Sitting of 2 May 1989

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

  HYTHE MARINA VILLAGE (SOUTHAMPTON) WAVESCREEN BILL
  Orders for Third Reading read.
  Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.
  Read the Third time, and passed with amendments.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    University Academics (Earnings)
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what estimate he has made of the optimum rate of earnings of university academics from sources outside universities.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson): The Department does not collect information about the levels of non-pay earnings among academics.
    Mr. Dalyell: Would 20 per cent. of earnings and 20 per cent. of time be a reasonable guess?
    Mr. Jackson: The answer probably varies very widely between different institutions and different individuals. We know from anecdotal evidence that in some cases earnings are substantial and in others not. The basic point is that if a pay claim is based on comparisons, like must be compared with like.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my hon. Friend agree that there are retention and recruitment problems in certain subjects at certain universities? Does he agree that those difficulties are an argument for more flexibility in the academic pay structure, and that a shortage of engineers and scientists is no argument for paying exceptionally higher salaries to lecturers in Latin?
    Mr. Jackson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no point in people in universities, particularly the ablest, lecturing the Government about the brain drain if they are not prepared to take steps that are within their power to secure their continued employment in this country.

    Higher Education (Capital Investment)
    Mr. Macdonald: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on capital investment in higher education.
    Mr. Jackson: Tile Supply Estimates provide for allocations totalling £272 million in 1989–90 for capital purposes in higher education. This provision reflects the Government's commitment to a high-quality, cost-effective higher education system.
    Mr. Macdonald: Can the Minister confirm that according to the Government's own figures capital expenditure on universities in 1988 was 16 per cent. less than in 1979, and that capital spending on polytechnics was 14 per cent. less? Is that not a deplorable record? What possible excuse has the Minister for such a decline in capital spending on something of such importance to the nation's economic future?
    Mr. Jackson: I must point out that, of the £272 million that we have allocated for capital purposes, £84 million is for polytechnics. We estimate that sum to he roughly

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    double what would otherwise have been provided by the local education authorities. As for overall spending, I have said before and will say again that we in Britain spend a higher proportion of our gross national product on higher education than any other western European country except the Netherlands.
    Mr. Bill Walker: When contemplating capital expenditure, does my hon. Friend take into consideration what we already have? Is so, will he bear in mind that the dental college at Dundee has superb accommodation, and that there is no need to spend vast sums on accommodational equipment there?
    Mr. Jackson: I had the great pleasure of visiting Dundee and its dental school with my hon. Friend, and I was very impressed by what I found. That was reflected in subsequent decisions.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Why has the Department so far failed to respond to the request and recommendation by the Select Committee on Science and Technology in the other place that £25 million extra capital spend be provided this year for medical research equipment throughout our higher education sector?
    Mr. Jackson: As the hon. Gentleman knows, public expenditure requirements for higher education are reviewed every year in the public expenditure survey, and that is the appropriate occasion on which to consider the suggestion to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my hon. Friend agree with Dr. Terence Kealey that the universities could do much more to attract capital from outside sources, and that the universities are far too wedded to collective bargaining, jobs for life and dependence on the state?
    Mr. Jackson: I agree with some of what my hon. Friend has said. Capital expenditure and investment in new plant, equipment and buildings is a prime area for which to raise funds from outside sources, which are often more prepared to give money for those purposes than others.

    Higher Education (Age Participation Rate)
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current age participation rate for higher education; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): The provisional age participation index for 18-year-olds for 1988–89 stands at a record 15·1 per cent. The trend since 1979 has been strongly upward. We expect this autumn to see more than 1 million students in higher education for the first time in this country.
    Mr. Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures show a towering record of achievement in the past decade, and of providing opportunities for the young people of this country? Does he further agree that such opportunity will be even more enhanced, come the greater emphasis on fees in the funding of higher education?
    Mr. Baker: In this celebratory week, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Over the past 10 years there has been an increase of over 200,000 students in higher education, one of the biggest increases in our history. I agree with my hon. Friend that the announcement that I made last week
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    on increasing the public element of fees will stimulate universities, colleges and polytechnics to enrol more students. I am glad to see that that announcement has been so widely welcomed throughout higher education.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is a strong feeling in west Cumberland that the further education college should be able to provide a three-year degree course, if only linked to Preston, whereas at present it can provide only the first year, with students having to travel to Preston for the subsequent years? Will the Secretary of State take a personal interest in the matter and see whether the rules can be changed so that this right is available in west Cumberland.
    Mr. Baker: I will look into what the hon. Gentleman has said. Only 10 days ago I was in his part of the world and visited the further education college in Barrow-in-Furness, which is being expanded and rebuilt at a cost of between £4 million and £5 million. I was impressed with the provision of that college.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: That is not the same.
    Mr. Baker: I accept that it is not the same, but it is quite close. I will have a look at what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, of the large rise in student numbers in higher education over the last 10 years, the increase in those attending polytechnics, of about 30 per cent. to 300,000, is the most impressive? Does he further agree that, given the fact that polytechnics are particularly well placed to offer flexible entry and modular courses, particularly for older people who seek retraining, they will be in the forefront of higher education over the next 10 years?
    Mr. Baker: I am sure that polytechnics will follow their success of the last 10 years, because most of the expansion has been in the polytechnic area. This has been achieved because the polytechnics have been flexible. They will grow even faster now that they are not under the control of education authorities. As my hon. Friend has indicated, by being resourceful, entrepreneurial and devising new courses related specifically to the needs of students, they have achieved this growth. I am sure that they will represent one of the major elements of expansion in the next 10 years.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: Perhaps I may be permitted to interrupt the orgy of unjustified self-congratulation taking place amongst the Conservatives. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, as per the answer to me of 10 February from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the percentage of 18 to 24-year-olds in higher education has gone down, not up, under this Government? Will he further confirm that the public expenditure White Paper projects a fall in the real value of expenditure on higher education between now and 1992? In view of the claims that he is making about fees and increased numbers and the comments last week about what a great victory this represented over the Treasury, will he tell the House by how much the budget for higher education will be increased above the White Paper figures, or is this yet another example of how far the reality of the Government's resourcing of education falls short of its rhetoric?
    Mr. Baker: The participation rate for 18-year-olds has increased from 12·4 per cent. to 15·1 per cent. over the last 10 years. What was being said a few moments ago was not at all an orgy of self-congratulation. It was a simple and modest statement of the continuing success of this Government over the last 10 years, projecting even greater success over the next 10 years.
    Mr Marlow: Could my right hon. Friend look at the mental age as well as the physical age for acceptability to higher education, so that in future we can prevent such futile and disgraceful gestures, as the award of office by a students union to a convicted murderer?
    Mr. Baker: I have already said—and I say again—that the decision by a very small minority of students at the London School of Economics is both despicable and shameful. It is deeply offensive to the family of PC Blakelock. It has been condemned by the London School of Economics, and by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and by many people across the country. I very much hope that that decision will be changed. The reputation of the London School of Economics should not depend on a small minority of the loony Left.

    Science Budget (Additions)
    Mr. Hood: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what addition has been made to the science budget to meet the cost of salary increases of technicians employed by research councils, following the recent award to technicians employed by universities.
    Mr. Jackson: The technicians' union has not yet agreed the pay offer made to it last month by the employers on the universities committee for non-teaching staffs in universities. I understand, however, that the negotiating parties are meeting again today.
    Mr. Hood: By how much has the cost of research councils risen since the Secretary of State's announcement of this year's science budget?
    Mr Jackson: I do not have that information immediately to hand, but I remind the House that in last year's public expenditure survey there was a substantial increase in the research council's vote of about 10 per cent. in real terms. That ought to be enough to cope with the current rises, including the rise in technicians' salaries. However, we shall have to examine in later years the consequences of this year's public expenditure survey.
    Dr. Bray: It was clear, however, that a substantial proportion of the 10 per cent. increase would not be directed to both the new and the expanded research programmes, about which the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister made such a song and dance, particularly in relation to the global environment. A substantial part of that increase has had to be earmarked for salary increases for technicians and scientists. Have the Government been successful in obtaining an increase in the science budget comparable with that which they have obtained for the universities?
    Mr. Jackson: The hon. Gentleman is always trying to look a gift horse in the mouth. There was a very substantial improvement in the amount of money made available last year. The hon. Gentleman speaks as though salaries and
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    staff are not part of the cost of the science vote, but they are a major part of the cost of that vote. That cost is reflected in the increase.

    Secondary School Expenditure (Staffordshire)
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how much was spent per pupil in secondary schools in Staffordshire in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what was the comparable figure for 1978–79, at constant prices.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John Butcher): In actual cash, Staffordshire spent £535 per secondary pupil in 1978–79 and £1,420 per secondary pupil in 1987–88. At 1987–88 prices, those figures are £1,100 and £1,420 respectively.
    Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that the figures show a satisfactory increase in expenditure per secondary school pupil in Staffordshire since the Government came to power, despite the Opposition's remarks? Does he think that that increase has been accompanied by an improvement in standards?
    Mr. Butcher: A considerable amount of information and research shows that there is not a direct and quantifiable correlation between the level of spend and the level of academic results achieved. That is an issue that we may address in a later question. The real growth in Staffordshire has been made possible because the Government have been very generous. The Staffordshire figures, and those that have been repeated in local education authorities across the country, show that it is a misnomer to use the word "cuts" when one refers to expenditure on education.
    Mr. Fisher: Does the Minister accept that the figures have been achieved despite the Government's support, which led to a cut in the rate support grant? The figures are a tribute to Labour control in Staffordshire. Will the Minister confirm that, during the last five years of Labour control in Staffordshire, the examination results of secondary school pupils have risen, whereas the national figures have remained fairly static? Staffordshire's figures have advanced considerably, thanks to the Labour council's excellent control.
    Mr. Butcher: As I said earlier, the academic results of local education authorities vary considerably. I know that the Opposition do not like league tables, but there are some fairly clear figures that show that the high-spending education authorities often achieve the least favourable academic results, while those that spend the least per head often achieve very favourable results. I shall not comment on Staffordshire's exact performance, but it is the Government's generosity that has made the general improvement possible.

    Primary Secondary Schools (Accommodation)
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to improve the quality of accommodation provided in primary secondary schools.
    Mr. Butcher: Local education authorities and governors are responsible for school buildings for which my right hon. Friend makes capital allocations and grant

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    available. For 1989–90 my right hon. Friend has announced capital allocations to LEAs of £352 million. LEAs will also have substantial spending power from capital receipts which they are able to use on improving the quality of school and college buildings.
    Mr. Hughes: Given that last year 25 schools in England and Wales had fire damage costing over £250,000 each, and that the fire officer in Tory-controlled Norfolk has just advised his county council that there are 11 schools with no adequate means of escape and which are a high fire risk and 56 other Norfolk schools which do not comply with the codes of practice, is it not about time that schools were brought within the remit of the Fire Precautions Act 1971 so that the fire service inspects them and sees what a lamentable state many of them are in? Is it not time that, earlier rather than later, we brought our schools up to a decent standard to protect children from the risk of death or injury and that we had the capital investment from the Government to do the job?
    Mr. Butcher: Of course, this is a question which the whole House takes very seriously but compared with other types of buildings, the fire safety record of schools is excellent. Of course, we should never be complacent and local education authorities have to set their own priorities on repairs and maintenance budgets. In terms of the cost of arson, which normally takes place outside school hours, we have a serious problem, and it is for that reason that I appointed a group of experts to look into the whole question of the cost of arson and vandalism, which has been variously estimated as being between £49 million and £100 million a year. That is intolerable, but of course, the safety question is very much to the fore and I shall look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman has just said.
    Mr. Pawsey: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that for a relatively small outlay, for example on fire alarms and the like, schools could be made much safer places? Will he further confirm that he continues to chair a working group inquiring into arson and vandalism and give the House some idea of how that group is progressing and when it might be reporting to the Department and the House?
    Mr. Butcher: I shall be glad to so report to the House in due course. I have now chaired this special group twice. We have an action plan of 10 points. We are targeting savings in a number of areas and, for the sake of comparatively small expenditures, I believe that we can make major savings in the £49 million to£100 million that I mentioned earlier, which of course can be used to much better effect in resourcing schools in basic things like books and other forms of support for teachers.
    Mr. Corbett: Has the Minister forgotten that the Government's own figures show a £3 billion backlog in repairs and maintenance of our schools? Will he confirm that one million children are still being educated in very inadequate conditions? What will he do about that?
    Mr. Butcher: The figures that the hon. Gentleman has just used should be examined very carefully. He knows that it is the practice of most local education authorities to submit a bid to my Department. In the main an average of approximately 34 per cent. of that bid goes to LEAs as a cash allocation. I appreciate that repairs and maintenance, for example, is a heading that we could look at. I cannot anticipate at this stage the outcome of the public
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    expenditure survey but I am aware that there are improvements to be made in quite a large number of schools. In the first instance it must be for LEAs to set their priorities when they put their bids to us.
    Mr. McLoughlin: Is my hon. Friend happy with the way in which local education authorities allocate this capital expenditure? In Derbyshire there has been an increase in the capital available to the county council over the past two years, from about £5 million to £11 million. Is he aware that there is great concern, particularly in my constituency, that schools are not being treated fairly, perhaps because of their political complexion? I have to say to my hon. Friend and to the Secretary of State that there is growing concern about the way in which local authorities are, as we believe, abusing their position. Is my hon. Friend further aware that All Saints primary school in Matlock has been waiting now since 1983–84 for the continuation of very important work to bring it on to one site? Does he agree that it is not acceptable that there should be huge increases in the capital given to county councils and for them then to use it in wholly political exercises in various constituencies in the county?
    Mr. Butcher: Derbyshire county council seems to devote the bulk of its efforts to blaming the Government for everything. The school that my hon. Friend mentioned had the first phase of its development approved under the Conservative Administration but is still waiting for the second phase. Derbyshire has rarely been out of the top five for capital allocations to the shire counties. It receives 52 per cent. of its claims for expenditure compared with a national average of 34 per cent. In my view, Derbyshire should stop playing politics and get on with the job.
    Mr. Fatchett: Have not capital allocations for school maintenance decreased by nearly 30 per cent. in the past 10 years? Is that not because we have a £3 billion backlog in repairs to our schools and 1 million children are condemned every day to take their lessons in substandard accommodation? That accommodation would not be acceptable in private sector schools to which Cabinet members send their children. Why can we not have the same standards in the public sector and the money to carry out repairs so that our children can have decent schools and decent opportunities?
    Mr. Butcher: It is regrettable that the hon. Gentleman makes comparisons with the private sector, because the private sector often operates under conditions which can be described as spartan. However, the hon. Gentleman raises a serious matter. He does not take into account the fact that capital receipts have boosted expenditure considerably. Capital receipts boosted the £352 million that I mentioned earlier to about £670 million. Of course we should like to provide more for repairs and maintenance, but the House must await the outcome of the public expenditure survey as far as future plans are concerned.

    Teacher Training
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what allowance is made for the in-service training of teachers in (a) school-time and (b) school holidays for heads, deputies and all other teachers; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): Participation in in-service training is part of the professional duties of a teacher under the pay and conditions document. The amount of time devoted to in-service training in school hours and outside school hours varies according to need and circumstances. In the Government's view the five non-contact days should be used mainly for in-service training.
    Mr. Greenway: Can my hon. Friend confirm that there will continue to be an expansion of in-service training for heads, deputies and all teachers? Can she also confirm that such training is much more expensive if it is undertaken in school time because replacements have to be arranged for the absent teacher, head or deputy? Could not incentives be provided for such teachers to undertake more in-service training in school holidays which, after all, are not short?
    Mrs. Rumbold: My hon. Friend will be interested to know that some £50 million has been set aside this year in training grants for teachers undertaking in-service training, and an additional £50 million in education support grants to help in training to prepare for the national curriculum. My hon. Friend asked about in-service training during school holidays or outside school hours. Many good local education authorities already arrange much of their in-service training outside school hours and many very professional teachers prefer to do it then.
    Mr. Flannery: Is the Minister aware—I am sure that he is—that about a fortnight ago the Secretary of State answered a question in the Select Committee, and that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) is pursuing the same subject? The Secretary of State referred to the fact that the number of supply teachers is totally insufficient. Large numbers of teachers who wish to take part in in-service training cannot because there are not enough supply teachers to replace them.
    Is the Minister aware that the Secretary of State made it plain in the Select Committee that he intends to cut the number of supply teachers—another severe cut—so that teachers, who, since he came to office, have had more work after school than ever before will have to go out at night and weekends for in-service training, instead of continuing with the present arrangements for which they need more supply teachers?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The hon. Gentleman should know that many local education authorities are working hard to sustain and increase the number of supply teachers. They have some good schemes, and well-organised local education authorities have a considerable number of supply teachers to cover for other teachers who are doing in-service training. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would have reaffirmed what I have just said to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), in reply to his question about in-service training out of school hours, insofar as it is important that professional teachers should, as much as possible, increase their professionalism by undertaking training both in and out of school time.
    Mr. Favell: Is my hon. Friend satisfied with the present system for the appraisal of teachers? Three or four years ago, we heard a great deal about it. The medical profession
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    has now accepted the need for the medical audit, which is appraisal by one's colleagues. Would it not be sensible to consider a similar scheme for teachers?
    Mrs. Rumbold: My hon. Friend will know that there are provisions in the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 for the introduction of appraisal schemes. Six pilot schemes were undertaken in local authorities and those are currently being assessed by the Department of Education and Science, with the intention of introducing appraisal schemes in other schools in the not too distant future.
    Ms. Armstrong: Does the Minister accept the view of Her Majesty's inspectorate that primary education is critically short of teachers with expertise in science, technology and mathematics? As primary schools will embark on teaching the national curriculum core subjects next term, what is the Minister doing to ensure that every primary school teacher has the in-service training necessary to embark on the project?
    Mrs. Rumbold: As the hon. Lady will know, we are embarking on a substantial in-service training scheme for primary school teachers, as well as secondary school teachers. With the introduction in September this year of the core subjects of the national curriculum, primary teachers will need to undertake some in-service training in science and mathematics in particular, although many primary school teachers, having seen the syllabuses and the curricula for mathematics and science, are happy with them and believe that they are well prepared already to undertake most of the work.

    Teacher Shortages (Barnet)
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to solve the problems of teacher shortages in Barnet.
    Mrs. Rumbold: The Department's action programme on teacher shortages is aimed, in particular, at tackling the problem of teacher recruitment in London and the south-east.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that one reason why there are shortages of teachers in the Prime Minister's constituency, parts of Derbyshire and elsewhere is the ever-changing job description that the Government are organising on behalf of teachers in relation to the national curriculum and the GCSE examination, but that almost certainly the main reason is pay? It is high time that the Government were prepared to pay teachers the same 26 per cent. increase that the top company directors received last year.
    Mrs. Rumbold: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should attack both the GCSE and the national curriculum, as I understand that his Front Bench has adopted both of those as part of its own programme. My right hon. Friend has received the report from the interim advisory committee on teachers' pay and conditions and has announced that he is prepared to accept the report in full.
    Sir Rhodes Boyson: Is my hon. Friend aware that, whatever the teachers' position in Barnet, in Labour Brent, parents are queuing up to get their children into schools in Conservative Barnet rather than in Labour Brent? Is my

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    hon. Friend aware that the excellent fifth year and seventh year results in Barnet and Harrow are some of the best in the country?
    Mr. Rumbold: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is hardly surprising that parents in areas where the schools are not producing the results are opting to send their children to schools in authorities such as Conservative-controlled Barnet, where the results are obviously good. Barnet is the top authority in the country for good academic results.
    Mr. Straw: Is that why parents in Barnet are queuing up to send their children to schools in Labour-controlled ILEA and is that why the net flow there is towards ILEA and not away from it? If the Minister is, as she claims, winning the battle on teacher shortages, why has the education officer in Barnet, Mr. Gill, had to write a desperate letter to every teacher and parent in Barnet, asking if they know anyone, "friends, relatives or neighbours" who would like to be a teacher in Barnet?
    Why, in the past seven years, have teacher resignations in primary and secondary schools risen by 260 per cent.? Is that what 10 years of Thatcherism has done to the Prime Minister's own back yard?
    Mrs. Rumbold: No, it is not. The 10 years of Thatcherism have been successful, not only in Barnet, but right across the country and are proving to be most successful in education which, in previous years was so deplorable that it had to undergo a substantial change and the substantial reform that was introduced last year by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the Education Reform Act 1988.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my hon. Friend aware that until 1974 graduates could be employed by local education authorities in shortage subjects without a postgraduate certificate of education? Will she look at the system used in the United States where graduates are trained part-time in the evenings and in the holidays while they are teaching? Will she also consider a system of paying extra money to teachers in shortage subjects and in shortage areas?
    Mrs. Rumbold: We shall most certainly look at both those suggestions. My hon. Friend is aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is about to introduce schemes for licensed and for articled teachers which will allow graduates to be articled or licensed and to teach in the classroom while gaining their professional qualifications.

    Licensed Teachers
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many licensed teachers he estimates will be recruited in the next two academic years.
    Mr. Butcher: The number of licensed teachers will depend on the suitability of candidates presenting themselves for licensed teacher status and the extent to which local education authorities and school governing bodies wish to appoint them.
    Mr. Taylor: Does the Minister agree that the most suitable people to help in teaching are those who are already there, but that they are being forced out of education because of the lack of morale under the Government and the difficulties with pay and conditions
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    and with operating under the various changes that the Government have introduced? Would it not be better to tackle those things and to start talking to teachers once again through some proper machinery instead of trying to introduce failed and under-qualified ex-executives into teaching?
    Mr. Butcher: Teachers' pay has increased by 40 per cent. in the past three years. In looking for signs about whether morale is improving or otherwise, the House will recognise that the response of the teaching profession to the major reform of GCSE and the extent to which teachers are opting for training, with enthusiasm, on the national curriculum are not signs of a profession that is demoralised. We have a great deal of hope for the future but, of course, we want to continue to address the difficulties of geographical and subject teacher shortages.
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: In connection with the recruitment of teachers and other related issues, and bearing in mind that the voice of teachers is divided between at least four unions, will my hon. Friend and his colleagues look again at the idea of a professional teachers council to represent and to raise the professional standards of teachers in every way?
    Mr. Butcher: That idea has been mooted fairly often in the past few years. Some teachers in the profession would like an organisation that would speak for them as a professional body and not as a politicised, unionised body. That issue is still open. Either through ignorance or otherwise some of the teachers' unions have made assertions on the subject of licensed teachers which are quite untrue. At the moment, graduates without initial teacher training represent about 7 per cent. of qualified teachers in secondary schools and 39 per cent. of teachers in secondary schools are not graduates. What we propose will do nothing to dilute the professionalism of the profession.
    Mr. Straw: Will it be possible for applicants who have completed two years of higher education but who have failed their teaching practice on either a BEd or a PGCE course to be eligible for licensed teacher status?
    Mr. Butcher: Let us assume that such an individual has an HND, which is not a graduation in the strict sense of the word. That person would be eligible to do two years' teacher training in a school. Only if he satisfies those who must assess him for that can he enter into the profession. I am not aswering an unequivocal "yes" to the hon. Gentleman's question. I would like to look at it in a little further detail and write to him. But everyone has to have two years' higher education, O-level GCSE in English and maths and two years' training in the schools. I would have thought that those were all excellent proposals.
    Mr. Gerald Bowden: Considering the difficulty of recruiting suitably qualified people in the teaching profession, can my hon. Friend confirm the reports that the city technology college in Nottingham, which had advertised 13 teacher posts, has had over 900 teachers expressing interest in them and 250 firm applications?
    Does this not suggest that, where the school regime is right, teachers will want to go there?
    Mr. Butcher: I say to anyone who has any doubts about the ethos and efficacy of CTCs that they should go to Nottingham and talk to that excellent head and director.

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    He is going to build and staff an inner-city school which will change the life chances of inner-city children. That is what CTCs are all about. He is making those children fit for the world of work and they will be whole men and women into the bargain.

    Religious Education
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received concerning the provision of non-Christian religious teaching as part of the national core curriculum.
    Mrs. Rumbold: All maintained schools must provide religious education but it is not part of the national curriculum. The content of religious education is for local determination.
    Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that parents who belong to minority faiths are increasingly concerned at what they feel to be inadequate provision for worship and education in their faiths where there is a substantial number of children of a particular faith in a school? Does she recognise that this anxiety has increased since the Education Reform Act 1968 and is shared by parents of the Hindu, Moslem, Jewish and other religions? Is she proposing to do anything as a result of the representations that she has received to meet these concerns?
    Mrs. Rumbold: Certainly. We have taken careful note of the various representations that have been made to us. In terms of the act of worship, of course, the provision for parents to he allowed to withdraw their children remains as it was under the Education Act 1944. It may help the hon. and learned Gentleman if I say that not every act of worship in a county school will have to be either wholly or mainly broadly Christian in character, provided that the majority of acts of worship are. The head will have to take into account the family background of the pupils concerned when deciding on the precise nature of worship to be provided. As I have said, parents still have the option to withdraw their children if they so wish.
    Miss Emma Nicholson: Does my hon. Friend not agree that teaching Christianity properly within the core curriculum provides a foundation for the teaching of comparative religion and indeed the degree subject of theology taught in many universities uses Christianity as the foundation and brings in other religions in the comparative framework? In that context, does she not agree that it is proper that Her Majesty's inspectors should monitor the teaching of religious education in the core curriculum?
    Mrs. Rumbold: It is certainly right that, as my hon. Friend says, religious education should be monitored by Her Majesty's inspectors when they are looking at what is happening in the basic teaching of religious education. It is also right that religious education should refleect the central place of Christianity in our religious traditions. But the Act requires that local syllabuses should take account of the teaching and practices of all the principal religions in Great Britain. I hope that that will go some way towards answering my hon. Friend's question.

    HM Inspectorate (Performance Indicators)
    Mr. Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what performance indicators are available to him in measuring the effectiveness of Her Majesty's inspectorate.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: The performance of Her Majesty's inspectors may be judged by the timely and effective advice they provide to me and my Department on policy matters; by the number, range and quality of their reports and publications, and their inspections; and by the extent to which I am kept appropriately informed about educational standards and trends.
    Mr. Gill: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the retention of the core of Her Majesty's inspectors will be necessary once the full effects of the Education Reform Act 1988 translate themselves into the beneficial results which will derive from society's greater involvement and interest in education, particularly in the light of the answer given earlier this afternoon affecting the teacher appraisal schemes?
    Mr. Baker: I am sure that parents will be taking a much greater interest in the performance of schools and their children as a cumulative effect of the result of our reforms. I am certain that there will be a continuing and important need for Her Majesty's inspectors to visit schools. They have increased their number of inspections. During the past 10 years, since we have been in office, the number of inspectors has risen from 430 to 490.
    Mr. Madden: Will the Secretary of State arrange for inspectors to consider safety in schools? Will he despatch an inspector immediately to a first school in my constituency where all the electric switches are made of metal and where the electric plugs are sparking? That presents a real danger to the nursery and primary school children and the staff at the school. Will the Secretary of State also send an inspector to the Bradford Conservative-controlled education authority and ask why it is refusing to do anything about those dangers at a time when it has put £5 million into balances and has cut the education budget by millions?
    Mr. Baker: There have been substantial increases in capital expenditure in Bradford over the past few years, and that is what that money should have been spent on.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Sillars: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    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. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.
    Mr. Sillars: Is the Prime Minister aware that one of the major policy blunders of the past 10 years has been her attempt to use Scotland as an experimental area for the immoral poll tax? Is she aware that, despite the chicken-hearted failure of the Labour leadership,

    15
    hundreds of thousands of Scots will not pay and together that army will wreck the poll tax, sink her flagship and inflict a major political defeat upon her later this year?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that under Scottish law, Scotland had already undergone a rating revaluation, and the results were so horrific that we had to change the law. I understand that the official Opposition may want another rating revaluation on a capital basis, which would be even more catastrophic. We have changed to a community charge, which is very much better and fairer. I understand that 99 per cent. of people have already registered, which would indicate an intention to fulfil their duties under the law. They are not only interested in how much they can get, but what is their duty to pay.
    Sir Hugh Rossi: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Sir Hugh Rossi: In welcoming my right hon. Friend's personal initiatives over matters of atmospheric pollution, the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect, may I ask her whether anything new has emerged from the much-publicised meeting that she had last week with Ministers in Downing street?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will have seen some reports. The most obvious thing to come out of the meeting was the fact that we need a great deal more scientific evidence. Because there are so many variables to feed into the several climatic models, it is difficult to get scientists with a single opinion on how the climate in the several regions will be affected. Secondly, we noted the excellent progress being made in energy efficiency. We are now using less energy than we were in 1973, with an enormously increased gross domestic product. Thirdly, the most practical and immediate concern was the damaging effect of the destruction of tropical forests. That subject will be raised, I think, at the European summit and also at the economic summit, when we discuss how we can increasingly use aid to preserve those tropical forests.
    Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister tell us why mortgage rates have been higher for longer under her Government than under any other British Government?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows why they are high at the moment—[Interruption.] It is to ensure that inflation never rises to the 26 per cent. it did under the Labour Government.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister recall her pledge to achieve what she called "reasonable mortgage rates"? Why has she never ever managed to keep that pledge?
    The Prime Minister: We have done extremely well in that 3 million people have chosen, under this Government, to own their own home who would never have had that opportunity under Labour. Maybe the proof comes in home ownership and in how very well those who have purchased their homes have done in increasing their value.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is the Prime Minister trying to say that we have had higher mortgage rates for longer under her Government because more people, just as in every previous year, have ended up buying their own houses?
    The Prime Minister: No. I am saying that 3 million more families own their homes than was the case under Labour and that mortgage rates and interest rates are high because we are determined not to go back to Labour's inflation rate of 26·9 per cent. per annum.
    Mr. Cash: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Cash: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the continuing efforts of the European Legislation Committee to involve the House in more effective scrutiny of European legislation? Is she aware that the French Parliament, following our example, has introduced similar measures? Does she also agree that the more democracy there is in the European Community the better?
    The Prime Minister: I know that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members are deeply concerned about the amount of legislation that is coming from Europe. It comes to the Scrutiny Committee of course only when it has got to the legislative stage. My right hon. Friends and I are deeply concerned about the number of proposals in the pipeline. It is extremely difficult to get the full facts about them and we must follow them up at that stage too. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need the scrutiny of national Parliaments and that the more we have the better. We also need to keep a very careful watch on the tendency of the Commission to acquire an increasing competence on many matters that are not necessary for the single market of 1992. That would result in an extremely large bureaucracy, which would be quite wrong.
    Mr. Ashdown: Does the Prime Minister realise that when many millions in England and Wales go to the polls to vote on Thursday—the 10th anniversary of her election —they will hope—[Interruption.]—that their single vote counts twice; once for a good councillor, and once against the policies of her Government—against the privatisation of water, against the smashing up of the Health Service and against the poll tax? Does she realise that many millions in Britain, including those who voted for her Government, now ache for the removal of this damaging, disruptive and divisive Government?
    The Prime Minister: Nonsense. Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that the privatisation of both of those industries was in the last election manifesto and that we won that election by a 100 majority, for which many people are and will remain profoundly grateful? We are going to win the next one too.
    Mr. Baldry: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Baldry: Has my right hon. Friend had time to consider the Policy Studies Institute report "The School Effect", which shows that too many of our children in too many of our inner-city schools are being betrayed by too many Left-wing education authorities? Instead of pursuing a pretence of multicultural policies, it is time for those local educational authorities to start helping to fulfil

    17
    the potential of all their children and to concentrate on traditional ways in which to improve educational standards.
    The Prime Minister: I have read reports on that report in the newspapers. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is anxious that it be published in full because it shows enormous variations in educational standards between schools of similar pupils. That is not right. We must make every effort to see that every child has a good education whatever their background. That is why my right hon. Friend is introducing a national curriculum and is spending so much time on teacher training and extra teacher training so that every child can have a really good education whatever local authority he is in.
    Mr. Pendry: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Pendry: Having attended the memorial service at Liverpool last Saturday and having witnessed at first hand the grief of that football-loving city, may I ask the right hon. Lady now to consider that the most fitting and lasting memorial to those who tragically died in Hillsborough last month would be for the Government to provide the funding for a multi-purpose sports facility at Merseyside, in the same spirit as she set aside £19 million for egg producers earlier this year?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. Some football clubs have spent a great deal, and others—not all in this country—are spending an increasing amount on the standards of their stadiums. The hon. Gentleman will know to which I refer. There is a good deal of money, as he knows, in football. Much of it—perhaps too much—goes on transfer fees and perhaps too little goes on stadiums. We all know that a good deal of the income from football pools also goes on improving stadiums. The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with all of those aspects. I went to the memorial service and of course I shared the grief of the people. I got very much the impression from them that, above all, they wanted all-seat stadiums in the future.
    Dr. Twinn: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Dr. Twinn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that better street lighting can cut crime and cut the fear of crime? Will she endorse the findings of the urban programme and the estate action programme, as well as of the British parliamentary lighting group's surveys in Edmonton and Tower Hamlets, that money spent by local authorities on improving street lighting is money well worth spending in the fight against crime?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend draws my attention to the work done by the British parliamentary lighting group and to projects in Edmonton and Tower Hamlets, which seem to have shown that where more money is spent on lighting, the level of crime goes down. If that is so, we must look at those results carefully and see whether they can be furthered because we are anxious to reduce the level of crime as fast and as much as we can.
    Mr. Barron: Has the Prime Minister read press statements about the attitude of general practitioners in the Vale of Glamorgan in relation to the Government's White Paper on the Health Service? Will she consider withdrawing that White Paper and funding the NHS in a proper manner and not put into effect the actions that are now proposed?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir, and we do not take any lectures on funding the Health Service from Labour Members—[Interruption.] I repeat what I have said in past weeks: for every pound that Labour spent on the NHS, Tories are spending £3. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell that to the people in the Vale of Glamorgan. So, if they want to go back to Labour, that will cut resources, cut hospitals, cut the doctors, cut the nurses, cut their pay and cut the service to patients. Tell that to them.
    Mr. Gardiner: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Gardiner: Further to my right hon. Friend's reply to the question by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), although the precise terms of the contract with GPs may be open to negotiation, will she agree that it is imperative that the proposed reforms of the NHS should go ahead and that the welfare of patients demands that the NHS cannot just go on as it is?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. When the reforms in the NHS are through, it will be a much better service for patients than it now is. I understand why Labour Members do not want the reforms to go through. They know that when they have gone through, their protests and citicisms will be rumbled for what they were —wholly hollow and wholly misrepresentative of the true facts.
    Miss Lestor: Is the Prime Minister aware that at the end of her decade as Prime Minister, there are in this country 75,000 missing children? The Government inform me that they do not collect figures nationally. The Children's Society, however, does. What does she intend to do about this problem?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady is well aware of the authorities that have a concern to find missing children. She is also well aware that the standard of living, the standard of education and the standard of health introduced under this Government give children a far better chance than they ever had before.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Lloyd: Would the right hon. Lady now care to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor)?
    The Prime Minister: We have increased the number of police and their pay so that they can carry out all their duties, including that of finding missing children. We have increased the numbers way beyond what the Labour Government did.
    Sir Peter Hordern: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to read the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the supply of beer? Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is widespread interest and admiration for the reforms affecting trade unions, doctors, dentists, lawyers, bankers and brokers, but that when it comes to proposals which may have the effect of closing half the village pubs, does she agree that she may have gone a step too far?
    The Prime Minister: I confess that I am not an expert on the subject although it concerns other members of my
    20
    family very much. Of course, I am concerned, because of the villages, about the future of the village pub. There is increasing debate about the report, I am sure that my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will take that into account when he considers what to do about the report.

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
    Ordered,
    That the draft Summer Time Order 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Fallon.]

Point of Order
3.31 pm
Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will no doubt have heard, during Prime Minister's Question Time, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Dr. Twinn) ask a question about more street lighting. I did not have an opportunity to give notice to the hon. Gentleman that I would raise the matter, but it is a classic illustration of the urgent need to reform the rules on Members' interests to require Members to declare an interest if it is relevant at the time. It is important that we should all know that the hon. Member for Edmonton is a consultant to Thorn Lighting Ltd. It is a classic illustration of the need to reform the rules regarding the Register of Members' Interests so that in such circumstances the Member would be required to declare an interest.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman could draw that to the attention of the Select Committee, which has already discussed the matter and reported upon it. The Select Committee said that, during Question Time, interests that were declared in the Register did not have to be mentioned on the Floor of the House.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Four members of the Labour party who are serving on the Dock Work Bill are sponsored by the Transport and General Workers Union, and none of them has declared that in Committee.
Dr. Ian Twinn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just wish to confirm that if the rules of the House required it and if it was thought necessary in the interests of the House, I would be only too pleased to declare the interest.

Aircraft (Freedom from Smoking)
3.33 pm
Mr. David Martin: I beg to move.
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to permit all passengers on certain aircraft to travel in an atmosphere free from tobacco smoke.
I accept immediately that anyone proposing a measure of this kind must face frankly the question of principle whether the law ought to have a part to play in conferring freedom on some people at the expense of the removal of the freedom of others.
I do not intend to sermonise against smoking. That is a free choice for adults to make for themselves. I would not support a Bill which prevented people from smoking on grounds of harm to themselves, any more than I would support a Bill making illegal the eating of food considered hostile to good health. What I maintain, however, is that people should, in certain circumstances and in certain places, have the freedom to enjoy a smoke-free atmosphere and that that freedom, like the freedom to walk the streets without being assaulted, inevitably rests on lawful restraint being imposed on the freedom of others.
That principle is not novel. It has been conceded over and over again in the House, particularly in the past century and a half, to all Governments of every political complexion in the area of public health and safety. Examples are both commonplace and common sense. It is upon that ground that I base my Bill, including enforcement of its provisions.
My Bill is not about whether someone should smoke, but where. It is not concerned with the effects of smoking on the smoker, but with the effects of smoke on the non-smoker. It is specifically limited to aircraft flights of up to three hours' duration, which effectively means domestic and European destinations. Many other countries have acted already, and I shall refer to that in due course.
All but diehards now accept that there is a serious risk of smoking damaging the smoker's health. It is also generally accepted that, while the risk is small by comparison, there is a risk of damage being done to the health of non-smokers from breathing in tobacco smoke —known as passive smoking. Should any doubts remain on that score, the 1988 fourth report of the independent scientific committee on smoking and health, chaired by Sir Peter Froggatt, should dispel them.
Such reports were predated some 400 years by the famous one-man royal commission of that scourge of tobacco lovers, James VI of Scotland and I of England; a man of whom it has been said that he was never drunk, but he was never quite sober. His conclusion was that smoking was a custom
"loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs and in the black, stinking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."
With that language he would make rather a good modern press officer for the British Medical Association.
King James later clashed with Sir Walter Raleigh, widely credited with having introduced tobacco into Britain. I do not condone the somewhat extreme retribution exacted from Raleigh by King James who had him executed in 1618, ostensibly for treachery and to please the Spanish. But who knows—perhaps he was the first tobacco martyr.

23
On the subject of executions, it is interesting to note that the only example of a statutory right to smoke is to be found in the Executions of Sentences of Death (Army) Regulations 1956 and 1959 under which, besides the right to be visited by relatives and a priest, the prisoner under sentence of death
"shall be permitted to smoke".
I presume that that official connivance can be justified on the ground that for a person in such a position considerations about the long-term injurious effects of smoking are somewhat superfluous.
In the confined spaces of modern aircraft, the impossibility of escape from fumes, despite attempts at segregation of smokers from non-smokers, increases the health risks, as well as causing irritation, coughing and so on.
My own recent experience of that involved my 10-year-old daughter being forced to sit next to a smoker on a British Airways scheduled flight to Portugal this Easter. I had paid in full nearly five months in advance for all six family seats together. I had rung the airport two days before to emphasise our non-smoking requirements. We arrived at the Gatwick check-in desk in good time only to be told that my wife and I could not sit together with our four young children aged three to 10 years except in the smoking area. My 10-year-old daughter was coughing for half the journey and plaintively asked me, on a fully booked flight, "Can't I sit somewhere else, Daddy?" The answer was no, she could not.
I took the matter up afterwards with British Airways only to be told—in the age of computers, remember—in a letter from its customer relations executive:
"It is impracticable to reserve seats for passengers at the time of booking".
British Airways should try running a theatre and tell people that.
It is practicable to take customers' money months in advance, but apparently it is not practicable to guarantee anything in return, except the gamble of having a seat next to one's children with the added chance of sitting next to a chain smoker thrown in. That shows a dreadful lack of consideration for the customer, wholly at variance with the attitude of airline staff, who could not be more pleasant and helpful.
However, credit must be given for BA's advances with regard to smoking on flights. Generally, the smoking of cigars and pipes is not permitted, so the freedom question
24
has been resolved there. Also, it does not permit the smoking of cigarettes on domestic flights, as is the policy of Air UK on its flights, including those to the Channel Islands. Research indicates that, even among smokers, such policies are welcome, They help them to control the habit and mean that one less activity or pastime is associated with smoking.
For safety reasons, no smoking is permitted in the toilet facilities of aircraft. I fail to see why it should be considered safe to permit it in confined cabin spaces, particularly on tiring night flights, when there is a risk of someone nodding off.
Other countries have already acted to protect not only paying passengers but cabin crews, at a time when it is increasingly recognised that protection for non-smoking employees in workplaces is both reasonable and necessary, particularly where air conditioning and heating arrangements restrict access to direct fresh air. In the United States, flights of up to two hours became no-smoking, by law, from April last year. In that country, an airline must guarantee that a person can book a non-smoking seat, which is a sensible provision and one that I hope we shall adopt.
Air Canada has a no-smoking law on flights that last up to two hours. Scandinavia also imposes such restrictions. The Australian Government banned smoking on all domestic flights from December 1987. Noel Coward said in his play "Private Lives" that China was a big country. The same applies to Australia.
In summary, my Bill is a modest attempt to carry matters a stage further in this country. The time is ripe now, as it was in the 1950s with the belching chimneys of London, to put the health and safety considerations of the non-smoker before the considerations of freedom of the smoker, and to call in aid the law in the limited respects that I have outlined. I commend my Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Martin, Mr. Timothy Kirkhope, Mr. Graham Bright, Mrs. Marion Roe, Miss Ann Widdecombe, Mr. David Evans and Mr. Matthew Carrington.

Aircraft (Freedom from Smoking)
  AIRCRAFT (FREEDOM FROM SMOKING)
  Mr. David Martin accordingly presented a Bill to permit all passengers on certain aircraft to travel in an atmosphere free from tobacco smoke. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 7 July and to be printed. [Bill 131.]
Opposition Day
  9TH ALLOTTED DAY
  Mr. Speaker: I regret that the order of the two motions on the Order Paper for today's Opposition business does not accord with that announced by the Leader of the House last Thursday. I propose to revert to our original intention, that the National Health Service debate should come first and the teacher shortages debate should come second.

NHS White Paper (Doctors' Response)
3.43 pm
Mr. Robin Cook: I beg to move,
That this House, noting that every independent organisation representing medical opinion has recorded the deep concern of doctors at the White Paper 'Working for Patients', and recognising that the concern of doctors arises from the serious threat to their patients reflected in Her Majesty's Government's determination to introduce market forces into health care, regrets that Ministers have failed to respond to informed criticism other than by impugning the motives of their critics; affirms its support for the basic principles of the National Health Service that patients should receive the treatment they need, not the treatment they or their doctor can afford; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to prove its proposals by pilot projects before imposing them on the profession, and to postpone any legislation for a structural change in the National Health Service until it can be first submitted to the electorate in a General Election.
Mr. Speaker: I have to tell the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Mr. Cook: When the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore) announced the review to a rather startled nation, he said that the impact on the nation's health could be as dramatic as the discovery of penicillin. The outcome of the review had a dramatic and electrifying effect on the medical profession. It was so dramatic and electrifying that it has been rejected by every organisation representing medical opinion, not just by the British Medical Association.
I noted at last week's Health Question Time that the BMA held a special place in the affections of Conservative Members. That place is somewhere between the National Union of Mineworkers and members of the national dock labour scheme. The review has also been rejected by the joint consultants committee, representing ten royal colleges. It was also rejected by the Royal College of Nursing. Almost exactly a year ago, that college gave the Secretary of State's predecessor a standing ovation.
Some of the opposition from organisations representing medical opinion does not seem to have been anticipated. A fortnight ago, in reply to a question, the Prime Minister quoted, approvingly, a doctor who said that the White Paper
"embodies so much of what the Royal College has been working for over the years."—[Official Report; 11 April 1989; Vol. 150 c. 736.]
Six days later, the Royal College of General Practitioners voted, by 49 votes to one, to reject the White Paper.
In a statement explaining why it could not support the White Paper, the college said:
26
"As an academic body, it must state that, just as it opposes medical treatment based on guess, so it must regret the treatment of a whole health service on hunch."
Even those who have tried desperately to like the White Paper have found it a forbidding task. The Institute of Health Services Management, which represents overwhelmingly members on short-term fee contracts to the Government, did the best that it could, but even it could not avoid coming out with the statement that the White Paper was likely to produce in the Health Service "confusion and fragmentation."
Nor is it only the institutions that have come out against the White Paper. The notion that a few activists in those bodies are manipulating the membership is pure fantasy. Dozens—scores—of doctors' meetings have been held around the country, but not one has found a majority in favour of the White Paper. I shall mention only one of those meetings: in Barnet, 170 doctors, including doctors from the Prime Minister's constituency, assented unanimously to the proposition that the White Paper could not work.
I know that Conservative Members are well aware of the strength of feeling among doctors: I know that because I keep being sent the letters that they have sent back to doctors who write to them. I treasure particularly a letter from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes (Mr. Benyon), who wrote to a general practitioner in his constituency, replying to his comments on the White Paper:
"I must tell you that I have never read such unhelpful, negative and totally conservative comment."
I like the hon. Gentleman's equation of "negative" and "unhelpful" with "conservative". I have always suspected the hon. Gentleman of being something of a dissident on the Conservative Benches. I assure him that his general practitioner is happy to agree with his phraseology—that the White Paper is negative, unhelpful and conservative.
I notice that the amendment tabled by the Prime Minister and her right hon. Friends
"welcomes the widespread medical support for the objectives of the White Paper".
We must handle that phrase with care. The objectives of the White Paper, as stated in it, are unexceptionable: broadly speaking, it is in favour of patients living longer and against their dying. However, I challenge the Secretary of State—it is the first of a few challenges that I shall issue to him in my speech—to produce the name of a single medical organisation that has welcomed the proposals in the White Paper.
In case the Secretary of State rises to the challenge by responding that the Conservative Medical Society has welcomed the proposals, let me tell him that that particular case is rather suspect, as there is some doubt about whether it carried out the ballot of its members before announcing its decision.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: The hon. Gentleman has specifically mentioned medical organisations. Is that so that he can leave out the National Association of Health Authorities in England and Wales, which welcomed the report, or does he consider it rather inconsequential to take into account the views of those who actually run the Health Service?
Mr. Cook: If the hon. Gentleman reads the comments of the National Association of Health Authorities, he will find that they are much more carefully balanced than he has suggested. It is, however, hardly surprising that members of health authorities have welcomed the

27
Government's proposals, as the Government have spent the past 10 years stuffing those health authorities with their placemen and placewomen.
The Secretary of State's response to this overwhelming opposition is to insist that none of it will stop him. As he said in a lecture to the Royal College of Nursing, these changes will happen whether we like them or not, and whatever we say. It may surprise hon. Members, given the defiant ring of that statement, to learn that we are at present in a consultative period. The extent to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is willing to enter into a dialogue with doctors during that consultative period was discovered by doctors in the Vale of Glamorgan last week, when he pushed his way through them, leaving behind the sole intelligible question on which he had consulted them: "Where is my car?"
In this alleged consultation, the Secretary of State is displaying an arrogance which sits uncomfortably with his supposed role as an accountable Minister in a democratic country. In a week in which we ruefully reflect on what 10 years of the present Prime Minister have meant for the nation, I warn the Secretary of State that the nation is heartily sick of this style of hectoring, opinionated government.
Mr. Tony Favell: Does it really come as any surprise to the hon. Gentleman that the general practitioners oppose the White Paper? After all, has he found many barristers in favour of the Lord Chancellor's proposals, or many scheme dockers who favour the abolition of the dock labour scheme?
Mr. Cook: The odd thing is that I remember that, on 31 January, the Secretary of State, when unveiling the £1 million package to communicate to doctors and to medical opinion how useful and wonderful his proposals were, said nothing about doctors being against the proposals or that he expected general practitioners to be against them. On the contrary, everything said at the time to defend the £1 million expenditure was about how important it was to communicate these ideas so that people employed in the Health Service could understand and agree with them. The people involved certainly understood, but whether or not they agreed with the proposals is an entirely different matter.
Since this point has been raised, I can say to the Secretary of State that, as a result of one of his six consultations with the West Middlesex hospital, on the night of his presentation of 31 January we were able to recruit seven people to the Labour party who applied on the spot for membership.
Dame Jill Knight: Is the hon. Gentleman able to cite a single instance of any reform suggested by any Government to the National Health Service, from its inception 40 years ago, to which the doctors have had no objection?
Mr. Cook: It is perfectly true that a number of concerned doctors in 1948 opposed the setting up of the NHS, as did the Conservative party at that time. However, it is certainly not the case that doctors are opposed to all changes in the Health Service.
Mr. Robert McCrindle rose—
Mr. Cook: I have given way generously to hon. Gentlemen and the hon. Lady, but, as I am conscious that this is a three-hour debate and that other hon. Members will wish to speak, I must decline to give way on this occasion.
To comprehend the bitterness of general practitioners, it is necessary to understand how they have been deceived by this Government. For a year, the representatives of general practitioners have been negotiating on the practitioners' contract. In the course of that year, the representatives were repeatedly assured that nothing in the White Paper would affect general practitioners and their contract. That assurance was repeated at a meeting on 21 December last year.
General practitioners first heard that the assurance was inoperative on 18 January, when the Department of Health cancelled the February meeting of the negotiators in order to give general practitioners time to consider how the White Paper would affect the practitioners' contract. A fortnight later they received the White Paper, which contained two major departures. First, it has thrown into reverse the drive by successive Governments to encourage general practitioners to take fewer patients on their list. Instead, the new contract proposes to increase the per capita element by a third, rewarding those general practitioners who hoard patients and penalising those who want to keep the list to a number to whom they can give individual attention.
That departure will have an impact on general practitioners and an even bigger impact on their patients. More patients on every list means less time for each patient. It is purely double-speak for the Secretary of State to describe this measure as encouraging general practitioners to take on more patients in order to improve the quality of service to each patient.
The second major change that general practitioners discovered on reading the White Paper was that the Secretary of State proposes to entice GPs in larger practices into practice budgets. The essential problem with practice budgets is that they will result in a conflict of interest. When GPs see a patient now, they have to ask themselves only what treatment the patient needs. In future, with a practice budget, they will have to ask themselves a second question: what treatment can the practice afford? It is because of that conflict of interest that there will be a suspicion in the mind of the patient that he or she is not being recommended for the best treatment. It will destroy the trust of the patient in his or her doctor. As one doctor expressed it graphically, when a patient looks into the eyes of his or her GP, the patient wants to see reflected in those eyes his own anguish, not the calculations of an accountant.
Another major proposal in the White Paper which has also caused concern to doctors is that hospitals should opt out of—
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The hon. Gentleman implies that the White Paper was an act of bad faith over the negotiations on the contract, because we introduced two changes. Will he pause in his reading of his Tavistock house brief to explain that an increase in the capitation element of the contract was floated in the White Paper on primary health care 18 months earlier? That was nothing new. Furthermore, GP practice budgets have nothing to do with the negotiation of the GP contract. On what grounds does the hon.

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Gentleman support the BMA's assertion, which it appears to have given him, that the White Paper interrupted the 12 months of negotiations on the GP contract?
Mr. Cook: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is being characteristically offensive by suggesting that I have come to the House armed with a brief from Tavistock house or anywhere else. I do not claim for myself much credit, but I claim for myself the credit of preparing my own speeches; they are not prepared for me. I take issue with the tone of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question and the abuse with which it was accompanied. If he wishes to make more rapid progress, the House should be treated as a place for open debate, not as a place for abuse.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked two questions. I shall respond first to his second question. He cannot claim that the practice budget proposal does not have a bearing on the GP contract. Such an argument is Jesuitical. His claim that it was foreshadowed 18 months ago in the White Paper will not stand up to examination. The Government said in that White Paper that they intended to increase the capitation proportion from 47 per cent. to 50 per cent. The January White Paper said that the Government intended to increase the proportion from 47 per cent. to 60 per cent. There is a big difference between the two figures.
The other major proposal in the White Paper that is causing concern to doctors is that hospitals should opt out of local authority control, that they should be free standing, that they should not be accountable to the local health authority, that no local council members should be able to serve on the governing body and ask difficult questions and that their only obligation should be to make ends meet by marketing their services. As the joint consultants committee observed:
"These proposals inevitably change the prime aim of the management of these hospitals from the provision of adequate care to the community as a whole to the financial success of the hospital."
What will it mean when hospitals have to change their prime management aim from the provision of care to the community to the financial success of the hospital? The long-term consequences of that financial pressure have been obligingly spelt out by the director of the private Lister hospital. He has asked what lessons can be learned from his experience of running a private hospital by those hospitals that choose to opt out. Helpfully having asked that question, he then provides the answers. In his article he writes:
"The opt-out hospital will need to make firm decisions as to which services to promote and which are uncompetitive. Some specialties may have to go. The problem of unsuccessful specialties will be a real one. For how long could one carry a loss-making specialty including its medical team?"
I invite the House to note the revealing way in which the director of the Lister hospital defines an unsuccessful specialty. An unsuccessful specialty is not one which offers poor quality of care or care that patients do not need in the community; an unsuccessful specialty is a loss-making specialty. That is the reality of what will happen with the opt-out hospitals. Care will be defined according to which specialty can provide the most generous mark-up on the treatment, not the care that is most needed by the community.
What happens to hospitals if they fail to move with the times and persist in offering loss-making specialties? The disaster of the Lister hospital has a neat phrase: they will
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be "shaken out of the market". Not closed, mark you, but shaken out of the market. It is a pity that the director of the Lister hospital has not been working for the Department of Health for the last 10 years; otherwise, we could have learnt that the 300 hospitals closed under this Government were not closed but shaken out of the market and the 20,000 beds we have lost in the last 10 years were not cut, but shaken out of the market. Also shaken out of the market, of course, is any commitment to the National Heath Service as a public service to every community in which there is a district general hospital providing ready access to a comprehensive range of medical services.
The right hon. Gentleman is not just nurturing a threat to the Health Service: what he is proposing is an affront to our democracy. He has sent an instruction to every regional health authority to provide by next Monday a list of volunteer hospitals for opt-out. They in turn are instructing unit general managers to volunteer for opt-out. I do not doubt that by Monday the right hon. Gentleman will have his list of volunteers. What I find thoroughly offensive is what he proposes will happen next, which is that he, and he alone, will then decide whether they opt out. The decision on opt-out will be taken in a smoke-filled room, and most of the smoke will come from the Secretary of State's cigar.
What happened to all the talk of greater local decision-making? What happened to the promises of patient choice? If the Secretary of State is serious about choice in local decision-making, why not give local people the choice of whether their hospital opts out?
I issue my second challenge. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman seriously believes opt-out is so good, let him put it to the vote of the local community. Let it be decided by the local community which that hospital serves and which in many cases was the community which once upon a time paid for the buildings that the Secretary of State proposes to give away.
There is an obvious comparison with the speed with which the Secretary of Stale is proceeding in his White Paper. His proposals were conceived in haste and are now being imposed with premature haste. Just over a year ago, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor received the Griffiths report on community care. There has been no progress there, no timetable for consultation, no urgent circulars to regional managers and no promise of legislation in the next Parliament.
I give the Secretary of State my third challenge. His Government owe us a debate on the White Paper in Government time. Having taken so long to find that time, before he comes back to the House to debate this White Paper, let us have his Government's response to the Griffiths report on community care, so we can put it side by side with the White Paper and see what sense they make together. It is almost three years since the National Audit Office observed that, in community care, doing nothing is not an option. That is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to do, and we all know why. It is because Sir Roy Griffiths had the bad taste to point out that, if we are serious about developing the health and social services which will enable the elderly and the handicapped to live full and rewarding lives in the community, we must provide extra resources and responsibilities to the local authority which delivers those services to the community.
Labour councils have a clearer understanding than the right hon. and learned Gentleman of what elderly people

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need to keep them in the community and to keep them healthy. Yesterday, I released a league table that ranked local authorities by the number of home helps per thousand elderly people. Only one solitary Conservative council made it into the top 20 councils in that league table. Conversely, not one majority Labour council was to be found in the bottom 20. That is the difference between our parties' understanding of community care.
If Conservative Members consider that observation too partisan, I can offer them an observation with which they will agree. The record of the Democrats is even worse than theirs. Out of seven councils under Democratic administration, a clear majority are in the bottom 20 of that league table. That record shows that the Labour party understands the changing direction which health and social services need to meet the challenge of the rapid growth in very elderly people. Instead, the White Paper offers us the fatuous irrelevance of tax relief on private medical cover for the elderly.
We need to integrate the hospital and primary care services to get into the communities the diagnostic skills we keep locked up in our hospitals. Instead, the White Paper proposes that those hospitals will opt out and that consultants will meet GPs mainly to price a contract. We need to change the Health Service from a rescue service into a service that promotes health and prevents ill health. The White Paper contains not a single proposal for health promotion. It is full of measures that will cost treating illness but puts no price on health. I have outlined the basis of Labour's programme for health, which we shall be publishing this month at a launch cost rather less than the 1·5 million that the right hon. and learned Gentleman spent on the White Paper.
The fundamental difference between our proposals and the Secretary of State's White Paper is that our proposals will rest on our commitment to a Health Service in which resources are allocated by medical and social need and are not marketed by commercial demand.
I conclude with my final challenge to the Secretary of State. I noted that the Minister of State observed that the Government have been elected to govern and will not shirk the task of government. No one can deny that the Government have been elected to govern, but no one, not even the Government, can claim that they were elected to carry out such changes to the NHS. Where in the last Conservative manifesto were those proposals spelt out to the electorate? Where in the last manifesto were the electorate warned that hospitals would be encouraged to opt out and GPs encouraged to volunteer for cash limits? My final challenge to the Secretary of State is this: if he is so convinced that his proposals are right for the nation, that they will produce a better Health Service and more choice for patients, let us put it to the test of electoral opinion and find out whether Conservative Members are elected to govern while chained to those policies. If he puts it to the electorate, I assure the Secretary of State of our full co-operation in spelling it out to the electorate so that they thoroughly understand what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is proposing. In the meantime, I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as it is our right to ask in this democratic Chamber, to put off legislation on these drastic changes until we have put them to an electoral contest.
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I do not doubt that the Secretary of State will win the vote tonight. He has already lost the public debate. He came to office with no mandate for such changes. Since taking office, he has been unable to win any support for them. If he persists in abusing his majority in Parliament to push them through, he will not only destroy the trust between patients and doctors; he will undermine the faith of those patients in this place as a democratic institution.
4.8 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"welcomes the widespread medical support for the objectives of the White Paper "Working for Patients" and believes that the proposals in that White Paper will enable the health service and individual doctors to respond better to the needs and wishes of patients, extend patient choice, delegate responsibility to where the services are provided and secure the best value for money; affirms its support for the basic principles of the National Health Service which will be strengthened by the early implementation of the White Paper proposals; and looks forward to the constructive contributions from medical organisations to achieve that."
By a curious turn of events, this is the first debate on the National Health Service in which the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and I have taken part since I came to my present office last July, with the exception of some exchanges on the dental and optical charges, which he will recall. We are shortly to have a debate in Government time on the White Paper reforms, so we are about to make up for that and to discuss Health Service matters at considerable length.
The Opposition have chosen to found their motion on the subject of the doctors' opposition to the National Health Service reforms. I shall concentrate on that and save many of my remarks for the debate on the White Paper. I want to talk about the points raised by doctors, some against and some in favour of the White Paper. I shall explain the present position to the House and examine the sudden, new relationship between the Labour party and the doctors. I do not believe that the opposition of the two groups to the reforms is based on the same premises. The Labour party's sudden discovery of the doctors' position is nothing other than political opportunism, because it sees a dispute apparently breaking out.
The House should begin the debate on the basis that the best members of the medical profession are interested in the Health Service above all from the point of view of their own patients. One of the tests that the best members of the medical profession will apply, just as the public outside will, is what the overall impact of the reforms will be on the way in which the Health Service delivers care to patients. When one examines the highly complex proposals which I and the Government have put forward, one has to try to form a picture of the effect on the Health Service in four or five years' time—or more—and how patients will appreciate what the reforms have done to improve the service for them. The one simple aim of the Government is that the National Health Service should be made a better Health Service from the point of view of patients and their families. That is the yardstick that should be applied to each proposal that the Government are putting forward.
We have a long way to go before the reforms come fully into effect, but in a few years' time, when patients look back on the battles over the review, they will see that the

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principles of the Health Service remain intact, that, the service remains free and financed by the taxpayer and that it is delivered according to medical priority and need. But they will find that many other changes have taken place in a Health Service run in a more business-like and efficient way, because it will be run in a more consumer-conscious way as well. The Health Service will be keeping up to date.
Patients tend to approach the Health Service firstly through the agency of general practice and most of us look, for ourselves and our families, to our GP as our continual health adviser and as our guide to the rest of the system. From now on, patients will be freer to decide which practice they wish to join and they will be able to make that choice on the basis of much better information. At present, people choose their GP—with whom, I accept, they are usually fully satisfied—on the basis of word of mouth recommendations from neighbours. Many of us do not have much experience of what general practice is like outside the practices that we have experienced ourselves. In future, practices will produce information leaflets. Thanks to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, practices will be able to advertise if they wish and will put before patients and would-be patients the services offered to families, the opening times of the surgery and any other particular features.
Mr. John Battle: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a moment when I have given some more examples of what patients will find coming out of the reforms. Patients will probably choose the practices that offer high standards and new services, which we are encouraging by the new contract I intend to negotiate with the British Medical Association. I shall return to the subject of the contract negotiations in a moment.
The hon. Member for Livingston said that nothing in our proposals dealt with the promotion of health and the prevention of disease which, as he rightly said, have to be part of the policy for the future of the Health Service. The new contract proposals, which we have been discussing with the BMA for so long, are founded heavily on just such principles. In four or five years' time, patients will expect to receive from their practices regular health checks, offered to all patients if they so wish, and especially better and more regular contact with older patients over the age of 75. There will also be regular surveillance by GPs of children under the age of five. Under our proposals, there should also be high levels of immunisation against disease for children and screening of female cancers. Those are some of the aims that we have set out.
There will also be more personal visits by doctors from the practice that the patient joins instead of excessive use of a deputising service out of hours. As a result of our wider reforms, when a patient visits a GP he will be given better information than now about where the waiting times are longest in his locality and about the medical quality of the service being provided by the hospital.
Whether or not a GP has a practice budget, he will have more contact with and more influence over the developments of the hospital and community services in his area because he will be in contact with his district health authority. General practitioners are not in contact now with their DHAs about referral patterns. In future
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how the DHAs use their money to place contracts with hospitals will reflect the referral practices of the local GPs. We are bringing GPs and DHAs together to collaborate.
If a patient has a GP with his own practice budget, the patient will be attending the practice of a general practitioner who has access to taxpayers' money on a scale not known before to doctors, which will mean that the doctor can take into account the quality of care, waiting times, and the preference of the patient when determining how health authority money is used in that area.
Those are big changes in general practice, and when patients evaluate those improvements we shall have a more considered view of our proposals—
Mr. Allen McKay rose—
Mr. Clarke: I turn now to the hospital and community services. Patients will find that management of all hospitals will be delegated much more to the local people, to the doctors, the nurses and managers in the hospital itself— that is, to people who are closer to patient care than the people in the hierarchy of bureaucracy that we have now. Those people will decide on the use of resources, the management of the hospital and on the development of the service in their town.
Units will have resources coming in with the patient to match the work that they are doing. They will receive money in response to the demands made by the district health authorities and the GPs, who will refer patients and provide the necessary funds using their budgets. The system of encouraging hospitals to attract resources to their areas of strength will tend to bring the quality of all services up to the level of the best. Competition between them will bring down waiting times as well as raising the quality of the outturn from different specialists.
When we have finished our reforms, all hospitals will strive to please GPs and patients with the other things that they should all have now, such as reliable appointment systems, clear and sensitive explanations to patients of what is happening to them and of what is going to happen, and a whole range of optional extras and amenities available to patients who want to pay for them.
That is what the patient will appreciate. I do not believe that the Labour party will be wholly content, looking back, to realise that, because of what seemed a monetary political advantage, it has placed itself in a position whereby it opposes the development of general practice, the giving of more local autonomy to hospital and community services and the opportunity of making a better Health Service for patients.
Mr. Battle rose—
Mr. Kevin Barron rose—
Mr. Clarke: I give way to the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle).
Mr. Battle: How does the Secretary of State square all that he has just said with the push in the opposite direction from the Treasury, which is offering tax incentives to elderly people to move out of the National Health Service and in the direction of private practice? Is such a move the Secretary of State's real intention?
Mr. Clarke: Last year we obtained from the Treasury an extra £2,000 million for the services and an extra £1,000 million or thereabouts for the nurses' grading. We ended

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the autumn settlement last year with spending plans 5 per cent. above inflation. Under this Government spending on the National Health Service is now second in the league of spending on public departments. We now spend more on the NHS than we do on the Ministry of Defence. It is obvious that spending on the Health Service will increase rapidly, but to say that spending more money is, in itself, a form of health care policy and that we should ignore inefficiences and the need to raise quality or to make the service more responsive is not an adequate policy, whether it be the policy of the Opposition or of any part of the medical profession. Anything that induces people who want to spend their own money in retirement to provide for some of their health care, such as for elective surgery, thereby reducing pressure on the Health Service, does no harm to the Health Service but enables us to make better use of the money that we obtain.
The Opposition's motion is about doctors. I have dealt with the benefits to patients, and there will be great benefit to doctors as well. It is all very well to say that there is no support from any organisation representing doctors. There are not all that many organisations representing doctors. What tends to happen is that there are endless sub-committees of the same organisation which keep doing the same thing.
I was at a BMA meeting at Tavistock house this morning. It was a meeting of the general manager branch, but all the participants were doctors, and the majority of those asking questions were in favour of these reforms.
Mr. Frank Dobson: The right and learned Gentleman appointed them all.
Mr. Clarke: I did not appoint a solitary one. The hon. Gentleman was, in his time, an extremely effective spokesman on health matters but he has forgotten that the general managers of health authorities are appointed by district health authorities. The unit managers, who were about two thirds of those present this morning, are also appointed by the district health authority and I do not have the gift of a solitary general management post at my disposal.
As I say, they are in favour of benefits for patients above all, but there are benefits for doctors, too.
Mr. Dobson: Is it not true that all these apparently independent general managers/doctors to whom the right and learned Gentleman talked today are on three-year contracts and notes are taken by officials in that Box as to who does or does not collaborate?
Mr. Clarke: This Opposition motion talks about members of the Government traducing the motives of those who disagree with them. That is something, I strongly argue, that I have not done, and nor has my right hon. Friend. The hon. Gentleman referred to the opinion of the National Association of Health Authorities in England and Wales, which is in favour of our proposals, and immediately insisted that it is a collection of placemen. An awful lot of card-carrying members of the Labour party in that association will be very surprised to hear that. I cite to the hon. Member that I have attended a meeting this morning organised by the BMA to discuss with a number of doctors their reaction to the White Paper and
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that most of them were in favour, and many of them strongly in favour, of the broad principles of the White Paper and he says that they are all on three-year contracts.
The Opposition are deaf except to what they regard as the short-term political opportunity to join in a row which they do not wholly understand.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that in the autumn of last year my local hospital closed a ward because the surgeons operating therein were working so effectively and quickly that, in their attempt to reduce their waiting list, they overstepped their budget within about three months? That is an absurdity and they are very much in favour of changing the system to make it impossible for it to happen again.
Mr. Clarke: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That is one of the principal benefits from what we are proposing that doctors immediately appreciated. At the moment, there is what is sometimes called the efficiency trap, where a hospital is so much in demand and organises itself so well that it increases its work load but, because we only distribute the money by formula, it is told to stop. Indeed, I think they are gilding the lily somewhat, but only recently some Birmingham consultants claimed that they were told to go and play golf rather than carry on doing their work.
I have not met for some weeks now a member of the medical profession who does not think that it is an improvement to provide that, when patients are attracted from district health authorities or general practitioners, the resources will go with them, and that that is a much more sensible way of proceeding.
Doctors also see other advantages. The point of the general practitioners' contract, which I trust we can settle, is that those who work hardest, introduce new services and reach good standards will be rewarded best. Many GPs think that aim is wholly desirable. Indeed, the BMA does not differ from me in my aims for the contract. Those GPs with practice budgets will, as I have already said, have much greater influence over where NHS funds can be used for the benefit of their patients. For doctors in hospital and community services there will be relief from the absurd situation that tends to hit the best—the situation which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) described.
They will also find that more responsibility has been delegated to their hospitals. As clinicians, they will be more involved, they will have more influence over management decisions and they will carry more responsibility for the decisions. I find everywhere that doctors welcome the introduction of what I would regard, as a layman, as quality control and what the doctors call medical audit, whereby they can systematically ensure that standards are properly set for the service and are monitored so that the medical standards remain extremely high.
Mr. Max Madden: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clarke: I shall carry on giving way steadily, but, as this is a short debate, I apologise that I cannot give way to all.
Given my description of the aim of the reforms and my belief in their benefits, it is surprising that the present bitter controversy has arisen between the Government and, on

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the one hand, the Labour party—and, to some extent the centre parties as well—and, on the other, the British Medical opposition—British Medical Association—[Interruption.] That is certainly my most Freudian slip of the tongue so far. Although they are both in opposition, there are a limited number of similarities between the Labour party and the BMA. One thing they have in common is that both of them denounced the proposals and began to campaign against them before they were even published. Returning to the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes (Mr. Benyon) that was quoted by the hon. Member for Livingston, it appears that both the Labour party and the BMA can be described as conservative with a small "c". Their reaction to change of all kinds is remarkably similar. However, they are not natural allies. I have found in discussions with them that they come to such a person as myself with the precise nature of their complaints from opposite ends of the political and every other spectrum.
It is not surprising to find that the Labour party and the BMA do not always agree. They never have before. In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell), the hon. Member for Livingston implied that nowadays the BMA's views determined, Labour party policy. No doubt, the Bar Council will determine its policy on law reform, just as the Transport and General Workers Union will determine its policy on the dock labour scheme. It was never thus for the doctors. The BMA was nine to one against the foundation of the National Health Service. Aneurin Bevan did not follow the line of the hon. Member for Livingston.
In the mid-1970s, the disputes between the Labour Government and the BMA and the medical profession over private practice were described by a recent historian of the Health Service as being the most bitter in the entire history of the National Health Service. When Barbara Castle was opposed by all the medical organisations, I do not remember the Labour party saying that that settled the argument. It would not. Obviously, the Labour party's arguments do not now coincide with those of the doctors' organisations, and this unholy alliance will not hold together for too long.
So far the Labour party's campaign has been far less important to me and the public than that conducted by the BMA. The issue of so-called privatisation chosen by the hon. Member for Livingston has been a kind of barmy irrelevance to the actual issues to which the Labour party pledged itself. I believe that it is still pledging itself in by-elections to fight the privatisation of the National Health Service. That reminds me of an old story, which I will not relate at length, about the man in the railway compartment who had a device for keeping away elephants. He was sure it worked because no elephants got into his compartment. The Labour party is campaigning against the privatisation of the National Health Service. It will succeed. It is a noble campaign. It will sail on and meet no obstacles, because nobody has ever proposed privatising the Health Service. It is not threatened with privatisation. It is an irrelevant non-issue.
The campaign of the BMA—the doctors' campaign—to which the motion refers has been quite different. The hottest issue is obviously the question of the GPs' contract, coupled to some extent with the indicative drug budgets that we have described. The occasion of the debate is the present heat in relationships between the Government and parts of the BMA. It provoked the GPs' leaflet campaign
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and it was the subject of last week's conference of local medical committees, which I am glad to say finally brought to an end all talk of a resignation from the Health Service —which struck me as an odd way to show one's commitment to the service—but still talked of sanctions, and of using non-co-operation with our reforms to improve the Health Service unless they had the sort of contract of remuneration that they wanted. I do riot believe that that is the view of every doctor.
It is important to sort out the GP contract. We have a debate on the White Paper coming up shortly, but the contract is the immediate issue. I believe that getting a better GP contract will have more effect on raising the quality of health care in this country than most of the other things we have attempted to do in the Health Service for a long time. That contract has been in the air for a long time, and it was clearly trailed in the primary health care Green Paper and subsequent White Paper. We have had long discussions about it.
I do not believe that anyone can be opposed to the idea of having a contract that is up to date and linked to hard work and good performance. We will pay more to the most hard-working GPs and we will set standards of service to patients for all our GPs. The policy of the contract is to build on the strength of British general practice and it is no threat to or attack on it.
Today, GPs, to whom I and the House are seeking to appeal, are better trained than their predecessors because general practice is now recognised as a specialty in its own right. There are more GPs than ever before—up from about 25,000 to about 30,000 during the lifetime of this Government. They have fewer patients each to look after than ever before, with average list sizes falling from 2,286 to 2,020 in England over the last 10 years, on average, a drop of 12 per cent. And they are better paid than ever before. This year's review body increase of 8 per cent. was the highest of any review body group and took their earnings increase 25 per cent. ahead of inflation since 1979.
I think that GPs should be paid well and my proposals are no threat to their average earnings—a suspicion to which I addressed myself forcefully only a few weeks ago. The total payment to GPs currently has been settled by the Government and I approve of it. The total payment out of the contract to the average GP is about £60,000 per annum, including all fees and allowances. The average salary element is set at £31,000, but that average includes part-timers, semi-retired and low-earning GPs. My published new contract proposals show how a GP with an average list could have his earnings potential raised from £43,000 to £47,000.
My proposals would increase the earning figures for the more hard-working GPs arid those who hit the targets. I am in favour of paying good GPs very well and I am entitled to say that the incurable suspicion that, somehow, we shall try to reduce those earnings is wrong. What I say to the House and to the doctors—I am sure that the public would agree—is that such earnings are justified for professional men, but they mean that the Government are entitled to specify the work load of doctors, to encourage new services to patients and to set standards of health promotion and disease prevention for which to aim. The contract should pay good rewards and, in return, should set out the high professional standards at which the hard-working professional men and women should aim.
We are not aiming for all GPs to have bigger lists—that is a mathematical impossibility—as the contract is

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capitation-based now. We are aiming for new and better services for elderly patients. That is why one of our offers is to pay so much more to the doctor for each elderly patient that he takes on. The capitation for patients over 75 will go up sharply so long as the doctor maintains contact, at least once a year, with each old person. It is important to explain what we are discussing with the BMA. We aim for better medical supervision of our young people. That is why we are offering a new, generous payment to every doctor who introduces a surveillance system for the under-fives on his or her list.
I hope that we are all agreed that the NHS should keep up with the best international standards of immunisation, which represents disease prevention, and of female cancer screening, which also represents disease prevention. We pay all doctors for whatever immunisation and cervical cancer screening they do as they form part of the essential duties of any doctor nowadays. In my proposals I have suggested extra, new performance payments for those who attain the World Health Organisation target of vaccinating nine out of 10 children on their list. I do not believe that that is unrealistic as about 100 out of 190 district health authorities reached 90 per cent. target for diphtheria, tetanus and polio vaccinations in 1987–88. We are not talking about impossible targets, but we shall discuss the details to ensure that they are possible and reasonable for all subjects.
About 2,000 women are still dying needlessly every year of cervical cancer. That is why I have suggested that new rewards should be given to every GP who persuades eight out of 10 of the at-risk women on his list to have the smear test.
All these details can be discussed. Indeed, they have been discussed, and they can be further discussed. My negotiators and I have spent over 100 hours on matters such as rural practice allowances, basic practice allowances, payments for minor surgery and all the other details of the contract. Hon. Members on both sides of the House who have looked into the GPs' contract will, I hope, now study the Red Book and the mass of material which explains to the GP how to work the contract. I hope that they will also study the magazine Medeconomics which appears monthly and which serves no other purpose than to explain to GPs how to get the maximum return out of the contract.
I want to discuss the details yet again so that we can settle the terms of a contract that is up-to-date and rewards the best doctors, because the best doctors are doing this work. We all meet doctors who say, "We are delivering these services" and who will be content so long as the details are reasonable and reflect the realities of practice. We can reach agreement if there is good will, common sense and a commitment on both sides to a better Health Service.
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: The Minister said in relation to cervical smears that women could choose quality clinical medical treatment. How does a woman, when faced with two doctors who are using different publicity, choose which one offers the best quality clinical treatment? There will be great advertising and excellent pictures, but the Minister must explain how a woman in
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that situation—indeed, the same difficulty will face pensioners—will be in a position to choose the best quality clinical service.
Mr. Clarke: We are here talking about whether doctors carry out cervical smears and whether they carry out a positive drive to advise people of the benefits and so raise the level. If a woman is particularly interested in services for female patients, she might look at the literature to see, for example, whether what is usually called a well woman clinic is being offered by one practice rather than by another, because that is the type of health promotion session that the new contract would encourage.
Having dealt with the contract, I come to the hospital proposals. The concerns of the BMA are different. I by now have met many doctors. Indeed, I could not make up my mind when I last answered parliamentary questions whether I had met hundreds or thousands. Certainly the number must be well into four figures by now. Judging from the campaign that is being run, most hon. Members have met a lot of GPs. I trust that they have also met many consultants and junior doctors.
I believe—I defy anybody to challenge this—that it is clear from discussions with the hospitals that the great bulk of what we now propose is being accepted by hospital doctors, even though some of them still assert that they are against the White Paper as a whole. Most consultants, in my experience, approve of the whole idea of getting better financial management. That represents a transformation in opinion compared with my time as Minister for Health only four or five years ago.
Few consultants would now argue with the contention that it is ridiculous that the Health Service should be one of the last places to get up to date with modern information technology, to come to grips with the world of the computer, or to have any proper financial management system.
We recently extended what we call the resource management initiative to another 50 hospitals, and the 50 that we named had actually competed for the privilege of being put in the forefront of introducing financial management systems.
The profession is now almost wholly in favour of clinical audit. I have not met a doctor for some time who has been against it. That is almost a total reverse of the situation five or six years ago, when the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Surgeons first tentatively began to go into this area. It was invented by the profession and I reassure the profession that it will continue to be professionally led because it is quality control by doctors, of doctors for the benefit of doctors and their patients.
I know few consultants who do not welcome the idea of what is usually described as the concept of money following the patient. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent has given me a perfect example of how doctors are fed up with the present system which does not tie the resources with where the work is done best and to where the patients are being referred. So the question of money going over administrative boundaries and the ending of the efficiency trap are welcomed by all doctors.
Doctors have reservations and questions; that is sensible. The White Paper is not a blueprint. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State says that it is not a tablet of stone. It is not intricately detailed. There is an enormous amount for discussion within it; that is why we

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have eight working papers for discussion. The detail needs to be worked out with the service. People in the service want to know about planning. There are fears about a comprehensive service and about whether there will be fragmentation. When we debate the White Paper those fears can be answered. District health authorities will continue to have all the money they need. We are under a duty to provide a comprehensive service accessible to all patients. Health authorities will use their money to make sure that they plan where the service is best given to patients.
The profession wants to know about medical teaching and research, an extremely important and complex issue where the old arrangements needed improving anyway. We have to make sure that the training of our doctors and research are not adversely affected by the proposals. The same is true of nurse training. When I encounter consultants in the hospital service I find that they are suspicious to a certain extent of the new system of contracts. They are sometimes suspicious about the self-governing proposals and about the effect of GP practice budgets. They say that we are going too fast. They talk of the need for pilot schemes. They say that when new drugs are introduced they need to experiment.
All that has been picked up by the hon. Member for Livingston. I do not credit him with originality. In the press at the weekend he picked up a theme that has been put to me by the medical profession for the last month, but in a different way. He is interested in running pilots. I assume that he does not want to run pilots of things to which he is fundamentally opposed. Now he has come round to experimenting. As we need legislation before we can set up any of these things, he does not seem to want to rush to experiment because he does not want to legislate for a year or two. It might mean pilot schemes at two or three selected places and a multidisciplinary committee. We would spend years getting an agreed assessment. In the great tradition of that giant service, nothing would happen for a long time.
Consultants are interested in self-governing hospitals and GPs are interested in their own practice budgets. The hon. Member for Livingston is right to have his fears. Many doctors will react to our request for expressions of interest next month. Many of them will move forward with us. They are interested in how we will handle the changes and whether we are going too fast. I believe that we can meet the fears of plunging into the unknown. It is in the nature of our proposals on self-governing hospitals that we are asking who is interested. We shall work with willing volunteers where there is an adequate expression of interest.
There will be GP practice budgets only when GPs have said, "That is a good idea. You have satisfied me on the details. We have negotiated the basis of a contract that I am happy with." They they will go ahead. Before we have the first ones in place by April 1991 we shall have to work out the details. We shall discover much more about how to calculate a budget, about the structure of management needed in self-governing hospitals, and about care services, even after April 1991, depending on where we are. We shall run it on a fairly loose rein at first to get the system bedded in.
The question is, do Labour Members share the Government's aim for a better health service and improved management, and will they commit themselves to proceeding sensibly and purposefully in the right
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direction, testing things, working out the details, and making sure that it goes smoothly? Or does the Labour party, as some people did at first, just say that it is "agin" it, that the Government are commercialising the service and that it is fundamentally opposed to it?
I will be fair to the hon. Member for Livingston; he has not done it today, but outside the debate has been reduced to a pathetically low level at various times. I have discussed keeping elephants out of the door by opposing privatisation. People have been told that the elderly will be turned away and that hospitals will concentrate on profitable lines, whatever that means. I went through a picket line in Glamorgan when I was late for a train. A chap ran after me and gave me a leaflet. I was told that I had gone past GPs. I do not know who most of them were. They were chanting, "People, not profits," whatever that meant.
The trouble with that level of campaigning is that, as will become clear when we reach the legislation and as we proceed, the BMA does not believe what is being said. It knows that the leaflets contain things that are not true. More importantly, the Labour party does not believe what is being said. It knows that it is not fighting a campaign for privatisation. The snag is that it has no proposals of its own to put forward. At the moment, it is trying to compound confusion for short-term political reasons.
I do not object to political exchanges, whether vigorous or less vigorous, but I strongly object when the Labour party, the hon. Member for Livingston and others doubt the sincere commitment of myself and the Conservative party to a better NHS. I and many of my hon. Friends have worked for years in stints at the Department of Health in order to secure the future of the NHS, which would decline if we adoped a do-nothing option and decided to let it stand still.
The Government have spent more and done more for the NHS than any other Government in the previous two decades. We have presided over the growth of the service, the widespread introduction of new high-tech services and the particularly rapid spread of community-based care and better services for the elderly. We began the introduction of better modern management and we shall continue that.
The Labour party's claims for its commitment are based on the ancient history of two generations ago. Our claims are based on our recent achievements and, above all, on our vision of reforms which will make the NHS better still for future generations of patients and will give us a Health Service which, as a result of the Government's efforts, we shall be proud of in 40 years' time, just as we have been proud of it over the past 40 years.
4.46 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: When the Secretary of State said at the end of his speech that what he resented was that anybody should question the allegiance of himself and his party to the National Health Service, I say to him right at the start that if he had been present in 1948, as I was, when the service was introduced, he would have known that the Opposition's suspicions were based on a great foundation.
The Conservative party made a great effort to stop the NHS, on its present comprehensive basis, from ever being introduced. That is why it put down reasoned amendments against Second and Third Readings. I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that his party was

43
wrong on that occasion—I am happy that he should own up now—but he must not suspect our suspicions when we look back upon that record.
The Secretary of State also referred today—he called it a Freudian slip, but it might be much more of a Freudian landslide—to the British Medical opposition. That is what he is up against, and he must not complain if on some matters the Opposition happen to agree with the British Medical opposition's opposition to his measures.
I hope that this is not too parochial a reference to my constituency, but nothing is resented more in my constituency of Blaenau Gwent, or Ebbw Vale as it was, by the representatives of the medical profession than that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should in some way claim that his quarrels with the British Medical opposition, or the medical professions in their different forms, is in some way comparable to what Aneurin Bevan faced when the service was introduced.
One of the main reasons why doctors, or many sections of the doctors—not all of them by any means—opposed the introduction of the scheme was that they said that it would interfere with their clinical freedom. Large numbers of general practitioners and their leaders in the BMA genuinely believed that right up to the moment when the Health Service was brought into being, as I can confirm. At that moment, the transformation took place and the doctors discovered that they had far more genuine clinical freedom, particularly when dealing with poor people, than ever before. The vast majority of the medical profession welcomed the change as the greatest they had seen in the history of the country. Most of them hold to that same view now.
Therefore, the Secretary of State cannot claim for a moment that his arguments are anything like the same as those that Aneurin Bevan had with the medical profession. At that time it was not easy to get the service comprehensively established, because it had been divided in such different ways. To achieve anything which could properly be termed a National Health Service necessitated detailed consultations with the British Medical Association and other sections.
A few moments ago the Secretary of State spoke as if the medical profession were contained in one body. However, there is a variety of bodies, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman knew anything about this, he would know that the royal colleges have always taken different approaches. If it had not been for the detailed consultations between Aneurin Bevan and the royal colleges, particularly the leaders of the Royal College of Physicians, there would never have been a National Health Service.
The difference between Aneurin Bevan's Government and this Government is that his did not take orders from the medical profession. Aneurin Bevan always said that supremacy should lie with the House, but he consulted members of the profession. The shape of the National Health Service was powerfully affected by the discussions that he had with the heads of the royal colleges.
The Government have done some terribly foolish things in relation to health. They have done nothing more foolish than slamming the door on the heads of the royal colleges
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not so many months ago. They did so over the contract but, even worse, they did not consult the colleges about their plans for the future. Why not?
The origin of the troubles that the Government and the country face over the National Health Service, which the Opposition want to protect and for which it has every right to fight, was the Prime Minister's decision to set up a review body—a Cabinet committee—under her chairmanship to investigate the Health Service. No one was stronger than Aneurin Bevan in saying that the service should be reviewed. Almost every Act introduced by the Government in which he served contained a clause stating that the service should be reviewed after five years, or some period, so that the people working in it and the patients dependent on it could take a fresh look at it. He was not dogmatic enough to say that it should stay the same for ever.
Aneurin Bevan would never have agreed to a Cabinet Committee that was presided over by a Prime Minister, even one that favoured the Health Service, which the present one does not. Even if the Prime Minister passionately supported it, it would not be satisfactory for an investigation to be carried out by a Cabinet committee with the Prime Minister able to carry through anything she wanted and to get rid of Cabinet Ministers who did not do as she wanted, almost as easily as if they were health managers.
The Secretary of State is a very clever fellow, although not quite as clever as he sometimes claims. However, I give him full credit for his quality compared to that of many of his comrades and companions in the Cabinet. When he accepted his job, his ambition exceeded his intelligence and he has to live with the consequences. Unfortunately, so do we. Unless we can cut it down, he will suffer to his dying day from the albatross round his neck, which is that he was prepared, in that Cabinet committee, to accept the formal investigation into the most precious of the country's national institutions, accept its terms and recommend them to the country. Even the right hon. and learned Gentleman can hardly stomach some of the terms, such as the special arrangements for BUPA patients, although he defends them.
I suppose that most of the leakages on these subjects come direct from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The story is that he opposed the proposals right up to the end, but then swallowed his pride. That is the price of keeping his job. He has made his biggest political mistake and, unfortunately, we have to suffer for it.
I am sure that, when he has the chance, my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) will carry out a proper overhaul and investigation of the National Health Service. That must take place, and the intelligent way to do so would be to have consultations before decisions are taken, not afterwards. If that had happened, even with these proposals, if they had not been handed down by the Prime Minister, there might have been some chance of decent consultations. However, nobody knows better than the Secretary of State how narrow the ground is for any possible negotiations. That is an affront to everyone who works in the Health Service, whether representatives of trade unions, about whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so rude, or representatives of the general practitioners. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is capable of offending GPs about their medical and monetary habits, when he is in a tight corner in negotiations. The presidents of the royal colleges, who

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represent some of the greatest traditions in this country, were never once consulted before decisions were made about these major questions on how the service which they did so much to build should operate in the future.
Doctors from my constituency, like many others throughout the country, have been to fake discussions and consultations held by the Secretary of State or by his Ministers, I was affronted by the one that took place on 20 April in Bristol, to which representatives from south Wales went to have discussions with the Secretary of State. After he had made his speech and after a few minutes of discussion, the media were turned out so that other discussions could be held. The Secretary of State did not allow the opportunity for other views to be put to him and many of those who went to the meeting went away affronted by the manner in which matters were discussed and debated, quite apart from their reactions to the proposals.
If the Secretary of State questions what I say, I can give him detailed evidence. I shall not go through every aspect of the objections, but I shall mention those relating to the major matters to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred. One of the leading doctors in my constituency went to the consultation meeting. It was the first chance that he and his representatives had had to speak about the proposal, which is now supposed to go through. I shall mention one of his objections from a list of almost equally valid objections: his criticism of the way in which the Government presented their proposals.
When the Secretary of State gets into such a ferocious rhetorical state about the propaganda spread by the BMA, he should he more careful, because he must be spending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on putting his case. The BMA, for probably the first time in history, is using an advertising agent to assist it in putting its case. I dare say the Government will soon introduce a law under which only Government Ministers will be allowed to use advertising agencies to present their case. I dare say that Lord Young, who often co-operated eagerly with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, would be happy to draw up a suitable piece of legislation that could be rushed through to ensure that only the Government have the chance to put their case, and if any other group tried to hit back it would be pilloried and attacked, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has done so offensively on other occasions.
Doctors in my constituency, and I am sure many others, are asking something that goes to the central principle of the Health Service. The right and learned Gentleman's arguments about the numbers involved in the work in the years ahead will not affect this argument. The doctor said:
"I think it is morally wrong to claim that the Service will be free at the point of first contact when some GPs will in effect be controlling waiting lists. It would have been more honest for Government to have encouraged these Practices to present private services altogether rather than continue the pretence of the scheme representing NHS principles."
Believe me, after the tuition of 30 or 40 years, doctors in my constituency—and, I would say, in most other parts of the country—understand the principles of the NHS very much better than the Prime Minister who presided over the committee that produced these proposals. The right hon. Lady has never understood those principles. Her idea is to kill Socialism, and I am sure that right up to 1979—or 1983, or perhaps 1987—she regarded the NHS as part of Socialism. It would be strange if she did not, because the
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NHS is the greatest and most obvious Socialist institution in the country and is based on Socialist principles. The Prime Minister cannot kill Socialism without killing off the National Health Service.
Of course, it would be very difficult to kill it off with a single blow or indeed a series of blows, even with such a skilful practitioner as the Secretary of State to do the Prime Minister's dirty work for her. The Government must go about it in a rather different way. I do not respect the good faith of the Secretary of State in these matters, but I know that some Conservative Members, and many doctors who are certainly not Labour party supporters, support the NHS and believe that its principles must be upheld over and above any competing principles about private profit, the market and so forth. That is what I mean by believing in the Health Service.
Many inroads have been made into the NHS as it was first introduced in 1948, and I acknowledge that they have been made by Labour as well as Conservative Governments; but we are now witnessing a much more serious, dangerous and long-term attack on the NHS than we have ever seen before. In case anyone doubts what I say or thinks that I am overstating this aspect of our deep-seated suspicions about the Government's motives, let me quote what was said by the medical correspondent of The Independent a day or two after the publication of the Secretary of State's proposals:
"In the week since the NHS White Paper was published, the most revealing comment about it has been an aside from David Willetts, formerly the Prime Minister's health care adviser in the Downing Street policy unit and now director of the Centre for Policy Studies, the right-wing think-tank Mrs. Thatcher helped to found."
No doubt the Secretary of State is familiar with those bodies: indeed, he may be familiar with David Willetts himself.
"Mr. Willetts, the closest of the 'outsiders' to the NHS review, said he had asked a senior civil servant what he would do to the NHS if he were the minister. The reply was, 'I'd either leave it entirely alone, because it is too politically dangerous. Or I'd destabilise it, and see what happened.—'"
That is what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is doing with the backing of the Prime Minister, and that is why we believe that this attack will shape many other aspects of social policy in the years to come.
My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston has led the battle with such skill, knowledge, understanding and hard work that we will accept no insults that may be levelled at him by the Secretary of State. I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will wish to withdraw the few extra insults that he threw out today. My hon. Friend has led the battle to protect the service with constructive zeal, and we are still determined to protect it. We know that it needs much more money to be made better for the future; but, although that is by far the most important aspect, there are many others.
The improvement of the NHS must be achieved by a Government who believe in the democratic Socialist principles of the service. The Prime Minister does not believe in them, and if the Secretary of State says that he does he will not stay in his job for long. We would find reasons to rejoice at that, and others not to do so.
My hon. Friend has made a generous proposal to the Government. If it were merely a matter of political opportunism—those are the Secretary of State's words, not mine—the best thing for the Labour party would be for the fight to go ahead until we could play it as one of our main cards in the next election. My hon. Friend, on behalf

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of the Labour party, has proposed that the issue be kicked out until after the next election: that we should have a vote about it. That is a fair offer, and if it is rejected that rejection will expose all the more the malice—the malignity —that the Prime Minister and her aides have brought to this great subject.
5.5 pm
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I shall not detain the House for long. I wish to make three points.
I wish first to comment on the disreputable £7 million advertising campaign being run by the British Medical Association. Like many of my hon. Friends, I actually enjoy receiving letters from constituents, but I have been horrified by the number of letters that I have received from elderly patients, many of them in old people's homes, who have been worried stiff by the BMA's untruthful pamphlet. They have been led to believe that they will not obtain the treatment or—if it is near the end of the financial year —the drugs that they need. The BMA knows perfectly well that both those things are untrue.
Even worse, one 84-year-old was informed by his doctor that if the Government's proposals went through he would no longer be able to visit him at home in an isolated rural area. I should dearly like to know the name of his doctor. Despite all that, however, I continue to believe that locally we are very fortunate in our GPs, and that they have merely been misled by the BMA and are supporting what is, after all, their trade union.
I have responded meticulously, point by point, to every point that a doctor has made to me. I assured doctors that this was a consultative document and that I would forward all their letters and comments to the Secretary of State as part of the consultation process, which I have done. I said that I would seek answers to points which were unclear or which worried them, with a view to having them modified —as usually happens during a consultation period—or deleted altogether, as the case might be.
That was until Thursday. On Thursday I received a letter from a local GP. The final paragraph read as follows:
"Some doctors select the compliant patients by being so unpleasant that the others leave the list, and join the list of a softer doctor."
Those are not my words; they are the words of a local GP.
That letter came as a considerable shock to me, because I have always viewed our local doctors—delightful men—through rose-coloured spectacles, and have argued that what the Government were trying to do was bring other areas up to the standard of those in my part of the world.
No doubt the unpleasant doctors mentioned by their colleague are not typical, but even one such doctor is one too many, and shows that reform is necessary for the patients' sake. Fortunately for the excellent reputations of our local hospitals and the vast majority of our local GPs, on the very day that I received that disturbing letter the North-West regional health authority issued a report by its top medical experts showing that the expectation of life in Lancashire and Greater Manchester was two years below the national average—except in Lancaster, where it is above the national average. That rather proves the point that I was making all along to doctors and constituents alike—that the NHS is patchy and uneven. When the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing talk of destroying
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the comprehensive nature of the NHS, they are talking of a myth. The aim of the Government is to make sure that a comprehensive service, nationally funded, exists everywhere, and that people obtain decent treatment wherever they live.
It is said that things go in threes. On Thursday the BMA held its conference to decide its attitude to the proposals. As one GP representative put it, the BMA attitude is hardening. Really? When did the BMA not oppose change? It opposed it when Lloyd George tried to reform health care in 1911; it opposed the White Paper in 1943; it opposed the introduction of the NHS in 1946–48 until—as the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), Aneurin Bevan, put it—its mouth was stuffed with gold; and it opposed the changes in the contract in 1966, changes it is now defending tooth and nail.
I have news for the BMA delegate to whom I have referred: if the BMA attitude is hardening, so is the attitude of myself and my hon. Friends, with every letter that we receive from sick and elderly constituents, people who are frightened, misled and confused by the BMA pamphlets. We do not expect that sort of unprofessional conduct from the delightful and courteous men whom, until now, we have liked and respected. If there be any will to resume the protracted negotiations on conditions of service, all very well. If not, so be it. I advise the Secretary of State to press on with his reforms. The patients need them, and we shall support them.
5.14 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I believe that the official Opposition's motion left the Labour party wide open to exactly the kind of counter attack launched by the Secretary of State. It is wrong headed at this stage to concentrate simply on the terms of the general practitioners' contract and doctors' opposition. Such a move allows the Government to argue that the doctors are just another special interest group and that they are only concerned about their own wallets. Such an approach diminishes the importance of all the other professional and consumer groups, legion in number, who oppose the Government's proposals.
The range of dissent and the depth of feeling of opposition to the White Paper argue powerfully for the widespread mobilisation of public opinion against these proposals. The motion tabled by the Labour party has potentially minimised the opposition of Conservative Back Benchers and the possibility of getting a response from them to the position in which they find themselves. I get the impression that they are under a lot of pressure from their constituents. Therefore, I believe that an Adjournment motion would have produced a much more instructive and constructive debate.
The Secretary of State announced that a full debate will be held on the White Paper. It would be helpful to know when that might happen. It will be an important debate in Government time, and I look forward to it being held.
The Government's proposals relating to the NHS are ill thought out. No firm long-term commitment has been made to increase funding year by year. I understood the Secretary of State to say that he had won a 5 per cent. real increase at the battle with the Treasury last autumn. If that is correct and if the Secretary of State is saying that, over time, the Health Service can expect that sort of real terms

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increase in funding under his custodianship, many of the generally held fears will be assuaged. Of course, there is always the question whether Government statements can be trusted.
The very effective speech of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) underscored the fact that part of the problem has really arisen because of a lack of consultation. The Government engaged in an internal review. There was no consultation or empirical research. No evidence was submitted and studied. That situation weakens fundamentally the strength of the case that the Government are trying to argue.
The Secretary of State cannot so readily rubbish the idea of pilot projects. In the autumn, there will be a report on the resources management initiatives that have been in process. Why do we not wait at least until we have the preliminary findings, although even then it may take some further time to establish exactly what has been achieved in those projects? I am aware that another 50 or so are due to commence and they will also take further time to assess. There is no reason for this degree of haste; the pilot projects should first of all be studied carefully, before decisions are made. The time allowed to introduce the plans is totally inadequate, and is a recipe for confusion and disaster. There is no guarantee of resources even to manage the introduction of the reforms—a substantial problem which the service will have to face. In the present situation there is considerable uncertainty and confusion. The response of the Secretary of State is simply to try to bully people into line. That is not a proper or responsible way to behave. The only major effect achieved is to lower morale of staff when they are trying their best to deliver the best service they can.
The proposals in the White Paper are undoubtedly fundamental and far reaching, irrespective of whether one thinks they are right or wrong. Given their importance, the changes should have been introduced much more carefully and thoughtfully. I believe that the debate should really be about the future of primary health care. The Government seem motivated by a desire to create a mechanism that will limit costs. I have a fear, and it is essentially the same fear as that which GPs raised when the NHS was first introduced. They fear now as they did then that limitations on cost will restrict clinical judgment. GPs are right to be afraid, because, given the lack of detail in front of us, that limitation is still a real prospect.
An inevitable result of the present proposals would be doctors spending less time with patients. I cannot see how the Secretary of State can argue otherwise. Less time would be spent on meaningful preventive medicine. I listened carefuly to the Secretary of State's comments about Government targets, statistics and so on. However, meaningful preventive medicine depends on the general practitioner spending sufficient time with individual patients to deal with their requirements. As a result of the Government's proposals, there is certainly a prospect of a fundamental erosion of services provided in rural areas. The Secretary of State has not satisfied the profession that such services would not be eroded.
As a Scottish Member, I realise that some improvements have been made in the Scottish contract. I hope that, as far as possible, those improvements will be made in the English contract, built upon and taken forward. However, in general, doctors are still apprehensive that they are
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being asked to take a fundamental structural step in an unquantified way in an unknown direction, with the real prospect of damage to their patients as a direct result.
I want to ask some questions that I hope will clear up uncertainties that currently exist in the minds of medical professionals. If the Secretary of State has set up a new organisation known as the British medical opposition, I would certainly like to be a founder member; I will join up this afternoon. Has the Secretary of State considered alternative models to deliver primary care? I refer him to an article published on 15 April in the British Medical Journal by Professor David Morrell, a professor of general practice. He outlines a detailed role for general practice and a contract that would make far more sense. He talks about the need for an increased basic practice allowance. His scheme would also involve annual reports by the GP practices to the family practitioner committee or the area health board, and regular visits by audit committees. I do not have time to go into his proposals in great detail, but general practitioners in my area have told me that it would be a sensible alternative, would lead to the attainment of many of the Government's objectives and would exclude all the objectionable features of the present plans.
It is important that we should hear what the Government have to say about care in the community for the elderly, the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill. What will be the administrative cost of setting up and maintaining the new system? Will the medical audit be adequately funded? The Government studiously avoided making a positive response to the exchanges on that subject in the other place. What will be the career structure for part-time doctors, particularly part-time women doctors? The Government have made no headway on that fundamental question. According to most informed commentators, the basic practice allowance and the group practice allowance are on the way out. That would have a fundemental effect on the career prospects of part-time doctors, particularly part-time women doctors.
The objective is to achieve greater choice for the patient. How will that be possible if a district health authority has a contract with a hospital to provide services and if a general practitioner has not opted to take control of his own budget, and therefore does not have money to send with the patient to that hospital? What will happen if that general practitioner wants to refer a patient to a hospital that has not entered into a contract with the district health authority? Frequently, there are valid reasons for referring the patient to a hospital outwith the district health authority for specialist treatment, or for other reasons. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that such a referral would still be permitted under the new proposals? That question is causing great concern and anxiety to general practitioners and patients in my area and others.
If implemented, the White Paper proposals will change fundamentally the National Health Service. It will be changed almost beyond recognition. The old ideas of consensus and co-operation will be overtaken by competition and cost-cutting, with the result that the standards of care for the elderly and the chronically sick will fall and the administrative and treatment costs for everybody else will rise. The Government should think again.
5.22 pm
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I agree with the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) that the terms of the motion are tactically ill-judged. We have witnessed this afternoon a delightful irony of political history. The House was treated to the spectacle of the Labour party leaping uninhibitedly on the BMA's bandwagon.
The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) said that it is not true that doctors always oppose change in the National Health Service. I thought I saw the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) respond to that statement with a nervous twitch. It seemed to stir him into doing his best to paper over the cracks of Labour party history. He said that the doctors had responded quite favourably in the end to the Bevan reports and that we should not be surprised that the Labour party agrees with the BMA. However, that is not what the right hon. Gentleman said in his book.
By chance, to amuse myself on bank holiday Monday, I dipped into his majestic biography of Nye Bevan. On page 103, I discovered his description of exactly what was the mood of the doctors as the NHS reforms were introduced—reforms that the BMA opposed as implacably as it defends the status quo today. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"Much the strongest bent in the medical mind was a non-political conservatism, a revulsion against all change, a habit of intellectual isolation which enabled them to magnify any proposals for reform into a totalitarian nightmare."
I find an echo or two of those words in today's BMA campaign and an echo or two in the speech of the hon. Member for Livingston.
Conservative Members do not need to disparage the word "conservatism"—the fact that the medical profession is traditionally a conservative profession. That is natural. General practitioners have much to be proud of in the way that they carry out their duties. Our delicate task in the debate is to try to make a judgment on what parts of the general practitioner's world within the NHS should be preserved and what parts should be altered by the reforms. That is the judgment that we have to make on the White Paper and the supporting documents.
There are plenty of good ideas in the White Paper for both doctors and patients, which I strongly support. The medical audit proposals are excellent. The notion of a peer review is supported by many thoughtful doctors. I believe that the perhaps more controversial proposals on indicative or guideline drug budgets for doctors should be welcomed.
We have heard yet again the BMA's traditional trumpet call sounding the alarm that any such proposals will destroy doctors' clinical freedom to prescribe. Those arguments were shown to be ill-founded at the time of the limited list controversy in 1985. They are even more ill-founded today, in the light of that experience. I recall supporting my right hon. and learned Friend in his previous incarnation as Minister of State. He put up with all kinds of attacks when he introduced the limited list. What was the result when the dust settled? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) says that he amended it. I hope that all political debates and consultation papers will lead to amendments. The accusations that were levelled against my right hon. and learned Friend were totally unjustified. When the dust had settled, £75 million had been saved from the nation's drug
52
budget and diverted to better patient care. Moreover, the notion that clinical freedom was threatened or would be destroyed proved to be a complete nonsense. It has not been affected at all.
In a world where resources are finite and the demand for medicine is infinite, there can no longer be any absolute prescribing freedoms. We should welcome the guideline drug budgets for doctors as a non-compulsory yardstick of measurement, particularly since the yardstick can be moved after dialogue with the family practitioner committees and after peer review.
Having commended certain parts of the White Paper, may I also express a few misgivings about the sections that deal with the future management of general practice. My real concern is whether the proposals will actually work and whether they are based on the right principles. I must confess that I am a little worried that there may be some fundamental flaws at the heart of the management proposals for general practitioners. Above all, I fear that the White Paper's ideology of free market forces and the untried innovations that flow from that ideology may not satisfactorily be transplanted to the traditional and caring body politic of general practice—at least, not without some hideous practical difficulties.
The first flaw I detect in the White Paper is the impression it gives that all these sweeping management reforms are necessary because general practitioners go about their duties in a way that is inefficient and expensive. If that is Whitehall's view, it is not a view that is widely shared by patients at the grass roots; nor does it seem to be justified by the available statistics. As far as I can discover, Britain's doctors—as gatekeepers of the NHS —operate one of the cheaper and more effective primary health care systems in the Western world. Medical salaries here are pinned down to less than half the levels that exist in some European countries and in the USA. NHS administrative costs are low, at 4·5 per cent. of the total, compared with administrative costs of 21 per cent. of the total in America's competitive, free market medical system.
One part of the Government's reforms that perplexes me concerning their call for greater business efficiency and consumer choice is the starting point of the grievance that doctors are inefficient. Of course there are some bad doctors; there are a few bad apples in any profession. There are some 9 to 5 spirits who seem to have forgotten their vocation. However, on the whole the evidence suggests that there is widespread patient satisfaction with general practitioner services in this country, and I find it curious that a White Paper which is championing consumer demand in medicine should provide no evidence of consumer demand for reforms of general practice.
As I see it, the whole key to the philosophy of this White Paper towards the doctors is summed up in a sentence on page 48:
"The practices which attract the most custom will attract the most money."
That sounds good as a fly-by-night economics textbook sentence published by the university of Chicago business school but, coming down to our own National Health Service, what it means is that the ultimate reward for improved efficiency and improved advertising is that market forces will send successful doctors a longer list of patients from which the doctors can earn higher and higher capitation fees and augment their incomes still

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further by the performance bonus rule which allows them to retain in their practices 50 per cent. of the savings they make from their budgets.
We should not try to pretend that such proposals are anything other than a very radical reform. After all, they go against the trend of general practitioners trying to keep small lists, as they have been for some years now. It seems to be a decisive shift away from dear old "Dr. Finlay's Casebook," as super-doc comes to the supermarket with these sorts of ideas. Will the reforms work, and if they do, will they damage, as some doctors fear, the fundamental basis of doctor-patient relationships or the established collegiate basis of doctor-to-doctor relationships?
These reforms may work in certain prosperous surburban or metropolitan areas such as parts of the home counties or the city of Westminster, where the residential community consists largely of youngish people of working age, who may well be content with the brusque "Wham barn, thank you, doctor, for getting me back on my feet as quickly as possible" approach, because on the whole that approach to medicine will be quite popular with the age and social group likely to suffer only from short bursts of illness.
However, consider for a moment a completely different kind of community. I take the town of Ramsgate from my own constituency, which is a seaside town with a population of whom 38 per cent. are pensioners and which has the biggest department of social security office in south-east England, with 16,000 people on benefit. It has a particularly high concentration of disabled, disadvantaged, geriatric, chronically sick and mentally handicapped people. In short, doctors there deal with a lot of patients who need time and care. I do not see, in the words of the White Paper, many pluses for elderly and deprived patients in that sort of community, for many of whom the language of consumer choice in general practice might just as well be Mandarin Chinese. They want guidance, not the ability to make yuppy-type consumer choice decisions.
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: What would the hon. Gentleman say to a constituent who came to see me on Friday to say that, after false diagnosis, his wife needed pretty urgent surgery to the nose after many months of distress? She went to Ealing hospital as a result and was told that she would still have to wait many weeks before the operation could take place, but if he could afford £1,000 it could be carried out next week. What does the White Paper do in this regard?
Mr. Aitken: The hon. Member tries to tempt me into completely different areas from those which are the subject of this debate, and I must resist that temptation other than to express sympathy with his constituent. Whether it is his constituent or my constituent with a problem, I want to emphasise that I am not talking about so-called bad doctors or inefficient practices.
I know a practice in Ramsgate which lives up to and exceeds many of the standards set by the Government in the working papers. Its child immunisation rates are in excess of the Government's target of 90 per cent.; its drug bill is 23 per cent. below the average for the area; it operates minor surgery sessions; it holds preventive medicine clinics; it is computerised, with modern capability and enjoys a good professional and popular reputation. It is just the sort of practice which should
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benefit from the White Paper proposals, and yet the doctors in that practice regard the Government's management and budgetary ideas and target payment schemes in particular with feelings close to horror. Why do they have those very strong feelings? The answer is that they believe—and I think they are right, with 12 per cent. of their patients over 75 and another 33 per cent. over 65 —that they are serving the kind of community which can best be looked after by the gentler culture of traditional general practice, with all its occasional necessary time-wasting delays and pauses for counselling and sympathy which a caring service involves, rather than the harsher disciplines of competitive, doctor—versus—doctor consumer choice, free market medicine portrayed in the White Paper.
I do not want to fall into the trap which the Labour party has fallen into of knocking everything in the White Paper on the curious principle that any stigma will do to beat a dogma, but there should be more flexibility in some of the Government's proposals. I could not find much indication of that vital ingredient in the White Paper, but I was glad to hear in some of the things my right hon. and learned Friend was saying today, and indeed in the tone of some of the recent press statements and working papers, that a gentler and more flexible note may now be injected into some of these proposals as they affect doctors.
Can I follow the point made by the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) in supporting his call to the Minister to pay some attention to that profound article by Professor David Morell in a recent edition of the British Medical Journal? His point, as I understood it, was that the Government could get everything they wanted, but the foundation stone for the new contract should not be so much free market forces as the ideal that a medical practice serves the community in which it is based and that the standard of service by doctors to a community could be defined, graded and rewarded not by competitive forces within that community but by an annual audit carried out under the supervision of the area family practitioner committee. There was a great deal of merit in that proposal.
Finally, whether we are talking about Professor Morell's ideas or the Government's more radical proposals, when tackling this subject of reforming general practice a little humility and caution is essential. We are getting into deep and uncharted waters. I was sorry to hear the Secretary of State sound a little disparaging as he brushed aside any suggestion that pilot schemes might be workable. It is always bad news when the Labour party has a good idea, but the pilot scheme has something to commend it, because rural, coastal, inner city, suburban and metropolitan areas all have their different problems, and a different programme of pilot schemes in each one to see how some of these ideas work would be sensible.
The decent, diligent family doctor is part of the culture of Britain, part of the fabric of our society, and on the whole general practitioners have served their communities well. They rightly enjoy a far higher level of popularity and respect than a great many other professionals including, I might say, politicians. Maybe some general practitioners do need a bit of a shake-up and many of them would accept the best of the Government's new ideas and agree that the White Paper does give a useful nudge towards some welcome changes, but let us proceed by evolution rather than by revolution and let us have more time,

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collaboration and path-finding by pilot schemes, because that is the way of accomplishing what the Secretary of State and all his supporters wish to achieve.
5.38 pm
Mr. Ron Leighton: The Secretary of State has had the unique distinction of uniting the whole of the medical world including all the royal colleges, against himself. I see today that he also has the opposition of the community health councils, who found the issuing of his White Paper
"'objectionable', the proposals 'drastic' and the time scale 'unacceptably hasty'."
and are
"asking him to suspend implementation of these 'undesirable' and 'impractical' plans."
Today, we are discussing the views of the doctors. In preparation for the debate I conducted a survey of all the doctors in my constituency. They voted 47 against the Secretary of State's proposals and only three in favour. I asked them for any further comments and I received a huge sheaf of impassioned correspondence which I should be only too pleased to allow the Secretary of State to inspect.
I should like to read a small selection of the comments that I received, to which I hope the Secretary of State will pay attention. Dr. Spalding wrote:
"I am disturbed by the proposals of the Government's White Paper on the National Health Service. I see them as doing great harm to general practice. I have been in practice in Manor Park for 25 years and retire in one week and so I have no vested interest either way.
The White Paper is pervaded by a materialistic attitude to medicine. Money matters but it should not be the only ruler. Interestingly, this attitude is revealed in the White Paper by the use of the word 'Consumer', where Patient is meant … I am afraid that if its ideas are enacted, the patient will indeed become merely a consumer."
Dr. Patel said:
"No, the new proposals won't help the NHS, they will destroy it. Please ask the Government whether the advisers on the new proposals are full-time NHS doctors or economists? The new proposals will destroy the doctor and patient relationship. There would be a two tier fragmented Health Service."
Dr. Phillips said:
"Medicine is not a business and should never be run entirely on that basis. In general practice it would not improve patient care. Extra administration would be necessary—there is already too much. If the Government expects us to be capable of running the practice on a financial level, and negotiate with hospitals, etc. we should be considered capable of running the internal affairs of our practices without outside pressure and interference."
Dr. Kapur said:
"the opting out of hospitals, the buying of hospital facilities by Family Practitioner Committees, the restrictions on the GPs' budget and referral rights; the increased (60 per cent.) payment on number of patients—all these factors plus many others will lead to a deterioration of morale, and to two levels of NHS care."
Dr. Graham wrote:
"In my opinion the new contract introduces increased bureaucracy causing a greater distance between doctors and patients and distrust. As a course organiser I am alarmed that the Government are demanding 20 hours in surgery per week as I spend two or more sessions a week in Newham General Hospital teaching post-graduates. When I see a patient who looks ill I cannot tell whether he has influenza needing rest, food poisoning or acute leukaemia where a bone marrow transplant costs £220,000. It is only detailed hospital tests that
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will eventually uncover the truth, by which time the patient is out of my control. He would not want a GP coming to Hospital behind his back to consult with the specialist and possibly saying, 'Our practice cannot afford this treatment in future this year'.".
Dr. David Keable-Elliot said:
"The Government's proposed health service changes will seriously damage patient care and risk trust between doctor and patient. For the first time, general practitioner services are to be cash limited. This means a possible rationing of the care we provide each year. We are to be offered financial incentives to save on the cost of patient care. … We are to be offered rewards not to treat patients, or to delay their care whether this be arranging hospital tests, giving treatment or referring patients to a specialist for a possible operation. We are to be encouraged to arrange for patients to go to the cheapest hospital, perhaps not the best, the nearest or the one with the shortest waiting list. The Government want GPs to become 'rationers' of health care and thus take the blame for chronic underfunding of the NHS. Once that happens, our concern is that we will be blamed for the service's failures and that will then be used as an excuse to force further changes which will finally end the health service as we know it. We are not prepared to risk the trust and confidence our patients have in us. How long will that trust last when they know we have an incentive not to act in their best interest?"
Dr. Mahendran wrote:
"Budget or cost cutting on an open ended comprehensive service such as the NHS is unacceptable. An unlimited number of patients under a doctor will mean no time for patients who deserve more time and attention. Chronically ill, disabled and patients requiring multiple therapy will lose out from this White Paper. If Regional Hospitals opt out the patients will have to travel to distant hospitals to obtain basic specialist attention or hospitalised care. This cannot mean that patients have greater choice. Even if Doctors' surgeries remain prudent and minimise costs, what guarantee is there that the money allocated for the subsesquent years will match the needs and inflationary increases?"
He adds the postscript:
"In the entire discussion Kenneth Clarke sounds as if the NHS is a wasteful and inefficient service. Does he not realise that throughout the world there is no parallel to the effective, comprehensive health service provided by the NHS taking into account the total cost incurred?"
The hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) also raised that point.
Dr. Dubai said:
"As budget holders we would be asked to offer our patients treatment influenced more by the cost than the needs of the patient. I have two patients with kidney transplants and a third on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. Each time I write medicine for these patients, as recommended by the hospital to stop transplant rejection it costs over £100. I also have several elderly patients with multiple diseases and disabilities which demand a lot of time, energy and social support. If I am to be a budget holder I would have to think seriously about keeping these patients on my list as I would not have the time or money to look after these patients—even if I tried hard. I would have to refer the patient to the cheapest hospital and look for the cheapest drug to treat them—the so-called 'shop around'. I do not believe that a patient who has paid his national Insurance and his 'dues' should be offered a second class treatment. If the Government cannot afford the National Health Service they should tell the people and patients, rather than hide behind the doctors and get their objectives done by forcing the doctors to do that for them."
He goes on to praise group practice and says that he had thought that the Government favoured it. He adds:
"By abolishing Group Practice allowance there will be a disincentive to form group practices with the resultant fall in the standard of patient care."
Dr. Bapna wanted me to tell the Government that
"Doctors are not running a shop, they are doing what is best for their patients."
Dr. Patel asked:

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"How can a doctor give more time and do all the preventative work by increasing the size of the list?"
I hope that the Secretary of State is paying close attention to the views of doctors in my constituency. Dr. Lazarus said:
"Having considered all aspects, I feel my time spent in budgetary and choosing cheap alternatives and unnecessary form filling would be better spent giving my patients a service I already provide."
Dr. Desai said:
"The new contract is likely to cause deterioration in the service as doctors will not have time for promotive and preventative work if they have to look after more patients. In inner cities the situation is likely to worsen. The proposed payment structure for preventative work and immunisations etc., will make doctors despondent and lose interest in such work. The targets stated are not achievable as they depend on the patients."
Dr. Watt said:
"The immunisation and cervical smear targets are unreasonable. GPs cannot be a paternalistic police force forcing people to have what is good for them."
Dr. Christopher Derret said:
"Increased capitation fees are not an incentive to doctors to spend less time with each patient. Many patients say they already think their doctor gives too little time for each consultation. Quantity not quality is to be paid for. In the inner cities morbidity is higher and patient consultation rate can be almost double that in some prosperous areas."
The hon. Member for Thanet, South also mentioned that point. Dr. Derret went on:
"There is a widespread fear that the Government has a hidden agenda for the privatisation of Health Care."
Dr. Cramsie said—
Mr. Aitken: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to read out verbatim quotes from doctors' letters with no break when many hon. Members on both sides of the House have speeches which they have thought about carefully and wish to deliver?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): It is for hon. Members to deploy their arguments as they wish, but I remind the House that many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate and I appeal for very short speeches.
Mr. Leighton: I take your point, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I take the point made by the hon. Member for Thanet, South, but we are debating the views of the doctors. I am giving the views of rank and file doctors working in my constituency. Those are the views they have given me, which they have asked me to represent in Parliament. I shall compromise and read out two more letters. Perhaps the House will then have got the message from their remarks.
Dr. Rachman says:
"The plan to change the BPA to a per capita allowance will discourage existing practices from taking on new partners —there will be no incentive to. Instead I believe we will all be encouraged to employ assistants—these are often women and have no prospects of promotion or extension of their role. This is a retrograde move which seriously affects the position of all new young doctors seeking partnerships."
Dr. Haas says:
"I am very concerned that patients will find it hard to develop trust in their doctors as they will no longer see us as their advocates but as agents of cost control. Most of all, the health of those able to shout least loud, the old and physically handicapped will suffer."
That is an accurate reflection of doctors' views in my constituency. I would be delighted to give the Secretary of State the pile of correspondence so that he can read it. He
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should not laugh at the doctors' views or mock them. The doctors work in the depressed and deprived inner city. They have many problems. They considered the White Paper, then contacted me and asked me to put their views in the House.
How can the Secretary of State implement the proposals against what even he calls the "British medical opposition"? If the doctors do not become budget holders and if the hospitals do not opt out, what is left of the proposals? The Secretary of State should listen carefully and respectfully to the views of doctors. He should take his White Paper away and launch a genuine consultation. He should proceed by agreement to achieve a strong, free and adequately funded NHS.
5.51 pm
Mr. Jerry Hayes: It was fascinating, to listen to the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton). Although it may destroy his political career, I must say that I rather like him. He held himself spellbound by some of the most awful codswallop. What have the doctors been reading? They must have been reading letters from the hon. Gentleman and the British Medical Association. If they want to hear what the Government are doing through the White Paper I would be only too delighted—and I am sure that many of my hon. Friends would be delighted—to speak to the doctors in Newham, North-East. I lay that down as a friendly challenge.
Mr. Leighton: The hon. Gentleman would have to be rather careful. If he spoke to the doctors like that, several of them in their white coats might think that it was a section 42 job and take him away.
Mr. Hayes: I concede that one on points.
It was fascinating to listen to the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). It is always a joy to listen to such eloquence. Although I thought about what he said carefully, in the words of F. E. Smith, I was none the wiser or better informed. There was a lot of chat about destabilisation and under-resourcing. It suddenly dawned on me that this speech was coming from a member of a Labour Cabinet which cut capital expenditure on hospital building by 30 per cent., which for the first time in the history of the National Health Service agreed to cut the overall budget of the Health Service in real terms and which agreed to spend more on defence than on the Health Service—the opposite to what is happening now.
I want to draw to the attention of the House what was probably the most telling remark in the debate so far. It was made by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). He said that there would be a breach of the trust between doctor and patient and he asked how a patient would be able to look a doctor in the eye and trust him. The hon. Gentleman is right, especially when one considers the doctors who put skulls and crossbones up in their surgeries, the doctors who have been warning the most vulnerable members of society, such as the elderly, that they will not be welcome at their surgeries and the doctors who, at the instigation of the BMA, have put at the bottom of their prescriptions, "Voting Conservative will damage your health." That is where there has been a breach of trust. It has been a breach of trust by a small minority of general practitioners and by the overwhelming majority of the BMA.

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I raised a point with the hon. Member for Livingston earlier. He was giving a long litany of the opposition from the medical bodies, but he did not mention the National Association of Health Authorities in England and Wales. He stood there as if polyunsaturated margarine would not melt in his mouth and said that the association was the stooge of the Government. Yet the members of that association are the people who run the Health Service. I and many of my hon. Friends believe that their views are important. With the leave of the House, I shall quote the association's conclusions, warts and all, which is what consultation is all about. The association said:
"Overall, the Association welcomes many of the proposals in the White Paper. These include the more effective use of resources, greater responsiveness to the needs of the general public, clinical audit, greater delegation to the operational level, more involvement of clinicians in management and incentives for providing better services. The Association is also supportive of the separation of funding and provision of services.
It has to be recognised, however, that whilst many of these proposals are welcome, there are also a number of risks. The principal risk is that in the more diffuse NHS that is likely to emerge in the post White paper situation, it may be more difficult for the Service to guarantee comprehensive services to the population as a whole. It is therefore essential that RHAs, FPCs and DHAs are given the ability and authority to ensure that services are accessible, integrated, of a high quality and well funded. If these conditions are met, the NHS can look forward to the future with confidence."
That is constructive criticism such as my right hon. and learned Friend welcomes.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how many letters he has received from GPs and consultants supporting the Government's proposals? Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), who was criticised for doing so, I could read out a file of letters from doctors who oppose the Government. How many letters has the hon. Gentleman received in support?
Mr. Hayes: The hon. Lady has raised a valid point. I have received many letters from general practitioners who are wholly opposed to the White Paper. But when I go to see them and talk to them about it, they realise that the proposals are working for their patients. The overwhelming majority of general practitioners care deeply about their patients and do not like to be conned by people making cynical political capital out of other people's misfortune, as is happening now. The time must come when, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken), the dust must be allowed to settle, the megaphone diplomacy must stop and we must get round the table with those who care about the Health Service—the GPs, the consultants, the administrators and the nurses. There is much in the proposals for all of them, as they will appreciate soon. In the past—and I see my right hon. and learned Friend the Chief Whip sitting here —I have been highly critical of Government policy on the Health Service—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. That may come as a shock to some of my hon. Friends. Some of us have voted against the Government, but when they get it right, we should darn well support them.
Dame Jill Knight: My hon. Friend spoke about letters he had received from doctors. Will he take the point that those doctors have been grossly misled and misinformed by their own leaders about the true contents of the review?
Mr. Hayes: Of course, many of us on the Select Committee raised that issue with the people who run the BMA, and they have said, "This is what we feel is in the White Paper," or, "This is what we think might be in the White Paper." However, when confronted with the facts and the reality, they are speechless—[Interruption.] Let us be constructive. This is a time when there should be sensible negotiations.
Going back to something else that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) said, this is not the first time such things have happened because all of us can remember notices going up in local surgeries in 1985 about the limited list. We all received letters from doctors, consultants and even from elderly patients who said, "My health will deteriorate if this wicked proposal goes through." That proposal was put forward by the then Minister of State, my right hon. and learned Friend who is now the Secretary of State for Health. There was sensible negotiation on that, the NHS saved £75 million and patients are receiving a good standard of health care. If one speaks to a GP now and says, "Hang on, a few years ago I saw a poster in your surgery about limited lists," that GP will probably say, "Oh well, we agreed with it really." I suspect that when GPs hear the truth now, the same thing will happen.
However, there are a few things that I should like my right hon. and learned Friend to take into account—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] This is not a criticism. It is about negotiation and consultation. I want to put to my right hon. and learned Friend some of the points that many doctors have put to me and to some of my hon. Friends. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend has said on television and on radio that there will be compromise and negotiation. I ask him to look carefully at the rural practice allowance, which is concerning many doctors. I ask him to look also at the 20-hours provision because it is absolutely right that there should be a division between part-timers and full-timers and many doctors are concerned that the Secretary of State means 20 hours in the surgery, which might cause problems. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend will look again at such things and at the targets for immunisation which in many areas, especially in highly ethnically populated areas, might cause some difficulty. Perhaps it will be worth considering some form of exemption for doctors who have done their very best to get people in for cervical smears and immunisation but whose patients do not turn up. I do not see why the doctors should be penalised.
The Health Service is really about people getting their operations. One can wax lyrical about more money and about more doctors and nurses, but what people really care about is getting into hospital for their operation. Once they are in hospital, they like the nurses and the doctors —they do not much like the food—and they are satisfied with the service. The main thing is to get the patients into hospital.
The crucial thing about this whole review—my right hon. and learned Friend said this at the beginning of his speech—is that the efficiency trap will be abolished. We have a ridiculous state of affairs at the moment. We are paying hospitals to close beds for economic reasons. More

61
patients are being treated, more operations are being performed—this is happening every day—but approximately 20 per cent. of National Health Service beds are being closed. That will cease if the money travels with the patient because it will then be in the interests of hospitals to keep beds open.
I turn briefly to the private sector. There will be shock and gasps of horror from Opposition Members who will ask how one dares to mention the private sector. The private sector is working at about 45 per cent. capacity. Let us examine what is happening in, dare I say it, South Glamorgan where the South Glamorgan health authority has done a deal with an excellent private hospital in Southampton called Chalybeate. The South Glamorgan health authority has contracted all its open heart surgery to that private hospital. The families of the patients are looked after. They are transported to Southampton and put up in hotels. The operations are carried out speedily and efficiently. There is absolutely no cost to the patient. What is more, because of surplus capacity the South Glamorgan health authority is saving money. If ever there was an example of co-operation between the private and public sectors, that is it. That is what we are aiming for in the White Paper because what is happening in South Glamorgan should be happening all over the country and we should have the opportunity to let it happen.
The last point that I wish to raise with my right hon. and learned Friend—
Mr. David Hinchliffe rose—
Mr. Hayes: No, on another occasion. I shall not give way because other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate.
I should like to say a few brief words about the Treasury. It is important to mention the Treasury because in the past the Treasury has been able to play all sorts of people off against each other. The Select Committee may say, "£2 billion is needed for the Health Service", the nurses can say, "£X billion" and the doctors, "£Y billion", but no one really knows how much the Health Service really needs because no one knows the cost of an operation or a treatment.
Mr. Battle: What about tax cuts on private health?
Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman refers to tax cuts, but they are totally irrelevant to what we are talking about.
How can one plan for the future unless one knows how much operations and treatment cost? When information technology comes in and when doctors know the cost of an operation, persuasive and almost unanswerable arguments will be put to the Treasury about putting more money into the Health Service. In the past no one has known where the money has been going, but at least we will now be able to know that.
Before I sit down, I should like to say a few brief words about the existing system because in the meantime we have a problem, especially in areas with large waiting lists. My own West Essex health authority is in the top 22. My right hon. and learned Friend has helpfully given us waiting list initiative money and, although we have also been given £800,000 in growth money, we have suddenly been told that the North East Thames regional health authority, which has loaned us £1.5 million to be paid back over three years, is going back on its agreement and wants to take that £800,000 growth money. I ask my right hon. and
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learned Friend to look carefully at that instance of gross mismanagement, which must be totally contrary to his wishes and those of his health team. Growth money must be for growth and must be specifically earmarked.
All in all, there may be difficulties with my right hon. and learned Friend's White Paper and with the working document, but I advise him to listen to the views of the general practitioners and of the Health Service professionals because I further advise him that when they hear what the White Paper is trying to do and that it will work for patients, they will support it.
6.6 pm
Mr. Andrew Welsh: I shall be as brief as possible, simply because I wish to let as many other hon. Members as possible speak in the debate. I shall speak faster than my normally fast pace because I want to put on the record some of the comments that have been put to me by local doctors; after all, this is their debate.
One depressing development, both in the debate and before we reached this stage, has been the vitriolic language of the Government and their supporters and the abuse that they have hurled at general practitioners because of their opposition to the National Health Service proposals. In choosing to react with the language of confrontation and abuse, the Secretary of State is making a big mistake and is completely misunderstanding the mood and reasoned arguments of the profession, which will be faced with implementing the changes if they are passed by the House.
General practitioners are opposed to these provisions not for the sake of opposition, but because they genuinely feel that patient care and the National Health Service will be the losers if the proposals are not amended drastically. I have received the highest ever mailing in my constituency from individuals and groups opposed to the Government's proposals. In the words of Angus district health authority, its members are agreed that
"The proposals in the White Paper are so far reaching and so unwarranted that the Council should take immediate action in an effort to enlist the help and support of every inhabitant in Angus in fighting against implementation of these proposals".
Let the Government be in no doubt about the strength of opposition to these White Paper proposals. I have never heard doctors so united, so angry and so opposed to any set of measures as they are to these Government proposals. I am sure that the situation in my constituency is no different from that in many others.
The doctors' basic argument is not about money. It is based purely on the relationship between doctor and patient and is about their ability to provide the best quality of service as professionals and at reasonable cost to the taxpayer. Doctors have told me that there are fundamental and dangerous trends in the Government's proposals that will inevitably strike at the heart of the National Health Service.
Unamended, the proposals will mean that cost rather than care will become the criterion for health provision. Medical professionals will become more like accountants, bargaining over prices and debt collection. Inevitably, it will be in the interests of health boards and GP budget holders to look for the cheapest service in order to direct cash to other areas. Inevitably, under these proposals, there will be an inbuilt bias towards offering only the most convenient and profitable services. The Minister should

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make that clear to the general public, because in every survey the public have made it clear to the Government that people's preference is for the maximum service delivered as close to their own homes as possible.
That will simply not happen under the Government's proposals. Indeed, the opposite will occur. The accent will be on delivery of uncomplicated care for the young and generally fit adults, not on complex, unprofitable services. That will inevitably lead to poorer facilities and opportunities for patients, particularly the elderly or chronically sick. I always thought that those were the people for whom the National Health Service was designed to cater, but the proposals will take us in the opposite direction.
Scarce resources will mean that medical treatment is placed to one side while doctors are placed in a new bureaucracy, and it will mean the advertising which this system will, by definition, spawn. There will be fragmentation—I find this the least forgivable thing that the Government are introducing—of the National Health Service into a two-tier hospital system, thus ending the national, comprehensive system of care that we have so far enjoyed.
My local doctors want to make it very clear to the Government that they see dangers in the proposals—dangers that budgets will dictate treatment, and that there will be a financial inducement not to treat. For example, regarding tests and referrals, doctors will be given an incentive to use only the cheapest hospitals, and there will be a break in the close relationship between GPs and locally based consultants. The GPs will be drawn towards refusing new patients who require long-term, expensive treatment, putting at risk the worst off in deprived areas, the old and the disabled. Because of budgetary restraints, general practitioners may well not accept patients who need expensive drugs.
Mr. Kenneth Hind rose—
Mr. Welsh: If the hon. Member does not mind, I will not give way. He may get a chance to speak later.
Mr. Hind: But the BMA—
Mr. Welsh: This is not the BMA; these are my local doctors. It is the doctors who are the profesionals and who have to deal with this and they have a right to be heard in the House.
There is a fear that doctors will increase the number of young, generally fit adults on their lists, and be forced to do so by their competitors. The very thing that the Government are introducing—the force of competition —will lead to doctors taking a path that they would not normally take, instead of giving treatment to all their patients as they need and deserve. That is inevitable and inbuilt in the arrangements.
I want to use the words of the general practitioners to describe their concern, because they will have the reality on their hands if the Government push these measures through. One doctor says:
"The introduction of practice budgets and indicative drug budgets is seen as a cost-cutting exercise which serves to put financial pressures on the GP and undoubtedly will lead to a deterioration in the doctor-patient relationship. All doctors are aware that economies can be made in drug prescribing and the profession should be supported in their attempts to
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diminish costs in such a way that it will not adversely affect patient care, rather than have radical, ill-conceived methods imposed on it. The increase in remuneration from capitation fees will lead to a rise in list sizes rather than the reduction we have seen in recent years. This means less time per patient, a decline in the quality of care and ultimately a decrease in the number of GPs."
I put again to the Minister the point regarding women general practitioners. Women have a right to expect that the Minister will have regard to their problems and address them. What is their future under the Government's proposals? Can he guarantee that women doctors will not be adversely treated and will be allowed to carry on making their very important contribution to the medical profession? I hope that the Minister will answer that point.
My local doctors have made detailed, reasoned criticisms of the Government's proposals on budgeting, capitation fees, effects on partnerships and women doctors and drug budgeting. Only time prevents me from analysing them. No doubt they will be raised as the debate continues and as the Government move towards legislation.
I want to put one more point to the Government. One doctor says:
"my colleagues and I do not see the new proposals as working for patients but rather as working against patients. The new charter will provide less time and less choice for patients and will engender within the profession a mentality more akin to achieving personal wealth rather than patients' health. The knock-on effects will be to accelerate the rate of litigation in this country and a litigation strewn profession is ultimately damaging for patients and more expensive. I must condemn … the Secretary for Health for attempting to bluster and hustle the profession on this matter and I must further condemn him for throwing up a smoke screen over the real issues. It is particularly noticeable that, when asked pertinent questions, he merely diverts the discussion by blaming us for 'feeling for our wallets'. It is the Secretary of State who is feeling for the NHS wallet and he is prepared to see patient care suffer in the execution of this."
I have tried to state how my doctors feel, because this debate is about them. My plea is quite simply for the Government to think again. If they insist on these changes, they should introduce them gradually on an experimental basis to see whether they work. If there are all these great benefits to be gained from such experiments, let them be tried and tested and let everybody see them. If this scheme is simply imposed on the medical profession we may well find that the loser will be the nation, because our National Health Service will suffer a massive trauma and its essence will be destroyed if the Government go ahead unhindered. My message is clear and my plea is, quite simply, that the Government think again.
6.16 pm
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: If I really believed all the dire warnings that we have heard from all parts of the House, I should be the most frightened man in the House tonight because I am numbered among the chronically sick and am on extremely expensive medication. As it is, however, I believe what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, I believe in his White Paper and he has my support. The White Paper is a most far-reaching document that will undoubtedly set the course for the Health Service in the future.
In the 40 years since its inception the National Health Service has transformed the general practitioner from a family doctor who had both to provide for his patients and his community's care and win for himself an income into

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a Government servant who no longer has to consider the budget he spends. That is a very far cry indeed from what existed before the NHS was set up.
Now, as we know, when a young doctor wants to enter general practice he can get a start only if there is a vacancy in a group practice or if that group practice decides to take on an additional partner. At least, thanks to the White Paper, more vacancies should occur when doctors have to retire at 65.
Before the NHS existed doctors were practising in a competitive world. In the world before the NHS any doctor who chose to go into practice could put up his plate and see what patients he could pick up. My father, who practised in Argyllshire and in Northumberland, told me that in those days when one got a call late at night one did not hesitate to go, because if one did not another doctor got the patient. That was a competitive edge that does not exist any more.
In the past 40 years of the NHS the balance has changed so that the modern GP, while he is no doubt just as dedicated as his predecessor and a great deal more effective as a provider of cures for diseases which were once incurable, has not had to consider or take responsibility for the financial consequences of his action. He has become a different type of practitioner. His salary is not won in competition with his fellows. He is a state servant answerable to the family practitioner service, which is currently funded by the Department of Health on an open-ended contract to the tune of £4·2 billion a year—a threefold increase since 1978–79.
To change that and to impose budgetary limits is bound to be seen as an assault on a situation that suits GPs very well. Suddenly they are being asked to relearn those financial skills that their predecessors took for granted. It would be surprising if they did not protest, especially as some of them may be affected by the changes in a way that may reduce their incomes.
I want now to refer to a question that I asked my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State during Question Time last week concerning rural practices. I was not talking about a rural practice in a sparsely populated area that, according to the White Paper, is to receive special help, but one which is to some extent restricted by the ward limitations in the White Paper. A country practice, such as many in my constituency, cannot significantly increase its list size however hard its doctors work. Even if it could physically cope with an increased patient load, there are no other patients for that practice to treat. I do not see how it can have the basic practice allowance reduced from 60 to 40 per cent. and be expected to make up the difference out of capitation if the patients are not there.
By the same token, such a practice is to lose the rural practice allowance. My right hon. and learned Friend will know that that allowance really relates to the mileage that the doctor does in his constituency. It is the sort of thing that each one of us, as Members of Parliament, accepts as part of our constituency expenses. If a rural practitioner sees his basic practice allowance reduced, and is required to make up the difference from a capitation that he cannot achieve, and he loses his rural practice allowance, how can he possibly feel other than that his remuneration is being reduced? Although I heard my right hon. and learned Friend give the average figure for GPs' salaries after the White Paper, nevertheless it is an average figure. I would be grateful if in that connection he would look at the situation of rural practitioners.
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The downward pressure on drug budgets, which will have the greatest effect on the pharmaceutical industry and make it look at its pricing in a way it has never done before, may make isolated dispensaries in country areas less viable. Again, the rural practitioner could find himself at a disadvantage. As ancillary and attached staff are probably more important to country practices, cost-limiting that section of the allowance may endanger such services as the mini-buses that many practices run to take their patients to and from surgery.
Then there is the position of women GPs referred to by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood). Many women GPs are part-timers, because they are married. They are concerned that the new proposals will militate against them and practices will prefer a full-time male doctor to, for sake of argument, two part-time women assistants. I understand that more than 50 per cent. of doctors training for general practice are women. As matters now stand, there is a financial advantage to be gained by a group practice in taking on women as part-timers, but that advantage will disappear if the White Paper proposals go through as they are at present. I believe that those proposals must be reconsidered. I do not believe that there should be financial disadvantages that could militate against women remaining as part-time GPs. They are popular, excellent and a valuable asset to the service.
The question of screening, and especially the surveillance of elderly patients, is set out on page 30, paragraph II of the new contract. A doctor from a practice in my constituency, which has 500 patients of 75 years and over, told me that surveillance would cost that practice 500 man hours per year, yet he doubted the value of that exercise because of the age of the patients. That point was supported by a doctor in a BBC medical programme. In that doctor's view, screening can produce psychological distress without achieving anything worthwhile. He said that, unless definite and provable benefits can be demonstrated from such screening of the elderly, the programme will simply be a waste of money and doctors' time.
The White Paper rightly places emphasis on preventive medicine, vaccinations, immunisation and cervical smears. It sets a very high target for GPs to reach before they receive payment for that work, unlike the present situation where they are paid for each treatment. I question whether the target for cervical smears is realistic. I shall cite the figures given to me by one doctor for his practice. Of the women he tested, 10 per cent. had had a hysterectomy and 8 per cent. refused a smear. In his practice, the annual turnover of women patients was 20 per cent. Accepting those figures, he claimed that a figure of 82 per cent. was achieveable if one included women who had had hysterectomies, or 71 per cent. if, and reasonably, one did not. One might honestly question the value of a cervical smear on a woman who has had a hysterectomy. If he is right—and I know how dangerous it is to generalise from the particular—is 80 per cent. the right target for cervical smears or is that a target beyond the reach of the average practice?
One of the points that has been raised with me in so many of the letters that I, too, have received about the White Paper concerns the status of the chronically sick —someone like myself who requires expensive medical treatment to stay alive. From my reading of the White Paper and the working documents, I believe that I am right

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in believing that the chronically sick have an inalienable right to be on a GP's list, to be treated in hospital and to receive whatever medication is laid down for them. What is more, no GP will be put at a financial disadvantage by having such a patient on his or her list, nor will his drug budget be considered to be overspent because that patient requires very expensive drugs, which takes the GP over his or her stated target. I believe that to be the case, but I would be grateful if my right hon. and learned Friend could reinforce that point in his reply. By the same token, can my right hon. and learned Friend state categorically that, whether a hospital chooses to be self-governing or not, it will be required to provide certain essential core services to its local community?
During my time in hospital and having talked over a number of years to those who run hospitals, I have been told again and again how much they wished they had control of their budgets and were allowed to develop the assets of their hospitals to maximise resources. I remember a consultant at the Battle hospital in Reading telling me that, if he had his way, he would build a 10-bedded private unit in the grounds of the hospital because of the funds that that would generate for the hospital overall. He was not interested in the out-of-date, political point-scoring about a two-tier system. He was interested in getting the maximum resources for a large general hospital. When I asked him why he did not do so, he said that it was because the regional health authority would consider that the additional funds were its and that the Battle hospital might not benefit at all. Therefore, nothing was done.
The White Paper encourages me to think that in future hospitals—especially those that are self-governing—will be able to make the best use of their assets knowing that by doing so they can improve their cash flows and their services. I welcome such a proposal.
6.27 pm
Mr. Bill Michie: I am happy and grateful to speak in this short debate. I have been instructed that I have no more than five minutes in which to do it. It is obviously an important debate and many Opposition Members have talked about what is, perhaps, the first love of anyone in the Labour party—the National Health Service. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was right when he said that many doctors, and indeed many patients, feel that they have been deceived by the Government. Nobody at the last election realised what was in the mind of the Government. It was obvious that the Government were not prepared to put that in their manifesto to the people.
Doctors and patients know very well that, if one increases the number of patients, one cannot increase the number of hours in a day, so there must be less time per patient. That strikes me as simple arithmetic. We know that in future the prosperous surgeries will be in areas where people are generally prosperous. In areas such as Sheffield, which I represent—the inner cities, the poor areas and certainly some of the rural areas—practices will have certain difficulties that will not be resolved by the White Paper.
The Secretary of State has got angry about this issue and has hit out at the Labour party for exploiting the situation for political purposes. The only reason why the
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Secretary of State has attacked politicians, patients and doctors is that he must defend thin ground and he finds it difficult to do so. Instead of attempting to explain the Government's case, he has gone on the attack.
The Secretary of State has said that doctors' opposition to the proposals is based on different motives from the Labour party's opposition. From my discussions with doctors, I believe that their motives are similar to mine —they are worried about the future state of the Health Service rather than their wages or anything else. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that, as a result of the proposals, GPs' pay will rise substantially, but their main concern is not pay, but patient care and what will happen to their surgeries. If the scheme is so good, why are so many doctors against it? Where are all the doctors who are in favour?
Mrs. Mahon: Does my hon. Friend share my disgust at the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), who could not produce a single letter from a GP in support of the proposals? I found it contemptible when he said that, when he had gone along to talk to doctors, they had changed their minds. He must think that we are all daft and that GPs are thick, which is insulting.
Mr. Michie: My hon. Friend took the words out of my mouth. There is no doubt that doctors are concerned about their patients rather than their own skins. Doctors know that they will spend more time checking the accounts than checking their patients, more time looking for the cheap hospital instead of looking at each patient and deciding how to treat that person.
In my constituency, a meeting of the regional branch of the BMA attracted 200 doctors, which was almost a record; doctors do not always turn up at those meetings, as they are such busy people. Those doctors watched the video that has been produced by the Government—they have spent millions on that propaganda. Those doctors were so impressed by that video that they voted, almost unanimously, against the White Paper. The video is a waste of taxpayers' money. Those doctors were horrified by it. It is supposed to be subtle stuff, but the doctors understood it and they voted on a motion tantamount to resignation.
Local doctors are not thick; they understand the situation. They are not greedy; all they want is to be assured that everything will be all right for their patients.
Mr. Allen McKay: Does my hon. Friend agree that the argument that the doctors have been brainwashed by the BMA is a slur on doctors who have been in practice all their lives, often following their fathers and grandfathers? Such an argument implies that they cannot think for themselves.
Mr. Michie: My hon. Friend is correct. The only person who has been indoctrinated is the Secretary of State. He was not keen when he started off, but now he is convinced that his proposals will work. He has tried to reverse the argument by maintaining that doctors have been brainwashed.
Doctors are keen and dedicated. I have had my disagreements, political or otherwise, with my local doctors. On this occasion, however, we are not arguing about politics; that is why I was so annoyed with the Secretary of State when he tried to make it a political issue.

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He tried to argue about what the Labour party would say rather than what doctors and others have said about the proposals.
I know that the Secretary of State has received a letter from one doctor in my constituency. At the end of that letter, the doctor says that the Secretary of State should resign, or change his mind; otherwise, he will resign. That doctor has not been indoctrinated in any way. He is a strong practising Christian in the community and he feels so strongly about the White Paper that he believes that the Secretary of State should give up his job or he will give up his.
When the Government decide to give us time for a major debate on the White Paper, I hope that they will think again. If they really believe that the White Paper is a marvellous idea, they should follow the advice in the Opposition motion—they should delay the changes for the time being and put them to the people at the next general election. If they do that, the Labour party will be home and dry.
6.34 pm
Mr. Douglas French: My remarks are based on extensive consultation with many doctors who are practising in Gloucester and the Gloucestershire district, who are a highly professional and effective group of practitioners. The Gloucestershire district has one of the best patient-doctor ratios in the country and it has one of the lowest FPC average prescription costs. It also carries out a high percentage of cervical smears in comparison with other districts.
I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to confirm that, as a result of his proposals, such an area will not witness a relative outflow of funds. There may be other areas that need funds, but if the declared aim of the proposals is to bring the worst up to the standards of the best, that cannot be done unless the best retain all the funding that they already receive.
I acknowledge what my right hon. and learned Friend has said on other occasions: that the proposed new system will not force—I emphasise that word—doctors to take on more patients, and that their overriding aim will be to please patients so as to retain them. For many years, list sizes in the Gloucestershire district have been gradually reducing. They are now down to below 1,800, compared with the national average of 1,969. That does not mean that doctors are having an easy time, but it is one of the reasons for the district's good patient care figures. I believe that that evidence proves that there is a relationship between shorter lists and good patient care.
One of my chief anxieties is that there is an incentive within the new system to build up lists. I know that the new system can be presented in different ways, but I believe that that incentive exists. The doctor can make up his income from other services, but an increased list appears to be one way in which to do so. That would come about not because increased income is of paramount importance, but because increased income happens to be one result of larger lists. Therefore, the proposed system pulls in an opposite direction from shorter lists which, historically, have achieved good results in the Gloucestershire district. It is true that the reduced list may provide the lazy doctor with an easy life, but it also provides the hard-working, diligent doctor with the best possible opportunity to give his patients the best attention.
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I have two comments to make about the capitation proposals. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) has already referred to the likely effect on the enlistment of women doctors who perform an important role, often in a part-time capacity. The White Paper makes reference to incentives for female doctors, but paragraph 47a of the new contract is far from clear on this matter. I want to be assured that the new arrangements will not mean women doctors failing to be offered appointments that might otherwise have been open to them. Secondly, there may be pressure against taking on new doctors who do not bring personal lists to a practice. When some doctors reach retirement, their posts may not be filled automatically by new doctors.
Although I have reservations about the greater emphasis on capitation as proposed in the new system, I support the emphasis on new services and the incentives to provide comprehensive services to the patient covering prevention and treatment. The emphasis on health promotion, disease prevention, screening and check-ups is welcome. I hope that the value put on services such as minor operations will be realistic and cover the initial outlay not only for the instruments that may be required, but for the costs of consumables. That figure should be based on a proper costing rather than on a subjective judgment about what figure may or may not be sufficient encouragement for a doctor to undertake an operation.
On other occasions, my right hon. and learned Friend has said that the targets that he has set for immunisation and cervical smear tests may be subject to some modification. In Gloucestershire, the number of women having cervical smears is greater than in any other district, but in some cases an 80 per cent. target would be unrealistic. In a practice in Gloucester city, 19 per cent. of the female patients aged between 35 and 65 have had a hysterectomy, 5 per cent. decided against the test, 6 per cent. failed to respond to letters and 14 per cent. are over the age of 70. It is hardly appropriate to apply such a percentage in that type of practice.
There has been much talk about doctors being available for consultation in the surgery for 20 hours a week. I find the opposition to that requirement less persuasive than the other points that have been made to me. There may be individual cases where it would cause hardship, but it seems illogical to be saying, on the one hand, that more time is needed with individual patients and, on the other, that 20 hours in the surgery is too much.
I believe that many of the proposals will enhance choice, competition, accountability and responsibility, and all those are to be welcomed. But the reservations I have mentioned will, I hope, be addressed by the Secretary of State before he reaches any final conclusions on the package to be adopted.
6.41 pm
Ms. Harriet Harman: It is clear from the debate this afternoon that the Government have lost the argument—[Interruption.] Conservative Members who have just drifted into the Chamber may care to know that only one Government Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), unreservedly supported the Government's plans—[Interruption.] The day the Government pray in aid the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) is the day when they are really facing hard times selling their proposals.

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It is clear that the concerns of the Government are completely different from the concerns of everybody else. The Government are talking about accounting, costing and pricing. Everyone else is talking about people, health and wellbeing. The Government are concerned about a healthy bank balance. Everyone else is concerned about a healthy patient.
The Government think that the major battle for the next century is to make the NHS cheaper. All their plans go towards achieving that. We and everyone else believe that the major battle is to make the NHS better and to move on to conquer the major killer diseases such as cancer and heart disease. The Tories simply do not understand. They think that doctors are interested only in money, because that is all that interests them.
The Government do not understand that they cannot bully and bribe their way out of this. By accusing the doctors, first, of stupidity—by saying, "They do not understand our plans"—and, secondly, of greediness, they have simply hardened the attitude of doctors and astounded the public. The Tories do not understand that they are up against a profound NHS culture which affects Tory voting doctors in the shires as much as it affects working class communities in inner cities. The Government will discover that on Thursday in the Vale of Glamorgan. They are badly out of touch with the popular pulse.
The Secretary of State cannot have it both ways. In his amendment to our motion he
"welcomes the widespread medical support for the objectives of the White Paper".
In his speech, however, he did little more than berate what he was pleased to describe as "the British Medical opposition."
Conservative Members cannot say that the doctors do not understand and that they are being led by the nose by their leaders. The BMA's general medical services committee sent to every GP reprints of every working paper as well as the general medical services committee's comments. The thoroughness with which the doctors went about their consultations stands in marked contrast with the total failure of the Government to carry out any consultations. Having failed to consult anyone, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) pointed out, they went on to spend over £1¼ million of taxpayers' money trying to persuade us that it is a good idea.
The Government must accept that it is not because doctors do not understand the plans that they are against them. They are against them because they understand them and do not like the way they will work. That must be clear to all Conservative Members when they read the letters that are swamping their postbags from local GPs.
Mr. Hind: The hon. Lady claims that by reading letters from GPs we become aware of their views. That is so, but most of the letters I have received show that the GPs in question have not read the detailed working papers properly —[Interruption.]—and that some of them are listening to the sort of propaganda that the hon. Lady has been sending to weekly newspapers such as I have in my constituency suggesting that, in some way, my local hospital will be opted out. She and many of her colleagues are responsible for the disinformation that is currently being disseminated.
Ms. Harman: I challenge the hon. Gentleman to send me copies of letters he has received from GPs whom he claims have not read the working papers and do not understand what is proposed in the White Paper. We shall then be able to see whether what he says is simply bluff and bluster.
The message from every independent medical organisation is twofold—that the plans will harm patients and that the timetable for their implementation is wildly unrealistic. Even the American professor who is credited with thinking up some of these proposals cannot understand why they are not being preceded by pilot schemes and believes that the Government are attempting to implement them with amazing speed.
Five out of six of the consultant teams who have pioneered the resource management initiative have rejected the timetable for opt-out because they say that they—the front line, the six leaders—will not be ready, and the sixth is Guy's hospital, where profound concern exists because of the feeling that they are being steamrollered into opt-out.
The pressure on hospital consultants to support opting out has been shameful. It has been a disgraceful combination of bribery and blackmail along the lines of, "If you are good boys and girls and among the first to opt out, we will see you all right, but if you do not, we will leave you to sink under your budget deficits." That is disgraceful and senior consultants are up in arms about being subjected to that sort of treatment.
The working paper on capital charges sets out the small print about which the BMA has warned consultants—the small print that the Government opt-out salesmen never mention. The Secretary of State talks a great deal about medical audit, but there is only a thin working paper on that saying, basically, "The chaps have thought up medical audit. It is clearly a good idea for the chaps to get on with it." There is little substance in that working paper. The fattest working paper is about capital charges—the "more work for accountants" paper—and it is clear that the Government have really thought about that, though the opt-out salesmen never mention it.
When the Secretary of State decides that a hospital will opt out—and the decision will be his and not that of the hospital—the hospital will take with it into independence all of its debts for its land, buildings and equipment, on which it will have to pay full rates of interest.
St. Thomas's, across the river, estimates that this will mean it having to pay the Treasury about £40 million a year extra. Guy's, a mile or so down the river, will have to pay an extra £27 million a year. This is pressure for the greatest asset-strip of all time. London hospitals in particular, because land values are so high, will simply close down, sell up and move out, leaving the sites of our great London hospitals—[Interruption] I challenge the Secretary of State to deny that, if it is not the case. The sites of our great London hospitals will be snapped up for offices or luxury riverside apartments.
Department of Health officials have already said that two fifths of hospital sites will be sold in this great asset-strip. Conservative Members should read the information that the Department has disseminated. The effect of the capital charges is that opting out for many is likely to spell financial suicide rather than financial freedom.
The Government have said that their plans will increase choice. In fact, choice will be reduced. What choice will

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there be for the patient of a GP budget-holder? The patient will have no choice of hospital for tests or treatment because the decision will have been made at the start of the year by the GP negotiating contracts for bulk buys of certain operations and treatments. Those negotiations will take place at the beginning of the year, probably long before the patient has got ill, let alone walked into the surgery. There will be no choice for the patient of a GP budget-holder.
There will be even less choice for the patient of a GP who is not a budget-holder. The decision on where that patient will go if in need of hospital tests or treatment will not rest with the GP but will be made at the start of the year by health authority managers who never see the patient. They will make a decision based on cost. They will get the cheapest buy. There is no requirement for them to get the approval of local GPs before contracts are placed. Managers who are not recruited or trained to know anything about clinical standards will make decisions on the basis of cost for patients whom they never see.
That is the absolute opposite of the Prime Minister's wish for treatment at the time of her choice, in the hospital of her choice. Under the NHS as she plans it, the patient will get the hospital of a manager's choice, at the place of the manager's choice and at the cheapest cost. No doubt the Government hope that that will join waiting lists as another powerful incentive for patients to go private and will drive patients out of the NHS.
Despite what the hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) asked the Secretary of State about, there will be less choice for patients who are elderly or who have long-term illnesses because, as the Royal College of Nursing so aptly described it, for the first time every patient will have a price tag on his head and for the first time doctors will have a financial disincentive to take on to their lists patients who will be expensive in requiring drugs or hospital treatment.
The right to choose a GP is not matched anywhere in the White Paper or in the working papers by a right to be accepted by that GP. The GP could say that his list was full. How will the Government police that? GPs will not refuse to take on more patients because they are lazy or heartless but because, with cash limits, they will have to balance the resources available for existing patients against the demands of future patients.
The greatest cheek is for the Government to offer us a choice that we already have—the chance of travelling hundreds of miles away from home to get treatment. We already have the possibility of travelling across boundaries, but people do not often do that because no one in his right mind wants to travel hundreds of miles to get treatment. What happens if there is a problem and the patient is stranded at the hospital? What happens if there is a need for post-operative care and the patient is unable to go back easily to that hospital?
The Government do not understand those arguments because they are about the patient and not about cost. The Government think only of the cost and never of the patient. GPs have seen what fierce spending limits have done to patients waiting for hospital treatment. They do not relish cash limits on GP services. Despite the fact that only last week the Secretary of State was still asserting that there will not be cash limits, it is clear from the working papers, and clear already from the Health and Medicines Act 1988, that cash limits on GP services are planned.
74
The White Paper says that GP budgets will not be underwritten for what are described as too high referral rates. The Government have no idea what a too high or a too low referral rate is. What is needed is not an average referral rate but appropriate referral decisions. The Government do not see that because they are considering not the quality of decisions but only the cost. The same is true of prescribing patterns. The Government are using the blunt instrument of cash limits when they should be using the instrument of training and education.
The Government have said that they have no plans to allow topping-up by patients of GP practice budgets but, if the proposals go ahead, that is inevitable. Even if we do not have the scenario of an individual patient handing over a bundle of notes to back up his demand to go to a particular hospital, we shall see groups of patients getting together for voluntary fund-raising for their own practice to get equipment for a new play area or new reception facilities. In the better-off areas that will free more money for hospital referrals.
The health divide that has already been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) will widen. The patients who need most health care will probably get inferior care and the well-off surgeries will depend on their communities to put their hands in their pockets to finance them in the face of cash limiting. That is how communities have responded when hospitals have been cash-limited. We have already seen that skew the service on the basis of hospitals providing what they think they can get money for rather than what they know the community needs.
The Secretary of State is beginning to look as though he is in as bad shape as his predecessor. He cannot blunder on with his plans because of the weight of public and professional opinion that is so heavily against him. If he falls forward, the doctors, assisted by the public, will get him; if he falls backward, the Prime Minister will get him. Conservative Members should listen to their constituents and to the doctors rather than deride them. Hon. Members have a chance to tell the Government this evening that they cannot press on with their plans before the next general election. They have no mandate to destroy the Health Service. I hope that Conservative Members will join us in voting for the motion.
6.54 pm
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: With the leave of the House, I assure hon. Members that I shall speak briefly so that I shall not intrude into the time for the debate on education; that means that I shall not follow the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) into the things that she said about the hospital service. I shall reserve my reply for the full debate on the White Paper.
As I am short of time, let me take it at face value that the hon. Lady is interested in producing a better National Health Service. When we debate the proposals for self-governing hospitals and when she sees the expressions of interest that come forward, we will be able to debate the subject more seriously. Those expressions of interest will be taken for what they are described as—expressions of interest with a great deal of detail left to be considered by all in the hospitals concerned or by anyone who wants to commit himself to the proposals. People will want to know, for example, exactly what capital charges will mean for their hospital and for every other hospital in which the

75
system is being introduced. I reassure the hon. Lady that nonsense about all our great hospitals in London being sold for office blocks is wide of the mark.
Ms. Harman: Two fifths.
Mr. Clarke: Even the suggestion that two fifths of hospitals in London will be sold to property developers for office blocks is very wide of the mark. When we get to the sensible discussions, I hope that that childish parody of our proposals is abandoned and that we can talk about how hospitals which have management in their own hands can contribute to the care of patients.
Most of the debate has been about general practitioners. There was a great deal of letter-reading on all sides. I shall not go as far as the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) who read into the record more of his constituents' letters in 10 minutes than I have ever heard any hon. Member do before. As we were challenged to produce letters, I cannot resist producing just one from a professor in the department of general practice and primary care in a great London teaching hospital not far from the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I shall quote just two paragraphs:
"I am in constant contact with several hundred practices scattered over the United Kingdom and it appears that there is a consensus which is not reflected in public statements, and which is positive.
The general feeling is one that the reorganisation is long overdue and that the efficiency of the Health Service has to be materially improved. There is also a considerable welcome for the beginnings of integration of general practice with secondary care."
I too have a sheaf of letters. I could go on quoting consultants and GPs from all over the country.
My hon. Friends keep producing the views of their doctors. We are taking note of those and other views. I was asked by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) whether we have over the years considered other possibilities. It is not true that the idea of improving the contract for general practice is an overnight thought that occurred during the Prime Minister's review. Discussions go back five or six years. The hon. Member and my hon. Friend quoted other views and asked whether we had considered other options.
I have not read the recent letter of Professor Morell, but it sounds as though he was commending the idea of a good practice allowance as a feature of a contract based on medical audit. We were discussing that five or six years ago. I remember it well. It was rejected because of medical opposition, which was organised and very strong. Because it was thought that the whole idea of clinical audit and peer review would be jeopardised if linked to payment, we turned away from that and considered other methods of evolving an acceptable contract that reflected the aims to which the Government remain committed—rewarding those doctors who work hardest and best, setting new standards for the introduction of services, particularly in health promotion and disease prevention, and setting new targets for services such as immunisation, screening and so on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) pressed all the points made by her general practitioners upon me without reading them into Hansard, as the hon. Member for Newham, North-East
76
did. Contrary to what was said, she and my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) and for Gloucester (Mr. French) seemed to support the principles behind the White Paper. They wished to take up particular points that general practitioners had put to them about the present state of the contract discussions.
I would welcome a resumption of those discussions. They had been going on for a long time and were broken off at the behest of the negotiators while the conference was held last week. That conference lifted the threat of resignations and began to talk of discussions again and how those discussions should be renewed. I have made it clear throughout that, as long as we reach a conclusion soon at the end of a six-year process, I am prepared to seek to reach agreement on a form of contract with doctors, so long as they demonstrate to me that their negotiators share the aims that I have just enunciated.
Mr. Michael Morris: As my right hon. and learned Friend is prepared to put forward proposals with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, which seem broadly to meet general practitioners' requirements, now that the conference is over, is it his intention to meet the English general practitioners and to anglicise those proposals?
Mr. Clarke: I do not want to take the discussions much further on the Floor of the House. The Scottish contract, the so-called tartan contract, was put forward by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to represent particularly Scottish problems a few weeks after I had put forward my English proposals. We both took account of the views put to us in producing the Scottish contract. I shall be interested to hear whether general practitioners in Northampton and elsewhere will be interested in accepting what the Scots have so far on offer. I shall be interested to hear whether Scottish general practitioners are content with the tartan contract. No doubt the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) knows.
Various matters have been raised about which I cannot go into detail here. My hon. Friends the Members for Harlow and for Newbury asked about rural practice. I am perfectly content to continue to discuss the rather curious disagreement between us on rural practice. My negotiators and the BMA negotiators are determined that there must be some special arrangements for rural practice. In discussions so far we have both been convinced that our respective suggestions are better and fairer for those who live in rural areas and scattered districts, but, as we are both agreed that special arrangements have to be made for rural areas, it must be possible to reach agreement.
A similar situation applies to deprived inner-city areas. I have been proposing extra capitation for those who practise in deprived areas because, again, general practitioners there cannot build up their lists. There has been no pressure in our contract proposals on any general practitioner with average or near-average lists to raise his list size, which is a fear that has been voiced. Other fears can also be met in discussion.
I was asked about the position of women practitioners by my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury and for Gloucester and by Opposition Members. The nature of general practice will change in many ways. One is that many more practitioners will be women. More than half

77
the students in our medical schools now are women and we must accept that equal opportunities must be presented to all women who go into general practice, including those who will have family responsibilities at some time or another. The contract proposals are friendly to women seeking to enter general practice.
The notion of job sharing is floated in my proposals, as is the idea of part-time women being full principals in a practice. Therefore, the differences between me and my negotiators on the one hand and some women general practitioners on the other are not differences of aim; they are based on what I regard as an unusual interpretation of some of the changes that we are making to basic practice allowance. I am prepared to talk through a contract which in the end will encourage more women to go into practice and accept a desirable change in the contract.
I mention those matters not to trail any further what we might discuss, but to make it clear that discussions were broken off only because the BMA asked for that. The BMA carried out a leaflet campaign and held its conference, and, as far as I am concerned, discussions can now be resumed. My proposals were evolved after 12 months of detailed discussions, but they were plainly open to further discussions. That is the way that we should proceed. If both sides show common sense and are genuinely committed to a better NHS, raising standards of general practice and improving service to the patient, it should be possible to reach agreement. The remuneration of individual general practitioners should not be the great stumbling block to progress. Other reforms should not be regarded as sanctions where consent can be withheld unless a proper deal on the contract is arrived at.
The contract should now be resolved by sensible discussion, and further examination of the White Paper will reveal what my hon. Friends have all said has been revealed in sensible discussions with small groups of doctors throughout Britain—that, on balance, almost all agree that it is beneficial. When details are explained, most general practitioners will agree that. As we proceed with the implementation, it will be seen that this is just the next step in the Government's commitment to a better NHS, a free NHS financed out of taxation, and one that keeps up with the times to deliver the best of modern medical practice to patients who will he proud of it in the future.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 181, Noes 279.

Division No. 182]

[7.05 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Alton, David

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Anderson, Donald

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Armstrong, Hilary

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Buchan, Norman

Ashton, Joe

Buckley, George J.

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Caborn, Richard

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Barron, Kevin

Cartwright, John

Battle, John

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Beckett, Margaret

Clay, Bob

Beggs, Roy

Cohen, Harry

Bell, Stuart

Coleman, Donald

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Bermingham, Gerald

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Bidwell, Sydney

Corbett, Robin

Blunkett, David

Corbyn, Jeremy

78

Cousins, Jim

McWilliam, John

Crowther, Stan

Madden, Max

Cryer, Bob

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Cummings, John

Marek, Dr John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Dalyell, Tam

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Darling, Alistair

Martlew, Eric

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Meacher, Michael

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

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Dixon, Don

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Dobson, Frank

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Doran, Frank

Morley, Elliott

Douglas, Dick

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Eadie, Alexander

Mowlam, Marjorie

Eastham, Ken

Mullin, Chris

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Murphy, Paul

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Nellist, Dave

Fatchett, Derek

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Faulds, Andrew

O'Brien, William

Fearn, Ronald

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Patchett, Terry

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

Pendry, Tom

Fisher, Mark

Pike, Peter L.

Flannery, Martin

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Prescott, John

Foster, Derek

Primarolo, Dawn

Fraser, John

Quin, Ms Joyce

Fyfe, Maria

Radice, Giles

Galbraith, Sam

Randall, Stuart

Galloway, George

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Richardson, Jo

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Robertson, George

Gordon, Mildred

Robinson, Geoffrey

Gould, Bryan

Rogers, Allan

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Ruddock, Joan

Grocott, Bruce

Sedgemore, Brian

Hardy, Peter

Sheerman, Barry

Harman, Ms Harriet

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Hinchliffe, David

Short, Clare

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Sillars, Jim

Holland, Stuart

Skinner, Dennis

Home Robertson, John

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

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

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Soley, Clive

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Spearing, Nigel

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Steinberg, Gerry

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Stott, Roger

Ingram, Adam

Strang, Gavin

Janner, Greville

Straw, Jack

Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Kirkwood, Archy

Turner, Dennis

Lambie, David

Vaz, Keith

Lamond, James

Wall, Pat

Leighton, Ron

Wallace, James

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Warden, Gareth (Gower)

Lewis, Terry

Wareing, Robert N.

Litherland, Robert

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Livsey, Richard

Wigley, Dafydd

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

McAllion, John

Wilson, Brian

McAvoy, Thomas

Winnick, David

Macdonald, Calum A.

Worthington, Tony

McFall, John

Wray, Jimmy

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

McKelvey, William

Tellers for the Ayes:

McLeish, Henry

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Maclennan, Robert

Mrs. Llin Golding.

McNamara, Kevin

NOES

Aitken, Jonathan

Amos, Alan

Alexander, Richard

Arbuthnot, James

Allason, Rupert

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Amess, David

Ashby, David

79

Atkins, Robert

French, Douglas

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Gale, Roger

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Gardiner, George

Baldry, Tony

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Gill, Christopher

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Bellingham, Henry

Glyn, Dr Alan

Bendall, Vivian

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Benyon, W.

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Gow, Ian

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Body, Sir Richard

Green way, Harry (Ealing N)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Gregory, Conal

Boswell, Tim

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Grist, Ian

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Ground, Patrick

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Grylls, Michael

Bowis, John

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Hague, William

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Brazier, Julian

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Bright, Graham

Hanley, Jeremy

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

Hannam, John

Browne, John (Winchester)

Harris, David

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Haselhurst, Alan

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

Hawkins, Christopher

Buck, Sir Antony

Hayes, Jerry

Budgen, Nicholas

Hayward, Robert

Burns, Simon

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Burt, Alistair

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Butler, Chris

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Butterfill, John

Hill, James

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Hind, Kenneth

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Holt, Richard

Carrington, Matthew

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

Carttiss, Michael

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Cash, William

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Chapman, Sydney

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Chope, Christopher

Irvine, Michael

Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

Irving, Charles

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Jack, Michael

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Janman, Tim

Colvin, Michael

Jessel, Toby

Conway, Derek

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Cope, Rt Hon John

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Couchman, James

Kirkhope, Timothy

Cran, James

Knapman, Roger

Critchley, Julian

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Curry, David

Knowles, Michael

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

Knox, David

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Devlin, Tim

Lang, Ian

Dickens, Geoffrey

Latham, Michael

Dorrell, Stephen

Lawrence, Ivan

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Dover, Den

Lee, John (Pendle)

Dunn, Bob

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Durant, Tony

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Dykes, Hugh

Lightbown, David

Eggar, Tim

Lilley, Peter

Evennett, David

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Fallon, Michael

Lord, Michael

Favell, Tony

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

McCrindle, Robert

Fishburn, John Dudley

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Fookes, Dame Janet

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Forman, Nigel

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Maclean, David

Forth, Eric

McLoughlin, Patrick

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Fox, Sir Marcus

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Freeman, Roger

Major, Rt Hon John

80

Malins, Humfrey

Sims, Roger

Mans, Keith

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Marlow, Tony

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Speller, Tony

Mates, Michael

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Maude, Hon Francis

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Squire, Robin

Mellor, David

Stanbrook, Ivor

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Miller, Sir Hal

Steen, Anthony

Mills, Iain

Stern, Michael

Miscampbell, Norman

Stevens, Lewis

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Mitchell, Sir David

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Moate, Roger

Stokes, Sir John

Monro, Sir Hector

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Sumberg, David

Moore, Rt Hon John

Summerson, Hugo

Morrison, Sir Charles

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Neale, Gerrard

Temple-Morris, Peter

Nelson, Anthony

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Neubert, Michael

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Thorne, Neil

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Thornton, Malcolm

Oppenheim, Phillip

Thurnham, Peter

Page, Richard

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Paice, James

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Patnick, Irvine

Tracey, Richard

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Trippier, David

Pawsey, James

Twinn, Dr Ian

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Viggers, Peter

Porter, David (Waveney)

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Portillo, Michael

Waldegrave, Hon William

Powell, William (Corby)

Walden, George

Price, Sir David

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Waller, Gary

Rathbone, Tim

Walters, Sir Dennis

Redwood, John

Ward, John

Renton, Tim

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Rhodes James, Robert

Warren, Kenneth

Riddick, Graham

Wells, Bowen

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Whitney, Ray

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Widdecombe, Ann

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Wiggin, Jerry

Rowe, Andrew

Wilshire, David

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Ryder, Richard

Wolfson, Mark

Sackville, Hon Tom

Wood, Timothy

Sayeed, Jonathan

Woodcock, Mike

Shaw, David (Dover)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Tellers for the Moes:

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Mr. John M. Taylor and

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory

Shersby, Michael

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the widespread medical support for the objectives of the White Paper "Working for Patients" and believes that the proposals in that White Paper will enable the health service and individual doctors to respond better to the needs and wishes of patients, extend patient choice, delegate responsibility to where the services are provided and secure the best value for money; affirms its support for the basic principles of the National Health Service which will be strengthened by the early implementation of the White Paper proposals; and looks forward to the constructive contributions from medical organisations to achieve that.

Teacher Shortages
7.19 pm
Mr. Jack Straw: I beg to move,
That this House, noting the widespread evidence from Her Majesty's Inspectorate, local education authorities, and many others, of severe and ever growing teacher shortages in many parts of the country, and in many subjects, and a low teacher morale across the country, condemns Her Majesty's Government for its complacency and its failure to take effective measures to reduce teacher shortages, or to raise the morale of the teaching profession, without which the delivery of the national curriculum educational standards and the provision of greater opportunities for children may be put at grave risk.
The quality of education that children receive can only be as good as the teachers who provide it. That has been true at all times, but the need for teachers to be of the highest quality has never been greater than it is today.
After 10 years of the present Government standards of education have faltered, as last year's Select Committee report showed. We are losing out internationally: Britain now spends a lower proportion of its national wealth on education than it did a decade ago. Capital spending dropped by 27 per cent. between 1981 and 1988. Central Government current investment in education has been cut by 18 per cent. in real terms, leaving local authorities and ratepayers to make up the difference. There is a £3 billion backlog of repairs. Half our children are educated in sub-standard accommodation, a quarter in classrooms so bad that the physical conditions are affecting their education. Fewer than one in three of our 16-year-olds stay on in full-time education, compared with two in three in France, Japan and the United States.
After 10 years of neglect by the Government there is an overwhelming need to raise standards of education and achievement, especially for the 80 per cent. of pupils who do not follow the A-level route to university or to a first degree. That is challenge enough for our teaching force, but on top of that challenge—and the challenge that teachers have already had to meet with GCSE—come the new demands for even greater skill and dedication: the demands requiring teachers to cope with the local management of schools, which will alter fundamentally the way in which schools are administered, and the demands on them to cope with the national curriculum and the associated systems of assessment and testing.
That is the challenge; what is the reality? The reality today is a teacher supply crisis. In many areas and many subjects, there are not enough properly qualified teachers in post. In some areas there are not even enough teachers, and children are having to be sent home. With the present policies, the crisis will become worse as the demographic time bomb explodes. The age group from which new young teachers are recruited will decline by 25 per cent. between now and 1995. On some estimates, the percentage of new graduates needed in teaching would have to rise from 11 per cent. today to 30 per cent. in five years' time just to meet the demand for new teachers. While the available pool of new teachers shrinks, the school population will rise.
No one, I believe, disagrees with the claim that teacher supply is in crisis. Wastage is so high that, as the interim advisory committee on teachers' pay has commented, 3,000 newly qualified teachers do not go into teaching at
82
all; and, on the Minister of State's own figures, 28 per cent. of those who do—nearly three in 10—leave within five years and stay out of teaching altogether.
Evidence of the teacher supply crisis comes—yes—from the Government's opponents. It comes from the teaching unions, from Labour local authorities and from the parliamentary Labour party, which conducted its own survey of teacher shortages. But it also comes from those whose job is to advise the Government—from the interim advisory committee on teachers' pay, under the chairmanship of Lord Chilver, from Her Majesty's inspectorate and from Conservative local education authorities. It also comes from those who represent a group that the Government claim to be empowering—parents—and from the daily experience of any of us who visit state schools and talk to those in them who are responsible for delivering the curriculum.
The evidence is overwhelming. The interim advisory committee report said that recruitment was
"worryingly below the Secretary of State's own target for secondary courses in mathematics, science, technology and (to a lesser extent) modern languages…We recognise that there are currently a range of initiatives underway to tackle these difficulties, but the task remains enormous…We continue to be impressed by teachers' commitment and their high professional standards; but morale appears to he as low as we judged it to be last year."
Then there is the evidence of Her Majesty's inspectorate in the report "Standards in Education". The report says:
"primary education is critically short of teachers with expertise in science, technology and mathematics."
On secondary schools, the report says:
"In areas where the cost of living is highest, such as the inner and outer London Boroughs and the home counties, recruiting teachers is an ever-growing problem and some schools are becoming more and more dependent on probationary and temporary teachers. Specialist teacher shortages are most severe in mathematics, science and craft, design and technology (CDT)."
The Elton report made a similar point about the problems of low motivation and shortages.
And so it goes on. I understand that no one has told the Select Committee in its recent inquiry that teacher shortages are not causing a problem: no one, that is, except the Government. The response of the Minister of State to all that evidence arid more has been to describe it as a myth. Speaking to the Secondary Heads Association conference two weeks ago, the Minister said:
"We really do need…to nail this myth that teaching has difficulty in securing recruits and in retaining them when it does secure them."
Let me ask the Minister a few questions about that myth. Did Her Majesty's inspectorate and the interim advisory committee invent their conclusions? Why—as a withering editorial in last week's Times Educational Supplement asked—are there 20 per cent. more job advertisements in the TES Than there were at this time last year? As the paper commented:
"If there is no shortage, there is certainly a remarkably energetic hunt for teachers to make good the shortage which doesn't exist."
What about the evidence from the Prime Minister's London borough of Barnet? A report from the chief education officer shows a near trebling of resignations in the past seven years. In secondary education the number of teachers resigning has risen from 7 per cent. six years ago to 18 per cent. last year, and in primary education it has risen from 5 per cent. six years ago to 14 per cent. last year.
Mr. James Pawsey: If the position is as the hon. Gentleman describes, will he come out firmly in favour of licensed teachers in his speech?
Mr. Straw: No. I shall explain to the hon. Gentleman exactly why I do not believe that lowering standards for teachers will solve the problems.
The report from the Prime Minister's own Conservative authority spells out just what great strains the shortages are imposing on teachers in the borough, and how they are reflected in shortages in other Conservative boroughs such as Harrow, Havering and Redbridge—shortages that in many instances are as bad as, or worse than, those in Labour authorities.
What about the figures that show consistently that the Government have failed to hit the targets that they have set for recruitment to training in shortage subjects? According to the interim advisory committee, the number of applicants for mathematics courses last year was down to 27 per cent. below the target. For physics the figure was 23 per cent., for CDT 21 per cent., for modern languages 13 per cent. and for chemistry 42 per cent. Yet the Minister of State tells us that the shortages are all a myth.
Let me quote the latest figures from the graduate teacher training registry comparing this year's applicants with last year's. They show a 2 per cent. decline in applicants for biology, a 17 per cent. decline for mathematics and a 24 per cent. decline for physics.
Mr. Ian Taylor: Does the hon. Gentlemen agree that the shortages to which he has referred are essentially a regional problem, as is shown by the written answer reported in column 326 of Hansard on 20 January 1989? As they are a regional problem, does the hon. Gentleman agree with regional pay bargaining?
Mr. Straw: No, I do not. If Conservative Members read the IAC reports for this year and last year, they will see that the committee, under the chairmanship of the Conservative Lord Chilver, considered that question and came down against regional pay for reasons which they set out.
If there is no problem—if it is all a myth—why are private schools now facing teacher shortages for the first time? Why is the Secretary of State agreeing that city technology colleges should pay their teachers 5 per cent. more than national pay scales, simply to recruit teachers?
The Minister of State says that it is all a myth. However, the Secretary of State is not that crude; his line has been different. He says that there has been a slight problem. However, in another orgy of self-congratulation, he claims to be tackling the problem with vigorous and effective measures. As ever, these measures are principally cosmetic. Of course, we should expect no more than cosmetics from a man who once worked as a consultant to Avon Cosmetics Limited. The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) looks embarrassed, but it is a fact that the Secretary of State once worked for Avon Cosmetics. That occupation fits the man, because most of the measures that he has brought forward are cosmetic and will not solve the problem.
There are major shortages of teachers in many parts of the country and in many subjects, and the position will get worse. On the best assumptions of the Secretary of State's own Department there will be a shortfall of 1,000 maths teachers, 1,500 physics teachers, 2,000 chemistry teachers, 2,000 music teachers, 2,500 modern language teachers, and
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6,000 teachers of craft, design and technology. Since those shortages will not be evenly spread, but will be concentrated, in some respects randomly, in particular schools and particular areas, the figures from the Secretary of State's own Department mean that in some schools there will not be sufficient teachers to deliver key subjects of the national curriculum.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) intervened about shortages. Does the experience of my hon. Friend confirm my own, which is that inevitably, in inner city areas, even outside the south-east—and we accept that there is a particular shortage problem in the south-east—because teaching is more difficult and demoralising, shortages are beginning to appear at a high level in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and so on?
Mr. Straw: I accept what my hon. Friend says, but I also make the point that shortages, as the Labour party's survey showed, are spreading across subjects and across the country. The figures I have quoted from the Department's evidence to the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts are almost certainly an underestimate of the likely shortages by 1995, based, as they are, on unsupportable assumptions, such as a 20 per cent. increase in target levels in training for physics, maths, technology, and modern languages, when the existing targets of 20 per cent. below that have never been reached except in one subject in one year in the past three years.
To all these problems, the Secretary of State has no effective policy response for his proposal for licensed teachers. That proposal raises the greatest suspicion that the Government will solve the problem of teacher shortages by bringing in sub-standard teachers on the cheap. I have made it clear that we favour a number of methods of entry to teacher training. None of us believes that the present structure of B Eds and postgraduate certificates of education should last for ever. If it is accepted that a high quality profession is needed to meet the challenges of the 1990s, it is madness to depress the standards and level of qualification below the graduate standard which has so painstakingly been reached for entry into the profession.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that for many years local education authorities have employed instructors who have not had the same academic qualifications as qualified teachers? They have employed instructors in CDT, home economics and other spheres who have been excellent teachers. As a result of using these people, we have been able to staff many departments. Will the hon. Gentleman not insult these people?
Mr. Straw: Of course, I am aware that the local authorities have had instructors, but no one has pretended, least of all the instructors, that they are qualified graduate teachers. What is now proposed is that people who are instructors, as it were, should become qualified graduate teachers without training. We have not had from this Government proposals for licensed doctors or nurses, but apparently the education—not of the children of the Secretary of State or of Cabinet members—of our children is to be left to people who are underqualified or unqualified.

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I ask the Secretary of State whether the licensed teacher system will produce teachers of graduate status and standard. If so, will the teachers get a degree, and who will validate it? How will the system operate? This afternoon, I asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, "Since the Secretary of State has said that all that is needed to go on to this licensed teacher scheme is a two-year experience of higher education, does that not mean that someone who has been in college for two years, following a Bachelor of Education or a PGCE but has failed his teaching practice, may be admitted to a licensed teacher scheme?" The Minister could not answer the question this afternoon, but perhaps the Secretary of State can answer it this evening.
Mr. George Howarth: Does my hon. Friend agree that, instead of looking at this licensing system, perhaps the Secretary of State might look at a suggestion made by one of my constituents who is a teacher-trainer and who suggests that, instead of having one intake on PGCE courses in a year, there should be two intakes, one in the summer and one midway through the year, so that the supply of trained teachers could be increased considerably within any given year?
Mr. Straw: That is the kind of suggestion which the Government should examine to introduce greater flexibility, with different entry routes into teaching but the same graduate exit route. Reference has been made to licensed teacher status. I will quote the favourite teacher trade union of the Secretary of State—not the National Union of Teachers, the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers or the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, but the Professional Association of Teachers whose general secretary, Mr. Peter Dawson, wrote to me about the licensed teacher scheme and authorised me to quote from his letter. He wrote:
"My comment concerns the introduction of licensed teachers. We think the proposals might very well help to overcome teacher shortages, if only we knew what they were. Time and time again, we have raised with Kenneth Baker the question of where the training is actually to come in on-the-job training arrangements. No kind of answer that makes any sense has yet been received. One is left with the impression that it is not so much on-the-job training that we are going to get but on-the-job sinking or swimming. Writing government policy on the back of a menu over dinner is all very well, but it does call for further thought next morning … We are still waiting for Kenneth Baker to complete his licensed teacher proposals. Perhaps he has forgotten."
I hope that the Secretary of State will provide us with a bit more detail about how the licensed teacher scheme will operate and whether it will produce teachers of a graduate standard. If they are to be graduates, will they get degrees and how will they be validated?
For about four months, I have been pressing the Secretary of State to publish the secondary schools staffing survey. After a number of parliamentary questions, he promised that it would be made available at the end of April. It was made available at 6.15 this evening. I am not surprised that the Secretary of State has done his best to sit on it, because the secondary staffing survey of 1988 shows that the situation, compared with 1974, is worsening. It shows that the proportion of teachers teaching their particular subjects who do not have a post A-level qualification in that subject has increased since 1984 from 51 to 53 per cent. In details about long-term absences, it shows that, in the survey week, 55 per cent. of schools were affected by long-term teacher absences, on top of 96 per
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cent. affected by short-term teacher absence. Of those absences the principal cause was not, as Conservative Members have pretended, that teachers were undertaking in-service training courses, which accounted for only 32 per cent. In fact, 70 per cent. were absent for other reasons. The other reasons are not given, and perhaps the Secretary of State has more details, but I suggest that the other reasons have to do with teacher shortages. The survey also shows that, in the survey week, 52 per cent. of schools were affected by vacancies.
The Government's record on teachers has been one of complacency, neglect and abuse. Pay is by no means everything but, as the interim advisory committee said, it is doubtful whether the pay level it recommended, constrained as it was by the Treasury, would
"secure the requisite degree of motivation among the generality of teachers at this crucial time."
The dedication of teachers is high, but morale is low and has not been helped by the Secretary of State's refusal so far to restore collective bargaining rights to teacher unions.
There is, however, a central problem that goes beyond pay and conditions. It lies at the heart of the teacher shortage crisis. Teachers are not valued by the Government. Instead, teachers have been used as an easy butt. They have been used and abused by the Conservative Right as a convenient excuse for explaining away the Government's failure to invest in our children.
Take, for example, the now notorious letter to local education authorities from the Department of Education and Science, giving them advice on who should be invited to the Buckingham palace reception and garden party to celebrate 150 years of state education. The letter said:
"They must be people likely to behave properly and bring credit to their particular aspect of the education service."
When all this came out—but not before—the Secretary of State said that he had not written the letter but that he regretted it. He did not say that he was sorry; he said that he regretted it.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Are they not the same thing?
Mr. Straw: No, they are not.
The Secretary of State is responsible for the generation of the climate in which, to quote the report of his own chief inspector:
"too many teachers feel that their profession and its work are misjudged and seriously undervalued."
The Secretary of State says that teacher shortages are a myth and that his measures are effective.
Let me read finally from a letter that I received last week from a constituent. It says:
"Dear Mr. Straw,
I thought that you might be interested to learn that my husband and I will be taking up teaching posts"
abroad
"from 1st September 1989. We are both regarded as valuable and experienced members of staff in our respective schools, but have found the deteriorating conditions, the increasing workloads and paltry pay rises unacceptable. Between us we have almost thirty years experience, but can see no way forward … We are not moving for the money"
but
"our conditions of service will be far superior and we think that our efforts will be better appreciated. At least we will not have to listen to Baker constantly telling us how incompetent and inadequate we are!"
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Where are they going?
Mr. Straw: They are going to teach in the Third world —in the Dominican Republic. They happen to believe that their conditions in the Dominican Republic will be better than they are in Bradford.
There are serious teacher shortages. There is a crisis of recruitment, retention and morale of good quality teachers. That crisis can and will only get worse until we have a Government who are committed to our state education service and who are willing properly to invest in this nation's children—our future.
7.42 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
`notes the importance of recruiting sufficient well qualified teachers, in particular for the implementation of the national curriculum; welcomes the vigorous measures which the Government has introduced to this end; welcomes the clear indication of the success of these measures; welcomes the measures the Government is taking to make teacher training more rigorous, more practical and more responsive to the needs of schools; and commends the Government's intention to continue to take whatever action is needed to ensure a continuing supply of high quality teachers.'.
I welcome this debate. I am glad to have this opportunity to put on record what we have done, what we are doing and what we intend to do to counter the problem of teacher shortages.
First, I should like to pay tribute to the teaching profession and to the many good teachers that we have in our schools. Theirs is a responsible and challenging job. Teaching is not easy. Not everybody can do it. However, teaching is an attractive and rewarding career. That is why people are coming forward in increasing numbers to train as teachers. That is why we have many first-class teachers in our schools. I am confident that all hon. Members will want to join me in paying tribute to them.
I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), but, as far as I am aware, he made no concrete suggestion for dealing with the shortage that he delineated. I shall therefore start with a few facts. There are more teachers relative to pupils than ever before. The overall pupil to teacher ratio, at 17:1, is at its lowest ever. The proportion of large classes has come down over the last 10 years. The proportion of pupils taught in classes of 31 or more has fallen by nearly 12 percentage points in primary schools and by nearly 9 percentage points in secondary schools. Some 25,000 teachers enter or re-enter the profession each year. Less than 1 per cent. of teachers leave the profession for other paid employment.
Recruitment to initial teacher training was a record in 1988—up by 5 per cent. over 1987. In primary, it was particularly good—12 per cent. up. The level of applications for initial training, starting in September of this year, is even higher. In primary it is up by 14 per cent. over the same time in 1988. In secondary, it is also up—by 1 per cent. Another indication of the popularity of teaching is that 10 per cent. of all graduates qualify as teachers.
The background—the overall picture—is encouraging. There is no shortage of people wanting to be teachers, yet there are teacher shortages in certain areas and in certain subjects, particularly maths and science. I must tell the House that there has never been a sufficient number of good, well-qualified teachers of maths and science. Even
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10 years ago, when there were some 9,000 unemployed teachers, there were not enough maths and science teachers.
The problem is not, however, confined to teaching. The engineering and electronics industries complain of shortages of people with maths and science qualifications. As fast as the education system can produce such people, they are snapped up. We need to increase the number of young people leaving school who are educated to advanced level in maths and science subjects. Anybody who has read Corelli Barnett's "The Audit of War" will know that that is a long-term and enduring problem that has affected our country for the better part of this century. It is something to which I know all hon. Members will wish to give the highest priority.
That is why the national curriculum is so important. In future, every youngster will have to take science—which will include physics and chemistry, not just biology—and technology up to the age of 16. Many more youngsters than now will have the opportunity to go on to A-levels and AS-levels, which makes it even more important to ensure that our schools get the teachers that they need.
I hope the House recognises from what I have said that the question of teacher supply is a complex one. It is also of fundamental importance.
Of course I realise that the overall figures that I have given—the global picture—are of little comfort when a particular school cannot find a particular teacher to teach a particular subject. I accept that. Three years ago, therefore, I set out my proposals for an action programme. The hon. Member for Blackburn asked me whether I am tackling the problem of teacher shortages. Clearly it does not suit his purpose to take yes for an answer. I remind the House that I have backed up the action programme that I set up over three years ago with expenditure, so far, of over £50 million.
Since I launched the action programme, the regional dimension of teacher shortages has changed. I think that hon. Members in all parts of the House now recognise that fact. It was recognised during the interventions in the speech of the hon. Member for Blackburn. There are particular problems in recruiting both secondary and primary teachers in London and the south-east. In my memorandum to the Select Committee, I showed how I was taking action to counter the problems as they developed.
Mr. Martin Flannery: The right hon. Gentleman has just told us about an action programme that he set up three years ago. I am on the Select Committee to which he referred. Why is it that every group that gave evidence to the Select Committee here and every group that gave evidence to us when we made visits described the shortage as a looming crisis? Will he explain why there is such a crisis after putting in hand an action programme? In three years it ought surely to have borne some fruit.
Mr. Baker: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait for a few moments? I shall answer his question when I deal with the action programmes that I have put in hand and with the ones that I intend to put in hand.
This is a serious issue. I am sometimes accused of being complacent, of doing nothing. That is an uncharacteristic

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accusation to level against me. I am not known for doing nothing. I brought the issue on to the public agenda, I am taking action, and I shall continue to take action.
May I deal with the five specific areas where I have taken action, or where I shall be taking action? The first relates to the number of new places for initial teacher training. Last Friday, I announced that the intake numbers to initial teacher training courses for 1990–91 in England and Wales would be increased. There will be an extra 2,000 places in 1990 over and above 1989.
As regards the spread of those increases, there is an overall increase of 9½ per cent. above the 1989 target, 34 per cent. in modern languages, 15 per cent. in science, 10 per cent. in craft, design and technology and 11 per cent. in maths. This means the teacher training institutions will have the money to recruit and train more students in these subjects. We have also set aside 450 places for new ideas for types of courses in modern languages, music and chemistry. We did this in 1987 and 1988 for new courses in science and maths, which has led to some new good ideas for courses aimed at new target groups of students.
The first need, as I think is recognised, is to attract new young people into the teaching profession. Apart from increasing the number of teaching places in 1990, to reinforce the attractions of teaching in the shortage subjects I introduced the bursary scheme. The bursary is tax-free, non-means-tested and is now worth £1,300. It is available for those students who wish to take a postgraduate certificate of education course—that is, one year extra at college—after they have graduated. The scheme was originally for trainees in maths, physics and CDT, and it has been successful in reversing the declining trend of recruitment to these declining subjects.
In 1985, there was a clear decline in CDT, and there were just 452 people coming forward for PGCE. That is now up to 764. The total in these three subjects—maths, physics and CDT—was about 1,685; it is now 2,400 a year. This shows that these bursaries are attractive, as one would expect.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the Secretary of State not accept, however, that the bursary scheme has been of minimal impact, not least because in some of the areas where it was intended to act as a remedy—for example, physics—it has fallen far below its target of achievement, as the Secretary of State and his Ministers have accepted across the Dispatch Box in this House?
Mr. Baker: It arrested a decline. There was a rapid decline in these three subjects. Taking physics, the figure in 1985 was 273; in 1988, it was 456. I am not satisfied with that figure. We need more teachers in these areas, so earlier this year I extended the scheme to chemistry. When I made my announcement on 27 January applications for chemistry were 27 per cent. down over the same time last year. The House, I know, will welcome the news that applications are now 5 per cent. up over this time last year. This is a considerable improvement. It shows that my bursary scheme is working, and there is little doubt that without it there would be far fewer students in shortage areas.
I turn now to mismatch, which I know is recognised by members of the Select Committee. By that I mean teachers trained in one subject teaching another—teachers of biology, for example, teaching physics or perhaps teachers
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of maths taking computer studies. Some examples of mismatch are more serious than others. However, there is no doubt that there arc too many teachers of some subjects and not enough of others. This is brought out well in the staffing survey which I published this evening, from which the hon. Member for Blackburn quoted, and he is quite right that mismatch has increased slightly between 1984 and 1988.
However, the survey indicates that the increase was not due to an aggregate shortfall in teacher supply, or to a fall in teachers with qualifications in shortage subjects; figures for physics, chemistry and CDT all increased, and percentages in maths have barely changed. Rather, the mismatch has arisen probably because of difficulties of deployment, which are greater during a period of falling rolls. Shortage subjects were not particularly affected; indeed, mismatch was unchanged in maths and clown in CDT.
There is no doubt, as I said, that there are too many teachers of some subjects and not enough of others. The situation can be improved considerably by means of in-service training. I have devoted £35·5 million over two years to support in-service training in shortage subjects. That is a substantial sum of money. I have placed in the Library today the key results of the secondary staffing survey. These show that mismatch continues to be a problem. I urge authorities and schools to continue to make use of in-service training support to counter mismatch.
An interesting finding of the staffing survey shows that the implementation of the national curriculum for a reasonable time in September in secondary schools from years one to three will not greatly change the pattern of curriculum provision in those schools. That is, of course, only to be expected, as the national curriculum builds on existing best practice.
Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State spoke about the relatively limited impact of the national curriculum in years one to three. What about years four and five?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman picked up the cue from his hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett). I heard it myself. The position on years four and five is certainly more complex, because we will then require more young people to take science, modern languages and CDT up to the age of 16. This is a problem we are trying to address.
I find it staggering that Opposition Front Bench Members have no ideas whatsoever. As the ventriloquist was cued by the hon. Member who will wind up, I hope we will have a stunning list of proposals and ideas as to how teacher supply can be increased.
I next deal with the other important source of recruitment to the teaching profession, which is re-entrants —former teachers seeking to come back into the profession. I emphasise the importance of former teachers already returning to teaching in considerable numbers: over half of new teaching appointments are taken by returning teachers. We must try to maintain and, if we can, increase this important source of recruits to teaching. There are some excellent and effective examples of measures aimed at returners: the "keep in touch" schemes, which help teachers out of service to keep abreast of changes in schools; career break schemes, which guarantee a post when a teacher returns; refresher training courses,

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for which a grant is available under the training grants scheme; part-time work and job sharing; and the provision of creche and nursery places. The solution lies in the hands of the local education authority and school employers, but much more can be done than at present, and I intend to do much to publicise the best practice so other authorities can follow it.
Mr. Harry Cohen rose—
Mr. Baker: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I know that many Members want to speak in what is a short debate.
Teaching is an attractive career for many mature entrants, both those looking for a career change and those seeking to re-enter the employment market. Four thousand five hundred mature entrants enter teaching each year for the first time. It is an important source of recruitment to the teaching profession. This is in addition to those who have re-entered teaching after a career break. With their experience and expertise, they have a great deal to offer schools and pupils.
I have offered assistance to this group. I have initiated the development of new courses in the shortage subjects: a shortened, two-year B Ed course and a part-time PGCE course. I have also funded a programme of 11 short taster courses. These give the mature entrants a feel for teaching and individual counselling and advice before they make the decision to become a teacher. I am also trying to encourage more mature people to enter teaching from the ethnic minorities. Across the country, 11 new initial courses aimed at the ethnic minorities have been set up with my support, providing some 200 training places. I am also supporting, at a cost of £30,000, a pilot project in Newham, which is helping men and women from these communities to enter teaching. Please wake up the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and tell him that.
I turn to licensed teachers, a policy also aimed at mature entrants. This scheme is designed to replace the range of existing routes by which teachers can be awarded qualified status without completing a standard course of initial training. It will be more rigorous than the existing system because it will ensure, as the existing system does not, that unqualified teachers receive the training they need and demonstrate their competence in the classroom before being granted qualified teacher status. It should also make it easier for mature people to enter teaching. I make no apology for that; I have already explained the importance of mature entrants.
But let me repeat: licensed teachers will be trained. They must be over 26. They must have had two years or more in higher education. That hardly adds up to a soft touch or a second-rate route into teaching.
The hon. Member for Blackburn asked me about the two years in higher education. In the consultation document that I shall be putting out and consulting widely on, we envisage two years to cover graduates and those with HNCs and HNDs. The hon. Gentleman asked me whether someone who had been sacked from two courses would be eligible. We do not intend to include such persons, but there might be cases in which someone has taken two years of a course—not necessarily a B Ed but perhaps a graduate course—and perhaps for family
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reasons has left and done something else and then wishes to enter teaching in their 30s. At the moment, they can do that and I would not want to exclude them, but the suggestion of two years is not a loophole to include anyone who has not been trained in higher education.
Mr. Straw: I am glad to have that assurance. I also asked the Secretary of State whether the qualification that those people attain will be a graduate qualification. Will it be a degree, and how will it be validated?
Mr. Baker: They will be given qualified teacher status. They will not be studying for a PGCE, so they will not achieve graduate status, but in virtually all cases they will be graduates in another subject. But I shall move on to that point in my proposal for articled teachers, which are quite separate from licensed teachers.
In all respects the new route is more rigorous than the present arrangements whereby an LEA can recommend anyone for qualified teacher status, without a minimum level of education being stipulated and without any further training being provided. The advantage is that someone who wishes to make a career change will not have to go back to college for a year—which can be very off-putting. They will be trained in post, but the training will be explicit and rigorous.
Licensed teachers will bring with them valuable experience from outside the profession. It is quite wrong to suggest that they will dilute the quality of the profession, as I hear was said at the teacher union conferences. That is an insult to people with important skills to offer whom we need to attract. It is also quite wrong to describe them as teachers on the cheap. In fact, licensed teachers will not come cheap, since to provide training in post while paying a salary and providing cover where needed will require a commitment of resources. We recognise that. The training of licensed teachers is already eligible for grant under the LEA training grants scheme, and I am considering what more is required.
We know that we need to increase the number of good teachers. We know that there are people out there who want to be teachers—good people with valuable experience. We also know that it is hard to insist that someone in mid-career should return to college for a year. The licensed teacher scheme squares that circle. It is one small but important measure towards ensuring that we obtain a sufficient number of high-quality, well trained and well qualified teachers, and I invite the Opposition to support it.
I now turn to the proposal for articled teachers, which has developed from a series of proposals that were put to me when I visited teacher training colleges, universities and polytechnics. I want to do more to attract into teaching graduates who want to train in schools but do not want to spend another year in college taking a PGCE. It is aimed at young graduates of 20, 21 or 22 who have studied three years of physics, French, history or English and do not wish to take a PGCE course in college, although that option will continue to be available.
We have been discussing with teacher trainers, chief education officers and heads a new experimental type of course for what my senior chief inspector has called "articled" teachers. Those students will do two years of school-based training. They will be doing actual teaching for much of the time. The money they get will reflect that. They will also enrol at a teacher training college which will

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award them a PGCE when they complete their training. I shall be inviting bids from LEAs and teacher training colleges jointly for pilot schemes to start in September 1990.
The students will get a balance of practical experience and training in teaching methods. Most of their training will be done by teachers in the school. I shall be monitoring the scheme closely. LEAs and teacher trainers have welcomed the scheme. They agree with me that new forms of teacher training are needed and that we must be flexible in considering them.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I am sure that my right hon. Friend has read the quite outstanding report by HMI on St. Martin's teacher training college. That college always gets an outstanding report. If it were to apply for the scheme, I trust that it would stand a good chance of getting it.
Mr. Baker: I know where it is, and it is a very good teacher training college. We would envisage that the young graduates in other subjects would be taken on in schools and paid a salary. They would also enrol at a college so that they could do some of the theoretical and background work of a teacher training course. That would last for two years, and would attract many people into the profession.
I now turn to the question of the quality and rigour of initial teacher training. All courses of initial teacher training have to be approved by the holder of my office. Courses are approved against specified criteria. The Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education—CATE—advises me on whether courses satisfy the criteria.
I have reviewed the criteria and the machinery for applying them. I propose to reconstitute the council with effect from 1 January 1990 with a wider remit and new, tougher criteria. I shall ask it not only to scrutinise new courses but to monitor those it has already seen.
The new criteria will take account of recent developments, including in particular the national curriculum. For example, all new primary teachers will have to have studied English, maths, science and design and technology. The criteria will also, as far as possible, be expressed in terms of competencies. In approving a course, I want to be clear about what the student can do when he or she completes the course. For example, all new teachers will have to be able to teach and assess the subjects they have specialised in, to the level appropriate to the top of the age range for which they have trained.
I shall be issuing a consultation document tomorrow. It will set out my proposals in detail and contain the text of the new criteria. I am asking for comments by 30 June. Initial teacher training is now becoming more rigorous and practical. But we can and shall do more.
I have set out the action which the Government have taken. We accept that there is a serious problem that must be addressed.
Mr. Cohen: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Baker: No, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
I have set out the actions we are taking to attract more people into the profession, our action on bursaries, licensed teachers and articled teachers, the criteria for teacher training courses and the increase in the number of teacher training courses in 1990. It is a positive programme for action to deal with the problem. We have been faced with a complete absence of ideas and total negation from
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the Opposition. The hon. Member for Blackburn has not produced any new ideas since he was appointed as my shadow. He is a perfect shadow; he is totally shadowy. We have heard no new ideas. The ideas that were supposed to be new were a recycling of my ideas. I understand that he is to make a great speech this week on something—on what, I do not know.
The Opposition should apply themselves more rigorously to deciding what should be done about teacher shortages instead of analysing the problem. They have been in opposition long enough to come up with some ideas. The fact that they have not produced any ideas means that they will be in opposition for even longer.
8.7 pm
Mr. Peter Shore: The Secretary of State has rehearsed the various measures that he has taken or proposes to take to help ease the shortage of teachers. But he has not attempted to tell the House his estimate of the net contribution that those measures will make to the overall shortage of teachers. He has not explained why, after his three years at the Department of Education and Science and after 10 years of the rule of his party, Britain is experiencing a far more serious problem of teacher supply in 1989 than existed in 1979.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) described the position as a crisis in teacher supply, the Secretary of State was playing with words when he said that he would not quite go along with that, but teacher shortages in certain areas and certain subjects are a matter of major concern. Let us settle for there being a crisis in the shortage of teachers in certain subjects and certain areas. That is different from what the Minister of State was reported to have said when she wanted to nail the myth of teacher shortage. I shall speak not just of a crisis in teacher supply. In my own area of London, and especially in the borough of Tower Hamlets, it is more a calamity and catastrophe.
In Tower Hamlets, the basic and most necessary of all the obligations on local education authorities—the obligation to supply schooling for children of school age —is not being met. It is a question not of children being sent home from school, but of children not being able to get into school. Throughout the past year. 400 to 500 children have been counted who were of school age, but were unable to find a place in school. Many were Bengali children and for them the deprivation of education was even more serious because of the linguistic and other cultural problems than it was for the ordinary residents of the area. After heroic efforts over the past six months, the number still stands at about 286. That is the number known. I fear, as do most people in the area, that there is a considerable additional number of uncounted children who have been unable to obtain a school place.
I am not describing a case in which the education authority—in this case, the Inner London education authority—has failed to provide schools. In the past 12 to 18 months, about five new schools have been built. The difficulty is that we have the schools, but not the teachers to man them. The last three schools completed in the borough have a capacity of more than 300 children, but have been able to accommodate only half that number as a result of the teacher shortage.
The problem is at its most vivid and most intolerable when one can cite children who cannot find places in

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school, who are out of school and should be in school. But that does not measure the dimensions of what is a major crisis in teacher supply in London and the south-east and what is a catastrophe in the case of inner London. I shall describe the vacancy position for full-time posts in the borough of Tower Hamlets. In nursery schools, 95 posts have been approved and there are 17 vacancies. In primary schools, there are 868 posts and 118 vacancies. In secondary schools, there are 742 posts and 122 vacancies. Those vacancies are met substantially, although not completely, by supply teachers. Without supply teachers, there would be a complete breakdown of education in the borough of Tower Hamlets.
In addition, the borough has a shocking turnover of permanent staff. In the last year for which there are figures, 1987–88, 33 per cent. of permanent staff in nursery and primary schools left. In secondary schools, the figure was 27 per cent. There is hardly a teacher to be found who has more than three years' experience in the borough.
Ms. Mildred Gordon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the case that permanent vacancies are filled by supply teachers is worse than it seems in view of the fact that in one school in Tower Hamlets there were 10 different supply teachers in the first 15 weeks of the year? That is not teaching; it is just child-minding.
Mr. Shore: My hon. Friend is correct. I was going to say some additional words about the role of temporary teachers. Many temporary teachers are drawn from Australia and New Zealand. As the Secretary of State knows, they come over for a year or two. Schools are lucky if they stay for a full year, but at least they may stay for six months. I shall read the House a letter I received earlier this year from the education officer for division 5 of ILEA, which is Tower Hamlets. He said:
"the Division has only managed in the past 3/4 years to keep schools open by the use of casual cover teachers mainly from New Zealand and Australia. These teachers have for some time been experiencing considerable delays in getting their qualifications recognised by the D.E.S. This has meant that they have had to be employed, and paid initially at unqualified teacher rates, pending receipt of recognition. This often takes many months".
That has been a major problem, which I have pursued with the Secretary of State.
I cannot see any sign that matters will improve, even if all the schemes mentioned by the Secretary of State produce additional teachers. Unless different action is taken, I very much doubt that those teachers will find their way into the inner cities, where the teacher shortage is at its worst. I have two reasons for that belief. First, in division 5 we know from our own demographic records that we need 1,800 new places and the teachers required to look after those children by 1990. A further 1,000 places will be needed by 1992 and an estimated additional 500 by 1994.
The second reason for my pessimism is that it is at least possible at present, under ILEA, to target teachers and efforts to recruit them on the boroughs where there are the most grievous shortages. Tower Hamlets and Hackney, the adjacent borough, are receiving most of ILEA's attention. But by next April, there will be no ILEA and we shall all be fighting for teachers with our own resources.
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There will be appalling competition—an auction—for scarce teachers throughout London and the most deprived boroughs will come out worst.
ILEA is doing a great deal. The Secretary of State mentioned returning teachers, who are crucial. ILEA has been spending a considerable amount on a campaign to attract teachers back into the profession and it has also agreed to introduce an allowance for so-called non-qualified teachers—that is, qualified teachers from Australia and New Zealand whose qualifications are not recognised by the Department of Education and Science—to encourage them to stay in the authority. In addition, ILEA is trying to give increments for experience and is paying many to assist teachers with travel. But what ILEA has done is unlikely to solve the problem. The problem is too serious, especially in London where teachers have to face the appalling problems of finding accommodation.
When I considered the rather self-congratulatory speech of the Secretary of State, I could not help but think about some of the actions he has taken that have been anything but helpful. Why did he have to rate-cap ILEA when he knows that the payment of teachers and money for facilities could help to ease the teacher shortage? Why has he ignored all the evidence that teachers' pay is a major factor in creating a shortage of teachers? It is not only the Department of Education and Science which could help to ease those problems. The Home Office and the Department of Employment, when considering applications for work permits, do not recognise primary teachers as one of the priority categories. Teachers with primary teaching skills from Canada or elsewhere are not registered as a priority category and, therefore, are not given a permit to work in the United Kingdom.
It is a peculiarly had situation. It is difficult to understand why, when the Select Committee on Home Affairs reported specifically on the borough of Tower Hamlets in its "Bangladeshis in Britain" report at the end of 1986 and pointed out that they were under-achieving educationally and not getting the quality, quantity or kind of education that they needed, the Minister has done nothing to help to alleviate what is basically a disgrace and a shame to the whole of our education system. That is extraordinary.
In conclusion, I remind the Secretary of State that he is a Minister in a Government whose Prime Minister started her third term with a pledge to take on, to help and to ameliorate the problems of the inner cities.
8.20 pm
Mr. James Pawsey: I listened with interest to the elegant and eloquent speech of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). I can understand even more than previously why he is held in such respect and affection in his constituency. He spoke with clear knowledge about London and I am sure that he will forgive me if I do not follow him down the road that he has signposted.
Like many of my hon. Friends, I welcome and enjoy Opposition Supply days. I am not certain who, on the Opposition side, is responsible for the selection of subjects, but whoever suggested this one on teacher shortages must be working for us. I am tempted to say that to initiate a debate on this subject is the equivalent, if not of shooting oneself in the foot, then of shooting up the blackboard. But then that is the increasing tendency of the hon.

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Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). Witness his exhibition last week when he sought, on a completely bogus point of order, to attack my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the production of the consultation document on higher education.
However, even the hon. Gentleman is not all bad. I welcomed his comments in The Sunday Times about the suggestion for a "Queen's award for education for good schools". I welcome his conversion to that point because some years ago I suggested it to my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State, now Lord Joseph, but he did not feel inclined to take it on board. I have also suggested it to my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State, except I ventured to suggest that it might be termed, "The Secretary of State's award for schools". I hope that now that there is some unity between the hon. Member for Blackburn and me on this, he might advance the case—
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: What about "The Baker prize for excellence"?
Mr. Pawsey: Yes, as my hon. Friend has said, "The Baker prize for excellence," would be a good title for it.
Today's Opposition topic is teacher shortages and, like so many others, it is wide of the mark. The facts are that last year 1·5 per cent. of all primary and 1 per cent. of all secondary posts were unfilled—that is actually fewer than in 1987. The shortages, not surprisingly, were most felt in the south-east—Particularly London which was the point made by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney. But it is fair to say that there is no overall significant shortage of teachers. Indeed, I was pleased to read that the Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers, reporting on the first destination survey of students completing university courses of initial training for the teaching profession in 1988, said:
"It is pleasing to note that in 1988, after a slight dip in 1987, the figure for qualified students known to have obtained a teaching post in the UK returned to its normal level (75·1 per cent.); this was despite the increase in output."
That last phrase should surely be the key to teacher shortages. There is an increase in the number of people joining the profession. That suggests that this debate, like so many others initiated by the Opposition, is out of date.
That is par for the Opposition course and once more they have chosen to debate a subject that is showing signs of improving. It seems that Opposition Members are deliberately deciding to select subjects that show Government policies in an improving light.
Despite what the Opposition say, young people are increasingly seeing teaching as an attractive and worthwhile profession. There is little truth, if any, in the allegation that teaching is an underrated profession with morale at rock bottom. Indeed, the evidence suggests the opposite.
Like my hon. Friends, I am certainly not complacent and, although there may be sufficient teachers overall, there are shortages in certain subjects and recruitment difficulties in some regions. These points have been recognised by the Government for some years, and clearly the Government's action is now bearing fruit.
I welcome the more flexible use of starting salaries and incentive allowances. I welcome the more active local recruitment of teachers. I welcome more part-time working and, above all, I welcome the active encouragement to former teachers to return to the profession. That point was hammered home by my right hon. Friend.
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In fact, 1988 was an excellent recruitment year for teachers, but, that having been said, the training for teachers must be right. Social theory is OK but it may be thought to be a poor substitute for actual classroom practice. Education best takes place in a disciplined environment and in some cases, and in some schools, that necessary discipline is lacking. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister of State replies, she will give some thought to how the subject of teaching is taught in our colleges. I hope that she might persuade those who produce the syllabus in those colleges to build in more classroom practice.
I am absolutely convinced that the overwhelming majority of teachers are committed to their work and to the young people in their charge, and I should like to see their remuneration reflect both the importance of their work and the commitment which the majority of them bring to it.
Mr. Flannery: The hon. Gentleman has never said that before to his right hon. Friend.
Mr. Pawsey: With respect, that is what I am saying to my right hon. Friend who is listening to this debate in the same intent way as Opposition Members.
I should like to see good teachers getting more money and greater differentials in the profession, with those who are the best getting the best pay.
My right hon. Friend has already sought to persuade the Treasury to make available additional funds for teachers. I wish him well when the new round starts and hope that he is successful in obtaining better funding. I found it significant that the Chancellor is a signatory to the Government's amendment to the motion and I am certain that, when my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Treasury read the report of the debate, they will study with care the references to increased pay for teachers. I hope that when they do so they will recognise the importance of having a reasonably remunerated profession and that they will ensure that the necessary funds are made available.
Earlier I referred to the fact that in some areas and in some subjects there are difficulties and I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will not let a vocal, if shortsighted, opposition to licensed teachers prevent him from going forward with this idea. Good teachers are those who have the knowledge and qualifications, and the ability and willingness to communicate that knowledge to children and young people in the classroom.
I support the concept of licensed teachers and look forward to reading, in due course, the detailed proposals, but I believe that the trailed plans might be inadequate in one respect. It seems that present ideas make provision for local education authorities to supervise schemes for licensed teachers. I believe that that may not work as well as it should, because some local education authorities remain heavily union oriented and we are all well aware of the views of certain unions regarding the concept of licensed teachers. It would, therefore, seem to me preferable if responsibility for supervision of licensed teachers were to lie with the individual school. Let it be their decision. Schools and heads will enjoy a greater discretion under the Education Reform Act 1988 and that discretion should operate in this area as well as others.
I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say that licensed teachers should be supervised by experienced teachers for a period of, say, two years.
Mr. Roy Beggs: Having had a lot of experience in schools for many years, I should like the hon. Member to tell the House how schools that are understaffed will find the manpower to supervise and train the licensed teacher.
Mr. Pawsey: I have already said that it will be on-the-job training. I believe that experienced teachers have a great deal of knowledge to impart to those who are eager to learn, and those who are coming forward to take advantage of the licensed teacher scheme will be anxious to learn and, in turn, to impart their knowledge to the young people in their charge.
Mr. Flannery: Answer the question.
Mr. Pawsey: I have answered the question and if the hon. Gentleman was not listening, as usual, that is his hard luck.
I believe that at the end of two years and only after the satisfactory completion of that period the licensed teacher would be fully qualified. If that idea is regarded, as it clearly is by certain Opposition Members, as being revolutionary, let me say that the right already exists in grant-maintained schools and, if we trust those schools to supervise licensed teachers, why should not other schools have a similar right?
Licensed teachers would enable genuinely committed men and women to enter the profession, would constitute an additional source of experience and expertise and should be welcomed by all who are genuinely concerned about teacher numbers. Licensed teachers would not dilute the quality of the profession. That point has been well hammered home by my right hon. Friend. The word he used in this context was "rigorous", and he was right. Clearly, this route to the profession will be a difficult one, but I am certain that many will wish to take advantage of it. It is unfair and unjust to suggest that licensed teachers will dilute the profession. Licensed teachers, in my view, will help to ensure an adequate supply of intelligent and gifted people who want to teach and to work with the country's youngsters. They should be encouraged to come forward, for they will do much to improve the quality and standard of state education.
8.32 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes: The honest seeker after truth might have been slightly surprised by the different interpretations put upon the same facts in this debate. The debate opened with the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) arguing factually matters that were not contradicted by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State was then asked implicitly to accept or deny the comment made by his colleague the Minister of State that the teacher shortage was a myth. There was no denial of that, yet the Secretary of State admitted that there clearly was a problem. He announced that the Government had taken measures, were taking measures and would take measures—all of which is welcome—but did not suggest—and he was specifically asked that question from these Benches—that even all those measures together would ensure that we had the number of teachers we needed.
The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) then confirmed the facts and showed that in inner London particularly—it is worse here than elsewhere—there is not just a problem but a fundamental, deep-rooted and long-lasting crisis. He used stronger
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words than those, "catastrophe" and others. I have a constituency which, except for the river in between, is next door to his, and we in Southwark share many of the same desperate week-by-week problems and concerns about shortage of teachers that he has argued apply to Tower Hamlets. Southwark, Tower Hamlets and other inner London boroughs have all had terrible recruitment problems over many years.
Then we had the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) saying that some of the proposals are good but, reading between his lines, arguing, and possibly for the first time, that nothing will solve the fundamental problem unless there is more money for teachers and more fundamental ways of improving their morale.
The reality is confirmed in the recently published annual report of Her Majesty's senior chief inspector of schools, entitled "Standards in Education", which makes the case extremely clearly. At the end of that report, from paragraph 67 onwards, the senior inspector points the way forward in the light of the Education Reform Act 1988 and says:
"In addition there are a number of sphinxes along the route whose riddles will need to be solved if the education service is to respond effectively to the many changes it is called upon to make.
The first of those centres on that most important component of an effective education service namely, ensuring a sufficient supply of suitably qualified and competent teachers trained and willing to set about doing all that needs to be done."
He concludes that section with these words:
"Standards of learning are never improved by poor teachers and there are no cheap, high quality routes into teaching."
He then goes on to make it clear that the need for teachers will grow because of the demands that the new educational format places on the education system The national curriculum, the new responsibilities for schools that follow from the GCSE and, as increasing numbers of hon. Members know, the practical implications for teachers' time of more and more assessment and more and more non-contact work, mean that we shall need more and more teachers. Nothing that the Secretary of State has said today suggests that we will catch up and supply our education service with those numbers of teachers as a result of the sorts of small, limited-effect remedies that he has proposed.
Lastly, the senior chief inspector makes the point that, in addition to the general problem and the growing problem because of new demands, there are, of course, the specific problems which we all know have now been identified in specific subjects to complement the specific geographical areas of difficulty. Then we have his recommendation:
"In seeking to ensure that is what happens"—
that is, that we manage to meet the demands of the educational future—
"teachers' pay, conditions of service and the nature of the changes intended will all have a part to play. But of great importance to most teachers is that the work they do is seen to be valued and rated highly by society; that its difficulties are understood and that teachers and education are not used as convenient scapegoats for all society's problems. Currently"—
and this is his finding; not a party political finding—
"too many teachers feel that their profession and its work are misjudged and seriously undervalued."
That is this year's report on the teaching profession and that is why, when it comes to voting on the motion at the

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end of the debate, it would be wrong to vote for the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, the Chancellor and others,which
"welcomes the clear indication of the success"
of the measures so far taken. Although of course there have been some successes, after 10 years in office the Government are complacent if they say that what they have done has been successful. What they have done so far has not succeeded. We do not have the teachers in place. We do not have teachers with morale in place. We do not have teachers as a profession paid adequately to ensure adequate supply in the weeks, months and years to come.
In inner London one feels that as strongly as anywhere. We are short of over 650 teachers in London alone. It is two and a half times worse in the capital city than the average across the country.
It makes me reflect that, perhaps, there is above all one simple question that the Secretary of State and his colleagues must answer: what is a teacher worth? If we imagine that teachers are in a free market, good performance and high productivity would lead to improving salaries. As the Secretary of State has acknowledged that teachers during the past year have put on a good performance and increased their productivity —given all the other demands on themߞsurely market forces should prevail, at least to some extent, and teachers should be awarded a substantial pay increase. However, they have received an increase of 6 per cent., which is below the current inflation rate. That is derisory. It does not recognise the teachers' hard work during the past year, let alone the other demands we make of them. It is about timeߞand the Secretary of State ducked this issue from the beginning to the end of his speech—that teachers were offered salaries comparable with those that could be earned by graduates in careers such as accountancy, management or industry. One will not get people to stay in teaching if they are not paid the same as they would receive if they sold their skills elsewhere.
I find it ridiculous that one police force in England and Wales—the Metropolitan police—spends more on recruitment in a year than the Department of Education and Science does on recruiting teachers as a career. Last year, the Metropolitan police spent £1·1 million. The Department of Education and Science's teaching as a career unit spent £0·9 million. We should learn from the Metropolitan police. Perhaps we should have a "wanted" notice, such as the police have, to make people aware of the drama and the danger of the present position in words such as
"Missing teachers. Do you know one? Have you seen one? Can you help?"
It is about lime that the Department of Education and Science made people aware of the nature, the urgency and depth of the problem which it is not investing sufficient money to redress, even from its departmental budget.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: The hon. Gentleman muddles up like with unlike. If he wants to compare the recruitment of the police and the recruitment of teachers, the comparison should be between what the Home Office spends on recruiting police and issuing general advertisements and what the Department of Education and Science spends. The Metropolitan police, as a direct employer, is like a local education authority. The hon. Gentleman should look at the local education authorities' budgets for recruitment. That is the analogy.
Mr. Hughes: I shall deal exactly with that point. When there have been shortages in recruits to the police or armed forces in the decade that the Government have been in office, the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Defence have said that we must pay more because we need people to work in the front line. We have heard no such response from the Treasury to help the Department of Education and Science to a similar job. Of course, the front-line responsibility for recruiting comes from the education authorities, which are the direct employers. However, we all know from where they get their money. They obtain their money from the Department of Education and Science; most of their money comes from grant. The Government need to give a lead, which in 10 years we have not seen.
It is a disgrace that we are asking people who go into teaching to stay at a regularly lower level of income and with lower levels of career prospects than they would elsewhere in the professional world. I intervened to ask the Secretary of State about the bursary schemes. There have been some improvements in the sense that bursaries may have reversed the decline of those going into shortage subjects. However, many of the targets have not been achieved. The Secretary of State has admitted that in the House.
The licensed teacher scheme still has the sort of problems mentioned in the intervention by the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) during the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). In order for licensed teachers to be trained by full-time, long-term teachers, the teachers already in post need the time to do the training, in addition to their other responsibilities. That means there would need to be more teachers to cover the same amount of teaching time. That means more money will be needed, because one must supply the resources. Of course, it is a good idea for those already in the profession to train others in the classroom, but they cannot do that without more money being given to those education authorities, because training is an additional function and teachers are already hard pressed and overworked.
What about the pool of inactive teachers? We need to look more closely at recruiting from that supply. There are more than 400,000 people currently in that pool. I am sure that many of them would come back if they thought that their careers would be well rewarded and worth returning to.
It is, of course, welcome to have new ideas put forward. We heard, but only in shadowy terms, the idea of articled teachers, although it appears to have a potential. I shall not reject it as a possible idea, but other approaches are needed too. Many ideas currently being put to the Select Committee by the employers, the Association of County Councils, are practical ways of recruiting people, of holding people and of assisting those who have family commitments and otherwise might not be able to return to teaching.
The regional difficulties will not be solved by differential pay, which appears to be rejected by all the best evidence. If we are to tackle teacher shortage, the Government's housing policy needs to change to ensure that teachers in areas of high housing cost can find somewhere to live, that they have the ability to travel to work and that they can move to where the jobs are.
One of the difficulties is that the consequence of shortages is that not only does morale go down and

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reliance on supply teachers go up, but we ask teachers regularly to cover for colleagues as well. That means that more and more teachers are teaching subjects with which they are not familiar. The difficulties not only concern recruiting teachers from Australia and New Zealand, but regularly there has been pressure for Irish teachers, for example, to be accepted as qualified and allowed to teach here. It has taken a long time to persuade the Department of Education and Science to allow many of them to come to help.
In the months to come, with the national curriculum, teachers will have substantial new pressures on them. I say to the Secretary of State and his Ministers that we need to restore free bargaining between employer and employee, with the almost certain result that teachers will be paid more. More money must not just go to the teachers who go to the Government's favoured institutions such as the CTCs. Why should people be paid more to teach in a CTC than in any other school in a hard-pressed city front-line environment? The reality is that they are being paid more because it is one of the only ways in which the Secretary of State can be sure that he will get teachers into those colleges. That is another form of distortion in favour of his latest scheme.
We need to improve the range of senior grades. An enormous number of teachers are held at a top grade without any prospect of improving their lot thereafter. We need to develop secondment schemes and increasingly to put more money into in-service training. We need to widen the bonus schemes too.
I have put five specific ideas to the Secretary of State, but I end with this. Unless we increase substantially the funding for schools and for teachers from the Department of Education and Science budget, we shall not deal with the continuing problem of teacher shortages. The latest public expenditure figures show that the increase in the schools budget will be less than 4 per cent. between this financial year and the next. Unless the Secretary of State or his Minister of State give an assurance tonight that planned spending on teachers will at least keep pace with inflation, we shall end the next decade with the same problems as we have ended this. Now is the time for investment for the future. The Government have the ability to spend money. They must now do so.
8.48 pm
Mr. George Walden: The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) predictably accused my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of complacency. That appears to be a rather surprising suggestion, because, if my right hon. Friend had been complacent about teachers, they would have had a much easier time than they have had in the past few years.
I believe that my right hon. Friend knows well that we face a potentially serious problem. What he has not been able to underline—I imagine for reasons of state—is that it is a problem not only of quantity but of quality. My right hon. Friend will face a very serious problem as we get up to the demographic dip in 1995. On the one hand, he will be competing more and more intensively with other employers outside who will be in a position—because they will be private enterprise firms—to improve the package of
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attractions that they offer to young graduates and, on the other, he will need to do two things at once in his general strategy on education.
My right hon. Friend is trying to raise the standards in schools at the same time as he is trying to expand the number of people in higher education—incidentally, I congratulate him on his consultation paper on that subject. If my right hon. Friend does not succeed in recruiting not only the right number but the right quality of teachers, we shall see an expansion in higher education, but also a dilution of higher education. That would be a catastrophe. There are some universities where quality is not all that it should be now. Because of the failure to recruit sufficient teachers of sufficient quality, there is the stark possibility of a failure to deliver the national curriculum in schools and a simultaneous watering down of British higher education. That is a fearful prospect.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend announced tonight —I shall look at the details tomorrow—that he will tighten up the conditions and criteria in teacher-training colleges, because, as I have already said, my right hon. Friend has two problems: he must get more teachers and better ones. I hope that he will do whatever he can to demystify some of the pseudo-professionalism that arises in those institutions. I hope that he will continue to support and encourage best practice because he will do a great service to the profession as well as to parents.
Recently I read a study by an academic—my right hon. Friend probably paid for it—which came, as such educational studies often do, to conclusions of a stunning banality. The problem posed was why it was difficult to recruit teachers and there were three parts to the answer: first pay, secondly status, and thirdly the children—that is especially important.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) is wrong to say that teachers must be reasonably paid. Given our current situation, teachers should be well paid, provided that the pressures on them to improve the quality of their profession in the ways hinted at by my right hon. Friend are maintained and provided that the profession accepts the desirability and inevitability of differential pay according to merit as far as possible.
My right hon. Friend must make it clear to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I am sure that he will—that we must not think in terms of paying teachers what we can get away with, but paying them well, because a potential crisis is looming in the mid-1990s. If he is short of arguments for convincing the Chancellor, he could point out that if the Chancellor cannot afford to pay for education, he cannot afford an economy. It is education that will produce the highly trained technicians that will be needed and they will decide whether his economy sinks or swims. If we cannot afford to pay for education, we cannot afford a civilised country. I do not need to give any illustrations to the House of the yobbishness and the loutishness with which our society is infested and which has a lot to do with basic problems of education. I hope that my right hon. Friend will succeed in not only getting whatever crumbs he can from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but in making clear to him that we need a forward-looking strategy that will deal with the growing crisis rather than waiting until it is upon us.
The second problem regarding the recruitment of teachers, as suggested by our expensive academic study, was that of teacher status. When the average person is

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watching the television and wondering what to do with his life and he happens to see NUT representatives' behaviour at their conference, he may not be automatically attracted into the profession by that rather dissolute image. Teachers could do a lot to help themselves regarding status. Teachers must also look at their own teaching methods. I do not believe that parents or children will respect teachers if
"the schoolmaster timidly flatters his pupils and the pupils make light of their masters as well as their attendants. Generally speaking the young copy their elders, argue with them and will not do as they are told; while the old, anxious not to be thought disagreeable tyrants, imitate the young and condescend to enter into their jokes and amusements."
That is not the view of some reactionary frump—it is not even my view; it comes from Plato. The problem has been with us for some time, but the image that teachers project to parents and to children will not improve the status of the profession if it is still based on the old-fashioned ideas of the 1960s. However, as I have just illustrated, the problem has been with us for many years.
The third part of the answer given in the academic study related to children. We must be imaginative when considering this aspect of the problem. We are living in a country with the highest divorce rate in Europe. I listened with interest and with respect to the points made by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). I do not represent a constituency with social and economic problems that are remotely like those faced by the right hon. Gentleman's constituency, but problems exist.
When I visit schools in my area I ask how the reading is coming along. That is a pointed question because in some of my schools there is a tendency to talk about damp patches on the wall. I am more interested in the quality of education. When I ask that question, some teachers say to me with a laugh, "Reading, Mr. Walden? Some of our children cannot even talk properly." They tell me that their first problem as teachers is not what to teach that day, but whether to comfort the mother who is crying around the corner because the marriage has just broken up or the partner has gone away for the nth time, or the child who has come into the classroom crying because his father or mother has disappeared for the nth time.
The social problems faced in this country that occur to a greater degree here than elsewhere in Europe—remember our divorce rate—are immediately impacting on the teacher and making teaching a less attractive profession. I am not known for being particularly soft-hearted to teachers, but when such problems arise in my socially privileged constituency, it does not take much imagination to consider what is happening in others, mainly Labour-held, although I accept that a few of my hon. Friends also face similar problems.
My final point—I raise it with perhaps tedious predictability from the point of view of my right hon. Friend—is that teachers also face children who come to school in the morning, often, although not exclusively, from broken homes having stayed up late at night. They have spent the night not doing directly educational things, but a thing that tends to de-educate and cretinise children —watching four or five hours of television. What are the Government going to do about that? They have a curious strategy. On the one hand, my right hon. Friend is trying to fill the heads of children with something worthwhile, but on the other my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary seems to want to fill them with cretinising rubbish from
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Mr. Murdoch. One could present this as a rational division of labour—a sort of Champs de Mars by which one digs a hole and another fills it up. But it seems not a particularly intelligent approach to what is a fundamental problem.
I was struck the other day to note that the Secretary of State, with impressive educational idealism, was teaching "A Tale of Two Cities." I do not think I am being too hard on the children of today when I suggest that few children in this country have read or will ever read "A Tale of Two Cities" because it is full of long words and they are not taught to read difficult books. So if what the Home Secretary plans in his broadcasting White Paper goes ahead, not only will children not read Dickens; they will be lucky if they can get their minds round Adrian Mole.
All of this has a direct impact on the problem that we are discussing because, with about a third of British marriages breaking up, teachers face all the problems that arise from such a large incidence of broken families. They also face the dismal prospect of being confronted by the telly-tired child in the morning. If the Home Secretary has his way, that child will be cretinised even more.
These are serious matters. They may sound tangential, but they are central to the whole problem of boosting the profession, qualitatively and quantitatively, because we do not want to get into the situation in which we found ourselves in the 1960s—which everyone, including Opposition Members, must recall—when we had to take whoever we could get to teach. Many people would not touch the profession with a barge pole today.
The Secretary of State knows my views on pay; we must pay as much as possible to good teachers simply to obtain them. I earnestly appeal to him to take an even closer hand than I am sure he has been taking already in the question of the broadcasting White Paper. I repeat that British children spend as much time watching TV as they spend in the classroom.
To solve the problem of teacher shortage, two things are necessary. One is the need for imagination, and my right hon. Friend has a lot of that. The other is cash. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see the force in the arguments that are being adduced, not only by me—mine may sound rather predictable—but by my hon. Friends and by some Opposition Members. Their remarks cannot all be dismissed as party political boosterism. Consider, for example, the speech, to which I referred, of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney.
9.2 pm
Mr. Martin Flannery: The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) made a thoughtful contribution, and my hon. Friends and I could agree with a good deal of it. He quoted Plato. I remind him that Plato never had to contend with the present Prime Minister and her Secretary of State for Education and Science. The hon. Gentleman will accept that Plato lived in a vastly different world. However, the hon. Gentleman came to the fundamental point in the end, which is that we are discussing teacher shortages and not, for example, what is happening in broadcasting. We live in a get-rich-quick society in which children are taught things that we thought they should never learn.
It must be remembered that this debate was initiated by the Opposition. Had that not been the case, the debate would not be taking place. A characteristic of the speeches of Conservative Members has been their attempt to

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defend, as though it had never occurred, a crime over which they have presided. The nation's education system has been forced to the point where the Government are having to take steps which we thought, indeed hoped, would never be needed again. I refer to the problem which faced Britain after the second world war.
At that time we had to consider allowing people who had never taught to stand before our children and teach them. We refused to allow that to happen. Instead, we created an emergency scheme by which we put people through college and taught them how to teach.
Although the hon. Member for Buckingham was reasonable in the statements that he made, he knows only too well that it is unfair to attack the teachers when the real problem is the shortage of teachers. That shortage has been brought about by the actions of the Government. Conservative Members cannot escape the responsibility they share in those actions.
I will not go into the question of licensed teachers. The vast majority of the teaching profession is totally against that concept. We got rid of licensed teachers years ago. The idea of licensed teachers is not a revolutionary one. Indeed, it is counter-revolutionary. We never want them again, and the fact that the Government will foist them on us shows how desperate they are to push people in front of our children—not their children—when such people have never taught before. That will not be tolerated, especially when there are available people who are properly qualified to teach.
Teacher training colleges have been closed all over the country. The Government know that they have created the problem that we face, and they are not prepared to admit it or even talk about it. In 1979, the discussion was about how to educate our children. There was no crisis over a shortage of teachers. As I say, not since the end of the war has such a crisis existed.
Conservative Members refuse to admit what has been done in their name. They have no humility about it. Indeed, they adopt an appalling arrogance, talking and laughing about a problem that is causing great difficulty. Some Conservative Back Benchers are happy to talk and giggle. Indeed, one of them, the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), accused me earlier of not listening, yet he is not even in his place to listen to my remarks.
To my knowledge, when the hon. Gentleman has been in the Chamber he has never said a naughty word against the leadership of his party, even though he knows how wrong they have been on this issue. After all, was he not a teacher? He is in line to be chief groveller to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary of State, who is running the state system of education. The right hon. Gentleman also sits there smiling in his usual way, despite all that he has done.
The members of the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts became profoundly conscious of the fact that we were facing a crisis in education and particularly in the shortage of teachers. As I look at the Conservative Benches, I wonder whether any of the Members sitting there have been, please put up their hands? It is clear that they are not here, but I am here to explain why we on the the Select Committee are studying this issue.
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We are well aware of the crisis in education, and I must report that only one person who appeared before the Select Committee—I refer not to the Secretary of State but to his chief functionary in the Department, Mr. Clive Savine—asked us what crisis we were talking about. He had not noticed any crisis, he told us. Nor had he noticed that morale in the teaching profession was low.
The Minister of State has claimed that there is no crisis and that it is all a myth. Even the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth—with a great private school such as Rugby in his constituency—has not noticed that a crisis exists. Indeed, if an elephant walked through the Chamber and the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State told him not to see it, he would say there was no elephant. [Interruption.] Conservative Members grin like Cheshire cats, despite the crimes that they have committed against our children.
I have with me the embarrassing last report of the HMI —embarrassing for the Government—which spoke of
"that most important component of an effective education service, namely ensuring a sufficient supply of suitably qualified teachers … Without that, the rest falls."
If the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, who accused me of not listening, will listen to me, I advise him to read that paragraph. Nearly all the teachers say that there is a crisis in education.
The general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, usually a great friend of the Government, used the word "catastrophe", as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) did in his great speech. He was attacked for using an emotive word. We have made it plain that there is an approaching catastrophe. At the same time the Government say that it does not exist. Teacher training establishments, both colleges and universities, say that there is a problem. They also say that morale in the staff room is putting young people off teaching. The Secretary of State should not boast about how many say that they are going into teaching. A massive number of young people who have said that do not take it up. The right hon. Gentleman has said that they all come back, but that is not true. The Government are underplaying a serious problem.
Why is there a shortage and a developing crisis? It is because of the failure of the Government to realise the extent of the problem. I sat through the three months of the Committee stage of the Education Reform Act 1988. Ministers never agreed that there was a teacher shortage, created by the Government. They attack teachers and talk about the lowering of teacher morale. Anyone who is honourable in the Chamber knows that, previously, if any hon. Member mentioned teachers or the teachers' unions, there was a howl of abuse from the Conservative Benches, led by the Secretary of State, his predecessor and the Prime Minister. Now there is a slight change. The Secretary of State began his speech by praising teachers; that is new. Some Tory Members asked for more cash for teachers; that is new. The hon. Member for Buckingham asked for a wage that was not just satisfactory but much bigger; he has not said that before.
Even the mention of teachers used to cause trouble, but now hon. Members on the Government Benches are beginning to praise teachers. Let us have the praise translated into cash to encourage people into the profession which the Government have belittled for so

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long. They know that they must be realistic about the profession now if they are to get more teachers in. We want teachers who are trained, not licensed teachers.
Mr. John Bowis rose—
Mr. Flannery: Time is getting on, but the hon. Gentleman sat with me on the Select Committee. I agreed with him at least twice, so I shall give way.
Mr. Bowis: Perhaps we can make it a third time. As the son and nephew of a teacher, may I invite the hon. Gentleman to question in his mind whether teachers had their morale raised all that much by the Labour Government who cut their pay in real terms by 12 per cent.?
Mr. Flannery: At that time I was one of the hon. Members who, from those Benches, attacked my Government in a way that none of the Conservative Back Benchers will ever attack this Government. I was struggling for education. No Labour Government ever did to education what this Government are doing to it. Because of their arrogance, they do not even admit it.
I should like to say much more but time is getting on. If the Government want to recruit teachers, they cannot do so without putting a large amount of money into teachers' pockets. They must also give them back their negotiating rights. The Government were condemned by the International Labour Organisation, part of the United Nations, for taking away the negotiating power of teachers. Time will show what will happen if it is all blah that we are told about the recruitment of teachers. I am worried that chaos will result from the Education Reform Act, so-called.
9.14 pm
Mr. Tony Baldry: Listening to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) reminded me of a recent speech by the president of the National Union of Teachers, Mrs. June Fisher. I thought that with suitable amendments to her speech one could adapt it to the Opposition. She said:
"Teachers should stop moaning and take pride in making a success of the Government's education reforms."
We should ask the Opposition to stop moaning and take a pride in the success of the Government's education reforms, and to brush up their professional image or risk losing the support of parents. The president of the NUT said:
"The whingeing teachers are not in the business of caring for children."
I do not think that the Opposition are either, because they constantly live in a world of trying to make a crisis of every situation in education.
I have heard the hon. Member for Hillsborough make exactly the same speech on education every year for the six years that I have been in the House. Every time he makes the same speech about the Government denigrating teachers. If the hon. Gentleman can find for me any quotes where the Secretary of State for Education has denigrated teachers I will give £10 to a charity of his choice for each one. I say that in the knowledge that I will not be a penny worse off because I do not believe that he will find any such quotations. It suits him to maintain that myth.
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The only people who can send the teaching profession into a deeper depression are teachers themselves, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) said. As Mrs. Fisher commented:
"If somebody goes on long enough about everything being doom and gloom, then that becomes the reality. Teachers have to project a much more positive image."
I entirely agree.
It will do all of us well to get the debate into perspective. Yes, there are difficulties with teacher recruitment—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) wishes to intervene, I shall gladly give way, rather than have subliminal chatter. There are difficulties but we have to get them into perspective.
The other day The Oxford Times had a headline:
"Cash plea as education crisis looms".
I had a meeting of all the secondary teachers in my patch; I asked what teacher shortages there were. They told me that they were short of one half of a physics teacher and one half of a physical education teacher. Because it has become an accepted norm that there is a crisis in teacher recruitment, that is projected by all the newspapers and the media, but it is not real. When there are real difficulties, because the Treasury and everyone else has heard people crying "wolf" for so long, it is an accepted part of the political scene and no one responds in the proper way.
In 1988, 1·5 per cent. of all primary posts and 1 per cent. of all secondary posts were unfilled. That is a problem but it is not the sort of problem that the Opposition have sought to make it out to be. Indeed, the Government have reversed the declining trend in applications to initial teacher training. Between 1987 and 1988 vacant posts in shortage subjects in secondary schools fell significantly; they fell by 33 per cent. in mathematics, by 39 per cent. in craft design and technology and by 48 per cent. in physics. There are regional variations. Obviously it will be more difficult to recruit teachers in inner city areas and in some of the prosperous home counties. That is the same for any occupation or profession. The greatest concern of employers in my constituency is skill shortages and recruitment. It is the same across the board, whether in teaching or in other spheres. That is not unique to teaching.
As opportunities for graduates substantially increase, so too will competition for graduates. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham that we must look at the situation that will confront Britain. With the changing demography, school-leavers and those going to university will become fewer and recruiting sufficient numbers into the teaching profession will obviously become more difficult. Not only must we ensure that good teachers are well paid but we must start to consider the possibility of regional pay differentials for teachers so that those areas that need to recruit teachers more can pay premium rates to do so.
We must also recognise that some 400,000 qualified teachers are not teaching at present. My young son goes to a state school not two miles away from the House. A short while ago a teacher vacancy arose at that school. I happened to be talking to other parents in the school playground and I was staggered by the number of parents with teaching qualifications who would like the opportunity to return to the profession.
It is also a myth to maintain that all inner London schools have difficulty recruiting teachers. When my son's school advertised for a deputy head teacher it had five

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good applicants. There are large numbers of qualified teachers who should be able, and should be encouraged, to return to the profession.
That is a matter for local education authorities. It is not good enough for the Opposition to come to debates such as this every time with the two words "more money". If that is all they intend to say we could have a much shorter debate. Local education authorities must use some imagination in exploring the possibilities of job sharing, more part-time work for teachers and maintaining more contact with former teachers.
Teachers often complain that they are worried about returning to the profession because they may be rusty and need to brush up their professional skills. Local education authorities may find it worthwhile to pay teachers an honorarium each year on condition that they attend a one or two-week refresher course each year while they are out of the profession, having children or whatever, so that when they return to teaching they do not feel that they have lost touch with it.
Local authorities could also do more by way of flexible starting salaries and incentive allowances to encourage teachers to take difficult posts. Thanks to the various pay awards made over the past two or three years, an increasing number of incentive allowances are available to local education authorities to reward teachers. There are a host of initiatives for local education authorities to take. I suspect that some boroughs and local education authorities are having difficulty in recruiting teachers because of the image that they have projected for far too long.
The truth is that many inner-city schools in Britain are as good as those elsewhere. For example, many of those in the borough of Lambeth are as good as many of those in Oxfordshire. Many children have reached the same standard. But the image that is constantly projected by boroughs such as Lambeth is not conducive to persuading teachers to go there to teach. If local education authorities had a more positive image of themselves and what can be achieved in their schools, they would probably find people more forthcoming.
It is wrong to pretend that the Government are not responding to the real difficulties that exist. Teachers in surplus subjects are being retrained in shortage subjects. The teaching as a career unit has made enormous strides in attracting individuals to return to the profession. That unit has contacted thousands of people. There is the bursary scheme and the new courses for initial teacher training on shortage subjects. All those are worthwhile initiatives. The Government have come forward with a host of initiatives to tackle the problem.
The Opposition have not made one positive suggestion this evening. As Opposition Front Bench spokesmen go, they are fairly talented, but it is disappointing that they should spend half of a precious Opposition Supply day simply saying that there is a problem. The Government are addressing that problem and it is depressing that the Opposition do not acknowledge that. They do not recognise that, nor join with us in positively promoting teaching and winning people into the profession. Instead, there is constant unnecessary doom and gloom simply to score a few brownie points in the local government elections. Always seeking to make out that the situation in
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our schools is worse than it is is unlikely to encourage people into teaching and to give parents confidence in what is happening in our state schools. All that does British education a grave disservice.
The Opposition and some of the teachers' unions are foolish to reject out of hand the concept of licensed teachers. I hope that they noted that when the London borough of Croydon recently had a shortage of science teachers it advertised for untrained science graduates, attracting more than 200 replies, from which it recruited 12 good honours graduates who are now making a considerable contribution to that borough.
The truth of the matter is that on the issue of ensuring that we have sufficient well-paid, well-motivated, good teachers in our schools, as in every other education initiative in Britain, it is the Conservative party, the Government and Conservative Members who are coming forward with the ideas and initiatives and demonstrating a commitment to Britain's state schools. All the Opposition can do is to shout for more money and simply seek to make out that everything is always far worse than it is. It is only by creating such a manic depressive state that they believe they can win any votes in education.
9.26 pm
Mr. Win Griffiths: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) pointed out that during his speech no Conservative member of the Select Committee which investigated the shortage of teachers was present. Not only were they not present while he was speaking, but not one has been present throughout the debate. Given the expertise that they gathered during the Committee's many sessions, they may have been commanded to stay away in case the facts got in the way of the propaganda that we have been fed this evening. Despite the Government's initiatives, the problem of teacher shortages will be with us for as long as we can see, because those initiatives do not deal with the problem in any significant way.
The background to this debate must be the high quality of the teaching profession. Let me quote from one paragraph of the second report of the interim advisory committee:
"As last year the Committee has been impressed by the commitment and dedication of teachers in all types of schools visited. Despite some of the public criticism aimed at teachers over recent years—which, happily, Government spokesmen are now going some way"—
not all the way—
"to redress—we found a high degree of professionalism in support of the education of the nation's young people."
Paragraphs 3.39 and 3.19 give more detail on the quality that our teachers provide, despite the difficulties that they face.
In his opening speech, the Secretary of State pointed to a number of his initiatives. We should look at one or two of them at least. He said that this year there would be 2,000 extra places in initial teacher training. Will all those places be filled? Will the majority of them be filled by graduates in those subjects with the greatest shortages? Even with those 2,000 extra places, and even if they were restricted to the subjects with teacher shortages, there would still be insufficient teachers to meet the shortages that will occur in the years ahead.
Only today, members of the Select Committee were provided with a memorandum from the Institute of Physics which says that, using the available figures,

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"and making varied and realistic assumptions about both the demand for physics in schools and the supply of teachers to meet this demand in the next decade the alarming fact is that in constructing demand-supply graphs we did not find it possible to make the supply and the demand lines cross for any year in the decade."
That means that, throughout the 1990s, according to all the current information available, there will not be a sufficent supply of physics teachers.
The bursary scheme has played a small part in arresting the decline, but not in settling the problem of obtaining the extra teachers needed to match supply and demand. At least 25 per cent. of physics teachers have not entered teaching after completing their bursary period.
The Secretary of State mentioned with pride that an extra 5 per cent. of chemistry teachers were being recruited because of the bursary scheme. He omitted to mention that in 1988 there was a 42 per cent. shortage of chemistry teachers. Therefore, we have hardly begun to tackle the problem. Despite all the Government's initiatives, that remains the fundamental problem: they are nowhere near meeting the extra demands being placed on our schools and teachers by the national curriculum, the Elton report, the need for more INSET because of the need for more teachers in subjects in which teachers are in short supply, and the new forms of teacher training which will make demands on teachers in post and take them out of the classroom. I presume that teachers will receive such training in schools. Many more demands are being made on teachers' time, which means that many teachers will be unable to teach as much as they have in the past.
The Secretary of State was proud to mention the retraining. However, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has made it clear that
"It is not possible to obtain the needed high-quality specialist teachers of A-level mathematics, physics, chemistry and modern languages by hastily retraining surplus numbers of, for example, biology, home economics and physical education teachers."
I wish to raise a number of points relating to Wales. First, on secondary science, in a survey to which 80 per cent. of schools replied, 46 per cent. of those schools identified the need for extra science staff, and 46 of those schools specified that they would need 53 teachers. Extrapolating that information on a national scale, at a conservative estimate, a further 900 teachers would be needed immediately. I say a conservative estimate, because, in Wales, we are relatively well off compared to many other areas.
In Mid-Glamorgan, only 14 per cent. of pupils in the fourth and fifth years take GCSE Welsh as a second language and 15 per cent. take French. We can imagine the number of extra teachers that will be needed when everyone has to learn those two subjects. In that county, 1,931 teachers were surveyed on the question of teaching Welsh in primary schools. Of those, 362 were fluent Welsh speakers and 161 were Welsh learners, yet 1,144 were teaching Welsh and relying on their ability to read the language and follow basic language courses. A total of 493 were unable to teach Welsh at all, and more than 600 said that they would be prepared to go on beginners' learning courses.
The county council applied for £120,000, with a package of schemes to enable Welsh to be taught throughout the county. The Welsh Office provided £30,000. Lip service that is paid to the extension of the Welsh language is not being implemented, because the
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money is not being provided. It is the same throughout the education system. We badly need more money, because without it our education system is doomed to failure.
9.35 pm
Mr. Derek Fatchett: We have heard an important admission from the Secretary of State tonight. He made two comments that verified all our assertions that there are teacher shortages: he actually used that phrase, and he also said that there were serious problems in our schools. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies), in his Trappist role, has decided that he knows more about the subject than the Secretary of State. Perhaps he is not alone in that: it appears that the Minister of State also feels that she knows more about it than her boss. She denies the Secretary of State's admission, which provides verification of our assumptions. When she replies to the debate, the Minister will also be replying to her own contribution at the annual conference of the Secondary Heads Association, which caused so much disquiet not just immediately to SHA but much more generally.
The Secretary of State was good enough to recognise the extent of the current shortages and the mounting evidence to support our assertions: for instance, the report of the interim advisory committee, the substantial work of Her Majesty's inspectorate—pointing yet again to shortages in science, maths, CDT and modern languages and the HMI's important point that those shortages now extend beyond secondary schools into the primary sector, and challenge the ability to teach science as part of the national curriculum in the primary sector.
In a powerful contribution, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) talked about what the shortages meant for children in his constituency, who, in being denied access to a teacher, were being denied education. There are those absolute shortages, but there are also the hidden, suppressed shortages that are part of schools up and down the land, and part of the nature of our education. Too often, subjects are taught by non-specialist teachers. We know from figures given earlier from the secondary schools staffing survey that the problem has increased between 1984 and 1987. The Secretary of State has called himself Action Man, but some of that period fell during his stewardship, and there was still an increase in non-specialist staff teaching specialist subjects.
Another problem is the shift in curriculum that goes on in too many of our schools because they simply cannot staff themselves with the right sort of teachers for the curriculum that is necessary for the children. It is interesting to note that when, only two weeks ago, we debated the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), to justify 12·5 per cent. rather than 20 per cent. of the curriculum being devoted to science, said that the Government had to cut their cloth according to the acute shortage of teachers in science subjects.
All that is substantial evidence, and leads to a reduction in opportunities for our children and to a reduction of standards. All of those matters have been noticed by virtually everyone with any experience or knowledge of the education system. The only person who has missed out on this truth is the Minister of State. According to the Times

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Educational Supplement editorial of 21 April, the Minister of State came up with comforting knowledge for all those schools suffering from teacher shortages. To the Minister of State it was simply a myth. The editorial stated that schools which had difficulty in recruiting good physicists, computing experts or modern linguists could now rest in peace. Their troubles were non-existent—just a myth, according to the Minister of State.
Of course, there were reactions to that statement. I do not know whether this is sanitised in the Department of Education and Science, but its press release at that conference from the Minister of State did not refer at all to the Minister's assertion that teacher shortages were simply a myth. [Interruption.] The Minister of State says that she did not say it. That is interesting, since the whole debate of the Secondary Heads Association centred on the use of her word "myth". The TES reporter also heard the word "myth".
Since she has denied saying this, the Minister of State may want to have a word, for instance, with Mrs. Averil Burgess, who chairs the Girls Schools Association and is headmistress of South Hampstead high school for girls. She was at the conference and heard the Minister of State speak. Although I do not want to do Mrs. Burgess an injustice, I suspect that she is not a subscribed and paid-up member of the Labour party, but she said that to suggest there were no shortages flew in the face of the facts. As reported in yesterday's Times she went on to give evidence to the Minister of State that her school was advertising a religious education post. Mrs. Burgess said that a few years ago such a job would have attracted 10 or more applicants, but at the moment there was only one applicant.
According to the Minister of State, it is a myth to talk about teacher shortages, but according to virtually everyone else with some knowledge of education and of the problems confronting teachers it is not a myth.
The Secretary of State has said that he will bring forward a set of proposals and a series of actions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said that this statement should be quantified by considering the number of additional teachers as a result of these measures. So far, those figures have not been given. Perhaps the Minister of State can give them at a later stage. However, we do know that, in its submission to the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, the DES admitted that, in the middle of the 1990s, we will face an acute teacher shortage. The submission states that the teacher shortages will be in maths, physics, technology and modern languages, they will all be deep and they will all affect the ability to teach the national curriculum.
The figures given to the Select Committee were based on an increase of 20 per cent. recruitment into teaching. The Minister of State and the DES know that, in those specialised subjects, the Government has not been able to hit that target. Thus, the information given to the Select Committee was wrong, and will prove even more inaccurate as time goes on. We are facing an acute shortage of teachers and an acute shortage in certain subjects. The problem will grow and make it more difficult to deliver the national curriculum—[Interruption.] I find the chorus from Conservative Members well orchestrated but, as usual, typically empty.
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Earlier today, the Secretary of State said that this was a week of national celebration. Some of my hon. Friends and I wondered whether that was because the Secretary of State's rating in the opinion polls had increased from 2 per cent. to 4 per cent., or whether it was because this Government had been in power for 10 years. The crucial point is that the Government have had the stewardship of education in this country for the last 10 years and are responsible for the decline in teacher numbers and for the inability to deliver.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fatchett: No, I shall not give way.
The Secretary of State referred to the amount of money that he had spent on promoting teaching as a profession. It would have been extremely useful if the Government and Conservative Back Benchers had thought about the damage that they have inflicted on teacher morale and teacher professionalism. During the early life of this Government, all their actions were systemically designed to undermine teacher professionalism. There was an attack on teacher professionalism on every possible occasion at Question Time. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) got it right tonight when he referred to the stresses and the problems faced by members of the teaching profession. I hope that he will educate a few of his fellow Back Benchers, although I realise that there are difficulties in doing so.
It is typical of the way the Government have treated teachers that at all times they have refused to take teachers into their confidence and to plan with teachers the delivery of the Education Reform Act and the national curriculum. They have adopted at all times a stand-off relationship with teachers. At all times, they have undermined the professionalism of teachers. The facts demonstrate that this country is suffering from a teacher shortage. The facts suggest, moreover, that we are damaging educational opportunities and standards.
In its editorial of 21 April the Times Educational Supplement said:
"It is hardly odd in the circumstances that, in their polite way, the secondary heads gave Mrs. Rumbold the bird."
The House is too polite to give the Minister of State the bird. However, on this occasion, as on every other, her response will be inadequate and will not address the problems and challenges that face the country. We want to hear the Minister say that she recognises the problems and will act. We do not want to hear her congratulating herself and pretending that teacher shortages are a myth. The evidence clearly supports the opposite view.
9.47 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): It has been an interesting and, at times, a thoughtful debate. Teacher supply is an important issue to which we must all accord the highest priority. More than that, it is an issue which the Department is handling in the most constructive and vigorous fashion.
We start from the foundation of what teaching is and what it is seen to be—a demanding, creative, professional and rewarding occupation. It is already a popular career option. There can be no doubt about that. The myth that teaching is not attractive is given the lie by the fact that

117
25,000 people enter or re-enter the teaching profession each year. There is a substantially lower wastage rate in the teaching profession than in any other profession.
I listened with great interest to what the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) had to say. I waited for his suggestions for meeting teacher shortages. Not a sausage, not an idea came from the hon. Gentleman. He is as barren of ideas on this subject as he is on many subjects. Since he put so much credibility on the Times Educational Supplement, perhaps he read the article this week, which described how a mature man, who had been an engineer and had been made redundant, spent six years training as a maths teacher with computer studies. He has sought work with a local authority which ring fences its applications for jobs. His local authority will not employ him. It has strange ways of employing teachers. He has tried to get employment up and down the country but he has had no success. He has been offered only voluntary work. This is a man trained to teach maths. We have acknowledged shortages in teachers of maths, amongst other subjects, in this country. What do the hon. Gentlemen say about that?
I say thank you to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) mentioned the report by the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers on the quality of teachers for the future and I was glad of that, because it is important, of course, that it has some encouraging messages. As one might have expected following particularly good recruitment in 1987, the output of university-trained teachers increased over 1987, with an above average increase in the science shortage subjects and maths. Increases have not been at the expense of student quality, which continues to improve, and that is very good news indeed.
I also noted with approbation my hon. Friend's emphasis on the importance of changing what happens in initial teacher training so that the colleges match the training needed by people gaining experience in the classroom as well as outside, besides having good subject qualifications.
My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) talked of quality, and he will, I am sure, be glad to see the proposals for the initial teacher training for new young entrants which my right hon. Friend has just published. He is right to emphasise the importance of people who not only know their subject but have an ability to transmit that knowledge to children in the classroom. I noted also that he talked of teachers' pay, saying that teachers should be well paid. This is not something which the Government disagree with, especially as teachers over the past three years have had a 40 per cent. increase in pay. He makes a good point also in saying status is important.
Mr. Straw: Will the Minister clear up what she said to the Secondary Heads Association, because I understand that she said she was misreported? The report of her speech quotes her as saying that we really need
"to nail this myth that teaching has difficulty in securing recruits and in retaining them when it does secure them."
Was that report accurate? If not, what did she say?
Mrs. Rumbold: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said at the beginning. What I said to the Secondary Heads Association was that the myth that teaching is not an attractive option was something that I wanted to nail. That is what I actually said. I cannot help
118
it if the reporters do not hear me. I cannot help it if the secondary heads heard something else. Sometimes it is impossible to have discussions with people who do not wish to hear the messages one is putting across, and that includes, I have to say, Opposition Members.
I return to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. He made a very good point on the issue of the status of teachers, because it is important that the image of teachers is improved in the eyes of the parents and the employers, as well as those of the children. I have some sympathy with his views of children who watch too much television. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) was right to say that my right hon. Friend has admiration for and offers congratulations on the efforts and dedication of the teaching profession. I am sad that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) does not recognise this and complains that Ministers frequently do not congratulate or offer kind words to teachers. Sometimes I fear that it is like having a dialogue with the deaf to tell him what we are saying.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury was right to say there has been a reversal in some of the shortage subjects. As I have just said, the Times Educational Supplement last week mentioned a maths teacher who cannot get a job and my hon. Friend mentioned the shortage of teachers at his son's school, saying that when he discussed the matter with other parents many people came forward. I congratulate him on his interesting example of the London borough of Croydon which managed to recruit 12 good honours graduates for teaching science. That emphasises the point we have been making for several months that local education authorities that take trouble and are determined can recruit high-quality teachers who can make good contributions.
The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) talked of teacher shortages in Tower Hamlets. I acknowledge that there has been a problem and we are certainly discussing the matter with Tower Hamlets and considering proposals to tackle the problem in April 1990 when in becomes a local education authority. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, the local authority has managed to improve the numbers of children not in school from a regrettable 450 to about 250. Of course, I fully acknowledge that the new local education authorities will do everything to improve greatly that situation, which must be tackled properly.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) talked about the new challenges for teachers. He was absolutely correct to say that many teachers face a great deal of new work and new challenges in the classroom and in the management of their schools. But I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's view of the difficulties that that will present to teachers' morale. The GCSE demonstrated that teachers' morale was improved because they felt that together with the pupils, the parents and the employers, the effort that they put in to making that examination a great success was rewarded by the general public's approbation, by the parents' approbation and by the children's view that it was worth working hard at school. The new challenges that will be part of the teaching profession in future will be the teaching of national curriculum subjects, and the management of schools. All those matters will be undertaken in training and in-service training, but, most importantly, in talking to teachers so that they feel that it will be part of a morale-raising operation.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I do not doubt what the Minister of State said. I was arguing not that those challenges are damaging to morale, but that because of those challenges the rewards need to be greater and that because such challenges demand time, effort and activity there must be some compensation or teachers will not feel they can do all that we ask of them.
Mrs. Rumbold: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. No doubt that will be part and parcel of the outcome of the extra effort that is made. However, I have to say to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Hillsborough that their objections to licensed teachers are rather sad. I believe that my right hon. Friend's suggestions for licensed teachers will improve the quality of people who enter the classroom at qualified teacher status. Instead of people coming to the classroom and receiving qualified teacher status without any experience, licensed teachers will be graduates or have higher education qualifications and will receive at least two years' training within the classroom. That is extremely important. We currently employ people who are not able to receive such training and who take up posts in schools without any teaching experience.
The opposition to my right hon. Friend's many initiatives to combat teacher shortages is quite incomprehensible. It cannot make sense to highlight areas where there are shortages of specialist teachers but then to rubbish every single idea to help alleviate the problem. The bursary scheme has helped to tackle teacher shortages in special subjects and the teaching as a career team in the Department of Education and Science has had considerable success in its roadshows and its advertising campaign to make sure that people come forward to be new teachers.
Many of the other proposals my right hon. Friend has outlined today prove that our Department is working hard to improve the supply of teachers. I ask the House to support the amendment.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 181, Noes 262.

Division No. 183]

[10 pm.

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Anderson, Donald

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Cartwright, John

Armstrong, Hilary

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Clay, Bob

Ashton, Joe

Cohen, Harry

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Corbett, Robin

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Barron, Kevin

Cousins, Jim

Battle, John

Crowther, Stan

Beckett, Margaret

Cryer, Bob

Beggs, Roy

Cummings, John

Bell, Stuart

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Dalyell, Tam

Bermingham, Gerald

Darling, Alistair

Bidwell, Sydney

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Blunkett, David

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

Boateng, Paul

Dewar, Donald

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Dixon, Don

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Dobson, Frank

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Doran, Frank

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Douglas, Dick

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Buchan, Norman

Eadie, Alexander

Buckley, George J.

Eastham, Ken

Caborn, Richard

Evans, John (St Helens N)

120

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Meacher, Michael

Fatchett, Derek

Meale, Alan

Faulds, Andrew

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Fearn, Ronald

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

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

Morley, Elliott

Fisher, Mark

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Flannery, Martin

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Mowlam, Marjorie

Foster, Derek

Mullin, Chris

Fraser, John

Murphy, Paul

Fyfe, Maria

Nellist, Dave

Galbraith, Sam

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Galloway, George

O'Neill, Martin

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Patchett, Terry

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Pike, Peter L.

Golding, Mrs Llin

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Gordon, Mildred

Prescott, John

Gould, Bryan

Primarolo, Dawn

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Quin, Ms Joyce

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Radice, Giles

Grocott, Bruce

Randall, Stuart

Hardy, Peter

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Harman, Ms Harriet

Richardson, Jo

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Henderson, Doug

Robertson, George

Hinchliffe, David

Robinson, Geoffrey

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Rogers, Allan

Holland, Stuart

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Home Robertson, John

Ruddock, Joan

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Sedgemore, Brian

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Sheerman, Barry

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Short, Clare

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Skinner, Dennis

Hume, John

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Ingram, Adam

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

Janner, Greville

Soley, Clive

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Spearing, Nigel

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Steel, Rt Hon David

Kirkwood, Archy

Stott, Roger

Lambie, David

Strang, Gavin

Lamond, James

Straw, Jack

Leighton, Ron

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Lewis, Terry

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Litherland, Robert

Turner, Dennis

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Vaz, Keith

McAllion, John

Wall, Pat

McAvoy, Thomas

Wallace, James

Macdonald, Calum A.

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

McFall, John

Wareing, Robert N.

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

McKelvey, William

Wigley, Dafydd

McLeish, Henry

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Maclennan, Robert

Wilson, Brian

McNamara, Kevin

Winnick, David

McWilliam, John

Worthington, Tony

Madden, Max

Wray, Jimmy

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Marek, Dr John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Mr. Martyn Jones.

Martlew, Eric

NOES

Aitken, Jonathan

Baldry, Tony

Alexander, Richard

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Allason, Rupert

Batiste, Spencer

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Amess, David

Bellingham, Henry

Amos, Alan

Bendall, Vivian

Arbuthnot, James

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Benyon, W.

Ashby, David

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Atkins, Robert

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Body, Sir Richard

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

121

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Boswell, Tim

Grist, Ian

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Grylls, Michael

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Bowis, John

Hague, William

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Brazier, Julian

Hanley, Jeremy

Bright, Graham

Harris, David

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

Haselhurst, Alan

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Hawkins, Christopher

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

Hayward, Robert

Budgen, Nicholas

Hill, James

Burns, Simon

Hind, Kenneth

Burt, Alistair

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

Butler, Chris

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Butterfill, John

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Carrington, Matthew

Irvine, Michael

Carttiss, Michael

Irving, Charles

Cash, William

Jack, Michael

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Janman, Tim

Chapman, Sydney

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Chope, Christopher

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Colvin, Michael

Knapman, Roger

Conway, Derek

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Knowles, Michael

Cope, Rt Hon John

Knox, David

Cormack, Patrick

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Couchman, James

Lang, Ian

Cran, James

Latham, Michael

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Lawrence, Ivan

Curry, David

Lee, John (Pendle)

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

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Dorrell, Stephen

Lightbown, David

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Lilley, Peter

Dover, Den

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Durant, Tony

Lord, Michael

Dykes, Hugh

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Eggar, Tim

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Evennett, David

McCrindle, Robert

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Fallon, Michael

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Favell, Tony

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Maclean, David

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Fishburn, John Dudley

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Fookes, Dame Janet

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Forman, Nigel

Major, Rt Hon John

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Malins, Humfrey

Forth, Eric

Mans, Keith

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Marlow, Tony

Fox, Sir Marcus

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Freeman, Roger

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

French, Douglas

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Gale, Roger

Mates, Michael

Gardiner, George

Maude, Hon Francis

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Gill, Christopher

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Mellor, David

Glyn, Dr Alan

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Miller, Sir Hal

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Mills, Iain

Gow, Ian

Miscampbell, Norman

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Mitchell, Sir David

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Moate, Roger

Gregory, Conal

Monro, Sir Hector

122

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Stern, Michael

Moore, Rt Hon John

Stevens, Lewis

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Morrison, Sir Charles

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Stokes, Sir John

Neale, Gerrard

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Nelson, Anthony

Sumberg, David

Neubert, Michael

Summerson, Hugo

Nicholls, Patrick

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Oppenheim, Phillip

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Paice, James

Temple-Morris, Peter

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Pawsey, James

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Thorne, Neil

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Thornton, Malcolm

Porter, David (Waveney)

Thurnham, Peter

Portillo, Michael

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Powell, William (Corby)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Price, Sir David

Tracey, Richard

Raffan, Keith

Trippier, David

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Twinn, Dr Ian

Rathbone, Tim

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Redwood, John

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Renton, Tim

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Riddick, Graham

Waldegrave, Hon William

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Walden, George

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Waller, Gary

Rowe, Andrew

Ward, John

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Ryder, Richard

Warren, Kenneth

Sackville, Hon Tom

Watts, John

Sayeed, Jonathan

Wells, Bowen

Shaw, David (Dover)

Wheeler, John

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Whitney, Ray

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Widdecombe, Ann

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Wiggin, Jerry

Shersby, Michael

Wilshire, David

Sims, Roger

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Wolfson, Mark

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Wood, Timothy

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Woodcock, Mike

Speller, Tony

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Younger, Rt Hon George

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Squire, Robin

Tellers for the Noes:

Stanbrook, Ivor

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the importance of recruiting sufficient well qualified teachers, in particular for the implementation of the national curriculum; welcomes the vigorous measures which the Government has introduced to this end; welcomes the clear indication of the success of these measures; welcomes the measures the Government is taking to make teacher training more rigorous, more practical and more responsive to the needs of schools; and commends the Government's intention to continue to take whatever action is needed to ensure a continuing supply of high quality teachers.

Official Secrets Bill (Allocation of Time)
10.15 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I beg to move,
That the Order of the House [13th February] be supplemented as follows:
Lords Amendments
1. The proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed at this day's sitting and, subject to the provisions of the Order of 13th February, those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion not later than the expiration of the period of two hours beginning with the commencement of the proceedings on this Order.
2.—(1) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any further Amendment of the said Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown and on any Motion moved by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

(b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, or as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;

(ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment;

(iii) put forthwith with respect to each Amendment designated by Mr. Speaker which has not been disposed of the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Amendment; and

(iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

(c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments
3. Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
4. The proceedings on any such further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of those proceedings.
5. For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

124

(b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining items in the Lords Message as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item;

(ii) in the case of each remaining item designated by Mr. Speaker, put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Proposal; and

(iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

Supplemental
6.—(1) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons.
(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which they are appointed.
7.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and on the Report of such a Committee.
(2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
(3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(4) If the proceedings are interrupted at any time by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of any part of the proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.
The time has come for the House to consider the Lords amendments to the Bill—[interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Would hon. Members at the Bar either come into the Chamber or leave quietly?
Mr. Hurd: The purpose of the motion before the House is to make the necessary provision for this discussion. There can be nothing unusual or unexpected about it. It is normal, when a timetable has been agreed, to introduce a supplementary motion when the time comes for Lords amendments. Of all the 47 timetable motions since June 1970, so far as I can discover, all of them have been supplemented by further motions.
Obviously, the motion is not an occasion for debate on substance and you, Mr. Speaker, would rapidly pull me up if I launched into one. I doubt, anyway, that in the time available I would manage to dispel all the nightmares in which the critics of the Bill on all sides of the House have preferred to wrap themselves. Only the light of day could do that. When the Bill becomes law and the critics find its operation much closer to my explanations than to their nightmares, they will see the light. I do not expect a glass of champagne from my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken); a mere nod of acknowledgement when that day comes will suffice.
It is proper to say one word about timing and to emphasise the point that the House has had plenty of opportunity to discuss the measure. The Government White Paper, which came before the Bill, was debated for five hours last July. We debated the Second Reading of the Bill in just under six hours and then we had 28 hours in Committee, which was on the Floor of the House. It is worth reminding the House that the first debates of that Committee, on 25 January, when we took the special

125
offence contained in clause 1 of the Bill and notification, and on 2 February when we spent a full day, if I recall correctly, on the question of the public interest defence and the different amendments moved to that effect, took place without any limitation on time. We then had five hours on the remaining stages. In all, the Chamber has heard 39 hours of debate on a Bill that, although of high importance, which is why it was taken on the Floor—and has certainly turned out to be more controversial than I had hoped—nevertheless has just 16 clauses.
The motion allows ample time. All the amendments were passed in another place without a Division. Eight of the 10 amendments were tabled by the Government in response to proposals made or warmly supported by the Opposition spokesmen. The spokesmen declared themselves satisfied that the amendments tabled met the points that they had raised. The other two amendments are technical drafting changes and it was not considered in another place that they raised any issue requiring discussion, let alone Division.
It is reasonable to move forward to consider the amendments. I hope that the House will decide that they deserve to be supported and that the timetable motion allows time for such debates. I invite the House to agree to the motion.
10.18 pm
Mr. Robin Corbett: There are times when a Government are right to seek a guillotine on a Bill—usually when opposition has been no more than a filibuster and no points of real substance have been raised. That is not the case with this Bill, either tonight or during its earlier stages. If there has been a filibuster, it has been done by the Government and the only reason for tonight's supplemental gag on debate is that the Government still have no real answers to the points raised from the Opposition and by some of the Government's right hon. and hon. Friends.
It is no exaggeration to say that throughout the Bill the Government have treated the House with contempt. They do so again tonight. There is no need for this guillotine and there was no need for it earlier. It was the Government who, each day, decided how long the House sat, who drew stumps earlier than predicted and who then resorted to this form of gag. Why they have done so again tonight remains a mystery. We were allowed a single, pointless amendment, despite the force of the arguments on public interest defence, prior publication and the need to make more specific the various tests of harm or damage. The other place was generously allowed a whole 10 amendments—maybe two of which were of minor importance, the rest being matters of no more than clarity or drafting.
I have said before and I repeat tonight that there is a consensus among all parties in this House on sensible reform of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The only people to whom that consensus does not apply are the Government. That is why they have taken refuge in the guillotine. Shorn of any sensible argument or defence, they substitute brutal force for debate. No wonder the weekend polls on the 10th anniversary of the Government's election found that a majority in all parties felt that the country had become more authoritarian and more centralised under the Government. That is certainly the case here.
Time was, and yes, even in the early days of this Government, when the Chief Whip or Leader of the House
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would go to the Prime Minister to say that amendments should be accepted to respect the strength of feeling and debate. That no longer happens and it is the Government who suffer most from that, not the Opposition, as voters in the Vale of Glamorgan will make clear on Thursday.
Let me just ask the Home Secretary this: what is the need for this guillotine tonight? Against whom is it aimed? What it shows is that the Government are frightened of debate and challenge either from the Labour Benches or from the friendless Benches behind them. The guillotine means that we shall have no chance to debate the future of the D notice committee—just as we had no chance to do so during the Bill's earlier stages. Its future is highly relevant. On 22 February, Rear-Admiral William Higgins, the D notice committee secretary based at the Ministry of Defence, spelt out in an interview in The Independent:
"Now they"—
that is editors—
"will have to have greater concern for the law".
He added:
"Under the new legislation, an editor must know that what he publishes damages national security. If I tell him it isn't damaging, he's got a good defence. If I tell him it is damaging, and he goes ahead and publishes, then that will he a firm platform in the prosecution's evidence."
In other words, that form of self-censorship—that is what the D notice committee represents—now has new and more menacing substance. It puts Rear-Admiral Higgins into the witness box against editors with whom he is trying to run that voluntary system. What does that do to the D notice committee? Mr. Mike Ramsden, editor in chief of Flight International and chairman of the press and broadcasting side of the committee, revealed that when the Government ludicrously sought to ban the BBC radio programme "My Country, Right or Wrong," after Rear-Admiral Higgins had cleared it, the media threatened to withdraw its voluntary support from the committee.
"We have unanimously concluded that it would make the D-Notice system unworkable. The proposed legislation is an extension of secrecy, not freedom of information."
Under the guillotine we shall be unable to get answers on that matter. It also means that we shall be unable to discuss a report in today's edition of The Independent that Mr. Desmond Bristow, former chief of counterintelligence in south-east Europe until 1954, plans to do a "Peter Wright" and publish a book from his home in Spain claiming that British intelligence was riddled with traitors. Will the Minister explain, how, under this measure, the Government would deal with that matter, since it contains no powers to prosecute British citizens living abroad, and extradition does not seem be be possible for alleged offences?
It seems that the Government might be about to face another Wright case, wandering around the courts of the world to uphold a lifelong duty of confidentiality and running up large bills to no avail in the process. Yet again, people abroad will be able to know what is being alleged while people in this country will not know. I want the Minister to clarify that, especially as Mr. Bristow is quoted as saying:
"The CIA and MI6 were equals before. Now they're not. The CIA does not share its super-secret stuff with us any more. Personally, I don't blame them."
It is almost as though Mr. Bristow has now joined Mr. Peter Wright in being the real author of this measure, the purpose of which is to reassure the Americans that we can

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keep secrets, and to save the Government's face. It is as though, perhaps by accident, we have discovered the main purpose of the Bill.
The Government may win—temporarily—here, but those of us who oppose the Bill, because of the way in which the Government have dealt with it, are secure in the knowledge that we shall win in the end. Despite the earlier words of the Home Secretary, I predict that when a jury comes to consider these provisions in relation to a prosecution, it will treat this new measure with the same derision and scorn as earlier juries have treated the Act that it seeks to replace.
I urge all hon. Members who care for the proper traditions of this House to join my hon. Friends and me in the Lobby to protest against this further guillotine.
10.27 pm
Mr. Julian Amery: I confess that I have some doubt as to whether the electors in the Vale of Glamorgan will be moved as much perhaps as they should be by the issue that is before the House tonight.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is a big issue.
Mr. Amery: I agree, and perhaps it would be better if they were so moved, but it would be foolish to base whatever feelings we may have on this occasion on their presence.
I do not want to burden the House again with renewing the arguments that I adduced when the Bill was in Committee and on Report. I simply recall that I said then that in relation to the publication of memoirs by former members of the secret services, there was an old and time-honoured formula that they would be submitted to authority and censured, if necessary, by the powers responsible.
When I put that forward as an alternative to the lifelong duty of confidentiality, the Minister of State gave me assurances which met all my objections. I regret that those assurances were afterwards withdrawn by the Secretary of State. However, these are administrative decisions and I would like to think that after the debates here and in the other place, when the time comes for administrative actions to be taken, those authorities will be guided by what the Minister of State said in reply to me rather than by the absolute doctrine of lifelong confidentiality to which the Secretary of State returned. I know well that we cannot win a vote tonight and that nothing we can do or that any of my right hon. or hon. Friends on either side can do will change the Government's mind.
I do not like imploring the Executive but I will tonight. There are several books in the pipeline, some of which I know about. When the time comes, I hope that the administrative function will be exercised in the right way. If it is not, some of us, myself included, will make a bit of trouble in each and every case. I do not want to go beyond that. I simply ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister to have in mind the feelings that the House and the other place have expressed, and not least the view of Lord Home, whose authority in these matters should carry a good deal of weight. The administrative function should be exercised pragmatically and sensibly and not on any rigid view of lifelong confidentiality or unacceptability. The
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Government should let the administrative function be exercised in the good old, reasonable way in which it was before.
10.31 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: The right hon Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) has made a concluding, forlorn appeal to the Government. He knows better than anybody in the House that what future administrators and the courts will take into account is what is written in legislation and not what was said in answer to him or to others in debates. The right hon. Gentleman made a powerful intervention in previous debates. After we had heard his speech and the original response from the Government, most of us thought that that would be reconfirmed. His argument was overwhelming.
When I read some of the debates in the other place and what was said by eminent historians, who were applying their minds to exactly the same problem as the right hon. Gentleman, I thought that the Government could have made some response. But they made none. They used their majority in the other place in the same way as they had used it in this House to vote down any plea such as that made so forcibly by the right hon. Gentleman that originally it was approved by the Home Secretary, only to be modified later. The Home Secretary seems to think that I have misinterpreted what he said. Certainly the right hon. Member for Pavilion thinks that there was a great difference between the Government's first and second response.
The Bill has come back to this place in the last moments before it is to become an Act in a form which takes no account of that whole exchange or of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman about lifetime confidentiality and all that it may imply. It is not for protecting spies but for protecting the proper discussion of what has happened in the past on numerous occasions. I gave an illustration myself. I need only repeat the name. If such a provision had been applied to Winston Churchill, the publication of large sections of what he thought it was necessary and right to publish for the British people would not have been permitted. The right hon. Gentleman nods his head. He had the support of two or three historians in the other place who put that case as well. It is a wretched affair.
That is one aspect. It is not the sole important one, as I am sure the right hon. Member for Pavilion will agree, but it is a most important one, and I am not trying to diminish it. The Government have not moved an inch to meet the whole of that argument. The same thing applies to a range of questions mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett).
We are not talking solely about tonight's proceedings, but tonight's proceedings are a disgrace to both Houses of Parliament. I am not sure which Chamber bears the most severe guilt. The Government bear the primary guilt in both cases because it is on their recommendation in both Houses that the measure has been put through in this way.
I have seen a number of guillotine motions of my own. If I do not mention them others might be tempted to do so, so I shall take prophylactic action by dealing with that in a second.
There is no need for this squalid little guillotine motion now. We cannot have any lengthy debate. The debate may have been slightly more extensive without the guillotine,

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but because the Government think that they can ram the Bill through with a guillotine that is what they do. If we allow this guillotine motion tonight, it will automatically become part of our proceedings. Whenever a Bill which has been subjected to the guillotine procedure returns to the House from the other place the guillotine will automatically be applied again. That is wrong. We could have debated this matter without that, so the guillotine motion is squalid on those accounts.
I happened to come across The Sunday Times at the weekend. Some hon. Members may have read the interview that the noble Lord Whitelaw gave to Mr. Brian Walden, or which Mr. Brian Walden gave to Lord Whitelaw—I am not sure which way round it was. The interview seemed designed to ensure that Lord Whitelaw's memoirs were brightened up. I am not saying anything against Lord Whitelaw. I have the greatest possible affection for him. Brian Walden is a skilful journalist, but the object seemed to be to brighten up the Whitelaw memoirs. I hope that that association will continue in the weeks to come.
I was a little surprised, if not flattered, to read that when Lord Whitelaw was discussing the way in which the Government were proceeding to ram their huge legislative programme through the House of Commons and the other place without any proper respect for the way in which matters should proceed, he said that I was responsible because I had made the guillotine respectable. The Leader of the House nods his head as if he is acting on that basis. He had better not act on that basis in future because it shows a complete misunderstanding of the situation.
It is a very different thing to have a guillotine when the Government have a majority of only one or two, when they will not get any legislation through at all without some form of guillotine at certain stages. Even so, the Labour Government's guillotine motions were much more relaxed than the ones that this Government have imposed. If we had not used the guillotine we would not have carried through any legislation. That is not the Government's situation. The Leader of the House could get a huge amount of legislation through—perhaps not all of it would have been beneficial—without use of the guillotine. Even Lord Whitelaw agrees with that. He thinks that it would have been much better if some of these ridiculous Bills had not been rammed through both Houses.
If only the Leader of the House had thought a bit more carefully he could have satisfied me and Lord Whitelaw at the same time. I should have thought that that was a most estimable aim for any Leader of the House to have. But the right hon. Gentleman forfeited any chance of getting such unanimous support. He has such a love of guillotines now that he will hardly allow any measure to go through the House without applying one. He does not think that the constitutional process is being applied unless a guillotine motion is applied at every stage. I am trying to prevent such a procedure becoming accepted.
But seriously, I believe that the procedures on this Bill are a disgrace to both Houses. We had good debates in this House. Anyone who listened to them all, or most of them, as I did, will know that they were excellent debates. Nobody could doubt that the weight of opinion was against the Government, but not the weight of the votes, of course. Therefore, when the legislation passed to the other place, the House of Lords should have taken that into account. If there is to be a second Chamber to survey what happens in this House, that was the time for it to do
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so. If there was to be any attempt by the House of Lords to mitigate what Lord Hailsham calls the elective dictatorship, that was when it should have happened.
However, Lord Hailsham does not seem to have exercised his rights in the other place. He still has the capacity to speak there but he is so intimidated by the elective dictatorship that he did not defend any of these matters. That is a great pity because he might have persuaded some others if he had had the nerve, courage and assiduity to put his case. We might not have been presented with this fait accompli now.
Nobody will take the House of Lords seriously in the future if it cannot exercise any second opinion on a measure such as this. When there is overwhelming opinion in the debates in the House of Commons against the Government's proposals which involve matters of central constitutional problems, and the House of Lords says that it will vote through the legislation, even against most of the weight of the debate in that House, it seems that the Government have an even bigger automatic majority in the second Chamber than here. The Home Secretary shakes his head, but of course the Government have a greater majority there if they summon all the backwoodsmen. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the figures on the poll tax legislation he will see that that is true. If the Government seek to continue to use their automatic majorities in both Houses against the major tone of the debate, they will do great injury to the constitution of our country.
Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of turning our discussion into an argument against the other place. I hope that he will forgive me if I recall that the first time that I met him was at dinner at Lord Beaverbrook's house. When the right hon. Gentleman came in, Lord Beaverbrook said, "Here is Robespierre. Whose head are you going to cut off today?" That brings me back to the subject of the guillotine.
If the right hon. Gentleman looks into the matter, he will see that the argument that he has made is just as true about the other place as it is about this one. The weight of the argument has been consistently, here and there, in favour of what we have been saying. I beg and pray the Ministers to take account of that, and, when they come to take their administrative decisions, to take account of what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman and some Conservative Members.
Mr. Foot: I happily adopt the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's argument because it happens to be the same as my own, but not the first part of it. There is no doubt that in both Houses the weight of the argument has been against the Government's proposition. However, the Government have not taken any account of either House. Therefore, I take the matter slightly further than the right hon. Gentleman and say that that is a condemnation of the other House, as well as this one. We cannot put all the blame on the Government's shoulders, although we can put most of it there.
I do not support the other place. I am in favour of doing away with it, and this is another reason why. When it comes to the crunch, to essential issues, and when Tory Ministers have made up their minds, they always have the obedient House of Lords at their disposal, even on a question on which there is such strong argument against the Executive. In the past few weeks the House of Lords

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has missed a great opportunity to carry powerful debates to votes, and when the reckoning comes that will have to be taken into account. The other place is now as subject to the whims and determinations of the Government as is the Cabinet itself.
That, I suppose, is what Lord Hailsham—in his way—was trying to describe as the elective dictatorship. There ought to be some members of the Government who would try to revolt against it; instead, we have this squalid little motion—an attempt to force through late at night, when hon. Members have just returned from a stay in the country, a measure that has been torn apart every time the House has had a chance to debate it. The Government
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have brought it back, saying, "We shall ram this through again, and ram it through the other place, and we shall go on until—perhaps—the constitution is bust wide open."
The Government are making a great mistake. If they will not listen to me, they should listen to the right hon. Member for Pavilion or all the other Conservative Members who—I guess—will press the case as strongly as we did in our previous debates. They are making a great mistake even from their own point of view, although I shall not lose any sleep on that account. I shall lose sleep because I believe that they are twisting the constitution to suit the interests of the elective dictatorship.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I remind the House that we must conclude this part of our proceedings by 11.14 pm.
10.46 pm
Mr. Rupert Allason: I suppose that as realists we must accept that, whatever is said tonight, bitter experience tells us that the Government will not take the slightest notice. In my wildest moments earlier this evening, I reflected that a debate such as this might just as well be taking place in the saloon bar of a public house; and if I were looking for a name for that public house I would call it the Coach and Horses. I shall explain the reason later.
I did two things this morning when I woke up. First I opened my post, and found a review copy of a book entitled "The Blake Escape: How We Freed George Blake—And Why", by Pat Pottle and Michael Randle. Those two individuals proclaimed to the world last week that they had assisted in the escape of someone who had been sentenced to 42 years' imprisonment. The Bill will not have the slightest impact on that extraordinarily blatant advertisement for their self-confessed illegal activity. They have not been prosecuted, nor have they been given notice that they will be. Surely an Official Secrets Act could at least do that.
Why the "Coach and Horses"? After I had read some of the book I turned to The Independent, where I discovered that Desmond Bristow was preparing to write a book. Desmond Bristow has given long service to this country. If there had been a system under which he could submit his manuscript to the authorities and ensure that no lives would be endangered, he would have done so. The fact remains that the Government have consistently ignored all the pleas from both sides of the House for them to face reality and bring in a sensible system like the one in the United States, perhaps a publications review board. Surely that would be sensible.
The Government's objective in a Bill of this kind must surely be to protect information and to ensure that no information is released that would be dangerous. I am sorry: I believe that I cannot use the word "endanger", but must use "jeopardise". Or is it vice versa? Either way, that is surely the objective. Even while this Bill is being debated, we know that it is an abject failure. We will not achieve that very important objective. To dispose of the Peter Wright red herring once and for all, I point out that that case would not be affected at all by either the Bill or the proposed amendments.
So, who is behind the Home Secretary? Who is behind the Government? Who is proposing these extraordinary changes?
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: It is a secret, but the name begins with "M".
Mr. Allason: I am glad that my hon. Friend is covered by parliamentary privilege, because in other circumstances he might be back in the Old Bailey, of which he has some knowledge. I believe that those behind the measure are the same people who advised the Prime Minister when Anthony Blunt's name was going to be bandied about in the courts in a defamation case. On that occasion, they advised the Prime Minister that Anthony Blunt should be protected and his name not disclosed. Those same people advised the Lord Privy Seal in 1956 that Kim Philby was not under any suspicion. Those same people advised the Prime Minister that there was no evidence of post-war Soviet penetration of the security and intelligence services.
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This Bill is surely intended to protect secret information and to ensure that former members of the security and intelligence services follow a particular way of getting clearance to write their books. Of course, such books have been published in the past.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the allocation of time motion. So far, he has not addressed that motion.
Mr. Allason: I shall be brief. Suffice it to say that the Home Secretary said that he would give permission originally for people to publish. My hon. Friend the Minister of State has subsequently said that only in rare and exceptional circumstances would that situation change.
I believe that the objective of the Bill has been lost. I am very sympathetic to the plea by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), who has been pressing the point I am making. In future we are likely to see authors prosecuted and journalists going to prison. We have recently seen the spectre in the Salman Rushdie case of books being banned and burnt. We should not put ourselves in such a position. We will certainly be doing so if the Bill goes any further.
10.53pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan: There is some irony in the fact that we are debating the guillotine motion, and that it is only because of that motion that we are able once again to draw attention to the enormity of the Bill. Had the Home Secretary not felt inclined to follow the 47 timetable motions, we should no doubt have had to confine ourselves to the narrow ambit of the amendments from another place that we shall shortly be considering. That would certainly not have been an appropriate way in which to end the debate in this House of a Bill which was a substitute for the freedom of information legislation that this country needs to complete its effective democracy.
The Bill, so long in consideration, has been condemned on all sides. It has been condemned by the leading newspapers of the country and by the vast majority of those who have spoken in the debates in this House and in another place.
The Home Secretary spoke, albeit briefly, on the substance of the Bill. His speech resembled a guttering candle that did nothing to illuminate the debate. It left a somewhat acrid smell. It reminded us that the right hon. Gentleman, who began his term of office as Home Secretary with a somewhat liberal reputation, has systematically, through his legislative activities, destroyed it. In this Bill he has ensured that the law will be an ass. It will be set aside by juries. Public servants, notwithstanding the rubrics of the Bill, will put at the forefront of their mind public interest in the truth and the need to reveal wrongdoing. That is the subject which we wished to ventilate again. The country knows that the Government have stifled that debate. It is that debate which the Home Secretary has so slightingly dispensed with throughout.
Parliament has been made merely a cipher in the proceedings. Time and again hon. Members have been required simply to march through the Lobbies. They have seen the sense in opening up these matters set at naught by

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a Government who have been humiliated in the courts and who have then sought a legislative riposte to the defeats that they have suffered.
It would be better if the Bill were not enacted in its present form. Those who have the important task of keeping secret those things that ought to be kept secret will be under tension as to where their duty lies. When public servants smell wrongdoing they will, I have no doubt, reveal it. It will be their duty to do so. In doing so, they will reveal the folly of the Government's actions.
I thank the Home Secretary for providing us with this final opportunity to pass comment on his miserable measure. It is a measure which will do his repute no good in the eyes of those who care about freedom in this country.
10.57 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd: There was a charming moment earlier, if I heard it correctly, when the former leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) and the Home Secretary were exchanging reminiscences about the quality of their guillotines. It was a curious moment of sophistry.
I do not go along with the former Leader of the Opposition if he maintains that the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act—TULRA 1 and TULRA 2—are at the heart of our democratic and accountable processes and the rights and liberties of citizens. That is not how I see it. Fortunately, the European Court found otherwise. It found that that is an unacceptable law.
The guillotine is a subject which exercises the minds of thoughtful Conservatives. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House listed for us the number of guillotines that it has been necessary for the Government to impose to expedite business. The number of measures of great importance that the Government no longer feel that they have the ability to argue is shaming. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made much of the fact that 28 hours in Committee and 39 hours in total have been devoted to a measure which touches on the fundamental liberty of the citizens of this state.
I have been reading a book by the father of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery). Leo Amery reveals his thoughts on the constitution in his book and makes an observation about British democracy by referring to Burke. He says that our system of parliamentary democracy is not about mere arithmetical majorities. It is not a question of x ÷ 2 + 1. It is a reaching-out process to try to obtain consent and agreement to the great measures that affect our liberty. Why the Government should eschew that on such a fundamental issue I do not understand. This trivial concept that 39 hours is a breathtaking allocation of time is refuted by our own contemporary evidence.
Again, L. S. Abrey in "Thoughts on the Constitution" observed that the Labour Government passed 70 pieces of legislation in the very first parliamentary Session after the war, and most of those were taken on the Floor of the House. Indeed, the Cable and Wireless nationalisation measure had two days on Second Reading, yet this Government feel it necessary to impose a guillotine after 13 hours.
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Those of us who have followed the progression of the Bill through the House know why a guillotine was rushed in. The performance of the Minister of State explaining why it was necessary to have powers to designate any person rather than merely Crown servants and Crown contractors and giving, after three hours of debate, the one instance he could think of—the Security Commission, whose members are Privy Councillors and within the circle of secrecy—begs questions as to what the Government was fearful of. Argument was the answer, and it will serve us ill as Conservatives if we have to drive through legislation without being certain and confident of the basis of the argument on which we do it.
The Bill is deeply flawed, and sensitive individuals within the Government know that it is atrocious. As Lord Dacre of Glanton said in another place, it contains principles that this nation rejected by participation in the Nuremberg trials. These are how fundamental the measures are that touch on these very freedoms. That is why it was the right of good Conservatives across the country to expect the House to fulfil one of its principal and primary roles, which is a line-by-line scrutiny of legislation. "Not a bit," say the Government, "We cannot afford this nonsense. After all, we could do away with Parliament altogether. There is nothing in our constitution that insists that we have a First, Second and Third Reading."
We could hand our votes over the Whips Office as soon as we come by power of attorney and go away for four years. I can see my hon. Friends the Whips finding this a most agreeable function. It would simplify government, but it would deny the very concept we want out of this, which is that the Parliament of this country represents the viewpoint of informed, intelligent citizens to ensure those things that we account important, including accountable government. If Government do not have to argue for their contentions, we do not have accountable government. The Government turned their face on those very arguments.
I cannot but support amendments that I wish the Government had introduced or accepted in consultation with the House. The concept of a damage test going from "prejudices" to "endangers" is to be welcomed, and it is something on which the Government could have reached agreement across the country and secured some form of good will for.
I know that my right hon. Friend constantly said that there were important members of my own party who were deeply nervous about this being a dangerously liberal piece of legislation, and he cited my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). When I saw my right hon. Friend earlier I thought that he was going to come in to vote down the Government's stern liberalisation of clause 2 and clause 3 in the raising of the damage test, but it is unfortunate that this badly flawed Bill will limp out of here with a great deal of scorn for the worst of reasons. This was something the Government could have argued, accommodated and had a consensus on across the Floor of the House. I hope that in future my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will recall that for us to reach out and secure consent is the firmest foundation for the rights and authorities of an Executive to lead our country, and that is an important principle which the Government are denying.
10.58 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: It seemed to me, both from occasional visits and from reading the Lords debate, that those Lords who know most about it on the Conservative side were precisely those who were most critical. Hugh Trevor-Roper is not exactly a Socialist, but he was only one of a number with real knowledge of intelligence matters who have made a study of these things, who was most deeply critical.
I want to ask one question. In his opening speech, the Home Secretary seemed jolly sure that it would work out as he suggested, rather than as the rest of us who have taken an interest believed. He suggested that it would work out far nearer his proposals. If that is the case, how will Parliament monitor the operation of the legislation? We are very bad at monitoring what we have done. I should like to hear—not necessarily tonight—that the Government will at least consider giving us the opportunity, on the basis of a short annual report on the working of their Act, of knowing how it has worked out. If they are so certain, there is no reason why they should not put it to an annual parliamentary test.
11.2 pm
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Although I share the strong sentiments of indignation which have been expressed so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), at this late hour I cannot sustain the tone of high moral seriousness which, quite rightly, has run through the speeches of hon. Members from both sides of the House.
The timetable motion reminds me of one of the few examples of judicial wit in an official secrets case. I refer to a very small official secrets case in 1938 involving a journalist in Yorkshire called Driffield who was prosecuted for the heinous crime of collaborating with a GPO telephonist to get stories about police activities for the local paper. He was prosecuted under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act for receiving official information and faced a term of imprisonment. The Attorney-General of the day came up to prosecute him, but the judge in charge of the case did not think much of that and said that the Official Secrets Act was never meant to be used for such a purpose. Towards the end of his summing-up, he leaned across the bench and said, "Mr. Attorney-General, I hope that such a case will never be brought again. If you have to kill a field mouse, it is not always necessary to use a field gun."
I have a vision of the Cabinet Committee discussing the tactics in Parliament on the Lords Amendments saying to each other, "Come on boys, we have to go big-game hunting in Parliament tonight to kill a field mouse. How shall we do it? We had better summon up the heavy artillery, the King's Troop, the big berthas and the howitzers, and put down a long timetable motion." I have had time to count it and it is nearly 750 words long and covers 68 lines on the Order Paper. What is it all about? It is about passing a two-line amendment to delete the word, "jeopardise" and insert the word "endangers"—the very amendment which was suggested on the Floor of the House and totally rejected by the "Three Men in a Boat" team in charge of the Bill's destiny. I cannot imagine what paranoia or insecurity made them think that it was
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necessary to wheel up the field guns to kill a field mouse, to blast the enemies of the Bill out of the water once and for all.
The term "field mouse" is pretty appropriate. If I can draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary away from his personal correspondence, being a classical scholar he will remember the words of the poet Horace in "Ars Poetica":
"parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus."
which, if I may translate for the benefit of my fellow Old Etonians, who are mostly among the Opposition, means:
"The mountains have been in labour, they have brought forth a ridiculous mouse."
What a ridiculous mouse the Bill has turned out to be.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) pointed out that he read in The Independent this morning about a new book being produced by a new overseas author. The whole purpose of the Bill was to give Peter Wright and his successors a jolly good whacking so that they would never do it again, but a Mr. Bristow in Marbella is about to do it all over again. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason), who is always in the forefront of receiving secret information, is receiving through his letter box books about Blake which cannot be stopped, and future novels. Nothing can be done about them. A ridiculous mouse has been born, but it cannot be killed even by the heavy field artillery on the Treasury bench. What a farce we are taking part in.
11.9 pm
Mr. Teddy Taylor: It is rather unfortunate that the Government seem to be doing so many disagreeable things late at night. We discuss funny Euro-regulations over which Parliament has no control at this time of night so that nobody knows about them.
I want to put one brief point to the Government. What on earth is the point of bringing forward a guillotine on this matter when we are discussing Lords amendments that are unlikely to provoke any disagreement in the House, but about which we need a considerable amount of information? Amendment No. 4, which involves changing "jeopardises" to "endangers" for international relations, is vital because we know that among international relations, we are talking about Britain's relations with the European Community. The amendment would make an enormous difference. I would like to know a great deal about it, but if we have a guillotine, how do we learn that information?
We also want to know why such a major change is proposed for clauses 2 and 3—and consequently for clause 5—but not for clause 4, which deals with crime and special investigation, especially when we bear in mind the recent activities of the serious fraud squad. I suggest that the reason is that the Government faced huge hostility during earlier debates on the Bill on the principles we discussed and we are dealing tonight with detailed and important amendments.
If our discussions are to be contracted unnecessarily tonight, could we have a clear assurance that the Government will give a full statement—perhaps in written answers—of the consequences of each of the amendments? To people who study them, they seem to be significant. They are not amendments that we seek to oppose, but about which we need to know the consequences. Bearing in mind that voting is unlikely, I hope that the Government will withdraw the motion and let us get on with the job of simply asking questions.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 165, Noes 110.

Division No. 184]

[11.11 pm

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Amess, David

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Amos, Alan

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Arbuthnot, James

Irvine, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Janman, Tim

Ashby, David

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Baldry, Tony

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Batiste, Spencer

Knowles, Michael

Bendall, Vivian

Knox, David

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Latham, Michael

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Lawrence, Ivan

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Lightbown, David

Boswell, Tim

Lilley, Peter

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Lord, Michael

Bowis, John

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Brazier, Julian

Maclean, David

Bright, Graham

McLoughlin, Patrick

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

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Burns, Simon

Malins, Humfrey

Burt, Alistair

Mans, Keith

Butterfill, John

Marlow, Tony

Carrington, Matthew

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Carttiss, Michael

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Cash, William

Maude, Hon Francis

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Chapman, Sydney

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Chope, Christopher

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Miller, Sir Hal

Conway, Derek

Mills, Iain

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Moate, Roger

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Monro, Sir Hector

Cope, Rt Hon John

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Cran, James

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Moynihan, Hon Colin

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

Nelson, Anthony

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Neubert, Michael

Dorrell, Stephen

Nicholls, Patrick

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Dunn, Bob

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Durant, Tony

Oppenheim, Phillip

Favell, Tony

Paice, James

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Fishburn, John Dudley

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Forman, Nigel

Porter, David (Waveney)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Portillo, Michael

Forth, Eric

Powell, William (Corby)

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Raffan, Keith

Fox, Sir Marcus

Renton, Tim

Freeman, Roger

Riddick, Graham

French, Douglas

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Gale, Roger

Rowe, Andrew

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Gill, Christopher

Ryder, Richard

Glyn, Dr Alan

Sackville, Hon Tom

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Sayeed, Jonathan

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Shaw, David (Dover)

Gow, Ian

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Sims, Roger

Grist, Ian

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Speller, Tony

Hague, William

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Stevens, Lewis

Haselhurst, Alan

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Hayward, Robert

Sumberg, David

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Hind, Kenneth

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

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

Temple-Morris, Peter

140

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Ward, John

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Thorne, Neil

Watts, John

Thurnham, Peter

Wells, Bowen

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Wheeler, John

Trippier, David

Widdecombe, Ann

Twinn, Dr Ian

Wood, Timothy

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Woodcock, Mike

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Waldegrave, Hon William

Tellers for the Ayes:

Walden, George

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Mr. Michael Fallon.

Waller, Gary

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Aitken, Jonathan

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Allason, Rupert

Ingram, Adam

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Kirkwood, Archy

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Lamond, James

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Leighton, Ron

Barron, Kevin

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Battle, John

Lewis, Terry

Beckett, Margaret

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Beggs, Roy

McAvoy, Thomas

Benyon, W.

McFall, John

Bermingham, Gerald

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Boateng, Paul

Maclennan, Robert

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

McWilliam, John

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Madden, Max

Buchan, Norman

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Buckley, George J.

Marek, Dr John

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Meacher, Michael

Clay, Bob

Meale, Alan

Cohen, Harry

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Corbett, Robin

Mowlam, Marjorie

Corbyn, Jeremy

Mullin, Chris

Cousins, Jim

Murphy, Paul

Crowther, Stan

Nellist, Dave

Cryer, Bob

Patchett, Terry

Dalyell, Tarn

Pike, Peter L.

Darling, Alistair

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

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

Prescott, John

Dewar, Donald

Quin, Ms Joyce

Dixon, Don

Randall, Stuart

Doran, Frank

Robertson, George

Dover, Den

Rogers, Allan

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Rooker, Jeff

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Fatchett, Derek

Ruddock, Joan

Faulds, Andrew

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

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

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Fisher, Mark

Skinner, Dennis

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Soley, Clive

Foster, Derek

Spearing, Nigel

Fyfe, Maria

Steel, Rt Hon David

Galbraith, Sam

Strang, Gavin

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Golding, Mrs Llin

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Gordon, Mildred

Wall, Pat

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Wallace, James

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Warden, Gareth (Gower)

Hardy, Peter

Wareing, Robert N.

Harman, Ms Harriet

Winnick, David

Henderson, Doug

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Hinchliffe, David

Home Robertson, John

Tellers for the Noes:

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Mr. Ken Eastham.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Ordered,
That the Order of the House [13 February] be supplemented as follows:
Lords Amendments
1. The proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed at this day's sitting and,

141
subject to the provisions of the Order of 13th February, those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion not later than the expiration of the period of two hours beginning with the commencement of the proceedings on this Order.
2.—(1) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any further Amendment of the said Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown and on any Motion moved by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

(b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, or as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;

(ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment;

(iii) put forthwith with respect to each Amendment designated by Mr. Speaker which has not been disposed of the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Amendment; and

(iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

(c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments
3. Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
142
4. The proceedings on any such further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of those proceedings.
5. For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

(b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining items in the Lords Message as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item;

(ii) in the case of each remaining item designated by Mr. Speaker, put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Proposal; and

(iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

Supplemental
6.—(1) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons.
(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
7.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and on the Report of such a Committee.
(2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
(3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(4) If the proceedings are interrupted at any time by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of any part of the proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

Official Secrets Bill
Lords amendments considered.
Official Secrets Bill
  Clause 1

    SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE
    Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 18, at end insert—
    "() Subject to subsection (7) below, a notification for the purposes of subsection (1) above shall be in force for the period of five years beginning with the day on which it is served but may be renewed by further notices under subsection (6) above for periods of five years at a time."
    11.23 pm
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): With this, it will be convenient to consider Lords amendment No. 2.
    Mr. Patten: The amendments provide that a notification shall expire after a period of five years from the date on which the notification is served unless it is renewed or previously revoked. The amendments follow closely the substance of amendments tabled by Opposition parties in another place and I note that the Opposition spokesman in another place, Lord Elwyn-Jones, said that he accepted these amendments with pleasure.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: Would this be the right moment to ask the Minister whether he has any sympathy at all, not with a five-year period, but with some kind of annual report back to the House on the actual mechanics of the operation of the Act that he hopes to put through?
    Mr. Robin Corbett: If any of the amendments have any substance, which is open to doubt, perhaps it is these two. The Minister and I have had exchanges on this matter. The Bill creates a class of individuals or groups who can be notified that they are subject to the provisions of the Bill. In other words, they will be civil servants in other Government Departments who come into contact with the security and intelligence services or Government contractors. The Home Secretary, who regrettably has had to leave us, said at one stage that there was no intention of designating groups of people. I believe that that was an exercise in semantics. It is obvious that a class of people in a particular office and grade—for example, in the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence—who, by the nature of their work, would have regular contact with the intelligence and security services, would, although not named as a group for notification, make up such a group.
    The Minister will remember that it was in paragraph 47 of the White Paper that the notion of the designation of individuals or groups was first postulated, although, as I said, the Home Secretary denied that later. I do not want to make heavy weather of this. We will not know how many people are told that they are notified persons or whether they are told that they are no longer notified persons. No distinction is made in the Bill about the weight or class of the information that those people would have come across in the course of their duties. If they have come across it, that is that.
    I welcome the five-year renewal of the notification, but can the Minister assure the House that notification under
    144
    the Bill will be kept to the absolute sensible minimum, in line with the Government's ambitions for the Bill? Can he assure us that when it comes to deciding whether notification should be extended for a further five-year period, the power to prolong notification will be used even more sparingly than in the first instance? Clearly, time changes the relevance and importance of the information which perhaps led to the decision to notify in the first place. The Minister would help the House if he could give those assurances.
    Mr. John Patten: The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has taken a close interest in the proceedings of the whole of the Bill. Of course, it would be open to him or to any other hon. Member, or a Select Committee, at any stage during the parliamentary cycle to submit the workings of the Official Secrets Act, if such it is at that stage, to examination.
    I remember the exchanges between the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) and myself in Committee on the Floor of the House. I do not think that I can add anything to the explanation of the people who may be notified to that which he will find recorded in the Official Report of 25 January 1989 at columns 1128–29. I can certainly give the undertaking that only those people who need to be notified will be notified.
    Mr. Dalyell: I appreciate the spirit in which the Minister has said that, but I think that he has forgotten what Back-Bench life is like. I do not know how he can say that it is up to me or anybody else to scrutinise the Bill. Week after week we apply for Adjournment debates, and we may or may not be lucky. I submit that that is not a satisfactory way of dealing with something which should be monitored by Parliament on a regular basis.
    The other alternative was that it should be submitted to a Select Committee. Which Select Committee?
    Mr. Robert Maclennan: Further to what the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has said, on a number of occasions the Lord President has made it plain that Ministers will not answer questions about security matters in the House. The Minister's statement tonight does not lie nicely with such previous statements.
    11.30 pm
    Mr. John Patten: Both hon. Gentlemen are chasing after the wrong hare. The hon. Member for Linlithgow asked what were the opportunities for keeping the workings of the Act under review. The House provides many opportunities for the workings of Acts to be kept under review.
    Mr. Dalyell: Which Select Committee?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Dalyell: I am sorry, but I asked a question about which Select Committee.
    Mr. Patten: The Defence Select Committee might wish to interest itself in the workings of some parts of the Official Secrets Act because of its interest in defence security. A range of Select Committees look at the workings of different Acts that concern the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.

  Clause 2

    DEFENCE
    Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 2, line 41, leave out "jeopardises" and insert "endangers".
    Mr. John Patten: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 4.
    Mr. Patten: The amendments replace the word "jeopardises" in the international relations harm test in clauses 2 and 3 with the word "endangers". The amendments respond to the suggestion in the other place that "endangers" might be clearer to juries than "jeopardises". The Opposition parties in another place fully supported that suggestion and the names of members of those parties appeared on the Order Paper with that of my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State in support. That was a welcome touch of unanimity in our consideration of the Bill.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: I am sure that the Minister will accept that the amendments are significant. They strengthen the basis on which we could regard something as damaging. It is interesting that they affect almost every clause in the Bill, except one. That is significant and important.
    Clause 2 contains the word jeopardises, which will be affected by the amendments. In clause 3(2) the word jeopardises is replaced by endangers. Clause 5(3) contains the words "the disclosure … is damaging" and, in that connection, damaging is defined closely as something which endangers. Clause 6 relates to international relations and clause 6(4) uses the word "damaging." In all those instances we are replacing the word jeopardises with something which seems more precise and more limiting, namely, damaging.
    In relation to clause 6, how on earth is it possible to decide whether a disclosure is damaging to international relations?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would not be in order for the Minister to respond to that question. We are debating the amendments to clauses 2 and 3.
    Mr. Taylor: Yes, but a study of the Bill shows that one is referred back to those clauses for a definition of the word damaging as it appears in clause 6(4). That clause says:
    "damaging shall be determined as it would be in relation to a disclosure of the information, document or article in question by a Crown servant in contravention of section 1(3), 2(1) and 3(1)".
    In other words, the clauses are covered by the amendments. In those circumstances it is fair to say that if we accept the amendment it has a specific consequence on clause 6(4). I am not trying to bring in new material. I am simply trying to show that the amendment affects clause 6(4), which refers back to the definition of damaging given earlier in the Bill.
    If we accept the amendment, and thereby have a consequential change in relation to the word "damaging" in clause 6(4), how will that affect any consideration of damage in Britain's relations with an international body, and particularly in our relations with the EEC, bearing in mind that Mr. Jacques Delors, the president of the
    146
    Commission, has said that before long about four fifths of all legislation affecting the House of Commons will go through the Council of Ministers procedure?
    I am not asking a silly question. It is vital that those who are engaged in EEC work should have an idea of the tests that will apply if there is any disclosure. How will it endanger the country's interests as opposed to jeopardising those interests? Do the Government regard this as a significant change? May we be told of the categories of information to which this will apply?
    Will the amendment have a bearing on clause 4? Although it appears to affect all the other clauses in the measure, it seems not to concern clause 4. If so, does the Minister consider that to be reasonable? Clause 4 deals with the consequences of what will happen if anybody reveals information which
    "results in the commission of an offence".
    That has wide scope because it relates to any
    "Crown servant or government contractor"
    who
    "discloses … information … to which this section applies and which … results in the commission of an offence".
    Am I right in thinking that the amendment will apply to all the other clauses but will not sharpen up the definition in clause 4? I ask that because discussions are taking place now about the controversial issue of the revelation of information in reports of inspectors who have been looking into a company merger. We also have the possibility of an inspection by what is called the serious fraud squad. Bearing in mind the need to protect the community, it would be sad if we sharpened up the definition of disclosure in all the other clauses, but made no change in clause 4.
    If the Government are arguing that only issues which endanger the national interest should have this protection, it would be wrong if it were not applied, for example, to reports about the mergers of companies or investigations by the serious fraud squad, where the need to give protection to the general public seems greater than ever.
    Those of us who oppose the Bill in principle are grateful that the Government have brought forward this new definition, which will sharpen the position and heighten the test by which it will be decided whether an action endangers the national interest as opposed to jeopardises it. Will this apply to what I would call other minor and consequential disclosures and, if not, why not?
    The Minister will accept that civil servants indulge in what I would describe as a "normal amount of disclosure" for a variety of reasons. Some of those might endanger the country, some of those civil servants might be bad people and some might just not be prepared to look on something confidential as confidential or something secret as secret.
    Every hon. Member would accept that we must have some law to restrict their activities. On the other hand, when we have a law relating, for example, to companies, where the Government have complete and absolute power to decide whether a document should be published, and when and whether an issue should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and the person affected has no guarantee or protection, is it fair and reasonable that in that one case the Government are making no concession and no commitment? I hope that the Minister can give us some guidance as to why he is going forward with this in regard to international relations, which is a major concession, but is not prepared to make the same concession on clause 4.
    Mr. Maclennan: It appears that the amendments are significant, particularly the amendment to clause 3. It will be recalled that in earlier debates we called in question the width of the nature of the documents that were protected from disclosure. By the use of the word "endangers" in preference to "jeopardises" the Government appear to be conceding that the nature of the documents themselves may be also somewhat confined by the use of the word endangers.
    It is not conceivable that the interests of the United Kingdom abroad could be endangered by the revelation of, for example, certain minor communications about commercial matters which are the stuff of everyday traffic between Whitehall and Brussels, and in which the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) takes such an interest. They might be important matters, involving the interests of the nation, but not matters about which it would be appropriate to use the word endangers. I hope that the Minister will confirm that that interpretation of the Government's intention is correct.
    Mr. Jonathan Aitken: The amendments should be welcomed, but I wish to probe the Minister briefly on a linguistic point and a political point. As to the linguistic point, I simply seek his confirmation that he believes that the word "endangers" heightens the harm test. That may seem obvious until one goes back into the linguistic roots of language and realises that in older days to be in jeopardy was considered a much higher level of serious trouble than to be in danger. I refer to the example in the King James authorised version of the Bible when Uriah the Hittite was placed in jeopardy by King David sending him into the front line, which was considerably more dangerous than merely being in danger, as various other biblical characters were in less life-threatening situations.
    With the passing of the years it is probably true that "jeopardises" has fallen behind and "endangers" has gone ahead. I simply wish confirmation from the Treasury Bench that it is certain that it is using the word in the modern sense and that "endangers" heightens the threshold of proof. That is desirable. I can see a good Queen's counsel in front of a jury managing to get an unfortunate victim or two acquitted by playing on the words and saying, "Members of the jury, can you believe that my client intended to endanger or cast into danger the whole interests of the United Kingdom," whereas many a civil servant might have been able to suggest that the interests of the United Kingdom were jeopardised by a minor leak.
    Perhaps more important than the linguistic point is the Minister's attitude to the House of Commons, which he appears to place on an inferior level to the other place. When he made his few words of introduction, he clearly said that the Government have experienced this dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, swapping the word "jeopardises" for "endangers" because of what was said in the other place.
    11.45 pm
    It is in the memory of many hon. Members in this debating Chamber tonight that exactly the same points were made on the Floor of the House by many hon. Members. I recall making some of them myself. At that time we met a wall of silence. There was not a single sign of any concession. The Minister might at least have the
    148
    grace to say tonight that the Government took into account what was said in the House of Commons, not just what was said in the other place. His words from the Dispatch Box this evening certainly gave the impression that only the arguments in the other place weighed with him.
    Finally, I want to penetrate the mystery of the Government's thinking on this matter. Why have they decided to make this concession? On the whole, they have not been convinced by any argument from any source throughout the Bill's proceedings, yet they have suddenly introduced amendment No. 3. Was it a matter of letting one of the good amendments come up on a roulette wheel? Spin the wheel and see which number is lucky. Why this amendment? Why were the Government convinced about something which they rejected out of hand when it was discussed in this House?
    In the old days when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was a member of the Cabinet one referred to the statutory woman. Now we have the statutory amendment. We have at last got the Government to accept one of the multitude of well-argued and convincing amendments. Why this one? I should like to know.
    Mr. John Patten rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I take it that the Minister has to the leave of the House to speak again.
    Mr. Patten: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) made an important point about the substance and the meaning of the word "endangers" and its relationship to the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) made a linguistic point and then laid down a political challenge. I shall deal with those points before dealing separately with the important points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor).
    As I explained in my brief introduction, the amendments respond to a suggestion that the jury would find it easier to cope with the concept of endangering than with that of jeopardising. I do not regard the amendment as making a substantial change in the effect of the test of harm, other than to make it more readily applicable and understandable by the jury. On balance, the average woman or man in the jury room might find herself or himself easier and happier with the word "endanger" than with the word "jeopardise".
    Mr. Aitken: In seeing the amendment as something which does not change the Bill but simply helps the jury, is my hon. Friend hoping for more acquittals or more convictions?
    Mr. Patten: The Bill, as my hon. Friend knows, is based on leaving matters to the jury. Ministers must keep their hopes, pious or not, to themselves, and I intend to do so tonight.
    My hon. Friend made what was almost a constitutional point, referring to our earlier debate on the guillotine motion. I intended no discourtesy to this place when I referred to the other place. We are dealing with amendments sent to this House from the other place. Therefore, I have to refer to the other place, even though the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) wishes it ill and a short life.
    Mr. Maclennan: Is the Minister really saying that there is no difference in modern parlance between the use of the word "jeopardise" and the use of "endanger"?
    Mr. Patten: I am simply saying what I said a moment or two ago, which will be recorded in Hansard. The jury will find it easier to cope with the concept of endangering than with that of jeopardising. All through the debate we have been talking about the use of words and trying to get the words right in an attempt to improve the Bill.
    Tests of harm have been discussed at considerable length in the House and in the other place. Both Houses have agreed that the tests are based on the right principle and are set at the right level. Those issues have been settled and we should not seek to reopen them in this debate.
    I turn to the important questions asked directly of me by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not become too involved in company investigations and matters European. I certainly will not mention M. Jacques Delors, other than to do so now.
    Clause 6(4) contains a damage test that attracts the language of the test in clause 2, in relation to defence, and in clause 3 in relation to international relations. Thereafter, it would be for the jury to decide, as always under the provisions of the Bill, whether the harm test had been met.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East also asked about clause 4, and whether the change involving "endanger" affected clause 4. The answer to that question is no, because clause 4 does not attract the harm test to which the amendments refer.
    Understandably, because of his interests, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East has made some comments which have gone wider than the terms of the amendments. The points that he raised about clause 4 are completely separate. The Government believe that the provisions in clause 4 are right and do not need amendment.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment No. 4 agreed to.

  Clause 8

    SAFEGUARDING OF INFORMATION
    Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 7, line 47, after "servant" insert "or government contractor"
    Mr. John Patten: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    This is a drafting amendment which simply makes it clear that the obligations under clause 8(1), in respect of the handling of documents in his possession are exactly the same for a Government contractor, who has been notified under clause 1(6), as they are for any other Government contractor.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: May I ask the Minister a brief question? He has been very helpful and courteous in his answers. How do police fit in if they are used by Government Departments? We know what a Crown servant is, but would someone who was employed by the
    150
    Metropolitan police or the local authority police and used for this purpose, be a Government contractor or a Crown servant? Is the serious drugs squad, which is apparently directly employed by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for particular purposes, a Government contractor? The Minister will appreciate that this is an important and serious matter, particularly as the serious fraud squad has the special ability, due to the length of its deliberations, to stop matters coming before the general public. What is its position when it is directly employed by, for example, someone directly employed by a Government Department? Will it be affected?
    Mr. Patten: When my hon. Friend used the term "local authority police" early in his remarks, did he mean police employed by local police authorities, rather than by local authorities?
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Yes.
    Mr. Patten: The people to whom my hon. Friend referred would be regarded as Crown servants.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 6, in page 8, line 18, after "any" insert "official"
    Mr. John Patten: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Lords amendments Nos. 7 to 9.
    Mr. Patten: The amendments relate to the offence in clause 8(6) of giving unauthorised access to protected information. The amendments are aimed directly to meet the points made in another place; they are intended to apply the offence only to someone who knows that he was disclosing official information, and to clarify the presentation of the offence. I was glad that the Opposition spokesman in another place said that the amendments were acceptable to the Opposition and had his consent and approval.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 7 to 9 agreed to.

  Schedule 1

    CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
    Lords amendment: No. 10, in page 12, line 11, at end insert—
    "() Section 30(2)(b) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975;"
    Mr. John Patten: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    The amendment corrects an omission in schedule 1 and inserts in the schedule a reference to the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975.
    Mr. Dalyell: Why was it omitted? Was the Scottish Office not consulted?
    Mr. Patten: It was a mistake for which I take full responsibility.
    Question put and agreed to.

Drug Misuse
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
11.55 pm
Sir Fergus Montgomery: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister, who has had a very busy time replying to the previous debate and who must now reply to an Adjournment debate starting just before midnight. I should like to say, however, how important I consider this subject. It is a worldwide problem. I think that we are all aware—certainly I am aware—of the Government's efforts in this regard; I am also well aware that there is no single answer to the problem of drugs.
First, there is the problem of drugs coming into this country. All the heroin and cocaine and most of the cannabis comes from abroad: 80 per cent. of the heroin comes from south-west Asia, the cocaine from South America, the herbal cannabis from West Africa and Jamaica and the cannabis resin from the Lebanon and Morocco. The drugs must first be smuggled into the United Kingdom; the drug traffickers then ensure that they get on to the streets.
Obviously, the more readily available the drugs, the more likely people are to experiment with them. That is why it is important to try to stop them coming in, and I believe the increase in international co-operation to be of immense value. Through the United Nations, a conference was held in Vienna in June 1987 which produced more international co-operation to combat all aspects of the problem. Its aims were, first, to stop illicit drug production, and secondly to co-operate to prevent international trafficking.
Three main ways were suggested to prevent the raw material of drugs from being produced. The first was law enforcement—in other words, preventing people from growing illicit crops. The second was crop eradication—in other words wiping out crops that have been grown unlawfully. The third was crop substitution—in other words encouraging the growth of new crops in place of illicit crops. All those methods, however, have proved very difficult. Law enforcement is very expensive in terms of manpower; crop eradication cannot stop farmers replanting at the earliest opportunity; and crop substitution is likely to require a new infrastructure—in other words, it would prove extremely costly.
Perhaps it is best to consider enforcement. This country now has a national drugs intelligence unit, which I believe provides an essential link between the police and Customs and Excise. I pay tribute to the work done by drug squads. We must remember that the illegal drugs business is now the most profitable international business in the world: addiction and smuggling continue to spread, not just in the rich countries but from Peru to India. In several countries, narco syndicates, as they are called, are more powerful than the Governments of those countries. With these enormous drug empires comes a chain of violence and terror.
I do not have to remind my hon. Friend the Minister of what happens in Colombia, which is dominated by the Medellin drug cartel, which may be admired by the poor for its flamboyance but which is feared by all in public life because at least 20 journalists and 50 judges have died for daring to challenge it. I am told by people in the drugs
152
quads in this country and the United States of America that the Mafia at its worst pales into insignificance beside the Colombian drug syndicates.
Now this country has what is called the advent of the yardies. I will quote the following article from the Daily Telegraph of 13 October 1988:
"When Innocent Egbulefu, a Nigerian drug dealer, was thrown from the eighth floor of an east London tower block in March 1986, the investigation into his death received little publicity. During it, however, disturbing rumours emerged of a new and vicious Jamaican gang attempting to gain a foothold in the expanding London cocaine market.
Egbulefu is now recognised as the first of at least six murder victims in Britain of the Yardies, whose American counterparts are seen by the FBI as the most dangerous organised crime group after the Mafia.
His death prompted the Metropolitan Police to form a covert squad to cover intelligence on the Yardies. That the 16-strong squad is now to be almost doubled in strength, at a time of fierce competition for 'limited resources', is a measure of Scotland Yard's alarm at the threat posed by Jamaican organised crime.
The Yardies is a loose association of violent criminals, most of whom originated in Kingston, Jamaica and whose principal interest is the trafficking and sale of cocaine. In Britain, they are perceived as a new phenomenon. In America, however, their counterparts, the 'posses', are said to have been responsible for up to 800 drug-related murders since 1984. The aim of the Yardie squad is to make sure the American experience is not repeated in Britain."
Every person on that Yardie squad must be aware of the dangers involved. As I have said, the illegal drug business is highly profitable. This fact was brought home forcibly to me in 1985 when I went with the Home Affairs Select Committee to visit the United States. In New York, we were taken to the drug dealing area on the lower east side, where we saw the rooftop spotters who were there to ensure that, if the police or law enforcement officers came close, a warning would be given to the people selling drugs.
We saw the disused buildings where the drug dealing was done and the holes in the wall where people passed through their money and got their fix. Much of what we saw was in Washington. Then we went to Miami, which has been referred to as the drug capital of the United States. I do not need to give my hon. Friend lessons in geography, as I understand that that was his subject before he entered Parliament, but I must tell him that Miami is the largest city in Florida, a peninsula with thousands of miles of coastline. As it is impossible to monitor all that coastline, Florida could be called a smugglers' paradise, especially since it is so close to south America and the cocaine centres.
While in Miami, we were taken to a disused factory on an industrial estate, where an enormous amount of cociane had been seized by the authorities. Armed guards were on duty because the value of the cocaine held there was inestimable. We were sworn to secrecy—although it made no difference, since none of us knew his way around Miami—because of the danger to those employed at that centre. If the people who were keen to sell that cocaine had realised where it was being held, I doubt very much that armed guards could have kept them away.
I am told that a few years previously one of the strangest sights in Miami was a queue of men carrying suitcases outside a bank before opening time. Each person carrying a suitcase was accompanied by an armed minder. They were waiting to pay into the bank huge numbers of small denomination bills that had been acquired by drug pushing. Now there are no queues, because the United States has changed the law. The Banks Secrecy Act

153
requires all cash deposits of over $10,000 to be reported by the bank to the federal authorities. The drug barons in the United States have been forced to launder their profits in tax havens abroad.
What struck me most about that visit to Miami was the way in which the assets of convicted drug barons were used to continue the fight against drugs. It was rather like going to an auctioneer's paradise. We were shown pictures of beautiful homes, racehorses, jewellery, paintings and cars, all of which were the assets of people who had been convicted of drug offences. Their assets were auctioned and sold. The proceeds were then used in the battle against drugs. I happen to believe that that is a good idea. I hope that my hon. Friend will explain why we have not followed the United States example.
A few weeks ago, at Question Time, I asked my hon. Friend what happened to the money that is confiscated as a result of the ill deeds of drug barons. He said that it was taken by the Treasury. Money confiscated from criminals should be put to work in the best possible way for the community. The United States Drug Enforcement Agency has been virtually self-supporting for some years because of the dirty money that it has seized and put to good use. If it is possible to do that in the United States, why cannot it be done here?
I draw to my hon. Friend's attention two recent cases. The first is the case of Charlotte Chrastny. She got seven years for her part in cocaine smuggling. She was ordered to pay £2,600,000 from the profits of her drug operations. The second case is that of Ronnie French. He got eight and a half years, with an extra 10 years without remission unless he hands over £1,700,000, which is regarded as his share of drug profits. Within the last two months, those two cases have resulted in the realisation of £4,300,000. That sum could profitably be used in the fight against drugs instead of going into the Treasury's coffers.
Finally, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a new development. Last year, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency urged the Metropolitan police to apply for £32·5 million of drug assets that had been seized with the help of the Metropolitan police's special task force that had been investigating the Brinks-Mat bullion robbery. However, the United States authorities ruled against us. They said that there was no mutual assistance agreement with Britain. I think that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary took prompt action in that case, and agreement has now been reached. The change in the law that was needed has now taken place.
The $64,000 question that I want to ask my hon. Friend is this: does the Treasury get the £32·5 million, or do the police get it? I understand that the United States Drug Enforcement Agency believes that the police should have the money. I support that view.
We all want progress to be made in the fight against drugs. To use the ill-gotten gains of drug barons in the fight against drugs surely makes sense. I hope that my hon. Friend will confirm that when he replies to the debate.
12.8 am
Mr. Tim Rathbone rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Member have the leave of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery) and the Minister to speak in the debate?
Sir Fergus Montgomery indicated assent.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): indicated assent.
Mr. Rathbone: I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery) and the Minister for allowing me to speak for just a few moments.
I rise as the chairman of the all-party drug misuse group to support every word said by my hon. Friend. He drew attention to the marvellous job which the national drugs intelligence unit has been doing, both in encouraging co-operation between police forces, and—all-important—encouraging co-operation between police forces and the Customs. Anything we can do to finance their operation better, to improve the gathering of intelligence, which is imperative in tracking down drug traffickers, ought to be done.
My hon. Friend drew attention to the horrifying activities of the Mafia and the Yardies, and the way this took place in crack houses, which have yet to come to this country—thank goodness, although all the signs are that they are on the way. I know that the Home Affairs Select Committee has studied this question and will return to it again. I should like to endorse what my hon. Friend said about their studies and also what he said about the Government's expenditure, their activities and their attention to this problem, most particularly in terms of the confiscation of drug assets.
I add my own voice and the voice of the all-party drug misuse group to my hon. Friend's plea to the Government to reconsider yet again the application of these funds taken from drug misusers and traffickers in order to use them to the benefit of the hunt for those international criminals and to prevent the tragic social harm they do to everybody in this country and around the world.
12.11 am
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): I am extremely pleased to be able to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery), and also to one or two important points in the short and pointed intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone), whom I am very pleased to see in the Chamber tonight.
Of course I recognise the concern which has led my hon. Friend to raise this problem. It is a very serious problem indeed, and I welcome the opportunity to put on record what the Government are doing to tackle it both nationally and internationally, where I believe we have a strong case to claim that we are playing a leading role, certainly within Europe and possibly in other parts of the globe as well.
Drug misuse is a very complex problem, and I suspect that some, like my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, may know more about some of the complexities than I do, but I think my hon. Friend will agree that there is no single answer to the problem, just as there is no single drug which is misused and abused in this country.
In seeking to combat the problem, a strategy has to be devised which tackles every aspect of it. Our strategy was first formulated in 1984 and is set out in the Home Office document "Tackling Drug Misuse", the third edition of which was published last June. The strategy is comprehensive, and I hope that it is balanced as well. It

155
seems so to me, and it is as much concerned with reducing demand as it is with trying to stop illicit supplies being imported. Both are very important aspects.
We are taking action simultaneously on five main fronts: first, to reduce supplies from abroad; secondly, to increase the effectiveness of enforcement, to which my hon. Friend referred; thirdly, to maintain effective deterrence and tight domestic controls; fourthly, to develop prevention and education, which is critical; and fifthly, to improve treatment and rehabilitation. No one who has visited treatment and rehabilitation units, as I am sure all hon. Members in the Chamber tonight have done, could fail to be full of admiration for those who work there to try to help those seeking treatment and rehabilitation, or to be moved by the terrible condition to which some have been reduced by their misuse of drugs.
Our strategy is co-ordinated by an interdepartmental ministerial group on the misuse of drugs under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. That too was established in 1984 and brings together Ministers and officials from all the Departments with an interest in the problem. Brief mention of the machinery of government may not seem very important, but when Ministers at the Home Office, the territorial Ministries, the Department of Health and others have an interest, those interests need to be brought together and interrelated.
I should like to give a brief account of progress in the 10 minutes or so that remain. My hon. Friend questioned me about the Government's attitude to passing on the proceeds of confiscation to the police forces responsible for that confiscation. A high proportion of the drugs that are misused in this country are illegally imported. The Government give the subject of drugs a prominent place in our exchanges with other countries and we are active in the relevant international forums, which include the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, of which the United Kingdom has been a member since 1946, the Council of Europe's drug co-operation group—more ordinarily known as the Pompidou group—the European Community, the Customs Co-operation Council and Interpol.
We played a leading role, which was internationally recognised, in drawing up the new United Nations convention against illicit drug trafficking, which was adopted in Vienna last December. It is the first international instrument concerned exclusively with the illicit traffic in drugs. It provides a comprehensive framework for international co-operation in tackling the problem. At the last count, 59 countries, including Britain, had signed the convention subject to ratification. That is not bad since last December.
The Government also contribute substantially to the United Nations for drug abuse control, as I am sure the House would wish. Between 1982 and 1988, we pledged or contributed a total of $16.7 million to the fund, making us the fourth largest donor. Our contributions to the fund's specific projects have included £3·4 million for opium eradication and substitution in Pakistan. Crop substitution is extremely important and costly, as it involves not only money but social change, because in some countries people have cultivated poppies and other
156
substances for generations. In addition, we have contributed £2·2 million to drug-related development projects in Bolivia.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary secured agreement in 1987 to the quadrupling to some £2 million a year of his budget for enforcement and eradicating illicit drug crops in key producing countries. Approximately two thirds of the overall sum is spent through the fund. We are contributing some £1 million over three years to a major law enforcement project by the fund in India, and in the past three years a total of £1·8 million has been provided to Latin American countries, to which my hon. Friend referred, particularly to Colombia, specifically in law-enforcement-related assistance against cocaine traffic. The remaining one third of the budget is spent on bilateral projects directly with other countries. The Caribbean, which alas is one of the principle transit routes for cocaine coming to Britain—I share the fears of my hon. Friend for the future—has been a particular focus for bilateral assistance.
We have a network of customs and police drug liaison officers at strategic posts abroad who work with their counterparts overseas and provide valuable intelligence. Some 15 are now in place doing that difficult and potentially dangerous work. We intend to add more in the not-too-distant future. The intelligence which flows from the work of those customs and police drug liaison officers is enormously valuable in leading to the seizures of drugs in recent years.
On the European front, we regard the Council of Europe group to combat drug abuse and illicit trafficking—the Pompidou group—as the primary forum for developing further co-operation. We have chaired the group since 1984. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has convened an extraordinary ministerial meeting of the group in London on 18 and 19 May 1989 to give renewed political impetus to the fight against drugs in Europe. That again shows that my right hon. Friend and the United Kingdom Government are taking the lead in Europe on this important issue.
The agenda for the meeting will focus on three items, which seem to us to be the most urgent at the European level. First, there is the threat posed by cocaine which, all the evidence suggests, is now being targeted increasingly on Europe following the saturation of the North American market to which my hon. Friend referred when he was talking about his visit to Miami. Secondly, there is the confiscation of drug traffickers' assets, which again concerned my hon. Friend; thirdly, there are the important problems posed by AIDS and drug misuse.
I want to speak briefly about resources and to give some answers to my hon. Friend's questions about whether confiscated resources should go to the police forces that have carried out the confiscations. Many resources have been put into fighting the drug problem in this country. We have trebled the number of customs and specialist investigators since 1979. Over £13 million is being made available over four years to develop and introduce technical aids, such as X-ray machines for scanning cargo, and another £7 million has been spent on cutter replacement to improve surveillance of coastal waters.
The strength of the police force drug squads in England is more than 40 per cent. greater than it was at the end of 1983, standing as it does now at about 850 men. That greater commitment of resources is being reflected in real success in enforcement. In 1988, customs seized illicit

157
drugs with a street value of £185 million. The number of custodial sentences of more than seven years imposed for drug offences rose from 16 in 1980 to 102 in 1987, so we can see that enforcement is beginning to work.
I am aware of the demands that have been made—to which my hon. Friend referred—for drug investigations, especially those with an international dimension, to be recognised in terms of the additional weight they place on police resources. Initially, the concept of funding drugs work through seized assets is appealing. It is the measure of success of an individual force, and that force could say, "We have seized the money and we are now going to spend it on drugs enforcement." However, funding drugs work through seized assets is not very flexible and it might not be fair. Sometimes, seizures of drugs happen almost by chance. Sometimes, a number of consignments come in persistently through the same avenues.
If we relied on funding drugs work through seized assets, we could not rely on a steady income and we could not plan ahead. It makes sense to determine law enforcement resources according to needs and spending priorities, rather than what happens to have been
158
confiscated in any particular place. The debate began a couple of weeks ago during Home Office questions, when I was able only to give a short answer. My answer has been slightly afforced to my hon. Friend tonight, but I suspect that he may want to return to this point and to argue it in greater detail.
My hon. Friend also referred to the desire of the American drug enforcement authorities to pay the Metropolitan police £32·5 million in reward money. My hon. Friend is right: in the last stages of trying to achieve that, the American Government realised that they did not have the powers within their laws to make such an award. My hon. Friend is also right to say that so much that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, who is ministerially responsible for these matters, are doing is concerned with trying to improve multilateral and bilateral arrangements concerning enforcement and confiscation. We shall pursue that vigorously.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Twelve o'clock.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Government Debt
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what date he expects Government debt to be wholly repaid.

  Mr. Lilley: Repayment of the whole of the outstanding stock of debt is not an objective of Government policy.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the approximate current overseas holding in the national debt.

  Mr. Lilley
  At the end of 1987–88, the total market holdings of sterling national debt were £173·2 billion, of which £22·1 billion were held by the overseas sector.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which financial sectors received the largest repayment of debt arising from the recent Budget decisions.

  Mr. Lilley
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave him on 4 April 1989, at column 5. Detailed figures for 1988–89 will not be available for several months. It is impossible to identify in advance the precise composition of the debt repayment arising from the forecast PSDR of £14 billion in 1989–90.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the national debt at May 1979 and at April 1988.

  Mr Lilley
  National Debt is measured annually at the end of the financial year. The total outstanding at the end of 1978–79 was £86·9 billion (47 per cent. of GDP) and at the end of 1987–88 was £197·3 billion (44 per cent. of GDP).

  National debt however, is not the best measure of public sector indebtedness, for instance because it covers only central Government debt, not the whole of the public sector. A better measure is net public sector debt, which was £95·3 billion (50 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1978–79, and £171·3 billion (38 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1987–88.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the principal beneficiaries to date of his 1989 Budget decision to repay £14 billion Government debt.

  Mr. Lilley
  The nation as a whole will benefit from this decision as a result of the permanent reduction in debt interest payments, which will free public money for priority spending programmes while still reducing general Government expenditure as a share of GDP.

  Petrol Prices
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what price assumptions for the price of(a) unleaded,
  2
  (b) 2-star and (c) 4-star petrol he based his Budget proposals for the reduction in duty on unleaded petrol; to what extent these have proved accurate; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lilley
  My right hon. Friend made it clear in his Budget speech that he expected the full decrease in the duty on unleaded petrol to be passed on to the consumer. He also expected his proposals on 2-star petrol to raise the price at the pumps to the level of 4-star.

  Siemens Printers
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Siemens ND3 printers are used by his Department, either in-house or through a private contract; and what is the location of each.

  Mr. Brooke
  The Treasury does not use Siemens ND3 printers. We do not know what printers are used by our printing contractors.

  Single Market
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on levels of value added tax in the context of progress towards the single market by 1992.

  Mr. Lilley
  The Government have made it clear on numerous occasions that they do not consider centrally imposed tax approximation to be necessary for the completion of the single market.

  Capital Inflows
  Mr. John Townend
  To ask The Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give an estimate of the inflow of capital into the United Kingdom due to high income taxpayers making the United Kingdom their base because of the tax regime introduced by Her Majesty's Government.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Reductions in tax rates and the success of the Government's general economic policies have created a climate which encourages skilled people to work and pay tax in the United Kingdom. Tax reform has also played a part in encouraging foreign companies to locate in this country. However I regret that the information requested on capital inflows is not available.

  Balance of Payments
  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are his criteria for deciding when it would be appropriate to revise his estimate of the balance of payments deficit for the current year.

  Mr. Major
  As usual, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will publish his next forecast with the 1989 Autumn Statement.

  North Sea Oil
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the total value of North sea oil revenue from 1979 to the current date.

  Mr. Lilley
  The estimate of the value of North sea oil and gas revenues in fiscal years 1979–80 to 1988–89 is £69 billion.

  Manufactured Goods (Trade)
  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate for the balance of trade in manufacturing for the current year.

  Mr. Major
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) on 19 April, at column 168.

  Value Added Tax
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Government expect to announce their proposals to levy value added tax on industrial water supply and sewerage services in line with the recent European Court of Justice ruling; what are the expected administration costs of levying value added tax; who will bear the costs; and what is the expected annual return to the Exchequer of the value added tax levy.

  Mr. Lilley
  Clause 18 of the Finance Bill currently before the House details the Government's proposals. the expected additional administration costs for Customs and Excise will be minimal. Water undertakings will incur some administrative costs, mainly in setting up the arrangements. The net impact on Exchequer receipts will be negligible.

  Income Tax and National Insurance
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will show for 1989–90 those ranges of earnings within which the burden of income tax plus national insurance is less than in 1978–79.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The burden of income tax plus national insurance will be less in 1989–90 than it was in 1978–79 at all levels of real earnings.

  Housing Costs
  Dr. Marek
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has with regard to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries on the percentage contribution housing costs in various forms make to the calculations of a retail prices index; and what is the comparable percentage for the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: Information on the contribution of housing costs to the consumer price indices for OECD countries is available from national statistical sources and from OECD Main Economic Indicators December 1988. The treatment varies greatly from country to country: for example, some countries include prices of fuel, water and home furnishings as part of housing costs, but others do not. There is also a variety of treatment of home ownership costs: some countries exclude these altogether, others include a measure of imputed rent, while others, like the United Kingdom, include mortgage interest payments. Available figures relate to the base year for the price indices and these differ across countries.

  On this basis the information requested is as follows:
  4

  Housing Costs

  Percentage weight in consumer price indices

  Percentage

  United States of America

  42

  Japan

  21

  Germany

  15

  France

  9

  United Kingdom

  18

  Italy

  4

  Canada

  38

  Austria

  11

  Belgium

  8

  Denmark

  19

  Finland

  18

  Greece

  13

  Iceland

  13

  Ireland

  6

  Luxembourg

  0

  Netherlands

  16

  Norway

  22

  Portugal

  0

  Spain

  18

  Sweden

  26

  Switzerland

  17

  Turkey

  n/a

  Australia

  14

  New Zealand

  21

  The following indicates precisely which costs are included in the total weight given to the housing component in the consumer price indices in each of the OECD countries. These costs are divided into three categories: (a) costs in the rented sector, (b) the costs of home ownership, and (c) other costs, including in some cases fuel, water, power and home furnishings. A — indicates a zero weight for this item. The figures in brackets are the weights shown in the table.

  United States (42):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Imputed rent, taxes, repairs and insurance

  (c) Fuel, power and home furnishings

  Source:—Bureau of Labour Statistics

  Japan (21):

  (a) Rent and repairs

  (b) Imputed rent

  (c) —

  Source:—Statistics Bureau Management and Co-ordination Agency, Monthly Statistics of Japan

  West Germany (15):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Imputed rent

  (c) —

  Source: Statistisches Bundesamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch 1988.

  France (9):

  (a) Rent and repairs

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Source: INSEE, Bulletin Mensuel de Statistique March 1989

  United Kingdom (18):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Interest payments, repairs, insurance and rates

  (c) Water

  Source: Department of Employment, Employment Gazette April 1989

  Note: The weight of 18 per cent. given in the answer is the latest figure, and compares with 15·25 per cent. shown in table 3.10 of the FSBR.

  Italy (4)

  (a) Rent

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Source: OECD, Main Economic Indicators December 1988
  5
  Canada (38):

  (a)Rent

  (b)Depreciation, interest payments, property taxes, insurance and repairs

  (c)Fuel, power and home furnishing

  Source: Ministry of Supply and Services, Canadian Economic Observer

  Austria (11):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Loan repayments

  (c)Household services

  Source: OsterreichischesInstitut fur Wirtschaftsforschung, Monatsberichte June 1987

  Belgium (8):

  (a) Rent

  (b)Imputed rent

  (c)—

  Source: Institut National de Statistique, Statistiques Sociales

  Denmark (19):

  (a) Rent and maintenance

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Source: Denmark statistics, Denmark Statistical Yearbook 1988

  Finland (18):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Imputed rent

  (c)Fuel and power

  Source: OECD, Main Economic Indicators December 1988

  Greece (13):

  (a) Rent

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Source: National Statistical Service of Greece, Statistical Yearbook of Greece 1986

  Iceland (13):

  (a) —

  (b) Interest payments, land taxes, rates and maintenance

  (c) —

  Source: OECD, Main Economic Indicators December 1988

  Ireland (6):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Interest payments, rates, insurance and repairs

  (c) —

  Source: CSO, Irish Statistical Bulletin March 1983

  Luxembourg (0):

  (a) —

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Netherlands (16):

  (a) Rent

  (b)Imputed rent

  (c) Water

  Source: Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Yearbook of the Netherlands 1987

  Norway (22):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Interest payments, rates, insurance and repairs

  (c) Fuel and power

  Source: Central Bureau of Statistics, Monthly Bulletin of Statistics

  Portugal (0):

  (a)—

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Spain (18):

  (a) Rent

  6

  (b) Imputed rent

  (c) Fuel and electricity

  Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, España Anuario Estadistico.

  Sweden (26):

  (a)Rent

  (b) Depreciation, imputed rent, insurance and repairs

  (c)Fuel and power

  Source: Statistics Sweden, Statistical Abstract for Sweden 1989.

  Switzerland (17):

  (a) Rent

  (b) —

  (c) —

  Source: OECD, Main Economic Indicators December 1988.

  Turkey:

  (a) n/a

  (b) n/a

  (c) n/a

  Australia (14):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Interest payments, rates, insurance and repairs

  (c) —

  Source: Australian High Commission.

  Note:The Australians have just altered the way the housing component of their consumer price index is calculated. The changed calculation reflects the fact that once the mortgage rate is above a certain level further increases do not lead to increased interest payments for the many homeowners who hold mortgages with interest rate ceilings.

  New Zealand (21):

  (a) Rent

  (b) Land and house prices, interest payments, rates, insurance and repairs

  (c) —

  Source: Department of Statistics, Monthly Abstract of Statistics.

  Civil Service Manpower
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the figures for total Civil Service manpower in 1959, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979 and 1989, giving the percentage of the total working population which these figures represented in each of these years.

  Mr. Brooke
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: The information requested is as follows:

  Civil Service manpower

  Year

  Thousands

  Percentage of work force

  1959

  647

  2·7

  1964

  658

  2·7

  1970

  701

  2·8

  1974

  692

  2·8

  1979

  732

  2·8

  1989

  572

  2·0

  Nationalised Industries (Work Force)
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the figures for the total work force employed in the nationalised industries in 1959, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979 and 1989, giving the percentage of the total working population which these figures represented in each of these years.
  7
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: The table gives employees in the nationalised industries on a head count basis for 1961, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979 and 1988. Figures for 1959 and 1989 are not available.

  Nationalised industry employees

  Thousands

  Percentage of working population

  1961

  2,152

  8·7

  1964

  1,949

  7·7

  1970

  1,879

  7·4

  1974

  1,777

  6·9

  1979

  1,849

  6·9

  1988

  798

  12·8

  1 The term working population was replaced in July 1988 by estimates of work force. The latter includes participants in work-related Government training programmes.

  Notes:

  1. All data are for the United Kingdom.

  2. The number of employees in the nationalised industries is given as in Q2 of the relevant year. Working population data are for June of each year.

CIVIL SERVICE

  Executive Agencies
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service if he will list both those executive agencies for the Civil Service already set up and those announced as candidates, together with the number of staff in each agency or prospective agency.

  Mr. Luce
  The current list of those Government activities already established as executive agencies under the next steps initiative and those announced by Departments as candidates, together with the number of staff employed, is as follows:

  Executive Agencies Established

  1Approximate Numbers

  Vehicle Inspectorate

  1,600

  Companies House

  1,100

  Her Majesty's Stationery Office

  3,000

  National Weights and Measures Laboratory

  50

  Warren Spring Laboratory

  300

  Executive agency candidates announced

  Building Research Establishment

  700

  Central Statistical Office

  1,100

  Central Office of Information

  850

  Central Veterinary Laboratory

  600

  Civil Service College

  200

  Civil Service Commission Recruitment Service

  300

  Civil Service Occupational Health Service

  150

  Crown Suppliers Fuel Branch

  30

  Defence non-Nuclear Research Establishments

  15,000

  Department of Registers of Scotland

  900

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Directorate

  5,400

  Driver Testing and Training

  2,000

  Employment Service

  41,000

  Historic Buildings and Monuments Directorate (Scottish Office)

  650

  Historic Royal Palaces

  300

  Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce

  1,000

  Insolvency Service

  1,500

  Laboratory of the Government Chemist

  350

  Land Registry

  8,250

  Meteorological Office

  2,500

  National Physical Laboratory

  850

  Passport Department

  1,000

  Patent Office

  1,000

  Planning Inspectorate

  500

  8

  Executive Agencies Established

  1Approximate Numbers

  QEII Conference Centre

  60

  Radiocommunications Division, DTI

  500

  Resettlement Units

  600

  Royal Parks

  600

  Social Security Operations

  87,000

  Training Agency

  12,000

  Vehicle Component Approval Division, DTp

  70

  Veterinary Medicines Directorate

  70

  Northern Ireland Civil Service: Employment and Training Services, Agricultural Research Establishments, Social Security Operations

  6,000

  1 Figures are target 1.4.88 figures and are approximate.

  Pensions (Retail Prices Index Error)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service, pursuant to his reply of 10 April to the hon. Member for Don Valley,Official Report, column 321, when parliamentary approval was given for funds arising from the retail prices in respect of pensions index error to be repaid.

  Mr. Luce
  Parliamentary approval was given on 15 March for the payment of awards from the RPI error funds to each of the Civil Service pension organisations.

THE ARTS

  European Parliament
  Sir Geoffrey Finsberg
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what is the role of the European Parliament in the fields of arts and culture; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Luce
  The European Parliament is itself responsible for its involvement in the field of arts and culture, and has established a committee on youth culture, education, information and sport. The Parliament has the right to make alterations to certain aspects of the annual budget of the European Community.

  Council of Europe
  Sir Geoffrey Finsberg
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what is the role of the Council of Europe in the spheres of arts and culture; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Luce
  The Council of Europe has cultural co-operation as one of its agreed objectives. It brings the member states of the European Community into a wider framework of European countries, which all share the desire to maintain and enhance the European cultural dimension.

  The council has appointed a standing council for cultural co-operation and its programme and direction in the field of culture are periodically discussed by the Ministers responsible for these matters. It promotes active involvement in cultural affairs by encouraging the appreciation of the European heritage and individual creativity.

TRANSPORT

  Vehicles (Safety Devices)
  Sir Anthony Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress is being made in fitting devices to vehicles, especially heavy goods vehicles, to prevent them driving too close together; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  The most effective device is the driver, exercising judgment about a proper distance in the light of speed and driving conditions. Some vehicle manufacturers incorporate useful devices to improve driver awareness, for example of slippery road surfaces. Industry has long-term research in hand in Britain and abroad into electronic control devices. The safety of those has yet to be proven in real traffic conditions. In the meantime we are developing a performance standard for front guards on heavy goods vehicles to prevent under-running by cars. These have been shown to be capable of saving the lives of up to 60 car occupants per year if fitted to all HGVs.

  Yacht Construction
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has had on the European Community draft proposals for categories of yacht construction; and if he will make it his policy to resist any attempt to link categories of construction with restrictions on use in the United Kingdom or European Community waters.

  Mr. Portillo
  There is no such draft EC directive at present, although I understand that the EC Commission has discussed with the International Council of Marine Industry Associations whether it would be useful to bring forward proposals for a directive to establish minimum standards and to remove barriers to trade in the boat construction industry within the EC. My right hon. Friend would look very carefully at any proposals for construction and use regulations for boats.

  Plutonium
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has given any safety assurances to(a) the Belgian authorities or (b) Belgian Members of the European Parliament about the dangers posed by the overflights of plutonium between Japan and the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  We know of no request for such an assurance; nor is one necessary.

  Plutonium flights to Japan, if they take place, will be made in full compliance with international regulations, which require safety for both normal and accident conditions to be built into the design of the container.

  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list all airports used for the export of quantities of plutonium in consignments of 1 g or less; and how often each year such quantities are exported from each airport.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  [holding answer 22 March 1989]: No.

  The Department does not collect this information on a routine basis.
  10
  But I am advised that since 1984 a total of 404 sources or samples of plutonium in quantities of less than 1 g were exported. The large majority of these were sent via Heathrow, with occasional movements via Gatwick and Stansted. Less than 10 samples per year have also been sent from Manchester.

  Fawley (Coal Jetty)
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if the Central Electricity Generating Board has withdrawn its application to build a coal jetty and related works at Fawley; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave him on 28 April.

  Seaborne Garbage
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to monitor the amount of seaborne garbage on United Kingdom beaches since 1 January.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution by Garbage) Regulations 1988 entered into force on 31 December 1988. The Department is considering, together with the Department of the Environment, the most effective way to monitor its impact.

  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list all local authorities which have supplied extra disposal facilities at ports since 1 January for handling shipborne garbage.

  Mr. Portillo
  The information requested is not available. The Merchant Shipping (Reception Facilities for Garbage) Regulations 1988 which came into force on 31 December 1988 require all ports and terminals, including those under local authority control to provide adequate reception facilities for garbage from ships. The Department will shortly complete a survey on what facilities are provided to receive garbage, and at what cost.

  FV Inspire
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has regarding all the circumstances of the sinking of the FV Inspire on 5 September 1988; what is the result of any inquiry that has been undertaken; whether any Royal Navy submarines or submarines of any NATO country are known to have been in the vicinity at the time; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Inspire foundered off the west coast of Wales on 5 September 1988 with the loss of three lives. A marine surveyor from the Department was appointed to conduct an investigation into the loss. A summary report of his findings is being produced and I will send the hon. Member a copy. I am advised that there were no United Kingdom or NATO country submarines in the vicinity at the time of the casualty.

  Oil Pollution
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has as to the total cost of the oil spillage caused by the E1 Omar in December 1988 in the Milford Haven, including clean-up costs and insurance claims; and what costs have been received from the ship's owners.
  11
  Mr. Portillo
  The Milford Haven port authority is responsible for oil pollution control within the port area. The Department was not directly involved in the clean-up operations and has no information as to the total costs incurred or compensation received.

  Clean-up was undertaken and costs were incurred by the Milford Haven port authority; Texaco, the operators of the terminal where the E1 Omar was discharging cargo; and the local authorities bordering the haven. It is for them and any other parties suffering damage as a result of the spillage to each seek reimbursement from the owners of the vessel, who are statutorily liable and must have a contract of insurance to cover that liability.

  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what contingency plans he has to cope with a major oil spillage off the west coast of Scotland; what equipment he has stored on the west coast for such an eventuality; and where this is stored.

  Mr. Portillo
  Because it is impossible to predict where or when a tanker accident may occur, the contingency arrangements to combat pollution at sea developed following the Amoco Cadiz incident in 1978 consist of a dedicated contingency response unit on constant standby to direct and control clean-up operations, together with highly mobile resources positioned at various locations around the United Kingdom, from where they can be deployed quickly to the west coast of Scotland or any other part of the United Kingdom that may be threatened by a major oil spillage.

  Included in those resources are dispersant spraying aircraft, two of which are permanently based at Inverness; stocks of dispersant at strategic locations including Paisley, Oban, and Stornoway; oil recovery equipment at Aberdeen; cargo transfer equipment; DAFS fishery protection vessels and commercial tugs fitted with spraying equipment and carrying stocks of dispersant; and stockpiles of specialised beach cleaning equipment, one of which is at Cambusbarron, near Stirling. If necessary, Royal Navy and Royal Maritime Auxiliary vessels in the Clyde, with dispersant spraying equipment, would be called on, together with whatever resources might be available in the private sector, including those owned by oil companies in connection with their responsibilities for clean-up of port terminal and offshore installation spillages.

  Local authorities on the west coast of Scotland all have their own contingency plans for dealing with coastal clean up and can call on advice and assistance from this Department.

  Port authorities generally have their own contingency plans and again, advice and assistance would be provided by this Department in the event of a major spill.

  Air Transport
  Mr. Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has considered the implications for his policy on air transport of the judgment by the Court of Session in the case brought by Air 2000; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend will consider the judgment of the court and will make an announcement shortly.

  Roads (Efficiency Scrutiny)
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to publish the report of the efficiency scrutiny of his Department's activities in relation to local authorities' capital expenditure on roads; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend is arranging for this report to be published today. Copies will be sent to the local authority associations and placed in the Library. Twenty-seven of the 38 recommendations have been accepted. We propose to discuss the implications of a further seven with the associations later in the year.

  Roads (Staffordshire)
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what allocation his Department gave Staffordshire county council for(a) capital road building programmes, (b) the maintenance of existing trunk roads and (c) other works relating to pedestrian safety for the years 1987–88, 1988–89 and 1989–90; and what was the imputed amount assigned for works within Stoke-on-Trent boundaries in each of these years.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  [holding answer 27 April 1989]: It is not possible to separate expenditure on work solely related to pedestrian safety. Pedestrian safety is one objective of the programme of new construction and maintenance on national roads in Staffordshire. It is also an objective of the highway authority's programme of new construction and maintenance on its own roads.

  The capital allocations for new construction of local roads in Staffordshire are as follows:

  £ million

  1987–88

  10·21

  1988–89

  8·67

  1989–90

  7·66

  The council received about £3 million of transport supplementary grant in each of these years.

  Expenditure on local roads maintenance is the responsibility of the county council.

  Its expenditure on this function has however fallen short of its grant-related expenditure assessment in each of the last three years.

  The national roads programme is not analysed by local authority areas.

  No separate figures are available for expenditure within Stoke-on-Trent.

  Underground Railways (Safety)
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what simulated tests were made by London Underground Ltd of evacuation of a full length tube train carrying a rush hour overload in a single line tunnel and supervised by a single member of the railway staff, prior to the extension of one person operation; and if he will list any such occasions since that adoption, carried out in the course of an exercise or in an emergency.

  Mr. Portillo
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: No simulated evacuations with a rush hour overload have been carried out, though exercises with non-capacity loadings have been undertaken from time to time, most

  13
  recently at Aldwych in summer 1988. London Underground Ltd. assures me that train operators have been, and will continue to be, trained in the techniques of evacuation. It tells me, too, that modifications are in progress to prevent the automatic application of train brakes when the passenger-operated alarm system is used, thereby minimising the risk of trains stopping away from stations in an emergency.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

  Lomé IV
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of negotiations for Lomé IV.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  Following the ACP/EC ministerial meeting in Brazzaville in February, work on the renegotiation of Lomé has continued. It is important to make progress in preparation for the next ministerial negotiating meeting at the beginning of June.

  "Interdependence and Cultural Development"
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's response to the Council of Europe's European public campaign on North-South interdependence and its solidarity colloquy entitled "Interdependence and Cultural Development", organised by the secretary-general of the Council of Europe in the framework of the World Decade for Cultural Development, held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 7–8 April 1988; and what input Her Majesty's Government have made to this colloquy.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  The Government supported the aims of the Council of Europe's campaign and gave it a grant of £70,000. The Government also met the expenses of the British representative to the European organising committee. In February last year I addressed a round table on developing country debt organised as part of the campaign. The Government made no input to the colloquy on interdependence and cultural development, which took place in Lisbon last April.

  Aid Policy
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals he has to increase aid, particularly in the areas of primary health care and education, which would specifically improve conditions for women in recipient countries; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chris Patten
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) on 24 April, at column 371.

PRIME MINISTER

  Delors Report
  Mr. Soames
  To ask the Prime Minister what is Her Majesty's Government's response to the Delors report.
  14
  The Prime Minister
  The Delors report envisages a transfer of sovereignty from member states to a new central monetary institution and central control of fiscal policy. It states that economic and monetary union would not be possible within the terms of the existing treaty and that a new treaty would be needed. Paragraph 39 of the report states that economic and monetary union must be viewed as a single process and that the decision to enter upon the first stage should he a decision to embark on the entire process.

  The Government's views on the matters dealt with in the report were set out in the speech given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 24 January and in his remarks following the meeting of the ECOFIN Council in Luxembourg on 17 April. My right hon. Friend made it clear that we cannot accept the transfer of sovereignty which is implied by the Delors report. Economic and monetary union as spelt out in the report would in effect require political union, a United States of Europe. That is not on the agenda now or for the foreseeable future. My right hon. Friend also made it clear that the Government do not believe there should he further treaty amendment as proposed by the Delors report.

  Environment Seminar
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will publish in the Official Report the agenda and list of invited participants for the seminar on the environment at Chequers on 26 April.

  The Prime Minister
  Those attending included Ministers and representatives of universities, scientific and research institutes and industry. The agenda included a discussion on scientific assessment of climatic change and its impact, measures to mitigate the greenhouse effect, and the international context.

  World War 2 (Anniversary)
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will make it her policy to arrange for 3 September 1989, the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of world war 2 to he commemorated as either a British or a European day of thanksgiving for peace.

  The Prime Minister
  No. I do not think that the anniversary of the outbreak of war would be an appropriate occasion to commemorate the achievement and continuation of peace.

  European Social Charter
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Prime Minister what support Her Majesty's Government are giving to the proposals for a European social charter, drawn up by the Economic and Social Committee of the European Community.

  The Prime Minister
  The European Council at its meeting in Rhodes in December 1988 asked the Commission to propose a charter of social rights taking into account the Council of Europe charter. There are as yet no formal proposals from the European Commission for any statement of social rights within the Community. We want to see positive and practical proposals to create more jobs.

  World Bank and IMF
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list the responsibilities of(a) Her Majesty's Treasury and (b) the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for matters relating to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

  The Prime Minister
  The Treasury is responsible for matters relating to the IMF and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—mainly through the Overseas Development Administration—for matters relating to the World Bank. The Treasury focuses on the world economy, the international monetary system and debt, whereas the Overseas Development Administration focuses on developmental concerns. Instructions to our executive director in Washington for use at both institutions are co-ordinated as necessary between the two Departments and with the Bank of England and other Departments.

  Public Buildings (Rent)
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Prime Minister whether Her Majesty's Government are considering proposals for the payment of rent for buildings used by(a) the National Health Service, (b) the police forces, (c) the armed forces and (d) the Prime Minister.

  The Prime Minister
  The White Paper "Working for Patients" (Cm. 555) set out the Government's plans to introduce a system for charging health authorities for the use of their existing capital assets and any new capital investment. The charging system will be designed to provide a strong incentive for the efficient use of assets while ensuring that there is no reduction in the funds available for patient services. Rent, in the form of property repayment service, is already paid on the civil estate, including 10 Downing street. In the case of the armed forces, the Ministry of Defence, as part of its new management strategy, is considering how best to ensure that budget holders make the best use of defence buildings. Payment of rent for buildings occupied by the police service is a matter for the police authorities.

  Planning Appeals and Petitions
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Prime Minister if, pursuant to her oral reply to the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden) on Thursday 20 April,Official Report, column 452, she will set out the criteria enabling persons (a) to appeal at a planning inquiry into a new motorway or railway, and (b) to petition against such a proposal heard before a Private Bill Committee.

  The Prime Minister
  The criteria for planning inquiries into a new motorway are set out in the Highways (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1976 (SI 1976 No. 721), a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Statutory objectors (including all persons whose property is directly affected) have the right to appear. Others may do so at the discretion of the person holding the inquiry. There is no available procedure for giving planning approval for new railways. Persons or organisations whose property or interests are directly and specifically affected by a private Bill may petition against it and be heard by a Committee on the Bill. If a petitioner's locus standi is challenged by the promoter his right to appear is decided by the Court of 16
  Referees (in the Lords by the Committee on the Bill) under "Private Business Standing Orders" or in accordance with the practice of the House.

  Football Matches (Deaths)
  Mr. Howell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will give details of the date, time and place of the 300 deaths associated with attendance at football matches to which she referred in her oral answer to the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) on 25 April,Official Report, columns 799–800.

  The Prime Minister
  Details of the known post-war incidents at football matches involving British teams leading to fatalities among spectators are as follows:

  Location

  Dale and lime (where known)

  Number of fatalities

  Bolton (Burnden Park)

  9 March 1946 1500 hours (approx)

  33

  Glasgow (Ibrox Park)

  2 January 1971

  66

  Middlesbrough (Ayresome Park)

  12 January 1980

  2

  Bradford (Valley Parade)

  11 May 1985 1545 hours (approx)

  56

  Birmingham (St. Andrew's Park)

  11 May 1985 1750 hours (approx)

  1

  Brussels (Heysel Stadium)

  29 May 1985 1930 hours (approx)

  39

  Sheffield (Hillsborough)

  15 April 1989 1506 hours (approx)

  95

  Total

  292

  Rain Forests
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister whether at her global climatology seminar on 26 April, the issue of tropical rain forests was discussed; and if she will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  Yes, the seminar reinforced the importance of the conservation of tropical rain forests and of our support for forestry in developing countries.

  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Allen McKay
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. John Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.
  17
  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 2 May.

  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. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty The Queen.

  £000

  1981–82

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  Smoking

  244

  541

  255

  212

  207

  265

  297

  Alcohol

  118

  62

  122

  80

  173

  195

  214

  Dental Health

  23

  48

  53

  71

  45

  39

  32

  Drugs

  —

  —

  —

  340

  450

  285

  373

  AIDS

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  124

  86

  Family Planning

  33

  74

  60

  19

  21

  22

  30

  Immunisation

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  86

  Other

  1,041

  1,012

  1,502

  1,659

  1,537

  1,648

  1,602

  Total

  1,459

  1,737

  1,992

  2,381

  2,433

  2,578

  2,720

  Mental Handicap
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what funds were allocated from his Department for directly commissioned research relevant to mental handicap for each of the past five years; and whether he intends those funds to be increased over the next five to 10 years.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  A range of research projects relevant to mental handicap have been funded by the Scottish Home and Health Department and the Scottish Education Department using a variety of approaches. The figures are:

  £'000

  1984–85

  97

  1985–86

  186

  1986–87

  145

  1987–88

  167

  1988–89

  1161

  1Provisional.

  Mental handicap is a priority area for research and the Scottish Office will favourably consider any application for funding for soundly based relevant projects.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether(a) Royal Navy and (b) Merchant Navy personnel who are away from shore (i) for six months or more continuously, within a fiscal year or (ii) for six months or more within a fiscal year are liable to pay poll tax.

  Mr. Lang
  It is for community charges registration officers to decide in the light of all the facts and

SCOTLAND

  Health Education
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total expenditure by each Department and Government-funded health education agency on mass media advertising on(a) smoking, (b) alcohol, (c) dental health, (d) drugs, (e) AIDS, (f) family planning, (g) immunisation, (h) coronary heart disease, (i) the "be all you can campaign" and (j) and any other health campaign in each year from 1978–79 to 1987–88.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In Scotland national health education is the responsibility of the Scottish Health Education Group. It is not possible to identify separately mass media advertising costs, but the following table gives details of expenditure by the group in the areas shown.

  circumstances relating to individual cases whether a person is solely or mainly resident in their area and thus liable to pay the personal community charge.

  Adoption
  Mr. Sillars
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the rights of access to centrally and locally held information of a person who was adopted; and what is the statutory basis upon which an adopted person can seek and obtain information about birth and natural parentage.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In Scotland the Registrar General is empowered to disclose to an adopted person aged 17 or over information which links the person's entry in the adopted children register to the original entry in the birth register. The statutory basis on which the Registrar General holds this information and controls access to it is provided by section 45 of the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978. Under the terms of the Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 1984, adoption agencies are also empowered to disclose to an adopted person aged 17 or over information held by the adoption agency relating to that person's adoption.

  Pre-school Education
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the current percentage of children of pre-school age currently enrolled in state-run pre-school education in Scotland.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The number of children in local authority nursery schools and the number of children under five in all local authority schools in September 1987 expressed as percentages of 3 and 4-year-olds in the population were 31·0 and 38·7 respectively. It is estimated
  19
  that when those attending pre-school playgroups and day nurseries are included about 80 per cent. of 3 and 4-year-olds were involved.

  Water Charges
  Mr. Sillars
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which classes of people are exempt from water charges in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  People are exempt from water charges in Scotland if their premises do not receive a public water supply. Further, any person detailed in schedule IA to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987, as amended by the Local Government Finance Act 1988, as exempted from the personal community charge, is also exempted from the personal community water charge.

  Remote Areas
  Mr. McKelvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give an estimate of the area of land in(a) the Cairngorms, and (b) the Grampian mountains as a whole which was more than 3 km from a road or vehicular track prior to 1960; whether this area has changed; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  This information is not available centrally, but it is clear that following the construction of the access road to the Cairngorm ski development and other vehicular tracks the areas in question are smaller than they were in 1960.

  Water Quality
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what research his Department is carrying out into the effects of high levels of nitrates and lead in water supplies on(a) children and (b) adults.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  None. The level of nitrates found in Scottish waters is low and does not present a health problem for either children or adults.

  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how many and which of the water supplies containing excess of nitrate or lead according to the European Community standards will achieve the acceptable standards(a) in 1989 and (b) in 1990;

  (2) how many water supplies in Scotland do not comply with the European Community standards for nitrate or lead content of water supplies; and where they are located.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  One small water supply source in Dumfries and Galloway region and six in Grampian region may at times exceed the European Commission standard for nitrate. That in Dumfries and Galloway will achieve compliance in 1989; those in Grampian are due to be abandoned, two in 1989–90 and the others not later than 1991–92. For information on areas where the lead content of tap water may exceed the European Commission standard I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) on 22 March 1989, at columns 662–64. In 1989 the acceptable standard will be achieved in 22 of these areas in Dumfries and Galloway, 12 in Grampian, eight in Highland, six in Strathclyde and 10 in Tayside. A further seven areas in Strathclyde will achieve the standard in 1990.

  Environmental Safety
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those areas of policy implementation in regard to environmental safety and regulation which have failed since May 1979; and if he will make a statement on the steps he intends to take to rectify these failures.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Government policies have been applied successfully.

  Police (Central Service)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many claims for damages arising out of alleged breaches of delictual duty have been intimated to each chief constable in respect of the actions of police constables engaged in central duties since 1 January 1967.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I have no reason to believe that any such claims have been made but the information requested is not held centrally. A constable whilst on central service is not under the general direction of the chief constable of his home force. Accordingly, the chief constable would not be liable in reparation for any wrongful act or omission on the part of a constable on central service.

  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has regarding the number of incidents in Scotland involving central service police officers who have acted as though they possessed the powers and privileges of police officers in each year since the coming into force of the Police Act 1967.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  No such incidents have been brought to the notice of the Scottish Home and Health Department.

  Consultants
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which health boards are to appoint extra consultants; what criteria were used in the allocation of the extra posts; which health boards made applications for more consultants; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The number of hospital consultants in Scotland has been expanding rapidly—by over 3 per cent. last year. A further increase in the number of consultants has been encouraged by a Scottish Home and Health Department circular on hospital medical staffing in Scotland issued to all health boards in December 1988, and I shall be keeping a careful watch to see that progress is maintained. It is for health boards to create new consultant posts, subject to the agreement of the Department, which is advised by the Advisory Committee on Medical Establishments on manpower considerations. Consultant posts recommended in the 1987 report "Staffing the Service—The Next Decade" do not require departmental approval.

  Enterprise Zones
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent assessment his officials have made of the operation of enterprise zones; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lang
  None. Data provided by the Industry Department for Scotland relating to Scottish enterprise
  21
  zones are included in the fourth annual report "Enterprise Zone Information 1986–87" published by the Department of the Environment on 18 April 1989.

  Sand Eels
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow on 5 April,Official Report, column 237, he is in a position to estimate what approximate percentage of the stock of 0 group sand eels was taken by the Shetland fishery in each of the past 15 years.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The information requested, based on the most recent data available, is set out in the table. The quantity of O-group sand eels taken in the Shetland fishery after 1 July is expressed as a percentage of the estimated number alive at 1 July, when most of this age group are recruited to the fishery.

  Year

  Percentage

  1974

  7

  1975

  13

  1976

  10

  1977

  11

  1978

  15

  1979

  5

  1980

  15

  1981

  17

  1982

  20

  1983

  7

  1984

  17

  1985

  10

  1986

  7

  1987

  18

  1988

  n.a.

  SDA and HIDB
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are his intentions on the future policies of the Scottish Development Agency and the HIDB in relation to their on-going work in relation to the National Trust for Scotland; and if he will give specific examples of projects to be undertaken by Scottish Enterprise.

  Mr. Lang
  We are currently reassessing the proposals in the Scottish Enterprise White Paper in the light of all the responses received, and will announce our detailed decisions in due course.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the Scottish percentage contribution of United Kingdom manufacturing activity in 1970, 1979, 1986 and 1987.

  Mr. Lang
  The following figures relate to gross domestic product in manufacturing industries in Scotland as a percentage of manufacturing gross domestic product in the United Kingdom.

  GDP in manufacturing industry:

  Scotland as a percentage of the United Kingdom

  Percentage

  1970

  8·3

  1979

  8·5

  1986

  7·9

  1987

  8·0

  22
  Source: IDS and regional accounts.

  EC Assistance
  Mr. McLeish
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total amount of loans made to Scotland by the European investment bank in 1988.

  Mr. Rifkind
  (holding answer 28 April 1989): Loans are negotiated directly between the EIB and prospective borrowers. The total amount of loans disbursed in Scotland in 1988 was as follows.

  Number

  Amount £

  3

  221,000,000

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Football Grounds (Safety)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he had with officials of the Football Supporters Association before his statement on 17 April, calling for all-seater stadia for major football clubs in England and Wales.

  Mr. John Patten
  None.

  Private Zoos
  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what safety regulations or guidelines apply to private zoos; how often they require inspection; and by whom the inspections are carried out.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  I have been asked to reply.

  All zoos in Great Britain are licensed under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981, the provisions of which are administered principally by the appropriate local authority.

  Under the Act, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has laid down standards of modern zoo practice, which specify standards for ensuring animal welfare, in addition to the safety and security of visitors. These standards relate to all licensed zoos, insofar as they are applicable to the nature of the collection.

  Licensed zoos are subject to regular inspections which fall within three categories: first a periodic inspection, approximately every three years, by a team of up to five inspectors chosen jointly by the local authority and the Secretary of State; secondly, an annual informal inspection conducted by a single inspector appointed by the local authority; and thirdly, a special inspection, which may be arranged at any time when the local authority considers that the circumstances warrant one.

  Television Licence
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Stoke on Trent, North of 18 April,Official Report, column 91, if he will list those areas where television reminders expiring on 31 March were delayed in the post; and if he will reimburse the price increase to those persons who were therefore unable to purchase their television licences at the old price.
  23
  Mr. Renton
  Reports of late delivery of renewal notices have been received from Chelmsford, Milton Keynes, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newport, Stoke-on-Trent, Taunton and Watford.

  Renewal notices are issued as a service to licence holders and are not a legal requirement. Licences can be renewed up to a month in advance at post offices or by writing to the National TV Licence Records Office and no renewal notice is required for this purpose. It would not therefore be appropriate to reimburse the price increase to licence holders who did not renew March expiry licences until after the fee had gone up.

  Women Prisoners
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women there are in prison in the United Kingdom according to the latest available figures.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  On Friday 28 April, the most recent date for which figures are available, 1,769 females were held in prison service establishments in England and Wales. No female prisoners were held in police cells.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women have been injured in prison in the United Kingdom according to the latest available figures.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The available information is published at appendix 5 of the "Report of the Work of the Prison Service, April 1987-March 1988." Only information relating to self-injury is collected.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women have committed suicide while being detained in prison in the United Kingdom according to the latest available figures.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Since 1980 there have been two suicides of women at prison department establishments; the inquest on one similar death has not yet taken place. Deaths in prisons in Scotland and Northern Ireland are a matter for their respective Secretaries of State.

  Civil Defence
  Mr. Gerald Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new information has become available to account for the discrepancy in the information provided about emergency centres in his Department's office report on the implementation of the Civil Defence Regulations 1983 at October 1988 and that provided from the same source in response to earlier parliamentary questions.

  Mr. John Patten
  Information on emergency centres is drawn from annual reports submitted by local authorities under the Government's planned programme for implementation of the 1983 regulations (PPI). Records are therefore regularly updated according to reported progress, and earlier answers gave the latest information available at the time of the questions.

  Mr. Gerald Bowen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the outcome of the senior level seminar at the Civil Defence college in November 1988 on the review of the arrangements for handling peacetime emergencies will become available.
  24
  Mr. John Patten
  We hope to make an announcement on the result of the review as a whole shortly.

  Drugs Offences
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to establish compulsory rehabilitation centres as an alternative to prison for drug misusers.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Our proposals in the Green Paper, "Punishment, Custody and the Community" (CM. 424) were that treatment for drug abuse could be part of a programme of supervision in the community for suitable offenders. Effective treatment would need the co-operation of the offender, so it could not be made compulsory. We have no plans to set up compulsory centres.

  Youth Work
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which local education authorities have successfully applied for funding under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 for new youth work posts in the last five years, specifying for each authority the year in which section 11 funding was approved.

  Mr. John Patten
  The following local authorities have received approval for section 11 grant for new posts in youth work since the current criteria were introduced in October 1986:

  1987

  Warwickshire

  Bury

  1988

  Rotherham

  Bradford

  Bedfordshire

  1989

  Nottinghamshire

  The information requested in respect of earlier years could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Hillsborough Disaster
  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can estimate the number of police officers to be involved within the West Midlands police in the Hillsborough inquiry.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand from the chief constable of the West Midlands police that on 25 April some 300 of his officers were involved. The number is subject to continuous review.

  Postal Votes
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidelines are issued to medical practitioners with regard to pregnant women and qualification criteria for a postal vote.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Home Office does not issue guidance to medical practitioners on the arrangements for absent voting; the requirements are clearly set out on the relevant application form. As my right hon. Friend explained in his reply to a question from the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on 2 March, at column 274, we

  25
  are reviewing the absent voting arrangements. If the hon. Member is aware of a particular difficulty, perhaps she would write to me about it.

  Turkish Immigrants
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has of the number of illegal Turkish immigrants in London.

  Mr. Renton
  It is not practicable to make such an estimate.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which EEC countries require Turkish nationals to have visas when visiting.

  Mr. Renton
  Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from local authorities and hon. Members suggesting an amnesty for illegal Turkish immigrants.

  Mr. Renton
  My right hon. Friend has received one such letter—from the chief executive of the London borough of Hackney.

  Roc Sandford
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis as to whether any of the officers involved in bringing the unsuccessful prosecution of Roc Sandford have subsequently been promoted; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that the four police officers involved in the prosecution of Mr. Sandford have, like many officers in the force, continued to serve in the same ranks since his acquittal in 1985.

  Immigration (Detainees)
  Mr. Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received against transferring the main place of detention for Immigration Act detainees from Latchmere house in Richmond to Haslar in Gosport.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A number of bodies concerned with the welfare of detainees, including those listed, and a number of hon. and right hon. Members and noble Lords have made representations or written about the proposal to transfer Immigration Act detainees from Latchmere House to Haslar.

  British Refugee Council

  Charter 87

  Immigration Law Practitioners Association

  Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

  National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux

  National Council for Voluntary Organisations

  Richmond Borough Council

  Richmond Citizens Advice Bureau

  United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service

  Parole
  Mr. Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what responses he has received to the 26
  report of the review committee on the parole system in England and Wales, which sat under the chairmanship of Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, from interested organisations and in particular, the council of Her Majesty's circuit judges and the High Court judges; and with what result.

  Mr. John Patten
  We have received 20 responses to the Carlisle report. These came from interested individuals and organisations including judges, the Parole Board, the Magistrates Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Central Council of Probation Committees, the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, the National Association of Senior Probation Officers, the National Association of Probation Officers, the Justices Clerks Society, the Labour party, NACRO and the Howard League. The recommendations of the Carlisle report were far-reaching and we are considering the best way forward, taking account of the comments which we have received and of the implications for the prison population.

  Computers
  Sir Anthony Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he proposes to make a response to the Law Commission's working paper No. 110 on computer misuse; whether he will make it public; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  The Law Commission's working paper set out legal issues for consultation purposes, but did not make firm recommendations. The central question was whether there should be a new offence of hacking. The Government have not yet reached a considered view on this question and the commission has been so informed. I understand that the Law Commission hopes to publish its report making recommendations within the next few months.

  Animals (Tests)
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on recent trends in the number of animals used in LD50 tests.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The advisory committee on the administration of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 estimated in 1979 that the number of LD50 tests which were carried out in 1977 was about 229,500. The "Statistics on Scientific Procedures on Living Animals 1987" included for the first time statistical returns for these procedures, of which these were 111,313 in 1987 (Cm. 515; table 14).

  The Government are supporting international work on acute toxicity testing and on further reducing the need for formal LD50 tests as part of their policy of encouraging international regulatory bodies which require such tests to review the continuing need for them.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with respect to the support grades in his Department(a) what is the number of staff employed, (b) how many vacancies there are and how many of these have existed over one month and over three months, (c) how many temporary and casual appointments there are and (d) how much overtime was worked by them in London and elsewhere.
  27
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  There are 750 staff in post and 34 vacancies in the office support grades in the Home Office. Twenty five of these vacancies were unfilled one month ago and 19 three months ago.

  The Department has 17 casual staff in these grades.

  Staff in support grades worked more than 2,500 hours overtime in the London area during the last three-month period for which figures are available. Over 3,800 hours were worked elsewhere.

  Siemens Printers
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Siemens ND3 printers are used by his Department, either in-house or through a private contract; and what is the location of each.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  None.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to require electoral registration oficers to inspect community charge registers.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  No. It is for each electoral registration officer to decide how best to discharge his statutory duty to have a house-to-house or other sufficient inquiry made as to the persons entitled to be registered. Home Office guidance to electoral registration officers, issued last August, draws attention to their right to inspect the community charge register and the possibility thereby of improving the accuracy of the electoral register.

  Citizenship
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the office he established in Liverpool to process British citizenship applications opened; how many staff are employed there; what is the current delay between letters arriving and being opened; what is the current total of letters to be opened; what is the average delay in dealing with applications; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  The Liverpool nationality office opened on 22 August 1988, and on 26 April 1989 119 staff were employed there. The average times taken to complete applications concluded in March 1989 were 16 months for registrations and 22 months for naturalisations.

  Good progress continues to be made in processing applications for registration under the transitional provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981 and, up to the end of March 1989, the Liverpool nationality office had completed action on over 36,000 applications. The remaining registration applications at the Liverpool nationality office will be completed by the end of this financial year.

  All correspondence to the immigration and nationality department is being opened and acknowledged within one day of receipt or, where fees are involved, immediately after the fees have been brought to account.

  Iranians
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Iranians(a) arrived and
  28
  (b) left for each of the last eight years; and what has been the total number of Iranians in the United Kingdom each year.

  Mr. Renton
  The number of Iranian citizens admitted into the United Kingdom is given in the table. Estimates of the numbers who left the United Kingdom could be provided only at disproportionate cost. It is estimated from the labour force survey that since 1981 the number of Iranian citizens resident in Great Britain has been in the region of 25,000.

  Admissions into the United Kingdom of Iranian citizens, 1981 to 1988

  Number

  1981

  36,000

  1982

  34,000

  1983

  43,000

  1984

  59,000

  1985

  67,200

  1986

  58,900

  1987

  45,000

  1988

  35,900

  Immigrants (Exceptional Leave)
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the term of the exceptional leave granted, and why it was granted in the case of the two men named in his answer of 18 April,Official Report, column 92.

  Mr. Renton
  Both men were granted exceptional leave under the policy relating to Sri Lankan Tamils announced on 20 May 1985, at column 273. Leave was initially granted to them in September 1986, and was renewed on application. They were last granted leave for periods of 12 months in June and July last year.

  Police (Central Service)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many claims for damages arising out of alleged breaches of duty under the law of tort have been intimated to each chief constable in respect of the actions of police constables engaged in central duties since 1 January 1964.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Under section 43 of the Police Act 1964 a police officer who has been seconded to central services ceases to be a member of a police force for the duration of his secondment. Accordingly, while on central service he is not under the direction and control of his chief officer of police and the question of the chief officer's liability for torts does not arise.

  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has regarding the number of incidents involving central service police officers who have acted as though they possessed the powers and privileges of police officers in each year since the coming into force of the Police Act 1964.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information is not available.

  Special Constables
  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many special constables are employed in South Yorkshire; and what are their qualifications and selection procedures.
  29
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  As at 31 December 1988 there were 309 special constables in South Yorkshire police. I understand from the chief constable of South Yorkshire that the qualifications for entry into the special constabulary in South Yorkshire are basically that applicants must be of British nationality, physically fit, of good character, have satisfactory eye sight, have an education standard adequate for their duties, be aged between 18½ and 50 and reside in the force area. Men should be not less than 167cm and women 162cm in height.

  Applicants who meet these requirements are interviewed by a divisional chief superintendent and a special constabulary divisional commandant, who make recommendations to the chief constable. The chief constable then decides whether to accept or decline the applications.

  Press Law Review
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will announce the result of the independent press law review group; and what will be its membership and relationship to the Government.

  Mr. Renton
  We are considering the terms of reference for the review of privacy and related matters, and the composition of the committee which will carry it out. A further announcement will be made shortly.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether the committee he will appoint to review the press will include representatives of(a) the churches, (b) consumer groups, (c) the voluntary sector, (d) education, (e) the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and (f) the trade unions;

  (2) whether his review of the press will consider (a) the right of reply, (b) the law of confidentiality, (c) cheque-book journalism, (d) the role and future of the Press council, (e) the role of independent directors, (f) ownership and (g) freedom of information;

  (3) whether it is his intention to publish (a) the report of the committee due to inquire into the press, and (b) the evidence presented to that committee;

  (4) whether he will publish the detailed terms of reference of his review of the press;

  (5) whether his review of the press will cover (a) the traditional press, (b) regional press, and (c) free sheets.

  Mr. Renton
  We are considering the terms of reference for the review of privacy and related matters, and the composition of the committee which will carry it out. A further announcement will be made shortly.

  Baby Food
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list in the Official Report, the number of incidents of contamination of baby food notified to the police on each day since the first incident was reported on 7 April.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that since 7 April the number of reported incidents in England, Wales and Scotland of contamination of baby food notified to the police each day are as follows:
  30

  Number of reported incidents

  Date

  Number

  April 7

  1

  April 9

  1

  April 10

  4

  April 15

  1

  April 17

  3

  April 20

  1

  April 22

  1

  April 24

  5

  Reliable national figures for the period since 24 April are not yet available centrally.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the police notified his Department of the existence of the threat to safely involved in the contamination of baby food.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Home Office was notified on 26 April. I understand that the police were in touch with the Department of Health some days earlier. The police had previously ensured that local warnings about the threat to safety were issued whenever specific incidents of contamination were discovered.

  Laboratory Staff
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if his Department makes a local pay addition to secretarial, clerical and typing staff at the central research and support establishment and at the regional forensic science laboratory, both at Aldermaston; and if he has any proposals for the payment of an addition to forensic scientists at the laboratories;

  (2) if he has any proposals for the payment of a special pay addition to forensic scientists working at the central research laboratory and at the regional forensic science laboratory, both at Aldermaston; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if he will introduce for forensic scientists working at the central research laboratory and at the regional forensic science laboratory, both at Aldermaston, a new pay structure including a special pay addition, and similar to that affecting scientists employed by the Ministry of Defence working on the same Aldermaston site in the atomic weapons research establishment.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  From 1 April 1989 clerical, secretarial and typing staff at the central research and support establishment and forensic science laboratory a t Aldermaston, who have one year's service, receive a local pay addition of £600 pa.

  The case for special pay increase to scientific staff up to senior scientific officer level at these establishments on the grounds of recruitment and retention difficulties is under consideration.

  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement concerning the morale of scientists within the Home Office forensic science service, in the light of the comments made in the recent report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, (HC 686).

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We will be responding to the Home Affairs Select Committee report on the forensic science service shortly.

  The forensic science service is now emerging from a period of uncertainty. The Select Committee recognised

  31
  that a good deal has been done recently to build up morale and tackle the other problems which the service faces. We are keeping up the pace of this work.

  Hillsborough Football Ground
  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will call for a report from the chief constable of South Yorkshire as to the numbers of police officers deployed(a) outside the ground and (b) inside the ground at the Sheffield, Hillsborough football ground in each of the last 10 years when FA cup semi-final matches have been played ther;

  (2) if he will call for a report from the chief constable of South Yorkshire as to how many police officers were involved in the total operation for policing FA cup semi-final matches in each of the last 10 years that they have been played at Sheffield, Hillsborough.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand from the chief constable of the South Yorkshire police that the total number of police officers involved in 1988 was 1,173 and in 1989 1,133. Of these totals the number of officers dedicated to policing inside the ground in 1988 was 286 and in 1989 266. Figures for previous years are not readily available.

  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report from the chief constable of South Yorkshire as to the proportion of the cost for the policing operations at Sheffield, Hillsborough football ground that has been paid by(a) Sheffield Wednesday football club and (b) the police authority in each of the last 10 years when FA cup semi-final matches have been played there.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I understand that FA Cup semi-final matches were played at Hillsborough in 1980, 1987 and 1988. This year's match was abandoned. No information on policing costs is available for 1980 and the costs for this year's match have not yet been calculated. Sheffield Wednesday football club does not bear any part of the costs of these matches, since the costs falling upon the organisers are met by the Football Association. The FA met 26·3 per cent. of the total costs in 1987 and 49·8 per cent. in 1988.

  "Punishment, Custody in the Community"
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many responses he has received from organisations and individuals to the Green Paper "Punishment, Custody in the Community"; and how many of those organisations and individuals support the need for a new punishment in the custody order as outlined in part 3 of the aforenamed document.

  Mr. John Patten
  Over 160 responses have been received. The Green Paper put forward three possible variations of the new sentence, which would have a number of components. Those who replied frequently supported some elements but not others.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list comprehensively those organisations which have so far submitted a response to the Home Office Green Paper, "Punishment, Custody in the Community" published in July 1988.
  32
  Mr John Patten
  The main organisations who responded to the Green Paper are as follows. In addition, responses were received from 59 probation services, probation committees and liaison committees, from 16 magistrates groups, benches and juvenile panels, from four social service departments and from a wide range of interested individuals and groups.

  Organisations who submitted comments on 'Punishment, Custody and the Community'

  The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

  Aquarius

  Coventry and Warwickshire Alcohol Advisory Service

  The Conservative Women's National Committee

  The Labour Campaign for Criminal Justice

  Greater Manchester Police Authority

  The Police Federation of England and Wales

  The Police Superintendents' Association

  The Offenders Tag Association

  Forum for Initiatives on Reparation and Mediation

  Yorkshire and Humberside Intermediate Treatment Association

  Leeds Adult Tracking

  The Prison Reform Trust

  Action on Youth Crime

  London and Southwark Prison and Penal Reforms Group

  The Association for Juvenile Justice

  The Children's Legal Centre

  Corby and Kettering Juvenile Liaison Bureau

  The Children's Society

  Barnardos

  Save the Children

  The Rainer Foundation

  Community Service Volunteers

  Nottingham Black Initiative

  The National Association of Victim Support Schemes

  Bristol Victims Support Scheme

  The Football League

  The Trades Union Congress

  The National Association of Local Government Officers

  The Crown Prosecution Service

  The Magistrates' Association

  The Association of Chief Officers of Probation

  The National Association of Probation Officers

  The National Association of Senior Probation Officers

  The Central Council of Probation Committees

  The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders

  The Prison Governors' Association

  The Justices' Clerks' Society

  The Association of County Councils

  The Association of Directors of Social Services

  Mr. Morton Hammer and Family
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is yet in a position to give a decision in the case of Mr. Morton Hammer and family, ref: H297787.

  Mr. Renton
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: Mr. Morton Hammer's case cannot be resolved until his solicitors supply information requested of them in February by the immigration department. As soon as that information is available the application will be considered and Mr. Hammer notified of the result direct. Mr. Hammer has been given two months leave to enter the United Kingdom to enable him or his representatives to submit the details required.

  Data Protection
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what information he has as to the number of alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act;
  33
  how many of these relate to breaches of confidentiality; how many have been proved; how many cases are still under investigation; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what information he has as to the penalties which have been imposed on companies, and individual organisations for breaches of the Data Protection Act in cases concerning confidentiality; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Renton
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: The Data Protection Registrar does not collect information in the form requested. Details of those cases in which enforcement action is taken are published in his annual report to Parliament.

  Sporting Events (Fatalities)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has regarding fatalities among spectators at sporting events during the past 10 years.

  Mr. John Patten
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys has published statistics relating to fatal accidents in England and Wales occurring during sporting and leisure activities since 1982. The figures for fatalities amongst spectators are as follows:

  Number of fatalities

  Year

  Number

  1982

  2

  1983

  1

  1984

  3

  1985

  56

  1986

  1

  1987

  4

  Source: OPCS 'Monitor' reference DH4.

  Notes:

  The 1985 figure does not include one fatality at Birmingham City football ground.

  Figures for 1988 not yet available.

  In addition, I understand that two people died in 1980 as a result of the collapse of a pillar at Ayresome Park football ground, Middlesbrough.

  Mrs. Laurie Clare Marlborough
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will call for a report from the chief constable of Greater Manchester as to the authority under which police officers(a) arrested and (b) handed over to American military authorities Mrs. Laurie Clare Marlborough of Heaton Norris, Stockport, and as to whether the code of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was observed in relation to her arrest and detention;

  (2) when Her Majesty's Government was informed under the terms of the 1951 Agreement regarding the status of forces of parties to the North Atlantic Treaty by the United States Government that Mrs. Laurie Clare Marlborough of Heaton Norris, Stockport, was a deserter from the United States Navy; what requests were made by the United States Government; what response was made; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 7 April 1989]: I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and the chief constable of Greater Manchester
  34
  police that the Metropolitan police were informed on 19 October 1988 that Mrs. Marlborough was a deserter from the United States Navy. After inquiries regarding her nationality status had been completed, Stockport police were requested on 29 March 1989 to arrest her. Mrs. Marlborough was arrested on the same day under section 13 of the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and handed over to the United States Navy authorities on the following day.

  I further understand that the provisions of the codes of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 were fully complied with; and that the matter is now the subject of a complaint which is being investigated under the provisions of part IX of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  European Nuclear Disarmament
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has received over the last 10 years from the organisation European Nuclear Disarmament; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  We do not have a record of representations received from the organisation European Nuclear Disarmament over the last 10 years. The information is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Namibia
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will report on the progress being made towards a peaceful resolution in Namibia.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Agreements have been reached on a framework for the return of SWAPO forces to positions north of 16th parallel in Angola. It is important that these agreements are put into effect and that all parties abide by their undertakings in the UN plan.

  Khatchaturian Family
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs why the British high commission in Calcutta has refused permission for Mrs. Jenny Khatchaturian, her husband Mr. Baron Max Khatchaturian and their child Arthranick Khatchaturian of 1A Susil Sen road, Bhowpamipore, Calcutta, to visit the United Kingdom, following the death of their close relative in Caernarfon; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  In accordance with the recent guidelines on the handling of representations by Members of Parliament in immigration cases, issued to Members on 14 December 1988, I have referred the question to the correspondence unit of the migration and visa department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The hon. Member will receive a reply from the Unit in due course.

  European Green Parties (Congress)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if any member of the United
  35
  Kingdom embassy staff in Paris was present as an observer at the fifth congress of the European green parties held in Paris between 7 to 9 April.

  Mrs. Chalker
  No member of the British embassy staff in Paris attended any of the congress sessions, nor was the embassy invited to participate. But one member of staff visited the accompanying exhibition and attended a congress press conference.

  Council of Ministers
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give details of forthcoming business in the European Community Council of Ministers.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The usual forecast was deposited in the House earlier today. At present nine meetings of the Council of Ministers are planned for May.

  The Internal Market Council on 3 May will discuss a number of measures relevant to the completion of the internal market.

  The Energy Council will meet on 11 May to consider a Commission paper on transparency of consumer energy prices, an initiative designed as a step towards completing the internal energy market. It will have a first look at THERMIE, a successor programme to the Community's research and development programme for the hydrocarbons sector and its demonstrations scheme, concerning the promotion of energy technology in Europe, and discuss the prospects for an internal market in integrated electrical energy systems. Ministers will attempt to agree a set of recommendations on the Community refining industry left over from the November Council, and also give further consideration to a proposal for improving the efficiency of electricity use. The Council will also discuss Directive 75/404 on the restriction of the use of natural gas in power stations, and complete the agenda by looking at a proposal for a Council directive concerning the procedures for the award of public works contracts in the water, energy and transport sectors.

  The Health Council on 16 May will discuss: Europe against cancer programme, tobacco labelling, tar content in cigarettes, smoking in public places and advertising of tobacco products. It will also discuss cardio-vascular diseases, the prevention and control of AIDS, and drugs.

  The Development Council meets on 16 May. It is expected to discuss the state of progress on the current negotiations of the Lomé convention. It will also adopt conclusions on: evaluation of development co-operation; how the Community might take account of the role of women in development; and the need to avoid marginalising particular sections of the population when designing aid programmes. The Council is expected to agree conclusions between the Commission and member states in respect of their approaches to the support of structural adjustments in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) signatories of the Lomé convention. It will also discuss the Commission's report on the review of financial and technical co-operation with Latin American and Asian developing countries.

  The Culture Council on 18 May will include a discussion on specific actions relating to books: Ministerial resolution and Commission communication. Additionally, discussion is likely to be taken forward on audio-visual matters and in particular on a conference on
  36
  the subject to be hosted by the French Government in Paris in September 1989. This initiative is aimed at strengthening the European internal market in this field.

  The Education Council on 22 May will consider the Commission's proposal for a Community programme to promote the learning of foreign languages (the LINGUA programme) and will review the basis for co-operation in education in the medium term. Discussions are expected also to cover a first response to the Commission's proposal for adaptation of the Erasmus decision and possible new activity relating to educational provision for gipsies and other travelling groups among the population.

  The Foreign Affairs Council, meeting on 22–23 May, will discuss progress in the current negotiation of the Lomé convention, and the current state of play on the negotiations for a new international coffee agreement. It will also review progress by the high-level task force set up to resolve the EC-US dispute over hormones in meat. The Council may have a preliminary discussion of a draft mandate for negotiations with the USSR on a trade, commercial and economic co-operation agreement. It may also be asked to approve a mandate for negotiations with the USSR on a textiles agreement. An EC-Israel Co-operation Council will be held in the margins of the Foreign Affairs Council.

  The Industry Council meets on 29 May. It will consider a draft decision establishing a four-year action programme for small and medium enterprises. It will also discuss: a new proposal for resolving the problems of restructuring the Italian public-sector steel industry; a Commission paper on cross-border industrial collaboration in the Community; proposals for a European mining policy; and the Commission's mid-term review on the 6th directive on shipbuilding aid. There will also be a discussion on the automobile sector including EC-wide arrangements for Japanese imports after 1992, emission standards, the state aid framework for automobiles and local content rules.

  The Agriculture Council will meet on 29 and 30 May to discuss plant health, marketing of compound feeding-stuffs, pesticide residues, the forestry action programme, and possibly conversion of agricultural production and certain measures in the wine sector.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Malta
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what have been the main items he has discussed with representatives of the Government of Malta since the last general election there; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Since the Nationalist party won the general elections in May 1987, we have discussed a wide range of bilateral and multilateral subjects with the Maltese Government. In the context of our excellent bilateral relations, the discussions have in particular covered the new technical co-operation programme, announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 15 September 1988, the co-operation agreement, signed when I visited Malta from 14 to 16 March, and the opening of the British Council English Language resource centre, in Valetta, due to take place this autumn.

  "Britain's Voice in South Africa"
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many copies of the booklet "Britain's Voice in South Africa" have been printed; at what cost; what will be the main avenues for their distribution; and what are the estimated costs of distribution.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The total number of copies of the booklet printed or planned is 17,000. The total cost is £21,840. More than 6,000 copies have already been despatched to 145 British diplomatic missions. Further supplies will be sent in response to demand. About 1,000 booklets have been distributed in Britain, including 650 to Members of Parliament. Booklets were distributed to British diplomatic missions with other routine information material. Distribution costs of individual items are not separately identifiable.

  Departmental Policy
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will set out(a) those areas of policy successes and (b) those areas of policy failures within his Department's responsibilities since May 1979.

  Mrs. Chalker
  For the period to May 1988, I refer the hon. Member to the written answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 6 May 1988 at col.638 to the question from my late hon. Friend the then Member for Epping Forest (Sir John Biggs-Davison). We have continued successfully to pursue policies aimed at safeguarding Britain's security through membership of NATO, developing Britain's prosperity within the European Community, and strengthening international stability and order through an active bilateral and multilateral diplomacy.

  South Africa
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on relations with South Africa.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Britain has full diplomatic relations with South Africa.

  Iraq
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he last had discussions on Iraqi Kurdistan with the authorities of Iraq; and what was the substance of those discussions.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  We have regularly raised with the Iraqi authorities our concerns over their Kurdish population and human rights violations against the community.

  Most recently I did so with the Iraqi ambassador on 19 April, and in particular made clear that we would view with grave concern any evidence of any mass deportations of Kurds. The Iraqi Government have admitted to some localised resettlement of Kurds for security reasons, but have denied mass relocation to the south of the country. We have urged the Iraqi Government to allow diplomats and journalists to visit the areas concerned to see for themselves.

  E1 Salvador
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 25 April to the hon. Member for Oxford, East,Official Report, column 463, if he will now make urgent representations to the E1 Salvadorean Government concerning the case of Senor Cordova Aguilar.

  Mr. Eggar
  We have on numerous occasions made very clear to the E1 Salvadorean authorities the importance that we attach to proper respect for human rights.

  We are conveying to the authorities the concern which is felt over the case of Senor Cordova Aguilar's disappearance. We have also been in touch with Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the Catholic Church in El Salvador, who have informed us that there are no clues as to who was responsible for Senor Cordova Aguilar's disappearance in July last year.

  EC Commission
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the number of full-time staff employed at the office of the European Communities Commission in London.

  Mrs. Chalker
  There are 24 full-time staff.

  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the reasons for the information office located at the office of the European Communities Commission in London being unable to take telephone inquiries until after 2 pm on each working day.

  Mrs. Chalker
  This is a matter for the European Commission Office.

  Child Slavery
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will reveal any plans he has to make known Britain's abhorrence of the child slave trade that is currently operating in a wide variety of countries in the Third world.

  Mr. Eggar
  Britain has long abhorred the child slave trade and this position is already well-known throughout the world. We shall continue to make clear that we deplore the practice of slavery in all its forms wherever in the world it goes on.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Inquests
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Attorney-General what is his policy concerning requests for authorisation to make application to the High Court for a fresh inquest into a cause of death; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  In each instance in which a request is made to me I consider whether an application to the High Court under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 would have a reasonable prospect of establishing that it is necessary or desirable in the interests of justice for a fresh inquest to be held.
  39
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Attorney-General how many requests he has received in the last year for which figures are available, for him to issue authorisations to make application to the High Court for fresh inquests; and how many of these requests were successful.

  The Attorney-General
  In the 12-month period ending 31 March 1989, 14 requests were received. Of these requests six were granted, five were refused, two were withdrawn and one is still being considered.

  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Attorney-General in what circumstances, when he refuses leave to apply to the High Court for a fresh inquest, he supplies reasons for his decision; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  If I decline to give my authority for an application to the High Court under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 I do so because I consider that the application would have no reasonable prospect of establishing that it is necessary or desirable in the interests of justice for a fresh inquest to be held. In such circumstances it is not my practice to give a more particular reason.

  Public Record Office (Files Embargo)
  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will give the reasons for the embargo of 75 years that was placed on the following files in the Public Record Office: MH55 reference numbers 1749, 1760 and 1761; and if the Lord Chancellor will now remove the embargo.

  The Attorney-General
  The first file referred to, MH55/1749, has been closed for 75 years in accordance with the established criteria set out in paragraphs 24 to 27 of the White Paper "Modern Public Records, Cmnd. 8531, March 1982." There are no plans to reduce the file's closure period. MH55/1760 has been open to public inspection since 1986. MH55/1761 is not available for public inspection because its contents are not yet 30 years old.

  Courts (Notices)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Attorney-General on how many occasions during the past 12 months courts in Wales have received complaints that they have been sending out English only notices to Welsh speaking people; and if he will take steps to review the procedures in courts in Wales to ensure that all initial notifications of court proceedings are bilingual and that any subsequent correspondence is either bilingual or in the desired language of the individual concerned.

  The Attorney-General
  During the last 12 months none of the courts in Wales, for which the Lord Chancellor is responsible, have received any formal complaints that English only notices have been sent out from them. The question of the use of bilingual forms in courts in Wales has been reviewed many times and the Lord Chancellor's Department will continue to keep all procedures under review.

EMPLOYMENT

  Speech Therapists
  Mr. Sillars
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if there are any speech therapists registered as unemployed in Glasgow.

  Mr. Lee
  The information is not available since there is no analysis of the unemployment count by occupation.

  YTS
  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many young people in South Yorkshire are in receipt of YTS allowances; and if he has any plans to increase them in line with(a) the retail prices index, (b) the yearly rate of inflation and (c) average earnings.

  Mr. Cope
  On 31 March 1989, 14,600 young people in South Yorkshire were undertaking training on YTS and in receipt of YTS allowances. A further 3,700 young people in South Yorkshire were employed and undertaking YTS training, but these young people are paid a wage by their employer instead of a trainee allowance. There are no plans to increase the value of the YTS allowance.

  Training Agencies
  Mr. Loyden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will call for a report from the training agencies at Merseyside and Manchester on the reasons for the one-day strike by training agency staff; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Cope
  Forty nine training agency staff in Merseyside and 36 in Manchester took "industrial action" on 26 April. This constituted a very small minority of training agency staff in these two areas. The action was organised by the Civil and Public Servants Association in protest against the privatisation of the skills training agency, reductions in staffing and the establishment of training and enterprise councils. The action was misguided and the vast majority of training agency staff did not take part.

  Publicity
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he will place in the Library details of each major publicity campaign mounted by his Department in 1985–86 and each successive year, including in each case the objectives of the campaign, the intended audience and the outcome of the monitoring of the achievement of the intended objectives, and national research conducted for him by the Central Office of Information together with a note of the intended objectives in the campaigns in 1989–90;

  (2) if he will place in the Library details of each major publicity campaign mounted by the Manpower Services Commission and the Training Agency in 1985–86 and each successive year, including in each case the objectives of the campaign, the intended audience and the outcome of the monitoring of the achievement of the intended objectives, and national research conducted for him by the Central Office of Information together with a note of the intended objectives in the campaigns in 1989–90.

  Mr. Cope
  I shall write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library.

  Public Expenditure
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will reproduce table 7.29 of the public expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 607) using the most recent revised figures available.

  Mr. Cope
  In respect of table 7.29 of the public expenditure White Paper, figures for the financial years 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1991–92 remain unchanged. Only the estimated outturn figures for 1988–89 are subject to change at present. However, the final outturn figures for 1988–89 are not yet available. These will be published in the Department's appropriation accounts later this year.

  Wages
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take immediate steps to restore the minimum wage levels for young persons aged between 16 and 21.

  Mr. Cope
  No.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Single Market
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will obtain for his departmental library a copy of the speech by Mr. Giovanni Falcone of the Sicilian magistrates about the consequences of the single market for the Mafia; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  Mr. Falcone's remarks were part of a round table discussion on the Mafia and business in Sicily. the meeting was organised by the newspaper II Sole 24 Ore which carried an extensive report, including a transcript of the discussion. My Department has a copy of this report. Mr. Falcone said, in the context of the Mafia, that it was important to be aware of the possibilities that might arise for exporting criminal activities once the frontiers were abolished within the single European market. I am reassured, however, to note that Mr. Falcone also says that the Italian authorities are taking strong measures to combat Mafia business activities and that he is optimistic about the growing effectiveness of these measures.

  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement outlining the changes made recently in defining reciprocity for the purposes of the banking provisions of the single market.

  Mr. Lilley
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Commission recently presented revised proposals for a reciprocity provision in the second banking co-ordination directive. As explained by the Commission, the revised proposals would set the Community's maximum negotiating objective as the achievement of effective market access and competitive opportunities for European Community credit institutions in a third country comparable to those accorded by the Community to credit institutions from that third country. The proposals include a procedure for suspension of new authorisations where credit institutions of the Community did not enjoy national treatment, effective market access and the same competitive opportunities as domestic institutions in a third country. The Council of Ministers had an initial discussion on these proposals on 17 April, and they are being considered further.

  Right to Buy (Publicans)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will introduce legislation to provide for a right to buy for publicans.

  Mr. Maude
  The Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the supply of beer recommended that a new brewers code of practice should be negotiated by the Director General of Fair Trading. This would require the brewers to incorporate a number of provisions into tenancy agreements and leases which contained any form of tie in respect of beer. One such provision would he that before the brewer/landlord disposes of any public house which has a licensee/tenant to a purchaser which is not itself a brewery company the brewer/landlord should give the tenant/licensee a reasonable opportunity of acquiring the premises at market value. My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State has said he is minded to accept the recommendations of the MMC report.

  Securities and Investments Board
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he next intends to meet the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board.

  Mr. Maude
  I meet the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board as frequently as is necessary.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he last met the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board; and what was discussed.

  Mr. Maude
  My right hon. and noble Friend and I met the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board on 15 February. The discussion ranged widely over the area of the regulation of financial services.

  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has had regarding independent financial advisers' responses to the Green Paper from the Securities and Investments Board.

  Mr. Maude
  I have received a number of representations regarding the proposals in the Securities and Investments Board's consultation paper "Life Assurance and Unit Trusts Disclosure—the regime for 1990" published last December. Most raise the respective disclosure requirements for tied agents and independent financial advisers.

  Self-regulatory Organisations
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the performance of self-regulatory organisations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  It is for the Securities and Investment's Board to oversee the performance of the self-regulating organisations.

  Leisure Circle
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many complaints he has received about the trading practices and selling methods of the Leisure Circle mail order company.
  43
  Mr. Forth
  I have not received any complaints about this company.

  Leisure Circle is a member of the Association of Mail Order Publishers. The Mail Order Publishers' Authority administers the association's code of practice and as such considers and seeks to resolve individual complaints.

  Research Institutes
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list by standard region the research institutes operated for or on behalf of his Department and the total employment thereat; if he will give for each region the total number of such institutes and the employment therein; and if he will express the regional totals as a percentage of the national totals.

  Mr. Forth
  The distribution of Department of Trade and Industry's research establishments falls in two regions —Scotland and the south-east. There is one establishment in Scotland and three are in the south-east.

  The total number of staff in post at 1 March 1989 (excluding casual staff) was 1,951, of which 30 per cent. were in Scotland and 70 per cent. in the south-east. The research establishments and their staff are:

  Area

  Research establishments

  Number

  Scotland

  National Engineering laboratory, East Kilbride

  579·0

  South-east region

  Warren Spring laboratory (now an executive agency), Stevenage, Herts

  290·5

  Laboratory of the Government Chemist, Teddington, Middlesex

  312·5

  National Physical laboratory (excluding the national measurement accreditation service—NAMAS), Teddington, Middlesex

  769·0

  Unichem
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will place a copy of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report into Unichem in the Library.

  Mr. Maude
  I will do so as soon as it has been considered by my right hon. and noble Friend and laid before the House.

  Tankers (Export Credits)
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if export credits have been approved for the tankers to be built at Harland and Wolff, Belfast.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  It has been the practice of successive Governments not to disclose information about ECGD support for individual cases.

ENERGY

  Fawley B Power Station
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if the Central Electricity Generating Board has withdrawn its application to build a coal-fired power station at Fawley B, and if he will make a statement.
  44
  Mr. Michael Spicer
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 28 April 1989, at column 707.

  Petrol Prices
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the recent increases of petrol prices for motorists.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  I have nothing to add to the statement my right hon. Friend made to the House in response to a private notice question from the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran) on 20 April, at column 457.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for East Lothian on 10 January,Official Report, column 577, he will explain the discrepancy between the figures quoted for per capita expenditure on renewable energy of 43p and 20p in Greece and Spain, respectively, with the figures for the same year of 65p and 33p referred to by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in its publication, "Energy Policies and Programmes of International Energy Agency Countries 1986 Review".

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  It is not clear how the hon. Gentleman has arrived at the figures he quotes. The numbers given in my previous reply are valid. They were derived using the following data:

  Population of Greece—10 million

  Population of Spain—39 million

  Expenditure in Greece—$7·6 million

  Expenditure in Spain—$14·1 million

  And a conversion of £0·56 to $1. The expenditure data were obtained from "Energy Policies and Programmes of IEA countries—1987 Review", table B11.

  Coal Industry (Rescue Services)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what information he has on the experiment that was undertaken by British Coal during the summer of 1988 at Cynheidre, Betws, and Blaenant colleries regarding the speed of rescue services; and if he will publish such results as are available in the Official Report.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  This is a matter for the British Coal Corporation, which is aware of no such experiment. I understand that the corporation undertakes an annual emergency exercise at each of its collieries.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what assessment he has made as to the extent to which the plans by British Coal to reorganise the mines rescue service by downgrading the Loughan rescue station from category A to category B will provide adequate safety cover for coal miners working at both British Coal and mines in private ownership.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  This is a matter for the British Coal Corporation, but I understand that the reclassification was discussed with the mines and quarries inspectorate.

  Publicity
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will place in the Library details of each major
  45
  publicity campaign mounted by his Department in 1985–86 and each successive year, including in each case the objectives of the campaign, the intended audience and the outcome of the monitoring of the achievement of the intended objectives, and national research conducted for him by the Central Office of Information together with a note of the intended objectives in the campaigns in 1989–90.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  I will write to the hon. Gentleman and place a copy of my reply in the Library.

ENVIRONMENT

  Building Regulations
  Mr. Ray Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he plans to publish new building regulations strengthening energy efficiency standards; whether he has received any recent representations from the building industry objecting to such plans; and if he will make a statement on the role that energy conservation measures may play in combating pollution of the earth's atmosphere.

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

  Pollution
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, in view of the Government's concern with environmental pollution, it is his intention to provide in building control regulations for the energy efficiency of buildings.

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

  Lead-free Petrol
  Mr. Andrew MacKay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied with the percentage of motorists using lead-free petrol; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) on 26 April.

  Rating Reform
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment(1) what would be the approximate amount paid in community charge, expressed as a percentage of disposable income, that would arise for a family of one wage earner, and two other adults over 18 years living in the London borough of Waltham Forest, where the wage earner was(a) a senior executive earning over £75,000 with twice the average-value mortgage, (b) a ward sister earning over £15,000 with an average-value mortgage and (c) a home help earning less than £7,500 with a half-average mortgage; how those percentages would change if the family decided to look after an elderly relative on state pension; and what are the percentages derived from a system of capital value rates plus local income tax paid in the proportions of 80:20, respectively;

  (2) pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), 22 March, Official Report, column 626, what would be the
  46
  approximate amount paid in community charge, expressed as a percentage of disposable income, that would arise for a family of one wage earner, and two other adults over 18 years living in Hornsey, where the wage earner was (a) a senior executive earning over £75,000 with twice the average-value mortgage, (b) a ward sister earning over £15,000 with an average-value mortgage and (c) a home help earning less than £7,500 with a half-average mortgage; how those percentages would change if the family decided to look after an elderly relative on state pension; and what are the percentages derived from a system of capital value rates plus local income tax paid in the proportions of 80:20, respectively.

  Mr. Gummer
  This question requires a very large number of assumptions to be made about the personal circumstances of the individuals cited and answers would not be meaningful.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has identified any beneficial effects on electoral registration arising from the poll tax in England.

  Mr. Gummer
  The Government have no plans to introduce a poll tax.

  It is too early to identify beneficial effects on electoral registration arising from the community charge. However, the electoral registration officer for any area in England and Wales may inspect the community charges register of any charging authority which will add to the sources available to help in compiling electoral registers.

  Severn-Trent Water (Consent Conditions)
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will list the submissions made by the Severn-Trent water authority to Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution which apply for a tightening of current consent conditions;

  (2) what named works Severn-Trent water authority have submitted to Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution for changes to sewage discharge consent conditions;

  (3) if he will list the submissions made by the Severn-Trent water authority to Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution which apply for a relaxation of current consent conditions and showing which are temporary and which are permanent.

  Mr. Howard
  I am placing in the Library a list of those sewage works in respect of which the Severn-Trent water authority has applied for revised consents.

  Football Stadiums
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what incentives his Department offers to football clubs to go over to all-seater stadiums.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The Government share the view expressed by the football authorities and others that there should be a move towards all-seater stadiums for the major clubs. The incentive for the clubs would be in improved safety and comfort of their supporters. We welcome Liverpool FC's announcement of its intention to make Anfield an all-seater stadium.

  Insulation Industry
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total turnover of the United Kingdom insulation industry in 1968, 1978 and in 1988.

  Mr. Trippier
  Sales of insulation materials such as expanded vermiculite, mineral wood, mica, mica products, glass fibre, etc. were around £300 million in the United Kingdom in 1988. Comparable figures for 1968 and 1978 are not readily available.

  Water Privatisation
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will introduce legislation to ensure that after privatisation the water companies are not permitted to supply water to new customers unless and until(a) adequate provision has been made to supply them without detriment to existing customers, (b) they have consulted all parties whose interests are likely to be adversely affected by any development connected therewith and (c) adequate compensation is paid not only for disturbance to land and amenity but also for the inconvenience caused to such parties.

  Mr. Howard
  The Water Bill already provides full safeguards for the interests of existing customers and anyone adversely affected by new provision. In particular, undertakers' performance against service indicators and targets will be monitored by the Director General of Water Services. The exercise by undertakers of compulsory powers will be subject to the same constraints as now and in addition the Bill provides for a mandatory code of practice for pipelaying with power for the director general to require an undertaker to compensate an owner or occupier for inconvenience caused by the undertaker acting unreasonably.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make it his policy to require the water supply companies currently and after privatisation not to withhold their consent unreasonably for the planting of trees and the erection of new buildings within 2·5 metres of a new water main running across private land and to include such a provision in all future wayleaves requiring the landowner to get their written consent in such cases.

  Mr. Howard
  The powers available to the privatised water companies to lay pipes across private land will be subject to a mandatory code of practice to be submitted by the companies to the Secretary of State for approval. The model code of practice prepared by the Department in consultation with interested parties requires a company to consult the owner or occupier about the route of new pipes. The width of the strip of land above the pipe on which activities are to be restricted will be such as is necessary to protect the pipe and to allow the company access for maintenance. It is the responsibility of the owner or occupier to ensure that his activities do not damage the pipe. Compensation is payable where the value of the land is depreciated as a result of pipelaying.

  London Docklands Development Corporation
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of the London Docklands Development Corporation's expenditure for 1989 to 1990 will be on transport projects.
  48
  Mr. Trippier
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave him on 14 February at column,188.

  Satellite Dishes
  Mr. Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will issue guidelines to local planning authorities to minimise the environmental and visual aspects of satellite dishes.

  Mr. Chope
  Advice about the installation of satellite dishes is included in planning policy guidance note No. 8 "Telecommunications", a copy of which is in the Library. The Department is reviewing the permitted development rights for telecommunications in the light of technological advances since existing rights were set in 1985–86; we intend to issue a consultation paper later this year.

  Water Bill
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he has taken to ensure that the provisions of the Water Bill are consistent with European law; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ridley
  The Government have now reached agreement with the European Commission, following detailed discussions, on all the outstanding points arising from the Water Bill. My noble Friend the Minister for Housing, Environment and Countryside, will shortly table amendments to the Bill which will put beyond doubt that these provisions are fully consistent with European law.

  Quite separately, the Commission has recently issued a reasoned opinion to the effect that the United Kingdom does not have legislation in place to give direct effect to the drinking water directive. Regulations incorporating the directive's standards will be made under the Bill and laid before Parliament immediately after Royal Assent. The European Commission has confirmed that such legislation would enable them to close this part of the case.

  Rents
  Mr Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has as to the average level of registered rents being set for(a) a one-bedroom flat, (b) a two-bedroom flat and (c) a three-bedroom flat or house in the district of Doncaster; for each of the last four years.

  Mr. Trippier
  This information is not available.

  Bed-and-Breakfast Accommodation
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the number of people Doncaster metropolitan borough council is providing with bed-and-breakfast accommodation; and what is the comparable figure five years and 10 years ago.

  Mr. Trippier
  The number of households temporarily resident in bed and breakfast accommodation as reported by each English local authority at the end of 1978, 1983 and 1988 can be found in the following publications, all of which are available in the Library:"Homeless households reported by local authorities in England; Statistics for 1978";
  "Homeless households reported by local authorities in England; Results for the second half of 1983; Supplementary Tables";

  49
  "Local authorites' action under the homelessness provisions of the 1985 Housing Act: England. Results for the fourth quarter of 1988. Supplementary Tables".

  Research Institutes
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by standard region the research institutes operated for or on behalf of his Department and the total employment thereat; if he will give for each region the total number of such institutes and the employment therein; and if he will express the regional totals as a percentage of the national totals.

  Mr. Ridley
  There is only one research institute operated on behalf of my Department. This is the Building Research Establishment (which incorporates the fire research station). Most of BRE is situated in the south east, but it does have a Scottish laboratory in East Kilbride. On 1 April 1989, 654 staff were employed at BRE.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now provide an estimate of the amount of the community charge in Lambeth on the assumption that expenditure remains at budget levels for 1989–90.

  Mr. Gummer
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave on 25 April to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) at column 532.

  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of people who will either pay the community charge or be exempted from it from 1 April 1990.

  Mr. Gummer
  Latest estimates from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys suggest that there are about 36·5 million adults in England. Around 0·5 million are expected to be exempt from the personal community charge.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will set out in tabular form the level of the community charge for(a) Dacorum borough and (b) Hertfordshire county if it had been in effect in the financial year 1988–89 and 1989–90 (i) at the level of spending budgeted and (ii) if the local authority concerned had spent at its grant-related expenditure allowance level.

  Mr. Gummer
  The illustrative figures placed in the Library on 23 June 1988 suggested that if the community charge had been in operation in 1988–89, the charge in Dacorum district would have been £247. The community charge for spending at need would have been £202. Of the excess of £45, £3 was attributable to spending by Dacorum and £42 to spending by Hertfordshire county council.

  Illustrative figures for 1989–90 will be published for all areas once data needed from local authorities has been received and analysed.

  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide the latest available figures for the costs of administering the rates in England and Wales, together with his estimate of the comparable costs of the administration of the community charge.
  50
  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: Our estimate of the cost of collecting and administering the community charge in 1990–91 in England and Wales, based on the Price Waterhouse report, is between £379 million (if all authorities work as efficiently as the most efficient in their category) and £429 million (if authorities maintain their current efficiency). These estimates were at November 1987 prices. The cost of collecting the rates in 1989–90 is estimated to be about £200 million. The Labour party's two-tax system could cost up to four times as much to administer as the existing rating system.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations have been received from(a) trades unions representing Government information officers and (b) individual officials, concerning the preparation and dissemination of material relating to the community charge.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: In the normal course of business I receive advice from my officials on community charge information material. I am not aware of having received any representations from the trade unions mentioned by the hon. Member.

  Mr Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report a consolidated list of all sources of legislation and official guidance to the public, local authorities and other interested bodies on the operation of the community charge, giving reference to title, date, authorship, means of availability and other relevant details.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 27 April 1989]: The following are official sources of information and guidance about the operation of the community charge:

  Legislation

  Local Government Finance Act, 1988 (July 1988)

  Community Charges (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1989 (SI. 1989/438) (March 1989)

  Valuation and Community Charge Tribunals Regulations 1989 (SI. 1989/439) (March 1989)

  Valuation and Community Charge Tribunals (Transfer of Jurisdiction) Regulations 1989 (SI. 1989/440) (March 1989)

  The Personal Community Charge (Students) Regulations 1989 (SI. 1989/443) (March 1989)

  The Personal Community Chrge (Exemptions) Order 1989 (SI. 1989/442) (March 1989)

  The Valuation of Rating (Plant and Machinery) Regulations 1989 (SI. 1989/441) (March 1989)

  Community Charge Practice Notes

  The Government, in conjunction with the local authority associations, is publishing a series of community charge practice notes. These provide detailed advice on the operation of the community charge and are circulated to local authority practitioners and others with a professional interest in community charge. The following practice notes have been issued to date;

  Date

  An introduction to the Community Charge

  May 1988

  Exemptions

  June 1988

  The Register

  August 1988

  Data Protection

  August 1988

  Rebates

  August 1983

  Omission of Names from the Extract

  October 1988

  Appeals

  October 1988

  The Canvass

  November 1988

  Sole or Main Residence

  November 1988

  51

  Date

  Data Protection No. 2

  January 1989

  Billing

  February 1989

  Collection

  February 1989

  Standard Charge

  March 1989

  Collective Charge

  April 1989

  Joint and Several Liability

  April 1989

  Other Publications

  My Department is producing guidance for the general public on the community charge by means of a free booklet and series of supplementary free leaflets. Publications so far issued in this series are:

  Date

  "You and the Community Charge (Your Step by Step Guide)"

  December 1988

  "You and the Community Charge: Exemptions"

  March 1989

  Copies of these are available free of charge from Room P1/163, Department of the Environment, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P3EB.

  Further free leaflets will shortly be available on appeals, the collective community charge, rebates, second homes and students and the community charge. In addition, My right hon. Friend will send a short leaflet on the community charge to every household in England in May.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he intends to publish the proposed fact sheet on community charge and rents inclusive of rates.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: Shortly.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what guidance his Department has issued to community charge registration officers as to how to register for community charge purposes persons with an itinerant lifestyle as they move between local authority areas;

  (2) what guidance his Department has issued to community charge registration officers on the registration of people living on non-stationary houseboats who hold a British waterways licence and have a nominal permanent mooring; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: Guidance on the registration of individuals in such circumstances is contained in community charge practice note No. 9 entitled "Sole or Main Residence". Copies of all practice notes are in the Library.

  Housing Action Trusts
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make funds available to the tenants' organisations in the Loughborough and Angell estates in Lambeth to provide information about housing action trusts comparable to information provided by him and his Department's consultants.

  Mr. Trippier
  The information that we have sent tenants' organisations and individual residents explains the proposals for housing action trusts as the first step in local consultations. We have now appointed consultants to discuss with residents ideas for improving the design, condition, management and general living conditions on their estates. I hope that tenants' organisations will play a full part in these discussions.

  Water Quality
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the extent of Her Majesty's Government's compliance with the signed agreement of the European convention on the standards of the water supply.

  Mr. Howard
  Public water supplies in the United Kingdom are at present of a very high standard and most supplies already comply with the European Community drinking water directive. We are fully committed to compliance with the European Community directive as soon as practicable. Those supplies which regularly fail to meet a standard are being improved and should comply in the next year or so. Water undertakers are currently submitting to the Department further improvement programmes concerning supplies where there is occasional non-compliance with the directive.

  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all water supplies in Yorkshire in breach of the European Economic Community directive on water quality in respect of safety limits on lead in drinking water; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Howard
  1 refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) on 23 March 1989 at columns 775–76.

  Local Authorities (Businesses)
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Waveney of 19 April,Official Report column 229, he will now make it his policy to hold centrally a list of all local authorities which operate businesses in competition with the private sector and the nature of each business concerned.

  Mr. Gummer
  No. No useful purpose would be served by such a list. It is for each local authority to decide how to use their statutory powers.

  National Rivers Authority
  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, in respect of each shadow National Rivers Authority region, the sites which contain water sampling and laboratory analysis facilities of a standard necessary to enable the National Rivers Authority to carry out its pollution control functions.

  Mr. Howard
  When the NRA is established it will own or have access to whatever sampling and analysis facilities are necessary to carry out its full range of pollution control functions. The exact details of its facilities and their location as at the transfer date are not yet finalised, but I refer my hon. Friend to the NRA summary schemes of organisations which were placed in the Library on 2 December for a brief outline of the laboratory arrangements proposed in each region.

  Nuclear Waste
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Banbury, (Mr. Baldry)Official Report, 21 March column 506, how many reserve sites to Sellafield and Dounreay were listed by Nirex for potential low and intermediate-level nuclear waste disposal.
  53
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Nirex's report to Government on the deep repository project, a copy of which is in the Library of the House, indicates that, following a detailed site selection procedure, twelve sites were chosen for further appraisal. Nirex decided that, as a first step, further investigations should be limited to two of these locations —Dounreay and Sellafield.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects publication of the report commissioned by his Department from the National Nuclear Corporation concerning the likely environmental impact of the disposal of spent irradiated fuel underground in thick copper cannisters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Department has commissioned the National Nuclear Corporation to undertake a study into the packaging, storage and direct disposal of spent oxide fuel. The contract is due to end on 30 November 1989. The Department intends to publish the results of the study as soon as practicable thereafter.

  Sulphur Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what initiatives are being taken by his Department to ensure effective reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions to improve the acidity of surface waters in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We have agreed with our European Community partners a phased programme to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide from existing large combustion plants (principally power stations) by 60 per cent. from 1980 levels by 2003, and of nitrogen oxides by 30 per cent. from 1980 levels by 1998. This will add substantially to the programme for reducing acid emissions from power stations which was already in place, estimated to cost over £1 billion.

  Pollution Control
  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many prosecutions under the Control of Pollution Act 1978 there have been in West Yorkshire in each of the last five years; and how many have resulted in convictions in the same period.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  I understand from the Yorkshire water authority that the number of prosecutions brought in West Yorkshire for offences under part II of the Act is as follows:

  Year

  Prosecutions1

  1985

  4

  1986

  8

  1987

  11

  1988

  5

  21989

  2

  1All these resulted in convictions.

  2To date.

  Prior to 1985, prosecutions for water pollution offences were brought tinder the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts 1951 to 1961.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) when he expects all companies to be subject to the terms of the Control of Pollution Act;
  54
  (2) if he will commission a study into the effects of the river Mersey of the cumulative effects of exempting companies from the Control of Pollution Act;

  (3) how many companies in Britain were granted exemptions under the Control of Pollution Act to discharge excess pollutants into Britain's rivers; and if he will list the companies;

  (4) how many companies exempted under the Control of Pollution Act discharge effluent into the river Mersey;

  (5) what are his reasons for granting exemptions under the Control of Pollution Act to companies;

  (6) if he will list the criteria he used to grant exemptions to companies to allow them to discharge excess pollutants into rivers under the Control of Pollution Act;

  (7) if he will list the types of effluents and chemicals permitted to be discharged into rivers by companies exempted from the Control of Pollution Act;

  (8) if he will list the maximum concentrations of pollutants that can be discharged under exemptions from the Control of Pollution Act; and what is the level for non-exempt companies;

  (9) if he will now cease to exempt companies from the terms of the Control of Pollution Act.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: The provisions of part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 apply to all companies. Under the phased introduction of part II of the Act, certain categories of discharge which did not require consent under earlier legislation, were exempted from control under the Act. The categories of discharges exempted are set out in The Control of Pollution (Exemption of Certain Discharges from Control) Order 1983 (Statutory Instrument 1983, No. 1182). The order also lists those cases where such exemptions do not apply on account of the requirements of particular EEC directives.

  In September 1986, the Government announced their intention to withdraw most of these exemptions. This was effected through The Control of Pollution (Exemption of Certain Discharges from Control) (Variation) Order 1986 (Statutory Instrument 1986, No. 1623). This order lists the remaining categories of exempted discharges and sets out transitional provisions for previously exempted discharges. Water authorities have been advised that they should aim to replace all deemed consents issued under the transitional provisions with individually determined consents by October 1992.

  The question whether an industrial discharge is still eligible for an exemption in accordance with the order, is currently a matter for the relevant water authority. However, all discharges of trade and sewage effluent into coastal and estuarial waters—such as the Mersey—have now been brought within the scope of controls.

  The few remaining minor categories of discharges to which exemptions still apply are, by their nature, not considered to pose any significant pollution threat to the environment. However, under the terms of the Water Bill, discharges within these categories will be subject to a relevant prohibition procedure, which will allow the National Rivers Authority to give notice at any time that a discharge within these categories may be made only subject to their consent, and the conditions they will impose.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will obtain and place in the Library a detailed hydrological analysis of the water in the river
  55
  Mersey, detailing the levels of (a) hydrocarbon effluents, (b) biological effluents, (c) inorganic chemical pollutants and (d) heavy metals.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: The monitoring of water quality in the Mersey and of discharges of effluent into the river is the responsibility of the North West water authority. Data from the authority's monitoring operations are available for inspection on the public register maintained by the authority.

  Further monitoring of these and other substances in the Mersey and other United Kingdom waters will be carried out as a consequence of actions agreed at the second North sea conference designed to achieve by 1995 substantial reductions of inputs of the most dangerous substances via rivers and estuaries. In the United Kingdom action is focused in particular on red list substances, details of which were announced by my noble Friend, the Minister for the Environment on 10 April, Official Report, House of Lords, column 121. Implementation of the North sea conference declaration will be applied to all United Kingdom waters, not just those flowing into the North sea.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the maximum discharges of(a) benzene and (b) toluene permitted into rivers under the Control of Pollution Act.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: Under the Control of Pollution Act 1974, any person wishing to discharge these substances to water must first obtain consent to do so from the appropriate water authority. There are no general limits set for these particular substances. Individual discharge consents are normally subject to conditions which specify the type and quantities of substances which may be discharged. These conditions are set by the consenting authority with regard to achieving the quality objectives set for the receiving waters, including current and potential uses of those waters. Maximum discharges therefore depend upon the circumstances of the particular case.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his Department has at any time granted deemed consent to the Granox factory in Widnes to discharge excess pollution into the Mersey.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 20 April 1989]: I understand that the company has deemed consent from the North West water authority to discharge trade effluent into the Mersey. Details about the discharge are entered on the public register maintained by the water authority.

  I understand that the water authority is shortly to replace the deemed consent with a positively determined consent. Details of this consent, including the conditions to which it is subject, will also be entered on the public register.

  Crown Suppliers
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report the text of the petition sent to him by non-industrial staff of the Crown Suppliers and the letter from the Property Services Agency trade union side to which the petition refers.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: No, but my right hon. Friend yesterday met the unions representing the staff of the Crown Supplier.

  Clay Cross Treatment Works
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East of 17 April,Official Report, column 34, if he will give details of the application for a time limited consent variation for the Clay Cross treatment works.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: Details of applications made under the Control of Pollution Act 1974, including those for time limited variations, are held on the individual water authorities' registers. These may be inspected, free of charge, by anyone at all reasonable hours. It is not practicable to provide centrally the details of individual applications.

  Rates
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what the five highest rate rises for district councils in England and Wales were in the period 1981–82 to 1988–89; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: The information requested is as follows:

  District Councils in England and Wales with highest local rate poundage increases in the period 1981–82 to 1988–89

  (p)

  Calderdale

  173

  Bradford

  159

  North Tyneside

  157

  Knowsley

  153

  Kirklees

  152

  Bradford (Development)
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has received any application by Bradford council to vary the south Bradford plan; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 27 April 1989]: Bradford city council has recently published statutory notice of its intention to adopt the South-East Bradford local plan. The council is not required to apply to the Secretary of State to vary the local plan. It is however required to inform the Secretary of State of its disposition to adopt the plan and has done so.

  Water Authorities (EC Funding)
  Mrs. Ann Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give details of the conditions under which European regional development funding is currently awarded for water authority schemes.

  Mr. Howard
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: The conditions under which European regional development funds are awarded to water authority schemes are laid down in Council Regulations (EEC) 2052/88, 4253/88 and 4254/88. These appear in Official Journals L1859, L374 Vol. 31 and L374/15 respectively. Copies are available from the Library.

  Hythe Marina
  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, further to his answer of 10 April to the hon.
  57
  Member for Copeland, Official Report, column 402, when he proposes writing to the parties about the Hythe, Kent, marina.

  Mr. Ridley
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: Shortly.

  Radioactive Waste
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what departmental representation is planned, and what papers will be presented by departmental officials, at the conference on radioactive waste management to be held by the British Nuclear Energy Society in Britain on 2 May.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  [holding answer 28 April 1989]: I have been invited officially to open the British Nuclear Energy Society's conference on 3 May. On the same day, Dr. F. S. Feates, chief inspector Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution, will be delivering a paper on the United Kingdom's policy and strategy on radioactive waste management.

  Tributyl-tin
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what national and international action is being taken by his Department to dissuade the owners of ships at present exempt from the ban on the use of tributyl-tin from using paints which contain this substance; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The United Kingdom has reported the measures taken to date by the Government to the Commission of the European Communities, and a range of international organisations, the most relevant of which include the International Maritime Organisation and the Paris Commission. The CEC has reacted by proposing a directive which is closely modelled on the United Kingdom regulations. The House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities has recently published its opinion (HL Paper 23, February 1988) on the antifouling paint provisions in the draft directive (the 8th amendment to the marketing and use directive (76/769/ EEC)). The Government are considering their response to the Committee's report.

WALES

  Pupil-Teacher Ratios
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the current pupil-teacher ratios for each of the education authorities in Wales.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The overall pupil-teacher ratios in maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools as at January 1988 are as follows:

  Ratio

  Clwyd

  18·2

  Dyfed

  16·7

  Gwent

  17·4

  Gwynedd

  16·0

  Mid Glamorgan

  17·0

  Powys

  15·1

  South Glamorgan

  17·9

  West Glamorgan

  16·6

  Bathing Water
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report the estimated cost for each of (a) Jackson's bay, Barry, (b) Whitmore bay, Barry and (c) Cold Knapp, Barry of (i) a long sea outfall and (ii) full sewage treatment works to enable them to comply with EEC bathing water directive 76/160/EEC.

  Mr. Grist
  The authority is currently reviewing its programme of remedial works which aims to achieve compliance of all listed waters. The full cost of the programme has yet to be evaluated.

  Drinking Water
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will place in the Library the information his Department holds concerning time-limited derogations and delays which have been granted on the noncompliance of potable waters in Wales with the European directive relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption (80/77/EEC).

  Mr. Grist
  The information held by the Department is as follows. I will arrange to place a copy in the Library of the House.

  17 = Aluminium 1 = Colour; 6 = pH unit; 33 = Iron;34 = Manganese

  Source

  Derogated Parameter

  Delayed Parameter

  Pontsticill

  —

  17

  Nantyowch

  34

  17, 33

  Garw Levels

  33

  33

  Preseli

  —

  33

  Strata Florida

  34

  17

  Ystradfelltre

  34

  —

  Lovesgrove Borehole

  34

  —

  Nantymoel

  34

  —

  Ffynnon Rhys

  —

  33

  Wern Ddu

  6

  —

  Llandeilo Graban

  —

  17

  Afon Cwm-y-Llan

  17

  —

  Penygoyallt

  6

  —

  Llanfynydd

  6, 34

  33

  Georgetown

  6, 34

  17, 33

  Alwen

  1, 34

  17, 33

  Cynwyd

  34

  17, 33

  Cwmsymlog

  17

  —

  Bettws-y-Coed

  34

  17

  Garreglwyd

  33, 34

  —

  Bryn Goch

  33

  —

  Maenllwyd

  —

  33

  Nantmor

  17, 34

  —

  Rhyd-Ddu

  34

  —

  Talwaenydd

  —

  33

  Carno

  34

  17, 33

  Talybont

  —

  33

  Portis

  34

  17, 33

  Penyfan

  33

  —

  Upper Wenallt Springs

  33

  —

  Cwm Cegr Springs

  33

  —

  Llanbedr Springs

  33

  —

  Llanwrtyd Wells

  —

  17, 33

  Barmouth Junction

  —

  33

  Capel Dewi

  —

  17

  Bolton Hill

  —

  33

  Caerau

  34

  —

  Llan Penmachno

  17, 34

  —

  Crai Reservoir

  34

  —

  Croesor

  34

  —

  Rhyd

  17, 33, 34

  —

  Rhydyronnen

  33

  —

  59

  17 = Aluminium 1 = Colour; 6 = pH unit; 33 = Iron;34 · Manganese

  Source

  Derogated Parameter

  Delayed Parameter

  Tir-Cawen

  33

  —

  Meifod

  —

  17

  In addition, a general delay exists in respect of lead in drinking water to December 1989.

  The temporary relaxation of the standards of the drinking water directive does not pose any threat to public health.

  Consultants
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list by each health district the number of consultants in each specialty who have merit awards; and what this figure represents as a percentage of the total number of consultant posts.

  Mr. Grist
  The following information is given on an all-Wales basis rather than by health districts in order to preserve the confidential nature of the awards.

  Wales

  Specialty

  Number

  Anaesthetics

  34

  Cardiology

  3

  Cardio-Thoracic surgery

  2

  Community medicine

  13

  Dermatology

  4

  Diseases of the chest

  2

  Ear, nose and throat

  10

  General medicine

  38

  General surgery

  28

  Genito urinary medicine

  1

  Geriatric medicine

  6

  Mental illness/Mental handicap

  30

  Neurology

  5

  Neurosurgery

  5

  Obstetrics and gynaecology

  17

  Ophthalmology

  6

  Orthopaedic surgery

  15

  Paediatrics

  14

  Paediatric surgery

  2

  Chemical pathology

  2

  Haematology/Blood transfusion

  8

  Histopathology

  11

  Medical microbiology

  4

  Plastic surgery

  4

  Radiology

  16

  Radiotherapy

  4

  Rheumatology and rehabilitation

  3

  Oral surgery

  5

  Orthodontics

  3

  Restorative dentistry

  4

  The number of award holders represents some 35 per cent. of the total number of consultants in Wales.

DEFENCE

  Ex-Civil Servants (Defence Sector)
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many civil servants have joined the private defence sector following retirement from his Department over the past 10 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  This information is not available.

  Arms Control
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list those areas of policy implementation by his Department in regard to arms control that have failed since May 1979; and what steps he intends to take to rectify the failures.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No areas of the Government's policy on arms control have failed since May 1979.

  War Dead (Visits)
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assistance and travel information is given to the immediate relatives of the war dead in arranging and meeting the costs of visits to countries in Europe; and if he will list the information he has on the comparable policies of the French, West German and Italian Governments.

  Mr. Neubert
  Where the funeral of a service man or woman who dies overseas is held locally at public expense, two visitors, normally the next of kin, from the United Kingdom or Eire are entitled to attend the funeral with both travel and accommodation costs being met by my Department. If local conditions prevent such a visit from being made, a visit to the grave may be permitted up to two years after the funeral.

  The widows of war dead who died prior to 1967 may make visits to graves overseas, whether in Europe or elsewhere, under the Government war widows grant-in-aid scheme, which allows widows to join pilgrimages arranged by the Royal British Legion at one-eighth of the cost for their first visit. Thereafter, the charge represents the cost to the legion.

  Information is not currently available on any comparable policies of the French, West German and Italian Governments.

  Nuclear Submarines
  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when, under normal circumstances, a nuclear submarine discharges radioactive materials into the sea, how the Royal Navy takes the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection regarding dose into account when determining what levels are acceptable; and if the International Commission on Radiological Protection recommendations are used to determine acceptable levels of radiation for the safety of crew.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As I said in my reply to the hon. Member on 20 March 1989, at column 477, under normal circumstances Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines do not discharge radioactivity directly to the sea. When such discharges are made, however, the radioactivity level of the coolant water is measured and the water is discharged through a treatment plant which further reduces its radioactivity. Levels of radioactive discharges at sea are lower than agreed discharge limits for land-based installations, and it is inconceivable that they could result in a radiation dose to any individual approaching the limits recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

  The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommendations concerning radiation doses

  61
  to workers are embodied within the Ionising Radiation Regulations 1985, and are applied on board Her Majesty's submarines.

  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if nuclear submarine personnel receiving radiation doses in the higher ranges above 15 mSv p. a. are generally those classified as radiation workers; and if those same radiation workers receive doses in those high ranges in consecutive years;

  (2) whether the numbers of nuclear submarine personnel receiving radiation doses in various ranges provided on 20 March, Official Report, columns 477–78, include all nuclear submarine personnel; and how the doses for those personnel not designated as radiation workers, and so not subject to dosimetric assessment, are determined.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The figures to which the hon. Member refers include only those submarine personnel classified as radiation workers. As I said in my reply to the hon. Member on 20 March, at column 476, Royal Navy nuclear submarine personnel are shielded from much natural radiation and the radiation doses they receive are for the most part lower than those received by members of

  Number of personnel in dose ranges

  Year

  Cumulative dose (man Sieverts)

  0–15 mSv

  15–20 mSv

  20–30 mSv

  30–40 mSv

  40–50 mSv

  Over 50 mSv

  Average individual dose (mSv)

  1983

  2·9

  814

  27

  15

  3

  0

  0

  3·35

  1982

  2·1

  994

  11

  8

  1

  0

  0

  2·08

  1981

  3·1

  1,226

  13

  5

  2

  0

  0

  2·31

  1980

  6·6

  2,473

  31

  8

  2

  0

  1

  2·63

  1979

  7·7

  2,362

  33

  23

  10

  1

  0

  3·23

  Note: mSv = millisievert.

  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent medical surveys his Department has undertaken amongst past and present submarine service personnel or their offspring to determine whether there has been any abnormal statistical evidence of medical disorders arising from exposure of Royal Navy nuclear submarine personnel to radiation; and if he will publish the dates and the population census for such surveys.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  An epidemiological research programme into morbidity and mortality among submariners is currently being carried out by Medical Research Council. The study was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and arranged through the Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee, through which the Royal Navy has regular contact with civil medical experts. The data for the survey were produced from service records.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his estimate of the deterrent value of(a) a short-range nuclear weapon and (b) a strategic nuclear weapon.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  To support its strategy of deterrence, NATO requires diversified, survivable and operationally-flexible nuclear forces across the entire spectrum of ranges.
  62
  the public. The majority of nuclear submarine personnel are not categorised as radiation workers, and there is no requirement to maintain radiation dose records for them. However, regular radiation surveys are carried out on board nuclear-powered submarines to ensure that these personnel do not receive any significant radiation doses.

  During the last 10 years, 64 nuclear submarine personnel have received doses of 15 mSv or over in two or more consecutive years. No individual has received more than four separate annual doses of 15 mSv or over during this period.

  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish in the Official Report a breakdown of numbers of nuclear submarine personnel by radiation dose received, cumulative doses and average individual doses, for the years from commencement of the nuclear submarine programme to 1983 inclusive; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Figures for before 1979 are not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The figures for 1979 to 1983 are as follows:

  Mr. Samuel Quinn
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in what capacity Samuel Quinn, at present in police custody in Paris, is a serving member of the Territorial Army; which territorial army unit he belongs to; what is his rank and his years of membership; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It is not our general policy, for reasons of personal security, to confirm whether a person is serving in Northern Ireland either with the security forces or in the Territorial Army. However, details of Samuel Quinn's service have been widely reported and are as follows:Samuel Quinn is a warrant officer class 2 and is a troop sergeant major employed on general administrative and training duties in 102 Air Defence Regiment (Volunteer). He has served in the Territorial Army since 1974.

  The circumstances of his arrest are being investigated by the police and it would be inappropriate to comment further.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many and what percentage of officers in grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, respectively, and overall in his Department are(a) women and (b) members of ethnic minorities.
  63
  Mr. Ian Stewart
  In the Northern Ireland Civil Service at 13 April 1989 the representation of females was as follows:

  Numbers

  Percentage

  Grade 1

  —

  —

  Grade 2

  —

  —

  Grade 3

  1

  2·7

  Grade 4

  —

  —

  Grade 5

  12

  6·9

  Grade 6

  37

  15·0

  Grade 7

  53

  6·6

  All grades

  11,597

  49·9

  The Northern Ireland Civil Service does not monitor the ethnic origins of its staff.

  Of the 176 Home civil servants serving in the Northern Ireland Office in London and Belfast, 88 (50 per cent.) are women and 16 (9 per cent.) from ethnic minority groups (of these there is only one officer at grade 7 level). In London 51 per cent. of the NIO's staff are women and 13 per cent. come from ethnic minority groups.

  Tullygarley, Lame (Redevelopment)
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the Northern Ireland Housing Executive proposes to proceed with its redevelopment plans for the Tullygarley area of Larne, County Antrim.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and I have been advised by the chief executive that construction of the first phase of 15 dwellings is programmed to commence in July 1990.

  Carrickfergus (Redevelopment)
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the earliest possible date on which an announcement can be expected of the start date for redevelopment and housing action in central Carrickfergus.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and I have been advised by the chief executive that an examination of housing strategy for central Carrickfergus, which includes the use of investment appraisal techniques, is expected to be completed by the end of 1989. The executive will then determine what proposals it should submit to the Department of Environment (NI) for approval.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what proposals the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has for the Carrickfergus central area.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and I have been advised by the chief executive that three proposed redevelopment areas have been declared and a potential housing action area is being considered. The Housing Executive expects to be in a position by the end of 1989 to reach conclusions on specific proposals to be submitted to the Department of Environment (NI) for approval.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when owner occupiers and residents will be informed of decisions by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive on future housing development of central Carrickfergus.
  64
  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and I have been advised by the chief executive that residents will be informed if and when a vesting order application is made to the Department of Environment (NI) or a housing action area declared.

  Housing (Maintenance)
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary for State of Northern Ireland what was the average delay between time of receipt of notification of a category three maintenance complaint by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, and the completion of the repair in each Housing Executive district in each of the years 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988.

  Mr. Needham
  This is a matter for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the chief executive has advised me that the information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Pensioners
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northen Ireland (1) how many pensioners have had additional allowance for heating, diet and so on, wiped out since pensions were increased and did not benefit financially by the most recent increase;

  (2) how many pensioners (a) no longer qualify for housing benefit and (b) have had housing benefit reduced since the most recent pension increase.

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

  Rates
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the average rate of increase in the district rate for 1989–90.

  Mr. Needham
  1·49p in the pound, which represents an increase of 2·4 per cent.

  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the extent of consultations with local authorities before he confirmed the level of regional rates for 1989–90.

  Mr. Ian Stewart
  I refer the right hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) on 20 April, at column 448. The regional rate is levied as a contribution from ratepayers to those rateborne services which in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of central Government, not local authorities. Expenditure on those services to which they contribute is determined each year as part of the public expenditure planning process and is subject to the scrutiny of Parliament. As the level of the regional rate is a central Government responsibility, there is no provision in the process for prior consultation with local authorities.

  Mater Hospital, Belfast
  Ms. Short
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether staff at the Mater hospital are required to agree to work within Roman Catholic medical ethics.

  Mr. Needham
  Staff at the Mater hospital are employed on the same terms and conditions of service as other
  65
  similar grades of staff in the health and personal social services in Northern Ireland. However, some senior medical staff employed at the hospital have an additional clause in their contract which requires them to have regard to the need to maintain the character and associations of the hospital which are such as to link it with the Roman Catholic faith.

  Publicity
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list all current publicity campaigns being conducted by or for his Department or one planned for the first three months of 1989–90, indicating those which involve television advertising and the starting and finishing dates of each campaign.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 19 April 1989]: The information is as follows:

  Direct Debit awareness
  11 advertisements ran from 27 March until early April and included television advertising.

  Road Safety Campaign
  Continuing in newspapers only.

  Youth Training Programme
  Television from 15 May-2 June. Radio from 15–21 May and 29 May-2 June. Supported by press and outdoor posters.

  Enterprise Allowance Scheme
  Television 3–23 April. Press advertisements on 13 and 16 April with further press advertisements planned for May and June.

  Ulster Savings Committee
  Continuing campaign throughout the year, no television advertising.

  Northern Ireland Civil Service Commission
  Five career talks, eight career conventions, and press advertisements to promote the Northern Ireland Civil Service. No television advertising.

  Confidential Telephone
  Continuing campaign for offering information to the security forces, involves a limited amount of television advertising.

  Loans (Recovery)
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what figures are available on the amounts of money recovered to date in respect of budgeting loans or crisis loans, by social security office and by premium.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: Information about the amounts of money recovered for the period 11 April 1988 to 31 March 1989, the latest date for which information is available, is as follows. Information about the amounts recovered by premium is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Social fund awards for funeral and maternity payments:

  11 April 1988 to 31 March 1989

  Social security office

  Funeral payments

  Maternity payment

  Awards

  Family credit

  Awards

  Housing benefit

  Awards

  Family credit

  £

  £

  £

  Andersonstown

  —

  —

  6

  3,270·50

  20

  1,700·00

  Antrim

  2

  1,174·00

  4

  1,887·27

  23

  1,955·00

  Armagh

  8

  3,879·80

  7

  3,713·60

  29

  2,465·00

  Ballymena

  2

  1,043·00

  7

  3,057·90

  17

  2,465·00

  Ballymoney

  1

  416·00

  16

  5,699·40

  19

  1,615·00

  Ballynahinch

  1

  477·55

  —

  —

  4

  340·00

  Banbridge

  8

  4,096·68

  3

  1,347·00

  17

  1,445·00

  Bangor

  1

  692·05

  5

  2,489·05

  12

  1,020·00

  Carrickfergus

  —

  —

  8

  2,856·14

  12

  1,020·00

  66

  Budgeting and crisis loan recovering 11 April 1988 to 31 March 1989

  Social security office

  Amount

  £

  Andersonstown

  310,287·18

  Antrim

  138,151·64

  Armagh

  90,170·00

  Ballymena

  130,697·32

  Ballymoney

  83,855·55

  Ballynahinch

  12,142·99

  Banbridge

  48,621·24

  Bangor

  62,632·25

  Carrickfergus

  66,741·15

  Coleraine

  138,359·05

  Cookstown

  87,151·99

  Corporation Street

  293,354·23

  Downpatrick

  64,412·81

  Dungannon

  128,599·41

  Enniskillen

  98,319·58

  Falls

  284,793·85

  Holywood Road

  167,158·84

  Kilkeel

  15,155·75

  Knockbreda

  103,472·26

  Lame

  68,863·40

  Limavady

  64,474·52

  Lisburn

  210,938·49

  Londonderry

  357,795·15

  Lurgan

  160,122·26

  Magherafelt

  81,438·76

  Newcastle

  26,139·12

  Newry

  147,094·52

  Newtownabbey

  113,804·24

  Newtownards

  66,456·06

  Omagh

  136,444·36

  Portadown

  81,972·64

  Shaftesbury Square

  166,087·30

  Shankill

  140,989·13

  Strabane

  148,694·34

  Social Fund
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what figures are available on the number of social fund applications in each social security office in the year April 1988–89 which were made by claimants in receipt of family credit or housing benefit but not income support, and the number of payments, and their total value, made to such claimants.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: Information about the number of applications is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Housing benefit is not a qualifying benefit for maternity payments. Information about the number of payments and the amounts awarded is as follows:
  67

  Social security office

  Funeral payments

  Maternity payment

  Awards

  Family credit

  Awards

  Housing benefit

  Awards

  Family credit

  £

  £

  £

  Coleraine

  —

  —

  9

  4,511·07

  28

  2,370·00

  Cookstown

  2

  645·70

  3

  1,721·50

  32

  2,720·00

  Corporation Street

  —

  —

  18

  9,823·43

  14

  1,190·00

  Downpatrick

  2

  698·00

  5

  1,569·80

  22

  1,870·00

  Dungannon

  7

  3,863·00

  3

  1,400·00

  35

  3,145·00

  Enniskillen

  9

  4,155·80

  10

  4,465·22

  46

  3,190·00

  Falls

  —

  —

  7

  4,298·62

  5

  425·00

  Holywood Road

  5

  2,261·99

  12

  5,649·51

  19

  1,615·00

  Kilkeel

  1

  456·80

  2

  688·25

  10

  850·00

  Knockbreda

  —

  —

  13

  7,862·23

  10

  850·00

  Larne

  1

  156·42

  8

  4,460·65

  9

  765·00

  Limavady

  3

  780·80

  5

  1,796·30

  17

  1,445·00

  Lisburn

  1

  339·00

  14

  8,083·60

  19

  1,615·00

  Londonderry

  7

  2,471·05

  30

  15,280·79

  62

  5,265·00

  Lurgan

  —

  —

  13

  7,565·32

  20

  1,700·00

  Magherafelt

  6

  2,780·00

  1

  471·00

  37

  3,145·00

  Newcastle

  —

  —

  3

  1,004·65

  13

  1,105·00

  Newry

  2

  948·85

  20

  9,350·00

  56

  4,760·00

  Newtownabbey

  —

  —

  5

  2,466·56

  6

  510·00

  Newtownhards

  1

  574·50

  8

  3,178·12

  18

  1,530·00

  Omagh

  6

  3,369·30

  6

  2,962·00

  45

  4,165·00

  Portadown

  1

  667·80

  10

  5,747·95

  13

  1,105·00

  Shaftsbury Square

  —

  —

  11

  5,542·96

  11

  935·00

  Shankill

  —

  —

  4

  1,550·29

  6

  510·00

  Strabane

  6

  2,848·50

  12

  5,953·70

  27

  2,295·00

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what figures are available for the year April 1988–89 on the numbers and types of social fund applications from and payments, indicating the value of such payments, to claimants in receipt of income support who were in receipt of the respective income support premiums by social security office.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: Information in the form requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the extent to which his policies of(a) targeting and (b) making the social security system easier to understand have been fulfilled in the first year of full operation of the social fund; and what assessment he has made of the efficiency in management of the fund by social security offices.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: The Department of Health and Social Services is monitoring closely the operation of the social fund and has commissioned independent research. However, it is too soon to come to conclusions about the extent to which policies are meeting their objectives. The Department's monitoring indicates that the management of the social fund by social security offices is generally satisfactory.

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the 1989–90 social fund budget; how many people are on income support; and how many are in receipt of the respective income support premiums for each social security office.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to questions about the 1989–90 social fund budget by the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) on 23 March 1989, at columns 739–42.

  At 28 February, the latest date for which information is available, there were 185,706 income support recipients in the Province. Information on the numbers of claimants
  68
  receiving each of the income support premiums by social security office is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what provision has been made in respect of social fund I to take account of the local numbers in receipt of family credit or housing benefit, but not income support, who might make social fund I applications.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: None. Maternity and funeral payments made under phase 1 of the social fund are regulated payments paid as an entitlement and are not affected by local social security office budgets.

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what information is available to indicate the number of appeals regarding social fund I which have been made in each social security office in each year of its operation to date and indicating the number of these which were successful.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: Information about the number of appeals for the period 6 April 1987 to 10 April 1988 is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Information for the period 11 April 1988 to 31 March 1989, (the latest date for which information is available), is as follows:

  Social Fund phase I (maternity and funeral expenses)Number of appeals received 11 April 1988–31 March 1989

  Social security office

  Number of appeals received

  Number revised

  Pending

  Andersonstown

  2

  —

  2

  Antrim

  2

  2

  —

  Armagh

  —

  —

  —

  Ballymena

  4

  2

  —

  Ballynahinch

  —

  —

  —

  Banbridge

  1

  1

  —

  Bangor

  —

  —

  —

  69

  Social security office

  Number of appeals received

  Number revised

  Pending

  Carrickfergus

  —

  —

  —

  Coleraine

  5

  3

  —

  Cookstown

  3

  2

  —

  Corporation Street

  2

  —

  1

  Downpatrick

  —

  —

  —

  Dungannon

  —

  —

  —

  Enniskillen

  4

  3

  1

  Falls

  8

  8

  —

  Holywood Road

  —

  —

  —

  Kilkeel

  —

  —

  —

  Knockbreda

  2

  1

  —

  Larne

  —

  —

  —

  Limavady

  —

  —

  —

  Lisburn

  3

  3

  —

  Londonderry

  12

  10

  2

  Lurgan

  1

  —

  —

  Magherafelt

  1

  —

  1

  Newcastle

  2

  2

  —

  Newry

  6

  5

  —

  Newtownabbey

  —

  —

  —

  Newtownards

  —

  —

  —

  Omagh

  —

  —

  —

  Portadown

  2

  —

  —

  Shaftesbury Square

  —

  —

  —

  Shankill

  2

  —

  —

  Strabane

  —

  —

  —

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what information is available to indicate the numbers of reviews sought by claimants in respect of social fund II decisions, the number of cases where the decision changed on review, the numbers which had a second review and the numbers where the decision changed on second review by social security office.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: The information for the period 11 April 1988 to 31 March 1989, the latest date for which information is available, is given in the table. Some review applications were withdrawn following receipt and some are currently being considered.

  Number of applications for first review by social security offices:11 April 1988–31 March 1989

  Received

  Revised

  Community Care Grants

  1,932

  663

  Budgeting Loans

  5,740

  1,838

  Crisis Loans

  526

  230

  Total

  8,198

  2,731

  Information about the number and outcome of applications for a second review by social security offices is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Hospital Consultants
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many hospital consultants held(a) full-time contracts and (b) part-time contracts with the National Health Service in Northern Ireland in (i) 1979 and (ii) 1988.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: The information is as follows:
  70

  Full-time

  Part-time (including maximum p-t)

  Joint appointments between University and Health Service

  1979

  315

  133

  61

  1988

  422

  99

  74

  Cervical Screening
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list all boards which operate a computerised call/recall cervical cytology programme for all women aged 20 to 65 years at three-yearly intervals.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: A central computerised programme has been developed for the whole of Northern Ireland to call women aged 20–65 for cervical screening at five-yearly intervals. The system started operating in the Eastern board last autumn, is being introduced this month in the Western board and is due to commence in the Northern and Southern boards later this year.

  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list all those boards which have not yet called all women aged 20 to 65 years for a cervical cancer smear.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: As the cervical screening programme is designed to call women at five-yearly intervals, all women in the 20 to 65 age group will not have been called until five years after the introduction of the computerised call system.

  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the uptake of women called for a cervical cancer smear for each board; and if he will list those boards which are unable to provide these statistics.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 24 April 1989]: Uptake figures for women screened under the computerised call and recall system are not yet available.

  Community Care
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what account is taken of factors including the location of hostels, hospitals or other residential accommodation facilities and local board plans in respect of community care which might have a bearing on demand for community care grants in given social security offices.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: No account was taken of these factors in determining the size of community care grant budgets for social security offices for 1989–90. However, when setting the priorities and profiles for their office budgets, social security office managers consider local factors which may influence the numbers and types of applicants in their office areas.

  Noel Little
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for what period Noel Little, at present in police custody in Paris, was a serving member of the Ulster Defence Regiment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I have been asked to reply.
  71
  It is not our general policy, for reasons of personal security, to confirm whether a person has served in Northern Ireland in the Ulster Defence Regiment. However, details of Noel Little's service have been widely reported and are as follows:
  Noel Little served as a part-time private in the Ulster Defence Regiment between June 1980 and June 1986, when he was discharged on completion of his engagement.

  The circumstances of his arrest are being investigated by the police, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  "The School Effect"
  Mr. Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he intends to take in the light of the Policy Studies Institute report "The School Effect."

  Mr. Butcher
  This important report includes evidence of marked variations between secondary schools in the level of achievement of pupils of similar abilities. It reinforces the Government's determination to proceed with the implementation of the national curriculum and with the arrangements for assessment and testing.

  Qualified Teachers
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he is taking to encourage those qualified teachers who no longer teach in state schools to return to teaching.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Former teachers returning to teaching already make up over half of all new teaching appointments each year. The Department and the teaching as a career unit have been discussing with all LEAs ways in which they can maximise teacher recruitment from this source.

  National Curriculum (Teacher Shortages)
  Miss Joan Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to monitor the effect of teacher shortages on the implementation of the national curriculum.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The Department already collects data annually on vacant teacher posts and we shall continue to do so. Information regulations to be made under section 22 of the Education Reform Act will enable us to obtain annual information on the curriculum offered in schools and on teacher deployment.

  Opting Out
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about progress under the opting out provisions of the Education Act 1988.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  To date, I have approved proposals from eight schools to become grant-maintained from September of this year. I have rejected a proposal from one school. Parents at a further 30 schools have voted in favour of seeking grant-maintained status.

  Class Sizes
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to reduce the number of children in state schools taught in classes of 30 or more.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to reduce the number of children in state schools taught in classes of 30 or more.

  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to reduce the number of children in state schools taught in classes of 30 or more.

  Mr. Butcher
  Over the last 10 years the proportion of pupils taught in classes of 31 or more has fallen by nearly 12 percentage points in primary schools to 23.5 per cent., and by nearly 9 percentage points in secondary schools to 7 per cent. There are more teachers relative to pupils now than ever before. It is for LEAs and schools to decide how to deploy them.

  Nursery School Provision
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what progress has been made since 1979 in extending nursery school provision.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The total number of under fives in maintained schools increased from 428,000 in 1979 to 533,000 in 1988. In nursery schools and classes alone the numbers increased from 210,000 to 285,000. The age participation rate went up from 38 per cent. to 45 per cent.

  Freedom of Speech
  Mr. David Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to introduce further legislation to ensure that freedom of speech is protected in Britain's institutes of further and higher education.

  Mr. Jackson
  We are reviewing section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 and it is too early to say whether further legislation is needed.

  Secondary School Teachers
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what percentage of secondary teachers are(a) graduates without a postgraduate teachers certificate and (b) instructors.

  Mr. Butcher
  Graduates without initial teacher training in the United Kingdom were 7 per cent. of all full-time qualified teachers in maintained secondary schools in England in March 1986.

  Instructors and student teachers represented 0·8 per cent. of the total full-time equivalent of all teachers and instructors in these schools in January 1988.

  Rutherford Laboratory
  Dr. Reid
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of the scientific staff at the Rutherford laboratory pay income tax at a rate above the standard rate.
  73
  Mr. Jackson
  This information is not available. Tax returns are a matter for the individual concerned.

  Schools (Business Links)
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps his Department is taking to encourage more secondary schools to develop effective links with businesses.

  Mr. Butcher
  The Department is keen to encourage links between schools and the business community, and is involved with others in a range of initiatives designed to achieve this. A directory of school/industry links organisations and two booklets on "Education at Work" are published by the Department, and funding for teacher training in this area is made available to local education authorities through the LEA training grants scheme. Particular projects and organisations are also selectively funded.

  Attainment Level
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to improve the level of attainment by children from inner-urban areas.

  Mr. Butcher
  The range of measures introduced in the Education Reform Act will raise standards across the country, and their good effect will be most apparent where the problems are worst. Our new city technology colleges will raise standards significantly by example, and give parents and pupils a new choice of school.

  Nuclear Fusion
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the research work carried out by Professor Martin Fleischmann of Southampton university into the achievement of nuclear fusion at room temperatures, he will invite the Advisory Board for the Research Council to reconsider the nature and scale of United Kingdom research into nuclear fusion.

  Mr. Jackson
  In February 1989, the Science and Engineering Research Council decided to establish a panel to advise on future support of plasma physics and nuclear fusion.

  This panel will be able to assess the prospects for research into "cold fusion" and make appropriate recommendations, through the Science and Engineering Research Council, to the Advisory Board for the Research Council about any change in the level of support for work in this area.

  Dr. Bray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what research programmes he is supporting specifically on cold fusion.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Science and Engineering Research Council is supporting work on muon-catalysed fusion carried out on the ISIS facility of the council's Rutherford Appleton laboratory. It is a collaborative programme with the University of Birmingham, the Culham laboratory of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and groups in Italy, the Netherlands and the United States.

  The council also supports groups in British universities and in its own establishments, which are participating in
  74
  attempts to replicate the recently-claimed cold fusion in electrochemical cells. Contact is also being maintained with similar work at the Harwell laboratory of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

  Student Loans
  Dr. Moonie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the progress of his plans to introduce top-up loans for students.

  Mr. Doran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the progress of his plans to introduce top-up loans for students.

  Mr. Jackson
  We are discussing the arrangements for the loans scheme with the financial institutions: those discussions are making useful progress.

  City Technology College (South Yorkshire)
  Mr. Patnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received from potential sponsors regarding the setting up of a city technology college in South Yorkshire.

  Mr. Butcher
  South Yorkshire is one of the target areas for a city technology college, but we have at the present time no proposals from sponsors.

  Teacher Shortages
  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he is taking to obtain an accurate account of teacher shortages in secondary education.

  Mr. Butcher
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that my hon. Friend the Minister of State gave to the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Wall) on 26 April 1989 at column 553.

  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the shortages of maths and science teachers.

  Mr. Butcher
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave on 26 April to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) at column 554.

  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he is taking to obtain an accurate account of teacher shortages in nursery education.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he is taking to obtain an accurate account of teacher shortages in nursery education.

  Mr. Butcher
  The Department instituted the collection of data on vacant posts in nursery and primary schools for the first time in January 1988. We also conducted a primary school staffing survey in 1987 which provides extensive information about teachers in nursery and primary schools.

  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to solve the problems of teacher shortages in Surrey.
  75
  Mr. Butcher
  The Department's action programme on teacher shortages has, over the last three years, been aimed at securing new recruits to teaching in the shortage subjects and at providing in-service training for existing but under-qualified teachers of these subjects. Action has, in particular, been focused on those parts of the country, including Surrey, where shortages have hit hardest. We plan to build on and extend that programme as necessary to secure the teachers that we need for our schools.

  Teacher Retention
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he is taking to discourage existing teachers from leaving the profession.

  Mr. Butcher
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State to the hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr Evans) on 24 April at columns 416–17.

  Open University
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he last met the vice-chancellor of the open university; and what subjects were discussed.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend visited the open university on 4 November 1987 and discussed a wide range of issues concerning the work of the university with the vice-chancellor and other senior staff. He is advised on all matters relating to the open university by an independent visiting committee which last met the vice-chancellor on 13–14 April.

  Clinical Medical Research
  Mr. Wall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on responsibility for the funding of clinical medical research under the proposed reforms of the National Health Service.

  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what consultations he has had with the Medical Research Council on the funding of clinical research under the proposed reforms to the National Health Service.

  Mr. Jackson
  The White Paper "Working for Patients" made clear that the Government are firmly committed to maintaining the quality of medical research. We recognise the complexity and special needs of this area, and my right hon. Friend is in close touch with my right hon. and learned Friend, the Secretary of State for Health, who is developing proposals to achieve the aims which the Government set out in the White Paper. These proposals will take account of the views of interested parties including the Medical Research Council.

  Russian Language
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teaching of Russian in maintained schools.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on 25 April at column 472.

  Schools (Financial Management)
  Dr. Michael Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received from school governors on the proposals for local financial management of schools.

  Mr. Butcher
  My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations from school governors commenting on aspects of local management of schools (LMS). The majority of local education authorities are now formally consulting the governing bodies and head teachers of their schools on their draft LMS schemes. I am impressed by the level of commitment to the development of satisfactory schemes being demonstrated by both authorities and schools.

  Teachers (Records)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what record is kept of those teachers who have left the profession; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Butcher
  The database of teacher records, maintained by the Department to administer the teachers' superannuation scheme, contains a record of all teachers who have completed a course of initial teacher training in England and Wales or have ever taught there, whether or not they are currently teaching. The information held in respect of teachers not currently teaching consists of their name, sex, age, degree and teacher training qualifications and details of previous service (if any).

  Teacher Shortages (Barnet)
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans he has to solve the problems of teacher shortages in Barnet.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave earlier today to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).

  Beaumont College
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science on what date his Department asked for a copy of the independent inquiry report into Beaumont college; on what date that report was received; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Butcher
  The Department was first informed of the allegations and the proposed independent inquiry by Beaumont college on 22 September 1988 and wrote to the college on 30 September 1988 asking to be informed as soon as possible of the inquiry's recommendations. The inquiry committee's investigation did not begin until 9 November 1988. It reported late February 1989. During this period my officials wrote to and telephoned the college on several occasions requesting early sight of the final report.

  On 22 February 1989 the Department received the summary of the inquiry's findings. My officials continued to ask for the full report. The college's solicitors sent a copy of the full report to the Department on II April 1989, except for the appendices. After a further request the appendices were sent on 24 April 1989, except for

  77
  appendix 2, the list of witnesses. The solicitors have informed the Department that the report has been modified in that the names of the existing members of staff whose confidence was guaranteed, have been removed. Appendix 2 has been withheld for the same reason.

  School Budgets
  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how teacher salary costs are calculated in England for the local management formula for primary schools in the calculation of school budgets.

  Mr. Butcher
  Under local management of schools primary schools' budgets will be determined by a formula based largely on age-weighted pupil numbers. In deciding how heavily to weight each age of pupils, LEAs will need to make assumptions about average teaching costs for each age group. Circular 7/88 recognises that in the case of small schools there may be variations between the actual teaching costs and the LEA's average costs, due to teachers' position on the main scale and the incidence of salary safeguarding. LEAs may therefore adjust schools' budgets to reflect this factor.

  In general, however, the degree of protection should be tapered according to the size of school, so that budget shares of schools with 10 or more teachers (excluding the head teacher and deputy head) are not adjusted to take this factor into account.

  Pupil Statistics
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the number of pupils staying in education after 16 years of age in England and Wales.

  Mr. Jackson
  In 1987–88, 627,000 16-year-olds were participating in education or in the youth training scheme (YTS) in England and Wales. The details are as follows:

  Number

  Full and part-time education

  396,000

  Youth Training Scheme

  185,000

  Evening only

  46,000

  This represents an overall participation rate of 82 per cent.

  Nursery Education
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current percentage of children of pre-school age currently enrolled in state-run pre-school education in England.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  In January 1988 the number of pupils under five on roll in maintained nursery and primary schools in England as a percentage of the estimated three and four-year-old population was as follows:

  Percentage of the estimated 3 and 4 year old population

  Per cent.

  Pupils under 5 in maintained nursery schools and nursery classes in primary schools

  24

  All pupils under 5 in maintained nursery and primary schools

  45

  Further and Higher Education
  Dr. Hampson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the average unit of funding for an advanced futher education student assumed to be in the 1988–89 financial year; by what percentage this figure was increased in real terms for the average unit of funding of a higher education student in the PCFC sector in 1989–90; and what assumptions were made for the level of inflation in this increase.

  Mr. Jackson
  In the academic year 1988–89, some 288,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) students were enrolled on courses eligible for funding from the advanced further education (AFE) pools. The total provision for recurrent expenditure on the AFE pools in that year was £923 million, or £3,210 per capita.

  The latest projections of 1989–90 academic year enrolments show some 287,000 FTE students on courses eligible for funding by the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding council (PCFC). The total provision for PCFC recurrent expenditure is £1,030 million, or £3,590 per capita.

  These per capita figures do not give an accurate picture of the year on year increase in expenditure per student, because of the different scope of the AFE pools compared with provision for PCFC expenditure. Making the necessary adjustments, provision for PCFC recurrent expenditure in 1989–90 represents a 9 per cent. increase over comparable provision in 1988–89 in cash terms, arid 3·8 per cent. in real terms on the basis of the 5 per cent. GDP deflator prevailing at the time that the public expenditure White Paper was published.

  Absence from School
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the main reasons for recorded absence from schools of(a) pupils and (b) teachers for each of the past five years for which figures are available.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Information about the level of, and reasons for, pupil absence from schools is not held centrally.

  Some information about the level of teacher absence from maintained schools in England is contained in the 1987 primary and 1988 secondary school staffing surveys. About 4·5 per cent. of class teachers in nursery and primary schools were estimated to be on short term absence on any one day. No breakdown of this figure between absences due to illness, in-service training or other reasons is available.

  Similar information in respect of secondary schools is expected to be available shortly. This will include a breakdown by reason for absence.

  Teachers
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any plans to encourage local pay arrangements for teachers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The school teachers' pay and conditions document 1988 provides wide flexibility to local education authorities to take account of local circumstances in setting the pay of their teachers. Those flexibilities will be
  79
  further enhanced in the 1989 document following the recommendations of the IAC, and will in future be exercised by the governors of schools with delegated budgets.

  School Year
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has had recently on the four-term school year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Butcher
  None.

  Schools (Funding)
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent representations he has had about primary school aged children in local management schemes and formulae for funding.

  Mr. Butcher
  My right hon. Friend has received a number of recent representations from primary school governors and head teachers commenting on local education authorities' proposals for funding schools under schemes of local management (LMS). My right hon. Friend has made clear that the allocation of resources to schools under LMS should be based on an assessment on schools' objective needs rather than simply on historical patterns of spending. It will be for local education authorities to determine the unit of resource for pupils of different ages in the light of their assessment of the relative needs of pupils of each age after consulting the governors and head teachers of each of their schools.

  Publicity
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will place in the Library details of each major publicity campaign mounted by his Department in 1985–86 and each successive year, including in each case the objectives of the campaign, the intended audience and the outcome of the monitoring of the achievement of the intended objectives, and national research conducted for him by the Central Office of Information together with a note of the intended objectives in the campaigns in 1989–90.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The information requested will be placed in the Library within the next seven days.

  Global Warming (Research)
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to approve the Natural Environment Research Council research proposal which includes studies into the impact of global warming on British rivers and the expansion of a programme at universities for global atmospheric modelling; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  Funding for the Natural Environment Research Council and for the science budget in general will be subject to review this autumn in the public expenditure survey. It is for the Natural Environment Research Council to decide its own research proposals within the overall funds available.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Beef
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has yet completed his analysis of the manner in which the beef special premium scheme is now being operated and the desirability of moving to an on-farm basis.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The new scheme has been running for only a month, and it is far too early yet to draw any conclusions. However, the transition from the variable premium scheme appears to have gone reasonably smoothly and the first payments under the new scheme have already been made.

  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will consider increasing from 1 January 1990 the number of qualifying animals in the new beef régime.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The premium scheme applied in other member states until March this year included a limit of 50 head on the number of qualifying animals. We were able to get that figure up to 90 head in the recent negotiations on the new scheme. I strongly opposed the inclusion of any headage limit and voted against the scheme even with this higher limit. I shall continue to make clear my opposition to such limits in the Agriculture Council.

  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will provide details of(a) the actual amount paid to beef producers in the last available 12 months of the former variable beef premium and (b) his estimate of the total amount of the new beef special premium which will be paid to producers, in the first 12 months of operation.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  Our provisional estimate of the amount of beef variable premium paid to United Kingdom producers, net of drawback on intervention and clawback on exports, in the financial year 1988–89 is £103 million. Our current estimate of the likely expenditure on the beef special premium in 1989–90 is £44 million.

  Leicester Market
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what analysis he has made of the impact of the closure of Leicester market last December on(a) specialist cattle, sheep and pig producers in the east midlands and (b) on the continued viability of other major marketing centres, such as Market Harborough; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I am not aware of any problems for producers or for other markets in the area as a result of the cessation of trading of Leicester market in December. The future of Market Harborough market and other markets is a matter for their owners.

  Aujesky's Disease
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make arrangements to deal in future with Aujesky's disease, as a category I disease.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The European Commission is known to be considering a categorisation of diseases
  81
  according to their seriousness, but as yet they have made no formal proposals either about such a categorisation or about Aujesky's disease. The Government will be looking for arrangements which safeguard the progress that has been made in dealing with this disease.

  Knackeries
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list by year, for the last five years within the county of South Yorkshire, how many prosecutions have been brought against those operating illegal knackeries, or trading in unfit meat; what convictions have been obtained; and what penalties have been imposed.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  Enforcement of legislation relating to knackeries and meat hygiene is the responsibility of local authorities. No records of enforcement actions are collected.

  Potatoes
  Mr. Hind
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he has made any representations to the European Commission on the pricing policy of the Dutch potato processing industry with a view to European Court proceedings; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he has received any representations from the British potato processing industry complaining about attempts by Dutch producers to destroy the industry; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) what information he has on the pricing and dumping policy of the Dutch potato processing industry, including De Fritts Bootes and Kuibo; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I have received no representations and I have no information on the matters raised by my hon. Friend, and I have not made any approach to the Commission.

  Potato Marketing Board
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many representations have been received to date from the potato processing industry in favour of(a) the retention and (b) the abolition of the Potato Marketing Board.

  Tonnes

  Butter

  Beef

  Wine

  Cheese

  Year ending

  Held in intervention

  Privately owned and stored against EC aided contracts

  Held in intervention

  Privately owned and stored against EC aided contracts

  1979

  109

  1—

  nil

  1—

  nil

  nil

  1980

  269

  1—

  nil

  1—

  nil

  nil

  1981

  nil

  1—

  nil

  1—

  nil

  nil

  1982

  110

  1—

  nil

  1—

  nil

  nil

  1983

  2,422

  nil

  nil

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1984

  3,218

  233

  66·0

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1985

  4,999

  nil

  122·0

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1986

  7,898

  110

  46·0

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1987

  3,412

  44

  15·0

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1988

  1,757

  nil

  0·5

  nil

  nil

  nil

  1 Details of privately owned stocks of butter held prior to 1983 are no longer available.

  Current valuation figures for intervention butter and beef are £1,422·46/tonne and £1,322·71/tonne respectively.
  82
  Mr. Donald Thompson
  Six representations from the processing industry had been received by 31 December 1988, the deadline set in the Government's consultation paper on future potato market policy. All favoured a free market.

  Deer
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to introduce a ban on all imports of deer until satisfactory tests are available.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The issue of import licences for deer has been suspended. The tuberculosis testing requirements of deer in isolation, both in exporting countries and after their arrival in Great Britain, are being reviewed.

  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to introduce a programme of free testing of deer for tuberculosis, and slaughter, with compensation for infected animals.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I have nothing further to add to my reply to my hon. Friend of 15 March 1989 at column 248.

  Equine Herpes
  Mr. Mills
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make equine herpes a notifiable disease; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) on 27 April at column 680.

  Intervention Stocks
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the amounts of(a) butter, (b) beef, (c) wine, and (d) cheese by weight or volume and at current prices, held in the county of South Yorkshire in each year since 1979 under EEC intervention policies.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  The information requested is as follows:

  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 14 April to the hon. Member for Caerphilly,Official Report, column 748, in which month of 1988 each suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was identified; and at which veterinary investigation centre each suspected case was examined.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  This information is not held centrally.

  Butter, Beef and Wheat Prices
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the effect on the price of butter, beef and wheat in the United Kingdom in consequence of the various changes agreed at the Council of Ministers.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The decisions taken on 22 April by the Council of Ministers, are expected to increase support prices in the United Kingdom by just over 1 per cent. for butter; 2·7 per cent. for beef and around 3·5 per cent. for wheat, but market prices and retail prices reflect many factors, notably the weather, levels of supply and demand, the operation of stabilisers and the weakening of intervention arrangements for these products in recent years.

  Green Currency Changes
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement setting out the various green currency changes agreed at the Council of Ministers; and if he will further list the member states affected by these changes.

  Mr. MacGregor
  In the settlement reached on 22 April the Council of Ministers agreed that the green currency exchange rates be changed so as to adjust the monetary gaps between green and market exchange rates by the following percentage points:

  Dismantlement of real monetary gaps

  Percentage points

  Denmark

  Sheepmeat

  -3·060

  All other sectors except

  -1·000

  France

  Milk

  -1·529

  Beef

  -0·531

  Sheepmeat

  -0·561

  All other livestock products except pigmeat

  -1·777

  Wine

  -2·082

  All other sectors

  -1·529

  Germany

  Milk

  1·477

  All other livestock products

  0·446

  Greece

  Sheepmeat

  -9·481

  Structures

  -3·561

  All other sectors

  -16·500

  Ireland

  Sheepmeat

  -3·316

  Beef

  -2·000

  84

  Percentage points

  All crop products

  -1·565

  All other sectors except pigmeat

  -1·471

  Italy

  Pigmeat

  0·116

  Cereals, oilseeds and dried fodder

  -2·367

  Fruit and vegetables and tobacco

  -1·329

  Wine

  -2·168

  All other sectors

  -1·840

  Netherlands

  Milk

  0·866

  All other sectors except cereals

  0·347

  Portugal

  -2·125

  Spain

  Wine, olive oil, rice, oilseed, fruit and vegetables, dried fodder, flax, hemp and silkworms

  0·805

  United Kingdom

  Pigmeat

  -0·424

  Sheepmeat

  -4·361

  Beef

  -2·714

  All crop products

  -4·056

  All other sectors

  -3·270

  European Community Price Settlement
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate has been made of the additional cost to consumers in Europe of the recent price package; and what estimate he has made of the extra cost reduction to the European Economic Community.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I estimate that the effect of the price settlement on the retail prices index (all items) in the United Kingdom will be very small, at most one twentieth of 1 per cent. I have no estimates for other member states or for the Community as a whole. The proportion of the overall European Community budget represented by CAP guarantee expenditure is expected to fall from 61 per cent. in 1988 to 60 per cent. in 1989.

  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will state his estimate of the increase in(a) the price of wheat and (b) the price of sugar beet that producers can expect as a result of the recent European Economic Community agricultural prices settlement;

  (2) how the estimate of £155 million extra United Kingdom farm income resulting from the various European Economic Community farm price adjustments was calculated; how much of the £155 million is allocated to each type of product; and what effect on prices the settlement would have for each commodity.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The £155 million is the estimated full-year effect of the change in the green pound. Since the aggregate effect of the decisions on common support prices intervention arrangements and producer levies is estimated to be neutral, it is also the effect of the package as a whole. These effects are calculated using current annual volumes of production and adjusting for increases in the cost of purchased feedingstuffs, seeds and livestock. The breakdown between products is cereals, £65 million; other crops, £10 million; sheep, £30 million; milk, £40
  85
  million; other livestock products, £10 million. It is estimated that the aggregate effects of the Council's other decisions are neutral.

  The settlement in itself is estimated to increase support levels in sterling by cereals, 3·5 per cent.; sugar beet, 2 per cent.; oilseeds, 4 per cent.; sheep, 4·2 per cent.; beef, 2·7 per cent; butter, I per cent.; and other milk products, 3·2 per cent (plus a further 1 per cent. or more in the less-favoured areas and 0·5 per cent. elsewhere, due to the reduction in the milk co-responsibility levy). Producer returns will, of course, be affected by various other factors, in particular the impact on support prices of the stabiliser mechanisms for cereals, oilseeds and sheep, which will be operating to reduce the support prices in accordance with formulae agreed last year when maximum guaranteed quantities and defined ewe numbers are exceeded.

  Food Irradiation
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals there are in the European Community for food irradiation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  A proposal for a Council directive on this subject was submitted by the Commission to the Council on 9 December 1988. The proposal is published in the Official Journal of the European Communities dated 31 December 1988. A copy is in the Library of the House. The draft has been recommended for debate.

  Sheep Scab
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will place the report of his working party on sheep scab control in the Library.

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  I have placed today in the Library of the House copies of the consultation document circulated to interested parties last December which contains the working party's findings, together with background information and an economic appraisal of the options considered.

  Food Supplies
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, following his visit to the United States of America, he is now able to assess whether the world is faced with a problem of food surpluses or food shortages.

  Mr. Ryder
  My recent discussions in the United States confirmed my view that, with the underlying trends in output and consumption, the risk of widespread structural surpluses remains and that we should continue to pursue

  England and Wales

  Labour on agricultural holdings classified as predominantly pig holdings

  Number of holdings

  Proportion of national pig herd

  Farmers, Partners and Directors and spouses

  Whole time workers including salaried managers

  Part time including seasonal and casual workers

  1980

  8,339

  73·9

  12,859

  9,356

  4,715

  1985

  6,063

  72·8

  9,390

  7,674

  3,389

  1986

  5,971

  73·6

  9,268

  7,695

  3,230

  1987

  5,555

  73·4

  8,729

  7,310

  3,108

  1988

  5,301

  74·4

  8,340

  6,653

  2,830

  86
  the objective of the Uruguay round to reform agricultural policies and expose agriculture more fully to market forces.

  Amazonian Rain Forest
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will seek to put the issue of the Brazilian Amazonian rain forest on the agenda of the next Council of Agriculture Ministers.

  Mr. Ryder
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister on 26 April at column 959.

  Daminozide
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what have been the conclusions of his Department following the review undertaken by the advisory committee on pesticides on health risks associated with the use of daminozide; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  Ministers responsible for the control of pesticides are currently considering the advice of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides on daminozide.

  Chemical Safety
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total number of pesticide scientists involved in the review of the safety of chemicals; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  I refer the hon. Member to the pesticide review programme which was published on 16 March, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

  Pig Farming
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give "figures for the number of people involved in pig farming for the years(a) 1960, (b) 1970, (c) 1980, (d) 1985, (e) 1986, (f) 1987 and (g)

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  [holding answer 21 April 1989]: Data in the form requested are not available for 1960 or 1970. For 1980 onwards, labour figures for holdings classified as predominantly pig holdings are given in the table, but even on these specialist holdings there are other activities to which some of this labour will be directed. About 25 per cent. of pigs are on non-specialist holdings but it is not possible to estimate how much of the labour on these is attributable to the pig enterprise.

  Dairy Farming
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the figures for the number of people involved in dairy farming for the years(a) 1960, (b) 1970, (c) 1980, (d) 1985, (e) 1986, (f) 1987 and (g)

  Mr. Donald Thompson
  [holding answer 21 April 1989]: Data in the form requested are not available for 1960 or

  England and Wales

  Labour on agricultural holdings classified as predominantly pig holdings

  Number of holdings

  Proportion of national pig herd

  Farmers, Partners and Directors and spouses

  Whole time workers including salaried managers

  Part time including seasonal and casual workers

  1980

  40,365

  85·8

  70,332

  32,692

  19,315

  1985

  34,854

  85·8

  63,285

  27,761

  16,867

  1986

  33,967

  86·1

  62,092

  26,462

  17,090

  1987

  32,162

  85·4

  58,881

  24,384

  16,139

  1988

  30,414

  84·5

  56,213

  22,413

  15,143

  Dioxin in Food
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the food products he is testing for the presence of dioxin; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  [holding answer 28 May 1989]: My Ministry's food science laboratory has an ongoing research programme on dioxins designed to address a number of issues. Human breast milk has been examined as part of an international collaborative exercise: the analysis of composite food samples is under way in order to help confirm which classes of food are associated with dioxins: and individual retail purchases of a range of fatty foods such as milk, meat products and fish are also being examined. Finally, preliminary studies on the migration of dioxins into food from paper-based products such as milk cartons, tea bags and coffee filter papers have recently been carried out following reports that certain bleached paper products may contain dioxins. Results will be published as soon as possible.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Pensions
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the income of pensioners with no other source of income than state benefits as a proportion of the average earnings of all male workers in each year since 1974.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The information is as follows:

  Average gross income of pensioners with no other source of income than state benefits as a proportion of the average earnings of all male workers

  Year

  1974

  27

  1975

  27

  1976

  27

  1977

  29

  1978

  29

  1979

  28

  1980

  28

  1981

  29

  1982

  30

  1983

  30

  88
  1970. For 1980 onwards, labour figures for holdings classified as specialist or mainly dairying are given in the table, but even on these specialist holdings there are other activities to which some of this labour will be directed. About 15 per cent. of dairy cows are on non-specialist holdings, but it is not possible to estimate how much of the labour on these is attributable to the dairy enterprise.

  Year

  1984

  31

  1985

  30

  1986

  29

  Notes:

  1. Pensioner incomes are from the family expenditure survey.

  2. Earnings data are from the new earnings survey.

  The average gross income of this group of pensioners as a proportion of all manual workers' earnings was 32 per cent. in 1974, 33 per cent. in 1979, increasing to 37 per cent. in 1986.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, with respect to the support grades in his Department(a) what is the number of staff employed, (b) how many vacancies there are and how many of these have existed for over one month and over three months, (c) how many temporary and casual appointments there are and (d) how much overtime was worked by them in London and elsewhere.

  Mr. Scott
  At 1 April 1989 there were 2,844 staff employed and 52·5 current vacancies. Information about the length of time vacancies have existed cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost. There were 76 casual and temporary appointments and 1,688 hours overtime worked during March 1989. This information is provisional and does not include locally paid staff employed in the regional organisation.

  Benefits
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish for each month since April 1988 the number of people submitting claims for income support and family credit and the number unsuccessful; and if the latter data can be expressed as a percentage of the former.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The available information is in the tables.
  89

  Income support

  Period

  Claims received

  Unsuccessful claims

  Unsuccessful claims as a percentage of claims received

  11–30 April 1988

  206,061

  32,595

  15·8

  May 1988

  285,703

  69,318

  24·3

  June 1988

  336,929

  74,935

  22·3

  July 1988

  430,369

  68,781

  16·0

  August 1988

  351,719

  72,752

  20·7

  September 1988

  366,026

  61,121

  16·7

  October 1988

  328,929

  71,649

  21·8

  Family credit

  Period

  Claims received

  Invalid claims

  Valid claims disallowed

  Unsuccessful claims as a percentage of valid claims received

  11–30 April 1988

  96,505

  5,199

  18,897

  32·0

  May 1988

  41,721

  June 1988

  52,293

  3,313

  13,392

  27·0

  July 1988

  46,100

  3,142

  14,570

  27·8

  August 1988

  46,376

  3,143

  14,883

  27·0

  September 1988

  47,759

  2,190

  8,660

  26·4

  October 1988

  56,373

  2,808

  14,886

  24·9

  November 1988

  57,850

  2,690

  15,226

  24·8

  December 1988

  44,834

  2,521

  12,629

  26·1

  January 1989

  63,638

  3,621

  15,696

  26·9

  February 1989

  60,318

  3,222

  15,506

  25·6

  March 1989

  68,637

  4,279

  15,189

  24·4

  Source: Local office and family credit branch data collected for management information purposes. They are provisional and subject to amendment.

  Mr. Randall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are on(a) income support, (b) family credit and (c) unemployment benefit.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The latest available figures are:

  Number

  (a) Income Support

  4,416,000

  (b) Family Credit

  254,000

  (c) Unemployment Benefit

  500,000

  Social Fund
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much the Peckham Department of Social Security offices were given from the social fund(a) in 1988–89 and (b) in 1989–90; whether this has increased in line with inflation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The details of the social fund allocations are as follows:

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Loans

  Grants

  Loans

  Grants

  £

  £

  £

  £

  Camberwell AO

  442,473

  186,487

  409,866

  175,936

  Kennington Park ILO

  377,078

  158,672

  369,213

  153,717

  Peckham ILO

  343,582

  145,406

  329,774

  145,861

  A note explaining the basis on which the social fund allocations for 1989–90 were calculated is in the Library.
  90

  Period

  Claims received

  Unsuccessful claims

  Unsuccessful claims as a percentage of claims received

  November 1988

  311,715

  66,070

  21·2

  December 1988

  236,160

  46,394

  19·6

  January 1989

  324,572

  63,699

  19·6

  February 1989

  278,970

  58,365

  20·9

  March 1989

  271,121

  58,043

  21·4

  Pensioners
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what information he has as to how many pensioners receive only the state retirement pension; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  As at 30 September 1988, 2,168,320 pensioners in Great Britain were receiving only the basic state retirement pension, that is they were not in receipt of graduated pension or additional pension. However, these pensioners may also have been receiving other contributory and non-contributory benefits. In particular, a pensioner who has only the basic state pension and little or no other income or savings may be entitled to income support and housing benefit.

  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the percentage of pensioners on incomes on or below 140 per cent. of income support level; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The low income families statistics, which show the number and characteristics of pensioners not receiving supplementary benefit but with incomes within 140 per cent. of the supplementary benefit scale rates have been discontinued. Alternative measures of net income before and after housing costs have been introduced. Figures on this alternative basis covering the years 1981, 1983 and 1985 can be found in "Households Below Average Income", copies of which are in the Library.

  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will estimate the percentage of pensioners in the lowest quintile of the national income distribution; and if he will make a statement;
  91
  (2) what assessment he has made of the causes of the reduction in the percentage of pensioners in the lowest quintile in recent years; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) how many pensioners are in the highest quintile of the population; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  In 1979, 38 per cent. of pensioner tax units (a pensioner tax unit is a single person of state pension age or over, or a couple where the man is of state pension age or over) were in the lowest fifth of the national income distribution. In 1986, the latest year for which information is available, this figure had fallen to 24 per cent. The factors contributing to this reduction include the 23 per cent. real terms increase in pensioners' average total net income between 1979 and 1986, and the fact that pensioners' incomes increased twice as fast as those of the population as a whole over the same period. In 1986, 6 per cent. of pensioners were in the highest fifth of the national income distribution.

  Source: Family Expenditure Survey 1986

  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his latest estimate of the numbers of pensioners in Britain; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  As at 30 September 1988 there were approximately 9.4 million retirement pensioners resident in Great Britain.

  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the number of pensioners receiving(a) income support and (b) housing benefit; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The latest available figure for income support is 1,671,000. This relates to cases where either the claimant or his partner is aged 60 or over. Information for housing benefit recipients is not yet available.
  92
  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioners lost entitlement to housing benefit following the introduction of the capital cut-off limit of £8,000; what was the estimated annual saving to the Exchequer as against the previous arrangements; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The housing benefit capital limit was introduced on 14 April 1988 at £6,000, at an estimated net saving of £80 million; it was increased to £8,000 on 13 May 1988. The increase cost an estimated £35 million and restored entitlement to housing benefit to around 100,000 of the 300,000 people—almost all pensioners—who had lost entitlement in April.

  Mr. McCrindle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) if he will estimate the percentage of total pensioners' income in 1988 represented by social security benefits; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will estimate the percentage of total pensioners' income in 1988 represented by occupational pensions; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if he will estimate the percentage of total pensioners' income in 1988 represented (a) by savings and (b) by investments; and if he will make a statement;

  (4) if he will estimate the percentage of total pensioners' income in 1988 represented by earnings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  In 1986, the latest year for which information is available, 59 per cent. of pensioners' average gross income was derived from social security benefits, 20 per cent. from occupational pensions, 14 per cent. from savings and investments, and 7 per cent. from earnings.

  Source: Family Expenditure Survey 1986.

  Note: There is no generally agreed distinction between savings and investments.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  DSS Leaflets
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the Bradford Gingerbread centre is going to receive leaflets ordered from DSS Leaflets, PO Box 21, Stanmore, on 7 December 1988; when the last batch of leaflets ordered by Bradford Gingerbread centre on 10 August last were dispatched; if he has any plans to improve the service offered by DSS Leaflets, Stanmore; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I regret that the DSS leaflets unit has no record of an order dated 7 December 1988. The order dated 10 August 1988 was dispatched on 4 April 1989.

  The principal factors causing delay in the distribution of some orders from Canons Park leaflets unit are the considerably increased demand for bulk orders, and the physical constraints of the unit which preclude an immediate expansion of capacity or the recruitment of more staff to cope with this demand.

  From 1 May requests for bulk orders of leaflets and forms from organisations such as Gingerbread, will be supplied within 48 hours from receipt of order.

  The Department will be testing a service giving a 48-hour turnround for members of the public. People will be able to order leaflets by telephone using the Department's Freeline or by preprinted card.

  Income Support
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the number of(a) pregnant women on income support and (b) free milk and vitamin awards to women on income support.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Provisional figures for May 1988 show that approximately 41,000 pregnant women on income support were claiming free welfare milk and vitamins. No separate information is available about the total number of pregnant women on income support.

  Earnings
  Mr. Hanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what changes there have been to the definition of earnings for national insurance calculation purposes since the last fiscal year; and under what authority such changes were made.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Section 3(1) of the Social Security Act 1975 defines earnings so as to include any remuneration or profit derived from an employment. In May 1988 the Social Security (Contributions) Amendment (No. 3) Regulations 1988 (SI 1988/No. 860) came into force. These regulations, which were made by exercising powers in section 3(2) and 3(3) of the 1975 Social Security Act, provided that payments to employed earners in the form of a wide range of securities but not equities, should be included in earnings for contributions purposes.

  Paragraph 1 of schedule 7 to the Social Security Bill will also amend section 3 of the Social Security Act 1975 to provide that earnings will include payments which are consideration for restrictive undertakings specified in subsection (1) and (2) of section 313 of the Income and Taxes Act 1988.
  94
  Mr. Hanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what differences there are between the definitions of earnings for national insurance and PAYE purposes.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  National insurance contributions are charged on gross earnings and only earnings of all employees, with the exception of those employees who are over pensionable age. National insurance contributions are not charged on occupational pensions, and investment income. Further information on what is included in gross pay for national insurance purposes is included in the recently published "Employers Manual on National Insurance Contributions", which I have placed in the Library.

  Income tax is deducted under PAYE on income from offices and employments, occupational pensions, certain social security benefits and lump sum payments.

  Hillsborough Disaster Fund
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what effect payments from the Hillsborough disaster fund will have on the level of benefits for bereaved families.

  Mr. Scott
  No payments have yet been made by the Hillsborough disaster fund and therefore it is not possible to say whether and how they might affect benefits. Officials have been in touch with the fund's administrators to advise them on the social security rules. The majority of social security benefits would not in any case be affected by any payment from the fund.

  Marginal Tax Rates
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide figures for(a) the number of individuals and (b) the number of families facing marginal tax rates in excess of (i) 70 per cent., (ii) 8(1 per cent., and (iii) 90 per cent. from 1973 to the present day.

  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish estimates of the numbers of individuals or families facing marginal tax rates in excess of 70 per cent., 80 per cent., 90 per cent., 100 per cent., and above 100 per cent., for each year from 1979–80 to 1988–89.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [holding answer 11 April 1989]: Table 15.15 on page 16 of Cm. 615 sets out estimates for November 1985 and April 1988. Information on the numbers of individuals and families by different marginal deduction rates is not available for earlier years. I also refer the hon. Members to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) on 17 February, at column 393. The table sets out the latest estimates of the numbers of working heads who might face combined rates of deduction of 70 per cent. or more. The figures reflect the March 1989 Budget and include the effects of the employees' national insurance reform which takes effect in October.
  95

  Combined marginal income tax and benefit withdrawal rates 1989–90 Working heads of tax units (000) Great Britain numbers facing combined rates of over 70 per cent.—in bands

  Families with children

  Couples and single people

  Total

  Over 100 per cent.

  —

  —

  —

  Over 90 per cent.

  40

  5

  45

  Over 80 per cent.

  195

  15

  210

  Over 70 per cent.

  365

  50

  415

  Notes:

  1. Marginal deduction rates shown are for heads of tax units in receipt of family credit/housing benefit where at least one partner works 24 hours or more a week.

  2. All estimates are for 1989–90 and are based on combined 1985 and 1986 family expenditure survey data and are consistent with this year's Government expenditure White Paper.

  3. Some totals may not sum because of rounding.

  4. Denotes an estimate of fewer than 2,500.

  5. The total number of working heads of tax-units with more than 24-weekly remunerative hours is approximately 17 million. Those shown in the table therefore represent only 2·5 per cent. of the total.

  Proportion of gross income derived from original income1

  Proportion of gross income derived from Retirement Pension and income-related benefits

  Average gross weekly income

  Percentage

  Percentage

  £

  All pensioners tax units2

  Lowest Q1

  8

  90

  56·90

  Q2

  11

  86

  67·00

  Q3

  16

  80

  71·10

  Q4

  36

  57

  94·90

  Highest Q5

  72

  25

  203·50

  All

  42

  55

  98·68

  All single pensioners

  Lowest Q1

  7

  92

  45·10

  Q2

  9

  89

  53·50

  Q3

  11

  87

  60·60

  Q4

  25

  69

  71·10

  Highest Q5

  67

  29

  146·30

  All

  34

  62

  75·30

  Single men over pension age

  Lowest Q1

  9

  91

  48·30

  Q2

  11

  88

  55·40

  Q3

  14

  86

  61·50

  Q4

  38

  59

  77·90

  Highest Q5

  74

  24

  170·40

  All

  42

  56

  82·60

  Single women over pension age

  Lowest Q1

  6

  92

  44·30

  Q2

  8

  90

  53·00

  Q3

  10

  87

  60·10

  Q4

  22

  72

  70·20

  Highest Q5

  63

  31

  138·80

  All

  32

  64

  73·30

  1 Original income consists of occupational and personal pensions, income from savings and investment, and any earnings from employment or self-employment.

  2 A pensioner tax unit is a single person of state pension age or over, or a married couple where the man is of state pension age or over. Each group has been divided into quintiles on the basis of equivalised gross income.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Members Dining Room
  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the Lord President of the Council on how many occasions tables have had to be removed from the Members Dining Room because of staff shortages in the last year.

  Mr. Wakeham
  On four occasions.

  Retirement Incomes
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if, on the basis of data in the family expenditure survey for 1986, he will state the average percentage income of(a) all retired households, (b) single retired households, (c) retired one-man households and (d) retired one-woman households, in each case in all five quintile groupings, which is derived from (i) original income, (ii) contributory retirement pension, (iii) supplementary benefit and (iv) housing benefit; and what is the total average income of each group in each quintile.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [holding answer 12 April 1989]: On the basis of data in the family expenditure survey pensioners' average income cannot be broken down separately into the proportions derived from contributory retirement pensions, supplementary benefit and housing benefit. These sources of income are taken together in column 2.

  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what is the hourly rate of pay for waitresses employed in the Members Dining Room; and what rate is paid to agencies supplying waitresses.

  Mr. Beith
  I shall write to the hon. Member.

  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons
  97
  Commission, what is the full establishment of waitresses in the Members Dining Room; and how many are currently employed.

  Mr. Beith
  The full establishment of waiters/waitresses (excluding those who serve only wine) is 15. The current complement is eight.

  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what discussions the Commission has had with trade union representatives of dining room staff; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Beith
  None by the Commission. Formal discussions with union representatives take place with management through the Whitley committee machinery in accordance with recognised procedures.

  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, when he expects the Members Dining Room to return to a full complement of fully employed staff.

  Mr. Beith
  It is not possible to be precise. Four more waitresses are expected to begin duties in the very near future and efforts are being made to recruit the staff needed to fill the remaining three posts. I shall arrange for the hon. Member to be informed when the staff is back to full strength.

HEALTH

  "Putting Patients First"
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information on opting out or indication of interest in opting out under the terms of his White Paper "Putting Patients First", has been required from hospitals in the south west region by 8 May; what is the significance of this date; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  The chief executive of the NHS management hoard wrote to all regional general managers on 14 March about the preparation of expressions of interest in self-governing hospital status. A copy of the letter (reference: EL(89)MB/58) has been placed in the Library. Regional returns are to be made to the Department by 31 May; expressions of interest are to reach RHAs by 8 May to give them time to comment.

  Number of Estimates Scheduled (England and Wales)

  Quarter

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1st.

  8,198,837

  8,363,883

  8,153,035

  8,494,306

  9,183,731

  2nd.

  8,000,376

  8,692,834

  8,615,213

  8,378,456

  —

  3rd.

  8,564,944

  8,075,163

  8,623,781

  9,112,402

  —

  4th.

  8,286,568

  8,933,076

  8,467,152

  9,481,178

  —

  33,050,725

  34,064,956

  33,859,181

  35,466,342

  Defibrillators
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give, region by region, the number of defibrillators which have been purchased(a) by the health authority, (b) not by the health authority and (c) in the latter case, the main source of funding for each defibrillator.

  Dental Services
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average number of weeks per year worked by the dental staff of the former Dental Estimates Board in each year during the period 1985 to 1988, excluding sick leave, leave, study leave and attendance at courses.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested is as follows:

  Year

  Weeks

  1985

  43·17

  1986

  44·45

  1987

  42·95

  1988

  43·05

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the current time input relating to an estimate form submitted for prior approval compared with the average payment case.

  Mr. Freeman
  During March 1989 the dental practice board returned requests for approval of dental treatment within 18 days of receipt and took 24 days to issue payment schedules for treatment fees claimed by dentists. Both these figures are averages.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the last date when the work of the dental estimates board was subjected to an approved efficiency study; and what was the result.

  Mr. Freeman
  The most recent efficiency study was undertaken in 1984. A number of recommendations concerning improvements in the board's organisation and procedures were made and implemented. In line with other health service bodies the board is subject to the annual accountability review arrangements. A comprehensive review of the board's role and function is planned for later this year.

  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of dental estimates authorised for payment in each quarter from the beginning of 1985 until the most recent date when figures are available.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information requested is as follows:

  Mr. Freeman
  This information is not available centrally. Arrangements for purchase of equipment of this kind are a matter for each separate health authority.

  Nurses (Assaults)
  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he has held, or proposes to hold, discussions with the police about assaults on nurses;
  99
  (2) what is the trend in the number of assaults on nurses;

  (3) how many nurses' homes are signposted in hospital grounds;

  (4) how many nurses have been issued with personal alarms by their employers;

  (5) what steps he is taking to train nursing staff in violence avoidance;

  (6) in how many nurses' homes full-time security staff are employed;

  (7) what is his estimate of the number of nurses who have been assaulted in hospitals or hospital grounds in the last year for which figures are available;

  (8) if he will set up a working party to study the incidence of violence against nurses and the reasons for it and to make recommendations;

  (9) if he will provide central funding and specific grants for measures to prevent violence against nurses;

  (10) if he has issued any recent circulars to health authorities about measures to be taken to cope with violence against nurses;

  (11) what information he has as to how many break-ins have been reported in nurses' homes in the last year for which figures are available;

  (12) what steps he has taken to ensure that nurses are provided with transport after working on late duty;

  (13) if he has made any recommendations to health authorities about standards of lighting in hospital grounds.

  Mr. Mellor
  Although we do not hold the detailed information about nurses requested by the right hon. Member centrally, many health authorities have taken effective measures to ensure the safety of their staff. These include the employment of contract security staff; close circuit television; personal alarms; two way radios; improved lighting and the introduction of professional nurse triage to reduce waiting times in accident and emergency departments.

  At national level the DHSS advisory committee on violence to staff was established in February 1987 to examine the problem throughout the caring services. The committee, which comprised management, professional bodies, family practitioners and trades union representatives from all the services, was chaired by my noble Friend Lord Skelmersdale. Its report was published in July last year. Copies were issued to all NHS general managers and placed in the Library.

  The report stresses the importance of accurate reporting of incidents and its principal recommendations relate to the need for employers to recognise the fundamental place of a safe working environment in the determination of local priorities and budgets and the development of local safety and security policies. Specifically, it urges liaison with the police and with staff and their representatives; training in the avoidance and control of violent situations; local collaboration and the sharing of experiences; and the counselling of victims. A video reinforcing the committee's recommendations and in which I stressed ministerial concern about this important issue was sent to all health authorities in February this year.

  I strongly endorse the theme of the report that the issue of violence to staff is one which can be most effectively tackled locally by management and staff working together.

  Aluminium
  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health as part of the research that is to take place into the effects of aluminium in infants, if he will include a study of the extent to which aluminium sulphate added to water supplies as a cleaning agent enters the body and is hazardous.

  Mr. Freeman
  The Medical Research Council, which is the main Government-funded body dealing with biomedical and clinical research, and which receives its grant-in-aid from the Department of Education and Science, is sponsoring research into the uptake and biological effects of aluminium from all sources, including drinking water.

  Other independent research is being undertaken into the sources of aluminium in infants' diet and its absorption and excretion.

  The Department of Health's independent advisory committee on toxicity of chemicals in food, consumer products and the environment will be asked to advise on the results of this research when they are available.

  Cholesterol
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the cost to the National Health Service of carrying out a test to establish a patient's blood cholesterol level; and whether such a test can be requested on a routine visit to a general practitioner.

  Mr. Freeman
  Information on actual cost of tests to establish a patient's blood cholesterol level is not collected centrally. It is known however that the cost will vary depending on whether such tests are carried out at a large NHS laboratory or elsewhere,—for example in a GP's surgery. These tests are available under the National Health Service.

  Hospices
  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has yet completed his review into the funding of hospices; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  No. I hope to complete the review shortly.

  Airline Foods
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his reply of 6 April,Official Report, columns 289–90, if he has now given consideration to the report "A Survey of Microbiological Quality of Airline Foods" by three London boroughs; and if he will now make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  We have recently received a copy of the survey of the microbiological quality of airline meals. It is still receiving careful consideration within the Department.

  Consultants
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list by each health district the number of consultants in each specialty who have merit awards; what this figure represents as a percentage of the total number of consultant posts; whether he has any proposals to change the way in which merit awards are allocated; and if he will make a statement.
  101
  Mr. Mellor
  We do not have information by district readily available. Information for each region of England and Wales and for each specialty on the number of holders of distinction awards is given in the tables.

  The working paper 7 "NHS Consultants: Appointments, Contracts and Distinction Awards", following the White Paper "Working for Patients", sets out the Government's proposals to change the way in which distinction awards are allocated, and will be discussed with the medical profession.

  Distinction awards

  Analysis by region at 31 December 1988

  Region

  Awards helpers

  Numbers

  Percentage

  Northern

  342

  33

  Yorkshire

  358

  33

  Trent

  440

  33

  East Anglian

  209

  33

  North West Thames

  450

  39

  North East Thames

  619

  40

  South East Thames

  476

  37

  South West Thames

  351

  37

  Special Health Authorities

  343

  57

  Wessex

  293

  35

  Oxford

  272

  36

  South Western

  316

  34

  West Midlands

  503

  33

  Mersey

  260

  34

  North Western

  468

  34

  Wales

  298

  34

  Total

  5,648

  35

  Note: —Where a practitioner has a contract in more than one Region he has been counted in each, but only once in the total.

  Distinction awards: Analysis by specialty and percentage distribution 31 December 1988 England and Wales

  Total awards

  Number

  per cent.

  All specialties: Total

  5,648

  35·0

  Accident and emergency

  32

  17·0

  Anaesthetics

  598

  29·0

  Cardiology

  76

  53·0

  Cardio-thoracic surgery

  55

  47·0

  Clinical neurological physiology

  18

  32·0

  Community medicine

  162

  31·0

  Oral surgery

  112

  39·0

  Orthodontics

  46

  30·0

  Restorative dentistry

  33

  32·0

  Dermatology

  85

  36·0

  Diseases of the chest

  54

  48·0

  General medicine

  705

  47·0

  General surgery

  572

  49·0

  Genito-urinary medicine

  26

  18·0

  Geriatric medicine

  117

  21·0

  Infectious diseases

  13

  45·0

  Mental illness

  367

  29·0

  Child and adolescent psychiatry

  79

  21·0

  Forensic psychiatry

  13

  22·0

  Mental handicap

  35

  19·0

  Psychotherapy

  22

  25·0

  Neurology

  96

  55·0

  Neurosurgery

  55

  56·0

  Nuclear medicine

  16

  55·0

  Obstetrics and gynaecology

  325

  40·0

  Occupational medicine

  2

  12·0

  Ophthalmology

  156

  35·0

  Orthopaedic surgery

  269

  36·0

  Otolaryngology

  144

  36·0

  Paediatrics

  269

  37·0

  Paediatric surgery

  24

  55·0

  Pathology: General

  3

  50·0

  Blood transfusion

  11

  39·0

  102

  Total awards

  Number

  per cent.

  Chemical pathology

  75

  40·0

  Haematology

  126

  32·0

  Histopathology

  203

  33·0

  Immunopathology

  22

  52·0

  Medical microbiology

  112

  35·0

  Neuro-pathology

  13

  42·0

  PHLS only

  12

  41·0

  Plastic surgery

  45

  43·0

  Radiology

  289

  27·0

  Radiotherapy

  82

  38·0

  Rheumatology and rehabilitation

  79

  32·0

  Cervical Cancer Tests
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking urgently to review the system of cervical cancer smear tests so that no women whose tests have proved positive suffer delays of more than three to four weeks before starting treatment.

  Mr. Mellor
  Department of Health guidance, HC(88) 1, states that district health authorities should ensure that adequate facilities are available for the prompt investigation, treatment and follow-up of women whose smears show that this is necessary. In order to monitor health authorities' achievement in this respect we have asked them to notify us in their 1989 planning statements of waiting times for further diagnosis and treatment, particularly colposcopy, where these exceed four weeks. We shall then be pressing health authorities to take action where there are problems.

  Publicity
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library details of each major publicity campaign mounted by his Department in 1985–86 and each successive year, including in each case the objectives of the campaign, the intended audience and the outcome of the monitoring of the achievement of the intended objectives, and national research conducted for him by the Central Office of Information together with a note of the intended objectives in the campaigns in 1989–90.

  Mr. Mellor
  I shall let the hon. Member have such information as can be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost as soon as possible.

  Baby Food
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make a statement about the health risk in baby food;

  (2) when he was first warned of the health risk in baby food;

  (3) whether he has obtained the advice of the chief medical officer about the health risk in baby food;

  (4) whether he plans to issue any advice to baby food manufacturers about continuing sale of baby food;

  (5) whether he plans to issue any advice to parents about the health risks in baby food;

  (6) whether he plans to issue any advice to health workers about the risks in baby food.

  Mr. Freeman
  We first became aware of particles of glass being found in jars of baby food in March 1989, when the manufacturers arranged withdrawal of the batch
  103
  concerned and advised the Department. Since then, as my hon. Friend said on 26 April at column 949, there have been growing numbers of reports which have been recognised as deliberate contamination and this is the subject of police inquiries. The Department on 28 April endorsed common-sense advice to the public which, if followed, should remove any risk. This advice is being passed also to the National Health Service and to chief environmental health officers of local authorities. The question of continuing the sale of these products is for the manufacturers in consultation with the police.

  Population Statistics
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the present population of England and Wales who are over the age of 18 years.

  Mr. Freeman
  It is estimated that the resident population of England and Wales aged 18 and over was 38,607,700 at mid-1987. An estimate relating to mid-1988 will be available shortly.

  Coastal Waters (Pollution)
  Dr. Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department has any record of specific skin diseases and infections occurring amongst fishermen operating in British coastal waters; and what investigations his Department has carried out into the incidence of skin diseases and infections occurring amongst fishermen operating in British coastal waters.

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: These diseases are not notifiable diseases and, therefore, this Department does not keep any records. No investigations have been carried out by this Department.

  Stump Socks
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what representations have been received by his Department about stump socks for amputees;

  (2) where National Health Service supplies of stump socks are listed.

  Mr. Mellor
  [holding answer 26 April 1989]: These are matters for the Disablement Services authority to which the hon. Member should address his question.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Truro.

London Underground: Unofficial Strikes
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the ballots required by law took place before the recent strikes on the London Underground.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, I understand that the recent strikes on the London Underground were not organised by a union. There was therefore no statutory requirement to hold a ballot.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, does my noble friend's Answer mean that as long as a union aids and abets but does not organise a strike it can get away with it without a ballot?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, there is no statutory requirement to hold a ballot before organising industrial action, but if a union wishes to protect itself from legal proceedings for inducing interference with contracts it must hold a proper ballot before doing so. It would not be practical to require the organisers of unofficial action to hold a ballot before taking such action. They do not have the same relationship with those being induced to strike as a trade union which induces its members.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is there any evidence to justify the accusation made by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that the union aided and abetted the two recent strikes? Is it not the case that the industrial action which may take place next week has been the subject of a proper ballot? Should our efforts not now be directed to ensuring that
2
negotiations which start today are successful and that there is no industrial action next week?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I certainly agree with the second part of the question of the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, which concerns two different issues from the one which caused the unofficial action last week. I have no evidence that the union aided and abetted that unofficial action.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, is there not ample evidence that the union colluded with what one might call indolent passivity, and ought not that to be put to the test at some time?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I do not think that I can comment on that accusation. From the point of view of the law it was not an official strike and therefore the union was not involved.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is it not a fact that the union made it quite clear that it was not supporting the strike and that it would ballot if it wanted strike action? Is it not also a fact that that ballot is now taking place?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I believe that that is correct. I understand that the ballot which has taken place concerns a different issue from the one-man operated trains issue which was the cause of the unofficial action referred to.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is a proper ballot as referred to by the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench? Is this a proper ballot and is it supervised by the Registrar of Friendly Societies and the trade unions? Will we be told how many of those who were eligible to vote actually voted and what the outcome was? Otherwise it would be wrong to call it anything but a rigged ballot by certain extremists when perhaps the majority are not behind this holding to ransom of the travelling public who use London Underground.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I am not quite sure what the requirements are for a ballot. However, they are defined in law, and if the ballot does not

3
appear to come within the rules it is open to the employer to take action.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that these unsubstantiated implications of ill faith on the part of the official trade unions do nothing to ease the present difficult industrial relations position? Does the noble Lord recall that in the days before the Donovan Report nearly all strikes were unofficial, and does he agree that the highly legalistic approach of the Government towards industrial relations is not likely to work very effectively once labour power becomes stronger with the recovery in employment?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, that question goes rather wide of the one on the Order Paper. Indeed, it is a very general question which would more properly be the subject of a debate rather than a Question to be answered at Question Time.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, arising from the questions from the Opposition Front Bench, can my noble friend say whether there is any evidence that the relevant trade union did anything to discourage the strike action which caused untold misery on two occasions to hundreds of thousands of people?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I cannot comment on that question. I understand that the unions opposed the unofficial actions. How strongly they did so and whether or not they were effective is another question.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is not "untold misery" a bit much? Is this not simply a little case of silly legislation producing silly results?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, considerable inconvenience was caused to the travelling public in London as a result of the two unofficial one-day strikes. It may well be that there was intimidation, and I am extremely disturbed by reports that threats of intimidation were used. If such threats were made, that may be a matter for the criminal law.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we on this side of the House deeply resent the blatant attempt by noble Lords opposite to discredit the union without any clear evidence whatsoever?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I find myself in the middle of this situation. I believe that I have heard the views of noble Lords on all sides of the House.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell the House what he understands the dispute to be about?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the dispute to which my noble friend referred in his Question concerns the operation of one-person operated trains and the fact that certain of the drivers are claiming 50 per cent. of guards' current wages backdated to
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October 1985. The issue should have been settled and, as I understood it, had been settled, but obviously it has not been settled so far as concerns everyone.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that, if we are to have those trains running, the good will of the trade unions concerned is a most relevant factor and that anything said without evidence to the detriment of the activities of the trade unions in that regard could be counter-productive?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. I believe that a meeting is taking place this afternoon. Obviously, we shall wait to see the result of that meeting.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, bearing in mind the increase in hooliganism and the possibility of violence on London's Underground, is this the right time to reduce the number of people in charge of the trains by almost 50 per cent.? The man who gives the signals is the only person to whom many people can refer and who can make decisions as to whether to proceed. He will no longer exist if the measure goes through.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, this is not something new. One-man trains were introduced in 1984. What is in dispute is whether the drivers of those trains should receive an additional payment for operating without guards.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, is it not the case that if, before the negotiations started this morning, members of the unions concerned had heard some of the remarks that have been passed this afternoon behind the Minister, today's negotiations could have been imperilled? What we are concerned about is getting the negotiations settled so that we shall not have industrial action next week.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, obviously, I cannot answer for what the unions might or might not have done if they had heard the remarks made in the House this afternoon.

Official Statistics
2.44 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied that the recently announced changes in the responsibilities for the issue of official statistics will increase their reliability.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear in another place on 5th April, the decisions resulting from the recent scrutiny report of Government economic statistics:
"amount to a very substantial programme of work over the period ahead, designed to achieve a significant improvement in the quality and relevance of Government economic statistics."—[Official Report, House of Commons; 5/4/89, c. 191.]

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Those improvements will begin to flow as the many recommendations, including the creation of an enlarged Central Statistical Office as an executive agency responsible to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, are implemented. But it will take time.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, while we must all be pleased that the CSO's responsibilities will be enlarged and will cover all statistics, is the noble Lord aware that there is serious concern that that body will come under the control of the Treasury? As he may be aware, the Treasury is no longer regarded as thoroughly objective in its use and treatment of statistics. Would it not have been far better if the body had been put under the control of some central office, such as the Cabinet Office, so that we could be assured of its total objectivity?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the integrity of the CSO is in no way altered by the changes in ministerial responsibilities. Their sole purpose is to assist in improving the quality of statistics for macroeconomic management following the recommendations of the Cabinet Office scrutiny report.
Lord Peston: My Lords, while also welcoming what I understand to be the noble Lord's statement that more resources will go into that work, may we have some assurance that the quality of statistics will improve and—to pursue the point raised by the noble Lord—that the Treasury will not tamper with them? Perhaps I may suggest some examples to which the noble Lord may wish to refer: may we in due course look forward to the day when our unemployment statistics measure unemployment; when our income and output statistics equal the same number, as they are supposed to do, rather than differ; and when our balance of payments statistics do not seem to contain a larger error than the balance of payments figure in the first place? In other words, when may we look forward to some useful statistics?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the answer to all the questions is the same; namely, that, obviously, the whole purpose of the exercise is to improve the quality of statistics that are produced.

Community Charge Administration: Costs
2.47 p.m.
Lord Stallard Lord Stallard asked Her Majesty's Government:
What they expect to be the cost of collecting and administering in England (i) the community charge in its first year, and (ii) rates in their last year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, our estimate of the cost of collecting and administering the community charge in 1990–391 in England, based on the Price Waterhouse report, is between £356 million if all authorities work as efficiently as the most efficient in their category, and £404 million if authorities maintain their current
6
efficiency. Those estimates were at November 1987 prices. The cost of collecting rates in 1989–90 is estimated to be about £200 million.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, is he aware that according to the local authority survey that was carried out, that is a gross underestimate and that the survey shows up a number of major criticisms of the Price Waterhouse study? Is he aware that the Price Waterhouse study was based on 25 out of 350 local authorities and that it assumed no evasion of payment and no increase in the numbers paying by instalments and further assumed that work would simply double? Is the Minister aware that, at present, only one form per household goes out, whereas, under the poll tax, three, four or even five separate forms may go to each household depending on how many adults are in the house? Is he aware that the study made no allowance for publicity or training and no allowance for the fact that local authorities estimate that the number of staff will increase from 13,000 to 30,000, an increase in bureaucracy of 130 per cent.?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the estimates were based on an objective study by an independent firm of consultants. It will come as no surprise to noble Lords to know that the local authorities may take a different view, but we believe that we should support the view of the objective study.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, although the Minister gave us an assurance that the study was an objective study, does he agree with the noble Lord who asked the Question that it is an inadequate study in so far as a very small sample was taken? If he bases his estimate of costs on the Scottish experience, it should be twice the figure that is estimated by Price Waterhouse. Finally, is there anything sinister in the fact that the notices for the poll tax in England will be issued after the local authority elections when local authority officials requested that that should have been done in April?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will understand that we do not share his view of what the cost of the community charge will be. However, I can put his mind at rest and say that there is absolutely nothing sinister, as he felt there might be, in the timing.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister has signally failed to answer any of the questions about the statistics put by my noble friend Lord Stallard. Even if we were to accept his figures—that of £200 million for the cost of rates is in fact not the official figure, the CIPFA figure being £187 million—are they not an admission that the cost of collection of the poll tax will be twice as much as the cost of collection of rates?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, certainly the original figures that I mentioned confirm that the cost of collection of the community charge will be twice as much, as the noble Lord said. With regard to the points put by his noble friend Lord Stallard to which

7
he referred, the noble Lord made a number of assertions with which I disagreed. Assertions are slightly different from quesions. That is a degree of difference which is a difference in itself.
Lord Carter: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the crucial statistic is the cost per pound of tax collected? Can he say what is the cost of collection per pound of rates and the cost of collection per pound of poll tax?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I believe that I have answered that question already by saying that it will be twice the cost. I remind your Lordships' House that of course there will be twice the number of people paying, so it is not entirely illogical that the cost should double.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that my questions—not assumptions—were based on a local government survey which covered over half the local authorities compared with a study of 25 out of 350 authorities? Therefore my assumptions must be more firmly based than are his. Is he aware that in Birmingham, the authority has already taken on 350 extra staff—more bureaucrats, whose number the Government were pledged to reduce? The authority plans to send out 400,000 forms. Does he accept that more forms will have to be sent out per household compared with the one form that was sent out for the rates? The number will be multiplied in the case of the poll tax. Those are not assumptions; those are facts. Does he not accept them?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it is a fact with which I did not disagree when I said that there would be twice as many chargepayers. I also noted that it is entirely logical that there will be twice as many forms to send out. We have always accepted that the system would be more expensive. However, we happen to believe that it is fairer, and therefore it is a price worth paying.

Hospital Waiting Lists
2.51 p.m.
Lord Ennals Lord Ennals asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the latest figures of the length of hospital waiting lists, and what are the comparable figures for 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the latest figures show that at 30th September 1988 there were 691,000 people waiting for admission to hospital. Comparable figures for the four preceding years were 683,000, 661,000, 682,000 and 661,000, respectively.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. Is he aware that the appalling statistics he has listed—they are worse this year than for any of the previous years—relate to patients who are waiting for treatment as a direct result of the
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underfunding of the National Health Service at a time when the Government claim that the economy is strong? Is he aware that every conference of health service workers, whether management, nurses or doctors, which has considered the Government's discredited proposals, recognises that nothing in those proposals will improve the waiting lists? And waiting lists are very much concerned with people.
Lord Henley: My Lords, we accept that the figures are marginally higher than the previous figures. However, as the noble Lord knows, they are considerably better than they were in 1979 when they reached a highest ever peak of 752,000.I think I should also say that accusations that the Government are under-funding the National Health Service are unfair. We have increased funding in real terms by 37 per cent. since 1979. I should also say that the number of day patients treated has also gone up dramatically since 1979.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether that number includes individuals who have been offered beds but have not taken them up?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we do not include in the figures for waiting lists what are referred to as self-deferred cases; nor have we included them in the past.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that one contribution which would help to resolve this extremely difficult problem, about which I am sure noble Lords from all sides of the House are very much concerned—namely, the lengthy waiting lists of people going into hospital—is to build more hospitals? Is it not possible for some of the land owned by the National Health Service and by local hospitals to be used for constructing more wards in order to try to relieve the awful burden on waiting lists?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord knows that this Government are engaged in the biggest hospital building programme since the beginning of the National Health Service. As regards the sale of surplus land, I believe that the noble Lord has tabled a Question on this subject to be discussed in a couple of weeks' time. I shall willingly answer it then.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that waiting lists now seem to be averaging 680,000 a year? The number is far higher than the average experienced by the previous administration, which after all was 10 years ago. Will he now say what in the White Paper will help to reduce this problem of pain for such a large number of people?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the average might be marginally higher than under the administration to which the noble Lord refers. However, as he well knows, and as I think my noble friend Lady Trumpington told him two or three years ago, under every single Labour government since the last war the figures have gone up and under every single Conservative government they have come down. As regards the White Paper, the noble Lord knows

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perfectly well that the proposals will increase the ease with which money can move around from one district to another. That will certainly help those patients who are in areas or districts which admittedly have rather long waiting lists at the moment.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, my Question was about patients and not about money. Does the noble Lord not accept that it was about patients getting into operating theatres?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord knows that the White Paper contains proposals designed so that money follows patients. If money follows patients it makes it easier for them to go where there are not waiting lists.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Water Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for approximately one hour, and that during this adjournment a Prayer to annul the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989 will be taken.

Water Bill
2.58 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [The National Rivers Authority]:
The Earl of Cranbrook The Earl of Cranbrook moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 8, leave out ("National Rivers") and insert ("Water Protection and Environment").
The noble Earl said: It appears to fall to me to kick off on this interesting Bill, on which no doubt we shall have many and prolonged discussions in Committee. I think it is proper for me to say again, as I said during the Second Reading debate, that I am a non-executive board member of Anglian Water. I was appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment with special responsibilities for environmental issues and I am now a member of the plc working group of that board.
I welcome this Bill in principle. It is clear from its passage through another place that some changes in the Bill as printed are still needed. I welcome the presence on the Front Bench of my noble friends the Minister Lord Caithness and Lord Hesketh. I am certain that amendments that are proposed will have a fair and courteous response as always.
Clause 1 of the Bill establishes—I quote from the Explanatory Memorandum—an authority:
"to take over the responsibilities of water authorities in England and Wales in relation to water pollution, water resource management, flood defence, fisheries, recreation and navigation.
The establishment of this authority has been very widely welcomed as an important new instrument in the protection of the aquatic environment and in the management of the natural resource of water. I share the general enthusiasm that has been widely expressed for this new authority.
The amendment that has been proposed by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, concerns only the name by which this authority is to be known. The amendment carries no implications whatsoever on the powers or functions of this authority and is not intended to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, most deeply regrets that he has unavoidably been detained and wishes to express his apologies to the Committee for being unable to join me in introducing this amendment. However, I have had many discussions with the noble Lord on the appropriate name of this authority.
It is clear from the Explanatory Memorandum, and indeed from the body of the Bill, that this authority will have responsibility only in England and Wales. As was made clear by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, during Second Reading, it is not the practice in this country to apply the epithet "national" to a body that relates to only a part of the United Kingdom. In the terms in which we ordinarily speak, this will not be a national authority. I do not believe that it is appropriate that it should be so called.
Secondly, although it will inherit the tasks of the former river authorities among many other duties that it takes on from the present water authorities, it is made clear in the Explanatory Memorandum that it has a remit that is very much wider. It covers the protection of fresh water, including lakes and ground waters, estuarine and coastal waters, flood defence, fisheries, recreation and navigation. Therefore to call it merely a rivers authority is totally inappropriate and fails to indicate to anyone the duties of this authority
It is true that we have very quickly become used to calling it the National Rivers Authority. In the trade, as it were, it has been called immediately the NRA. These letters have begun to slip off the tongue. But it is such a short time since this name was coined that I foresee absolutely no difficulty whatsoever in adapting to another name equally quickly, especially if that other name is more apt and indicates more clearly to the public and to the authority's employees and its management the full range of important functions that this authority will assume if the Bill becomes law.
The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, and I have discussed alternatives and have played around with many combinations of short names that try to encapsulate in them the essence of the functions that this new authority is intended to assume. We propose the name, the Water Protection and Environment Authority. We find no other existing public authority that has an acronym that this calls to mind. We foresee no conflict with any other existing body in

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that sense. We feel that this name is appropriate because it indicates what the authority has to do. We do not feel that this is a trivial amendment. It has no implication whatsoever for the functions of this authority. Therefore at the opening moment of the Committee on this Bill, in order that the new usage can rapidly become familiar, I beg to move the amendment.
Lord McNair: Perhaps I may make a brief intervention in the form of a question to the noble Earl. Would it not be better if instead of Water Protection and Environment Authority we talked of the Water and Environment Protection Authority? As the amendment stands, it sounds as though this authority is in charge of the entire environment, whereas it is concerned only with that part which has to do with water.
The Earl of Cranbrook: That was indeed one of our candidates. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, who may be a better educated man than I, in the end overrode me because he maintained that the words to which the noble Lord referred just now were not strictly grammatical. One of them would have to be an adjective. There was the additional consideration that the initials are WEPA. We felt that it was a less attractive acronym.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Earl made a suggestion along these lines in a debate in this Chamber last year when he was arguing for a more widely based environmental protection agency. As I recall, I was somewhat cool to the idea because I felt that changing names does not change very much. What is important is to change functions. Although I have come round to the view that an environmental protection agency more broadly based is a wise policy, I am nervous about this amendment because of the point in which the noble Earl himself rejoices: that it changes only the name without in any way changing the functions.
Noble Lords who have seen the Marshalled List of amendments will understand that we propose to spend a considerable time in the coming days seeking to change the functions of the National Rivers Authority. I hope that many of the amendments will be acceptable to the noble Earl, with his well-known interest in the environment. I also hope that many will be acceptable to the Government. Even if the noble Earl feels it necessary to withdraw his amendment now, if he feels that sufficient progress has been made on the functions I hope that he will return to his amendment at a later stage. I would not wish to oppose it now. I could wish that it had been accompanied by a comprehensive and searching view of the functions of the National Rivers Authority as proposed. However, if we make real progress in improving the powers and the functions of the National Rivers Authority, it would be a suitable opportunity for the noble Earl to return to his amendment at a later stage.
The Earl of Caithness: The purpose of this amendment is to change the name of what the Bill calls the National Rivers Authority in order to describe more accurately its functions. My noble friend Lord Cranbrook has suggested that the NRA is neither national, because it does not cover either Scotland or Northern Ireland, nor solely a rivers authority, because its writ extends to other inland and coastal waters as well as to flood defence and other functions stretching well beyond the management of rivers.
I have to say that I have considerable sympathy with these points. Both of the shortcomings identified are perfectly correct, and the name National Rivers Authority does not describe the new body's functions with literal accuracy. However, I would pose two questions. First, is the title as it stands likely seriously to mislead anyone? I would suggest that it will not. The word "national" in its title will presumably not worry the Scots, who will simply never encounter it, and it accurately conveys the notion that it operates at national rather than local level, especially to those who regard both England and Wales as nations within a United Kingdom. Nor is the use of the word "national" at all unprecedented. Perhaps I may remind Members of the Committee that, contrary to what my noble friend has just said, both the National Water Council and the National Bus Company were limited to England and Wales.
Nor, I believe, will the brevity of the reference to rivers lead the public to misunderstand its wider role. After all, there are, I am afraid, many bodies where the name does not give a full picture of all its functions. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I quote as an example the department where I have the honour to serve as a Minister. It is certainly true that the Department of the Environment deals with environmental matters. But the name does not, perhaps, suggest the full range of responsibilities for housing, local government, planning and sports, as well as more obviously environmental issues. However, I suggest that the name Department of the Environment provides an instant and easily remembered reference to its major functions. Similarly, for the new authority to be called a rivers authority identifies its primary responsibilities.
But my second question is whether the title the movers of the amendment suggest would actually be an improvement. My noble friend Lord Cranbrook referred to the acronym "NRA" as "slipping off our tongues". I suggest that is actually a very relevant and accurate remark. By contrast, I suggest that the WPEA—"weepy" or "whipper"—would have to fight its way off the tongue. That is one consideration, and I do not think it is an entirely trivial one. But even as regards accuracy, I am not convinced that it would be a significant improvement. I suggest that the amendment falls foul of the accusation made against our proposed wording. The "water protection" element is acceptable, but the words "and environment" immediately conjure up a very wide environmental role, as the noble Lord, Lord McNair, has just said, whereas the NRA's environmental functions will all be strictly related to water.

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I hope that I have demonstrated that my lack of enthusiasm for this amendment does not simply arise from the "not invented here" syndrome, but from a belief that the title already in the Bill is, on balance, the better choice.
There is another point. It is also relevant that this form has become well established. The committee under my noble friend Lord Crickhowell is already known as the National Rivers Authority Advisory Committee and there is every expectation that the body for which it is preparing will be known as the National Rivers Authority. To change its name at this stage would I believe be more likely to confuse than to clarify.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: This may seem a very frivolous point, but it is real. At present the relationships between Scotland and the national government are a matter of very serious debate in Scotland. To include the word "national" in the title of the authority when it does not apply to Scotland or to Northern Ireland is quite insensitive, and it is wrong. I beg the Minister to look at this again and to seek something more representative of the facts where possible in the title.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has said. I agree with the Minister that the suggestion in the amendment is probably not the right one. I wonder whether this body cannot continue to be called the National Rivers Authority, but simply with a sub-title "of England and Wales".
The Earl of Caithness: I toss the ball firmly back to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, and to my noble friend, and I ask why they do not come forward with amendments as indeed might the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and my noble friend again and the noble Lord, Lord McNair, so that we can vote on each amendment at Report stage? The one with the largest majority might take the day.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I assure the Minister that the Opposition will concentrate on the substance not on the name.
The Earl of Caithness: That is what we want to do, too.
The Earl of Cranbrook: We have heard a variety of opinion round the Floor. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said, this is not a decisive issue on which the Committee should be divided. I hope that my noble friend will ruminate on this proposal during the course of the Bill and will perhaps change his mind towards the end so that this body can have a name which in my view will better indicate the functions of the authority. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 10, after ("purpose") insert ("of owning the freehold of land transferred from water authorities and").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 2, I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 8 which is the substantive amendment. Amendment No. 2 is necessary because the introductory sentence of the Bill refers only to the functions assigned or transferred to the National Rivers Authority, whereas we are concerend that the National Rivers Authority should have responsibility for the ownership of freehold land, which is not quite the same thing.
All regular attenders in this Chamber will have received a substantial volume of lobbying material—to put it impolitely—of argument from those throughout the country concerned with environmental matters and about the risks to the environment contained in this Water Bill. I want to repeat what I said at Second Reading: the Opposition are not opposed to the establishment of a National Rivers Authority. However, we believe that the protection which is possible under a National Rivers Authority is substantially greater than in the earlier privatisation proposals of this Government in 1986. To that extent we are grateful for the changes that have been made.
It is quite clear from the extremely well-informed pressure coming from bodies whose whole raison d'etre is the preservation of the environment, that the improvement does not go far enough. Some of these bodies are understandably cautious in their approach to the Bill. Bodies such as the National Consumer Council or the Nature Conservancy Council are funded by government. But if one reads between the lines, their evidence combined with the evidence of bodies such as the Consumers Association, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and Wales and many other bodies, it is clear that their concerns about the environmental risks of the privatisation of water go very deep and are well founded. We have literally dozens of amendments on the Marshalled List to protect particular parts of the environment. They will be debated as we proceed through the Bill.
But there is an opportunity now at the outset of the Bill to pass one amendment, or in this case two, which will go to the heart of the concerns of the environmentalists. At the heart of environmental concerns is the fear that the successor companies, the plcs which will take over from the existing water authorities, will have a different set of priorities and a different kind of pressure on their activities which will lead them to put the protection of the environment lower on their list of priorities than the water authorities do and will put at risk the environment of our country.
The way in which we can cut short a great deal of debate in this Committee is by approving these amendments which keep the ownership of the land now owned by the water authorities in the hands of a public body, the National Rivers Authority, rather than transferring them to the new water supply plcs.

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It is on that basis that I commend these amendments to the Committee.
The holdings of the water authorities are very much more substantial than had originally been thought. We are talking here about nearly half a million acres of land. Some authorities have small holdings; the Southern Water Authority holds only 9,000 acres. The North West Water Authority, on the other hand, holds 150,000 acres of which 35,000 acres are in the Lake District. A very substantial part of the Peak District is owned by water authorities. Large chunks of central Wales, the Brecon Beacons, the Elan Valley, are owned by water authorities. Throughout the country there are enormous numbers of large and small pieces of land, many of them in natural parks, and a very high proportion in areas of exceptional scientific and environmental interest, which will, under the Bill, be transferred to the new water companies.
The Countryside Commission, a government-funded body, has produced a list of the sites of conservation and recreation value currently in the ownership of water authorities which will be transferred. I do not propose to read out that list; but the cover price of this publication is £10, and we can thereby see that we are talking about a considerable amount of land and a considerable possibility of misuse of land.
I suggest that these amendments seek to protect the amenity land owned by water authorities. The Secretary of State in another place on 4th April rejoiced in the fact that the Water Bill was achieving the privatisation of nearly 500,000 acres of land. I do not believe that that is the basis on which water privatisation is being sold to the public. The argument put forward by this Government and by the Prime Minister is that the Water Bill will privatise the water services in the hope that they and the sewerage services will be more efficient. The Bill has not been put forward as one which will privatise land, particularly land of environmental value.
The transfer of the land to the new water companies is a side issue. Nothing that we are proposing will damage the ability of the water companies to carry out their job efficiently. There is no reduction in the availability of operational land to the water companies. There is no threat to the privatisation proposals. If the amendments are passed, the water companies will be free to concentrate on the job which they are supposed to do—that is, the provision of water and sewerage services. The Government have described them as being the "core activities" of the water companies.
I argue that the amendments protect not only the amenity value of the land but also the water industry. There are subsections in the new clause which protect the long-term interests of the water companies. In other words, if they find that they have a subsequent need for operational land which had not been identified at the outset there is a procedure to make that land available to them. There is also a possibility of an appeal to the Secretary of State if there is disagreement between the authority and the new water companies. They are protected by being able
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to keep the operational land they need when they need it and not when they do not need it.
I also argue that the amendments have a significant benefit for the Director General of Water Services. As the Bill stands, he will have a package of regulatory duties which include the responsibility for the regulation of the non-operational land required by the water companies. I suggest that that is a distraction from his real purposes and from the basis on which the role of Director General of Water Services has been, or ought to be, set up. The amendments will simplify his task and concentrate his mind, and that of the water companies, on the supply of water.
I suggest to the Committee that the amendments also protect the taxpayer. On Second Reading I referred to the unfortunate case of the Royal Ordnance Factories, which were sold to British Aerospace at a price which was significantly less than the disposal value of only one part of the Royal Ordnance Factories' assets—that is, the un-needed non-operational land. It is clear that in that case the taxpayers lost out and the Government, although not apologising in terms for the error, made it clear that such an error ought not to be allowed again.
The protection provided by the amendments is a protection for the Government and the taxpayer. If they are passed we run no risk of disposing of non-operational land at a knockdown price which can then be recovered many times over by the resale of that non-operational land. Non-operational land which is not required for the water services will remain public property. It will remain subject to the protection of the National Rivers Authority with all of the functions which will be transferred to it. The authority will have the prime object of preserving recreational access and conservation.
It is curious that the Secretary of State did not appear to understand his own Bill when responding to a similar amendment—not such a good amendment—in another place. On 21st March in another place he said:
"If the hon. Gentleman"—
he meant my honourable friend Dr. Cunningham—
"wants all the land to be vested in the NRA, what is there to stop the NRA from developing it as it surely should in order to maximise its assets?".—[Official Report, House of Commons: 21/3/89; col. 973.]
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will confirm that it is not the object of the NRA to maximise its assets. Its object is to provide a regulatory and testing function, protecting the environment, and not to maximise such assets as may have been transferred to it. Even if the Secretary of State had been correct in suggesting that that was the object of the NRA, surely such an object should have been explained more clearly than it has been.
We understand that the NRA is intended to be an environmental protection agency by one name or another—let us not enter into another argument about the name. But if it is to be an effective environmental protection agency, I suggest to the Committee that it must have the responsibility for the land which is not required for operational purposes and which can be maintained for the protection of the public.
I know that a number of my noble friends and noble Lords in other parts of the Committee have received evidence from environmental bodies which they will be presenting in support of these amendments. I wish to make a final comment in support of the amendments. They are not a threat to the privatisation of water. They present a rationalisation of the procedures under which water is to be privatised. They concentrate the minds of the managers of the privatised water industry on what is supposed to be their task; that is, the provision of water services. They take away from them responsibility and concern for matters which should not be part of their concern.
The noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and other noble Lords have tabled amendments which will be debated on Thursday. They will replace the plc status of privatised water companies by a statutory water company status. I urge the noble Lord to look sympathetically on my amendments because, while not being in conflict with his amendments, they will go a long way towards giving the kind of result which he seeks to achieve in his amendments. There is no conflict in them. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and I think alike on these matters and, if the amendments are passed, we shall have a water industry concentrating on its business, an environmental agency concentrating on its business, and both acting for the public good. That is not what the Bill provides at the moment. I beg to move.
Lord Ezra: During the Second Reading debate many of the noble Lords who participated drew attention to the public apprehensions which have been created by the Bill. One of the apprehensions was the question of what would happen to the land. The landholdings of the water authorities are substantial; they are approximately 500,000 acres. Those pieces of land have important environmental value. The bulk of the landholdings are in fact required for operational purposes. They are required to safeguard water supplies. In those circumstances and having created the National Rivers Authority—a body which will be concerned with safeguarding the environment and the protection of water supplies—it seems to me that that would be the proper body to own the freehold to that land. It should make sure that it is used for the best purposes as regards the protection and environmental impact of water supplies.
If such pieces of land were to become surplus to requirements then the amendments which we propose will allow for that. A case could be made by a water authority, which would have leased the land which it presently owns, that it should be released from its leasehold obligations and allowed to sell that land. Having made its case, I have no doubt that it could put that land on the open market.
I believe that the amendment proposed would go a long way to alleviating public fears about what may happen to the water authorities' land under the privatisation proposals. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government will look seriously at this amendment, because if there is one aspect of this proposed legislation which achieved virtually
18
unanimous support it is the creation and role of the National Rivers Authority. The purpose of this amendment is to strengthen that role as regards the environment and the protection of water supplies.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Renten: It is quite clear from the figures given to us by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in moving the amendment that a very large amount of land would be covered by its scope. Indeed, it seems to me that if we give the National Rivers Authority that responsibility, it will perhaps become the largest public or private landowner in the country.
Although there are apprehensions as to what may happen to places where we should be protecting the environment under this Bill—and we shall discuss that later—I do not feel that what is proposed is necessarily the best way of protecting the environment. I can understand the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, moving this amendment because he has a predilection towards public ownership, even of land. However, the amount of land involved will, as I say, not only make the National Rivers Authority the largest landowner in the country—even larger than the defence departments, which still own quite a lot of land—but it will be in effect (and I know it is not intended in this way) a partial nationalisation of land by the back door. Therefore, not merely for doctrinaire reasons or reasons of principle but for practical reasons, I would be against the amendment.
Perhaps I may invite your Lordships' attention to the terms of subsection (1) of Amendment No. 8 which states:
"Any land owned by a water authority before the transfer date shall on that date vest in the National Rivers Authority".
An ambiguity arises at once because the word "any" in that context might be interpreted as meaning "all"; in other words, all land. I believe that we are entitled to ask the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, whether it is his intention in moving the amendment that all land owned by the water authorities at present shall at first vest in the National Rivers Authority.
If one then turns to subsection (5) of that amendment, it states:
"Any question as to whether any interest in land is required by a successor company at the time of transfer under Schedule 2 for the purposes of fulfilling its functions"—
that is the statutory water company's functions. It continues:
"shall be determined by the Director General of Water Services appointed under Section 5".
Therefore, it seems that subject to that possibility of a statutory water authority applying for ownership of some of the land and subject to the Director General of Water Services agreeing that that should happen, this land transferred to the National Rivers Authority shall, to that extent, be transferred to those who will really need it for water purposes under the Bill.
The difficulty I fear in this matter is that there will be a duplication and an overlapping of functions in relation to land. I have been trying to fathom how the National Rivers Authority, given that power to own that large amount of land, is to dispose of

19
surplus assets in due course. Also, one wonders what would happen to any land which became surplus to the requirements of the statutory water companies.
We need to bear in mind that at present the water authorities—the largest of them has its headquarters at Huntingdon, only five miles from where I live—own a great deal of urban property. Its own premises are very considerable. That is in distinction from its upland holdings which comprise by far the greater amount of property at present owned by the water authorities. Therefore, that would be affected by this amendment.
However, apart from those difficulties which I hope could be explained by the mover of the amendment, I should have thought that this scheme would not give any public satisfaction. The public are not anxious for public authorities to own more land than they really require for their statutory purposes. There has been a tendency for years on the part of public authorities in general to hoard land when they have it. We do not wish to see that continuing.
Lord Broadbridge: This is a cross-party amendment and I urge noble Lords of whatever party, or no party, to support it.
Broadly, this Bill is as much about land as it is about water. As we have heard, the nub of the matter is to afford real protection against unfortunate disposal of any of the 484,000 acres of land and water held by the 10 water boards, protection which the present Bill does not afford however loud the Minister may protest. We have a growing population. More and more people want first and second homes. Britain is inelastic, so that half a million acres will be more precious with each succeeding year in relative as well as absolute terms.
The Bill's main effort in the direction of protection is in Clause 10, by reference to a code of practice. However, before that, Clauses 8 and 9 seek to give a sort of preamble. Gritty phrases are used, such as the necessity to "have regard to" and "to take into account". However, the guidelines in the draft code of practice are no more stringent. The Bill states that the purpose of the code is to give practical guidance and to,
"promote what appear to be desirable practices".
In a particularly purple passage in Clause 10(2), it states that a contravention of a code of practice shall not give rise to any criminal or civil liability.
The draft code was published on 24th January 1989, together with a press release which, in its ultimate paragraph, stated:
"In enforcing these duties on the new water plcs the Secretary of State would take into account the extent to which they have followed the terms of statutory codes of practice giving practical guidance in relation to those duties".
If the Secretary of State is admitting in the press release summary that he will take into account the extent to which the undertakings have followed the terms of statutory codes of practice, he is admitting that he expects it to be haphazard and seems to have knocked a hole in his own bucket before he even reaches the code of practice itself.
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However, the code of practice is wishy-washy and completely lacks the word "must". For example, of the natural environment the code of practice states:
"Relevant bodies should therefore respond positively",
and of the protection of buildings of interest, on page 23 it states:
"Relevant bodies are required… to have regard to the desirability of protecting buildings".
Last month the Countryside Commission published a report called Sites of Conservation and Recreational Value Currently in the Ownership of Water Authorities, in which it said:
"Some water authorities do not hold accurate information on the extent of their ownership of individual catchments. Others were reluctant to disclose detailed information about their holdings and one authority, Anglian Water, refused to contribute to this study".
Well, if a water authority will not now even contribute to a study of what assets are held, I do not get a good gut feel about what authorities might do with them after privatisation.
I said at Second Reading that without capitalisation and with the need to pay realistic dividends from a business growing at only about 1 per cent. per annum there will be great pressure on the new plcs to dispose of assets for cash; indeed, I gave an example of the way in which Thames Water is doing just that at this very moment by seeking to dispose of its Stoke Newington reservoirs and filter beds for a vast building development. There will be pressure too on local authorities to allow such developments—they also need the money—so I do not believe that the omnibus government fall-back position, stated by the Minister in winding up on Second Reading, that the Bill is not about legislating for land disposal and that this will be taken care of by the normal planning procedures, holds (dare I say it?) any water at all.
A recent lobby I attended—almost every national body concerned with nature and the environment was present—universally thought that a coach and horses could be driven through the Bill's provisions designed to protect environmental land and water against disposal. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors states that it,
"is satisfied that neither the Code nor the Bill as drafted could prevent this happening".
The amendment is designed to put some teeth into the Bill's toothless gums by making provisions that are mandatory; to substitute "must" for "having regard to" or "to provide as far as is reasonably practicable", set in a context without loopholes.
Our environment is a diminishing asset. It is melting away like ice in the sun. What we have is what our ancestors left us. We have a duty to protect it. In the political chaos that surrounded the outbreak of the Second World War, a Member in another place uttered an immortal phrase: "Speak for England". I urge the Committee to support this amendment and, in so doing, to do just that. Noble Lords will then earn the grateful applause of their contemporaries and successors.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: I support this Bill——
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Lockwood Baroness Lockwood—as amended in due course in Committee, on Report, and so on. I support the amendment. I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Renton, say that the public were not interested in public bodies owning more land than is necessary. I suggest that the public are not interested in the sale of the land that surrounds our reservoirs. That seems fairly clear from public opinion polls and from the views of the various organisations opposed to the Bill.
It is obvious from any analysis that water and sewerage are of themselves not the attraction of privatisation. It is the land assets that are likely to lead to a successful flotation. That was made clear at a recent meeting of the Yorkshire Water Authority which has already established itself into three separate parts in anticipation of privatisation: first, the core of the water authority; secondly, administration; and, thirdly, enterprise. The purpose of the enterprise section is to maximise profits; the authority has made no bones about that. The authority says that it is not its intention at the moment to sell off the land within the Yorkshire region; nevertheless, there are other ways in which it can maximise the profit from the land.
Yorkshire Water Authority owns about 75,000 acres, of which only 16,000 acres are operational. Even the 16,000 acres raise doubts in some people's minds as to whether the whole acreage is needed for operational purposes. The remaining acreage is either agricultural or amenity land. Apart from the district of Calderdale, the land is largely in the national parks area and surrounding areas of exceptional beauty. In the Calderdale district, incidentally, about 17,000 acres of land are in the ownership of the Yorkshire Water Authority. That constitutes 19 per cent. of the land within the borough. Obviously that 19 per cent. could cause considerable concern to the Calderdale District Council because it is largely moorland which provides a lung for the workers in the urban area of Halifax and some of the surrounding smaller districts in the conurbation. Therefore, it is an important area that needs protection. The amendment put forward by my noble friend would provide the necessary protection.
I give the Committee three illustrations of the fears that exist at present. The first relates to the Peak Park Authority Joint Planning Board which reports that negotiations on the future management of existing recreational facilities owned by the water industry are proving to be more difficult than expected. The water authority is seeking a greater contribution to costs from the board. It is seeking to alter some of the policies that have already been agreed between the board and the water authority and it is changing some of the developments which were previously agreed—developments such as access. It is now fencing open moorland and proposing the closure of concession paths. That is one area in the Peak District which is already proving
22
to be difficult because of the proposed privatisation and the new developments that might be available to the companies which will be set up.
In the Yorkshire Dales national park there is concern over the Grimworth reservoir which was initially earmarked for quiet recreational facilities such as walking and observing the wildlife of the area. Planning permission was limited to a car park with toilet facilities. Outline planning has now been granted for a major leisure centre on the shores of the reservoir which would change the whole atmosphere of the reservoir. That may be more lucrative for private profit; it would nevertheless be an intrusion into the national park.
The third area of concern is Nidderdale, just outside the Yorkshire Dales national park. The Yorkshire Ramblers' Association has applied for a new footpath. It is meeting with some resistance from the water authority. Here again, the fear is that this is because of what might be allowed if the Bill is enacted and the land privatised. There are some very real fears about what will happen to the land adjoining these reservoirs. It seems that the amendments put forward by my noble friend will not only safeguard the public and the environmental interests but at the same time they will also enable the essential development of the water industry to proceed. I therefore support the amendments.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has persuasively invited me to support him. I sympathise with his objective. I understand the very general anxieties that exist all over the country about the development of these; huge areas that run into hundreds of thousands of acres across the land. I believe that it will be too drastic for all the land owned by the regional water authorities to be taken away and moved over to the National Rivers Authority. The greater part of the land will be required by the companies of the future. I believe that the safer and more realistic approach is the one that I have in mind. I hope that I shall be able to persuade the Committee to accept it. We should have the statutory water company model instead of the plc in the Bill. As Members of the Committee have rightly said, the plc has the primary motive of making a profit. It is believed that this will give it the incentive to efficiency for the benefit of all. This is not the moment for me to develop that argument, but I do not believe that is so.
If there is a statutory water company it pays fixed dividends and any surplus made goes to reduce the charges to the consumer the following year. So there is no incentive to develop this land. Occasionally, it will wish to develop a site where there have been some works and it is intended to build new ones to help meet the cost. In a general way it does not have the incentive to do this. Therefore we have the major safeguard in the statutory water company that it will not be moved to make the kind of profit which the plc will see it as its duty to do. For that reason I prefer my solution to the problem because I believe that this land should be left to the companies of the future. Most of it will be wanted. If it was a statutory water company the safeguards would be massive. It will not have the incentive and the planning controls

23
and the other factors will take care of the problem. While I sympathise with the noble Lord, I am sorry that I am unable to accept his persuasive invitation to support him.
Lord Walston: The objectives of the noble Lords, Lord Nugent and Lord McIntosh, are not very far apart. But it is not for us today to discuss the relative merits of the methods they propose in order to achieve those objectives. We have before us a very simple means of achieving that which a large number of us wish. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, will not be surprised to learn that I am not—as he apparently is—a doctrinaire privatiser. I have no objection to private or to nationally owned enterprises. In certain cases one is better than the other. Many years ago, in company with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, I produced a pamphlet in which I argued against the nationalisation of agricultural land. I still adhere very largely to those arguments.
I remind Members of the Committee who do not know that one of the largest landowners in this country is the Crown Estates. That is scarcely a nationalised concern, but it is certainly not a private one. It is run through what some would call a bureaucracy. It is governed by certain well-defined rules. I believe that it is a very efficiently run organisation. I cite that as an example to show that one can have, in some form of public ownership, a large amount of land which can be just as efficiently run as any privately owned land and which can at the same time be devoted in large measure to the welfare of the community as a whole rather than to the enrichment of private individuals or certain shareholders.
If this amendment is adopted, as I hope it will be, two results will follow. One is that the price paid for the privatised water companies will be significantly lower because a great deal of the potential assets would have been removed. If the objective of privatising water was to raise money for the Exchequer so that it can be used for one reason or another, that would be a strong argument against this amendment. But that argument has never been put forward. We are not told that the country needs this money because we are short of cash so this has to be done. We know that we are very far from short of cash, because of Budget surpluses and so on.
The arguments put forward are solely those of the efficiency of the water supply, sewerage facilities, and so on. So the money argument cannot be of any significance to those who are really interested in the objectives of this Bill; namely, the provision of a more effective method of supplying water and taking away sewage. I believe that in the eyes of almost every Member of the Committee the other result will be a very beneficial one. It will safeguard the environment and remove large areas—we have heard of 450,000 or close to half a million acres of land, some of great scenic beauty—from the risk of being exploited by the new owners in order to increase their profit and the dividends of those who have backed them with their investments. It will diminish their returns but it will ensure that the land is not subjected to the desire of its new owners to
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make profit by development. It will be maintained for the benefit of the whole community for access to the wide open spaces, places of beauty, the habitats of threatened species and species that are not threatened and give a great deal of pleasure to the population of these islands.
I hope that many Members of the Committee have an open mind on this issue. I strongly urge them to weigh up these two benefits and decide which they want to see take place. Do Members of the Committee wish to see the Treasury enriched by a few more millions or possibly billions of pounds and risk the large part of the 450,000 acres being developed in a way which is profitable, but which is not acceptable to most of the people of this country who are concerned about the environment; or do they wish to ensure that the land is protected, as far as one can ensure, in perpetuity for the welfare of all the people who live here?
4 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: I also wish to be known as someone who is very interested in the environment and who cares passionately about it. I also want my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, when I am old and doddery—or just older and more doddery than I am at the moment—to enjoy a proper and sensitive environment. I also support the notion of the privatisation of water. I believe that there is great merit in the idea of my noble friend Lord Nugent, which we shall discuss later, as regards statutory water companies. However, there is no merit in a private water company, a public water authority or a statutory water company sitting on assets and not doing anything with them. It is the duty of any form of water ownership vehicle to maximise the use of its assets. It follows that such maximisation must be heavily policed, and heavily policed for the reasons which I gave at the beginning of my remarks.
The National Rivers Authority must be given more powers and more teeth than it has at the moment. I hope that we shall do that later in Committee. It is illogical that a body whose job it is to control and police the behaviour of the water authority, water plc or water statutory company, whatever its final shape may be, should be a land holder. The National Rivers Authority should be a heavy footed plod. It should go around kicking Roy Watts or his successors to ensure that the water we all need is produced in an environmentally sensitive and clean way. However, we should not let that plod become a landowner. That would be counterproductive.
Lord Ross of Newport: The amendment may not be the ideal solution, but if the Committee passes it, as I trust it will, the Government will certainly have to think again. It is a sad fact that rather late in the day we are having to claw at whatever is available. Therefore the suggestion that the land should be placed in the National Rivers Authority is a late and perhaps a desperate solution. However, if it does not happen in this way and if the water companies are not acceptable to the Government, a great deal of

25
this land, as the noble Lord, Lord Renton, does not seem to appreciate, will be at risk in terms of development. Few Members of the Committee would want to see that happen.
My political career, such as it is, started because of a scandal over an area of the constituency which I used to represent. The land should have been protected. The local authority received undertakings from two councillors of the authority, one of whom used to be a Member of another place, that the area would be protected from speculation. What happened? An application came in to build 260 houses around that harbour. It very nearly went through but was turned down in the end by one vote. To his credit the Secretary of State also turned it down, but there was an enormous fight over it. The public took that out on the sitting Member of Parliament when the next general election came. That is how I came to another place. It is a lesson the Government should take on board.
I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, really wants to see Rutland Water or the Elan Valley put at risk. Much of the land should be returned to the local authorities because it was taken from them in the first place. Admittedly, water authorities have developed some of the land since. Sheffield city council very sensibly, so we are told, kept most of that development out and the central estate at the time supported it. I wish that many other local authorities had done the same thing. I used to be taken up the Elan Valley by my grandmother. She was proud of what Birmingham had done. We do not want to see that put at risk. I have seen the problems caused by speculation. I happen to know that a great many mobile home park developers are looking keenly at the water authority land. One of them wanted to retain me to see what I could do on his behalf but I said that I was not interested. That is what is going on.
I have been given some statistics which no doubt other noble Lords have seen. I ask the Minister when he comes to reply to confirm whether or not they are true. We are told that in 1987–88 nearly 30 per cent. of planning applications in the English national parks which had been refused by an authority were allowed on appeal. In the Lake District the figure was as high as 45 per cent. That is why the public are worried, and that is why we must do something about it.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that the amendment was not intended to be against the privatisation of water. The noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, said the same thing. Whether or not the amendment undermines privatisation, it is clear that the arguments they produced in support of the amendment will certainly undermine the successful privatisation of water. If the successor companies are suspected from the start of being antisocial, of not being prepared to do their duty to look after the purity of water and of wanting to go off at a tangent to make money out of the development and sale of land, it would not take a great deal of thought to come to the conclusion that people who may well be worthy successors will not want to enter into it. The noble Lord, Lord Walston,
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said that no argument had been presented about the money side. It is perfectly true that the Bill seeks to ensure that we have purer water than some people say we have at the moment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that I am putting unworthy thoughts into the minds of the pure souled and high-minded people who are proposing to take over our water authorities, and that it would not have occurred to them otherwise to dispose of their land assets for a profit?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The whole burden of the noble Lord's argument was that unless the land is publicly owned, or in large measure publicly owned, by the National Rivers Authority, the successor companies would do unworthy things. Other noble Lords made the same suggestion. I understand their feelings on the matter. I have much more confidence in the powers and the skills of the planning authorities to provide protection than I have in the amendment doing it.
The successful privatisation of the industry could be undermined if the atmosphere is soured. We would not then get the money for it that otherwise we might get. It is not the main purpose of privatisation to get money. The noble Lord is quite right on that.
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is so eager to win the next election that he is willing to decry his own arguments as to the un worthiness of private enterprise to take over some of these facilities. We must not ignore the money that we are likely to get. The official Opposition are the last people in the world to do that. On other privatisation measures the whole burden of their criticism has been that assets have been sold off at too low a price When they want to be critical for party political reasons they are the first to talk about the money received. This amendment would interfere with the price. Amendment No. 8 states:
"Any land owned by a water authority before the transfer date shall on that date vest in the National Rivers Authority".
If we are to ask someone else to take on the full control of providing us with pure water and take away from that body the facilities which the previous owners and controllers had without very good reason, then the very fact that the present authorities have needed the land—because it has been in their possession—is at any rate an argument to show that it really was needed. Therefore if you say to the body which will take over the eventual responsibility of providing pure water that you will take away part of the facilities which the previous operator had that is bound to undermine the general approach of the possible successor companies.
We are all at one on all sides of the Committee in wanting to protect the environment; there is no argument about that fact. We feel it is right that the facilities which the general public now have should not be wilfully taken away from them. That is why over the years—and for a long time some of us have

27
had many long battles with the authorities—we have set up a planning authority with planning powers the job of which is to do just that. Whether it is the successor companies which own the land, or whoever owns it, I am happy to leave the preservation of the environment to the authorities. They will approach the matter in a right and impartial way; that is, in no way interfering, or undermining the ability of the successor companies to go on doing the job, by taking away part of the assets which were previously there. I think that what is proposed would risk doing just that.
Finally, I suggest, at this early stage of the Bill's progress, that if we approach the matter on the basis that no successor companies can have the morality which is necessary to undertake the task, that is likely to interfere with the successful privatisation of this general asset. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, who we all respect so much and who as we know has much knowledge of, and influence in, the water industry generally. We must not approach the matter, whether by means of the amendment now before us or the amendment which my noble friend has in mind to produce later in the Bill's proceedings, on the basis that all of the moral and all of the decency is only on the side of a nationally-owned property.
If I heard him correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, went so far as to suggest that there could be a collaboration between local authorities which wanted land developed for their local authority profit and the successor companies which will eventually be running the industry. That is why the Bill provides for the eventual power of the Secretary of State to prevent any body being able to do just that. Indeed, the noble Lord who used to represent the Isle of Wight, and who has just given us the benefit of his personal experience, gave an example where in point of fact the power of the Secretary of State prevented the very thing happening which he said he did not want to happen in this matter. Therefore that is living proof: the fact that the noble Lord did just that in the Isle of Wight. Indeed, he now sits here as a result of the reputation he earned by carrying out that great task. The planning authority, plus the powers of the Secretary of State, will provide all the prevention that we need to ensure that the environment is not damaged. It must be done in a way which will not devalue the amount of money which we shall eventually receive, and which will not undermine the successful prosecution of the privatisation of this industry.
Lord Ross of Newport: Perhaps I may intervene here for a moment. I must say that the situation was not like that; indeed, it was a whole history of events. In fact, a great battle had to be fought by vast numbers of people in order to achieve that effect at the end of the day. The whole process took nearly a year.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I am not suggesting that there will not be many battles of that nature. However, I am saying that the provisions to prevent damage to the environment are already in the Bill.
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It must be said that whatever happens—great battles or little battles—the experience of the noble Lord proves that such power is there.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness White: The arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, are touching in their innocence, but hardly convincing. However, I shall not say that about the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford. If we were absolutely convinced about the amendments put forward by the noble Lord and his supporters, which we shall reach later this week, we should at least be much less worried. I say that because it is true that the pattern which he proposes carries with it an element of social responsibility which is not to be found in the pattern as set out in the Bill which is now before us.
Surely it is to delude oneself entirely not to recognise the fact that there will be intense pressure to maximise short-term profit taking on the land of the water companies. That fact stands out a mile. Indeed, anyone can see that. The industry which is to be privatised—the water industry—is inherently a low-growth-profile industry. No one can change that situation. Therefore those who purchase the stock and shares of the companies will recognise that and say, "The only way that we can really make money is by using our quick-term money spinners". Such money spinners will of course be the land. I do not think that I need say any more on the matter because it must be obvious to everyone.
I shall not press an argument which seems to me to be so obvious that anyone ought to be able to grasp it. I shall just deal with the two proposals for safeguarding the use of any land which may be disposed of. One safeguard is that the Secretary of State, who is a great planner, proposes to issue guidance notes. I have with me—as I think have many other Members of the Committee—the comments on those guidelines from the National Trust. It is not an unduly radical Left-wing body—and I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, as I speak. The trust's view on the proposed guidance notes, and the Bill as presently drafted, is that adequate safeguards have not been provided.
It says that,
"Those which exist are discretionary, unenforceable and would not apply once the land is no longer needed by the water companies… The powers of the proposed National Rivers Authority to police the management of water catchment land are only discretionary. The Secretary of State's enforcement role is subject to the need to give precedence to financial considerations and we believe this seriously weakens that role. The codes of practice proposed to help the new water plcs carry out their environmental duties will not be enforceable, and the Trust believes that this will gravely diminish their effectiveness and ultimate purpose".
I shall not labour the point because I think that view, which comes from an authoritative source, gives a very good summary of the efficacy, or lack of it, of the proposed code of practice.
I turn now to the other safeguard which has been suggested. It was stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls. I refer to the planning system. It has been said that we need not worry unduly because the planning authorities will safeguard the use of

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any land which may be disposed of by the new companies. First, in parts of the Principality of Wales (with which I am familar as Members of the Committee will be aware and where a considerable amount of land is under water authority ownership) other ways of developing land have been explored which may not be possible in the Thames area. For example, there is development through agriculture; through intensive afforestation; and through intensive recreational use where planning authorities will not necessarily be effective. However, I do not wish to detain the Committee too long on that aspect.
I am especially concerned about a matter which I am sure has been drawn to the attention of other Members of the Committee. I have with me a copy of a very well-researched statement made by the Council for the Protection of Rural England. The council has been working with a number of local authorities which have been very helpful in the matter. It reads, "such development"—that is, say, the development of land which has been disposed of by the water companies—
"will often be subject to planning permission"
That does not apply, as I say, to all the agricultural, recreational and forestry use. There will be other situations in which developments will be subject to planning permission. Then,
"the planning system will itself be distorted by the transfer of water authorities into the private sector".
I should be grateful if the Minister would deal with that matter when he replies, because at present water authorities are statutory consultees; in other words, if there is a planning application which may affect their interests, they have the right to be consulted. Will the water authorities planning consultative role be transferred to the new water companies? If not, is it to go to the NRA or is it merely to fall into disuse.
The Earl of Onslow: I have tabled an amendment to ensure that the consultation which applies to the water authorities goes not to their successor plc but to the NRA. It is a valid point. It is on the Marshalled List, but it is so far ahead that the noble Baroness may not have seen it.
Baroness White: I am delighted to know that. I hope that the noble Earl will be successful. We have no guarantee that he will be. While those companies are in the private sector they may reasonably be relied upon to offer impartial advice. That will be much more difficult for them when they are in the private sector and when their developments, or other developments, might be at stake, according to the advice that they give in reply to the consultation.
It is pointed out that in relation to planning applications for other developers—after all, this applies not just to the water authorities' own developments but to general developments within their catchment areas—the other developers may be their own shareholders or business associates or they could be their competitors. Of course they will be encouraged to diversify and to go into all kinds of fields. What guarantee do we have that, if the privatised plcs are brought into consultation on
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planning matters, they will find it possible entirely to disregard their business interests? That seems doubtful, especially when some major developments may be at stake; for example, in the Thames Water area. It will not apply so much to our noble hillsides in Wales because they will not make as much money out of us, whatever they do. It will apply to sites where there is real development value and one is trying to obtain impartial advice on the effect on the water supply or sewerage system of a particular planning application. I hope that the Minister will deal thoroughly with that point, because it will not be a practical safeguard to enforce under the proposals contained in the Bill
The Earl of Caithness: It may be helpful for subsequent speakers if I said a word now. I do not want to shorten the debate in any way but it might be helpful if at this stage I set out our position.
The Bill provides in Schedule 2 for the division of all the property, rights and liabilities of the water authorities between the successor bodies on the basis of their functions. Land required by the NRA for the discharge of its functions will be transferred to the authority. The residue will pass freehold to the successor companies.
The effect of the amendment would be to disturb a sensible division based on the most relevant and practicable criterion—the function that the land serves. In its place it would require that the freehold of all land be vested in the NRA, with such land as is required for the exercise of the companies' functions leased to those bodies but subject to such restrictions and covenants as may be necessary to ensure that any use or development of the land does not harm the environment or amenity.
I shall deal with the detailed arguments put forward for the amendment in a moment, but let me first draw attention to two fundamental, and, if I may say so, extraordinary features of the amendment. The first is this: we are to trust the companies, subject to the full and proper regulation which we shall impose, to provide drinking water and to dispose of sewage—functions of great importance; but we are not, it seems, to trust them with an acre of land. How can that be reasonable?—for just as the provision of water and sewerage services will be regulated, so too will ownership and management of land. It is, and will continue to be, regulated by the planning system. In special cases it is regulated also by national park and AONB designations and other controls, commensurate with its special needs and character. That is the fundamental reason why the amendment is inappropriate and should be rejected.
The second is the potential consequences for the NRA. The freehold of all the land, we are told, should vest in that body. Let us consider the effect of this. The body, which we are are told the Opposition support and are concerned only to make effective; the body which has the important task of controlling pollution, managing the water cycle and enhancing the environment of all rivers and estuaries—that body, if the amendment were carried, could find itself continously distracted from those central tasks by issues of land ownership and land management.

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I suggest that that would not be helpful, and nor is it necessary. What justification is there for the amendment? The fact is that the proposals in the Bill in respect of land are reasonable and sensible and fully protect the public interest.
So far as the amendment is intended to protect land while it is in the ownership of the successor bodies, it is quite unnecessary. We have provided that, so long as land is in the ownership of the successor bodies and used for their functions, it will be protected by the conservation, landscape and access duties which attach to them in performance of their functions. Those duties are substantial. They are enforceable by the Secretary of State and they are backed up by a code of practice whose content has been widely welcomed. We have in addition tabled an amendment to ensure that the present close co-operation between the water authorities and national park authorities continues after privatisation.
Baroness White: I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. Does he recognise that the national parks are much concerned about the fact that it is consultation only that is guaranteed?
4.30 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: The noble Baroness is keen to get to her feet. We are always keen to listen to her, but if she would listen to me until I finished that might speed matters up, because I shall deal with the point she has yet again reminded us of.
The water authorities have a good record in conservation and amenity. These provisions will ensure that that continues.
In supporting the amendment, a number of Members of the Committee have placed particular stress on the scale of the land assets in question. I do not deny that at approaching half a million acres they are very substantial. We recognise also that much of that land is of very great environmental significance, most of it in national parks or AONBs. We continue to have the closest regard for that. But the size and quality of the landholdings are not in themselves justification for this amendment. Most of the land in the national parks is, after all in private ownership, and there is no evidence that this leads to undesirable development or inhibits public enjoyment. On the contrary, most existing owners may be different from commercial plcs, but such companies are nevertheless open to public scrutiny of their actions and policies.
Nor are we persuaded by the argument that the water gathering grounds in the highlands and uplands, which constitute the bulk of the holdings, should more naturally pass to the NRA than the companies. I recognise that those lands are used for water resource protection, and water resource protection is a function of the NRA as well as of the companies; but the fact is that those areas are closely related to the reservoirs which they feed and which for water supply reasons are to pass to the undertakers.
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It is, I recognise, concern as to the position on subsequent disposal of any of the land which motivates this proposal; but if the land is sold by the plcs, changes of use will still be subject to the planning system, and that is the right mechanism to control what happens to land formerly in operational use by a water and sewerage utility. In many cases those controls will be supplemented, as now, by the special protection of national park and AONB designation.
In any case, much of the land is likely to be needed for operational purposes indefinitely. From time to time of course as in the past, some land may become surplus to the operational requirements of the core water and sewerage business, as a result of new investment, scope for rationalisation or other factors. Of course that will happen. But it is surely right that in these cases the company should be able to dispose of that land for better and more productive use.
There are safeguards provided for in the appointment to ensure that appointed water and sewerage undertakers have sufficient rights over land which is needed for the proper carrying on of their business. So long as they do, there can be no public interest in their sitting on land when it becomes surplus to operational needs which others could put to better use.
There has been some vague speculation in the press and elsewhere about the supposedly enormous development potential of water authority land. My right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales have appointed valuation advisers, and jointly with each of the water authorities they have appointed independent valuers to review the authorities' property holdings. Their work will help ensure that any information on land development prospects that is material to investors' decisions on whether to buy shares will be contained in the prospectuses of the companies.
We cannot freeze the pattern of land use; nor should we try. It makes no sense to give the companies important responsibilities and deny them the freehold land assets that go with them. If we want to make the NRA an effective regulatory body it will not help to require it to assume responsibility for vast acres of land not directly related to its own functions. Most important, nor can I accept the need to vest all water industry land in a public body to ensure proper planning, evironmental and conservation controls. Those controls are already there. They have been effective in the past and they will be so in the future.
We on this side of the Committee have a different philosophy from that of the party of noble Lords opposite. We are concerned with proper regulation and control so that the private sector can thrive. I am sure that all Members of the Committee agree that we have a wealth of beauty in our countryside, most of it man-made or fashioned by those in the private sector. In addition to approximately 80 per cent. of the national parks being privately owned, it is worth remembering that just 27 per cent. of our national nature reserves are owned by the NCC. Similarly, the considerable majority of SSSIs are privately owned.

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What is important is that we maintain and exercise the appropriate controls effectively. As my noble friend Lord Renton has reminded us, the Labour Party believes, in contrast, that ownership is more important than regulation and that the only way to proceed is by nationalising what it can—in this case the land. How convenient for the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, to start with this amendment, which is not the end of the story but the beginning of a systematic attack on all private ownership.
I have sought to deal with the main issues raised by this broad—indeed, sweeping—amendment. I have set out the considerations which make it in some respects unnecessary and in other respects undesirable. However, let me return to the question of the land, because it is worth remembering that we are talking of two separate types of land. I do not see the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, in his place after he spoke to the amendment, but both he and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, do not separate in their minds the hill land from land adjacent to developed land. If the latter land becomes, for one reason or another, surplus to operational requirements, what is to become of it under their proposals? Is it to remain as it is for ever more?
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, knows—but I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, does—the intense demand and pressure for housing land, particularly in the South-East. Five hundred and seventy-five thousand homes will be needed by the end of the century, a mere 11 years away. Are the parties opposite, through this amendment, to deny the opportunity—subject to all the usual planning approvals—to meet some of this need? There can be no doubt that if such land is not to be developed, the new-look Labour Party is forcing pressure for development on agricultural land.
However, in closing, let me respond to one particular argument to which we have listened with sympathy. We believe that we can separate the types of land in question. As I have said, we recognise that the water industry owns some land, principally in highland and upland areas, of quite outstanding beauty and environmental importance. I know that there are concerns in the country which many of your Lordships have expressed today that those particular areas should never be disposed of by the companies in circumstances which could jeopardise their conservation, access and amenity value. The Government have listened and are listening to the Committee on this point. It remains the Government's view that our planning and countryside legislation can deal with the great majority of risks. But we hear the argument that other risks may remain and that they are risks we should not run.
The Government are willing to act on that point. A number of proposals have been made for amendments to Clause 8 and elsewhere in the Bill. In the light of discussion of these alternatives, the Government propose to come forward with amendments at Report stage to secure that those countryside areas of special conservation and amenity value cannot be subsequently disposed of without a suitable measure of protection.
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We shall be debating this in more detail later in our proceedings and we shall listen to what your Lordships have to say. For that reason I cannot specify today which of the alternative options we should adopt. However, I can assure the Committee—let me repeat that; I can assure the Committee—that we shall come forward with a special measure of protection for those special areas. Our support for a special and particular measure of this kind cannot however extend to support for the sweeping terms of the amendment.
Baroness White: Before the Minister sits down I fully accept what he says about the further amendments. I have looked at Amendment No. 130 which uses the term "consult", but there may be other amendments on their way. Naturally we shall study them with great interest. However, I do not think that the Minister has dealt with the point about statutory consultation. What happens with the plcs? Will they have the same rights to consultation as the existing water authorities?
The Earl of Caithness: As I understand it, at the moment, yes. But of course that is one of the amendments which we shall discuss. I look forward to debating it and hearing the views of my noble friend Lord Onslow and doubtless those of the noble Baroness too.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: I welcome the Minister's statement, particularly the assurance which he gave at the conclusion of his speech. I felt that prior to his remarks we were getting off to a Second Reading debate on the quality of the Bill as such. That was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, who felt that the amendment before the Committee was designed to undermine the principle of the Bill. Some of us do not like the Bill, but that is not the purpose of the amendment. We are talking about land that is surplus to the requirements of the authorities which are carrying out——
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: It is land that is surplus to the requirements of the bodies. That is what we have been talking about. It is surplus to the operational requirements.
The Earl of Caithness: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will clarify the situation. As I read the amendment, it concerns all land, whether it is surplus to requirement or not.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Minister is quite right. The amendment refers to the freehold of all land. That land which is required at any lime for the operational requirements of the water supply plcs will be leased to the water supply plcs. Therefore they will be at no risk of lack of access to the land they need for their operations.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: That is the point—it is surplus to the operational requirements of the plcs. Reference has been made to the fact—the noble

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Lord, Lord Renton, was rather apprehensive about this—that 500,000 acres of land might fall into public hands. Perhaps I may say that I was responsible at one stage for almost 3 million acres operated by the Forestry Commission, in public hands. The commission exercised its authority with due regard for leisure, recreation and the environment. Consequently I should not be particularly apprehensive about a body having control of such a large area.
I only wished to make one point—that we have had recent experience of a privatisation exercise. The exercise which occurs to me is the privatisation of the Royal Ordnance factories without due regard to the importance of land holding in that privatisation. The two sites were transferred to BAe for a net value of £3.5million, which was the basis of the chartered suveyor's estimate. That land is now estimated to have a potential value of £450 million. It is that kind of experience that makes us support the amendment before the Committee. I hope that that will be kept in mind.
We are not discussing the basis of privatisation of the water supply. We are discussing whether sensitive areas and important areas—I welcome the assurance of the Minister in this regard—should be in public hands or transferred to plcs, who may exercise their commercial judgment with the kind of development consequences that have taken place elsewhere.
Lord Brightman: I rise not on a point of principle but on a point of detail. I shall be brief. I am puzzled by the purpose of subsection (4) of Amendment No. 8. This provides:
"The Authority shall, in respect of any lease or interest in land transferred to it, attach such restrictions as shall prevent the sale or transfer of any such interest to a third party except with the consent of the Authority."
The hypothesis therefore is that a lease or other interest in land belongs to the authority because it has been transferred to it.
The subsection apparently seeks to prevent the transfer of any such interest by the authority to a third party without the consent of the authority —that is, without its own consent. What is the point of providing that the authority shall attach restrictions to land that it owns to prevent the authority selling land without its own consent? I wonder whether what is meant is:
"The authority shall, in respect of any lease or interest in land transferred by it, attach such restrictions as shall prevent the resale or retransfer of any such interest to a third party except with the consent of the Authority."
I raise this point for guidance.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion on these amendments. May I first deal with one or two points about the wording of the amendments before going to the more fundamental issues with which the Committee is faced. I start with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who referred to the amendments as partial nationalisation of the land by the back door. This is not nationalisation of any land. The
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land is at the moment in public ownership. It is in the ownership of the water authorites which are public bodies. Indeed strong arguments are being pursued in the courts at the moment that it is not theirs to dispose of, or not the Government's to dispose of on their behalf. In fact the land was collected together and paid for by the ratepayers of many local authorities and transferred to the water authorities in 1973 on the firm assurance that there would be no disposal without the local authorities' permission. This is not nationalisation; it is retaining a public ownership land that is already publicly owned.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord makes a fair point. One should bear in mind that at present, as he says, the land is owned by the water authorities. However, for the first time, we are to have a national authority, at any rate for England and Wales, which is to become a very big owner of what will be, and the noble Lord intends to be, nationally owned land.
4.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not think that the issue of whether it is national or involves 10 different water companies is fundamental. The fundamental issue is: what is the remit of the National Rivers Authority; what are the remits of the water authorities now; how do they compare with the purpose and the objectives of the plcs to be established under the Bill?
The noble Lord questioned whether we meant "any" or "all". "Any" means "all", as I confirmed to the Minister later in the debate. As I understand it, and I hesitate before saying anything on the wording of legislation to the noble Lord, "any" is frequently used in legislation to mean the same as "all".
A number of noble Lords asked whether the amendments were sufficiently flexible to ensure that land required for operational purposes by the water supply plcs would always by available to them; whether land that they needed would become available to them; and whether land surplus to their requirements would no longer be available to them. The amendments are certainly intended to have that effect. The leases or other interests would specify that these lands should be transferred to the water supply plcs for such time as they are necessary for operational purposes, and should cease to be transferred when they are no longer necessary.
The question of whether extra land then became necessary for environmental purposes is dealt with in subsections (5) and (6), which ensure that the provision for transfer to the water supply plcs should continue after the original vesting date. Thus, in both these respects, I would argue that the clause is sufficiently flexible. I listened with respect to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, about the word "to" rather than the word "by". I suspect that he is right. It was certainly our intention to see to it that when the National Rivers Authority granted a lease or granted an interest in land required for operational purposes such a lease or interest should not become a commercially valuable interest and that if at any

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time it became unnecessary for operational purposes the lease or interest should go back to the National Rivers Authority. It is something that we ought to look at, although I would argue that our wording can mean that as well as the interpretation that the noble and learned Lord put on it.
However, these are relatively minor matters. The fundamental issue before the Committee is whether we have a sensible division of the land that is now owned by the water authorities as between the National Rivers Authority and the water supply company plcs, and whether, if land surplus to operational requirements is vested in the plcs, there is adequate protection for the public interest. The Minister sought in reply to suggest that there was a sensible division in the allocation of land, but of course the basis of the division proposed by the Bill is that the National Rivers Authority gets only the land that is directly required for its own very limited conservation functions, and the plcs get all the rest of the land whether it is required for operational purposes or not. I suggest to the Committee that this is not the most sensible division because the objectives of the plcs and the objectives of the NRA are necessarily in conflict. That is why they are different organisations.
The Director General of Water Services has the responsibility under Clause 7 of regulating the plcs in such a way as to see that they secure reasonable returns on their capital. That is the fundamental criterion for the existence of the plcs, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, sees clearly; it is evidenced by his amendments. All other considerations are secondary to that prime requirement. Specifically, the protections in Clause 8, to which the Minister referred, are subject to the prime objective of the plcs to make a profit. This is found in Clause 7. The enforcement powers that the Secretary of State has in Clause 20 are also secondary and subordinate to the fundamental interest of the plcs to make a profit.
The objective of the National Rivers Authority is quite different. As the Minister quite rightly said, the National Rivers Authority is the body which is concerned with conservation and with the maintenance of water quality and all the other environmental aspects of the water business. Surely the objectives of the National Rivers Authority coincide most closely with the objectives of all of us for the half million acres of land which the water authorities now own, and specifically for that land which is not required for operational purposes. It may indeed be an addition to the functions of the National Rivers Authority to hold the freehold in the land, but it is already proposed that the National Rivers Authority should have 6,500 staff and I cannot imagine that the responsibilities as freehold owner will add more than a small proportion to that total.
It is entirely consistent with all the other functions of the National Rivers Authority that it should hold the freehold interest in the land which is not required for operational purposes and which the public is concerned should be maintained for environmental purposes.
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I was very worried by something that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said, in an otherwise sympathetic speech. He said how awful it would be for a public or a private authority to sit on assets and not do anything with them. What the public want for Haweswater and the Elan Valley and the other local authority land which is not required for operational purposes is that somebody should sit on that land and not do anything with it. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, talked about and that is what I thought the noble Earl, Lord Gnslow, was talking about.
It is required for all of us that that land should be kept in its present state, or perhaps improved in certain ways, for our successors. It is our responsibility to see that that land is kept in that state. It is our responsibility to see that no body which has an objective laid down by statute which is in conflict with that should own the freehold of that land.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Does the noble Lord really think that wilderness land, the most beautiful part of the environment, stays beautiful by people doing absolutely nothing about it, paying nobody to attend to it and leaving it alone so that nature may rampage? Does he really think that the land is not managed: I know he lives a long way from that kind of place but I should have thought he would know that from his reading.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The noble Baroness knows more from personal experience of the management and conservation of wilderness land than I do. I readily concede that. Of course I do not say that there should not be sensible and effective management and active conservation of wilderness land and other land in water authority ownership. It is entirely consistent with the other objectives of the National Rivers Authority that it should have that responsibility. Indeed, that is what is proposed in the amendments.
The danger is quite otherwise. As my noble friend Lady Lockwood said with very specific examples, the danger is that the land which ought to be conserved for all of us could be developed profitably around the edges, for a few of us. That is what happens, with many commercially oriented leisure centres being built on the edges of the national parks and the fringes of areas of outstanding natural beauty. The specific statutory objective of the water company plcs will be to maximise the return on their assets and to dispose of that land and sacrifice the environment accordingly.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: Does the noble Lord not admit that the examples he has just given could not arise without the approval of the planning authorities? What is the difference between the powers being vested in the planning authority, which is experienced, and the rivers board, which is not?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I may not know very much about the conservation and management of wilderness land but I do know something about our planning laws. I know the inadequacy of our

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planning laws to deal with cases where applicants for planning permission have the ability to offer sweeteners to local planning authorities. There are far too many examples of planning gain being sold to the detriment of the public interest. That is what happens where there is no ownership and where there are no sanctions. That is what will happen under these circumstances.
The Bill as it stands is simply not adequate to protect the environment. The Minister referred to protections. I listened with great interest to what he said about his forthcoming amendments and I look forward with great interest to seeing them in writing. However, those are amendments to Clause 8, and Clause 8 is constrained by Clause 7, which refers to the reasonable return on capital. Therefore they are secondary and subordinate to the main thrust of the Bill, which must be to create companies which are responsible for making profit. That is the whole object of privatisation, we are told by the Government. If that is not the case there is no point in doing it.
As the Bill stands, a water company plc which wishes to develop land which it does not require for operational purposes and which would otherwise be constrained by Clause 8 or the enforcement powers in Clause 20 has a very simple solution. All it has to do is to transfer ownership of that land to another body, even a completely subsidiary body. That removes it from the constraints of the Bill. There is legal evidence to that effect. If I am wrong I have no doubt that the Minister will be able to show me that I am wrong, but that has not been shown so far. The constraints refer only to the core aspects of the water business. All other parts of the assets which are being transferred to the new water companies are outside these constraints. That is why the assurances given by the Minister are simply not adequate for our purposes.
The Earl of Cranbrook: I thank the noble Lord very much for giving way. Is he aware that we are dealing with a high technology industry which will, given sufficient incentives, develop new processes, new ways of providing clean water, new ways of treating foul water, new means of sewage treatment and new ways of returning foul water to the environment in an acceptable fashion? That will inevitably mean adjustments in the property which is part of the core business. It seems to me that the noble Lord's amendment also captures that land which is available under the terms of the Bill at present to be sold and in this way provides proper incentives for development and giving what I believe the public want, which is a good water supply and first-class water treatment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I agree with the noble Earl about what the public want. My amendment specifically provides for his concerns. It says specifically that all land required for operational purposes shall be leased to the water companies; that any land which they subsequently do not want shall come back to the National Rivers Authority; and any land which they subsequently do want shall be
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made available to them. What greater flexibility can one have? What further assurances can there be that there is no constraint whatever on the water companies doing their proper job because of ownership of land?
In this amendment we have a sensible division between the National Rivers Authority and the water companies. We have the water companies doing their job, supplying the water, treating the sewage and doing anything which is ancillary to those tasks. We have the National Rivers Authority extending its public interest in conservation and in quality by owning the land which ought in the public interest to be maintained free from speculative development.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, started by saying that the public are not anxious for public authorities to hoard land. I have paraphrased him slightly but I think that he will accept that I have got it right. The public are extremely anxious about the provisions of this Bill. What they see in this Bill is an opportunity for those who subscribe in the new water company plcs to make money not from producing water more efficiently but from selling off assets which belong to all of us, the public. That is what the amendments are designed to prevent. I commend them to the Committee.
5 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may say to the Committee that I agree that there is a fundamental difference of philosophy. However, it is worth recording that it is with some considerable disappointment that I noted that the noble Lord discarded my offer of further discussion on this matter with a commitment to bring forward an amendment at a later stage to deal with exactly the sort of points that he now seeks to pre-empt.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I certainly did not discard any offer of discussion or further consideration. I said that I looked forward eagerly to seeing the amendments. I shall of course be glad to have discussions about them with the Minister before they are formulated. That does not in any way conflict with the rest of what I say. The noble Earl made it clear that his amendments will be to Clause 8. The fundamental point which must not be ignored is that Clause 8 is subordinate to Clause 7 and that the objective of the new water companies must be to make a profit. Otherwise, why are we spending our time here at all? This is not an environmental Bill; it is a Bill to privatise water based on the argument that the industry will be operated more efficiently in the private sector.
Baroness Blatch: Given that the noble Lord has predominantly talked about national parks, the Elan valley, the Peak District and the Lake District, and taking into account local enactments and the duties on the existing water authorities which are to be transferred to the new water plcs and strengthened and, in addition, the planning controls, is he suggesting that the national parks, the Elan valley, the Lake District and the Peak District are under threat as a result of the Bill? This case attracts some

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sympathy, but the noble Lord is going rather over the top in this debate.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am not sure whether the noble Baroness asks me a question or seeks to make a point at a rather late stage in the debate. Perhaps I may take her point as it appears to be intended and answer her question. I believe that not only all the organisations concerned with the environment but a large number of people in this country who do not have any specialist knowledge think that the environment will be gravely at risk if land that has been in public ownership through the water authorities, which have constraints laid on them by statute, is transferred to public limited companies whose primary objective is to make a profit. The more I hear of the danger to the privatisation process from any attempt to take non-operational land away from them, the more I believe that privatisation is not about running water more efficiently but about selling off our land assets. If it comes down to that, it is on those grounds that I ask the Committee to take a decision on this matter.
5.3 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 127; Not-Contents, 161.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Fitt, L.

Airedale, L.

Foot, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Galpern, L.

Amherst, E.

Gladwyn, L.

Ampthill, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Gregson, L.

Aylestone, L.

Grey, E.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Hacking, L.

Birk, B.

Hampton, L.

Blease, L.

Hanworth, V.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Bottomley, L.

Hayter, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Headfort, M.

Brimelow, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Henniker, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Hooson, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Hughes, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Hylton, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Jacques, L.

Jeger, B.

Carter, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Kennet, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kilmarnock, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Dainton, L.

Lawrence, L.

David, B.

Leatherland, L.

Davies, L.

Listowel, E.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Denington, B.

Lockwood, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Longford, E.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Lovell-Davies, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Ezra, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Falkender, B.

McNair, L.

Falkland, V.

Mais, L.

42

Mayhew, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Meston, L.

Serota, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Shepherd, L.

Monson, L.

Somers, L.

Mountevans, L.

Soper, L.

Mulley, L.

Stallard, L.

Nicol, B.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Northfield, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Ogmore, L.

Strabolgi, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Perry of Walton, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Peston, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Phillips, B.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Underhill, L.

Vernon, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Walston, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Whaddon, L.

Rochester, L.

White, B.

Ross of Newport, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Russell, E.

Willis, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Scanion, L.

Wrenbury, L.

Seear, B.

Young of Dartington, L.

Seebohm, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Ferrers, E.

Aldington, L.

Ferner, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Fortescue, E.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Allerton, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Alport, L.

Goold, L.

Annaly, L.

Greenway, L.

Arran, E.

Gridley, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Bathurst, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Bauer, L.

Beloff, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Belstead, L.

Harvington, L.

Benson, L.

Havers, L.

Bessborough, E.

Henley, L.

Blatch, B.

Hesketh, L.

Bolton, L.

Hives, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Hood, V.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Brain, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Brookeborough, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Joseph, L.

Butterworth, L.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Caithness, E.

Killearn, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Kimball, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Layton, L.

Carnock, L.

Long, V.

Cathcart, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Colnbrook, L.

McFadzean, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Mackay of Clashfem, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Cottesloe, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Manton, L.

Craigton, L.

Margadale, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Marley, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Daventry, V.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mersey, V.

Derwent, L.

Middleton, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Milverton, L.

Dundee, E.

Monk Bretton, L.

Elibank, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Moran, L.

Elles, B.

Mountgarret, V.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Munster, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Faithfull, B.

Nelson, E.

43

Norfolk, D.

Shannon, E.

Norrie, L.

Sharpies, B.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Onslow, E.

Southborough, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Orkney, E.

Strange, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Strathspey, L.

Pender, L.

Swansea, L.

Pennock, L.

Swinton, E.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Terrington, L.

Porritt, L.

Teviot, L.

Portman, V.

Teynham, L.

Pym, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Quinton, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Radnor, E.

Thurlow, L.

Reay, L.

Todd, L.

Reigate, L.

Trafford, L.

Renton, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Renwick, L.

Trumpington, B.

Rochdale, V.

Tryon, L.

Rodney, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Romney, E.

Waldegrave, E.

St. Davids, V.

Wigram, L.

St. Germans, E.

Wolfson, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Wynford, L.

Savile, L.

Young, B.

Sempill, Ly.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 10, after ("of) insert ("reducing pollution and otherwise").
The noble Lord said: I understand that in moving Amendment No. 3 it will be for the convenience of the Committee if we also consider Amendment No. 10. These amendments put some flesh on the principle that he who pollutes our water shall pay to eradicate the pollution.
I say at once to the Minister that the Bill clearly shows the broad agreeement that has evolved over the passage of time that the one who has caused the pollution shall be responsible for clearing it up. The amendments seek to write on the face of the Bill at an appropriate stage words which make it clear that the Government mean business. Bluntly and crudely, the Government must be seen to be in the serious business of making sure that the polluter clears up the mess. Sadly, certain individuals, companies and even public authorities have in the past got away with murder. The amendment is a clear indication that this shall not happen in the future. Amendment No. 3 relates to the responsibilities of the National Rivers Authority. It ensures that besides carrying out the other functions assigned to it, the authority will be in the business of reducing pollution.
The Minister and my noble friend Lord McIntosh have spent a very profitable two hours exposing the broad principle which underlies the purposes of the Bill. I shall return to this point later. There are hundreds of acres of land currently in public ownership which the Government believe can better be used if there were to be a change of ownership of that land. I shall not rehearse the arguments we have heard on that subject.
A key aspect of the Bill is the quality of the water that we drink and use. These amendments seek to ensure that when people are negligent, zealous, ignorant or in some other way getting away with continuing to run their business while polluting our waters—it might be a nationalised industry, an individual or a company—they shall bear the cost of removing that pollution from water which eventually is used to provide pure drinkng water.
The Committee will be aware that this is the territory of the gamekeeper and the poacher. There is a responsibility to make sure that the water we drink is clean, pure and useful. Pollution cannot be controlled nor can our rivers and other water resources be protected from further pollution or rescued from existing pollution if the financial resources required are not provided.
Noble Lords are often reminded of the question: what about the taxpayers' money? We do not want to waste taxpayers' money. But if the people who cause the pollution do not pay for the mess that they create, at the end of the day this or any other government will have to put the matter right. If those people who are the proper recipients of these measures escape the clauses of the Bill, it will be the taxpayer who pays.
That is the basis on which we want the. Government to accept the amendment. I hope that they will be sensible, that they will not say that there is no evidence to warrant such an amendment and that the people who pollute our rivers and streams will be dealt with. I hope that the Minister will accept the genesis of our argument. It is not for the Minister to tell the Committee that other parts of the Bill take this matter into account. The amendment seeks to have written on the face of the Bill at an early stage—not in a later clause—that one of the prime responsibilities of the rivers authority is to deal with pollution.
We shall also be considering the question of consents, the varying qualities of consents and different types of pollution later in our debates. There is some horrendous evidence of the manner in which polluters have got away literally with murder. They have killed fish and animals—and people, from the point of view of the damage that is done in a range of ways—and we have the evidence for it.
I should like to give the Committee an illustration. It is the current position. The Government do not directly carry the blame for the present state of the water, although they are responsible for ensuring that those agencies which have been charged with certain functions carry them out. There are stretches of rivers in north Derbyshire and south Yorkshire where, it is claimed, discharges of mercury, cadmium and other toxic chemicals have resulted in the river bed becoming extremely toxic for biological life. The water of the River Rother is not suitable, and may not become suitable, for use in the water system in south Yorkshire. Under the new system, who will continue to pay to bring clean water from a distance? The industry that is polluting the River Rother must be made to clean up the river, whether it is in south Yorkshire or elsewhere. We read in the papers of illustrations from all parts of the country where terrible environmental damage is done primarily to

45
wildlife—animals, plants and fish—but it also leads to the gradual decline of the landscape that people have enjoyed.
We are asking the Minister to tell the Committee not only that he believes that pollution should be avoided but that those who cause it should be hit hard. When it is possible to ascertain who has caused the pollution—and I recognise that this is not always easy—we ought not to hesitate to ensure that the polluter has to pay. The southern division of the Yorkshire Water Authority has the highest concentration of polluted rivers in the country, with 1,800 registered discharges over hundreds of miles of river. It has 17 pollution control staff. It seems unlikely that the number of staff covering these issues at the NRA will be any higher. A disturbing piece of research is that over a 10-year period more pollution was ascertained, yet there are now fewer officers in post to deal with it.
My case is this. Not only do we wish to clean up our rivers but we wish to make sure at an early stage that it is written into the Bill that the National Rivers Authority has such responsibility.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, has had good reason to move this amendment. Pollution of our rivers has caused great public indignation and anxiety. I am happy to be able to say that since the Control of Pollution Act 1974, most of which is to remain on the statute book, the position has greatly improved. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and I remember that when some of us were elected to another place the Thames was in an awful state. It was well known that only the most pollution-greedy fish could ever be found in it. It is now a remarkably pure river. It could no doubt be improved still further.
However, I must not wander too far from the more important aspects of this amendment: that the supply of water that we drink should be clean. This is one of the longest Bills in history, with over 380 pages. One does not wish therefore to lengthen it. At first sight, one might ask: what is the harm of these two fairly short amendments? I do not see any harm in Amendment No. 3. I believe that it could be a little misleading because it selects just one of several duties that may be given to the National Rivers Authority, subject to the decisions of the Chamber. It refers to the others by the words "and otherwise". We should normally avoid such terms in statute because they can give the impression that Parliament is interested in only one of several important duties and makes no mention of the others—although they are mentioned elsewhere in the Bill. From that rather narrow point of view, I have a doubt on Amendment No. 3.
However, on Amendment No. 10 my doubts are more serious. Clauses 52 to 60 of the Bill, nine clauses altogether, impose very specific duties upon the new water companies to ensure good water quality. I realise that that is not the only issue about which the noble Lord is worried. He is much more worried about people who pollute water, who may have nothing to do with the water companies. However, that is referred to in the Bill in Clauses 61
46
to 63, under the heading of contamination, waste and misuse of water.
If we then consider Clause 105, to which reference is made in Amendment No. 10, we find that the Control of Pollution Act 1974 is mentioned. Great strides in preventing water pollution, and punishing water polluters, have been made as a result of that Act. Under the common law of tort, any person who suffers damage or injury to health through water pollution or damage, for example to a processing business—paper processing depends upon a pure supply of water—can receive damages in court. That is one of the matters envisaged in Amendment No. 10. However, my noble friend will have taken stock of the existing law. Whether or not the present law and its remedies are well enforced is another question. We can only make laws; we cannot guarantee their enforcement, any more than we can guarantee their being obeyed. I should have thought that the legal availability of remedies under the present law is pretty massive, in addition to Clauses 52 to 63 inclusive of the Bill. Therefore I seriously doubt whether the amendment is necessary.
I have one further problem on Amendment No. 10. Subsection (2) states:
"The Secretary of State shall, at the request of the Authority, make regulations for the purposes of achieving the objectives in subsection ( 1 ) above".
But any regulations that were made would overlap to a greater extent with the existing law. I should rather have primary legislation dealing with this important matter than regulations made even by the Secretary of State.
5.30 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: I want to remind your Lordships of a point made by my noble friend Lord Shannon at Second Reading, which is that the polluter never pays. We should not imagine that he ever pays. He puts it on to the price of the product, and what is being done is the transfer of a measure of purchasing power from the producer of goods to his consumer and then over again to cheapen the price of water. The noble Earl made this point well at Second Reading.
I can see nothing wrong with proposed Amendment No. 3.1 await the judgment of the noble Earl, who may tell me that it is not necessary because it is already provided for in some other clause of the Bill. I am not an expert on draftsmanship and am guided on this by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who said that the Water Bill is the longest Bill in history. I am reminded of a line of the poet Swinburn that even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
I shall wait for the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to tell me, if the noble Lord wishes to press his amendment, whether it is necessary for me to take part.
The Earl of Onslow: As a result of the intervention of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I am tempted to say that even though the polluter passes on his costs to his ultimate client, that is the price that his ultimate client will jolly well have to pay. Under the safety at work legislation, one cannot have unguarded machinery because one can sell a

47
ploughshare cheaper without the safety at work legislation. Both Amendments Nos. 3 and 10 moved from the Benches opposite seem to me to be eminently sensible. I am convinced that my noble friend Lord Caithness has reams of beautifully written Civil Service English to say why the amendments are defective, but the point made is valid. If, as my noble friend Lord Renton says, it is covered in the Bill already, all we want my noble friend to say is that the amendment is unnecessary. If it is unnecessary because it is covered already, we shall all be pleased.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I did not intend to intervene either, but I was tempted by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. In the sense that the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, said, it is true that the polluter does not pay. On the other hand, if the polluter has to add the cost of remedying the pollution to his prices there is some incentive on him which otherwise does not exist to reduce the pollution. I strongly support the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. If we did not hold to the principle of making the polluter pay, at least in the first instance, we should be back to Lord Shaftesbury and the employment of children in our factories.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: I had not intended to intervene either, but I should like to put a thought to my noble friend. Whereas it is true to say that it is not the polluter who pays, but the consumer who invariably pays, I believe it is true to say that under the Bill the regulator would not permit the polluter to pass on the cost to the consumer if the pollution was due to negligence.
Lord Addington: If we are considering such a fundamental environmental point as the polluter pays, we should try to get this into perspective. This is a great way of saying that if someone damages the environment—that is, the environment as a whole; not just individuals and not just the pollution of water—and something as valuable to our country as a river ecological system where the whole system may be damaged, there should be some way of ensuring that at the very least those responsible do not profit from the damage. If we can safely say that people who do the damage must at least meet the cost of making the damage good, that would be a sound thing to have in the Bill.
The Earl of Caithness: These two amendments focus upon the role of the NRA in improving the water environment and the means by which this is to be achieved.
Dealing first with Amendment No. 3, its purpose is to make clear, by a reference in Clause 1, that reduction of pollution and hence improvement in water quality is a central purpose of the NRA. That this is to be the NRA's purpose should be amply clear from the terms of the Government's policies and all that they are seeking to achieve through this Bill: from the establishment of the NRA itself; from the substantial increase in investment the Government propose for the improvement of sewage
48
treatment works and from the extension and strengthening of pollution controls in Part III.
But the amendment is rendered unnecessary not only by these considerations. It is made unnecessary by the way in which Chapter I of Part III is structured, which specifically requires the NRA to make the reduction of pollution its guiding purpose.
The fact is that our declared objective of controlling pollution and improving water quality is built in, clearly and inescapably, to the legislation itself. I refer the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, to Clause 103. The Secretary of State and the NRA have the duty to exercise their powers under Chapter I so as to achieve the statutory objectives set under Clause 102. In the words of Clause 102(1), these objectives—which will be set after public consulation—will be,
"for the purpose of maintaining and improving the quality of controlled waters".
Thus the objectives are to improve water quality, and all the pollution control powers in the Bill must be used to that end. It will be outside the authority of both the Secretary of State and the NRA to use the powers in the Bill with any other end in view.
Let me confirm to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and to my noble friends Lord Onslow and Lord Renton that the amendment is already fully and firmly secured by the Bill. In these circumstances, I suggest that this amendment adds nothing of substance to the Bill, and that there is accordingly nothing to be gained from it.
Amendment No. 10, which we are also discussing but which is not consequential on but separate from Amendment No. 3, would insert in the Bill a commitment to the principle that the polluter should pay. We accept that principle and I assure the Committee that it is fully informed of the detailed provisions of the Bill, and in particular Chapter III. For this reason we do not believe that the amendment is necessary, but before I set out the reasons in detail let me set out the two general points of introduction.
First, we reiterated recently in our Environment in Trust leaflets that the costs of pollution control must be borne by the polluter so that the true costs of any activity are passed on to those who benefit. It is a fact of economic life that if such costs fall to the consumers, they can take right decisions about consumption in the light of the price they pay. That means that the charges to the customer and to the water consumers will rise to meet the costs of the water authorities of improving effluent discharges from sewage treatment works. But we believe that the Bill and privatisation will work to reduce the increases in cost which are necessary to secure the environmental improvements we seek.
Secondly, let not our reluctance to accept this amendment cast any doubt on our commitment to such improvement. As I have indicated on another amendment, our declared objective of controlling pollution and improving water quality is built in clearly and inescapably to the legislation itself. That is by way of background.
Let me now demonstrate that our proposals for pollution costs and charging in each of the relevant

49
areas fully reflect this principle and make the amendment unnecessary. In the case of effluent discharge consents under Schedule 11, the costs of complying with current standards or achieving new ones when these are tightened will fall directly on the discharger; and after privatisation these will be the sewerage companies through borrowing or charges to customers, rather than the public purse. In the case of precautionary measures under Clauses 107 and 108, such as regulations on storage or controls within protection zones, it will again be the person responsible for the pollution who will have to pay for the measures necessary to prevent it. The only exception we anticipate is nitrate because of its relationship to good agricultural practice and the difficulty of identifying the source of the pollution, but the Committee can consider the merits of that at a later time.
In the case of pollution incidents, actual or anticipated, Clause 111 provides that the costs of all the steps undertaken, including preliminary surveys to locate the outbreak, can be recovered. Where prosecutions are mounted the court will be able to award the NRA its costs in bringing the prosecution. On indictment, unlimited fines can be imposed. Fines are a matter for the court to determine. But the Government's view remains that expressed some two years ago by the then Lord Chancellor when he told the Magistrates' Association that it was important that the level of fines be such as to make clear that water pollution offences did not pay.
Finally—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, is not aware of this—on 22nd February we issued a consultation paper about the recovery of costs associated with discharge consents and the regular monitoring of effluent quality. Schedule 11, paragraph 9, provides for that. Previously those costs had been paid for by taxpayers or consumers of water services.
Our consultation paper sets out the basis for a new charging scheme based on the principle that the polluter pays for the cost of his activities. In this case, the dischargers are for the most part the water and sewerage undertakings and the industrial dischargers of waste water. A substantial proportion of the NRA's total cost for water quality regulation and pollution control is likely to be recovered through the charging scheme.
I hope that Members of the Committee will agree that this is a formidable array of measures. It gives expression to the "polluter pays" principle in a way that is appropriate in specific concrete cases; not by expression of a general principle which is unnecessary and can be unhelpful, as proposed in the amendment.
I should like to deal with a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, about river quality. I remind the Committee that 90 per cent. of our rivers are of good or fair quality compared with 75 per cent. of those in Europe. One river alone contributes more than half the pollution entering the North Sea; that is the Rhine. Our position stands well in any comparison but I agree with Members who say that it needs improving. We are acting. My noble friend Lord Renton mentioned some of the work. He referred to the improvement to the estuary
50
and to the River Thames. I take this opportunity to remind the Committee that we have also been tackling other estuaries. For example, the Mersey basin scheme is a 25-year project which will cost billions of pounds.
In inviting the Committee to reject the amendment, I add one qualification. If Members can identify any specific area where our provisions do not properly reflect the polluter pays principle and where its application is not practical and beneficial, I shall listen with care and sympathy.
Baroness White: I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation but I wonder whether he will reflect again on the first of the amendments. I understand his difficulties with regard to the second.
As regards Amendment No. 3, does the Minister not believe that it might be helpful, even though not strictly necessary, to include a reference to pollution at the beginning of the description? If we are ever to reach Clause 103 I believe that it would be helpful to include such a reference. The control of pollution is one of the major functions in the popular mind of the National Rivers Authority, although it will have other functions. Surely if one is considering the impact on public opinion it will do no harm to accept the first of these amendments, even though the Minister may have difficulties with the second.
The Earl of Onslow: Before the Minister sits down I wish to ask a question, although almost certainly he will not know the answer. As a result of deep draining at Horsey Mere, one of the Norfolk Broads, a great deal of nasty iron has surfaced. The water is now the colour of rust instead of being gin clear as it used to be. It is the result of a complicated chemical process which I do not understand. It was caused by the local drainage authority and agreed to by the Anglian Water Authority. Will the NRA be able to do something about such instances? I realise that it is at a different end of the scale to the Thames or Mersey estuaries but it is a matter about which we should take consideration and care. I do not expect the Minister to know the answer but I should be grateful if he will write to me or ask his department to look into the matter.
5.45 p.m.
The Earl of CaithnessIn answer to my noble friend, I recently spent a happy day visiting the Norfolk Broads. That problem was not brought to my attention and therefore I do not know the answer. However, if pollution and damage are being caused to the environment or to the river systems, the matter must be taken seriously. I believe that it is within the remit of the NRA to tackle the problem, but I shall make absolutely certain of that.
I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady White. I believe that Members who are interested in the Bill will reach Clause 103. I hope that the noble Baroness stays with us long enough to discuss that clause: indeed, I hope that she stays with us until we reach the end of the Bill.
I am not against Amendment No. 3 but I believe it is unnecessary. I look towards my noble friend Lord Renton with some fear and trepidation because

51
I have been chastised by him on numerous occasions for including a provision which is unnecessary. We need to keep a Bill—albeit a large Bill—as lean as possible.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: If I have to choose between upsetting the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I prefer to upset the noble Lord and have the Minister on my side. He has the power in this matter.
I am more than satisfied that in respect of Amendment No. 10 the Minister has gone a considerable way to assure me and those outside the Committee that where the evidence is found—and that requires enforcement—and where the determination of the Government or the authority with the power to deal with the matter is strong and resolute, the polluter is capable of being made to pay.
At this early stage of the Bill we wish to demonstrate to people outside the Committee that the Government mean business and are serious. The noble Baroness, Lady White, made a powerful point. She said that we wish to write on the face of the Bill as early as possible the fact that pollution, with a capital "P", and the way in which we deal with and eradicate it, is a major element in the Bill. I do not use a stick to beat the Government. Rather defensively, the Minister pointed out that our record of clean rivers bears a comparison with others in Europe; I do not disagree.
I hope that at this early stage the Minister will not say that although he agrees with us there is no form of words which he is willing or able to accept. The Bill contains 380 pages which have been conceived and put together by the Government. In this case those who oppose the Government politically suggest that one-fifth or one-sixth of a page can be added. In that connection, there is not a great deal between us.
I do not dispute the Government's intentions to achieve what is sought in Amendments Nos. 3 and 10, and I shall not repeat many of the arguments. However, we must demonstrate to the public that when evidence is put before the Government of a deliberate act of pollution they will deal with it. I have evidence of industrialists who have deceived the inspector by agreeing to act in a certain way. Authorities have reported to me instances where firms have deceived the inspector as to the true condition. The polluter must be hit hard. The penalty must be punitive and, more important, it must be public. The greatest weapon for any authority is to be able to threaten people who are being deliberately anti-social and anti-environmentalist. When they are caught, the evidence is produced and the tribunal is satisfied they may have to pay enormous sums of money. If everyone knows of that, it will be bad for their business.
In Amendment No. 3 we wish to satisfy a raft of people outside the Committee including the taxpayers, residents, and those who have been a little jaundiced as to whether this and other governments have been serious. The amendment writes on the face of the Bill at an early stage the fact that we are serious not only about water but also about pollution.
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There is another reason for tabling the amendment. The Minister told the Committee about the powers which are open to the Secretary of State in other clauses. We want more muscle to be in the hands of the National Rivers Authority. We want it to be able to say, "This is one of our prime responsibilities". In speaking to members of the National Rivers Authority the Minister and his advisers will make that perfectly clear, but we want to strengthen the arm of the authority.
Before I decide whether I intend to press this amendment, I invite the Minister to say that if I withdraw it he will be prepared to think of a suitable form of words acceptable to him which either he or I will move as an amendment at a later stage. I am not asking him to give me a commitment that that is possible but I ask him to enter into discussions.
Lord Renton: Before my noble friend replies to that, perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. I have counted the number of pages in the Bill dealing with pollution. As near as possible, there are 19 and a half pages, in addition to the Control of Pollution Act 1974.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, will remember that the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill says that Part III largely replaces Part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Therefore one cannot add the two together.
Lord Renton: The greater part of that Act is to remain. The parts which are to be repealed are listed in the repeal schedule.
The Earl of Caithness: There is a more conciliatary tone from the Opposition now. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, says that he does not want a commitment. Of course I shall look at this. I do not oppose Amendment No. 3 and never have done. I merely say that it is unnecessary because of the reason which my noble friend Lord Renton gave. This matter is very much at the forefront of the Government's mind and at the forefront of everything in this Bill. Let us look at the wording between now and another stage to see whether the noble Lord's wording is absolutely right or whether some other form of wording is more appropriate.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I recognise a gift horse when I see one and I shall not look it in the mouth. I believe that that is as much as I shall get because I remember parliamentary arithmetic of half an hour ago as well. Therefore, in view of what the Minister said, which I agree is not a commitment other than a commitment to look together at the form of words along the lines of Amendment No. 3, for which I am grateful, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 11, at end insert ("and no such function shall be carried out, whether by contract or otherwise, by any person

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except in accordance with section (separation of environmental functions etc.) below").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of Amendment No. 4 is to give effect to repeated government statements that they want to separate the poachers from the gamekeepers. I believe that the Government have rightly taken considerable credit for the establishment of the National Rivers Authority, largely on the grounds that it does just that; namely, that it distinguishes those who have the responsibility for conservation, water and river quality from those who have the responsibility for providing water and sewerage services.
The problem with those assurances is that they are not reflected in the Bill. The specific question to which I am referring in Amendment No. 4—and I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 9—is the contracting out of the functions of the National Rivers Authority. I shall not say that we are happy about the extension of contracting out by this Government generally or about the forced extension of contracting out to local authorities in recent legislation. However, I must say straight away that these two amendments are not against the principle of contracting out; far from it. They recognise that the National Rivers Authority, if it is to maintain a relatively slim and tight structure, will have to contract out some services, particularly those involved in collecting samples of water quality.
We do not find acceptable the possibility that the contracting out should be allowed back to the water plcs. The water authorities have been responsible for collecting samples and for analysing them ever since they were established. I am certainly not saying that the people who have carried out that work have not acted in anything other than total good faith and with complete professionalism. However, the fact is that since the water authorities were established, the number of pollution control and inspection officers has declined. Understandably, I suppose, the water authorities have given priority to their operational rather than to their inspection needs. Therefore, the resources devoted to dealing with pollution have not been available in the way in which they should have been.
That stricture also applies to central government. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution has been understaffed. There have been vacancies there, just as there have been for pollution control officers in water authorities.
The difficulty which I see about contracting back to the water supply plcs the job of dealing with pollution control is that, with their new objective of making a profit as private companies, there is a direct conflict between what their staff would do in fulfilling the contracting out functions and the objectives of the company.
If the contracting out goes back to the water companies, inevitably when pollution is discovered there will be a substantial cost in putting that right and there will be the risk of prosecution. It will no doubt be a requirement of prosecution under Part III of the Bill that the officer who discovered the pollution will be required to give evidence against his own company. That does not mean that anybody
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will act in anything other than good faith, but it means that there will be a conflict of interests in that person's mind. He will either act less effectively than he would otherwise act as a reporter of infringement, or he will be a less than effective witness for the prosecution, or he will land up unpopular in his own organisation which is responsible for his pay and rations. The result of that is that pollution control in that respect will be an unpopular job in the water companies and will not be a natural road to promotion. It will not be attractive as a career. That is not a very satisfactory situation.
The Government recognise that the NRA has to keep some part of that process in its own hands. Mr. Colin Moynihan, the Parliamentary Secretary, in Standing Committee on 10th January at col. 49 of Hansard, said that the NRA would have to take responsibility for collecting all the samples. That is central to any contracting back to the plcs which may take place. I suggest that that does not go far enough.
As my noble friend Lord Graham said a few moments ago, there are examples of polluters playing off one authority against another. One example came to my notice of a plating company which told the water authority that it was disposing of the waste to a waste disposal site. It told the waste disposal authority that it had the water authority's permission to dispose of the waste down a foul drain. In fact, it was doing neither but was simply dumping it in the yard, with rather serious environmental effects.
In order to achieve an effective regulatory mechanism, we need to have a mechanism which fulfils two functions. First, it must be integrated and cover all forms of pollution; both waste disposal and water quality. Secondly, it must be local. In Amendment No. 9 we specifically suggest that local authorities, who have had many years' experience of environmental protection and have an environmental protection service many of whose activities are widely praised, would be a repository of expertise and suitable for contracting out.
Therefore, the amendment is not against contracting out as such, but against contracting back to the water supply plcs. That is the logical and rational way to deal with what otherwise might become a serious conflict of interests and a serious departure in the text of the Bill from the declared intentions of the Government. I beg to move.
6 p.m.
Lord Ezra: In supporting Amendment No. 4 and the related Amendment No. 9, I, like the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, remind the Committee that the Government have laid enormous emphasis on the division of responsibilities and functions as between the NRA, on the one hand, and the operating water companies on the other.
On Second Reading the Government spoke up strongly for the existing organisation being preserved under privatisation; namely, the river basin system. However, I think they have persuaded the public in general that the division of responsibilities which is now inherent in the Bill is a more satisfactory way of handling the matter. That being so, however, we

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feel that this should be stated clearly and without ambiguity; and that is one of the purposes of the amendment.
The other point is that there can be blurred edges in this division of functions. The blurring of the edges can mainly be created by contracting back from the NRA some of the functions which it has taken over as part of this division of responsibility from the operating companies. That is causing a great deal of concern. I know that at one time it was felt that in very large measure the functions which the companies previously undertook and which have been transferred to the NRA would be handed back—at least, that is what I was told on a visit some weeks ago to one of the water companies. I do not know to what extent this contracting back will take place in the mind of the Government, but I should have thought that it could be a very dangerous and confusing practice and that we could end up with a situation which is neither one thing nor the other.
There are others who can perform some of these functions. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, pointed out, local authorities have expertise in this environmental field in the laboratory testing of samples. There are, of course, a number of private institutions and companies which can also carry out these functions. Therefore, I should have thought that there was plenty of choice, even if the NRA does not at its inception have the facilities necessary to do this work itself. It would seem that the Government, in pursuit of their own objectives, should pay particular attention to that aspect and reassure the Committee that it is indeed their intention to divide these functions and not to blur the edges.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Before any other noble Lords speak on this amendment, may I first make an apology? There is an error which may have caused confusion. Amendment No. 4 refers to,
"section (separation of environmental functions etc.).
Amendment No. 9, in the side heading, refers to,
"Preservation of the environment".
Amendment No. 9 should have had the side heading,
"Separation of environmental functions etc.",
so that the two amendments related to each other. It is understood that the side headings are not part of the text of the Bill, but I apologise for any confusion which may have been caused by my error.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that he had no objection to subcontracting and expects it to go on to some extent. However, the wording of Amendment No. 9 suggests that he has no objection to manacling the NRA in arranging its subcontractors. Subsection (4) of the amendment reads,
"The Authority shall not sub-contract, or otherwise cause or enable to be carried out, any of its functions to any person who is for the time being, or has been in the previous five years, a water or sewerage undertaker within the terms of this section".
I agree that it would be wrong to subcontract to anybody who could not, if anything happened, be an impartial witness because of past commitments
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or who had shown that they were not proper people to carry out the functions, but I should have thought that subsection (4) was going a little too far. One would be ruling out by statute people who might be most excellent in carrying out subcontracting work. I can well accept up to a point that one would not want to subcontract to a person who was currently employed by the previous undertaker but, as I said, to impose a five-year embargo seems to be the deliberate application of manacles.
Surely the NRA, which will be doing the subcontracting, will be able to form a judgment on whether the subcontractors doing the work are the right or the wrong people. To write into the statute that anyone who has been engaged in such work in the previous five years will not be allowed to make use of their expertise—even if the NRA believes them to be suitable—is going too far. I wonder whether the noble Lord wishes that extreme embargo to remain, because it does not fit in with the rest of his argument as I thought I heard it.
The Earl of Onslow: One should certainly support the principle behind this amendment. It would be seriously difficult for the NRA to go, for example, to Anglian, Thames, or whichever are the successor companies and say, "Please can you test your own water to see whether it is dirty?". It puts the man employed by Anglian, Thames, or whoever, in an incredibly difficult, indeed an impossible, position.
Having said that, the point made by my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls is extremely valid. I believe there is nothing to stop one from setting up as a sampling company and nicking all the best scientists from Anglian and Thames. They should be better at doing the work employed by someone else whose job it is to do it. There is a separation of functions. A man can switch allegiance from one company to another with remarkable rapidity. One need only look at how Ministers switch from one department to another and take up the cudgels on behalf of their new department with immaculate ease. There is no difficulty in that. The point made by my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls is perfectly valid and the point raised by the Opposition should be taken closely in hand by the Government.
Lord Hesketh: Amendment No. 4, together with the stipulations in Amendment No. 9 to which it refers, would have the effect, first, of preventing the NRA from contracting any work out to a water or sewerage undertaker and, secondly, of putting local authorities in a privileged position as regards the letting of contracts for any work it did decide to contract out. The first three subsections of Amendment No. 9 do not seem to me to achieve any clear purpose, since the separation of functions between the NRA and the plcs is built solidly into the entire fabric of the Bill already.
Dealing with the substantive effects of these amendments, therefore, I should like to say that as regards the first of them I am of course entirely in sympathy with the underlying aim, which is to preserve the independence of the NRA from bodies which should be at arms' length relationship with it. The role of the NRA is that of regulator and of the

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plcs is that of those being regulated. But this entirely laudable aim not only cannot in practice be given effect in this way, but in my view simply does not call for a stipulation of this sort.
As regards practicalities, it is clear that some vital computing work, for instance, can only be carried out by the successor plc in the first instance. This is because of the impossibility, in the time available, of unpicking systems which were never designed with a view to the splitting of functions which the Bill will create. Noble Lords opposite may be tempted to argue that in that case the whole reorganisation process should be delayed until a clean break can be organised, but quite apart from the unacceptability of delay the Government simply do not see any real problem in achieving arrangements between the NRA and the plcs which combine independence with practicality and cost-effectiveness.
The NRAAC is satisfied that there are no real problems whether of confidentiality or reliability in the setting up of contracts with the plcs either for computing facilities or for laboratory facilities, which are the specific subject of Amendment No. 391. Most of the NRA's laboratory analysis work will be done in house, but in those cases where a contract with the plc is the most cost-effective solution, we have endorsed a set of safeguards which will ensure three vital requirements.
First, all water samples must be collected by NRA staff or under their direct control. Second, there must be guaranteed anonymity of samples so that the technician does not know where they have come from. That answers the point raised by my noble friend Lord Onslow. Thirdly, there must be proper arrangements for independent audit and cross checking. In cases where there is a possible prosecution of a plc there will be provision for in house facilities in other regions to do the work. Thus the NRA's independence will be assured, and in addition efficiency will be promoted via the comparisons which can be made between the work done in house and that contracted out.
Turning to the second strand of these amendments, the Government see no obvious merit in requiring the NRA always to put local authorities on its tender list for jobs it intends to contract out. A local authority may well have experience and expertise directly relevant to NRA functions, in which case the NRA will no doubt make sure, as a matter of sound management, that it is indeed invited to tender without being directed to do so by statute. I suggest that it would be unseemly to put the authorities in a special position in this respect. In the final analysis, in all cases where contracting back to plcs and others is proposed, this will be allowed only when the NRA and Ministers are fully satisfied that there is no compromise to the independence of the NRA. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will see fit to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am sorry that the Minister has gone scarcely any further than his honourable friend Colin Moynihan in another place almost two months ago. At that stage he indicated that there would be further safeguards. I believe he
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gave the impression that they would be effective. What we have proposed now are clearly not effective safeguards and do not meet the substance of the point. If the Minister were to say to me, "Yes, there is a difficulty about computing facilities and if you withdraw the amendment computing facilities in the first 12 months, two years, or whatever, can be exempted", I would gladly do so on the basis that the remainder of it would then be accepted by Government; but I do not hear the Minister saying that to me.
The Earl of Onslow: Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may say that in all honesty his answer was not very satisfactory. Please let us not go through the irritating performance of a Division which we know who will win. The arguments on this occasion are firmly in favour of divorcing the NRA's functions from those of the plcs. The difficulties are highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. Individual staff would have to give evidence against their employers, and that and other factors have not been satisfactorily answered by the Minister.
I accept that there are difficulties concerning computing and administration, but in due course they can be overcome. One can possibly let the issue go for three or four years, because that is not important. The ultimate situation of having people giving evidence against themselves puts employers and employees in an impossible position. It does not save money. It means that someone else will have to set up the system because it will still have to be carried out. It will not necessarily save any money by having it done by the plcs. There is no cost involved. It seems not very pleasant to leave it as it is. I beg my noble friend to have another serious and hard think about it.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: The Committee will understand that I had intended to go through a period of silence for a few days as I am involved in a somewhat embarrassing affair elsewhere, for which I apologise. I have been drawn to my feet on this occasion because I believe it right that, as chairman of the advisory committee, I should make it clear that the position spelt out by the Minister is exactly and directly in line with the advice that the advisory committee has given after the most careful consideration of the practicalities of the issues. We looked at this from the word go. We were concerned with two matters.
The first was that we were in a position to carry out our job, and computers is only one aspect of it. We shall certainly need the plc computers for a time. We spent a great deal of time looking at the laboratory set-up throughout the country and satisfying ourselves as to the most effective way of carrying out our duties. We duly submitted our advice to the Minister. We are a fallible body and our advice may be wrong, but I do not believe that the Committee should be left in any doubt that the advice was perfectly clear and specific and that the whole of my committee, having considered this matter most carefully over a prolonged period, is perfectly happy.

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As I said at Second Reading, the arrangements will not in any way compromise our integrity or effectiveness. We believe that there is a perfectly sensible and practical solution to the problem and that we shall be able to carry out our duties. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, spoke about the persons who discover the pollution. I believe he slightly implied that we shall be handing over the actual responsibilities for pollution control to the plc. That is not what is proposed. There are certain parts of the operation, such as the actual sampling in the laboratories, which, with the safeguards that have been spelt out, can be done in this way. That is the clear view of the advisory committee.
Baroness White: We have the chairman of the advisory committee with us. I am not sure whether it is in order, but perhaps I may ask him whether he and his colleagues considered what was suggested by my noble friend—that there should be a time limit followed by a review of the situation. There can be real difficulties. The matter has to be seen to be just, as well as being justly administered. There are problems concerning staff loyalty. Not all authorities are able to provide the National Rivers Authority with adequate scientific staff and equipment. I recognise that fully. But should it not be the aim of the National Rivers Authority within a reasonable period to provide itself with adequate facilities? Might we not think in those terms of some modification?
Lord Crickhowell: I do not know whether it is in order for me to rise again. In any event, the National Rivers Authority will review its arrangements from time to time. We have spent a good deal of time in recent weeks discussing the practicalities of the arrangements we propose. If we decided that it was necessary to make a change, that is a matter that the NRA will have to decide. The NRA Advisory Committee has taken the view that the NRA will be the responsible body to decide whether the job is being done effectively and it believes that the arrangements are satisfactory. Of course it will review the position from time to time, and it will no doubt have to answer in Parliament and elsewhere if it is felt that it is not carrying out its duties effectively.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: It is very helpful for my noble friend to make the contribution that he has. I gather that in effect what he has said is that the answer given by the Minister is absolutely in keeping with the advisory committee's recommendation. But we have in front of us two amendments and we are at the Committee stage. My noble friend can rise again without any problem if he feels inclined. Do the two amendments with which we are dealing at the moment cut across the advice that the advisory committee gave to the Minister and which he has repeated or do they not?
Lord Crickhowell: I have reported to the Committee that the NRA would be faced with some severe practical difficulties, at least in the first year or two in carrying out its functions effectively.
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Certainly the task and the cost in one or two instances of setting up wholly independent arrangements in the short timescale would be difficult in practical terms.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I thank my noble friend very much.
Lord Ross of Newport: I used to have a private water supply. I took a jar of the water to my local water authority. It said that the authority would not test it but that I should go to the environmental health officer. I went to the environmental health officer in South Shropshire and was given a report on the state of my water. Will such practices continue or will the expertise of local authorities be ignored altogether? That seems absolutely daft.
Lord Hesketh: The noble Lord may have misheard me. I did point out that it would be very much a possibility for local authorities to offer their expertise. I said that earlier in my reply.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. He has provided recommendations and advice based on practicality. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will be aware it looks as though with regard to information technology the period will be two years. With regard to the laboratories, I believe that eight out of 10 of the regions are on course to be fully independent. My noble friend pointed out that there are practical factors. Perhaps I may remind the Committee that the NRA has a supremacy in itself. If it is not satisfied it will clearly say so.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, indicated his interest and I found his interventions extremely helpful. As I understood them, he said that what the Minister said in his presentation on the matter was exactly as advised by certain organisations with which he is closely associated. I see that the noble Lord is nodding his head in agreement with that statement. However, the statement made by the Minister included a reference to Amendment No. 391, which is not grouped with this amendment.
The noble Lord who presented the case on behalf of the Opposition said, and I agreed with him, that the Minister went no further than the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in another place except in regard to one matter. I understood the Minister to say that he agreed with the text of Amendment No. 391. The speech of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in another place made no reference to the matter put forward in Amendment No. 391 in the names of my noble friends Lord Addington and Lord Ross of Newport. It says:
"for the purposes of ensuring that it maintains an independent regulatory function, to direct it as to the extent to which it may or may not contract out, or otherwise delegate, the sampling and analysis of water or effluent".
I have not studied the Bill with the amount of care which I normally devote to Bills with which I am associated, but it seemed to me that in his presentation the Minister went a long way towards the main theme and the practicalities of the amendments before the Committee. I understood his reference to Amendment No. 391 to mean that

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he had some sympathy with it. That would certainly be helpful in coming a little nearer to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, my noble friend Lord Ezra and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. If I am wrong, the noble Lord and other noble Lords will tell me so.
Baroness Phillips: I should like some clarification. I found it rather unusual that a noble Lord who will be involved in the running of a certain authority should make comments which seem to come from his background with another committee with which he is concerned. Surely his advice will be useful when he actually occupies that post. However, at the moment he seems to be influencing the decision in something in which he has a pecuniary interest.
Lord Crickhowell: That is not so. I am chairman of a public body set up by the Secretary of State to give advice. It has been open throughout about the advice it has given. What I have told the Committee this afternoon is no more than I have told a large number of organisations to which I have spoken over the past six months. The NRA Advisory Committee has been open about the advice which has been submitted to the Government. It would have been a rather odd position if this Committee was not as fully informed as the large number of organisations in the water industry which have heard the chairman of the NRA Advisory Committee setting out its position in recent weeks and months.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Mason, who is a member of the committee, and I spoke at Second Reading and spelt out what we felt was right. We said that this Committee should know about the views of the advisory committee. I have been careful not to speak of my own views. Indeed I decided not to speak during the Committee stage about my views. I felt that it might be helpful if, on a point of clarification about the advice given by a public body which has been made public, the Committee should be made aware of that advice.
Lord Hesketh: I fear that I may be guilty of confusing or misleading the Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. I was under the impression that Amendment No. 391 was still grouped with Amendments Nos. 4 and 9. That is no longer the case and therefore I have served him a red herring for which I apologise.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: I am grateful to the Minister for talking about the red herrings he has produced in the course of his presentation. I agree that Amendment No. 391 is not grouped with these amendments. However, having listened to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and having regard also to the helpful intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, in his capacity as chairman of the NRA Advisory Committee, I should have thought that the Minister would at least take back the amendment and think about it without necessarily committing himself to anything very drastic. This is a matter of considerable importance. There has been support for the amendment from all sides of the Committee. The Government would earn a good deal of credit
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if they gave an assurance that it would be carefully considered for the next stage. I do not know whether I am intervening too much in the province of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, but I believe that some steps should be taken by the Government to deal with the matter more fully than they have done.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: Perhaps I may say a few words about sampling and laboratory testing. I confirm what my noble friend Lord Crickhowell has said. The job of taking samples and testing for all the rivers in the country is an immense one. The regional water authorities are doing it at the moment as the bodies responsible for river quality and for checking what is coming out of their own and other treatment works. This is a matter of physical necessity. For the NRA to set up an organisation to do that, so to speak, overnight would be clearly impossible.
I have always thought that it would be desirable to have some contracting out to the water companies of the future because all the apparatus of monitoring and testing is there. This would avoid massive duplication, which would cost tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of pounds a year. I wonder whether it would be possible to meet the point in the minds of noble Lords opposite that the monitoring and sample taking should be absolutely reliable. Moreover, when laboratory testing is done it should be done in a way that is completely reliable in terms of the NRA's functions. Perhaps the amendment could be modified so as to stipulate that where the NRA wants to set up schemes of contracting out to the water companies of the future it must first obtain the approval of the Minister to such schemes. This would ensure that the Secretary of State was satisfied that such schemes were reasonably water-tight.
For instance, I should have thought that the monitoring could well be done by the water companies. In my view it is essential that the NRA has at least some laboratories of its own from the start for testing so as to make absolutely certain that such testing is independently done. However, I doubt whether such laboratories would need to cover the whole field. There is a practical problem here. I felt, being familiar with what goes on in this field, that it would be helpful to point out that it could be met in such a way.
6.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: As the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, knows, there are certainly practical problems here. They are, it seems to me, of two kinds. The first is an ongoing problem which relates to the need, as the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, said, for impartial witnesses in any case. A great deal of money can be involved in the enforcement of provisions to protect water quality. We must therefore be absolutely certain that the effect of Part III of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, and the implementation and enforcement of these provisions, are not in any way damaged by the risk of partiality on the part of those taking the tests.

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The second ongoing problem was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. He did not like the idea—or perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls—of the period being "the previous five years". I think that there is some misunderstanding. The noble Earl and the noble Lord were assuming that a "person" is an individual who has been employed by a water undertaking. Of course, in legislation a person can mean an individual; but in this case it is much more likely to mean an organisation or company. An individual who had left a water company in order to set up in the testing or sampling business would in no way be disqualified by subsection (4) of Amendment No. 9. Therefore I do not think that that difficulty is a very real one.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I must point out that the amendment does not state a company; it reads, "to any person". As the wording stands, it means that the person could be vetoed from taking office.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I think not. It would have to be a company or organisation in order to carry out the work; it could not be carried out by a private individual. A "person" in this sense means a company or organisation which is an undertaking. In my view that is a common occurrence in legislation. Therefore I do not think that the long-term objections to our amendments have a great deal of strength.
However, the transitional objections seem to me to have some strength. I fully take the point that computing facilities would have to be available from the water authorities over a period. I suggested a period of a year or two and the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, confirmed that it would in fact be two years. I concede that at the outset laboratory services would have to be provided by the new water companies.
If the Minister can assure me that such arrangements are intended to be transitional and that it is the Government's intention to move as soon as possible to what we all want—that is, the separation of function between the regulator and the operator—then I shall gladly withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hesketh: I fear that I shall not be able to go quite so far as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, would wish. Perhaps I may just draw upon two points. First, my noble friend Lord Crickhowell referred to practicality. There is of course an element of practicality in the matter. The connection about which we are talking in no way compromises the independence of the NRA in terms of it deciding whether it is happy, or not happy, with the arrangements.
The second point is the one made by my noble friend Lord Nugent; that is, to go blindly ahead incurring a vast amount of extra cost because of the huge investment required, when there is a satisfactory and practical alternative available, may also not be entirely satisfactory.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That is a most disappointing answer. I offered the Minister an opportunity to give further assurances. I said that I would deal with the practical points of computing and laboratory services in the early stages of the Bill's proceedings by withdrawing the amendment and bringing forward another at a later stage. The Bill as it stands does not provide for a separation of functions between the regulator and the operator. The Minister's refusal to go any further by way of assurances means that we shall land up, when the transitional period is over, with the operator exercising those contracted-out functions on the part of the regulator.
I listened most carefully to what the Minister said about the assurances; I also listened carefully to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. I do no doubt that the NRA advisory committee was satisfied with the situation. However, the separation of functions is not required by the NRA advisory committee; it is required by the public. The public is the ultimate decider of what is right and what is wrong. The Minister has given no indication —despite pointing out the practical difficulties-that'he appreciates the fundamental point which is being made; namely, that you cannot contract out the regulation back to the operators. It cannot be done in the long term.
The amendment I have moved may be defective in the short term; but it reflects a wider principle which has received support from all sides of the Committee. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, and the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, with reservations, agreed that it was right. I pause momentarily in the hope that the Minister will go a little further than he has thus far and indicate that it is not the long-term intention of the Government to allow contracting out to the new water companies. Unfortunately, due to the absence of any response to my request, I have no alternative but to seek the opinion of the Committee.
6.37 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 85; Not-Contents, 134.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Donoughue, L.

Airedale, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Amherst, E.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Ardwick, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Aylestone, L.

Ezra, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Falkland, V.

Birk, B.

Fitt, L.

Blease, L.

Foot, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Galpern, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Glenamara, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Grey, E.

Carter, L.

Grimond, L.

Chorley, L.

Hacking, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Hampton, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Hanworth, V.

David, B.

Hooson, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

65

Jeger, B.

Rea, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

John-Mackie, L.

Rochester, L.

Listowel, E.

Ross of Newport, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Russell, E.

Sainsbury, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Seear, B.

Lockwood, B.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Serota, B.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Shepherd, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

McNair, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Mayhew, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Meston, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Monson, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Mountevans, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Nicol, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Northfield, L.

Underhill, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Vernon, L.

Peston, L.

Walston, L.

Phillips, B.

Wedderburn of Charlton,. L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Whaddon, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

White, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Winterbottom, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Arran, E.

Harvington, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Havers, L.

Bathurst, E.

Henley, L.

Bauer, L.

Hesketh, L.

Beloff, L.

Hives, L.

Belstead, L.

Hood, V.

Blatch, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Blyth, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Bolton, L.

Joseph, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Kimball, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Brain, L.

Knutsford, V.

Brookeborough, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Layton, L.

Butterworth, L.

Long, V.

Caithness, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Lyell, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

McFadzean, L.

Carnock, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Colnbrook, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Colwyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Margadale, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Marley, L.

Comwallis, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Cottesloe, L

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Craigton, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Merrivale, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Mersey, V.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Middleton, L.

Daventry, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Moran, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Mottistone, L.

Dundee, E.

Mountgarret, V.

Elles, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Munster, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Nelson, E.

Ferrers, E.

Norfolk, D.

Ferner, L.

Norrie, L.

Fortescue, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Orkney, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Goold, L.

Pender, L.

Greenway, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Gridley, L.

Pym, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Quinton, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Radnor, E.

Renton, L.

Halsbury, E.

Renwick, L.

66

Rochdale, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Romney, E.

Swinton, E.

Saint Albans, D.

Teviot, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Teynham, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Savile, L.

Trafford, L.

Selborne, E.

Trefgame, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Trumpington, B

Shannon, E.

Tryon, L.

Sharpies, B.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Wigram, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Wynford, L.

Strange, B.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
6.46 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 12, leave out from first ("than") to end of line 15 and insert ("fourteen nor more than eighteen members of whom—

(a) two shall be appointed by the Minister; and

(b) the others shall be appointed by the Secretary of State as follows:

(i) one quarter from persons nominated by the Local Authority Associations;
(ii) one quarter from persons nominated by such organisations as appear to the Secretary of State to be concerned with:

(a) the preservation and improvement of the physical environment;

(b) the promotion of leisure, recreational and sporting activities; and

(c) the protection and promotion of the interests of consumers.

(iii) one quarter from among persons who have experience of and have shown capacity in some matter relevant to the functions of the authority; and
(iv) one quarter from person nominated by organisations representative of employees of water or sewerage undertakers.").
The noble Lord said: I understand that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. The argument is contained in those amendments. We have been discussing some of the functions of the NRA and the advisory committees. We now turn to the composition of the authority. There is no doubt that the NRA can be, and, I hope will be, a powerful body. We should be concerned not just with its duties but with its composition.
Clause 1(2) provides:
"The Authority shall consist of not less than eight nor more than fifteen members of whom—

(a) two shall be appointed by the Minister; and

(b) the others shall be appointed by the Secretary of State".

When he replies, the Minister should tell us why the Government's differentiation in size and representation is laid down in that way.
There is a further subsection to which I should like to draw the Committee's attention. Subsection (4) states:
"In appointing a person to be a member of the Authority, the Secretary of State or, as the case may be, the Minister shall have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has experience of, and has shown capacity in, some matter relevant to the functions of the Authority."
We all believe that we know people who would be the best people to sit upon committees. This is not the time to say that the Minister may have it wrong. Subsection (4) deals with people to be appointed to the NRA. They must have shown capacity in some matter relevant to the function of the authority.
In Amendment No. 5 we set out what we consider to be the sensible composition of the authority. The points speak for themselves.
I wish to say a word or two about why we believe that groupings of the kind contained in Amendment No. 5 need to be written on the face of the Bill. First, a quarter of the members should be nominated by the local authority associations. Other appointments appear in later amendments but I believe that local authorities have an overwhelming case for having direct representation on the body. After all, the assets that will be managed were at one time substantially owned by the local authorities or by local people. They were owned by and ceded to the existing water authorities with premises which, as the noble Lord, Lord Rippon has reminded the Committee more than once, have been very badly damaged by the passage of time. The undertakings were local, in the main municipal and basically they belonged to the people. The argument that we wish to advance is that, if the case is made that the only people who are entitled to represent the public are Members of Parliament, then it is offensive to suggest that other local people such as councillors of any or all political persuasions are not able to represent the views of local people.
Besides ensuring that there are people who know all about the City, flotations and the values of land, about doing deals and development, the Government must also include on the body representatives who know all about people. That is the case for local authority representation. Achieving it may be tricky. A number of bodies represent local people: the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils, the Association of County Councils, the Association of London Auhorities and other organisations might have a case. But among the group of people who will manage this powerful organisation should be local people.
We beg the Government to take on board the goodwill that could exist and go a very long way if the Secretary of State shows sympathy for the raison d'être of the amendments. We suggest that one quarter of the people involved should represent and relate to the preservation and the improvement of the environment. That will be a major part of the responsibilities of the National Rivers Authority. We have already had a canter over the course in regard to the assets and how they will be used. Noble Lords on this side of the House and people in the country believe that where those assets are currently being used for the enjoyment of the public in one form or another that use should continue.
There are the environmental groups: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Council for the Protection of Rural England—and rural Wales. There are even some bodies which exist for the preservation of Wales in a different form. We are
68
not being too specific about the bodies that should be represented, but many people outside think that if the body which will manage the resources does not include people with specific interests it will be defective in one way or another.
The other important matter is that the people will be nominated by the bodies and not invited by the Secretary of State to represent those bodies. The Government must get out of the habit of believing that they are the only body competent to or capable of inviting groups of people to nominate a representative. The Secretary of State knows many people and through his office he has access to lists of the great and the good. But why not trust the environmental bodies and the local authorities to come up with individuals of the right kind?
Then we mention people representing the promotion of leisure, recreational and sporting activities—a great wedge of activities in which millions of people take part. There are many people closer to those pursuits than I—the literally millions of anglers, ramblers and people who enjoy the countryside. Some means must be found of giving them a slice of the action; they should not just be invited to have one of their people nominated by the Secretary of State. They should be able to do it themselves.
Then there is,
"the protection and promotion of the interests of consumers".
I imagine that in that phrase the pre-eminent bodies are the National Consumer Council and the Consumers' Association, but there may be others as well. Those are the main bodies but other groups of people are included here, such as the representatives of employees of the water or sewerage undertakers. The Government make great play of the fact that they are providing workers with the right to buy into the financial action of their companies. I am sure that play will be made of the fact that those employees of bodies which will be privatised will have a mechanism which allows the workers to become shareholders in the business. We all know the value of shareholdings but we are suggesting that, in addition to the value of the shareholdings, there should be a place at the top table. The employees should have some representatives—we are not specific about numbers—who represent the workers. How do we do it? I am not talking about trade unions but representatives of the employees chosen through a mechanism which will need to be worked out.
As with everything else, the Government can kid themselves that all the interests which I have mentioned will be well looked after by the men and women whom the Minister already has in mind. We are asking, "Why not go out to the people whose interests the Government say they look after and invite them to nominate the men and women whom they trust and with whom they work?"
The other category of people whom I think I ought to mention and who we believe should have a place at the top table among what I call "the authorities" is:
"persons who have experience of and have shown capacity in some matter relevant to the functions of the authority".
Here the Minister is perfectly entitled to say that there are men and women who know how to run a business and take big decisions. I am not saying that that is not necessary; of course it is. But I hope that the Minister will look kindly upon these bodies. He should be quite clear that many critics could be silenced if there were somebody whom they themselves had chosen to represent their interests at the top table. That is the genesis of Amendment No. 5.
The other amendment, Amendment No. 6, says:
"Before making any appointment under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult such individuals and organisations representative of local authorities, or as appear to him, or to the Minister, to be concerned".
So we do not just want them there; we also want them to be consulted.
Accountability in these matters is very important. If the Minister is looking for ways in which the passage of the Bill can be eased, I seriously suggest to him—not that it is my job to ease the passage of the Bill—that it will be easier if people outside who will be deeply affected by the Bill in all the categories I have mentioned have an opportunity to have access to the top table. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: I rise in order briefly to support everything said by the noble Lord, Lord Graham. Frankly, I believe that this part of the Bill is vague, although I suspect that we are trying to keep open a gate which is already virtually closed, Most of the appointments have been made or are in draft. I should, however, like to support the view that certainly the statutory and voluntary bodies in the conservation sector ought to be represented, and that that ought to be spelt out.
I suspect that when the Minister replies he will say, "We don't want to have too big a management body. We want to keep it down to a reasonable size". I have some sympathy with that. We are, after all, asking in this amendment to increase those numbers, but perhaps we could have some variation on these numbers. If the noble Lord is going to say that there will be difficulty in getting the voluntary bodies to nominate, all I can say is that I have the honour to chair a body called Wildlife Link, which, as a small umbrella group, covers something like 50 bodies involved with conservation, and there will be no difficulty at all.
I think his own colleague, the Minister responsible for this Bill, Mr. Michael Howard, will confirm the expertise of the small group that I took to see him, and particularly the chap representing Friends of the Earth. The Minister accepted quite frankly that he put forward some excellent suggestions. There will not be any difficulty about that.
Of course the local authorities ought to be supported, although the Government do not really believe in local government, and I do not know why they do not abolish it altogether. However, while we have local government it ought to be on the NRA, and I believe that most of the unions should be represented too. It would alleviate some of the concern, particularly in the conservation movement.
70
I think the NCC should be represented, or at least the Countryside Commission, or one or the other. If these things are done then I say to the Minister that he is going some way to alleviating the concern.
We are going to get a lot of amendments dealing with the regional and other bodies and representation on them. I think the noble Lord will confirm that the work that has been done on some of these bodies in a slightly different form has been first rate and much appreciated. Therefore surely it is only right that some of them at least with the expertise should be on the main body of the National Rivers Authority. I beg to support this amendment.
Lord Renton: I hope that my noble friends will not accept this amendment. The first question is whether it is right to have a board so large as 18 members. We all have experience of committees and bodies of various kinds. My experience is that the larger the body, the less the responsibility, or share of responsibility, taken by each individual member of it other than the chairman. Really, 18 seems to me to be far too numerous.
Further, if we are going to have it as a representative body, about which I have some doubt, we can perfectly well get it within the Minister's number of 14; that is to say, we would have two appointed by the Minister; two from local authorities, or it might be three; two from the environment—and there should be two. But then for the promotion of leisure, etc., I think we could well have only one. I do not think that that is as important as the environment or the interests of consumers. Let the interests of consumers have two; people with experience of the industry, two; employees, two. All that adds up to 14, which is what the Government propose as a maximum. Therefore, the Government can have their cake and eat it. To go to 18 is quite excessive.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I am surprised that my noble friend, whom I usually find so sound in the advice he gives to us, seems to be accepting the principle behind the amendment.
Lord Renton: Would my noble friend allow me? I cannot have made myself plain. I said that I had grave doubts as to whether we should have a representative body, but if we had to then we could perfectly well achieve it within the Government's 14.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: That is a little better. However, it is inconceivable to me that the National Rivers Authority, which is going to have the power that this body is going to have, should in a way be subservient to somebody outside who appointed it. If, for example, one-quarter had to be persons nominated by the local authority associations, the knowledge that it is the local authority associations which have asked them to sit in this sort of judicial capacity will mean that there is a partiality towards the people who appointed them. You cannot avoid that.
It is a similar situation with the promotion of leisure: "It is the promotion of leisure. Therefore, I

71
have to concentrate on the promotion of leisure". It is like saying that the bench of magistrates should be appointed by the local licensed victualler's association because they do a fair amount of business in the courts; or that the chamber of trade should be the ones who say who should be the magistrates.
When people are appointed members of this board, while I hope that some of them will come from some of the sources outlined in the amendment, that some of them will be from local authorities and some will be people known to be interested in leisure and things of that sort, the appointments should be because overall they can be judicial, they can be impartial, and they are sensible. The Government's way of appointing them covers just that. They want them to take into account all the ingredients that will have to be covered. But to say that appointments are going to be in the hands of these outside bodies is wrong, as they may well be at some time in conflict with the National Rivers Authority.
I can well see the local authority associations having a number of punch-ups with the National Rivers Authority. If a quarter of the members have been appointed by them, what sort of judicial impartiality are you going to get there? While I prefer the amended version of what my noble friend said—although he did not go really far enough—on commonsense grounds, if you want the National Rivers Authority to do the job that this Bill envisages, this amendment in principle must not be considered for one second.
Lord Trafford: I wonder whether it would be possible to put to the mover of the amendment the point that it is certainly appropriate to have a representative committee, which is really what he is talking about, for certain functions. But—and I feel that he did not answer this question—is it appropriate for this type of function? I have nothing against having local authority representatives on this body or the others, but I have some experience of running committees that are supposed to be independent of any particular interest.
What my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls said is quite right. When you get specifically appointed members of representative interests, then naturally they follow those interests. That is what they are there for, and that is what you expect them to do. As I understand it, this is not a body where you want that type of thing to happen.
Looking around the Committee at the moment I do not think that there is anybody present who served with me on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Bill. I apologise; I see that somebody is present. It may be of some point to say that one of the great problems at that time was that nothing had happened for so long because of the conflict of interest in representation between many of the bodies of the type that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred to. One would not want this type of situation to arise on the National Rivers Authority.
These would be my objections to this amendment. It is nothing to do with the quality of the person. It is nothing to do—as the noble Lord, Lord Ross of
72
Newport, was talking about—with making environmentalists and all the rest happy. There may well be a place and function for them to perform, but I query, bearing in mind the type of function that you require this body to perform and the type of people you want to have performing it, whether this is the proper committee.
I am not against the people whom the noble Lord, Lord Graham, mentioned. I am not against local authority representation on committees on principle. What I am against is setting up at this stage on the face of the Bill what could well be the totally wrong committee to operate this particular function.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I am surprised that there should be such opposition to this small, mild amendment. One would imagine, to hear the opponents of the amendment, that local authorities had never been involved in river conservation, or indeed, judging by the Second Reading debate, that local authorities had never been involved in the supply and distribution of water.
The local authorities have been managing rivers since 1973 and managing water supplies and water distribution over many years. They have done it very successfully indeed. I was a member of a water committee and helped to set up the Reading and Berkshire water authority which ran the water industry in that area with considerable success. It had to run it with considerable success because the people who were responsible were members of the local authority and were liable to be elected or not elected depending on the job they did for the people in the locality. Therefore, when we look at the river boards and the local authority water undertakings we see that they have been run very successfully on behalf of local people.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that in my experience they were run very well on behalf of the local people. Indeed, the Thames Conservancy, which included many local authority representatives, looked after the Thames very successfully and brought about many improvements to that river. It started the clean-up of that river.
Therefore when Members opposite suggest that local authority elected representatives cannot do the job and are not necessary, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. Noble Lords opposite shake their heads but their speeches made it quite clear that they do not believe that local authority representation has any future in relation to this Bill and in particular in relation to this clause. I believe that they are very much mistaken. There is and should be a continuing role for local authorities in river management and in the supply of water. I know that that is not what this Bill is about; it is about the very reverse. At least I believe that at this stage of the Bill the value of local authority representation on the rivers authority, and at later stages on other authorities, should be considered. I support my noble friend's amendment.
The Earl of Caithness: Before the noble Lord sits down I think that it is worth making one point for the sake of the record. The noble Lord referred to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell: for the record, my noble friend is not in the Chamber.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: I should like to tell the noble Lord, Lord Graham, that I once owned a factory. Everyone was very happy there. I suggested to one of the workers on the shopfloor, who was extremely popular with all the other men, that he might like to sit on the board. He said that he would and I put him on the board. He came to me about four or five weeks afterwards and said that he would like to resign. I asked him why and he said, "Hardly any of the workers on the shopfloor will now speak to me". Therefore I think that one has to be very careful when appointing people who have no relevant experience.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: It is very important to appreciate what kind of body this will be. It is to be a pragmatic body which has a set of objectives and duties which it has to fulfil. It has to concentrate on those duties and act as efficiently, promptly and effectively as possible. It should certainly consist of people who understand the subject. I believe that Clause 1(4) ensures that the people who are appointed will have relevant experience and will have a track record in those matters.
As my noble friend Lord Trafford said, anyone who has had experience of running that kind of body will know that, in a body whose representatives have been nominated by various interest groups, much of the time is spent discussing their conflicting interests and every decision tends to be a compromise. It is a perfectly good body, and I have been chairman of such a body. I have also been chairman of the other kind of body. The type of body depends on the task. This particular body has a very clear task which is set out in the Bill. The authority has to get on with that task. It seems to be that the right way to approach that kind of body is in the way that is proposed in the Bill.
As to the involvement of local authorities, they will be enormously involved. They are involved in environmental protection, planning and roads and in very many aspects of what the body will discuss. They will be consulted constantly, as doubtless will the various environmental interest groups and the like. I do not think that local authorities should feel that this is a deliberate attempt to exclude them from the management of water which they undertook some time ago. It is simply that this body has a particular response and is designed for that and no other purpose.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: The main purpose of these amendments is to require consultation with environmental, local authority and other interests before appointments are made to the NRA and to provide additional members on the board of the NRA to represent particular interests.
Amendment No. 5 proposes that the NRA board should have 14 to 18 members, of whom two would be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture and the remainder by the Secretary of State: one quarter from nominations by local authority associations, one quarter from nominations by environmental, recreational or consumer organisations, one quarter from people with relevant knowledge or expertise
74
and one quarter from nominations by employee organisations in the water industry.
Amendment No. 6 would require the Secretary of State before making board appointments, to consult individuals and organisations representative of local authorities. Amendment No. 7 would delete the requirement on the Secretary of State or Minister to have regard to the desirability of appointing to the board people who have relevant experience.
The Government's intentions for the NRA, as a non-departmental public body with members appointed by Ministers, were set out in the policy document on the NRA published in December 1987. We made clear in that policy document that board members of the NRA would be appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, and two members would be specifically appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and one by the Secretary of State for Wales. We also made clear the the intention will be to appoint members with knowledge relevant to the functions of the NRA.
These policy proposals are carried forward into the Bill in Clause 1, with one small change. In December 1987, we said that the board should have up to 12 members. In the Bill we have allowed for a board of up to 15 members. This is not because we necessarily want as many as 15 members on the NRA board but because we recognise that the range of interests that need to be represented on the NRA may require a board of more than 12 and that a statutory maximum of 15 would be more appropriate. A board of this size will ensure that the NRA has the stature appropriate to a major national body, provided its members have relevant expertise and are able to command respect among all those who depend either for their livelihood or their recreation on our river system.
What these amendments propose is that there should be a formal consultation with all those who might wish to nominate members of the NRA. This is something we would strongly oppose. It would have the effect that when members were appointed to the NRA they would necessarily feel that they were there to represent a specific interest. This is not what we intend at all. Our aim is to have a small effective board where all members feel that they are able to speak and take an interest in all matters that will affect the NRA. Although individual members may have a particular expertise we should certainly not want them to feel that they were mandated to represent a particular interest. If the board of the NRA is to work as a team, all members must take a broader interest than any specific expertise or background that may have led to their appointment to the board. Any formal consultation with outside bodies would be incompatible with the sort of team work that we consider will be needed from the board of the NRA.
I must also say that we would be opposed to the suggestion that interested organisations should make direct appointments to the board. That would be quite inappropriate for a major national non-departmental public body which must be accountable through Ministers to Parliament. That accountability to Parliament through Ministers

75
would be seriously jeopardised if outside bodies were able to make appointments direct to the board of the NRA.
In closing, I should say that, in the light of the arguments deployed which resulted in the last Division, I was slightly surprised by sub-paragraph (iv), which refers to a proposal that one quarter of the persons appointed shall be
"nominated by organisations representative of employees of water or sewerage undertakers".
I hope that noble Lords will feel unable to accept these amendments.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I am deeply disappointed with both the response of the Minister and with the remarks made from behind him. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, considers that a body with major decisions to make, which comprised 18 members, would be unwieldly and unable to agree. I see that the Cabinet numbers 22 members; I imagine that it would have some difficulty in coming to its decisions unless a certain person in the Cabinet room appointed the people who sit around the table. I believe that that happens in the Cabinet room.
In this case, there will be a body of up to 15 people who will have been appointed by one man—the Minister or the Secretary of State. Their reappointment will depend on the manner in which they satisfy the Secretary of State. The Minister says that it is preferable to be accountable to the Secretary of State than to the local authorities or to the employees. That is a concept that we on this side of the House totally reject, although the Government and the Minister have made no bones about it. The Secretary of State says—this applies particularly to sub-paragraph (iv)—that he wants the people who will sit on that non-departmental government body (in other words, the men and women who will be chosen by him) to be vetted in the light of what he considers to be the appropriateness of their ability to serve.
That is one point of view. We happen to believe that managing the nation's water calls for something different. The Minister tries to tell the House that the management of water is no different from the management of fish, shoes or plastics. However, we believe that it is different. We believe that the case for looking at the management, control and accountability to the public of water is different. We are giving the Minister the means to bring that about. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that we may have the numbers wrong. I believe that I heard him say that he did not agree with the concept but, if there was to be representation, it might be in a different form.
I had hoped that the Minister might say to the House that he was prepared to look at the amendment, take it away and come back. However, quite frankly, his concept of the kind of body about which we are talking and of how such a body should be set up and the belief that it should be wholly in his gift and not accountable to the people is incompatible with our concept. That is where we
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part company. I intend to press the amendment to a Division.
7.24 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 56; Not-Contents, 111.

DIVISION NO. 3

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Airedale, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Ardwick, L.

McNair, L.

Barnett, L.

Monson, L.

Birk, B.

Nicol, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Peston, L.

Carter, L.

Phillips, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

David, B.

Rea, L.

Donoughue, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Ross of Newport, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Russell, E.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Seear, B.

Ezra, L.

Shepherd, L.

Falkland, V.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Galpern, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Glenamara, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hampton, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hanworth, V.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hooson, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jeger, B.

Underhill, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Walston, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

White, B.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Winstanley, L.

Lockwood, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailesbury, M.

Goold, L.

Alport, L.

Greenway, L.

Arran, E.

Gridley, L.

Bathurst, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Beloff, L.

Hailsham of Saint

Belstead, L.

Marylebone, L.

Blatch, B.

Halsbury, E.

Bolton, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Harvington, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Havers, L.

Brain, L.

Henley, L.

Brookeborough, V.

Hesketh, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hives, L.

Butterworth, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Caithness, E.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Joseph, L.

Carnock, L.

Kimball, L.

Colwyn, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Knutsford, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Layton, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Long, V.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Daventry, V.

Lyell, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

McFadzean, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Dundee, E.

Mancroft, L.

Elles, B.

Margadale, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Marley, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Ferrers, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Fortescue, E.

Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Mersey, V.

77

Middleton, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Savile, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Selborne, E.

Moran, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Mottistone, L.

Sharpies, B.

Mountevans, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Munster, E.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Nelson, E.

Swinton, E.

Norrie, L.

Teviot, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Onslow, E.

Trafford, L.

Orkney, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Trumpington, B.

Pender, L.

Truro, Bp.

Radnor, E.

Tryon, L.

Renton, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Rochdale, V.

Wigram, L.

Romney, E.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Wynford, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Young, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.32 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 8 to 10 not moved.]
The Earl of Arran: I hope that the Committee will agree that this is a suitable moment at which to break for dinner. I suggest that we do not return to the Committee stage of the Bill before 8.35 p.m. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Hearing Aid Council (Amendment) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989
7.33 p.m.
Lord Pesten Lord Pesten rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989 [S.I. 1989 No. 309] be annulled.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, let me start by saying that in praying against this order I am simply using it as a procedural device in order to discuss the science curriculum. On this occasion I am not proposing to divide your Lordships' House on this matter although I may when we come to discuss other such orders feel that that would be an appropriate way to proceed.
It seems to me that, given the Education Bill that became the Education Act and given that such orders
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become the way in which we move on the question of the curriculum, it would be a great pity if your Lordships did not take this opportunity—indeed I regard it as an historic opportunity—to discuss the national curriculum and in this case the curriculum in science. Let me add that I believe—and I approach this matter in as constructive a spirit as I possibly can—that it is right for Ministers to be involved in the curriculum and it is right for Members of Parliament, not least your Lordships, to be in a position to debate the curriculum. As I understand it, this is the first time in recent history that that has been possible.
Whatever criticisms that I and my colleagues and noble friends have made of the Education Bill, they certainly did not extend to saying that discussion of the curriculum itself was inappropriate. Also, if noble Lords will reflect on our great debates on these matters, they will remember that we argued about the core curriculum, what ought to be in it and such matters. I remain convinced in my original view that the narrow core was the correct approach, leaving more flexibility for other subjects. But that is not a matter that need concern us at the present time because we all agreed that science should be in the core.
Let me, parenthetically, make another series of remarks. I have chosen not to pray also against the education order that deals with mathematics. In choosing to make that decision I must tell noble Lords that the reason very simply was not to overdo matters at this stage. There is a limit to your Lordships' patience, important though these subjects are. But I do not want noble Lords to believe that in not discussing the mathematics order I regard that in some way or other as less important. Indeed, my view would probably be to regard the mathematics curriculum as underlying everything on the science side and certainly therefore of at least equal importance. But except for one or two comments about standards that I shall make in a moment, I do not find a great deal with which to disagree at this stage in the mathematics curriculum.
Overall it looks to me to be a rather good curriculum in the broad sense. I think that it can be criticised and I shall make one or two criticisms in a moment, but on the whole I must admit that I tend to welcome it. However, let me make those criticisms en passant. To some extent—and this is not irrelevant to the science curriculum—it has to do with standards.
It seems to me that in considering mathematics we must take fundamental analysis and basic ideas very seriously and not view mathematics, as many ignorant people do, as simply a matter of calculation. One often hears it said that if one cannot do long division in one's head, then somehow one is not a mathematician. There is nothing more absurd. I know many people who can do long division in their head but do not have the faintest idea of what they are doing and cannot possibly explain why what they are doing is correct.
What matters in mathematics is the fundamental side. What worries me a little about the mathematics order is that there are one or two fundamental

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aspects of mathematics that seem to have been left out. I just mention them to draw them to your Lordships' attention. Of the two that most concern me, one is that there is a reference to vector notation but no reference at all to matrices. Yet I am quite clear from the time that my own children did mathematics, both in primary and secondary school, that they actually did matrix algebra, which, despite the tough sounding name, is quite an easy subject and rather important. I am a little disappointed that that has been left out.
I am also a trifle disappointed—unless I have misread the document, and that is always possible —that calculus does not seem to be included in the mathematics order. Again I find that rather surprising.
On the more practical side of mathematics—and again this relates to the science curriculum—I believe that the mathematics order has rather less of a statistical nature in it than I should have liked to see. Since I regard maths as the vital entrée to the science side, I am a little worried about the lack of concern with statistical matters in the mathematics curriculum.
Let me turn to the science curriculum itself. I should like to emphasise three matters. First, overall, I believe that it is rather good. Many noble Lords may agree that, if all of us knew as much science as is laid down by this order, we should know more than we currently know and might be more useful in our society than perhaps must of us are. I am not saying that it is all wholly appalling; it is rather good.
My concern is whether the order lays down a high enough standard. Here I must reveal my ignorance or lack of understanding about the nature of the national curriculum. This may give the noble Viscount an opportunity to clarify the matter when he replies. A range of achievement is possible within the science curriculum. Not everyone achieves the same standard. What is not clear to me is whether schools which wish to cover more than is laid down in the national curriculum will be in a position to do so. My worry is whether, although for a great number of pupils this will be a very good curriculum—and I have one or two remarks to make on that—for those who are particularly good at science it will attain the highest, rather than high, standards. I should like the noble Viscount to tell us the thinking of the DES on teaching more rather than less.
Secondly, when considering the detail of the science curriculum I am a little mystified whether it is theoretical enough. All my biases in my academic career have been rather more on the theoretical than on the applied side. I freely admit that I have such biases. However, even on the applied side my experience has been that one cannot apply matters properly unless one knows enough theory to understand what one is doing. As the curriculum is laid down, this matter is not obvious to me. I ask this interrogatively. Is enough theory included? I ask that question again at two levels. Is enough theory included for most ordinary pupils working in this area so that they understand what they are doing on
80
method and application? I hope that I shall not be accused of intellectual snobbery when I also ask this question of the noble Viscount. Will the national curriculum provide a sufficiently rigorous foundation, in particular at the theoretical level, for more advanced work?
On the question of whether there will be enough mathematics to feed into the science curriculum, I go back to my point about statistics. I am delighted to see genetics in the national curriculum for science. Will the young people be taught enough statistics to understand what happens in genetics and in particular the theory? That is my first set of questions. I put them forward in a constructive manner. I do not regard such questions as remotely political. They are argumentative certainly, but that is another matter altogether. I shall welcome the view of the noble Viscount on these points.
I now come to the second matter that has been discussed widely in the education press and was debated in the other place only the other day. It concerns the smaller or narrower science course. I ask this question genuinely and not provocatively. Why has the smaller science course been introduced? One reason may be because Ministers and their advisers genuinely believed on education grounds that for a significant number of young people this was the appropriate course. If that is their view I should like to hear more argument on it.
Perhaps I may hark back to our debates on the Bill. When we were arguing about flexibility, some noble Lords considered that there might be such narrower courses. Then the Government steadfastly rejected all those arguments. In the case of the science curriculum how has this narrower curriculum arisen on education grounds, if it has? I am well aware that there is another argument here, though it is not the reason for my main inquiry this evening. Cynics have put forward the view that all the Government are doing is recognising the shortage of teachers and other resources and that they have introduced this curriculum because they know that they could not possibly provide all the teaching and other resource inputs required for the overall science curriculum. At the very least the noble Viscount ought to answer that accusation. I do not necessarily make it myself but I wait to hear what the Minister has to say.
It was not my intention to introduce this discussion simply as an entrée yet again to a great row about teacher shortages. However, I am now extremely confused about the position of the DES on teacher shortages. The department has certainly made a number of public statements that it recognises that there is shortage of science teachers. It is not pretending that there is not. Although we can argue about how much the Government are doing to remove the shortage, it will persist for quite a while. First, can the noble Viscount tell us more on that subject? Secondly, what will happen if the teachers are not available? What will happen to the science curriculum? I do not see how a curriculum as good as this—and I repeat that point—can be taught by people who are not themselves properly educated in science. One cannot simply wander in, pick up a book and say, "Turn to page such and

81
such, and we shall deal with this following problem in mutation on genetics". One either knows the subject oneself or one cannot teach it. I therefore have to ask the question: what will happen if the teachers are not available?
Wearing my normal economist's hat, I have to ask a more general question on resources. Do we know that the laboratories are there for science in all these schools? Do we know that the text books are there? I should not refer simply to text books. Do we know that up-to-date text books are available? Those who have been involved in teaching are well aware that not giving every child a book of his own is a very bad practice. The notion that children can share books is preposterous, as anyone who has any experience of teaching knows. Giving them out-of-date books is even more absurd. In science, of all subjects, resources must be available.
I argued this point when we discussed the Bill. I welcome the Secretary of State taking responsibility to some degree for the curriculum. I still welcome it. However, when the Secretary of State takes such responsibility he also has to take responsibility on the resource side. He cannot say, "I am concerned with the curriculum but then I wash my hands on whether the means are there to achieve it."
I hope very much that the shorter scientific curriculum does not turn out in practice simply to be directed at women rather than men. One of the greatest wastes in our society is the limited extent to which women have involved themselves in science although I see no evidence that women are intrinsically less able to do science than men. We must go to enormous lengths to try to eradicate any such sexual bias, if I may put it that way, in science. Whatever the case for the narrower or shorter course, we must see that it suddenly does not end up much more as an easy biology course with little hard physics for women. I hope that there will be total agreement from the Government on that.
I remind the noble Viscount that one important professional body, namely the Royal Society of Chemistry, has expressed deep concern about the narrower curriculum. It does not like it. I assume that it dislikes it particularly because it may be damaging to chemistry, a subject in which our country has had enormous achievements over the years. It is one of the subjects in which we remain of world class. We can consider ourselves with great confidence as major achievers. My view is not necessarily that the Royal Society of Chemistry is completely right in what it says; however, when it expresses a worry, it seems to me that the Secretary of State has a duty to respond. He has a duty to say to such an important professional body that, first, its worries are taken seriously and, secondly, if the Government think its views wrong, to explain why. For the moment, if they are not sure whether the society is wrong, the Government are open to further argument. I hope to hear something from the noble Viscount on that.
I have one last point on procedure. I am sorry to have gone on for so long. On so interesting a matter, it illustrates how long I could continue if given the opportunity. Once it is agreed, I understand that this document will become the national curriculum in
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science. I have two concerns. First, let us suppose that during a debate such as this, one or other noble Member by some miracle makes quite a good point about the curriculum. Perhaps, taking the example of my maths point, what I said about matrix algebra may be correct. One worry—the counterside to our ability to discuss the matter—is that it is not obvious how the curriculum may be modified. How can anything happen in practice?
That relates to a further question. Let us suppose that more generally, not noble Lords, but the education world, through experiments, discovers that the curriculum ought to be changed. Is there any way in which the curriculum can be appropriately modified? So far as I can see, the Secretary of State, again with an order, will have to modify the curriculum. I welcome our chance for a debate, but I am worried about possible inflexibility. The Secretary of State may have to consider what happens in other areas such as a permanent review of the curriculum and a statement to another place and to your Lordships' House on the state of the curriculum and possible changes.
However, I do not wish to conclude on a negative note. If we are lucky and the resources are there, the result of the national curriculum will be that more science will be studied successfully by more pupils than ever before. If that happens I reiterate the point: I for one will strongly welcome it.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989 [S.I. 1989 No. 309] be annulled.—[Lord Peston.]
7.53 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for putting down this Prayer and for giving us an opportunity to debate matters which seriously need parliamentary scrutiny. I agreed with almost everything that the noble Lord said, including that the academic part of these matters should not be regarded as issues for party debate. I was also interested and pleased to hear the noble Lord consider the possibility that at some future date on such an occasion the House might divide. Let me hasten to reassure noble Lords opposite that I recognise that dividing the House during the dinner break is a gastronomic crime and should be undertaken, if at all, only to avoid a much graver political crime. That possibility somewhere should exist as a vital part of parliamentary sovereignty, and I should be sorry to see it disappear.
I agreed with the phrase that the noble Lord used that the curriculum as set out is rather good. It was a pleasure to read. It was well written; it was lively; and it was simple. It stimulated intellectual curiosity, which is one of the best things I can say about it. I found myself, interestingly, reacting as a parent, remembering a great many wet Saturday afternoons at the Science Museum. I am slightly more happy than the noble Lord about the balance between theory and practice. The words "understand" and "know" seem to me to be coming with considerable frequency.

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However, one or two worries are worth mentioning. Science changes. Nowadays it tends to change very rapidly indeed. These attainment tests suppose that certain scientific facts, as we now think they are, will continue to be thought true. To satisfy the attainment targets it will be necessary to appear to know these facts. We might find that one of them proved to be false tomorrow. I know it is always a problem keeping a school curriculum up to date. I know also that the National Curriculum Council has a power of review. But, as the noble Lord said, it is a somewhat cumbrous process. It will be a little like turning a tanker. I wonder whether there may be an effect here of ossifying error.
Something else about which I am anxious is the amount of content. Science has a tendency to grow. My tutor, John Roberts, remarked in his History of the World that at any time since 1500 there have been more scientists alive than dead. It is a lot easier to put subjects into a curriculum than to take them out. The body of knowledge required is heavy. I wonder whether, with the increase in known science, it may be heavier. It may indeed become too heavy. That is a problem to which I do not pretend to have an answer. However, I should like to flag it for attention.
When this matter was raised in another place, some people were deeply concerned about the two-tier curriculum; mode A and mode B. I was glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was slightly less concerned about that. On these Benches we are well aware, and have reiterated many times, that children differ. The word we uttered many times during our proceedings on the Education Reform Bill was "flexibility". It seems to me that this two-tier suggestion allows some flexibility. Indeed I wondered at moments whether it owed something to the amendment so amply supported from the Cross-Benches and elsewhere of my noble friend Lord McNair on the teaching of languages. It gave me a faint hope, a wild surmise, that just possibly some thinking about the content of that amendment may have gone on since it was discussed in this House. I look forward to the curriculum order on languages with a good deal of interest.
Granted this generally optimistic greeting of the contents, I have misgivings about the implementation. One is the pace of reorganisation in schools. One of my noble friends, who is unfortunately not able to be here today, has drawn attention to the fact that in his school all the targets of attainment in the programmes of study did not arrive until just before the Easter vacation. The school is in the middle of introducing TVEI and also in the course of a reorganisation involving a merger with another school. A considerable amount of dislocation is involved. When so many things are changing at once at this pace one wonders whether all will be done properly. One wonders whether good ideas might have been brought forward if there had been slightly less unseemly haste. I am also deeply worried about resources on which I want to dwell more than the noble Lord has. I am glad that the noble Lord said that this is not solely a question of teachers. My honourable friends in another place
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have estimated the cost of laboratory resources to enable schools to teach the national curriculum at £50,000 per school. I do not see where that money is coming from. I am also glad that the noble Lord said what he did about books. The point cannot be repeated too often, but the teacher problem is at the bottom of it.
In a parliamentary Answer given on 19th April, Mr. Butcher gave a figure of 36,640 for the net loss of teachers in all subjects since 1984. That is a gross loss of 43,120. For science, he gave a figure for gross loss of 8,540. He did not give a figure for net loss so I cannot quote it. One imagines that it would be roughly in proportion.
I share the anxieties about whether a truly intellectually demanding curriculum—and I am glad that it is such—can be taught by people without the proper qualifications. I know that the Secretary of State is optimistic—he usually is. He quotes figures about entrants to teacher training which I too am glad to see. But they are figures before such people have encountered their first mortgage, before the birth of their first child, before the pressures or re-organisation and before most of the issues which are deterring people from the profession are encountered. They are not the figures that we need to be looking at. Not only do we need to be getting people to enter teacher training but we need to be getting them to stay there.
I wonder whether blaming the unions for teacher discontent has been a case of shooting the messenger. I wonder whether now, with the messenger shot, we are seeing how the message is delivered. It is important because, if the situation is not put right, the national curriculum, which I should welcome, simply will not happen. It is coming in without visible means of support, with the DES in its familiar guise of following the policy of doing without braces. We have criticised the DES in the past for its indifference to dead languages. It has, however, a great affection for dead letters: I wish it would put it the other way round.
8.3 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peston, for giving the House the opportunity of discussing the order, which, along with the parallel order on mathematics, sets out the first of the full national curriculum requirements to be introduced under the Education Reform Act 1988. I am also grateful for his assurance that his purpose in raising the subject tonight is to express his concern and thoughts on the contents and balance of the proposed curriculum and that his aim is to be constructive.
There is widespread support for the principle of the national curriculum and I am aware of the real and widespread concern to improve standards in our schools and to support the national curriculum in its role in the improvement of standards. But before starting my speech I should like to make two points. First, I must say a word of thanks to members of the Science Working Group, who put a great deal of skill, experience and time into the deliberations which eventually resulted in the documents which we have before us. Secondly, I believe that in a debate of this

85
nature it will be more constructive if I answer some of the noble Lords' questions in a considered letter after studying the Official Report rather than attempting to answer off the top of my head. However, that does not mean that I shall not try to answer most of the points. It means that my speech will be slightly longer than I had intended but I hope that that will show that the Government are taking the debate very seriously.
Many people have concerns when radical change is envisaged and it is right that those concerns are expressed. I hope that I shall be able to put at rest most of those anxieties. I believe that in some cases they arise as a result of thinking up hypothetical situations.
Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of the purpose of the order we are debating. It specifies the attainment targets, arranged in 10 successive levels of attainment, and the programmes of study to support them, covering the four key stages of compulsory schooling from age 5 to 16. These are to be phased in progressively, starting this autumn. The first unreported trial run of assessements will be made in 1991, for 7-year old pupils then reaching the end of the first key stage. The following year, 1992, will see the first fully reported assessments for the next cohort of pupils reaching the end of the first key stage then at age 7. The assessment arrangements will be the subject of a separate order. The present order concerns the attainment targets and programmes of study alone.
There has been some criticism of the consultation process. Work on the national curriculum has been intensive but consultation has been an important part of the process at each stage. The Science Working Group produced its interim report in November 1987 and this was used as the basis of consulting a large number of organisations and individuals. Then the working group produced its final report on 30th June 1988. The Secretaries of State for Education and Science and for Wales then commented on the report and published it with the Government's proposals. In England the National Curriculum Council and in Wales the Welsh Office sent these out for consultation. After due consideration the NCC submitted recommendations in November 1988 which were accepted by the Secretaries of State. The draft orders were published in December for a further round of consultation before being laid before Parliament in March. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that there has been a long series of consultations.
It has been suggested that future orders for other curriculum subjects ought to be debated at draft stage. There is ample opportunity for noble Lords, as for any other interested party, to submit written comments on the working party reports, the Secretary of State's proposals and the draft orders. Two debates on each order might seem a little excessive.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Peston, agreed that we are not debating the mathematics curriculum he asked a question about it. In the same spirit I shall answer that question. He regretted the omission of matrix work, calculus and statistics from the national curriculum order. Without necessarily accepting the
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detail of his critism, I point out that the content of the order reflects the extensive two-stage public consultations which took place on the maths proposals. But the Government and the National Curriculum Council will monitor the national curriculum in practice and keep under review the possible need for any changes, including additions in the light of experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Peston, questioned whether schools wishing to offer pupils more than the national curriculum requirements in science will be allowed to do so. The short answer is yes. Provided that the schools fulfil all the national curriculum requirements and comply with a general duty to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, they are free to teach whatever else they may wish in addition. Secondly, as regards whether the theoretical balance is right for both average and more able pupils, the Government believe that in the light of the extensive consultations that it is. But as I have already said in the case of maths, it will be kept under review and can be amended in future in the light of experience.
In a broader reply and confirming what I have just said—and this answers a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell—the National Curriculum Council is responsible for keeping the national curriculum under review and advising the Secretary of State on the need for any changes in the light of experience. Her Majesty's Inspectorate will also be monitoring schools' experience and so will the Department of Education and Science. That will include observations sent to the department from all sources. The provisions contained in the order and the associated documents will be updated and revised as necessary in the light of experience. I hope that that will be a relief to the two noble Lords who have spoken.
Before turning to the issue of the so-called "12.5 per cent." option, it is important to emphasise the great advance that the national curriculum represents in the teaching of science in this country. Right through to the age of 16 children will not be allowed to drop subjects—either the core subjects or the other foundation subjects. At present, for example, many girls drop physics at an early age and many boys drop biology. Something like 5 per cent. of pupils in year five at secondary school take no science at all. This picture will be completely changed by the national curriculum, and will be changed for the minority doing the 12.5 per cent. option in the final two years of compulsory schooling as well as the majority doing the 20 per cent. option. In both cases, the national curriculum will ensure the study of a balanced science curriculum for all pupils up to the age of 16.
I am well aware of the argument that all children in our schools should take double science to GCSE certificate at 16. This would take up something like 20 per cent. of school time for all pupils covering all 17 attainment targets in the science curriculum. This was what the Science Working Group recommended, but the Secretaries of State were mindful of concern that there should be a statutory recognition of the need for flexibility; for example, in the case of a minority of pupils needing more time for the study of foreign languages or music. I may say that I recall

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the noble Lord's own concern for flexibility during debate on the Education Reform Bill. He asked:
"What about flexibility? What of the suggestions that the national curriculum might impose too tight a straitjacket?"
The National Curriculum Council gave a great deal of attention to the science option question during the consultation period on the Government's proposals following the working group's report. The council recognised the need to balance the advantages of the full course of 17 attainment targets against the flexibility which some pupils will need within their whole curriculum. As a result, the NCC recommended that there should be an alternative course with fewer atttainment targets but still a balanced science programme and with an intellectual challenge matching that of the full course of study. The NCC's decision to make this recommendation was its own independent decision. The Secretary of State agreed with the recommendation.
I should make it clear that the Secretaries of State expect most pupils will study science for 20 per cent. of their time. There is, and will continue to be, a strong recommendation to all schools that they should offer a double science programme to all their pupils, and should encourage as many as possible of them to take it up. And I would remind noble Lords that the 12.5 per cent. single science option itself represents a tremendous advance on what happens at present. A very large number of our children do not study a balanced science curriculum in the final two years of compulsory schooling. They are now going to have to take such a programme for at least some 12.5 per cent. of their time.
I should add that Her Majesty's Inspectorate gives strong support to the view that the 12.5 per cent. option represents a worthwhile study of science. It is broad in scope and, as the noble Earl said, intellectually challenging.
I shall say a word about the specific concern expressed by the noble Lord Peston, that girls in particular will opt for the 12.5 per cent. programme and that this will unnecessarily reduce the chances of the country meeting its need for highly qualified manpower. By the time the children educated throughout under the national curriculum make a choice on this option they will have had nine years schooling in science. There is every reason to believe that they will be well informed in the choice that they make. I can give an assurance, however, that the take-up of each option by gender will be carefully monitored.
I will now deal with the specific question of the relationship of the 20 per cent. and 12.5 per cent. programmes of study to taking A-levels.
A-levels are already evolving to meet new needs, including the needs of GCSE holders. GCSE double-award science is well adapted for progression to A-level in a range of science subjects. The 20 per cent. option in the national curriculum will be similarly well adapted. It is expected, for example, that a pupil will be able to go on to take any or indeed all of physics, chemistry and biology at A-level if that is what is wanted.
The Government accept that the 12·5 per cent. option will not provide the same breadth of
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knowledge and understanding as the 20 per cent. option. At the same time, I would emphasise that the course of study for the 12·5 per cent. option has been prepared in such a way as to ensure that it does not close the door to science study post-16. The National Curriculum Council and the Curriculum Council for Wales suggested that a short bridging course in the chosen subject or subjects may be necessary in such cases before A-level studies begin.
The noble Lord, Lord Peston, expressed concern at the neglect of physics in the 12·5 per cent. option. With energy, physics accounts for four of the nine knowledge and understanding attainment targets. Those are forces, electricity and magnetism, energy, and sound and music. Of the other disciplines, chemistry has two attainment targets, biology two and earth science one. That is a balanced programme of study.
Turning to the profile components, the Government fully appreciate the importance of teaching pupils how to take advantage of the knowledge and skills they acquire in practical tasks and real life situations. The reduction in the number of profile components from four to two has not reduced the emphasis on practical work. It has sought to make more clear the relationship of practical tasks to the knowledge which has to be applied. The attainment target for exploration of science stands on its own as a separate profile component. It was developed to reflect a progression in the abilities to plan, carry out, interpret results, draw inferences and communicate.
I turn now to the question of teacher shortages in science subjects raised by both noble Lords. Noble Lords may recall that we had a fairly full debate on this subject on 8th March. I do not therefore propose to repeat here an account of all the action taken by the Government to combat teacher shortages. Suffice it to say that the Government are not only well aware of the problems but have taken and are taking vigorous action to deal with the problems. Indeed, they are meeting with some success.
Measures already taken include the bursary scheme for shortage subjects and grants to LEAs for in-service training. The Teaching As a Career Unit, launched in April 1987, has advertised widely and has met with considerable success. The latest campaign, which ended a few weeks ago, has attracted over 10,000 responses.
Recruitment to initial teacher training in 1988 was a record at 20,180—up by 5 per cent. over 1987. Applications for primary training this year are even better—up by 14 per cent. to date. Between January 1987 and January 1988, there was a marked reduction in vacant posts in shortage subjects in schools: down 48 per cent. in physics, and by 23 per cent. in chemistry.
There is no question of complacency, however. We can do more and intend to do so. The Government will shortly be publishing details of the new proposals for licensed teachers. These will add a new route into teaching and should appeal to well-qualified specialists, who can help to fill vacancies in the scarce subjects and bring to the job a refreshing breath of the outside world. Proposals

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for articled teachers are under active consideration. These would be people who have taken a degree and who would be taken on by the local education authority, paid as a teacher, and trained on the job for two years.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about resources. Naturally, the Government aim to ensure that the means are available to support the introduction of the national curriculum. Substantial resources are being made available in the current year. Some £130 million is being provided—over £50 million through ESGs, a further £50 million or so through the LEA training grant scheme, and some £23 million for central costs. All of this must be seen against the background of the lowest ever level of pupil teacher ratio of 17 to 1.
Where capital resources are needed, it is for the LEAs to decide to what extent capital allocations and capital receipts should be used for any necessary planning for the national curriculum. Similarly, it is for schools and LEAs to take the needs of the national curriculum into account when making decisions on staffing and spending on support services, books and equipment. Planned spending in 1989–90 on books and equipment is more than than 30 per cent. higher in cash terms than actual spending per pupil in 1986–87.
I cannot remember whether the noble Lord asked this question, but he said he was going to so I shall reply to it. I have a feeling that he forgot, but I believe that it is an important question and one which I should like to answer; that is, when the national curriculum requirements for English will be published. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State hopes to publish the final order for English in key stage one, infant schooling, around the end of May. Implementation will begin in schools this autumn. For the later stages of primary and secondary school English, he hopes to publish his proposals together with the English working group's report by July as a basis for consultation. That should lead in due course to the making of final orders early in 1990 for the introduction in schools in autumn 1990.
By way of summing up this short debate, I point to the very positive achievement in taking this first step in establishing the national curriculum in our schools. For the first time ever this will provide clear and agreed standards to work to and by which to measure pupil's educational progress. It will furnish a means by which teachers, pupils and parents can all know what is expected and what to aim for.
Whatever the differences on points of detail, I am sure that we can all accept that this is a major advance in the universal aim of improving the standard of education in our country.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, perhaps I may utter a few words of thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for taking part in this debate. I felt that his contribution was particularly helpful and he covered certain matters which I omitted. Perhaps I may also offer an apology. It was remiss of me not to join with the noble Viscount in thanking the Science Working
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Group and all others who have taken part for the great work which they have done. Therefore, may I associate myself with that?
Perhaps I may lastly thank the noble Viscount for his reply to this debate and doubly thank him for his courtesy in answering a question to which I was very keen to know the answer, even though I forgot to ask it. Indeed, one reason for the question is that I am very keen to debate the issue of the English curriculum when the time comes. With those thanks, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.35 p.m.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.19 to 8.35 p.m.]

Water Bill
House again in Committee.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 11:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:

("Functions of National Rivers Authority

. —(1) The National Rivers Authority shall prepare, publish and update from time to time, a plan in respect of the matters identified in subsection (2) below, for the purposes of the effective carrying out of its functions and, in particular, of promoting the cleanliness of water, and the conservation and enhancement of the natural environment in relation to rivers.
(2) The functions of the Authority under this Act shall include—

(a) the improvement of the state of cleanliness of waters in England and Wales, including their chemical quality and levels of compliance with notified water quality objectives;

(b) the progressive reduction of discharges of sewage effluents and trade effluents in breach of consent levels and the monitoring of compliance in respect of all such consents;

(c) the prescription of precautions to be taken by specified persons for the prevention of pollution;

(d) the preparation and carrying out of a programme of works and operations to prevent, remedy, or mitigate pollution;

(e) the levying of appropriate charges on persons in respect of discharges and the creation of the pollution for the purposes of penalising such discharges;

(f) the conservation and enhancement of sites of natural beauty or amenity, and the conservation of flora and fauna;

(g) the preservation and promotion of public access to waters in areas of natural beauty or amenity, and their use for recreational purposes;

(h) the conservation, redistribution and augmentation of water resources, and the determination of minimum acceptable river flows;

(i) the general supervision of land drainage and flood protection including the preparation, in consultation with relevant local authorities, of a programme of works on designated main rivers and sea defences, and the publication on an annual basis of any such programme;

(j) the conservation, maintenance, improvement and development of salmon, trout, freshwater and eel fisheries in inland waters and, the provision of resources for advisory committees;

(k) the carrying out of navigation, conservancy and harbour authority functions as determined by this Act.").

The noble Lord said: I like this amendment. It is poetic. The text contains everything that I want to say. I have never seen such a well written amendment in my life, and I have put my name to many.
It is a major defect of the Bill—not so much of drafting but of organisation—that the functions, first, of the National Rivers Authority and, secondly, of the Director General of Water Services are spread thinly and erratically around the text of the Bill rather than being in a sensible place where they can be read and understood by everybody and where there is some sort of coherent kernel to the Government's intention in setting up these two august organisations. Therefore, in this new clause we have set out what we believe to be the functions of the National Rivers Authority.
I do not think there is anything in the amendment with which the Government will necessarily disagree. Many of the points we are making in it can be found in other parts of the Bill, but they are fairly well concealed and I hope that putting them together in one place, as we have in the amendment, will meet with the approval of the Committee and of the Government.
The themes in this amendment to which I want to draw attention are, first, the reference in the second line to a plan and, secondly, the reference throughout the amendment to improvement in the reduction of discharges, enhancement of sites of natural beauty and so on. By saying that there should be a plan we mean that there should be effective management. If a new organisation is to be set up—it is an important new organisation which has the good will of Members of both Houses, from all parties, and it has an enormously important job to do—it ought to have a coherent target, a coherent plan of action. That is what the amendment proposes, but it is sadly lacking in the Government's proposals for the NRA as so far made clear. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is not in his place at the moment because I should have thought he would be particularly sympathetic to the idea of a plan of action for, as the amendment says,
"the effective carrying out of its function and… promoting the cleanliness of water, and the conservation and enhancement of the natural environment in relation to rivers".
In business we are always told, and I believe rightly, that unless you set yourself a business plan and set targets to work against, it is impossible to know whether you are succeeding. The same applies strongly to the National Rivers Authority. Even if not established in legislation as proposed in the amendment, the NRA should be setting itself a plan for the benefit not only of the authority itself but for its accountability to Ministers and, in turn, the accountability of Ministers to Parliament. It seems to us entirely appropriate that such a plan should be in the Bill. It can be added to and it may be that there is disagreement about particular aspects of it. However, it is something that represents no threat whatever to the Government's basic proposals for the Bill. I believe that it clarifies the function of the National Rivers Authority and its responsibilities. It will make it easier for the public at large to see that here we have a body not only with the intention of
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conservation and the protection of the environment but with a coherent plan of action for doing so.
The second significant element in this amendment is the continued reference in almost all of the subsections to the improvement of the environment and the standards of conservation rather than simply to the maintenance of them. I do not believe that there can be much doubt that the improvement of conservation is now a real necessity. It appears to have taken the EC directives to have brought it home to many people how far we have fallen behind. I am not saying that in comparison with other European countries, because that is not an interesting comparison for us to make, but in comparison with what we should have been doing over the years. The EC drawing attention to our failure, first, to legislate and then to act on the quality of drinking water is only one example, but a very good one, of how far we have fallen behind what we should have been doing. The quality of our water, rivers and the environment as affected by water is sadly lacking by any standards and by any comparison that we wish to make.
Our intention in this amendment is constantly to refer not to the maintenance of the state of cleanliness of waters but to their improvement; it is not as regards controlling the discharge of sewage and trade effluents but the progressive reduction in the discharge of sewage and trade effluents in breach of consent levels. Our intention is not just the conservation of sites of natural beauty but their enhancement; not simply the preservation of public access to waters and areas of natural beauty but the promotion of public access to such waters. The amendment is not solely aimed at the conservation of water resources but at their augmentation and the determination of minimum acceptable river flows. It is not directed solely to the conservation of salmon, trout, freshwater and eel fisheries but to the improvement and development of those fisheries.
It seems to us that all these factors are the proper concern of the National Rivers Authority. That is the right body to be concerned with them all. This amendment in all its elegance and glory is one that the National Rivers Authority should welcome proudly. It is also one that deserves the support of the Government and this Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Ezra: In supporting the amendment perhaps I may say that an amendment of this kind would be of extreme convenience. The difficulty with this type of legislation is that one has to search right through the Bill to find out what are the functions of the various bodies created by the legislation. Unless one peruses the Bill and all its numerous schedules, it is very difficult to form a clear impression of the functions of the NRA. They are simply described at the beginning as setting up regional bodies and that is about all. One has to search much further on to find out what else it does.
Therefore I believe that this amendment will not only be of considerable convenience to all those concerned with the Bill but it will also identify more precisely than is done in the rest of the Bill what are the functions of this very important body. We have all agreed that we are glad to see this body created.

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It follows from that that we should like to see its functions and responsibilities clearly spelt out.
As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, made clear, this may not be precisely the wording that one would wish to adopt. In that case I hope the Government will say that they are interested in an amendment of this kind and that they will come back with some other wording which will fit in more with their ideas if this wording does not. I hope that they will accept that this amendment will not only be a convenience but that it could add considerable value to this early stage of the Bill.
The Earl of Radnor: I am not in favour of the amendment but I rise to ask a question concerning subsection (2)(c), which states:
"the prescription of precautions to be taken by specified persons for the prevention of pollution".
That seems to indicate that the NRA is to tell people what to do to prevent pollution. That is fine as far as it goes, but what happens if the person who is told does exactly what he is told and the pollution is not cured? Whose fault is it then? It would be quite wrong to prosecute the person who does the work stipulated for him by the NRA. That organisation is presumably the prosecuting agency. Does it prosecute itself or have we returned to the situation where the Bill first started with everything being in one hand, so to speak, which I know the noble Lord dislikes so much?
8.45 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: The duties of the NRA and the remit for it are well set out in the Bill and in great detail. The idea of having to produce a plan publicly, presumably for the Secretary of State or someone to peruse, is the kind of interference in operational management that I believe we are trying to get away from. To accept the amendment as set out is a recipe for more of what we have at the moment; namely, some kind of external interference in operational management. I am surprised at the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, advocating this way forward. We should be setting the framework within which the NRA will operate, and leave it to manage operationally itself. It will be accountable. The remit for it is set out in great detail in the Bill.
Lord Addington: I am in favour of the list or plan which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to, for the simple reason that it reduces the amount of confusion over what the National Rivers Authority is supposed to do. I do not believe that we have yet defined the purpose of this body other than with a general heading. I believe that something that gives more direction and purpose would be extremely useful. As regards the items themselves, there is no reason why these should be the finite version. There is certainly room for altering them over a period of time. I believe that some kind of plan along these lines would be beneficial.
The Earl of Caithness: Amendment No. 11 would require the NRA to prepare and publish at some unspecified time in the future a plan for the carrying out of its functions. Some 11 are mentioned, of
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which particular importance is attached to the promotion of the cleanliness of waters and the conservation and enhancement of the water environment. This is an amendment that I believe we should not support, not because of the underlying objective but because of the means proposed. If some Members of the Committee cast their minds back 10 years or more, they will doubtless recognise the format of the amendment, for there is a dated quality about its terms. I believe it is pure 1970s, from which I fear some of us have not moved.
There is no sense of time of when it should be done or how long it should take. There is the simple fallacy that to produce a plan is to solve a problem; and above all there is that detachment from the real world of events and of actions. But it would be wrong to focus too closely on the terms of an amendment. They are largely irrelevant. What I readily accept, and what I am sure all of us will accept, is the importance of the issue underlying them—that is the crucial issue of the NRA's effectiveness, of how it will do its job. That is of overriding importance. On that at least I hope that we can agree.
But the answer in this amendment—a plan for everything—is too simple. Surely we recognise that the days of the master plan are past. Planning has become a continuous process. The days of the master blue print, which takes years to produce and is out of date by the time it is finally agreed and published, are gone. Nor would it in any case be appropriate for a body like the NRA. Many of its key functions are those of a regulatory authority responding to applications from others and policing their activities. It must be reactive, able to respond to events, whether they are pollution incidents or flooding emergencies.
What then is needed? And what are we providing in its place? I suggest that there are three requirements. First, the NRA must have clear, coherent and mutually compatible responsibilities; secondly, it must have clear objectives for the protection and enhancement of the water environment, with a definite timescale. Thirdly, it must have all the powers it needs to achieve these objectives. If its role is clear, its objectives properly defined and its powers adequate, then it can be left to get on with the job.
On the first point, we have given the NRA properly related functions—all of those needed for the coherent management of river basins and the water environment generally: water quality and pollution conrol; water resources; drainage and flood defence; and conservation and recreation. We shall discuss all these functions before long. At the same time it will have clear and specific objectives, in terms of water quality set by government to guide its operations. They will be firm and explicit, with timetables and legal obligations attaching to them. They will reflect—and guide—all decisions on both abstractions and discharges, as well as reflecting policies on conservation and recreation. They will be complemented where necessary by minimum acceptable flow requirements, a point which is of importance to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. They will be subject to public consultation and periodic review. They will provide a clear planning framework for the authority.

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Finally, the authority will have the powers it needs to discharge its functions and achieve its objectives. As examples, perhaps I may refer to two areas on which this proposal particularly focuses. In pollution control the NRA will have wide powers in respect of control of dangerous substances; protection zone powers to protect ground waters; and wider precautionary powers for avoidance of pollution incidents. On conservation, it will have a new power to promote protection and enhancement of landscapes and flora and fauna in the water environment, independently of the exercise of its other functions.
In this way the NRA will be geared to action, not hung up on plans which all too often in the past have been a substitute for action. And to back this up we shall ensure that the authority also has effective corporate planning machinery to monitor performance against objectives and guide the allocation of resources.
It will also be an accountable body. In its annual report, it will report regularly on the performance of its functions and the way in which it achieves objectives and the policies set by government. Clause 146 requires that such reports be laid before Parliament, and they can of course be debated there.
In sum, the Government recognise that the NRA has a major task to perform in helping to achieve our objectives for the water environment. It would not be helped by a traditional blueprint plan, which would soon be irrelevant and outdated. Instead the Bill gives it the essential ingredients for success: compatible functions; clear objectives; and relevant powers. These are what are needed. These are what we must give it. Then we must let it get on with the job as quickly as possible.
Lord Ezra: Leaving aside the first subsection of the amendment to which the noble Earl has a fundamental objection, does he not agree that it would be useful at this early stage to define the functions of the authority even though they are dealt with in greater depth later in the Bill? It is difficult without a detailed perusal of the Bill to find out what the functions of the authority are. They are spread throughout this gargantuan Bill. Would it not be a matter of convenience, whatever wording might be thought of as appropriate, to set out at this early stage the broad functions of the authority?
The Earl of Caithness: I disagree with the noble Lord on this point. The clauses with which we are now dealing say how the NRA is to be set up. Its functions are dealt with comprehensively in Clauses 100 to 146 in Part III of the Bill. To try to condense those into six, eight, 10, 20, 25 or 50 points, as the noble Lord requires at this stage, would be misleading and would not help the position. When we come to discuss Clauses 100 to 146 I hope then to be able to convince the noble Lord that we should leave matters as they are.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am sorry to say that the Minister has allowed ideological objections to catch up with him on this occasion. He does not always do that and it is sad to see when it happens. His advisers have formed a view that the word "plan" is ideologically unsound, although he used the words "clear planning framework" with every appearance of approval. The distinction between a "plan" and a "clear planning framework" is not entirely clear. If the world "plan" is ideologically unsound for him he is in a great deal of difficulty.
I am not talking about grand blueprints for the future. I am talking about business plans. Those who have experience of business, or, even worse, have experience of business schools will know that business plans are an essential feature of the way in which we are supposed to run private businesses. And quite right too. It is right that, in addition to the year by year measure of profit which is to be imposed on the new water companies and on any report which the National Rivers Authority may make to the Secretary of State, there should be some framework of objectives. The Minister says that they are included in Clauses 100 to 146. I do not doubt that. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, seems to think that they are set out clearly in the Bill, although, having said that, she did not make any attempt to find where they are set out or to set them out clearly herself.
Bills are not solely for internal consumption. Legislation is not solely for internal consumption. Not only should there be conservation and protection of the environment but those who are concerned about conservation and the environment should understand what is being done and why it is being done. It is entirely helpful and not damaging to the Bill to propose that these objectives should be brought together in one place. The National Rivers Authority should see them as a whole, should see the coherence of them, should relate them to each other and should present to the public—its audience and its customers—a coherent view of what it is trying to do.
If the National Rivers Authority and the Government do not set out objectives in the form of a coherent plan, other people will certainly do it for them. The Government have already had this unpleasant experience with European Community directives on the quality of drinking water. Those directives are only the start of the kinds of obligation that will be placed on us by the European Community, by our own law and by the self-defence which our people will put up against incompetence, inefficiency and neglect of our environment and of conservation.
I do not for a moment feel that the Government have made a coherent response to the amendment. It was intended not as a challenge to the Government but as a helpful amendment. I am sorry that they should take it in this way, but, having offered our help, the only thing we can gracefully do is to take it away again. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury The Earl of Halsbury moved Amendment No. 12:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:

("Scientific Advisory Council.

.—(1) There shall be established by the Secretary of State a Scientific Advisory Council with a duty to advise the National Rivers Authority on scientific matters related to the functions of the Authority.
(2) The membership of the Scientific Advisory Council shall be determined by the Secretary of State and shall include persons of scientific and professional expertise relevant to the water industry.").
The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment I hope that I shall not sin against modesty if I recall that on Second Reading I said:
"I should also like to commend to the Government for consideration that we ought to have a scientific advisory council for the national authority. I imagine one of the members of that board, which should be a commercial board concerned with commercial considerations, should be the head of their technical advisory department; but such departments can easily suffer from in-breeding, and to have an advisory council chaired, if you like, by the technical director of the authority, to sit in judgment on the advice he was being given by his own subordinates would be a very good insurance policy against the organisation as a whole suffering from hardening of the arteries as time wore on and initial enthusiasms were eroded".—[Official Report, 17/4/89; col. 667.]
In moving the amendment which stands in my name, I should like to couple with it Amendments Nos. 33 and 35 due to be called in the course of this evening and speak also to Amendment No. 59 which will not be called until the next stage of the Bill's proceedings. I wish to do so because they all breathe the same spirit and what I advocate in the case of one is to be advocated in the case of the others.
I visualise the NRA as probably not being a very large body. It would probably neither wish, nor be able, to be the principal forum in which matters of a detailed scientific nature are discussed. We want that body to be one of tough driving executives which will thrust forward and provide water information in the terms of reference we are suggesting. The relevance of scientific and professional expertise is, I think, obvious. There are at least six major areas of scientific and professional expertise currently involved in the water industry.
Professional chemists like myself, although the single most important and probably the most numerous group, form but one of a group of scientific disciplines. Perhaps I may run through the others. First, there is the practice of biochemistry. Biochemists are not involved in great numbers in the water industry and not many are employed as full-time employees by water authorities; rather they are to be found in bodies such as the Water Research Centre, originally a quango, but soon to be privatised. They are employed there to give specialist advice. Biochemists are mainly to be found in the field of toxicology and aquatic toxicology concerned with mammalian lifeforms in waters and streams. Many chemists and biologists are also capable of fulfilling such functions.
Biologists are mainly used in monitoring with a specific remit in the conservation field where fisheries and conservation of plant life form a co-ordinated whole and are very relevant to the NRA's functions. Biologists take samples from
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stream beds and count the number of organisms disturbed—that is, larvae, and so on—and hence classify the water course for its biological nature. That is a vital part of classifying the water and is a factor in determining the extent of any pollution present.
I turn now to engineering and engineers of one kind or another. There are mechanical engineers, there are civil engineers, there are even engineering geologists. They probably comprise the next single greatest number of professionals in water authorities—that is, after chemists. Engineers are involved in all aspects of river engineering, flood prevention and water resource management; for example, hydrometry—that is water flow—and hydrology, which is the occurrence of water in rocks, strata and so on.
Prominent among engineers are the civil engineers. They are responsible for water collection, water containment and water disposal in the widest sense. Chemical engineers play an important part in sewage treatment plants, together with mechanical engineers and electrical engineers who are also involved, not least because some sewage treatment works have self-generating electricity supplies.
Geologists, like biochemists, are not found in great numbers and are mainly used on a consultancy basis in today's water industry. I should tell Members of the Committee that for the past four weeks I have been listening to engineering geologists giving their opinions as regards the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill on the liability of ground water invading the basements of houses in the rest of Cardiff. They are an extremely important and highly skilled source of information. Geologoists are also involved in land reclamation and the effect it may have on the contamination of water.
The Royal Society of Chemistry is what I shall describe as an amalgam of what was once upon a time the Royal Institute of Chemistry—of which I was a Fellow and which very graciously admitted me to honorary fellowship on the 50th anniversary of my registration as a student—and the Chemical Society, which is a learned body. They amalgamated and formed the Royal Society of Chemistry. I served my stint on the council of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and I continue to serve on the parliamentary and legal committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The society has given me a great deal of help in preparing the brief about which I have been talking to the Committee.
Next, we have the sources of information represented by the professional institutions. They are the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Biology, the Institute of Fisheries Management, the Institute of Water and Environmental Management, the Geological Society and the Biochemical Society. It ought to be possible for the chairman of the NRA and the Minister to approach those societies in order to find a collection of experts who could act as professional advisers of the highest level to the water authority with regard to the ongoing activities of the authority's subordinates.
Perhaps Members of the Committee could imagine themselves as chairman of the new body. One would have a colleague on a level who would be responsible for all its technological affairs. Would one not ask oneself from time to time, "I wonder whether my colleague's subordinates are up to their job? Are we giving the very best service we can?" What a wonderful thing it would be for him to be able to have a statutory advisory council. There are precedents for such a council; for example, in the Medicines Act there are advisory councils which advise the Minister on the application of the Act. There are also the precedents of the Ogden Report of 1973 which concerned the water industry itself and which set up an advisory body.
Further,there is the need for public relations; that is, the knowledge of the public of something as absolutely vital to everyone as water supply. Surely it is important for the Minister and the chairman of the NRA to ensure that they are getting the very best scientific advice possible. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: If the noble Earl will be kind enough to accept it, I should like to offer my support for the amendment and the subsequent amendments that he proposes to move. His last point was especially telling. It relates to the case that I was trying to make for a coherent statement of the function of the NRA, because there is a necessity for public confidence in the NRA. If the NRA is to perform effectively as the guardian of conservation and environmental standards not only must it have, as I failed to convince the Committee, a business plan, but the public must be convinced that it is obtaining the best possible advice.
The best possible advice, as the noble Earl described far more clearly than I ever could— although I have had the same help from the Royal Society for Chemistry, to which I pay tribute—is that the NRA should take scientific advice. Again, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, were still with us, because I am sure that on this occasion he would agree with us about the necessity for consultation with the appropriate scientific authorities. I do not know whether he would agree with the particular means by which that is to be achieved, but he will undoubtedly be consulting scientific authorities in that way. It seems appropriate to bring the point into the Bill at this stage in the way proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury.
Lord Moran: I support the amendment moved by my noble friend. A scientific advisory council might, for example, play a valuable part in overseeing the work of fishery scientists employed by the NRA. Fishery scientists at present employed by Welsh Water have done excellent work in Wales. It is important that after the NRA is set up that work should be co-ordinated with the work of the scientists working for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods and with those in Scotland employed by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland.
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There is no doubt that problems in the fisheries field can arise quickly and can be serious. For example, the louse (gyrodactylus salaris), that has caused fearful damage in Norwegian salmon rivers which came originally from fish farms, has given rise to enormous and intractable problems on which scientific expertise has to be brought to bear.
There are now also problems with the genetic effect of escapes of farmed salmon on wild salmon stocks. That is a problem which will be considered by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation in Edinburgh at its annual meeting next month. For all those reasons I believe that the suggestions are valuable and I hope that the Government will consider them seriously.
The Earl of Arran: On the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, it is not so much the principle that separates us but the method of application of that principle; that is, scientific advice to the NRA. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish a scientific advisory council, including members with relevant scientific and professional expertise, with a duty to advise the NRA on scientific matters related to its functions.
I am sure that the Committee is agreed on the importance to the NRA of having sound scientific advice regarding the exercise of its functions. There can be no difference between us on that matter. What we cannot accept, though, is that the right way to provide such advice is for the Secretary of State to appoint an advisory council. The NRA will employ many scientists on its staff and we know that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell hopes shortly to be able to appoint a chief scientist to the NRA. The chief scientist will be responsible for advising the NRA board on the long-term scientific aspects of all the board's activities, for developing policy proposals for all pollution control activities and managing laboratory services involved in the development and monitoring of those services and for initiating and co-ordinating all scientific research and development.
In due course, and taking into account his advice, the NRA may wish to seek further scientific advice or to establish a scientific advisory committee; but it would be more appropriate for the NRA itself to decide on its requirements in that respect and certainly we consider that it would be quite wrong for the Secretary of State to impose upon the NRA, at its inception, an outside panel of scientific advisers.
In conclusion, I shall of course bring the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, to the attention of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. But in the meantime I hope that I have persuaded the noble Earl to withdraw this amendment.
The Earl of Halsbury: I do not know that I am persuaded to withdraw the amendment. I am trying to preserve the future chairman of the NRA from the in-breeding that will result from his making his own appointments as chief scientist. He is bound to ask himself at some point in time, "I wonder whether this chap's subordinates are as good as they tell me they are".

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For 20 years I was a member of the Science and Engineering Research Council: I was appointed by the Secretary of State. For four years I was a member of the Medical Research Council: I was appointed by the Secretary of State. I was a member of the Science Museum Advisory Council for many years—16, I think—and I was appointed by the Secretary of State. What is wrong with the appointment of an advisory council by the Secretary of State?
The point that I wish to bring home to the Committee is simply the need for some kind of mechanism to reverse the tendency towards in-breeding in an organisation which may become progressively more bureaucratic with the years. That is the fate of all us us who are bureaucrats mangués at some time or another in our lives. So unless the noble Earl who is replying for the Government can give me some assurance that the matter will be reconsidered on Report or at some suitable stage of the Bill, I fear that I must test the opinion of the Committee on a matter on which I feel so deeply. I may be defeated in the Lobby or I may not; I do not know. I may have no Tellers. However, I feel that I cannot withdraw the amendment at this stage. I wish to get the feeling of the Committee on the subject.
9.16 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 12) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 34; Not-Contents, 72.

DIVISION NO. 4

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

McNair, L.

Airedale, L.

Moran, L.

Barnett, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Brain, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Carter, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Ross of Newport, L.

David, B.

Russell, E.

Ezra, L.

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Greenway, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Grey, E.

Truro, Bp.

Halsbury, E. [Teller.]

Underhill, L.

Hylton, L. [Teller.]

Vernon, L,.

Kinloss, Ly.

Walston, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Whaddon, L.

White, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Winstanley, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arran, E.

Dundee, E.

Bauer, L.

EUes, B.

Beloff, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Belstead, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Blatch, B.

Faithfull, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Ferrers, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Fortescue, E.

Butterworth, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Caithness, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Goold, L.

Carnock, L.

Gridley, L.

Coleraine, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Harvington, L.

Dacre of Glanton, L.

Henley, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Hesketh, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Hives, L.

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Jenkin of Roding, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Joseph, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Kimball, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Long, V.

Strange, B.

Lyell, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Swinton, E.

Mancroft, L.

Terrington, L.

Middleton, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Torrington, V.

Mountevans, L.

Trafford, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Norrie, L.

Trumpington, B.

Oxfuird, V.

Ullswater, V.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Radnor, E.

Westbury, L.

Renton, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Rochdale, V.

Wigram, L.

Romney, E.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Wynford, L.

Selborne, E.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
9.24 p.m.
Schedule 1 [The National Rivers Authority]:
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 184, line 19, leave out ("incapacitated by physical or mental illness or is otherwise").
The noble Lord said: I need not detain the Committee very long in moving this amendment. Perhaps I may say in moving it that the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), has asked me to say that, although she cannot be present today, she very much supports this amendment.
The phrase:
"incapacitated by physical or mental illness"
as a reason for removal of a member of the NRA by the Minister is not just careless drafting: it is needlessly offensive to people with disabilities. There are many reasons in the Bill why a person may be unable or unfit to carry out the functions of a member but in my view there is no need to single out physical or mental illness.
The phrase has appeared before in a number of Bills, including the Housing Bill and the Education Reform Bill. Each time the phrase has appeared some of us have had to put down amendments to remove the phrase and each time the Government have accepted the amendments. It is clear that the phrase is part of standard drafting phraseology. Perhaps I may suggest to the Government that it would save the time of Parliament if the Government were to give a general instruction to the parliamentary draftsmen to remove this offensive phrase from their standard phraseology.
I hope that the Government will accept the amendment as they have accepted similar amendments to a number of other Bills. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: The noble Lord, Lord Carter, has made his case with the usual overwhelming conviction and clarity. I fully accept the rap on the knuckles. I shall try not to let it happen in the Local Government and Housing Bill, which will be the next Bill which the noble Lard, Lord

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McIntosh, and I shall debate. I am very happy to accept the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 184, line 39, leave out sub-paragraph (4).
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 14 I should like Amendment No. 15 also to be taken into account because it is of a similar nature. The two amendments are very simple. They refer to the approval of the Treasury being required for the details of remuneration and pensions attributed to the NRA and for detailed staffing arrangements.
I have put forward the amendments because I was very struck with what the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said in the Second Reading debate. He pointed out:
"We have been repeatedly told by Ministers that the NRA is to be a strong and independent body. Yet the Bill provides that its management arrangements should all be subject in some detail to the approval of the Secretary of State and the Treasury, which in practice means their officials. I am talking about what may be described as pay and rations matters… We face a situation that those responsible for running the NRA are to be second guessed by the officials on a whole range of day to day matters… I have asked that the whole issue should be looked at again".—[Official Report, 17/4/89; col. 582.]
I hope that the whole issue has been looked at again. I believe that the Treasury should not have a role in these matters, which could very easily be settled between the Secretary of State and the chairman of the NRA. The requirement that everything, even the matter of travel allowances, should be referred back to the Treasury seems to me to be excessive. I beg to move.
Lord Hesketh: This amendment would remove the requirement for the Treasury to approve the remuneration and pensions of NRA members. It is standard practice for all non-departmental public bodies that if the chairman and members who are appointed by Ministers are to be paid then their level of remuneration must be determined by the Ministers concerned, with Treasury approval.
The NRA will be a major non-departmental public body receiving grant-in-aid to carry out its important functions and it will have a board of up to 15 members including the chairman. I see no reason to depart from the normal practice for non-departmental public bodies, water authorities and, indeed, British Coal that the Ministers who will appoint members to the board should be required to seek the approval of the Treasury.
Amendment No. 15 would remove the requirement for the Treasury to approve the numbers and terms and conditions of service of the NRA staff. It is normal for staff of a non-departmental public body, as the NRA would be, to have terms and conditions which are subject to the Secretary of State's approval, with the agreement of the Treasury. The main responsibility for control and accountability for questions concerning a non-departmental public body's staff, pay and conditions rests with the sponsor department.
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That does not mean that it is necessary for Ministers, or their civil servants, to second guess the decisions of the NRA and other decisions of the NRA and other comparable bodies. We entirely accept the comments made by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell at Second Reading, to which the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, drew the Committee's attention earlier this evening, that the NRA must be a strong and independent body, with proper management responsibility. It will be our intention in the financial memorandum between the department and the NRA and with other controls to provide a framework that encourages the management of the NRA to have as full and effective responsibility as possible.
But it is also important to recognise that there are, quite rightly, stringent requirements for parliamentary accountability for the use of public funds. Ministers in the sponsoring department and the Treasury are ultimately answerable for the policies of the NRA and its use of public funds. That is why those controls—which also apply to other non-departmental public bodies—are in the schedule.
However, as I have indicated, we recognise that we need to strike the right balance between public accountability and the need to encourage management responsibility in bodies like the NRA. That is something that we shall have very much in mind in working up the detailed arrangements between the NRA, the department and the Treasury. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will feel able to withdraw his amendments.
9.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Am I alone in detecting a certain degree of political schizophrenia in the Government's response to this amendment, as there was in the response to the earlier amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton about the membership of the NRA? In one breath the Minister refers to a strong and independent body; in the next breath, he repeats the tired old stuff about the Secretary of State's accountability to Parliament, which appears to mean that the members of the NRA cannot possibly represent anyone else or be in any way independent of the Secretary of State. They must all be appointed at his whim and must apparently be paid according to what he says. I support the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, in this matter. Of the two positions held by the Government, I prefer the strong and independent NRA to the subservient NRA which is enshrined in the Bill.
Lord Ezra: Are we to take it that the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that the issue should be looked at again has been heeded and that the answer is negative?
Lord Hesketh: I tried to make it clear earlier that our intention in the financial memorandum between the department and the NRA was to make the situation as flexible as possible, in the light of the remarks made by my noble friend.
Lord Ezra: I have listened to what the Government have said on this relatively small issue. It is certainly not a matter on which the Committee should be asked to indicate its views in a Division. We may come back to it later, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 15 not moved.]
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 187, line 28, at end insert—

("Access to information

13A. In the Local Government Act 1972, in section 100J (definition of principal council for the purposes of Part VA of that Act (Access to meetings and documents of certain authorities)) in subsection (3) there shall be the inserted the following paragraph:
(g) The National Rivers Authority.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with access to information. We believe that the NRA, as an important public body, should be treated like other local government bodies and a number of other authorities in having to make its information and documentation available to the public as set out in the Local Government Act 1972. The amendment simply states that the National Rivers Authority should be added to the bodies enumerated in that Act with a view to access to information. I beg to move
The Earl of Arran: This amendment was given a good hearing and sounding in another place, as I am sure the noble Lord is fully aware.
The purpose of the amendment is to bring the NRA and its committees within the scope of the Local Government Act 1972, as inserted by the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985. As the noble Lord said, the effect would be to require meetings of the NRA and its committees to be open to the public, for the public to have access to agenda and connected papers and for the minutes and other documents to be open for inspection.
I must emphasise that the Acts referred to above relate to local authority councils and related bodies carrying out local authority functions such as fire and police authorities. The NRA is not of course a public representative body in the same way as a local authority, as this amendment implies. It does not therefore follow that its procedures should mirror those of local authorities. We do not propose that NRA board meetings should be open to the public nor that papers will generally be made available to the public. As a non-departmental public body, the NRA is under a duty imposed by Clause 146 of the Bill to prepare an annual report on its activities and to submit this to the Secretary of State and to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Secretary of State is required to lay a copy of each such report before Parliament. It is through the annual report that the public is properly kept informed of the work of the NRA and its committees. This is the normal arrangement for non-departmental public bodies.
The NRA Advisory Committee headed by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell has considered the question of public access to the three regional committees (the flood defence, fisheries advisory
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and rivers advisory committees) and is of the opinion that these committees should be open to the public subject to their exclusion from items involving confidential information. We would expect the NRA to adopt that policy and open its regional committees to the public. This is, however, a matter for the NRA.
In view of the NRA's accountability through Ministers and Parliament, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hylton: If these regional committees are to be open to public listening and public scrutiny of documents, can the noble Earl say why the same cannot apply to more important functions which are to be carried out on a national basis? I should have thought that in these days of glasnost the Government should perhaps have second thoughts about the matter.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: I am sure that the Minister and his colleagues start from the premise that they do not want the public to be involved or even have access, so can an argument for that be produced? Thus they fall back on the argument that the NRA is not on all fours with other bodies that are open to the public. It is a quite astounding argument.
It is no good saying that the reason the meetings of the rivers authority cannot be treated in the same way as those of local authorities is that it is not a local authority. Of course it is not. This is a unique situation. This is the third or fourth time that the Government have acted detrimentally to the interests of the consuming public by not treating this new body as unique of its kind. I certainly will support any move by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, to test the feelings of the Committee on this amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Some Members of the Committee may remember that I had the privilege of taking the Local Government (Access to Information) Act through this Chamber. My recollection of that Act is that it consists of an extremely complicated set of requirements on local government which are designed specifically for the very complex political structure of local government. It requires an additional number of officials to provide papers and so on in advance of meetings and it caters for an organisation which has many sub-committees. The whole purpose of the measure was intended to make it impossible for local government, which after all consists of local councils which are elected bodies, to push measures through sub-committees without the public being aware that they were going through, so that by the time they reached the council, which is the main committee that must be open to the public, the decisions had already been taken.
This kind of body that we were discussing earlier when talking about the make-up of the NRA is very different. It is performing certain functions pragmatically. It is not a political body in the sense that a local government body is. I should not have thought that this was the right way to open its

107
activities to public knowledge. It would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and would make life very difficult for this body. That is not to say that it should operate in a secret way and should not let the public know all that it is doing. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, I do not think that this is the right way to achieve what he wishes. It does not fit the situation.
Baroness Seear: The only way for it not to be secret is for it to be open. It must be one or the other. The National Rivers Authority is a watchdog body. It is not primarily an executive body. It will have executive duties but its prime function is to ensure that the way in which the water supplies are run, and the implications of so doing, are watched in the interests of the public. Surely the public ought to have access to what its watchdog is doing. We are not talking about a straightforward executive organisation.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Will the noble Baroness agree with me that the local government access to information legislation would be a sledgehammer to crack that nut?
The Earl of Arran: Perhaps I may reply briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on the point that he raised. I repeat that the NRA is under a duty imposed by Clause 146 of the Bill to prepare an annual report on its activities, which is submitted to the Secretary of State. This is not a question of being closed or secret. There are three other clauses. First, Clause 113 requires the NRA to maintain on public registers particulars of certain matters such as water quality objectives, consents to discharges, and water samples. Clause 126 requires the NRA and water
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undertakings to make available information about water flows, levels or volume. Clause 145 requires the NRA to provide Ministers with all such information regarding its property, functions and responsibilities as they may reasonably require. Indeed, there will be a press officer appointed. This public body will have a very high profile indeed.
Lord Ezra: I am pleased to learn that the NRA Advisory Committee has agreed that some of the regional bodies should be open to the public. It would be better if it had also agreed that in some form all their activities should be open to the public, apart from those that were necessarily of a confidential nature affecting commercial considerations that might come their way.
I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said. With her experience of the Local Government Act 1972, she did not consider that this was necessarily the right way to handle the matter. I thought that she was saying that there might be some other way to enable people to be kept more up to date on what the NRA is doing than simply having to wait each year for the annual report, which might or might not be widely read.
I should like to ponder on what has been said on this subject at this time and to come back to it at a later stage with some other proposal that would open up the deliberations of the NRA more effectively to the public, perhaps without bringing in the Local Government Act 1972. I accept what the noble Baroness said about that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Moran Lord Moran moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 188, line 1, leave out sub-paragraphs (3) to (5) and insert—
("(3) The Authority shall charge to the appropriate revenue account in every year all charges which are proper to be made to that revenue account including such allocations to reserve as they consider adequate.
(4) Where the Authority has an excess or deficiency on any account, it shall be carried forward to the financial year following and shall be deducted (if an excess) or added (if a deficiency) in ascertaining the charges relevant to that account for the year following.
(5) The provisions of sub-paragraph (4) above shall not apply to such revenue as falls within paragraph 16 below.").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 18. I said at Second Reading that in my view NRA funding would be crucial and it was important that it should stand on its own feet financially and be independent of the government of the day. I thought that it ought not to be subject to close and detailed Treasury control on day-to-day matters. The noble Lords, Lord Middleton and Lord Stanley of Alderley, and I have sought to translate that general thought into the terms of these two amendments. Their effect would be to remove the provision in paragraph 15 of Schedule 1 giving power to the Treasury to take over any surplus in the NRA accounts, to replace that with provisions requiring the NRA to keep accounts and to carry over surpluses or deficiencies to the following year. It would also remove the provision in paragraph 7 relating to the Treasury's power to grant-aid the NRA and replace it with a provision to give the NRA power to raise charges on consumers within each region.
The functions that will be transferred from the water authorities to the NRA are various. The largest perhaps is land drainage and flood protection, which at the moment is funded to a small extent by grant aid but primarily by precepts levied on county councils. As I understand it, that will continue under the NRA so that need not concern us. The other functions—water resources, pollution control, fisheries, recreation and navigation—are financed partly by charges on those concerned (such as water abstraction charges and rod licences paid by fishermen) and partly by means of the environmental service charge which was introduced by Parliament in 1976 and is levied direct on all ratepayers by the water authorities. That charge, which as far as I know has worked extremely well and has caused no complaints at all, collects about £60 million in a year.
The expenditure estimates that I have seen for the NRA in 1990 is that overall it will spend about £290 million. Of that £ 150 million is accounted for by flood defence, so that leaves £140 million, of which £60 million will be spent on water resources, £55 million on river quality control, £15 million on fisheries, £7.3 million on navigation, £3.3 million on recreation and amenity and £4 million on headquarters and research. The largest of those is water resources, and that I understand will be fully recovered by means of abstraction charges payable by all abstractors.
Of the expenditure on river and coastal water quality, which obviously is very important, it is estimated that about £25 million will be recovered by charges under the Control of Pollution Act, leaving a deficit of about £30 million a year. There will be receipts for fisheries, both from the rod licences and from the Section 28 levy on riparian owners; but there will be expenditure on fisheries, navigation, recreation and amenity which will probably result in a deficit of about £17 million a year The total deficit will be between £45 million and £50 million a year. At the moment the Government's suggestion is that that deficit should be covered by Exchequer grant.
There are two big disadvantages in what the Government are proposing. The first is that removing the surplus each year, if there is a surplus, would remove the valuable inducement on the staff of the NRA to manage their finances competently and sensibly. If someone has, say, a surplus of £30,000 and he knows that it will be taken away by the Treasury, the odds are that he will try to find a way to spend it. But if he knows that he can carry it over, as he could under our amendment, if he is a sensible man he will probably arrange matters prudently so that that money can be spent in the following year, with a saving on the money that might otherwise be spent then. So it would help to secure prudent and cost-conscious management, which I am sure the Government will want.
Although I entirely accept the fact that the Government have given an assurance that the NRA will be given all the resources it needs—and I am certain that they are sincere in that assurance—some future government may take a different view and we may run into financial difficulties. If that occurred, clearly Exchequer grant will be vulnerable when set against costs for hospitals, defence and so forth. Obviously it is an item that the Treasury will look at with a beady eye and will wish to cut. It would be better if we could have a successor to the environmental service charge. It could be raised easily by the NRA in the regions where the money was required. That would bring the NRA into close contact regionally with the consumers and with all the interests concerned, which would be valuable and important.
I believe that that could be done simply by having small percentage additions of, say, .004 per cent. to water bills and by the NRA contracting out the collection of the charge to the plcs. There should be no administrative difficulty about that. I concede that the Treasury must keep control of the overall amount raised in that way by the NRA but it would be perfectly practicable to do that. I believe that in consequence the NRA would be more independent, more secure and more cost conscious. I beg to move.
Lord Middleton: As the noble Lord has explained, the basic issue which is raised by the two amendments is the element of Treasury control, if any, which should remain over the regulation of the water industry. As he has also explained, the question

111
is whether those functions which are to be transferred to the National Rivers Authority which are not self-financing should be paid for by Treasury grant or by placing a local levy on the users of water similar to the present environmental service charge.
The case for privatisation hinges on the belief that one should remove water undertakings from under the hand of a Treasury operating under whatever pressures may come from the economy at any particular time. During the Second Reading debate many noble Lords referred to the under-financing of the present water authorities. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell referred to the needs of the water industry having been subordinated to the overall requirements of Exchequer policy. My noble friend Lord Caithness referred to the interruption of coherent long-term investment strategies by changing political priorities. He referred to the savage cuts in 1976 and to the temptation to fudge quality objectives because of financial constraints.
In applying those arguments to the financing of the NRA by the method proposed under the Bill, the worry is that the NRA will be under constant pressure from the Treasury to reduce its costs by cutting back on its activities. If part of the NRA's functions is to be funded directly by the Treasury, I join the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in fearing that the result will inevitably be the continuing insufficient finance for the NRA to do its job effectively. One can also envisage pressure on the NRA to raise its direct charges for abstraction, fishing, discharge controls and so on.
Against that, it may be that the Government will argue that to operate what my noble friend Lord Crickhowell called a slim, efficient, cost-conscious organisation and the only safeguard against a high-spending and extravagant NRA in the future is to retain a measure of Treasury control. On Second Reading the Minister said:
"but that the responsibility of the state should be clearly confined to regulation, while the business of production passes to the private sector".—[Official Report, 17/4/89; col. 547.]
Again on Second Reading my noble friend Lord Crickhowell asked for the widest possible charging powers to reduce to a minimum the dependence of the NRA on the Treasury. These amendments go further than that and aim to abolish any dependence on the Treasury. They give my noble friend the widest possible charging powers. There is a nice choice here. Which is the more likely: a spendthrift NRA or a penny-pinching Treasury? On balance, I put my money on a responsible NRA, although that horse has yet to come under starter's orders against a Treasury whose form is very well known. Therefore, I support the noble Lord, Lord Moran.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I understand that this is a radical approach to try to find money for the National Rivers Authority. My noble friend on the Front Bench may not feel able to accept it in total today. We do not feel that that is necessary but I hope that he will be able to take away this amendment and think very seriously about it between now and Report stage.
Lord Greenway: I should like to add a word of support on behalf of boating interests. Under the Bill the NRA will inherit the responsibility of maintaining navigations for three water authorities; namely, Anglian, which covers the rivers Ouse and Nene, Southern, which looks after the upper Medway, and the Thames. There are almost 40,000 boats, including hired craft, registered on those rivers, which are important sources of amenity and recreation for boating enthusiasts and the general public alike. In the case of the Thames, it is known that over 6 million people visited the river last year.
As we know, the Government intend to abolish the environmental service charge and to make up the deficit in part through increased charges and in part through grant in aid. However, they have made clear their view that charges will have to increase and no commitment has been forthcoming regarding the level of grant.
At present, the navigation accounts for those three water authorities operate in some deficit, totalling about £2,900,000. If perhaps 75 per cent. of the deficit of the navigation account were to be financed by increased boat charges, that would bring about increased fees for river users roughly in the order of 73 per cent. for Southern, 92 per cent. for Anglian and 108 per cent. for Thames. Those figures assume complete inelasticity of demand, and in fact the result would be that many of the less well-off boating enthusiasts would be forced off the rivers altogether.
Boating interests believe that the NRA should be encouraged to see that the maintenance of those navigations is a local amenity and believe that it would be unfair and unreasonable to expect even a substantial proportion of the current deficit on the navigation accounts to be recovered from users. That is unrealistic, because many people will be unable to pay the higher charges, as I have pointed out, and will be unfair because the maintenance of the navigation benefits the whole community both financially and in terms of the general amenities provided; for example, many people like to walk along the river bank.
Moreover, proper maintenance of the locks and weirs is essential if the river is to flow smoothly and permit abstraction along its course. It is fair to say that a percentage of the deficit on navigation accounts could properly be charged to those private interests which benefit accordingly. It is for that reason that boating interests believe the NRA should be allowed to levy some sort of service charge.
10 p.m.
Lord Monk Bretton: I should like to say a few words in support of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moran. There are few points on which I disagree with the Government but I am anxious that my noble friend the Minister should think hard about retaining the present environmental service charge system. I believe that the regional river advisory committees, in determining what those charges should be and how they are to be spent, would be responsive to local pressures as they have been in the past. They would perhaps therefore be more capable than any other

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body of advising the NRA well. That would particularly be the case if the regional river advisory committees are as well balanced as they should be, and I dare say will be, in the way they are appointed.
The Minister will find that if that is done he will escape the pressures that there will otherwise be from local committees with a chance to spend central government funds which will have a tendency to put in higher and higher bids for the more and more ambitious ideas that they will have. Therefore, it is much better that there should be some local responsibility for those charges. The regional committees, if well appointed, will provide the necessary balance and will be sensitive to local opinion and therefore behave more responsibly than might otherwise be the case. I know that the Government see these other functions as being catered for nationally rather than regionally; nevertheless, I believe that they are better settled regionally if possible.
There is little more for me to add, but I trust that my noble friend the Minister will bear in mind the very wide support that exists for the view I have endeavoured to express. The Minister may be saved a great deal of trouble in the future if he adopts the course suggested.
Lord Hesketh: These two amendments are designed to bring about changes to the proposed financial arrangements for the National Rivers Authority. Amendment No. 17 would remove the discretionary power of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to require the NRA to pay to him any surplus the NRA makes on either its revenue or capital accounts. It would also have the effect of providing for the creation of financial reserves in respect of the NRA's various functions and for the carry-over from one financial year to another of any surplus or deficit of the NRA's accounts.
Amendment No. 18 aims to give the National Rivers Authority a wide power to recover the costs of the functions it performs, other than those carried out under the Land Drainage Act 1976—as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, pointed out—through charging the users of water services. In determining such charges in any region, the NRA would need to take into account the specific costs of the functions performed in that region.
I should like to deal first with Amendment No. 17. As a public sector body, and one exercising monopoly powers in respect of some of its functions, it is essential that the NRA should be subject to the financial controls appropriate to a body responsible for voted expenditure. It is important to bear in mind the importance of control on public expenditure, and that depends in part on the control of public expenditure totals.
This approach is not readily compatible with the carrying over of large surpluses or deficits from one year to another. Although we expect the NRA to be able to raise most of its income through local charges, we also expect that such charges will be insufficient to meet all the NRA's costs in the foreseeable future. A deficit of around £70 million, or about 25 per cent. of its total expenditure, is anticipated in
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1990–91, which is the NRA's first full year of operations. That deficit will be met through grant-in-aid.
In reaching decisions about the levels of grant-in-aid required, we shall of course expect the NRA to provide accurate and reliable forecasts of its income and expenditure. We accept that it may sometimes be necessary for the NRA to carry over relatively small amounts of cash at the end of a financial year to allow for the normal flow of business. We do not anticipate that the NRA will carry forward deficits on the majority of its functions. With proper planning the NRA should be able to work within its budgets. If cash flow requirements so dictate, there is provision under paragraph 18 of Schedule 1 for the NRA to undertake temporary borrowing, within the year. In an extreme case there could be an application for additional grant-in-aid.
If for some reason a large surplus were to arise, this would indicate that grant-in-aid had been given to the NRA in advance of need and therefore that taxpayers had contributed more than was necessary towards its funding. The only other way in which the NRA could generate such a surplus would be if at some time in the future it was in a position to raise more in charges than it needed to finance its activities and did so; in other words, it began to make a profit. Neither of these situations would be acceptable and the appropriate course would be for the Exchequer to recover the surplus. The creation of reserves, which is also provided for by Amendment No. 17, would of course be dependent upon the creation of surpluses and would in the same way not be acceptable.
I should make clear to the Committee at this stage that the position regarding surpluses and deficits that I have just outlined applies to all of the NRA's activities apart from flood defence. The position with regard to flood defence is rather different. First, it will not require the support of grant-in-aid as the costs of the NRA's flood defence work will be met entirely through local authority precepts and MAFF and Welsh Office capital grants. Secondly, we recognise that this is a major area of NRA activity. Factors such as the weather may sometimes lead to significant disruptions to planned work programmes or the need for extra work. Provision already exists within Section 47 of the Land Drainage Act 1976 for the carrying forward of any excesses or deficiencies that may arise on water authorities' land drainage accounts as a result of changes to the planned annual programme of works. This power will transfer to the NRA when it takes up the water authorities' responsibilities for flood defence.
I hope that what I have said has shown to the Committee that Amendment No. 17 is undesirable. There are certainly precedents, with urban development corporations and housing corporations, to name but two, as examples for the power to recover surpluses which is set out in sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph 15 of Schedule 1 and which this amendment seeks to remove. It is a discretionary power and one that the Secretary of State can use only after consultation with the NRA. However, a power of this type provides a necessary

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safeguard over public sector bodies which have the potential to make surpluses.
Moreover, we have given a full and unequivocal undertaking that the NRA will be provided with the resources it needs to carry out its functions. It will not need to rely on the creation of surpluses to fulfil its duties. Indeed, as I have indicated, the NRA will operate at an overall deficit for the foreseeable future, and it is unlikely that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State would need to exercise his discretionary power.
As regards Amendment No. 18, this would allow the NRA to impose a charge similar to the environmental service charge which is currently levied by water authorities to meet the deficit that they incur on their environmental functions. Income derived from this charge rather than Exchequer grant-in-aid would be used by the NRA to fund the net deficit that we anticipate will continue to arise on these functions. The amendment does not specify exactly how the charge would be collected, but the only two realistic options would be through the new water plcs or by a special levy on local authorities within each region, which one assumes could be collected through the community charge.
I should like to explain why this method of funding the NRA's deficit would not be appropriate, but it is first necessary to put the size of the deficit into perspective. In 1990–91, the first full financial year of the NRA's existence, its total expenditure is expected to be in the region of £290 million. Of this, some £220 million will be met from direct charges, leaving around £70 million to be met by Exchequer grant-in-aid. Therefore, as I have already said, only about one-quarter of the NRA's expenditure will be met centrally, and we expect this proportion to reduce over time as the NRA's direct charging systems, particularly those for discharge consents, get properly into gear. We have made it absolutely clear on many occasions that the Government will ensure that the NRA will have all the resources it needs to carry out its functions.
In our policy statement on the NRA issued in December 1987, we stated that because the NRA would be a national body providing services such as water quality control, pollution alleviation and fisheries protection for the community as a whole, it was right that the deficit should be met centrally. This consideration is as valid now as it was then. In any event the alternatives to funding the NRA's deficit are unacceptable. Reliance on the new water plcs for the collection of a charge to meet the NRA's deficit would suggest that the NRA's activities were in some sense subservient to those of the companies, and could undermine the NRA's independence, especially in the highly sensitive area of pollution control. The NRA must be, and must be seen to be, totally independent. Furthermore, as the NRA will be doing business with a wide range of bodies, and not just the new plcs, it would not be appropriate for the NRA to meet its overall deficit through charges levied simply on the customers of the plcs.
The other option I have mentioned is the possibility of funding the NRA's deficit through a levy on local authorities. But there is a serious
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objection to this approach also. Local authority representatives will have a major role in the planning of flood defence works through the NRA's flood defence committees, but we do not think it would be desirable to extend such an arrangement further. It is important for the NRA to develop as a national body, and local decisions on charging levels and spending priorities across the whole range of the NRA's activities would have the effect of undermining the NRA as a national body and weakening its chances of developing meaningful national strategies on its various environmental functions.
The arrangements we propose for the NRA's funding will be responsive to local needs. Decisions on the distribution of resources will take account of local conditions as they will be based on information supplied by each NRA region, and the NRA will have a very strong regional structure to facilitate this approach. Furthermore, as I have said, most of the NRA's environmental functions will be funded to a considerable extent through income derived from locally raised charges.
In his earlier remarks my noble friend Lord Stanley said that this might be considered a rather radical approach. In the light of what I have said, I hope that he and the noble Lords, Lord Moran and Lord Middleton, will be able to withdraw their amendment.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: Before my noble friend sits down, he stated that he thought that this sum of money should come from the Treasury. Did he listen to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, who said very strongly at Second Reading that he wished to be independent of the Treasury?
Lord Hesketh: Yes, I did.
Lord Moran: I am naturally disappointed by what the Minister has said I was reminded of a cartoon by the immortal Pont which had the caption:
" 'This looks like Dead-Face Anderson's work', said the detective inspector, eyeing the corpse in the bath".
The Minister's answer seemed to be redolent of the work of a Treasury hand. It seemed to be Treasury prose all over. As the whole point of the amendment was to propose that the NRA should be free from Treasury control, what the Minister said was very unwelcome. I hope that he will look carefully at what he said, because he has not addressed any of the dangers and difficulties that we have pointed out. I hope he will pay attention to what was said by a number of noble Lords in support of the two amendments. I am grateful to them for what they said.
There is real substance in the amendments. I do not think that the Government are right. I very much hope that they will ponder what has been said and perhaps at a later stage, when we may want to come back to it, they will be more flexible. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 18 not moved.]
10.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 19.
Page 189, line 33, after ("its") insert ("environmental and").
The noble Lord said: This is another amendment on the same issue because, as we have made clear from the outset of the debate on the Bill, we are not satisfied—despite the assurances which have been given by the Government—that the resources of the NRA are adequately secured. We observed that the provision for borrowing, other than temporary borrowing, within a year, and only then for flood defence purposes, was only added by the Government on Report in another place. Until that time there had been no provision whatever for borrowing other than that for borrowing of a temporary nature. In the light of the wide range of environmental responsibilities, many of which involve substantial capital expenditure, the concern which was very widely felt was properly reflected by the Secretary of State in the amendment which he moved at that time. However, I do not believe that that amendment goes far enough to deal with the concern which has so properly been expressed.
In any event, the amounts of money which are provided for in the schedule are quite inadequate to reflect even the needs of flood defence. I understand that the Department of the Environment's own estimates of the needs for capital expenditure on flood defence in 1990–91 are that it should be £160 million. If we take into account the fact that some years ago the cost of flood defences associated with the construction of the Thames barrier—that is, not the cost of the Thames barrier itself but the associated flood defences in the Thames estuary to ensure that when the barrier was lowered it did not simply mean floods further down the estuary—was £105 million, at prices at that time, the amount of money provided, which is £100 million with the Secretary of State able by order to increase the sum to £160 million, is clearly not adequate even for flood defence purposes.
The implication of that must be that virtually all of the capital expenditure for which borrowing will be required by the NRA will be used for flood defence purposes. In that case there will be no surplus whatever for any other capital programmes. That situation does not make good business sense. Of course much of the work of the NRA can be done on a year-by-year charging basis. We do not deny that fact; indeed, that is the nature of much of the work of conservation and environmental protection which is being carried out. However, there is a significant part of it, of which flood defence is only one part, which requires capital expenditure.
It would be a gross imposition on the local authorities which happened to be affected by the need for capital expenditure that they should be precepted for the amounts required and that they should be required to find that money out of a single year's revenue income. Borrowing for those capital purposes—and this includes environment as well as flood defence—is sound economic sense. It should apply to the NRA as well as to other organisations.
What concerns us in the matter is the feeling that behind this provision lies an unwillingness to fund
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the NRA adequately. However, if that is not the case, it is difficult to understand why the Government, having conceded the principle of longer-term borrowing in the case of flood defence programmes, should resist the idea of extending it to other necessary environmental work. It will of course still be part of the public sector borrowing requirement and it will still be subject to Treasury controls—pace the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and his colleagues. If it were added to the Bill, it is something which would make for a more rational use of financial resources which are not merely year to year but sometimes have to be carried on for a longer period of years. I beg to move.
Lord Moran: I support the amendment. A number of functions which the NRA will have to take on may require substantial capital expenditure other than for flood defences. For example, an opportunity may arise to construct a regulating reservoir, or the flow in a river may alter for some reason and require the construction of such a reservoir. There may be a plan by the plcs to build a reservoir for water supply purposes which the NRA may want to add to or amend in some degree so that the reservoir could also serve as part of its water resources policy.
The NRA should be able to finance those major physical items either through borrowing, as the amendment suggests, or, as a previous amendment suggested, through the accumulation of reserves. If it can do neither, the NRA may be in serious trouble.
The Earl of Caithness: Amendment No. 19 is designed to widen the powers provided in the Bill for the NRA to undertake long-term borrowing. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, has reminded the Committee, the Bill already provides for the NRA to borrow to meet capital expenditure on its flood defence function. The amendment would have the effect of allowing the NRA to borrow to meet expenditure in relation to its environmental functions as well.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, that careful consideration of this matter has convinced us that it is neither necessary nor desirable to provide the NRA with borrowing powers in respect of its non-land drainage functions. As a matter of principle, it is not appropriate for a non-trading public body like the NRA, which will rely on Exchequer grant-in-aid to fund its deficit, to have general borrowing powers; but in any event, the need for unexpected heavy expenditure is only likely to arise on the flood defence function. It should be possible for the NRA to finance expenditure on its environmental functions either through charges or out of its grant-in-aid. We can foresee no need for borrowing in respect of those functions.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Moran, listed some areas where he thought that expenditure might be needed, I cannot see any of those being of such a nature that borrowing would be required. Sensible planning and budgeting by the NRA would take into account the type of occasions that the noble Lord had in mind. I therefore hope that the Committee will accept that the Bill already provides adequately for those limited situations where borrowing might conceivably be needed.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Minister seems to believe that it is good enough to suggest that the NRA could fund its capital expenditure requirement—I notice that he did not deny that there would be a capital expenditure requirements, or requirements larger than revenue expenditure requirements—by a combination of charges and grant-in-aid. The problem with that is, first, that the charges, which are charges fundamentally on local authorities, will have to be met out of local authority revenue income. That will make the budgeting of the local authority community charge difficult and erratic because it cannot be predicted as to when those expenditures will occur. They may be high at certain times and may then fall off.
Unless the Minister is giving us an assurance that grant-in-aid will always be found for capital projects which the NRA considers to be necessary—I do not believe that the Minister was giving us that sort of assurance—I do not believe that grant-in-aid is an adequate alternative. No answer has been given to the case which I was seeking to make that there are elements of the NRA's expenditure on environmental matters—it is not an issue here of whether they can be predicted—which will be sufficiently large and over a sufficient period of time to justify being treated as capital expenditure and to justify borrowing. For these elements of expenditure neither charges nor grant-in-aid are adequate alternatives.
I am afraid that the Minister's pat rejection of the amendment confirms our fears that the resources that will be available to the NRA to carry out its environmental functions as well as its flood defence functions are simply inadequate. This is a matter to which we shall certainly have to return in one form or another at a later stage. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 189, line 33, at end insert ("including any planned programme of works or emergency measures in pursuance of those functions").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is quite closely related to the previous one. Some of the arguments have already been rehearsed, not only in relation to Amendment No. 19 but in the Government's reply to Amendments Nos. 17 and 18. I shall not take up a great deal of the Committee's time with it. However in addition to the point which has already been made about capital expenditure and borrowing powers being necessary as an alternative to precepts, it is necessary to recognise that there will be these major projects which go beyond the exceptional cases which the Secretary of State and the Government recognised at Report stage in another place. The Secretary of State said that the use would be restricted to situations where the NRA was faced with expenditure for which it has been impossible to plan.
In his speech at Second Reading, the noble Earl commented that with proper planning it should be possible for regional flood defence committees to plan expenditure so that borrowing was not required.
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However, that might be the government view but it was not the view of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, at Second Reading. He questioned the wisdom:
"when there is already a requirement that the NRA should have the approval of the Secretary of State and the Treasury, to specify that the clause will be used only to meet expenditure in emergencies".
That is what our amendment does and if the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, were here I hope that the amendment would meet with his approval, because it follows very closely what he was saying at Second Reading.
There are occasions when the borrowing powers go beyond emergencies and there must be a presumption that the environmental work of the National Rivers Authority should so far as possible be on a planned basis and not be a response to emergencies. It is the response to emergencies that is the least efficient way of dealing with environmental protection. A planned programme of this work, one supported by borrowing powers, would be the rational way to proceed with this.
I can see that we could get into a great deal of trouble if we started on metaphors of fingers in dykes and I shall try to avoid that. But the metaphor is sufficiently close on this occasion to convince me, and it ought to convince the Committee, that the NRA should so far as possible be working towards planned expenditure in these matters and not relying on reaction to emergencies. That is the only occasion at the moment on which the Government allow it borrowing powers. Again, I believe that this amendment not only meets the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, but follows the path towards which the Government are moving in the amendments which they put forward at Report stage in another place. It only requires a little further push to the Government in the direction which they recognise is the right one to make them accept the amendments. I hope that they will be able to do so. I beg to move.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Hylton: I should like to support this amendment, particularly since it talks about emergency measures. I can cast my mind back to the time in the late 1940s and early 1950s when my father and the then Lord Fortescue were administering a large voluntary fund for the relief of people adversely affected by the Lynton and Lynmouth flood disaster. That is just one example of the sort of environmental problem that can, and is likely to, arise in the future at some unknown time out of rivers and flash floods and things of that kind.
These kinds of risks are generally uninsurable and the person affected may have his whole house, his business and his livelihood destroyed overnight. It is important that there should be a national long stop body that can make provision ahead of time, or can have borrowing powers to deal with such situations.
The Earl of Caithness: Amendment No. 20 is also designed to widen the powers provided in the Bill for the National Rivers Authority to undertake

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long-term borrowing. The Bill already provides for the NRA to borrow to meet its flood defence function. This is a point that I think covers exactly that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. This amendment would have the effect of making clear that the NRA could borrow for a planned programme of flood defence works.
As the Committee may be aware, the Bill as originally introduced provided only for the NRA to have powers to undertake temporary borrowing in order to overcome any short-term cash flow problems that may occasionally arise. However, during Committee in another place concern was expressed that a power for the NRA to borrow temporarily was not sufficient on its own, and that the NRA should also have the ability to undertake long-term borrowing to fund its flood defence work. We listened carefully to the views put forward both in another place and elsewhere and were persuaded that it would be right to provide for some extension of the NRA's borrowing powers in this respect.
Accordingly the Bill was amended at Report stage in another place, and the relevant powers now appear in paragraphs 18 and 19 of Schedule 1. We have made clear that the use of these powers will in practice be limited to situations where the NRA is faced with unexpected heavy expenditure in order to avoid the risk of serious flooding. We do not envisage, therefore, that these powers would be used very often. We are confident, however, that they will ensure that the NRA is able to borrow where this is seen to be necessary, and will provide for the flood defence committees to carry out their important work as effectively as they have done in the past.
We do not consider that there is a case for allowing the NRA to borrow other than in respect of flood defence emergencies. I have already referred to the fact that it is not appropriate for a non-trading public body like the NRA, which will rely on Exchequer grant-in-aid to fund its deficit, to have general borrowing powers. But in any event it should be perfectly possible for the NRA to plan a balanced budget for the normal run of its flood defence works through the usual mechanisms without recourse to borrowing. Indeed, water authorities have generally managed without significant new borrowings in respect of flood defences in recent years.
I think I said it is worth reminding the Committee that, as was said earlier, we anticipate that grant-in-aid funding will diminish as the NRA moves into its second and third and subsequent years of existence. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, made when he said he was worried that grant-in-aid might not be available in full in future years. Of course I sympathise with him, for there is no greater expert than the Labour Party on underfinancing the environment, and in particular the water and sewerage facilities.
Earlier this afternoon I gave the noble Lord an asurance of a government amendment. That was spurned. I do not offer that assurance now. What I offer instead is that I shall read with care what has been said on all these amendments because there is no doubt that we all want the same thing. We all want an efficient and properly financed NRA. I am
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sure that that is what we shall achieve at the end of our consideration of this Bill. I hope that in the meanwhile the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am glad that the noble Earl has given me an opportunity to say once again that I did not spurn his earlier offer of discussion or consideration of amendments. I said that since the amendments related to Clause 8 they could not meet the fundamental difficulty and could not be other than secondary and inadequate to meet the more basic point which we were making. That was the basis on which we were forced to proceed to a vote. I shall of course be very pleased to have an opportunity to discuss the amendments with him and agree with them as far as I possibly can.
On this occasion the noble Earl is not making a promise of reconsideration or of any particular result arising from such reconsideration. However, it is clear not only from what I have said but from the progress of the Bill that the concern expressed about the lack of borrowing powers is gradually coming home to the Government. The concessions that they made in another place at Report stage were welcome. It is only logical for the Government now to look at flood defence expenditure not solely for emergencies but as a matter of prudent management which may well require planned expenditure.
The example which I gave of the Thames; barrier is very valid in relation to that point. A total of £105 million was expended on the associated flood defence of the estuary below the Thames barrier. The expenditure was financed by borrowing but under the Bill as now drafted it would no longer be possible to finance such expenditure by borrowing. Yet that expenditure was at least as valid as—and I would argue significantly more justified than—emergency expenditure on flood relief had proper planned provision not been made.
This is a matter of great concern, particularly to the low-lying counties in eastern England. They ought not to be forced to be the recipients solely of emergency relief. They ought to have an opportunity to benefit from planned expenditure by the National Rivers Authority. That is one of the authority's principal functions and it is one which it can best carry out by the planned expenditure which is the subject of this amendment and for which borrowing ought to be available.
I welcome the very guarded remarks of the Minister. I should be glad to discuss with him any progress that might be made towards a more rational approach to the borrowing powers of the NRA. before we come back to this matter at another stage. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Regional rivers advisory committees]:
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): If Amendment No. 21 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 22 to 29 inclusive.
Lord Greenway Lord Greenway moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 2, leave out from beginning of line 33 to end of line 8 on page 3 and insert—
("(1) The Authority shall establish and maintain for each area which the Authority considers it appropriate for the time being to regard as a region of England and Wales for the purposes of this section—

(a) an advisory committee to be known as the Regional Environmental and Recreational Advisory Committee to advise the Authority upon the exercise by the Authority of its duties under section 7 of this Act; and

(b) such other advisory committees, if any, as the Authority may determine to appoint.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Authority—

(a) to consult the advisory committees for any region upon proposals of the Authority relating to the manner in which the Authority carries out its functions in that region; and

(b) to consider any representations made to it by an advisory committee for any region (whether in response to consultation under paragraph (a) above or otherwise) as to the manner in which the Authority carries out its functions in that region.

(2A) The Authority shall appoint as members of the Regional Environmental and Recreational Advisory Committee for any region persons who have substantial knowledge or experience of matters relevant to the exercise by the Authority of its duties under section 7 of this Act within that region.
(2B) Subject to subsection (2A) above, the Authority shall ensure that persons appointed by it to an advisory committee established and maintained under this section—").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 21, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 42.
We now come to Clause 2 of the Bill, which requires the NRA to establish and maintain new regional rivers advisory committees. At Second Reading I voiced the fears of the boating interests, including the Inland Waterways Association, the Royal Yachting Association and the British Marine Industries Federation, that the influence of both the recreation and conservation interests might be reduced under the new proposals compared with the present arrangements whereby the water authorities of England and Wales are advised by separate regional recreational and conservation consultative committees made up of individuals nominated by interested organisations. As I said, this is an arrangement that has, by common consent, worked very well.
Under the proposals in the Bill, those new committees must be comprised of:
"persons who appear to the Authority to have an interest in matters likely to be affected by the manner in which the Authority carries out any of its functions in the region in question".
But the NRA will be under no obligation to ensure a balance among agricultural, conservation, local and recreational interests.
That contrasts with the proposals surrounding the formation of the quite separate regional flood defence committees to which an as yet unspecified number of members will be appointed by or on behalf of the constituent councils, or the regional fishery committees which will comprise persons who appear to the authority to be interested in fisheries. It also contrasts with the provisions governing the composition of the advisory committee which were contained in the Broads Bill under which Norfolk and Suffolk county councils and various district councils and public bodies, as well as boating and
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farming interests, were allowed specific levels of representation.
It may well be that a good balance already exists in some regions, but that may not always be the case. The boating interests feel that the only way to ensure that the concerns of conservationists and recreational users are not ignored or given insufficient consideration is to maintain a separate committee.
It is important to remember in that context that the Government rejected amendments to Clause 1 of the Bill in another place which would have obliged the Secretary of State to consult interested bodies before appointing members of the NRA on the grounds that it is undesirable to create a situation in which members of the authority feel that they have been appointed to represent a particular interest. That makes it all the more important that the regional advisory committees are properly representative.
Finally, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment in another place justified his opposition to a separate advisory committee on the grounds that it would be inappropriate to have separate committees with a remit limited to environmental and conservation issues because that might suggest that those issues were secondary considerations or in some sense irrelevant to the NRA's main statutory duties. However, the boating interests believe that that fear is unjustified and that the existence of a separate committee as envisaged in my amendment is the best way to ensure that their interests are not overlooked.
I turn now to the new clause proposed in Amendment No. 42 which would require the sewerage and water undertakers to consult the advisory committees established by the NRA. If, as seems to be the case, boating or recreational interests are not to be represented on customer service committees, it follows that they will have no representation or advisory capacity at all in relation to the plcs' functions and resources. Yet, as the proposed code of practice says, consultation is an essential element of the full discharge of the relevant bodies' environmental duties. As I see it, the preferred solution would be to require each plc to consult the relevant NRA Advisory Committee. I have tabled the amendment with that aim.
I believe that the point that I am trying to make is a valid one so far as the boating interests are concerned. I beg to move.
10.45 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: I hope that I shall be able to persuade the noble Lord that his concerns and worries about this amendment are unfounded. The Bill before the House provides in Clause 2 for the establishment for each of the authority's regions of a regional rivers advisory committee whose role would be to advise the NRA on the performance of all its functions in that region.
The effect of Amendment No. 21 would be to delete that clause and substitute for it a provision requiring the establishment in its place of a regional environmental and recreational advisory committee

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to advise the authority on the discharge of its general environmental duties in Clause 8—that is those concerning conservation, access and recreation and such other advisory committees as the authority may determine.
The effect of Amendment No. 42 would be to associate with this a further clause requiring the undertakers to consult the committee on the discharge of their duties under Clause 8.
There appear to be three principal considerations underlying this amendment which I should like to examine briefly in turn. The first is that there should be an advisory committee addressed specifically to conservation and recreational matters, as at present. We do not wish in any way to underestimate the importance of conservation and recreational matters, but I suggest to the Committee that it is a great merit of our present proposals that the advisory committee would in fact integrate all the concerns of the authority and look at these in the round. The fact is that pollution control matters, water resource matters and land drainage matters are all intimately bound up with conservation and recreation. The authority will need advice upon them and it will need advice on the interaction between those various functions. It will benefit from advice which can balance and reconcile the various considerations. That is what would be lost by this amendment and we believe that it would be a significant loss.
We recognise that the amendment makes provision for the authority to establish such other committees as it wishes, and that these could advise on water pollution and water resource matters. But the element of integration would be lost and we should besides be faced by a potential proliferation of committees which would not be very helpful.
The second consideration is the way in which the professed new clause would establish a direct link between the undertakers and the RRAC. I have to say that we do not believe that that would be desirable. We recognise of course that Clause 8 provides for the undertakers to have important recreational duties. They will be obliged to put their land and water to the best use for recreation. They will be accountable for the discharge of the duties. The Secretary of State can take enforcement action in respect of failure to observe the duties. He will publish a code of practice on performance of the duties. We have already published a draft of the code and are consulting relevant bodies upon its terms.
All those are substantial protections to ensure that undertakers properly maintain and extend recreation provisions as opportunity offers. They will be publicly accountable for that. We do not believe that to interpose an advisory committee appointed by and necessarily first responsible to the NRA would be helpful.
Moreover, given the duty on the NRA in Clause 8 generally to promote conservation and recreation, it is of course open to the undertakers to approach the NRA, which can in turn seek the views of its advisory committee. That is, I suggest, a more fitting arrangement for the new companies than to charge a committee appointed by the NRA with, in effect,
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oversight of the environmental and recreational activities of the companies.
My third and final point is a more general one. Underlying these amendments is, I suspect, some fear that the new advisory committee structure that we propose will diminish the role and influence of recreational interests. Such fears are misplaced. Recreational interests will of course be properly represented on the RRACs. We are confident that the NRA advisory committee proposals, to which I have already referred, will make that clear beyond doubt. Nor have we any doubt that the NRA will build fully upon the good work of the present regional recreation and conservation committees. There is no reason to fear that the influence of recreational interests will be in any way diminished by what we propose.
In conclusion I repeat the three points. First, the amendments are unnecessary to secure continuation of the proper and reasonable interests of conservation and recreation bodies. Secondly, they are inappropriate in seeking to forge a direct link between the undertakers' conservation and recreation duties and committees appointed by the NRA. Finally, they are particularly unhelpful in breaking down the integration of all advice in one committee in the way that we propose.
For those reasons I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hylton: I should like to ask the noble Earl whether he would agree that the language used in this amendment is a good deal more precise and taut than that set forth in the Bill. I should like particularly to underline the fact that on page 3 at line 10 the Bill states that the persons to be appointed to the proposed committees are solely those who have an interest in the matters under discussion.
There seems to be no requirement for a balance of interests which our amendment at least attempts to provide. Also, neither the Bill nor the amendment provides for any independent members who are free from prior interests. I should have thought that that would be helpful.
It might also be useful to provide—whether in the Bill or by regulations—that regional advisory committees operate by sub-committees. These are all points that I hope the Government will consider with a view to producing a better text at the next stage.
Lord Greenway: I am most grateful to the noble Earl for his extensive reply and to my noble friend Lord Hylton for his support. At this late hour I should like to consider carefully what the noble Earl has said. I have noted his remarks that the fears of the boating interests are misplaced and that the Government do not wish to see a proliferation of committees. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment on the understanding that I may possibly return to it at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 2, line 34, leave out ("advisory").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment, I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 24, 26 to 29, 34 and 38. The purpose of this series of amendments is to strengthen the role of the regional committees. I should like to remind the Committee that the functions which the NRA will be taking over from the existing water authorities are all exercised on a regional basis. There is therefore a strong reason for continuing that regional connection.
As the drafting stands, these are purely advisory committees and the authority simply has to consult them and to consider any representation made to it. These amendments suggest that the word "advisory" be removed in order to strengthen the position of the committees and that additional functions be given them so that they can exercise greater authority regionally. These functions are set out in my Amendment No. 27. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness: As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has told the Committee, the purpose of these amendments is to change the nature of the regional rivers advisory committees so that they have a number of specific functions. These additional functions relate to giving its approval for any by-laws to be made by the NRA for pollution prevention under Clause 110, or for navigation under Clause 153; to designating waters for which the NRA would be under a duty to establish minimum acceptable flows; and to agreeing the NRA's programme of anti-pollution works under Clause 111.
I should first like to make clear that the matters identified in Amendment No. 27 are among the matters that we would expect the regional rivers advisory committee to be involved in. But the aspect of this amendment that we do not find acceptable is that it changes the status of the advisory committees and makes it a requirement that the committee should have consented to or agreed some by-law or programme of works before the NRA can carry it out.
I must emphasise that it seems to us essential that the NRA at regional level is answerable to the NRA board through the chief executive. I am sure that on reconsideration the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will agree that it would confuse lines of accountability if there were a set of activities—as proposed in these amendments—for which the NRA at regional level was not answerable to the NRA board but to a separate regional committee. Such an arrangement would, at least in theory, put the regional general manager in the impossible position that he might be required to do something by his regional committee which was inconsistent with the national policy which his chief executive and his board were pursuing.
Of course, this situation is not likely to arise often. We are confident that on most issues, in particular issues like by-laws which are essentially local in nature, the NRA will find invaluable the advice of the regional rivers advisory committee, and would not wish to put forward proposals that were not endorsed by the committee.
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However, it would in our view in no way affect the value of the advice of the regional rivers advisory committee that it was an advisory committee. To make the committee an executive committee is quite unnecessary and inappropriate. As it stands, the clause recognises the importance of these regional committees while at the same time ensuring proper lines of responsibility of the regional units of the NRA through the chief executive and the board.
Lord Ezra: I certainly hope that situations would not frequently arise where the NRA was at variance with the advice received from a regional committee. That would mean that it was imposing on the region things which those who were selected to represent it in these matters did not agree with. It was to strengthen the regional position that these amendments were introduced. However, having heard what the noble Earl has said, I should like to reflect on the issue and consider whether to come back to it in some other way at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 2, line 35, at end insert ("in accordance with guidelines for the establishment of such committees as shall be issued from time to time by the Secretary of State;").
The noble Baroness said: The aim of the amendment is to provide for statutory guidance to be made available to the National Rivers Authority on the appointment of members to the regional rivers advisory committees. These advisory committees replace the existing water authority regional recreation and conservation committees but have a broader remit relating to all the NRA's functions. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and other conservation bodies, have developed a strong working relationship with the water authorities in respect of water resource management. The society has found its representation on the existing regional recreation and conservation committees to be invaluable in its work on wetland conservation.
As the Bill does not specify the structure of the new regional advisory committees, there is a real danger of gross imbalances occurring in the membership of the advisory committees which may have a limiting effect on the expertise available. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has referred to that. The noble Lord, Lord Norrie, in Amendment No. 30, asks that members should include,
"persons nominated by or representing voluntary conservation and recreation bodies".
That, of course, I support. It shows that other bodies besides the RSPB are anxious about how these committees will be made up.
By providing statutory guidance to the NRA on the composition of the RRACs, the balance of interest will not be left to chance and will help to reduce regional variations. The Nature Conservancy Council has recommended that the membership of RRACs should be standardised. The adoption of common guidelines would help to meet this recommendation.
The concept of statutory guidelines is not new to the water industry. A precedent already exists in

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respect of appointments to the water authority consumer committees, which include amenity interests. Section 24A(2) of the Water Act 1983 clearly states:
"In preparing a report under this section"—
on the arrangements for representing consumer and recreational interests—
"a water authority shall have regard to any guidelines issued by the Secretary of State".
Acceptance of the amendment would not create a precedent; rather it would transpose an existing arrangement into the Bill. This is a simple and a very modest amendment. I can see absolutely no reason why the Minister should not accept it. I hope he will. I beg to move.
11 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: We are all grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining her amendment so succinctly. I remind her that in December 1987 the policy statement on the NRA was issued. In that we proposed that the existing regional recreational and conservation committees be expanded into wider committees, the regional rivers advisory committees. We intend that these will be important committees bringing together all the main river interests— conservation, recreation, industry (including the water supply industry) local government and agriculture. We resist the suggestion, therefore, that the Secretary of State should issue guidelines or regulations on their establishment. These are to be committees of the NRA and surely it is right that it should be for the NRA to select the members to represent effectively the many interests and differing regional concerns.
However, the NRA Advisory Committee has been giving careful consideration to the terms of reference and composition of all its regional committees and will shortly be issuing a document setting out its proposals. I shall make sure that copies are made available to all noble Lords who wish to see it and to all who have taken part in our debates on Clause 2. I am sorry that the document was not available earlier but we issued it as soon as possible. I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that it was better to issue it today than later this week or next when our discussions on this subject had passed. I am confident that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell will pay careful regard to all the points made in Committee about the regional committees and that the National Rivers Authority Advisory Committee will also welcome comments on the proposals from interested parties.
However, as I have made clear earlier, the fundamental point is that it must be for the NRA to decide on the appropriate constitution and composition of these committees and not the Secretary of State.
Baroness David: Of course, I thank the Minister for his reply and we shall be interested to see the document. Will it be available in the Library tomorrow?
The Earl of Caithness: It should be available now.
Baroness David: I am sorry that I did not know about it before we reached the amendments on Clause 2 because it would have been more helpful. Obviously I shall not go further with the amendment until I have read the document, so at this point I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 24 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 2, line 39, leave out ("consider") and insert ("have regard to").
The noble Lord said: The Minister announced the issuing of a document by the NRA and I imagine that it will make a difference to a number of amendments which have been tabled on today's Marshalled List. However, I do not believe that it will make a difference to Amendment No. 25. We are not concerned with the membership of the regional rivers advisory committees but with the way in which their deliberations are treated. We find to be quite unsatisfactory the fact that the only obligation on the authority is that it should "consider" any representations made to it by the advisory committee.
In the whole gamut of words and phrases used in legislation to deal with the process of consultation and deliberation by public bodies, the word "consider" comes close to the bottom. In other words, it is close to being the weakest possible response that an authority can have to its own regional river advisory committees. In tabling the amendment we believe that we should move at least one step up the ladder towards the phrase "have regard to". It is still possible for the authority to act against the advice of the regional rivers advisory committees even if we use that phrase. However, they must pay at least a little more attention than is implied by the word "consider".
Regardless of the issues of who appoints the members, whether there are statutory guidelines, whether it is a matter for the NRA or whether the NRA properly considers the range of interests which should be represented on the regional advisory committees, if we are to get people of ability to serve on the regional committees, and if they are to be expected to devote a significant amount of time to their duties as members, they must have the feeling that someone is paying significant attention to the work which they do. They must have the feeling that the National Rivers Authority cannot merely consider what they say but must take it into account. We could have used that phrase "take it into account" as opposed to "have regard to" and gone two steps up the ladder. However, they have to be taken seriously. I do not believe that the word "consider" takes them seriously. I hope that the Government will feel that, if they are to have adequate representation and really good members on the regional committees, this amendment is not unacceptable to them. I beg to move.
Lord Ezra: I should like to support this amendment, having moved amendments to

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strengthen the role of the advisory committees. I certainly believe that this amendment is a minimum way of achieving that objective. I suppose that "to take note of could be even worse than "consider". "Consider" is one notch up the ladder but "have regard to" or "take into account" is the minimum which we should have in this case so that the advisory committees' views are seriously considered, or I should say "taken into account"? Therefore, I hope that the Government will take this proposal into account and agree to the minor amendment involved.
Lord Hesketh: Amendment No. 25 would require the NRA to "have regard to" rather than to "consider" any representations made to it by an advisory committee.
The amendment would not affect the duties of the NRA with regard to representations of advisory committees. The words "to consider" are the appropriate words to use in this context and are used in relation to representations in many other clauses of this Bill and in other legislation. Indeed I note that in his Amendment No. 41 the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, would have the NRA "consider" the representations of his proposed regional divisions.
Clause 2 makes it a duty of the authority to consult its advisory committees and to consider any representations made by these committees. As a major national body, the NRA will of course give reasonable consideration to any representations made to it by its own advisory committees. It would be in the authority's own interest to do so. Moreover in the annual report required by Clause 146, the NRA will be expected to comment on the functioning of the regional rivers advisory committees and in particular to indicate the major issues on which the committees have been consulted or have offered advice and the action taken on them by the NRA. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, may consider that his amendment is not an addition at this time.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have had an opportunity to have a quick skim through the document issued by the National Rivers Authority. I notice that there is no reference whatever to the degree of consideration which the NRA will give the recommendations of its regional advisory committees. Therefore, it is not inappropriate for me to move this amendment. I believe that the Minister's response is interesting but I do not believe that it resolves the issue.
However, it is quite clear that, with the issue of this document of which we were unaware when we tabled the amendments or even when we started to speak to them—and I too should like a copy—the whole question of the regional rivers advisory committees is in the melting pot and will have to be raised again on Report. I believe that it is appropriate to say that I shall not move the other amendments in my name on this matter and to beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 26 to 29 not moved.]
Lord Norrie Lord Norrie moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 3, line 12, after ("question;") insert ("including persons nominated by or representing voluntary conservation and recreation bodies;")
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to require the NRA to appoint to the regional rivers advisory committees members drawn from voluntary conservation and recreation bodies. The noble Baroness, Lady David, has just touched on that subject. She reminded us that these regional rivers advisory committees established under Clause 2 of this Bill replace the existing regional recreation and conservation committees set up under the provisions of Section 7 of the Water Act 1983.
Both conservation and recreation bodies are currently represented. The Royal Society for the Nature Conservation (RSNC) and its 48 associated wild life trusts sit on the majority of existing committees and offer practical advice on nature conservation. Similarly, the professional regional staff of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) supports seven of the existing nine committees. Such representation is extremely valuable to the work of conservation bodies.
By way of further example, the existing Thames Water authority's regional recreation and conservation committee includes in its membership the RSPB's regional conservation officer. The conservation officer attends divisional and local sub-groups of the committee where conservation matters are discussed. This enables Thames Water to utilise the expertise of the RSPB in the planning and execution of the full range of its activities.
Indeed, major flood defence works, such as the Maidenhead flood relief scheme, were discussed at the committee. Through site visits and field surveys it was possible for the RSPB to advise Thames Water on how to plan the scheme to be of benefit to river wildlife. The staff of the RSPB can also advise the water authorities on which lengths of river are the best for wildlife and how river engineering works can be carried out in the most sympathetic and beneficial way.
Equally, angling, which is the major sport enjoyed on waters owned or managed by water authorities, is represented through national angling bodies on six of the existing committees, and sailing on at least four. I believe it is fair to say that the water authorities have benefited from the experience and expertise which the voluntary bodies can bring. Therefore, I hope that the new committees will continue to provide a valuable link between the NRA and voluntary bodies. However, I fear that voluntary conservation groups such as the RSPB may be excluded from membership. There is evidence of this in a draft scheme published by Yorkshire Water for its NRA region which excluded all voluntary conservation and recreation groups from its RRAC. This leads me to believe that voluntary bodies may go unrepresented on all 10 of the advisory committees. Such exclusion from the new committees would be unfortunate and likely to leave a wide gap in the expertise available.
Angling is established on well over 300 of the 500 reservoirs to be transferred to private ownership and

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sailing is allowed on well over 80. Where to a considerable extent these waters are used for the purposes of sport surely it is right that such sports should be represented. We must ensure that the Bill maintains the co-existence of recreation and conservation interests on advisory committees.
I fear that unless a statutory provision is made for conservation and recreation experts to be represented on the new committees there will be no guarantee that the NRA will recruit at the right level and at the right range of expertise required. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Amendment No. 37 is being taken with this amendment, and since I now have my own copy of the National Rivers Authority document I have the advantage of the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, in this matter.
It is the case that the NRA is proposing that members should be selected from among areas of interest. These can include conservation and landscape interests, including statutory and voluntary bodies, and recreational interests, including sports councils and special interest groups. Therefore, I think that the noble Lord's amendment, if he trusts the phrase,
"selected from among the following areas of interest",
may be catered for. My amendment goes further to say,
"not less than one-third of such appointments are of persons representative of environmental and recreational interests".
However, as with the previous amendment, I think it is better if we take this document away and consider what amendments are necessary to beef it up a bit, because I feel that is necessary, and that we do so on Report rather than pursue the matter now.
11.15 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful to my noble friend for expressing his concern about conservation, in which both statutory and voluntary bodies are involved. As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has just read out, they are catered for in the document produced today by the NRAAC.
Perhaps I may expand that in a little more detail for the Committee. The membership total for the regional rivers advisory committee will be something in the order of 15 to 20. Members will be selected from among the following areas of interest, and some of these we have already discussed today; namely, agriculture, forestry and landowners' interests; conservation and landscape interests, including statutory and voluntary bodies—the very areas that my noble friend Lord Norrie is concerned with—industry and commerce, including abstractors and dischargers and river-dependent industries generally. The membership will also include local government, and it will please the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, to see that in print. There will also be national parks authorities and other public bodies, recreational interests including sports councils and special interest groups, water service industries and other interest groups.
I fear that the concerns of my noble friend are not well founded because they are met by the document.
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The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, spoke to Amendment No. 37. That amendment produces a much stricter strait-jacket on the NRA than that suggested in the document. I fully appreciate the method by which he has dealt with it in saying that he needs time for further consideration. I shall be happy to consider it with him.
The Viscount of Oxfuird: Can my noble friend say whether riparian owners are included in that list?
The Earl of Caithness: My noble friend's concern is fully met. When he sees the document he should turn to Annex B, which covers the regional fisheries advisory committee. Among those will be riparian owners' associations.
Lord Norrie: I am grateful for my noble friend's explanation. I look forward to reading the document. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chairman of Committees: If Amendment No. 31 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 32.
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 3, line 13, leave out ("wholly or mainly")
The noble Earl said: This is an amendment still dealing with the advisory committee. I believe that these committees are of considerable importance. They might have to exert as much influence as they are able over the authority. I was surprised to see that members of the authority would be able to sit on committees such as these which they themselves had created. It seems to be an extraordinary position whereby, admittedly not "wholly or mainly", they can sit on those advisory committees. My amendment is to stop that happening in any way at all. It would be far better if these advisory committees sat, so to speak, by themselves and passed their advice by whatever means they thought best back to the National Rivers Authority.
On occasion they may have to put forward advice that is harsh and unacceptable to the authority. I would hate to feel that they had sitting among them someone who might take the edge off their deliberations and recommendations. I believe it is a fairly straightforward amendment and I hope that my noble friend will feel that it is a reasonable one. It is important in that if it does not go through the world will not be lost, but issues may well be fudged and spoilt before they can be properly brought out into the open and the authority faced with proper and uninfluenced advice. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Again, my Amendment No. 32 is linked with this amendment and it will fall if this amendment is agreed to. In any event, the noble Earl's amendment is better than mine. The word "wholly" becomes redundant. I agree with the noble Earl because I believe that there should be an arm's length relationship between the regional advisory committee and the authority. I know that it is not the Government's intention that there should be a major overlap of membership. There should be no overlap at all; otherwise people

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are wearing two hats and facing both ways. We will not get a coherent view from the whole of the regional advisory committee untainted by membership of the authority. I hope that the Government will recognise that this matter is not affected by the consultative document put forward by the NRA and deserves support on its own merits.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The arm's length argument is a real one. I should have thought that under the circumstances these words could be omitted.
The Earl of Caithness: I have listened with care to what noble Lords have said on the amendments. We certainly accept that members of these committees should not normally be on the boards of the NRA itself. Indeed, the whole point of the regional rivers advisory committee is to provide the NRA with outside advice. Nevertheless I would put a contrary view to the Committee. Surely it would seem unwise to exclude the possibility of a member of the NRA board being on a RRAC. There may well be board members with strong regional ties who would be well suited to serving on an RRAC as well. Similarly, if a member of an RRAC was appointed to the board of the NRA, these amendments, if passed, would mean that he or she could no longer serve on the rivers authority committee. Surely that is not right. If noble Lords who have spoken for the amendment will consider what I have said, I shall consider what they have said.
The Earl of Radnor: My noble friend seemed to support us strongly to start with and then backed off. The arm's length business is of prime importance. There may be people on the authority who have regional ties or special knowledge, but we are talking about the whole of England and Wales. There will be plenty of expert people with regional ties to go on the advisory committees without going to the authority to, so to speak, borrow a person and spoil the whole concept of advice and advice being accepted or not at arm's length.
My noble friend said that he will go away and think about it, which I hope he will do most seriously. I shall do the same. Meanwhile, it is late at night and I shall not press the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 32 to 35 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 36:
Page 3, line 17, at end insert—
("(2A) It shall be the duty of the Authority, in making any appointments under this section, to ensure that not less than one quarter of such appointments are of persons representative of local authorities in the region concerned.")
The noble Lord said: For the reasons which have already been expressed I do not propose to move the amendment. However, I hope that the Committee will allow me to say something which I should have said earlier. The Minister introduced this new wild card into the debate very late at night. He said that it was better that it should be introduced now than
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tomorrow or next week. That is undoubtedly true, but the more I think about the amount of effort that has been put in, not only by noble Lords who have tabled amendments but by organisations advising them, the more I feel how totally unsatisfactory it is that the NRA should produce this consultative document late in the evening of the day on which this part of the Bill was being debated. It is so unsatisfactory that it verges on being a mark of disrespect to this Committee. We are being asked to consider amendments and amendments have been put down. The NRA knew that amendments would be put down and knew that they had been put down. We now have to postpone the substantive consideration of these issues until Report stage.
I hope that the Minister will convey to the chairman of the NRA that at least on this side of the Committee we are seriously dissatisfied with the timing of the document. We feel that, since the document has been under discussion for many months and since the Government's White Paper was produced in December 1987, tnere is no reason at all for it not having been made available to the public and to Members of this place in good time so as to allow all of us to consider its implications when debating the Bill in Committee.
The situation is simply not good enough and I hope the Minister will accept that fact. As I said, in the circumstances, I do not propose to move Amendment No. 36.
[Amendment No. 36 not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 37 to 40 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey had give notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 41.
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause
("Regional divisions.
.—(1) It shall be the duty of the Authority—

(a) to establish and maintain regional divisions of the Authority for the different regions of England and Wales;

(b) to consult the regional division for any region as to any proposals of the Authority relating generally to the manner in which the Authority's functions in that division are to be carried out.

(c) to consider any representations made to it by the division for any region (whether in response to consultation under paragraph (b) above or otherwise) as to the manner in which the Authority's functions are carried out in that region; and

(d) subject to the overall policy and financial control of the Authority to delegate to the division its functions as they relate to that region.

(2) The duty to establish and maintain regional divisions imposed by subsection (1) above is a duty—

(a) to establish and maintain a regional division consisting of not less than six nor more than ten members for each area which the Authority considers it appropriate for the time being to regard as a region of England and Wales for the purposes of this section; and

(b) to ensure that the persons appointed to each such division—

(i) as to half thereof are persons appointed by local authorities situated in whole or part within each said region; and

(ii) as to the remainder are persons appointed by the Authority who appear to the Authority to have an interest in matters likely to be affected by the manner in which the Authority's functions are carried out in the

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region in question and are persons who have experience of and have shown capacity in some matter relevant to the functions of the Authority.

(c) consist wholly or mainly of persons who are not members of the Authority.").

The noble Lord said: I have not had an opportunity to consider whether the regional structure of the National Rivers Authority, as outlined in its consultative document, is adequate to deal with the point made in this new clause. Therefore, in the circumstances, I think it would be better if I were not to move this amendment. However, I should add the firm proviso that I may well have to return to the matter on Report.
[Amendment No. 41 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 42 not moved.]
Clause 3 agreed to.
The Earl of Arran: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Hythe Marina Village (Southampton) Wavescreen Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and referred to the Examiners.

Avon Light Rail Transit Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with amendments; the amendments considered and agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes past eleven o'clock.

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  IRAQ: HUMAN RIGHTS OF KURDS
  IRAQ: HUMAN RIGHTS OF KURDS
  CRACKED EGGS: SALE BAN PROPOSAL
  CRACKED EGGS: SALE BAN PROPOSAL
  PLANNING INSPECTORATE
  PLANNING INSPECTORATE
  COMMUNITY CHARGE: DELEGATION OF LOCAL AUTHORITY DUTIES
  COMMUNITY CHARGE: DELEGATION OF LOCAL AUTHORITY DUTIES