned Friend say just that.

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    We have had nearly 200 hours of debate. We are in the closing moments of what should have been the flagship of the Labour party's opposition to this Government—the flagship that would take the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) into the shadow cabinet. What was she reduced to in the closing moments of the debate? What bright new ideas did she put forward? She was reduced to talking about transitional arrangements for sewage. She could not even get her case together very well. In time, members of the public will compare the position next year and the year after that with the position a few years ago.
    Yesterday I asked five questions at the beginning of our debate about the Labour Government's record. I asked whether they had implemented part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and the bathing beaches directive. Once again the hon. Member for Dewsbury is looking down at her notes. I shall be happy to give way to her. I referred to the secrecy at that time and to the prohibition of prosecutions by members of the public. [Interruption.] I do not know what the hon. Lady is mumbling under her breath, but she cannot answer these questions.
    Members of the public will compare what happened 10 years ago with what will happen in a few years time. For the first time, an environmental protection agency—I do not know what the hon. Lady is drawing from her handbag. Perhaps she could explain why the level of investment under the last Labour Government was going down, whereas now it is going up. In a few years, members of the public will see the establishment of a strong National Rivers Authority that is capable of looking after our environment. They will also see that powerful companies will be able for the first time to invest in the infrastructure. That investment has always been denied to the water industry. That is the truth and those are the facts. What a pity that every member of the public could not hear the debates.
    Mr. Keith Bradley: As we move into the last half hour of our seven months of deliberations on the Water Bill, it is extraordinary that the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) should still be trying to convince himself that there is some political merit in the Bill. I, too, wish that members of the public had been able to hear the months of deliberation in Committee. If the hon. Gentleman's four questions could have been so simply answered, why did the Government not table an amendment in Committee so that the issues could be properly debated then? Instead, they tried to sneak in a proposal on a Friday afternoon in the other place, thus denying the Opposition the opportunity to table an amendment to it. The Government knew that they were in trouble and that they had to sneak in this polluters' charter, this polluters' paradise, to ensure that flotation will have a modicum of success.
    During the last seven months the public have given overwhelming support to the Opposition. The public are anxious about the quality of water and about the pollution of our rivers. Opinion polls showed that there was 96 per cent. opposition to this measure. Today we have heard that only 2 per cent. of the public are in favour of it. I am quite sure, having analysed The Observer poll, that the 2 per cent. is made up of the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister for Water and Planning.
    Mr. Burt rose—
    Mr Bradley: I see that the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) is leaping to the Government's support. However, having looked at his majority I do not think that, if I were he, I should be standing up quite so confidently because I believed that the public in Bury like the Bill.
    This last-minute amendment is the last obnoxious amendment to an obnoxious Bill which the public do not support. The Government have tried to mislead the public into thinking that this is merely a transitional arrangement. If that is so, why oh why did a Minister not stand up months ago and table the amendment as a major plank in the Government's war against pollution? There was absolute silence. The industry has turned on the Government. It feared what would happen if it had to comply with the quality of water and sampling requirements that had been in force during the previous few months. The industry said to the Government, "We want an easy ride. Please, Minister, give us that easy ride." Of course the Minister gave it that easy ride.
    The new water companies want the assets, the land and the juicy contracts but they do not want the liabilities that go with the good bits. If they have to take on the old liabilities, they know that privatisation will not be successful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) so eloquently put it, why oh why when the Government abolished the county councils, including the Greater Manchester council, did they not wipe the slate clean and remove all the liabilities? Instead of doing that, they transferred them to the new district authorities, which had to take them over. Any litigation that was outstanding at that stage was not suddenly wiped out. The public were not told that, because the Government were abolishing the metropolitan authorities, any cases against them would be expunged. Those cases were passed on, in the same way as prosecutions ought to be passed on to the new water companies.
    However much the Minister may protest otherwise, the powers of the National Rivers Authority will be undermined from day one. That has to be contrasted with the excellent proposals of the Labour party. The Labour Government after the next general election will ensure that provision is made for environmental protection.
    The Minister has tried to justify the amendment on four points, which were as shallow as many of his other arguments. I know that time is limited, but I wish to pick up one point. Will the Minister make absolutely clear what will happen to private prosecutions that are already in the pipeline? Will those well-researched private prosecutions, with samples taken and very effective cases put together, fall when the new companies take over, regardless of their status or the period in which they have built up? Will all those private prosecutions fall as a result of the amendment? We need to be absolutely clear about that.
    6.30 pm
    In the final half hour of the debate, it must be said that the Labour party has had to be seen as the real safeguarder of the environment and as the people who really care about the environment and pollution. I have spoken at meetings throughout the country, particularly in Manchester, my city. The people of Manchester will not forgive the Government for trying to privatise their water.

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    I have spoken at meetings all over Greater Manchester and not one voice has been raised in support of the Bill. The public have expressed massive anxiety about the quality of their water, local beaches, and rivers. They know that that can be effectively controlled and monitored and better standards implemented only by public investment in our water industry. The Labour party is committed to that. When a Labour Government get back into power they will bring water back as a public utility, with proper safeguards and proper environmental controls. We will not have to give handouts to people who want to make a quick buck out of our water.
    The Bill has been framed to give profits to the City slickers, to people who do not care about our environment or the quality of our water. That will be the vanguard of the defeat of the hon. Member for Bury, North and many other Conservative Members who do not care about our environment.
    Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I hope that the House will forgive me if I move away from party political hyperbole to mention my concern about amendment No. 320, which appears to provide an avenue for transferring the pollution liability, following the issue of consents to pollution, to private water authorities when the Bill is enacted. That would be fine if the monitoring of pollution in the existing system were adequate. It is not and it should be improved. I need some reassurance that the proposal in amendment No. 320 will do the job.
    My particular concern is the pollution of water by fluoridation. I have no doubt about the Government's commitment to pure water, but I am not sure that they fully understand what pure water is. For years they accepted that the existing legislation on the purity of water allowed fluoridation, and for years the anti-fluoridationists said that the Government's interpretation of the law that the fluoridation of water was in accordance with the water legislation was wrong. Eventually, the matter was tested and a court in Scotland decided that the Government's interpretation of what was meant by the purity of water was wrong. The Water (Fluoridation) Act 1985 was passed to make right what had hitherto been wrong. For many years successive Governments were wrong about what was meant by pure water.
    The Government have provided for polluting the water by allowing water authorities, on the request of health authorities, to add fluoride to the water. Now, in amendment No. 166, the possibility is to be transferred to the Secretary of State, if he sees fit, which he may not, and if he can get the permission of the Treasury—which the Treasury will be reluctant to give, as it is with any blank cheque—for the continuing provision of an indemnity if evil effects follow the fluoridation of water. If I were a cost-conscious water undertaker, I should be wary of relying on the ifs and buts of amendment No. 166, which we have just allowed into the Bill, to get me out of financial trouble in the event of an accidental excessive discharge causing suffering to humans.
    To repeat my four-and-a-half-hour introduction to a speech on the evils of fluoridation—the mass medication of our drinking water by a poison when the dose is unknown because it is uncontrollable, when individual susceptibility to harm is unknown, when the value to an individual is unknown and when there is substantial evidence that it is unbeneficial to the teeth, harmful to the health and is a massive infringement of the liberty of the
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    individual to be forced medically to be treated against his will—would be out of order, so I have no intention of doing so. But I hope that I am in order when I suggest that the conditions set out in amendment No. 320,

    "(a) a condition that requires that authority to take samples of any matter discharged;

    (b) a condition that requires that authority to furnish any person with information about samples taken by that authority"

    and that set out in paragraph (c) are totally and utterly inadequate. As they exist now in our water provision, they do not work. They have done nothing to limit the possibility of a Camelford incident. Had hexafluorosilicicacid been poured into the water supply, it would have killed people and not fish and would have done much more than cause sickness and ill-health to the people in that area.
    The present rules have done nothing to stop the current overdose of fluoride as it gets into our systems cumulatively through food, industrial processes, toothpaste—which has a high incidence of fluoride and is swallowed by children—fluoride tablets and the one part per million in the water supply where it is fluoridated. The overfeeding of the water supply has recently been tabulated in north Lincolnshire, where for many years an excess above the one part per million has gone into the drinking water. At 15 January 1986, 3·88 parts per million were put into the drinking water. That is just one example. Often when a test is carried out and the figures are forthcoming it appears that the proportion is above the limit that is allowed.
    An increasing incidence of mottling of the teeth throughout the country is disfiguring young people, particularly girls, because levels of fluoride of one part per million or 1·5 parts per million have a considerable effect, but the Government seem to have taken no account of it. There is evidence that 10 per cent. of young people have their teeth adversely affected and disfigured by as little as 2 mg of fluoride per day.
    I understand that this debate must now come to an end. This is a shortened version of my fluoridation speech, but the provision for monitoring the addition of fluoride to our water at the point of entry into the system is not satisfactory. Therefore, it is important for us to start monitoring the amount of fluoride in our sewage at the point of exit. That is why the conditions in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) should be toughened. They should take account of the fluoride content of sewage. Only then would we know the volume of fluoride which comes out of the body and that would produce some idea of the enormous amount more which is retained in the body. One of the great evils of fluoride is that it does not pass out of the system at anything like the rate it should to be healthy. The proposed provisions are inadequate because they do not improve upon the existing system of checking consents which is totally inadequate.
    Of course, there is another way of stopping the risk of disfiguring teeth and the threat to the life and health of people, and that is to do what was done in West Germany, Holland and Sweden. Because of the medical objections, and to some extent the political objections, to the dangers of fluoridating public drinking water, fluoridation of the water was banned. I have no doubt that during our lifetime fluoride in the drinking water of the United Kingdom will be banned because eventually Governments will realise

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    what a danger it is to people's health, quite apart from the fact that it is an appalling infringement of the individual's liberty.
    Mr. Morley: During the debate, I have heard arguments that have been somewhat tortuous and bizarre. It is remarkable that some hon. Members have argued that simply because the water authorities are moving from the public to the private authority they are no longer responsible for past misdemeanours and discharge levels. It is as though the Minister—I do not wish this upon him —were suddenly hit by a National Bus Company bus and broke his arm, the bus company was broken up and sold to other divisions and the company said, "We no longer have that corporate structure. We are no longer responsible for the damage that occurred under the other company, even though the same management and capital investment are in place and we have the same vehicles and installations." That is what is happening with the water authorities. To argue otherwise is ludicrous.
    People in my constituency are not happy about the relaxation of discharge limits placed on sewage works. The limit on sewage outfall at the villages of Winteringham and Winterton is to be relaxed. At present, raw sewage is pumped into the Humber, having gone through merely a screening process to remove the larger bits. Under the Government's proposals, the companies will be able to pump raw sewage into rivers for a year. It will take that long to carry out the sampling and collect all the information that is needed before action can be taken.
    The Minister may recall that the Opposition argued that the National Rivers Authority should have been set up a year in advance of privatisation so that it was up and running, ready to do the job it was supposed to do. That would have been a year in which to put things right and divert some money. The Minister could easily do that, even at this stage, by recommending postponement of the flotation for a year to tackle these problems.
    To help, I shall give the Minister some suggestions about how the water companies could do that. They could divert the millions of pounds spent on stupid advertisements telling people what they already know, which would go a long way towards dealing with some of the problems. By postponing the flotation, £850 million a year could be saved—the cost of the privatisation programme that will bear on consumers every year in which the water companies are in the private sector. The water authorities' profits could be diverted to deal with infrastructure investment, but that cannot be done when they are due to be flogged off. That is why the Government are transferring the water authorities to the private sector without taking account of my modest suggestion to delay flotation for a year. In doing that, the Minister is polluting our rivers and putting our water quality standards at risk.
    By voting for this measure, the Minister is breaking the law. By encouraging Conservative Members to do the same, he is encouraging them to break the law. That law is EEC directive 79/409, a wildlife directive, which states:
    "Member States shall strive to avoid pollution or deterioration of habitats".
    By giving this 12-month exemption from prosecution—a licence to pollute—the Government are in breach of that EEC directive. Every member of the Government who votes for this measure votes for a breach of that directive.
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    I hope that my hon. Friends will take this matter up with Labour Members of the European Parliament—who, following the last European election, represent most people in the United Kingdom—and insist that the EEC take action through European courts, as the Government are clearly in breach of that directive.
    6.45 pm
    The Government may win the vote, using their usual steamroller tactics, but they have lost the arguments on water privatisation all the way along. Every opinion poll and every person to whom one talks says that that is so. To suggest that the public have been misled is patronising to the people who have weighed up the arguments, considered the facts and rightly concluded that water privatisation will do nothing to bring forward improvements in water quality standards and will, at worst, jeopardise what we already have and undermine those standards. In the amendments, the Government have been putting forward not green policies but greedy policies, and they will pay the price for them.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: We have had an interesting debate on an important topic. The Minister started in a typical way. Sometimes I think that his tactic in these debates is to sound so boring that we will all lose interest and perhaps go away. Sometimes he wants to sound so technical that people will feel intimidated. As that tactic has not worked so far throughout our proceedings, he was rather hopeful in expecting it to work today.
    In one way, it is appropriate that this is the last amendment and the last debate during the Bill's passage. The Government's action—first, in relaxing the consent levels for sewage treatment plants that are operating illegally and, now, in introducing this immunity—is typical of their attitudes towards pollution and the environment generally. Their action today blows the lid off any claim that they make that the Bill is remotely green. The amendment to give immunity to water companies whose sewage treatment plants have been operating illegally shows that the Government do not care about pollution, standards or the environment.
    The Government have presided over an outrageous increase in pollution. There has been an enormous increase in pollution incidents of all kinds. In 1980–81, there were about 12,500 incidents. In 1987–88, there were 23,253 incidents. One reason for the increase has been the attitude of the water authorities—approved by the Government —in trying to persuade water polluters to reform rather than prosecuting them. Only about 1·5 per cent. are prosecuted. That approach has meant that polluters have found it cheaper to continue to pollute, and risk being caught, prosecuted and given a small fine, than to invest in pollution prevention.
    The Government have told us many times that one reason for the few prosecutions is that the water authorities have set a bad example with sewage treatment plants, hence the proposals—which we would take further —for an independent National Rivers Authority. We were told that we had to separate the gamekeeper and poacher to solve these problems, yet the NRA is to be handicapped from the start because of the Government's amendments. If the NRA cannot prosecute the water companies for breaches by sewage treatment plants, what will lesser polluters say when the NRA tries to prosecute them during that first year once the water authorities are privatized

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    when it is imperative that the right tone is set? If prosecutions are not possible during that first year—we have established that they are not—that is the wrong message, as one Conservative Member said yesterday.
    We have heard about the statements made by the chairman of the South West water authority, a man who regards his future career as being in the privatised water industry. He has said that he believes that it will be the job of the new private water companies to outwit the regulators. That is recorded as his approach. The regulators will not need outwitting, because the Secretary of State is doing that job for the companies. He is making private prosecutions virtually impossible, and he is tying one hand of the National Rivers Authority behind its back before it even starts its work. That may have a knock-on effect on its ability to prosecute.
    It was significant that the Minister did not mention any deadline by which the sewage treatment plants will have to comply. I take that as an admission that there is no deadline for compliance. In Committee, he said that he hoped—
    "in some circumstances and when it is easy"—
    that sewage treatment plants might come up to scratch by 1992, but he has given no guarantee that that will be the case. His letter to the water authorities states:
    "Where additional investment cannot be justified in terms of significant benefits … meaning the sewage treatment plants may have to continue operating below the standards that are required."
    The Government's priority has not been discernible during the debate. Their priority is not the price of water, the quality of drinking water, or ensuring that sewage treatment plants do not pollute our rivers. Their priority is simply to ensure that the water companies are able to take advantage of the industry's assets without taking on any of the liabilities.
    The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) said yesterday that this amendment would "send the wrong signals" to the privatised water industry because it would tell it that pollution was all right. For once, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is the green light for polluters.
    The Minister is clearly telling us that the private water companies want to take on all the water industry's assets, but they want none of the liabilities. Yesterday, when we tried to ensure that the public's land assets would be protected, the Government voted down our amendment.
    Earlier in our debates on the water industry, Opposition Members offered to support those parts of the Bill that could have been used to improve the environment. We offered to support and strengthen the National Rivers Authority to tackle pollution problems and to start to improve our environment. We said that if the Government had dropped part II of the Bill, we could have established the National Rivers Authority quickly. The Government were not interested in that. This amendment symbolises just what the Government are about—"forget standards, forget pollution problems, just make sure that the sale goes ahead."
    The hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) said that he hoped that the public would listen to our debate. The public have been listening to our debate, and that is why 79 per cent. of them are against water privatisation.
    Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Mrs. Taylor: I will not give way.
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    Ministers may bully Conservative Members into the Lobby tonight, as they have done on other occasions, but they cannot bully the electorate. This Bill will be one of the nails in the Government's coffin.
    Mr. Howard: I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) and for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) on their speeches. They exposed the fallacies that were advanced by the Opposition. Although I cannot entirely agree with the remarks of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) about fluoridation, I can assure him that the monitoring arrangements that will be in place under the National Rivers Authority as a result of the Bill will be a substantial advance in pollution control, and I hope that he will derive a great deal of comfort from that.
    We have heard from Opposition Members what we have heard throughout our proceedings on the Bill. They make their prepared speeches, and they will not listen to any of the arguments, however compelling they may be. No more compelling example of that could there be than the repeated assertion by practically every Opposition Member who has spoken in the debate that the effect of this amendment is to make it impossible for prosecutions to take place in the first 12 months after privatisation. That is wrong, untrue, and entirely inaccurate. It has no basis in the provisions contained in the amendments. We have demonstrated in great detail how mistaken that viewpoint was.
    The extraordinary thing about the attitude of Opposition Members—it should not still amaze me, although it does—is that each of them has complained about the state of our water environment, but they have failed to recognise that the existing arrangements for our water environment are responsible for the fact that it is not as good as we would like it to be. The Opposition refrain is, "Things are dreadful as they are; let us keep them exactly as they are."
    The most extraordinary claim of all was by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), who said that Opposition Members, in their attitude to this legislation, would work with environmental groups. The hon. Lady referred to 10 years ago. I invite the House to consider the position as it was 10 years ago when this Government came to office and when the Control of Pollution Act 1974 lay unimplemented by the Labour party. Were Labour Members working with environmental groups 10 years ago when that Act was unimplemented and when investment in sewerage services had been drastically cut by the Labour party? Were they working with environmental groups 10 years ago when the water authorities were in a hopelessly inhibited position, when operators and regulators were given deemed consents for their treatment works discharges? Were they working with environmental groups when they put those provisions in place?
    On the performance of sewage treatment works, we did not know then what proportion failed to meet their consent standards. When it was in power, the Labour party had not even bothered to collect the information. Were Labour Members working with environmental groups when they kept that information from the public? They denied the public the information that they needed to find out what was happening with the pollution of our water environment, and the right of public prosecution was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

    205
    During those 10 years, substantial progress has been made in putting right those wrongs. There has been a substantial increase in investment and in the information that is made available to the public. The public are now able to use powers to bring private prosecutions which were not even contemplated when the Labour party was in
    "(4) Where the rights and liabilities in respect of any such consent are transferred to a water authority's successor company in accordance with a scheme under Schedule 2 to this Act and the conditions of that consent include one or more of the following, that is to say—

    (a) a condition that requires that authority to take samples of any matter discharged;

    (b) a condition that requires that authority to furnish any person with information about samples taken by that authority; or

    (c) a condition that is contravened where there is a failure by more than a specified number of samples taken by that authority to satisfy specified requirements,

    then any such condition as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) above shall cease to have effect on the transfer date and any such condition as is mentioned in paragraph (c) above shall have effect on and after that date as if any samples taken on behalf of the Authority in exercise, at any time on or after that date, of a power conferred by this Act, but no other samples, were the samples falling to be taken into account for the purposes of that condition."
    Read a Second time.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Lords amendment, in line 13, leave out from `paragraph' and insert
    `those paragraphs shall have effect on and after the transfer date in the same manner as before that date, except that any reference to samples taken by that authority shall be taken to mean samples taken by the National Rivers Authority insofar as it refers to samples taken after the transfer date.'.
    Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:—
    The House divided: Ayes 203, Noes 309.

    Division No. 277]

    [6.58

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Canavan, Dennis

    Allason, Rupert

    Cartwright, John

    Allen, Graham

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Alton, David

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    Anderson, Donald

    Clay, Bob

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Clelland, David

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Cohen, Harry

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Ashton, Joe

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Corbett, Robin

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Battle, John

    Cousins, Jim

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Crowther, Stan

    Beckett, Margaret

    Cryer, Bob

    Beith, A. J.

    Cunningham, Dr John

    Bell, Stuart

    Dalyell, Tam

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Darling, Alistair

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

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Bermingham, Gerald

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

    Blair, Tony

    Dewar, Donald

    Blunkett, David

    Dixon, Don

    Boateng, Paul

    Dobson, Frank

    Bradley, Keith

    Douglas, Dick

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

    Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

    Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

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

    Buckley, George J.

    Fisher, Mark

    Caborn, Richard

    Flannery, Martin

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Flynn, Paul

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    power. We shall take those advances further and we shall build on them. With this legislation, we shall provide the framework for the clean-up of our water environment that the whole nation is anxious to see.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 313 to 319 agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 320, in page 356, line 48, at end insert—
    Question accordingly negatived.
    Lords amendment No. 320 agreed to.
    It being after Seven o'clock, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the order [3 July], to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded by that hour.
    Lords amendments Nos. 321 to 341 agreed to.
    Committee appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to certain of their amendments to the Bill: Mr. Howard, Mr. Alan Howarth, Mr. Roger King, Mr. Allen McKay and Mrs. Ann Taylor; Three to be the quorum.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
    To withdraw immediately.
    Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords amendments reported, and agreed to: to be communicated to the Lords.

Antarctic Minerals Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition.
7.13 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The main purpose of the Bill is to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the convention on the regulation of Antarctic mineral resource activities. The convention was adopted by consensus at Wellington on 2 June last year and was signed on behalf of the United Kingdom on 22 March. The Bill will prohibit exploration and mining development activities in Antarctica by British companies and nationals. It permits prospecting activities authorised by the United Kingdom Government or another contracting party to the convention. It enables the Secretary of State to grant licences for prospecting activities in accordance with the terms of the convention.
The Bill is technical and it seems unexceptionable. However, there are issues at stake in the Bill that are critical for the future of the world environment. It gives us an important opportunity to protect our environment. If we do not take that opportunity, we risk inflicting catastrophic damage on our planet. Those are truly apocalyptic assertions for a technical Bill. To explain and justify those assertions, I need to remind the House about the delicate situation in Antarctica.
Seven states—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom—claim territorial sovereignty over sectors of Antarctica. Those so-called "claimant" states say that whatever minerals there may be in their respective Antarctic territories are theirs and theirs alone. Other states, most notably the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Japan, and the Federal Republic of Germany, do not recognise the sovereignty claims of the seven other states. Those non-claimant states say that they have a right to take minerals in the Antarctic wherever they may find them.
That difficult situation is further complicated by the fact that one sector in Antarctica is not claimed by any state. Another sector is claimed by three states: Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom.
As a result of that complex situation, over 30 years ago President Eisenhower issued an invitation to II other countries to come to Washington to negotiate a treaty on Antarctica. The background was increasing super-power tension in Antarctica and escalating disputes over sovereignty. Shots had actually been fired in the Antarctic.
The outcome of the Washington meeting was the Antarctic treaty, which had two achievements. First, it created out of Antarctica a "continent for science". Secondly, it provided a means for managing what had become literally the explosive issue of sovereignty. The means consisted of a provision, article IV, which simply set the issue of sovereignty aside or, more colloquially, article IV freezes the issue of sovereignty. To give that some chance of success, the treaty also demilitarised Antarctica

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and provided for on-site inspection. Elegant and daring in its simplicity, the treaty has been described as, and has proved to be, one of the most effective of post-war treaties.
However, the Antarctic treaty said nothing about minerals. After many years of discussion, the treaty parties agreed on two points. First, they agreed that a total ban on mineral activity was simply not attainable and, secondly, because of disputes over sovereignty, a regime governing mineral activity had to be in place well before any mining activity or prospecting began. As far back as 1970, it was recognised that if at some stage important mineral resources were found, an unregulated and dangerous scramble could develop. That could obviously have a most damaging effect on the environment in Antarctica.
Sir Trevor Skeet: It is apparent that most of the minerals in Antarctica have not yet been discovered and it is not likely that mineral licences will be granted for the next 50 or 60 years, so why take the power now? Will this be comparable to the Deep Sea Mining (Temporary Provisions) Act 1981 when we wanted manganese nodules from the deep of the ocean and the House therefore took powers to cover our own territory?
Mr. Eggar: No mining activity of any kind, including prospecting, has yet taken place. The Bill permits only prospecting, and then in defined circumstances only. If, following negotiation of a protocol, it was to be decided that exploration and development should be permitted, the Government would return to the House with another Bill specifically covering those two areas. If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I shall develop that theme later.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Minister ruling out any possibility of making that area off-limits for mining? Many hon. Members feel that any mining in that area is unacceptable. Has that consideration been entertained? Are the British Government to fall in line with the French and Australians and with their attitudes towards the Antarctic?
Mr. Eggar: The French have not yet made their position clear. The Australian Government have said that they will not sign the convention. I shall comment on that later. We have made it absolutely clear that all that this Bill does is to allow prospecting under certain defined conditions.
Mr. Banks rose—
Mr. Eggar: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, because this is a complex area and I should like to explain our thinking. However, I shall, of course, give way again if the hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied with the answers.
Mr. Michael Foot: Will the Minister ensure that he tells the House exactly what happened in the discussions with the Australian Prime Minister, so that the House has a full account of those discussions? Will he also tell us whether this matter will be raised with the President of France shortly, when the Prime Minister meets him?
Mr. Banks: If there is prospecting, surely there will also be mining.
Mr. Eggar: In answer to the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), if he will bear with me I shah be dealing with the Australian view later. I shall give way at that stage if he wishes to intervene.
Ms. Mildred Gordon: I wonder if the Minister would explain whether combustion gases from petrol and diesel oil used in prospecting and possible mining would not further damage the depleted ozone layer, and if there should be a volcanic eruption, sending sulphuric acid into the atmosphere, which happens every few years, would not that decimate the ozone layer? Will the Minister give a guarantee that no mining will be allowed until the moves to prevent further damage to the ozone layer have come into effect and time is allowed for the ozone layer to repair itself?
Mr. Eggar: The hon. Lady has made several jumps from one complex issue to another. I repeat the assurance that I have already given—this Bill does not permit mining; it permits only prospecting—[Interruption.] That is an important division. Perhaps the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will bear with me.
As I have already said, the Antarctic treaty said nothing about minerals. It was recognised that we had to try to introduce a regime to govern future possible prospecting and mining activity before embarking on such activities. On five occasions in the 1970s, the possibility of a binding moratorium to prevent any minerals activity was discussed. On none of those occasions was there a consensus in favour of a binding moratorium.
As I have already said, there has so far not been any serious interest in exploiting minerals. However, the treaty partners were not prepared to rule out the possibility that minerals might one day be extracted from Antarctica under defined, environmentally sound conditions. It has been said that the convention, and in consequence this Bill, is some sort of miner's charter. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To demonstrate this, I want to go into some detail about the convention and the Bill. The convention provides for three stages of mineral activity: prospecting, exploration and development. Prospecting is aimed at identifying areas of mineral resource potential. It rules out deep dredging, excavations—that covers the point raised by the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) —and drilling to depths of more than 25 m. In that context, it is important to realise that the ice cap in Antarctica is over one mile deep. Exploration is aimed at identifying and evaluating specific mineral resource occurrences or deposits. Development is what it says—the development of specific mineral resource deposits.
That distinction between prospecting on the one hand and exploration and development on the other is critical to the way the convention works. "Prospecting" is defined so as to ensure that the act of prospecting has no more effect on the environment than similar scientific research activity. Such research activity is already permitted and has been of immense value. It was, after all, the work by the British Antarctic Survey which identified the hole in the ozone layer. For that reason, prospecting is not subject to authorisation by the Commission or the other bodies which the convention will set up.
However, prospecting must be carried out in accordance with the convention. Prospecting bodies will have to comply with any relevant measures which the Commission may adopt in the future. It is the responsibility of the prospector's country to make sure that the prospector complies with the convention.
The convention naturally recognises that exploration and development involve far greater possible risks to the

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environment. The convention sets out stringent environmental controls of exploration and development processes. No exploration or development can begin until all member states of the commission unanimously agree that it should do so. Each state party—they include all Antarctic treaty consultative parties—therefore effectively has a veto on exploration and development within Antarctica.
Mr. Elliot Morley: On the point about states having a veto on the agreement, I understand that Australia and France intend to use their veto. If that is the case, from what the Minister is saying, the agreement cannot proceed, so would it not be more sensible for the Government to decide not to proceed with this agreement but to argue for a different agreement, perhaps in the concept of a world park?
Mr. Eggar: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall deal with those arguments later. I must correct him on a matter of fact: France has not declared its position, although Australia has done so.
Moreover, the convention bans any exploration and commercial development until a separate protocol on liability has been negotiated. That protocol will set out detailed rules and procedures governing the operator's liability if damage should be caused to the environment. The liability protocol will build on the liability provisions applying to prospecting already in the convention. Negotiations on the protocol have not yet begun, but when they do they will probably last several years.
When those negotiations are satisfactorily completed, the Government intend to return to the House with another Bill which will, of course, be debated in the House. That Bill will implement the liability protocol and provide for exploration and development in accordance with the convention. But that is for the future. Tonight the House is not being asked to enact legislation enabling British operators to undertake mineral exploration and development in Antarctica.
Mr. Tony Banks rose—
Mr. Eggar: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way now. I shall give way later if he is not satisfied with the explanation by that stage.
The present Bill only covers prospecting. It actually prohibits for the first time any British national or company from undertaking any exploration or development activity. What is more, it bans all prospecting activity, except that which is in accordance with a licence issued by the Secretary of State. It provides that the Secretary of State shall not grant a prospecting licence unless he is satisfied that the activities he is asked to authorise will be consistent with the international obligations of the United Kingdom. Specifically, the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the authorised activities would not cause

"(a) significant adverse effects on air and water quality;

(b) significant changes in atmospheric, terrestrial or marine environments;

(c) significant changes in the distribution, abundance or productivity of populations of species of fauna or flora;

(d) further jeopardy to endangered or threatened species or populations of such species; or

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(e) degradation of, or substantial risk to, areas of special biological, scientific, historic, aesthetic or wilderness significance."

Neither can my right hon. and learned Friend issue a licence until he is satisfied that—and I quote again:

"(a) technology and procedures are available to provide for safe operations;

(b) there exists the capacity to monitor key environmental parameters and ecosystem components"

and so on.
So we are talking only about prospecting; and then we are only permitting prospecting under extremely stringent conditions—so stringent that the Government believe that, provided the convention enters into force, no Antarctic mineral prospecting activity could take place which would significantly or adversely affect the Antarctic environment.
I have now reached the point raised by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West. The convention depends for its entry into force on 16 countries ratifying or acceding to it. The United States, the Soviet Union and the seven claimant states—including Australia—must be among those 16. As one of the claimants, it follows that our ratification of the convention is necessary.
That then is the position if the convention comes into force. I believe that the House will agree that the protection for the environment offered by the convention is very considerable. What would happen if the convention does not enter into force?
In 1977, the Antarctic treaty consultative parties decided that each of them should urge their nationals to
"refrain from all exploration and exploitation of Antarctic mineral resources while making progress towards the timely adoption of an agreed regime concerning Antarctic mineral resource activities".
That 1977 voluntary moratorium was extended last year by the terms of the final act of the conference at which the Antarctic minerals convention was adopted.
The final act says:
"The Meeting agreed that all States represented at the Meeting would urge their nationals and other States to refrain from Antarctic mineral resource activities as defined in the Convention pending its timely entry into force".
I want to underscore those words
"pending its timely entry into force".
Therefore, the continued effectiveness of the voluntary moratorium on mining activity is conditional on the convention entering into force and upon it doing so in a timely manner. So if any of the key states were finally to rule out ratifying or acceding to the convention, that state would, by its actions, have destroyed the existing voluntary moratorium. That state would bear a severe responsibility for the consequences of its decision.
Those consequences are clear. At some stage, perhaps not so far in the future, some entity would go to Antarctica to find out whether Antarctica might contain mineral resources which could be exploited. Such prospecting, exploration and development would be entirely unregulated. There would be no control over that entity's effect on the environment. Mining would inevitably raise sensitive sovereignty issues and consequent dispute and possibly conflict. The Antarctic treaty system could begin to unravel. It was the thought of such mining activity that led to the negotiation of the convention in the first place.
Mr. James Wallace: One of the things that one regularly finds when talking to oil companies about their decision to invest in a particular place is that they look for what they believe is a stable

215
political regime. That is why they have been prepared to invest in the North sea. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, without any legal or licensing framework or without any security as to the political regime—for example, if there were questions of sovereignty hanging over it—those companies would be prepared to put at stake considerable investment?
Mr. Eggar: The point is that we do not know whether companies would be prepared to prospect. It is far better to take measures now on a worldwide co-ordinated scale so that, if they wish to go down there and prospect, they can do so with proper environmental safeguards. If we do not have those environmental safeguards, entities could go down there and cause unlimited damage.
Mr. Morley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Eggar: If the hon. Gentleman will let me continue, I shall be willing to give way later, but I must be allowed to develop this part of the argument.
One of the main concerns of both sides of the House is to ensure the protection of the Antarctic environment. The fulfilment of that aim requires that international harmony in the Antarctic be maintained. Indeed, our first priority must be to maintain that harmony. If the United Kingdom were not to ratify the convention, we would be contributing to future discord in the Antarctic and therefore jeopardising the protection of the Antarctic environment.
The House is aware—Opposition Members have already intervened to make the point—that the Australian Government have recently announced that they believe that there should never be any mineral resource activity in the Antarctic of any kind. The Australian Government want the Antarctic to be declared a wilderness park in which only scientific research and a small amount of tourism would be allowed.
Mr. George Foulkes: Toryism?
Mr. Eggar: Tourism.
The Australian Government aspire to a comprehensive Antarctic environmental protection convention that would ban all Antarctic mineral resource activities. As has already been said, as a claimant state, Australia's eventual ratification or accession is essential for the convention to enter into force.
The British Government are disappointed at Australia's decision, particularly since Australia played a major role in agreeing the convention. Despite the views put to us by the Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, we believe that the Australians have not considered the possible consequences of their action and have not taken account of the possibilities offered by the convention to meet Australia's stated public objectives.
The Antarctic treaty has succeeded over the past 30 years because every member of that treaty system has exercised forbearance and no member has pushed its interest beyond the point where it can be tolerated by others. The treaty system has also depended on an implicit assumption that, once an agreement has been reached by consensus, all parties to that consensus will confirm and implement the agreement. The Australian move has gone against both of those tenets of the Antarctic treaty system.
The Australian case rests on an unsubstantiated assertion that Antarctic mineral resource activity is now
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suddenly environmentally unacceptable. The idea of maintaining the Antarctic as an unsullied frozen paradise free of environmentally damaging mining activities is attractive. It is an easy political slogan, especially for hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Newham, North-West.
But the Australians cannot claim the moral high ground resulting from some sort of conversion on the road to Damascus, because the purpose of the convention is precisely to avoid environmental damage from mining in Antarctica. Perhaps Australia does not believe that rational objection to mineral activity will be effective when decisions come to be made under the convention. We find that puzzling, to say the least.
Dr. John Gilbert: Leaving aside the merits of what the Australians may or may not have said now or in the past, is it the case that, if the Australian Government refuse to ratify the convention, it will not come into effect?
Mr. Eggar: The Australian Government have said that they will not sign the convention, but they have not ruled out ratification or accession to the convention—
Dr. Gilbert: A technical difference.
Mr. Eggar: It is more than technical—it is an important difference. I want to explain why we believe the Australian decision is inappropriate and why, despite that decision, we are determined to press ahead with the Bill.
Australia's Antarctic partners have a right to ask Australia for its reasons for inflicting damage on the consensus machinery of the Antarctic treaty system. They have a right to ask Australia why it has taken a path that could result in a collapse of that treaty. What is more, the Australian alternative, a ban on all mineral activity, is simply unattainable. The route of a ban on mining activity was tried throughout the 1970s, but it proved impossible to reach an agreement on such a ban. The fact is that the convention is the only attainable means to ensure the protection of the Antarctic environment.
Even if an outright ban on mineral activity could be negotiated—we do not believe that it could—it would be extremely unlikely to work. In a world of increasing population and increasing pressures on a finite resource base, prospecting for minerals would continue. Instead of such prospecting being carried out openly within Antarctica and subject to proper control, as laid out in the convention, it would be done covertly under the guise of scientific research. No one would be able to use scientific research techniques, such as seismic investigation of the structure of the continental shelf of Antarctica, or conduct a geological investigation without those perfectly viable scientific research techniques raising questions as to whether they were prospecting activities in disguise.
At this stage, the world needs not a grand gesture, however superficially attractive it might be, but an example of how environmentally properly internationally negotiated sustainable development can be pursued. The Antarctic minerals convention is just such an example. In shorthand, what the convention says to mining entities is, "Yes, you can go to the Antarctic and, under strict environmental controls, you can find out whether the Antarctic has any minerals in it that might be worth exploiting. You should know, however, that if you think you have found anything, the primary and overriding

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concern of the convention is to ensure the protection of the Antarctic environment." Any proposed activity that posed significant risk of damage to that environment would be stopped.
Mr. Morley: Earlier, the Minister read out a list of areas in which protection would operate, and it sounded fine. Who will control the conditions of the actual prospecting? Will we operate that control as a Government or as partners to the treaty? As the Minister said, the treaty says that such prospecting will not take place if it causes significant adverse effects to the environment, but how does one define what is significant? Surely that is an enormous loophole in the treaty.
Mr. Eggar: I have already outlined the procedures that must be followed to obtain a prospecting licence. As the hon. Gentleman knows, they are elaborate and, before the Secretary of State gives such a licence, he must be satisfied that all the procedures have been met. If we were to introduce a Bill that governed exploration and development following the successful negotiation of the liability protocol, such exploration and development would come under the terms of the convention and they will be controlled by the commission and the other various convention bodies set out in that convention.
Earlier, the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) asked me whether the convention was effectively dead as a result of the Australian decision. We do not believe that that is the case, and there are three reasons why that should not happen. First, we do not accept that our Government should accept that a treaty system which is bound by the consensus rule should enable one state to dictate to the other treaty states. We believe that the consequences of the Australian decision must be debated and resolved in the same spirit of compromise and mutual accommodation which are the essential prerequisites if the Antarctic treaty system is to survive.
Secondly, we believe that the Australian decision is wrong in principle. We believe in the convention and we hope that the Australians will change their minds. Demonstrating our belief in the convention is the best way to proceed, and we intend to do so by giving ourselves the enabling powers to ratify that convention.
Thirdly, there are many other ways in which to protect the Antarctic environment. Such protection can be afforded by dealing directly with such issues as pollution from ships, waste disposal at Antarctic stations, the environmental effects of tourism and so on. Most important of all, however, a start should be made on the negotiation of the liability protocol called for by the minerals convention. The convention says that the rules and procedures developed in that protocol
"shall be designed to enhance the protection of the Antarctic environment."
If the Australians are serious in their concern about the environment, they should be in there fighting for their particular points during the protocol negotiations.
If we fail to pass the Bill, we shall throw away the only practical means of regulating mining activity in the Antarctic. We shall ensure instead that issues of territorial sovereignty will arise in an unmanageable form. The Antarctic treaty system may well crumble and the
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international harmony and co-operation that have been the hallmark of matters relating to Antarctica in the past 30 years will come to an end.
If we give the Bill a Second Reading tonight, we cannot of course thereby guarantee that the convention comes into force and that the possible adverse consequences will be avoided. Whether the convention comes into force will depend on others following our example. By passing the Bill, however, we shall give a necessary and important signal of our continuing faith in the Antarctic treaty system. Furthermore, it will be a signal that patient international negotiation is the way in which to preserve the environment in Antarctica—not grand and ill-thought-out gestures.
I commend the Bill to the House.
7.48 pm
Mr. George Foulkes: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and add instead thereof:
"this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which fails to take account of major changes since the signing of the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Minerals Resource Activity (CRAMRA) including the Exxon Valdez disaster, increased public concern about ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect and the declaration of opposition to signing the Convention by the governments of Australia and France, and fails to make provision for Her Majesty's Government to join new negotiations for a comprehensive Environmental Protection Convention."
The amendment declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill for the stated reasons, but I should make it abundantly clear that the Opposition in no way imply any criticism of the excellent work undertaken by United Kingdom officials in negotiations to achieve the convention to which that Bill relates. We pay tribute to the diligence, patience and sincerity of them all. I hope that I will be excused if I pick out Dr. John Heap, an Edinburgh graduate—[Interruption.] Scottish Members will know why I choose him. In all seriousness, he has played a central role throughout the negotiations.
Mr. Simon Burns rose—
Mr. Foulkes: I have hardly begun my speech.
Mr. Burns: I am sorry to intervene so early in the hon. Gentleman's speech. Does he agree that there has been a dramatic turnabout since 20 April, when the Bill had its Second Reading in another place? On that occasion the Opposition spokesman welcomed the Bill and said that he would assist it throughout its passage.
Mr. Foulkes: I was wrong to give way and the hon. Gentleman was right to apologise for intervening. I shall be dealing with the speech of my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Cledwyn in a few moments.
Since the agreement was made in Wellington on 2 June last year, some dramatic events and substantial changes in public opinion must be taken into account in considering our approach to the Bill, the convention and to Antarctica in general. It should be noted that it is thanks to the Opposition that we are debating the issue on the Floor of the House at a reasonable hour rather than in the middle of the night. We arranged that because we wanted to acknowledge the importance of the changes.
The dramatic events and the changes in public opinion have influenced our thinking, and they should influence the Government's thinking as they have influenced the

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thinking of other Governments—especially if we are to believe the Prime Minister, and she really has adopted the green mantle and suddenly discovered the importance of the environment and its protection. Even as early as Second Reading in another place, on a number of occasions my right hon. and noble Friend expressed his unease about the Bill and said that he would prefer all countries to agree to leave Antarctica alone and not to prospect and mine for minerals—[Interruption.] I am paraphrasing my right hon. and noble Friend's speech as the rules do not allow me to quote it.
It is naive in the extreme of the Minister to suggest that the Bill deals only with prospecting and that prospecting will not automatically lead to exploitation. Exploitation will follow prospecting as surely as night follows day. The Minister shakes his head, but he knows the inevitability of that happening. In the debate in another place it was not only my right hon. and noble Friend who expressed unease and reservations; other Peers did so, too. For example, Lord Buxton, who knows a thing or two about the Antarctic, said that he supported the Bill without enthusiasm and that his instincts and his sympathies were with those who wanted the Antarctic continent protected as a world park.
Even the Foreign Office's commentary said that the convention, as a compromise, was accepted with some reluctance. However, Dr. Drewry of the British Antarctic Survey, Dr. Heap, my noble Friend Lord Shackleton and the Minister all argue that it is the best that we can obtain and that if we do not have it there will be an unregulated rush for minerals. I understand and respect the argument that half a loaf is better than none, but I do not agree with it. We question whether the convention is as effective as the Minister and others have claimed. We also question whether the ideal is any longer unattainable.
I shall deal with our specific concerns about the convention and, therefore, the Bill. First, we are concerned about the difficulties of enforcement and the lack of effective sanctions. There is nothing in the Bill or in the convention to stop rogue countries colluding with their mining companies to flout the convention. A country might wish to encourage its mining companies to do that, and it is entirely possible under the convention.
The legal mechanisms to enforce the provisions of the convention are long and extremely cumbersome. Although it is clear how national companies will be regulated, it is not at all clear how multinational companies will be regulated. If the inspection, which is very important, is to be carried out by personnel of the British Antarctic Survey, that may have an adverse effect on its scientific work.
We are worried about the problems of enforcement. The semantic uncertainty that is characteristic of several key articles in the convention actually weakens it and could lead to endless confusion and dispute. For all those reasons we have doubts about the effectiveness and the enforceability of the convention.
The second area of equal concern is the imbalance of criteria in decision-making within the convention. The Foreign Office's commentary on the environmental aspects of the convention states:
"The final decision is one that involves an overall balancing and judgment of the political and economic as well as the environmental aspects of the matter…It is therefore proper that such decisions should be taken in the relevant political forum."
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We accept that but, given the Government's record of putting economic considerations before morality, let alone environmental protection, we are worried that the pressures from mining and other economic interests will invariably prevail.
Our third area of concern is the fragility of the Antarctic ecosystem, the irreversibility of damage and the uniqueness of Antarctica. None of those is properly taken into account. Paragraph 2 of article 8 states:
"An operator shall be strictly liable for damage to the…ecosystems."
It says that the operator must clean up and take action to restore the status quo ante. How on this earth can an ecosystem be restored once it has been damaged? How can it be restored by the operator? He can clean up in many ways, but he cannot clean up that sort of damage. The operator has a number of other get outs; he can claim that the damage resulted from a natural disaster such as severe ice conditions, strong winds or seismic activity. There are loopholes galore.
We should listen carefully to Sir Peter Scott, who knows something about the Antarctic, who warned in a letter to The Times on 29 December 1986:
"Damage to the fragile Antarctic wilderness from minerals operations, especially offshore oil exploitation"—
that is the particular interest in exploration—
"would in many circumstances be irreversible and no level of protection could be stringent enough to guarantee there would be no damage."
Mr. Eggar: Everything that the hon. Gentleman has said refers to exploration and development, not to prospecting, which is the issue dealt with by the Bill. Does he agree that the liability protocol will cover his questions about exploration and development?
Mr. Foulkes: No, I do not accept that. First, what I have said is not connected just with exploitation and development. Some of it was connected with the original prospecting. As I said earlier, prospecting is the thin end of the wedge. We know that there will be a move on to development and exploitation. We know that in discussions of that protocol the pressure from the minerals lobby will be strong. That is not just the view of Peter Scott. The respected French scientist Jacques Cousteau agreed. He said:
"the environmental consequences of industrial exploitation would be incalculable and irreversible."
He added:
"This continent revealed its fragility due to the extreme simplicity of its ecosystems during a mission of our oceanographic vessel, the Calypso."
People who understand the area are worried about the kind of operation that will inevitably follow from the prospecting which, as the Minister says, is included in the Bill.
Fourthly, among our concerns is the reliance on consensus and unanimity, of which the Minister makes great play. But that is not as much of a safeguard as it appears and as the Minister claims. The requirement in the convention for the chairman to mediate in the case of a veto means that the pressure on the country exercising that veto will be intense. We have already seen that in another context with the Minister's pressure on the Australians today. We know from our experience of the EC the sort of pressure that can be brought to bear upon a country that exercises a veto. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) says, the Prime Minister, for all her bluster and her claims to be firm, has

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given way on a number of occasions under such pressure. Moreover, the power of veto is likely to be used selectively. A nation refusing activities in one area will know that it might suffer the same fate when it wants to exploit in another. Therefore, it would be cautious about exercising a veto.
Mr. Ray Powell: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have just witnessed the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary being consulted by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), then going to a Box to which we are not supposed to refer, being advised and coming back to give the information to the hon. Gentleman. Will the information from the Box behind you be made available to all Back-Bench Members? If not, can we be told why such information is being passed?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman says, but that is not a point of order for the Chair. There has been no breach of our Standing Orders.
Mr. Foulkes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), but the Minister needs all the information and advice that he can get from whatever quarter.
The convention begins to look more like a charter for mining companies to explore and exploit than a charter to protect the environment.
Since the convention was signed, significant developments have changed political, public and environmental perceptions. First, the public outrage—that is not too strong a word—at the oil spillages of the Exxon Valdez and, to a lesser extent, the Bahia Paraiso, has been dramatic. In the Exxon Valdez incident the scale and extent of environmental destruction overwhelmed the world community. The public came to realise that they had been lulled into a false sense of security and into believing the repeated assurances that an accident of such magnitude could never happen and that contingency clean-ups would work well and as planned.
The promised emergency response system failed completely and people round the world were shocked at the oil company's complacent and cavalier attitude towards the environmental catastrophe that it had brought about. The lessons for the Antarctic are there to be learnt from the Arctic disaster and from the damaging effect of the relatively small spillage of the Bahia Paraiso in the Antarctic itself.
Those lessons, together with increased awareness of environmental issues generally as well as other pressures, are resulting in second thoughts in other countries. In April 1989, the French Prime Minister, Mr. Rocard, said that France would not ratify the convention unless it contained stronger environmental safeguards, and President Mitterrand reaffirmed that on 13 June. I was surprised that the Minister seemed unaware of that today. Those statements are on the record, clear and unequivocal.
In May this year Australia announced it would not sign the convention and in a joint ministerial statement the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Minister of the Environment stated that Australia is
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"dedicated to the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and in that context our strong commitment is that no mining at all—including oil drilling —should take place in and around the continent."
They said that it was both desirable and possible to seek stronger protection for the Antarctic environment than the minerals convention would provide. In place of the minerals convention, Australia proposes the development of a comprehensive environmental protection convention to be discussed at the 15th Antarctic treaty consultative meeting in Paris next October.
The Minister tried some scare tactics on us today and said that the moratorium on mineral prospecting would lapse if we did not go ahead with the minerals convention. It is inconceivable that the moratorium would not continue while a new convention was under negotiation. Of course, there would be a continued moratorium. As the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), one of the Democratic Members, said—[Interruption.] They keep changing their name which creates difficulties for all of us, but even more for them. He made a good point when he said that oil companies would be reluctant to go in while the legal title was unclear. The moratorium would continue and it is wrong for the Minister to adopt scare tactics to try to deflect us and the Australians from our aim.
The Australian proposal would ban all mining activity and establish an Antarctic wilderness park which would be developed within the framework of the Antarctic treaty system. It is important that it should be developed within that framework. With no disrespect to the United Nations, under whose auspices it has been proposed that the park should be developed, we, like the Australians, think that it would be easier and much more practical to develop it within the framework of the Antarctic treaty system.
The Minister tried to imply that that would stop legitimate scientific investigation. That is not the case. All legitimate scientific investigation would be possible. It is the aim of the Australians and those who support them to make sure that that would take place.
I also understand that India has come out in favour of that stance and that the Belgian foreign affairs committee has recommended that no Belgian company should participate in any commercial or industrial exploration of Antarctic mineral resources. That recommendation was approved by the Belgian Parliament last Friday. The Minister did not seem to know about that, but the Belgian Parliament is well ahead of us on that issue.
There is a groundswell of support behind the Australian initiative which Britain should join. The possibility of achieving a whole loaf rather than half a loaf is becoming a reality, and it will be even more likely if the United Kingdom's weight is behind such an endeavour.
It seemed likely that the convention on the regulation of Antarctic minerals resource activity would be ratified by sufficient parties, but many took the view, which we understand, that it should be accepted as the only feasible option and that we should concentrate on strengthening its environmental safeguards. But now the Australians and the French are not just signalling that they will use their veto on the minerals convention; they are leading the movement for an alternative environmental protection convention. That is a lead that we should follow. The Minister has not said, in response to numerous questions from my hon. Friends, what the alternative will be if the

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Australians and the French refuse to sign the convention and if it is not ratified. It is neglectful and irresponsible of the Government not to provide an alternative.
Britain is rightly proud of its pioneering role in Antarctica. In the last century as well as in this century, we have contributed to the understanding of environmental dangers, and more recently British scientists discovered the hole in the ozone layer. We should be in the vanguard of environmental protection in that last remaining, relatively unpolluted part of the globe—rather than be dragged along behind.
The Australian Government, with their practical record and mining experience, are not taking the initiative out of any starry-eyed idealism but in the realisation that unless action is taken there is a danger of irreparably damaging our planet for future generations. I challenge Conservative Members to put concern for the environment before profit for the mining companies. The Bill is an acid test of the Government's supposed commitment to green issues. If they press ahead with it, they will have failed that acid test.
8.11 pm
Mr. Hugo Summerson: As was said by my hon. Friend the Minister, the Antarctic treaty is a model of world co-operation. It has worked extremely well since 1961. It solved, for the time being, problems of territorial sovereignty, territorial integrity and territorial disputes. This evening, I shall discuss some of the convention's ramifications.
Antarctica is a marvellous laboratory for the study of global phenomena. Among them are the ozone layer—and let us not forget the British scientists who discovered the hole in the ozone layer—and global atmospheric warming. If the entire Antarctic ice cap melts, sea levels around the world will rise by 150 metres. Antarctica is a uniquely favourable site from which to study the magnetosphere, which is that part of the ionosphere most affected by solar storms and which has such a bad effect on radio communications.
Geological and geophysical investigations lead to a greater understanding of the refinement of plate tectonic processes that remain active. The southern ocean is of global importance in respect of its behaviour as a major sink, particularly for carbon dioxide, for which the estimated uptake is of the order of 30 per cent. of that discharged into the atmosphere.
In addition, there are biological studies into stocks of krill, fish and squid. I quote from the publication, "Antarctica 2000," which is the Natural Environment Research Council's strategy for Antarctic research. Section 9 on page 3 describes the Antarctic ice sheet:
"The ice sheet presents unparalleled scope for the study of past climate and environmental conditions extending back to possibly one million years BP. Isotopic ratios of oxygen and hydrogen within the frozen water molecule are diagnostic of palaeotemperatures; acids and insoluble particulate matter indicate periods of volcanic activity; gas bubble pressures assist in estimating the former elevation of the ice sheet, whilst the included gas provides insight into the composition of the Earth's ancient atmosphere. The analysis of ice cores also traces the inexorable rise of CO2and other gases such as methane, nitrous oxides, other oxides of nitrogen and sulphur since pre-industrial times, some of which contribute to the greenhouse effect. In addition, heavy metals such as copper, lead, zinc and cadmium can be measured to levels of picograms per gram. Ice core chemistry of this sensitivity is thus able to monitor changes in the global background levels of these chemicals, which are transferred to Antarctica by atmospheric circulation."
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In order to put some flesh on those bones, I may add that my brother worked for the British Antarctic Survey for five years and spent nearly three years on-station in Antarctica. His was an object lesson in the work done by the survey in measuring world pollution levels. The survey knows full well that, at a certain depth in the ice sheet, one can recover samples of snow that fell hundreds of years ago, and do so very precisely. In that way, one can identify the level of a particular pollutant 100 years ago and its level today. Antarctica is the only place in the world where it is possible to do that.
Following ratification of the Antarctic treaty in 1961, three additional legal instruments emerged, which together form the Antarctic treaty system. They are the agreed measures for the conservation of Antarctic flora and fauna of 1964; the conservation of Antarctic seals in 1972; and the convention on the conservation of Antarctic marine-living resources. I mention them in detail because they were the forerunners of the convention on the regulation of Antarctic mineral resource activities, which is what all the fuss is about.
We have a strong voice in the British Antarctic Survey which, since 1961, has undertaken an integrated and coherent programme of first-class research. It is worth listening to the survey's views, but now I quote from a letter from Greenpeace. I thank Greenpeace for writing to me and appreciate the trouble that it has taken. The letter comes to me from Mr. Dougie Patel, Antarctica campaigner, who writes:
"given the unresolved issue of sovereignty in Antarctica, very few if any operators would have risked investment in exploration and development without a clear legal system for licensing and some security for realising their investment."
That point has already been made, but it is complete nonsense. Any nation deciding to exploit Antarctica's world resources—if they are there to exploit—might decide that it would keep the oil for its own use. One can imagine the Soviet Union, for example, getting up the oil and taking it back to Russia, not for resale but for its own use. In that case, arguments about a "clear legal system" are nonsense, for who is to enforce such a system? Mr. Patel continues:
"This Bill commits"—
note the use of the word "commits"—
"the UK to accept future mineral exploitation of Antarctica by other nations, even in UK claimed territory".
The Bill does no such thing. Mr. Patel adds:
"In effect Parliament is being asked to commit the UK to support an Antarctic mining regime without the opportunity for full debate on the future consequences of our ratification of the Convention."
That, too, is nonsense. I suspect that Mr. Patel has not read the explanatory and financial memorandum, which states:
"The Bill prohibits any activities in Antarctica for, or for purposes connected with, the exploration or exploitation of mineral resources, except prospecting activities authorised by the United Kingdom Government or by another State which is party to the Convention."
In other words, Mr. Patel has made an assumption about the Bill, and has taken it to be the truth.
Mr. Patel goes on to comment on the position of Australia and France. On Australia, he says:
"Prime Minister Bob Hawke has declared that his Government will not sign CRAMRA."
That is true so far: the Australians have not signed the convention, and I feel that we are entitled to ask what factors are at work there. Can the reason be the rise of the green factor in Australia, or perhaps the fact that that

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nation has long exploited its own primary mineral resources? Can Australia be looking across the southern ocean towards Antarctica, hoping to apply its expertise there? As for the French, they can hardly talk; driving a new airstrip across Antarctica hardly presents a good example to the rest of the world.
Belgium currently has a Bill going through its Parliament which will make it illegal for any Belgian national to prospect for or exploit any minerals in Antarctica. Bully for Belgium, I say. How ridiculous: such a law would be completely unenforceable.
Finally, Mr. Patel says:
"Or the UK can choose to open up a truly pristine wilderness for minerals mining. Any participation in a policy of burning more fossil fuels demonstrates that the UK Government has not yet made the commitment to develop, (or encourage others to develop) alternatives to fossil fuels and to mitigate the process of global warming."
I need only mention the two words "nuclear power", which, of course, will drive anyone from Greenpeace completely insane.
Why is there a need for the convention? It would decide in advance whether the risks are acceptable. The procedure gives the benefit of the doubt to the protection of the environment—otherwise, as my hon. Friend the Minister has said, there is the strong possibility of an unregulated scramble for the Antarctic's resources.
The importance of the convention is shown by the fact that the treaty's consultative parties took six years to reach agreement in Wellington on 2 June 1988. At present there is only a voluntary moratorium, and if agreement is not reached that may go by the board.
Let us consider the resources of the Antarctic. It must he remembered that only 1 or 2 per cent. of its land mass is above ice; most of it is covered by a sheet of ice up to 5 km deep. To the best of my knowledge, the technology is not available for the process of drilling through the ice to the rock beneath to be possible. It should also be borne in mind that the ice is constantly on the move.
The Americans say that they reckon that Antarctica's continental shelf has oil reserves amounting to 45 billion barrels. That is nonsense. The continental shelf is comparatively small; moreover, the formation of the continental ice sheet has meant that the sediments normally deposited to form oil and gas have not been produced. The American assessment is pure fantasy—nor are the technology and resources available for coal, copper or any other mineral to be obtained in such inimical conditions.
The Antarctic treaty has worked well, but it can continue to work only if it is supported by the consultative parties. My final word is that Australia and France should think twice about the effects that their refusal to ratify the convention will have on the future of the treaty.
8.23 pm
Dr. John Gilbert: I am deeply suspicious of the way in which Her Majesty's Government have reached their own decision on this matter. As I understand it, they have had singularly little discussion with non-governmental organisations that are quite properly concerned about environmental matters. I am also told that the United Kingdom delegation in Auckland did not include a single representative from the Nature
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Conservancy Council or any other non-governmental organisation—or, for that matter, from the Department of the Environment, although, given the way in which the Department is run nowadays, that might be a blessing. The Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Energy were represented throughout, as well as the Foreign Office. It is clear that there is a good deal going on about which the Minister has not come clean.
My suspicions are heightened by the Minister's statement that the Bill will regulate what goes on. He must know that—as has been made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) and many others—any regime that permits prospecting must envisage the ultimate possibility of exploitation; otherwise there would be no point in prospecting.
The Minister is an amiable fellow, and I know that he is intelligent enough at least to understand that point. He says that the Bill permits prospecting, but he does not say how many people will be allowed to prospect. Will it be on a gold rush scale? The Minister also said that drilling would be permitted only down to 25 m, which he hoped would reassure us that things would not be too bad. Unfortunately, it appears that he has not even read clause 2 of his own Bill. Subsection (2) states:
"'prospecting activities' includes field observations, geological, geochemical and geophysical investigations, the use of remote sensing techniques and the collection of samples, but does not include…drilling to depths exceeding 25 metres or such other depth as the Commission may determine".
There is nothing to say that the limit must be 25 m; the Commission may determine a limit of 50, 75 or 100 m on any day of the week.
The Minister said that a complete ban on mineral exploitation was impossible to achieve, and let it slip that it had been tried throughout the 1970s. For his information, in less than six months' time we shall be moving into the 1990s. In the 1970s, people had hardly heard of the ozone layer, and they certainly did not know that there were any holes in it. They were not as concerned about environmental matters then. The Prime Minister had not even heard of the Green party in 1970; she was still going around taking children's milk away from them.
It is absurd to pretend that public opinion throughout the world has not moved on since the 1970s. The Minister frowns and shakes his head. If he really believes that public opinion has not moved on since then, I do not know what world he has been living in. Public opinion—not only in this country but in the United States, western Europe and Japan—has moved on dramatically in the past decade on many different environmental issues, and I see no reason why Her Majesty's Government should not at least attempt to see whether a complete ban on mineral exploitation may not still be feasible.
Unlike the Minister, I am informed that the French Government's position on the convention is clear, but we shall see who turns out to be right in the event. I certainly endorse what was said by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson): I think that there is more than a little hypocrisy in the French Government's attitude, given that they are already conniving at the defiling of the Antarctic environment with the airstrip that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
I am concerned about the phrase "significant adverse effects" which appears in the convention. Nowhere do I see it defined, and it is an extremely elastic phrase, which could

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mean all things to all men. It would be helpful if the Minister could define it for us, as he has not done so yet —although, to be fair to him, he talked about the various categories of adverse effect.
In that connection, let me again echo the hon. Member for Walthamstow by quoting an article written last year by Miss Cassandra Phillips of World Wildlife Fund News. It states:
"The operations would have to be based on the narrow coastal areas which are ice-free for part of the year, and which comprise only about 2 per cent. of the total land area. Some of these refuges are already overcrowded with scientific research stations, and they are also the areas used by the vast breeding colonies of penguins and seals."
My hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley drew attention to the possibility of oil spills. I am sure he does not believe that we shall see super-tankers cruising in that part of the world. But a nasty accident could occur with a small survey ship, or there could be the sort of accident we saw at Spitsbergen recently with a major cruise liner. Cruising activities are becoming more popular in that part of the world. Even without hitting another ship, a modern liner can run into an iceberg.
I do not believe that in the northern hemisphere there has been an accident giving rise to a severe pollution problem. In the southern hemisphere, however, the air and sea currents are different. There, any pollution is less likely to be dispersed, which is one reason why we have the ozone effect over the south pole rather than over the north pole. Any clean-up operations down there would be extremely difficult.
The Bill gives the Government powers over United Kingdom nationals and companies, but I am not sure where they can exercise those powers. Will they be constrained to exercise them purely in the territories claimed by the United Kingdom, or will they be able to roam all over the Antarctic seeking to enforce the provisions of this measure and of any licences granted by Her Majesty's Government?
Equally, if the convention comes into effect and other countries, such as Argentina and France, sign it and appoint inspectors, will they have inspectors running all over British Antarctic territories trying to enforce regulations against their citizens and nationals wherever they might be prospecting throughout the Antarctic territories?
What powers would our inspectors or the inspectors of any other signatory states have over companies not incorporated in any of those signatory states? It appears that there could be completely open hunting for a company that incorporated itself, for example, in Luxembourg or in some other tax haven and then engaged in prospecting—or any other activities for that matter—in that part of the world. The Bill is probably a model for the sort of legislation that other countries are being invited to pass. It seems that it will be powerless to deal with such a situation.
I endorse the views of the Australian Government. I do not want to see any prospecting or any mineral activity in the southern ocean. The Minister is being defeatist in saying that what was not possible in the 1970s cannot be attempted in the 1990s. Antarctica needs to be placed under United Nations trusteeship and the whole area—land, water and the continental shelf—should be policed by a United Nations agency.
8.33 pm
Mr. Simon Burns: I do not want to ruin an illustrious future career on the Opposition Front Bench for the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), but I wish to extend to him my deepest sympathy for having to move, with such discomfiture, an amendment which shows that the Labour party is hoist on its own petard.
The Opposition amendment is, sadly, a false prospectus, for reasons that I will describe. Also, it is clear from the remarks that the hon. Gentleman made at the outset of his speech, when trying to garner support for the about-turn by the Labour party—praying in aid comments made in the other place—just how difficult his task was. But I give him credit for doing it with great bravado and a degree of panache.
I will describe the problems that the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley had and how he tried to get round them. He quoted some remarks made by Lord Buxton of Alsa in the other place and said that the noble Lord had said on Second Reading on 20 April that he supported the Bill without enthusiasm. That was true, but the hon. Gentleman omitted to quote from the noble Lord's speech, or had failed to see, a point that the House might find illuminating. Discussing the Bill, Lord Buxton said:
"I welcome the Bill because it probably provides the only hope"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 April 1989; Vol. 506, c.934]
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that he should not quote directly from the Official Report of the other place. Perhaps he can paraphrase the passage he has in mind.
Mr. Burns: I am grateful to you for giving me that advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not aware of the rule.
Lord Buxton welcomed the Bill because, he said, it was the best measure possible in the circumstances of human nature. That is different from suggesting that he did not like the Bill and that he supported it without enthusiasm. I agree that it was without enthusiasm, but that was because he was a realist and understood human nature.
The Labour Leader in the other House, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, also welcomed the Bill. In addition, he congratulated the Government and their officials on agreeing the convention and assured their Lordships' House that he would do all he could to assist the Bill to have a swift passage. We can appreciate from those remarks the problems that faced the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley.
That brings us to the Opposition amendment. To be charitable, one might say that it is littered with mistakes and inaccuracies because Labour Members were too quick in trying to get it tabled so as to cover their tracks. The amendment says:
"That this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which fails to take account of major changes since the signing of the Convention".
"What a difference a day makes," in the words of the song. But what a difference an amendment makes in merely three months, since Lord Cledwyn promised his support for the Bill. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no signing of the convention. It was adopted on 2 June, but there has not been a signing. That is mistake number one.
Next, the amendment talks about taking

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"account of major changes…including the Exxon…disaster".
The Exxon disaster took place at Easter time this year, almost a month before Lord Cledwyn's promise of support for the Bill.
The amendment goes on to talk about
"increased public concern about ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect".
The Prime Minister as long ago as September last year spoke of the important environmental issues and problems facing this country and the world and raised the whole problem of the ozone layer. She held a conference at No. 10 Downing street in March of this year, probably two months before Lord Cledwyn promised his support for the Bill.
The amendment goes on to talk about
"opposition to signing the Convention by the governments of Australia and France".
We have discovered from the Minister's remarks tonight that France has not yet publicly declared its position, although Australia has declared its interest, so I congratulate the Opposition on getting right one out of six points in the amendment.
Mr. Foulkes: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a statement by the French Prime Minister followed by a similar statement by the French President should be enough to convince him, if not the Minister, that it is the view of the French Government?
Mr. Burns: I understand the hon. Gentleman's problems. He is clutching at straws in an effort to restore the credibility of the Opposition's amendment. However, the Minister announced today that up to this moment the French have not made an announcement about their intentions. That assurance is good enough for me.
The Bill is of far greater significance than the number of hon. Members who are in the Chamber would suggest. Its ramifications are significant. They will affect the Antarctic and the rest of the world. It is important that the Bill should be passed so that the convention on the regulation of Antarctic mineral resource activities can be ratified. The Bill is a far-ranging environmental protection measure. It will prohibit mineral prospecting activities in Antarctica by British companies and nationals, apart from prospecting activities that are authorised by the United Kingdom Government. That displays a great degree of foresight.
Although interest in the desire economically to exploit minerals in the area is negligible at present, that may not always be the case. Although traces of a wide range of hard rock minerals have been found in Antarctica, none has been found in amounts that would merit serious commercial interest. However, what is not known is whether any hydrocarbon resources exist in economically interesting amounts. Without the protective measures that are provided for in the convention and the Bill, there could be a free-for-all that would greatly damage the environment and the ecological balance of the Antarctic. That is why the Bill displays great foresight and is an important insurance policy for the protection of the future of that region.
I welcome the fact that under article 3 of the convention no mineral resource activities may take place, except those specifically authorised. That procedure is further
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strengthened under article 13 which prevents mineral resource activities in any area that is designated as a specially protected area or as a site of special scientific interest, or in any other area that is designated by the convention as a protected area because of its historic, ecological, environmental or other values. All the checks and balances on mineral resource activity are weighted in favour of environmental protection. I warmly welcome the fact that in every case the interests of the environment will be put first and will be given the benefit of the doubt, if any doubt exists. To my mind, that is an extremely important safeguard. It will have serious ramifications, in that effectively it will ensure the genuine environmental protection that all of us, I believe, passionately desire should be provided for the area.
I know that there is a school of thought that believes that there should be a total ban on mineral resource activities, or a turning of the Antarctic into a world park. In reality, neither proposition would be workable, even if the latter proposition were desirable. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) cared to listen instead of shouting from a sedentary position, he would have the benefit of the knowledge that I am about to impart to him.
Attempts to negotiate such a ban failed on five different occasions between 1972 and 1979. That is a powerful enough example of how a ban would not work. If time after time agreement cannot be reached, there is no point in continuing to hit one's head against a brick wall. The present convention took seven years of hard slog to negotiate. Failure to ratify it would lead to a dangerous and damaging free-for-all, which would leave the Antarctic at the mercy of irresponsible prospectors from all over the world who would not give a fig for the damage that they might do to the environment. They would be in the Antarctic for purely selfish reasons—to try to maximise the amount of money that they could get from successful mineral prospecting.
Similarly, I share the Government's view that to give the Antarctic a new designation as some sort of world park would not protect the environment. It must be borne in mind, as an argument against the creation of a world park, that the Antarctic treaty has worked effectively for over a quarter of a century. It would not be wise to go down a path that we do not know. That is what we would do if we adopted that course of action.
I congratulate the Government on the speed with which they have introduced the Bill. I trust and hope that the other nations that have an interest in the Antarctic will pass similar legislation so that the convention can be ratified as soon as possible, notwithstanding the problems that we have with Australia. The Bill will be an important step towards providing further protection for the environment of that region. It will be welcomed by all reasonable people, who see the need for such a measure.
8.47 pm
Mr. James Wallace: The analysis given by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) of the relevant position of the Labour party in this House and the other place is of some passing interest, but for him to have to resort to the arguments that he used when he criticised the amendment moved by the hon.

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Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) showed that his case is as thin as some parts of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.
The Minister said that this was a technical measure, but according to the arguments used in the debate, it is a technical measure of considerable significance. The point which is at the heart of the debate is the Government's assertion that the Bill relates only to prospecting. In a technical sense, that may be true. However, as the right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) said so clearly, no company or nation will embark on prospecting just for the sake of prospecting: they will do so only if they can see an ultimate end in sight. Perhaps, many years from now, the House will be presented with yet another Bill to take us one step closer to that end, which is the development of Antarctica's mineral resources.
Even if we accept that the Bill is designed purely to allow for prospecting, those activities will lead to many onshore activities. Pollution will result from the disposal of waste. The number of prospecting activities is not spelled out. Those activities could proliferate. The Minister has not said anything about the extent of the prospecting activities and their pollution consequences.
Extensive use is made of drilling muds in the North sea. Drilling in Antarctica might involve similar materials, which could lead to a limited or even to a large amount of pollution.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Does my hon. Friend not acknowledge that the temperature in the Antarctic is such that, almost inevitably, prospecting companies would have to use oil-based rather than water-based muds and that that would increase the pollution risk in ways that cannot now he envisaged?
Mr. Wallace: My hon. Friend has considerable expertise in North sea oil matters. I accept his point, which the Minister did not address.
The question has been raised as to what would happen if there were no regulation. In some respects that is the best argument that has been presented, but it appeared to be something of a scare story. As I said in an earlier intervention, it is quite clear from the activities and the policies of oil companies that they look for areas of political stability before investing substantial sums of money on which they expect a return. I do not believe for one moment that they would invest vast sums of money in an area where they feared that there was not that stability and where there were arguments about sovereignty.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) said that the Soviet Union might set up a drilling base and take the oil back to the Soviet Union. Of course, a national Government are in a different position from a company, but the Soviet Union was not one of the countries that claimed territorial sovereignty in Antarctica, and it was an early signatory to the Antarctica treaty. Given its history of dealing with the area, it would be very loth to take a provocative stance in asserting mineral right claims. That argument was something of a red herring.
Enforcement is a very important issue. For some comparison, I looked at the eighth report of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution published in 1981, which dealt with oil spillages at sea. It considered the problems of controlling oil pollution at sea. There had
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been some suggestion that the North sea should be designated a special area to help enforcement procedures. In paragraph 7·83, the report reached this conclusion:
"The problem is not the standards set…for discharges to European waters, but the possibility of enforcing them. More stringent requirements would not reduce the latter problem: indeed, the experience in the Mediterranean shows the limited value of more stringent requirements while waste disposal facilities in ports are lacking, and the ability to deter offenders is poor."
The report continued:
"There are two aspects to this problem. The first, which we considered, Chapter VII, is the jurisdictional difficulty arising in dealing with vessels which for the most part travel outside territorial waters, and which are often not registered in the UK. The second, which we consider below, is the practical difficulties of detecting an offence and securing a successful prosecution."
I accept that there are some differences between mobile vessels and stations in Antarctica, but the main issue is the same: if it is impossible to try and enforce pollution control in the pond of the North sea, how in the world will we ever properly enforce it in the vast continent of Antarctica?
We are told that clause 8 makes provision for inspectors, so we can assume that the inspectors will be trying to enforce it. The paragraph of the explanatory and financial memorandum which deals with manpower states:
"The Bill is unlikely to have a significant effect on public sector manpower. Depending on the number and timing of licence applications, it is anticipated that the necessary administration will be carried out by existing staff. Inspectors and observers will be appointed on an ad hoc basis but are unlikely to be needed for some years or in great numbers."
So they will not be appointed for some time, and when they are appointed it will be on an ad hoc basis. That does not appear to be a regime that would sensibly or effectively enforce proper environmental consideration.
Mr. Summerson: Is it not quite clear that an inspector will be appointed when a licence is granted?
Mr. Wallace: My point is clear from the explanatory notes. It is not envisaged that there will be a vast army of inspectors who will be appointed only on an ad hoc basis. Given the vast square miles of the Antarctic continent, it does not appear that that will be an effective means of enforcing environmental control.
What is meant by "significant damage"? The hon. Member for Walthamstow referred to what the French did last year in blasting a wildlife area to make a hard runway. As far as I am aware, little has been done in response to that. Even the present enforcement cannot be accepted as entirely satisfactory.
The protection of the environment is of paramount consideration in Antarctica. Hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that, as it has been undisturbed for so many years, it is almost an ideal place to test pollution and to make comparisons which are not possible in other parts of the world: the hole in the ozone layer was discovered by British scientists over Antarctica. But even with the best will in the world, we cannot exclude the possibility of an accident. Even a very tight regime enforcing control cannot exclude an accident. An Argentine tanker hit rocks near Palmer Station south of Cape Horn only last year and caused an oil spill. The Exxon Valdez caused tremendous damage to the ecosystem in the Arctic. Those risks cannot be excluded, even with a properly enforced environmental protection regime. Therefore, we should not take the risk of moving towards prospecting and development.

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As for timing, in an intervention in the Minister's speech, the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) pointed out that prospecting would not take place for a considerable time. That point is echoed in the explanatory memorandum reference to manpower. If it will not happen for a long time, what would be lost by withdrawing the Bill? If Australia does not sign the convention, the Bill will be defunct anyway. We have time to try to achieve something more worth while. I cannot accept that, because it was impossible to reach agreement in the 1970s, it will be impossible to reach agreement in the 1990s. The right hon. Member for Dudley, East expressed that far more clearly.
In 1972, the Minister was the chairman of the Cambridge university Conservative association. So much has happened since then. The following year there was great speculation as to whether the price of petrol would reach 50p a gallon. The world has changed enormously since then. We have become much more aware of the environmental conditions and the damage which man's activities can do to the atmosphere. That sensitivity has prompted the Australian Government to take the stand that they have, and the French Government to show signs of doing the same.
A comprehensive environmental protection policy would be far more easily achieved today than it was in the 1970s. We should make the effort. We should not allow the failures of the past to distract us from trying to achieve some success for the future. I do not believe that future generations will thank us if, having kept one part of our planet still relatively intact, we embarked upon a course of action that would ruin it.
8.58 pm
Mr. Timothy Wood: I welcome the Bill. I share the fears about the environmental horrors that could result if we do not have controls and constraints. We must pay great attention to that part of the world which, fortunately, has been preserved largely intact without great damage to its systems. I share the Opposition's worries about possible developments but, unlike the Opposition and Greenpeace, I believe that the Bill's proposals and the convention are steps towards bringing, rather than reducing, control. Greenpeace is utopian in wishing for a quick agreement on a world environmental park, perhaps under the control of the United Nations. Over the past few years, we have had a treaty that has enabled reasonable control to be maintained. The Bill, which underlines the convention, strengthens that treaty's effects and we should support it for that reason.
It is all very well people saying that in an ideal world we should be able to get everyone everywhere to agree that there will be no exploitation of resources in Antarctica. In the difficult world of international relations, it is vital to achieve consensus, such as that achieved during the work on the convention. As one of my colleagues rightly said, during the 1970s there were several attempts to have a moratorium on any form of mineral exploitation. Those attempts failed. Six or seven years had to elapse before the convention was achieved.
I hope that our work does not stop and that we will proceed with Australia, France and other countries—in the hope that they are not being hypocritical—towards
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achieving absolute bans on mineral extraction. That is my preference, but we have a convention now. We should take what agreement has been reached rather than cast it aside and say that we want a utopia that is not immediately realisable.
I have heard the comments about prospecting and the suggestion that people will not prospect until they see a possibility of exploitation, but that argument can be used both ways. Any major company that thought that there was a prospect of mineral exploitation would be optimistic if it thought that it could therefore justify spending substantial sums on prospecting. I do not think that there will be significant prospecting activity in Antarctica, although, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, it may be difficult to distinguish between prospecting and research, which is a legitimate activity. We could get into an enormous muddle if, while imposing a blanket ban on prospecting, we tried to inhibit legitimate research activities.
I am not concerned about the prospecting option that is left in the Bill, which can apply only with the permission of the United Kingdom Government. After all, unless there is an assurance that companies can develop the Antarctic prospecting possibilities, why should they go ahead? That opening avoids the complications that could arise from scientific research. Prospecting is not the threat to the Antarctic environment that the Opposition have suggested.
I welcome the Bill because it provides much-longed-for controls on mineral exploitation in the Antarctic. It is a major step towards preventing mineral exploitation and it should be welcomed by the House.
9.4 pm
Mr. Elliot Morley: The House is trying to find the best way of protecting one of the last unspoilt wildernesses on the planet, so I am sorry that some hon. Members have tried to turn the debate into a knockabout. I accept that, if we can get only certain kinds of agreements, we should participate and try to get the best Bill that we can. That is why Labour peers in the other place participated, negotiated and tried to be constructive. However, it has become apparent that there is a distinct likelihood that the agreement could fail because some states may boycott it. If that is the case, it is reasonable for the Government to re-examine the matter and try to take a different view.
As one hon. Member has said, the ideal would be to protect the Antarctic from any mineral exploitation. I do not accept that we are talking only about investigation and that it is a low risk. When firms and various people go to the Antarctic and take samples and conduct tests, drilling and boring there will be disturbance, damage and risks. An oil spillage occurred last year from the Argentine ship that was carrying supplies to a scientific base. The worst damage was caused by the spillage of diesel fuel that it was carrying for generators on the base. If people begin to prospect in the Antarctic, we must supply them with materials. They are normally supplied by sea. Because of the Exxon incident, we know the risks, no matter how careful or regulated the movements are.
We do not have the same intense sunlight as that in the Antarctic, nor do we have the high rise and fall of tides or the same wind patterns. Spills of oil and various wastes, including human waste, do not biodegrade to the same

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extent as they do in the northern hemisphere. They can be left there for years without changing. If we looked round the Antarctic hard enough, we could probably dig up tins of corned beef that were taken there by Captain Scott's expedition. They have not been broken down or degraded at all. They will lie there, almost for ever.
The Antarctic is a terribly fragile ecosystem. We do not fully understand the importance of the Antarctic to the well-being of the planet. For example, we do not understand how important it is to weather patterns or how it influences the rest of the hemisphere. We do not fully understand the movement of krill and plankton in Antarctic waters and their roles in the food chain throughout the southern or northern hemispheres. However, we know how important the Antarctic is to various species of birds and marine mammals, many of which are unique to the area.
To exploit the Antarctic we require sea ports that are ice-free for part of the year and some land on which to drill and work. Those very areas have most wildlife, such as penguin rookeries, sea bird colonies and seal breeding areas. We want to protect those areas.
I accept that there has been a genuine attempt to build in the best possible safeguards but, with the best will in the world, there will inevitably be accidents, pollution and environmental damage. There is no way that we can legislate for that.
Mr. Wood: I sympathise with a number of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, but would it not be better to agree a convention and have legislation to back it up and then to proceed to further controls, rather than trying to achieve further controls while refusing to sign the convention?
Mr. Morley: I do not agree. Even if we agreed a convention, how would we impose the safeguards once firms started to go to the Antarctic to prospect? Firms will not go there and commit their money for nothing. It will be the thin end of the wedge—the beginning of the rape of Antarctica. Firms will go there not for the good of the environment but to get something out of it. If we are that desperate to find minerals to exploit, we are scraping the barrel. It would be better for the Government to encourage the multinationals to start looking for alternative means of energy replacement. Instead of putting their money into non-renewable sources, they should put it into research and development of renewable sources. That is the way forward, not opening up the Antarctic for exploitation.
It appears that we have reached a deadlock. We have talked about the difficulties in negotiating arrangements for a world park. That being so, what difficulties would there be in agreeing mineral exploitation in the British sector? The Government will have to negotiate with Argentina and Chile. That is hardly the basis for easy or successful negotiations to limit mineral exploitation. Surely it would be better to negotiate for a world park, and perhaps to hand the whole thing over to the United Nations and negotiate a convention to deal with all the conflicting demands. I hope that the Government will take a lead in arguing for the protection of Antarctica and a world park.
9.10 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I apologise for not having been here for the first part of the Minister's speech, although I got the sense of his remarks from the second part of his speech.
Mr. Foot: The first half was better.
Mr. Corbyn: My right hon. Friend tells me that the first half was better.
I support the amendment. [Interruption.] I shall not rise to that piece of muddy old bait.
When history starts to examine the growth of concern about the environment in the 1970s and 1980s, people will surely ask, "Was it right and was it necessary to consider every piece of land and every corner of the earth as a place that could be exploited for minerals?" Perhaps people will say that this was the turning point, at which society as a whole began to realise that it could not go on exploiting every place on earth for oil, gas, coal, diamonds and uranium. Ultimately the process is self-defeating because of the damage that it causes to the environment. We are already beginning to realise that about the rain forests, and I hope that, as a matter of urgency, we shall realise it about Antarctica.
The Antarctic treaty represented a step forward because it meant a halt to the developments that might have taken place at the time. It was introduced because people recognised the difficulty of controlling any development in Antarctica. The tiny number of people in Antarctica already give rise to a serious pollution problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) pointed out, there are two sorts of climates that are not conducive to biodegradability. They are extreme desert conditions and extreme cold. Virtually intact mummified bodies have been found in the Sahara and the deserts of northern Chile after 1,000 or 2,000 years because the climate has been so stable. The problem in Antarctica is that human and other waste does not biodegrade as it does in more temperate climates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe said, during his expedition in 1957 Sir Vivian Fuchs reached Scott's various bases and opened and ate some tins of corned beef that had been exported in 1912. I do not know whether he suffered from salmonella or botulism, but I know that he found the food perfectly preserved.
There is considerable waste from the scientific bases. There is human waste, food waste and spilt diesel fuel, which cause enormous damage. We must recognise that any exploitation, whether in the form of survey work or exploration for possible mineral deposits, will create a problem. Only 2 per cent. of the land mass of the Antarctic is ice-free and that is the crucial area for breeding grounds of many birds and various migratory species, yet that is the very place where companies will seek to put their bases.
If the Bill goes through and if exploration licences are granted, there will be a serious environmental problem, which we must examine. I will give a simple example which I am sure that others have used. An oil spill took place in the Alaskan oilfield which caused the most enormous damage, not only because of delays in cleaning it up, but because of its remoteness, the extreme temperatures and the difficulties of access to that region. If an oil spill took place in the Antarctic, especially in the water as the ice cap was expanding, the oil could flow under the ice and quickly cover thousands of square miles. The oil might never go

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away. Those who ask why it matters, as it would affect only a few fish here and there, should realise that whenever one species is destroyed, we are destroying part of the sustainable life of the earth. We should think more seriously about the Antarctic and not see it merely as a potential goldmine for various oil companies.
The Minister said that he wanted to preserve the Antarctic, that he did not want it to suffer environmental damage and that he was keen on environmental protection generally. However, he then said that that was why the exploitation of minerals in the Antarctic would be controlled by restricting the licences granted to oil companies. Surely to god, if a number of nations can get together, sign the Antarctic treaty and agree on various measures, they must also agree that any exploitation is dangerous and likely to cause pollution. Surely they should support the welcome change in the Australian Government's position to support for the idea of a world park. I hope that New Zealand and other countries will also support the Australian Government's idea. Why cannot we say that we recognise that the Antarctic is an important wilderness and that we support the idea of a world park? The idea that to control the exploitation there is a pragmatic protection of the world park is unconvincing. Pressure comes from the oil companies and the exploiters of mineral resources around the world, who are trying to get their hands on the Antarctic.
I hope that the House will support the Opposition amendment. If the Bill as drafted is given a Second Reading, we shall continue the arguments in Committee and I hope that I shall be a member of that Committee so that I shall be able to continue those arguments. We will continue to argue for the preservation of the Antarctic as a world park. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe that, at a later stage, the Antarctic could be handed over to an international agency, such as the United Nations, so that it does not become the property of a nation state, which could hand parts of it over to companies such as Exxon and BP, or any other oil or mining company. Mining companies and exploitation companies do not go to the Antarctic to preserve the environment. They may be environmentally conscious, but I always remember the amount that the Central Electricity Generating Board spent on publicity to show that it was preserving bees alongside a nuclear power station. I am grateful to it for defending the habitat of those bees, but appalled by the nuclear power station and the pollution that comes from it.
Mr. Burns: What pollution?
Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman may wish to divert me, and I would be happy to be diverted, but I think that you would stop me, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We must say that we do not support exploitation in the Antarctic. The Minister says that only exploration would be involved and that that is not necessarily exploitation, but why on earth would companies seek to find out how much coal, oil and minerals were there if they did not intend to mount an exploitation of those resources at a later stage?
Those who opposed the railway prospectors in the last century in north America and in this country because their
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proposals would cross their land did so because they knew that, once a route had been worked out, somebody would try to build that line. That is why people such as myself oppose road building plans. We know that as soon as the plans are drawn up, those roads will inevitably be built. Exactly the same process is involved now in relation to the Antarctic. If assessments are made of the mineral wealth there, and if minerals are discovered, the pressure will be on to exploit that mineral wealth.
It is time that we started looking at this a little differently. We should recognise the value to us of the information that we have gained from the Antarctic, such as the information about the problems with the ozone layer that were discovered by the British Antarctic Survey team. We should also recognise that we cannot continue to exploit the world's natural resources at the rate that we are at the moment. We must recognise the principle of sustainable development. We need to devote resources to recycling and to renewable sources of energy. Resources must be devoted to sustaining life and sustaining development instead of having this mad grab to exploit what is one of the last great wilderness areas of the world because if we exploit that area in the way in which this proposal will inevitably lead to there will be a disaster.
An awful lot of people all around the world are watching what is going on, not in the debates in this House, but in debates taking place about the Antarctic as a whole. People are genuinely concerned. They recognise that the rate at which we are exploiting the resources of this planet is unsustainable and that in the end it will cause disasters of various sorts. People recognise that every time that we destroy a plant or animal species, we are destroying some sustainability in our own life system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) pointed out, temperate and tropical zones can recover from ecological disasters to some extent, but the environment cannot recover in Arctic or Antarctic conditions. We are in danger of causing irreversible disasters in the Antarctic if we allow oil exploitation to go ahead.
I hope that the House will turn its attention to this problem tonight and that it will support the Opposition amendment. I hope that we will succeed in saying that we, too, support the principle of a world park in the Antarctic and that we shall do everything that we can to persuade other countries to do the same. I hope that for once we will put the needs of our environment before the profit motives of large numbers of mineral companies all around the world.
9.22 pm
Mr. Edward Leigh: The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) spoke with sincerity and passion, but I hope that he will recognise that Opposition Members do not have a monopoly of concern about the environment or conservation. I hope that the entire House will agree that we are agreed on the end—on what we want the Antarctic to remain—and that we are divided only about the means.
It is not good enough to make grand unilateral gestures while ignoring the progress that has been based on quiet patient negotiations. I remind the hon. Member for Islington, North that those negotiations succeeded in producing the Antarctic treaty. However, no hon. Member has mentioned what it achieves in any detail. Article 1 of

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the treaty dedicated the Antarctic to peaceful purposes only. Articles 1 and 5 demilitarised and denuclearised Antarctica. In articles 2 and 3 the signatories agreed not to press their conflicting views about territorial sovereignty in Antarctica and opened the way for freedom of scientific co-operation and research in Antarctica on a long-term basis. Article 9 provided that the essentially scientific and peaceful principles and objectives of the treaty were to be pursued at regular meetings.
The treaty was the result of years of patient negotiation. If we were to reject the Bill tonight and accepted the reasoned amendment tabled by the Opposition, we would be placing in jeopardy the similar efforts that have been made to regulate mineral exploitation in Antarctica, and that would be a potential disaster for the environment.
Mr. Corbyn: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although a step forward was made in the Antarctic treaty in terms of denuclearising Antarctica and making it a zone of peace, we are now saying, "Let us take another step and have no exploitation at all"? I and many of my hon. Friends believe that, if the Bill is passed in its current form, it will be a step backwards, because it will open the door to mineral exploitation of the Antarctic.
Mr. Leigh: I shall repeat what I said in my opening remarks. We are agreed on the ends, but were we to take the advice of the hon. Member for Islington, North to pursue unilateral action, I am convinced that, far from achieving his objective, we would put in jeopardy all that we have achieved after seven years of patient negotiations.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that, when opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Minister said that countries would refrain from mineral exploitation pending the timely entrance into this treaty. Therefore, were we unilaterally to reject that treaty and follow the path advocated by the hon. Member for Islington, North, we might put in jeopardy all that we have achieved, which has been much. For instance, the consulting parties under the Antarctic treaty negotiated the convention on Antarctic marine living resources, adopted in 1980, under which total allowable catches were allocated to countries wishing to fish in Antarctic waters. It is not good enough to say that all that we have achieved under the Antarctic treaty cannot be achieved under this convention.
As my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson) and for Stevenage (Mr. Wood) have made clear, it is important to put these matters into perspective and to recognise the enormous barriers that exist to the commercial exploitation of minerals in the Antarctic. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow also made clear in his pertinent remarks, it is important to recognise that a tiny percentage of the Antarctic land mass is capable of exploitation. Let us put the matters into perspective and recognise the progress that has been made after years of patient negotiation. Let us recognise, too, the fact that only prospecting will be allowed.
I do not believe that any hon. Member has yet detailed exactly what prospecting would mean if the treaty were to be signed. Prospecting would mean
"activities, including logistic support, aimed at identifying areas of mineral resource potential for possible exploitation and development, including geological, geochemical and geophysical investigations and field observations, the use of remote sensing techniques and collection of surface, seafloor and sub-ice samples. Such activities do not include dredging and excavations, except for the purpose of obtaining
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small-scale samples, or drilling, except shallow drilling into rock and sediment to depths not exceeding 25 metres…'Exploration' means activities, including logistic support, aimed at identifying and evaluating specific mineral resource occurrences or deposits."
Therefore, prospecting would not include activities that could be said to be deleterious to the environment of Antarctica.
My hon. Friends have made it clear time and time again that, whatever we may want to achieve and whatever may be our ambitions for Antarctica, we must be realistic and conscious of what has been achieved and what has not been achieved in history. There are especially the five separate occasions in 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979 when there was a failure to agree a moratorium on mineral exploitation.
I agree with Opposition Members that the proposal is not ideal, but politics, like international diplomacy, is the art of the possible. It would be a tragedy for Antarctica and for international co-operation, on which the future of Antarctica depends, if we took unilateral action and rejected the Bill.
9.28 pm
Mr. Donald Anderson: This has been an important debate. Essentially the difference of opinion turns on the different judgments made by each side of the House on how the unique ecosystem of the Antarctic can best be preserved. We must decide whether it will be preserved by the Bill and the convention that it implements or by a bolder step, as now seems possible given the new demarche of the Australians and others.
This debate, valuable as it has been, would not have taken place in prime time had it not been for the Opposition and our concern for the environment. The Government appear to question who could criticise a carefully constructed compromise worked out over a number of years—an international convention that cannot be renegotiated. The convention, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) appeared to suggest, is the only show in town. The Government have urged, therefore, that we should support it.
The Government might argue that the issue was given a fair wind in the other place. In April my colleagues in the other place adopted a critical but accepting line to the Bill and it is reasonable to ask, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford has done, what has happened since then. The answer can be succinctly put by the Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Gareth Evans, who said:
"We believe in short that what might have seemed impossible—or unobtainable—a few years ago, or maybe even a few months ago, has really now come within reach of the possible."
We are talking about a wholly different set of circumstances. Although in April it could plausibly be argued that the Bill was the only possibility, now we are in a different position.
Mr. Burns: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Third Reading debate in the other place was on 8 June. Then the Opposition spokesmen did not say they opposed the Bill; they gave it the same support as they had given it on 20 April.
Mr. Anderson: In response to his textual analysis, the hon. Gentleman should be aware that, on Third Reading in the other place, the Leader of the Opposition asked

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about the new set of circumstances. In response Lord Glenarthur said that the Government were rather hesitant about what they called
"an unexpected turn of events."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 June 1989; Vol. 508, c. 945.]
The Government appeared to accept that there was a new set of circumstances. During this debate the least we could have hoped for was that the Government would not simply plough along the same furrow ploughed in April, but would recognise those different circumstances.
In the other place, the Minister said that they would want to discuss this matter in depth, but thus far there is no suggestion that the Government are ready to have such a discussion. They are simply fighting yesterday's battle when the fighting ground has moved on.
There are important reasons why the unease about this matter must be articulated and many of them have been deployed with great competence tonight by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Fundamental to this debate is the recognition that our generation will be called to account by successor generations on the state of the planet that we leave. Can we look future generations in the eye and say proudly that the convention is the best possible means of protecting the vast natural wilderness of the Antarctic from commercial pressures? Other hon. Members have already dealt with its fragile ecosystem, the danger of irreversible damage and the pressures on that 2 per cent. of its land mass that is not covered by ice.
Our amendment refers to the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite all the technical expertise and competence available to the United States, it still suffered a vast spillage in Alaska causing so much damage. Imagine how much greater the damage would be in Antarctica because of the difficulty caused by the slow rate of biodegradation. If prospecting within the Antarctic were intensified there could be such a spill from a tanker or from a supply ship. If oil drilling were permitted in those stormy seas it would be difficult to avoid leaks. There is always the human factor, as was shown so tragically in the Exxon Valdez incident.
Mr. Summerson: It will not be possible to drill for oil in those seas. Down in the Antarctic the wind gets up to the highest rate in the world, the water freezes as it is blown off the top of the waves and is frozen by the time that it hits an oil rig, temperatures are so low that metal shears if a hammer is dropped and icebergs the size of the Principality of Wales come floating by. There is simply no prospect of oil rigs in the southern ocean.
Mr. Anderson: I hear the hon. Gentleman's arguments, but the same arguments were deployed 20 years ago about the North sea. Technology advances and as we move into a scenario where the price of oil may increase substantially and resources become depleted, there could well be pressures to search for new areas, regardless of all the technical difficulties involved.
Other concerns include the Government's motives. Indeed, they set out their motives with brutal frankness during the debate in another place on 20 April. Lord Glenarthur said:
"It has been our objective throughout the negotiation of the convention to ensure that the UK, as a claimant state in Antarctica, should have the largest possible share of any
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benefits from minerals activity within the British Antarctic territory."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 April 1989; Vol. 506, c. 929.]
That is the clear motive. There is no primacy to environmental considerations; it is a narrow, national commercial interest, set out with brutal frankness, to ensure that when the carve-up comes Britain has its piece of cake.
The prospecting defined in the Bill still rather assumes that it will lead to something else. The Government are not involved in an academic exercise or a scientific exploration for the good of mankind. Clause 2(1) states that clause 1 does not apply to purposes connected with
"the identification of suitable areas for the further exploration or the exploitation of mineral resources in this Act referred to as 'prospecting activities'".
It is clear that in that incremental process prospecting is considered to be but the start of it. We see that slippage easily, albeit with a possibility of a further debate if another convention is worked out—[Interruption.] There will be further pressures at that stage and it will be easy to move from one stage to another. It may be only prospecting now, but development is just further down the line.
It is said that prospecting means avoiding deep dredging and that there will be no drilling lower than 25 m. The whole problem of inspection has been set out by my hon. Friends. Essentially, the international authority sub-contracts to national Governments. It is difficult enough at local level for planning authorities to ensure that those to whom they give licences act within the ambit of those licences. Will countries have the motivation to ensure compliance with the licences? There is a real danger of collusion between national Governments and companies. For example, during the convention negotiations the parties refused to ban state subsidies for prospecting by the various companies. Do the countries have the resources adequately to monitor those activities?
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) said, during negotiations, environmental considerations, certainly within the British negotiating team, were given a low priority. The Nature Conservancy Council was not part of the team, nor was it adequately consulted. The Department of Energy and the Department of Trade and Industry were part of the team, but the Department of the Environment was not. Again, that suggests that narrow commercial motives rather than environmental considerations were paramount for the Government.
How, then, would the Government seek to restrain the multinationals? Clause 4 gives the power to revoke, vary or suspend licences, but insufficient attention is given to monitoring and compliance with the licence permission. There is a real danger of collusion, particularly when Governments are searching greedily for resources.
We recognise the ultimate dangers—the danger that there could be a new Klondyke in Antarctica and the dangers of military strife between powers because of uncertainty over existing claims and the unwillingness of many countries to accept the claims made by the countries that were first in on the act. But because of the current price levels of relevant minerals or the state of technology, there is no suggestion that countries are about to embark on serious developments. Therefore, there is no pressure on Governments to proceed with the convention now.

243
An international agreement is necessary and we accept that such an agreement is best pursued within the Antarctic treaty structure, not within the United Nations. But why the Government's haste?
The key question that I leave with the Government is this. Who can deny that new circumstances have now arisen as a result of the Australian Government's decision? The Minister's answer on that point was weak. The Australian Government, which must give its assent, effectively has a power of veto. Therefore, we are back at the starting gate. The convention will not be operative as long as the Australian Government maintain that veto with the possibility of being joined by other countries such as France.
In response to those new circumstances, the Minister could only say that the treaty system was based on compromise and mutual concerns so that a veto was not contemplated. In fact, a veto exists. Given the Australians' strongly held position, there is no way in which between now and October they will say that they have reconsidered the matter and now think that their original position was correct. That is not possible given the Australian temperament and the practicalities.
The Minister's second point was that Australia was wrong in principle and that he hoped that it would change its mind. It will not do so and the Government had better be clear that they are now in an entirely different ball game.
As I said at the beginning, Senator Gareth Evans's statement that events have now changed means that the Government should formulate a new position in the new circumstances. Faced with a convention that could open the way to mining, it is surely time to reflect afresh and to prolong the moratorium which has stood the test of time since 1977. We need to negotiate from scratch. It is clear that Australia will not sign the treaty. It is surely a pipe dream to say, as the Minister did, that, although Australia may technically not sign, it may nevertheless join the treaty. The Foreign Office had better get that idea out of their minds, because Australia will maintain its opposition and the convention as drafted will not be ratified. Australia is a major claimant state, with 42 per cent. of Antarctica's land mass.
We urge the Government to accede to our reasonable amendment. There is no urgency, because we know that at the 15th Antarctica consultative meeting in October Australia will propose the development of a comprehensive environmental protection convention. That proposal will be on the table, and the British Government had better start working out their response to it now.
There is nothing dishonourable about having second thoughts in changed circumstances, particularly if they are a pragmatic response to new realities. In no case have the Government appeared to take the initiative in a matter of importance relating to the environment, despite the Prime Minister's brave words last September. Here is a chance for the Government pragmatically to respond to new circumstances and to accept the Opposition amendment.
9.46 pm
Mr. Eggar: Concern has been expressed by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House about the need to protect Antarctica's environment. I welcome the nature of the debate, which generated sensible discussion about how best to achieve a common goal. I join the hon.
244
Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) in paying tribute to Dr. John Heap, who heads the polar regions section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As the hon. Gentleman said, Dr. Heap was involved in every stage of the six years of negotiations on the treaty, and has been involved in matters relating to Antarctica for more than 25 years. He is recognised throughout the world as a leading expert in matters relating to Antarctica, and his dedication to the cause of preserving its environment is matched by many officials in the other states that are parties to the Antarctic treaty. It is right that we should recognise the work that they have done on behalf of us all for a long time.
The convention is not the product of a piratical or exploitative design by a series of rapacious mining companies. Nor is it the case, as has been implied by many Opposition Members, that the non-governmental organisations or the Department of the Environment were not involved in the United Kingdom's preparations for negotiations on the convention. The non-governmental organisations were consulted, and the Department was involved.
The convention is a supreme example of foresight of the need to protect the Antarctic environment, which first became evident in the 1960s. It also recognises the unique fragility of the Antarctic environment and that Antarctica could easily fall prey to those who have no respect for its environment but regard the continent only in terms of its potential mineral riches.
Mr. Summerson: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the Prime Minister of Malaysia is on record as saying, "I have heard that there is gold at the south pole, and I want a part of it."
Mr. Eggar: I am aware of those reported remarks, but that is one reason why this country believes in continuing with the present Antarctic treaty system—an approach which I note is supported by the Opposition Front Bench spokesmen, although not by a number of Opposition Back-Bench Members.
The convention would prevent mineral exploitation, except when it is agreed unanimously that such activity can proceed safely and without substantial risk to the environment. In short, the convention makes it very difficult to exploit Antarctica's mineral resources. There are those who say that it is biased. They are right: it is heavily biased in favour of protecting the Antarctic environment. The Opposition amendment shows no understanding of the objectives of the convention or, indeed, those of the Bill.
I agree with Opposition Members that the world is more concerned about environmental matters than it was even a year ago, but I think that they are making a fuss in a way that the Opposition in the Lords did not only a few weeks ago. It is the convention's primary objective to meet environmental concerns, including the desire to prevent disastrous environmental damage such as occurred in the Arctic from the accident involving the Exxon Valdez.
I have stressed that what we need in Antarctica is first-class scientific research such as has been carried out by the British Antarctic Survey. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson), who pointed out graphically how critical that work is. The hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) also mentioned it. If we are to have first-class scientific

245
research in Antarctica, however, we need peace and harmony in the region, and only if the Bill is passed and the convention ratified will that essential peace be assured. If the Bill is not passed the convention will not come into force, and we shall enter uncharted areas of uncertainty, not only with the convention but with the Antarctic treaty system as a whole.
The Government are always prepared to consider new initiatives for the protection of the Antarctic environment, and in doing so we shall of course take account of the views and interests of all our Antarctic treaty partners. An important element in environmental protection is that any proposal for mineral activity must go through a rigorous four-stage process, in which each state will have a veto on exploration and development. In other words—this point has been overlooked by Opposition Members—any state will be able to stop exploration and development.
Opposition Members have expressed some scepticism about the veto mechanism. I could go through the elaborate four-stage process step by step, but unfortunately time does not permit that. Let me assure Opposition Members, however, that this was extremely difficult to negotiate. The four-stage mechanism allows any one party to the treaty to veto at any of the four stages: thus states that wish to stop exploration and development can do so on their own and in their own capacity, without fear of being pressurised by other states—or by own companies. That process rules out the risk of a particular country's colluding with its nationals or its national companies to despoil the Antarctic. Frankly, it is surprising that Opposition Members should use that argument when they know that, if the convention does not come into force, then, and only then, will it be possible for individual states to collude—the word that they have used—with their nationals and companies.
The safeguards do not end there. Any proposal to explore or develop must pass the sufficiency of information test. That is the key element in the convention's environmental protection armoury. No activity at those stages can take place unless enough information is available to allow informed judgments to be made on what its environmental consequences will be. That applies as much to prospecting as to exploration and development.
In relation to prospecting, the state sponsoring the activity must vouch for the adequacy of information available to it. The commission set up under the convention can challenge the sponsoring state in that area. In relation to exploration and development, the advisory committee is specifically required to say whether adequate information exists.
The right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert), who is no longer in his place, asked about enforcement. Inspections by each state are possible anywhere in Antarctica. Any state can bring another state to the arbitration tribunal if it believes that that state has broken the rules. The arbitration tribunal can make urgent binding measures to protect the environment.
I assure the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), who was concerned about the role of inspectors and who asked whether the British Antarctic Survey would act as inspectors, should that be necessary
246
from Britain's point of view, that that is not the case. It is the intention to appoint inspectors who are not associated with the BAS.
Many hon. Members have suggested that Antarctica should be designated as a world or wilderness park. My answer is that what matters is that activity in Antarctica should be in harmony with nature and should be carried out with due regard to the environmental consequences. The Antarctic treaty system has been committed to the protection of the Antarctic environment for nearly 30 years, long before Greenpeace came on to the scene.
The Government do not believe that sticking a label on the Antarctic would help to ensure its future. They do not believe that it is right to rule out the possibility that we might want to extract minerals at some time in the remote future. For those reasons, the Government believe that Antarctic environmental protection is best achieved by practical initiatives aimed at particular threats to nature.
It has been suggested that if the United Kingdom maintained its opposition to a complete ban on Antarctic mineral resource activity, we could find ourselves in the minority or even isolated. Our soundings of our partners in the treaty system do not support that assertion. The responses that we have had to specific inquiries show that the majority, including the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Brazil and seven other consultative parties, strongly support the entry into force of the convention. A minority, including France, have yet to make up their minds about signing the convention. No other countries have committed themselves to supporting the Australian position. Some have suggested that we should go for a ban now and reconsider mining later, when there is a need for Antarctic minerals. That is not a practical alternative. The convention bans all Antarctic mineral activity, except in accordance with its strict terms. Moreover, even if it were to be a practical alternative, we believe that it would be contrary to the interests of Antarctic environmental protection.
By passing the Bill we have an excellent opportunity to make real progress on the protection of the environment in Antarctica. This is the first piece of legislation to prohibit mineral exploration in Antarctica by British nationals and companies. The Government therefore strongly support the convention and intend to ratify it.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 121, Noes 217.

Division No. 277]

[6.58

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Canavan, Dennis

Allason, Rupert

Cartwright, John

Allen, Graham

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Alton, David

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Anderson, Donald

Clay, Bob

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Clelland, David

Armstrong, Hilary

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Cohen, Harry

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Ashton, Joe

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Corbett, Robin

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Battle, John

Cousins, Jim

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Crowther, Stan

Beckett, Margaret

Cryer, Bob

Beith, A. J.

Cunningham, Dr John

Bell, Stuart

Dalyell, Tam

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Darling, Alistair

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

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Bermingham, Gerald

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

Blair, Tony

Dewar, Donald

Blunkett, David

Dixon, Don

Boateng, Paul

Dobson, Frank

Bradley, Keith

Douglas, Dick

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

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

Buckley, George J.

Fisher, Mark

Caborn, Richard

Flannery, Martin

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Flynn, Paul

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Foster, Derek

McAvoy, Thomas

Foulkes, George

McCartney, Ian

Fraser, John

McFall, John

Galbraith, Sam

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Galloway, George

McKelvey, William

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

McLeish, Henry

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Maclennan, Robert

Godman, Dr Norman A.

McWilliam, John

Golding, Mrs Llin

Madden, Max

Gordon, Mildred

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Gould, Bryan

Marek, Dr John

Graham, Thomas

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Martlew, Eric

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Maxton, John

Grocott, Bruce

Meacher, Michael

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Meale, Alan

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Michael, Alun

Heffer, Eric S.

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Henderson, Doug

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Hinchliffe, David

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Hood, Jimmy

Morgan, Rhodri

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Morley, Elliott

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Howells, Geraint

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Mowlam, Marjorie

Hoyle, Doug

Mullin, Chris

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Murphy, Paul

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Nellist, Dave

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

O'Brien, William

Ingram, Adam

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Janner, Greville

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Pendry, Tom

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Pike, Peter L.

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Prescott, John

Kilfedder, James

Primarolo, Dawn

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Quin, Ms Joyce

Kirkwood, Archy

Randall, Stuart

Leadbitter, Ted

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Richardson, Jo

Lewis, Terry

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Livsey, Richard

Robertson, George

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Robinson, Geoffrey

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Rooker, Jeff

Loyden, Eddie

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

McAllion, John

Rowlands, Ted

207

Ruddock, Joan

Vaz, Keith

Sedgemore, Brian

Wall, Pat

Sheerman, Barry

Wallace, James

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Walley, Joan

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Skinner, Dennis

Wareing, Robert N.

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

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

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

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

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

Wilson, Brian

Snape, Peter

Winnick, David

Soley, Clive

Winterton, Nicholas

Spearing, Nigel

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Steel, Rt Hon David

Worthington, Tony

Steinberg, Gerry

Wray, Jimmy

Stott, Roger

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Strang, Gavin

Straw, Jack

Tellers for the Ayes:

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Mr. Allen Adams.

Turner, Dennis

NOES

Adley, Robert

Colvin, Michael

Aitken, Jonathan

Conway, Derek

Alexander, Richard

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Amess, David

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Amos, Alan

Cope, Rt Hon John

Arbuthnot, James

Cormack, Patrick

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Couchman, James

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Cran, James

Ashby, David

Critchley, Julian

Aspinwall, Jack

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Atkins, Robert

Curry, David

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

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

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Baldry, Tony

Day, Stephen

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Devlin, Tim

Batiste, Spencer

Dorrell, Stephen

Bellingham, Henry

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Bendall, Vivian

Dover, Den

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Dunn, Bob

Benyon, W.

Dykes, Hugh

Bevan, David Gilroy

Eggar, Tim

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Emery, Sir Peter

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Evennett, David

Body, Sir Richard

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Fallon, Michael

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Favell, Tony

Boswell, Tim

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Bottom ley, Peter

Fishburn, John Dudley

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Forman, Nigel

Bowis, John

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Forth, Eric

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Fox, Sir Marcus

Brazier, Julian

Franks, Cecil

Bright, Graham

Freeman, Roger

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

French, Douglas

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

Fry, Peter

Browne, John (Winchester)

Gardiner, George

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Gill, Christopher

Buck, Sir Antony

Glyn, Dr Alan

Burns, Simon

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Burt, Alistair

Goodlad, Alastair

Butcher, John

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Butler, Chris

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Gorst, John

Carrington, Matthew

Gow, Ian

Carttiss, Michael

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Cash, William

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Gregory, Conal

Chapman, Sydney

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Chope, Christopher

Grist, Ian

Churchill, Mr

Ground, Patrick

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Grylls, Michael

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Hague, William

208

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Mitchell, Sir David

Hampson, Dr Keith

Moate, Roger

Hanley, Jeremy

Monro, Sir Hector

Hannam, John

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

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

Moore, Rt Hon John

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Morrison, Sir Charles

Haselhurst, Alan

Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

Hawkins, Christopher

Moss, Malcolm

Hayward, Robert

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Mudd, David

Heddle, John

Neale, Gerrard

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Nelson, Anthony

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Neubert, Michael

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Hind, Kenneth

Nicholls, Patrick

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Holt, Richard

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Hordern, Sir Peter

Norris, Steve

Howard, Michael

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

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

Oppenheim, Phillip

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Page, Richard

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Paice, James

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Patnick, Irvine

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Hunter, Andrew

Pawsey, James

Irvine, Michael

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Irving, Charles

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Jack, Michael

Porter, David (Waveney)

Janman, Tim

Powell, William (Corby)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Price, Sir David

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Raffan, Keith

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Redwood, John

Key, Robert

Renton, Tim

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Riddick, Graham

Kirkhope, Timothy

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Knapman, Roger

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Knowles, Michael

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Knox, David

Rost, Peter

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Rowe, Andrew

Lang, Ian

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Latham, Michael

Ryder, Richard

Lawrence, Ivan

Sackville, Hon Tom

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Sainsbury, Hon Tim

Lee, John (Pendle)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Lightbown, David

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Lilley, Peter

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Shersby, Michael

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

McCrindle, Robert

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Speller, Tony

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Squire, Robin

Maclean, David

Stanbrook, Ivor

McLoughlin, Patrick

Steen, Anthony

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Stern, Michael

Malins, Humfrey

Stevens, Lewis

Mans, Keith

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Maples, John

Stokes, Sir John

Marland, Paul

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Marlow, Tony

Sumberg, David

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Summerson, Hugo

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Mates, Michael

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Maude, Hon Francis

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Temple-Morris, Peter

Miller, Sir Hal

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Mills, Iain

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Miscampbell, Norman

Thorne, Neil

209

Thornton, Malcolm

Watts, John

Thurnham, Peter

Wells, Bowen

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Wheeler, John

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Whitney, Ray

Tracey, Richard

Widdecombe, Ann

Tredinnick, David

Wiggin, Jerry

Trippier, David

Wilkinson, John

Trotter, Neville

Wilshire, David

Twinn, Dr Ian

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Wolfson, Mark

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Wood, Timothy

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Waldegrave, Hon William

Yeo, Tim

Walden, George

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Younger, Rt Hon George

Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

Walters, Sir Dennis

Tellers for the Noes:

Ward, John

Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones and

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Mr. Tony Durant.

Warren, Kenneth

Division No. 278]

[10 pm

AYES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Allen, Graham

Clay, Bob

Alton, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Anderson, Donald

Cohen, Harry

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Armstrong, Hilary

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Cousins, Jim

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Cryer, Bob

Bermingham, Gerald

Darling, Alistair

Blunkett, David

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Bradley, Keith

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

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Dewar, Donald

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Dixon, Don

Buckley, George J.

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Caborn, Richard

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

Callaghan, Jim

Fisher, Mark

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Foster, Derek

Canavan, Dennis

Foulkes, George

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Galbraith, Sam

247

Galloway, George

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Mullin, Chris

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Murphy, Paul

Golding, Mrs Llin

O'Brien, William

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Pendry, Tom

Hinchliffe, David

Pike, Peter L.

Howells, Geraint

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Hoyle, Doug

Prescott, John

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Primarolo, Dawn

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Quin, Ms Joyce

Ingram, Adam

Robertson, George

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Rowlands, Ted

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Ruddock, Joan

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Sheerman, Barry

Kennedy, Charles

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Skinner, Dennis

Lamond, James

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Lewis, Terry

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

Livsey, Richard

Soley, Clive

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Spearing, Nigel

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Steel, Rt Hon David

Loyden, Eddie

Steinberg, Gerry

McAllion, John

Strang, Gavin

McAvoy, Thomas

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

McCartney, Ian

Vaz, Keith

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Wall, Pat

McKelvey, William

Wallace, James

McWilliam, John

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

Marek, Dr John

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Wilson, Brian

Martlew, Eric

Winnick, David

Maxton, John

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Meale, Alan

Wray, Jimmy

Michael, Alun

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l &Bute)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Mr. Robert N. Wareing and

Morgan, Rhodri

Mr. Frank Haynes.

Morley, Elliott

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Butterfill, John

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Allason, Rupert

Carrington, Matthew

Amess, David

Carttiss, Michael

Amos, Alan

Cash, William

Arbuthnot, James

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Chapman, Sydney

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Chope, Christopher

Ashby, David

Churchill, Mr

Aspinwall, Jack

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Atkins, Robert

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Baldry, Tony

Colvin, Michael

Batiste, Spencer

Conway, Derek

Bellingham, Henry

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Benyon, W.

Cope, Rt Hon John

Bevan, David Gilroy

Couchman, James

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Cran, James

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Boswell, Tim

Curry, David

Bottomley, Peter

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

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Bowis, John

Day, Stephen

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Devlin, Tim

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Brazier, Julian

Dover, Den

Bright, Graham

Dunn, Bob

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

Durant, Tony

Browne, John (Winchester)

Eggar, Tim

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Evennett, David

Buck, Sir Antony

Favell, Tony

Burns, Simon

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Burt, Alistair

Fishbum, John Dudley

Butcher, John

Fookes, Dame Janet

Butler, Chris

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

248

Forth, Eric

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Fox, Sir Marcus

Norris, Steve

Franks, Cecil

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Freeman, Roger

Oppenheim, Phillip

French, Douglas

Page, Richard

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Paice, James

Gill, Christopher

Patnick, Irvine

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Gow, Ian

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Greenway, Harry (Eating N)

Porter, David (Waveney)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Powell, William (Corby)

Gregory, Conal

Raffan, Keith

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Grist, Ian

Redwood, John

Ground, Patrick

Riddick, Graham

Hague, William

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Hampson, Dr Keith

Rowe, Andrew

Haselhurst, Alan

Ryder, Richard

Hawkins, Christopher

Sackville, Hon Tom

Hayes, Jerry

Sayeed, Jonathan

Hayward, Robert

Shaw, David (Dover)

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Heddle, John

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Hind, Kenneth

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Holt, Richard

Shersby, Michael

Hordern, Sir Peter

Skeet, Sir Trevor

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

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Howarth, G. (Cannock &B'wd)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Jack, Michael

Steen, Anthony

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Stern, Michael

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Stevens, Lewis

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Kilfedder, James

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Kirkhope, Timothy

Sumberg, David

Knapman, Roger

Summerson, Hugo

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Knowles, Michael

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Lang, Ian

Temple-Morris, Peter

Latham, Michael

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Lawrence, Ivan

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Thornton, Malcolm

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Thurnham, Peter

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Tracey, Richard

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Tredinnick, David

Maclean, David

Trippier, David

McLoughlin, Patrick

Trotter, Neville

Malins, Humfrey

Twinn, Dr Ian

Mans, Keith

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Maples, John

Waller, Gary

Marland, Paul

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Warren, Kenneth

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Watts, John

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Wells, Bowen

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Wheeler, John

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Whitney, Ray

Miller, Sir Hal

Widdecombe, Ann

Mills, Iain

Wilkinson, John

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Wilshire, David

Mitchell, Sir David

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Moate, Roger

Winterton, Nicholas

Monro, Sir Hector

Wolfson, Mark

Morrison, Sir Charles

Wood, Timothy

Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Moss, Malcolm

Yeo, Tim

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Younger, Rt Hon George

Mudd, David

Neale, Gerrard

Tellers for the Noes:

Nelson, Anthony

Mr. David Lightbown and

Neubert, Michael

Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

Nicholls, Patrick

Question accordingly negatived.
Main Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 60 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading), and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Ways and Means Motion and the Road Traffic (Drivers Licensing and Information Systems) Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Maclean.]

ANTARCTIC MINERALS BILL [LORDS] [MONEY]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
Ordered,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Antarctic Minerals Bill [Lords], ("the Act"), it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(a) any sums which Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are obliged to pay to any person under or by virtue of the Convention of the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities;

(b) any administrative expenses of the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of the Act; and

(c) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act.—[Mr. Maclean.]

ANTARCTIC MINERALS BILL [LORDS] [WAYS AND MEANS]
Ordered,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Antarctic Minerals Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the inclusion in licences granted under the Act of conditions requiring the rendering of payments to the Secretary of State; and

(b) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund. —[Mr. Maclean.]

Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill [Lords]
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [26 June], That the clause (Sight testing), proposed on consideration of the Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), be read a Second time.
Which clause was:

Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill [Lords]
  New Clause 1

    SIGHT TESTING
    'It shall be a condition of the validity of any driving licence that the eyesight of the holder has been tested within a period and to a standard which shall be prescribed by a statutory instrument subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament.'.
    Question again proposed.
    10.13 pm
    The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Peter Bottomley): The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) asked whether there should be a free test. There is a free test, which is given not just once every so often—every driver has the duty to make sure that he can read a number plate at about 70 ft. For certain characters, the distance is 75 ft and for others 67ft. If the hon. Gentleman can read, from one end of the Chamber to the other, the pseudo number plate which I am holding up, his eyesight is good enough to pass the test. The medical profession say that that is correct.
    The hon. Gentleman thought that, for some reason, I was trying to stay in the Prime Minister's favour. If he thinks that, he must be the only person to do so on this issue. What matters is cutting casualties. His speech did nothing to do that, but would mislead people. I ask the House to reject the new clause.
    Mr. Harry Cohen: I must respond to the Minister's point. He said that it is a free test, but it is free only at the beginning of one's driving experience. People may drive for 40 or 50 years without having to take another test. Their eyesight can seriously deteriorate in that time.
    Mr. Bottomley: It might help the House if I repeat what I said earlier. Drivers should be able at all times to read a number plate at the distance that I quoted. It is not once in a lifetime: it is every time that someone is driving. It might help the House if the hon. Gentleman either reads the report in Hansard, which will make matters clear to him, or takes this pseudo number plate outside the Chamber and keeps walking, as the House has already heard him.
    Mr. Cohen: I heard the Minister very clearly indeed. However, some people who passed their test a while ago will not be able to read that number plate, and there is no requirement for them to take another test. As the Government have imposed charges, those people are likely to be discouraged from taking another test, and that is likely to lead to more accidents.
    I will not repeat what I said in the debate last week. The points are clear. The Government are well behind the rest of Europe in respect of driving standards. The Minister is right. This matter is not about his status; it is about accidents. The Government are taking a reckless attitude.

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    They will realise that they must introduce a higher standard of medical fitness for drivers, including eyesight tests.
    Mr. Roger Moate: Before the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) withdraws his proposal, I, too, endorse what he has said. There will come a time when the country will require more stringent eyesight tests for motorists. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman's proposition that compulsory testing should be introduced. I hope that my hon. Friend, in his influential and powerful position as Minister for Roads and Traffic, will encourage voluntary and more stringent eyesight testing, particularly by insurance companies. I do not agree with imposing great bureaucratic controls. Through insurance contracts and the driver licensing regulations, we have enough sanctions to bring to bear on individual motorists to ensure that they have regular eyesight tests. It is not the hon. Gentleman but the Department of Transport which has a blind spot on eyesight testing. There seems to be ample evidence—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Is this an intervention or a speech?
    Mr Moate: I hoped that it was a speech, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) for clarifying the position. I will do all that I can to make sure that the medical contribution to road casualties is continually monitored and that we re-emphasise to all drivers the need to make sure that they meet the correct medical test. We will do all that we can to make the roads safer in that way.
    Mr. Moate: I am grateful for that intervention. I hope that it is in order to make a speech on this important subject.
    Mr. Speaker: Of course it is in order. I was slightly confused because the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said, "Before the hon. Gentleman sits down." I thought that he was making an intervention.
    Mr. Moate: I said, "Before the hon. Member for Leyton withdraws his proposal."
    I certainly do not wish to detain the House, but I wish to record a matter of great importance. Although the hon. Gentleman speaks at enormous length, he speaks persuasively. [Interruption.] He always persuades me that a 10-minute limit for speeches is a good idea. On this occasion, his point is valid. There is a strong case for regular eyesight testing for motorists. It would be helpful for motorists, and it need not be any imposition on them. It would help to reduce the number of casualties and accidents on the road.
    I should like my hon. Friend to bring pressure to bear on insurance companies to remind motorists of their obligation under their contracts of insurance to seek eyesight tests at every renewal. That would be to the benefit of the community and would ultimately help to reduce casualties on the road. To that extent, the hon. Member for Leyton has assisted the House by introducing the new clause and I am grateful to him for speaking so briefly on this occasion.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I was delayed in getting two computer disks from my office, so unfortunately I missed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) who seems to be running
    252
    from the Chamber. I do not know what has come over my hon. Friend, but he seems to be running around the building at the moment.
    Last time we debated this matter, the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) made some strange manoeuvres to prevent further discussion. At that time, the Minister had failed to explain why he was not prepared to require eyesight tests. To anyone remotely concerned about road safety—the Minister claims to be very concerned about it—it is patently obvious that compulsory eyesight testing is the answer. I hope that now that the Minister has had a little time to think matters over as a result of the intervention of his hon. Friend the Member for Watford, who gave him an early night, he will tell us that he is prepared to introduce regular eyesight testing for motorists.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: For the benefit of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), I repeat what I said earlier. There is a continual requirement that all motorists should be able to meet the eyesight test. If the hon. Gentleman reads Hansard, he will see the specification.
    Question put and negatived.

  Clause 1

    ABOLITION OF SPECIAL LICENCES FOR DRIVING HGVs AND PSVs
    Amendments made: No. 7, in line 22 after 'drive', insert '
    or a goods vehicle of any class or, as the case may be, a passenger-carrying vehicle of any class prescribed for the purposes of this subsection'.
    No. 8, in line 35, at end insert
    'and the reference to prescribed classes of goods vehicles or passenger-carrying vehicles is a reference to classes of goods vehicles or passenger-carrying vehicles (within the meaning of the 1988 Act) prescribed under that paragraph.' .—[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]

  Clause 10

    OPERATORS' LICENCES
    Ms. Joan Ruddock: I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 14, line 9 after 'danger', insert 'or nuisance'.
    The Bill as drafted enables the Secretary of State to amend an operator's licence without the consent of the licence holder if a change is needed to prevent a danger to the public. The amendment would extend the power of the Secretary of State to amend the licence to cover circumstances in which the operation of a driver information system is causing a nuisance.
    Throughout our proceedings on the Bill, the Opposition have voiced the concerns of local highway authorities that the introduction of Autoguide could generate two types of problem as a result of traffic being directed along unsuitable roads.—first, road safety problems and, secondly, amenity and traffic management problems, including noise and congestion. Ministers have consistently argued that it is unlikely that such problems will arise and that the pilot scheme planned for London will provide an opportunity to iron out any problems. That approach ignores the fact that, should the pilot show that Autoguide results in nuisance problems for certain communities, the Bill—which will then be an Act—will

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    contain no provision under which action can be taken by the Secretary of State, except on road safety grounds alone.
    The amendment would give no extra powers to highway authorities. It does not impose any burdens on Autoguide operators. It would simply empower the Secretary of State to act if amenity or traffic problems arose as a result of the introduction of Autoguide, as we suspect they may.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The House is grateful to the hon. Lady for the way in which she introduced the amendment. For those in a legal frame of mind who read the amendment, she has made it clear that we are talking about loss of amenity, rather than nuisance, which has a particular legal meaning. As the House knows, the Government's view is that driver information systems, such as Autoguide, should be operated and financed by the private sector. Development will require heavy capital investment. Operators will be prepared to go ahead with such schemes only if they can be confident that, once awarded, a licence cannot be amended by the Secretary of State without the operator's consent. That approach is reflected generally in part II.
    Clause 10(6) breaches that principle in one respect. It enables the Secretary of State, without the consent of the licence holder, to attach new conditions if they are designed to prevent danger to the public. The House will take the view that in such circumstances there should be a clear and overriding need to amend a licence.
    However, the amendment would go further. It would provide that the Secretary of State could unilaterally alter a licence to prevent a nuisance, in the common sense view, which would leave the operator in uncertainty about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might use that power. The effect would probably be to deter operators from seeking licences and consequently to the loss of the benefit of driver information systems such as Autoguide. In asking the House not to accept the amendment, I must make it plain that I cannot envisage circumstances in which there would be a serious loss of amenity, or other unbearable or undesirable conditions, where there was not also a diminution of safety. For all practical purposes, the power in clause 10(6) will probably meet the hon. Lady's aim.
    I ask the House not to accept the amendment. The hon. Lady has made a serious point, but her proposal can be encompassed within the provisions on safety. I doubt whether noise would ever be a problem on its own. Noise would be produced by a lot of traffic using an unsuitable road and that would have an effect on safety, too. If there were no pedestrians at all, the road would probably be a motorway, in which case it would probably be outside a city or town.
    Ms. Ruddock: I thank the Minister for his comments. I know that highway authorities will take note of them and I hope that they will accept that he is, in a sense, making the offer that if there is a nuisance of the sort that we have described, they will be able to take the matter up on the road safety grounds specified in the Bill. That is extremely important and goes a small way to meeting my points. In view of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
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    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Cohen: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 15, line 1, leave out
    'may be required to be furnished to the Secretary of State under subsection (8)(f) above'
    and insert
    'shall be disclosed by the operator to any person'.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 2, in clause 11, page 15, line 13, at end insert
    'or
    (c) driver information has been used, collected, obtained or disclosed in a way that is unrelated to the operation of the system.'.
    Mr. Cohen: I will take a little longer on these amendments. The implication of amendment No. 2 is that the abuse of driver information can be punished by loss of licence and the acquisition of a criminal record by the company, such as Autoguide. It will place a limitation on cavalier operators who could be tempted to make a fast buck by using driver information for other purposes. Amendment No. 2 will force operators to be careful about how they use driver information and any misuse of it could be a breach of the conditions for obtaining an operator's licence. Amendment No. 2 will allow the licence to be revoked if there is misuse.
    Amendment No. 2 will also place an onus on the Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister to specify how information is to be used, collected, obtained or disclosed in relation to the driver information system, probably in the licence granted under clause 10. The Secretary of State should give guidance to operators in that respect. Unlike the amendment that I proposed to clause 8 in Committee, which the Minister did not like because it forbade absolutely the use of driver information for any other purpose, amendment No. 2 is a halfway house to those objections.
    Clause 10(6), for example, gives the Secretary of State flexibility to amend the terms and conditions associated with the granting of the licence and so provides guidance regarding the acceptable use, disclosure, collection and obtaining of information, so that they are related to the operaton of the driver information system in the licence. Amendment No. 2 would constrain such uses, disclosures, collection and obtaining so that they would be related to the operation of the system, rather than directly "relevant", which was the key word of my previous amendment. As such, it is a happy compromise and one which any reasonable Minister should be more than happy to accept.
    I remind the Minister of the significance of the written answer that he gave me on 21 April in column 305 of volume 151 of Hansard, when he stated that the disclosure of personal data from Autoguide will be subject to a non-disclosure exemption under the Data Protection Act 1984. In my assessment, the legal aspect of that is positively dangerous, especially as we are dealing with a computer system that could be developed to trace the movements of individuals by tracing from and to where they drive.
    10.30 pm
    "Non-disclosure" is an awful piece of jargon but it means, first, that there is no restriction on the disclosure of information held in manual files. Non-automated

    255
    information associated with autoguide is, by definition, not covered by the Data Protection Act and can therefore be used and disclosed freely.
    Secondly, it means that the disclosure of personal information from Autoguide is not subject to the requirements of the third data protection principle—that it should not be used or disclosed in any manner that is incompatible with its purpose.
    Thirdly, disclosures of personal information from Autoguide need not be registered with the data protection registrar. Fourthly, Autoguide information is not subject to the enforcement powers of the registrar in relation to all eight of the data protection principles.
    In Committee, the Minister placed great store by the Data Protection Act. However, its provisions are insufficient in respect of information from Autoguide which could be used for a purpose other than for road safety and good traffic management, which the Minister assured us on Second Reading was its sole purpose. It can be used for all sorts of other purposes. Amendment No. 2 goes some way to ensuring that information held in a driver information system cannot be abused quite so easily.
    Amendment No. 1 states that Autoguide information should not be disclosed
    "by the operator to any person".
    The amendment seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State, and no other person, can require information from a driver information system, such as Autoguide, in a form that can identify drivers and owners. At the moment, the Secretary of State for Transport has accepted that he would stop himself infringing privacy, but he has left it open to all other Ministers and organisations outside his control, such as the police and the security services, to be able to require the information and thus infringe privacy.
    To make absolute the details of individuals whose details are recorded on driver information systems, my amendment extends the protections that the Secretary of State has given to himself to all other Secretaries of State and all governmental and other organisations. The arguments that the Secretary of State has applied to himself should surely apply to those other individuals and bodies.
    I remind the Minister of his exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) in Committee when she asked how an individual would know that the information had been passed on. The Minister replied:
    "It will not be passed on to the Secretary of State. That is what the Bill says."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 16 May 1989; c. 51.]
    From that exchange, it appears that it is possible for other Secretaries of State or Government bodies to obtain information from Autoguide in a form that identifies individuals. The powers granted under clause 10(8)(g) expressly authorise the Secretary of State to allow other persons to inspect records and make copies. Those records could include the owners or drivers of vehicles who pass an Autoguide detector at the start of a political demonstration. Such information might be passed on.
    Such authoritarian behaviour was referred to in Committee by both my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who said that he was held on the stolen and suspect vehicle index of the police national computer during the miners' strike, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford, who said that she
    256
    was followed by Security Service agents because of her effective work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. That will be encouraged by unrestricted access to Autoguide information.
    Mr. Corbyn: In Committee there was substantial discussion about the use of such information. It was revealed that, during the miners' strike, the stolen vehicles index was used to trace cars owned by members of the National Union of Mineworkers and those who supported them on picket line duties. There is no guarantee that the Autoguide system will not be used merely to update such records and extend that information. Does my hon. Friend not think it an outrage that, rather than trying to protect civil liberties, the Minister is giving power to the Big Brother state to examine the activities of people on legitimate and legal protest?
    Mr. Cohen: That is exactly my point, and that is the reason for the amendment. We must protect civil liberties and learn the lessons of the Big Brother state during the miners' strike. We are seeing increasing encroachments on civil liberties. We must stop new technology, such as the Autoguide system, enabling that to be carried a stage further by an authoritarian Government, which this Government have shown all the hallmarks of being.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: I do not know how much longer the hon. Gentleman is going to take us down this line, but I had the impression that when he went on demonstrations he wanted it to be known that he was there rather than be anonymous. If he went on a demonstration, I did not know that he went by car. If he was going to a demonstration by car, I do not know that he would want to sign up with the commercial Autoguide system to tell him which way to go. It seems that he is taking us into the realms of fantasy. If he brought us back to his amendments, we could try to answer his points and the House could decide whether he is right or wrong.
    Mr. Cohen: The Minister treats these matters flippantly, but they are encroachments on civil liberties in a very big way. I shall show the House how such encroachments are occurring. There is the Autoguide system, whereby people's number plates can be checked and it can be discovered where they have travelled to and from; the ticket barriers on the Underground have facilities to read the season ticket strips to record people's movements; and the Home Office is developing a system called "Wizard", which is a facial recognition system that will photograph drivers and people on the move.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Have a shave.
    Mr. Cohen: Yes, it will recognise my beard, and report where I have moved to and from.
    In a recent answer to me, the Minister said that travel agents and airlines will have to hand over information on people who book with them, if matters of public order or national security are involved. Those are creeping infringements of our vital civil liberty—the freedom of movement.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will my hon. Friend tell us whether there is any truth in the rumour that the Autoguide or the new Wizard system will be used when the judges go out on strike again? If the judges decide that they want to spread their strike from the Royal Courts of

    257
    Justice to the circuit, and the police decide to put up a road block with the help of the Autoguide or the Wizard system, some miners might say that justice was being done.
    Of course, other miners and myself would say that we do not believe in infringements of civil liberties, whoever they might affect. Is there anything in the rumour that, as an experiment, that equipment will be used outside the Royal Courts of Justice?
    Mr. Cohen: There could be, if the judges upset the Government enough. However, all the signs are that the Government will cave in to that vested interest very quickly. It is more likely that that equipment will be used against the miners, railwaymen and other workers than against the judges. The Government have to keep the judges sweet so that they can punish the railwaymen and the miners in the courts.
    Mr. Corbyn: Does my hon. Friend agree that Autoguide could be used to peel off the ringleaders among the judges from those who might be latent supporters of the Government? Is my hon. Friend also aware that the traffic monitoring scheme in London operates automatic video cameras, some of which are not pointed at the traffic? Some are pointed at Speaker's corner, some at the assembly area in Hyde park and others at the centre of Trafalgar square, where no traffic is allowed. There are many points in London where the so-called traffic information systems, designed by the Metropolitan police to monitor traffic movement, are used to monitor pedestrian, civilian movements. Those systems are part of a data-collecting agency. Does my hon. Friend agree that Autoguide could be used for the same purpose?
    Mr. Cohen: Yes. The collection of a vast amount of data on individuals is a serious infringement of privacy. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) referred to the Wizard system, and for all I know it could have been used during the recent visit of the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in which case the system should have been called "The Wizard of Oz". But enough of such frivolity; this is a serious matter.
    Mr. Moate: Given his remarkable command of such modern technology, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain something to me. Those who join the Autoguide system voluntarily install in their car a piece of equipment to link them to that system. How will such people be victims of a system whereby they are unknowingly scrutinised?
    Mr. Cohen: The hon. Gentleman is correct that, initially, the system will apply to those who subscribe to it. The Government, however, want to extend the system to all motorists; for it to work properly, that must happen. In that way, the Government could cut the number of signs on roads and so on. The system, however, has the facility to read all number plates whether one is a member of it or not. That system could be linked up with Wizard for the facial recognition of drivers.
    Mr. Skinner: Is Autoguide from West Germany?
    Mr. Cohen: The system began in West Germany and in Committee the Minister told us that he had a ride around West Berlin in a car using the Autoguide system. He did not say whether the Germans use the Wizard system.
    258
    The ability to trace a person's movements is a serious infringement of civil liberties and it is part of the Big Brother state. The Minister accepted that he did not want such private information to himself, but that undertaking should also apply to other Ministers and to other Government services.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: I understand that the Home Office trials were conducted exclusively with equipment made in West Germany. Even if the equipment has any merit, which I doubt, it does not have the merit of adding jobs to our manufacturing industry, which, since the Tories came to power in 1979, has lost about 2 million jobs.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) will remember that the amendment is concerned with disclosing names. It would not be in order for him to follow up the point that has just been made.
    Mr. Cohen: I merely remind the House that the Minister said on Second Reading that the purpose of the system was to improve road safety and good traffic management. Unfortunately, it will let in many other purposes. If the Minister were to uphold his own words on Second Reading and in Committee, he would accept the amendment and ensure that the Bill relates only to road safety and traffic management and does not infringe privacy and civil liberties.
    10.45 pm
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and I may be paranoid, but that does not mean that they are not out to get us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said, it is not compulsory to join Autoguide. Even if one does join it, the system does not record the driver. If it is a matter of recording number plates, it is possible for someone to stand by the side of the road recording car number plates as though he is standing on a railway platform recording the numbers of engines or carriages.
    When the hon. Member for Leyton spends all his time referring to spy ideas, I recall the nightmare which I shared with the members of the Committee which involves being the person who is allocated to digest the hon. Gentleman's speeches to see whether there is anything new or interesting in them. The hon. Gentleman talks as though he is the third man or, if I might say so after the European elections, "The Green Man". He uses a roundabout way to try to tell the House that he is worried that new information may be provided by the system.
    The system is designed to give the driver information on which way to go to reach his destination, and that is all. There is provision for a second tier of information, which, with the consent of Autoguide, would tell the subscriber where his vehicle is. That would be explicit information and there would be powers to ensure that that information is not shared. The system can work well without even the operator knowing the identity of individual vehicles that are receiving route guidance.
    Amendment No. 2 is unnecessary. It would give the Secretary of State no more power than that provided under the Bill as drafted. It is technically defective in that it seeks to control the use of information derived from

    259
    vehicles when "driver information", which is the term used in the amendment, is defined in the Bill as giving route guidance to vehicles.
    The amendments should be resisted. The hon. Gentleman, on reflection, may not wish to press them to a Division.
    Mr. Cohen: I have made my point. I believe that these issues will come back to the House in future as problems ensue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill [Lords]
Ms. Ruddock: I beg to move amendment No. 16, in page 15, line 8, at end insert—
'(12) Before using his powers under subsections (1) and (6) above, the Secretary of State shall seek the views of the relevant highway authorities.'.
The amendment continues the main theme pursued by the Opposition in relation to part II, which is the absence of any reference to local highway authority involvement in deciding where driver information systems operate, which roads should be included or excluded and how any problems should be tackled. The amendment tackles the deficiency by requiring the Secretary of State to seek the views of relevant highway authorities before issuing or amending an operator's licence.
Throughout our discussions, Ministers have tried to have it both ways in their efforts to resist any form of local democratic control over an autoguide operator. The main purpose of the amendment is to enable highway authorities to undertake their traffic management and road safety responsibilities in the autoguide era by having some influence over the implementation of the system.
In responding to amendments in his inimitable style in Committee, the Minister proclaimed:
"The rats are already running. Does anyone seriously believe that there are unused rat runs waiting to be discovered by autoguide? Each of us … is aware that people know which routes are a diversion from the main signed route."
A few seconds later, when arguing that autoguide would be less distracting than other means of navigation, the Minister said:
"The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) is sitting in the passenger seat. His wife is driving and she asks, 'How do we get to the next place?' They start looking at maps".—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 16 May 1989, c. 65.]
If autoguide is to be commercially viable, it must be aimed at those who do not know all the rat runs in every Member's constituency. It must provide a faster service than simply relying on signed main routes. In those circumstances there must at least be the danger that the use of some rat runs will be encouraged. There are already signs that minor roads are to be included in the autoguide scheme. At the first meeting of the autoguide pilot assessment group, involving the Department of Transport, the local authority associations and the police, the Department would not give an undertaking that minor roads would be excluded from the London pilot scheme, because it was too early to say.
Throughout the Bill's passage, Ministers have warned of the need not to impose constraints on the commercial operators. Of course, the operators will be pressing for a maximum number of roads to be included in the scheme. Therefore, it is essential that Parliament provides the means by which the bodies responsible for traffic management issues—the local highway authorities—will have an opportunity to influence the introduction of autoguide.
On Second Reading, the Minister stressed that the success of autoguide will depend on co-operation between a number of different interests. But he went on to argue:
"It is quite important not to set down in advance that local
262
authorities should be able to have a veto."—[Official Report, 13 April 1989; Vol. 150, c. 1102.]
The Minister pursued a similar theme in Committee, claiming:
"If we allow too much direct local authority control now, it is likely to strangle the system at birth."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 16 May 1989; c. 70.]
Local authorities are rightly apprehensive. At the meeting of the autoguide pilot assessment group, for which the Minister is responsible, the Department said that it could see no reason why any road in London, however unsuitable, should be excluded from the network of roads used to direct through traffic on which the autoguide system should operate in the pilot stage. That is in direct opposition to the Government's own policies as expressed in "Traffic Management Guidance for London, 1987", which says that roads off the designated road network are essentially local roads and through traffic should not be encouraged to use them.
The amendment would provide highway authorities with no extra powers, but they would have the right to be consulted. This is a modest amendment, but it is essential if highway authorities are to have confidence in the legislation. The only alternative would be for the Minister to give a clear undertaking to consult the highway authorities before undertaking his licensing responsibilities.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: It may be helpful if I intervene at this stage in the debate.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) on the research that has gone into her speech. She is concerned about a serious point, but I hope to persuade the House that the amendment would not be the right way forward.
It would be difficult to have an autoguide pilot scheme in London without using any minor roads, partly because on approaching central London it is difficult to define a designated road and so exclude a road on that basis.
I take this opportunity to repeat that I have no intention of encouraging people to cross the centre of London, or even to cross inner London, when going from one part of outer London to another. I have been consistent in that, although it takes some people a while to get the message.
Ms. Ruddock: The Minister says that he does not seek to encourage that, but surely that is the purpose of autoguide.
Mr. Bottomley: The purpose of autoguide is to make sure that people take efficient routes. It is inefficient to put traffic on the wrong roads. I spend a lot of time explaining to people that many of the rat runs to which they are so devoted not only take them a longer distance, but a longer time. Studies carried out on the A3 in Kingston showed that. However, it is difficult to persuade some people of the truth of that. Autoguide would demonstrate that more easily.
We all know that dealing with junction problems using designated roads, primary route networks and even trunk roads, gives travellers a greater advantage, as well as those residents who are no longer disturbed by the rats who are doing the running. I congratulate the hon. Lady on her logic at the beginning of her speech. I am not sure that it took the discussion much further forward, but Freddie Ayer would have been proud of it.

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Under the amendment, if the Secretary of State wants to make a change before amending a licence in London or within the area of the M25, he might have to consult 20 or 30 local authorities. As to what will happen initially, both the consortia interested in the pilot scheme said that they will make presentations to local authority associations and to the police.
The critical question is whether there will be any possible gain by sending volumes of traffic down the wrong roads. The answer is no. But it cannot be sensibly argued that one should work only with local authorities to effect consent, or go through a relatively long procedure before introducing a scheme.
Ms. Ruddock: If the Minister is confident that the system will work well and give rise to no problems, why on earth does he not concede our argument and give local authorities the right to be consulted?
Mr. Bottomley: The simple answer relates both to the amendment and to red tape. This is the third or fourth time that the same arguments have been rehearsed. The detail may have been modified, but the points made are basically the same. The hon. Lady agrees that there is no point in trying to divert traffic down the rat runs.
Autoguide is the one system that offers the potential of telling road users which routes will save them time. The hon. Lady is probably aware that the alternative systems, which would not require a licence, were based on a microcomputer whereby one disk would give the motorist the choice of the fastest route, the shortest route, the most scenic route, the route taking him through the greatest part of the hon. Lady's constituency or mine, and so on. It seems to me that we should look for the common sense solution and avoid tying up an innovative project with unnecessary red tape, or tying the hands of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State by prohibiting him from making a modification in respect of the M25 without consulting a large number of highway authorities.
Mr. Moate: I go along with my hon. Friend's thesis, but what would be the position if a route perceived by autoguide to be economically efficient turns out to be environmentally unpopular, particularly among the residents of a quiet street? If representations are made to my hon. Friend by a local authority or by a large number of residents, what sanction can he use when saying to the autoguide companies, "This route is bad, it is inflicting a great deal of environmental damage, and it is very unpopular"?
Mr. Cryer: The Minister will be kicked on to the Conservative Back Benches by a ruthless Prime Minister.
Mr. Bottomley: If that is so, I shall join the hon. Gentleman on the rotters' Bench, offering good advice —and I may find myself losing my seat in the same way that he lost his.
It is too early to say that no minor roads should be included in the network. The hon. Member for Deptford agrees with other hon. Members that environmental nuisance is unlikely to arise on an unsuitable road without there being danger as well. We believe that we have found a helpful way forward.
The Department is concerned as much about safety as about traffic management. The two overlap. We think that consultants should be engaged to monitor the operation of the pilot scheme, so that we can learn its lessons—rather
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than say that nothing should ever be allowed to go wrong. The arguments have been rehearsed at least three times in the House, and the scheme should be allowed to go forward. It has been established that presentations will be made to local authorities, and when the pilot scheme is in operation we will know whether the fears that have been expressed are justified. If they are, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take that into account.
Mr. Corbyn: The Minister's churlish refusal to concede our arguments calls into question the logic of his own arguments. If, as he says, presentations will be made to local authorities, why cannot they also be properly consulted? The Minister told his hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) that he is concerned about environmentally sensitive routes being damaged by autoguide. The hon. Gentleman knows that, unless local highway authorities are involved, they will have no power to alter an autoguide route.
The scheme is a form of privatised roads, privatised traffic management and privatised direction system. Unless there is proper licensing linked to the local highway authority, the system will encourage rat running, the use of unsuitable roads by high-speed cars, and commuter motoring.
The Minister says that he does not want traffic crossing central London or an increase in commuter motoring into and out of the area, but he has no powers to stop it. Once a company has been given a licensing system or the power to introduce one through a particular area, with no consultation with the local authority, the Minister has handed over part of the traffic management powers to the small minority of motorists who can afford to subscribe to autoguide, and to an autoguide company that is not interested in the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, the environment or the community. It will be interested only in getting someone in a company car from A to B by a faster route. That is the motive behind the autoguide system.
Mr. Cohen: Will my hon. Friend give some thought to the democratic rights—if any—that would be enjoyed by a resident of a street that was being rat run because of the system?
11 pm
Mr. Corbyn: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Such a resident would probably have no rights at all. In Committee I discussed with the Minister and others the potential problems in Finsbury Park, where I live. The area is bedevilled by rat-running commuters. It is appalling: every morning there are traffic jams everywhere, with people speeding through in expensive cars, often very dangerously. Local residents are rightly angry about it. The local authority, Islington council, has done what it can, but its powers are limited because it does not control overall traffic movements.
If the autoguide system comes in, roads that we should like to be restricted or closed—or subject to the introduction of speed humps—may become subject to an autoguide system. What will happen to the local community then? Does a road with autoguide beacons down it automatically become a major through road? I suspect that it does.
Such matters may not seem important to the Minister. I fail to understand, however, why valuable parliamentary

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time, the expertise of dozens of people in the Department of Transport and a great deal of money should be expended to introduce a system that denies local highway authorities the power to plan their traffic management schemes properly, and merely enables a small number of people to travel through urban areas faster. That energy, money and parliamentary time should be spent on promoting public transport and supporting the efforts of highway authorities to make urban roads safer, rather than more dangerous, as they will become under this system.
At the heart of the matter is the question of local authority consultation. The Minister gives us all the honeyed phrases that he can: he says that he will talk to local authorities and give them demonstration runs. He offered a demonstration run to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and myself, but unfortunately neither of us could attend on the day that he mentioned. I hope that the offer will be repeated. The Minister offers formal meetings, but he does not concede the basic power that is essential if highway authorities are to plan traffic movements properly.
This is a recipe for anarchy, danger and the undermining of public control over traffic systems. Control is being handed over to a private company whose only interest is in making money for the minority of motorists who can afford to subscribe to it. It is an outrage: the least that the Government can do is concede the right and powers of the highway authorities.
Mr. Cryer: I support the amendment, because it makes sense. One of the things that worries me about the system is that the private operators who are behind it will be subject to inbuilt pressure to promote all sorts of short cuts. Motorists will feel that if they save five minutes through the system others should be persuaded to join it.
Mr. Corbyn: I apologise for intervening on my hon. Friend's speech so early. Does he agree, however, that although the initial promotion is aimed at urban areas, a spread to rural areas could pose a danger of heavy traffic being directed down rural roads which would provide a rapid short cut for those who knew their way around? The danger does not apply just in urban communities such as the one that I represent. It could apply equally to country lanes and smaller roads.
Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend makes a relevant point. I represent an urban area, one third of the city of Bradford, and in the city as a whole there are about 200 road improvement schemes designed to protect pedestrians and separate traffic from pedestrians because of the intrusion of vehicles into densely populated areas. The local authority cannot finance such schemes because of a shortage of money from the Department of Transport.
I have taken up with the local authority many cases of constituents complaining that cars are running down their roads, taking corners quickly and making use of side roads as short cuts. They say, "We have no way of stopping them, our children are in danger as they go to and from school and the volume of traffic is increasing." Because of that increased volume of traffic, motorists are bound to seek short cuts. Indeed, the autoguide system may result in such short cuts being invoked as part of local authority planning procedures.
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That makes it all the more important for the citizen to have the right of representation, with the local authority having the right of consultation. Such a right for the citizen should be built into the scheme from the beginning. The citizen should not be excluded from jurisdiction over the development of traffic routes where those routes impinge on ordinary urban, and possibly rural, life.
Traffic is a growing problem, a despoliation of our cities and villages. Acceptance of the amendment would not inhibit the Minister, but it would establish a pattern for involvement by the public in a highly sensitive area. At present, when I take up constituents' complaints, the local authority replies, "We do not have money to finance road improvements, even though, on existing trunk and minor roads which are well used, there is loss of life and limb."
Mr. Cohen: My hon. Friend referred to problems in urban areas and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) made the same point but relating to country lanes. Is my hon. Friend aware that coaches and heavy vehicles could come within the autoguide system? With unrestricted access, so to speak—if the amendment is not accepted—those heavy vehicles could find their way down country lanes and residential streets.
Mr. Cryer: That is a potential development and proves that we must have a consultative process for the citizen. People are more inclined to accept developments if they feel that they have some safeguard. After all, the Department of Transport is not generally known as the people's friend. People do not readily turn to that Department for guidance when road schemes are mooted.
If the system is successful—I have reservations about that—commercial vehicle operators will make calculations about delays because they lack knowledge about routes. They will want to use their vehicles in as efficient a manner as possible. Consequently, they will want to use the system to speed up distribution of supplies.
The Government have capitulated yet again to the Commission. Instead of rejecting completely the introduction of 40-tonne vehicles on our roads, they agreed to vehicles heavier than 38 tonnes being allowed on to them. Now we have the grim prospect of even heavier vehicles on our roads.
Instead of turning down the amendment, on the somewhat dubious basis that it would hinder the swift implementation of the measure, the Minister should take people—in particular, local authorities—into his confidence and say that they have a part to play if controversial aspects of the system impinge on people's peace of mind and safety. Initially, very few people might want to take up that right. Local authorities may welcome the system and say that it will lead to improvements. However, the amendment is a safety net, and I urge the Minister to accept it.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said that our relationship with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities is not as good as it should be. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) reminds me that in her day it was fine. I spent most of today with the AMA. Nobody raised any problems over autoguide. They had plenty of opportunities to do so. There are many examples of co-operation between the Department and local authorities.

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The Government look after only 4 per cent. of the roads. Most highway authorities look after roads for the Department, as well as looking after their own 96 per cent. The partnership works well. No local authority association has much to fear from autoguide. The president of the AMA said that he is aware of the monitoring arrangements that have been agreed with the local authority associations. They are members of the autoguide pilot assessment group. The police are also members of that group. The operators will be working closely with individual local authorities. The safety points that I made are serious and important. The House should reject the amendment and get on with the pilot scheme. When we have had experience of it we shall be able to judge whether the fears are justified.
Mr. Corbyn: The Minister says that we shall then be able to judge whether the fears are justified. Surely it would be much better if he said that the Department will consult local authorities over the implementation of the scheme, if that is what it is minded to do. He is not prepared to give local authorities the opportunity to influence the scheme.
Mr. Bottomley: I am not sure that to say something twice will help either the House or the hon. Gentleman. There is nothing either in autoguide or in the Bill that in any way overrides the power of local authorities to manage traffic. 'That deals with the point that the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) and others are rightly concerned about and with the point that I have been concerned about for three and a half years—that through traffic should be on through routes. Traffic management requirements are automatically built into the autoguide system. If they were not, people would be required to do things that are unlawful as well as not very helpful. Unless we recognise that fact, we shall not make much progress.
We must ensure that traffic can move efficiently because it knows which route to take. As soon as more than a sample number of vehicles use autoguide, we cannot usefully send them down roads that are not suitable for them. It is essential to get rid of misguidance through ignorance rather than to try to abuse more and more parts of the road system, especially in urban areas.
Unless general traffic management action is taken, encouraged by the Department, which acts as a sort of community telephone exchange for local authorities, the car will remain the master of most urban areas. The lesson that we have learnt from the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and from a growing number of areas in the United Kingdom is that the car can be excluded from many areas by traffic management, not by trying to write too much detailed red tape, however natural it may be for the Labour party to do that, into the Bill.
Ms. Ruddock: The Minister does not seem to recognise that, because of the operation of autoguide, it is just conceivable that new traffic management problems will arise. If a lot of vehicles are sent down a road because it happens to be somewhat more empty than others, it might become a new rat run. Residents may go to their local authority and ask for restraining measures to be taken. The local authority would then come into conflict with the Minister's Department, as its measures might redirect traffic on to a designated road.
11.15 pm
Mr. Bottomley: That was a helpful intervention. If a local authority introduces traffic management arrangements, autoguide will have to take them into account. Autoguide's existence does not make any difference to the local authority's traffic management powers. Perhaps this debate has been useful as that point has been spelled out clearly. I do not think that I can add a great deal to what has already been said. The hon. Lady has made her point, and it has been taken into account.
Ms. Ruddock: Can the Minister tell me categorically that Autoguide will not be able to object to a new traffic management scheme?
Mr. Bottomley: It cannot be excluded from objecting. The whole point of traffic management schemes is that they are advertised so that people can object to them. It would be ludicrous to tell an operator that it cannot exercise the same rights as any other organisation, body or individual. Autoguide will have no power of veto. A veto exists only when proposals affect designated roads and the Secretary of State can exercise it in accordance with legislation. Unless the hon. Lady is suggesting that Autoguide should be forbidden by legislation from even writing to a local authority saying, "Oi, have you thought that your proposals might have an effect on traffic movement, and we are experts on traffic movement?" there is nothing to fear. I am sure that she is not suggesting that.
The hon. Lady has raised a matter sensibly, I have given a serious, factual answer, and I think that we ought to leave it there.
Mr. Corbyn rose—
Mr. Bottomley: I would rather not give way to the hon. Gentleman, who can speak on Third Reading, as I have made my point and the House has got about as much out of this debate as it is likely to get.
Amendment negatived.

Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill [Lords]
  Clause 12
    POWER TO INSTALL APPARATUS ETC
    Amendment made: No. 9, in page 16, line 12, leave out subsection (3).—[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]
  Schedule 1

    EXISTING HGV AND PSV DRIVERS' LICENCES
    Amendment made: No. 10, in page 23, line 31, at end insert—
    '12. The power to make regulations under paragraph 8 above includes power to prescribe the classes of goods vehicle or passenger-carrying vehicle which, by virtue of section 1(2) of this Act, the holder of an existing licence is authorised to drive during the currency of his existing licence.'.—[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]

  Schedule 2

    PROVISIONS INSERTED IN ROAD TRAFFIC ACT 1988
    Amendment made: No. 11, in page 29, line 41, at end insert—
    "`provisional licence" means a licence granted by virtue of section 97(2) of this Act;'.[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]

  Schedule 5

    DRIVER INFORMATION SYSTEMS: UNDERTAKERS' WORKS
    Amendment made: No. 17, in page 42, leave out lines 16 to 46 and insertߞ
    '"relevant undertaker" means—

    (a) any person or authority authorised by or under any Act (whether public general or local) to carry on any railway, tramway, road transport, water transport, canal, inland navigation, dock, harbour, pier or lighthouse undertaking;

    (b) any person to whom the telecommunications code is applied by a licence under section 7 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 authorising him to run a telecommunications system;

    (c) any public gas supplier (within the meaning of Part I of the Gas Act 1986);

    (d) any holder of a licence under Part I of the Electricity Act 1989 who is entitled to exercise any power conferred by paragraph 1 or 2 of Schedule 4 to that Act;

    (e) the National Rivers Authority or any water undertaker or sewerage undertaker;

    (f) any other licensed operator of a driver information system; or

    (g) any person to whom this Schedule is applied by any Act passed after this Act;

    "undertaker's works" means

    (a) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (a) above, any works which he is authorised to execute for the purpose of, or in connection with, the carrying on by him of the undertaking mentioned in that paragraph;

    (b) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (b) above, any works which he is authorised to execute for the purposes of, or in connection with, a telecommunications system run by him;

    (c) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (c) above, any works which he is authorised to execute for the purposes of, or in connection with, his supplying gas as a public gas supplier;

    (d) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (d) above, any works which he is authorised to execute for any purpose connected with the carrying on of the activities which he is authorised by his licence to carry on;

    (e) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (e) above, any works which that Authority or undertaker has power to execute for purposes connected with the carrying on of its functions;

    (f) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (f) above, any works which he is authorised to execute for the purposes of, or in connection with, a driver information system operated by him; and;

    (g) in relation to a relevant undertaker falling within paragraph (g) above, the works for the purposes of which this Schedule is applied to him.".'.—[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]

    Order for Third Reading read.—Queen's and Prince of Wales's Consent signified.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—[Mr. Peter Bottomley.]
    11.17 pm
    Mr. Corbyn: We have had a short Committee stage and a fairly lengthy Report stage. Unfortunately, the two stages have been taken separately because of the antics of the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones). I am not quite sure whether he was trying to let his Back Benchers get home early or he could not keep them here.
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    Nothing that the Minister has said has altered the basic objection that many of us have to the Bill. It is called a road safety improvement measure, but it does not extend the eyesight testing requirement that many of us believe is necessary. The principal part of it concerns the provision of an autoguide system. The Minister said that Autoguide will not co-operate with local authorities because it does not have to, that local authorities will have no power to stop Autoguide coming in, but that when someone objects to, or supports, a traffic management scheme, Autoguide will be one of the participants in the consultation process. That is the kernel of the problem.
    If we want to introduce a traffic management scheme, the people who are normally most affected are local residents, residents of adjoining streets which may be affected by increased or decreased traffic, local highway authorities and the emergency services. It is not normal to take account of objections from a company whose sole interest is to get people more quickly through that community. The Bill is giving a private company a franchise on our roads, which means giving it an unaccountable power for an undesirable end. I hope that the House will recognise that and oppose the Third Reading.
    The legislation is of no benefit to those of us who are concerned about traffic movements and safety in inner urban areas. It is of no benefit in improving road safety as a whole. The energies that have gone into drafting the Bill could have been much better spent developing and improving public transport systems and keeping cars out of urban areas. The Minister says that he wants to do that, yet he gives powers to other people to encourage drivers to come into those areas. We would have been better off spending our time making our transport and traffic systems safer and more usable by the majority of the population rather than spending the time on an expensive autoguide system for the minority who can afford it, driving around in expensive cars, rat-running down small urban streets and country lanes.
    Many Conservative Members may vote for the Bill. In a few months, when the systems are introduced, or in a few years, when they have been extended to the whole country, the Minister will get representations from many people who want the schemes removed from their area because of the complaints of local residents.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The speech by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) is a ludicrous, open distortion which will do him no good. Autoguide's aim is to reduce congestion, mainly by ensuring that people do not get lost and go several times around the hon. Gentleman's constituency, my constituency or that of any other London Member during the pilot scheme. It means that they will find an efficient way of going where they want to go without going off the right track. Most of the tracks will be on the main roads. We are also making 1989 the Year of the Sign and ensuring that signs follow on from each other rather than act like the hon. Gentleman's speech—starting at the beginning, going halfway, getting lost and then picking up in some other direction.
    We heard earlier that the scheme would be for the benefit of the friends of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and then we heard that it would be for the benefit of the friends of the hon. Member for Islington, North who have big posh cars. We know, because it was established in Committee, that the local authorities will

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    maintain their traffic management powers, which are not affected by the Bill. We heard the interesting idea that those who are trying to serve the interests of road users —especially the commercial organisations, including those providing services to constituents in Islington, North, often in vehicles driven by those constituents—should be forbidden to offer a comment on local authority traffic management orders, but those people may know more about traffic management than the hon. Gentleman does.
    Mr. Corbyn: Why does not the Minister answer the debate?
    Mr. Bottomley: I thought that I had been answering the hon. Gentleman's speech, paying a courtesy to him that he seldom pays to others. The hon. Gentleman does not understand what he is talking about. He does not have the slightest conception of how to make traffic better for local residents. I suggest that he starts reading some of the traffic advisory unit notices that the Department issues. If he will not do that, he might look at some of the joint work of local authority associations. They understand what we are trying to do, and in general support us.
    Mr. Corbyn: I was chairman of a planning committee.
    Mr. Bottomley: When the hon. Gentleman was chairman, he should have spent more time listening than speaking.
    Sensible contributions have been made in the debate, most of them by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock), who raised serious points, to which we have given serious answers. I commend the Bill to the House. It will improve safety, make driver licensing more efficient and pave the way for new driver information systems which will reduce traffic congestion. It will be a valuable improvement to road traffic law.
    11.23 pm
    Ms. Ruddock: There have been some interesting discussions on the Bill and the Opposition have pressed a number of amendments that would substantially improve it. I am sorry that the Minister has not been receptive to them. Indeed, he has been intransigent on a number of key points, and I know that many people inside and outside the House will be disappointed by his unwillingness to accommodate their concerns. Despite what the Minister said. I stress that those concerns included those put to me by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. As I said on Second Reading, in general we have not objected to the Bill. The proposals in part I, to unify the driver licensing system, are acceptable to us.
    In Committee we spent much time discussing clause 6 of part I, which deals with new requirements for motor cyclists. Opposition Members welcome the requirement that motor cyclists take a training course before they are able to drive on the road, and all parts of the motor cycling world were in support of that. However, we were concerned about the applicability of the clause and possible impracticalities. In Committee, we sought several improvements to allow motor cyclists to ride their bikes to and from their courses. They would also have ensured an adequate number of properly qualified and trained instructors and would have set up a register of training centres. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller)
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    tabled amendments in an attempt to deal with the problem of access to such courses, but, unfortunately, those amendments were not selected for debate tonight.
    Access problems may make it difficult, if not impossible, for people to attend the proposed training courses. Opposition Members supported the amendments, and I regret that the Minister has felt unable to do so. I hope that, when the Bill becomes law, the Minister will respond positively if the fears that have been articulated by industry and consumer lobbies are substantiated.
    In Committee, as indeed tonight, Opposition Members reserved most criticism for part II of the Bill, which deals with parliamentary approval for autoguide. I have already explained the reasons we continue to press the Government either for statutory local authority, participation or broader terms of reference for the Secretary of State. Once again, I regret to say that the Minister has declined to listen. I regret also that he is unwilling to give local highway authorities their proper role in monitoring and controlling the use of that device. I acknowledge that, as the Minister has said, local authority associations are involved in the autoguide assessment group, and I welcome that. However, the House will recognise the difference between participation in an ad hoc advisory group and a statutory power if autoguide is detrimental to local authority areas.
    I have seen autoguide in operation. I am convinced that it is undoubtedly a technical advance and that it will obviously be useful to individual drivers. However, Opposition Members do not believe that it is truly going to ease traffic congestion in London. As I said on Second Reading, it can clearly be useful as a route finder, but the consequence in London is that any motorist would be more inclined to use his car than public transport. That would be its effect on me. Concern that I might not be able to reach my destination conveniently and efficiently is more likely to make me leave my car at home and use public transport in the city. As a consequence of people taking such decisions, any spare road capacity that is found by autoguide will immediately be filled by more cars. As is already clear, there will be more pressure from autoguide operators to include minor roads in the system. After all our discussions, the Minister has failed to convince us that autoguide will do one jot of good in solving congestion in London.
    Since Second Reading, we have had the pleasure of reading the Government's thoughts on road policy into the next century. We have learned also that road traffic is up by 6 per cent. in the first quarter of this year and that traffic speeds in the London peak hour are now 11·8 miles an hour, down yet again on the previous survey. A picture emerges, which we all know well, of more cars on the road moving more slowly, costing industry more money and causing more pedestrian accidents. The Government's response in the White Paper is to forecast a traffic explosion of between 83 per cent. and 142 per cent. by the year 2025. Hon. Members may like to know the reality of those cold statistics. An increase of 142 per cent. would mean an extra 32·7 million vehicles in addition to the 23 million-odd already on our roads.
    This legislation clearly should not have been the priority for dealing with traffic problems in Britain. The Minister will need more than autoguide and new driver licensing to help him deal with those problems if his own Department's own forecasts become a reality. Therefore, Opposition Members give the Bill a limited welcome.

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    Naturally, we regret that the Government have not accepted our assistance in improving it. In particular, once again, the Minister has spurned real partnership with the local authorities.
    11.30 pm
    Sir Hector Monro: I share with the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) severe reservations about the operational effectiveness of clause 6, and I am sorry that we could not debate the provision tonight.
    The Motor Cycle Association of Great Britain, the Auto-cycle Union—of which I am president, and which runs motor-cycle sport in this country—and the industry are very concerned about how the clause will operate in practice. The Minister will establish and improve centres to which learner motor cyclists go to receive training. In principle, we welcome that. Much will depend on where the centres are, however. In rural areas, motor cyclists may have to travel 50 miles to a centre—in Scotland, perhaps even 100 miles. How will they get there, and, if they happen to require additional training and do not qualify for a certificate the first time, how will they get home? Will they have to leave their motor bikes at some remote aerodrome and, try to get a bus home—if there is one?
    The Minister does not seem to have addressed such practical problems in clause 6, and I hope that he will announce that he proposes to draft regulations that can be efficiently and effectively adhered to by learner motor cyclists. After all, we want to encourage motor cycling; it is a healthy sport and a healthy way of getting to work or travelling about in the normal course of one's life. We should not put difficulties in the way of people obtaining motor cycle riders' licences once they have received proper training. Yet clause 6—perhaps with the best of intentions —sets out to make matters as difficult as possible for the learner.
    The industry assures me that even if we had 1,000 centres, there would be only one centre every 80 square miles. I suspect that there will be fewer centres than that and that the distances will be much greater. Some years ago, when we started to close the driver vehicle and licensing centres dotted round the country, I pointed out that there would be a great deal of difficulty if the centres became too remote. I suspect that exactly the same problem will arise with the training centres for motor cyclists.
    Before we give the Bill its Third Reading, we want assurances from the Minister that he will be supportive and sympathetic to the training of motor cyclists. Under clause 6 as drafted, that will be impossible. I want to hear that there will be regulations to allow motorcyclists to ride to and from centres before they have received their proper licences. If that does not happen, the training exercise will fall flat on its face and we shall fail in our objective.
    11.33 pm
    Mr. Cryer: I am disappointed that the Minister was not prepared to allow the statutory involvement of the local authorities in the autoguide system set out in part II of the Bill.
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    These provisions will remain in force until further legislation is produced for our approval, and it would have been useful to allow the local authorities to be involved from the start. That could perhaps have been done by regulation at the discretion of the Minister; at least that would have been a good basis on which to build for the future.
    The Minister said that he wanted to make traffic better for local residents, and that he thought that autoguide would help to achieve that aim. Local authorities are involved in making traffic better for local residents. Traffic is one of the cornerstones of local councillors' involvement and the representations that are made to them, and local councillors of any political party ignore representations about traffic hazards at their peril. I have made representations about Manchester road in my constituency, because old people cannot cross that busy trunk road. Even that local authority—a Tory-controlled local authority—says that it simply does not have the money at the moment for a scheme that it wants to institute because it has a high priority as a traffic improvement measure. That local authority is of roughtly the same political complexion as the Minister. Bradford council is, of course, rather Right-wing, whereas the Minister considers himself to be a softy in the centre—
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: No—Right-wing.
    Mr. Cryer: The Minister corrects me. He is Right-wing under the so-called "liberal" image. However, although the council and the Minister are Right-wing extremists, even Bradford council is complaining that it is not getting money from a Right-wing extremist Minister to carry out road improvements. If the Minister's aim is to make traffic better for local residents, surely his priority should be not to spend Civil Service time in producing a scheme which inevitably, although private money is involved in financing it, will cost the taxpayer money in its drawing up and administration, in conjunction with the private consortia. His job should have been to get more money out of the Treasury to give to local authorities.
    The Minister obviously holds local authorities in some disregard. If he held them in proper regard, he would obtain money for them for improving traffic schemes, such as the scheme I have mentioned, which would enable local people living near the road to cross in greater safety. Many of them are elderly people who are hesitant to use an underpass about half a mile away, particularly at night. They are apprehensive about using poorly lit corridors at night because of the threats they seem to hold.
    The Minister's first priority should be to get money from the Treasury for local authrities. His second should be to give local authorities some means of being involved in the application of these schemes. Failure to do so will lead to a build-up of resentment not only among ordinary citizens who are concerned about the encroachment of traffic, but among Conservative councillors, who feel that they should be better consulted and better involved, rather than having simply a nominal involvement in a supervisory committee which has no statutory basis.
    As the Minister knows, Ministers come and go. With a reshuffle in the offing, it is conceivable that some Ministers at the Department of Transport will go. A Minister who gives an assurance here that he understands the position of local authorities and will ensure that their non-statutory involvement is retained does not guarantee the position for

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    other Ministers. The position can be eroded overnight "at a stroke," to use a phrase from the past of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), who used to wield such influence in the Tory party. Whatever platitude one wants to use, there is nothing to beat putting provisions in a Bill so that they become law. Local authorities know where they stand, citizens can have recourse and Ministers cannot renege on a previous Minister's commitment. That is the important point, so I am sorry that the Minister was not prepared to be more accommodating to the sensible propositions put forward tonight.
    11.38 pm
    Mr. Cohen: The Bill is called the Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill. It is no coincidence that as well as including provisions for driver information systems in the Bill, the Government also brought out "Primary Route Signing in London—Proposals for Change", a nice, glossy leaflet which talked about the £35 million lost because signs are not provided properly for motorists around London. Yet when I raised with the Minister whether the signing would take into account being able to enforce a heavy lorry ban, which the Metropolitan police say that they cannot enforce because of inadequate signs in London, he said that that was not the purpose of the glossy leaflet. He said that although taxpayers' cash would be used to improve signposting, there would be no heavy lorry ban in London. That idea should have been incorporated not only in the proposal to improve road signs, but in the road traffic driver information system because heavy lorries should not go down residential streets at unsociable hours. I hope that the Minister will return to that point at some stage.
    The Bill is also supposed to be about road safety and the Minister has referred to it as a Bill to help avoid accidents. Getting rid of accidents is a key part of the Minister's case for the Bill. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) has said, the Minister has refused to include in the Bill provisions on eyesight and medical fitness tests for drivers. The House will have to return to that point at some stage. We must have eyesight testing. It should be free and should certainly not discriminate on the basis of the wealth or income of the motorist.
    I refer again to coaches in connection with this point about accidents. If coaches were on the autoguide system, there might be more accidents involving coaches in residential roads. I remind the House of the terrible accident last week in which a couple of people were killed. Hon. Members will have seen the amazing photographs of the car that was crushed down to 3 ft. The person inside it survived while people on the coach died through being flung about.
    I had hoped that the Minister would bring forward on Report proposals for seat belts for all passengers in all coaches. I know that the Minister cannot insert such provisions in the Bill now, but I hope that he will come back to this point because it is serious—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are now on Third Reading and that he must discuss what is in the Bill.
    Mr. Cohen: Yes, I appreciate that. On this point, the Bill refers to rat running or the potential for rat running on
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    the part of the Autoguide company. As my hon. Friends have said, that is why it is vital that the local authorities should have been and should continue to be consulted fully before such systems are installed in their areas.
    I broadly welcome the autoguide system for route guidance. We should take advantage of what new technology can provide for drivers. However, the serious snags should be sorted out at the outset. Local authorities must have a role in deciding the routes. It is all very well for the Minister to say that local authorities can still make their traffic management schemes, but Autoguide Limited might take local authorities to court if they tried to impose restrictions on it. Such companies could argue a case of restraint of trade if they could not use whatever roads they like.
    We know that in privatisations Conservative Members always stress that restrictions should be removed from private companies so that they can do what they like. They say that that will be of benefit. However, such freedom from restrictions will not benefit the local residents of the areas where the rat running is taking place. Local authorities should have been involved because Autoguide Limited will be responsive to its customers, the motorists, but not to the residents, who are the key group that the local authorities are there to protect.
    I shall not repeat all that has been said about civil liberties except to say that the autoguide system contains the potential for abuse in tracing motorists' movements, thus invading the privacy of innocent motorists.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) said, the appalling congestion in central London—and, for example, in Islington and in Leyton High road, all around the Green Man roundabout —is an indictment of the Government's policies. That congestion has occurred without a rail dispute, so it is no use blaming it on that. It was there today and it will be there the day after the rail dispute. Autoguide will do nothing to alleviate the position; indeed, it will encourage more car use. Although I welcome the new technology, I think that we should have been sorting out the snags at this stage. However, we will have to come back and deal with them.
    11.45 pm
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: With the leave of the House I shall reply.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) mentioned motor cycling. Compulsory training will be introduced only when there is adequate nationwide coverage of training centres. The Bill provides for regulations giving exemptions from compulsory training to persons in prescribed circumstances and areas.
    Mr. Gary Waller: Does my hon. Friend accept that there could be a trade-off bringing in a system relatively early, which would be in the interests of safer motor cycling, and having sufficiently broad regulations to allow certain exemptions? Unless there are reasonable exemptions, it might not be possible to introduce a scheme as early as one would wish.
    Mr. Bottomley: That is correct. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for intervening at this stage, because I know that, if provoked, he could equal the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) in exploring the issues at great length.

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    I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries and for Keighley (Mr. Waller) for their motor cycling interests.
    The power is already in the Bill to provide exemptions from compulsory training—for example, for those residents of some Scottish islands and of the Scilly Isles where there are no training facilities. We shall be looking for a balance between trying to get the benefits of initial training for as many people as possible as soon as possible, while trying to remember the practical disadvantages for those for whom it is difficult to have proper provision. Those are points on which the Government will wish to keep an open mind.
    In Bradford, while it was under the control of both political parties, central Government have given very substantial help to improve the road network, for which I believe the people of Bradford are grateful. A through road allows traffic calming in many other areas. That in essence overrides what autoguide will be doing. I remind the House that the autoguide provisions bring in a system of licensing and do not abolish one. On those grounds, I believe that it will be greatly welcomed.
    Although it is not within the Bill, I want to say a word about the terrible coach crash on the A286 just north of Midhurst. I visited the scene and I think that it would be wrong for any of us to prejudge the cause. However, I want to repeat the advice that I gave at the scene, which is that anyone sitting on the exposed seat of the coach would be well advised to use another seat or, if one is fitted, to use a seat belt. The House has made it a requirement that all new coaches should have seat belts on those front seats. It is also worth noting that, had that coach been built 15 or 20 years ago, it would have collapsed in the crash—it did not.
    On general road safety points, I would say that if some hon. Members, especially Opposition Members, go on wanting things that do not work, and opposing the things that do work, we will not see the continued reduction in road casualties of which the country can be proud.
    Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
    The House divided: Ayes 145, Noes 11.

    Division No. 279]

    [11.48 pm

    AYES

    Alexander, Richard

    Burt, Alistair

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Butler, Chris

    Allason, Rupert

    Butterfill, John

    Amess, David

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Amos, Alan

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Arbuthnot, James

    Carrington, Matthew

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Carttiss, Michael

    Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

    Cash, William

    Ashby, David

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Chapman, Sydney

    Batiste, Spencer

    Chope, Christopher

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Benyon, W.

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Bevan, David Gilroy

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Cran, James

    Boswell, Tim

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Bottomley, Peter

    Curry, David

    Bowls, John

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

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Brazier, Julian

    Day, Stephen

    Bright, Graham

    Devlin, Tim

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

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Burns, Simon

    Dover, Den

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    Dunn, Bob

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Durant, Tony

    Norris, Steve

    Fallon, Michael

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Favell, Tony

    Page, Richard

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Paice, James

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Forth, Eric

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Freeman, Roger

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    French, Douglas

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Redwood, John

    Gill, Christopher

    Riddick, Graham

    Gow, Ian

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Rowe, Andrew

    Gregory, Conal

    Ryder, Richard

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Ground, Patrick

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Hague, William

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Hamilton, Neil (Talton)

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Shersby, Michael

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Hind, Kenneth

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

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

    Stern, Michael

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Stevens, Lewis

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Knapman, Roger

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Sumberg, David

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Summerson, Hugo

    Knowles, Michael

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Latham, Michael

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Thurnham, Peter

    Lightbown, David

    Tredinnick, David

    Lyell, Sir Nicholas

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Maclean, David

    Waller, Gary

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Malins, Humfrey

    Warren, Kenneth

    Mans, Keith

    Watts, John

    Maples, John

    Wells, Bowen

    Marland, Paul

    Wheeler, John

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Wilkinson, John

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Wilshire, David

    Mills, Iain

    Wolfson, Mark

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Wood, Timothy

    Moate, Roger

    Yeo, Tim

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Neale, Gerrard

    Mr. Stephen Dorrell and

    Neubert, Michael

    Mr. John M. Taylor.

    Nicholls, Patrick

    NOES

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Pike, Peter L.

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Clay, Bob

    Vaz, Keith

    Cohen, Harry

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Mr. Bob Cryer and

    Meale, Alan

    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.

    Nellist, Dave

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  PETITIONS

    Badgers
    11.59 pm
    Mr. Alan Meale: The petition, signed by J. Barrington, A. E. Smith, J. M. Bryant, S. E. Rocks, N. Couldry and P. A. Mingo concerns itself with petitioning against the facts that badger setts in the United Kingdom continue to be frequently attacked by persons using spades and terriers, and that the Badgers Act 1973 does not

    279
    include provisions for the confiscation of dogs or for disqualification from keeping dogs as penalties for convicted badger baiters.
    The petition contains more than 100,000 signatures collected by the League Against Cruel Sports, plus another 400 in support provided by the borough of Cheltenham and its local paper the Gloucestershire Echo.
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will take all such measures as lie within their power,

    1. to protect badger setts from unlicensed damage or destruction.

    2. to provide courts with the powers for the confiscation of dogs and disqualification from keeping dogs as penalties for those convicted of using dogs in offences against badgers. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.

    To lie upon the Table.
    12 midnight
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: A petition from Mr. J. E. Hicks and 100,000 others:
    To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of Citizens of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Sheweth:—

    1. that badger setts continue to be frequently attacked by persons using spades and terriers.

    2. that the Badgers Act 1973 does not include provisions for the confiscation of dogs or disqualification for keeping dogs as penalties for convicted badger baiters.

    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will take all such measures as lie within their power,

    1. to protect badger setts from unlicensed damage or destruction.

    2. to provide courts with the powers for the confiscation of dogs and disqualification from keeping dogs as penalties for those convicted of using dogs in offences against badgers.

    And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

EC Institutions
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]
12.1 am
Mr. John Redwood: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise in the House the question of the relationships between these Houses of Parliament and the European Economic Community institutions.
I am also grateful that so many of my hon. Friends have thought it worth spending another half an hour in the House after a long day debating the many Bills that have come before us. It is a sign of how important these issues are to hon. Members that they are prepared to stay after midnight when such items traditionally come up for debate. I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who will be answering the debate.
These issues have gained great prominence in recent weeks as a result of a hard-fought European election campaign for the European Parliament and the acceleration in pace of the measures now coming before the various national Parliaments of the EC member states as the 1992 endeavour gathers momentum.
I am one of those who welcome the 1992 proposals. I have always wished to see the creation of a genuinely common market with freer trading between the member states and beyond the boundaries of the European Community into the wider world.
That process will create much greater prosperity and it is the free enterprise system worldwide which is now demonstrating just how much it can do by way of giving people freedoms, liberties, choices, a better standard of living and better moral and spiritual choices than the totalitarian systems that have been on offer in the post-war world.
The citizens of western countries can turn to their flexible friend, the Barclaycard, to assert their right to purchase a wide variety of goods and services of their choice, supplied in a competitive market place by their fellow citizens in their roles as employees, employers and entrepreneurs in a host of businesses; whereas in eastern Europe and the other totalitarian regimes, rather than turn to the Barclaycard, people can only clutch the ration book and queue at the local state shop to see what tawdry goods might be available for however many hours they might have to wait to get any goods at all. There will be little choice, little joy, and little opportunity to enjoy the benefits of enterprise, because enterprise is stifled where freedoms are stifled.
Much remains to be done to realise the vision of a genuinely open and free market in Europe. I am glad that the Government and my right hon. Friend the Minister who is to reply have been in the forefront of many moves to deregulate European markets and in carrying on the task of creating the conditions in which more trade, commerce and entrepreneurial activity can flourish.
The most recent report shows that we are only at the halfway stage. Out of the 279 measures that comprise the 1992 enterprise, half remain to be drawn up and to go through all the procedures necessary for agreement on them to be reached. There should be greater mutual recognition of the need to speed the process of gaining acceptability of them by all member states, rather than concentration on harmonisation for harmonisation's sake

281
and trying to construct the perfect Euro-product or service —when it would be reasonable to accept each other's products and services and the diversity of the market places that they imply, in order to improve trade and to achieve greater prosperity.
I believe that the European Community now recognises that need, and there is evidence that faster progress is being made with introducing the various measures through greater use of mutual acceptance rather than harmonised standards. There is also some understanding that in some areas it is not always possible to develop the perfect, single, Community-unified answer—as with patents and patent offices, for example—and that it may be necessary to proceed through better understanding of the differences that exist in member states.
Britain is in the forefront of liberalising capital movements, in insisting on deregulation of the telecommunications market, and in arguing strongly for the deregulation of air traffic in tackling the scandal of air fares in Europe being so much higher than those for travelling comparable distances in the United States of America. It has also campaigned for the benefits of deregulation to be enjoyed by the abolition of lorry quotas, and for changes in cabotage arrangements in shipping and in public purchasing—where a whole range of items should be open to competitive tendering and purchasing across frontiers.
We shall know that the Common Market has truly arrived when we see French civil servants travelling round in Nissans built in the United Kingdom, or the German public able to buy British insurance policies. In the same way our country will benefit from many of the goods produced in other member states.
It is a great task, and the Government should concentrate the Commission's mind on ensuring that 1992 is delivered before other, larger steps are attempted towards the creation of a more unified European state—the creation of a federal state.
Among the problems to be confronted is the legislative backlog. Although the Community has made progress with many of the directives necessary to complete the 1992 endeavour, many more remain unimplemented. Of the last 68 directives that have been through all the processes to become good European law from the point of view of the European institutions, only two have been carried into effect by national processes and Parliaments to become effective in the territories of the Community's member states. That only two out of 68 directives should have done so is a sign of the size of the task, and of how much needs to be done even to implement the work completed so far.
Britain is the best of all member states at implementing and enforcing directives, and others need to be persuaded —by negotiation and perhaps diplomacy—by member nations watching their behaviour that, if the Common Market is to mean anything, the directives must not only be approved and passed but enforced in every territory. Italy in particular has a long way to go before it reaches the standards achieved by this country.
The Commission and the European institutions are also selective in the way in which they look at the treaty provisions. The way in which some of the federal ambitions of the European institutions are being developed lies in picking on a particular clause in the treaty
282
and deciding that it provides cover for an extension of powers that was never knowingly or willingly granted by the member nations, through their original treaty obligations, or by the member states' Parliaments through their understanding of the workings of the original treaty and the Single European Act.
Yet there are other extremely important clauses in the treaty that seem to go unenforced. I am thinking particularly of articles 104 to 109—important articles relating to balance of payments disequilibria. The intention of the treaty is clear: member states should not run large balance of payments deficits or surpluses, especially not with one another, and action should be taken to tackle such imbalances.
Anyone considering the problem of European trade between member states would immediately spot one large structural problem: the German surplus. I have written to the Commission, and have been told that it is a difficult problem and one which the Commission would not like to tackle under the treaty articles, because it is too busy tackling others under other treaty articles. The existence of the exchange rate mechanism, with the particular parities chosen for the deutschmark, may be one of the causes of the persistent German surplus with almost all the other member states; the mechanism may be an actual violation of articles 104 to 109, which clearly state that balance of payments disequilibria must be dealt with promptly and recognise that monetary and currency measures may be required as part of a package to deal with the problem.
I welcome the Commission's attempt in recent years to enforce articles 92 and 93 on state aids. Important work can be done to ensure fair trade between member states, and that means that the subsidies paid to certain industries —espcially certain public enterprises—need to be rolled back, so that it is fair for an entrepreneurial business in Britain to compete with a nationalised enterprise in France in the knowledge that the latter will not be unduly favoured by massive subsidy or other protection. The Commission has taken welcome steps in that direction in some recent cases. I hope that the British Government will demand that those articles are strictly enforced, and that the unfair trading practices that remain are given greater prominence when the Commission does its work to see that competition is triumphant.
What concerns the House most is, of course, the problem of scrutiny, and our Parliament faces a severe difficulty in that regard. Matters often come before the House late, when positions have already been adopted by British Ministers attending the Council of Ministers, and common positions may have been adopted in Europe itself. The House is then in the invidious position of having to debate a matter on which a decision has effectively been made, and nothing can be done. I hope that, when reviewing scrutiny procedures, the Government will take seriously all the comments by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who would like such matters to be debated before common positions have been adopted.
I also feel that the Government should recognise that the matters now coming before us under the 1992 programme are of huge importance. For instance, the items in the second banking directive and the other directives relating to an open market in financial services may well entail the revision or replacement of great chunks of legislation passed by the House in comparatively recent

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years. They are major items which deserve prime time debate, and I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House would agree with that.
It is important in reviewing scrutiny to remember from where the authority for many of these mesures comes. There has been discussion recently about exactly what was said—at the time of our entry into the European Community and at the time of the Single European Act —about where decision-making power did truly lie and about where sovereignty might rest. I have been examining what was said in the debates to see what the country and the House were told on those momentous occasions when big decisions were taken, both to enter and to modify the constitutional position under the Single European Act.
In 1971, in the debate on entry, the then Foreign Secretary said that great countries with the history of the European nations could not be "dragooned or coerced" into a pattern of political association which one or other of them did not like. He went on to make the case that there always had to be the protection of major national interests under the treaty agreements.
The present Lord Rippon of Hexham, who had put through the individual terms of entry, speaking about the legislation required to join the European Community, was even stronger in his tone. He said clearly that nothing in the measure "abridges the ultimate sovereignty" of Parliament, and he went on to say that there was no question of the measure setting up our entry into the EC making a thousand years of British law "subservient to the Code Napoleon." He reminded the House that it would always have a right of veto.
In 1986, the Minister who will reply tonight put to the House the arguments for the Single European Act, allowing majority decisions to be taken on those items essential to the 1992 programme. In that debate, she said it was only a limited extension of majority voting which would apply only to those issues required for the 1992 programme. She went on to say that it would not lead to a federal union. She reminded the House that the Luxembourg accord or compromise remained in place completely untouched and unaffected by those proposals going through as the Single European Act.
I was, therefore, grateful when my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) introduced a Bill recently to reaffirm the importance of our commitment to the European Community and to remind the House of the scope and limits of competence set down under the treaties and the Single European Act. That Bill does much to remind us that the ultimate power to make proposals from Europe comes from this House, freely granted under treaty and by amendment under the Single European Act.
It reminds us that those powers are constrained and that it is important for the British Government not to allow those powers to be extended by abuse by the European Commission, when it was clear that the intention of the House was to allow majority voting to speed the 1992 process, which we welcome, but not to speed other matters, which I believe still require the unanimous approval of all the member states and where national interests should be protected if they are of more importance than the creation of a European solution to a given problem. There will be times when they will not be, and times when they will be, more important.
Can the Minister confirm that the Luxembourg accord is still there and could, in extremis, be used when our national interest warranted it? Does she agree that
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majority voting applies only to those measures required to create the internal market and 1992? Does that mean that after 1993, if all those measures have gone through and been agreed, majority voting will no longer exist and will need some reaffirmation, by treaty or by Act of Parliament or both, to complete other objectives that were not envisaged at the time of the Single European Act? My reading of it suggests that there would need to be a renewal of powers if majority voting is to be used for purposes other than those itemised in the 279 measures required for 1992.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that at present it is important to complete 1992, that it would be a distraction to try to negotiate tax harmonisation or a social charter and that this country is not yet ready to amend the treaties to allow majority voting or new powers over taxation and over the movement of peoples and employee rights that would be required if the Commission wished to proceed by majority, rather than unanimity, on those sensitive matters of taxation and important items in the social charter?
Finally, does my right hon. Friend agree that it might be helpful to the British negotiating position over the social charter if, while making the point that this country does not believe that these matters are best handled at the European level and that they are better handled at national level, she used her ministerial position to present an alternative social charter to our European partners which contained illustrative ideas that might be useful in their countries, just as they have proved to be useful here?
In the hope that my right hon. Friend might find it helpful, I have given some thought to the type of items that could be included, but time will not permit me—hon. Members will be distraught to learn—to give a detailed exegesis of what they might be. However, they would include the work that this country has done on wider share ownership, on providing people with options over savings for retirement and the purchase of shares in the companies for which they work. It should certainly include the option that individuals ought to be able to buy their own home—whether it be a flat or a house in municipal or Government ownership in member country states—at a discount, since that has been one of our most successful social policies. I think that it would be very helpful if a similar right were to be granted to the citizens of other member states. It might also include health care rights similar to those that are provided by our National Health Service. It should certainly include trade union legislation similar to that which has been so successfully pioneered in this country.
As always in the House, the clock is against me, so I shall conclude my remarks.
12.22 am
Mr. William Cash: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the Minister for allowing me to make four points.
First, I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham has said and I congratulate him on the way in which he dealt with the subject.
Secondly, since the passing of the Single European Act there is the opportunity, if we believe that it may be possible in future to amend the treaty, to consider adjusting the role of the Commission as against that of the Council of Ministers to ensure that we maintain a fully democratic Europe by putting due emphasis on the role of

285
national Parliaments and nationally elected representatives who are responsible for discharging their duty to their constituents in matters affecting both the domestic and the European sphere.
Thirdly, there are those who say that we who take the view that we should not move to a federal Europe are living in the late 1960s or late 1970s. I take the view that we are the people who are living in the late 20th century by matching up to the challenges of the global village that we now occupy. It is those who base their argument on the position as it has evolved since the 1950s who are guilty of an anachronism. We are the ones who are living in the world of today. I believe firmly that our view will prevail.
Lastly, I refer briefly to the European Court of Justice and to an interesting article by Mr. Mann in the journal of the Institute of International and Comparative Law in April of this year, which I encourage hon. Members to read. He makes it quite clear, as does Mr. T. C. Hartley, that where there are grey areas in the treaty of Rome there is a very strong tendency for the European Court of Justice to adopt the policy of political integration. As Mr. Mann put it, to paraphrase him, it simply does not listen. We must be extremely wary about that.
I do not have the time in which to develop those points, but I hope that the Minister will refer to them in her reply.
12.23 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) for bringing this important issue before the House. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) for his remarks.
The debate is both welcome and timely, coming so soon after the European elections and the Madrid summit. The relationship between this House and the Community institutions goes to the heart of our membership of the Community. We must ensure that the proper concerns of this House can be brought to bear on all EC-related measures in a way which is satisfactory to the House.
I should like this evening to mention the recent changes in decision making in the EC institutions, to which both my hon. Friends have referred, and then to focus on the role of Parliament in this process, with respect to the scrutiny procedure—which is a matter of concern to many hon. Members—and to the role and competence of Community institutions.
The Government believe that the decision-making process in the Community is working satisfactorily. The good progress that is being made on the single market programme is ample testimony to that fact. This is an area of policy in which the United Kingdom has been in the lead. I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend that it is an area of priority, and it must remain so.
The House is aware that more than half the measures in the Commission's White Paper of 1985 have already been agreed. The Spanish presidency which has just finished achieved the very creditable record of agreement on 68 measures. That is no small achievement.
The progress was made possible only by the political impetus given by the Single European Act. Majority voting was vital for that. In the Single European Act, we provided for qualified majority voting where we want it,
286
while retaining unanimity where we need it—on taxation, free movement of people and employment matters, for example.
My hon. Friend asked whether I believe that majority voting will be needed once the single market measures have been completed. It would be rather sweeping to say that it might never be needed, because some existing measures, in the light of greater trading outside the Community—say with European Free Trade Association partners—might have to be revised. We must therefore keep qualified majority voting on the statute book, but it must be limited to the areas that were defined in the Single European Act.
If we are to create a genuine common market—the treaty of Rome set us the target more than 30 years ago —we must continue the process of deregulation and liberalisation, as my hon. Friend said. He made that quite clear in his recent paper for the Centre for Policy Studies. It is essential that we take that route and do not take no for an answer. The single market programme is consistent with the deregulatory philosophy which the Government have so successfully put through in Britain—1992 is very much a British song, but it is now being sung throughout the Community and in many other places. That is a measure of the success of Britain's deregulatory and liberalising policies of the past 10 years.
With the extension of majority voting, the Single European Act introduced the co-operation procedure to allow the European Parliament to play a more active role in the decision-making process. I believe that the operation of the new arrangements has produced a smoother inter-institutional process than there was before the Single European Act. Of course, we are still learning from that process, and we must have more contact and more exchange of views between hon. Members and Members of the Strasbourg Parliament.
We must always remember that there has been no significant change in the institutional balance. The power of final decision remains firmly with the Council of Ministers. That is fundamental to the institutional structure of the Community, and it is of direct relevance to the role of the House because Ministers acting in the Council of Ministers are directly accountable to the House, and so it must ever remain.
As I said in the debates in 1986, the Luxembourg compromise remains unaltered. We have made it absolutely clear that, when there is a vital national interest, a nation must be able to avoid being out-voted. That protects the very basis on which we joined the European Community.
The main theme of the debate is the role of the House. I see the need for proper parliamentary scrutiny of decisions taken by the Government in the Council of Ministers and for all legislation to remain at the national level unless there is good reason to tackle the issue at Community level. The Government attach the greatest importance to scrutiny of proposed EC legislation at Westminster. One or two other Parliaments have recently modelled themselves on what we are trying to do here. Nobody has said that it is perfect. A number of parliamentary committees are investigating the matter, and the Lord President of the Council is going into it in great detail. The Scrutiny Committee considers some 800 documents a year, sifting out fewer than 100 for further consideration. I pay tribute to the Committee for its assiduous work. Overall, the system works well, but we are trying to improve it.

287
We want to avoid unnecessary legislation at EC level. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham has drawn attention to attempts to extend Community competence —a matter of concern to many hon. Members. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are alive to the problem. We shall continue to examine all proposals for Community legislation to ensure that they are necessary to achieve the objectives of the treaty of Rome, as amended by the Single European Act, and that they are in the areas for which there is Community competence we must, however, keep that in perspective. On much Community legislation, the technical question of legal competence does not arise.
Our concern is not so much with competence as with the related but separate concept of subsidiarity. It means that action should be taken at Community level only when it cannot be undertaken as well, or better, at national, or even local, level. The House will be aware that this
288
doctrine is frequently propounded by none other than the President of the Commission. There is a clear reference to subsidiarity in the Delors report on European monetary union and, more important, it was endorsed by the Heads of Government at two separate points in the Madrid European Council conclusions, on monetary and social issues.
We sometimes find new policy proposals objectionable on subsidiarity grounds, not because they break new ground for Community competence in the legal sense. We can get this right by sound vigilance. That is the way that we intend to go. I have noted—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes to One o'clock.

PRIME MINISTER

  Inner Cities
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations she has received about the Government's inner cities policy.

  The Prime Minister
  I have received a number of representations, many of them in support of the Government's inner cities policies. Under the comprehensive range of measures, costing £3·5 billion this year which makes up the action for cities initiative, good progress continues to be made in the regeneration of our inner cities. In the 57 inner city target areas, unemployment fell by almost 24 per cent. in the 12 months to May 1989. Recorded crime in the Metropolitan police force areas fell by 6 per cent. in 1988. Involvement of private companies continues to grow£over the last six months the number of companies working with the Government's inner city task forces has increased from 450 to 500.

  USSR
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the United Kingdom's relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

  The Prime Minister
  We receive many representations about relations with the Soviet Union from individual members of the public, as well as from interested organisations and their representatives. The Government's desire to strengthen these relations, and our support for Mr. Gorbachev's reforms are widely shared.

  United States of America
  Mr. Leigh
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the United Kingdom's relations with the United States of America.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received recent representations concerning relations with the United States of America.

  The Prime Minister
  No.

  Road Safety
  Sir Anthony Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding safety on the roads.

  The Prime Minister
  I have received a number of such representations. There is understandable and widespread concern about the needless suffering and unnecessary economic cost caused by road accidents. Cutting the toll of road casualties is a high priority. Our target, which we set in 1987, is a one third reduction in casualties by the year 2000. We are well on course for achieving that.

  Coal Industry
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the coal industry.

  The Prime Minister
  I have received several recent representations regarding the coal industry.

  Scotland
  Mr. Norman Hogg
  To ask the Prime Minister when she next expects to pay an official visit to Scotland.

  The Prime Minister
  Probably in September.

  Pollution
  Sir Hugh Rossi
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the reduction of pollution.

  The Prime Minister
  I have received a number of representations regarding the environment. I share the concern that it should be protected and pollution reduced. The Government have undertaken many measures to improve the quality of the environment. We intend to bring forward further legislative proposals on pollution control shortly.

  Crawley
  Mr. Soames
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will pay an official visit to Crawley.

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

  Army
  Mr. John Browne
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the Army.

  The Prime Minister
  I regularly receive representations on a variety of subjects regarding the Army.

  Industry (Revival)
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the revival of British industries.

  The Prime Minister
  A large number of the representations I receive acknowledge the remarkable revival enjoyed by British industry under this Government.

  Pharmaceutical Industry
  Mr. Goodlad
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the pharmaceutical industry.

  The Prime Minister
  I have not recently received any particular representations regarding the pharmaceutical industry. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health has regular contact with the representatives of the industry.

  Water Privatisation
  Mrs. Gorman
  To ask the Prime Minister what recent representations she has received on water privatisation.
  83
  Mr. Knapman
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received any recent representations about water privatisation.

  The Prime Minister
  Many individuals and organisations have commented on a wide range of water privatisation matters, which are being considered in the context of the Water Bill currently before Parliament.

  Disabled People (Legislation)
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Prime Minister what consultations she has had with Sir Roy Griffiths on the relevance of section 7 of the Disabled Persons (Services, Representation and Consultation) Act 1986 as a strategy for community care.

  The Prime Minister
  Sir Roy Griffiths has been involved in the Government's consideration of his report "Community Care Agenda for Action". The Government's considerations are wide ranging and are taking account of existing relevant legislation.

  European Council (Madrid)
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will publish a White Paper outlining the conclusions and the matters considered at the Madrid meeting of the European Council; and if she will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made on 29 June on the outcome of the European Council in Madrid.

  Poland
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Prime Minister if during the recent visit of General Jaruzelski she made representations to him on the case for totally free elections in Poland within the next 12 months; and if she will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  No. I told him that I welcomed the recent elections in Poland, as well as the confirmation that the Polish authorities stood by the election results and would continue on the path of democracy and reform.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Cyril D. Townsend
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the United Kingdom's relations with Cyprus.

  The Prime Minister
  I receive representations on the United Kingdom's relations with Cyprus from time to time from various quarters. I am happy to say that relations are excellent. I have met President Vassiliou three times in the last year and I hope to see him again on 10 July.

  West Germany
  Mr. Malins
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the United Kingdom's relationship with West Germany.

  The Prime Minister
  No.

  France
  Mr. Cash
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding the United Kingdom's relations with France.
  84
  The Prime Minister
  No.

  Agricultural Policy
  Mr. Marland
  To ask the Prime Minister if she has received representations regarding agricultural policy.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government frequently receive representations about agricultural policy. The United Kingdom agricultural industry is widely respected for its efficiency and competitiveness. It is well placed to benefit from the opportunities for fair competition which completion of the EC's single internal market will bring. And I was pleased yesterday at the royal show to pay tribute to the enormous contribution the agriculture industry and the thousands of individual farmers make to our national life.

  Greenhouse Effect
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to her reply to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn),Official Report, 2 May, column 114, if she will now list by name the participants present at the seminar on environmental policies and the greenhouse effect which she organised on 26 April.

  The Prime Minister
  I have nothing to add to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 2 May at column 114.

  Bristol Channel (Sewage)
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Prime Minister when she will restrict or refuse local authorities the opportunity of new raw sewage outfalls into the Bristol channel.

  The Prime Minister
  The Secretary of State will consider on their merits any proposals which come before him related to the discharge of sewage into the Bristol channel. Discharge consents for long sea outfall schemes are granted only when they enable bathing waters in the vicinity to meet the requirements of the EC directive standards and where they are designed to take full account of local conditions.

  Bathing Water (Pollution)
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will make it her policy to take personal control of the co-ordination work to stop the dumping of raw sewage into the English Channel and to work towards these beaches attaining the standards of the EC bathing water directive 76/160/EEC.

  The Prime Minister
  The discharge of raw sewage through short sea outfalls is an unsatisfactory legacy from the past; and a substantial programme of improving the sewerage systems of coastal towns is under way. Replacement systems of whatever type are designed to bring identified bathing waters up to the standards set in the EC bathing water directive 76/160/EEC. Long sea outfalls, which discharge some 2 km to sea, are a safe and effective means for the disposal of screened sewage. Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution grants discharge consents for long sea outfall schemes only when they enable bathing waters in the vicinity to meet the requirements of the EC directive standards and where they are designed to take full account of local conditions. Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution will continue to seek environmentally sound solutions for each location on the basis of the best available scientific evidence.

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.

  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.

  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 4 July.

  The Prime Minister
  This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

ENERGY

  Electricity
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy (1) what is the total consumption of electricity in(a) England, and (b) Wales in a full year recorded over the last five years for which figures are available, and the percentage consumption for domestic, industrial, and commercial sectors;

  (2) what was the average demand for electricity measured in megawatts in England and Wales, shown separately, for the winter period and summer period for each of the last five years for which figures are available;

  (3) what was the maximum demand for electricity measured in megawatts in England and Wales, separately, during 1988–89; and at what time of which day it occurred in each case.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  These are matters for the Electricity Council. I shall ask the chairman of the council to write to the hon. Member.

  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the total generating capacity of electricity in Wales measured in megawatts; and what is the percentage component in the total generated by(a) nuclear, (b) coal, (c) oil, (d) hydro, (e) pumped storage and (f) other.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  This is a matter for the Central Electricity Generating Board. I shall ask the chairman of the CEGB to write to the hon. Member.

  Nuclear Power Stations (Emergency Planning Zones)
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy (1) if he will make a statement on the nuclear installations inspectorate's plans for reducing emergency planning zones around nuclear power stations;

  (2) what changes are proposed to the size of emergency planning zones around nuclear power stations;

  (3) what is the size of emergency planning zones around nuclear power stations;

  (4) what is the stipulated evacuation area around British nuclear power stations in the event of a radiation emission.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) on 20 June 1989 at column 93.

WALES

  Welsh Language
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been reported to him by the Welsh Language board; and what steps he is taking to implement any of its recommendations.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The Welsh Language board published its strategy document on 22 June and will in the near future be publishing voluntary guidelines governing the use of Welsh in the public and private sectors. My right hon. Friend will give very careful consideration to all the board's recommendations.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what review he has undertaken of the availability of staff to provide medical and post-medical services in Welsh-speaking areas through the medium of the Welsh language; and whether he has any proposals to extend training courses in Wales to meet these requirements.

  Mr. Grist
  Information on the number of staff employed in the National Health Service in Wales who are bilingual in English and Welsh is not available centrally; the exception to this is information relating to speech therapists concerning which I wrote to the hon. Gentleman on 24 October 1988, placing a copy of my letter in the Library of the House. District health authorities in Wales are currently engaged in the second round of an annual manpower resource planning exercise to determine future manpower requirements in the National Health Service in Wales. Discussions of these plans with individual health authorities will include the demand for and availability of Welsh-speaking staff. Consideration will be given to the question of extending training courses in Wales to meet any such demand in the light of the outcome of that exercise.

  Health Studies Centre
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received concerning the establishment of a health studies centre in North Wales; what consideration has been given to this issue; and what conclusions have been reached.

  Mr. Grist
  The Department has been asked by Clwyd health authority to provide financial support for the establishment of a centre for health studies in north Wales, fuller details of which have just been received. Consideration is being given to that request within the context of a recent report on the role of the combined training institute in Cardiff, which has examined the issue of training provision generally from the National Health Service in Wales. Representations in support of the proposal have been received from the Plaid Cyrnru spokesman on health and from the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas).

  Urban Investment Grant
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will place in the Library details of the criteria which applicants must meet to qualify for the urban investment grant.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Urban investment grants (UIGs) are designed to support projects costing more than £150,000,
  87
  which are brought forward by private sector developers and which, because likely costs would exceed likely values on completion, would not otherwise proceed. To qualify for UIGs, which are site specific, developments must be located in an urban area in Wales and bring back into use derelict or rundown land and—or buildings. Projects must also produce benefits which contribute to alleviating urban deprivation. Copies of the UIG guidance notes, which set out these criteria, have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report, on a county basis, the value of the urban investment grant for each month since its inception.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Since the introduction of urban investment grants (UIG) on 1 April 1989, five schemes have been approved for support involving £2·033 million grant. The geographical distribution is as follows:

  Scheme

  £ grant

  Gwynedd

  1

  0·066

  Mid Glamorgan

  4

  1·967

  In addition, eight applications are currently being considered, but all applications for UIG are treated in confidence.

  River Pollution
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to increase funding for research into pollution of the river ecosystem with particular reference to the rivers of Wales before privatisation of the water industry.

  Mr. Grist
  This will be a matter for the National Rivers Authority.

  Hospital Facilities
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if, pursuant to his reply dated 20 June,Official Report, column 84, he will list the range of facilities available in each of the hospitals mentioned in the reply.

  Mr. Grist
  The information requested is shown in the following table:

  Health district and community hospital

  Facilities available

  Clwyd

  Chirk

  GP Medical, GP Post-natal, Outpatient, Casualty, Rehabilitation, X-ray, Day hospital

  Colwyn Bay

  GP Medical, Outpatient, Casualty, Rehabilitation, X-ray

  Denbigh

  GP Medical, Outpatient, Casualty, Rehabilitation, Day hospital

  Mold

  GP Medical, Outpatient, Casualty, Rehabilitation, X-ray, Day hospital

  Prestatyn

  GP Medical, Rehabilitation

  Royal Alexandra, Rhyl

  GP Medical, Geriatric, Outpatient, Rehabilitation, X-ray, Day hospital

  88

  Health district and community hospital

  Facilities available

  Ruthin

  GP Medical, Outpatient, Casualty, Rehabilitation, X-ray, Day hospital

  Gwynedd

  Bryn Beryl, Pwllheli

  GP Medical, Geriatric, Maternity, Casualty, Physiotherapy, Day hospital

  Dolgellau

  GP Medical, Geriatric, Maternity, Outpatient, Casualty, X-ray, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Day hospital

  Tywyn

  GP Medical, Geriatric, Maternity, Outpatient, Casualty, Operating, X-ray, Physiotherapy, Day hospital, Ambulance station

  Meat Inspections
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the impact of European Community directives and regulations on the inspection in Wales of meat and meat products in the run-up to the single European market and on the likely changes in terms of staffing and finance that will be required to meet these requirements.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The arrangements for meat inspection in the single market will depend upon decisions still to be taken by the Council of Ministers and it is not yet possible, therefore, to estimate the effects on staffing and costs. It is clear, however, that we shall need to move towards a unified supervision system in all our meat plants and we shall be discussing with the interests concerned how this should be achieved.

  Slaughterhouses
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the impact of the veterinary presence in export slaughterhouses in Wales on the protection of public health.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Veterinary supervision is required if slaughterhouses are to engage in intra-Community trade or export to third countries. If this requirement were not met our industry would not be able to export meat and meat products. I have never accepted, however, that veterinary supervision is essential to guarantee satisfactory standards of hygiene.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has made regarding EC document 8062/88; and whether he has urged the EC to recognise the role of district councils in Wales in the inspection of slaughterhouses and food hygiene duties.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  My officials have made it clear in discussions on this proposal that it is premature to consider arrangements for veterinary checks in advance of agreement on more fundamental aspects of the animal health arrangements to apply within the single market. I am not aware of any proposals that would seek to change the existing role of district councils in slaughterhouse inspections or food law enforcement.

  Food Controls
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will make it his policy that controls over food for human consumption in Wales should continue to come under the care of environmental health officers; and whether he will press the EC to recognise this approach.

  Mr. Grist
  The importance of the role that environmental health officers have in the area of food inspection and control is recognised by the Government. Our EC partners have been regularly pressed to indicate their recognition that environmental health officers will continue to have a role to play in the food hygiene field and discussions on this point are continuing.

  Sewage Treatment Works (Rhymney Valley)
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish details of those sewage treatment works in the Rhymney valley which require capital investment to bring the quality of discharges up to that stipulated in their discharge consents.

  Mr. Grist
  The sewage treatment works at Draethen and Rudry are included in the programme of capital investment.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Balance of Payments
  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current level of British investment overseas; what was the level in 1979; and what impact it has on the balance of payments.

  Mr. Major
  In the year to 1989, United Kingdom direct investment and portfolio investment in overseas assets were £19·8 billion and £12–9 billion, respectively. Comparable figures for 1979 were £5·9 billion and £0·9 billion. Further details of the figures are available in the United Kingdom balance of payments press release of 15 June 1989.

  The effect of these outflows on the make-up of the balance of payments cannot be measured precisely as, without them, inflows into the United Kingdom of interest, profits and dividends would be lower and, more generally, sterling's exchange rate would be different.

  Economic Growth
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate for economic growth in 1989–90.

  Mr. Major
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor forecast at Budget time that real gross domestic product would grow by 21/4 per cent. in 1989–90.

  Premium Bonds
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of(a) all premium bond purchases and (b) purchases under £100 are made by pensioners.

  Mr. Lilley
  It is estimated that about 21 per cent. of all purchases and about 19 per cent. of purchases under £100 are made by people of pensionable age.

  Investment
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the total investment growth figures for each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Major
  The figures for total investment growth in the United Kingdom at 1985 prices, over the last 10 years, are shown in the table.

  United Kingdom total Gross Domestic Fixed Capital Formation (1985 prices) per cent. change on a year earlier

  Per cent. change

  1978

  3·01

  1979

  2·80

  1980

  -5·37

  1981

  -9·58

  1982

  5·42

  1983

  5·03

  1984

  8·60

  1985

  3·80

  1986

  1·66

  1987

  7·98

  1988

  12·25

  Source: CSO.

  Between 1980 and 1988 the United Kingdom had the fastest growth of total investment of all the EC countries.

  Mr. Patnick
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of investment in United Kingdom industry over the past 10 years can be accounted for by internally generated funds.

  Mr. Major
  Companies' undistributed income is used to finance a variety of expenditure, including investment, but it is not possible to say to what extent investment has been financed by internally or externally generated funds.

  Village Halls (VAT)
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet received clarification from the European Commission of the effect on village halls of the European Court of Justice's judgment on value added tax zero rates; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lilley
  I have now received a letter from Mrs. Christiane Scrivener, the EC Commissioner, which indicates that the Commission believes the European Court's judgment, while prohibiting the zero-rating of supplies of fuel and power to village halls, does not rule out zero-rating for the construction of village halls. I therefore propose to bring forward amendments to the Finance Bill at Report stage to reinstate the zero rate for the construction of new village halls and similar charitable buildings. These will be tabled as soon as possible.

  Non-domestic Rates
  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will announce his decision on possible abatement of the increase in national non-domestic rates by powers given under sub-paragraph 5(3) of schedule 7 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988; what criteria he will take into account when taking that decision; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Major
  [holding answer 21 June 1989]: The initial NNDR multipliers will be specified in the revenue support

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  grant reports for 1990–91. For succeeding years, the presumption is that the NNDR multiplier will be increased in line with the indexation provisions in the Local Government Finance Act 1988. However, if I did decide to increase the multipliers by less than the RPI, this would be announced before the revenue support grant reports for the year in question had to be approved by Parliament. All relevant considerations would be taken into account: for example, if improved efficiency led to a significant reduction in the amount local authorities needed to spend, some of the efficiency gains should be reflected in the burden which falls on the business community through non-domestic rates.

  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made in the negotiations on the harmonisation of value added tax and excise duties.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 29 June 1989]: At its meeting on 19 June the Economic and Finance Council (Ecofin) agreed to set up an ad hoc group to examine the Commission's revised proposals, described in my answer to my hon. Friend on 23 May 1989 at column 440, and the alternative approaches put forward by a number of member states including the United Kingdom. The group is due to report back to Ecofin in time for its meeting on 9 October.

  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many registered value added tax payers keep detailed records as described in paragraph 3 (D) of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, excise notice 700, appendix C, in order to avoid payment of scale charges for input value added tax on road fuel.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: I regret that the information requested is not available.

TRANSPORT

  Signposting
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proposals he has for improving signposting in London.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  I am currently consulting the public and interested parties on proposals for a new system of primary route signing for the area within the M25. The proposed system uses compass-based areas to create a consistent and logical set of signs which would be easier for motorists to follow. Copies of the consultation document "Primary Route Signing-Proposals for Change" have been placed in the Library.

  Thamesline
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Newham, South of 4 April,Official Report, column 20, what sums (a) have been paid and (b) will be paid in the current financial year to Thamesline; what proportion of income such payments are expected to provide; what conditions he has placed on any such payments in respect of maintenance of the service to all piers for which services were advertised; and if he will make a statement concerning the withdrawal of any such service.
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  Mr. Portillo
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I have given today to the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould). Riverbus Limited expects to be seeking the whole of the Government grant of £500,000 during the current financial year. The income forecasts of the business are commercially confidential.

  Submarine Incident
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has concerning an incident involving the fishing vessel Huntress and a Royal Naval submarine Ocelot on 28 June; what action he is taking; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  On the afternoon of 28 June off the Isle of Arran a submarine towed the fishing vessel Huntress astern after fouling her nets. No serious damage occurred and there were no reports of injuries. One of the Department's marine surveyors is investigating the incident.

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received regarding transport links to the Channel tunnel from the north-west.

  Mr. Portillo
  There have been some representations, mainly about improvements to road and rail networks between the north west and other regions and the tunnel. Our national roads planning takes account of requirements of road traffic to and from the tunnel. British Rail is responsible for rail links to the Tunnel, and following the recent completion of its regional consultations, we are now awaiting the plan which the railways board has to produce by the end of this year under section 40 of the Channel Tunnel Act setting out its proposals for international services to the regions.

  Air Ventilation (Passenger Aircraft)
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what information his Department has regarding the reduction of air ventilation on passenger aircraft;

  (2) what research his Department has conducted into the effects arising from reduction of air ventilation on passenger aircraft.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  These are technical matters pertinent to the certification standards of British-registered passenger aircraft. As such they are the statutory responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. I have drawn the hon. Member's interest in this subject to the attention of the chairman of the authority.

  Aircraft Evacuation
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what are the grounds on which minimum safety standards for emergency evacuation of aircraft are established;

  (2) what consideration is given in setting minimum standards for emergency evacuation of aircraft to the particular needs of travellers with mobility difficulties.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The statutory responsibility for the safety regulation of United Kingdom civil aviation rests with the Civil Aviation Authority. I am asking the chairman of the authority to write to my hon. Friend.

  Diesel Pollution
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to reduce pollution from vehicles using diesel fuel; and what regulations will be introduced with the introduction of the 40-tonne lorries.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We shall be consulting shortly on regulations which will apply emission limits on exhaust fumes from diesel-engined vehicles for the first time.

  For cars, the regulations will apply European standards in two stages. The first stage (directive 83/351/EEC) sets standards identical to those that currently apply to petrol-engined vehicles. It will take effect on 1 October 1990. Our current plans are to apply a second stage of more stringent limits (directive 88/76/EEC) by 1 October 1993 to cars with an engine capacity of at least 1·4 litres, whether petrol or diesel.

  A further stage of exhaust fume emission limits for small cars has now been agreed within the European Community. It will affect all new cars under 1·4 litres from 1992. The agreement also gives an outline commitment to tougher standards for larger cars to be implemented at the same time.

  On 1 October 1990 we shall also apply the European particulate limits for diesel-engined cars (directive 88/436/EEC). Special arrangements in line with all the directives will be made for direct-injection diesel-engined cars.

  For all other diesel-engined vehicles we shall apply the recently agreed European standard on emission limits (directive 88/77/EEC) at the earliest date permitted, 1 October 1990.

  Discussions are continuing in the European Community on a tightening of the 88/77/EEC standards and on the introduction of particulate limits for these categories of vehicle. Both the 88/77/EEC standards and any later standards will apply to the heaviest lorries.

  Road Accidents (Deaths)
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from road accidents; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  Over 5,000 people are needlessly killed on our roads each year. Two years ago we set a target of reducing the number of casualties by a third by the year 2000. We are on course for doing so. We are now saving over 550 lives a year compared with the position two years ago, even though traffic has increased greatly.

  A total of 75 per cent. of casualties occur on local roads. At a meeting with local authority political leaders today we reviewed our commitment to joint action to reduce casualties. We agreed that casualty reduction targets would in future be set at local and regional level, and we endorsed a package of measures to increase the number of low cost road engineering schemes which are so effective in saving lives.

  This will give a fresh impetus to efforts to reduce the number of people killed and injured.

  Thames Riverbus
  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what public money has been paid to the Thames riverbus service; under what authority it was paid; what conditions 94
  were imposed; and what has been done to protect the public interest and to ensure that the service to the paying public is continued.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Government have not yet received a formal request for the first payment under the agreement governing their grant for the riverbus service. Grant will be paid under section 17 of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919. Payment of grant is limited to its application to the promotion and improvement of the service, and is conditional on payment of a private sector contribution of four times the grant and on the provision of appropriate management reports and accounts. The Government may terminate the grant agreement in the event that a regular service is not maintained to Charing Cross, Festival, Swan Lane and West India piers. The recent inauguration of new services to Greenwich and Greenland piers and suspension of the services to Cherry Garden pier are matters for the operator.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Lebanon
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the Arab League's initiative towards the Lebanon.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  We and our European partners fully support the Arab League's efforts to find a solution to the crisis in Lebanon.

  Namibia
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information Her Majesty's Government have from the United Nations regarding the procedures for registration and voting in the election to be held in Namibia in accord with resolution 435; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The administrator general's proclamation on registration of voters, agreed with the United Nation's special representative for Namibia, issued on 30 June.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has from the United Nations on the effect of the implementation of resolution 435 of the former Koevet forces; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The United Nation's special representative has expressed concern about unacceptable conduct by counter-insurgency elements in SWAPO. We are supporting UN efforts to reach a satisfactory solution to the problem.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has from the United Nations regarding the deployment of the additional 500 United Nations police in Namibia; whether the United Nations now proposes to further increase that number; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The additional group of 500 police monitors has begun to arrive in Namibia. The United
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  Nations's Secretary-General, who has responsibility for the strength of the UN force in Namibia, has not requested a further increase in the number of police monitors.

  Cambodia
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policies on the future role of the Khmer Rouge army in the Government of Cambodia; whether Her Majesty's Government will be represented at the Paris peace conference on Cambodia in July; and if Her Majesty's Government's representatives will oppose a solution permitting the return of the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia.

  Mr. Eggar
  I refer the hon. Lady to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) on 11 April 1989. A central objective of our policy is to prevent the Khmer Rouge returning to power by force. In principle we expect to attend the international conference on Cambodia in Paris.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Wandsworth Prison
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of men on rule 43 in Wandsworth prison on 27 June.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Four hundred and nineteen.

  Inquests
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to make it mandatory for coroners to require all relevant medical records to be supplied to them before an inquest is concluded.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Coroners are independent judicial officers. In accordance with the Coroners Act 1988 they make thorough inquiries into all deaths referred to them, but it is for the coroners to decide how to conduct their inquiries. My right hon. Friend is not persuaded that it would be appropriate to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.

  Cremation Certificates
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has on the current fee recommended by the British Medical Association for the completion of a confirmatory cremation certificate; if he is intending to implement the recommendations of the Broderick report to end the requirement for two doctors to sign cremation certificates; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand that the fee currently recommended by the British Medical Association for the confirmatory medical certificate for cremation is £23·50. After carefully considering the results of wide consultation, my right hon. Friend has decided that the confirmatory certificate should be retained, at least for the time being.

  Immigration (Turkey)
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many immigration officers are operating in Turkey; what is the purpose of their presence there; and what are their duties.

  Mr. Renton
  One chief immigration officer and seven immigration officers are working in Istanbul and three immigration officers are working in Ankara. They are serving as entry clearance officers dealing with visa applications at the consulate general and embassy respectively.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the number of applications made for asylum by persons coming from Turkey in each week since I April to the latest available date; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  Information is not readily available about asylum applications from persons coming from Turkey. The number of applications made by Turkish nationals on or shortly after arrival in this country from all countries was as follows:

  Week ending

  Number

  8 April

  23

  15 April

  29

  22 April

  83

  29 April

  74

  6 May

  326

  13 May

  198

  20 May

  366

  27 May

  335

  3 June

  345

  10 June

  482

  17 June

  579

  24 June

  883

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what instructions have been issued to immigration officers(a) operating in Turkey and (b) on boarding planes recently arrived from Turkey before passengers disembark; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  Immigration officers operating in Turkey are working to the same instructions as entry clearance officers in other diplomatic posts abroad. During the period when immigration officers were boarding aircraft on arrival from Turkey their instructions were to ensure first that all British and other European Community nationals were able to disembark immediately. They were then to identify, as far as possible, those remaining passengers who seemed unlikely to require lengthy examination with a view to allowing them to proceed quickly to the main immigration control. Those likely to require lengthy examination were disembarked and dealt with separately, so as to avoid excessive delays and inconvenience to other passengers arriving at the main control.

  Mail Interception
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) under what powers he authorises the interception of mail within the United Kingdom; what agencies he authorises to carry out the interception of mail; to what extent officials of such agencies convey information obtained from interception of mail to third parties; and if he will make a statement;
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  (2) under what powers immigration officers intercept letters sent by post within the United Kingdom; from whom immigration officers seek authorisation to intercept such mail; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) under what powers the police intercept letters sent by post within the United Kingdom; from whom police have to obtain authorisation to intercept mail; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hurd
  The Interception of Communications Act 1985 makes provision for the interception of a communication in the course of its transmission by post in accordance with a warrant issued by the Secretary of State and provides for safeguards as to the disclosure of information obtained in this way. Information about the arrangements for interception is included in the annual reports of the commissioner appointed under the Act, which are laid before Parliament.

  Prisons (Food Hygiene)
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government have any plans to lift the exemption of the Crown, as regards prisons, to the Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have no plans at present for the removal of Crown immunity under the Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970 from prison establishments. Existing internal arrangements within the prison service are considered to be sufficient to set and monitor standards required by the regulations. The position on Crown immunity is kept under regular review.

  Parole Decisions
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prisoners were informed of their parole decision after their eligibility date(a) in 1988, and (b) the latest available figure for 1989; what was the average delay period for each year; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what percentage of prisoners who received their parole decision after their parole eligibility date were refused parole (a) in 1988, and (b) for the latest date available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Statistics are not readily available in the form requested. However, at present there are unacceptable delays in the parole scheme which are an unnecessary source of anxiety to inmates and their families, and present problems to prison service staff. These delays result from increases in the longer sentenced prison population and a growing workload for the parole unit. Cases needing to be referred to the Parole Board, requiring the most detailed consideration and thus taking longest to complete, are delayed on average by two or three months. About a third of cases not seen by the Parole Board are also subject to delays, averaging about a month.

  A number of steps have been taken to combat the delays. Overtime working and a significant increase in parole unit staffing have been authorised. Our target is for significant reductions in the delays by the end of the year. The Parole Board has helped by increasing the number of panels held and the cases considered at each one; and its membership has also been increased. Parole unit procedures are being streamlined and further consideration is being given to other measures to tackle the problem.

  Radio Station (Coventry)
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will reconsider the decision not to allocate a medium wave frequency to the BBC local radio station due to cover Coventry and Warwickshire; what is the difference in area and quality of reception between the allocated VHF frequency and a medium wave frequency for the proposed station; what estimate he has of the population of Coventry who can receive only medium wave, as opposed to VHF, transmissions; whether the option of split frequency transmission to cater for the city's ethnic population was considered when deciding whether or not to award a medium wave frequency; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  Paragraph 8·2 of the Broadcasting White Paper (Cm 517, November 1988) confirmed our proposal that radio broadcasting should increasingly take place without unnecessary simulcasting. This will enable more frequencies to be released for additional services, such as community radio stations, thus enhancing listener choice. Recent plans have therefore been made on the basis that both new independent and BBC stations should broadcast on single frequencies. BBC Radio Warwickshire will accordingly broadcast on VHF/FM only.

  Details of its coverage are not yet available, since the technical arrangements for the service have not yet been finalised. In comparison with medium wave, the VHF/FM signal is subject to much less interference, especially during hours of darkness, and provides better quality for stereo and data transmission. The BBC has launched an FM listening campaign to make listeners more aware of the benefits of FM broadcasts.

  Racial Harassment
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what basis boroughs were chosen to be, or excluded from being, targeted in the campaign on racial harassment launched in February.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Metropolitan police's campaign to tackle racial harassment launched in February 1989 was the third part of an initiative which had started with pilots in Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge in the two preceding years. I understand from the commissioner that in the 1989 campaign, 19 London boroughs were targeted; and that they were chosen on the basis of the perceived need for a campaign in the area.

  Airports (Policing)
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the findings of the working party established to review arrangements for the policing of airports.

  Mr. Hurd
  The working party on the policing of airports was established, under Home Office chairmanship, as part of the Government response to the report of the fourth session of the Transport Select Committee.

  The working party comprised representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland), the Aerodrome Owners Association, the Joint Airports Committee of Local Authorities, BAA plc, Heathrow and Manchester airports, the Department of Transport, the Ministry of Defence, the

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  Scottish Home and Health Department, and Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. Their task was to examine arrangements for policing airports, including the way costs are met, and to consider whether any changes should be made.

  The Transport Committee's inquiry covered the whole field of airport security, currently governed by the Aviation Security Act 1982. Many of its recommendations dealt with the arrangements for checking passengers and baggage which are not direct police responsibilities at airports, and which were not therefore addressed directly by the working party. Part of the Transport Committee's study necessarily focused on the role of the police at airports, in particular the relationship between the functions performed by the police and the national aviation security programme administered by the Department of Transport. The Committee recommended that means be found to employ the undoubted expertise of the police to the best effect in airport security procedures, and that the present system of designation, under the Aviation Security Act, be abolished and replaced with one which allows flexibility of response without imposing uncontrollable financial costs on airport operators. The working party therefore concentrated on these two issues.

  The main recommendations of the working party are for a better-informed means of assessing the need for, and nature and level of, policing at an airport; the provision of a suitable forum in which policing issues can be effectively discussed at airports; and a central arbitral system to assist in the resolution of any differences which cannot be resolved at the local airport level.

  The working party examined, but rejected, the idea that the first of these matters could be based on mathematical formulae; the nature of, and variation between, airports, as well as the nature of policing itself, make such an approach unworkable. It did, however, conclude that there was some scope for the introduction of more objectivity and consistency in assessing an airport's policing needs. The report contains a list of considerations upon which such assessments should be based and recommends that, using this list as guidance, police and airport managements should jointly draw up an "airport policing profile".

  The working party also proposes a more effective formal means by which policing issues can be fully aired at airports by means of small committees comprising representatives only of police and airport managements. These should not be bound by rigid terms of reference but should be able to discuss any airport policing matters including costs and should be able to meet as frequently as necessary at the instigation of either party.

  The working party recommends that in the event of unresolvable local disputes between airport authorities and police the professional advisers of the two principal Departments concerned—Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary and the Department of Transport's chief aviation security inspector—should provide the airport policing committee with an indication of the advice they would give to the Secretary of State in the event of a request for designation, de-designation or a determination on policing costs. If agreement still proves impossible either side is left with the option of an appeal to the Secretary of State.

  Following the Lockerbie disaster, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and I invited the working party to reconvene to consider whether, in the
  100
  light of that tragedy, any changes should be made to the proposals or any further recommendations made. After careful discussion, the working party has concluded that the original proposals should stand. The working party was concerned with the relationship between the responsibilities of police and airport managements. It was neither composed nor tasked to assess detailed physical security arrangements, about which the Lockerbie incident raised questions which are being addressed separately by my right hon. Friend.

  The working party's proposals are aimed at practical improvements in co-operation between police and airport authorities. They do not require new legislation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I commend them to chief officers of police. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will similarly commend them to representatives of the aviation industry.

  I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of the working party's report and supplementary note.

  Independent Radio
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a further statement on his legislative proposals for the allocation and ownership of independent radio licences, and for combating unlicensed broadcasting.

  Mr. Hurd
  Our proposals for the allocation of independent radio licences were set out in paragraph 8.4 of the White Paper "Broadcasing in the '90s: Competition, Choice and Quality" (Cm. 517, November 1988). For national stations they envisaged allocation by competitive tender, subject to a requirement that each service should provide a diverse programme service calculated to appeal to a variety of tastes and interests and not limited to a single narrow format. We now propose that the form of competitive tender for independent national radio licences should in its main essentials follow that proposed for Channels 3 and 5 in my statement on commercial television on 13 June at columns 710–13.

  Independent national and local radio licences will be awarded for periods up to a maximum of eight years. The presumption is that on the expiry of a licence the service will fall to be readvertised; but we propose that the Radio Authority should have discretion not to readvertise a service where it believes that this would not serve to broaden listener choice.

  Paragraph 8·4 of the White Paper envisaged that no one would be able to control more than one national licence and more than six local licences. These limits will be capable of variation in subordinate legislation. In order to prevent, for instance, one person from gaining control of the six largest local stations we propose that the rules on concentration of radio ownership should be capable of being supplemented, in subordinate legislation, by reference to the coverage or size of stations. We also propose that there should be power for limits to be set in subordinate legislation on degrees of financial interest not amounting to control.

  My noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I are considering a range of measures to strengthen the legislation on unlicensed broadcasting. Among these, we propose to broaden the offence in section 1(1) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 of using wireless telegraphy apparatus without a licence, and to make it an

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  offence to advertise on, or supply certain goods and services to, an unlicensed broadcasting station. We propose that these offences should be triable either way, and that on indictment the maximum penalties should be two years' imprisonment, or an unlimited fine, or both. We also intend to strengthen present search, seizure and forfeiture powers.

  Night Hours Broadcasting
  Mr. Gorst
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the proposal in the broadcasting White Paper that the night hours of one BBC channel should be assigned to the ITC.

  Mr. Hurd
  We have considered carefully the comments we have received on this proposal. We have decided on balance that it would be better to leave the BBC with both sets of night hours in order to enable a faster start to be made with the development of subscription services. The BBC will, therefore, be permitted to retain both sets, on condition that it makes the fullest possible use of them for raising subscription income, consistent with its public service obligations.

  When we come to consider the level of the licence fee from April 1991 onwards we will review the use which the BBC is making of the night hours. The level at which the licence fee is set will take account of the BBC's capacity to generate subscription revenue from two sets of night hours.

  Liverpool Passport Office
  Mr. Hind
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the industrial dispute at the Liverpool passport office has now been settled; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hurd
  Following meetings between management and unions, a conditional offer has been made to the unions and has been accepted by them. As part of the settlement the unions have undertaken to co-operate over the transfer of work between offices and in special measures to clear the current backlog of passport applications. For its part, management has agreed to an increase of 45 posts on top of the increase of 158 already agreed in the number of permanent staff. This total of 203 on a complement of 1,000 compares with the 381 requested by the unions and will be found by converting an equivalent number of temporary posts. All the new posts are subject to further scrutiny and examination in a full staffing review to be undertaken later this year by the Home Office staff inspectors supported by work measurement and other experts from the Treasury.

  Those members of the Liverpool passport office who were on strike have now returned to work. The main task now is to clear the very large backlog of unprocessed passport applications that were sent to the Liverpool passport office. Arrangements are being made for some of this work to be transferred to other passport offices, but it will be many weeks before all the applications that have been received are dealt with. In addition, arrangements are being made to provide free two-year extensions to expired passports submitted by post to other passport offices.

  To assist travellers whose applications have been delayed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has contacted other Governments to see whether, in the special
  102
  circumstances in which we find ourselves, they would accept expired British passports or (where they do not already do so) British visitor's passports (BVPs). The Bahamas, West Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Jamaica, Spain, the United States of America and Yugoslavia, have indicated that they will accept expired standard passports for a period up to 30 September 1989. The Bahamas, Barbados, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Jamaica and the Seychelles will accept BVPs for the same period. Travellers with an urgent need to travel in western Europe or one of the other countries for which a BVP is acceptable can obtain a BVP from any main post office in England, Scotland or Wales. BVPs are now available on Mondays to Fridays and on Saturday mornings. Where a standard passport has been applied for in good time and has not been processed, BVP fees will be refunded on application. For countries where a BVP is not acceptable, travellers who have an urgent requirement should call in person at the most convenient passport office, where every effort will be made to ensure that a suitable travel document is provided.

  The settlement of this damaging dispute paves the way for the necessary long-term measures to improve this service to the public.

  Terrestrial Broadcasting
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the privatisation of the terrestrial broadcasting transmission system in the light of the Price Waterhouse report.

  Mr. Hurd
  In the White Paper on broadcasting we stated that our objective was to move the terrestrial transmission system progressively into the private sector. The Price Waterhouse report analysed the various ways in which this could be achieved. In the light of that report, we confirm that our intention is to privatise the transmission networks owned and operated by the BBC and the IBA as soon as we are in a position to do so. We believe that a move into the private sector will reinforce the pressures for efficiency, and will enable more intensive use to be made of the valuable transmission infrastructure.

  We have considered carefully the different possible options for the structure of a privatised transmission industry. On balance we have decided that the best approach would be to set up two national transmission networks, rather than to restructure the system in the way proposed in the Price Waterhouse report.

  The BBC's transmission responsibilities are rooted in its royal charter which lasts until the end of 1996. It has indicated that it does not wish to have these responsibilities transferred to a private transmission operator. We have therefore decided that the BBC should retain its transmission responsibilities, including for the world service, until the expiry of the charter, unless it wishes to divest itself of those responsibilities earlier. The position will be reviewed at that point with a view to privatisation. In the meantime the BBC will be confined to transmitting its own services, and will not be permitted to compete for the transmission of new broadcasting or telecommunications services. We are concerned that the private transmission market should develop in a fair manner; and, while the BBC's transmission operation remains in the public sector, there would he insuperable

  103
  difficulties in ensuring that the BBC entered this market in a way which would be perceived to be fair to its competitors.

  The IBA has welcomed the proposal that its transmission operation should be privatised, and we will be including the necessary provisions in our legislative proposals on broadcasting. We shall be considering further the time scale for privatisation, bearing in mind the possible implications for the ITV contracts. We have taken note of the wide regional variations in the cost of transmission, and of the possible consequences of these variations for the smaller Channel 3 companies. We propose that there should be a uniform tariff for Channel 3 companies based on their share of the total Channel 3 income, taking account of any subscription and sponsorship revenue as well as net advertising revenue. This arrangement would be reviewed following decisions to be taken on the future of the BBC transmission system after 1996.

  The private transmission company which takes over the IBA's transmission operation will have a powerful market position and the transmission market is likely to be dominated by a small number of major players for the foreseeable future. We therefore consider that economic as well as technical regulation will be necessary. We propose to amend the Telecommunications Act 1984 to enable this regulation to be carried out by the Director General of Telecommunications. This regulatory framework will be designed to ensure that the transmission market operates fairly, and also that the coverage, quality and reliability of transmission systems is maintained.

DEFENCE

  Naval Personnel (Shore Postings)
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes have occurred and are planned in the proportion of naval seagoing personnel in shore postings.

  Mr. Neubert
  Since 1980 the proportion of naval seagoing personnel in shore postings has reduced from about 60 per cent. to about 50 per cent. The planned proportion is expected to remain at approximately this level.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes in allowances have been made affecting those naval personnel working away from their families both at sea and on shore postings.

  Mr. Neubert
  I take it that my hon. Friend's question is in relation to the changes that have occurred as a result of the joint Ministry of Defence-Treasury review of armed forces allowances which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence on 9 May 1988, column 2, and which took effect from 1 October 1988.

  As a result of the review, the various allowances for which personnel can qualify have been related more closely to the accommodation policies of the services. Because service in a seagoing ship inevitably results in separation from family, the Royal Navy has traditionally operated a policy of flexibility with regard to accompanied service. Personnel could choose whether their families should follow them from place to place on each new appointment or draft, or whether the family should settle in one place while only the husband moved about.
  104
  As a result of the review, the Royal Navy's flexible approach has been formalised to the extent that an individual must explicitly declare his option of "family mobility" or "family stability" on the occasion of each new appointment or draft. This will determine eligibility for a range of appropriate allowances. The man who is separated or at sea will be eligible for the following: the longer service at sea bonus when serving in a seagoing ship; separation allowance, if separated by more than 200 miles ashore; and free travel warrants to return home from his place of duty (15 per year if serving in a seagoing ship, 12 if serving ashore plus any additional warrants earned during former sea service). He also receives the benefit of free accommodation on board ship and when living ashore in barracks or in mess.

  Sailors (Families)
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what impact competitive tendering for repairs has had and is expected to have on sailors' access to their families during periods when ships are undergoing repairs.

  Mr. Neubert
  I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to repairs undertaken away from the port at which the ship is normally based. We have had only one major experience of this so far with HMS Penelope (base port Portsmouth) being repaired at Southampton. It is thus too early to be definitive. A variety of circumstances could exist, and separation from families could be increased, but the following measures are designed to minimise it:

  (a) If naval married quarters are available in the area where the ship is being repaired families can, if the repairs are expected to take six months or more, take up residence with the husband at the repair location, thus maintaining family unity.

  (b) If the repair is likely to last more than 12 months, personnel would be eligible for assistance to sell or let their existing private property and purchase or rent a new house at the repair location. This, again, would maintain family unity.

  (c) In cases where a family move would not be appropriate, personnel are entitled, subject to certain conditions, to 24 free travel warrants per year. In addition, personnel who serve at sea accrue warrant credits of one free travel warrant for every two months' sea service. These warrants could also be used, in addition to the 24 mentioned above, for journeys home during the repair period. In addition, separation allowance may become payable, dependent on the distance between the man's home and the location of the refit.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps are being taken to reduce the problems of separation from families in the Royal Navy.

  Mr. Neubert
  Because of its seagoing commitments, some separation is inevitable in the Royal Navy. However, personnel who opt for "family mobility" are provided with a range of measures to assist in keeping the family together. These include:(a) the provision of naval married quarters in all the main port areas; (b) the introduction of a new home owners "mobility package" which provides for the reimbursement of certain expenses on sale and purchase of a private house, or alternatively for certain expenses incurred in letting or repossessing it;

  105
  and (c) the payment of removal expenses and disturbance allowance; and the payment of boarding school allowance to provide continuity of education for children in the face of frequent parental moves.

  Defence Quality Assurance
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether consultations with the trade unions are now complete regarding the proposed move to Teesside of headquarters and laboratories of the Directorate General of Defence Quality Assurance now at Woolwich and Bromley.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Consultations have taken place and I have carefully considered the points made by the trade unions. None of the points was new to me and I can confirm that planning will now proceed with the aim of transferring some 1,500 jobs to Teesside during 1993 to 1995. I am establishing a joint consultative committee which will be a forum for consultations with the trade unions as the work proceeds.

  F111 Aircraft
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much expenditure has been incurred to date on design work at RAF Upper Heyford to assess the cost of deploying different types of F111 aircraft.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No design work has been undertaken to assess the cost of deploying different types of F111 aircraft at RAF Upper Heyford.

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his reply of 13 June to the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry)Official Report, column 689, how much expenditure has been incurred to date on design work at RAF Upper Heyford to assess the cost of deploying additional F111 aircraft.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No design work has been undertaken to assess the cost of deploying additional F111 aircraft at RAF Upper Heyford.

  WE 177 Nuclear Bomb
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his reply of 29 June Official Report, column 531, to the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright), whether any agreements have been concluded with (a) the United States Government, (b) Boeing Aerospace, (c) Martin Marietta, (d) British Aerospace and (e) Hunting Engineering regarding the study of procurement options for the possible replacement of the WE177 free-fall nuclear bomb.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) on 29 June at column 531.

  HMS Southampton
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will make a decision on awarding the contract for the repair and refit of HMS Southampton.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Shortly.

  ROF, Enfield
  Mr. John Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what meetings were held by his Department with subcontractors who worked for the former Royal Ordnance Factory at Enfield, in the 12 months prior to the announcement of its sale to British Aerospace; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 30 June 1989]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him during the Adjournment debate on Friday 23 June at column 676.

EMPLOYMENT

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the monthly statistics for the latest available four months for employment training for the Training Agency covering the Doncaster area, showing(a) entrants in each monthly period, and the number of cumulative entrants, broken down by sex, (b) the length of time they had been out of work, their ethnic backgrounds and whether or not they had any disabilities, (c) the total number of currently filled places and (d) the number of trainees in each monthly period on project and employer placements.

  Mr. Nicholls
  Information for entrants to Employment Training in the latest available four months is provided in Table 1. The other information requested on duration of unemployment prior to joining the programme and the ethnic background of entrants is provided in Table 2. There were 5,436 filled places in the Training Agency area including Doncaster at 23 June 1989, the latest date for which information is available. Information for trainees on project and employer placements on the last Friday of each month is provided in Table 3.

  Table 1

  Employment Training Entrants

  Month

  Men

  Women

  Total

  February

  1,088

  317

  1,405

  March

  791

  282

  1,073

  April

  725

  230

  955

  May

  669

  267

  876

  TOTAL

  3,273

  1,096

  4,309

  Table 2

  Employment Training characteristics of Entrants (February to May) 1 Wakefield/Barnsley/Doncaster area office

  Percentage

  Unemployment duration (months)

  3 to 6

  20

  6 to 12

  34

  13 to 23

  15

  24+

  11

  Ethnic origin

  1. White

  97

  2. Black/African/Caribbean

  2—

  3. Indian/Pakistan/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan

  1

  4. None of these

  1

  5. I prefer not to say

  1

  PWD3

  Yes

  8

  No

  92

  107

  1 All figures are percentages, figures may not total 130 because of rounding.

  2 Less than 0·5 per cent.

  3 PWD—People with disabilities. Those trainees answering whether they had a long-term health problem or disability which affected the type of work they could do. This figure is calculated for December to March.

  Table 3

  Employment Training Estimated numbers of trainees on project and employer placements on the last Friday of each month

  On projects

  With employers

  February

  3,000

  1,500

  March

  3,000

  1,500

  April

  3,100

  1,500

  May

  3,200

  1,600

  Benefits
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has to change the full extent normal rule; when these will be implemented; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer the hon. Member to the reply from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security to my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) on 16 December 1988 at columns 752–53. We intend to introduce these measures in the autumn.

  Tourism (North-West)
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the top 20 tourist attractions in the north-west in numbers visiting or attending; and if he will indicate the attendances in each instance for the last year which they are available.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The English Tourist Board's annual survey of visits to tourist attractions gives the following figures for the North West regional tourist board area in 1988:

  Number of Visits

  Blackpool Pleasure Beach

  6,500,000

  Albert Dock, Liverpool

  3,500,000

  Pleasureland, Southport

  1,500,000

  Blackpool Tower

  1,477,500

  Frontierland, Morecambe

  1,000,000

  Stapeley Water Gardens

  1,000,000

  Chester Zoo

  896,822

  Croxteth Country Park

  750,000

  Louis Tussaud's Waxworks, Blackpool

  750,000

  Sandcastle World of Water, Blackpool

  695,000

  Etherow Country Park

  600,000

  Liverpool Museum

  585,222

  Knowsley Safari Park

  509,577

  Tate of the North, Liverpool

  500,000

  Heaton Park, Manchester

  500,000

  Camelot Theme Park

  450,000

  Merseyside Maritime Museum

  409,012

  Blackpool Zoo

  360,480

  Chester Visitor Centre

  346,000

  Lyme Park

  300,000

  Employment Training
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many(a) training managers and (b) training agents have been refused approved status for employment training since its inception in September 1988.

  Mr. Nicholls
  None. All training agents and training managers are currently working towards full approved status and have until September 1990 to achieve it.

  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people(a) have refused to participate in employment training and (b) have left employment training before completing the training (i) nationally and (ii) by training agency area.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The information requested is not available.

  Tourism
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when he will notify the(a) House, (b) British Tourist Authority and (c) national boards of his conclusions after studying the report of the review of tourism he initiated in July 1988.

  Mr. Fowler
  I expect soon to be able to let the House know the outcome of my review of Government support for the tourism industry. I will write to the chairman of the English Tourist Board and the British Tourist Authority as soon as the House has been informed.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  "Nuclear Accidents and the Farmer"
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why his Department's publications office at Alnwick, Northumberland was out of stock of the leaflet entitled "Nuclear Accidents and the Farmer" at the beginning of June; and what is the present position.

  Mr. Ryder
  A heavy initial demand meant that the Department's publications store was temporarily out of stock of the leaflet at the beginning of June. Following a further reprint, supplies have now been replenished.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why his Department's area offices in Yorkshire and Humberside have not yet received any supplies of his Department's leaflet entitled "Nuclear Accidents and the Farmer"; if he will list by region and location what area offices(a) have this leaflet and (b) do not have this leaflet; and when he expects all his offices will have this in stock.

  Mr. Ryder
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave him on 10 April, column 365. Stocks were originally held by the Ministry's publications unit at Alnwick and at regional and divisional offices. Following a recent reprint, supplies are being distributed to all area offices.

  Potato Stocks
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will list by region, the estimated stocks of potatoes for this year's current
  109
  growing season; what were the comparable figures last year; and what assessment he has made as to whether this year's stock will meet demand;

  (2) if he will make a statement as to what reviews and discussions he is having in respect of this year's potato crop in England and Wales due to the lack of rain and a possible consequent potato shortage.

  Mr. Ryder
  It is too early to make an assessment of the 1989 potato crop. I have asked the Potato Marketing Board to send information on stocks to the hon. Member.

  Lead in Food
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what research he is conducting into lead levels in food produced adjacent to motorways or other main roads.

  Mr. Ryder
  My Department is not conducting research into lead levels in food produced adjacent to motorways or other main roads. My Department did fund research on this between 1980 and 1983 at the university of Nottingham. This showed that only a small proportion of vegetables grown next to the M1 exceeded statutory lead levels before washing. Washing and removal of outer leaves halves deposited lead levels which means that the vegetables in this study have been below the statutory level once treated for human consumption. My officials will be studying the results of the recent research carried out by Dr. Ward at the university of Surrey.

  Torry Research Station
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list all the projects at the Torry research station in Aberdeen which will be discontinued as a result of the Barnes review; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The projects which are to be discontinued are as follows:Plant design—the development of monitoring and control systems
  The design and development of a multipass freezer
  Energy utilisation in fish processing
  A study of fundamental principles in the design and development of new smoking processes
  Development of a machine to produce uncoated formed fillets
  Processing machinery—separation of meat from shell fish to improve yield
  Microbial spoilage of packaged fish and shell fish with a view to devising and applying methods of extending shelflife
  Innovation of fish and shell fish products and relevant process technology
  Shell fish processing with a view to more efficient utilisation
  Textural modification of recovered flesh
  Improved chilling and handling of sea fish and farmed fish to improve yield and quality
  Innovation and characterisation of added value products from industrial and waste fish resources and development of relevant new pilot plant processes or existing processes
  Improvements in the efficiency of processing fish and smoking
  Investigation of chemical/physical methods of reducing the rate of deterioration of bulk-stored fish at sea
  Assessment of the requirements for the introduction of freezing-at-sea on small fishing vessels
  Study of cultured fish in relation to general quality aspects
  110
  and to their suitability for processing
  The efficient use of recovered fish flesh for human consumption
  Applications of electronics and physical sensors in fish processing

  Detailed information on these was placed in the Library on 20 February 1989 and steps are now being taken to implement the decisions announced in the reply given on 28 June 1989 to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), c. 466.

  Food Inspection
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has made regarding EC document 8062/88; and whether he has urged the EC to recognise the role of United Kingdom district councils in the inspection of slaughterhouses and food hygiene duties.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  My officials have made it clear in discussion on this proposal that it is premature to consider arrangements for veterinary checks in advance of agreement on more fundamental aspects of the animal health arrangements to apply within the single market.

  I am not aware of any proposals which would seek to change the existing role of district councils in slaughterhouse inspections or food law enforcement.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the findings of the Association of District Councils that there is no evidence to suggest that the veterinary presence in export slaughterhouses has contributed to any significant improvement in the protection of public health.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  We have always maintained that the presence of veterinary surgeons is not essential to guarantee satisfactory standards of hygiene in abattoirs. Veterinary supervision is required if plants are to be approved to export. This is not an additional requirement but a different one. Domestic slaughterhouses rely largely on environmental health officers whose professional status is of the highest order.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what is his policy towards placing total reliance on the inspection and certification of meat by veterinarians in other European Community countries as against the practice of inspection of incoming meat consignments by environmental health officers in the United Kingdom;

  (2) what assessment he has made of the health implications of placing total reliance on the inspection and certification of meat by veterinarians in other EC countries and of the current practice of inspection of incoming meat consignments by environmental health officers in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  In accordance with Community rules, enforcement authorities physically inspect only a sample of consignments of meat from other member states. Meat traded between member states must be covered by a certificate signed by an authorised veterinary officer confirming that the Community's strict hygiene rules have been observed. These arrangements work well and in negotiations on the single market I shall seek to ensure that adequate provision for such sample checks is retained.
  111
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what assessment he has made of the impact of European Community directives and regulations on the inspection of meat and meat products in the run-up to the single European market and on the likely changes in terms of staffing and finance that will be required to meet these requirements;

  (2) What assessment he has had made of the impact of European Community directives and regulations on monitoring for health purposes of meat and meat products in the run-up to the single European market and on the likely changes in terms of staffing and finance that will be required to meet these requirements.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The arrangements for meat inspection in the single market will depend upon decisions still to be taken by the Council of Ministers and it is not yet possible therefore to estimate the effects on staffing and costs. It is clear, however, that we shall need to move towards a well-understood supervision system in all meat plants and we shall be discussing how this should be achieved with the interests concerned.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what assessment he has made of the impact of the veterinary presence in export slaughterhouses on the protection of public health;

  (2) what assessment he has made of the health implications of the veterinary presence in export slaughterhouses.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  Veterinary supervision is required if slaughterhouses are to engage in intra-Community trade or export to third countries. If this requirement was not met our industry would not be able to export meat and meat products. Last year this trade was worth £590 million. I have never accepted, however, that veterinary supervision is essential to guarantee satisfactory standards of hygiene.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, what assessment he has made of the consistency of inspections in respect of food and food production in each member state of the European Community; and what steps he will take to ensure that the public of the United Kingdom is protected during the approach to the integrated single European market and after its completion.

  Mr. Ryder
  No detailed assessment has been made of the consistency of inspections of food and food production in each member state. However, we are aware, from the negotiations on the European Community directive on the official control of foodstuffs, of the different types of inspection systems in operation in other member states. The United Kingdom supported the EC directive on official control, adopted on 14 June 1989, which lays down general principles for food inspection across the Community, including the provision that inspections shall be carried out regularly and where non-compliance is suspected and that they shall cover all stages of the manufacturing and distributive cycle. The directive also provides for the Commission to make recommendations for co-ordinated inspection programmes to ensure a consistent approach. It is regarded as a first step towards the building of mutual confidence between member states in this very important area. Together with other measures envisaged, for example on food hygiene, this should ensure 112
  that the public is fully protected. In the meantime, the preamble to the official control directive indicates that there should be no changes to well-tried systems of food inspection; we consider that the United Kingdom system is in that category.

  Price Fixing
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food, further to his reply to the hon. Member for South Shields of 22 June,Official Report, column 251, if he will list the organisations invited to attend meetings to discuss the European Community price proposals in 1988, but which declined to do so; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: Each year a wide range of bodies and individuals submit representations on the Commission's price fixing proposals. These are made not only at meetings, which was the subject of the hon. Member's earlier question, but in writing. Organisations which choose not to attend meetings are on occasions among those who write, but I do not think it would be appropriate to list them.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Business Establishment Grants
  Mr. Batiste
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many companies in receipt of a cash grant from his Department to establish business in a particular place have discontinued such business within five years of establishment.

  Mr. Newton
  Information in the form requested is not available. However, it is possible to provide some figures for companies which have received regional selective assistance. Since the introduction of the current guidelines for RSA in November 1984, 24 companies which received RSA towards establishing new businesses in England are known to have discontinued such business. These companies received some £659,000. Recovery of grant is pursued in appropriate cases. By comparison, over 600 projects in total have received RSA to establish businesses in England over the same period with associated grant payments to date of £43·6 million.

  Home Accidents (Deaths)
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from accidents in their homes; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Forth
  The latest available figure for deaths in the United Kingdom is for 1987, in which year there were 4,919 deaths from accidents in the home. There is a comprehensive legal framework which deals with the safety of consumer goods primarily, enforced by local authority trading standards departments, including the general safety requirement in the Consumer Protection Act 1987 which requires consumer goods to be reasonably safe, and specific regulations dealing with particular products or problems. This is complemented by safety awareness campaigns to alert people to the dangers they face every day in their own houses. The Government seek
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  to co-operate with non-governmental safety organisations whose aim is to promote safety awareness and safe products.

  Palatine Graphic Arts Company
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list all financial assistance, including that from the European Community, approved by his Department for Palatine Graphic Arts Company Limited, Liverpool, over the past five years, giving the name and amount of the grant or assistance, the date of approval and payment, the purpose of each and the terms and conditions imposed; and if he will take steps to ensure those terms have been and are being met in full.

  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: During the past five years my Department has made the following grants to Palatine Graphic Arts Co. Ltd., Liverpool:

  Regional Development Grant II

  Purpose of grant

  Amount approved

  Date approved

  Amount paid

  Date paid

  £

  £

  Provision of Chemotinex Etching bath, sanding machine moulding press and Chromalin processor and laminator. The creation of eight jobs formed part of this project1

  33,000

  15 December 1986

  21,897

  17 March 1987

  Provision of exposure unit

  1,688

  13 July 1987

  1,688

  5 August 1987

  Provision of stop and repeat machine

  3,255

  14 July 1987

  3,255

  5 August 1987

  Provision of copper, etching bath2

  6,356

  23 March 1988

  6,471

  23 September 1988

  Provision of scitex electronic scanning and page composition system

  75,000

  15 September 1988

  75,000

  24 February 1989

  119,299

  108,311

  1 The offer was based on the proposed creation of 11 jobs at £3,000 each, but in the event, only eight new jobs were created. As the total capital grant for the project, which included £8,250 payable to a leasing company, was the greater of the two, the grant was based on capital expenditure. However, the creation of the eight jobs formed part of the project.

  2 The discrepancy is due to the fact that the application was based on estimated costs and prices had increased at the time the claim was submitted.

  Regional development grant II is made under standard conditions, including the obligation to notify my Department if jobs or assets are disposed of within the condition period and to repay such grant as may be required if the conditions are breached. Projects are subject to inspection.

  Regional Selective Assistance

  £

  30 October 1984

  Amount Offered

  100,000

  24 March 1986

  Amount Paid

  6,461

  The purpose of this grant was to assist with the purchase of new equipment which would provide time savings in artwork and make-up. The difference between the cost of the equipment and the amount of regional selective assistance paid was made up by regional development grant and the balance of RSA was not claimed.

  Total grants paid were £212, 989.
  114

  Regional Development Grant I

  Purpose of grant—towards the provision of approved plant and machinery and building works

  Date paid

  Amount of grant £

  6 November 1984

  2,967

  5 December 1984

  7,697

  11 January 1985

  8,461

  5 July 1985

  227

  19 July 1985

  359

  25 October 1985

  3,572

  15 November 1985

  8,572

  26 January 1986

  22,165

  13 May 1986

  33,254

  87,229

  Regional development grant I was not dependent on the creation of jobs, but disposal of grant-aided assets within the conditions period must be notified and could result in the repayment of grant.

  My Department has not approved the payment of any grants involving EC funding and I am not aware of any EC funds being provided to the company from any other sources.

  The relevant projects at this company have been inspected, most recently in August 1988 and again in June 1989, and I am satisfied that the terms and conditions under which grant assistance has been given are at present being met.

  I understand that six of the eight jobs created under the grant approved on 15 December 1986 are at present vacant but that efforts to refill them are in hand. Under the terms and conditions under which grant is paid, the company is expected to refill such posts within two months—or longer at the Department's discretion—and a proportion of the grant can be reclaimed if this is not done.

  Shipbuilding (Redundancies)
  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what was the total number of redundancies in the shipbuilding and shiprepair industries in Plymouth during the period 1 January 1979 to 31 December 1988.
  115
  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 30 June 1989]: The information is not available.

  Waste Paper
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received suggesting he should impose restrictions on the subsidised imports of waste paper from the United States of America and Canada.

  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: I have received a small number of letters expressing concern at the level of imports of de-inking grades of waste paper from the USA and Canada. I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that the current low levels of imports are having an adverse effect on the United Kingdom waste paper market, but I will continue to ensure that the situation is carefully monitored.

  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps are being taken to avert the expected shortfall in supply of waste paper, expected to be at its peak in 1993; what response has already been forthcoming from local authorities, paper merchants, newsprint producers and voluntary groups; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: A shortfall in the supply of de-inking grades of waste paper used as a raw material in the manufacture in the United Kingdom of newsprint is expected to build up over the next few years, possibly peaking in 1993, as additional manufacturing capacity comes on stream. Accordingly, my Department has organised a national series of 11 seminars to bring to the attention of local authorities and voluntary organisations the increasing number of opportunities which will become available to them to assist over the next three to four years in the collection of more newsprint grade waste paper. This programme of seminars is still under way. So far the response has been encouraging.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Immigration Appeals
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Attorney-General how many immigration appeals are outstanding in Scotland.

  The Attorney-General
  On 30 June 1989, 33 Scottish immigration appeals were awaiting listing, In a further 183 appeals, the papers have been sent to the parties and responses are awaited from the appellants' representatives.

  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Attorney-General if he has any proposals to improve the waiting time for immigration appeals in Scotland.

  The Attorney-General
  Responsibility for the administration of the immigration appellate authorities rests with the Lord Chancellor. Immigration appeals that are to be heard in Scotland are processed by the Leeds office of the IAA. As soon as case papers are received at Leeds they are copied to the parties. Thereafter the time taken for cases to come on for hearing depends on the parties, rather than the IAA. Once the parties indicate that they are ready to proceed, cases are listed for hearing within six to eight weeks, which is considered a reasonable time.116
  Nevertheless, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the IAA will continue to monitor the number of Scottish cases sent to the parties or their representatives in the United Kingdom for which hearings have not been requested.

  Visas
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Attorney-General what change there has been in the number of appeals from visitors refused entry clearance since the introduction of visa requirements for nationals of certain Commonwealth countries.

  The Attorney-General
  The numbers of appeals against refusal of entry clearance for temporary purposes, including visitors' and students' entry clearances in the last three years were as follows:

  Numbers

  1986

  1,522

  1987

  2,801

  1988

  6,138

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Community Charge
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will increase the level of students' grants to enable them to pay the poll tax.

  Mr. Jackson
  The rates of student grant for 1989–90 have already been announced. Students' discounted liability for the community charge was one of the factors considered in setting those rates.

  National Curriculum
  Mr. Patrick Thompson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has had any meeting during the last six months with representatives of science teachers to discuss the national curriculum.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend and I have met science teachers informally on several occasions and discussed various topics. No ministerial meetings have been arranged with their representatives specifically on the national curriculum.

  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to publish translations of the national curriculum attainment targets and programmes of study in mathematics, science and English.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to publish translations of the national curriculum attainment targets and programmes of study in mathematics, science and English.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made available the mathematics and science national curriculum documents in Welsh. There are no plans to publish translations of these or the documents for English into any other languages. A short leaflet for parents on the national curriculum generally will however be published in ethnic minority community languages this autumn.
  117
  Mr. Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the progress being made in implementing the national curriculum.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Preparations continue to advance. My right hon. Friend has recently published his proposals for design and technology for all four key stages and English for key stages 2 to 4. A statutory order for English key stage I was made on 31 May.

  Teacher Appraisal
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress has been made on agreeing a system of teacher appraisal and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The national steering group overseeing the current pilot projects, on which the local authority and teacher associations are represented, will be submitting recommendations to my right hon. Friend next month for a national framework for teacher appraisal. In the light of these recommendations my right hon. Friend intends to make regulations in the autumn under section 49 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, requiring LEAs to implement schemes of appraisal covering all their teachers over the next few years.

  Teachers (Resignations)
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his estimate of the number of teachers who had submitted their resignations by 31 May.

  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has about the level of resignations from teachers submitted by 31 May.

  Mr. Butcher
  The latest available data are for the year ending March 1987. A total of 28,960 teachers left full-time service in the maintained nursery, primary and secondary sector in England. Of these, 1,760 transferred to full-time service elsewhere in the maintained sector in England and Wales and 2,900 to part-time service in the maintained sector. A further 8,500 retired and 450 died.

  Student Loans
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what the cost of introducing top-up loans for students will be over the next 15 years assuming a yearly average inflation rate of 8 per cent.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Government do not expect inflation to remain at that level. The table shows the costs and savings associated with the introduction of top-up loans, on the hypothetical basis of 8 per cent. inflation annually from 1990. It is otherwise on the same basis and in the same format as the figures set out in annex E of Cm 520.

  Costs and savings of top-up loans with 8 per cent, inflation

  (£ million, 1990 prices)

  Net change in grant

  Net change in benefits

  Gross loan outlay

  Loan repayments

  PSBR effect

  1990

  0

  -65

  167

  0

  103

  1991

  -53

  -64

  234

  -2

  114

  1992

  -100

  -63

  290

  -9

  117

  118

  Net change in grant

  Net change in benefits

  Gross loan outlay

  Loan repayments

  PSBR effect

  1993

  -142

  -62

  340

  -23

  113

  1994

  -180

  -61

  386

  -45

  100

  1995

  -214

  -60

  428

  -75

  79

  1996

  -248

  -60

  470

  -106

  56

  1997

  -285

  -61

  520

  -136

  38

  1998

  -293

  -63

  535

  -163

  16

  1999

  -300

  -64

  548

  -186

  -3

  2000

  -302

  -65

  552

  -206

  -21

  2001

  -302

  -65

  552

  -231

  -46

  2002

  -302

  -65

  552

  -262

  -77

  2003

  -302

  -65

  552

  -284

  -99

  2004

  -302

  -65

  552

  -296

  -111

  2005

  -302

  -65

  552

  -303

  -118

  2006

  -302

  -65

  552

  -303

  -118

  2007

  -302

  -65

  552

  -297

  -112

  2008

  -302

  -65

  552

  -300

  -115

  2009

  -302

  -65

  552

  -317

  -133

  2010

  -302

  -65

  552

  -339

  -154

  2011

  -302

  -65

  552

  -354

  -169

  2012

  -302

  -65

  552

  -364

  -179

  2013

  -302

  -65

  552

  -376

  -191

  2014

  -302

  -65

  552

  -385

  -200

  2015

  -302

  -65

  552

  -392

  -207

  2016

  -302

  -65

  552

  -397

  -212

  2017

  -302

  -65

  522

  -402

  -217

  2018

  -302

  -65

  522

  -405

  -220

  2019

  -302

  -65

  552

  -406

  -222

  2020

  -302

  -65

  552

  -410

  -225

  2021

  -302

  -65

  552

  -415

  -230

  2022

  -302

  -65

  552

  -420

  -235

  2023

  -302

  -65

  552

  -422

  -237

  2024

  -302

  -65

  552

  -422

  -237

  2025

  -302

  -65

  552

  -422

  -237

  2026

  -302

  -65

  552

  -422

  -237

  2027

  -302

  -65

  552

  -422

  -237

  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a further statement on the costs of the proposed student loan scheme in respect of administration, defaults and interest subsidy.

  Dr. Moonie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the costs of the proposed student loan scheme in respect of administration, defaults and interest subsidy.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the costs of the proposed student loan scheme in respect of administration, defaults and interest subsidy.

  Mr. Jackson
  I refer the hon. Members to my answer of 26 June to the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) at columns 290–91.

  Mr. Andrew MacKay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has received further representations on student loans following his statement of 19 June,Official Report, columns 21–33.

  Mr. Jackson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) earlier today.

  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to make public the participants in, and detailed proposals of, the arrangements for administering top-up loans for students.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend will announce further details of the arrangements for administering top-up loans in due course.
  119
  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what estimate he has made of the cost of administering in its first year his student loan scheme.

  Mr. Jackson
  The preparatory work mentioned in my right hon. Friend's statement on 19 June,Official Report, columns 21–22 indicates administrative costs, excluding start-up costs, of between £8·5 million and £11·5 million in the first year in which top-up loans are available.

  Mr. Doran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the representations he has received in relation to the effect of the proposed student loans scheme on higher education in Scotland.

  Mr. Jackson
  We have considered carefully the representations we have received, particularly in relation to the longer Scottish courses. We have concluded that a loan facility for each year of a course is the right approach. Many students opt for higher education in Scotland rather than the shorter English degree, and we have no doubt that that will continue to be the case.

  Dr. Reid
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a further statement regarding the likely effect of top-up loans on access to higher education.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Government's education policies are designed to increase educational attainment at all levels, and to increase access to higher education. Top-up loans will offer students an additional source of funds while they are studying, and combined with the effect of the Government's other policies will enable there to be increased participation in higher education in the future.

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how the proposed company for the administration of private sector loans to students is to be publicly accountable.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Department will have a permanent directorship on the board of the company, and we shall take such other steps as may be appropriate to ensure accountability.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make available a copy of the Price Waterhouse study of his proposed student top-up loans scheme.

  Mr. Jackson
  The document was commissioned by the Committee of London and Scottish Bankers as an initial feasibility study. I hope to place copies of the report in the Library shortly.

  School Discipline
  Mr. David Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a further statement on the implementation of the recommendations of the Elton report on school discipline.

  Mr. Butcher
  My right hon. Friend has announced a range of measures in response to the Elton report. These include two planned education support grant activities, to tackle truancy and to address the problem of difficult 120
  pupils. In each case expenditure of up to £2·5 million will be supported in 1990–91. In addition, we are proposing that the management of pupil behaviour should be a national priority area within the local education authority training grants scheme for 1990–91, with grant to support £1·7 million of expenditure.

  Higher Education (Students)
  Mr. Batiste
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to increase access for students to higher education.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend has consistently made clear the Government's commitment to increasing participation in higher education. Our school reforms are designed to equip more pupils with the qualifications and motivation to enter higher education. We also want to widen access for those who do not hold traditional entry qualifications or are currently under-represented in higher education. Our objective, without sacrificing quality, is to promote a more flexible and more accessible system of higher education.

  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many students were in higher education at the beginning of the academic years 1978–79 and 1988–89; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  The available information is as follows:

  Students in higher education: Great Britain

  Thousands

  1978–79

  766

  1987–88

  968

  Data for 1988–89 are not yet available, but the figure is expected to be in the range 980,000 to 1 million.

  Conductive Education
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has for the future of conductive education in this country.

  Mr. Butcher
  Conductive education in Hungary is closely linked to the Hungarian system of education. It is, therefore, important for the approach to be tried out in the context of our education system. For that reason we are funding the evaluation of the experimental conductive education project in Birmingham. In time we would like to see conductive education added to the range of options available to disabled children in this country.

  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he or officials from his Department last visited the conductive education centres in(a) Birmingham and (b) Budapest, Hungary.

  Mr. Butcher
  Members of Her Majesty's inspectorate, officials from the Department and the Department's senior medical adviser visited the Birmingham institute last November. A member of Her Majesty's inspectorate and an official from the Department will be visiting the institute in September. The Department's senior medical adviser visited the Peto institute in May 1988.

  Teacher Shortages
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the measures he is taking to reduce teacher shortages.
  121
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the measures he is taking to reduce teacher shortages.

  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on teacher shortages.

  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the measures to reduce teacher shortages.

  Mr. Butcher
  Our action programme to combat teacher shortages was launched three years ago at a cost so far of £50 million. The programme includes a £1,300 bursary for trainee teachers in maths, physics, CDT and, from this September, in chemistry; an energetic teacher recruitment publicity campaign spearheaded by the teaching as a career unit; in-service training for under-qualified teachers and new courses of initial teacher training. From next April, under the education support grant programme, we shall be supporting expenditure of up to £2 million on local measures to boost the recruitment of former teachers and mature entrants to teaching.

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the measures he is taking to reduce teacher shortages in London and the south-east.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the measures he is taking to reduce teacher shortages in London and the south-east.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Our action programme to combat teacher shortages has cost some £50 million over the last three years. Many of the measures have been targeted specifically at tackling the problems in London and the south-east. That action programme is continuing and will be reinforced as necessary. We have recently announced that the education support grant programme for 1990–91 will include support for up to £2 million on measures to boost the recruitment of mature entrants and teachers returning to the profession. I would expect many of the local authorities in London and the south-east to bid for inclusion within this programme.

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the latest figures for the number of schools requesting grant-maintained status.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement indicating the number of schools which have opted for grant-maintained status and the number of schools which are considering seeking grant-maintained status.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  To date, parents of pupils at 47 schools have voted to apply for grant-maintained status, and my right hon. Friend has approved 20 formal applications. I expect a good many more to follow.

  Teachers (Local Pay Agreements)
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he next intends to meet the teaching unions to discuss the introduction of localised pay agreements.
  122
  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave earlier today to the hon. Members for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery).

  Commission for Racial Equality
  Mr. Holt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he last met with representatives of the Commission for Racial Equality; and what was discussed.

  Mr. Butcher
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State last met representatives of the Commission for Racial Equality on 14 June 1988. They discussed aspects of the Education Reform Bill and the commission's proposals for a code of practice for the elimination of racial discrimination in education.

  School Activities (Charges)
  Mr. Callaghan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the implementation of the legislation regarding charging for activities by schools.

  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the implementation of the legislation regarding charging for activities by schools.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has received from local authorities about difficulties arising from the new provisions relating to charging for school expeditions.

  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the working of regulations relating to charges for school trips.

  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about the implementation of the legislation regarding charging for activities by schools.

  Mr. Butcher
  My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations on the subject of charging for school activities. He has invited the local authorities and others to assist in monitoring the impact of the new arrangements. The legislation was drafted following consultation with the education service, and reflects the concern of respondents to confirm the principle of free education. We believe that it provides a sound framework for the continuation of a wide range of school activities, provided these are valued by parents as a worthwhile part of their children's education.

  Institute of Horticultural Research
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he next proposes to visit the Institute of Horticultural Research, Wellesbourne, at East Malling, Kent.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend has no plans at present to do so.

  School Libraries
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will introduce an educational support grant for both primary and secondary school libraries.
  123
  Mr. Butcher
  My right hon. Friend's proposed education support grant programme for 1990–91 which was announced in May does not include a specific activity related to school libraries. He will, however, consider the inclusion of such an activity in a future programme.

  Postgraduate Research
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the subsistence allowance paid by research councils to postgraduate research students.

  Mr. Jackson
  The principal rates of postgraduate maintenance grant paid by the research councils in the academic year 1988–89 and to be paid in 1989–90 are as follows:

  1988–89

  1989–90

  £

  £

  a. Students living away from home and attending an establishment in London

  3,630

  3,970

  b. Students living away from home and attending an establishment outside London

  2,975

  3,125

  c. Students living in the parental home

  2,160

  2,270

  The Medical Research Council and the Agricultural and Food Research Council have decided to supplement maintenance grants to postgraduate students supported by them by an average of £500 per student with effect from 1989–90. Research students working on MRC's programme of AIDS research will receive a further supplement of £500.

  All research councils make additional payments to disabled and older students and to those with dependants. They also pay approved fees and expenses for daily and end-of-term travel, fieldwork and conference attendance.

  London Nautical School
  Mr. Gerald Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will take steps to ensure that the London nautical school in the London borough of Southwark continues to be available as a choice to parents throughout London for their children's education.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend on 30 June approved the application for grant-maintained status from the London nautical school, to take effect from 1 April 1990.

  Nursery Schools
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has any plans to increase the funding for local education authority run nursery school places.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Our plans for the current financial year allow for a continuation of the steady expansion of provision for the under-fives which has marked the last decade. Provision for local education authorities' spending on education in 1990–91 is still to be determined.

  Biological Sciences (Research Assistants)
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the proportion of post-doctoral research assistants in 124
  biological sciences in the United Kingdom who are not British Nationals, and the availability of post-doctoral staff likely to remain in research careers in Britain.

  Mr. Jackson
  This information is not held centrally.

  Primary Curriculum
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what advice he has received from the National Curriculum Council about the primary curriculum.

  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what advice he has received from the National Curriculum Council about mixed ability classes in primary schools.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  At my right hon. Friend's request, the National Curriculum Council has been considering the framework for the primary curriculum. The council published non-statutory guidance on 30 June and copies have been sent to all maintained schools, local education authorities and others. The organisation of classes is a matter for local discretion. The council's guidance explains that there is a variety of ways in which pupils may be grouped, depending on the circumstances in each case.

  Brain Drain
  Dr. Bray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of the brain drain on the quality of research in British universities.

  Mr. Jackson
  My reply of 17 February to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) at column 417, showed that, over the last eight years, there has been a net inflow of academic staff to British universities. The Government recognise that concern has been expressed about the academic quality of those leaving the United Kingdom, but believe that it is for the universities themselves to be more rigorous in monitoring the flows, and to use the more flexible arrangements for academic pay now in place to help forestall and counteract them as necessary.

  Universities (Research Contracts)
  Mr. Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of university income now comes from research contracts; and what was the comparable figure 10 years ago.

  Mr. Jackson
  Comparable information is not available over the period requested. However, between the academic years 1981–82 and 1987–88, the proportion of universities' total recurrent income derived from research grants and contracts rose from 12—9 to 19—6 per cent.

  Secondary Education
  Mr. Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will detail the advantages which a genuine choice in secondary education brings.

  Mr. Butcher
  Greater parental choice encourages competition between schools and allows parents to influence decisions which determine the quality of
  125
  education. I believe that parents have a legitimate interest which they should be trusted to express and that competition encourages good schools to do even better and poorer schools to raise their sights.

  Teachers (Southend)
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress is being made in securing the teachers required for secondary and junior schools in the Southend-on-Sea area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Butcher
  Responsibility for securing teachers for maintained schools rests with the local education authority which needs to take appropriate recruitment measures. Our action programme to combat teacher shortages, which has cost £50 million over the last three years, is designed to help authorities to that end.

  LEAs (Training Grants)
  Mr. Radice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to increase the financial support available to local education authorities through the local education authority training grants scheme.

  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to increase the financial support available to local education authorities through the local education authority training grants scheme.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) earlier today.

  Gateshead CTC
  Mr. Clelland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the target number of pupils for the proposed Gateshead city technology college.

  Mr. Butcher
  The proposed Gateshead city technology college is planning for an eventual enrolment of 900 pupils.

  Teachers (European Community)
  Mr. Evennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether his Department is taking any steps to recruit teachers from other EC member states.

  Mr. Butcher
  On 21 December 1988 the Council of Ministers of the European Communities adopted a directive that will enable a range of professionals, including teachers, to have their professional qualifications recognised for the purposes of practice in member states other than their own. The directive must be implemented by 1991. My right hon. Friend proposes to make regulations according the benefits of the directive to members of the teaching profession qualified in other member states from September this year. This should assist LEAs in their recruitment of teachers from other member states.

  The Department is also supporting a project at the university of York which is recruiting and training teachers from France and Germany.

  City Technology Colleges
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on progress to date in respect of city technology colleges.

  Mr. Butcher
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 6 June to my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) at column 10.

  London Docklands
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to improve the provision of primary school places arising out of developments in the London docklands.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Developments in the London docklands are increasing the demand for primary school places. The provision of those places is a matter for the London borough of Newham, the Inner London education authority and, from 1 April 1990, the boroughs of Southwark and Tower Hamlets. My right hon. Friend, in determining annual capital guidelines, will continue to give a high priority to plans for additional school places from these and other local education authorities.

  River Pollution
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it his policy to increase funding for research into pollution of the river ecosystem before privatisation of the water industry.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend will as usual consider expenditure on all areas of scientific research sponsored by this Department later this year, after studying advice from the Advisory Board for the Research Councils. I understand that my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Environment is discussing, with the water industry and the National Rivers Authority advisory committee, future research arrangements in the water sector.

  Natural Environment Research Council
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) whether he will make it his policy to give the Natural Environment Research Council the necessary funds to develop work on environmental microbiology;

  (2) whether he will make it his policy to give the Natural Environment Research Council the necessary funds to develop work into the risks and opportunities of modifying natural micro-organisms.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend will as usual consider expenditure on all areas of scientific research sponsored by this Department later this year, after studying advice from the Advisory Board for the Research Councils.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) whether, in transferring funds for scientific research from universities to research councils, he will make it his policy to give the Natural Environment Research Council the necessary funds to develop work in the interactions of the land and atmosphere;
  127
  (2) whether, in transferring funds for scientific research to research counils, he will make it his policy to give the Natural Environment Research Council the necessary funds to develop work in atmospheric sciences.

  Mr. Jackson
  The planned transfer of funds from the Universities Funding Council to the research councils, recently announced by my right hon. Friend, corresponds to a change in the balance of funding responsibilities for university research projects sponsored by research councils. It is not intended that this will lead to any change in the total funding provided for university research through the two sides of the dual support system, nor to any change in the research council's scientific priorities.

  Licensed Teachers
  Ms. Gordon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what limit he is placing on the percentage of licensed teachers to be allowed on the staff of any one school.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend has not set any predetermined limits. This will in each case be a matter for the school and the LEA concerned.

  Local Management of Schools
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what are the implications of the local management scheme on staffing levels of the education departments in local authorities.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  As more decision-making is delegated to schools there should certainly be scope for economies in LEAs' central administration costs, but authorities will have a continuing strategic role under local management and will be able to hold back resources for key central services. Each authority will determine its own staffing needs for these.

ENVIRONMENT

  Football Membership Scheme
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultation took place with the football clubs, the Football League, the Football Association and the Football Supporters Association over the structure, membership and powers of the Football Membership Authority; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The role of the Football Membership Authority was considered by the working party which I chaired last summer on the national membership scheme and which included representatives of the Football Association and the Football League. I have had discussions with the football authorities about their wish to form the FMA. I have also had discussions about the FMA with the Football Supporters Association and the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs.

  Water
  Mr. Thornton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment with reference to his announcement of charges to be introduced through a new clause in the Water Bill, how the figure of £800 per dwelling for new 128
  water and sewerage infrastructure and services was calculated; how soon he will be able to make more accurate figures available; and how these charges will vary across the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Howard
  The figure was an estimate of the average cost per new connection of investment in additional water supply and sewerage capacity, excluding infrastructure which could be requisitioned under clause 40 or clause 70 of the Water Bill (as amended by the House of Lords). Individual limits for water authorities will be included in their instruments of appointment published in August, and it is intended to give provisional figures for statutory water companies at the same stage with firm limits following in the autumn.

  Waste Disposal
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make available in the Library the responses so far to the Green Paper on the role and functions of waste disposal authorities.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We will shortly deposit in the Library copies of all responses so far received, where the authors have given permission so to do. I will write to the hon. Member at that time.

  Nature Reserves
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those nature reserves assisted by grant from the Nature Conservancy Council, where it has been made a condition of grant that the shooting of birds or other creatures will continue.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information is not available in the form requested and could be collected only at disproportionate cost. In considering land purchase proposals whether for themselves or by grant aid to NGO's the Nature Conservancy Council will normally expect the new owners to allow the traditional rights or uses of the land to continue and to alter the level or practice of these activities only when they are in conflict with the interests of conservation.

  Reconnection Costs
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to amend section 33 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 in order that local authorities can recover costs of reconnection of supplies of gas and electricity incurred in paying arrears from landlords who then sell the house to evade debts; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  Yes. I refer the hon. Member to amendment No. 158, passed at Report stage of the Local Government and Housing Bill on 14 June at column 1090.

  Housing in Multiple Occupancy
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his Department plans to simplify the powers and procedures referred to in the consultation paper on housing in multiple occupancy published last year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  We shall be introducing amendments on a number of matters referred to in the consultation paper.
  129
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the proposed housing in multiple occupancy fitness standard referred to in Standing Committee on the Local Government and Housing Bill will include comprehensive fire safety provision such as means of detection and warning systems; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  We propose that the fitness standard should include means of escape from fire and fire prevention measures.

  Baton Twirling
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many representations he has received seeking the classification of baton twirling as a sport.

  Mr. Moynihan
  I have received no such representations. The recognition of a sport is a matter for the Sports Council to consider.

  Nature Conservancy Council
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what appointments have recently been made to the Nature Conservancy Council; what relevant experience these people have that qualifies them for membership; whether he has received any representations concerning the appointments from pressure groups or other interested bodies; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Five new members of the Nature Conservancy Council were appointed with effect from 1 April 1989—the Earl of Dalkeith, Dr. Bill Mutch, Earl Peel, Mr. Lindsay Waddell and Mr. William Wilder. They have a range of relevant qualifications and experience. More details are given in the press release issued by my noble Friend, the Minister for Housing, Environment and Countryside on 29 March 1989, a copy of which I have sent to the hon. Member.

  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has received a small number of letters commenting on the recent appointments. Members are appointed for the personal contribution that they can bring to the work of the council.

  Countryside (Access)
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all those individual and organisations who have been lobbying him and other Ministers in his Department about common land footpaths, and access to the countryside during the last two months.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  A large number of representations have been received during the last two months, covering a wide range of views on access issues. They have arisen primarily from the Ramblers' Association's footpaths appeal, the Countryside Commission's "Enjoying the Countryside" initiative, the Government's proposals for privatising the water industry and for legislation in the Rubinstein case, and the question of future access to upland commons. Also, on 7 June, 1 met the hon. Member for a useful discussion of current concerns on these matters.

  Pollution (North Sea)
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what studies the North sea task force is undertaking to evaluate the impact of pollutants on marine mammals and seabirds; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The role of the North sea task force is principally to co-ordinate and assess the marine environmental research and monitoring carried out by member states and to identify gaps in knowledge. It is for member states to give effect to task force priorities and objectives and in the United Kingdom, this falls to the research programmes of relevant Departments, and other agencies such as the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and universities. In the case of marine mammals, studies are currently under way sponsored by the Department of the Environment, with assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, on the impact of contaminants on seals. Similar work on cetaceans is under consideration and studies of contaminant effects on sea birds are carried out by NERC and sponsored by NCC.

  Rhinoceros and Ivory Products
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many licences have been issued under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna for the importation of rhinoceros products for each of the last five years for which records are available;

  (2) how many licences have been issued under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna for the importation of ivory or ivory products for each of the last five years for which records are available.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  I will write to the hon. Member.

  Drinking Water
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give details of which standards set in the European Community drinking water directive are regularly exceeded by water suppliers in England which have not been granted derogations.

  Mr. Howard
  The standard for nitrates in the EC drinking water directive is regularly exceeded in some water supplies in England. Remedial programmes are in hand to ensure compliance as quickly as possible taking account of practicalities.

  The pesticides standard in the EC directive is also exceeded in some water supplies. Current medical advice is that pesticide levels detected do not constitute a risk to health.

  Rose Theatre
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what sums in archaeological fees have been received by the museum of London for work done at the site of the Rose theatre.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  [holding answer 30 June 1989]: The fees paid to the Museum of London for work on the Rose theatre are a matter for English Heritage and Imry Merchant Developers plc.

  British Steel, Redcar
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on dust emissions from British Steel, Redcar.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: Control of emissions to atmosphere from British Steel, Redcar including dust are the responsibility of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. Standards are set and are currently being met. There have been a number of complaints about dust arising from stockpiles particularly in high wind conditions. Work is in hand to minimise such occurrences.

  Sewage Discharges (North-West)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will list the precise locations of each application made for derogation of sewage discharges in the north-west; if he will list also any other derogation currently in force in the north-west; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will state for each sewage derogation site currently approved or under consideration by his Department in the north-west (a) what improvement programmes for effluent at each location has been submitted, (b) what are the commencement and finishing dates for such improvement programmes and (c) what are the target levels for achievement of the improvement of effluent at the point of discharge; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 30 June 1989]: I announced on 7 December 1988 at column 199, an accelerated capital investment programme of about £1 billion to bring sub-standard sewage treatment works into compliance with their discharge consents. Water authorities may apply for time-limited discharge consents to regularise the present discharge whilst these improvements are carried out.

  A list of the applications made for time-limited consents where improvements are planned has been placed in the Library. Details of these applications are on the register maintained by each water authority and are available for public inspection. The applications have also been advertised by the authorities concerned.

  In some cases improvements have already commenced and in others will commence shortly. In general, I expect the improvements to be completed, by March 1992, but in some cases because of the scale of design and construction work which is necessary, works will be completed as soon as practically possible thereafter.

  The time-limited consents will not permit deterioration in the current performance of these works and consent conditions no less stringent than those which currently apply will be reintroduced once the work is complete. The programme is expected to produce significant improvements in river quality both in the north-west and more generally.

  Details of all discharge consents, including any derogations currently in force, are available on the authority's public register.

  Property Revaluation
  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if, pursuant to his answer of 26 June,Official Report, column 347, he will state (a) whether draft
  132
  valuation lists deposited with charging authorities will be open to public inspection, and (b) what steps he will take to advise non-domestic ratepayers to ascertain the proposed new rateable values of their property; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ridley
  The draft rating lists which the valuation office is to deposit with charging authorities will be open to public inspection. Non-domestic ratepayers might be well advised to check their proposed rateable values, though they should of course bear in mind that their 1990–91 rate bill will also be affected by the introduction of a uniform poundage and, in many cases, by the transitional arrangements for phasing in the new system.

  Community Charge
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the estimated community charge, assuming the grant regime and expenditure current at the time, payable in each of the Somerset districts for the financial years 1988–89 and 1989–90; and what estimate he has for 1990–91 assuming no changes in grant regime or spending plans.

  Mr. Gummer
  Illustrative 1988–89 community charges were placed in the Library on 23 June 1988. These assumed that the total grant available was the same as with rates. Illustrative 1989–90 figures will be published in due course. The 1988–89 community charges, disregarding the effects of the transitional safety nets, are as follows:

  £

  Mendip

  209

  Sedgemoor

  222

  Taunton Deane

  211

  West Somerset

  214

  South Somerset

  214

NORTHERN IRELAND

  NW (Privatisation)
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he has any plans to appoint consultants to advise on the privatisation of the Northern Ireland Electricity.

  Mr. Viggers
  Steps are being taken at present to recruit a financial adviser. Consultants in other disciplines will be appointed as they are required.

  Payments for Debt
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table in the Official Report showing the total deductions made from(a) invalidity benefit, (b) child benefit, (c) widow's benefit, (d) supplementary benefit, (e) unemployment benefit, (f) sickness benefit and (g) retirement pensions in each year from 1979 to 1989 under the Payment for Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 20 June 1989]: The information requested for the year 1989–90 is estimated as follows:

  Financial year 1989–90

  £'s

  Income support

  245,280·97

  Child benefit

  6,773·19

  Unemployment benefit

  6,553·67

  133

  Financial year 1989–90

  £'s

  Sickness benefit

  991·33

  Invalidity benefit

  46,862·64

  Retirement benefit

  29,805·48

  Widow's benefit

  14,660·93

  Severe disablement allowance (effective from April 1988)

  94·47

  For earlier years I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 25 October 1988 at column 137.

  The figures are not however directly comparable with the earlier figures because the effect from April 1988 the
  134
  major proportion of deductions from benefits against arrears of rent, rates, electricity and gas charges are made under the provisions of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations (NI) 1987. The figures relate only to deductions, which have been made in 1988–89 under the Payment for Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act (NI) 1971. The interim information given for 1988–89 in the answer on 25 October 1988 was compiled on the basis used in the years up to and including 1987–88 as the data had not at that stage been refined.

SCOTLAND

  Timber
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he can give details of the total value of Scottish timber sold in the last five years; and what was the value of timber products sold to English-based customers.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The total value, delivered at mill, of the timber harvested from Scottish forests during the five years to 31 March 1988 is estimated to be over £300 million at current prices. Some of this will have been delivered to English mills.

  It is estimated that over the same period Scottish manufacturers sold timber products worth about £7,000 million at current prices, made from both home-grown and imported timber. It is not known how much of this was sold to English-based customers.

  £ million

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1988–89

  Board

  Indicative level

  Payments

  Indicative level

  Payments

  Indicative level

  Payments

  Indicative level

  Payments (provisional)

  Argyll and Clyde

  0·273

  0·004

  0·284

  0·058

  0·295

  0·035

  0·308

  0·085

  Ayrshire and Arran

  0·227

  0·025

  0·237

  0·047

  0·246

  0·142

  0·257

  0·315

  Borders

  0·154

  0·273

  0·190

  0·097

  0·153

  0·103

  0·149

  0·085

  Dumfries and Galloway

  0·531

  0·469

  0·354

  0·283

  0·214

  0·112

  0·180

  0·168

  Fife

  0·540

  0·379

  0·331

  0·218

  0·301

  0·410

  0·285

  0·534

  Forth Valley

  0·404

  0·192

  0·473

  0·347

  0·421

  0·251

  0·221

  0·259

  Grampian

  0·507

  0·271

  0·522

  0·408

  0·621

  0·601

  0·511

  0·652

  Greater Glasgow

  0·795

  0·010

  0·832

  0·473

  0·873

  0·431

  0·897

  1·224

  Highland

  1·094

  0·626

  1·341

  1·222

  0·626

  0·517

  0·510

  0·379

  Lanarkshire

  0·437

  0·126

  0·440

  0·117

  0·424

  0·145

  0·402

  0·120

  Lothian

  0·533

  0·108

  0·481

  0·539

  0·486

  0·707

  0·509

  0·651

  Orkney

  0·015

  0·025

  0·015

  0·015

  0·015

  0·011

  0·015

  0·019

  Shetland

  0·015

  —

  0·016

  0·016

  0·017

  0·016

  0·017

  0·017

  Tayside

  0·313

  0·154

  0·396

  0·235

  0·368

  0·114

  0·361

  0·337

  Western Isles

  0·176

  0·192

  0·183

  0·150

  0·148

  0·140

  0·103

  0·075

  TOTAL

  6·014

  2·854

  6·095

  4·225

  5·208

  3·735

  4·725

  4·920

  General Practitioners (Disciplinary Measures)
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the details of Scottish general practitioners who, in the last 10 years, have been in breach of their services and conditions and who have been subjected to disciplinary measures; and if he will list where they were in practice at the time and where they are in practice today.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 19 June 1989]: Complaints about practitioners who are in contract with health boards to provide general medical or dental services are dealt with through the service committee procedures set out in the National Health Service (Service Committee and Tribunal) (Scotland) Regulations 1974. Service committee procedures are not disciplinary measures as such, but provide for the investigation of complaints that practitioners may have breached the terms of service of their contract. These complaints cover a wide variety of

  EDRP Inquiry
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will make a statement on the outcome of the European demonstration reprocessing plant inquiry.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  My right hon. and learned Friend is still considering the report of the public local inquiry into the proposed development and he is not yet in a position to predict a date for the announcement of his decision.

  Health Boards
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how much money the Scottish Home and Health Department indicated it expected each health board to commit to support finance purposes in each year since 1985–86;

  (2) how much was spent by each Scottish health board for support finance purposes in each year since 1985–86.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information is given in the table:

  cases, ranging from breaches which are of a minor or vicarious nature to significant failures by practitioners to comply with their terms of service.

  Since 1 January 1979, 98 general medical practitioners and 65 general dental practitioners in Scotland have been found to be in breach of their terms of service under the service committee procedures.

  It is not the normal practice to publish information about individual cases.

  Public Transport Accidents
  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the number of notified accidents in each mode of public transport for each of the last five years.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 13 June 1989]: The available information on notified accidents is given in the following table. Casualty figures are also provided. The definitions of notified accidents differ by mode of transport, and footnotes describe the coverage.
  137

  Bus/coach

  Taxi

  Rail

  Glasgow Underground

  Ferry services

  Air

  (a) Number of accidents

  1984

  1,565

  627

  59

  n/a

  37

  7

  1985

  1,667

  614

  72

  n/a

  43

  4

  1986

  1,508

  711

  53

  49

  33

  7

  1987

  1,506

  674

  76

  55

  42

  6

  1988

  1,624

  670

  104

  52

  24

  3

  (b) Number of casualties

  1984

  2,047

  833

  111

  n/a

  37

  1

  1985

  2,274

  797

  69

  n/a

  43

  0

  1986

  2,065

  922

  54

  49

  33

  64

  1987

  2,047

  858

  40

  55

  42

  0

  1988

  2,119

  930

  23

  52

  24

  270

  Notes:

  Casualties: Include all fatal, serious and slight injury casualties.

  Bus and Taxi: Only injury accidents are notified centrally. Casualty numbers include casualties in other vehicles and pedestrians.

  Rail: Includes both passenger and normal freight services and covers all notified accidents, including non-injury accidents. 1984 includes the Polmont disaster.

  Glasgow Underground: Includes all accidents on the premises as well as trains.

  Air: All notified accidents over Scottish airspace and includes operations to gas and oil installations. 1986 includes the Chinook helicopter disaster and 1988 the Lockerbie air disaster.

  Contracts (Tendering)
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how the costs of preparing an in-house bid for multi-service contracts either wholly or individually, within the health boards in Scotland, are assessed; and what advantage these in-house tenders have over that of a private contractor bidding for the same contract.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: No assessment of the cost of preparing an in-house bid is made for the purposes of comparing tenders which, whether in or out-house, are treated on an equal footing.

  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland on how many occasions an in-house tender has been awarded by health boards in Scotland for catering contracts where a private contractor submitted a lower tender, if he approved this action; if he will call upon the appropriate health board to reconsider its decision; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: Boards have reported two cases of a catering contract being awarded to an in-house team where a private contractor has submitted a lower bid. Boards report the circumstances of such an award, but there is no requirement for boards to seek the approval of the Secretary of State for such an action and no health board has been asked to reconsider its decison.

  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what action he proposes to take to draw the attention of health boards to Government policy on competitive tendering.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: Boards are already well aware of the Government's policy on competitive tendering and I do not propose to issue any additional advice at this time.

  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from private contractors regarding the award of multi-service contracts, either as a whole, or in part, within the National Health Service in Scotland; and what was his response.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: None.
  138
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what system operates in his Department to monitor in-house contracts which have been awarded within the National Health boards in Scotland, to ensure that the operations carried out are up to the prescribed conditions in the tender documents; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: It is for health boards to monitor standards of performance in respect of contracts whether in or out-house.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Pensioners
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total expenditure on community care grants for pensioners in the year 1988–89; and what was the average amount received by way of community care grant by each pensioner in receipt of income support.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Total community care grant expenditure on pensioners in 1988–89 was provisonally £7·217 million. The average size of award was £212.

  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total expenditure on single payments for pensioners in the year 1987–88; and what was the average amount received by way of single payments by each pensioner in receipt of supplementary benefit.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Total single payment expenditure on pensioners in 1987–88 was £26 million. The average size of award was £62.

  Income Support
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security on what basis the personal allowance and premium rates in the income support applicable amounts are calculated.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  As a first step in setting the benefit levels, illustrative rates were constructed which delivered roughly the same amounts of money to various types of
  139
  claimants as they had been receiving under supplementary benefit. These were then adjusted up or down and the effects on claimants were studied using a computer model. The outcome of this process was the illustrative rates given in the technical annex to the 1985 White Paper. The personal allowance and premium rates for income support, on its introduction in April 1988, were obtained by a similar process using the latest statistics on numbers of beneficiaries and with adjustments to provide help towards the requirement to make a minimum contribution to domestic rates. Further adjustments have been made as part of this year's uprating.

  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he added a phrase to the Department of Social Security notification of award form which states that the applicable amount is the total amount that the law says you need to live on.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The current wording on the notice of assessment (form A 14N), which advises claimants how their income support is calculated, dates from the introduction of income support in April 1988.

  Widow's Benefit
  Mr. Heddle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will investigate the case of Mrs. Christine Noden, JP, of 9 Wood crescent, Walton Stone, Staffordshire, and her entitlement to widow's benefit and request the relevant office in his Department to send forthwith a substantive reply following their last letter to her of 13 March.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Arrears of widow's benefit from 10 May 1988 and an explanatory letter were sent to Mrs. Noden on 30 June 1989.

  Severe Disablement Allowance
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in the Doncaster and Mexborough area of South Yorkshire receive severe disablement allowance; and what are the comparable figures for(a) five years ago and (b) 10 years ago.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I regret that the information is not available in the precise form requested. Severe disablement allowance was introduced in November 1984 and figures for five and 10 years ago are not held.

  The table shows, at the latest date available, the numbers of severe disablement allowance claimants at the Department's local social security offices at Doncaster, East, Doncaster, West and Mexborough which serve the Don Valley constituency, although their boundaries are not conterminous.

  Date

  Doncaster East

  Doncaster West

  Mexborough

  31 May 1989

  721

  909

  233

  Source: 100 per cent. count of cases in action. The figures quoted may include a small number of cases not actually in receipt of benefit. Data are provisional and subject to amendment.

  Community Care Grants
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish a table showing how much expenditure was allocated for community care grants in 140
  each local office in (a) 1988–89 and (b) 1989–90; and how much each local office over or underspent its budget for community care grants in 1988–89.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The information requested is available in the Library.

  Disabled People
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will introduce regulations to give immediate entitlement to the severe disability premium to people claiming income support whose doctor certifies that they have a medical condition which is terminal or which will last at least six months and which gives rise to substantial identifiable extra costs; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will introduce regulations to give immediate entitlement to the disability premium to people claiming income support whose doctor certifies that they have a medical condition which is terminal or which will last at least six months and which gives rise to significant identifiable extra costs; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  We are considering what action we might take to provide help for terminally ill people through an amendment of the rules governing the award of attendance allowance.

  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how he proposes to seek the views of disabled people in his forthcoming review of their benefits; when he expects to decide the terms of reference for that review; and whether he intends to appoint independent experts.

  Mr. Scott
  I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) on 3 July at column 7.

  Occupational Pensions
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will bring forward legislation to ensure that a spouse remaining at home can continue to have a share of the occupational pension of someone admitted to permanent residential or nursing home care who is in receipt of income support.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  No. An individual who enters permanent residential or nursing home care remains entitled to an occupational pension. Whether part of a member's pension may be commuted to provide pension for a spouse is a matter for determination in accordance with the rules of the scheme.

  Private Nursing Care (Claimants)
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if, in view of the concern regarding the handling of residents' moneys by proprietors or staff in private residential or nursing homes, he will review his policy of not making income support payments direct to claimants' bank accounts.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The facility to have benefit paid directly into a bank account is restricted to beneficiaries paid by computer because a transfer of magnetic tapes is required to effect the payment to the bank. Income support is paid clerically in local social security offices and the direct payment facility cannot be made available at present.
  141
  However, it is anticipated that payment of income support will be computerised by the early 1990s and direct payment to bank accounts will then be offered as an option.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what advice his Department offers to income support claimants who are admitted temporarily to private residential or nursing care in meeting their liability for rates and other charges on their own homes when their personal expenses allowance is used up on meeting their residential costs.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Income support is available to help temporary and permanent residents of residential care and nursing homes meet the fees. People in homes temporarily can continue to receive housing benefit in respect of their own homes or can claim help with certain other housing costs such as mortgage interest, ground rent and service charges.

  Mr. David Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his policy regarding the handling of claims for income support from residents of private residential or nursing care where they are required to contribute non-returnable deposits, payments of one month's fees in advance or payments in advance of funeral costs.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Income support is available to help people in independent residential care homes and nursing homes meet the fees they have to pay on a weekly basis. However, the terms on which people enter homes are a matter between themselves and the home's proprietors.

  Benefit is not paid until the claimant is resident in the home but claims for help with fees can be made up to one month in advance. Income support is not available to meet deposits or funeral costs.

  Social fund funeral payments are available subject to a capital limit, to people who are responsible, for the cost of a funeral and who are receiving income support, family credit, housing benefit or community charge rebate at the time of claim. They cannot be paid in advance.

  Mr. David Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his policy regarding the realisation of the sale of the former home of an applicant for income support in private residential care where such a sale would render the resident's previous carer homeless.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Owners of property should be able to receive the full benefit of the capital invested in their former homes before looking to public funds for their support. However, claimants for income support are not required to realise that property when it is occupied by a partner, or by a relative who is aged 60 or over or is incapacitated. Carers who occupy the claimant's former home in any of these circumstances will gain from these concessions. We are continuing to monitor the effects of this policy.

  Mr. David Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) whether the nearest relatives of income support claimants in private residential or nursing care can refuse requests to top up the claimants' fees for care where the claimants' total income does not meet the full costs of care provided;

  (2) which agency is responsible for meeting the difference between the fees for private residential and
  142
  nursing care and the total income of an income support claimant when their resources fall short of the costs of residence.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Income support is available to help people in independent homes meet the fees. The level of fees charged in private homes and the way fees are paid are matters wholly between proprietors and residents, or people acting on residents' behalf. Local authorities can meet a shortfall where people under pension age are in residential care homes, and local and health authorities can meet the full cost of care in certain circumstances.

  Personal Pensions
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people had taken out a personal pension up to 5 April; and how many have done so subsequently.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Almost 3·4 million people took out a personal pension before the end of 1988–89 tax year, and about 17,000 have done so subsequently.

  National Insurance
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the most recent estimate of the cost to the national insurance fund of the 2 per cent. inducement under sections 1 and 7, respectively, of the Social Security Act 1986 in 1989–90; and how much of the cost relates to contributions in respect of 1987–88 and 1988–89, respectively.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Precise information is not yet available on the number of persons who will be eligible for incentive payments in 1989–90. The latest estimate is that incentive payments paid in 1989–90 will be £920 million, of which £370 million relates to 1987–88 and £550 million to 1988–89.

  Source: Government Actuary's Department.

  Agency Status
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will publish details of the surveys carried out prior to the publication of the report which proposed agency status for much of his Department.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  There were no surveys carried out specifically in relation to the production of the agency study report. The study team which produced the report did, however, draw on existing survey material and numerous other sources. The methodology of the team is listed in annex B of the report which is available in the Library.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he expects to introduce the over-18 rate of housing benefit for under-18s; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  On 10 July 1989.

  Benefits
  Mrs. Beckett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will publish in the Official Report a revised version of the table in leaflet AB11 of net incomes

  143
  qualifying for help with National Health Service costs, including examples of persons receiving attendance allowance, mobility allowance, or invalidity benefit; and whether he will insert a correction slip in leaflet AB11 giving similar examples.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [holding answer 12 June 1989]: A revised version of the table would be as follows:

  Single people without children

  If receiving attendance allowance, mobility allowance or invalidity benefit

  £

  £

  Under 18

  20·80

  34·50

  18 to 24

  27·40

  41·10

  25 and over

  34·90

  48·60

  60 to 79

  46·10

  48·60

  80 and over

  48·60

  48·60

  Couples without children

  If one of the couple is receiving one of the above benefits

  £

  £

  Both under 18

  41·60

  61·10

  At least one of the couple 18 or over

  54·80

  74·30

  At least one of the couple aged 60 to 79

  71·85

  74·30

  At least one over age 80

  74·30

  74·30

  Lone parents

  If the parent is receiving one of the above benefits

  £

  £

  Under 18

  31·20

  41·00

  18 and over

  45·30

  55·10

  Couples with children

  If one of the couple is receiving one of the above benefits

  £

  £

  Both under 18

  48·10

  67·60

  At least one of the couple 18 or over

  61·30

  80·80

  Breakdown of Contributory Benefit Expenditure

  Breakdown of net contributions3 (per week)

  £ billion

  Percentage share

  Pre·October 1989

  Post·October 1989

  £

  £

  Retirement pensions1

  20,766

  73·2

  16·00

  14·13

  Widow's Benefits

  930

  3·3

  0·72

  0·64

  Unemployment, incapacity and other benefits

  5,160

  18·2

  3·98

  3·51

  Other2

  566

  2·0

  0·44

  0·39

  Administration

  960

  3·4

  0·74

  0·66

  TOTAL

  28,382

  100

  21·87

  19·33

  1 Including Christmas bonus and earnings-related benefits.

  2 Including Industrial Injuries benefits and Maternity Allowance.

  3 A man on average male earnings in assumed to earn £275·10 a week in 1989–90. On the basis of the current NIC system in force until October 1989 he will pay £24·76 a week if he is not contracted-out of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme(SERPS). £2·89 of the £24·76 is allocated

  144

  Children

  £

  To the amount shown above that applies to you, add one of the following amounts for each additional child in your family:

  Under 11

  11·75

  11 to 15

  17·35

  16 to 17, doing a full-time further education course not above A-level or equivalent standard

  20·80

  18 and over, doing a full-time further education course not above A-level or equivalent standard

  27·40

  Add a further £6·50 for any child who is getting attendance allowance or mobility allowance.

  Such a table would still not cover people who qualify for a disability premium on other grounds, nor reflect that some people receiving attendance allowance may qualify for the severe disability premium. The Department is considering, with the Department of Health, how best to clarify the position for all those who may be affected, in the light of the effect on the existing table of forthcoming changes in the income support pensioner premiums.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what benefits are covered by the payment of national insurance contributions; what percentage of the total sum is each one, assuming the person is on average weekly wage; and what percentage of each benefit is covered by taxation.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [holding answer 13 June 1989]: National insurance contributions, less the allocation to the National Health Service, are paid into the national insurance fund, which pays for all contributory benefits. These include: retirement pension including the Christmas bonus and the earnings-related additional component, widow's benefits and industrial injuries benefits. National insurance contribution rates are fixed each year to balance very broadly contributions into and benefit expenditure out of the fund; they are not fixed by adding up components relevant to the cost of each benefit. Assuming the abolition of the Treasury supplement from April 1989 the fund will receive no income from taxation. Entitlement to the state earnings-related part of the retirement pension is fixed by reference to the movement of earnings since the year in which the relevant contributions were made.

  In 1989–90 the share of breakdown of contributory benefit expenditure, and the remaining information is expected to be as follows:
  145

  to the National Health Service, giving a net contribution to the National Insurance Fund of £21·87 a week. Under the system that will operate from October 1989 the not contracted out contribution will be £21·75 of which £2·44 will be allocated to the NHS leaving a net contribution of £19·31 to the Fund. These net figures are further broken down by reference to the percentage shares quoted in the table. (Components do not add to the totals because of rounding).

  Disability
  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish in the Official Report a table equivalent to table 2·15 of the second report of the surveys of disability in Great Britain by the Office of

  Working status of adults under pension age by sex and region: Disabled adults and general population

  Percentage

  Proportion of adults under pension age who are working

  Disabled adults

  General population

  Men

  Women

  All

  Men

  Women

  All

  North

  20

  21

  21

  68

  52

  60

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  29

  25

  28

  76

  57

  66

  North West

  28

  32

  30

  72

  53

  62

  East Midlands

  44

  31

  38

  81

  63

  72

  West Midlands

  28

  28

  28

  73

  54

  64

  East Anglia

  52

  29

  42

  86

  64

  75

  Greater London

  42

  38

  40

  82

  63

  73

  South East1

  46

  38

  42

  87

  63

  75

  South West

  38

  27

  34

  86

  59

  73

  Wales

  24

  17

  21

  75

  57

  66

  Scotland

  25

  20

  23

  77

  59

  68

  1 Except Greater London.

  Source: Disabled adults-OPCS Survey of Disability (data collected in 1985).

  General Population-1985 Family Expenditure Survey.

  Notes:

  1. The data are obtained from sample surveys and are subject to sampling error. Sampling errors on results broken down by regions are considerably larger than those in the original, national table. (Table 2.15 in the second report of the OPCS surveys of disability: "The financial circumstances of disabled adults living in private households").

  2. Further breakdown of the data shown in the table is not possible: sample numbers are too smal for the figures to be statistically reliable.

  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish in the Official Report a table equivalent to table 5.4 of the second report of the surveys of disability in Great Britain by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, indicating the average

  Average equivalent resources of disabled adults compared with average equivalent income of the general population, by region (£ per week)

  Disabled Adults

  General Population

  Non pensioner family units

  Pensioner family units

  All family units

  Non pensioner family units

  Pensioner family units

  All family units

  (Average Equivalent Resources)

  (Average Equivalent Income)

  North

  97·40

  79·00

  87·30

  118·10

  88 00

  110·70

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  87·30

  77·60

  81·50

  121·10

  95·30

  113·70

  North West

  84·50

  80·20

  81·80

  122·40

  83·20

  113·40

  East Midlands

  91·00

  77·60

  82·90

  130·60

  94·00

  121·30

  West Midlands

  83·60

  88·20

  86·30

  124·20

  83·30

  114·50

  East Anglia

  89·60

  78·20

  82·00

  144·90

  92·10

  131·50

  Greater London

  100·00

  88·80

  92·60

  165·80

  96·40

  149·20

  South East1

  99·50

  85·20

  90·10

  152·10

  107·60

  141·70

  South West

  102·20

  90·0

  94·60

  140·20

  87·80

  126·50

  Wales

  88·60

  83·40

  85·50

  136·70

  107·00

  128·30

  Scotland

  84·70

  83·40

  84·00

  134·50

  90·60

  124·00

  1 Except Greater London

  Sources:

  Disabled adults — OPCS Survey of Disability (data collected in 1985).

  General population — 1985 Family Expenditure Survey.

  Notes:

  1. The data are obtained from sample surveys and are subject to sampling error. Sampling errors on results broken down by regions are considerably larger than those in the original, national table. (Table 5.4 in the second report of the OPCS surveys of disability: "The financial circumstances of disabled adults living in private households").

  2. Further breakdown of the data shown in the table is not possible: sample numbers are too small for the figures to be statistically reliable.
  146
  Population Censuses and Surveys indicating the working status of disabled adults under pension age in each English region, Scotland and Wales.

  Mr. Scott
  [holding answer 14 June 19891: The information requested is as follows:

  equivalent resources of disabled adults compared with the average equivalent income of the general population in each English region, Scotland and Wales.

  Mr. Scott
  [holding answer 14 June 1989]: The information requested is as follows:

HEALTH

  Medical Staff (Pay)
  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the percentage increase in average earnings since May 1979, to the latest date for which figures are available of(a) doctors, (b) nurses, and (c) medical scientific officers.

  Mr. Mellor
  The following is the information:

  Average earnings

  Medical Practitioners

  Nurses and Midwives

  Percentage increase

  April 1980—April 1988

  211·2

  195·0

  Notes:

  Source: New Earnings Survey 1988.

  2. Directly comparable data is not available for National Health Service scientific officers.

  3. Earnings are for employees on adult rates of pay whose pay was not affected by absence.

  4. The figures do not include increases paid from 1 April 1988.

  5. Medical practitioners include hospital medical staff, consultants and community physicians as well as general practitioners.

  6. Nurses and midwives figure is based on earnings of female staff (currently 90 per cent. of nurses).

  Wheelchairs
  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy that in the event of a successful pilot study he will make additional money available to the Disablement Services Authority for the provision of battery powered indoor-outdoor wheelchairs.

  Mr. Mellor
  The Disablement Services Authority is financing the present pilot study from within its present resources. If the authority concludes that additional resources are needed it will no doubt justify such a request to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State which will be considered in the public expenditure survey process.

  Elderly People
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consideration he is giving to alternative uses of available resources to fund care for frail, elderly people.

  Mr. Mellor
  We have already published our proposals for the organisation of health services in the White Paper "Working for Patients". The pattern of care for frail elderly people will evolve over the next few years as these proposals are implemented. We will announce our proposals for future policies on community care, following Sir Roy Griffiths' report "Community Care—An Agenda for Action" before the recess.

  Live Births (Hemel Hempstead)
  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of live births in St. Paul's hospital, Hemel Hempstead, in each of the last four calendar years.

  Mr. Freeman
  The available information is given in the table. 1986 is the latest year for which information is available centrally.
  148
  Live births occurring at St. Pauls Wing, Hemel Hempstead General Hospital, 1983–86.

  Year

  Live births

  1983

  1 145

  1984

  1,080

  1985

  1,096

  1986

  1,136

  Family Practitioner Committees
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, further to his reply of 14 June,Official Report, column 424, what is the rationale of replacing chairmen of family practitioner committees who have long service on that committee with chairmen who have no service on that committee.

  Mr. Mellor
  It has been our policy to recruit a proportion of new chairmen for family practitioner committees at each biennial appointments round. A total of 25 new chairmen were appointed as part of the 1989 round and a further 29 existing chairmen were re-appointed. The two vacancies referred to in my earlier reply have since been filled by Mr. D. Kleeman (Enfield and Haringey) and Mr. L. G. Knox (Redbridge and Waltham Forest) who are lay persons new to service in FPCs. The 36 other chairmanships had previously been made for a period—in most cases of four years—ending on 31 March 1991. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on a decision relating to a particular chairmanship.

  Death Statistics
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from infectious diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provisional figure for the number of people who died from infectious diseases in 1988 is 2,733.

  The Government are pursuing a number of measures to reduce this rate of mortality and, in particular, are taking action to ensure that immunisation uptake rates increase.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from food poisoning; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provisional estimate for the number of deaths in 1988 associated with food poisoning is 62. The Government's commitment to a comprehensive range of measures on food safety was made again in the Opposition day debate on 21 June at columns 342–90.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from sexually related diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provisional estimate of the number of people who died from sexually related diseases (excluding AIDS) in 1988 is 32.

  To improve the treatment and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases the Government have made available extra resources for the upgrading of genito-urinary clinics.
  149
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from smoking-related diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Mellor
  It is estimated that at least 110,000 people died from smoking-related diseases in Great Britain in 1987. The Government's health education programme is designed to inform people about the risks of smoking and to encourage them to give up the habit. The system of voluntary agreements with the tobacco industry provides controls over the advertising and promotion of cigarettes and has resulted in a reduction of average cigarette tar yields from 21mg in 1972 to 13mg now. In January of this year the Prime Minister announced a major new teenage smoking campaign, aimed specifically at teenagers, which will cost over £2 million per year for the next three years.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from alcohol-related diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provisional figure for deaths where the underlying cause was alcohol dependence, non-dependent abuse of alcohol, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and toxic effect of alcohol for 1988 in England, Wales and Scotland is 3,933.

  Government action to tackle health and social alcohol-related harm is co-ordinated by the ministerial group on alcohol misuse. Action taken by the group is set out in its first annual report, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from heart diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The latest provisional figure for 1988 for the number of people who died from heart disease in Great Britain is 202,000.

  The risk of heart disease can be lessened by changes in lifestyle. Together with the Health Education Authority, the Department is supporting and developing the "Look After Your Heart" campaign as an ongoing initiative to combat the high level of heart disease in England. "Look After Your Heart" has two main aims—to increase awareness about the risk of heart disease and to encourage people to avoid it; and to provide practical help with regard to a healthy diet, stopping smoking, taking more exercise and making other changes to the way they live.

  Much other work is going on, particularly to discourage smoking—which is a key factor in causing heart disease—and excessive consumption of alcohol. Under changes to general practitioners' terms of service, they will be required to offer patients regular check-ups and personal advice on health issues, including those directly related to heart disease.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from drugs and from drug-related diseases; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  The provisional figure for deaths where the underlying cause was drug dependence and 150
  non-dependent abuse of drugs is 221 for 1988 in England, Wales and Scotland. The Government are actively pursuing a wide-ranging strategy to reduce the supply of and the demand for drugs.

  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of British people who die each year from cancer; and what are the Government's plans to reduce that number.

  Mr. Freeman
  Cancer was registered as the primary cause of death of 160,661 people in the United Kingdom in 1987. The incidence of cancer increases with age, and the death rate tends to reflect the increasing age of the population. The goal of the Europe Against Cancer programme, which the Government are supporting, is to reduce the number of cancer deaths in the Community projected for the year 2000 by 15 per cent. This is being taken forward through programmes of public and professional information on prevention and detection, the evaluation and implementation of screening techniques, and through the co-ordination of research into the causes and treatment of cancer. It is also important to acknowledge the progress made by the Health Service and voluntary organisations in lengthening the survival and improving the care and support of people who eventually die from cancer. The Government will continue to encourage them to achieve the highest possible standards in this field.

  Private Nursing Homes
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any proposals to enable district health authorities or local authorities to top up the financial contributions that residents in private residential or nursing care pay towards the costs of their care where the residents concerned have entered private care because the authorities cannot provide such care.

  Mr. Mellor
  In his report on community care, Sir Roy Griffiths made recommendations for the future funding of patients in private nursing and residential care homes. We are considering these and will bring forward our proposals before the summer recess.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will introduce provisions for a right to stay in private residential or nursing home care for residents whose financial resources are no longer sufficient to meet their residential fees.

  Mr. Mellor
  No. The arrangements for people living in a private residential care or nursing home are for the proprietor and the individual concerned. Statutory services remain as an alternative source of care.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will take action to deal with the practice of private residential and nursing homes charging for extras over and above their quoted fees and imposing such charges after people have been in residence for a considerable time;

  (2) what is his policy on allowing private residential and nursing homes to obtain medical requisites from the National Health Service and selling them to residents at a profit.

  Mr. Freeman
  The level of fees in private nursing or residential care homes is a matter for the proprietor and
  151
  the patient and not something on which we would wish to intervene. However we would expect the fees to cover all necessary services, including medical requisites. It makes sense for proprietors to buy requisites at the best possible price and for the patient to share in any consequent savings.

  Mr. David Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what action he is taking to ensure that the full hospital discharge procedure, outlined in his Department's draft circular issued during early 1988, is followed when hospitals are discharging patients into private residential or nursing homes;

  (2) what guidance his Department offers to authorities in relation to patients discharged from hospitals whose only option on discharge is to enter private residential or nursing care which they cannot afford;

  (3) what rights an individual patient who is being discharged from hospital care has to dispute his allocation to private residential or nursing care;

  (4) who is responsible for arranging the care of a patient whom a hospital consultant states must be discharged but needs continuing 24-hour care.

  Mr. Freeman
  Circular HC(89)5 which was issued to health authorities in February 1989, together with a booklet "Discharge of Patients from Hospital" emphasised that proper arrangements should be made for any necessary continuing care before patients are discharged from hospital. Arrangements, including care in a private residential or nursing home, should be made in good time and be acceptable to the patient and his/her relatives or carers. No NHS patient should be placed in a private nursing or residential care home against his/her wishes if it means that she or he will be personally responsible for the home's charges. Future responsibility for care will be a matter for local arrangement.

  Eye Tests
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what information he has on the percentage fall in the number of people having eye tests since charges for tests were introduced in April;

  (2) what is the average amount that opticians now charge for eye tests; and what information he has on the number of optometrists who absorb the cost in their charges for treatment.

  Mr. Mellor
  We do not yet have information either on the number of people having sight tests or on the current level of charges. We expect to have some information later in the year when the market is more stable.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the cost to date of advertisements to encourage people to have eye tests; whether he has any plans to redirect future advertising costs to the reduction in cost to patients of eye tests; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  We agreed early last year to participate with the optical profession in an eye care awareness campaign and we contributed £0·25 million. There is no provision for any funds for further advertising and therefore no re-directing of funds can be considered.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the difference in cost between a patient being seen in hospital as an outpatient, and being seen by an optometrist, for eye tests.
  152
  Mr. Mellor
  A fee of £10·40 is paid to ophthalmic opticians and £8·69 to ophthalmic medical practitioners for an NHS sight test. We do not collect figures centrally for sight tests undertaken as part of treatment in NHS hospitals.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what savings have resulted from the introduction of eye test charges;

  (2) whether the introduction of eye tests has resulted in a saving to public funds.

  Mr. Mellor
  We estimate that the introduction of sight test charges will result in a saving of some £70 million this financial year.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether there has been an increase in the number of patients referred to hospital ophthalmology departments for eye tests since the introduction of charges for eye tests; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  We do not yet have this information centrally.

  Food Safety
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the consistency of health checks in respect of food and food products in each member state of the European Community; and what steps he will take to ensure that the public of the United Kingdom is protected during the approach to the integrated single European market and after its completion.

  Mr. Freeman
  The Government are wholly supportive of the need for a European-wide food safety policy. We have been a party to the agreement on five "framework" directives on food labelling, additives, food for particular nutritional use, materials and articles in contact with food and official inspection. This last is very relevant because it will require food for export to another member state to be inspected in the same way as food intended for consumption within the member state. More importantly, it will be backed by a proposed directive on food hygiene with the aim of harmonising standards. Even with completion of the single market, the United Kingdom will be able to take action on the ground of public health either under article 36 of the treaty of Rome or guarantees provided under the relevant directive.

  Aside from legislation, the Government participate in a number of Europe-wide committees and working groups established to deal with specific food safety issues.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will make it his policy that controls over food for human consumption should continue to come under the care of environmental health officers; and whether he will press the European Community to recognise this approach.

  Mr. Freeman
  Environmental health officers, trading standards officers, veterinary officers and meat inspectors all enforce controls over food for human consumption. Within the European Community the British Government are continuing to make representation when appropriate.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will press for the incorporation into European
  153
  Community directives and regulations of recognition that the work of environmental health officers in the United Kingdon is geared towards food safety and food hygiene.

  Mr. Freeman
  Apart from veterinary directives, community legislation to date has not specified the professionals required to enforce EC directives.

  Embryo Experimentation
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to publish the Bill on embryo experimentation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  It remains our intention to introduce legislation on human fertilisation and embryology during this Parliament. There will be a free vote on alternative draft clauses on human embryo research, one banning such research completely, the other permitting it under strict controls.

  Project 2000
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any plans to change the grants system for student nurses under Project 2000 into a top-up loans scheme, should the latter proceed for students in higher education.

  Mr. Mellor
  Bursary levels for Project 2000 students will he kept under review in the light of recruitment and retention trends and future changes in student income support arrangements, including loans.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if, in relation to the grants system for student nurses under Project 2000, he will list the projected numbers of students, and costs of the grants, with administrative costs itemised separately for each of the first 10 years of operation of the scheme.

  Mr. Mellor
  This information is not available. Thirteen demonstration districts have received approval from the Department to run Project 2000 training from the autumn of 1989. The number of students at any one time, the cost of the grants, and administrative costs will depend on a number of factors including the rate of implementation of Project 2000 in England. No decisions have yet been taken on this.

  Health Authority Staff
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give for each regional health authority, special health authority and district health authority in England for 1987, the numbers of staff in the following groups(a) medical and dental, (b) nursing and midwifery, (c) administrative and clerical, (d) ancillary, (e) other employees and (f) total employees, expressed in terms of (i) the actual number of employees and (ii) wholetime equivalents.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: The information requested has now been placed in the Library.

  Pharmaceutical Prices
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether, in view of the publication by the European Bureau of Consumer Unions of comparative drug costs in European Community states, he has anything to add to his answer of 26 January,Official Report, column 712.
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  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 29 June 1989]: I have nothing of substance to add to my response to the earlier question to which my hon. Friend refers. The latest analysis of prices by the European Bureau of Consumer Unions, which I understand updates the material in an earlier study by the same organisation, is the most recent in a series of such studies by various organisations produced over several years which have generally indicated a similar pattern of overall price differentials for pharmaceutical products in the different member states of the European Community.

  Ostomists
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if the proposals in the White Paper, "Working for Patients" will result in any disincentive for doctors to have ostomists on their lists; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: The scheme will be structured to take full account of the fact that some patients, such as ostomists, may need potentially high cost treatment. Indicative prescribing budgets will fully reflect these costs and there will be no disincentive to GPs to accept such patients on their lists.

  Ostomy Appliances
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if the proposals in the White Paper, "Working for Patients" will result in any restriction on the provision of ostomy appliances; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: No. Decisions about the provision of appliances for ostomy patients will remain a matter for the clinical and professional judgment of the medical and nursing staff working with the patient.

  Nurses
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many district appeals against the clinical regrading of nurses had been heard by 30 April; how many were still waiting to be heard; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: We do not hold this information centrally.

  Birmingham Family Practitioner Committee
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether he will list in the Official Report the parliamentary constituencies used by the Birmingham family practitioner committee for the purpose of assessing whether there are enough general practitioners in a particular area;

  (2) which areas in the city of Birmingham are currently classified as restricted by the medical practices committee.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: The practice area classifications used by the Birmingham family practitioner committee are based on the 1974 parliamentary divisions for the city of Birmingham. These are: Edgbaston, Erdington, Hall Green, Handsworth, Ladywood, Northfield, Perry Barr, Selly Oak, Small Heath, Sparkbrook, Stechford, Sutton Coldfield and Yardley. Of these, Erdington, Small Heath and Yardley are classified as restricted.

  Overseas Residents (Medical Records)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the medical records of persons intending to reside overseas for up to a year(a) can be transferred to their doctor in the country they are living in temporarily and (b) can be made available to the persons concerned for them to pass to their doctor on arrival; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 3 July 1989]: When people go abroad for more than three months the medical records held by their family doctor are returned to their local family practitioner committee. Most doctors are willing to provide a summary of a patient's relevant medical history for the patient to take to the new doctor overseas. However, they are not required to do this and they may make a charge.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Members' Staff
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Lord President of the Council how many right hon. and hon. Members regularly pay staff via the Fees Office; how many staff employees of Members are paid via the Fees Office; and how many contracts of employment of Members' staff have been lodged with the Fees Office.

  Mr. Wakeham
  As at 30 June 1989, the figures were 612, 1,287 and 709 respectively.

  Members' Cafeteria
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make the Members' Cafeteria a non-smoking area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wakeham
  No. Smoking restrictions have already been introduced in Refreshment Department outlets 156
  where they are practicable. It is intended to make further significant improvements in respect of non-smoking areas once the additional facilities in phase I of the new parliamentary buildings are in operation. Until that time the Catering Sub-Committee considers that it would be inappropriate to impose a complete ban on smoking in the Members' Cafeteria and impossible to introduce any non-smoking section within it.

  Re-cycled Paper
  Mr. Fry
  To ask the Lord President of the Council whether he has any plans to seek to ensure that all paper used in the House, including stationery available for hon. Members, is made from re-cycled paper.

  Mr. Wakeham
  Many of the stationery items supplied to the House are already made from re-cycled material. The Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee is fully aware of the need to increase the use of re-cycled paper at every suitable opportunity and has instructed the authorities of the House and HMSO to keep it informed of any significant developments, particularly any that might enable the first-class stationery used by right hon. and hon. Members to be made from re-cycled material.

  Clergy (Ordination) Measure
  Mr. Alison
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will authorise the placing in the Vote Office of supporting documents relevant to the Clergy (Ordination) Measure.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The Vote Office already has copies of those parliamentary documents relevant to this measure and will issue them on demand.

  The Library will accept, for reference purposes, other supporting documents which might be considered to be appropriate.

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

Japanese Knotweed
Baroness Sharples Baroness Sharples asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have found a means of combating the spread of Japanese knotweed.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, control by a combination of rigorous cutting and grazing has proved successful at one site. More generally, however, chemical control is likely to offer the best chance of success.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I believe that everybody is slightly bewildered by the Question. Is my noble friend aware that this Japanese Himalayan and giant knotweed grows to nine feet in height? It is very spectacular. Does my noble friend agree that it has now been declared a pest in various counties as a result of research done in Wales, by the Nature Conservancy Council at Peterborough and also at Sussex University?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, my noble friend is right. It is becoming a pest in various parts of England and indeed also in the Principality of Wales.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister inform me whether or not this Japanese knotweed is a cousin of our old friend sticky willie, from which I suffer?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am afraid that my knowledge of weeds and grasses is perhaps not as good as it should be. However, I know that in the 1930s it was known as Hancock's Curse.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that I have just discovered from my noble friend Lady Sharples what Japanese knotweed is? It is a most revolting weed which has flourished extremely well in our garden for the past 20 years or so. I am always trying to get rid of it. When it is burnt it makes a noise like a pistol shot.

Food Safety Research
2.39 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Where it is proposed to conduct publicly funded independent research into meat hygiene and safety if the Food Research Institute at Bristol is closed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, the AFRC will continue to undertake food safety research, including work on meat hygiene, at the other sites of the institute at Norwich and Reading, and we expect to transfer our research contracts to these laboratories.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she aware of the very considerable concern that has been expressed at the closure of this research institute in view of the massive increase in food poisoning that is taking place? The Minister referred to the fact that food hygiene safety work is to be protected. If that is the case, can the Minister say why, as a result of the government cuts, two research projects have been closed at Bristol this year? The first project was into the subject of salmonella poisoning in poultry and eggs and the second involved research into botulism. Can the Minister say whether it is part of the new enterprise culture that the scientist responsible for the botulism work is now the manager of a golf course?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the AFRC operated the laboratory at Langford under a lease from the University of Bristol. The AFRC will cease to operate the laboratory at the end of 1990. That is not a retrenchment but a necessary rationalisation to allow the institute to improve its scientific effort. In particular, major programmes on food safety and nutrition will be further strengthened and expanded. More will be spent on research into food poisoning bacteria and on the design of rapid diagnostic tests of food quality and safety.
Lord Walston: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give us an assurance that the team of workers that has been engaged on this very valuable and important work at Bristol will not be dispersed but that it will be able to carry on as a team in the new locations?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am confident that my department has adequate qualified staff to fulfil its responsibilities as regards action to control salmonella in poultry flocks and elsewhere. We have recently taken on 21 additional qualified veterinarians to work in this area. Every effort will be made to find jobs in the Reading and other laboratories for those who may be displaced from their present jobs at Bristol.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, in the context of this Question can my noble friend tell me the difference between retrenchment and rationalisation?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I prefer the word "rationalisation". That is a sensible way to make the most of what you have got.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, is the Minister aware that that kind of phraseology reminds some of us who are much younger than she is, of a phrase that was used during war time when we were in full retreat? It was called retreating to prepared positions.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, can the Minister say whether it has been proved that centralisation is so good for research?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am sorry I did not hear the noble Lord's question.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, has centralisation of research been proved to be the best way?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I believe that the greatest expertise will be lodged in the other places that will be used for research. I hope that the noble Lord meant older than me and not younger than me.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that correction.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, on the basis of experience to date, the designation of research by her Ministry as near-market has been tantamount to the kiss of death at Bristol, Torry and elsewhere? In the light of that sad but factual experience, will she ask her right honourable friend to consider again the very reasonable request made to him by the National Farmers' Union for an independent review of national research and development?
Baroness Trumpington: No, my Lords, I do not believe that a review is necessary. I point out to the noble Lord that my department spends £6 million on food safety research, of which £177,000 is at the moment spent at the Institute of Food Research at Bristol. I also point out that a considerable amount of work undertaken at Bristol will be moving to the institute's Reading laboratory in the near future as there is a considerable amount of work on food microbiology taking place there. The Reading laboratory will be the centre for a major new initiative in food microbiology sponsored by MAFF.
Lord Carter: My Lords, in the light of that reply, can the noble Baroness say what will happen to the new £1 million food hall at Bristol which is unique in the world, and what will happen to the work carried out there? In addition, will the work into food refrigeration techniques be stopped, including work on the alternatives to CFCs?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the noble Lord referring to work on listeria?
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am referring to research into the processing of food at the food hall, Bristol, which is unique.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am afraid I shall have to write to the noble Lord on that subject.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, in view of the incidence of BSE, which is a veritable time-bomb within the population and in the long term potentially much worse than AIDS, is it not short-sighted and foolish to close down any institution concerned with meat research?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, MAFF has quickly set up a considerable programme of research to establish methods of diagnosis to elucidate the epidemiology of transmissible encephalopathies, such as scrapie in sheep and BSE in cattle (Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in humans), at Weybridge. In 1988–89 funding amounted to £764,000. Over the next seven years, research amounting to £13 million is planned—£11 million at Weybridge and £2 million at the neuro-pathogenic unit in Edinburgh. In addition, £30,000 annually is being spent to maintain a scrapie-free flock of sheep at Redesdale.
Lord Somers: My Lords, is it not a fact that if we were to pay serious attention to all that we are told is bad for us, particularly by American scientists, we would probably not eat anything at all?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am not sure that I heard the noble Lord correctly. Was he referring to work in America by American scientists? Perhaps the noble Lord could repeat his question.
Lord Somers: My Lords, I was merely saying that we are absolutely barraged with an enormous amount of information as to what we may and may not eat, particularly by American scientists. It is surprising that some of us are still alive.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I entirely agree with him. As I have said on previous occasions, we are in danger of becoming a nation of healthy hypochondriacs.

Madagascar: Development Aid
2.48 p.m.
Lord Merrivale Lord Merrivale asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they propose granting assistance or aid to Madagascar for the infrastructures necessitated there due to the recent extensive Pullman International Hotels and Savana tourist investment programme.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Glenarthur): My Lords, our bilateral technical co-operation programme is fully committed. There is no separate bilateral capital aid programme, but we contribute to development in Madagascar through the United Kingdom share of multilateral aid.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that brief, and not terribly satisfactory, Answer. However, does he not agree that as the infrastructures include the extension of airports, roads, electricity and water supplies and telecommunication networks, any assistance given by Her Majesty's Government would also greatly benefit British industry? Is it not looking rather narrowly at this question not to consider the whole potential of Madagascar regarding tourism?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend that there are commercial opportunities in Madagascar, and I can assure him that British companies are following developments there.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in addition to that, is it not the case that the population of Madagascar suffers from extreme poverty, and currently from a virulent epidemic of malaria? Can the noble Lord tell the House what assistance has been given by the multinational agencies to which he referred—for example, the World Bank—and whether that aid has been given for specific purposes?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am of course aware of the poverty and the epidemics in Madagascar. Our contributions are largely made through the International Development Association, which is part of the World Bank, as the noble Lord will know, and through the European Development Fund. Indeed, approaches have been made to those organisations by the Malagasy authorities. As I understand it, our contributions to those two bodies amount to about £12 million.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can say how much money has in fact been paid over the past two years to the Madagascar Government by the agency.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I cannot give the total figure in this respect. As I have said, our contribution amounts to about £12 million. However, so far as concerns our bilateral technical co-operation programme—which is our only bilateral mechanism for providing aid and is not focused quite in the way suggested by the noble Lord—that amounts to about £400,000.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, will be visiting Madagascar in August of this year, and as I know that her department is interested in water supply, can my noble friend the Minister say whether she will at least undertake to see the Foreign Minister, Mr. Jean Bemananjara, who is closely associated with this vast project?
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, I am sure that on her visit my noble friend will take the opportunity to see many of those Ministers, and others, who are associated with the development of Madagascar. I am also sure that she will have noted my noble friend's remarks.
The Earl of Onlsow: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will be kind enough to look at the Question. It concerns the,
"Pullman International Hotels and Savana tourist investment programme".
Can my noble friend ensure that no British taxpayer will be asked to subsidise the shareholdings of those people? If the people want to develop the programme, they should do so out of their own
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resources and not out of the resources of the less well-off in Newcastle and the British taxpayer.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, perhaps that is one of the reasons why we try to focus our aid in rather different directions. It does not mean to say that the sort of development which is taking place, and the opportunities referred to by my noble friend Lord Merrivale, are not important. That is why individual British companies are looking to try to develop them.

Control of Pollution (Amendment) Bill
2.51 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed.

Common Land (Rectification of Registers) Bill
2.52 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Local Government and Housing Bill
2.53 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is an important Bill which contains essential reforms to the way local authorities carry out their business. These reforms will ensure that local authorities receive and act upon independent advice from officers and will bring them closer to their electorate. The provisions of the Bill will strengthen accountability, encourage better management, reinforce the local democratic process and focus resources on those in greatest need. The Bill is in 9 parts and I should like to take your Lordships through each part in turn.
The underlying theme of Part I of the Bill is to restore the vital traditions of accountability and efficiency in local government. Most of the proposals stem from the report of the Widdicombe Committee. I hope that it would be helpful to your Lordships to stress two themes which run through this part of the Bill.
First, there is the emphasis on distinguishing the roles of elected representatives and officers. In central government there are many formal safeguards to protect that distinction. In local government the distinction has rested largely on convention alone. The Widdicombe Report showed that this convention is under pressure and the Bill therefore reinforces it.
The Bill will introduce formal restrictions on public political activity for certain senior local government officers. There have been many misrepresentations of this proposal. It has been attacked as though it bans from political activity everyone in local government service who earns more than a certain sum. It does not. The Bill considers three different cases.

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First, chief executives, chief officers and their deputies, and other staff designated by the council to act for it; these, we think, are clearly in the category of those who should not at the same time be active politicians. The Bill therefore puts them directly into the restricted category.
Secondly, there are other staff in senior jobs. Here we think they should be in the restricted category in that they are carrying out a sensitive job, as defined in the Bill. But we think that there should be an independent judgment as to whether they are in a politically sensitive job. This is what the Bill provides.
Thirdly, there are the other jobs which each council considers meet the Bill's criteria for politically sensitive jobs. These proposals, we think, ensure that the formal restrictions apply only to the posts where it is important that their holders should not simultaneously be active politicians. The range of posts subject to the restrictions is in fact much narrower than that proposed by the Widdicombe Committee. They are no different in principle from those which for generations have applied in the Civil Service. Their aim is to protect one of the most important human rights of all: the right of everyone to a democratic and efficient local government system of the kind which we in Britain have traditionally had.
This theme of distinguishing the roles of councillors and officers continues with the provisions relating to the appointment of staff and with requirements relating to the head of the paid service and the monitoring officer which reinforce the tradition that it is for officers to give advice to the council, and for the council to consider that advice and take decisions. These proposals have been misrepresented as giving officers power to override the council. They do not: they make sure that on certain important matters the council is fully aware of advice and must address its mind to the implications before a decision is taken.
The second main theme of Part I is to preserve the balance between expediting council business and the protection of the rights of minorities. The Bill protects the position of minorities on local authority committees and sub-committees and provides for certain minimum standards in standing orders. These minimum standards are being worked out in close consultation with local authority representatives.
Part II of the Bill revises the provisions relating to the local ombudsman. These are designed to simplify and improve the administration of this service and to improve the effectiveness of pressure on councils to implement the conclusions of the ombudsmen where they find maladministration, without undermining the responsibility of the council for its own decisions.
A new general power is introduced in Part III for principal local authorities in England and Wales to promote the economic development of their area. This clarifies and simplifies their powers, while providing for necessary restrictions to prevent inappropriate use of these powers. We shall be
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developing the precise definitions of those restrictions in consultation with local authorities. Part III also clarifies and restates the general residual power of local authorities to undertake expenditure for which they have no other powers.
I turn now to the need for a new system of capital finance which has been called for by many local authorities, among others. This is one of the most important items in the Bill. It will enable capital resources to be distributed between local authorities in a sensible way. It will help local authorities to plan their capital programmes against a stable background.
The new system in Part IV of the Bill will control the amount of capital expenditure that local authorities can finance from credit, but they will be free to supplement that with expenditure financed from usable capital receipts or from revenue. Their capital budget will be very much in their control and will benefit from the accountability of the community charge.
The new system will also provide a prudent framework for debt redemption by authorities. It is worth bearing in mind that the burden of debt per chargepayer now exceeds £1,250. When assets are sold, some receipts will go to debt redemption or to mitigate borrowings. Community charge payers would not thank their local authorities for leaving them to shoulder the burden of debt charges when they no longer have the benefit of the assets for which many authorities borrowed.
There have been a number of amendments made to Part IV in the other place. The majority have been technical, drafting amendments. But there have been some useful points of clarification which will ensure local authorities can operate the system with appropriate flexibility.
We shall be bringing forward a number of further amendments to Part IV. The majority of these will be technical, but there are two topics which I should like to mention to your Lordships. First, the new system does not in general place any direct control on capital grants paid to local authorities by central Government. In many cases, such as urban programme grants, the Government can exercise the necessary control through the normal grant mechanisms; but in some cases local authorities have considerable influence over the level of grant paid and appropriate control is needed to keep a grip on the national total of grant payments. We therefore propose that when local authorities receive certain capital grants, their credit approvals should be reduced by the amount of grant received. To compensate for this, the national total for credit approvals will be increased by the expected total of payments of these grants. That increase will be distributed between local authorities. That treatment will allow local authorities considerable flexibility. They will be free to receive more grant and borrow less, or receive less grant and borrow more. The housing grants which will be covered by this approach are specific grants paid in support of home improvement grants, environmental works, housing defects expenditure, improvement for sale and slum clearance.

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Secondly, amendments will be brought forward to give effect to the proposals which we announced on 26th June regarding arrears of rent and other income owing to local authorities. Clause 59 at present provides that from 1st April 1990 local authorities would be able to cover their arrears of rent and other income by borrowing for six months after the end of the year in which the arrears arose. We have carefully considered the representations of the local authority associations and now propose to extend that period to 12 months. Thereafter authorities must make provision in their budgets for any arrears which remain outstanding. In addition, in line with our announcement, we will be proposing that the Secretary of State for the Environment should have a direction-making power to allow for a phased write-off where a local authority has substantial arrears of rents and other income at 31st March 1990. We envisage that an authority with such arrears would apply to the Secretary of State to enable it to spread over three to five years any budgetary provision for writing them off.
Part V establishes a new framework for the regulation of local authority interests in companies. Local authorities have been, and will remain, able to use companies formed under the Companies Acts for a wide range of purposes.
The objective is to define what companies should be treated as part of the local authority sector. That is done on the face of the Bill. The Bill would require local authorities to use their various powers to ensure that specified standards are observed by the companies which they control or influence. Part V also lays down standards for the way in which local authorities act in relation to companies outside the local authority sector in which they have an interest and provides a mechanism for defining in which companies they may have such interest.
Part V contains a power for the Secretary of State for the Environment to exempt, by direction, certain types of company from these provisions. Registered housing associations, for example, will be among those to be exempted.
Part VI establishes a new financial framework for council housing. That will improve the financial discipline of local authorities in their provision of housing and enhance accountability. As at present, local housing authorities will keep a housing revenue account (HRA) recording transactions concerning their housing service, but the new housing revenue account will be more closely defined. The account will relate only to those services which the council provides in its capacity as landlord. This should give tenants a clearer picture of the performance of their landlord.
I should make it clear to your Lordships that there is one important difference between the housing revenue account under the present system and the new account. The new HRA will be ring-fenced. That is, authorities will not be able to make indiscriminate transfers into the HRA from the rest of their funds or in the normal run of events to make transfers out of the HRA. It has been argued that because the rate fund contributions made by certain councils were small, it was possible to justify the subsidy by the
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ratepayer to the tenant; but when one looks at the figures, a different picture emerges. When Manchester is making a net contribution from the rate fund in 1988–89 of £52 million, the London borough of Camden a contribution of £44 million, and Islington £35 million, how can those be presented as minor balancing items? The existence of rate fund contributions has required the payment, in turn, of rate support grant by the Exchequer. That makes the system far more complex than it need be. Furthermore, the inescapable conclusion from looking at the facts is that in some cases excessive rate fund contributions are being made, keeping rents artificially low, or hiding from tenants the cost of inefficiency. The cost of these extra rent subsidies, or of this inefficiency, is picked up by the ratepayer.
Under the new system authorities will have to meet the cost of services to tenants from the housing revenue account itself. Where additional support is needed to allow authorities to provide those services at a reasonable rent to tenants, this will be provided through the new housing revenue account subsidy. That subsidy replaces three separate forms of Exchequer support under the present system and so will enable us to target the available resources far more carefully to those areas where they are needed, something that I am sure all your Lordships will welcome.
I now turn to those parts of the Bill which reform the home improvement grant system and related matters. Part VII replaces the present housing action and general improvement areas with renewal areas. That is not just a change in name, even though many of the areas that would qualify for declaration under the present system will qualify also under the new. The provisions in the Bill emphasise the need for a comprehensive approach to areas of poor quality private housing. We want to see a mix of clearance and new build, of individual renovation and the repair of blocks of houses. The Bill will achieve that aim. It also provides that an authority should consider all the resources likely to be available within the area for urban renewal. They will be encouraged to devise a practical programme of work within that level of resources, and where necessary authorities can seek additional help from the Exchequer. That way we can ensure that resources are directed where needed rather than widely dissipated.
Part VIII extends and restructures the improvement grant system. It introduces a new renovation grant for all repairs, improvements and conversions. In some circumstances, grant will be mandatory. It provides for a new test of resources for all grant applications. Those least able to afford the costs of essential work will be more generously helped than under the present system. Others will qualify for a reduced amount of grant, depending on their income. That way we shall target grants to those who most need them. We shall also be introducing amendments which will enable grants to be paid for houses in multiple occupation to bring them up to a new fitness standard: this will include means of escape from fire.
We amended the Bill in the other place in four important respects. First, we introduced a new grant to help disabled people with the cost of essential

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adaptations: this will be mandatory on a local authority in certain circumstances, generally to help disabled people with access to and around their home. It will be discretionary in a range of other circumstances. The Bill allows disabled local authority tenants to apply for the new disabled facilities grant. I know that there has been some confusion and concern about this, and I hope that this statement today will reassure those who are worried about it. It demonstrates the Government's very real commitment to ensuring that disabled tenants are eligible for help, regardless of their form of tenure.
Secondly, we have introduced arrangements for group repair; that is, where the external fabric of whole blocks of houses is repaired and improved as one. These replace enveloping and similar methods using individual grants. We expect those arrangements to be especially useful to authorities with a significant proportion of private sector stock built at the turn of the century and now in need of comprehensive repair.
Thirdly, we have introduced for the first time a grant for minor works which will enable elderly people to stay longer in their own homes or move in with relatives. It is not a substitute for a full renovation grant or the work that such a grant is designed to promote; but it provides local authorities with more flexibility where an elderly person is unwilling or unable to cope with the upheaval major repair or improvement works can bring. We hope that it will be particularly helpful to the "care and repair" style of agency services which are doing so much useful work around the country and with which some of your Lordships may be familiar.
Fourthly, we have provided for full market value compensation to be paid to all those owners whose properties have been earmarked for clearance and where currently only site value compensation is available. Those measures, taken alongside the changes we have made in Part IX to the basic standard of fitness and to the enforcement notice procedure, strengthen local authorities' ability to tackle the worst areas of housing in the private sector by again using the principle of directing resources to those who need them. Finally, Part IX of the Bill concerns miscellaneous local government and housing provisions.
This is a far-reaching and significant Bill. It is intended to bring to an end the worst practices of many poorly run local authorities which have overshadowed the highly competent work of the best councils whose work I have seen and which deserves praise. The Bill will raise standards, improve the efficiency and enhance the accountability of local authorities. I commend it to your Lordships and beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
3.10 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this is the fiftieth piece of primary legislation affecting local government which has been introduced by the
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Government in the past 10 years. Noble Lords who have been involved in much of the legislation may be forgiven for hoping, as this parade of new legislation proceeds, that sometime we might approach the end of it: that the Government might make up their mind that they have interfered enough in local government and done enough damage to our local democratic system not to feel it necessary to intervene any further. Judging from the evidence of the Bill before the House today, that does not seem to be the case.
The ultimate objection appears to be, as Ministers say, that local authorities will be reduced to being enablers and regulators rather than providers of services. The Secretary of State, Mr. Ridley, said only last year that he saw as his ultimate aim local authorities which met only once a year after dinner in order to award contracts, rather than meeting on a regular basis to provide the services needed by their electors.
Apart from the major problem which does not seem to bear any relationship to local democracy as we know it, the difficulty is that because of the way in which the Government are framing their legislation, the Secretary of State will not only ensure that the dinners are provided at a certain time and in a certain place, but he will, by regulation, lay down the menu and establish a system of portion control to be run from Marsham Street. That is the evidence of all the legislation, because as we see a restriction in local authority autonomy and responsibility, so we see an inexorable increase in the legislative and regulation-making power of Secretaries of State and central government. As we consider the Bill in detail—and we shall have to consider it in considerable detail—we shall see how true that remark is and how it is borne out by every single part and most clauses of the Bill.
The problem with this approach to local government is that it seems to neglect the fact that the world moves on. It does not always move on in the right direction. It is a fact, which is not denied by changes in definitions by the Secretary of State for Social Services, that there is more poverty in this country, that there is an increase in the proportion of our people who, under any definition of the poverty line, suffer from deprivation. It is a fact, not gainsaid by any of the fine words of the Minister in introducing the Bill, that the condition of our housing stock in this country is deteriorating. It is a fact, which is not gainsaid by any of the statements by the multiplicity of Secretaries of State who claim responsibility for it, that the division between the richer and poorer regions of our country is increasing rather than decreasing. It is not only through the action of our local authorities, but with the co-operation of our local authorities that we shall deal with any of these major defects in our social structure. That is why the Bill is such a damaging, divisive and backward-looking Bill.
It is only too predictable that the Minister should have sought to introduce it by the usual smokescreen of complaints about poorly run local authorities. What the Government mean when they say, "poorly run local authorities" is almost always local authorities which say things that the Government

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do not like. It is a very good definition to them of what is a poorly run local authority.
The Minister took us conscientiously through the Bill, and I thank him for doing so. However, it will be necessary for me to deal with each part in turn and I shall try to do so as briefly as I can. The first part of the Bill is that which claims to deal with the political responsibilities within local authorities and the role of local authority officers and local authority members. It is brought in on the basis—if we are to judge from Ministerial speeches in the country at large—that there is a huge abuse in the form of twin tracking of senior officers in one authority occupying roles as councillors in other authorities; and that this is particularly a sin of left wing Labour authorities which somehow justifies the draconian measures which are proposed in the Bill.
Of course there has been a small amount of abuse, of twin tracking, by some local authorities. Of course some of those local authorities have been Labour and some of those Labour local authorities have been left wing. But the proposals in the Bill, however sweetly explained by the Minister, go very much further than the disease which they are supposed to cure. They mean that between 80,000 and 100,000 local government officers will be, in different degrees but almost always in very severe degrees, deprived of many of their democratic rights. They mean not only that chief officers, deputy chief officers and people with particular financial responsibility and for explaining matters to the public will be deprived of some of those rights. They mean that all local authority officers earning more than £13,500 a year will be deprived of those rights.
That means not just that chief officers and deputy chief officers and the like will not be able to stand as councillors but that a very considerable number of firemen—not teachers because they have been exempted—school caretakers, social workers, planners, architects, and those responsible for cleansing and transport services will be excluded. All of those people provide totally non-political services. They have no connection with political policy-making in the councils for which they work. They will be deprived of the right to take part in local politics. Many of them will not only be deprived of that right but will be deprived of their right to take part in national politics. They cannot be deprived of the vote, but they will be deprived of the opportunities to be active in political parties, of the right even to put up posters in their windows unless they can demonstrate that it was somebody else in the household who put up the posters, and many other political rights for which we have fought hard over the years and which have come to be expected as part of citizenship in this country.
I seriously question whether the proposals in the Bill do not offend against the protection of civil liberties which will be upheld by the European Court of Justice. I seriously question whether the Government can sustain the breadth and depth of these attacks on civil liberties which are proposed in the Bill in the face of the European Court of Justice.
We shall be moving many amendments which will seek to diminish some of the worst effects of this
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part of the Bill. We shall seek to ensure that the restrictions on local government are not more severe than they are for the Civil Service, for example, where there is still departmental discretion on what posts are politically sensitive. We shall also seek to preserve the services to members by paid officers which help to make local government effective in an increasingly complex, regulatory world.
Part II is not so much a matter of contention. We agree with the Government that the recommendation on the local authority ombudsman should not have the force of law. I know that my noble friend Lady Serota has strong views on these matters, but I hope that she will agree that it is better for the local authority ombudsman to have more wide-ranging powers than to concentrate on enforceability.
We are interested in the amendments introduced at Report stage in another place on Members' interests. We wonder whether those regulations, however desirable they might be, should not apply equally to Members of Parliament and to your Lordships. Part III contains what the Minister described as a general power on economic development. It appears to contain that, but in practice what it does in Clause 32 is to provide a general power which in many subsequent clauses is taken away. In Clause 33(1), for example, the power is defined in regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. Clause 33(2) allows the Secretary of State to make conditions on the exercise of that power. Clause 33(3) gives the Secretary of State power to set financial limits. Clause 34 enables the Secretary of State to set guidance as regards how the power should be exercised. The most important aspect is contained in Clause 35. This clause ensures that any additional powers given to local authorities by this part of the Bill are in effect taken away, because the powers of Section 137—Section 83 of the Scottish 1973 Act—are reduced accordingly. So there is in fact no greater discretion given to local authorities and resources are accordingly reduced.
The position is worse than that. Mr. John Gummer made it clear in Committee in another place that the powers for economic development are to be used in area which have a particular need to promote economic development. That sounds all right, but it means in fact that these powers are to be exercised only where central government give priority to them. That means that in geographical terms and in terms of economic need considerable parts of the country, including quite large pockets of deprivation in areas which are not totally deprived, will not have the power which they have at the moment to use money for economic development purposes under the powers given under Section 137 of the 1972 Act. We shall certainly seek amendments to ensure that these powers have some meaning. At the moment the Government have given away an inch but taken away several feet of local authority rights.
The final restriction on economic development powers is the restriction in Part V, which I shall deal with before Part IV. That provides restrictions on the interests of local authorities in companies in order to achieve their ends. I am puzzled by that because I had always thought that it was part of

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Conservative philosophy that there should be collaboration between the public and the private sector. Indeed, in the past the Government have encouraged collaboration between the private and the public sector. After all, it is only three years since local authorities were encouraged to set up airport companies in order to obtain this collaboration. I have chosen only one example of the many I could have chosen of effective collaboration between the private and public sector which is to be severely restricted.
As regards science parks, let me take the example of the University of Warwick. That university has a science park jointly funded by the university, Warwickshire County Council and Coventry City Council. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Butterworth, is not in his place because he could speak with much more authority on this matter. However, such science parks are now to be restricted as they come under local authority rules, and the local authorities concerned will lose part of their capital allocation by as much as they put into these joint venture companies.
We are talking here about a severe restriction on joint ventures in science parks, in the Yorkshire mining museum, in airport companies and in many other valuable ventures, all of which have been encouraged by government and many of which have been inaugurated by Government Ministers around the country. Now, however, they turn their back on those ventures and say that local authorities must lose their capital allocation if they encourage these ventures. Indeed, they will lose their capital allocation if too many of the members of a management committee can be shown to have connections with political parties or local authorities. This is going a bit far, is it not? If we are going to restrain misuse of joint ventures in local authority controlled or influenced companies, surely the implication of that is that, as these companies act under the Companies Acts, the Companies Acts themselves should be amended and there should be the same criteria for private as for public companies. There should not be a huge new level of bureaucracy imposed on these companies and local authorities should not be penalised for taking part in them. However, that is what the Bill intends
I return now to Part IV, which I suppose is the classic example of the kind of Bill to which we are tending which says in effect that the Secretary of State will do what he likes. This is the part in which there are no fewer than 15 regulation-making powers. We start off with the apparently clear provision that 75 per cent. of the receipts of capital from housing sales and 50 per cent. of the receipts of other disposals must be devoted to repayment of loans. That sounds nice and clear, but immediately after that we find that the Secretary of State has the power to vary those proportions. The variation can be any figure between nil and 100 per cent. Indeed, the next provision states that the Secretary of State has the ability to set a negative figure for housing grant. I wonder whether the Government are proposing to produce amendments saying that there will be a
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negative figure in this regard. It would not be out of keeping with their other proposals.
We have so many qualifications and worries about this part of the Bill that I hardly even have time to list them, let alone to discuss them. The timetable up until 1st April 1990 is an impossibly short one. The whole process of credit approvals has been carried out without adequate consultation with the local authority associations. The whole principle of capital receipts and the effect of the 75 per cent. and 50 per cent. figures to which I have referred could well discourage disposal of surplus assets. There is no provision, as we had been promised in the Government Green Paper Paying For Local Government, that there will be continued availability of earlier capital receipts for capital expenditure purposes. The way in which the Government are to insist that debts be written off over a period of years is primitive in accounting terms, to say the least. A reducing balance is mentioned when most private industry nowadays has gone for straight line depreciation. That provision is better than the equal instalments of principal which was the Government's previous proposal, but it still makes very little sense in accounting or financial terms.
The provision for temporary borrowing to deal with shortfalls in income is still severely restrictive. The provision that local authorities are not allowed to capitalise many of their major repair programmes through the restriction on enhancement is again quite unsuitable. When the Bill receives Royal Assent, the uncertainty which surrounds local authority finance and which means that local authorities have great difficulty in spending more than 50 to 60 per cent. of their capital allocations will still be there. In the course of the Bill, we shall seek to ensure that the Secretary of State should, at least once a year, come clean and declare—this will allow time for local authorities to plan—his financial proposals for capital expenditure by local authorities and what regulations he is to introduce in the course of the year. I cannot think that that would represent a major clash of principle between us and the Government, but at least it would be a help in forcing them to express, in terms which can be used by local authority treasurers, the intentions which they have and the controls which they intend to apply.
As regards the housing element of the Bill, I propose to leave the bulk of that argument to my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick who will wind up from this Dispatch Box. However, t here are a few things I must say in order to set the scene for the later debate. The ring-fencing of housing revenue account and housing repairs account was described by the Minister as being a way of reducing indiscriminate transfers. It is no such thing. It is a way of ensuring that instead of housing benefit being paid for by taxpayers, ratepayers, or charge payers as a whole, it will be paid for by other council tenants. It is a way of ensuring that council tenants' rents, which are now to be based on capital values rather than on historic cost, will go up dramatically. They will go up even more dramatically in areas such as inner London where capital costs of housing are high. This is a recipe for reducing the standard of living of some of the poorest people in our society.

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I remind the House that two-thirds of council tenants are eligible for housing benefit. In future the payment of that housing benefit is to be the responsibility not of the rest of us who are not council tenants, but of the other one-third of council tenants who are not eligible for housing benefit. That means that the poor will be subsidising the poorest instead of those most in need being helped by those best able to help them, which is the principle which we have applied for many, many years. Poverty is a national concern and should not be passed off to become the responsibility of the poorest in our society.
Whatever Ministers may say, there is a need for continued council housing. The National Federation of Housing Associations, which is supposed to be the partner in this matter, shares that view. This Bill will severely restrict the ability of local authorities to meet the desperate and increasing need for decent housing at affordable rents.
I shall not go into the issues of renewal areas and improvement grants. My noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick is far better qualified to do so than I am. I am interested to hear what the Minister will say about new amendments for new standards for housing in multiple occupation. It is certainly the case that the present standards are more appropriate to the 1930s than the 1980s or 1990s.
I reiterate the point that I made at the outset: while the Government have sought to extend their own power and to reduce the power of those in our regions, cities, towns and villages who might otherwise contribute from local knowledge, the world has been moving on. The problems in our society have been getting worse and not better. It is a matter of deep regret that this Bill will intensify the problems rather than help to solve them.
3.20 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, 18 months ago I was in Seoul in South Korea where Hanyang University was establishing a chair in local government, with the laudable intention of preparing a draft system of democratically elected local administrations most suited to the needs of that country, which has not seen much democracy in recent years. It was the Koreans' belief that West Germany and the United Kingdom were the best sources of advice because of our considerable experience in this field. I am afraid that I had to say that to my mind local government in England and Wales was in terminal decline and that only a completely new structure, probably based on the directly elected mayoral system, could possibly bring it back to life. I have floated that view for many years. I believe that to be the case if local government in Britain is to work again as it should.
I gather from the Secretary of State's comments at Second Reading in the other place that he considers that the Bill before us today completes the process of local government reform. I fear that it just adds to the problems and will hasten that decline. What is really needed is a complete rethink if we are to return to our once great cities and counties the power to raise much of their own finance
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and to make the meaningful decisions needed to benefit their residents and ratepayers. I am afraid that, from what I have read, all that came out of the early debates in the other place was a constant exchange about the misdeeds of Westminster and Lambeth, to name but two of the authorities which were mentioned.
Of course all is not well and some action is needed on Widdicombe. But do we really need a head of paid services sending out his reports, or a monitoring officer? When I was in local government we all heeded the advice and warnings of the chief executive. Every spending committee had either the treasurer or one of his senior assistants to keep it within bounds. I am sure that that still applies today with the vast majority of local authorities up and down the country.
Of course I cannot support senior officers of one authority chairing committees on another, any more than I can accept that it is right for a chief executive to be paid £1 million to keep his mouth shut. But that is not the way local government is run in most of Britain.
Once again in this Bill far too much is left solely to regulations at the whim of the Secretary of State. In its nine parts, 11 schedules and 164 clauses the Bill covers a great deal of ground—arguably too much ground. Local government reform may well grab the headlines, but the proposals relating to housing will have an important and far-reaching effect on one of the nation's greatest assets—its housing stock. The objectives to replace general improvement areas and housing action areas with a new renewal area and proposals for reform of home improvement grants are laudable, and I welcome them. However, this Bill is notable for its lack of detail as to how those objectives are to be met.
For example, areas of run-down housing which will constitute renewal areas will need a great deal of advice and assistance to individual householders if renewal area objectives are to succeed. The Bill provides in various clauses for local authorities to provide agency services if they so wish. However, in renewal areas advisory services are paramount to the success of their revitalisation. Therefore one of the conditions set out in the Bill should be for a renewal area to be declared.
The Bill provides for a major reform of the home improvement grant system, a reform which is well overdue and which has been talked about by this Government since the early 1980s. A means-testing provision is provided for in the Bill and is central to the future of home improvement grants. Once again, the Bill is lamentably short of detail on the means-testing proposals. The Department of the Environment has issued a consultation document outlining the detail of the means test to be adopted. So far as I know, the results of that consultation have not been made available to anybody outside the department. It is therefore extremely difficult to have a meaningful discussion on the Government's proposals relating to means testing without knowing what those proposals are in detail.
If your Lordships are to consider the clause which allows for means testing it is only reasonable that

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the Minister should tell the House: first, how many responses have been received to the consultation document; secondly, of those, how many agreed and how many disagreed with the Government's detailed proposals; and thirdly, what alternative options were suggested, and what are the Government's reactions to them. We are surely entitled to that information if we are seriously to consider this proposal in the Bill.
We are also entitled to ask what arrangements the Government will make for those eligible under a means test but who are unable to borrow or service a loan from a financial institution to meet their contribution to the cost of the works. A number of non-political oganisations are very concerned about the details of the proposals. The National Home Improvement Council is deeply concerned about the anomalies that will result if this Bill allows the Government's means-testing proposals as outlined in the consultation paper to be put into effect.
While it would enable some people to have 100 per cent. grants many families would be worse off than under the existing arrangements. For example, for a family with one earner and two children under 11 with a gross income of £12,000 the existing home improvement grant arrangements would provide grants of 75 per cent. of eligible works. For work costing £4,000 the grant entitlement would be £3,000. Under the proposed system that same family would receive a means-tested grant of just £268 for work costing £4,000. It is true to say that at the other end of the scale if that family left the repairs until the building had deteriorated to such an extent that it cost £20,000 to put right, the system would enable them to have some £16,000 of home improvement means-tested grant.
That cannot be a sensible way forward if the Government really want to improve the United Kingdom's housing. It cannot be a sensible way of targeting public funds. It is a recipe for encouraging substandard housing to decline to an unacceptable level of fitness. The Government need to give assurances that a means-tested grant scheme will target resources and improve the housing stock without hardship to those in need.
There is nothing in the Bill to encourage people to repair, maintain and improve their homes which would prevent them from falling into a state of disrepair. The home improvement grants scheme as proposed is still aimed at tackling that perpetual problem. What is needed is an addition to the home improvement grants scheme which would help prevent houses from falling into a state of disrepair, encourage householders to maintain and repair houses on a regular basis and give assistance to them when needed, especially to all those new home-owners who have been encouraged under the right-to-buy scheme and now find themselves in severe financial straits in maintaining their mortgages, let alone finding the funds to repair and maintain their houses.
Perhaps I may give a personal example. My son has bought a house in south London for £72,000. The mortgage on it is £35,000. His monthly income
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is about £750 and his payment on mortgage about £340. That is an enormous sum to be taken out of his monthly income; it is about 40 per cent. There must be hundreds of thousands of people in that position.
For all those reasons, I say that the objectives are laudable, but there must be extreme doubts as to whether the proposals in the Bill will go anywhere near achieving the objectives. Even then the question of creating incentives must still be addressed. It is our intention on these Benches to propose amendments at Committee stage that address those points to which we hope the Government will give some sympathetic consideration.
There is also no doubt that the proposed legislation will adversely affect the work of Neighbourhood Energy Action which insulates the homes of elderly and disabled people and others on low incomes. The discretionary nature of the grants will provide no signal to local authorities that energy efficiency measures are considered vital. The loss of the £25 million expenditure on energy efficiency, which is currently available for loft insulation and draught-proofing, will mean that thousands of elderly people will be at risk from the cold. Local authority tenants and housing action trust tenants will no longer be eligible for grants and tight controls on general housing finance are unlikely to provide for energy efficiency measures.
I have been particularly requested by my noble friend Lord Winstanley, who will speak in the next debate, to raise the subject of the Groundwork Trusts with which I gather the noble Earl is familiar. It is vital that they should be exempted from the provisions of Part V of the Bill for it would be catastrophic if local authorities were obliged to withdraw from them. I gather that some promises in that regard have already been made in the other House, but they are not on the face of the Bill. May we please expect a clear statement before the Bill leaves this House?
That is also a matter that greatly concerns housing associations—as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, has briefly mentioned—as does Part IV of the Bill which relates to the revenue accounts and capital financing of local authorities, an area which remains much of a mystery to me, despite an excellent brief from my old county council.
I have spoken on other occasions in the House of the desperate need to expand the supply of rented social housing. It is still the belief of the National Federation of Housing Associations that the Bill hardly helps in that respect. Moreover, Part VI and the ring fencing of housing revenue accounts is also a matter of much concern, particularly since the references by the Secretary of State in the other place on 14th June to the effect that local authorities should move to rents based on capital values. I shudder to think what he means by that. It is surely wrong that housing revenue account surpluses should be used to offset housing benefit subsidy when we desperately need so much more accommodation.
The problem of bedsits and the enforcement of safety conditions is another matter that should be

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tackled while we have the opportunity. I gather that the Government intend to bring in some amendments of their own, but the deaths in recent years of at least two people in my part of the world whose bedsits caught fire convince me of the need for action.
There are parts of the Bill which may be given a cautious welcome. I agree very much with Part II and the role of the ombudsman. I understand that some of the capital refinancing is welcomed by local authorities, but, on the whole, I find it depressing and yet another impediment to the freedom of those who still believe in local government to use their skills and initiative.
3.44 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for his exposition of the Bill and what is in it, but it did not give me very much satisfaction or confidence in the Bill. I should also like to apologise to the noble Lord and those who will follow me that I shall have to leave the Chamber at about half past four for a meeting. No discourtesy is intended and I shall be back as soon as possible.
Much of the Bill follows from the recommendations of the Widdicombe Committee. Indeed, the interim report of that committee formed the basis of the Local Government Act 1986.
Clauses 1 to 3 deal with the question of the political restrictions on staff. As things stand at present, under the Local Government Act 1972, a local government officer may not stand for election as a councillor in his employing authority. Widdicombe highlighted the fact that some 10 per cent. of all councillors are employees of other authorities. The majority of those are teachers.
Widdicombe showed concern on two major counts. First, it felt that councillors could not serve the interests of the council to which they had been elected if they were employed as members of another authority, and vice versa. Secondly, the employing authorities may be giving excessive paid leave to employees sitting as councillors on other authorities. The committee felt that no conflict existed in the case of manual workers or teachers. It recommended that officers holding principal officer rank and above should be prevented from becoming councillors anywhere. I subscribe to the view that perhaps the most senior local government officers should not take an active part in party political activity or membership of another council, but fixing the ceiling salary at £13,500 is much too low. I believe that such restrictions should apply only to chief officers and their deputies. We shall support any efforts to try to change Clauses 1 and 2.
The proposed widespread categorisation of politically restricted posts goes much further than ensuring the traditions of political neutrality in the way in which an officer performs his duty. The Minister said that his proposals have been misrepresented, but, as I see it, as the Bill now stands, it curtails for thousands of local government officers the right to freedom of speech and free association and to campaign politically. It therefore
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diminishes the role of democratic and participative local government in this country. The fundamental liberties of the subject cannot be taken away as lightly as that.
We are also concerned about the proposal in Clause 7 that all staff are to be appointed on merit. That proposal cuts right across the sheltered placement schemes or positive employment policies geared to helping mentally and physically disabled and handicapped persons. The Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts of 1944 and 1958 accepted that local authorities have a special role in trying to increase employment opportunities for the disabled. Local authorities have a duty to provide social workers and social services for those less fortunate people. Surely, if they can be employed and earn a living, it reduces the demand on the statutory welfare benefits and can be very cost-effective. But if future appointments are to made on merit alone, where does that leave the disabled? Will local authorities still be able to administer a policy of positive discrimination towards disabled people?
Clause 9 permits the appointment of political assistants to party groups on local authorities. It is limited to the four largest groups on a council and then only if those groups contain 10 per cent. of the membership of the council. We may have to give that clause some further scrutiny as it passes through the House.
Clauses 13 and 14 deal with co-option to committees. Where co-option is required by statute, co-opted members are full members with voting rights. In other cases, their status and voting rights are at the discretion of the various local authorities. Widdicombe recommended that the decision-taking committees and sub-committees should consist only of councillors. There may be anomalies in those clauses where teachers, for example, can be co-opted to education committees but cannot have a vote whereas church representatives, as co-opted members, would still have full voting rights.
Clauses 15 to 17 concern the political balance on committees. Widdicombe recommended that local authorities should be statutorily required to include in their standing orders provisions governing the composition of committees and reflecting the composition of the council with seats on committees being allocated according to the proportion of council members of the parties on the council as a whole.
We should certainly support measures to require councils to appoint members to committees proportionately. The smaller parties have too often been frozen out by the majorities without having representation on committees, and in some cases they have been denied the relevant documents and advice to enable them to take considered decisions. I speak from personal experience immediately after the reorganisation of local government in 1974 when no one party had an overall majority on the Cambridgeshire County Council. We shared everything proportionately, with the three Liberals and the three Independents having their share of committee chairmen and vice-chairmen.

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Maybe I am biased but I believe, and perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady David, will agree with me, that that period of working together at the beginning of the new council was one of the most constructive periods in the history of the Cambridgeshire County Council. It laid good foundations for the new county and proved that consensus politics work.
Clause 18 deals with the declaration of members' interests. I should welcome a similar declaration for senior officers. Now that more contracts are being put out to tender or services privatised, chief officers also will need the protection given by a declaration of interests showing that they have no pecuniary interest in the contracts. I regret that Part II of the Bill has not adopted the Widdicombe suggestion that in cases in which the local ombudsman has found injustice due to maladministration the claimant should have the right to seek judicial enforcement of remedies through the courts.
The Bill that is before us does not go that far. It allows for the report of a local commissioner to be laid before the authority concerned and for the authority to notify the commissioner of the action that it intends to take. I believe that many of us would prefer some form of enforcement and some teeth to be given to the local ombudsman.
I suspect that the part of the Bill that will take most time in your Lordships' House will be the financial and housing clauses. Local authorities will have difficulty in becoming involved in economic development work to boost jobs in their own localities. Desperately needed jobs have often depended on the joint efforts of local authorities and private enterprise. But under this Bill local authorities will be forced to use their capital receipts to repay loans—75 per cent. of housing capital and 50 per cent. of other receipts, or even more at the whim of the Secretary of State. They have been unable to use the receipts from the sale of council houses to build desperately needed housing at affordable rents. They have been unable to use much of those receipts for rehabilitating their old property. Despite being told in the Green Paper Paying for Local Government:
"Local authorities have been given an assurance that the amount accruing from sales will be available in full over time to justify additional capital expenditure",
these receipts are now to be used to pay off loans. Yet again it seems that the Government are selling local government short.
The Bill goes a long way toward ending the role of local government in housing at a time when 116,000 families are homeless and the use of bed and breakfast accommodation is rising rapidly. The introduction of ring fencing is the worst attack yet on council tenants. Homelessness is increasing and yet the homeless and the poorest gain nothing from this measure, while council tenants will have to pay through their rents for the welfare benefits given to other poorer tenants. The intention is to ring fence councils' housing revenue accounts so that the general rate fund moneys will not be available to subsidise council housing. Central government subsidy is also steadily to be withdrawn. These
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subsidies are being withdrawn with a view to making the housing revenue account balance initially and subsequently generate a surplus to transfer to the general fund. In effect it means that council tenants will be paying twice for certain non-housing local authority services: once through the poll tax and again through their rents.
The second intention is to contain housing benefit within the housing revenue account by paying benefit to council tenants, where applicable, out of the surplus element from those council tenants who are not in receipt of benefits. This flies in the face of every principle of social welfare and means that the poor will be subsiding the very poor. Indeed, private tenants will continue to receive their housing benefit, again where applicable, from the national purse. So many taxpaying council tenants will be paying for the housing benefit of two tenure groups whereas non-council residents will pay for only one.
I am sure that I am not alone in having had a very big postbag on this part of the Bill. With the leave of the House, I shall quote from a letter sent from Dulwich, an area that is not unknown to the right honourable Lady the Prime Minister. It says:
"We are particularly worried that the changes in the Bill relating to housing finance … will lead to a very iniquitous situation. As the Bill stands, the combination of 'ring fencing', the housing revenue account and the phasing out of government housing subsidy will result in the money needed to pay the housing benefit of council tenants being increasingly raised from rents. The result will be that the better off council tenants will pay for the housing benefit of poorer tenants—the less well off will pay for the even less well off.
However, the housing benefit for private tenants will still be paid from the 'national pool' (like other welfare benefits). This will lead to a situation where a private tenant living next door to a council tenant on exactly the same income will receive housing benefit almost exclusively from the 'national pool' whereas the council tenant's benefit will be increasingly paid for out of the rents of other council tenants. There seems to be no rationale for this".
As my Dulwich correspondent commented, private and housing association tenants will not carry the same burden as council house tenants. I believe that ring fencing will be disastrous for rents. I hope that before the Bill leaves this House the Government will announce what they believe to be a fair rent, although they would not do so in spite of many questions in another place.
Combining the rate fund subsidy, the rate rebate subsidy and the Housing Act 1980 subsidy now place a single subsidy within the control of the Secretary of State, and that is wrong. Local authorities need a central government subsidy to cover the full cost of their rent rebates, giving them the flexibility to meet the needs of their electors. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said, this is the 50th local government Bill in 10 years. I can only assume that means that the Government have failed time and again to get right their local government policies. For the past 10 years all that we have had is a continuous attack on the freedom and the democratic accountability of local government. For 10 years investment in public housing has been at a lamentably low level. This Bill does nothing at all to give help with our ageing housing stock. It does nothing to provide hope for the homeless. The ordinary people—not the party activists, but those

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who have little interest in politics—are now becoming aware of the continuous attacks on local government by this Government in the past 10 years, and I believe they resent it.
I wish I could share the Minister's certainty that this Bill will cure all ills. There are some parts of the Bill which are right, proper and necessary. We shall be prepared to unite with other noble Lords to oppose other parts of it, and we shall try to amend the Bill during its passage through your Lordships' House
4 p.m.
Lord Bellwin: My Lords, I welcome the Bill. The necessity for it saddens me. But, along with others, I warned again and again that, if local government could not and would not itself do something about the abuses which have long been taking place and which have been highlighted so often, in the end government would have to step in. That is what has now happened. The indictment on local government is that it has acquiesced. It has stood by and done nothing to eradicate the evil practices with which the Bill deals. It has steadily and progressively stood aside while itself and others have progessively corrupted and undermined what was previously a fine reputation. There has been no shortage of expressions of regret and dismay. There has been the ritual wringing of hands by the cognoscenti, the practitioners, both elected members and officers. They have deprecated and deplored the excesses, but they have done nothing to stop them.
Therefore the Widdicombe recommendations are being brought into legislation. The awful twin tracking abuse is being tackled. The politicisation of local government officers is to be ended and impartiality—which for so long was the pride and joy of local government service—is to be restored. I give a hearty welcome to the proposal that there should be a balance on council committees pro rata to the representation on the council. That is something that has always pertained in my home town of Leeds under all parties. I am delighted that there is to be a stop to the dreadful giving of votes to unelected committee co-optees. We have heard talk today about democratic procedures, but I can think of nothing more undemocratic than that.
For how much longer can the public be expected to pay for and put up with a system that allows the incestuous cross-employment of council members between one authority and another? What price impartiality when one sees advertisements for local government officers, "like-minded to the party in power"; when the chairman of the housing committee in Brent is a legal officer; when the leader of the council in Brent is employed by Lambeth Council as a race adviser; when the leader of Barnsley Council works for Sheffield Council and, surprise, surprise, the leader of Sheffield Council works for Barnsley Council? What price impartiality when the then leader of the Bradford City Council was employed as an anti-privatisation adviser by Wakefield District Council? I ask you, an anti-privatisation adviser!
A noble Lord: That is real democracy.
Lord Bellwin: Can you believe it? The list is long. Others may quote more such examples. In my submission, it is wrong and contrary to all that is good in local government. When members of the public consult the local government officer for advice or to make representations, they are entitled to expect that they are coming to an independent person, not someone who is actively committed and involved in politics.
I am glad that we shall now see limitations on paid political advisers. I would do away with them altogether. If local government would stick to doing what it was put there to do in the first place, there would not be any need for paid political advisers. We never had them in my time, and I look forward—am I being naive?—to a return to the time when local government will be dealing with local government matters. Then there should be no such thing as paid political advisers.
Equally ridiculous, and in local government terms irrelevant, is the proliferation of committees. Noble Lords will know of the peace committees, the race committees, the anti-nuclear committees, the South African committees, the women's committee and so on. As they have distorted, politicised and diverted resources from providing the basic services, so they have spawned political advisers. We have watched aghast to see local authorities moving into areas which have little to do with local government but much to do with challenging the mandate of central government.
Let me stress that it is not just Conservatives who deplore what local government has lost and what is still happening in far too many authorities. The vast majority of authorities function in an honourable way. The pity is that hybridity and other such rules make it obligatory to legislate for all. Therefore those authorities become swept into the legislation which goes onto the statute book.
Part IV of the Bill deals with the reform of capital finance, concentrating on borrowing rather than spending. I particularly like—and I am rather surprised that the previous speakers did not mention it because they have all at one stage or another asked for it—the three-year credit approval. It is a long sought after step in helping councils to be able to take a forward view of three terms with regard to their capital programme. That is something that we have cried out for for years. I am sure that no one would object to it. We ought to welcome the provision. It is a step forward.
Capital spending was always a very controversial subject. A new era dawned with the huge sums that became available through capital receipts from the sale of council houses. Yes, there have been arguments because in the early days all such moneys could be applied to whatever authorities wished to spend the money on. Then, because the numbers became so big and began to impact upon the totality of public spending, only a percentage of that was available. That percentage has been reduced to around 20 per cent. latterly. I am bound to say that I should like to see it increased, but perhaps that is too much to hope for.

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Let no former devotee of local government pretend that what pertained in the past was an ideal situation—very far from it. It was a famous Labour leader in Leeds who said, "If we wanted to put up a so-and-so rabbit hutch, we had to go to central government to obtain planning permission to let the local authority do so". That was hardly the good old days with regard to capital spending. I am pleased that there is at least a genuine attempt to consider improving the procedure.
Perhaps I may say a word about the housing proposals in the Bill. They are very complex and we shall certainly have to consider them in the later stages. However, given the vast differences in the way that authorities run their housing revenue accounts, I fear that I have to be in favour of ring-fencing. I put it that way deliberately. Anything that will focus on and bring discipline to local government housing finance must be right. It should give no trouble to those who keep their affairs in good order. Those who do not should not expect the ratepayers or the community charge payers to put it right for them.
There are to be safeguards enough to mitigate any short-term problems which may apply to individual tenants. On the other hand, there are one or two aspects of ring-fencing which concern me. For example, I am interested in the London Boroughs Association suggestion that authorities which have no outstanding housing revenue account debt should be able to transfer any credit balance to another account. There should always be recognition and reward for sound practice and achievement.
I welcome the resource tests in Clause 99. It is right to concentrate help on those who need it most. I also like the provision of services for owners and occupiers in Clause 141. I consider that a real advance. Clause 49 provides some capital receipts to be set aside to reduce borrowing and thereby debt charges. It is finally tackling a vital area which has long bedevilled local government housing finance. Paramount among all the factors that have adversely impacted upon that has been the debt charges that have been around the necks of so many authorities. Those councils which set rent levels too low on newly built dwellings and then compounded the situation by failing to collect the rents, thus relying on the general rate fund contributions to balance the housing revenue account, were simply storing up financial nightmares which grew worse year by year.
We heard earlier, I believe from the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, about the Manchester debt charges of some £52 million. If one is trying to run a housing revenue account with debt charges of that kind, what is one to do? There is no way out of it. I remember the former leader of Manchester taking me on one side and asking "What can I do?" The fact that he had himself created many of the problems by too low rents, not collecting them and all the rest of the problems, is beside the point. The fact is that this problem bedevils local authorities who have such housing situations.
I welcome the fact that at last there is to be a positive focus upon reducing the housing debt. Until
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that is done, whatever else we may do to tackle that problem, it will not get down to the basic cause of it. There will always be authorities who say that they cannot afford to keep houses in repair, that they do not have the money to do it. If we leave aside the side issues in which they become involved in spending millions of pounds, which some of us think are ludicrous, if the housing affairs are not managed and controlled correctly then problems will arise. The Audit Commission said that if authorities would reduce the length of their housing repairs to two and a half weeks on average that would bring some 20,000 more dwellings into the pool of houses available for rent. That is a significant figure, and I do not think we should pooh-pooh it and turn it down on any political dogmatic ground. It is a matter of management.
Everybody in your Lordships' House expresses great concern about homelessness and housing, and rightly so. One cannot turn away from the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of empty dwellings. One can say that a point is being scored in saying that, but at the end of the day there are those houses in decay and rotting away. Yet we have all this homelessness and the dreadful cost of doing something about it. What are we to do? I say that it highlights the iniquity—that is the best word I can think of—of not collecting rents. Do we really think it helps tenants to allow them to get into debt and then for the rest of their lives stay in debt?
We used to talk about this when I was chairman of housing in Leeds. We were worried about the tenants, so we never allowed them to get to that stage. Do not let us turn away on any political argument about failing to collect the millions and millions outstanding in rents. If we have to find ways to help people over the short term, let us do it. But at the end of the day we have to find ways to bring all that money in and to bring all those empty dwellings back into the pool of housing to rent. That is the most positive contribution we can make.
As to whether the housing revenue account surpluses should go to housing benefit or, as at present, to help the general rate fund, one can argue about. I do not mind surpluses going to help local housing benefits. Obviously, we shall return to the housing proposals at later stages.
The only other observation that I want to make today on the proposals in the Bill concerns members' allowances. What started as good intentions has been abused to the point where something has to be done. That is why we find it in the Bill. I was one who, on behalf of local government, gave evidence to the Robinson Committee in 1977. I was one of those who advocated that we should have this kind of attendance allowance. However it has been abused, and it does not help everybody when a few get away—that is the right phrase for it—with abusing the system. The idea of attendance allowances to reward people is correct in itself. It is a financial loss allowance in a sense because people lose money when they serve as councillors, and no one should have to do that. But where there are approved duties—as we used to call it—by holding surgeries in one's home, by attending political group meetings and claiming attendance allowance, that cannot be

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right. There is perhaps an extreme case, I admit, but the worst I have ever seen is of the lady chairman of Lambeth housing committee—if I can call a lady a chairman: perhaps it should be chair—who collected £28,000 for one year's attendances. If that is right, I do not know what is wrong. It is also made worse when the same lady, I am told, owes £2,000 back rent unpaid. What a reflection upon the calibre of all in local government.
Today, it is only possible to skim over the subject. I repeat my general welcome to the Bill. It is not a day too soon to be ending some of these abuses. I hope it will go some way towards restoring public confidence in local government, a confidence which some of us on all sides worked for years to establish and protect.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I say that I can agree with quite a lot of what he has said and with some of the criticisms he has made, but it behoves us to bear in mind that in the early 1950s, when I was privileged to be the leader of Fulham and Hammersmith Councils, our greatest problem was finding homes for ex-servicemen from the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The legislation introduced by Aneurin Bevan enabled us to accomplish a great deal in housing—I hope that this will not be considered an offence—British ex-servicemen who fought in the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Some of us ran into debt in our councils in providing homes for those ex-servicemen and their young children. That was one of the greatest achievements of local government. Perhaps I may conclude by saying that if local government everywhere could emulate the behaviour of local authorities throughout the country, Labour and Conservative, under the legislation of Aneurin Bevan—who at the same time was establishing the National Health Service—we would be in a much better situation than we are now.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Jay: My Lords, I agree partially with the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, on one thing, namely, that the recent practices of the Westminster City Council are much in need of reform. The Bill, however, quite apart from its other deficiencies, seems to me to be a very poor response to the debate on homelessness that we had in this House as recently as 7th June. The Bill will do little or nothing to improve the deteriorating housing situation from which we suffer in this country. If anything, by financially tying the hands of local authorities, ring-fencing them as we have heard, even further, it will make the problems and the plight of the homeless and the badly housed even worse than before. One certainty is that rents will rise.
In the midst of the alleged prosperity in this country that we hear so much about, I find it deplorable that homelessness has doubled in the past 10 years. We now have over 100,000 families officially accepted as homeless. According to Shelter there are some 360,000 individuals in this dead end,
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many of them children. That, as we all know, entirely excludes the single homeless, who are uncounted.
How do the Government explain this doubling of the number of homeless in the past 10 years? The Minister's latest excuse in the previous debate was that there are too many unoccupied council dwellings, due, he said, to faulty administration. Unoccupied dwellings should be kept to the minimum, but why should this number have doubled during this Government's 10 years? Presumably the inefficiency of local authorities has not doubled during that period. Since, in any event, there is a much higher proportion of unoccupied dwellings in the private sector than in the publicly-owned sector, why should the Government pick on that particular phenomenon? The "void rate", as it is called, is only 2.5 per cent. in local authorities and over 4 per cent. in the private sector. That is not a convincing excuse.
I believe that, as everyone except the Government knows, there are two reasons for the growth of homelessness since 1979. First, there is the acute shortage of low-cost rented dwellings, mainly due to the Government's policy—which I am afraid the Bill continues—of deliberately reducing the total stock of council housing in this country. There are 300,000 fewer local authority homes in this country than there were 10 years ago. The number of housing association and private rented homes has also positively decreased. I believe that the second reason is the Government's abandonment of any effective regional policy for location of new employment in appropriate areas. That has forced an intense housing shortage in the South-East because people already decently housed in the North and West find that they are either forced to move elsewhere or stay unemployed.
The only way in which homelessness can be overcome and all our population can be decently housed is by a major expansion of local authority dwellings to rent at low cost. Every official report has agreed that that is true. Of course we need home ownership and housing association and co-operative ownership. But we need them in addition to, and not instead of, local authority ownership. That means a very large increase in public investment in housing, and that is the last thing that we shall get out of this Bill.
The Government still say that they are trying to increase the rented stock through the private sector. The Minister repeated that on 7th June. However, the contribution made by the private sector to the rented stock is becoming smaller and it cannot be enough on its own. Indeed, no country in the world—not even the United States, which has far greater resources than we have—has succeeded in decently housing the whole of its population by market forces alone. The only countries in the world which have decently housed their whole population are the Scandinavian countries. They have done so largely by public and co-operative investment.
The House should also reflect for a moment on what the makeshift bed and breakfast system means for 30,000 families in this country. They have nowhere that they can call home. Whoever may be blamed for families getting into that situation, it

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certainly is not the young children who are so frequently affected.
My 30 years experience as a London constituency Member of another place left me with the conclusion that, other than unemployment, bad housing causes more human distress in Britain than anything else. The makeshift bed and breakfast system is exceedingly expensive. It would be so much better to spend all that money on capital investment in new homes. At present it amounts to £68 million per year.
Yet, by manipulating the housing revenue account and other devices, all the Bill does is to restrict —"ring fence", as it is called—still further the power of local authorities to do anything about it. I believe that the primary aim of the Bill is not to rehouse anyone but to save public money. For instance, we are told, even in the explanatory memorandum, that after 1990 the share of rent rebates met by the housing revenue account subsidies are expected to fall, thereby leading to a reduction in public expenditure. That is a matter to which we are always brought back.
The Government leave in existence the legal obligation on local authorities to house those who are undoubtedly homeless, but denies them the financial resources to carry out that obligation. Let us take a particular example which has already been mentioned today. Why do the Government still refuse to allow local authorities to spend on investment in new build—that is in new homes to rent—at least the whole of their capital receipts from the sale of council houses? No justification for that decision has ever been given. Perhaps this evening the Minister will tell the House how that particular issue is affected by the Bill. I can see no improvement, and apparently the Secretary of State is taking power to make matters even worse. Perhaps we can be fully informed about that issue this evening. The Minister might also remind the House of the miserable proportion of capital receipts which councils are allowed to spend: I believe that it is 20 per cent.
If the scandal of homelessness is to be ended, and if the Government mean that seriously, what is needed is not merely the accountancy manoeuvres in the Bill, but a major expansion of local authority building with adequate provision for proper maintenance and repairs in the future. I believe that my noble friend Lord Dean will agree that in the past the major fault with local authority housing—and there was a fault—was the lack of public funds for proper maintenance and repairs. I refer to the maintenance and caretaker service which we all associate with private blocks of flats but which so seldom exists in council housing due to lack of money.
Of course it is right that sitting tenants should be given the right to buy. But if the aim of public policy is to enable them to do so and not simply to reduce the supply of subsidised housing, such a right in future should be conditional on the property being resold—if it is ever resold—to the relevant local authority. If that policy is pursued it will be perfectly
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possible to continue the right to buy and not reduce the total stock of council housing.
Until that is done, and as long as negative and restrictive Bills such as this come forward one after another in every Session, more people will believe that the Government's housing policy is inspired not by any wish to end homelessness and bad housing, but partly by the Prime Minister's childish feud against all local governments and partly by her apparent belief that home owners vote for her party.
No doubt this Bill, like all Bills, can be improved and amended in many particulars. I hope that it will be. However, it will not stop the relentless growth in homelessness which has continued in this country over the past 10 years.
4.28 p.m.
Lord Middleton: My Lords, I should like to focus briefly on a special problem which was highlighted in a debate in another place on 14th .June, when an amendment to this Bill was proposed at the Report Stage. The amendment sought to alleviate the acute shortage of low-cost housing in rural areas. It is beyond dispute that it is becoming increasingly difficult for wage earners living and working in such areas to find a house that they can afford.
The reduction in the supply of houses to rent or to buy follows naturally from the purchase of council houses by sitting tenants and from the sale of privately-owned houses by owners cashing in on the recent surge in house values. The purchasers of such privately-owned houses in our villages are rarely local people but they are able to pay prices well beyond the means of the indigenous young whose needs must be catered for if the rural economy is to be sustained.
One way of making housing available to such people has been the provision of housing by government-funded housing associations, the need for which has just been emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Jay. Besides providing rented accommodation at affordable rents, housing associations enable local people to get on to the housing ladder. That is done by enabling the occupants to buy part of the landlord's interest, usually with the aid of a mortgage, and to rent the rest.
However, where a shared ownership lease is granted by a housing association with the aid of a government subsidy, the Housing Corporation insists that the occupant shall have the right to buy additional slices of the landlord's interest until he has acquired a freehold or, in some cases, a long leasehold. That is called staircasing. If, having by that means reached the top of the staircase, the new owner then sells the property at full market value it ceases to be affordable by the very people for whom it was originally intended and for whose benefit the housing association received government subsidy through the Housing Corporation. It comes out of the low-cost housing pool.
That is a problem of great concern to such bodies as the Association of District Councils and the National Federation of Housing Associations. It is also of concern to landowners who have provided

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land either as a gift or at below development value on condition that the houses on it remained available for the local community.
The general need for low-cost rural housing is acknowledged by the Government and that particular problem has been recognised by the Secretary of State for the Environment. He made that clear when Mr. Jopling's proposed new clause was debated in another place on 14th June. That debate illustrated two alternative ways of ensuring that low-cost houses remain available for local people. It would not be appropriate on Second Reading to delve into the arguments at length. However, Mr. Jopling's amendment would have removed the Housing Corporation's power to insist that the occupant be given the right to buy the entire interest of his landlord where a shared ownership lease of a dwellinghouse in a rural area was granted. The Government's solution was that announced on 7th February of this year; that would allow to a housing association a pre-emptive right, once a shared owner has moved on, to buy back the property at market price and the property would thereby remain available as low-cost housing. The repurchase by the housing association could be subsidised by the Housing Corporation.
At this stage I have an open mind as to which of those solutions would best serve the needs of the rural wage-earners. I shall listen to what my noble friend Lord Hesketh says when he winds up this debate and I shall seek advice from such bodies as the Association of District Councils. That may well be a matter which should receive the attention of your Lordships in the Committee on this Bill.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, told us in his opening remarks, this is a Bill which inter alia seeks to encourage accountability and to prevent inappropriate use of local authority powers. I believe that those are laudable intentions which I go a long way to support. But it may be no surprise to the noble Lord who is to reply that I have some tourism questions on which I should like reassurance. My concerns are in respect of tourism promotion, regional tourist boards and the marketing bureaux which some local authorities have set up as a means whereby local authority and private funding can come together for promotional purposes.
I believe that tourism is recognised as a big business. Expenditure by Britons holiday-making within this country in 1987 is estimated to have been slightly over £7 billion, while foreigners are estimated to have spent slightly under £6 billion; so we are talking about expenditure of about £13 billion, contributing directly or indirectly to perhaps 1.5 million jobs—a figure which is growing by 40,000 or 50,000 per year.
Tourism is not only a big business but one in which local authorities have always played their part. I believe that practically all local authorities in England support tourism by one means or another. In wide terms they contribute 15 per cent. of the income of the regional tourist boards, to which I
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shall return. Internationally, they contributed 12 per cent. of the British Tourist Authority's non-government funded joint promotional schemes in the past financial year, thus contributing towards a whole range of co-ordinated overseas promotional ventures. Closer to home, many local authorities run their own tourist departments, or as, for example, in Plymouth, York and Birmingham, co-partnership marketing bureaux.
Hitherto that activity has been underpinned by Section 137, and I am not aware of any complaints about how that Section 137 money has been used for promoting tourism. That does not mean that there have not been any, but I am not aware of them. However, Clause 35 in the Bill introduces a new test in terms of expenditure in that expenditure must be of direct benefit to the community. While I worked for the British Tourist Authority I shudder to think how many times we were reviewed. I know that the Scottish local authorities were reviewed and the Scottish Tourist Board was reviewed, as were the Welsh and English Tourist Boards. We were perpetually under review, so much so that one spent more time defending oneself against the reviewers than doing the job one was employed to do.
The point I make about all those reviews is that they would not have happened if direct benefit could easily be proven. It seems to me that that perpetual ferreting around, digging and sniffing confirms that direct benefit is not easily proven. I ask the noble Lord to confirm that, in so far as the noble Earl mentioned inappropriateness of expenditure, that expenditure on tourism promotion will remain appropriate expenditure for all local authorities.
I now turn briefly to the regional tourist boards which promote individual parts of England and have parallel bodies in Scotland and Wales. They are funded by the commercial sector, by the English Tourist Board and some 15 per cent. of their expenditure is funded by local authorities. As I said, there are very few local authorities which are not contributing to the work of their regional tourist board. They are also funded by other sources. Taking another part of the Bill, will they be regarded as controlled companies or will they qualify for exemption as what are called minority interest companies, a status which seems to reflect the 15 per cent. of their funding which they derived in 1987–88 from relevant local authorities of England?
I might ask a similar question on a lower scale about the marketing bureaux. They have been extremely successful. They derive ever-increasing amounts of their funding from the private sector, from commercial companies such as transportation companies. By doing that, they are lowering the proportion of expenditure which they receive from their sponsoring local authority. I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell me what their status will be.
I ask these three questions because I am mindful of the fact that the Secretary of State for Employment repeated not very long ago that tourism is one of our great growth industries and one that he would wish to see taking a higher profile. I hope that the achievement of this higher profile will not be complicated in particular by the terms of Clause 35

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and the status of the various companies in which local authorities are contributing to the promotion of tourism.
4.40 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, a great many of the provisions in this Bill relate to Scotland. I wish to confine what I have to say at this point to some elements in Part I of the Bill and to look at those from the point of view of Scotland and Scottish local Government. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, had very little good to say about the Bill. I have spoken to councillors in Scotland, many of whom are his political colleagues, and I have received a rather more measured response. A good deal of benefit is perceived by them in this Bill. On the whole, the Widdicombe Report was welcomed in Scotland. I believe that parts of the report that are being implemented in this Bill, though some may present difficulties for some councils and some individuals, are changes that the Scottish public want to see and which in general Scottish officials welcome. I believe that elected Members in Scotland know in their heart of hearts that these provisions are mostly necessary.
The more scattered a population is and the more diverse the various parts of the country, the more important it is to have a strong, high-quality local government which local people feel they can identify with and trust. In Scotland people are very anxious indeed to see their councils as free from doubtful practice as possible. For that reason I believe a number of the reforms in this Bill will be welcomed. Some of the provisions in Part I are already standard practice in a number of councils. For example, when I was among those elected to Tayside Council at the reorganisation in 1974, our region brought together two county councils and one city council. Those councils had been run in very different ways. We were anxious to incorporate the best practice of all three councils.
In our standing orders we established that the political balance of committees and subcommittees should reflect the political balance of the council that the people had elected. We wanted the public to know that its voice would be reflected in all our deliberations and not just that of the main council, and that committee and subcommittee membership could not be rigged. The Bill makes a very similar arrangement mandatory everywhere. I believe that will be a safeguard that the Scottish public will welcome. Likewise, in Tayside we established a register of councillors' pecuniary interests. In fact I believe it was a voluntary register. The councillors were required to declare those as well as other relevant interests verbally in debate as the occasion arose. Such a register will be mandatory under the Bill. In my view that is absolutely essential.
Decisions are made everyday in councils: planning decisions and decisions about contracts. Because they are so local they may very well affect councillors' own local business interests. Nothing less than a publicly available register will do. I believe it is somewhat different for Members of Parliament and Peers, though one could argue strongly that there
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should be a register of our interests as well. The provisions in Part I of the Bill regarding the so-called twin tracking by officials have already received much attention in this debate, in another place, and in Scotland.
In another place it was claimed that the Bill was a threat to the human rights of council officials. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, echoed this. It is clear that for certain council officials it is simply not possible for them to do their jobs properly if they are also councillors with another authority. How can they explain to the public the policy of the council for which they work as officials when the public reads daily in the press of their support, say, of opposing policies or policies where there is a conflict of interest in the council where they are elected members? How can elected members trust an official's advice on a subject when they know he is involved in a political campaign on that very matter in another direction or even in the same direction as a councillor with another council?
Twin tracking has to stop for some categories of local government officials. In my view the only question is: which categories? In this matter the Government have followed Widdicombe in saying that officials who come face to face with the public and who give councillors direct advice are generally those who have a salary above a certain level. So the Bill as it stands defines politically sensitive posts as those carrying salaries of £13,500 a year and above. That seems to be a strange definition to put into the Bill. Apart from anything else, the figure will require constant updating for inflation. Can the Government not find a better way? For example, one could use the position of the post on the scale. In Scotland we call that the spinal column. I am not -sure whether that is international-speak or not. The equivalent position for part-time posts could be placed in the same way. Once set that would define the level of the post, but it would not require constant adjustment. I say to my noble friend that I believe that matter should be explored in Committee.
It has been suggested to me by a number of Scots that head teachers, their deputies and assistants, principal teachers and heads of departments in schools, besides the heads of colleges, are also people who cannot do their jobs properly if they are also councillors. In Scotland a number of teachers are councillors and a number of those are in senior promoted posts. I do not know how many of them are head teachers. This situation worries the public very much. I myself am unsure of this point and whether or not this Bill is the right route for improving matters. There is certainly a problem, but with financial delegation to schools, the changing exam system and career development arrangements in Scotland, the job of head teacher and other promoted post holders is going to become far more responsible, demanding and also more interesting.
This state of affairs, together with school boards and more local parent involvement, will get the message through that properly professional senior teachers can no longer combine the two roles. Someone with aspirations to promotion in the teaching profession will see this flag being flown before he embarks on a political career. Nevertheless,

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it will be interesting to know approximately how many head teachers in Scotland are councillors as well, besides how many deputies, assistant heads and principal teachers are councillors. I shall be enormously grateful to my noble friend Lord Hesketh if he can find out this information and write to me. I do not expect him to have the answer before him at the moment. At least then we would know the extent of the problem in Scotland.
I ask my noble friend another question on a specifically Scottish matter. Are the Government satisfied that the provisions limiting the voting rights of elected members will allow the present excellent arrangements in the planning committee of the Highland region to be continued? District councillors, whose authorities are not planning authorities, sit and vote on regional council subcommittees and they make their contribution that way. But is my noble friend satisfied that this arrangement can continue under the Bill? As I have said, it is a very satisfactory arrangement in the Highland region, and I hope that it can continue. This matter was discussed in another place but I do not think that it was completely resolved.
I shall look closely in Committee at those and many other changes which are proposed in the Bill in order to ensure that the changes relating to Scotland will work properly for Scotland. Local government is very important indeed to us in the North, and I am sure that as we proceed through this all-UK Bill, the whole House will wish to ensure, that Scottish needs are met in a proper Scottish way.
4.51 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, as someone who has been active in local government as a councillor and as a spokesman for local government in this House, I must say that I feel angry about many proposals in this Bill. There are some parts of which I approve; for instance, the duty to allocate seats to political groups and the duty to give effect to allocations in Clauses 15 and 16. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, referred to what happened on the Cambridgeshire County Council in 1973 after reorganisation. I totally agree with the noble Baroness that giving a balance to the parties in the allocation of jobs meant that the council worked extremely well.
One aspect that angers me is the political restriction on officers and staff. We have heard a great deal about this matter today but I do not apologise for speaking about it again because it is a very important part of this Bill. The Government's proposals are supposed to be a response to the Widdicombe Committee, but they go infinitely further than that committee proposed. They are based on unsubstantiated assumptions that there is widespread abuse in local government procedures, staffing and the activities of officers. I admit that there is no doubt some abuse, but the Widdicombe Commitee commented that no serious evidence of abuse emerged from its investigations and that there was a lack of evidence from the Government. Therefore there is no sound base for the stringent and unfair conditions in the first two clauses in the Bill. What is more, the activities to be restricted are
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not spelt out in the Bill but, like so much in so many Bills, will be set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
I agree that chief officers and their deputies and probably some others, should not be councillors. However, there are, as NALGO estimates, 100,000 people who under Part I of the Bill will be barred from standing for elected political office or office in a political party. Those are people earning over 13,500 a year. I certainly agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said; that that cannot be left to stand. Large numbers of these people will be those whose work can be described as technical, such as engineers, administrative, clerical or professional staff. Such general categories of staff could work for a variety of employers both in the public and private sectors but it will be only those in local government who will be banned from civil and political activity by this Bill.
I have received letters from a great number of people who will be caught by the Bill. Their outrage at the restrictions on their civil liberties and democratic rights is manifest. One letter came from a district councillor at Chesterfield Borough Council, employed by Derbyshire County Council as the county arts co-ordinator. I thought that this was a very good letter and I quote from it:
"I have been employed by Derbyshire County Council from the 3rd April 1984 and stood for election as a Chesterfield Borough Councillor in May 1987. There is no conflict between my employment and my position as a councillor. The reasoning that restrictions upon political activities need to be imposed because employment may be provided for political sympathisers and because of conflicts of interest, cannot be said to be true in my case since I chose to stand for political office several years after entering into my employment, and the area of work (the arts) provides no opportunity for conflict of interests due to political beliefs. There is a counter-argument that needs to be aired concerning conflict of interest which states that if most people hold political beliefs and that the holding of those beliefs influence their actions, then it is the openness and public statement of those beliefs (coupled with open and honest pursuit of those beliefs within the democratic and political systems) that is healthier than concealment of loyalties.
"In a democracy the right to assist, join and promulgate political views of peaceful democratic parties is a paramount and fundamental requirement of the very democracy that the system is meant to support. The Local Government and Housing Bill is an attack upon such fundamental democratic freedoms for a minority of local government workers whose influence is so negligible that it could not even be measured. Since such a restriction is only placed upon a group of people defined by their salary level and since the same legislation exempts a similar class of people (teachers) upon the same or greater salary levels and makes no attempt to justify such exemptions or to apply the restriction universally, for example including employees of private industry undertaking lucrative government contracts, I can only conclude that this Bill if enacted will pose an infringement of my democratic freedoms and my human rights when compared to other citizens."
If this Bill goes through in this form, I hope that my noble friend is right and that one can make an appeal to the European Court.
I also received a letter from the manager of a small day centre, who is earning just over £13,500. She is not a member of a political party but a member of the British Association of Social Workers. She said that she believed it was her duty to work in her spare time for the interests of her clients and the improvement of services. She wrote:
"I am totally dismayed at the proposed curtailment of my civil liberties."

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I talked to the chairman of our housing committee in Cambridge at the weekend. She is a group leader doing research at the county council. She said that in nine-and-a-half years as a councillor she had had no criticism or complaint from any officer or councillor on the county council. She said that she was very careful about the committees on which she served on the city council. She also pointed out that in taking on the work of a councillor some sacrifices are inevitable, as you are less likely to get promotion in your job if you have to take time off, even though flexi-time can help.
The Minister will doubtless reply that there can be exemptions and that there is an appeals system; but that only covers those people earning more than £13,500. Those earning less can be caught by the restrictions. Why create more bureacracy for this purpose, instead of making the disqualification much less rigorous and avoid offending large numbers of local government employees who may well have to choose between employment and exercising their civil rights?
There is also great concern about the potential role of the monitoring officer. Big Brother, they will feel, is watching them. I should not think that the spy job would be one that many people would wish to take on.
I am also angry about the way the Government intend to deal with capital receipts. There are to be new controls, with severe restrictions on use for reinvestment. This will lead to major restrictions on the ability of local authorities to invest in housing, overwhelming though the need is. It will not be possible to plan sensibly over several years, as is essential, a stable framework within which councils can operate their capital programmes over adequate time periods.
In relation to housing, it is proposed that 75 per cent. of any capital receipts will have to go to redeem current and future debts, leaving only 25 per cent. available for reinvestment. This is a gross breach of the commitments made by Ministers when we complained bitterly about authorities being able to invest annually 20 per cent. of the proceeds from council house sales. We were told that the rest would be kept by the councils and released gradually. I am sorry to say that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, has left because I wish to quote what he said in 1984 when Secretary of State:
"The receipts are and will remain the property of local authorties. They can spend them in future years".
That is not going to be allowed to happen. I heard those commitments made from the Government Benches—I thought in good faith—when I was spokesman for local government on these Benches. I am really shocked by this. The restrictions will be bound to lead to significant losses in spending power.
I talked last Friday to the manager of Cambridge City Council. He told me that, owing to the buoyancy of council house sales in that area and the high local property values, capital receipts are an important contribution to the city's capital programme. In the last financial year the council was able to boost its capital programme by approximately £6 million. A
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further £3 million was spent on capitalised repairs to council homes. Under the proposed changes, the allowable expenditure would drop to approximately £1·5 million. Moreover, the right to spend on capitalised repairs would disappear altogether. That is in an area of housing shortage. There have been no ministerial assurances that credit approvals will be used to compensate for this loss. When the Minister replies, can he please tell us what the position there will be?
Where local authorities are genuinely trying by new building and repair to alleviate the housing shortage and where there are no affordable rented houses or flats for any but the highly paid, the Government's actions seem to be motivated entirely by spite and political hatred of a very few local authorities which have been inefficient or improvident. There is no evidence of incompetent management in the vast majority of authorities; but they will be made to suffer, though all the evidence from the Audit Commission, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the Duke of Edinburgh's inquiry into British housing concluded that authorities should be allowed to use the resources they already have to bring poor quality council properties up to decent standards and that additional investment was required for new building.
I turn now to the subject of rents. The Secretary of State has made it clear that in future rent levels are set to rise, although he will not indicate by how much. He stated that actual levels will be set in relation to the value of right-to-buy sales. This is worrying for authorities—like Cambridge District Council—where the right-to-buy values are high due to the overheated property market. It does not take account of the fact that Cambridge has to cater for those who cannot compete in the private market; namely, the low paid, the unemployed and many others.
Areas with high house prices are often those with high incidences of homelessness and housing need. Just look, for example, at London. There is no confidence that housing benefit will be an effective safety net for tenants who may be faced with steep rises. Arrears generally are likely to rise. The Government should realise that it is their policy towards housing benefit which has contributed significantly towards increasing arrears.
The result of the new measures brought in in April 1988 was a reduction in government expenditure of £640 million. All claimants, no matter how poor they may be, have to pay 20 per cent. of their general rates. It is that policy which has thrown many tenants into financial difficulty and resulted in major increases in arrears. This is happening, to those in housing association properties as well as to those in council properties.
As regards ring fencing of the housing revenue accounts, I recommend that noble Lords read the article on this written by the director of the National Housing and Town Planning Council in the May edition of its review. It gives a very nasty warning about what will happen to local authorities and their finances when the consultation papers produced by the DoE this summer are turned into the next

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Housing Bill—the one due to be introduced in December—as well as what is happening in this Bill.
The proposals do nothing to address the escalation of housing need, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, pointed out. The effect will be to increase rents, deepen the poverty trap, make it more difficult to provide a high quality service and further restrict access to council housing.
Contributions from the general rate fund will not be allowed. The incidence of councils which use rates to help fund council housing is not major. Only 20 local authorities nationally draw on the rates to provide 20 per cent. or more of their income. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in his opening speech, mentioned the councils of Manchester, Islington and Camden. But those are areas where housing is particularly difficult and where there are many inner city problems.
Where councils have made contributions, it is usually where projects affect the private as well as the public sector—for example, environmental projects in a general improvement area. London councils where land, development and management costs are very high will be badly hit and they should be looked upon as special cases. Is it fair that councils will be prevented from using rate fund contributions when surely housing is a community asset which should be supported by all ratepayers? After all, council tenants will pay the poll tax.
The proposal to pass the cost of paying housing benefit to the local authorities is grossly unjust. Tackling poverty should be a national responsibility. In practice it will mean that some council tenants will be paying for the housing benefit of other council tenants. Let us take, for example, two neighbours. One might be in low paid work but above the eligibility threshold while the other is in receipt of full housing benefit. The tenant not entitled to benefit will, through his rent, be contributing to the cost of rent rebates to the other. The poor will be subsidising the very poor, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, said. It is not only unjust, it is also inconsistent, in that it treats council tenants differently from others who receive assistance with housing costs. That includes others who recieve housing benefit and those who are eligible for mortgage tax relief.
For the most part this is an unfair and unmaginative Bill. Those who drafted it seem to have no knowledge of how a great many of our compatriots live. They seem to have paid no heed to the vast number of reports, many from the DoE, which show the need for investment in repair and in houses. Like so many other Bills, it shows a real antagonism towards and lack of trust in local government and those who serve in it either as officers or members. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, is right when he says that he believes that confidence in local government will return. I just hope that confidence will remain with those who work in local government, either as members or officers. I think that that is most important for the future.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness Blotch: My Lords, some of us feel that the provisions contained in the Bill have been a long time in coming, especially those based upon the recommendations contained in the Widdicombe Report on local government. On the other hand, like my noble friend Lord Bellwin, I too regret the need for such a Bill. When considering the reasons for the provisions contained in Part I, one only has to witness the practices of some local authorities. It is all very well to say, "Well, it is only some local authorities, by and large the rest of them are well behaved". Some of those local authorities actually represent many hundreds of thousands of people across our country.
When looking at such practices one can see, for example, council chambers being used for discussing national and international politics. The public is fed up with watching such practices. In my local authority most of the time is spent in pontificating about defence measures and matters which have very little to do with the provision of local services for local people. I believe that the public is waiting for councils to return to the business which local council chambers should be about; that is, determining policy to provide local services for local people at a price which local people can afford.
Another example of these practices is the appointment of political activists to local government staff. Then there are the tactics used when appointing councillors to committees; for example, in some local authorities—indeed, one in my own county—only the majority party serve on the all-powerful policy committee. There is also political interference with the day-to-day management of the authority and the use of co-optative powers to recruit political friends onto committees.
I welcome the restrictions in the Bill on co-opted members to become advisory only. I see no reason—perhaps my noble friend will give the matter some thought—why such restrictions should not extend to university representatives, Church representatives and teacher representatives.
To councillors who feel that the Bill is unnecessary—indeed, that has already been mentioned this afternoon—because their particular authorities, or the authorities which they know well, are being run consistently under the provisions as set out in the Bill, all I can say is that they should accept the Bill because it enshrines best practice.
However, we all know of local authorities where the implementation of the Bill will mean a radical departure from their present practice. Indeed, one only has to list some of the more glaring examples of abuse, especially that of twin-tracking: the former leader of Lambeth Council is employed as head of Hackney's women's unit and was considered for the post of the council's chief executive; the leader of Greenwich Council is also the policy adviser for Lewisham Council; and the chairman of Waltham Forest race relations committee is an industrial relations adviser to Haringey Council. Moreover, Camden Council appointed Patrick Kodikara a Sri Lankan born black activist and gay rights

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campaigner, as director of social services while he continued to be member of Hackney social services committee.
Almost a quarter of Glasgow City councillors were employed by their regional councils. At one time, 48 per cent. of Camden's Labour councillors depended, directly or indirectly, on councils for their living. About 16 per cent. of local authority councillors are also local authority employees. That amounts to about 4,000 people. Of those 4,000 people, 58 per cent. are teachers or lecturers, to whom the twin-tracking provision will not apply. I am minded to bring forward an amendment in Committee, because I find it abhorrent that teachers should find it necessary to involve themselves in local politics, not for some of the reasons that have been given today but because it is wholly inconsistent with the professional job of a teacher to be politicking in local government. It is something about which I feel strongly. The restrictions should apply at least to head teachers and heads of departments.
One has only to look at some of the abuses that I have listed to know that the Bill, especially Part I, is necessary. It contains a clause relating to political advisers to groups on county and district councils. In 12 years of being in local government, I never saw the need to have a political adviser. I was leader of my authority for four years and leader of my group for a further two years, and I never saw the necessity of having a political adviser. I do not support them. I shall not be supporting them in the Bill. If there is money around to pay for political advisers, that money could be better spent on the many social needs within our communities.
Part II relates to the local ombudsman and local powers. I have two comments to make. The first relates to how the local government ombudsman works. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, is not in the Chamber because it might be useful if we were to discuss the issue. When a complaint is made to the local government ombudsman, his department will often apply to the authority involved for an account of what led to the complaint. The local authority provides the information. The local government ombudsman, often without any reference to the complainant, frequently determines that the complaint will not be pursued. There is a question mark over that procedure: the authority being complained about provides the evidence which leads to the decision that the complaint will not be pursued. That gives me cause for concern.
My other cause for concern relates to the ombudsman's powers. If a complaint is made to him of maladministration leading to injustice by a local authority all that he can do, even under the Bill, is to make a report and recommend that the council put the matter right. The council can ignore him. If it does, the local government ombudsman can return with a second report and further propose that action should be taken. The second report can be ignored. That happens. One of my first actions as a county councillor was to take my authority (Cambridgeshire) to the local government ombudsman. The county council was found guilty.
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It ignored the recommendations, and I, with the local people, returned to the ombudsman and the county council was found guilty on a second occasion. The county council merely said that it would not have the ombudsman telling it what to do. The report was made public. It left the parents, who knew that the county council was guilty but that nothing could be done, with a sense of grievance. There should be some sanction, perhaps compensation for the aggrieved party, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, suggested, some independent judicial enforcement.
I wholeheartedly welcome Part IV. It relates to the reform of local authority capital spending. I find it almost unbelievable that people should believe that the requirement to reduce local authority debt is necessarily bad. Local government borrows £45 billion. The cost of servicing that debt is high. The people in the local communities pay for that debt. Any measure that reduces that debt frees money which can be applied to other local services. I welcome that measure.
I welcome the abolition of annual allocations which often came in late in the financial year, and sometimes even beyond the end of the financial year. I welcome the fact that we shall no longer be able to hide behind the Government's skirts and say that because the Government have done this, that or the other we can no longer carry out our policies. I welcome the increased accountability that the provision will bring. I welcome the three-year planned credit approvals about which the Government will inform the local councils and which will enable them to plan ahead. That will be nothing new for Cambridgeshire which has a sophisticated forward planning system. It might well come as something of a culture shock to some authorities which will be required to think beyond one year.
I have one reservation about credit approvals which I should like to communicate to the noble Lord, Lord Middleton. We should recognise the capital spending needs of rural areas in addition to their housing difficulties. The requirement for rural areas to spend capital, especially when they have the logistical difficulties of reorganising school provision, is as high as that of more urban areas. The requirement to reduce debt is a boon. Genuine accountability is important.
I shall deal briefly with housing because my noble friend Lord Bellwin dealt with it in some detail. I support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, who referred to the Jopling amendment moved in the other place. There is a need to reconsider providing low-cost housing and to enable young people to enter the home ownership market step by step while allowing local authorities to retain some part of the equity. I refer your Lordships to Hansard of the other place (cols. 1029 and 1045 of 14th June) because that amendment may well be brought back in some form in Committee.
I am rather tentative about making my next comment, because no one so far has mentioned, and I suspect no one after me will mention, dogs. I mention them because I wish to pre-empt the possibility that the subject may return as an amendment in this place. It is well known that I

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oppose a registration scheme. It will do nothing to resolve the difficulties over dogs. It will not eliminate strays, resolve the problem of dangerous dogs or do anything to resolve some of the problems that were mentioned in another place. The scheme will however increase bureaucracy. If the charges are to be realistic, there will inevitably need to be exemptions. There may need to be exemptions for children, the elderly and those on low incomes. Once we enter into that field, all dogs will be owned by children, the elderly and low-income families. We shall quickly find that the ownership of a dog will be passed around like a parcel. I hope that the registration scheme will not be resurrected as an amendment to the Bill. Deregistration of course is another problem. I do not know how on earth one registers dogs that die, are killed on the road or go missing.
The Bill builds on what has gone before. It will improve the accountability of elected Members to their communities. It will improve the ability of councils to plan ahead. It will restore to local government democracy, which has been undermined by political abuse, and it will set a framework for local authorities to boost their economies in their local areas. The community charge and competitive tendering legislation and the measures contained in the Bill present opportunities and not constraints.
It was my experience during 12 years in local government to work with highly competent professional and in the main apolitical officers. I should like to see local government go back to a position where councillors are engaged in determining strategy and policy only, working with officers who should be allowed to get on with the job of carrying out that policy. They should put in place systems which measure performance and are concerned with the quality of services.
Serving the community is a high calling. The Bill goes a very long way towards depoliticising councils and making local government more democratically accountable to do the job for which it is elected—that is to provide the most effective services in response to local needs at a cost that can be afforded by the community it serves. I shall support the Bill.
5.20 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I must begin by apologising to the Minister for not being here when he started his speech. Transport proved a little difficult; the congestion in Finchley Road was far more than usual. It is regrettable that I was not here for the whole of his speech because I intend to be very critical of the Bill.
As has been said before, this is the fiftieth Bill which affects the running of local government in England and Wales to come before Parliament since 1971. Nineteen Bills dealing with housing have come before Parliament. Yet in the same period local authority services have become a lot worse; homelessness has more than doubled.
The Bill, when enacted, will have major implications for the operation of local government and will have a directly adverse impact on the black and ethnic minority communities living in the urban
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areas. Increasingly over the past decade these communities have looked to local government for responses that are relevant to their particular needs in education, housing, social services, leisure and recreation services, employment opportunities and the general environment.
In the early 1980s when it looked as though some parts of local government were responding to such needs with innovation and equality action programmes, the scope for eradicating racial disadvantage appeared to be tremendous. However, the continuous programme of legislation and the upheaval it has brought within local government has led to the erosion of that optimism placed on local government capabilities to make positive inroads in the provision of race equality through its service provision.
Central government, as the biggest employer of labour and the largest provider of contracts, could do a great deal in this respect but refuse to do so. They continue to pressurise local authorities for trying to do something. The pressure for change in local government has been daunting over recent years. That is now manifesting itself in acute staff shortages in the urban areas and particularly in London where many technical and professional staff, including surveyors, accountants, teachers and social workers are hard to come by.
The Bill will contribute to local government's decline and demise. It will erode even further the confidence of local people in the ability of local government to deliver. It will further increase central government's control over local government. It will futher reduce local government's influence in the local economy and in the overall delivery of social, economic and equality programmes for its inhabitants. Ultimately it will contribute to increased misery for urban residents in the most deprived parts of our inner cities.
It is regrettable that it is now customary to find in legislation of this kind the absence of substantial detail because it is argued that such detail will be settled by a plethora of future regulations to be formulated by the Secretary of State. There are many specific concerns to be addressed in the Bill. I cannot address them all. My particular concerns are with the overall management of local government which is dealt with in Part I and with the housing proposals in Parts VI, VII and VIII.
Part I of the Bill has serious implications for the black and ethnic minority communities and its ramifications have not been thought through. No adequate consideration has therefore been given to them. During the past decade we have been able to witness the emergence of black and ethnic minority residents in urban areas involving themselves in local political activity. They have responded to calls to use the democratic processes as a way of challenging racism and developing equality policies and programmes rather than using other means. Many of them are now local authority councillors and are active participants in local democracy. Many of them also work as employees in local government, having experienced widespread racial discrimination in the wider labour market, and having found local authorities as employers more accommodating.

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Few of them are to be found in senior positions. Therefore they are unable to use their political affiliations in a detrimental way within their employment. Yet the proposals set out in Part I to end twin-tracking will directly affect them adversely. There is little or no evidence to justify the Government bringing forward legislation that is so draconian in intent and discriminatory in effect, to deal with what is a small number of twin-trackers.
When enacted, this legislation will mean that councillors who are employed by other local authorities will either have to give up their present jobs or give up local politics. That is neither a healthy situation for economic survival nor for local democracy. Local government is big business, irrespective of whether the services are provided directly by local authorities or on their behalf by private contractors. Therefore it justifies better remuneration for councillors, instead of placing the emphasis on continued enthusiasm and amateurism.
The legislation will drive many competent people away from being councillors because of the derisory allowances to which they are entitled when compared with those enjoyed by company directors and indeed elected Members of Parliament. Many of them have no direct responsibility in the same way as locally elected councillors. Those councillors have to face the prospect of surcharges and disqualification if they make wrong or unlawful decisions. That is a prospect which even the Secretary of State—and we know that Secretaries of State make wrong and often unlawful decisions—does not have to face.
If the Government are to press ahead with such legislation, they clearly need to make provision for adequate remuneration to be paid to councillors, or at least to leading members of local authorities such as chairs and vice chairs of main committees. This will at least ameliorate the damaging effect of councillors having to give up their jobs and ensure that they are not further penalised for serving as elected representatives on their local councils in the discharge of the enormous responsiblities that we place upon them.
Clearly the race implications of Part I of the Bill have not been considered. It could be argued that the effect will lead to a decline in the number of black and ethnic minority people who will want to become councillors because of the doubly penalising effect. That is not a healthy development in good race relations, or for local democracy in the inner cities. Furthermore, considerations of what activity is politically acceptable or not politically acceptable on the part of local authority officers and staff will bring much conflict and consternation to those black staff who have risen to middle ranking and senior posts within local government.
It is quite clear that a whole range of legitimate activity in which black and ethnic minority people are engaged on a day-to-day basis could be deemed political. Many black people, for instance, actively support campaigns which seek to end racial harassment or which seek the reform of racist legislation: they may protest vigorously against
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police misdemeanours as well as being active in a whole range of other campaigns for civil liberties, equality and justice. Being involved in anti-racist activity could possibly be determined as political activity leading to conflict. These matters require clarification from Government before such legislation can be enacted. I believe the Government at least ought to indicate what kind of political activities are deemed unacceptable.
These are matters which require clarification on the part of the Government so that the black and ethnic minority communities can be assured of their continued employment in local government and their continued active participation in the local democratic processes which are all conducive to society's well-being, the improvement of local race relations and the achievement of race equality and justice.
In addition to the specific concerns in Part I of the Bill, I am sufficiently anxious to raise at this point the restrictiveness of the reforms in relation to the economic development power for local authorities as set out in Part III of the Bill. It is not clear, and the Government have failed to clarify how grants to voluntary bodies working for economic development are to be dealt with. I hope that when the Minister replies he will make that matter clear.
It is absolutely clear in the inner cities that voluntary organisations take a lead role and play an active part in contributing to economic regeneration. Yet it is not clear that they can receive grant and assistance from local authorities under the provisions of the Bill. Once again I am deeply concerned about the extent to which details are to be settled by regulations to be issued by the Secretary of State. In particular, the rigidity of imposing a requirement on local authorities to prepare and circulate economic development plans before the beginning of each financial year will be a straitjacket that does not allow local authorities the necessary flexibility of being able to respond to sudden unexpected local changes, such as the sudden collapse of a local industry which seeks to shed hundreds or even thousands of jobs.
If the Government are serious about economic development within the inner cities happening in any meaningful and realistic way, they must provide local authorities with greater flexibility, and they must involve them fully in the drawing up of the numerous regulations to be introduced. The Government must also review the adverse impact of this Bill on the management of local government in the inner cities and—I hope I may refer again to this—on the black and ethnic minority communities.
Although I have spoken at length on the implications of the Bill for the black and ethnic minority communities, the Bill has the same adverse effect on the indigenous community. Like other noble Lords, I have received a great deal of correspondence from councillors who will be adversely affected by this Bill and who feel that their civil liberties are being infringed. Some are in fact threatening to take the matter to the European Court. The level of 1,350 is in fact thirty-third on the scale

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of local government salaries. The highest scale is 49. The AMA estimates that some 78,000 local government officers will be adversely affected and that the total can rise to 114,000 this year and continue to rise in future years. The salary qualification means that more and more people could be affected as there is no commitment to vary it for inflation or to take account of regional pay variations. I have a suspicion that London employees will be more adversely affected than those elsewhere.
As I have said before, many of these officers are in no position to affect council policy as they are at too low a level to do so. Local authority officers should have conditions no more onerous than those of the Civil Service. This is an issue over which we shall need to have a great deal of discussion as it seems to me that the Government are using a steamroller to crack a nut. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, I think that the Government should consider naming the posts which will carry a ban against political activity. I think that that can be done and I think that that is the way it should be done if we wish to go along this road.
I now turn to the housing section of the Bill. I am very concerned about the housing proposals in this Bill. I shall attempt to put them in context in order to explain how damaging they will be. Instead of assessing today's acute housing needs and bringing forward measures to deal with them, the Government have devised a new housing finance regime which will only worsen our housing problem. There has been a recent assessment of our housing requirements in the report entitled Housing Needs in the 1990's. That report was published by the National Housing Forum in National Housing Week last May. That report showed that around 2 million extra homes are needed now, and that there are up to 1·2 million households in England and Wales who want their own separate accommodation but who do not have it at present. Households such as these who have to live with others are unlikely to be able to afford to buy their own homes. Only one in five of these households in London were in a position to buy, according to the London Housing Survey, conducted by the London Research Centre.
Local authority housing has been able to provide accommodation at the rents which those in housing need can afford, or at least that used to be the case. The link between low incomes and severe housing need and homelessness was well illustrated by research published last year by the Minister's own department, the Department of the Environment. That research was entitled, Responding to homelessness: Local authority policy and practice. It showed that the vast majority of households accepted as homeless by local authorities had no earned income, with only a fifth of them in paid work, and even fewer in the metropolitan authorities. That is what the department's survey showed. Therefore, the department should be trying to remedy that situation.
However, the supply of public sector housing has been drastically reduced. Housing Investment Programme allocations were cut to less than one-fifth in 1989 from their level in 1979, at a time when we need 2 million new houses. Over 1 million council
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homes have been sold since 1980 and they have not been replaced. Public sector completions, including housing associations, totalled 94,000 in 1980, and they were down to 18,600 in 1988. The combined total of council and housing association completions for rent is planned to rise to just 30,400 by 1991 to 1992. That is the plan. That is nowhere near enough to begin to make up the shortfall. At the same time the new financial regime for housing associations is taking rent levels beyond the range of their traditional client group. The rents are now too high for the people for whom they normally cater, or at least they will be if the new regime is followed. With private rents now at market levels as a result of the latest Housing Act, they are beyond the scope of people on low incomes. The vast majority of those people are in housing need.
The proposals before us today will reduce still further our ability to meet the needs which have been established by independent housing assessments. The last major source of genuinely affordable housing for those who need it will be cut off and priced beyond their reach. In the words of the Secretary of State, rents will be encouraged to increase to reflect the pattern of house prices around the country. That will be achieved by the ring-fencing of the housing revenue account.
With around 60 per cent. of council tenants receiving housing benefit, a substantial increase in rents will cause great hardship, especially for those receiving low wages. Those tenants who manage to afford those rents will eventually have to pay for the debts of those who cannot, and some council tenants will have to pay for the housing benefit of their neighbours.
The new capital finance system will cause local authority housing programmes to be run down even further. The ability of democratically elected local authorities to implement local decisions to build more homes will be severely curtailed. The scope for using capital receipts for housing investment and repairs will be cut, even though that money could be used to reduce homelessness significantly in many parts of the country.
We urgently need much increased investment in public housing, but this Bill will take us in the opposite direction. What is worse, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross, has pointed out, the new system of grants for housing repairs is a recipe for encouraging the decline of substandard housing to an unacceptable level of fitness. I do not believe that that is what we want.
We are in desperate need of a housing policy which will address the housing requirements of this country and the needs of those millions who are poorly housed. This is just another bad Bill which can lead only to increased homelessness and even less affordable housing. I do not believe that we shall be able to do anything to the Bill, but I hope that the Government will begin to think seriously about the issues which confront the nation.
5.44 p.m.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I should like to draw attention to one or two aspects of the Bill which fall outside the areas of local government housing

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finance. First, I welcome the new initiative for the payment of grants for improvements and repairs to houses set out in Part VIII of the Bill. Clearly the condition of the housing stock is such as to call for the continuation of subsidies in this field. I also tentatively welcome the proposals for means testing, but I join the noble Lord, Lord Ross, in inquiring about the results of the department's consultation paper.
I should like to talk about Clause 157 of the Bill and the long ninth schedule, which deals with the rents payable for long leases on flats after the leases expire. This subject has not been touched on before in your Lordships' House and was touched on very little in another place. Since 1951, residential leases of 21 years or more granted at low rents have given lessees the right to remain as Rent Act tenants when the leases expire. The effect of Clause 157 and the ninth schedule is to provide that, when the leases expire, the lessees may continue with security but they will be assured tenants paying full market rents. I must declare an interest in the subject as I live in a flat which has a long lease at a low rent which will expire very soon after the start of the third millenium.
This clause has been included in the Bill because it was left out of the Housing Act 1988. In the debates in another place, my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Trippier, said in Standing Committee G on 2nd May:
"Now that we have established the market rent principle for the generality of lettings, it would hardly be right to perpetuate the fair rent regime for long leases that are coming to an end. We made our intentions on that subject clear as long ago as October 1987, as part of the main deregulation package. We had hoped to include the necessary provisions in the 1988 Act, but the drafting was more difficult than we had expected".
He also said:
"The change from fair rents to market rents is an entirely logical adjunct to the measures to deregulate private sector lettings, which we introduced in the 1988 Act." [Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee G, 2/5/89; Col. 1204]
There is consistency there. Although I shall listen very carefully to the explanation that my noble friend Lord Hesketh may give when winding up, at the moment it exhibits to me something approaching the foolish consistency which is said to be the hobgoblin of certain minds.
To my way of thinking, an entirely different situation exists as between long leases and their expiry and the position of rent act tenancies. That is primarily because the long leases were granted or transferred for premiums. There is a contractual expectancy, on the part of both the landlord and the lessee, that at the end of the lease the lessee will have the statutory tenancy on the same terms as from time to time will apply to other statutory tenants. Therefore the clause proposes the destruction of certain financial rights which exist and are enjoyed by long lessees. It would be likely to be a source of particular hardship to people who may quite recently have bought the fag ends of long leases in London for very high premiums.
There is a second point. Under the Housing Act, assured tenancies are created only on the occasion
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of new lettings. Existing tenancies ere not affected. It seems quite anomalous to subject lessees under long leases to such a provision. After all, a Rent Act controlled tenant does not have to look forward to the possibility that in as little as nine and a half years he will be transferred to an assured tenancy. I understand that a number of long leases which are close to expiry are enjoyed by the elderly. I am certain that they must be looking forward with a great measure of apprehension to what will happen when their leases come to an end and they come within the full assured tenancy regime.
There is a final point. One has to look at the enfranchisement position of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 and compare the position of houses and flats. The clause will apply almost entirely to flats because the lessees of houses in the same position will have taken the opportunity under the 1967 Act to buy their freeholds. There is a strong body of opinion which says that, one way or another, the provisions of the 1967 Act should be extended to the lessees of flats. Consistency of treatment between lessees of flats and lessees of houses demands that the playing field should not be tilted against lessees of flats in the way that the clause suggests.
My noble friend the Minister is the Minister responsible for housing and is qualified and experienced in these matters. I shall certainly support or put down amendments for Committee stage which I hope will persuade the Government to at least think again about the provision.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, this Bill has many political and financial implications and will affect local government substantially. My noble friend Lord McIntosh has ably covered the broad sweep of the provisions of the Bill. I should like to concentrate on two aspects of the Bill. The first, which I do not think has been touched on, is the way that it will affect people with disabilities; and the second is the provision of low-cost rural housing.
Clause 131 and Schedule 5 amend the Local Government Finance Act 1988 which deals with the poll tax. There is an omission in that no attempt has been made to correct a serious injustice affecting disabled people as a result of the ending of the rating system. The Rating (Disabled Persons) Act 1978 allowed for rate reductions for disabled people who had altered or improved their houses to cater for their disabilities. It effectively granted them rate rebates. Not surprisingly, the ending of rates means the ending of those rebates, but the Government have made no attempt to deal with the injustice that will result from that change. As a result, many disabled people have realised too late that their poll tax bill will far exceed their previous rates demands. Many physically disabled people have discovered that they may face anything up to an extra £300 per year. RADAR and the Spastics Society have been flooded with inquiries. From March 1990, the rebates that were previously available will no longer apply because the poll tax is a tax on people, not on properties. Only disabled people on income support or very low incomes will be able to obtain a rebate on the tax.

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Mr. Taylor of Inchture in Scotland, where the poll tax has been introduced, discovered that his bill for the poll tax is almost double his previous rates bill—an extra £259 a year. He is registered disabled and retired last year. Under the rates system, he received a rebate, but, under the poll tax, he does not qualify because his wife is earning. The kind of people who are likely to be affected are those in his position, where a non-disabled partner is working or where the disabled person himself is working. Where rates rebates worked as an incentive to encourage disabled people to live in the community, the poll tax may well act as a disincentive.
Perhaps I may give another example concerning a couple in Scotland. Before the introduction of income support and the poll tax, they were not liable for rates at all. After the introduction of income support, but before the introduction of the poll tax, they were liable for £8 per month of their £40 per month rates bill. Now, with income support and the poll tax, they must find a sum of £12·75 a week in total. So, in two years, their rates bill has increased from nothing to £12·75 a week. At the same time, their benefits have increased by £2·25 a week. So, in two years, a disabled couple are £10·50 per week worse off. We shall certainly wish to put down amendments to the Bill at the Committee and Report stages to deal with that situation.
The other area of concern relates to the disabled facilities grants in Clause 108. Those grants are to be means tested, which is monstrously unfair for all people, but particularly for disabled people. The whole idea of means testing runs directly counter to the concept of a comprehensive disability allowance which is paid irrespective of means to all disabled people to meet the extra costs of their disability. Not surprisingly, that idea has received rather guarded support from Mr. Nicholas Scott, the Minister for the Disabled. I am pleased to say that the proposal is now the official policy of the Labour Party.
If disability is acquired in the course of a working life and is so great as to require expensive adaptations to a house, most people suffer a significant financial loss when they become disabled. The same is true of a disabled dependant. The disabled applicants or dependants will probably spend the rest of their lives disabled. Few, if any, will be able to look forward to employment as a means of making good whatever they are forced to spend on adaptations. Those with savings at the time of their disablement can look forward only to seeing those savings steadily depleted, having to spend them on disability aids and equipment which are not supplied through the health service and on helping to offset some of the heavy extra costs of daily living as a disabled person.
It is also unfair that the proposed means test will be based on scales established for non-disabled people, so that no account is taken of the hidden extra costs of disability. Besides the fundamental objection to means testing for disabled facilities grants, we wish to amend, if possible, Clause 108 to improve and extend its range. It mainly concerns improving access in and around the home. That is very welcome, but many of us would like to see an
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extension of disabled facilities grants and we shall therefore put down amendments to this effect.
There is also the question of the effect of the Bill on improving heating for low income families, and particularly for the elderly and disabled. There is no doubt that the legislation will adversely affect the work of Neighbourhood Energy Action which insulates the homes of elderly and disabled people and others on low incomes. The discretionary nature of the grants will provide no signal to local authorities that energy efficiency measures are considered vital. The loss of the £25 million expenditure on energy efficiency which is currently available for loft insulation and draught-proofing will mean that thousands of elderly people will be at risk from the cold. Local authority and housing action trust tenants will no longer be eligible for grants, and tight controls on general housing finance are unlikely to provide for energy efficiency measures.
There is a further serious anomaly in the operation of the poll tax. That relates to the refusal to grant exemption from the tax to those suffering from severe dementia. There is exemption for those defined as severely mentally impaired, but the Government have resisted inclusion in that category of those suffering from severe dementia. We know that the poll tax is now in operation in Scotland. A recent press cutting makes it clear that the situation is chaotic. It states that,
"Doctors are exempting about three out of four Alzheimer's disease sufferers from the poll tax in spite of a Scottish Office order that they should pay, according to Alzheimer's Scotland … [The] director of the organisation, said yesterday there was complete chaos over the Scottish Office ruling, which has been widely condemned as illogical. 'It is a mess, whatever way you look at it', he said".
He also said that;
"some people were being refused [exemption] who were more severely mentally impaired than those being given exemptions. 'It is not only unfair, it is unworkable', he said".
Again, we shall wish to put down amendments to deal with that situation.
A number of noble Lords have referred to the problem of the homeless. There is an inference that homelessness is a problem almost entirely of the inner cities. That is just not true. It is a fact that 50 per cent. of the homeless are to be found in rural areas. Only this morning I checked some figures with my own district council in Wiltshire. It is a rural area with a population of 67,000. Five years ago the bill for bed and breakfast came to £2,000 a year; in the last financial year it was £70,000, and this year the budget is £82,000. That is the increase over five years in a rural area. It illustrates very well the problem of rural housing.
I should like to mention the problem in relation to staircasing, which was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton. Staircasing is the right of an occupier of shared ownership housing to buy the freehold of his house. Housing associations and local authorities are not allowed to subsidise shared ownership housing unless the right to staircase is written into the contract. There is a great deal of support among district councils in rural areas for that right to be abolished. Houses for shared

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ownership have been built in villages to help those who cannot afford to buy a house or cannot find one to rent. Many of those houses have then been staircased and have become part of the general housing market. They are available only at the full market price and are no longer reserved for local people.
At this point I should like to declare an interest. On the farm in which I am involved it is intended to set up some low cost rural housing. That depends on us, as landowners, being prepared either to make a gift of the land to the housing association at a fraction—perhaps only 10 per cent.—of its development value. This means that effectively the cost of land is removed from the cost of the houses on that land. It halves the cost of the house. Half of the remaining half stays in the ownership of the housing association, and the buyer has only to find one quarter of the full cost. On a house worth £80,000, that will amount to some £20,000.
We are quite prepared philanthropically to make what amounts to a gift in perpetuity to a housing association in order to ensure that the property is always available for those who are not able to afford to buy. We are certainly not prepared to make such a gift for the benefit of the occupiers of that low cost housing which our philanthropy is helping if, as a result of staircasing, they are eventually able to achieve the full ownership of the house, and then are able to sell it at full market value. We shall certainly not set up the scheme if staircasing is included. That will remove some eight to 10 houses from the potential stock in a rural area.
All the matters upon which I have touched are of real and practical concern. From these Benches we look forward to the opportunity to improve the Bill as it goes through its various stages in this House.
6.3 p.m.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, perhaps I may start by taking up a point raised by my noble friend Lady Blatch; namely, the effectiveness of the local government ombudsman. If I heard her aright, she suggested that when the ombudsman found against a local authority there should be some form of financial compensation. I am not in favour of financial compensation generally because it can increase the number of spurious claims by people who wish purely to obtain money. I very strongly agree with her and support her suggestion that there should be some form of judicial enforcement. The ombudsman needs to be given at least one tooth.
Turning to the Long Title to the Bill, about one-third of the way down it says:
"to amend the Housing Act 1985".
When the Housing Act 1988 was passing through this House by a substantial majority vote disabled people were given the right to buy. Unfortunately Schedule 5 of the Housing Act 1985 also contains paragraph 11, which is designed to protect accommodation for elderly people who are also disabled. It is phrased in such a way that it refers to elderly and disabled people. In my view it is being misused by a number of local authorities which are
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preventing disabled pople from buying their rented accommodation despite the will of Parliament. I think that it will be necessary to bring forward an amendment at Committee stage to ensure that that paragraph refers only to accommodation designed specifically for elderly pople who are also disabled.
Noble Lords may thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for considerably reducing the length of my speech tonight. I had intended to raise many of the points that he mentioned, including the question of conservation of heating in accommodation and means testing for disabled facilities grants. It must be remembered that a severely disabled person is not only handicapped physically in moving around and doing various things but is also handicapped at the same time in his or her earning potential. Any savings that they have will be used up within a few years in most cases by the extra costs involved in living life as a disabled person.
I believe that we should provide the facilities needed for them to be as independent as possible in their own homes. As I have said often in your Lordships' House, it is cheaper for a disabled person to live at home even with the capital cost of those facilities than it is to live in some form of institution or a hospital. We should insist on such facilities being provided.
As I read the Bill, if a physically disabled person wishes to buy a dwelling that is currently under construction, he will obtain no grant for any special adaptations that he needs in that dwelling. That is a mistake. It is far cheaper to build in the adaptations during the construction of that dwelling than to allow it to be built completely and then have to tear it to pieces before putting it together again. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister, as a surveyor, will understand that point very easily.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has already delivered most of my speech, it only remains for me to say that I shall join with him in supporting various amendments at Committee stage. I wish the Bill well.
6.9 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I think that it will be generally agreed that we have had a full and extensive debate on the Bill. Many of the technical points in both the local government part and the housing part of the Bill have been widely covered by various Members of your Lordships' House. As this has been a rather long debate, I do not intend to backtrack and go over points that have been raised during the speeches of other noble Lords.
I shall deal briefly with the local government part of the Bill because that was extensively explained very ably and in an accurate way by my noble friend Lord McIntosh in his opening speech. I simply make this reference. I find it a strange criterion of democracy that a government who have introduced an average of five Bills every year that they have been in office discipline or contract the areas of responsibility for local authorities and their elected members. It is dangerous when we reach the stage where a political party, or a political movement, considers that democracy is good so long as it is

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always right. I find it strange that the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government, who quite rightly are welcoming the loosening of the rigidity in the Eastern European countries, are moving away from centralisation. We have a Government who are moving quite decisively in the opposite direction on a variety of excuses. It is a very dicey exercise in which to become involved.
As a former member of a large local authority I believe that the overwhelming majority of authorities do a good job. In the same way as there are bad governments and Ministers, there are bad local authorities. However a response to the Government's treatment of the local authorities was indicated by the reception given to the Secretary of State for the Environment by the annual conference of the Association of District Councils, which is Conservative controlled. It showed Mr. Ridley in no uncertain terms that it did not support what he was imposing on local authorities.
We have had a Government over the past 10 years who are uncaring in their attitude to the people in all political parties who wish to become councillors in local governments and to do a good job. They are certainly unheeding when people in their own party start to object to some of the measures that are being forced down their throats.
I must refer briefly to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. She said that she was minded to move an amendment that will stop school teachers from having the privilege of standing for office in local elections and being either rejected or elected. If one adds council house tenants and the unemployed to that list, we shall have no electorate left. It may sound funny, but that is the road down which we are going. People from sections of the community who have most to offer will be barred under the Bill from any input whatsoever. Whether one is Conservative, Labour, Liberal, SDP or whatever, it is a very dangerous trend for a Government to decide who will have the power to represent people. Adolf Hitler did that; he decided who would have the power. So did Stalin; and we know how that ended.
Let me turn to the main aspects on housing in the Bill. I shall not speak to them clause by clause. In my winding up speech on the Second Reading of the Housing Bill 1988, I said that not only was the Bill flawed, it was also a fraud. It would not achieve what the Government said it would. I contend that practice has shown that it has not achieved their aims. To go briefly over old ground, there has been no forum in this country more forceful in its criticism of government policy—policy not decided in this Chamber but in another place by senior Ministers —than your Lordships' House. I am referring to all sections in this Chamber regarding the succession of debates that have taken place. Members of the Duke of Edinburgh's Commission, those who reported in Faith in the City and other groups have all come to the final conclusion that there is a tremendous shortage of houses. A report was mentioned which stated that we were 2 million housing units short.
The Government appear to have two planks of argument for their housing policy. The first is, what
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a tremendous success the sale of council housing is. That has always been topped by the response that, when the sales stop, make the bribe bigger so that they will go up. That is considered successful housing policy of course. Secondly, there is the fact that there are just over 100,000 council properties in need of repair which are deteriorating. The Government will find that more than 100,000 properties will have to be discarded from housing stock. I speak of industrialised dwellings. I do not blame this Government but the policies that were imposed on local authorities by successive Conservative and Labour Governments. Some properties which have been built less than 20 years are having to be demolished. The full cost still remains on the council house tenants. I believe that we can get away from that argument. Give us something new. Do not give us the old hat because it is wearing a little thin. We deserve a more intelligent response than to be told that those two excuses have to be accepted.
On capital receipts, as I have said previously, Members of your Lordships' House from all sections of the political spectrum and the Cross-Benches have repeatedly questioned the Government and reminded them of this fact. One of the main planks for the acceptance of the sale of council houses was that the money would be made available in total to build new council houses. I argued at the time that it would cost three or four times as much to build a new house as the amount for which the old one was sold. But the local authorities have not been allowed to do that. The provision in the Bill will make that position worse. As I understand it—I should like to be corrected if I am wrong—under the Bill there will be a point of nil extraction from those capital sales to build houses or to repair existing houses. The Minister who gave that undertaking is now a Member of your Lordships' House—the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. He as Secretary of State gave the copper-bottomed undertaking that this was the reason for the Bill. I am sorry that he is not present but I am stating historic facts that are able to be checked. I believe that noble Lords will find that I am right. We now have a Government who are not prepared to carry out the undertaking that they gave and to allow local authorities to use their own money. It is not the Government's money.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, referred to the sad fact that in 1988 in terms of financial resources and allocations local authorities received one-fifth of the amount that they received in 1979. Such sums are supposed to produce more houses and enable more repairs to be undertaken.
If I have to deal with one part of the Bill that is absolutely monstrous it is this ring-fencing. Mr. Gummer is a pillar of the Church. He is supposed to be steeped in Christianity. I happen to be an atheist or an agnostic but I care for my fellow men. For such a man to make a public announcement that the council house tenant who pays his rent will have to pay the debts of one who does not is monstrous and absolutely unacceptable by any standards to a fair-minded person. I have repeatedly asked in another place and have used the same terms here. Why are the Government so obsessed with a vendetta against council house tenants? This is the

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most outstanding example of the depths to which they will go to prove that such a vendetta exists.
In the pressure areas, parts of inner London or in parts of the city where I used to be the leader of the council and at one time chairman of housing, 50 to 60 per cent. of council house tenants are on very high housing benefit. That means that the full weight of the housing revenue account is being borne by about 40 per cent. of the council house tenants in those authorities. They are not people with a lot of money otherwise they would have been able to take advantage of the gift horse of buying their council homes. They cannot afford to buy them or, for various reasons, do not want to. What it means is that the full weight of the debts of that housing revenue account will fall on people with principles, who honour their debts to society and have paid the rent.
I have heard of some cases where, if rents are paid on time people, receive a bonus for paying them. How can anybody, other than this Government, bring in a scheme whereby someone can be punished for paying his rent on time? This is absolutely beyond belief.
If the Government have any principles they should think this thing through. This scheme is tantamount to saying to somebody who is in an average, decent job and pays his rent, high as it is, that as Charlie next door does not pay his rent, you can pay it for him. That is the way they will take it. They will not understand the figures coming through the door from the Government or from the local authority. In the days when we are talking about getting the community more balanced, doing away with violence and improving the social order, that is a good input to it, is it not? I can see what will happen in local clubs and pubs at weekends to people who do not pay their rent. Your Lordships might think that that is a laughing matter, but it is the type of situation that will be created.
I have referred to the last housing Bill. The Minister will be aware that on a number of occasions I have questioned him. One of the strong points he made was when he talked about the private sector during the passage of the last housing Bill. He was questioned about the homeless and gave figures. I do not want to go through all the rigmarole because the figures have been quoted in this House today, on previous days in debates and at Question Time, of what is happening regarding homelessness. It is becoming a fearful concept of what may happen. I said a few weeks ago that we were lucky we had a mild winter. But if there is a severe winter to come there will be carnage in the inner areas of London among the people sleeping out in cardboard boxes, and with the youngsters who have had to leave home for a variety of reasons. It is no good the Minister then saying that the bad winter has caused it. People ought not be be in such a position. If the Government had not withdrawn financial support—the Treasury is supposed to be awash with money under Mr. Lawson—many of these problems may have been eradicated. I am not saying they would have been completely eradicated, but they would have been alleviated.
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I want to compliment the Minister. I have asked him at various times to give me a clear indication or evidence as to how the private sector was now dealing with homeless people. Is there any evidence that homeless people could negotiate with an agent for a private tenancy, and if the rent was £150 a week it would be met from housing benefit? I have never been given an answer. I do not think the Minister has one. I was amazed, as were other Members of your Lordships' House, when my noble friend Lord Stallard mentioned in the debate on the last Housing Bill that rents of £150 a week from housing benefit were being paid in London. Believe it or not, those are the lowest now.
I wonder how many in your Lordships' House read the article in last week's Sunday Times which states:
"Single rooms in Highgate, north London, [are] let for a rent of £160 pw; Luxury flats in a converted warehouse in Bethnal Green, east London, at £150 to £200 pw; Flat; costing £260 pw in The Cascades, a luxury development on the Isle of Dogs in London's Docklands, with its own swimming pool and squash courts; Houses at Brunswick Quay, a development in Surrey Docks, let at £200 to £300 pw".
Let us move from that to what was said in the Evening Standard last night. This is the success of the Government's policy. Those people may be homeless, but if those sums of money were used for building, if they had been ploughed into a building programme, what effect would that have had? The Evening Standard said:
"London has become the mecca for homeless and jobless families all over Britain".
I do not suppose whoever wrote this has been near Charing Cross station to see the people living there. It is not a mecca for them, but the leader continues:
"Two-thirds of all impoverished families housed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation are in London, at an annual cost for each family of more than £11,000 (enough to finance the debt repayable on two new council homes)."
What really are the Government playing at and trying to prove? Every known housing agency, non-political or whatever it may be in the country, has come down forcefully to say that over the period there is a shortage of houses. In every debate in your Lordships' House that I have mentioned, people from outside, the Institute of Housing, Shelter, National Federation of Houseowners, everybody, says that there should be a substantial building programme of new housing to let. Let us make it clear. The only authority that can carry out such a programme is the local authority. My noble friend Lord McIntosh earlier said that the housing associations say that they have no way in which they can take over the role of the local authorities. They can supplement the work, but no more than that.
Finally, there are indications in the Bill—I say only indications—that there may be more money or a different scheme to make money available for improvements of private housing. Faith in the City pointed out clearly that the biggest area of concern for housing in this country is deterioration not in the public sector, but in the owner-occupation sector. As people grow older they no longer have the funds to repair or maintain their houses. Some form of financial assistance ought to be given to help people to get on with that job and to stop the rot in that

1119
sector. There are indications that there may be something in the Bill, but we can only deal with that when the Bill goes into Committee and we can press the Government as to what it means.
I have tried to give what I think is a summary of what the Bill is supposed to do. My view is that it will have no more effect on the terribly deteriorating housing situation than the last one. In terms of taking homelessness off the streets, succouring those concerned, including the children, and giving them somewhere to live, it might just as well never have passed through your Lordships' House on its way to the statute book. Unless the Government alter the Bill drastically the injustices in it will have no effect. We shall oppose it and amend it wherever we can.
6.30 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, we have had a most interesting Second Reading debate and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. I should like to respond briefly to as many of the points made as possible.
The Bill has been criticised on the grounds that once again the Government are interfering with local authorities and constraining them unnecessarily. But this is not the case. All of the reforms which the Bill introduces are logical and justified, as my noble friend Lord Bellwin said. Much of the early part of the Bill stems from the Widdicombe Committee which demonstrated a need for clear rules on political activities of local government officers. The Bill will ensure greater political impartiality in all local services, achieve greater accountability, encourage better management and strengthen the local democratic process.
We have a real concern about the failure of local authorities to comply with the ombudsman's recommendations. The Bill will ensure that all reports are given full and proper consideration by authorities, and it provides a statutory basis for the National Code of Local Government Conduct.
There is a need to rationalise the current powers on economic development. The Bill will provide specific power to assist economic regeneration, target help on key activities and areas and clarify the scope of the discretionary spending power.
We are also concerned over mounting local authority debt of £45 billion. The Government have a duty to establish some influence over that debt as part of their management of the national economy. The Bill will provide effective control over aggregate levels of borrowing, encourage local authorities to dispose of surplus assets and provide a sound basis for planning capital programmes.
Local authorities should not use companies as a means of avoiding controls imposed by Parliament. The Bill will ensure that local authority controlled companies are subject to the same rules of accountability and propriety as the parent local authority.
On the housing side, too many councils are indifferent to tenants' needs and desires, providing low standards of service at low rents subsidised by the ratepayer. The Bill will bring disciplines into
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local authority housing, enable council tenants to judge whether they are getting value for money from their landlord and encourage wider choice, more competition and better services for those in council housing. We have dispelled the notion that we are intent on bringing council rents to market levels.
The present system of improvement grants, HAAs and GIAs is complicated and unwieldy, with arbitrary rules and no regard to applicant's resources. The Bill will overhaul the existing system with a new system of renovation grants and renewal areas and target help to people and areas most in need.
Finally, Part IX of the Bill contains material on a large number of topics. Among these I should draw your Lordships' attention to the bringing to local authorities much needed flexibility for them to charge for services, while at the same time protecting the core of the free public library service. The home loan scheme has made practically no contribution to the growth of home ownership, take-up having been very disappointing. It is therefore sensible to wind it up. And the functions of the Audit Commission have been strengthened and extended to the health service in England and Wales.
Many and varied points have been raised this afternoon and I shall attempt to deal with as many as I can. First, I very much welcome the support given by my noble friend Lord Bellwin to the Second Reading of the Bill, particularly in the light of his enormous experience both in local government and at the Department of the Environment at an earlier time.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in describing the Government's position over poorly run local authorities, called them authorities which did not agree with the Government. My honourable friend the Minister for Local Government has made clear his admiration for the work of many local authorities. Two examples which I should choose are Barking and Dagenham, neither of which is known for its affection or constant agreement with the Government.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Barking and Dagenham is one local authority and not two?
Lord Hesketh: Yes I am.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, began his remarks earlier this afternoon by saying that the Government wished to be enablers and regulators rather than providers. In order to be providers we must be enablers. I see no dichotomy in the suggestion made by the noble Lord.
In moving towards Part I of the Bill, both the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, suggested that in some way the proposals might be contrary to the policy of the EC. The proposed restrictions have been drafted so as to be consistent with the covention, and that is our understanding of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, said that during a recent visit to South Korea he described British local government as being in terminal

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decline. We believe that the Bill is quite the reverse: it will give local government back to local government.
Many local authority officers who are in sensitive jobs will not lose their political rights. It is a misrepresentation of our proposals. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that the proposals would deprive people in non-sensitive jobs of political rights. In his opening speech my noble friend made clear the fact that any officer earning over £13,500 per year will be able to apply for exemption to the independent adjudicator. Thus, if an officer is not in a politically sensitive position, it is highly unlikely that he will in any way be affected.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, raised the question of those who earn less than £13,500 per year. The local authorities will have to identify those whose posts require them to carry out three jobs: regularly to advise councillors, regularly to speak to the media for the authority and regularly to deal with the public where the public think that they would affect the council's decision. They are the only jobs under £13,500 per year where the council would have to make a decision. I hope that I have made that matter clear.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, suggested that Clause 7 cuts right across the provision of employment for the disabled. We believe that that criticism is incorrect. Where local authorities provide sheltered employment under their special powers to do so, they are not making appointments to their service and the requirements of Clause 7 do not apply.
As this House will see, Clause 7 is careful to ensure that it does not cut across provisions that are relevant to appointments of the disabled to the ordinary service of the council, such as Sections 9 and 12 of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, argued that the rules will have a disproportionate effect on the representation of ethnic minorities among elected councillors. The fact that a high proportion of elected councillors from ethnic minorities may also be senior local authority officers is not relevant to the question of whether the combination of those two roles is appropriate within our governmental system. If it is not appropriate to combine the roles, we do not believe that the ethnic background of those concerned can make it so.
The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, asked how many head teachers in Scotland are councillors and whether the Bill will permit the continuation of the arrangements for the Highland regional divisional planning committees. We believe that the only recent research into the number of head teachers who are councillors was carried out by the Widdicombe Committee and published in its report. However, I shall look into the matter and if I find anything of interest to the noble Baroness I shall write to her.
As regards the Highland divisional planning committees, my honourable friend Lord James Douglas-Hamilton made clear in another place that the power to exempt committees as given by Clause
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14(4) will be used to ensure that the Highland regional divisional planning committees can continue as at present.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman and Lady David, suggested that the Government had reneged on previous assurances about the use of capital receipts. The Government have not gone back on their assurances. The Green Paper, Paying for Local Government, was published in January 1986. It proposed that a new capital control system be introduced in April 1987. The Green Paper estimated tentatively—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, if the Minister checks the records he will find that prior to the publication of the Green Paper an absolute copper-bottomed guarantee was given in another place by the then Secretary of State that that was the purpose for which those capital assets would be made available to be returned to the local authority. Whether the Minister likes it or not, the Government have reneged on an undertaking, whether in a Green Paper or not.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I shall check on what the noble Lord said.
Baroness David: My Lords, I quoted the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, a little further on I shall come to the important part of the matter, which is the amount of the money itself. That appertains to the whole of this issue.
The fact is that at the time local authorities had been given assurances that that amount, which was some £3 billion, will be available in Full over time to justify additional capital expenditure. The interesting part of the equation is that we are now approaching April 1990 and, by then, the local authorities will have spent some £8·5 billion from receipts and will take another £3 billion into the new system as usable capital receipts. That makes £11·5 billion in total which is not bad against the amount of £3 billion which we said should be available for additional capital spending. That is the important figure.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry to pursue this matter, but when the Secretary of State made his original statement, which was quoted by my noble friend, he may have referred to a figure as being the current estimate of receipts but he gave a very clear indication to local authorities that they would have the ability to spend money from future receipts. At that time nobody was making any estimate of what those future receipts would be. The point is that those local authorities were encouraged to act on the basis that the money from the receipts would still be usable.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I quite understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, but I think it is important to understand how the sums of money have changed very considerably in actuality over that period of time.

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The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, referred to the reduction of the burden of debt as being inefficient and suggested that we might use a straight line method rather than the reducing balance method. That is what the Government originally intended, but local authorities did not like it so we have proposed the reducing balance method which meets our objectives and is more popular with the local authorities.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again. I acknowledged that the reducing balance method was preferable to the equal instalments of principle. However, I said that neither of those accord with modern accounting practice as would a straight line basis rather than a reducing balance.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I believe that it is fair to say that a considerable amount in local government does not accord with modern accounting practice and has developed over the years in a rather different way.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, as always, defended and represented the interests of the tourist industry. I should like to reply to the three points which he raised. The new economic development power will be available to support the promotion of tourism. Section 137 will no longer be relevant to the promotion of tourism. We believe that there is a strong case for exempting any regional tourist boards which might otherwise be subject to Part V from those provisions and we are examining that case in detail. The status of marketing boards will depend on particular local arrangements. My department will be glad to advise in any particular case.
The noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport, raised the matter of an undertaking with regard to the groundwork trusts. My right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government gave an assurance that the groundwork trust companies would be exempt from Part V while they are receiving government grant, which is expected to be the case for the foreseeable future. My honourable friend the Member for Surrey South-West repeated those assurances on Report in another place, and I gladly repeat them now.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I have seen the comments made by the Minister in another place. Is it the intention of the Government to move an amendment so that that is on the face of the Bill while it is in this House, or do we have to wait for regulations?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, that will be by regulation.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, suggested that local authorities will be prevented from capitalising major housing repairs by the introduction of the word "enhancement". We have always accepted that local authorities should be able to capitalise repairs which provide a long-term benefit. The definition of "capital expenditure" in Part IV is in line with the commonly accepted understanding of capital
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expenditure. However, we have sought to clarify the grey areas which have surrounded previous definitions of "capital expenditure" and that is why we have introduced that term.
The noble Baroness, Lady David, also refered to the restriction, as she saw it, of the use of capital receipts. We are not taking away local authorities' receipts. We merely say that they should use some of their receipts in order to repay their debt. The Government must influence the total level of capital expenditure. The more of that total spent from capital receipts, the less can be given in capital allocations or credit approvals in the future. I cannot tell the noble Baroness what the total credit approvals will be because that is a decision for the Government to take when they come to matters of the Public Expenditure Survey.
My noble friend Lord Bellwin asked whether or not authorities with no debt on their housing revenue account should be able to transfer the surplus to the general account. The Bill provides that if an authority has a surplus in its housing revenue account after meeting all its costs and if the authority is not receiving any subsidy, it must transfer a specified amount to the general fund and may transfer more if it wishes to do so.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, perhaps I may be forgiven for intervening again. The Minister's noble friend Lord Caithness had a principle which I believe was a very good one; namely, in a winding up speech he does not refer to interventions from noble Lords who are not present. I believe that it would be a very good idea if the Minister followed that rule.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, attending as I was to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, I had not looked behind and was unaware of the situation of which he has now informed me. I shall endeavour to do my best not to repeat what the noble Lord clearly finds unacceptable.
Many noble Lords referred to the new housing subsidy system as the poor paying for the poorest. That is simply not the case. Our proposals mean that the subsidy will continue to be paid to meet the cost of rent rebates of council tenants where that is needed. They also mean that local authorities capable of making a surplus on their housing revenue account without any special increase in rents will be expected to recycle that surplus by contributing to the cost of their rebates. That will ensure that the subsidy from the Exchequer—that is the taxpayers' money—will be directed to the authorities which have the most need of it.
The noble Lords, Lord Jay and Lord Dean, said that homelessness can only be fully overcome through a very large increase in investment in public rented housing.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene. When I referred to that, I was quoting what many non-political organisations dealing with housing are saying in general. I do not have the means to research that and to confirm whether or not that is the case. However, the overwhelming

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views expressed by your Lordships over a long period and by housing organisations outside the House inform me that that is the case. That is not solely my opinion or that of my noble friend Lord Jay. We were quoting what those organisations have said.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I think I am right in following the convention of replying to Members of your Lordships' House rather than referring to bodies outside. I believe that that is correct.
The Government are not relying on the private sector. There will always be a subsidised sector but it is a fallacy to think that council housing is the sole answer to all housing needs. About one million families have bought their public sector homes since the right to buy was introduced, and more still wish to. Others do not wish to be dependent on the council for their home and welcome the Government's expansion of the housing association sector. That expansion is not dependent solely on public funds. Private investment in housing association schemes is being encouraged and the Housing Corporation grant is payable at the same time.
As for council housing, this Bill will make it easier for the Government to target resources for new building and renovation where most needed. That is what we are attempting to do.
Lord Jay: My Lords, as I am present, can the Minister tell us how many new rented houses or flats have been made available by the private sector or the housing associations in the past year?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it is not without notice. For a moment I believed that there was an echo in the Chamber. My noble friend Lady Blatch and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, brought up the subject of rural housing. As my noble friend Lord Middleton said, there is concern that local people should be able to buy homes in the area in which they reside and not be priced out of the market by others moving into the area. People become worried when a shared owner in a rural area buys the whole of his property and then sells it on the open market. It is lost to local people from the pool of low-cost housing.
Since the number of available alternative properties in the area may be limited because of planning constraints, it can be difficult to replace the shared ownership property. The Government have decided to let housing associations prevent shared ownership housing from passing into the general market in those rural areas where there can be particular difficulty in obtaining replacement properties. They will do so by requiring the shared owners to offer the house back to the association when he wishes to move. The association could buy it from him and re-allocate it to another local person on similar terms.
The advantage of the scheme over that proposed in another place, which would prevent the shared owners from buying the whole of his home, is that it keeps the house for use by local people without stopping them progressing to full ownership of their homes. The disadvantage of the amendment proposed was that people would be effectively
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prevented from expressing their right to buy by allowing the housing association to restrict the amount of equity that the shared owner could buy. The Government believe that there is a better way of achieving the same aim. The aim is to retain shared ownership homes in rural areas for local people. Our scheme achieves this while also allowing the shared home owner to become a full home owner. On the other hand, we believe that restrictions deprive the shared owner of the chance of the staircase to full ownership. I hope that my noble friend Lord Middleton will be convinced that our scheme is a way forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, said that the proposals disregarded the evidence of housing need and the homeless. On the contrary, they will help to ensure that Exchequer support is concentrated on the authorities with the greatest needs. That is true both of the new capital system, which will ensure that a higher proportion of the total provision of capital spending goes in allocations to authorities which need it, and the new revenue subsidy system, which we also intend shall be much better targeted to those areas which need it the most.
My noble friend Lord Swinfen and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, both brought up the problems of the disabled as regards the right to buy. My noble friend raised a point concerning the elderly and disabled as a statement in Schedule 5 of the Housing Act 1985. I willingly undertake to consider carefully what he said and I shall look at the evidence of the way in which the Act is working.
My noble friend referred also to grants to adapt properties under construction. The Government's policy is to encourage properties to be built from the outset to standards that are suitable for disabled people. We are not convinced that grants are the way forward. I am happy to undertake to look at what he said and at the issue involved.
My noble friend Lady Blatch raised the matter of dogs. She was very brief on the subject and I shall also be brief. The Government do not believe in a registration scheme. She said that her views are those of the Government, which is surprising. I was pleased that we had only one mention of the matter in your Lordships' House this afternoon, but I fear that it is a subject that may be returned to later in consideration of the Bill at the Committee and possibly the Report stage.
I have tried to deal with the points which have been raised during the debate but I shall of course read Hansard carefully. If I can provide further answers in writing I shall gladly do so. The Bill completes the new regime for local authorities that we promised at the last general election, and I hope that we can leave it to work for many years to come. We must ensure the integrity of local government in the way in which it conducts its business. We must provide a new framework of control over local authorities' borrowing and capital finance. We must reform housing finance. This Bill does all of these things and it is for those reasons that commend it to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Family Practitioner Services
6.55 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington Lord Hunter of Newington rose to ask Her Majesty's Government how they plan to meet the need for family practitioner services in the 1990s.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, during the past two years the House has debated a whole range of activities concerning health and the social services. The general feeling which has been on all sides of the House is that it is most important and urgent to get the health services on an evolutionary path which will give their development a base from which change can take place. A great deal of time has been spent discussing the hospital services, the public health services, the new preventive measures, innoculation and other procedures which are becoming so important and also the social services. The views of the House on the Griffiths Report were clearly stated.
The question tonight concerns family practice and I hope that the Government will be able to give a reassuring reply. If one goes back for a moment to the beginning in 1946 when the health service was introduced, it was stated:
"The main feature of the General Practice Service is seen as the development of health centres to be provided by the local authorities but with doctors and dentists working with them in contract with executive councils. At the outset, all doctors would be able to join the service where they were and to have private as well as public patients who in turn would have free choice of doctor. Remuneration would be fixed by regulations drawn up in consultation with the profession".
Essentially, however, general practice continued along the lines which it had done in the past.
The consequences are important. By the mid-1960s it was obvious that something had to be done to improve recruitment of doctors to general practice. The consequence was the introduction in the mid-1960s of what came to be called the general practitioners' charter. This had had a remarkable effect over the past 20 years. It has ensured that high quality graduates of the universities would choose general practice as their career.
The gateway to the service is the general practitioner. Are the new proposals by the Secretary of State likely to improve recruitment or not? What a courageous person he is even to take this risk. Now we are considering proposals which radically alter the position of the doctor in relation to his patient which it is claimed will improve the service to the patients. In fact, it is said, everything is being done for the benefit of the patients.
What changes have been taking place in the past 25 years in general practice? Certainly the intentions which I have indicated in 1946 have not been achieved. The principles of independent practice with individual contracts for doctors have been continued, and though there has been a variety of experiments in large group practices, there are still very many practices with two or three doctors working essentially in the same way as they did 25 years ago. Family practitioner committees have been pushed around and, having been connected with area health authorities, they then became answerable to the Secretary of State. Now a new relationship with regional authorities is envisaged. But the policy
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is not clear. The Government have also indicated that they want to make proper use of the professions allied to medicine, though so far there has been little more than talk.
The White Paper on the National Health Service makes a number of proposals about the future of general practice which have given rise to a great deal of discussion and comment. Most of the proposals are concerned with the financial and management aspects of practice and put pressure on doctors to do a more effective job for which they will be financially rewarded.
While one accepts that it is desirable and necessary to have financial controls of some kind, many of the proposals in the White Paper do not appeal in any way to doctors or to their patients. Prior to the development of the present White Paper there was a previous White Paper concerned with primary care services which envisaged that there would be a changing role for doctors, an increased commitment in preventive medicine and an additional role for the professions allied to medicine, particularly nurses, pharmacists and others, The object of this debate is to try to focus on some of the changes that are already taking place in practice which must be considered in relation to future plans.
Perhaps one of the most important of these is the fact that in the last two decades large numbers of women have qualified in medicine and many of them wish to combine marriage and having a family with their professional responsibilities. One would hope, therefore, that the organisation of practices should make it easy for women to do this; and this perhaps means a contribution, full-time or part-time, to a group practice which might be quite substantial in size. Under those circumstances they could take part-time duties and concentrate on preventative services like screening. This is a vitally important matter. Substantial resources have been spent on their education which should not be wasted.
A second major change is the change in technology. At the beginning of the National Health Service the focus of change and development was substantially on the hospital service. This tended to concentrate new developments and new technologies on that service, and the flow of change which had previously begun to take place in general practice was slowed. Much was done in the 1960s with the General Practice Charter to recruit people of quality to the service and they have contributed enormously in the past 20 years. Now, however, things are again changing. New technology is making a whole range of investigations possible in large group practices. The sending of patients unnecessarily to hospital is an expensive business whether or not the doctor has a practice.
I am sure that GPs and their patients would like to see a greater range of facilities and opportunities in practice and specialist investigations to take place in these practices. If necessary consultants could visit large group practices on specific days to see patients.
One of the most urgent needs is to find out whether this kind of thing is possible, practical, less costly and whether one can give a better service to the

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individual patient who requires care and attention, but not necessarily hospital care or hospital treatment. The old picture of the hospital where the patient is admitted into a bed no longer exists. It would be a tragedy if changes were taking place which made this kind of development more difficult. I therefore think that the ideas which have been generated by the Royal College of General Practitioners and others in the past few years should be urgently examined.
What are some other experiments that should be done before radical changes are made? One would have to consider, now that the Griffiths Report has been accepted in principle, whether the accommodation used for that purpose should be shared with the health service—although it might belong to the local authority or the health service. The people should be in contact.
The next most important matter is to recognise that most of the experience so far in the United States and this country with regard to audit, of which the Government and the profession have made so much, has been concerned with specialised procedures in hospital. A great deal of preliminary work requires to be done in general practice before the methods to be used can be defined.
One has to answer the question whether the independent contractor principle can be maintained without disadvantage. I think that the profession and the Government must face up to this situation. If one is going to create secondary care centres outside hospitals with a range of responsibilities and a range of professional interests, one has to consider the possibility that some posts should be full-time salaried posts. One has also to consider whether senior GPs in the future will be the managers of substantial family services and employ consultants on a part-time basis.
The next matter to consider is the future employment of women doctors. Surely the organisation of family practitioner services must be geared towards making the maximum use of women doctors in a range of occupations which can be fitted in with their commitments. I think that all family practices having one to three doctors should be linked directly and financially with large group practices. Secondary care centres will offer a range of facilities not available to the small practices. This seems to me to be more important and fruitful than linking GPs to specialist hospitals which are becoming more specialised every year. This may mean that the cottage hospitals, of which there have been so many, should now be replaced by modern centres which make full use not only of doctors and nurses but of the professions allied to medicine—for example, pharmacists, opticians and others—and which are linked to the social services.
Against that background we must ask the question: how do the White Paper proposals look? History is repeating itself in this short debate because although the original health services Bill was introduced to the House of Commons in March 1946, the House of Lords began the debate on 16th April, when Lord Moran regretted,
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"any measures which might impair the efficiency of the general practice services".
However, the noble Lord welcomed proposals for the better co-ordination of the hospital services. The BMA, in commenting on that debate, said that it regretted the failure to integrate the medical services under the central health department and said that the administrative separation of the hospital, general practice and health centres should be the subject of experiment. That is exactly what they are saying now!
7.7 p.m.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, l am sure that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, for tabling this Unstarred Question and for the way in which he has spoken to it. I am very happy to follow the noble Lord.
Any projection of the family practitioner services in the 1990s involves a study of the White Paper Working for Patients and also the general practitioner's contract on which GPs are at present voting. If both of those are ageed, there will be large general practices with their own budgets contracting with hospitals, both public and private, for the provision of acute services. How these practices will deal with the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill and the handicapped is not yet clear, because the Government have not said how they intend to provide community care. Nor is it clear how district nurses and health visitors will fit into the scheme of things as they are not mentioned.
General practitioners will, however, be encouraged to have large practices which will be run as businesses. The most important person in the practice will be the business manager. The practices will be computerised. The staff will know where the cheapest hospital services can be located and how quickly they can be made available. Since there is no mention of increased funding for the hospital services, one must assume that those services will remain underfunded.
The present underfunding has resulted in there being large waiting lists. Since the responsibility for providing services will now be placed on the general practitioner, he will be the one who will be blamed for the pain and suffering which patients endure while they wait for admission to hospital in order to receive the appropriate treatment. Moreover, the decision not to refer a patient to hospital will sometimes be viewed as having been taken not because the patient did not need referral but because of the cost involved.
It will no longer be easy for someone, for example, who suddenly feels ill, is about to faint or becomes giddy to receive treatment in hospital. He can no longer be sure that when he goes to hospital he will immediately receive treatment. I say that because, although accident and emergency services must be available, such a person will not necessarily be regarded as an emergency. While he may certainly have had an accident, the question of who will pay for such treatment will arise if he is treated.
Some practices will have their own budgets; but others will not. Those practices without their own

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budget will be restricted in their referrals to using only the hospitals with which their district health authority has contracts. They will not be able to use the consultants of their choice, unless those consultants happen to be in the relevant hospitals. I am sure that the Minister will tell us that the district health authorities will retain funds in order to meet the cost of referrals to hospitals other than those to which they are contracted. However, such referrals will be the exceptions; it is silly to think that such exceptions will be numerous. The vast majority of referrals would have to be to the hospitals with which the district health authority has contracts. The present situation, where the GP refers patients to known consultants, will be the exception rather than the rule.
As I understand it, there is also to be a downward pressure on expenditure on drugs. That is a form of cash limiting the provision of drugs. It is quite dangerous. Of course the drug bill needs to be reduced, and general practitioners should be helped and encouraged to control their prescribing so as to provide the needed medication at the lowest possible cost. However, it needs to be a co-operative effort and the present improved methods of informing doctors of their prescribing costs should be further improved and refined. Moreover, local co-operation with the establishment of local drugs and therapeutic communities, working closely with the local medical committee, should be encouraged. The use of such pressure should enable this objective to be achieved.
Limiting the amount available to individual doctors for the provision of medicaments for their patients can have serious consequences resembling those we know from contact in the field of social security. The difference, however, is that this could be a question of life and death, or at least the prolonging of an illness. Further, the present situation means that in order to save on the hospital drug bill—because that bill is cash limited—consultants tend to give a limited amount of drugs to the patient. In fact, they give the patient only enough to cover the period until he sees his GP. They refer the patient back to his own general practitioner for a prescription to cover the period in which the treatment needs to be continued.
The patient will now be squeezed in the middle as both consultant and GP will try to save money. The family practitioner committee will have greater supervisory powers over general practitioners and will be smaller and more managerially orientated. The present system of co-operation among the general practitioners, who are independent contractors, the representatives of the Government as paymasters and the general public as consumers will be abolished. In particular, the local authorities which, if Griffiths is to be implemented, will be responsible for community care, will no longer be represented on the family practitioner committees. I need only mention that fact to indicate how ill-advised is the present proposal for family practitioner committee membership.
In its comments on the White Paper Working for Patients the Royal College of Nursing stated three considerations as regards the challenge of the 1990s.
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First, how we cope with the increasing health and medical demands of the elderly population which is now growing in size, growing older and consequently becoming more frail and dependent; secondly, how we maintain the shift in policy in priority towards health promotion and illness prevention, and the extension of care in the community; and, thirdly, how we meet both those challenges in the face of the increasing skill shortages which will affect every profession supporting medicine and the health service.
I agree with the Royal College of Nursing and I should like to add a fourth consideration. How can we provide resources to enable the community to benefit from the great advances in medical knowledge and medical skills which have taken place, which are currently taking place and which will continue to take place in the next decade and beyond? I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the fascinating review of the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, on the evolution of our family doctor service as it now is. The evolution of the service to the position that it has now reached leads us inevitably to the question of where we go now. I suspect that this debate is somewhat unusual in that the noble Lord who tabled the Unstarred Question does not know the answer, and nor, I suspect, do the Government. However, perhaps when he comes to reply the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will clarify the matter.
I must point out that on the Government Benches speakers in this debate appear to be conspicuous by their absence. I shall not make cheap gibes about that being due to the fact that they do not use the National Health Service because I know that many of them do. Indeed, very many of them use the health service; they value it and have a high regard for it. I suspect that their absence from the speakers' list is not because they do not use the service but because they are not altogether happy about the Government's proposals in this respect, and nor do they wish to come along and defend the proposals contained in the White Paper about which many of them are extremely suspicious.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, who decribed the evolution, saw it very much from the inside. I say that because during much of that period he was advising the Government professionally on many of these matters. However, I saw it from a somewhat different point of view; I was one of the general practitioners who was being subjected to this evolutionary process, and it was very interesting indeed.
The noble Lord was absolutely right when he said that initially, when the health service was first established after the Bill of 1946—it came into force on 5th July 1948—the general view was that the future pattern of general practice would be health centres; they would be provided and equipped by local authorities and general practitioners would practice in them. But that never became a reality for many reasons.

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First, there was the question of cost. The capital cost of providing adequately equipped health centres up and down the country to the extent which would have been necessary was far too great. Secondly, staffing such health centres in the way talked about in those days so that doctors could work reasonable hours and take holidays and so on necessarily meant that in some areas it could be done only by having a full-time salaried service. I do not recommend such a service, but it is interesting to note that when the discussions on the new charter were taking place in 1960—the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, referred to the new charter—it was recommended that an experiment should be conducted in which general practitioners, if they so wished, could opt for salaried service. It never took place.
I greatly regret that we are not conducting experiments into some of the new ideas with which the Government have come forward. One cannot suddenly set out into the unknown, making changes in something that has evolved slowly over many years, without putting some of the proposals to the test to find out how they work.
I referred to the health centres. They did not happen. Instead, we had a gradual move towards group practice. Initially I was in single-handed general practice, the kind of general practice in which one genuinely was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I did not have much experience of group practice. I remember when the political leaders of the medical profession and the officials from the Department of Health were trying to encourage us all to go into group practice, they were going around proselytising the cause and trying to explain to us how much better it was. The argument was an interesting one. It was true that if a number of general practitioners combined into a group they could share costs and as a result have much better equipped and staffed surgeries. That was at a time when ancillary staff were in short supply in most practices. The argument that was constantly used was that when one was in a group practice one did not have to be a universal genius. One could concentrate on what one knew best or was most interested in. It was said that Dr. A in a group could specialise in skin diseases, Dr. B could specialised in paediatrics and so on.
When I was first ejected from another place, having lost my seat, I became momentarily unemployed. I went back into practice, but I went back into a group practice, and fascinating I found it too. I found that the reality was somewhat different. It was not that Dr. A specialised in skin diseases and Dr. B in paediatrics; it was that Dr. A specialised in having Mondays off and Dr. B specialised in having Tuesdays off and so on. That admirable administrative re-arrangement made life very much pleasanter for the general practitioner. I accept that it probably made for a higher standard of practice for the patient because one had better equipment, staff and resources; but I nevertheless felt that something of the old human element of general practice tended to disappear. I am not sure that patients felt that that new development was as beneficial to them as it was to the doctors.
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We have inevitably had some talk about cash limits being applied to family practitioner committee services. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, who has vast experience of this matter, referred to it and so did the noble Lord, Lord Hunter. I do not believe that this or any government can predict with accuracy how many people will suffer from which diseases and at what cost in any future period. It means that family practitioner committee services must be demand led. That does not mean that there must be a bottomless pit or that if the money runs out no work can be done; and nor does it mean that we must not consider the expense and cost of things. Of course we must. When I look at the exercise upon which we are all told to embark in general practice of costing out everything, I fail to see how that costing will be done. At the moment all the thoughts are purely in terms of medical costs: how much is the cost of an appendectomy at this or that hospital? How much is the cost of a patient per day in this ward or that ward, and so on? Other costs are involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, mentioned preventive care. That was supposed to be an important element when we had the primary health care White Paper. It was all about how much more prevention we were going to do. If general practitioners are to do a great deal more with regard to preventive medicine and health education, how on earth do we cost it out? It takes time, and time costs money; but its benefits could be immense. They cannot be quantified in any kind of sum which any general practitioner whom I know could do, and that is so with other costs. We cannot consider only the costs to one government department. It is all the same pair of trousers even if it is different pockets.
For example, one may have a patient who is a working man, doing a heavy manual job, who is waiting for an operation on a hernia. It is not an urgent operation. He may think that it is urgent, but it is not classed as urgent. He has a wife and children. If he cannot work while he is awaiting the operation and he has to wait two years, the stake has to keep his wife and children for two years. Where does that sum come into the calculations which general practitioners are told to undertake to prepare themselves for the new deal upon which we are embarking? I do not understand how the scheme will work.
I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, who mentioned the importance of Griffiths. How can the Government expect general practitioners to accept the new contract which has been offered—at the moment it has been rejected and is now going out to ballot—when they do not know what it will involve? What will happen in relation to community care? That is crucial to the general practitioner. Until he knows what that is, what will happen, how community care will be provided and by whom, he cannot possibly enter into a binding contract, because he does not know what his obligations will be.
I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has told us that the Government's response to Griffiths will come soon. It then became "very soon" and then we had "very soon indeed". I do not know what we shall get today, but at least we are going to

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get a response. We must have a response before we can go much further with some of these National Health Service reviews. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, was also right about the possible impact on the employment of women in general practice of the new arrangements as at present envisaged. It has been pointed out by the General Medical Services Committee and others that the arrangements as they appear, the budgets and so on, will make it difficult for married women with children to return to active general practice. Many of those women are excellent practitioners. Their work is invaluable. It will be wasted unless we make special arrangements for it. The Government are introducing a scheme which will make special arrangements for not having it at all. It will make it disadvantageous to practices to have women working part-time. I am sure that that will be to the detriment of everything.
Our family doctor service, which, as has been said, evolved over many years, is now well nigh unique in the modern world. There are not many countries in which there is still one doctor who has total responsibility for a patient or a family. The increasing tendency in other countries is for specialisation: for the patient to go directly to this or that specialist. The idea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, about secondary care centres where general practitioners in combination could have access to all types of special investigations so as not to waste hospital time and occupy hospital beds with patients who merely needed certain questions answering was an excellent one. I do not know how that system could evolve as a result of the White Paper that we have been considering.
That leads me to one further point about which the noble Lord, Lord Henley, might be able to say something. In the early days of the National Health Service we had a system of domiciliary visits—I have no doubt that they still exist—under which, if he so wished, the general practitioner could call out a National Health Service consultant who would see the patient in his or her home and then give the general practitioner direct advice as to how the case should be handled: whether in hospital or not, what special investigation should be carried out, what further arrangements should be made and how the case should be managed. That was an admirable system. A great deal of use was made of it in the early days. It was increasingly abused because of the logjam of waiting lists and shortage of hospital beds. General practitioners tended to use the domiciliary visits system merely as a way to pressurise the hospital to admit the patient, whereas in reality the purpose was to obviate the necessity of the patient going into hospital. It resulted in being a device to assist the general practitioner to jump the queue and have a patient admitted to hospital. He would say, "I will call the consultant out on a domiciliary visit" and the consultant would say, "Right, send him in and I will find a bed for him".
The purpose of such an arrangement was to avoid sending into hospital people who could safely, properly and effectively be treated at home. I hope that when he replies the noble Lord will tell us how
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we cost out domiciliary visits under the new budget system. They must cost something. Is there to be a penalty on a practice which calls out consultants to do domiciliary visits? The cost might be put against their budget. Nothing of that kind is explained.
Our family doctor service is well nigh unique in the world today. I do not wish to see us turning into the kind of society that has high powered and very efficient medicine, with computers and everything else, which has been described, but in which everybody is treated by a specialist. What people want is one doctor who is responsible for the whole of a patient, not a whole lot of doctors each responsible for different little bits of a patient. We have preserved that system in Britain almost uniquely. They do not have it in the Soviet Union, although they have secondary care centres such as that which the noble Lord referred to. They certainly do not have our system in the United States.
I very much fear what might happen if we plough on with the present White Paper proposals without first conducting pilot studies to see how some of them work. I grant that some might work but we need to make certain adjustments, if necessary, to make them work effectively. By that I mean in the interests of the patient rather than merely in the interests of budgets. That was a point powerfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Butterfield, in a foreword to the new publication of the Office of Health Economics, Measurement and Management in the NHS.
The criterion of the whole system and the whole basis of the National Health Service is, as the publication says, that the improved well-being of the patient must always be the primary consideration of those in the service. As the booklet by the Office of Health Economics points out, NHS budgets which are not based on that premise but which consider costs alone will not result in the most effective use of health care resources; nor will they result in the kind of family practitioner services which those of us who have worked in the family practitioner services would like to see continue in this country.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Brain: My Lords, I wish to thank my noble friend Lord Hunter of Newington for asking this Question and for his excellent historic introduction to the development of the National Health Service that we have today.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, suggested that the Government might be able to give us an answer to the Question. I wonder. Mr. Roger Freeman said that he would return to Devon next year when more details of the contract and the White Paper were known. We are arguing blind at the moment. Perhaps during the last fortnight or three weeks since that remark, the Government have bought a pair of glasses. Perhaps the civil servants have taken off their dark glasses. Certainly the GPs, the patients and many members of the family practitioner committees feel that the Government are blind. The arguments are taking place in a thick fog and one is arguing about a contract where not only are the goalposts being moved every day of the week, but the playing field was not even marked out before the

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goalposts were set up. I hope that the debate will definitely give us some goalposts or at least the markings on the playing field.
The contracts are of great concern to all young doctors. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, has already mentioned women doctors. I shall come to that later. He has also talked a little about the size of practice and similar matters. I wonder whether the idea of a really large group practice is the ideal. I have talked to a number of general practitioner friends who feel that a practice of about five doctors is the maximum for which the social relationships between the doctors and the understanding of the treatment is effective. By all means link two or three practices of five doctors in one building. But let them operate separately, on their own.
The point I wish to make now is why, when the Government are so keen on contracts for carrying out a task, and when they are trying to "privatise" things by contract, they have contracts with individual doctors. Why not contract with a group of people as a practice in order to provide a service to the patients in the area, and the appropriate number of clinics, back-up services and the rest of the facilities?
Why is there this insistence on individual contracts with doctors who then, because the contracts, as I understand it, are becoming much more detailed, have to spend two hours in the surgery or, as it is so often considered now, the office? They take an hour off in order to catch up with the paperwork, then they have to be on duty, then off duty, then on duty. How is that to be managed?
I happen to know a practice where there is no appointment system because the patients—I shall not use the modern jargon of "clients"—do not have telephones, they just drop in. A doctor is there all the time. It may not be their doctor but that does not matter because it is a large community with people coming from various overseas countries. It does not necessarily matter that they should see the same doctor each time, indeed there may be advantages in not doing so. But the practice does not run an appointments' scheme. It is no use somebody being on for two hours and then off. However, that is the system which some people seem to wish to force upon us in the new contracts.
What happens if we insist on certain people being in the surgery at certain hours? When are the domiciliary visits fitted in? What happens if something overruns or it is not convenient? There is a great deal in the White Paper about convenience to patients. What about convenience to doctors? It is a very stressful profession and they must have certain time which they can call their own when they can relax and think about things, consider their patients and not just be driven by a strict timetable.
The Government make much of payment by results, larger lists, the ability to change from one practice to another. That may well be a good idea. It was certainly pointed out to me that changing doctors sometimes means that ailments are cured more quickly. Mrs. Jones might come regularly once a month for her routine visit and her prescription.
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She is seen regularly by her doctor. However, if he goes on holiday and his partner sees her or a trainee comes in or a locum takes over, and they see her, surprisingly something else may be spotted. Other treatment could be required, and that might be a good reason for changing doctors.
However, there are other reasons. I take the point made to me when I was staying with a young doctor friend in a rural area in Australia. He had built up quite a nice practice in the town, it was not falling away much but he noticed that some of his regular patients were not attending as they had previously. When one of them came in the doctor inquired and the reply was, "Oh, well, the situation is that the general store in the next town is much better. We go and see our doctor when we do our shopping". Perhaps with the new National Health Service advisory board, with all this expertise on supermarkets, we shall receive advice on where GPs should locate their practices. I think that that is important.
I could make many more broad points and good points on the 90 per cent. immunisation of people on a fictitious list because on current standards the list is always out of date. If one is using preventive medicine it is much better to do as the French do, for example, and say, "You cannot go to this section school unless you have the form which has been stamped saying that you have had the inoculations".
I wish to focus on the half of young potential GPs that we are now training, the women. They are most concerned about the new contract and the lack of understanding. After all, very often the women doctors will be the mothers of future doctors, men and women. There is a great hereditary principle in medicine. Many doctors come from doctors' families. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington that women doctors will become just people who run clinics and provide the services which are delegated to them by their partners, because the partners are bored by those activities. These women doctors are trained as doctors to care for men, women and children right the way across the profession. A comment was made to me only on Sunday by someone who is very close to a family practitioner committee. He told me that he had had women doctors come to him and say that they did not want to be considered as the woman doctor in the practice simply because the practice needed a woman doctor as the children and female patients liked to have a woman doctor. Those women doctors wish to be partners in a practice taking full responsibility.
The whole concept of the new contract must take into consideration the fact that women doctors can work hard. I know a number of women doctors who work very hard. However, they arrange their work so that if their children come home from school at half-past three, they are free from half-past three until an evening surgery when the children have gone to bed. They do not get tied with a contract which states that they must be in the surgery for three days a week at four o'clock and that if that is not the case they will not get paid the full amount. Women doctors work 20 hours and much more. However, perhaps because the present system has been a

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by a very few doctors, the contract is being changed. I believe that it would be much better to sort out the abuse.
There has been mention of medical audits. I support that, but what will the Government do if they find, having carried out medical audits on general practices, that less stressed, part-time, free thinking women doctors who have more time to care for their patients provide better medical care for those patients and there is a better recovery rate and less cost in the long-term than with other doctors? There is quite a possibility that statistics will show that that is correct because they show that full-time general practitioners have a very high suicide rate, heart attack rate and general breakdown of health. We must reduce the stress involved in the health service.
I shall not mention the problems that will arise as regards giving doctors practice budgets when they are not managers. We shall be totally in the hands of an employee, but that is another problem. There is much more to debate on this general topic of general practice and family medical services, but I am sure that we shall come back to it in the future. Nevertheless, I shall await with interest what the Minister has to say this evening.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, that there is a place for a greatly enhanced role for primary care in the next decade and beyond. The Government's plans, as laid out in the White Paper and the revised contract, do not exactly make the imagination soar when thinking about the real needs of our steadily ageing population. In fact, I think they are largely irrelevant. However, it is clear that the Government have grasped the pivotal role of the general practitioner service in the functioning of the National Health Service. In a sense this is a great compliment to general practice. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, said, 25 to 30 years ago general practice was in a pretty moribund state. Its recovery is very much to the credit of the Royal College of General Practitioners, with its insistence on raising standards and making training for general practice obligatory.
As the noble Lord also mentioned, the recovery of general practice is also to the credit of another Kenneth, Kenneth Robinson, who was Minister of Health in 1965 to 1966 and who agreed to the doctors' charter which has been mentioned. Incidentally, this was originally the idea of the medical practitioners union. It allowed GPs to be partially recompensed for employing staff and investing in better premises.
The existence of viable primary care has been a major factor in keeping down the costs of the National Health Service. GPs indeed act as a filter to the more expensive part of the National Health Service—the hospital service. But, inevitably, as more has become technically possible in hospitals —other speakers have pointed that out—and there are more old people with more chronic illness, referrals to hospital have continued to escalate, both in regard to out-patients and in-patients. The aim must surely be to care for more people outside
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hospital. As one noble Lord pointed out, for this GPs and the primary health care team need more investment in new diagnostic technology in training and in the provision of more pairs of hands to help care for people in their own homes and in small hostels of sheltered accommodation. That is not a cheap option, but it is probably cheaper than building more hospitals and, in particular, staffing them.
The Government seem to me to be intent on curtailing the referral process. I think this is the main reason for the GP budget proposals. But I feel the Government have not planned adequately for the increased need for community care which will result from fewer patients being cared for in hospital. I find the budget proposals for large practices certainly very interesting, but as other speakers have pointed out, they are at far too early a stage of development as an idea to be promoted as a major part of a change in the National Health Service. They have yet to be realistically costed. Estimates on the size of the budget required fluctuate widely.
I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Brain, in asking whether the Minister has the most recent figures on this. I should be very interested to hear about that and the thinking behind it. However, I must say that most general practitioners are extremely sceptical at this stage as regards budgets. As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, pointed out, this is one of the many White Paper proposals which surely need careful piloting. Any commercial organisation carries out market research before committing funds to a new product or a new marketing strategy.
I feel the Government's proposals for family practitioner services, both in the White Paper and in the new contract, are mainly concerned with controlling costs rather than improving services. My noble friend Lord Pitt of Hampstead talked about the Indicative Drug Budgets which I shall describe as number four of the eight—I believe it is now nine—so-called working papers. Those papers appear to use the stick rather than the carrot in achieving economy in prescribing. The words "downward pressure" and "sanctions" are mentioned several times. There is, however, a small, rather uncertain carrot for those who succeed in meeting the family practitioner committee targets. It is that half the saving will be retained by the FPC, although not by the practice itself. I feel that is perhaps rather a distant incentive.
However, there are other effective ways of controlling drug costs. The new PACT scheme which my noble friend mentioned, which stands for prescribing, analysis and costs, has been running for just a year now. Each GP knows his or her prescribing costs in comparison with a norm. While they may know the costs, they do not know the benefits of their prescribing. That would be, admittedly, much more difficult to measure, but it would be very much more interesting. That would form part of what medical audit is about. However, already one effect of the PACT scheme is noticeable. There has been a steady increase in generic prescribing since the scheme started a year ago, from 36 to 39 per cent. However, if quicker results are required, rather than

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through the scheme in Indicative Drug Budgets, they could be achieved through, first, further instalments of the limited list in other therapeutic categories than the ones that have already been introduced. But this time I hope the Government will carry out this scheme in conjunction with the profession rather than despite them. Secondly, of course, if they were to operate a generic substitution policy in primary care for drugs whose patent life has expired—that is already done in hospitals—a great deal could be saved. However, I do not wish to travel down that road tonight, as we have been down it before and will probably go down it again.
As my noble friend has pointed out, in some health authorities there are worrying tendencies for hospitals to offload on to GPs more and more of their prescribing costs. Recently I received a letter from a consultant at my local hospital pleading with me to prescribe a very expensive drug for a man suffering renal failure. The patient would die for lack of the drug but the hospital budget cannot now stretch to supplying it.
As has also been mentioned, the new contract provides encouragement for GPs to carry out screening and health promotion activities. That is a laudable aim, and most of the activities included in the new contract were originally the idea of the Royal College of General Practitioners although that is not acknowledged in the White Paper or the contract. The way that payment for those activities has been incorporated into the pay structure is felt by many GPs to be unacceptable. Normally, if medical practice is expected to change in order to comply with government policy additional money is offered. Here it is not clear whether that is the case.
General practitioners feel that the Secretary of State has adopted a rather bullying approach. That applies particularly to his second-in-command, the Minister for Health. That approach has antagonised many doctors who might otherwise be friends of the Government. I believe that that will undoubtedly be reflected in the result of the ballot of GPs on acceptance of the revised contract which will be announced next week.
There is a strong feeling that if the Government were seriously interested in improving the health of the nation they could do far more at one fell swoop from the centre. For example, they could ban cigarette advertising and sports sponsorship by tobacco companies, increase the duty on cigarettes and alcohol, and progressively discourage the consumption of saturated fats through differential subsidies in the UK and urge similar measures on Europe. Doctors feel that they are being put in the position of changing people's faulty lifestyles when they could be much more effectively changed through government policy moves from the centre.
Patients value easy access to the advice of their GP. They expect accurate diagnosis and the unbiased guidance of their doctor through the complexities of the National Health Service. Above all, they value time to talk to their doctor. Consultants like to see referrals from GPs which are carefully evaluated with the initial investigations completed. That, and
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the increasing responsibility of caring For an ageing population, takes time. Screening and health promotion may or may not be good things, but patients will not accept a situation in which their own doctor has less time to listen to their problems.
All this suggests that much more thought should be given to encouraging and recruiting all grades of staff into primary health care. I particularly echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, and the noble Lord, Lord Brain, about the need to make conditions more attractive for women.
7.54 p.m.
Lord Colwyn: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down to speak earlier. I was away yesterday and noticed the Unstarred Question which the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, had put down on the Order Paper only when I arrived at the House this evening. I also happened to bump into my noble friend the Minister, who implied that he might omit the planned reference to the dental services in the 1990s if there were no dental representative on the list of speakers.
Looking round, I think that it probably is a good idea that I should say a few words. I can take up the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and say that on these Benches there is a vast amount of support for the Government's proposals in the White Paper. Noble Lords may notice as the debate continues that I am moving to the right. I do so in order than when my noble friend comes to reply the support will be visual as well as moral.
In the hope of some words of encouragement for my dental colleagues, whether general dental practitioners, in the hospital service or the community service, perhaps I may remind the Minister that the general dental service is and intends to remain the basis for primary care in the next decade. The proven efficiency and effectiveness of the dental services, despite financial cutbacks and, last year, the removal of the examination charges, has continued to treat more patients and reduce dental disease with proper implementation of advice on prevention and treatment. My colleagues in the general practitioner service, who must on average spend about 30 hours a week literally face to face with their patients—compared with 12 hours which doctors spend with patients—are increasingly taking on a role which involves advice on general health as well as specialised dental treatment.
I am aware that we are currently negotiating with the department the basis of a new contract that will take us into the 1990s. I am always delighted when my noble friend the Minister is able to give us some encouragement and confirm the Government's commitment to dentistry within the National Health Service in the foreseeable future.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, as on so many previous occasions, the House is greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Hunter. On a number of occasions he has opened health service debates. He is always impeccable in his timing and in his material. He has introduced his Question at a time when the

1143 Government are in a real dilemma as to how to pursue their campaign to take the National Health Service into the realm of total uncertainty. They are seeking to impose ideas which, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, sahave not been tested; proposals, moreover, which are opposed almost unanimously by the medical profession.
I believe that the issues are acutely embarrassing to the Government. I was delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, take his place representing the serried ranks of Conservative peers with their enthusiastic support for the Government's proposals. I have looked through the proposals to see how much they say about dentistry and with what the noble Lord could disagree. It does not say anything about dentistry at all, which is why he felt that he had to say a few words. Even now, with his useful intervention, not a word has been said from behind the Minister in support of the proposals which we are discussing here. I believe that that is because there is no support from any who are involved in the provision of those services, nor for that matter from the public.
Only at the end of last month there was a Gallup poll which showed that 71 per cent. of people who knew anything about the White Paper disapproved of the proposals; 75 per cent. believed that the White Paper would result in cuts in NHS services; 58 per cent. of Conservative voters believed that the White Paper would result in cuts in NHS services; 73 per cent. of those replying believed that the proposals were the first stage in the privatisation of the NHS, and the majority of Conservative supporters took the same view. I think that there is a dilemma in the country, not just among doctors but also among the public.
At Question Time recently the noble Lord, Lord Henley, poured scorn on a suggestion of mine which followed the European elections, which were not a triumph for the Conservative Party. He congratulated me on managing to link the health service with how badly the Government had fared in those elections. I do not believe that I needed any congratulation. It was obvious. For almost all the people in this country the issue of health is a central issue. I doubt whether even Europe, or water privatisation, is at; issue on which people feel more strongly than about what the Government seem to be blundering into in the health service.
My second ground for congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, concerns the content of his speech. I share almost all his concerns. I agree with almost all of his comments about the need for improving services; the problems of small practices; the value of large practices; the role of women doctors, full and part-time, which has been touched upon by a number of those noble Lords who have contributed; the value of multi-disciplinary services; the interesting reference that he made to what he called, I believe, secondary health care centres—for me, that was a new term which, like the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, I find of some considerable interest—the use of sophisticated information technology; the links between the general practice and the community services for which, as he said,
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we still await an answer to the Griffiths Report very soon; and the links with the family practitioner committees and all the uncertainties as the body responsible for them changes. I very much agreed with my noble friend Lord Pitt when he said that, as the Government's plans proceed, the most important person in the practice will soon be the business manager.
I am not a doctor, although most of those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate are general practitioners. The first time that I had a close relationship with GPs was in 1968 when I had the honour to follow Kenneth Robinson for a brief period as Health Minister. My arrival was in the wake of the general practitioners' charter. I should think—all credit to Kenneth Robinson, none to me—that that was probably the high point in GPs' relations with the department. If that is so, we are now very much at the low point of that relationship.
It seems to me quite extraordinary how the Secretary of State and his Minister, Mr. David Mellor, have mishandled their relationship with the doctors in almost every respect. As I have said, the GPs are strongly opposed to the White Paper proposals. They see them as leading to a worsening of the service to patients and driving a wedge between the GP and his patients. That is a very disturbing fact for them. The Royal College has also been very outspoken in its criticisms of the Government's proposals, as has also recently been the Association of Community Health Councils in its annual report. It said that:
"Government proposals to encourage doctors to compete for more patients would not help doctor-patient relationships because they would have less time for individual patients".
That is also what the patient fears. The report also said that:
"there is still insufficient money for the NHS to provide the quantity and quality of services expected and needed by patients. Waiting lists were too long and operations were still being cancelled at short notice".
Those comments have come from a variety of different organisations.
Opposition to the contract which the Secretary of State seems to be determined to impose upon the profession was commented upon very interestingly in the current 1st July issue of the British Medical Journal, which states:
"Ministers should not misread the close vote to reject the revised contract package for NHS general practitioners."
It went on to show that both those who voted for the BMA's contractual agreement and those who voted against it were opposed to the Government's proposals. They were all opposed to the Government's proposals. The article stated:
"Out of 325 voting representatives the 166 who wanted no part of it defeated the 150 who were 'reluctantly' prepared to have the package priced by the review body".
Several reasons were provided for opposing the original contract; including the
"Higher proportion of income from capitation fees, seen as rolling back the gains of the family doctor charter by leading to larger list sizes with poorer services for patients".
There are so many reasons why it must be wrong to encourage doctors to have longer and longer lists. It cannot be good for the patient. It must have some

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worrying implications so far as concerns post-graduate education. The article also refers to:
"Rigid targets for immunisation and cervical cytology screening, which would be unachievable in many areas".
GPs opposed,
"The two tier system of fees for night work with a lower fee for doctors or partnerships not doing their own visits".
Another point that I find most extraordinary is the manners that have been shown by Ministers. In this House, those who speak for the department have the best of manners. I make no criticism whatever in that respect. But the Secretary of State and Mr. Mellor sometimes seem to set out almost consciously to antagonise the doctors. There was the reference by David Mellor to the "fisherman's tales" at the time of the argument about junior hospital doctors' hours which led to the Bill put through this House by my noble friend Lord Rea. There was also the reference by the Secretary of State to
"concern for their pocket books".
He also said:
"You can't negotiate with trade union negotiators and have them come back and say the lads don't want it and try to re-open a debate which they themselves have commended to their own conference".
I find that an extraordinary and aggressive statement to make. Why should they not reject what their negotiators have said? According to a letter on the subject:
"One of the main justifications for trade union reform, which is one of the oft-proclaimed achievements of this Government, was to promote democracy by returning power to the rank and file membership. By this mechanism decisions taken by trade union leaders would be a true reflection of their members' wishes. The Government have been only too happy to insist on national ballots of miners and dockers, and rejoiced when 'the lads' rejected their leaders' calls for strike action."
But the same thing seems to be happening among doctors. What is meat for the gander—
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Lord Ennals: I thank my noble friend. He is always ready with the anachronism that I seek—but it is not an anachronism. That is something on which the Minister can comment when he replies.
I do not know why the Government behave in that way. I do not know why they set out to antagonise the doctors.
A fourth reason is the failure of the department to make progress on proposals for improving the services to which my noble friend Lord Hunter referred. The BMA has fought a long battle to secure advances in many fields and to improve general medical services. In many cases it has gone along with the attitude of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Some of those proposals were outlined to Ministers in 1985, but little progress has been made. I was looking at a letter that had been sent way back in December 1985 by Dr. Michael Wilson to the then Minister, Mr. Barney Hayhoe. It raised a whole range of issues including:
"the extension of the cervical cytology screening programme to include all women over 20, at three yearly intervals; developing a comprehensive scheme for paediatric surveillance based on
1146
general practice; encouraging general practitioners to undertake minor surgery for their NHS patients; … providing adequate funds for general practitioners to develop surgery premises; encouraging the introduction of computers to general practice"—
a policy to which my noble friend Lord Hunter referred —
"reducing maximum list size; offering incentives to appoint additional partners; increasing the budget available for GP postgraduate education".
The letter referred to a series of proposals which the profession has sought to discuss with the department and on which it has sought to make progress. The profession now complains that in most of those fields the department has simply not been willing to make progress.
I wonder why that is. Ideas went back and forth until the White Paper was produced. The proposals made by the Government in the White Paper were not even discussed with the Royal College of General Practitioners or the British Medical Association. So we have what seems to be an attempt by the Government not to come to any agreement with the doctors and not to listen to what they have to say about the health and welfare of their patients, but simply to impose their will upon doctors and patients. That is what they sought to do over the contract and we shall have to await the outcome. 'That is what they seek to do in the proposals in the White Paper which they put before us and the country without any willingness to discuss whether they are the right proposals. They are only willing to discuss the implementation of their proposals.
That is no way to go about negotiating an improved general practitioner service. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, that we have a unique GP service in this country. We must protect and improve it. The Government are in no way improving the service simply by exerting muscle as a means of negotiation. This is the time for proper negotiation—discussions, analysis, experimentation, tests and trials—and we must ensure that we get it right.
I invite the House to consider how long it took to bring about the GP charter in 1965, to which reference has been made. It was not done overnight or by diktat. It was done by careful discussion with those who knew their subject. I submit that in their handling of the doctors in general and the GPs in particular the Government are moving, into a field that they seem not to understand. The time has come to abandon the ways by which they have been proceeding. They must recognise that they have created great antagonism. It is with humbleness that they should go back to the doctors. I see that the Minister smiles, but it would not be out of place for them to go to the doctors and ask how they think the general practitioner services can be improved. The noble Lord, Lord Hunter, has raised this Question. I think it would be helpful for the doctors to have their say. Presumably the Minister will give his own reply.
8.12 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I should like to join with other speakers in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hunter, for tabling this Question. We have had a

1147
very interesting debate as a result. I should not want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, who said that he did not want to make cheap gibes and then proceeded to do so. I do not think that one can draw any inference about the beliefs of individual Members and noble Lords sitting on these Benches merely from their absence. I believe that it is unfair to imply, as did the noble Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, that they were not supporting the Government's proposals in the White Paper simply because they were not present in the Chamber. My noble friend Lord Colwyn stressed that he supported the Government's proposals.
I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I do not follow some speakers through all the aspects of the White Paper, Working for Patients. It is a very big subject. It will be more profitable if I deal with many of the positive ways in which, in the words of the Question, the Government plan to meet the need for family practitioner services in the 1990s.
First, however, I should like to say a brief word about the Gallup Poll mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. It is not surprising that the public have been alarmed and come out strongly against the proposals when one sees the horrendous propaganda from the BMA which has given a quite fictitious description of the likely effect of the reforms in White Paper. Those NHS reforms certainly do not mean privatisation, as I have said on many occasions in this House and as my right honourable and honourable friends have said in another place. Nor do they mean cuts in services. Modernising the running of the service will mean better services, improved patient care and greater choice.
We are providing and shall continue to provide record sums for the National Health Service but we must ensure that those sums are spent wisely. As other noble Lords have implied, it is clear that the family practitioner services are the front line of the National Health Service. They are used by some 1.2 million people every working day. They include the general dental, optical and pharmaceutical services as well as the family doctor service. In my reply this evening I shall concentrate principally on the family doctor service, although, as my noble friend Lord Colwyn has spoken, I shall also briefly mention dentists.
On average, every person in this country visits their GP some four to five times a year. Ninety per cent. of medical treatment is provided outside hospitals, the majority of it by family doctors. Universal quality care on this scale is a tradition of which the service can be proud and one which we intend shall continue through the 1990s and into the 21st century. Our commitment to the family practitioner services is clear from the substantial extra funds that we have invested in them. Since 1979 spending on the family practitioner services has risen by some 55 per cent. in real terms to well over £5 billion a year. The Government fully expect that that expenditure will increase still further in real terms over the next three years.
Her Majesty's Government do not believe that merely increasing resources by itself can ever be the whole story in providing a first-class health care
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service. We need to ensure that we get maximum value for the resources we put in. That means making sure that services continue to meet the needs of the growing numbers of elderly people in our population. It means, too, improving services in the inner cities and other deprived areas to bring them up to the level of the best. It means meeting the growing expectation that the health service should be about promoting better health, not simply treating sickness. It means making the service more responsive to patients' needs.
The family practitioner services of the future must be prepared to meet these demands. We started planning for this in 1986 when we issued our consultation document Primary Health Care—An Agenda for Discussion. In the light of responses to that paper, we set out a coherent action plan for carrying family practitioner services into the 1990s and beyond. That was the White Paper Promoting Better Health, which lies at the heart of our plans for developing these services. More recently though we have set out our plans for further developments, as part of our much wider review of the National Health Service, in the White Paper Working for Patients.
The first step must be to provide new contracts for health care professionals. We have invested over 100 hours in detailed discussions with the family doctors' negotiators to try to agree a new contract for them. The new contract contains much for which the medical profession has been calling for years. It also contains much that must change to meet public expectations.
There is always resistance to change, even when it is for the good. Naturally we were disappointed that the agreement on the new contract reached by the Secretary of State and the doctors' negotiators was not accepted by a narrow margin at their recent conference. We shall await with interest the outcome of the ballot of all GPs, the result of which I believe comes out next week.
The proposals that we have put forward represent the most important reforms of the family doctor services since the charter for family doctors in 1965. Our reforms build on and carry forward the principles agreed with the profession then to produce a more patient-oriented service. They represent a good deal for doctors, and an even better deal for patients.
Our objectives are clear: we want to see the emphasis shifted from an illness service to a service which might be called a "wellness" service, which positively promotes better health and the prevention of ill health. That is why we intend to place a duty on family doctors under their terms of service to offer patients advice and assistance on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. Does he recognise that there is a certain difference, in that what the Minister was doing in 1965 was meeting the wishes and proposals of the doctors? He is now going flatly against the wishes and proposals of the doctors.
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I stated, we have invested over 100 hours in detailed discussions. My right honourable friend has made concessions in his negotiations with the doctors and we await the result of their ballot.
The new contract is also designed to encourage doctors to take more account of patients' wishes. For example, we want doctors to be available to their patients for at least 26 hours a week—normally over a five-day period—and at times convenient to their patients.
To achieve these objectives we need to make changes to the way doctors are paid. This brings me to another of our objectives; namely, to relate doctors' pay more closely to performance. To achieve this we intend to introduce a number of payments related to the provision of specific services. For example, there will be a fee for providing minor surgery, another for child health surveillance services and another for arranging health promotion clinics. We shall also increase the proportion of a doctor's income represented by capitation payments. This will instil greater competition among family doctors and, by that means, encourage them to provide a wide range of high quality services geared to patients' needs.
Increasing the capitation element of doctors' incomes will not mean less time for patients, as the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, claimed. The average list size has been falling consistently in recent years. With a static population and a steady increase in doctors' numbers, it should continue to fall. This means more time for patients. It is not unreasonable that doctors who wish to increase income by taking on more patients should have to work slightly longer hours.
The subject of women doctors was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Winstanley, Lord Brain and Lord Rea. A particularly pleasing development in recent years is the increasing numbers of women graduating from medical schools. I believe that it is getting on towards 50 per cent., but I am open to correction on that. We believe that women doctors have a central role to play in the health service of the future. We believe that our new contract offers them a very good deal. All too often in the past women doctors have been considered second-class partners by their male colleagues in a practice. We wish to change that. We shall do so first by increasing the commitment of all doctors to the family service. This will help women doctors to be accepted as equal partners in the practice. Secondly, to help those who want a reduced commitment—for example because of domestic commitments—we intend to formalise job-sharing and part-time working arrangements. Doctors who opt to become part-timers in general practice will be able to work fewer hours each week, but their income will be only a little lower than that of a full-time doctor. We have also proposed to ease the qualification for a locum allowance during confinement. We believe that all this adds up to a significant improvement for women doctors.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, read very little about dentistry in Working for Patients, but in the previous White Paper, Promoting Better Health, he would
1150
have found much about dentistry. I have concentrated so far on general medical services. We regard the same objective as applying to general dental services. That is to say, the object is to promote preventive care. To this end we are in discussion with the dental profession about ways in which their contract of service ought to be changed to give expression to that principle.
As happens on virtually every occasion on which I rise to speak at this Dispatch Box, the noble Lords, Lord Winstanley, Lord Hunter and Lord Ennals, mention the report of Sir Roy Griffiths on Community Care. Noble Lords will appreciate how important it is that we have the framework right in this vital area. As noble Lords know, we have been giving the issue very careful consideration and are near to reaching a conclusion. As my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health has said recently in another place, we intend to bring forward proposals before the Summer Recess. I hope that that is a slight improvement on previous answers that I have been able to give the noble Lords.
Turning now to the issue of value for money, I said earlier that services are not improved simply by providing more resources. We must question continually the value we are getting from the present level of resources. There are two clear advantages in doing this: first, it will release money for use in new ways to improve patient care; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it will bring about an all-round sense of being involved in an effective operation which is making maximum use of resources to provide a first-rate service. This can only serve to produce and maintain high morale among health carers, which, in turn, benefits patients.
I should therefore speak for a few moments on ways in which we seek value for money. A key area is prescribing. Before I speak about the new element in prescribing, the noble Lord, Lord Rea, mentioned the introduction of the selected list. This has saved some £75 million in the first year—money which can be better spent elsewhere in the National Health Service. The drugs bill is the largest single element—more than a third—of total expenditure on the family practitioner services. The cost of medicines is some £1·9 billion a year—more than the cost of the doctors who write the prescriptions. I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, for the concept that there must be some control of expenditure on drugs. There are wide variations between and within practices, with some doctors prescribing up to twice as much as their colleagues. It is generally recognised that some of this is wasteful and unnecessary. Unnecessary prescribing means that there are fewer resources for those patients who really need help.
That is why we have brought forward proposals to introduce a system of drug budgeting for GP practices. The purpose is to instil a greater sense of self-discipline into prescribing. For this, doctors will need—and are already getting—accurate up-to-date comparative information about prescribing patterns, including their own. There have been exaggerated stories about these proposals and I hope to be able to set the record straight. Let me stress that these

1151
budgets will be "indicative" budgets. Thus there is no question that they will run out or that patients will not get the medicines they need. Doctors will still have the same prescribing freedoms that they have at present. The difference will be that, if their habits are consistently out of line with what their colleagues are doing, they will be required to explain why. If there is no good reason, they will be offered advice and guidance by other doctors about how to prescribe more effectively.
We also plan to give larger GP practices the opportunity to manage their own budgets for a large proportion of their work. We have received an encouraging number of preliminary inquiries in response to this initiative which will mean that GPs can shop around to obtain the best hospital treatment for their patients. Because budget-holding GPs will have the money to back their judgments, hospitals will need to become even more responsive to the needs of GPs and their patients in terms of quality of care, waiting times and costs. Practice budgets will be set at a realistic level, as will be prescribing budgets, taking account of the types of patients on practice lists. We shall ensure that doctors have no financial incentive to refuse any category of patient on their lists.
A key objective of all these reforms is to make the service more responsive to patient needs. The best way of doing this is to give patients greater freedom of choice over where and by whom they are treated. We shall shortly therefore be bringing forward regulations to make it simpler for patients to change their doctor. They will no longer need their existing doctor's permission or be required to write to their FPC and wait for authorisation. We shall also be requiring FPCs to publish comprehensive information about the GP practices in their areas and the services on offer. This will ensure that people have the information to make informed decisions about the most suitable doctor for themselves and their families.
The consumer also wants quality assurance. I am sure that most doctors, too, would like to know that they are providing a good service to their patients. That is why we intend to continue to press for improvements in quality through our proposals for what is generally known as medical audit. That is rigorous assessment by doctors themselves of the quality and outcomes of medical treatments. Our proposals are designed to ensure that good practice spreads and that more doctors come up to the standards of the best.
All these changes imply a new role for family practitioner committees. Their remit now is to manage the services for which hitherto they have had merely an administrative responsibility. In other words, for the first time, they will be given the means to exercise real influence over the £5 billion or so which passes through their hands to the practitioner contractors.
Family practitioner committees are already being prepared for these new tasks. We are currently in the process of strengthening the management of FPCs by appointing high-calibre general managers. We are also proposing that the FPCs themselves should be slimmed down from the current 30 or so
1152
members to 11 members—a crisper decision-making body. All the members will be appointed in a personal capacity for the skills and experience they can bring to ensure the best possible provision of health care.
Bearing in mind how long I have been speaking, I shall be unable to deal with all the points raised by noble Lords. However, I should like to touch on domiciliary visits, a point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Hunter and Lord Winstanley. We are sure that the idea of domiciliary visits has a superficial appeal. But as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said, in practice the system became abused. In any case we feel that co-ordinated out-patient services and the high-tech diagnostic equipment that we now have make domiciliary visits impracticable and, frankly, not often in the patients' interests.
The noble Lord, Lord Ennals, mentioned a letter to a previous Minister of Health, the right honourable Mr. Barney Hayhoe, in 1985. The noble Lord very kindly sent me a copy of that letter yesterday. I feel that he is being slightly unfair. Many of the issues raised in the letter have now been covered by the original White Paper, Promoting Better Health, and various actions since then. I feel that it is too late at night to go into detail on all the matters raised, but I shall write to the noble Lord on that as soon as practicable.
These plans are our blueprint for the 1990s. They will take the family practitioner services into the future by building on their existing strengths which have developed over 40 years of the National Health Service but, as I have shown, have not developed sufficiently in the direction of active, systematic health care for the whole population. The result will be a service that not only meets the needs of the 1990s and beyond, but which meets them in a way that is more genuinely responsive to patients' needs and wishes.

Water Bill
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Lords amendments agreed to; with one of the Lords amendments disagreed to but with amendments proposed in lieu thereof; and with the remaining amendments disagreed to with reasons for such disagreement; the Commons amendments and reasons to be printed.
House adjourned at half-past eight o'clock.

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